gcornell

Only if you want to tip twice. I don’t. “Tips and gratuities are already included in our rates, as well as all taxes, tolls, and fees. If a chauffeur requests any form of payment or advertises alternative services, please let us know by providing feedback after the ride.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not concerned with anyone else. In fact, I’m with my family and rarely pay attention to others, and would actually prefer to drive my imaginary Ferrari on a road filled with Hondas, Buicks and mini vans. 😜

One of the things we enjoyed on our Alaska cruise is spending time strolling around town after or before the excursions. Fills up the entire day.

270 days in advance. Send them your top 2-3 choices for hopefully better routing and quicker response. Yes, but I think they will charge a “deviation fee”. It’s not much.

I was surprised there was only one but I’m guessing, just guessing, that it’s a very port intensive with no sea days.

For my 7/23 Med Cruise mine showed up within the last month so in this case about 60 days prior to sailing. Only 1 for us on a 9 night cruise.

EWR. True. That helps a lot with traveling.

I’ve mentioned this before but would like to add to this new thread. For my family of 4 upcoming Med cruise I emailed my outside TA 270 days with my first and second choice of flights. Got a response within the day that they honored my request with a small deviation and fare surplus fee totaling I think around 475 a person so my all in was around $11k for 4 Polaris seats direct both ways. At the time, United had the seats priced at $18,000 or so. Numbers aren’t exact but close. Those same seats a few weeks later were $35,000 and have gone as high as $45,000. I have a google alert set up. Combined with the giant FCC I had saved up I couldn’t be happier.

Don’t wait. Email them 270 days in advance with your top 2-3 preferred flights.

Great deal. Wish I was so lucky. I recently purchased 4 Qatar BC flights from JFK to Male. Still stings to talk about it.

I’ve look into this extensively for years with no luck. I’m also a member on a very popular forum for airlines (no names allowed I think) and there are so many really good experts on there. In my opinion, it’s not worth the risk. There are so many horror stories about every business class discounter. Very few positive ones. I understand many will quote you one fare then say it’s not available and try to upsell you. Some buy others ff miles and resell the award ticket with is against airline rules and can be cancelled. Finally, customer service is non existent after the sale. It’s painful these days and I need to buy 4 tickets for each trip. Ouch.

I totally understand and accepted the fact that I am much more detail oriented and precise than the agents (even the good ones like you said) so I use one that is very responsive, gives me some good tips but most importantly has a direct line to SS to book air/make changes/resolve issues in less than a day.

Thank you. Yes, I found out the vouchers expire in 3 months from date of issuance which wouldn’t have worked for us so my TA already got SS to issue us a credit for $186 (with discount). Would have gladly taken the additional vouchers if they had a longer expiration date but happy I asked for credit in time.

Will be getting my vouchers soon but since we have 2 cabins I just realized I’ll be getting 4 but only need 2 so want to either cancel and get credit before they are issued or hold on to 2 for other trips we have planned. Does anyone recall the expiration date on the vouchers? Thank you

Exactly my experience. I have both as well. On our upcoming trip I am using the agent with clout and I had my first choice of flights booked within a day. I use the other agent for less involved trips and get a nice discount.

Go with a good TA. Against the rules to mention names on this forum but with a little research you can probably figure it out. In my experience and many others here, the SS agents are very responsive up until they receive your deposit. After that they play hard to get.

Formal wear isn’t a deal breaker for me. I’m in finance so we were one of the last to give up the suit and tie and I am loving every minute of it. I’d prefer not to have to wear it on vacation but I’m a rule follower so similar to the mask, I’ll do it as long as it’s required. I didn’t change my travel plans based around mask rules and won’t do it for formal wear either. For me it’s just a strong preference. If asked, I will gladly share my opinion but I’m not going to make a big stink about it and try to wear my jeans on formal night. I know what I signed up for.

Ask away. I'm a rookie on SS compared to others but glad to help when I can. Yes, we did travel on the train. It was a great experience, certainly better than a bus, but we were really lucky because it was a rare 100% visibility day and we could see Denali almost the entire ride.

That's right. The Alyeska Resort was very, very nice. The other 2 not so much.

Sure. There were 2 buses. Each bus carried about 25 people so plenty of room to stretch out on the bus. My family isn't big on group tours (we like to go at our own fast or slow pace) and generally book private tours just for us but SS ran it well, we had a nice group and worked out just fine.

If you look in my profile I did an amateur trip report last year. The Denali add on was good and I’m glad we did it. Once! 2 things to keep in mind. Don’t expect the lodging to be in the same league (or close) to SS and be prepared to spend a lot of time on the bus. I went back and read the itinerary and it does mention a lot of bus rides but when you add it all up it was a little much for us. I think we arrived mid afternoon on the ship. It wasn’t early. May have even been close to 5pm.

On the Muse last Summer the pools got very little use. Mostly kids. I think my kids went in once or twice. Hot tubs got a little more use but still not much. Yes they were heated.

Wait! I thought it was decided “expensive labeled designer” jeans were okay but anything under $100 wasn’t?

Question for those that have done the Reykjavik to Reykjavik Cruise. The itinerary says we arrive in port at 6am. Flights to come home are about 9:40am or 5pm. Would prefer the earlier flight. I'm thinking since no Customs is involved can we walk right off the ship at 6am? Thanks

The few times we used SS hotels we were directed to a bare bones conference room for breakfast instead of the hotel buffet and had limited very unappealing options. Wasn't sure if that was the norm so on our upcoming trip I booked my own hotels pre and post.