Heidi13

If you want to ask one of the Stewards a question regarding the ship's operation, best one to ask is the "Captain's Tiger", not a regular cabin steward.

Since that information is posted on the Bridge, my bet is also with the Captain and any of the Deck Officers. It is also updated, when pax are disembarked for medical, or other reasons.

Doesn't hurt to ask Viking the question, but I expect it is unlikely. Another possible option is to book additional optional shore-ex and then cancel them once onboard. Hopefully, they will refund the credits to your onboard account, which could be used onboard.

We normally book the 2 inside seats, which are connecting. Except for 1 flight, all our business flights with this configuration had a partition that can be raised or lowered. Unfortunately, I can't remember which airline/aircraft didn't have the partition. With the partition down we can chat easily.

Personally, I consider the trains on an even par with the airlines and ferries, where the staff are well paid, as they also have safety related components to their jobs. Unlike a restaurant where leaving a tip is the norm, I would only provide a tip to any staff member that really excelled in providing us with exceptional service.

See my response in post #2. Last time we sailed these waters in January was 2020 and we experienced the outer edges of 2 TRS, with winds of 70 kts+

Best guess is that it is a standard feature included with the forum software that the admins have not activated.

All the upper deck lighting these days is to satisfy the lawyers and risk assessors. The lighting on cruise ships is actually counter-productive for other ships at sea, as it can mask the important navigation lights - masthead light(s), sidelights and stern light. The light pollution lets other ships know something is there, but the navigation lights provide important information on type of vessel, whether it is making way, direction of travel and whether it is crossing/overtaking, etc. The information gained from the Navigation Lights is used to comply with the Collision Regulations, when taking avoiding action.

Just checked some of my photos and it looks like 5009 is about 2 cabins aft of the bridge wing and 1 deck lower. The bridge wing will block some of the stars at night, but you should see all the horizon on the stbd side.

Even with the light pollution from cruise ships, you will see plenty stars on a clear night, but if you live in a rural area, you may have better views at home. Scope out the upper decks at night to find a spot with the least light.

It depends on how many ships are in port that day. I recall previous visits with 2 or more ships at anchor in Juneau.

Same on commercial ships, I recall our son telling me prior to his first sea phase that he would get a full day and another 1/2 day off each week. He also had the misconception that ships had back-ups to the back-ups, so couldn't conceive how a ship could black out, or all navigation aids fail. Sadly, this is what they were taught in college, but he quickly learned reality, once he had completed a couple of sea phases. Also recall getting a young officer right out of college, who proudly advised, "Captain, you can cover up the windows and I can navigate dock to dock." My response was welcome to sea, here you learn to navigate by looking out the windows without any electronics. Once you are proficient looking out the windows, we can introduce electronic aids. He didn't have a good day.😁

That's the reason we only spent 6 months at college learning to pass the exams, but 2 to 3 years at sea, as a cadet, learning how to do the job. Yes, we learned the theory of celestial navigation at college, but how to use a sextant proficiently while at sea. You just can't experience and learn how to manage all the challenges of celestial navigation in a classroom.

I'm surprised that you didn't have at least a LORAN system, as we had a Decca system on most of the ships, even the couple of cargo ships I sailed on. On SS Oriana, we had one of the first SatNavs on commercial ships, but at the time it was the equivalent of a mainframe computer, requiring a computer ticker tape to turn it on and program it. As a cadet, we could look at it, but not touch. We only got to use the sextants and the Decca/RDF when in coastal waters.

A very pleasant river front pub. Haven't eaten there, but have enjoyed a few pints. Well worth the walk along the river from the Cutty Sark.

I did 2MFG at South Shields: -- Sept to December 1976, stayed in Flag House, which was a college house across the street - April to July 1978, stayed in Winterbottom Hall

We covered Long by Chron at South Shields, but on both General Cargo & Pax Division, all the officers used MSH. Never did try out long/chron at sea.

On our preferred cruise line, the 2023 prices are the same as 2022

I believe it is only available in N/America & Europe, at this time.

Jim, I recently read the new Carnival ship took a full load for a cruise in about 6 hrs, at a rate of 1,000 m3 per hour.

I learned the old-fashioned way with Norrie's Nautical Tables and never did move to sight reductions tables, or navigation calculators. When I did my Masters in Vancouver, I was the only one with significant deep-sea time, who had lots of sights practice. The others were all discussing the pros/cons of various formula, but I could calculate sights faster with Norries, the Almanac and my pro-forma worksheet. Sadly, our son with about 15 yrs at sea, has never had to use a sextant in earnest.

Getting accuracy of 1/4 miles takes some luck, as well as skill. As MBP&O2/O explained on cargo ships they normally took a morning sight once the sun had a reasonable altitude to reduce errors and then crossed it with the Latitude from Meridian Altitude. This only had 2 position lines, so where they crossed was the position. With the multiple position lines of the cruise ship method, the position lines never crossed at exactly the same spot, giving what is known as a "Cocked Hat". The cocked hat would invariably be greater than 1/4 mile spread, so the Navigator picked a spot for the position somewhere within the cocked hat. On a good day we got within 1 mile and thought we did well. The conditions also greatly impacted the accuracy.

On the cruise ships we needed to know our Noon position before Noon, so the Captain could provide the position and distance/speed travelled. Therefore, our AM sights really were a running fix. Even on a really good day, we were only with 1 to 2 miles of the SatNav's position.

I always tendered in Sitka, but they now have a terminal capable of handling up to 2 cruise ships. Only the largest ships need to anchor these days.

Using the sextant is the easy part, determining a position from the altitude is the part we learned over 3 years, back when we were cadets. Unless planning to use a navigation calculator, you will also need Norrie's tables, Nautical Almanac, an estimated position, a corrected chronometer, plotting sheet, charting tools, ability to determine MerAlt and the azimuth. Our pre-GPS Noon procedure on cruise ships: - Calculate time of Mer Alt - Calculate estimated position (EP) for Noon - Planning to take sights at 08:30, 09:00, 09:30, 10:00 and if required 10:30, we calculated EP's for each of those times. We pre-worked most of the calculations. - Using a spotter, just prior to each sight, we brought the sun down to the horizon with the sextant, holding it at the horizon. The spotter provided a countdown and at the precise time, we recorded the altitude and azimuth - The resulting position line and intercept were drawn on the plotting sheet - Additional sights were taken as planned, calculated and the PL & intercept were drawn on the plotting sheet. - We usually aimed to have Mer Alt before ship Noon to get the Latitude. If before Noon, we drew that on the plotting sheet and determined the Noon position from the "Cocked Hat". The daily run and info provided at Noon was then calculated. - If Mer Alt was after ship Noon, we had sufficient sights and provided the cocked hat was fairly tight, we got a reasonable Noon position. For star sights, we used 6 stars and pre-calculated the approximate altitude and azimulth. The stars were found by setting the sextant and looking along the azimuth until we found the star. Brightest/dimmest stars were used first or last depending on sunrise/sunset. All results again drawn on a plotting sheet and the position determined from the cocked hat. Good luck