donaldsc

The whole medallion and medallion does a bunch of things that you might or might not want to do. The medallion app is awful. However there is nothing wrong with using the medallion just to open your cabin door and do anything else the old fashioned way if you wish. DON

I remember when I was in high school many many years ago I had a teacher who when I disagreed w him about something (can't remember what) he sent me to the cloak room and made me stand there for the period. Your professor sounds like that teacher. With regard to his 60 years of teaching that does not prove that he was a good teacher. Remember that once you get tenure at a university there is almost no way that they can get rid of you. At least that was the way it used to be. Maybe not so much now. DON

I find it interesting but not surprising that Princess offers cruise tours early in the season that include Denali when park activities are basically not open at that time. I assume that they did not tell you of this when you booked or if they did it was in the cruisetour fine print. DON

There are lots of good private tours in every city on your cruise and almost all of them will pick you up at your ship. I just did a Japan cruise and I did 12 private tours I think. I did no ship tours at all. Use the internet for your research - the internet will be your friend. All of my private tours were better than the ship tours w small groups of 8 people maximum and were significantly less expensive. BTW - I see that you are from Australia. Most of the people on my tours were from Australia. DON

We did one of the Kenai Fjord cruises out of Seward on our last trip. We really lucked out and saw a pod of whales doing bubble feeding for maybe 40 or more minutes. They were still going at it when the ship had to leave to get back to Seward. I guess we were just lucky. Also several cruises ago we were also out of Seward and encountered what the captain said were the largest group of orcas he had ever seen. And then sometimes you are monumentally unlucky. We have the Anan bear excursion out of Wrangell 4 times so when our recent small ship cruise offered us yet another Anan opportunity at a cost of ~ $500 we declined. The people who did decide to do it ended up seeing only 4 or 5 bears including the 2 that were on the trail heading into Anan. Apparently they did not know how bad their luck was and most of them 2 were happy with their meagre number of bears. I guess that's why they call them wildlife. DON

There is a handicapped traveler board on CC. You might try reposting your message there. DON

There are a whole bunch of binocular comparison sites on the WEB. Do a bit of WEB sleuthing and check them out. All I can say is that both brands are well respected. The only way that you can find out which you like is to go to some place that has both of them and see how they feel to me. Buying them on line does not let you make that comparison. The last time I bought new binocs I spend a couple of hours at the place I ended up buying them checking out different options. DON

Baking sheets???? DON

To add to Wolfie's comment - the cruise line will usually put on their itinerary without saying the real schedule. You have to read cruise ship itineraries very carefully on any cruise that you might book. DON

Has anyone used any of these apps. Any thoughts? DON

AK is really booked up this summer. At this time I would grab whatever you can get. DON

If you feel that you must bring food which is a very bad idea just remember that people from different nationalities eat different things. Many of them will just will not eat the great cheese curds that you brought from Wisconsin. Also many lines do not allow crew to accept anything that is not sealed in their original packaging for obvious reasons. How do they know if you have added some original ingredients to your wonderful brownies. DON

You need to look at climate sites and not weather sites. There is a difference. I use a site called weatherspark as my go to climate site. DON

One final thing - do not make the mistake of trying binocs that you can not afford or that your spouse will not let you buy. I made the mistake of trying out a set of ~$2000 Swarovski binocs. They were almost worth the money. However the divorce would have been th e problem - LOL!!!. DON

It is more likely that the cruise lines do it so that they can include in their advertising that the cruise includes a port in Haines. They assume probably correctly that most of their customers will not notice the ridiculous port time that they have on Haines. On the positive side for the people of Haines they are probably better off not having thousands of people descending on their small town for hours. I have been there not off a cruise ship for 4 or 5 days on photo trips and my wife and I stayed there several days on our 3 month AK drive. We enjoyed our stay. Haines is a neat small town that does not need cruise ship tourists to survive. They have lived w/o them for years. Read this really neat book about living in Haines - https://www.amazon.com/Lived-Here-Know-Your-Name/dp/1565123166. It is a great read. DON

I continue to do exactly what I have always done on cruises which is "none of any of the above". As a result of doing absolutely nothing I have never gotten sick on any cruise I have ever taken. I assume that this may be because my constant exposure to stuff has caused me to develop immunities to stuff. All of you who are really careful about stuff will probably get sick the first time something breaks through your exposure barriers. At least that is what I think. DON

If I need to get in contact with them by phone I use the cabin #. Nobody in any of my many tours has ever objected to giving me this information or any other reasonable information. DON

I have set up lots of private tours. In my last Japan cruise I set up 10 of them. Once I determine that you are really interested and not just tour shopping I always ask for your e-mail and cabin #. If you don't want to give it to me you don't get to join my tour group. Bottom line - my tour so my rules. I have never had any problem filling my tours and to my knowledge nobody in any of my groups has ever been robbed. DON

Your question is the equivalent of asking which tastes better beef or chicken and is totally unanswerable. However if you insist on an answer I would give anything AK a 9.5 and any cruise along the American / Canadian east coast a maximum of 2. DON

Contact your TA or the cruise line. DON

We are going an aurora cruise in Norway this winter. Does anyone think that we should strap on crampons with us? DON

Contact your TA or Viking directly. They should know. DON

There are lots of sites on the WEB that will give you an idea of the weather you might get at those ports. However just remember that weather and climate are 2 different things. The weatherspark site is what I consider the best climate site out there. DON

Type "cruise ship cabin sizes" into Google. DON

This review of North Pole AK describes my feelings about the place better than I can. The TripAdvisor reviewer gave it 2 of 5 stars. I would give it 1 of 5 and only because you can't give it zero stars. "I read reviews on Trip Advisor prior to heading over to North Pole from Fairbanks. The reviews seemed promising, and our waiter at breakfast talked it up. We we were really disappointed. The store has a good amount of Christmas ornaments, and they have free pictures with Santa. I was able to see the entire store in about 10 minutes, and I didn't find anything unique worth buying. There are also reindeer at the other end of the parking lot, which you can pay to go into the enclosure and feed. Not sure how much that costs, as I didn't not go for the experience. Overall, a disappointment. I have seen better Christmas shops pop up in the malls around the holidays." DON