tetleytea

I'm sure cancelling the shows has more to do with the cast than it does the audience.

Didn't. Just quoted you. You mentioned private [independent] excursions, and Norwegian is moving the port days around.

My first time cruising Alaska (and if I cruise again I will be in the double digits), I attended the shopping presentations on the cruise ship. Free giveaways and such. The "Shopping Consultant" gave out these port scavenger hunts, where you would go to all these shops in port and have your passport shopping books stamped. And then you got some free swag thing. Well anyway whatever ship you're sailing, your shopping presentation on board will probably have some sort of marketing thing to incentivize you with free stuff to go out and explore all the shops. For my first time to the Alaska cruise ports, that was fine for me. Ketchikan clearly was the best shopping port (and the best port for taking a free walking tour). My second time to Alaska, that strategy wasn't going to cut it. I had to book some excursions. But let me tell ya, if they were playing Princess Price Is Right on the ship, I would have won.

Six is just now closing?

If Norwegian and the city of Valdez are still not talking, I can speculate that maybe the reason is a national security issue. Or that the city and the cruise line can't see eye-to-eye on something, but I just don't see that causing an abrupt change in the middle of the season.

What about the existing independently booked excursions to the other ports (e.g. Skagway, ISP, Sitka) that are.now.being visited on different dates? Are those people just screwed? "They should have taken advantage of Free At Sea and gotten $50 off when booking through NCL"? I can't imagine how screwed I would have been if I had actually booked this.

And guess who will not be on the ship with you now, now that I know about this cancellation. I hadn't booked the July 5th sailing just yet.

If it makes you feel better, based on this thread I just changed my mind about booking Norwegian's July 5th cruise. They may be allowed to change it in the cruise contract, but I am not under contract, and I heard about them doing that to somebody else.

Totem Bight over Saxman. And I'm pretty sure Potlatch and Totem Bight are basically the same.

I would say Alaska is almost always worth another cruise, but not solely for Glacier Bay.

I assume this is the one at Caribou. I remember literally being there (I drove up, before all the crowds made it there) and being offered the ride on the spot. They didn't ask if I was on a ship, nothing. $149 sounds about right. I declined because I have done dogsledding as a full-day trip in the winter before. I certainly don't recommend doing what I did, because the only reason the tour was available was because it wasn't even 10am yet.

Words to live by: if you can't see the top of Mount Roberts, you can't see the ground from the top of Mount Roberts, either.

Norwegian. I've sailed them, Norwegian is the best for kids.

So sorry for this heartbreaking turn of events.

This conversation about noise and kids reminds me, this is one area where I have evolved as a human being. I was a peace & quiet guy, but I married a woman who's at home with utter chaos. She won. I still need quiet if I'm studying--e.g. if I'm studying mathematical modelling of physical behaviors, I can't do the noise--but I've come to appreciate what I would categorize as happy sounds. The squirrels and birds outside fighting over the bird feeder. The dogs trying to feed on the squirrels. The kids discussing how to beat the Nintendo. And now, unfortunately, I'm dealing with all the sounds inside a nursing home, and they're not so good. I've had hard times in my life where my business duties or marital situation meant that I came home to a dark house. The dog's not barking because...well...the dog's no longer with us. The kids and the instruments are happy noises. And I'm usually not particularly trying to focus on anything on the ship (unless I'm actually the contestant on one of the cruise director's game shows). I can deal. The sadness comes when the covid comes and the noises are NOT there.

The English teacher didn't even realize what she said until us Jr. High boys with Beavis & BHead minds started laughing.

It happened.

I just know when a bunch of us junior high boys asked what that comma was on the board, and the English teacher said it was just a running period, none of us learned any more English for the rest of that class.

No, not teetotalers. 4 drinks a day to come out ahead, every day, including on port days when you're barely even there. They're counting on you not doing the math, even when you are sober. $20 pp/per day is not too bad (assuming both cabin mates drink), but that is just gratuities (as in, thanks, you did a good job pouring that drink. Here's $20). Whether it's with Pepsi products or alcoholic, the wise move is to divide what you would be paying by the price per drink, and then divide again by the number of days on your cruise. Elsewhere on this board, someone was looking at paying $1920 for a drink package, which is just completely ridiculous. I happened to not pay anything at all for Free At Sea--not even gratuities--because of my stateroom category, so I used it to get virgin drinks and 1 or 2 Pepsis. Dividing 0 by anything is a pretty good deal, so I took it. If you want to drink stuff, go ahead, but when you factor in port days chances are you are probably better off just paying by the drink, and not the package. Loading up on carbonated drinks just to come out ahead on the soda package is not the best health move. Cruise lines are already infamous for loading up on the buffet lines as it is.

Not only do I want my neighbors bringing the instruments, but they need to go to the talent shows, karaokes, and open mikes with it. Even sit in with the house bands.

That's no-brainer. RCL is the better cruise line.

The bus trips are usually all-day, whereas the flight is over in 90 minutes. While the flight is good, you still have the rest of the day to plan (and pay) for. Fortunately, you can:. the flights are not really from out of Denali--they are out of Talkeetna. Talkeetna has its own small set of stuff to do. Museums, rafting, $20 individual pizzas....

I'm a bit confused, since the OP title "visit Alaska on a budget" doesn't jibe with "take a tour flight over Denali". When I flew Denali from Talkeetna and landed on Ruth Glacier, I used a Toursaver coupon, which singlehandedly paid for the whole book. But gas wasn't $4 a gallon at the time, either.

This doesn't sound so much like a can't-get-OBC-back problem as it is a business-office-not-getting-it-done problem and a why-am-I-on-hold-90-minutes problem. That's Princess for you as of late, regardless of what your original problem was. Don't be afraid to shop other cruise lines.

Bering Sea Crab is definitely understandable if that's your favorite. The reason i like it was because of the photo shots of eagles swooping in salmon that you got to take (had nothing to do with sea crab, ironically enough), My favorite was driving some Zodiacs out of Ward Cove, and the reason was because we found ourselves right on top of a pod of orcas. Their dorsal fins were higher than we were.