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I’m hoping to get some wildlife pics and the zoom on a phone is never going to match the reach of a telephoto lens. I don’t usually bring the high end kit with me on vacation but for Alaska I’m hoping it will be worth the effort.

Accommodation in Ireland has gotten ever more expensive and reduced capacity due to a massive shortage of housing for residents and refugees here as well as the ongoing staff shortages in the hospitality industry. That itinerary definitely gives you a great taste of all aspects of Ireland. Killybegs is well out in the wilds of county Donegal so the excursions there include more natural landscapes explorations. My mother is from Donegal and we always visited Glenveagh park and castle, keep an eye out for the wild deer if you go there. Belfast - Titanic or Giants Causeway are the top 2 attractions in Northern Ireland, you may be able to find some Game of Thrones tours independently if NCL don’t offer them. I see Derry city is listed as an excursion option, if you’ve seen the Derry Girls on Netflix you’ll see some familiar sights but it is a few hours bus drive from Belfast. If you like Irish whiskey then check into visiting the Bushmills distillery. Dingle - stay around the village, or go see Killarney and the ring of Kerry scenic drive, also close to the Skelligs which were used as a filming location in the latest Star Wars trilogy (Luke’s island). Dingle is an Irish-speaking area so you may hear the locals speaking Gaelic and it won’t be the same Gaelic as you might encounter in Donegal or over in Northern Ireland. There are 4 dialects of Gaelic, 3 look the same when written - Munster, Connemara and Leinster, and then Ulster/Donegal uses a much older version of Gaelic with appropriately different spellings. Galway - if you venture west of the city you’re heading into Connemara, another Irish speaking area. The city itself is very much into the arts with a few venues and galleries with lots of tourists and students populating the place. You may be offered a cliffs of moher, Burren or ailwee caves excursion, this my home turf. The visitor Center at the cliffs is on land donated by a distant relative many years ago. The Burren is a unique landscape that at first glance looks like bare rock but is so much more, there are structures in the Burren that pre-date the pyramids in Egypt. Ailwee cave has evolved it’s offering in recent years, they now have a birds of prey centre and a local food emporium. I’ve a few wedges of their cheese in my fridge right now. Waterford is located in the south eastern corner of Ireland and one of the oldest cities in the country. It’s a nice city to walk around but it’s pretty small, Waterford crystal is the main tourist attraction while there’s plenty of other areas around the the region to visit. Tramore has a lovely long beach and has the main population of surfers on the south coast. Cobh has it’s own small titanic museum, and is a picturesque hilly seaside town. The main attractions around there will be Blarney Castle and gardens, the Jameson Distillery or go into Cork city and check out the English Market.

Wish I could pack that lightly but my carry-on will be fully loaded with camera kit for Alaska so checked bag will be a necessity.

The only reason Killybegs can have a cruise ship doc is that it’s the home port for some very large fishing factory ships. Belfast and Cobh have their Titanic legacies. Cobh could get changed to the commercial/industrial dock across the bay, they’re still working on the second cruise dock at Cobh to allow a second ship to dock. Dun Laoighaire is a bit controversial, there were plans to build a cruise dock but the locals objected strenuously, it’s one of the richer areas of Dublin so they won the argument (so far). But there is a direct rail link into the city on the DART so getting into Dublin City is easy enough. Galway, the harbour is smack in the city so has limited space to expand their space. Btw the traffic in Galway is horrific so I’d be careful about any excursions, stick with NCL for anything going outside the city. I am surprised about Waterford though as that is on a river estuary and has a lifting bridge so should be capable of docking a ship the size of Star. Dingle is a dinky fishing village that has no reason to have a pier of the size required for a cruise ship. I wouldn’t be too worried about tendering from a ship the size of Star as the number of guests is significantly lower than would be the case on Breakaway/+ class ships. I experienced tendering on one of the big ships and I will endeavour to avoid it in the future. I actually spotted a National Geographic cruise ship tendering to the pier in my home village a couple of years ago. Highly unusual as the harbour is very tidal and even goes dry on some low tides. But it’s also the closest village to the Cliffs of Moher as well as the birthplace of the inventor of the modern submarine.

I think they open for lunch on sea days as well as the dinner hours.

Watch out for baggage allowance, I’d hope NCL include a checked bag but there are an increasing number of transatlantic airlines that don’t include baggage on their cheapest fares. I’m flying to Seattle via Boston from Ireland in October and also booked for a friend who was astonished at how much baggage we’re allowed. NCL are unlikely to use Ryanair or EasyJet in Europe as those airlines do not allow luggage checked through to connecting flights. But you may want to check on their schedules as fallback options in case of delays if you’ve a connection in Europe.

From memory it used to be a sailing at least 6 months out. I’ve only ever managed to get the double up once and that was shortly after the resumption when they were trying every promo possible to get folks back cruising. I usually book a studio and they are very rarely eligible for the double up coupons or even double points promos.

They don’t always sell the one day passes, it depends on the number of full week passes that have sold and how busy the ship it.

Traditionally a fleece was made of sheep’s wool, these days they’re synthetic made from recycled plastics. You can get them in all sorts of weights and styles from super light layers to big chunky styles. Here are a few women’s styles we have in the shop right now. The first one is water resistant, the second feels like velvet, the third is a light layer and the fourth is a light full zip, there’s a huge variety these days. The 3 in 1 jackets from the north face or Columbia can have a full zip fleece as the detachable inner layer or a puffer jacket inner layer depending on the style. I’m bringing a Columbia one with a fleece inner with me for Alaska.

Oh they’re an essential part of my wardrobe in the west of Ireland too. My mother and I run a surf shop so we sell a lot of them every winter. A couple of the companies even do water resistant versions, look for DWR listed in the product features.

Oh they were flying out from the moment the stock arrived in September whereas winter 21/22 was ridiculously mild here , I didn’t go near a fleece until March ‘22, but this winter the weather turned rotten in October and got to freezing by the end of November. It’s the longest our sea temperatures have been below 10C (50F) for years, back in the 90s our sea temperatures regularly went down to 6C (42.8F) but from about the mid 00s it hasn’t gotten that low for any extended time.

Their boats are bigger so wouldn’t be as likely cancel if it looks like heavy seas. I’m hoping the area the boats go to is reasonably sheltered and extreme weather holds off so I can stick with Gastineau. I’m used to very exposed coastal conditions, the waves were hitting my shop today without any weather warning in place so I’m not as good at predicting inlet areas or a place like the inside passage,

Had a few Californians in the shop this week .. we’ve had fairly wild weather the last few days. They all seemed to have hooded puffer jackets with varying levels of success in surviving the elements. A few were investing in hoodies or fleeces to give them some extra insulation.

That’s run by Gastineau guiding and at the moment it’s the one I’m probably going to book via NCL for October but I will be keeping a close eye on the weather models in the couple of weeks prior to the cruise date in case I need to switch to Allen Marine’s Whale watching & wildlife quest. There are far, far fewer options available in October.

For my first cruise I flew in 2 days early as it was a transatlantic flight and my first time in Miami. There was another Irish first time cruiser and he had booked to fly in the day before the cruise but had flight delays that meant he missed his original connection to Miami and only got to the city about lunchtime so made it to the port with only a couple of hours to spare. I’ve stuck with flying in 2 days early for cruises involving a transatlantic flight, last time out a bunch of the North American cruisers on the roll call made late adjustments to their flights as they anticipated possible cancellations at their home airport due to storms. There were a few that wound up driving to their connecting airports. Basically I consider possible weather impacts at each airport in my route and add extra cushion accordingly.

Gastineau are running the discover Alaska’s Whales on my cruise date for NCL, their photo safari excursion is not running in October due to the shorter daylight hours.

Another request, can you post about what happens at Skagway? I see for your sailing bliss will be the only ship in port and it’s listed for RRA pier, last year I believe the ships that docked there after the rockfall had to send passengers to shore via tender rather than gangway. Bliss is also scheduled similarly for my sailing in October.

A highly offensive bigoted name for a drink

The gotcha on the upgrade option during the cruise is that you can’t have used any of your free minutes, if you have used some of the minutes then you will be paying the full daily rate. Or you can also buy more minutes as required throughout the cruise.

If you’re anxious about appropriate attire for your preferred dining establishment on day 1 put it in your carry-on. I always have a few essentials in my carry-on in case after having had luggage go astray on past travels. Who knows when a trolley full of luggage might fall into the water..

I’m sailing on Bliss for Alaska in October so following with interest as I suspect the weather will probably be similar. I’ll be opting for the thermal spa pass rather than vibe for that sailing and I’m bringing a novice cruiser along who had originally planned an Alaska cruise for her honeymoon but the relationship broke up so instead she’s celebrating a roundy birthday. If you’re going along to any of the solo meet-ups please share their general plan for the week if it’s more than just the evening meet-up and dinner in one of the MDRs.

I suspect the Bird is trying to wind up everyone who posts negative comments about other ports/countries… but for those who’ve experienced Spring break the closest equivalent in Ireland is Rag week (raising & giving week) which is generally a different date in every college and everyone drinks to oblivion while giving money to charity. Some of the college cities here basically ban the students from the city centre that week. Oh and, in theory, classes are still in session during that week. When I was an undergrad my classmates objected to having to do our electronics lab overlooking the student bar. They decided to blow up every LED and Capacitor we could get our hands on .. stinkbomb wouldn’t come close to it. For some reason the engineering profs were the most resistant to cancelling classes that week.

On my first cruise I never actually spotted where the life jacket was stored in my cabin until I was packing which would have been far more useful info than anything in the Munster drill. Turned out it was under the bed in the storage basket the steward used for the throw pillows.

Was that $129 each?? It was about half that when I did it pre-covid and they also did a photo in the galley that we got a print of at the end of the tour.

I use a 1lt insulated wide mouth bottle, I put the ice in in the evening so I have it first thing if I’ve an early excursion in warm weather. No fridge in the studios and the ice bucket isn’t super insulated so even when it was a twice a day service the ice would be melted in the bucket overnight.