cruisee<3

sick. org was really good last year, they deliver to your house or have drive through options in costa mesa and irvine with a pretty quick turnaround. i've used them quite a few times but when i tried to do delivery to my house the week before Christmas they never showed. I easily booked another appointment for the next day and they delivered on time.  

14 hours ago, Ramona760 said:

Did it seem crowded to you at that capacity? Normal? It was so empty on Dec 13th almost eerie.

We are still hoping to go. Sounds like you had a great time. 

I was also on this cruise and it was amazing to have it so empty .. we only had 1,0## passengers, don't remember the exact number now 😛 

Wow how lucky!! I hope we can see some whales during our cruise .. especially since we don't have a whale watch excursion booked :p

wow so much information and so many pages!

I hope I have enough time to go through some packages before I need to pack :D

I just cxl my car rental and booked with dyea dave .. hopefully I can be as lucky as you with your weather! Your pictures are beautiful!

Just thinking about driving such a long way and border crossing trouble makes the tour seem like an easier option. :)

Thank You for the "heads up" on this situation. I am waiting to book, but I sense that the business being as well established as it is and its good reputation, that Captain Larry would be replaced and the company will continue to do an excellent tour. I am waiting though, to be sure.

According to orca when I called (I'm booked on them as well) captain Larry is still driving the boat and is still on all the tours

There was a thread on it but idk where it went

Awww how awesome! I hope to see this too when I'm there!

Thanks to this thread I just booked my excursion for 3 with dyea Dave and cancelled my rental car reservation :) it just seems easier this way..

Thanks for all the great info .. can't wait to read the rest :)

Just 39 more days until I will be on the Pearl :D

As long as they don't do away with steak .... I just can't live without beef :)

If your choice is whale watching or having time to walk to Nugget Falls, choose the whale watching!!! You can still see the glacier and, although the hike is nice, it's not worth missing out on whales.

Okay thank you EVERYONE so much. i have OFFICIALLY decided I will be doing both :D lol

You have ALL convinced me :p & I thank you I'm sure it will be very worth it!

I wouldn't skip the whale watching -- it was the highlight of the trip for many of the people in our group. I'd just plan to see what you can at the glacier and if it's just seeing it from the visitor center, that's still amazing.

Oh okayyy... Thanks for letting me knoww! I will check with my group and see what is priority :)

Are you sailing this September? Do you already have reservations with a whale watching service? I would think it would be hard to get reservations at this late date.

 

 

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Orca said they still have availability :) thanks for watching out

Southcenter is a bit far from downtown and isn't the nicest area of Seattle .. the only thing in southcenter is a big shopping mall .. but it got shot up a few years back .. I'd probably recommend something closer to the city..

We were just there the other day and only had 70 or so minutes at Mendenhall. Two things that may help -- we (with another company) saw the glacier from a distance and got great photos in front of it from the whale watching boat, so if you don't make it to the falls, you can still have photos in front of the glacier. (Obviously not the same, but it's something.) We also just bought the 20 minute video from the visitor center since we didn't have time to watch it at the center. (I believe it was a $5 or $10 suggested donation but saving the 20 minutes was worth it.)

 

We stopped at the photo stop between the visitor center and the falls (don't do it! better views from the falls and it took several minutes), walked to the falls, took photos, speed walked back to the visitor center, went to the bathroom, touched the glacier ice, bought the video and some postcards, and speed walked back to the bus. We made it within our 70 minutes but it was tight. It would've been much better if we had skipped the photo spot and just headed to the falls.

 

I second the taxi number suggestion -- I added taxi numbers for all of our port stops to the itinerary I made for us and ended up using the numbers a couple of times in various ports so I was glad I had them. Enjoy!

Oh wow thanks for the detailed trip .. I think I will have to skip the whale watch b/c your trip sounded like you made it just on time with 70 minutes .. and I don't think we'll have that much time .. Orca said we'd maybe have 45 minutes ish :( guess I'll have to go visit alaska another time :)

Thanks for your review .. you helped me decide on spending more time at Mendenhall and skipping the whale watch :)

We had a fantastic time!

 

I will warn you that getting to the falls and back in an hour requires a bit of a brisk walk and not much time for photos. We made a quick bathroom stop, walked straight to the falls, 5 minutes for photos and walked back. If we'd done a leisurely stroll and taken lots of photos, we might have been late getting back.

Oh good to know! How long did it take you to get to nugget falls and back? Orca was telling us it would be wise to not go to Nugget Fall for time sake but I figured it I'm a fast walker ... :p

Thanks for these great pictures! did you also take the bus tour to Emerald lake with the train ride?

We just got back from Alaska today, and we did something similar to what you are planning. Our ship was scheduled to arrive at 2 PM, but was cleared by 1:45 and we got off ASAP. We were at the AJ Dock, so we had a long walk to the Orca Enterprises office. We were there to check in by 2:15 and I had plenty of time to walk up to Glacier Smoothie to buy my favorite soaps before meeting for our tour at 2:50. We had a great whale watch with tons of bubble net feeding. Afterwards they dropped us at the glacier for one hour. We had time for a quick walk to Nugget Falls, spent 5 minutes taking photos, and walked back with 10 minutes to spare. They gladly dropped us back at our ship afterwards so we didn't have to make the long walk back.

 

Due to daylight hours, you'd have to do the whale watch and glacier in the opposite order, but it can be done!

 

Oh thanks so much for reassuring me .. I kept feeling like I was being overly ambitious going to nugget falls/glacier prior to the whale watch

I hope you enjoyed your tour!

I just drove rental to Emerald lake last week. Just a few minutes at border-asked where we were going and then told us about a few stops along the way. But neither one of us has a record nor did they ask about it. May be hit and miss though.

Oh interesting .. thanks!! I love to hear about personal experiences at the border, seems much easier/smoother than Vancouver crossing. :)

While in Aruba and/or Curacao, try to hunt down Amstel Bright. IMHO it's better than the wide-spread Amstel Light imported into US. They also have regular Amstel, which is definitely worth a try.

I definitely enjoyed my amstel bright SO much better than amstel light .. not sure why but it was so fresh and crisp on a hot caribbean dayy :)

Thanks for everyone's response .. it has all been very insightful! :)

I am going to pass this along to the BF b/c I have no problem just leaving him (though it will be too bad he can't see the gorgeous scenery) and driving off with my mom to Emerald lake and picking him back up later :D

The process for crossing by car should be the same as at any border (you obviously know the drill at WA/BC). For your boyfriend it's going to be a bit different - here's a link to the requirements for being 'deemed rehabilitated' as assessed at a border crossing.

 

Reckless driving - NB: no W, someone who is a Wreck-less driver just never crashed their car;) - equates broadly to a charge of "operating a motor vehicle in a manner that is dangerous to the public" in the Criminal Code of Canada [section 249.(1)(a)] so yes, it could very well get him rejected. That particular offence though has, through precedent, been deemed to not *always* apply to a reckless driving charge in the US, as the latter is a much broader range of offences.

 

Plain English? Without getting legal advice, or applying for a pardon, or actually trying to cross the border it's impossible to know whether your boyfriends charge would *actually* equate to a criminal charge in Canada (although, if it was specified as being a lower-penalty DUI it's 100% going to count as a criminal charge up here).

 

So - worst case assumption, that it is a criminal charge, he should be able to figure out pretty quickly if he meets the criteria in the link at the top or not. If he does, then he'll be allowed in but in theory should have documentation (listed in the link above) to prove the date(s) of the offence & any sentence handed down being completed.

 

If he *doesn't* meet the criteria, in theory he's going to be rejected - but then again they may not even ask so if he doesn't volunteer any additional info he could sail through just fine. If he was refused entry you could in theory go on without him, but it's going to show on his record. Better to avoid trying unless he's confident he'll be approved IMO!

 

Extra time? If they ask, and he has the docs to prove he's deemed rehabilitated, it may add just a minute or two to your crossing time as the officer checks the dates on the docs; it could add hours if they decide they don't like you and decide to grill you - there's no way to know.

 

I don't recall any sort of visitor area that might be of interest to drop him off at before the border - lots of scenic viewpoints on the way up from Skagway, but not visitor centre type places. Better to just leave him in town if you decide to go solo.

Thank you for the detailed response .. I know he's not deemed rehabilitated b/c this just happened last year :(

Like everyone said .. if you can ONLY go in June and don't mind the humid hot weather AND lovebugs (mating season in May to June-ish) then WDW for SURE!

BUT if you can maybe go to WDW for the Christmas break during the school year .. HIGHLY recommend that over NCL cruise and WDW during June.

Xmas at WDW is absolutely AMAZING .. the Osbourne Lights at Hollywood Studios .. ALL the different Xmas decor at Epcot .. etc. All the hotels have Christmas decor as well (Grand Floridian gingerbread house that fits a cashier selling the gingerbread :p etc.) I forgot which hotel, but they have gingerbread houses made from ALL different departments of the hotel and you can vote for the winner, and some of the things they come up with are AMAZING!

And there are SO MANY amazing restaurants to pick from with WDW .. I really could go on lol I worked at WDW and LOVE disney so I guess I'm bias? BUT I have been on a NCL cruise and it was only ok.. food isn't very good but for the price can't complain.. It's just a mean of transportation for me to get to the location :p

I just wanted to know how does the border crossing work when you drive the Klondike highway yourself?

A tour operator mentioned when you are with a bus, you just lift your passport up and they move on b.c of all the people on board, but when you drive they will ask you all these questions like when you normally pass the border.. I ask b.c my bf had a DUI that was dropped to wreckless driving, and didn't know if this process takes extremely long or is it pretty fast to go through ... Or they could not let him through. Has anyone have experience with this?

I have read online and called and it's pretty much up to the specific border patrol but we haven't tried since

When I go through Vancouver border cross sometimes it can take over an hour so I'm trying to see how much time we need there and is there a nice visitor area at the border, in case he can't go, I can drop him off in the area :p

Thanks in advance :o