kctwinmommy
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Posts posted by kctwinmommy
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Thanks everybody, it sounds like there's a good chance, especially if HAL worked. I'll give it a try. If no one has confirmation by the time I'm back then I will post an update.
We used it for our cruise 2 weeks ago and yes, it shows travel. It says...
Other TravelSTEAMSHIP/CRUISE LINE
Even our town car rental shows up as travel.
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'kctwinmommy'...thanks for sharing your great trip in the Seattle area and for the wonderful photos! Your information will be very helpful for the next time we're in Seattle. :)
Thanks! We enjoyed it, but honestly felt we did everything we wanted to do and no real need to go back.
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Great photo of the Space Needle! Must have been a longer exposure to catch that lighting.
I can't believe the gum wall has that much on it already. It was just last fall I saw it had been steam blasted to clean it off after 20 years of accumulation. Labeled as the worlds 2nd germiest tourist attraction (after the Blarney Stone - OMG :eek: I kissed the worlds germiest attraction! Yuk :o).
I actually just got a new camera, has a great range of ISO! =) I didn't have any tripod with me, so everything I shot was handheld, hard on the night time Seattle shot.
And yes, that wall was disgusting!!!
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Good to know! We have some of those gift cards, but didn't use them yet. We have an upcoming cruise too, which we'll need to pay for.
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So the general consensus is there is no general consensus? Hahah that you all for your experiences! I'd love to hear more if anyone else wants to weigh in. I'm sure he'll be fine either way, I just want him to have fun 😊 !
As far as the excursion goes, that just seems so iffy!!! I don't want to wait too late to book ours and not get something we REALLY want to do. Especially when I haven't seen anything official about it anywhere. You'd really think this would be a more visible thing. I mean, on line check in we register them for their club, you'd think they'd have two questions.. Interested in kids excursion? Which one? And let us book it hahaha
Thank you all again!!
I don't see anything on their site about Circle C excursions. I can't imagine them taking 12 year olds off the ship on an excursion. The O2 group is older, so I could see them doing that in the past. As someone said, they probably stopped it.
Like I said, most of the time when we were in port, the Circle C was closed. Unless it was the really long day, like we were in Skagway for 11+ hours. But other days, when we were in port for 4-5 hours, the club was closed. I think it's easier since most people go off the ship. Plus, it means a parent doesn't have to argue with a kid over doing something or going to the club.
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And a few more...
Part of World of Wearable Art at EMP
The famous gum wall
On the ferry heading out to Bremerton
Snoqualmie Falls
Seattle in the daytime
Seattle at night
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Wanted to add a few photos from the things we did...
The EMP Museum
Pike Place Market
Space Needle
Chihuly museum
Chihuly museum (loved this place!)
Guitar sculpture inside the EMP Museum
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Here's my pretty detailed trip report. I still have to add the last 2 days, but those aren't as exciting, we didn't do as much. All our excursions are done though. I have a ton of pictures and some videos as well...
This was the Carnival Legend, July 12th sailing
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Sharkaymon...
Here's the link to my review. I'm almost done, I've been adding to it everyday. But I put in a lot of pictures, plus some videos.
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The 3 of us on the glacier
My son just loved it!
Mendenhall glacier
Back on solid ground
U.S.S. Juneau memorial
Sunset after leaving Juneau
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Day 5 – Juneau – Mendenhall Glacier helicopter ride (listed in the excursion guide as Helicopter Flightseeing & Glacier Walkabout – apparently they may not always go to Mendenhall)
So, I don’t like to fly, but we decided to do a helicopter ride here. I figured you only live once, right!? LOL! I am sooo… glad that I did the excursion, it was amazing!! We were met at the ship by the tour company, Northstar Trekking, and loaded into a van to drive over to the airport. They also asked us our height and weight, which they relayed to the guys at the helicopter pad. Once there, they had each individual person’s gear with a bag labeled and set out. We all received a pair of snow/wind pants to put over our regular pants and a windproof jacket. We also changed out our shoes for big, heavy snow/hiking boots. They also gave us a fanny pack with a bottle of water, granola bar, protective gloves, and Kleenex.
After we were all geared up, we met outside to hear the safety briefing before heading over to the choppers. They divided us up into 2 groups, keeping in mind everyone is placed to keep a balanced weight. We had 5 people on our flight, plus a guide and a pilot. So, 4 adults in the back and 3 of us in the front, I was lucky enough to sit in the front along with our son!!
Once we took off we spent I think about 30-40 minutes flying around above the glaciers and it was just breathtaking! There were clouds across the area down in Juneau, but once we got up there, it was more than I could have imagined. After flying around, we finally landed on Mendenhall Glacier where we received our crampons, which were already set for our shoe size, as well as our walking stick. We got to walk around for a while with the guides, pointing out different features. The guides showed us how to drink water from the glacier, and even had my son got down on his hands and feet to lean in. But then showed us the easy way – dump the bottled water out and fill it up! We had just a wonderful time, a definite once in a lifetime experience. Our guides were Andy & Isaac, with Nick being our pilot.
After we got back down, the shuttle van picked us up to take us back. We just asked him to drop us off a little more in town, which was really only like a 10-minute walk back to the ship. We then went to the Twisted Fish restaurant for a late lunch, as recommended by the guys at the helicopter place. Great burger! I don’t eat seafood. My husband had some though and it was really good. We walked around a bit, bought some souvenirs, and stopped by the U.S.S. Juneau memorial (the ship that sunk with the Sullivan brothers on it). I wish we’d had a little more time to explore the city, but we still had a great day!
Flying over some of the peaks!
More of the mountains up high
So apparently, you can't always see these mountain peaks because they're pretty far away and usually cloud covered.
Part of the glacier
The skies were just the perfect color of blue!!
My son getting a drink of glacier water, we did it the easier way!
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Good information! We did that same itinerary last fall on the Valor. But we're sailing a different itinerary on the Magic later this year. And we have a room not far from your friends, so glad to hear they liked it.
Good to know about some of the dining options too. I want to try some of the new things, but was worried they would be super busy. Which I expect, but as long as the line is moving, that's a good thing.
Thanks for the write up!
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We were just on the Legend and there were a lot of kids. I know they were strict with the age restrictions for that one. However, they did a ton of things with the O2 kids, so there was a lot of interaction with the older kids.
Now, last November, there were maybe only a total of 15 kids in Circle C, so they allowed an 11 year old sibling to be with his 14 year old sister in Circle C. I think it really depends on the amount of kids they have signed up in each camp.
And there weren't any excursions for the kids. In fact, quite often, Circle C was closed when we were in port, or at least the shorter port days. And of course, during the dinner hours.
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Great review.
Scary your husband got sick. My husband reacts the same way with conch ...fritters, chowder, etc. Itt must be a seafood allergy of some sort. Be careful going forward...he may have developed a seafood allergy.
Yeah, my dad has shellfish allergies, so I know what that's like. My husband ate things the rest of the trip, seafood included, no problems. He's eaten sushi many times before, but I know you need to be careful when preparing it.
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Wow you saw a mola mola, an ocean sunfish!
Yes, my son was quite excited! At first he thought it was a turtle or something. And he's even more happy that he was right - damn teenager! LOL!
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We cruised on the Valor last November and loved it! You can see in my signature where we went. Loved our stops, even with being diverted from St. Thomas. The crew was really good, dining room was good. We didn't go to any of the shows though, we were traveling with 2 other couples, so we'd hang in a lounge each night. The husbands all smoked cigars, so we were in the one lounge that you could do that in, or on the deck.
Really can't think of any complaints I had about this ship. And can't speak to the room you're in, we were on deck 10 I think.
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Thanks for doing this wonderful review! We are headed to Alaska in Sept for the first time [on HAL though and a different itinerary] and it is nice to get a taste of the scenery. Your pics are spectacular...those seals!! and the bear!! You are so lucky to have seen so much wildlife! :D
I'm a bit surprised you didn't like the Legend though. I thought that was the nicest of the Carnival ships I've sailed [and certainly had the "least offensive" decor ;)]. It was a great size and very easy to get around without the mid-ship dining room to break up the flow of walking bow to stern like the Conquest class.
Thanks! We were fortunate to see those things for sure.
And yeah, I thought the decor was a little old and outdated. But again, that's not the reason I pick a ship, honestly, it doesn't bother me enough to not cruise on a ship! LOL! I like a little bigger ship. We're sailing on the Magic this fall though, which will be our biggest one yet! :eek:
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That's unfortunate! We actually had a large group of teens on our ship as well (July 12th Legend), but they were pretty well behaved. They were goofy, yes, but so is my kid by himself! LOL! My husband actually talked to a couple of them one night. This large group, like 50-60 teens, had spent time in Washington state, Canada, then the Alaska cruise, and then heading to Hawaii after that! It was a month-long Pacific coast trip!! My husband did mention to the kids that they were lucky and their parents must really love them, to which the kids responded they realized that for sure! LOL! I will say I was nervous when I first saw them on the ship, they were all on the Lido deck, but it wasn't a problem at all. I'm sure it's in the type of adult chaperones that are with them and of course, the kids.
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While I'm working on the rest of the actual trip report, I thought I'd add a few other things that happened, good and bad.
Our room was just fine, no problems there, we were on the 7th deck, starboard side. Our room steward, Tricia, was great. Very nice! Now, she did give us a $50 spa gift card I believe on the 3rd day. Nice surprise, but we never got to use it. I tried once to make an appointment, but of course, the only opening for when we were in port and had excursions. I then went back to try and see if there were cancellations, but was told that the card could only be used for specific things anyway, nothing I wanted to pay for, so we never used it. :(
The ship itself - we didn't care for so much smoking. I realize since it's a colder climate, it's more difficult to control it. But the Lido deck was very smokey smelling, something I didn't enjoy. I haven't encountered that same issue on Caribbean ones. As others have said, it's an older ship, it just felt it too.
The food was fine, nothing spectacular. I will say I believe my husband got sick from something though. We both ate the same thing at dinner, the 3rd night, sailing from Tracy Arm. However, he also had the sushi that night, from the MDR (not the Bonsai place). Anyway, he said about an hour or 2 later his stomach was bothering him. He seemed to get a little better, or at least he wasn't telling me. Then around midnight he got up out of bed and was in the bathroom. However, he felt he was going to pass out, so he had to lay back down on the bed. I was super close to calling for emergency medical help. He eventually threw up everything!! :( I had grabbed the waste can from the bathroom, but there are little seams at the bottom that aren't sealed, so it leaked a bit!! :eek: Then grabbed the solid waste can from by the desk. After he threw up, and everything that was in his stomach, he was better! It was really scary though! And of course, the next morning was our super early, 7 a.m. excursion. Thankfully, whatever it was, he was fine the next day. We did call housekeeping to come and they cleaned the garbage cans for us, as well as the room the next day when we were gone.
Oh, and they do a deck sale in the morning of the Tracy Arm day. Supposedly they have things on sale that they don't normally do. For example, they have t-shirts and hats that are 2/$20, but usually you can't mix a hat & shirt for the deal, but that day you can. I bought a cute waterproof hat and my son got the keep calm & cruise t-shirt. However, it's slow checking out. They had to write everything down on paper, then ring it up later. They only had 1 person actually working the register, the other woman was just standing there. In fact, at one point she walked away to go look at whales on the side of the ship! I felt she shouldn't have done that while the line was so long. Plus, she could have been gathering the next persons items, so the other person was ready to write down the tag numbers, if that makes sense. Or have each of them take a customer!
I hope that at least a few people like reading reviews that are longer, like mine! LOL! I like to give details to help people make choices, understand the ship, etc... Same reason I do reviews on Trip Advisor for everything we do! :D
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We have cruised out of there a few times, most recently in November of 2015. We get there around 10:30-11:00 simply because we stay at a hotel nearby the night before and catch their shuttle over there. But then we do have to wait in lines, usually about an hour+ to get through the check-in, security, etc... and get on board. It's also pretty crowded when we get on then. So like others said, if you're not in a huge hurry, you can avoid some of that by coming around 1ish and probably get right on.
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The girl that fell was MY KID!! LOL And yes, she was fine.....just muddy. LOL The Guides helped her after she fell. :)
And seeing your photo...Yup, you guys sat next to us in the Follies Lounge. :)
Was your girls wearing a light green jacket/sweatshirt? That's who I saw fall, but I didn't think that was your daughter.
Either way, the guides were so nice and helpful!
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Back at the picnic, base camp area
The boats coming with a new group and to pick us up
My son with a wild strawberry. They were tiny!
Seals on the ride back
Evening in Skagway
Setting sun
Circle C + kids excursion?
in Carnival Cruise Lines
Posted
I think that's the Camp Carnival, which is different than Circle C. Because if I'm correct, the Camp Carnival does a sort of "babysitting" for parents who want to do what you did. Circle C isn't the same thing. I have the schedule for Circle C if you wanted to see it. It would be for the Legend in Alaska, but it would give you an idea.