KWong

We like the hotel cluster around Hwy 1/SE 17th street. It's near the north end of Port Everglades, and has all the restaurants, wine shops and "oh @#$# I forgot something" stores you'll need. And a LA Fitness, if you're into that sort of thing. We prefer Hyatt Place - really big rooms (you could probably sleep 8 to a room), breakfast, and even a "cruise luggage tag station" (a stand with staplers and pens). I think Matt reviewed a couple of other hotels in the area way back when.

According to the cruise planner gratuities were included in the cost of the UDP. Anyway, I will probably end up not touching the gratuities, but I have time to sort everything out.

So the wife and I decided to the UDP for our 6 night on Explorer. Obviously, that means that we are unlikely to eat in the MDR. So the question then is - how should we deal with the server gratuities that are automatically added to the onboard account? I'm not sure if we should be giving a tip to servers that we'll never see in the MDR?

Guess we'll see. Not particularly concerned either way - wife and I will find chairs if we need them.

Same. Although my next cruise is in the Mediterranean in late October, so I'm not anticipating too many chair issues at that time.

There is a yt channel called Greece Explained that does a good breakdown of areas to stay in Athens. That might help you decide.

I can't really recommend anything in terms of that because we're probably doing hiking in Tofino (again, a land trip), which is way too far away for a cruise excursion. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I didn't do any hiking research for the Victoria area.

It is a website and an app.

I've found Get Your Guide to be another decent broker. Might also be worth checking out.

I was looking at the Skywalk for my (non-cruise) trip to BC this summer since we saw it on The Amazing Race Canada and were curious about it. My conclusion is that it's a purpose-built tourist attraction with appeal as an accessible hike with an elevated view and a dry slide (ugh) as it's major selling points. At $37 CDN pp (not including transport over), it could get pricey. But it does get you out of the city and nature-adjacent, so there is that. I think that, with 10 hours to play with, it's not a bad way to spend a few hours. But it's not something that screams "must do" to me.

This is probably a better solution. Especially if you can get connecting rooms (assuming it's not too late). Bonus - you get an extra full bathroom.

I've definitely had worse drip coffee on a ship. To be honest, I find cruises to be a good time to cut down on the caffeine.

when I go a la carte, I pace myself, drink in moderation on board and spend more on cheaper drinks in port. That might work for your husband.

Thanks for the tips. Going in late October, I don't know that we'll get a true taste of the Greek Islands, but maybe that's a blessing in disguise since Mykonos won't have near as many tourists. But yeah, looking forward to Sicily and Mallorca. We're also gonna hit Lisbon for a day and a half before heading home. Apparently at that time of year there's about one direct flight to Toronto and that got booked up long before we got the conference details... so might as well hit another city and country in Europe, right? I like your thinking. I know some of the tickets allow you to visit over multiple days so I was already thinking about doing that anyway. Whether we make it or not depends on how jet lagged my wife is.

So, in the world of first world problems, I seem to have one, and am looking for advice. I am sailing Explorer of the Seas in late October from Piraeus to Barcelona. We were originally taking the cruise that sailed out of Ravenna but for whatever reason that was canceled and replaced with a 6 nighter out of Greece. We rebooked on that because my wife has a conference in Barcelona, so the endpoint and time was actually of more importance than the starting point. But that shifted our plans from doing a couple of days in Venice and taking a train to Ravenna to Athens and the much closer port of Piraeus. We are getting in to Athens around noon on Friday. Not too hard to plan things to do for the 1.5 days prior to the cruise. But here's the big question - should we board the cruise early, or spend a little more time in Athens before making our way to port?