USCG Teacher

59 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Sorry for the late response to this!

I did the cruisetour in 2014 and I highly suggest that you do this if you don't think you may make it back to Alaska!  We ended up doing the 8B pre-cruisetour southbound cruise (Seward to Vancouver).  This one has the most train travel segments, I believe, and honestly that was one of my favorite parts of the land portion of the tour.  I also think choosing the land portion before the cruise helped a lot because you are shuffling between different hotels every night and is a bit more taxing than the cruise portion where you don' t have to pack up every night.  It was helpful to be able to relax on the cruise before going home.  I don't think it would have been as enjoyable the other way.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/sgp/en/cruises/itinerary/13-night-alaska-wilderness-spectacular-tour-8b-pre-tour-from-vancouver-on-radiance/RD13B108

The description here is exactly how I remembered the cruise down to the names of the places we stayed, so if you have any specific questions feel free to ask!  I know finding detailed information about these landtour is difficult as they aren't as popular as the cruises.  We probably had 25-30 people total on our tour.

The landtour is like the cruise where you will have optional excursions you can take in your free time.  You don't really know what is available for those until you are on the land tour.  They give you an excursions sheet where you chose what you want to do and then you will pay for it by card.  The tour has some included stuff that everyone will participate in, but you get to individualize your experience by what you do in your free time in each land city.

For things to keep an eye out for on the land portion for this particular one that I think kids would appreciate:

• Seward has the Alaska Sealife Center.  With the land tour before the cruise, we got to the ship in the morning of the cruise and had plenty of time to explore Seward.  There is free shuttle bus that goes around the city.  You can check in for the cruise and drop off your carryon luggage and go explore.  We ended up checking out the Sealife center to kill some time before departure.   Now I will preface that we deviated from the landtour the morning of the cruise and we self-purchased the Alaskan Railway train trip to Seward.  The landtour did a motorcoach segment here with a visit to the Anchorage Heritage Museum.  We really wanted to do the extra train segment but you are responsible for booking it on your own and getting yourself to the train station, but I felt it was worth it.  For the train ride you actually drop your luggage off at the train station and it gets delivered to the cruise port.
• Denali - Husky Homestead - this is an optional excursion that we did.  It takes you to a dogsled training center where you get to hold puppies and they show you a bit on how they train the dogs.
• Denali - We also did a rafting tour in the evening where we went down the river.  We had to wear puffy air tight suits and it was quite an adventure.  If your kids are into thrill seeking they would enjoy this but it was super cold.  We were able to do this after the Husky Homestead excursion because the rafting trip wasn't until 8:30 at night.  It was still light out since it's summer in Alaska and doesn't get fully dark at all really.
• Denali - This 8B landtour includes a bus ride into the park where you get to see wildlife.  It's an all-day trip 4 hours into the park and another 4 hours back.  It was a bit long even for my adult attention span, but we ended up seeing a lot of wildlife.  Note that they only provide a boxed lunch for this trip and there really isn't a chance to purchase any additional food, so pack some snacks/drinks.
• Talkeetna - We did the jetboat adventure optional excursion here that took us right up to some serious whitewhite rapids before going back.  There was also a stop where we took a walk into the woods with the tour guide to protect you from bears with a rifle.

This was all fantastic information and exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for!  Thank you so much!

55 minutes ago, mworkman said:

What was Steve Wozniak doing in Wuhan? The Apple plant is in Zhengzhou.. Things that make you say hmmmmm.

Steve Wozniak had already given up an active role at Apple 5 years prior to C+C Music Factory's 1990 release of "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm..."

13 hours ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

Every cruise we buy a few of our favorite photos captured by the photographers.

Big believer in photos always being the best souvenirs!

On 12/10/2020 at 6:05 PM, twangster said:

i wonder what constitutes "significant" allergies.  

Is a gluten allergy that results in severe reaction to gluten applicable?

Is a peanut allergy that results in an anaphylactic reaction applicable? 

Is you are allergic to a lot of different things but with a mild reaction is that "significant"?

I can't recall where I read it, and you'll have to also factor in my ever-decreasing memory, but I'm fairly certain I read from a British news source that they were considering individuals with a history of anaphylactic reactions to be "significant."  Basically, if you should be carrying an Epipen (which I also believe was used to successfully reverse the reaction in both cases), you're at risk.  Of course, that list could be subject to grow as we learn more, or perhaps not.

8 hours ago, Matt said:

Yes, it does appear that's the case

Okay, regardless of how these test cruises shake out, can we just start the push to make this the "new normal" for the Windjammèr?

Okay all, here I am yet again throwing myself at the feet at my far more experienced travelers!  We're starting to plan for a bucket-list cruise to Alaska, and I could really use some feedback from those who have done an Alaskan Cruisetour.  As East Coast residing public employees, this could well be the only time we ever make it out to Alaska, and it will almost certainly be the only time we get out there with the kids.  As a result, I want to do it right.  For background, we'll have a 12 year old (who loves rains!) and a 9 year old boy in tow, and we're definitely doing either a Jr. Suite or connecting balcony rooms.  Other than that, I'm all ears.  We were looking at the Family Tundra Express tour based solely on the fact that it has family in the title and may be a bit more suited for the kids, but I have no idea how accurate that assessment is.  So with that said, does anyone have any feedback/suggestions/etc.?  Are there absolute can't misses or don't waste your times? I understand these results will be completely subjective, but you all have never steered me wrong, and I'd value your expertise.  Thanks in advance!  

17 hours ago, Matt said:

What is the best price on a cruise or cruise planner item you've found so far with the Black Friday deals?

Do you think this year's deals are better than past years? Same? Worse?

So far this Black Friday has been a bit of a dud for me.  The All Access Tour went from $130 to $90, so that was great, but no savings to be found anywhere else.  That said, I had already repurchased most of my items back during the past CP sale (I can't recall if that was last month or September) and found some really terrific deals then.  So while this year's deals seem to be inferior to last year's, there was no huge sale prior to Black Friday that I could take advantage of last year either, so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

4 hours ago, HeWhoWaits said:

Each dinner on the cruise is approximately equal in calories to those consumed for Thanksgiving dinner. Total for the day on the cruise exceeds total for the day on Thanksgiving.

13 minutes ago, cruisellama said:

That sounds totally believable.  Throw in alcohol, and its way over the top.

Both of these sound 100% accurate for me as well!

11 hours ago, Winterh8r said:

The number I have in my records is 888-305-4626.  I haven't used it for a couple of years, but it should be the same.

Can confirm; was the correct number as recently as August. 

18 hours ago, Jill said:

So I went back and looked at our suite. It’s a corner aft port. I think I made the right decision! #1100

As a glass half-full kind of guy, I think @Matt may have accidentally provided RCG an invaluable service: a database of individuals who should ABSOLUTELY 100% NOT be involved on a test cruise due to an inability to process information and/or follow directions.  I'd think Dr. Johnson, Dr. Gottlieb and the rest of the Healthy Sail Panel would appreciate dodging this entire magazine worth of bullets.

10 minutes ago, USCG Teacher said:

Either I'm missing something (which, let's be honest, would not be terribly shocking), there's a typo here, or this 133% infection rate is going to seriously mess with someone's data...

 

Okay, took me a hot minute.  20 from the flight.  In my defense, I did list missing something as the 1st option...

9 hours ago, EmersonNZ said:

A few weeks ago 15 Russian sailors were supposed to have quarantined for 14 days before flying to NZ. Luckily they still had to go through the standard NZ quarantine and on their day 3 testing 20 tested positive.

Either I'm missing something (which, let's be honest, would not be terribly shocking), there's a typo here, or this 133% infection rate is going to seriously mess with someone's data...

12 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Maybe ?  Maybe ?

2 hours ago, cruisellama said:

I think it was a form of fondant

 

Within an hour to Cape Liberty, so that's a no-brainer for me.  As things stand right now, if I were cruising out of FL I would almost certainly take the Auto Train down.  Shave a day of drive time (and arrive well rested) and have my car there for an emergency return trip.  After the cruise I'd probably just drive back home over two days, saves money and there's less of a real hard deadline as to when I get there.  It's not like my house will leave me at the pier!

1 hour ago, Jolly Ogre said:

I am extremely happy on my L&S. It worked out great after I schooled the TA.

Last cruise with that TA. All future cruises are and will be with MEI.

Same and same. 

4 hours ago, IRMO12HD said:

I don't know how long this will last, but here are the prices I saw on Cruise Planner today (9/21/2020) at 1:20 pm PST for Anthem OTS Norwegian Fjords 16-24 July 2021:

 

DBP (it says including gratuity!): $46/day; total for each DBP was $368, so it looks like gratuity was included in the price.

Good looking out, friend!   Was $46 on my August Oasis cruise, just nabbed it.

3 hours ago, Pima1988 said:

I told her to come here because there is no such thing as a stupid question

(But seriously, this is why I love it here, too!)

8 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

It's $199 now for the Harmony GC sailing over Thanksgiving 2021.  I got it for $79.

We're now at $189 adult and $169 for children for Oasis next August.  Luckily, I also got in at $79/$59.  I've seen huge jumps in almost all of my CocoCay options.  Waterpark up to $102, Waterpark Cabanas went from $599 to $999, all the other cabanas jumped between $300 and $500.  Looks like about the only thing that didn't spike are the good ol' beach beds, still holding down the fort at $199...

5 hours ago, crisgold52 said:

This is a for profit site as well despite it being a fan page.

3 minutes ago, stormchaser said:

  If you look at the deck plan that Matt has provided, there is a black "tick mark" on all inside cabins where the door is not necessarily obvious.

Ha!  They are right on RCCL's site, too!  

8 minutes ago, dazekiel said:

I've looked at all the deck plans. None that I have found show what side of the ship the doors are on for the single row cabins are. For example 11205 through 11223. If we book 11213, we want to know if we should get 11210 or 11610 so that the doors are across the hall from each other. 

Thank you

I hadn't ever thought of this until you asked the question!  After a little digging, I found a deck plan of Quantum that shows the interior door location (indicated by the diagonal line) at https://www.seascanner.com/deckplan-quantum-of-the-seas.  In the example you gave, You'd want 11213 to pair with 11210.

1 hour ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Here is a screenshot of the price of a regular 7 night NB Alaskan sailing, plus 3 options of adding a cruisetour to the same sailing. (The top one is showing a price for June 18, but the June 4th sailing, which all of the rest show, is only $20 more).  These are all Radiance sailings on June 4, 2020 - so you can expect approx $600-900 added to the cost of an inside cabin for 2 passengers.

Great googly moogly, the Cruisetour prices are just listed in the "Find a Cruise" searches?!?  I'm not sure how I missed that, but I appreciate how polite you were in responding to my ignorance!