Anguillafan

Thanks so much for the help and advice.

I'm getting set for our Alaskan vacation, and I realized I have one issue I'm really not clear on. We arrive in Seward (at 5 am), have a Kenai Fjords cruise with Major Marine Tours which we have to check in at 10:30 for an 11:30 departure and goes until 5:30. We're on a 6pm train to Anchorage (I'm sure with many other people).

What do we do with our luggage?

How do we get from the cruise dock to the Major Marine tour boat?

How do we get to the train from the Kenai Fjords cruise?

How will we get on the train with our luggage on time?

Assuming we have to disembark the cruise well before 10:30 am check in with the tour, what do we do in the meantime? This may be a silly question. We still have to claim our luggage in Seward, and then do something with it. I imagine there won't be much extra time, as I'm pretty sure they're not kicking us off the cruise at 6 am.

Any and all help on the rest of my questions, however, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Does anyone know why you can gamble in RCI casinos at 18 for every cruise except Alaska where it's 21? My understanding is that on fall foliage cruises on the east coast that cruise between the U.S. and Canada the age is 18, but the cruises between Canada and Alaska it's 21.

We are taking our sixth cruise this summer. My younger child just turned 18. After all of those cruises (since he was 5) of walking through the shiny casinos, he's kind of interested in trying it out. Too bad for him that this cruise is to Alaska...I guess it's not so bad for him, he is cruising to Alaska, which he's excited about. Still, I was wondering why Alaskan cruises are the one RCI gambling age exception.

I think it's a combination of what a number of you said.

1. Originally RCI did not want to overwhelm MTD, so the prepay was a disincentive so not everyone took it. They could easily have charged the gratuity up front on board.

2. Once they learned to manage the program, the prepay improved their cash flow. I don't think it impacts profitability because it does not actually belong to RCI, but rather their employees, but, they get to use the float.

3. It appears that people are quickly wait listed now for traditional dining, which encourages, or forces, more people to MTD, and improve RCI's cash flow.

Like the OP, I want to use my OBC'S for gratuities. I'm hoping I can switch to MTD on board. It's important enough to me to use OBC's that way that I'll take the risk that MTD isn't available.

I also want to echo the appreciation to cruise critic. I didn't know you could cash out OBC'S for a slight discount at the casino. I would find a way to use my OBC's but it's nice to know about that option.

We've always cruised as family vacations, so we were only seated with each other. One time there were ten of us, another time six. The last three cruises was just our family of four, and we find it a great way to catch up on our days by just making it the four of us.

On the last cruise main dining was full, and we ended up with another group of four. They were very nice, and very different from us. The dinner was fine, but we were not going to have enough to talk to them about for 7 days. We switched to the late seating which was really empty and had faster service to boot. We prefer to be alone at dinner, but we also like to eat breakfast and lunch, when it's available, in the MDR where we meet new people. For us, we've met great people that way, and we've enjoyed the experience. Sometimes it's all four of us, but other times we've split up, often for lunch during sea days. I like the experience, but for each night with the same strangers is not fun for us. So, our answer was to change seating time.

I can't actually help, because we haven't done it yet, but we booked Orcas Cove. My husband spoke to the woman who runs it before we booked it, and he found her very helpful.

I love this question. I had the same question before I booked our July 2014 RCCL cruise on Radiance. The overwhelming sense I had from the comments was that Alaska grows in stature as you sail north, and that in some ways it is more spectacular to go northbound. We booked it, and I'm very excited about it.

After that I booked our flights, and it was, and is, a bear. Our trip out of Anchorage is a red eye with a stop over. Lo and behold when I lurked again on CC I found the abundance of posts saying that southbound was much better because it was so much easier to fly direct (or at a reasonable hour) out of Vancouver, and after a vacation, you didn't want to come home exhausted from your flight home.

The moral, of course, is that there are pros and cons either way. Luckily our flight home arrives on Saturday, so we'll have a day to recover from the flight before work on Monday. Good luck with your decision.

I can't remember the last cruise I booked where they didn't say that early dining was full at the time I booked. My conspiracy theory is that they are trying to push people into MTD. Anyway, I always have to initially book into MTD and usually when I call a month or two later I can get switched into the early seating. I just did so this week for an upcoming cruise in August.

 

-- Kevin

I actually believe that. I booked my cruise pretty early, and early dining was already booked. I'm willing to try MTD, but I'm in a tug of war with RCI over cash flow ;) I'm booked with the late seating, and I'll move to MTD, if it's available, once I'm on board, and I don't have to part with my tip money in advance. My guess is RCI wants you to choose MTD in advance so that they can get the cash up front, and then, lo and behold, early dining will have opened up once you're on board. With daily automatic gratuities, they no longer need that money up front, so why still do it? I doubt they are giving it to the staff upfront. Anyway, they do have an incentive for pushing people into MTD...and I have the same reason for holding out.

I see where this seems to work well in the Caribbean, but does anyone know about Canada? We're cruising to Alaska through Vancouver, and I'm wondering if we need the cruise plan and an international plan. My husband is a sole practitioner and needs to be available to his customers if they call or email. I also can't figure out if he needs the Internet plan from AT&T or if he should have the ship's wifi plan. Thanks in advance.

I always use OBC's on gratuities. You have to pay them, and this way they feel mostly free. You have to do the math, but I don't think your OBC's will cover all of the gratuities, but it will certainly help.

Thanks for the feedback. At least I know that we're going to have a lunch issue on a few days. I guess we'll need a big breakfast. :)

I'm planning excursions for my cruise to Alaska, and it seems that a number of these trips are all day, and include less than amazing lunch options. On the Alaska forum, some have suggested bringing your own lunch rather than eating the lunches provided. These are not RCI excursions, but rather independent tours.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how that might work on Royal Caribbean? Would room service provide lunch options we could take with us as we're leaving the ship at 7 am? Is there anything portable that would be "lunch appropriate" from the Windjammer in the morning? Do we visit the WJ the night before and put stuff in the fridge?

Thanks for any advice.

Lydia

I'm interested in the 7.5 hour train one way, bus the other. My ship is in from 7:00-4:30. Will a 7:00 arrival allow for the 7:30 tour? Will the 8:30 tour be back in time for a 4:30 departure? I assume we'd have to be on board at 4:00.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Thanks so much.

Hi. We're going to Alaska in July 2014. Our ship does not go to Tracy Arm Fjord, so I'm very interested in the tour from Juneau. I researched Adventure Bound and Allen Marine. If Allen Marine does the excursions from the cruise ships, will they book us independently? I liked that the Allen Marine trip was a little shorter because it gave us a little more time in Juneau, but it appears from this thread that shorter may mean not seeing as much as we could. Given the choice between the two operators, which one would you choose?

Amy,

This is wonderful. Great job.

Knowing what you now know, can you sum up what you'd do differently, or for that matter what you'd do exactly the same? Do you regret not going on the Yukon railway? Given the fog and potential hypothermia, would you choose kayaking again?

Lydia

Loved your story abut the donkeys. I would really like to try them when we get there in September. Do they have a weight limit?

 

Plus, about how long was the walk up?

 

Thanks,

Mary

I don't know if there's a weight limit. I think the ride took somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes.

Hi Lydia...thanks for the timely posting! Our cruise that leaves next weeks stops in Athens and I was curious about a couple of things: was there any delay getting off the ship due to priorty departures of excursions? Did you consider taking a taxi just to the Acropolis without an all day "guide"? If so, how much would that have been? Finally, how long did it take you to get to the Acropolis via metro. Thanks for the help.

Indybeachgal clearly has more info on the taxi than I do. I think the metro (we changed trains to get off on the red line at Akropoli) took about 30 minutes.

There's no delay for excursions when you are docked, which you are in Athens, as opposed to a tender where excursions go first. Interestingly our ship was scheduled to dock at 6 am, and they didn't allow passengers off until just after 7. That was the longest delay from arrival time to getting off the ship that we had. It had no impact on us as we were planning, and, in fact, did get off the ship at 7:15.

I thought Athens was terrific, and much cleaner than I expected.

Lydia

Lydia, Nice review and thanks. Please post some more details about your boat trip on Santorini. That does sound like an interesting option.

 

Hank

We went with Stathis. His company is Anemos Boat Charters. Here is the link: http://www.santonet.gr/sailing/anemos-boat

He was prompt, very nice and very easy to deal with both working out the reservations and on the boat. The first time I tried to contact him I thought it took a long time to get a response. It turned out the website hadn't worked properly. If you use the website, you will get a confirmation that your form was received. If you don't get a confirmation, then it didn't work.

His boat fits 12. There were 11 of us which we put together on our Roll Call. He charged us 360 euros for three hours, although someone else, on a different date, was charged 200 euros for two hours. We also gave him a tip. He would take us anywhere we wanted to go. The key thing for us was to be picked up in Oia, and dropped off at Fira's port (which was wonderful since we just walked over to the tender from there).

I believe we went to Thirassia, which is an island of Santorini. It had a restaurant on it. I swam briefly off the back of the boat while we were anchored there. The water was beautiful and refreshing, and even more so after our hike to Oia. From there he took us to the hot springs where we paddled around and swam for quite a while. That water has sulphur in it, so old bathing suits are a good idea.

So, for just under 33 euros per person, we had a guaranteed way to get back to Fira, a fun boat ride, and an opportunity to swim in Santorini. Our biggest problem, as I mentioned originally, is that the port below Oia was not near the entrance to Oia from the hike, and we didn't have enough time to eat and get to the port. I think if we made it a 2-hour cruise, and scheduled it at 3:00 instead of 2:00 the boat cruise would have been long enough, and we would have made it on time with less stress.

Lydia

We got back on July 6th, so I'm sorry for taking so long to post, but my family of four did both Athens and Santorini on our own and I thought I'd share some things I've learned. (We also did Cannes, Livorno, Civatecchia, and Salerno on our own, but I'll post those lessons learned elsewhere).

I loved Greece, and the only problem I had with any of the people was leaving the ship terminal in Piraeus. The taxi drivers really hassled us to take a cab for the day into Athens. Other than that, the people were wonderful.

Walking from the ship terminal to the metro was not as well marked as I would have liked, hence the reason I wanted to post about it. Every newstand or shop owner we inquired with along the way insisted we were headed in the right way. Everyone of them spoke English, by the way. It was pretty impressive.

It's very easy, although took longer than we thought. Basically you leave the terminal and keep the water on your left hand side. If you stay on the same side of the street as the water, you simply continue to walk along the water (water on your left) until you come to an overpass that crosses the street. Crossing that overpass puts you at the metro station. I'm almost positive there was no other overpass before reaching the metro. The building itself has been well described by others on various threads.

Returning at the end of the day we crossed the overpass and immediately got a cab. It cost between 3 and 4 euros to take us to the terminal. Fast, easy, cheap (and wonderful because we were tired).

In Santorini, we took the donkeys up. That was fun, although there is no guide. You just count on the donkeys. We hiked from Fira to Oia. It took over three hours, in part because it is so beautiful and there are lots of pictures to take, but also because we got lost a few times. There are a few spots on the hike that I found scary. I'd say 15 minutes in total of a 3 hour trip. I have some issues with height, but my other three family members had no trouble. I'm glad I did it, but I did find some of it unsettling.

We took a boat from Oia to Fira via Ammoundi, which included a trip to swim in the hot springs. It was wonderful, and that info is already on someone else's thread about "an independent trip." Ammoundi is not near the entrance to Oia from the hike. Some restaurant owner helped us out and drove us to the port because we were running late. It was a very nice gesture. We took a 3-hour boat tour, but two hours would have been fine (and cheaper).

I hope this is helpful. It was a wonderful cruise, and both Athens and Santorini were spectacular. Hopefully I can answer questions if anyone has.

Lydia

I also wanted to make a note about overseas phone use. I have an AT&T iPhone 4. Because I purchased it through my University, it came international-ready. I'm not sure if others on standard plans have to have international activated, though I do know that Verizon and Sprint iPhones are not as easily used overseas because they use a different type of signal.

 

Typically I do not use my phone on a cruise, but since I was traveling alone and would be doing some exploring by myself, I wanted to have some phone/GPS available. Before I left, I logged into my AT&T account and added 50 MB of international data for $25. A la carte, data is about $2/mb, so this is substantial savings if you are actually going to use any data. While I had wifi in my hotel in Barcelona and other places around Europe, I had no problems while in France, Italy, or Croatia with connecting my phone to the cellular network and using my data to pull up maps, send data-texts, and check email. I reset my phone statistics on the plane to Barcelona, so I could keep track of my cellular data usage and make sure that I did not go over. It was nice to sit on deck and leisurely download and read email without worry about the "time spent" online as you must do with the ship's wifi.

I'm just trying to make sure I understand this correctly. When you purchase an international data plan from AT&T, does that protect you from all the horror stories of phones downloading data in the background while traveling internationally? I understood AT&T to tell me that it did, whether in port or at sea, but a family member insisted that even with such a package, the phone keeps roaming and downloading so that it must be turned off whenever not in use since you will inadvertently go way over the limited data plan. It would be great if your actual experience will clarify this for me. If we are able to stay within our limited data plan in the US, will we, using the same services, stay within the international limited data plan? Thanks for any help. Also, what kind of music did Zig Zag play?

Thanks for all of the helpful info. Can you tell me how long it took to get from Monastiraki back to the ship?