Luly

Yes this is all true. However, we were a rare occasion where one of the engines went out and we were moving at a snails pace and were 2-3 hours late arriving in Juneau. One woman missed her dream helicopter excursion, another family missed, but was luckily able to rebook their whale watching excursion. Those were just a few people standing close enough I could hear them. They also don’t provide free water or any substantial food besides snacks such as goldfish and fruit snacks (also not free) so were all famished by 4pm since we had to meet at 8am. I had 4 kids with me. It was rough. My experience was unusual, but just know it has happened at least once and maybe plan for an excursion in Juneau later than 3, possibly 4.

For me it showed up less than two weeks before our cruise.

The company also picks up at hotels so you could go to the hotel and have them pick you up later in the day to avoid the post cruise crowd.

Just wanted to mention I don’t think at all it was a mistake by your TA. I know you weren’t blaming them anyway, but I just got back from a cruise not too long ago with a similar problem. I had early seating selected and confirmed on all documents. Once on board the app said I had MTD. The dining room was of no help and just said those that booked their cruises later couldn’t get early dining and there were just no tables available despite what my documentation said. There was never any indication we were on a waitlist or anything. We were stuck with MTD and missed the show times we were hoping for but made the best of it and still enjoyed our cruise.

Three weeks ago I booked with Everglades holiday park directly. It may be the exact same place royal takes you but provides a bit more flexibility. They picked up at the port (very easy to find, bright orange van with lots of communication) and dropped off at the airport an hour or two later than the excursion through royal. You’ll still be very early for your flight. If you call them and nobody else has booked that date then you can also add on the animal encounter which is what makes the excursion longer. We had private transfer in a wonderfully air conditioned van and a guide that stayed with us and gave us water bottles.

You’ll be there during whale season, I think you should definitely do a whale watching tour in puerto Vallarta and/or Cabo. We’ve done one in both places. Saw whales in both, but in PV we were lucky enough to see the female flapping her fin to call the males to her and a couple of males showing off their breaching capabilities. One of the most incredible experiences in my life. We just sat and watched for an hour or so while being served snacks and lunch. I believe that was through Vallarta tours and there were only 12-14 of us on the boat. In Cabo we used pez gato. Pez gato was great, also food and drinks, but it was a much bigger boat with a ton of people, as in a hundred or so. We fell in love with PV and flew back 6 months later where we used jets private boat tours for a bioluminescence tour. I assume they also do whale watching and their boats had a smaller capacity of 8-10 people as well.

I haven’t done either of these excursions, but I have been to the lumberjack show (very fun) and there is a walk up and order place next door with delicious crab. It’s much cheaper to book the show online directly, then just walk next door for crab. There’s also a pizza restaurant in the mall type building across from the lumberjack show with incredible pizza if you need a quick “snack” before the show. If you go to Juneau, Tracy’s crab shack also has incredible huge crab legs. Back to back crab eating days was a win in my book!

The excursion was available on our cruise last month. We didn’t go, but just letting you know it was an option not long ago.

Yep, totally random. I had read generally about a month out it’ll show up if it’s going to show up at all. By mid May I figured we weren’t going to be able to book it for our end of may 2023 cruise then about a week before the cruise it popped up.

I have used this service. It was back in the day when you couldn’t get off the ship unless you were vaccinated and kids couldn’t vaccinated. So then kids couldn’t get off the ship unless it was with a royal excursion. What I did was found the exact excursion I wanted through a third party, then emailed the private shore excursions desk and told them exactly what I wanted to do. They quoted it for me and confirmed all the details. The day was perfect and it was JUST US! Worth every penny. Honestly I can’t remember the price tag but I remember thinking the price wasn’t bad, and was totally worth my kids being able to get off the ship and not be with hundreds of people on a stuffy chartered bus.

I’m not the original poster but I did go on this excursion early June. It actually ended up being about 8-9 hours! The boat lost an engine so we had to go quite slow and we were two+ hours late getting to Juneau. We spent quite a long time at the glacier and there was some calving, so I would’ve happily stayed longer. We saw seals and a few pups, but no whales even on our lengthy boat ride into Juneau. One big thing to know is there are ONLY snacks for sale, like goldfish and fruit snacks. No actual lunch items like sandwiches and no free water so bring water bottles. Imagine how famished we felt upon arriving to Juneau at 4pm. At some point I really thought maybe they’d start handing out free food and drinks due to the significant delay but nope. A few people missed out on helicopter and whale excursions in Juneau due to the boat arriving late. So if your trip is soon just make sure they’ve fixed the boat! It’s through allen marine tours. Despite the few issues, being that close to the glacier was incredible and I do highly recommend it.

I just paid $134 about a week ago, then on Thursday it went down to $118 so I cancelled and rebooked. This is for July 2023. I’ve never booked a cruise this close to sail date so I don’t know if that’s a good price compared to what others paid that booked long ago. If you have a cruise booked after November then I suggest booking now but checking the Black Friday deals.

On south beach is there plenty of shade and chairs to enjoy for free?

Just got off quantum 2 weeks ago. Port days are free, reservations open up at 8pm the night before each port day so set an alarm on your phone. It used to be that you could reserve as soon as you were on ship Wi-Fi but that is no longer how it works. Same for iFly.

We also did the Cosol tour in st Lucia. I have a post about it and our st kitts excursion in my vision of the seas live blog earlier this year here in this forum. The tour itself is good and involves a lot, but there isn’t much snorkel time if that’s what you love. There’s about 3 hours of driving with constant hair pin turns and myself and two of my kids were quite car sick. My mother in law went to st Lucia afterward and did an excursion that took her straight to sugar beach on a boat, which was much faster with more snorkel time. I think I recall the name Spencer’s? Whatever you do, I highly recommend doing the volcano mud bath, not the volcano tour. It felt so amazing on my skin. It st kitts we used my island tours with Javin and he brings his monkey peaches on all the tours, I included lots of pictures in my live blog posts. I really wanted to do the volcano hike but didn’t think my young kids would make it. We hope to go back to both places for the volcano hike and to hike the pitons.