The Other Tom

That happened to us before... Never again, we always carry them on now either by hand or in an extra bag.

Yep, turns out those Aluminum cans nowadays are very thin and subject to mechanical damage (nicks, dings, dents, etc). I had some get dinged in my car and leak....what a mess.

We carried on plastic bottles of soda....no issues.

My wife and I were on the same cruise and agree with your comments on food. The food has degraded form our last NCL cruise several years ago, but still "ok", on a par with Olive Garden. We ate at La Cucina one night which was the same as the MDR in my opinion, so not worth it.

We thought the Pearl Players were good but agree with your comments about the ventrilolquist being mediocre and I didn't like the Man from Mars show either. We both enjoyed the comic and have never laughed so hard. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Agree that there was nothing much to do at night, for us anyway. We went to all of the game shows which were disappointing. They had much better game shows on our last NCL cruise.

And Dingo Dave....I would pick another name if I were him.

Regarding embarking, we noticed that they were still loading pallets of luggage right before embarkation. Seems like the dock workers were slow in getting it on board, so I don't think 2 or 3 "late" passengers were the cause.

Overall all we enjoyed the cruise,especially Glacier Bay. We also had a good experience with the Chilkoot trail and float in Skagway. In Juneau, we did the Taku lodge and salmon bake. The flight over the glaciers was great but the salmon did not taste good to me but my wife thought it was ok. The other things they served were good.

Alas, no third email. Maybe they sold out....:(

Tom, did you get (so far) two upsell emails on the two weeks prior, one week prior schedule? If you read my post immediately above this, you'll see I suggest there may be ONE last chance to get an upsell. Assuming there's still inventory to move, you could get an email TOMORROW. If you're still interested (though sounds like you've kind of decided against), now is also the time when you may be able to negotiate a lower price than what's offered in the email.

Yes, so far I've received two emails as you described. I called after the first one and tried to negotiate but no go. Hope I get one tomorrow. Thanks for the insights.

I can't give you a specific recommendation for this tour, but in general tour operators set age limits for a reason....judgement, physical ability, weight (yes weight is important) and maybe a few other things. The operators know the risks and want relatively mature and physically fit individuals in the raft so that no one gets hurt. At the end of the day, my guess is that they don't check birth certificates.

So, the upsell fairy strikes again. Got another email this morning, with the previous offers cut in half cost-wise. Hooked me with this one :).

 

We did use $1,500 worth of cruise rewards on this cruise. I kept saying we had a balcony room for less than the cost of an inside cabin. We now have a suite for less than the cost of a balcony, so I was pleased with the offer.

You made out well since you had the cruise rewards. We don't have any rewards so we decided not to pull the trigger on the "half price" sale. My guess is that's their last reduction unless we get reeeeaaalll lucky and they offer an upgrade at check in.

Nice photos but I really love the last one a lot :)

+1 The last one is really cool.

I use Kayak.com when trying to figure out routes, non stops, etc. They have some good filters that you can use.

Thanks for the replies. We're sailing May 17, so about two weeks out. I'm not going to take this upsell (too much $$). Will save the money for something else.

OK, actually an email. They want to upsell us a penthouse suite for $1,000 per person. We're in a balcony now. That would essentially double the price of my cruise. Why should I do that ?

Thanks! That will help us with packing.

We are sailing on the Pearl out of Seattle in May. On our last NCL cruise, they had a day where you could fill the laundry bag and they would clean everything in the bag for a fixed price ($20-30). Do they still do that and what day is it ? Also, is it a one or two day turnaround ?

Sounds like you want to go on NCL (you like the amenities better). I wouldn't worry about the service. Nickel and diming...maybe. Just remember you don't have to do bingo, art auction, etc. Your room, food and transportation (and entertainment) are included in the fare. Only thing "extra" you have to pay is the gratuities. I would opt of the (connecting) two balcony rooms.

We did it a couple of years ago. We used our UAL miles and flew from IAD- to SFO and then flew on Asiana (part of the Star Alliance) from SFO to Seoul then Seoul to Sydney. From SFO we were in the amazing pods and loved it even though we were going a longer way to get to Sydney. We had to use some creative routing but it cost us about 110,000 miles each then. Flying home from Auckland we had to fly to Brisbane to get to Singapore, our stopover for 4 nights, and then home via Beijing on UAL. We booked it about 8 months ahead.

 

Difficult to get direct routing so be creative and go to another city/country and route from there.

Wow. That's some creative routing. Did you do that on your own, via the internet, or did you use an agent ?

Thanks for the replies. Both are ship sponsored excursions

Sailing on the Pearl to Alaska May 16. Ship arrives in Juneau at 2 pm and Taku Lodge and 5 glacier seaplane excursion leaves at 2:30. Can we make it ?

Ditto for Victoria. Ship arrives at 6pm and Orca exploration and wildlife excursion leaves at 6:30. Can we make it ?

...and this one

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2174569

Check out this thread

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2182527

Because I don't want to haul my luggage from the airport to the light rail station, and then not have door to door service to my hotel.

 

The light rail is neat, but in my opinion not for getting from the airport to a downtown hotel. Others will surely disagree with me, but that's is how I feel about it.:)

Yes, that can be a pain. Thanks for the clarification.

I wouldn't under any circumstances.:)

why ?

Waterbug123 offers good advice, and I would add to look at google flight. You can see how price has varied over time.

You will likely see whales surface for breathing and maybe see a whale tale or two as they dive. Some people think that's worth the money for a tour.

There's a 14% chance you'll see whales breeching. Now that's spectacular.

No, they don't use lure the whales to the boat. It's all natural.

Thanks for all the replies ! Looks like we'll be ok.

We just booked an NCL cruise out of Seattle May 17 that goes to Glacier Bay. I was wondering how close we would get to the glaciers...is there a lot of ice in May ? Would going later in the year be better ?