Longs

I thought of this element and was going to edit my post but apparently there's a time limit to editing.

I had seen a number of questions about Wifi, cellular service, etc. On this cruise you could buy the "social media" Wifi for $5 per day for the cruise. I suppose that if you used Facebook messenger or Twitter or Instagram as a communication tool, that would be sufficient but we don't use those services. General wifi was $16 per day or $60 for the entire cruise, we didn't do that either. We had cellular service in Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan with Verizon and AT&T but lost service pretty quickly once getting away from the ports. Victoria was really weak service and seemed to want to join other networks - we saw Rogers and Bel show up - we went to Airplane mode to avoid the roaming. Overall we had less cellular access than we thought we might, given that we were cruising close to land in a lot of areas.

The advice we've seen is to put phones in airplane mode when not in port, and if you want to use the ship's wifi, keep airplane mode on (to kill cellular and avoid roaming) and reactivate wifi on the phone. It appears that you can contact your wireless provider to purchase some temporary international access too, but we didn't do that either.

One other "electronics" note - the Legend has several "Carnival" TV stations and you'll get a few others - an NBC and a CBS station from New York, TNT, USA, Cartoon network - but overall not much, which is OK - you're there to cruise, not to watch TV!

Through our roll call, we signed up for the "meet and mingle" that Carnival apparently will provide for Cruise Critic members if a sufficient number of people, at least 25, sign up. We were on the Legend starting July 19th and our Roll Call had enough people sign up that Carnival did the meet and greet on Wednesday morning on the "Day at Sea" in Billy's piano bar.

I showed up. So did three other people. There were more ship's crew members than Cruise Critic members. The ship also provided pastries and coffee/juices. It was kind of embarrassing overall, and only lasted maybe 20 minutes, plus they had a lot of food go to waste, along with the time spent on it.

My recommendation would be to not sign up for the Meet and Mingle if you're not going to show up for it. I assume that Carnival does it because they think that this site is influential, but they won't keep offering it if people don't show. Just my two cents.

We were on the Legend from July 19th - July 26th as part of a large group (89 people with over 40 cabins). This was our first cruise. Some items that come to mind are below.

We were in Cabin 6204 on the port side of the ship. It had an "adjoining door" to the next cabin but we didn't know the people next door. I believe that allowed more noise from that cabin than we would have heard otherwise. It's hard to spot those cabins on the deck plan on the Carnival site but if you see little white teardrop looking icons between two cabins, that means they're adjoining. 6204 has an older tube TV, not a flat screen. The picture was just OK and some of the remote functions like being able to book shore excursions, previous channel, etc. did not work. The room was comfortable enough but didn't provide a lot of room to maneuver. The bed was a little hard but also comfortable overall. There is one 110V outlet and one 220V outlet on the desk, and one outlet for low-power devices like recharging shavers in the bathroom. There are a good number of shelves in the bathroom so at least everything doesn't have to sit on the small counter on either side of the sink.

We boarded slightly after 1:00 p.m., did not have "Faster to the Fun", had no problems, boarded very quickly. Luggage showed up around dinner time, no problems there.

We had breakfast delivered to the room several times, easy enough but it's continental - cereal, fruit, yogurt, muffins and pastries, etc. Toast or bagels won't be hot. It's also possible to just go up to the buffet on the Lido deck and take food back to the room. Someone had a good suggestion to keep a room service tray for that purpose. They make up the rooms 2X per day so if you leave the tray out, they may take it.

We brought a couple of extension cords/adapters but didn't really need them that much, just to charge a couple of items at the same time while my wife was using the 110V outlet for her hair dryer. The provided hair dryer is in a drawer and doesn't work that well or reach that far, and you have to keep the button depressed constantly. Women may want to bring their own if they're particular about the hair dryer. We didn't leave any cords out based on the potential that the Stewards might take them if we weren't there.

Most of the food was good. The food served in the dining room is better than the food on the dinner buffet even though some of it is actually the same offering. Dinner portions are not large but between an appetizer, main course and desert you leave full.

Most of the ship is non-smoking, only a couple of areas are available. We aren't smokers and were bothered by the amount of smoke in the casino area. There are some machines that are "non-smoking" but they're so close to the others and there's enough smoke in the air to make your eyes burn and generally be annoying. If they're going to allow smoking in such an area, they should find a better way to vent the fumes out - after all, it is a ship, pump some air out of the area or get some better ventilation going. I believe that if smokers want to gamble, they'll hold off on smoking while they do, but people who don't smoke will be less likely to gamble because they can't or won't tolerate the smoking. I know that we spent less time in the casino than we would have otherwise because of the smoke.

The comedy club and the theater are nice venues but you have to be aware of the support poles that create some blind spots to the stages. It's best not to get there at the last minute because they were crowded sometimes, particularly for the comedians' shows. The comedians were good, their shows were only about 1/2 hour long. The early shows are PG and the later shows at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. are "R rated" for those only 18 and over.

We had unfavorable weather. It was pretty cold in Endicott Fiord. As others noted, Tracy Arm was impassable and probably will be for a long time. Even though the temperatures were generally in the mid-50s to lower 60s with the wind it's cold on the decks. We didn't spend much time on the public decks at least partially for that reason. The balconies are better but there's still wind so it can be cold. The balconies hold two chairs and a small table and generally one of the chairs tends to be in the way of the cabin door, but it was still great to have a balcony on this trip.

We had two shore excursions cancelled. We had booked the dog sledding on the glacier in Juneau and it was cancelled due to weather. By the time we found out, we couldn't really book another excursion that day and they don't give any priority to those whose excursions are cancelled so we didn't have an excursion that day - it's weather but we were disappointed as the helicopter ride and dog sledding was going to be highlight and it is about the most expensive excursion you can book; our money was refunded. We decided to book a seaplane tour to the Misty Fiord in Ketchikan the next day but by the time we booked it the only option was the tour leaving at 7:30 a.m. We had to get up early, go to the Follies theater, wait to be directed to a bus to the "airport", then didn't find out until we got there and waited around a while that the ceiling was too low and that tour was also cancelled, so we got up early and wasted a couple of hours for nothing. We ended up booking the Lumberjack Show just for something to do, and it was OK but not worth anywhere near the $45 per person.

We got off the ship in Victoria - since there wasn't a lot of time in that port, arriving at 7:30 p.m. and being back on the ship by 11:30 - the lines of people getting off were really long so it took about 15 minutes just to get off the ship. Victoria was nice, we took a taxi to the downtown area (walking would take at least 30 minutes each way so it wasn't really that practical with such a short stop) - taxi is a flat rate $10 each way. The drivers will offer to tour you around for an hour for an extra $40, so $60 total, but we didn't do that. I saw where every cruise has to stop in an international port so Victoria checks that box, but it was at night, it was dark for half the time there, really just too short.

Note that on all of the "arrive and depart" times on the cruise, the expectation is that all passengers are on board 30 minutes prior to the departure time so if it says "depart 3:00 p.m." you don't have until 3:00 p.m. to get back to the ship - you have until 2:30. I'd say that overall, with arriving at 7:00 a.m. on three of the stops and the departures, Skagway was the only port where the stop wasn't too short or didn't feel rushed.

On departure we placed our checked/bigger bags in the hallway on the last night (keep clothes for departure day and a carry-on and medicine/valuables). They transported the bigger bags into the terminal and we were able to locate them quickly - you're assigned a numbered position or zone to disembark from the ship and the luggage was grouped by that number. We were in Zone 16 and they were running ahead with disembarking so we got off the ship about 20 minutes earlier than the approximate schedule had estimated.

Overall this was a great cruise, lots of "once in a lifetime" aspects to seeing Alaska. The ship was fine, food was good, entertainment good. You can't predict the weather, ours wasn't ideal by any means. I would do this cruise once, but I would not do it twice!

We have cruised to Alaska twice now and can confirm AT&T should work in Seattle and all ports. My husband has Straight Talk and did not have service. We were planning to move to Juneau last September and were told AT&T is generally the only service provider in the area.

Thanks for the information - I have AT&T on my cell through work and my wife has Verizon, so we'll see how it works. If we don't do anything through Carnival it sounds like the only days we'd be completely out of touch would be Wednesday and Thursday when the ship isn't at any port, and maybe Monday going to Victoria.

We've had some "Murphy's Law" type of luck when we've left in the past with our older kids at home, hopefully not this time!

Thanks for the great information! Do you remember which days you were able to pick up cell phone service without using the ship's resources? Were you able to get it in all of the ports? We're a little concerned about some things at home and are hoping that we'd be able to at least get text messages or have contact at least at some point during most of the days.

Thanks for any insight you can provide, we sail on July 19th!