brienc

I'm really interested in your experience sailing out of Baltimore! That's really close for us, and we've talked about trying it out (but never have).

I was looking at a private photo session for our family, but we're in connecting cabins (one adult on the reservation in each cabin). I'm confused on whether one session would cover all 5 of us. The kids are minors, but would they give me grief about my wife being in the photos since she's technically on a different cabin reservation?

Thanks, that’s super helpful!

We just booked Le Soleil on our TA recommendation for 1 night pre-cruise and 2 nights post. It’s a bit further from the cruise terminal than some of the other options, but I think we still may try to walk it.

I'm pretty sure we paid adult price for our 13 year old and kids price for our 12 year old. Great, thank you! At least she'd be able to take advantage of the veg options on the adult menu, then.

I searched around, but didn't find much recent info. We're Sailing on Brilliance next June with our kids, including my D12 who is vegetarian. I've currently booked the 3 night dining package, and we were hoping to try all three specialty options on BotS (Chops, Izumi, and Giovanni's Table). The sample menu available on CP for Chops says at the bottom "Gluten-free, lactose-free and vegetarian options are available. Please ask your waiter." This isn't listed on the kids menu, though. The only vegetarian things listed on the Chops kids menu are a mushroom soup and a mesclun salad, which would be kind of disappointing for her while the rest of us are eating steaks. How strict are they with forcing kids (tweens) to order off of the kids menu? How have your experiences been asking for vegetarian options at the specialty restaurants?

I got to see exactly how much KSF saved us, because RC didn't apply the discount at first, even though we qualified. This is for our Summer 2023 Alaska Cruise (summer blackout dates don't apply to Alaska and Europe sailings). We have two connecting balconies for the 5 of us (kids are 16, 13, and 12). The KSF credits only apply to the third occupant in the room, so we had to make sure that the 12 year old was in the 3-person room, not the 2-person room. Even after doing that, our TA had to call RC to get it squared away. Bottom line was our total cost dropped by $312 after KSF was applied. That's certainly not nothing, but it's more like a 3% price drop rather than the 20% implied by one of our 5 family members being free! The reason for that is that the 3rd occupant in our cabins was always MUCH less expensive than the other two (I believe because the cabins are priced based on double occupancy).

Oh, cool! Hope you have a great time!!

My first cruise - my wife and I are super excited to take our 3 kids to Alaska! I’m really enjoying learning a lot about cruising and our ship on these boards. Who else will be on the same sailing with us?

@twangster thanks for the great live blog! The pictures from your website aren't showing up for me, though. Is that something that's fixable? I'd love to get a preview of my 2023 multi-glacier cruise!