CCJack

A couple thoughts. We took the Celebrity Apex on the Iceland / Ireland cruise. It was great. Apex is fantastic. Many people recommend a land tour over a cruise for Iceland. After cruising there (and having a great time) I do see the rational in that recommendation. In Iceland many of the interesting sites are inland. You spend quite a bit of time traveling by road inland, and the views from the ship are not nearly as spectacular as Norway, for example. One option is to consider Iceland for a future land based vacation. A Scandinavia cruise remains on my bucket list, so I cannot comment. You can't go wrong with either of your options. Have fun.

I can recommend floating-amsterdam as well. That is who we booked with. It was a great canal cruise.

agree canal cruise. I would recommend the smaller boat tours. There are several companies that offer a boat for about 10 or 12 people. Typically they have a bar (actually a cooler) with a server and then the captain does the live commentary. These are not the big long boats you will first see near the city center that have the many seats and headphones you plug into recording. You may need to research and prebook a small boat company at 2x the cost of a big boat but i think a much better experience. I have done both. Have fun.

At least for viking, our included tours were great. Typically a short walking tour of port city, then we could go back on our own to spend time in a particular area that interested us. That is typical but not always the case. Some might be a bus ride to a site outside the port city and thus a longer excursion. Be careful with private excursions and DIY as it is possible they could move the boat during the time you are off and s private tour would not know that. Typically they should be very clear about that before you leave in the morning however.

I believe we just hailed a taxi from a streetside downtown. I don't recall it being difficult to find one.... You could also ask the taxi driver on way to the museum where downtown is a taxi stand.

A good DIY hike in Juneau is take the tram up the mountain, then hike the trails at the top. Beautiful views, inexpensive. However i can also say that juneau (and ISP) are great whale watching ports. Not inexpensive, but our ISP whale watching was fantastic.

Agree, the wilderness tour increases chances of seeing wildlife. Plus, unlike other national parks Denali is not easy to experience on your own with just a couple hours. It is very vast. We did have a nice 1/2 day hike near our lodge but that was just outside of the park.

When we were on the joy last September you could reserve comedy shows, etc. after boarding. You pretty much needed a reservation as well, all shows were at capacity from what i could tell.

There are lots of threads on this topic... you can read the pros and cons for days..... Personally, I disagree that it is the way to go for Europe. I would be much more inclined to let someone (or a computer) chose my flights for a domestic trip than for an overseas trip. For a trans Atlantic trip, I would much rather pick my flights, seats, class and most importantly layover times.. No question, however, you can save some money. Good luck.

If time is not an issue, it is great to explore a new city on your own. However, in this case, time is an issue. I like the idea of a local, highly rated, private guide that spends all day with you. I have rarely regretted hiring a local guide in our travels. They will know all of the small things... best walking route between sites, time of the day when lines are shortest, when to walk vs. taxi or subway, where the restrooms are....etc. End result is a much more efficient day (not necessarily "hurried", but more efficient.) If this is the travelers only time in Rome, it would be money well spent.

all good advice.... Note that our cruiseline (Cunard) said nothing to us about FJord schedules, etc. I was the only person on deck at 5 am. It was likely the most beautiful part of the trip. Of course you sail out as well but the evening sail out could be worse (or better) due to weather, winds, sun, and of course dinner plans....

They would not let us use non-refundable OBC for Starbucks gift cards or Starbucks merchandise (mugs, etc.) You could use it for food or drinks from Starbucks (we were on the Joy in Sept 2023). I had similar non-refundable OBC that I had to spend. I ended up purchasing phone charger cables in the ship's store. Reasonably priced and you can never have too many charger cords!

You may want to download a marine navigation app on your phone.. Install the necessary sea maps before you leave. In that way you can track your ship real time on your trip. Note, sometimes I have to be on my balcony or near a window for the GPS to update. I have found that using these navigation apps makes the trip more interesting.

I can't add much, I have only been there once. However, for our stop (Celebrity cruise - only 1 ship in port) we had no wait for a taxi from port to downtown and also no wait for the return. I seem to remember a shuttle bus (not HOHO, and not city bus) that was also waiting at the port and there was no line. We could purchase tix for the shuttle bus on board the ship. Good luck.

Hard to say for sure, but it sounds reasonable. I typically say self disembark puts you off of the ship 1 hour after posted dock time. You are giving yourself 3 hours before the flight which sounds reasonable with some wiggle room for the unexpected.

I agree... I think we spent 2 1/2 hours there. I am sometimes skeptical of Titanic venues as they seem to be everywhere, however, this is a really nice museum. Gives you a good idea of what life was like in Belfast in the early 1900s - I almost think this is more of a Belfast museum than Titanic museum. We took taxi from ship to museum, then after the museum we walked downtown which was a pleasant walk.

correct, the statue is on the port side for the sail in and starboard for the sail out. Saguenay was our favorite stop of our cruise (next to embarkation at QC). The sail in and sail out of the fjord at Saguenay is very nice. We took the excursion to go hiking in the national park which was very nice as well. All that said the view of the statue from the ship was a bit underwhelming, not saying it was not an impressive construction, but from the middle of the fjord you are a ways away. Also for us, we passed the statue right at dinner time (however we were dining outside on starboard side coincidentally.) Enjoy your cruise, we really liked ours.....

I agree. Marseille and Majorca would be my votes to skip if you want / have to skip. I would skip Marseille 1st and Majorca next just because you can take a short walk off of the ship in Majorca and have a nice 1 hour walk if you just want to stretch your legs. Not so much in Marseille, it is a big city and you need some sort of excursion planning.

Ditto on the positive energy...... I wish you the best on your Norway cruise and hope you have a great time. My two cents worth of advice on a Norway cruise is this... if you are traveling down any long Fjords (such as ports Flam or Geiranger) do a little homework ahead of time and figure out about what time in the morning your ship will be entering the Fjord. It may be early like 4:30 am (it may be sunrise about this time) and the sail in could be several hours. On our cruise I was the only person on the deck at 5 am for over an hour before others showed up - it was really beautiful. Note that our ship told us nothing about fjord sail in schedules... Have fun....

Will you be seeing a glacier elsewhere on your cruise? If so, consider skipping Mendenhall. If not, probably worth seeing, but I think 90 min or 2 hours would be enough. We took the tram up to Mt. Roberts and then did hiking at the top of the mountain, a really inexpensive excursion with great views....

we were on a 9/13 cruise from QC to NYC last year. The temps on shore were really comfortable, but when the ship was moving, it was pretty cold. Hardly anyone on the ship's decks. I think the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Canadian Maritimes are a really beautiful part of N. America at any time, I think color change might add some to the experience, but not really a decision point for me... I remember seeing lots of evergreens! (However, we had no stops in Maine, or Mass we only had Canadian ports.) For me, this would come down to pre or post cruise plans and flight costs. I like to stay a couple nights pre cruise in the departure city rather than post cruise. In that way, you allow some cushion for lost luggage and delayed flights. Both Boston and QC would be great cities to explore. All else equal, I probably would go for the earlier option just for slightly warmer temps.

Can anyone make a recommendation on NCL excursions in Crete? It looks as if most either stay near Heraklion, or head west to Rethymno or east to Agios Nikolaos..

Yes, I booked our 9/1 cruise last October and check a couple times a week and there has never been any excursions listed for Kusadasi, or the classical Istanbul. Lots of NCL excursions for Rhodes but not the religious history... I am wondering if they change the names sometimes. I think the NCL website and excursion booking is not NCL's strength. There are lots of inconsistencies it seems. However, I have to give them credit for such value pricing for children on the Rhodes Kayak Adventure.

gogenova tours . Sandra was a wonderful tour guide, we had our teenage kids along and she was great with keeping everyone interested. We used public transportation but with a local along, it goes much faster and stress free.

thanks this is helpful. Can you tell me in Istanbul, was the NCL excursion on a bus or walking with a guide (and using trams, etc.)