tetleytea

If all 7 days were at sea days, I would be more apt to agree. What I like is that you can track it on stateroom TV. I'll bet on full port days, they would consume 1.

Pretty much, everybody shows up whenever. But also the cruise lines have really tight schedules they go by, too, and those embarkation times have nothing to do with it. On Caribbean, we were facing a tropical storm, and that pretty much threw everyone's plans to the wind.

On the Caribbean Princess, in the Caribbean, this year, the laundry token machines were either broken or simply didn't give out tokens. Quick visit to guest services, and we got all the tokens we wanted for free. Bigger problem was finding an open washer/dryer. We figured out if you do laundry on Day 1, the laundry room is wide open. But who wants to do laundry on Day 1? People on a back-to-back, that's who!

You'll be fine.

My cabin has always been ready upon boarding on Princess.

The worst badness I've seen from bringing food to your cabin is that people will feed the seagulls in port from off the balcony. Although I would be lying if I said that wasn't fun. Bad, but fun. But bad.

You guys railing on Pepsi so much is making me want to do a bank heist on Coca Cola's secret recipe.

That was my guess, too. Divide $84 by 3, that's 28 cokes (or pepsis) before you start to come out ahead on the soda package. 4 cokes a day. 5, before the package really starts to make sense. Seems like 90% of the parents are really better off just letting their kids buy Cokes a la carte.

How much is a soda a la carte?

I wondered about this. It seems to me the most last-minute openings would occur as a result of covid testing, within 48 hours.

Absolutely. That's when the wildlife likes to come out. And wildlife is a lot of what ISP is all about.

My sailing had the last shuttle to the ship departing at 11, 12:30 all aboard time, and 1pm departure.

What's the situation with the Bed & Breakfasts?

Not sure what this is all about. Global warming is impacting the poles at twice the intensity as near the equator, and it's melting the Alaskan glaciers. A lot of us are heading to Alaska while the glaciers are still there. Is this not already well-known information?

The Klondike highway drive is spectacular until you get a little past Carcross. Once you pass Emerald Lake, the drive on to Whitehorse is a little bleh.

We dined Ocean Blue, waterfront, but on the Bliss. We were in Alaska, so pretty much the weather dictated our dress code. Wind was not an issue at all, because I deliberately booked a time when the Bliss was doing a scenic sailing (the ship moves very slowly on scenic sailings), but I suspect wind would not have been that bad anyway, because there were these solid screens on that deck which broke the wind. Next time I make a reservation there, I'm going to be looking for a time in the itinerary when I reasonably expect to see land starboard side (since that is what side Ocean Blue was on).

I read back and saw the OP was offered a 100% refund plus the same amount in FCC and airfare. If that's the case, it sounds to me like NCL made both a reasonable business decision and treated the existing people booked fairly.

Like I said before, the reason they can't find staff is because they don't want to pay them more. We're seeing the same issue all the time with "we can't find enough public school teachers, the armed forces can't meet their recruiting targets....". Yes, they can.

Absolutely, that shuttle into town is an issue. You might want to do what I did, and find an excursion operator willing to drop you off at Ward Cove (only I did that day-of; not a reservation). Ward Cove should have a couple of kayaking and Zodiac excursions, where you launch your boat specifically out of Ward Cove.

Thing is, people had already booked the cruise. The people who already booked the cruise need to be treated fairly. Lest there be any myth that NCL had no choice--yes, they did.

What on earth are you talking about this time? There is no "projection". People play and get comps. And where are you getting this idea that I'm just jealous because I didn't get to book a cruise at 3X the market price? By your own admission, you have no "special strategy to beat the odds". No one's exactly holding a gun to your head to say anything, either.

Of course they would. But let's not kid ourselves: they are not cancelling the cruise because they can't sail. They could. They're cancelling the cruise because they don't want to.

It's really more like 30 minutes from town, and normally one could walk to town if the weather's good. There is even a cool waterfall along the way. I estimate the walk is like 45 minutes--not much longer than the drive (it's just a question of working out your calves vs. working out the rental car's shocks). And once you get into town, one of the first places you will cross by is the Alaska Marine Wildlife Center. If the availability's not there, then that kind of defeats the purpose. I like it there, but it's not for everybody (especially the older cruise demographic).

Honestly...yeah. I'd regret the upgrade. I see no need for a large balcony when you're sailing solo. Or even as a couple, for that matter. Starts to make more sense at 3.

As any person who is being honest with themselves should know, your break-even point is the moment right before you first start playing.