tkwbear

Back in the good old days, cruise ships used Seward as the main turnaround port in Alaska. Seward is one of the prettiest towns in the world, with plenty of things to do, including some very good restaurants. Now the Carnival family of cruises uses Whittier. I have the misfortune to be stuck there for a day, as I am doing a back to back out of Vancouver. When I first visited Alaska, my Fodor tour book had a small write-up on Whittier, which ended by saying they didn't recommend a visit. I was there last year and didn't leave the ship. This year I have a car rental but it's $275 for the partial day through Avis, when you add fuel and the tunnel toll, that's more than $300. Can anyone recommend a different plan? I've considered the 26 Glacier Tour but while I like glaciers, I would prefer one more like the Kenai Fjords tour in Seward that has plenty of wildlife as well. The few tours offered by the ship are also ridiculously expensive.

I had the same problem with the initial login from my iPhone. However I am able to see all current bookings.

I sailed the Grand last July on a back to back Alaskan cruise out of Vancouver. Since I had an inside room, I spent a lot of time outside and enjoyed the lower promenade. My room was decent, but I did not enjoy the public areas. There was a foul smell from the laundry room, 2 doors down. The buffet restaurant was poorly designed with large sliding doors on each end. Wear your coat to the restaurant when cruising in a cool area. I didn’t go to any shows but was told the smell was bad in the show room. The ship looks nice from afar but there was quite a bit of rotting wood on the lower promenade deck. Food was fair to good. Service was fair though my cabin steward was very good. The front desk consisted of newbies. I found out the hard way to buy my transfers before boarding as they will not sell you one to Seattle once on board. No one seemed to know why; they were not sold out.

I became friends with a crew member and want to send her a gift. A Starbucks card seemed like a good idea but they aren't usually accepted out of North America and her ship is in the South Pacific. Amazon is an option but she already has too much luggage. Suggestions?

I bought the standard package for an upcoming transatlantic cruise from Miami to Barcelona. It was under $100 but now I'm hearing the internet on the Divina is poor. If you have recent personal experience with the Divina internet I would be interested to hear about your experience.

That is how the US parties go, but it is a much bigger deal in Europe. At least on the Poesia last fall, it was a group of hundreds with many Europeans showing up in pin stripe tuxedos. The wine was amazing, unlike at the US parties. They had a good live band playing too.

The prices are way too high now that's for sure, but it doesn't stop there. I bought a 3 specialty restaurant package yesterday for the Virtuoso for $120. It had been $71 in the past. However Virtuoso has some interesting options so I decided to go ahead and get it.

This is true!

I believe that was the date. 6 days, right? However I didn't include any packages so mine was less. I just got off the phone with an MSC rep. I didn't get any help for my issues with their website/IT. When I purchased the beach tour, it gave me no notification, so I bought it again. I got a notification for that, but my credit card was charged twice. So yesterday I had them refund one of them. The refund on the email was $0.0 when it should have been $52.00. No change on the bank statement. There are no specialty restaurant packages for sale on the website. Plenty of other stuff I don't want though. Also embarkation is 4pm! That's way too late. No times are given for ANY shore excursion. It's just a mess. I expect chaos when arriving in NYC because I was on the Meraviglia when it first came to Orlando and it was a comedy of errors. I was told there are NO transfers to the airport, though they have some sight seeing tours that end at the airports, but there is no "for guests with flights after 3pm" help. I would like to buy my ticket soon, not the day of disembarkation. Also I keep seeing ads about MSC selling flights and hotels. I save a lot of money on some flights on Princess, so I am hoping I can do that on MSC but all I can find on the website is that "we do it". Regarding the Veendam, it was my least favorite ship (though Island Princess is MUCH worse). Venndam was once a normal Statendam class vessel. I loved the other 3. However they threw a bunch of balcony cabins on the stern (that looked like they could fall off easily), took out the rear pool, and made the ship overcrowded. I sailed it to Hawaii and it listed to the starboard side the entire cruise, so my ocean view room got a REAL GOOD look at the Ocean. That was my second and final time to sail Veendam. I've only visited Bermuda once. There was a ship docked down there, it was an Azamara. I talked to people from that ship and they seemed to like it, but the new President (who hates old and small ships) will fix that. I believe all Azamara ships are refits from other lines.

That's interesting. I had 200 days on the Rotterdam, which I loved. It's now sailing for Fred. Olsen cruises, along with the Amsterdam, which I had over 100 days on. It looked like the Rotterdam but it my opinion, Rotterdam was far superior. I also loved the Maasdam (95 days). I did the Voyage of the Vikings (35 days) on her in 2009. She was slated to return to service as the Renaissance next month, but while being worked on in Brest, France she broke away from the dock and hit a bridge. Now the cruises are delayed until May. It's a startup French cruise line that bought her as their only ship. I cruised the Konigsdam last May in Alaska. It was a noticeably worse experience. The ship was shabby and the crew didn't know their jobs. It was over an hour in Ketchikan for them to get the gangway set up. Heat went out one cold night and they told me a blanket was on the way. It arrived the next day after the heat was back on. Also for my convenience, the single supplement is now ALWAYS 100%. I looked at sailing a cruise on the new Rotterdam to Curacao, but an inside room was more than an MSC balcony. So they won't be seeing me aboard anytime soon. Also for the newer class of ships, you had better be on the 5th floor or higher or you will be pounded by music all evening. I priced that Bermuda sailing in September. It's higher than my 11 day cruise in April and it's only 6 days. If you want sticker shock take a look at the European cruises in June and July.

The September sailing might be under the current flash sale, many NY sailings are. HAL's Zaandam still goes all the way to Montreal, which I also love. I'm a 5 star Mariner on HAL but the idiot President they hired years ago (who had never been on a cruise ship) screwed up HAL. He was canned early during the pandemic, and is now ruining Azmara.

Bermuda is nice with pleasant weather. The Meraviglia will be doing those cruises later in the year from NYC. Their Caribbean itineraries don't look that good. The Canadian itineraries are also a bit lame, with no visits to Quebec. It looks like overnights at Ocean Cay are pretty much going away. 😞