DDaley

That's what I was thinking, what a luxurious rarity for O-class. Port days are far superior to me than sea so this itinerary sounds amazing! Our 2025 on NCL has 6 ports on a normal 7-nighter from SJ and I couldn’t be more pleased! Pleeeease come and tell us all about the Wind Star cruise before you head off on Oasis! I stalked the Nov itineraries for that ship on cruisemapper and those potential ports are all bucket listers, Tortola! Jost Van Dyke! Virgin Gorda?! We wanna hear!!

I wonder if she get his name right when she greets him on future video calls! Can’t wait to hear about Alaska! Do your two sailings have any alternating ports?

I sailed Oasis from Miami on it’s first sailing after leaving Bayonne in 2021 and we were allowed in the cabins as soon as we boarded at 11am!

Yep, this is how it used to be for me as a travel booking assistant for a major company when I was in my early twenties, we never booked on release and sometimes waited till weeks before to score the best deals! Unfortunately this has not been he case for any of my travels since Covid. Every trip we’ve been on (to Cancun, Jamaica, Miami, Tampa, Greece, Canada, Seattle, SF, Michigan and San Juan PR) since then has the lowest prices on release day and then never went down again!! For 4 of these we booked Air2Sea so I checked almost every day for reprice eligibility and not one of them ever was lower than release day, sadly. I did love that I got our most recent flight to Seattle at $127 each on release day and it was up to $585 a few months before we left!

The way I RAN with my navigational trackpad finger to this blog when I realized it was TRAVEL DAAAAYY! Love your new glasses! I’ve been wearing the same pair for 5 years so I need to go so badly, if only because the protective coatings on the lenses are scratched all to hell Best of luck on the train voyage and the much-anticipated stern talking-to for the vintages!! hahah

Yes but the flight prices are rising every single day you wait to book! I always book the day the date becomes available for booking, prices only go up from there these days.

Ship sponsored excursion in Mykonos; we took a bus to Kalafatis Beach for about a 15 min stop and a second stop in Ano Mera to see the church and square. While it was cool to see where people actually live on the island, the excursion wasn’t worth it when Chora, the old town, is right where the tender or shuttle boat drops you off and is easily navigable on your own. Snorkel excursions in Cabo. We’ve done these twice and while it’s fun on the boat, there’s just not that much to see when you’re actually snorkeling. We’ve snorkeled just about everywhere, and there is certainly no need to do it on the Pacific coast (unless, of course, its going to be your only chance to do so anywhere). Zipline tour in Victoria, BC when they ship doesn’t dock til 5pm. It gets dark while you’re going through the zip course and you’ll need to use a headlamp and miss all the spectacular mountain/basin views. Where’s the thread for excursion must-tries?! If you’re ever docked long enough in Falmouth or Montego Bay, Jamaica, you absolutely MUST go on Rastasafari in Roaring River (near Petersfield in Saint James Parish). Absolute best shore excursion I’ve ever been on!! We drove our own 4-wheeler through the countryside, stopping to swim in crystal clear rivers and jump from bridges! Amazing.

Somehow getting a LIMO is a preferable price to pay over $28.75 each!? These wild and reckless vintages!

I cackled! You both got me! I sooo can’t wait to try for myself. Unfortunately there’s still 524 days to wait I AM going to truly live my Unfrugal life next summer though, I apparently will need to sell a kidney of my own for a normal European river cruise balcony cabin, who knew?!?!

I can already say I agree with this, I bought a Cruise Next $500 certificate for only $250 and paid my full deposit with that! Amazing!!! I thought there had to be a catch but turns out my sailing was valid usage! I can’t believe they don’t! Holland America does this too so even though I’ve cruised on HAL only twice (and one of those was as a freeloading daughter in ’05) I am already a 2-Star Mariner because we bought our drink package onboard. So that $800 or so dollars translated to me getting like 30+ cruise points on one little 7-night to Cabo.

Haven Lite sounds perrrrfect for my low rung on the Unfrugal ladder!

My next Caribbean cruise is branching out to try Norwegian on the new Viva and I am most excited about the waterfront infinity pools area! I certainly can’t afford the Haven but may try their Vibe Beach Club (I think equivalent of Spice2o?) if it can guarantee me a lounge chair and a spot by a bar!

Agreed!! My watch warns me every time we leave the stateroom to walk the ship - Your luggage was last seen in the Pacific Ocean. I think it’s funny every time!

So did you not need a shuttle ticket to get off the ship and go to town in Sitka? We didn’t find out we needed one until we got there (we sailed two weeks ago on Quantum) and had to wait 3 hours waiting for our number to come up.

We sailed Quantum two weeks ago and stayed at the Holiday Inn Downtown near the Space Needle. I chose this hotel because everything else was mostly sold out a year+ in advance due to a huge convention taking place the Monday we sailed out. This hotel was perfectly fine, the room was huge and had a nice view. We walked absolutely everywhere from here (Pike Place, waterfront, Olympic sculpture garden) and encountered exactly one sleeping homeless person the entire time. The city was perfectly safe and didn’t even have any trash on the streets; they have the fancy 3 cans for every trash can (trash, recycling, compost) like San Francisco. Where I actually saw a homeless encampment was in Victoria, BC where they supposedly have “no crime.”

This was me!! I have never told my husband about any of my live blogs and he is prominently featured in them all. Every time you guys posted some funny comment I relayed back, I said it was from the FB group from our sailing. Don’t ask me why I didn’t tell him - easier not to??? I have no idea! haha There’s no way he’d mind!

Easy! I left in the pigeon because it just felt right. Happy cruise day!!

Having just gotten back from our roundtrip from Seattle, you gotta do the one-way! Round trip spends half the time getting to and from the origin port when you could be adding 1-2 Alaskan ports + full day in Juneau vs half day/half at the glacier + getting to see Seward. We went to Sitka, Icy Strait Point and Juneau as our Alaskan ports and if I had to choose, Sitka was my least favorite. There were huge crowds from two ships in port and you could really feel it. I so wish we could’ve seen Skagway, so it would be on my list for any future sailing I go on to Alaska! We were scheduled to go but had an itinerary change to ISP instead, which was simply gorgeous. We did Quantum because we’d never been on that class of ship before and wanted to try it. I would 100% choose Radiance class next time, Quantum was fun for the new shows/plentiful activities/specialty venues but that’s better left for a sailing with a lot of ocean-view sea days, in my opinion. Radiance class has so many outward facing venues, the views sailing through Alaska would be way more spectacular, especially if you won’t have your own balconies.

I had to do some Googling because I didn’t even know what a Taylor ham/pork roll IS, but how could the "Taylor ham" people be right when this is the packaging! Is it like calling a tissue a Kleenex even if it’s the store brand? PS does it taste like bologna?

I was thinking I would have to make a trip up, too! My voyage is only about a 2.5 hour car ride though

Final Thoughts Overall, we enjoyed Quantum class. It was the newest ship we’ve been on to date and all the high tech shows and art and design throughout the ship were pretty awesome! We missed all of the outward facing venues we last experienced on Brilliance, but it greatly made up for it in beautiful spaces. Loves • 270 as a day-use venue and at night as a high tech theatre venue, especially liked sitting in the upper levels • Solarium had the best view, we even spotted 10-20 whales on our final day sailing up the strait into Victoria as we sat in the heated cascading pool! Just amazing. • iFly skydiving simulator, left me sore for 3 days but was such an exhilarating feeling • Seaplex activities, bumper cars and laser tag were both worth a try Not as good • Esplanade layout on deck 4, we were constantly dodging tons of people walking, sitting and shopping in this area • The four dining room MDR concept made me jealous because we only ever got Silk, despite moving around to different waitstaff teams on our 3 nights we dined there, let me see American Icon Grill! Looked so shiny in there. • Casino layout and slot machine variety, all corners of the casino smelled like smoke and I missed the older machines without the enormous curved screens • The on screen map in the cabin doesn’t zoom in enough! Haha. Why would I need to see where we are in relation to Asia when I’m in Alaska? Zoom in more and let me see the actual land masses nearest me. If you’re headed on Quantum in the next 6 months you must visit Erico in the WJ bar! He was our favorite bartender anywhere on board! His “finger slipped” almost every time producing hearty cocktails We had blustery seas and rainy weather but all three Alaskan ports were so beautiful, even shrouded in fog. I had thermal layers, a hoodie and a rain jacket with 2 beanies but I do wish I brought gloves. My hands were frozen on both boat tours from holding the aluminum railings! I packed 4 dresses and a skirt for dinners but only ended up dressing for dinner twice (on the two formal nights that coincided with our specialty dining) because we were so exhausted after our days in port. I would definitely bring more casual wear next time so I don't have to wear the same sweaters and sweatshirt all the time. We were able to do the trip with just carry ons and an additional bag each but all that room for dresses was wasted. Alaska was absolutely fantastic and we already decided we will have to come back and do a North or Southbound route instead because round-trip from Seattle just wasn’t enough Alaska for one week. And we’ll have to add on a land portion next time! Have I truly been to Alaska if it was only Southeast Alaska? PS. I forgot to mention that our whale watching tour guide in ISP was the bear guard for a couple of those Alaskan family wilderness tv shows and it’s all fake! He shuttled them to a motel in town every night hahahah

The sheer amount of things you are handling for them is wild! You’d think they could at leeeast have a little decency to read the thoughtful emails I am sure you put together, who doesn’t like reading confirmations and things regarding a vacation!?

The pictures can never do it justice! If you can stand the cold and lack of gorgeous sunny days on your vacation, I highly recommend it, just beautiful scenery every direction you look. Even in the midst of all-day rain!

Completely agree on Quantum. This was our first try on this class and it really feels like it’s missing something when it comes to those big interior spaces, and the Via feels almost forgotten hidden behind the aft elevators. I did truly love sitting in the 270, though. Those huge windows facing the wake were hard to take my eyes off of! I really liked the Top Tier event being held in there and being accompanied by the full band.

Disembarkation Woke up about 6:30 yesterday and saw people were already disembarking in Seattle! We finished our packing and grabbed one last breakfast in the Windjammiér (aka The Jammy). As usual, it was a madhouse with suitcases everywhere and people eating their weight in their last free eggs and bacon. Even saw a family bagging up 10+ croissants and cold cuts for their voyage which I thought was a pretty smart idea! We always bring tumblers for bringing our cocktails to port but making your own sammie is a new one (probably wouldn’t fly in the Caribbean where they have you declare your fruits/vegetables). We booked Seattle Express for the return trip to the airport (suggested here on the boards!) and I would definitely recommend them. Lyft/Uber was running around $60-$80 and we paid $25 each for the shuttle. Aside from price, ride-share users have to cart their luggage pretty far outside the terminal area before they can pick you up, our bus was right at the end of the baggage collection area. We left our cabin at 8:15 and were on the shuttle by 8:45. TSA at SeaTac is insane, make sure you show up as early as you can, the security line took us from 9:20-10:40 or so! Probably the worst TSA I have ever encountered and SFO and HNL have done me dirty plenty of times. Goodbye Quantum!! Will be back with some final thoughts on this class and itinerary.