eileeshb

A few people have had it happen today.. NCL IT department strikes again.. their website is throughly flaky.

Sure you can post videos, but that video pre-dates the rock slide and what impact that has had on the railway pier cruise ship berths. That’s why I asked the question .. last week @ChiefMateJRK said it was shuttle buses from the ship gangway to the pier entrance, now. @graphicguyis saying they’re allowed to walk from the gangway . meanwhile other cruiselines are still iffy about using the railroad dock forward berth as that is the one with a worrisome boulder uphill.

I’ve used the goretex sport shields in the past and their eyepiece adapters. The eyepiece adapter is probably a good investment if you have a dSLR regardless of which rain cover you use as you can tuck the rain cover eyehole around it instead of dealing with a moveable target. I will say the sport shield gor-tex cover was not sufficient for a full day rainstorm in Costa Rica but works perfectly well in driving rain for a couple of hours pitchside in an Irish winter. I’ve used something similar to the op tech covers on my mirrorless camera with reasonable success.

You can get a wrist strap that has a small buoy attached so that the camera will float if the strap slips off your wrist. I have one from GoPro for my knock off gopro , but given my experience to date with that camera I’m seriously considering investing in an Olympus tough before my next warm weather cruise.

I was originally hoping to do the Gastineau guiding whale watching photo safari but unfortunately because my sailing will be in October they don’t offer that tour as the daylight hours are too short, BTW there is absolutely no way I would be changing lenses while on an excursion. If I decide it’s worth it I’d have 2 camera bodies with 2 very different lenses and my phone as a backup. I would never advocate changing lenses while on a boat or an external platform on a train, regardless of inconveniencing other around me , there’s just far too much risk of dropping something. I’m reasonably sure I’ll stick with a single camera with long lens and my phone for wide angle stuff.

Is that the distance from where the pier shuttle drops you? Or were you allowed to walk the pier?

Norwegian Bliss docked at railroad Aft last week and will be there again this week. One of last week’s cruisers said it was about 45min wait for the shuttle bus if you didn’t have an NCL excursion ticket or bus ticket. NCL’s newsletter advised guests to book a bus ticket if they wanted to be off the ship before 11am. AFAIK the pier shuttle bus ticket is free, similar to tender boat tickets. The guest doing the live review this week just got notified his white pass railway excursion has been shortened by 45mins due to snow.

Does the usual room service fee apply to this service too?

Not a notion but the question has been raised on the current live review so hopefully we’ll have more info at the end of the week once Bliss gets to Ketchikan.

I’m on the west coast of Ireland and avoid Dublin airport whenever possible. The difference in cost of parking alone makes up for the fares.

It’s possible they have a changeover of casts for both shows. But they didn’t used to cancel for an entire week when that happened pre covid. On my first 2 cruises one show had a new cast on the week I sailed, both times they shoved that show to the back end of the week so the cast could get accustomed to the layout of the theatre and backstage. For one show one of the women fell off a platform setup in the theatre seating and another tripped on the steps up to the stage in their very first performance aboard. There were a lot of bruises on those legs when I saw those cast members afterwards.

As others have said when you leave your flight bookings to a 3rd party don’t expect it to be optimum. I used to work for a multinational that used Amex Travel to book all our business trips, they regularly forgot that the west coast of Ireland is not within driving distance of London. Our site set a policy that we presearch flight options ourselves before talking to Amex and if they couldn’t find a fare in the same route for cheaper they had to book the flight we found. My next cruise is out of Seattle so the flight options I had for getting back to my home airport in Ireland were less than ideal. I had 3 basic options.. cheapest: get a red-eye from Seattle to Boston, 10 hr layover , overnight flight from Boston to home. For early am on Monday most ideal: noon departure from Seattle to London and connect back to Ireland for arrival Sunday afternoon but double the price and iffy at making it to seatac off the ship. actual chosen: early morning flight the day after disembarking to Boston, 3hr layover, get back to Ireland early am on the Monday. extra night accommodation still cheaper than the “ideal” flight. I don’t sleep on planes so that tends to heavily influence my flight choices.

When checking air routes try to avoid CDG in Paris for connections as the french air traffic controllers and other unions are rather fond of striking. It’s pretty unsettled around Paris at the moment as their President has just raised the retirement/pension age from 62 to 64. If your flight searches offer Ryanair or EasyJet as connection options within Europe they are both budget airlines so check baggage rules. There’s also Icelandair who do transatlantic flights on a budget airline model.

Tax also applied in Miami but they get far enough offshore a lot faster than NOLA or Seattle.

So is that your reward for organising the meet and greet?

Delighted to see you are sailing again and Sakari looks all grown up now. I work in a surf shop so I’m used to seeing the same kids back year after year to get wetsuits as they grown out of their old ones. Every so often a few of them go on a major growth spurt and jump 2 or 3 sizes up. I just read the story of your foot and you have my deepest sympathies, I’ve had chronic Achilles tendinitis for over 20years and my podiatrist told me the only way to eliminate the pain would be to fuse my ankle. Thankfully I’ve never had the extreme pain you suffered but the stiffness and underlying ache is permanent fixture for me, at this point I only notice it first thing in the morning or if I’ve been sitting for too long.

Do let us know how the WiFi is in the pier terminal building … there’s going to be a World Cup rugby match overlapping embarkation when I’m there later this year and if it winds up involving Ireland I may have make a decision on whether to stay a bit later in the hotel or not.

It’s of benefit to me too as I’ll be doing the same itinerary in October and I’m bringing a cruise novice with me so the more info I have up front the easier it’ll be to set expectations

Day 7

Day 6

I always bring energy bars and the like with me for flights and during excursions. I rarely eat airline food and I travel long haul so need them to tide me over. I also bring some stuff you can’t get onboard or will cost a fortune if they happen to have it in the ship shops. I’m going to be even more inclined to bring snacks with the reduced hours for the buffet. I’m used to grabbing a slice of pizza or something there after the late theatre shows. The night time menu at the local does not appeal to me.

Pretty much every lingering guideline related to covid has ended in Ireland as of this week. The virus is still circulating and one of my friends had it a couple of weeks ago but no major symptoms like I had in October. I will be making sure to get another booster of the vaccine before my next cruise though. Heck I’ll probably get it before some family events this summer as we’ll have people coming from across the world in standard Irish fashion.

This reminds me of my late father.. when he was critiquing my taste in 80s pop music as a kid my mum ratted him out by saying his father had said the exact same stuff about The Beatles when he was younger. In fairness dad did like newer music too but he was very keen on the music from his heyday, he drove one of the surfers cracked on a road trip when the only cassettes he had in the car were dire straits and the eagles. The last gig he attended was Bruce Springsteen at the local rugby stadium here with his younger brother after I got early access to the ticket sale, that was just a few months before he passed. He appreciated good performers and liked original stuff but I don’t think Six or Hamilton would appeal as musicals, however he’d have enjoyed the historical contexts and the ego puncturing natures of them.

Haven guests always get priority just talk to the concierge and they'll make sure you're on the first bus. From what I've read there is a pre-cruise concierge too if you want to make sure it's sorted before you even embark. Typically it takes about 20mins from the official arrival time until they open the gangway to guests. With the bus setup they may have people waiting in the theatre before going to the gangway to get on the buses. The concierge should know what the exact plan is. It might be worth checking with your private excursion provider about possible delay due to the shuttle capacity limits.Or hopefully they'll have more buses as the season progresses.

It was posted in the freestyle daily for Skagway this week.. but here it is snipped separately, the original source is from a post on the social media site we aren't allowed to post links for. I blew it up as much as I could on my desktop but it's probably still a bit blurry It looks like the same approach they use for tenders ...