peety3

What about getting the case of water before your ride arrives?

...and hopefully see the maitre d when we board and try to lock in the same table each night at 6:30.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that what you want will not be possible. Almost every Princess ship will not do Anytime reservations between (approximately) 5:30 and 7:30. This is the time when they're at the absolute limit (and beyond) for ATD capacity, and can't justify holding a table open for a reservation when there's a long line of people waiting for ATD tables. It's far more effective for them to seat every table ASAP and hence turn every table ASAP, so the reservations are available at times when they can be assured of having tables available.

We did an "Alaska Sampler" in 2015 and that was a four-night cruise that started in April and ended in May. We only stopped at Ketchikan, and the town was truly just "waking up" that day. Half the shops were closed, and those that were open were only at 50% inventory/staff/etc.

Take a look at the link in my signature, and check out the page for our 2010 cruise. In that page, there's a link to the Flickr gallery, and on page 2 you'll see my photos from walking around the glacier. I didn't find it moderately strenuous nor far of a walk. I think it's more that you've got to be alert, moreso than on a trail hike, and you may have to navigate around surface clutter and some boulders.

You'd also have to look at all the different ways that the ship is offered. For example, in Alaska some sailings have "cruisetours" (land+sea) available, and Princess' booking system requires that they allocate some cabins to the cruisetour, which are then not available to the cruise. Hence if the cruisetour doesn't sell well but the cruise itself fills up, you'd think it was full but you'd have to also try a mock booking on the cruisetour to get the full picture. I'm sure Princess moves cabins around between the different "things", so it's a moving target.

There's more then that. The wait time is supposed to be non existent and there's always an extra dish served for lunch and dinner (don't know about breakfast since I go to Sabitini's). The service is superior and the waiter has only a few tables and the tables are mostly two tops and a few 4 tops and one six top on my last sailing.

Sure, but from a physical changes perspective, it was zero construction, and minor staffing changes (2-4 extra headcount: dedicated hostess/host, possibly a dedicated Headwaiter, and maybe 1-2 extra servers compared to the staffing levels of the space prior to CC.

The "magic" is that Princess has "always" been limited by the fact that most ships have three dining rooms. With two traditional services per night, they could only choose 0, 1, 2, or 3 dining rooms for TD, and hence 3, 2, 1, or 0 dining rooms for ATD. Obviously the 0s and 3s won't fly, so now it's a game of 1s and 2s, and they've classically done 2 TD rooms early (with only 1 ATD room during the early TD hours), switching to 1 TD room late (transitioning one room from TD to ATD around 7:30). By creating CC, and putting it into the room that switches from TD to ATD around 7:30, they can make it more like 1.8 rooms for TD and 1.2 rooms for ATD during early service (as CC is a category of ATD) and 1 for TD and 2 for ATD during late.

Last time we asked, we were told it was "handed out" by the wait staff to prevent cross-contamination between unrelated cruisers. I suspect families that occupy an entire table (i.e. TD, where they have time to ascertain that it's one family) get the butter dish dropped off; we had a two-top so butter was ready when we got there.

We've done five tours with Gastineau Guiding, and they offer a $100 cash guarantee if you don't see a whale. They have 9 boats, last I heard, and have been in business 15 years, last I heard. They've never issued a single dollar in guarantee payouts. You'll see whales.

Think of Lightroom as what you use for your vacation photos between taking them and sharing them: don't take 500 and share 500, take 500 and share 45 of the best and/or that tell a story. Use Lightroom as a "workflow tool" to get you from 500 originals to 45 shiny images. You can use a 5-star rating system to rank your images, and leverage that to get down to 45 without having to agonize over it. Not only can you edit the photos, but you can also copy the edits you did on one image and apply them to multiple others, so if you had some settings wrong (wrong white balance, accidental exposure shift, etc.), you can fix one and then copy/apply that to the others in that series. That said, expect Lightroom to have limited tools for getting rid of a tree branch or similar; it's more for cropping and enhancing than outright editing.

Think of Photoshop as a swiss army knife you call in when Lightroom isn't enough for your needs. Photoshop can really be a pixel-level tool if you desire, though it can do darn near everything you want, somehow.

I've heard it said that with Lightroom, you can turn a good picture into a great picture. With Photoshop, you can turn a good picture into a different picture. :)

It all comes down to what we are using the cameras for...I am a now retired photo-journalist turned event and sports photographer. When I retired 3 years ago I sold off my long glass and lights and my 1D bodies, bought a 5D Mark III and I love it. I shoot RAW, I get these 60+MP images that I can pretty much do anything I want with. If I was still working, it would be 1DX II bodies but for personal use, I am very happy where I am.

We've got two 1Dx, a 5DsR, a 5D4, and a 5D3. Honestly, the 1Dx line is losing its luster for me. The resolution is weak compared to just about everything else in the single-digit product line. The high ISO performance is quite good, but so is the 5D4. The AF is amazing, but so is the 5DsR and the 5D4. I want another 5DsR as a backup for my studio work (the 5D4 is a great backup but I'd really prefer to have a matching backup). After that, I can see another 5D4 to pair up the one we have.

I wouldn't expect much. They're frequently rather vague and targeted at the people who bought a camera for the sake of their cruise, probably just took it out of the box before boarding, and left the manual at home.

I am a mad freak when it comes to photography on a cruise. I'm "that guy" with three cameras and four lenses who gets asked "Are you shooting for NatGeo or BBC?" all day long. When we did the Bering Sea Crab Fishermen's Tour in Ketchikan last September and sat in opposing areas of the boat, the captain said to her "I think that guy up there has you outgunned" to which she replied "It's OK, that's my husband". All of that is to say that shooting in RAW up to 50MP and hence 65MB, coming home with 10-15,000 images, our biggest day was 157GB for the two of us, and that was a day that included a small-boat tour of Tracy Arm Fjord and a whale watch in Juneau. Solo, single camera, and JPEG you're probably fine with two 16 or 32GB cards for any given day and probably 4-5 of said cards for an entire week.

Battery-wise, our big "sports" cameras have big batteries, and I've NEVER drained a battery in a day of Alaska shooting, so I lug a spare around for the fun of it. Our other cameras almost all have vertical grips which hold two of the "smaller" batteries, and I've never gotten any of those below 50%, so in theory those would have been fine with just one battery. Nonetheless, I carry two spares of that size all the time. Mostly the spares are there if a battery should decide to malfunction or fail. I'd much rather go back to the ship with no pictures because my main AND backup battery failed (even if there were more spares in my cabin) than if I left all the spares in the cabin and my one and only battery gave up at that moment.

I've slept on the couch many a time to escape my wife's snoring. With enough motivation (and her snoring can certainly provide it), an adult can certainly sleep on that couch as-is with little more than a blanket (or something that passes as a blanket) and some of the pillows on the couch...

The Platinum Studio does not take formal photographs.

What you're trying to say: on formal night, every "station" where photos are being taken is staffed by one of the ship's photographers, i.e. not the Platinum Studio photographer.

What I'm thinking needs to be said for clarity: if you book a Platinum Studio session on formal day and you've already gotten all done up, they're going to be taking formal photos of you, albeit in the same style as if you showed up any other day in any other outfit. For that matter, you could put on your formal wear any other night and go for a Platinum Studio session.

It's all semantics, but I think the clarity is worth pointing out.

I have not done that tour, but have done two private photo tours with the company that operates that tour and both were FANTASTIC. The tour guide we had last time had done the tour you're asking about in the morning before doing our private tour, and he would have been fantastic on the group tour as well. Truly, every photo guide at that company seems to be excellent at what they do.

Take a look at http://www.joeordonez.com for what they offer. They don't list a private Skagway tour, but will do it on request. We did their Haines tour in 2015 and hit the jackpot with great landscapes, eagles, and bears.

Disclaimer: I'm a semi-professional photographer, recently opened a studio that will become my full-time career by 2020.

The Platinum Studio is an excellent experience and worth the price. Photography is an expensive craft to pursue, and it takes so much more than a GWC (guy/gal with camera). So many photographers are "specialists" with natural light, and it takes a lot to master the use of up to five lights as they usually provision in the Platinum Studio. If I remember correctly, there's no sitting fee, so you pay for the session in the print results. I think you can also add on digital downloads at certain price points, so you can more easily share online. We've always spent $600-1200 when we've done the Platinum Studio, and always been thrilled with the results.

The photography package, or photos a la carte via "the ship's photographers", are nowhere near the caliber of what you can get in the Platinum Studio. Posing is rapid-fire, shots are primitive at best, and they're (to me) just good as memories, not keepsakes. I applaud the ship's photographers for grinding it out day after day and cruise after cruise, but the caliber of work just isn't there. I've also found that color is unpredictable with the ship's printing equipment, frequently pink or otherwise off-kilter.

Amazon had a great price on the 5dS too a day or so ago, worth checking.

I just opened a photography studio two weeks ago, so the budget is relatively tight to jump on a hot deal (for what is still a $3k purchase), but I gotta tell you, the R version makes all the difference in the world for its clarity. It's a 5DsR or a "regular" 5D (mark whatever) for me.

We've had CC available to us twice while sailing in a full suite, and never when sailing in a mini-suite. We're good friends with one of the Maitre' D Hotels so we often get an amazing table by the window in TD, so we stick to TD to KNOW that we'll get "our" table every time. We also take advantage of the suite-specific breakfast in Crown Grill. That leaves at-sea lunches and disembarkation breakfast to CC, and it's nice, but my impression is that it's better than ATD but not as amazing as true TD.

Would I choose CC? I think the only reason I'd go for CC is if we decide on a cruise somewhat "last minute" (which is still typically 2-4 months out for us) and the only mini-suites available were CC. (We are avid photographers, and tend to cruise with a LOT of camera gear, so the extra space of a mini-suite over a balcony is essential for our cruising experience.) That said, we're slowly shifting our travel habits to full suites, so I think we'll stick with TD and enjoy CC for a few of the meals along the way.

Yeah, I'd expect a refresh of the 5Ds/5DsR in late 2018 or sometime in 2019 before Canon circles back to the 5D Mark V. (I'm also hoping for a refresh of the 5DsR....)

Amongst other comments about revenue, etc., Princess most likely calculates the theater size based on the muster needs for the ship. Some ships only use facilities on the promenade deck for muster, others also use facilities one deck lower. Nonetheless, they need to have sufficient capacity for muster, and I suspect the theater isn't any larger than what's needed for muster when balanced with the other resources on that deck.

What's in red is the truth. I wouldn't say yes to any of them if I were sick. No way! Why would I risk being sequestered to my cabin after spending thousands of dollars getting to the ship. I always thought that people with noro got on board with it. DH and I have never been sick boarding a cruise ship, however, this last cruise we both caught a cold 2 days before debarkation.

If you think people with noro got on board with it, why do you think they work so hard to do a deep cleaning?

If you're sick, you run the risk of it getting worse and needing medical attention, possibly even a medical evacuation and/or a diversion to accommodate a medical evacuation. If it impacts the itinerary, the cruise line will be expected to provide compensation to other passengers, and they potentially miss out on excursion revenue. If you arrive sick and don't declare it, and in turn trigger such a diversion, you're going to be on the hook for all of those costs that the cruise line incurs.

Also, the 18-135 is an EF-S lens and won't work on a 5D. Essentially, look at a photo of the lens' mount: if you see a white square, you need a camera with a white square on its lens mount (which doesn't exist on a 5D). If you see a red dot, that'll work on any EOS SLR/DSLR.

We've had C749 twice on the Ruby (aft penthouse, I think) and LOVED it. That said, I think I'd be in big trouble with DW if I picked an aft cabin for Alaska: too much that we're used to seeing while enroute. And, given how wonderful the aft suite balconies are, I think I'd cry if I had a side-facing Riviera suite. So, if you're set on a suite for Alaska (jealous!), I'm really torn on what to tell you.

Looking at the Itinerary for Explorer, it appears they are cruising Tracy Arm Fjord on the way back to Seattle and not on the same day they are in Juneau. The smaller boat trips are usually offered when cruising North and have a brief stop to transfer from the ship, then you meet up with the ship in Juneau later. Is it possible the excursion is not offered for this reason? It is also possible it is sold out, which happens often.

Agreed. The logistics of the ship-offered tour are almost always dependent on the Juneau stop, as it decouples the timing of the small boat from the cruise ship, and that matters to the overall timetable and value proposition of the small boat tour.

If you have a long day with early morning in Juneau, you could take advantage of a round-trip TAF tour from Juneau, but that probably precludes any other excursions in Juneau.

Disclaimer: we have a lot of lenses, and we're more than willing to rent for a cruise.

Given the choice between 70-200/2.8, 70-200/4 (i.e. half the weight), 70-300, or 100-400, it'd be 100-400 every time, hands down. The only exception would be if I were going to rent the 600, in which case I might switch to the 70-300 instead, but definitely not the 70-200/2.8 and only a slim chance I'd consider the 70-200/4. f/2.8 is nice, but IMHO you're never close enough to take advantage of it, and therefore reach trumps DoF.