Delbankin

I asked a similar question recently and thought I had received the answer that only the more special shows had to be booked e.g. Queen of the Desert and Cirque.

Now I am a little bit confused. What other shows can, and need to, be booked once on board?

Thanks KeithJenner,

You have perfectly answered my questions. I have to admit to feeling a bit silly at the moment.

Despite taking more than a dozen cruises, and a good number with US based companies I completely forgot the dates would be in US format so my statement about July and September dates actually reflects 7th and 9th June.

I have now booked Queen of the Desert and had booked Cirque previously based on the 06/06 option so couldn't have got that one wrong anyway!

I now understand the arrangements for the other venues as well.

This will be our first time on a real mega ship (Navigator of the Seas the biggest previously) so we probably have a lot to learn.

Recent numerous negative reviews suggest it may also be our last mega ship experience but we will be going with an open and positive frame of mind, given that we haven't had a bad cruise yet.

Thanks MrMike45,

I did try your suggestion but for Queen of the Desert only one day in July and one in September appears which isn't much good for us as our cruise is in June!.

I would also still like to hear from others (or yourself) regarding my other enquiry concerning the other music venues on board Epic.

Do we have to book to enter venues e.g. Headliner or Beatles type shows or is it first come first serve?

Hi,

Although we have cruised NCL before we haven't cruised on the larger ships but have now booked a cruise on Epic this summer.

I am still mystified on the booking process for shows despite searching through various previous posts and the NCL website.

We looked at booking the Cirque show and only one date appeared on the website so we booked it.

We can't see any available dates for Queen of the Desert. Are they all sold out already 80 odd days before we cruise. Can we book once on board?.

There still seems to be a theatre on board so presumably there are standard shows on a first come first served basis.

Also what about the other venues where music is performed - do we need to book?. I have seen that even when booking e.g. Cirque, it is still a first come first served basis.

I could continue searching but it would be helpful if someone could provide some basic advice to help us work out what we need to do either before or once on board.

Del

We have recently returned from 10 night QE cruise departing 12 December and thought we would share some reflections of our cruise here rather than on the review page as it might turn into quite a long review. I always think it is better to read small segments in the forum rather than struggle through a longer review.

Our cruise seemed to have recurring them - wind!!

We were delayed on our departure from Southampton by several hours due to high winds which the Captain described as beyond our safe operating limits. It wasn't a major issue for us as our holiday begins as soon as we are aboard - the bars were open for business so everything was good!.

We eventually departed and were soon out in the open sea which had continued high winds that made our sailing not as smooth as we would have liked although our first evening wasn't as bad for movement as some later ones. The crossing of the bay was fairly kind to us as well.

We continued to battle through the wind for 3 days (decks closed on occasion) and everyone was looking forward to some dry land in Lanzarote, our first port. We had an inside cabin in the aft of the ship which seemed quite responsive to the ship's movement.

At least we had paid less than those in the aft suites who would have experienced the same degree of movement as we did but at much greater cost, although in greater comfort I'm sure.

There were a number of empty tables at dinner on some of the nights and we spoke to several people later in the cruise who had felt rather unwell due to the motion which explained the lack of diners on some of the nights.

Being in an inside cabin and deciding to have a lie in we didn't bother to see what was going on outside. We felt the ship vibrate which usually signals a docking procedure and we fully expected to be berthed for when we decided to rise. Fairly soon the Captain came over the room tannoy to announce that in the interest of safety she had decided to abandon any attempt to dock in Lanzarote due to the high wind and advised she would return with a further update shortly.

Some time later the Captain announced we had been successful in securing an earlier berth in Gran Canaria and we would be travelling there directly to arrive later in the afternoon.

We were not too bothered about the cancellation and were happy to go to GC earlier than planned. We spoke to someone later in the day who had been up and about earlier and advised it did look rather rough for the Lanzarote attempt and he described seeing a tug thrashing around a bit as it tried to get us to the dock.

We had an overnight in GC and departed on time the next day. Our next stop was Madeira and our final stop was La Coruna - more on the ports in a later posting.

The Bay wasn't so kind on the way back with grey overcast skies and fairly rough seas which we felt quite a bit in our aft cabin such that it affected our sleeping on occasion. So much so that my wife gave a loud cheer when the Captain came on again as we made our way home to advise that we would be speeding up to get back to Southampton before some fairly high winds again for our scheduled arrival time. We docked before 1 am (some 4-5 hours before our scheduled time of arrival).

Not that we didn't enjoy our cruise and wished to be home earlier - just that we anticipated a better night's sleep, which we certainly were able to enjoy.

We passed QV during our outward journey and I remarked to one of the ship's officers at the welcome party that QV seemed to be handling the seas better than QE which seemed to suffer from a peculiar pitching and snaking motion. It could simply have been the wind direction and force that was causing the problems movement I suppose and the officer's explanation was that QV was heading away from the weather whereas QE was heading into the weather.

Our other memorable experience with wind was in the breakfast room one morning where the smiley happy man with the pastries passed by and let a bit of a noisy one go just beside us. Not very pleasant but he carried on his merry way and we had a bit of a laugh about it.

So wind from beginning to end really, one way or another!!.

Hi,

We have just returned from a QV cruise and purchased a wine package before cruising over the telephone from Cunard UK. This seemed to present better value than the dollar price on the website taking account of the exchange rate and also delivered a saving on individual bottle prices if purchased once on the ship. Hope this helps.

D.

I'm not sure why anyone would take umbridge with people standing up to applaud a performance in the theatre on a cruise ship.

Some people go on holiday to enjoy themselves and if they decide to show appreciation of a performance by standing to applaud I'm not sure why that should be questioned.

We have been on many cruises across a number of cruise lines and have seen a variety of shows. Some are not particularly good but even for those, we would still politely applaud at the end, even if we slept through the performance. We have equally seen some extremely talented performers and have seen very many enjoyable shows. We may even have stood to applaud some.

There seem to be a number of people who are critical of the quality of entertainment in the theatre so I would presume you would exercise your right to while away the evening in some other way, rather than sit through something you are expecting to be of poor quality.

I'm not aware of any cruise ships who sign up Broadway or Las Vegas headline acts so I think we should not expect to be royally entertained. There will be some good shows and some not so good. The choice to attend is entirely down to the individual.

We look upon a visit to the theatre as part of our evening entertainment and are looking forward to seeing what is on offer in September.

Happy cruising!

Del.

Hi ChipVA,

We usually take a wine package when we cruise as we can't be bothered humphing gallons of wine with us when we go away or paying ridiculous prices for someone to open a bottle we brought with us.

We simply accept that the mark up on wine on ships is the same as the mark up on wines at home in the equivalent surroundings.

I normally try to build up as much information on the price of wines before we cruise and if necessary supplement this with a check of the price list once on board to see if there is any value to be had.

It used to be the case that certain wines within packages were more expensive than others in the packages and the savings accumulated over the week could be quite significant if choosing the most expensive each time. Cunard seem to have worked this out for themselves as on our last cruise in May on QV it seemed that all of the wines in the package were more or less the same price as they would if you bought out with the package.

I disagree with the suggestion that wines can be more expensive in a package than out with. Most packages offer a saving of almost the cost of a bottle of wine in a 6 bottle package for example.

We don't kid ourselves that the wines are high quality but all are entirely drinkable and we will be buying another package for our next cruise, also on QV, in September.

We choose wines in the package that we like and didn't find anything unpalatable. I would say if you are looking to make a small saving on the prices on board that you should opt for a package. The quality is reasonable if you stick with what you know by variety back home.

Del.

Hi neverland1,

We had a stop in Livorno on QV earlier this year and as we had done Florence and Pisa before we decided to stay in Livorno. After researching the options we decided to take the open top bus tour.

It is a bit different from the norm as the bus is a single decker with open top and a few seats under the driver's canopy at the front. The day we took the bus it was very hot and it was good to be moving along. It also belts along at a fair clip along fairly bumpy roads. There is the usual recorded commentary. It was fairly good fun.

You need to be careful about the timings, particularly as there is a stop at the funicular railway which is worth getting off at as it takes you to the peak for some fairly spectacular views. There aren't many seats on the bus so I'm not sure what they would do if there was a queue at the funicular and nobody on the bus wanted to get off??.

We found the timetable on the internet so managed our time quite well as we did the bus tour first. We also researched and found a walking tour of the canals on the Internet which took us along a route to see a number of interesting sights and there are some nice photo opportunities along the canal itself. There is also the option to take a boat trip round the canal which might also be quite interesting.

We also had a relaxed lunch in town and then headed back to the ship for a lazy afternoon.

I would say it is worth doing the same sort of thing although I'm not sure we would do the same again next time around. As someone has said, Lucca is very nice and worth a visit. If we do go back I think we would head back to Florence.

Hope this helps.

Derek

I agree with underwatr. Tips should be seen as integral to the cost of the holiday. If everyone removed tips the end result would be cruise companies raising costs of the cruise itself.

You will always get the argument that people don't want to reward poor service through auto tips but I can't recall any cruise we have taken on any of the seven cruise lines we have sailed with where we have had such bad service we would ever want to remove auto tips.

On our recent cruise on QV we tipped extra to our wine waiter, table waiters and room steward. When you get to know a little about their families and lives back home it is difficult not to tip extra because we are so lucky by comparison.

There is little sense tipping in dollars when cruises are in Europe. As someone has said, money can be easily changed (I can't believe anyone would be sending hard cash back home anyway) and our experience is that crew members love to go shopping for bargains on shore when they get time off, although I'm not sure many bargains will be had in Norway due to the exceptionally high cost of living.

I'm not sure Cunard offer drinks packages on many cruises and in our experience you would need to drink an awful lot to get value for money. We always take a wine package which can sometimes save the price of a bottle but more likely around 10 - 15%. Details can be found on the Cunard website and they offer two different priced packages. There used to be some added value by careful selection however nowadays it seems all bottles offered in the package are of similar prices and only vary by a couple of dollars.

Sorry can't help with the other questions as we have only been to Oslo on a previous cruise. Enjoy your trip.

Del.

Thanks for answers to my queries , particularly Host Hattie pointing the way to the link for the senior crew. It is always interesting to see who is in charge and particularly if the list is up to date it appears we have a change of some crew during our cruise.

It would be interesting to hear if anyone has experience of Sally Sagoe or Hayley who are both listed as CD's during our cruise.

I did also ask about piano entertainer but didn't really get an answer on current performers. We find they can make an evening and on a previous Cunard cruise we had Brett Cave who was very lively and used to perform in the pub on a number of evenings. A quick look at his profile suggests he is on Seabourn and HAL at the moment.

It would be good to hear of who might be on board just now as entertainers and how good or otherwise they are.

Del.

Hi,

Could you let us know who the Captain is at the moment and also the Cruise Director and piano bar (Champagne and/or pub) entertainer. There may well be somewhere to find this out from Cunard website but I can't recall where. Hope you enjoy your cruise.

Del.

Thanks for the replies. Something doesn't quite stack up.

I was looking at the wine packages costs and when I divide the total cost e.g. Captain's at $260 by 6 bottles that equates to around $43 per bottle. The Commodore's package is $325 which equates to around $54 per bottle.

The wine list shows bottle prices for those in the Captain's package (I could find 7 of the 14) at $40 or less. It also shows those that I could find in the Commodore package at $50 or less. The Cunard site suggests at least a 15% saving on wine prices in a package but this doesn't seem to be demonstrated in the prices.

Can anyone explain - does the package price perhaps include the service charge?. We normally take a package but on the basis of what this shows (which must be incorrect) it suggests there is no value in the packages. Any ideas?.

Hi,

We are due on QV in May and are wondering if anyone has a link to an up to date wine list with prices. We are trying to decide on taking a wine package on that cruise and have seen the selections and prices and would like to compare options with the full wine list. Hopefully someone can assist.

Del

We took the inside passage on Zuiderdam in late May. We were lucky with the weather, almost sun every day.

We did not find any problems with the ship in terms of condition or malfunction of any systems, despite the ship being one of the older ones in the fleet.

This was our first HAL cruise chosen for the itinerary i.e. Inside Passage, Glacier Bay and the opportunity to do the Tracy Arm small boat from the ship. A great choice for the scenery! The Tracy Arm small boat was the highlight of our trip and Glacier Bay spectacular too.

We have some great photos which once I download I could post to give an idea of the Tracy Arm trip. I would recommend it to anyone.

Not sure we will return to HAL as the style of the cruise and lack of daytime entertainment didn't really meet our requirements but I would say you will love your cruise for the itinerary alone.

I do have one more question if the MSC experts are still reading this thread. I wonder what their approach is to the prevention of noro virus.

HAL have their code orange server only service in the buffets for first 48 hours whilst NCL have their strict washy washy routine on entering the lido and dining rooms.

What approach do MSC take?

Thanks to Skipper Tim for your latest response (and others too particularly in relation to the Allegrissimo package). Interesting how your reply mirrors AmoMondo in many respects. We have cruised NCL a couple of times and must admit I didn't see many slouches in their onesies!

We are not huge fans of the buffet and prefer to take breakfast and dinner in the dining room so if food there is fairly good that sounds promising. Fresh pizzas at lunchtime also sound good. We prefer late dinner (or open seating) and assume that the MSC sittings still allow diners to take in a show.

Our most recent cruises have been on more relaxed lines e.g. NCL and RCCL and it would be interesting to know the extent of the adherence to dress codes on MSC. For those lines that have two formal nights on a 7 night cruise, perhaps with the exception of Cunard, a lounge suit and tie seem to be the higher end of the scale with lesser degrees seen as acceptable on the formal nights and shirts and long trousers OK for other nights. I will look into other posts regarding MSC dress codes but any replies here would be helpful.

Based on replies so far it sounds like we might give MSC some more serious thought.

Thanks to AmoMondo for the replies to all my questions - very helpful. It would be nice to hear from others too.

The mention of the drinks package is interesting and we will do some research on that subject. I seem to remember reading that it applied to bottles of wine but am fairly sure this can't be the case.

I have seen other posts that suggest it is difficult to pre-book so it would be interesting if AmoMondo could advise how the Allegrissimo is normally purchased.

We have cruised with most cruise lines and are considering our first with MSC. We have a few questions which hopefully regulars on this forum can help with.

We have read some reviews which suggest the quality of food isn't particularly great. Is this a trend on MSC or Armonia or just people being picky?

How is their organisation, i.e. Pre-cruise paperwork, embarkation etc. are they well organised or is it chaotic?

We are considering taking a winter cruise to the Canaries and wonder if the majority of the passengers are from wider Europe which in turn means that most of the announcements etc are made in a wide variety of languages? We're not against multi-national fellow cruisers but it does elongate any announcements particularly at show times etc.

Does the entertainment mirror other cruise lines e.g. Production shows with a few headliner acts thrown in and are they up to the mark?

Are the inside cabins very small? We have cruised on NCL which have very small inside cabins on some ships made worse by pull down beds - is this similar on Armonia? The Armonia cabins appear small by area but appear to be well laid out to maximise space.

The ship seems to be smaller than we have recently experienced, although I note it is going to dry dock shortly to have a section added, and we wondered if this gives rise to a feeling of overcrowding or difficulty in finding a lounger on sea days?

Also, does the ship feel fairly stable? We cruised on Norwegian Spirit recently and found the ship to have a fairly pronounced pitch and roll although that was perhaps down to sea conditions.

We are hoping to get some useful replies to help us make up our mind. The alternative we have in mind is a similar cruise on NCL Spirit which we did last year.

Presumably MSC boards have their enthusiasts who think MSC are the best so we are looking forward to hearing from you all.

Despite using the various boards over the years I've just realised over 200 people have read my latest review which makes it worthwhile. It is nice when people acknowledge a posting (albeit a much smaller amount!) and makes me more inclined to say thanks to others who's reviews I read and who take the trouble to post reviews and thoughts of cruises they have taken. My next post will probably be the last relating to our recent trip and will include thoughts and reflections on our first HAL cruise.

After Skagway our next stops were Glacier Bay and Ketchikan. One of the reasons we chose HAL and Zuiderdam in particular was the opportunity for close up glacier viewing as it was the only itinerary that offered Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay.

After breakfast we returned to our balcony to begin to enjoy the approaches to Glacier Bay. As expected, the scenery was spectacular. As we approached the main glaciers we decided to go on deck so as not to miss anything. The sun was shining and conditions were perfect.

As has been documented by others the main viewing is of John Hopkins Glacier and Margerie Glacier. Without doubt Margerie Glacier is the most spectacular.

We approached just as another ship was leaving the viewing area. We couldn't believe how close the ship managed to get to view the glacier. We spent a couple of hours viewing the glacier and the ship did a 360 to allow people at both sides to get a view.

We were lucky enough to see the glacier calving however we didn't witness anything particularly spectacular but it did appear from the face that there had been some fairly recent significant calving taking place. That said the sound from even smaller pieces of ice breaking away is something to behold. The height and depth of the glacier is quite amazing.

As mentioned, the weather was very kind and it was quite amazing how much the temperature rose if we moved away from the rail. It was fairly chilly looking over the rail at the glacier but was warm enough to sit comfortably on a sun lounger when moving a few yards away.

Despite it not being long after we had breakfast we made a point of getting the full HAL experience of Glacier Bay by partaking of the green pea soup. Essentially it seemed to be pea and ham soup and was quite tasty albeit a little salty for our tastes. We found it by hunting it down in the Crow's nest somewhere between 10 and 11am if I'm not mistaken.

All in all this was one of the best experiences of our trip to see the magnificent glaciers in relatively close up detail. Many people with a far greater grasp of words then me have described this before and I can confirm it is worth every moment.

The following day we landed in Ketchikan. Originally we did not have anything planned for Ketchikan but as we were scheduled to be there from 10am - 6pm and we had visions of Ketchikan being like Skagway we had booked an excursion a couple of days before.

We didn't want to book anything particularly demanding so decided to go for the Saxman Village tour. We decided against the lumberjack show add on as we were due to spend a few days post cruise in Vancouver and were going to visit Grouse Mountain which had a lumberjack show included.

The Saxman Village was relatively close and a short ride in a coach. Despite having done the trip on a good number of occasions the driver managed to drive past the entrance. We had to turn round and go back.

The trip consisted of a short video of the native Tlingit history and then a visit to a timber built Clan house which was finished with ornate painted murals on the end wall facing the sea. Inside the house we witnessed a short talk on the customs and then some native dancing with representatives of all ages. At the end, members of the audience were invited up to participate. It was both interesting and fun.

After the show we exited to visit the Totem poles in the grounds (apparently one of the largest collections of totem poles in the world) and learn about the history and explanations of the various animals etc exhibited on the carvings. We then visited one of the workshops and were lucky enough to see one of the master carvers at work - Nathan Jackson. Although he didn't do too much when we were there it was fascinating to see some of the work he had produced, both carvings and jewellery.

Our group did get the opportunity to ask questions of Mr Jackson but as with most masters of their craft he was fairly dour and didn't seem too keen to participate. Nevertheless he did answer some questions and it was fascinating to see and to hear how much carvings could be commissioned for if a master carver was engaged to do the work.

After the carving area we had the obligatory visit to the souvenir shop within the Village. At that point we concluded that the Saxman Village must be quite a money spinner. There were a good number of coaches there and if multiplying the number of people by the cost of the tour it would be quite a lucrative extra source of income for the village. After the tour we boarded the bus and took the short trip back to town.

We found Ketchikan to be quite a lively place and probably one of our favourite towns visited. We enjoyed the walk round Creek Street which is the area built on stilts with the history of the red light district and the famous Dolly's house. Tours of Dolly's are available but we decided to give that a miss. This is a fascinating little area filled with local craft shops and souvenir outlets. There is also a small funicular railway which rises from the Creek Street area to the higher part of town.

We bumped into some folks we had spent some time in the company of earlier in the trip whilst sampling some local Alaskan beer and they had taken the Misty Fjords tour which by all accounts lasted a couple of hours. They were very enthusiastic about the trip and said the plane landed in the fjord which allowed them to step out on the the plane floats and that some of the scenery on the trip was quite amazing. It sounds like this is to be recommended.

Although we enjoyed Ketchikan, like other stops on the cruise, there is so much time in port that alternative excursions are almost essential to get the benefit of what each has to offer. All in all a very enjoyable day.

In future posts we will give some views on what the ship had to offer. We will also give a brief summary of our 3 day post cruise visit to Vancouver. Hopefully these will be of some interest.

Although there are quite a few Zuiderdam Alaska reviews going on at the moment I've decided to continue with mine as it is hopefully useful to get another person's perspective on things. It also helps elongate the holiday by bringing back memories of the trip!

After Juneau and our close up with Tracy Arm glaciers our next stop was Skagway. We had already booked a trip on the Mountain Pass Summit scenic railroad in advance through HAL.

Our intention was to explore Skagway in the morning and return to the ship before embarking on our Tain journey early afternoon. The train trip takes around 3.5 hours which we thought would get us back to the ship in good time to allow us to get ready for dinner.

We had breakfast on the ship and then went walkabout in Skagway. That didn't take too long!.

We returned to the ship to find a message from the tour desk advising that the time of our train trip had been changed to late afternoon. This didn't suit us at all because we wouldn't have been back until after 7.30pm. Because we had returned to the ship early enough we went to the tour desk to see if we could change or cancel the trip. There was no one at the desk so we had to hot foot it off the ship again to find someone shore side.

We found someone on the quay and explained the later time wasn't suitable and that we were looking to cancel or change our trip. Luckily the timing of our return meant we could take the mid day trip and although this didn't give us any time at all we returned to the ship for a cookie and a coffee and then went immediately to join the train. The shore side representative was very helpful and the change to the earlier trip was easily arranged. This wouldn't have been possible if we'd spent longer ashore in the morning so we were lucky I guess that Skagway didn't have much to offer.

Some people describe Skagway as their favourite stop however the town itself has nothing much to see in my opinion. There is virtually one Main Street consisting mainly of shops. There is a museum with history of the gold rush which was reasonably informative and interesting. They have regular free guided walks and a short film running at various intervals which you just turn up for and take a ticket for the next allotted performance.

There is also the "famous" red onion saloon. We looked in the door and were glad we hadn't signed up for one of the shows they offered which give a flavour of the old days. As far as we could make out it was just another lame show with folks dressed up in costume to get something out of the tourists.

There was a street car excursion available which from what we could see must be one of the shortest trips out there. There is a walking tour that can be taken with tour companies but equally if you are reasonably fit the Skagway tourist site has a walking tour map available for download that covers most main sites and could be taken instead.

The main thing that could be said about Skagway is how close the Main Street is to the ship which makes it easy to walk to. I would advise folks to consider doing an excursion in Skagway to pass the time. The ship was in port from 7am - 9pm which for the size of the port is a long time.

There were numerous trips available from HAL and no doubt locally as well - some quite adventurous and expensive, others less so, offering a variety of excursions and I think it would be essential to do something if visiting Skagway.

Back to the train which pulls up for boarding between the ship and the town and in that respect is easy to get to. The cars are old style design but ours was well insulated and heated. As far as I could make out, all cars were the same and had their own toilet compartment for use on the journey if needed.

We were lucky and boarded the coach where the commentary was being provided for the whole train. That gave us some extra insights when the girl wasn't talking to the whole train and was certainly reassuring when the train came to a grinding halt half way up the mountain in a puff of smoke! The girl explained that a warning light had come on and the engineer had to investigate but we were assured this was a fairly common experience. Despite that, we couldn't help but hope the braking system was operating as it should!.

We had to wait some time before we moved away and then stopped again. as far as I could make out the train started the journey with 3 engines but returned with only two. We could see one had been ditched in a siding once we started to move on again.

The journey was very picturesque with numerous landmarks such as river valleys and waterfalls being pointed out during our journey. There was snow nearer the top and the mountain lake at the top was still frozen and full of snow.

We hadn't researched the journey beforehand and assumed we would get off at some point at the other end for the opportunity to buy souvenirs ( not that we wanted to) but that didn't happen. At the top, they move the engines from one end of the train to the other for the journey back down and they came round with souvenir videos and caps etc on the return leg which seemed to go down well with the train enthusiasts on board, of which there seemed to be quite a few.

The seats are bench type and quite unique as they tip over so the back moves from a facing the top of the hill position to facing the bottom of the hill position. They make this switch at the end of the outward journey and then ask people to move from one side of the train to the other. This means that everybody gets a view of everything there is to offer so no needed to worry which side you are sitting going up.

There is the opportunity to get out on the external footplate at each end of the car for better photo opportunities and everyone seemed quite happy to take their turn to let others get a view. The only thing they don't allow is moving from the footplate of one car to another for safety reasons.

The train is recognised as one of world heritage renown similar to the Panama Canal and Eiffel Tower and we certainly enjoyed the experience and would recommend it to others but perhaps not those with a fear of heights as the gradient of almost 4% and 16 degree turns would not be for everyone.

Thanks again for the reports. A bit disappointed in your comments about Juneau. I'm off there in a week' date=' and have a trip to Mendenhall Glacier booked and then going to Mount Robson. Not into shopping at all.[/quote']

 

I don't think you should worry too much if you have plans for Mendenhall and Mount Robson as I'm sure they will fill a large part of your day. Juneau is nice enough but there's just not much of it and there are a fair few bars and shops to lure the tourists.

 

I would advise you try to do some research about Mendenhall as the timing of visits and what you can do there do seem to be quite critical to getting the most from it. We didn't do it but are making the comment based on things I have read and overheard.

On our Zuiderdam cruise last week our daily programme noted that "entertainment" in the piano bar was with Jeremy.

We visited a couple of times and found him fairly boring (sorry!) and with quite a knack to hit bum notes on occasion.

We thought the piano bar on Zuiderdam was quite small - normally we like to spend the evening in the piano bar on ships but didn't spend much time in that one.

For those who read my first post cruise report I've answered a few questions at the end of that report that came up in the replies.

This post intended to cover the destinations and excursions that we took however having reached the end of the Juneau review it may be necessary to split into two.

The itinerary was the main reason for choosing HAL. We researched other cruise lines but as our main aim was to have the full glacier experience we chose Zuiderdam because of the opportunity to take the Tracy Arm small boat trip and also experience Glacier Bay.

We were also influenced by the Vancouver round trip as flights via Seattle and back from Alaska or vice versa didn't appeal.

The inside passage afforded many opportunities to view the impressive landscape close up, as for a large part of the cruise we were quite close to land. The scenery reminded us of home (Scotland) and also our experience on a previous Baltic cruise which took in part of the Norwegian fjords.

Our first stop was Juneau which offered a great many excursions. The one that interested us was the high speed catamaran trip to Tracy Arm. We realised that this was a risky option for a couple of reasons - potentially low uptake and prevailing sea conditions, however we decided to book it early before our cruise and keep our fingers crossed!

This trip gave us the opportunity to also visit Juneau after our return. The catamaran took us back to the ship and we then tendered the 600yds from Zuiderdam to shore. We walked around Juneau and felt quite glad we had taken the trip to Tracy Arm, although admittedly it was better than one of our later ports of call.

The catamaran picked us up fairly early directly from the Zuiderdam pontoon mid fjord and it was quite a strange feeling to leave our cruise ship in a much smaller boat and see it power up and sail away without us. At the same time it did make us feel a bit like adventurers!

We were very lucky with the weather for our trip to Tracy Arm. It was a gloriously sunny day, albeit a bit on the chilly side, particularly when the catamaran picked up speed - it was a fairly powerful small boat and I believe travelled back to Zuiderdam after our trip at some 15 knots.

The catamaran was operated by Allen Marine and was very professionally run. They had a guide on board as well as girls working the galley. Complimentary sandwiches were offered later in the trip and hot chocolate and coffee was also available free of charge. They also offered other snacks at a price for those that couldn't survive the trip without real food!

Our guide (who I thought sounded a lot like the actor Hugh Grant!) was very knowledgable about the area and offered ongoing commentary during the trip and was also happy to answer any individual questions. He was also very anxious about the state of the water and made us think we weren't going to get too close. The word "crazy" cropped up a couple of times!

Apparently the glacier had been shedding a lot of ice in the previous 2-3 days which seemed to surprise him and the ice was moving down the fjord and making sailing quite hazardous. It seems he had only seen conditions like this once before in his time as a guide but perhaps he says that to everyone to build up the thrill of it all.

Our captain for the day was clearly very experienced with this type of sea conditions (or very hung ho!) and managed to manoeuvre the vessel amongst the ice and get us much closer to Tracy Arm than we (and I suspect our guide) had originally anticipated. Although we didn't get as close as we did later in Glacier Bay we did get close enough to view the enormity of the Tracy Arm glaciers. Extremely impressive!

We encountered another Allen Marine vessel during our trip who had earlier negotiated the same hazardous waters which was apparently some way behind schedule (presumably due to sea conditions) and another vessel operated by National Geographic which had dropped a couple of small dirigibles for an even closer up experience. We also passed a large Celebrity ship which got nowhere near the glacier compared to our visit.

The trip back to the ship was fairly long and we stopped a couple of times after whales were sighted to try to get us a close up experience. Unfortunately the whales chose not to play ball and we didn't see any more of them. The trip back was enjoyable and we were able to move from outside to in because the ship was not overly full to get a mix of warmth and fresh air.

We returned to Zuiderdam on time and would thoroughly recommend this trip albeit we may have been lucky with weather and being able to get fairly far up the fjord.

We did go ashore to Juneau and have to admit there isn't much to it apart from a few streets. The best advice I could give is to take one of the many excursions available from Juneau. Juneau is OK if you like jewellery shops and tourist shops which seems to be the case with most Alaskan stops on our cruise.

I will post again about the other ports of call and excursions we took in a separate post as I know that some people (including me) don't like to read screeds of text in any one post.