cruises42

This what we did and worked great. I had transportation arranged so it went fast..

For some reason I thought you had to use Carnival transportation to get luggage express. Who did you use?

Couple of suggestions.

 

Can be pricey, but Steelhead Diner is excellent. Great seafood in a diner-like atmosphere. You'll likely want reservations.

 

Quick burgers or pizza and good beer, Pike Place Brewing Company.

 

Either is about a 10 minute walk from your hotel.

Andaluca, the restaurant right in the Mayflower, is one of the better places downtown. An elevator ride away, or splurge with room service, which they provide. The bar snacks in Oliver's, the hotel bar, are also excellent.

I haven't been there, but I've heard great things about Andaluca, the restaurant right in the hotel. They do Spanish and Mediterranean food.

There is a food court in Westlake Center, adjoining the hotel, if you don't mind a very casual dinner.

Pacific Place is another urban mall about two blocks from the Mayflower Park. They have a better selection of restaurants--Gordon Biersch Brewery, il Fornaio (Italian), Mexico Cantina, and Thai Ginger, among others. They're all pretty good.

Serious Pie is Tom Douglas' gourmet pizza place. It's a couple of blocks from the hotel. Dahlia Lounge is another Tim Douglas Place, also a couple of blocks away and more upscale. Palace Kitchen is yet another, a couple of blocks further than the first two. Douglas is one of Seattle's most renown and popular chefs, and most people like his restaurants a lot.

That should be enough to give you some options!

Thanks for all the suggestions. From what I saw on the Mayflower's website Andaluca's is not open on Monday night.

Both......I tell them when I book and I remind them when I check in.

 

A couple lf times we had to wait a bit for one to be cleaned, but it is worth it. There is a lot of difference in a renovated vs nonrenovated rooms.....

Thanks, I've already booked, but I'll give them a call and ask for a renovated room.

We are staying at the Mayflower Park and will be coming back from an all day (10 tour) to Mt. Rainier and will probably be tired. Can someone recommend a good restaurant that we can easily walk to, and be relatively quick?

When we stay at the Radisson we always ask for a "renovated room" and have not had any problems.

When do you ask, at check-in or when you book?

Had it for a while now. Can't remember exactly, but I think I copied it off another person's signature. I believe you can right click the image and copy the URL, then paste the URL into your signature and save the changes. Here is the URL from my signature for the gold:

 

https://secure.carnival.com/~/media/CCLUS/Images/Loyalty/icons/vifpGoldlgpng.ashx

 

Hopefully that works :D

Thank you! :)

Loved your review! Will be on the Sunshine in September. Can I ask your cabin number? We have a porthole cabin on deck 1, so I think it will be exactly like yours, or very similar. Did you have a fridge?

Sorry for being off topic, but how/where do you get the Carnival gold symbol?

Fantasy in 2000

Debarkation Day:

We chose to do self-assist. We went to the Lido deck for a quick breakfast before debarking. It was a little crowded, but not as bad as it was on Juneau port morning. After breakfast we collected our luggage, and headed toward the gangway to debark. The line moved fairly quickly and we were off the ship by 8:15a.m. We went to where the parking lot shuttle told us to meet. There were a number of other people there waiting for the shuttle as well. There was also a staff person from the parking lot there to make sure we got on the correct shuttle. After about 10 minutes of waiting the shuttle arrived and we all made our way to the parking lot. My 9:00a.m. we were back in our car and headed out of Seattle for our long drive back to Northern California. Our vacation was officially over.

I have enjoyed sharing my cruise story with all of you. If you have any questions about our cruise experience I'll still be lurking and here to answer as I plan for my next cruise vacation (when and where TBD – still need to convice DH that cruising is fun).

What shuttle did you use? Carnival?

Gorgeous pictures! Can't wait to go!

With your "lots" reference, I am assuming you are not including any Hubbard/Glacier Bay or College Fjords sailings? You must have been happy with what I describe with the hanging/receding/distant comment, as there are extremely few close up glacier views on inside passage routes.

We went through College Fjord.

We saw lots of glaciers while doing the Vancouver to Seward cruise.So I'm surprised that we won't be seeing much on this one. We are doing the Tracy Arm Excursion.

My next business of the day was to do something that has become a bit of a tradition with me. I don't know, if you do something twice, is that a tradition? On my Grandeur cruise, I had distributed 26 gift bags to various cabins as part of the 26 Acts of Kindness, in memory of the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I wasn't sure if I could afford to do it again. I decided to look for smaller gift bags at AC Moore, where I had found my original bags. If they didn't have small, cute bags at a good price, I wasn't going to look anywhere else, this was my only stop.

 

 

 

OMG! Animal prints! And, they come in 13 packs! It was meant to be.

 

I'm just anal enough that I had to line them up to see how many I had of each print. (Or species)

 

 

 

 

I didn't have much to put in them, some candy, some gum, I had found 26 packs of playing cards at Dollar General. I thought maybe someone would use them while sitting in the airport or something.

 

 

 

 

 

Here they are, packed and ready to go.

 

 

 

 

I waited a little bit for the stewards to recede then I headed out. How do you carry 26 gift bags? Why, 13 at a time, of course!

 

 

 

 

 

I made it easier than last time, I only delivered to people on my floor, on my side of the ship, even. I went to the end and worked my way back, hanging the bags on doors that "looked" occupied. A few stewards asked me what they were, but, they seemed happy when I told them , they didn't seem like they would confiscate them or anything.

 

One lady saw me at her door and said, Thank You. I told her, You didn't see me. As I was doing this, I ran into Michele. While I was talking to her, a little boy came back to his cabin and he said, I got something, cool! Both of those encounters made me smile, I always said if one person appreciates it, it is worth doing. The best, though, was a while later, I saw a girl using one of the bags as a purse! Having completed my good deed for the day, I settled down for a nap. :cool:

That is so sweet of you!

You really don't see any glaciers while you are cruising?

If someone has FTTF but gets to the port after boarding has started, do they still get a special line to check in and then get to board immediately?

I'd look at hotels on Glimcher Realty Way in Elizabeth - Marriott Courtyard, Residence Inn, and the new Embassy Suites.

Thank you!

I'd look at hotels on Glimcher Realty Way in Elizabeth - Marriott Courtyard, Residence Inn, and the new Embassy Suites.

Thank you!

For April 11, 2015? Two people? budget?

Yes, yes, not really.

There is definitely a prison next to the Ramada, which IMO is a good thing because of the enhanced level of security. The area is relatively isolated and not easily accessible by foot or car from the local Newark streets.

 

One of the problems with the Best Western area is that it is on the west side of the airport and is more accessible from the local area. In the past folks have reported multiple incidents of car vandalism, a mugging, and hookers. None of these things might affect your stay, but they have been reported on this forum.

 

Best western

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=35582273&highlight=western#post35582273

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=33266528&highlight=western#post33266528

We are coming in from Northwestern VA on Rt. 78 arriving around 5pm. Can you please recommend a nice safe hotel. We will be driving to and parking at the port.

Cruises42... Hope you have a wonderful time on your cruise.

Thanks, we are really looking forward to it!

Yes, I highly recommend it. We booked this excursion through our cruise line (Princess). We rode the train first and our excursion was the early one that started at 7:30 am. I do believe our group was able to pick between two train cars. Our car was not full and we were able to move from left to right depending on the view at our leisure. I also walked to the back of the car and stood outside to take photos as well. The train provided bottled water, a Skagway newspaper and a booklet with information about the train & the historic markers on the way etc., We also had a narrator on the intercom that would point out where to look for these historic sights as we approached them. When the train ride was over our bus driver picked us up. I read that people like to book outside of the cruise line so they get on a smaller van instead of a big bus etc. I did not mind the bus at all and we loved our driver named Vanessa. She gave us all kinds of fun informational facts about the area. She stopped at a very scenic area on our way to Caribou Crossing for photos. Then our next stop was Caribou Crossing for lunch which was BBQ chicken quarter, cole slaw, half a baked potato, rolls and donuts. We enjoyed the lunch, it was different than what we were eating on the ship. (and we are from Texas...so typical southern kind of meal for us). We shopped in the gift shop, pet the goats & the sled dogs. You can pay extra to ride the sled dog cart if you would like while you are there. We did not go into the museum. After we boarded the bus our next stop was Carcross. When we got to Carcross no one wanted to get out as most of the town looked closed (to early in the season I guess), so she drove on to the next stop. Then she stopped at the Welcome to Yukon sign, Welcome to Alaska sign, and a lake. I do not know which lake it was however, it was frozen over. It was beautiful however, I wanted to see Emerald Lake and all the pretty green & blue colors. Mom saw an eagle on our bus ride but, I missed it. We did see some mountain goats way up high on the mountain as well. (but they were far away). Our bus driver told us she was going to give us some quiet time to nap if we wanted on the way back as well. I thought this was really nice as we were tired as it is an 8 hour excursion. She dropped us off downtown so we could go shopping.

 

:D Hope this helps.

Thanks so much! We booked this excursion tonight (through the ship). :)

I was on the May 3 to 10th Golden Princess sailing from Seattle R/T to the Inside Passage. I plan to write a review soon with photos and will be happy to let you know when it is posted. We enjoyed our first trip to Alaska and our trip to Seattle as well.

 

Our weather in Juneau was fabulous and unseasonably warm that day. The top 2 layers came off for sure as you can see with my avatar photo in front of Mendenhall Glacier. Our biggest disappointment being the first sailing of the year to Alaska for the GOLDEN Princess...was being late by 1 hour to 3 ports (Juneau, Ketchikan and Victoria). This was a big problem in Victoria as we had scheduled a Whale Watching and Sealife Exploration tour that was cancelled. We ended up riding the Horse Drawn Trolly instead.(the only excursion that did not get cancelled). We had a good time on this excursion.

 

In Juneau, we went to the Juneau Rainforest Garden (not worth it yet this time of year as nothing was blooming however, the free muffins and tea were very good and the lady who owns this place is very friendly), Mendenhall Glacier and the Mt Roberts Tramway. We enjoyed the Glacier and the Tram very much.

 

In Skagway, we took the White Pass & Yukon route train ride/bus back combo through our cruise ship that included a stop at Caribou Crossing. The scenery on the train ride was amazing as we saw plenty of snow this early in the year however, the lakes were still frozen over on the trip back and no new husky puppies yet at Caribou Crossing. (though we were told a liter was expected any day). We enjoyed petting the retired sled dogs and 1 year old puppies. Wonderful weather all day here. It was a bit foggy early on the train ride but, I found it to be absolutely beautiful all the same.

 

In Ketchikan, we purchased a $2 day pass for the public bus and rode out to Totem Bight Park. We had rain on and off all day but, not a big down-pour. We still enjoyed the beautiful rainforest and totem poles. We walked through Creek Street as fast as we could because we only had 4 hours in Ketchikan. It is a shame because my mom said this was her favorite port. She loved the Creek Street area. No Salmon in the Creek yet, however the creek area is very beautiful. :D

 

I will be happy to assist with any other questions you have as well.

Would you recommend the White Pass & Yukon route train ride/bus back comb? Any more info about it would be appreciated.

Your looking at around $45 -$50 Pier 91 to Seatac. Some of the flat rate companies are less.

Thanks.

Does anyone know how much a cab would cost from Pier 91 to the airport?