Pima1988

@ellcee I now have to go to the liquor store and buy it. That is on top of looking up what exactly went into a melon ball. I want to say it was OJ and Vodka!

@WAAAYTOOO Since you like Amaretto. Next time ask for a Vodka and Cranberry with a splash of amaretto. It is sweet and tart at the same time. Kind of reminds me of the drink called Georgia peach. Or even a variety of an Amaretto sour. I am not a sweet type of drinker. Margaritas are as sweet as I go.

@Ogilthorpe those were the days of layered shots and crazy named drinks. B52s, Green Martians, and every sexual innuendo! My husband and I are laughing these days because back in the late 80s it was wine coolers in every flavor...Can we all say Bartle and James? How about ZIMA? Now it is Truly and the Claw. Just like fashion, it all comes back around with a new twist just several decades later! OBTW there is 1 more reason I drink my ritas on the rocks. It is not that pre-made crap that runs and runs out of the slushy type machines. EW gross!

I believe @Ogilthorpe is correct. For some reason I recall them saying the beach club day pass would be limited to @225 people. @Pen I am kind of shocked that they still have availability. We will be there next May and as soon as it showed up on my planner I jumped on the day pass knowing it was limited in number and we would be on Symphony.

@HeWhoWaits I too thought that it was made with Frangelico. I just remember back in my cocktail waitressing days (30 yrs ago), that this was a popular drink. I just can't recall the other name, they are both identical just Frangelico in one compared to amaretto in the other. I like amaretto, but I like Frangelico more. Those were the days of women ordering ….white Russians, Melon Balls, white wine spritzers and of course daiquiris and frozen margaritas. I worked at a very popular club, and we would say to anyone that ordered a daiquiri/margarita the blender was broken. Bartenders couldn't waste their time making it. Their belief was if you want a Margarita go to Chi-Chis (showing my age). It took too much effort which equaled less $$$ making tips compared to a Tanqueray and tonic. Our bartenders would mutter nasty words, and there were times I saw them add "special" ingredients aka the drink mat liquid at the station. From that point on I have always been easiest concoction. such as, Bourbon and Diet Coke and if I have a rita it is always on the rocks! I wonder if they even sell Midori anymore!

I am sure it will be amazing! The book had Puffins in the story. I do not have it anymore, gave it to our son when he had our 1st grandbaby.

Yep! At least for the AF. In this situation I was talking about a squadron (unit) coffee, not the OWC. Or as my husband called it the OWC CIA. We knew stuff before they did! We retired in 08 and were still doing them. Our daughter in law(DIL), married to our ADAF son still has the squadron coffee, but I think OWC is now officially gone. It might be a flier thing since they are deployed a lot. Support system. Back in my day (1988-2008) it was an excuse to get out of the house and make Dad babysit the kiddos. Kids over 6 months were not allowed, and it was held at night. Today with my DIL they are true coffee or lunch and kid friendly. Let's be honest. The AF has always had the belief of happy wife...higher retention rate for the military member! Back on topic @rtread if you have young grandkids, there is a children's book that you can find up there. I can't recall the name. However, it is a touch and feel type, and the author is from Alaska, so you can find it signed up there. Which to me is a cool kind of gift. The other cool, funny gift can be found everywhere. It is a wooden Moose that when you lift up the tail, it shoots gum out of its bum! Still have it in my house. I do not know which branch you served. I do not know if you have a military ID, but my hubby jumped out of perfectly good airplanes with 82nd along with flying for the AF. That must see at the Hilton always was amazing to us. In the winter Ft. Rich has a star on the mountain for all of Anchorage to see. In the winter it is what every person on a plane sees 1st when they are coming in for a landing. It is an amazing sight to behold. If you have a military ID, on Elmendorf they have a Bald Eagle rescue, or at least they use to have it You get to see them up close, as in a few ft away up close. I just don't know how you can get on base with a taxi. You may want to look into that. Don't know your rank, but if you are staying in Anchorage after the cruise, you may want to look into lodging at Elmendorf. Back Gate wise you are maybe 10 mins away. Problem is PCS season. Elmendorf is now a jt base Elmendorf/Ft Rich.

@rtread As a military wife, we would do monthly "coffees" and that was 1 of them every yr. It has now become something I always watch for the Olympics because I understand it, since I did it. If you are staying a night in Anchorage than I would suggest Captain Cook Hotel. It is $$$$, but it is well worth it. The Hilton is farther away from the downtown walking wise. The Hilton is also a great hotel. Loved both of these hotels. The Hilton is more modern than Captain Cook. Service level is the same impo. There is 1 more must see in Anchorage. It is on the side of a building, I want to say 5th street. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60880-d558692-Reviews-Whaling_Wall-Anchorage_Alaska.html It is cool, and you don't need to spend more than a minute there. A photo op is what it really is. Thank you for your service too. My husband served 21 yrs(F15E WSO) and now our DS is an ADAF C130J pilot.

Our dry cleaning bill went down since I have been furloughed, and husband only has to go into work 2 days a week …. I can keep up with ironing his dress shirts. Have to say the bad thing is that although the dry cleaning bill went down, my husband and I can't wait to cruise again, so we are buying every excursion left and right. We are like being a little kid and letting them loose in Sugar Beach....I want this, this, that and oh this too! Hence. my good thing has cost me a lot of money!

@rtread I lived in Anchorage for @4 yrs. I am originally from NJ. Believe it or not it is short weather in June. My best advice is to dress like an onion. I.E. wear shorts and a tee shirt with a sweater or sweatshirt. It will be chilly in the a.m., but by 3 or 4 in the afternoon you will feel comfortable without the sweater. There is little humidity in Anchorage, so it feels a lot warmer than you think, even in the high 70s/low 80s. As for the Fjords, you will feel the coolness of the glaciers. If you get chilly easy than this is when you want to wear long pants. If you are comfortable in shorts in 70 degrees, than you will be okay. Remember though, that the Fjords or any place with glaciers will not be like Anchorage or Denali because it will be damp, in other words it will feel like it is down to the bone. In June you will be coming close to the solstice, basically 2 a.m. in AK will look like 7 p..m. in NJ. I would suggest that if you are like me, and need darkness to sleep, you might want to bring a sleeping eye mask. Most Alaskans have what is called black out curtains because the sun just dips down and pops right back up. We camped all over AK from May to Sept. Our tried and true items we took for every trip were: Anorak jacket with a hood, and removeable fleece lining, such as North Face. Somedays it will be warmer, but "spitting"" aka almost a drizzle, so you want the outer shell, but not the fleece. Some days it will be cool and sunny, so you want the fleece, but not the outer jacket. A good pair of hiking boots if you are doing any excursions where it involves a trail. They don't have to be expensive, you just need it to have a good sole to the shoe, and you want it to be more waterproof than a sneaker. April is break up (you finally see your black top on the drive way). May is rainy. Thus, early June can be sunny, but the ground still damp. Good warm socks. My husband flew fighters for the AF, and because he did winter survival in AK in Jan. this was droned into our heads. If your feet are warm, you will feel much warmer. Hence, the boots, not sneakers and good quality socks. White cotton socks you wear to the gym were not a go! If you are extending your trip in Anchorage, here are my see/do: Go to the Simon and Seaforts. Make a reservation ahead of your trip. It is pretty much booked solid. It sits overlooking Cook Inlet with amazing views. Order their crab dip. It is made with Dungeness crab and has sour dough bread to use for dipping. Get their Prime Rib. Best you will ever have. Beware it is pricey, but between the views, service and food you will not regret it.. Go to the Hilton for drinks. They have a bar/restaurant on the top floor that overlooks Anchorage and Ft. Rich mountain. I don't care for their restaurant as much as Simon & Seaforts. We would always go to Simons, and than walk to the Hilton for after dinner drinks. It is maybe a 10-15 min walk. If they have an excursion to Mirror Lake, take it. The lake is so still that it actually looks like it is a mirror. Eagle River has a very easy white water rafting trip. I would not call it white water, but they do and if you have small ones it is a fun excursion. Eagle River from downtown is maybe 25 mins. Go to a local fish store. They will ship to your home in dry ice king crab legs. Unlike the ones you get in the lower 48, they don't have the salty taste to them. They are naturally sweet, and more importantly they all will snap when you break the leg. Curling is a thing in AK. Right up the road from the Hilton you can do this, maybe a 2 min car ride. Kind of like saying I swam with the pigs in the Caribbean, how many of your friends can say I learned how to do an Olympic sport, such as, curling. Might sound geeky, but it is actually a lot of fun. If Portage Glacier (Williwaw) in Anchorage is offered, it would be on the bottom of my excursion list. It is melting away fast. We would camp there, but it really feels touristy, same with Alyeska. I see Ulu knives like the Russian nesting dolls and mini-totem poles. Unless, you are really into them, don't buy one, they know that tourists are wanting these items, and you can find these things everywhere. Heck, even at the airport the Ulu is 1 of their questions. If jewelry is your thing, go to any small jewelry store. I own a charm bracelet, I have a dog sled charm for my bracelet. They also sell them as pins (to make an entire team) and pendants with a mushers basket. You will love this trip. Hope this gives you some ideas.

I would add Schooners too. We love doing the trivia, and sing a long at night. OH and if they canceled the 70s night party, I am done!

I lived right outside of Anchorage (Eagle River) for 4 yrs., husband flew F15E out of Elmendorf. Trust me I know that. For us, from May 15th through Sept 15th we were camping every weekend. Anyone that has watched the local weather report will get this. Everyday they start it off with we lost X amount of minutes of day light today (June-Dec) or today we gained X amt of minutes of day light. For me Sept. is really pushing it for cruising season. May is also a month I would shy away from. We called it the SPIT month. It doesn't rain per se it spits. The mosquitos are HUGE. Never saw them that size before and still haven't since we moved from there. End of May to me would be perfection. Salmon is running. Mosquitos are smaller. Spit is not happening, and you have a lot of day light. Every solstice we would do a midnight white water rafting trip. It ended at 3 a.m. It was basically the same light as 7 pm where I live. Back to the regular programming of arriving early.

I was thinking it was because at 8 pm in AK it is bright as it would be at 4 pm in San Juan.

It has always been minimal for us. I don't think it has been more than $50 pp for any of our cruises. I always get jealous of posters saying they got hundreds off. If it was hundreds I would jump on a gty., but since it is always minimal for us and we love to sit on our balcony, it would drive us crazy if it was obstructed.

We are like @RClDreamer96. We have flown out of DC 1x on the day of the cruise and took the earliest flight. Got there around 7 or so. Had breakfast in a restaurant in the airport to kill time, but still had to wander the airport for about another 90 mins. We typically fly on our own, but because we knew we had to fly in that day so we decided to do Sea to Air (?) with Royal. We also used their transportation to the terminal. We did this because we knew if G forbid happened RCL was going to make it work for us to get us to the ship. We opted for the O'Dark thirty flight out of DC, so it would allow us the ability if that flight didn't go, there would be a few behind that we could get on. If you use their transportation they have a meeting area that is clearly signed RCL.

@gtgtgt Thanks in their description they say you go for 30 mins, but I have to be honest I am doing this excursion for my husband, so 15-20 mins is fine for me. Did you see a lot? I kind of want to see the sea turtles, but than I am afraid it will freak me out by the size of them. They also say that you can snorkel on your own. Did you or anyone do that too, or did you just sit on the boat looking at water?

Has anyone done this excursion? In essence, you wear a helmet and ride a scooter under water. Hubby likes snorkeling, me not so much, but this looks fun. Kind of like a unique excursion where many can't say they did. https://bossusvi.com/2-in-1-tours/ They take you to Buck Island for this excursion.

I think they would go the route that airlines do when it comes to overall practice. They know the exact percentage that they have to have on avg. IE let's say 55%. It is okay if 1 flight goes off with 25% as long as another goes off with 85% so between the two they maintain that 55%. If the number drops below, than guess what? They will re-deploy their planes to an area where they can maintain that avg. I can see them saying Aug. 8th on XYZ is 35%. Aug 15th is 60%. We need 40% to break even. Cancel the 8th with hopes they will move to the 15th and sail at 60%

How can you do that? Look at some of these repatriation schedules. I believe it is Anthem that is going to India. It is what @2 week sailing to get to Goa after leaving their last port. Assume 500 crew members. That means they would need 14,000 tests on board prior to the sailing. Assume the test takes 5 mins. How do you process 1000 tests a day? That is 5,000 minutes. They would need more than 4 medical personnel operating 24/7 to get through this on a daily basis. Theoretically, your example is a no go from every way you turn. How do you know they are not doing exactly that? Do you actually think RCL or any cruise line doesn't have a team of people working on this already? Just because they are not announcing it, or the news is not covering it, doesn't mean they are not diligently investigating how to do it. Let's be honest, they read the news too and they have personnel that do market research. You would be a fool to think that there is not an RCL employee or intern lurking on here, cruise critic or FB reading posters opinions. My daughter was an intern for a famous non-profit. One of her jobs as an intern was exactly that. Social media. She was not allowed to respond to any post. She gathered info, opinions and made a daily report to her supervisor and what was being talked about on the multiple sites. I work retail. Management also gets a weekly report on what people are saying, be it their website, Yelp, FB, etc. Yes, our world is now a global economy, but the last time I checked there is no global government. The only closest thing you would come to that, would be the UN. Nor can you force a company (airline, hotel, car rental, etc) to do that, public or privately owned, unless of course it is mandated by law. Tieing it back to unless you have the world all agreeing and setting standards than it is not feasible. Add on top of that a company like NCL that made headlines a few weeks about their ability to survive past Sept without a huge cash infusion. The type of things you are talking about cost money and lots of it. Where will they find the funds if they follow all of your suggestions? How much do you think thousands of medical tests done twice a day on a daily basis for repatriation would cost the cruise lines? If they use their funds for your 1st suggestion, than how can they create a space, assuming you mean more social distancing/less density on a ship? That would mean pulling their ships and doing a complete re-design with fewer bookings. IE, will they now no longer offer an interior room with Pullman beds, equating to every cabin can only hold 2 people? If that is the case can you not see cruise companies suing the govt if they don't say to resorts like Disney or Sandals or Atlantis that they do the exact same? A hotel room with 2 double beds is how much bigger than a cabin? It is a slippery slope you are going down. JMPO, and with $2.07 you can get a small coffee from Starbucks (wearing your mask of course!)

Italy announce today that they will be opening up for tourist come June/July. In essence, 90 days after they shut down. We shut down very shortly after their county. We would be following their footsteps, but still longer on a shutdown than Italy.

I absolutely hate that photo op. It makes me feel "pressured" to buy a product before I even get on the ship. I feel like they should just let me walk by it without them asking. If I want it, I will approach you, otherwise leave me alone. Be real, it is not like you can't see it there!

So what age is adult to you? I am not trying to be antagonistic. I am trying to see how they could draw the line from your perspective. Are they going to give sea pass cards color coded for age range? What age is the line drawn at? 8, 10, 12, 14, 16? My youngest at 12, was 6 foot, he is 6'4. My daughter is 5'1. They are 2 yrs apart, and she is older than him. If you looked at her at 16 at 5'1 you would think she was 12 due to her height and physical structure, but due to my DS's height you would assume he had to be at least 16. He was my height of 5'5 by the time he was 10. We do visit the WJ, but rarely sit down and eat in it, since we always book a balcony. We will order the continental breakfast delivered to the room. 1 of us will go to WJ, get omelets and tasty triangular shaped hash browns on a plate while the other waits for room service. Take it back and eat on our balcony instead of searching for a table. We also love their panini station in the WJ at lunch. We live in the Solarium, so it is a repeat. 1 goes and makes the plates, the other stays in the Solarium. We eat dinner late (7:30+) so as soon as it opens for dinner I am up there making an anti-pasta plate with their deli meats, breads, appetizers in a cup, etc. to not only eat b4 dinner, but as a late night snack compared to their pre-made stuff they offer late at night on our balcony. Point is, we use it a lot, but more like take out than sit down. Seeing as that is how we do it, I can tell you that I have seen gaggles of teens without their folks picking food and putting it back while a friend laughs about how they touched it! The offender usually giggles and does the shush response! They can make WJ work. I can see it. Look at how Solarium Bistro and the MDR breakfast/lunch works. It is a mix of both aspects.

ROFL thinking that same thing! I swear my husband and I can do the 50 yard dash faster while serpentining to avoid the photogs in our 50s than in our 20s. We have purchased 3 pictures in total from all of our cruises. 1 on our Italy cruise, because it was Italy back drop . 1 on our Sydney, because, well, it was Sydney as a backdrop. 1 on Anthem because it was with all of my cousins. I can see why people buy the package, but I am someone that likes informal, spur of the moment pics more than posed/positioned pics.

My mind keeps exploding with the idea of what embarkation day lunch will look like if they change the WJ to be akin to a restaurant style. Same can be said for breakfast on early a.m. port days and debarkation days.? We typically do not eat in the WJ, but we do pop in for snacks to take back to the cabin or the Solarium, so it would impact us.

I could never do a Panoramic, it would just drive me crazy to see the ocean, but not hear it or feel the breeze. I also think about the What If? Imagine there is another outbreak of a virus and you are stuck in your cabin for multiple days like Princess in Italy. At least in a balcony you can get fresh air. Feel the sun directly shining on your face, instead of it being reflected off glass. Only you can answer the one question that needs to be asked. How often do you sit on the balcony? For my hubby and I, we are sitting on our balcony at least 3 or 4 hrs everyday. Breakfast on the balcony. Cocktails pre-dinner on the balcony. Late night conversations on the balcony. Sailing into or out of port on the balcony.