GCS2000

Well its 22 hours till we leave on the plane and about 72 hours til we disembark. ArriveCAN is all done, checked in for our flights and have paper copies of everything along with all my electronic copies on my phone. Super excited to go. Like anyone else the only thing we are worried about now is the dreaded testing tonight after midnight or in the AM. Crossing fingers for that. Neither of us have any problems or issues and we have in essence been quarantining for 2+ weeks essentially only going to work. Long travel day tomorrow but we know it will all be worth it in the end. Just happy to get out of town and away from things for a while. We have dual outlet chargers for each of us so we will be fine. Wife only has phone, I have phone and watch. Disembarkation we will do self service as well. Flight doesn't leave until 1:30 so we have more than enough time to exit the ship so no need to rush. We are not doing anything in Vancouver either. Meds - we have a full "first aid kit" packed with anything you can think of - nausea meds, cough drops, vitamin c supplements, allergy meds, cold meds, nose drops, band-aids, neosporin, muscle cream, burn cream, bug bite cream, sunblock, bug spray, pepto, antacid, tissues, etc etc etc. Wife went above and beyond for this. Fortunately its all small stuff and in a small pouch. Pool and hot tub - may not even bother with these since we have them at home but may still check them out who knows Luggage tags - Got some off amazon and have printed all the tags and inserted them in the holders already. Will put them on the luggage once we gather everything from our plane ride. Only checking 1 bag each and we have enough stuff in our carry ons and personal backpacks to last us several days or the entire 12 days if we wash in middle. Next Cruise - we hope to be doing this for sure but since we have never done one before no clue if we like it or not. Guess we will know soon enough. Wife wants to go to Ireland and Scotland at some point but we would probably have to just fly for that as we wouldn't be able to take off enough work time to do any sort of TA cruise. We will see how this one goes first. With respect to activities: Anchorage before we head to Seward on Friday we are taking a nature tour and glacier boat cruise. We have a rental car and are planning to drive away from the city to catch the northern lights one night. We leave for Anchorage tomorrow. One 2.5 hour flight to Chicago and one 7 hour flight to Anchorage. Juneau we are doing a city tour and Mendenhall Glacier after that we can do whatever or go back to the ship Skagway we are doing Sled Dog and Mushers camp after that we can do whatever or go back to the ship Haines - we are staying on the boat Icy Strait - just a whale watching trip Ketchikan - we are walking around on our own and doing the lumberjack show When we get to Seattle other than going to a Seahawks game on Sunday before flying home we will just do whatever, no plans. So we have a fair bit to do but we also have a lot of down time as well. Boat activities we are just going to wing it other than I booked a spa appt for the wife (little does she know) - whatever we feel like doing we will do even if its sleeping in the cabin or on the balcony or whatever. We plan to relax as much as we can as well as "see" Alaska. I am not travelling over 4300 miles not to take in the scenery, lol. Once again thank you for all the helpful advice and comments it is much appreciated! Greg

yeah I already know we are overpacking, I am positive on that

Man this post sure went down the toilet in a hurry 🙃 For those that care I will not be taking my own TP. I do appreciate all the info though, thanks.

Thanks for all the details. We have packed more cold weather clothing than shorts since forecast wise it doesn't appear temps will be higher than 50 while we are there. Explorer cruise - is this an excursion or something else? We are doing a short glacier cruise while we are in Anchorage the day before this cruise. Pool - thanks for the details not sure we will even go to the pool but maybe. I assume the sloshing to empty is due to rough seas? Wife gets motion sick (has the patch for the trip) so hoping this won't be too terrible for her. Entertainment - appreciate this info as well. Looking at the calendar in the app you are right mostly musical acts and trivia sessions it seems.

I redeemed the rewards for the OBC in May 2022 on both accounts we sail on 9/16 so 9 days away

My wife and I both have RC Visa cards. We both hit the mark to have $150 from each card of OBC applied to our cruise. We both went in and processed the rewards to give us $150 each towards or cruise next week. As of last week one of those OBCs have hit our cruise planner account the other one has not (no idea which one though). I have logged into the account for rewards and there is no contact info (neither phone, email or chat) to reach out to them to see what is happening. Anyone have any issues with RC Visa OBC and perhaps where I can get this resolved? TIA

Thank you everyone this is great info for sure! We will be pretty busy on our cruise as well since we have stops at 5 ports. We are only going to do excursions at Juneau, ISP, Skagway, and Ketchikan. We will just stay on the ship for the Haines visit. Fortunately we have to "at sea" days to relax which will be nice. After we are done with the cruise we are heading to Seattle for a couple days to take in a Seahawks beat down ahem I mean game (the wife is a Seahawks fan but knows they are in for some pain this year). After the game we will fly home and need a vacation from our vacation, lol.

We have thought about the 3 night package but there really hasn't been a deal on it. And looking over the menus I am not enamored with the offerings (everyone seems to love Izumi but we don't do sushi unfortunately). Samba grill seemed good but we have Texas De Brazil locally and runs the same price (or less). We may do it anyway just have to think it over more I guess.

Thanks for this. We will each have a small backpack with those important items in it that stays with us at all times.

First timers here and getting ready to leave for Alaska in 10 days (fly out in 8). Really can't wait to get on this vacation. I have spent a lot of time on this forum and others researching and making sure we are prepared for the trip as we just want to be able to relax and have a great time and not worry about things. - Cruise has been booked for over a year and paid off early. In a Jr. Suite on Radiance. Cabin is under Izumi. Would love to Royal Up but an extra 1k for Grand Suite just doesn't seem worth it. - We have already bought the refreshment package (we are not drinkers) and voom surf and stream for 2 devices. - Excursions are all booked directly and not through Royal, all plans/meeting points/times etc have been verified as of today - We are fully checked in, luggage tags printed, documents uploaded, have print outs of everything as well (will do the same for the test results) and have emed tests at home ready to take on video call on 9/14 (we disembark in Canada so still have to do this) - We are flying out to Anchorage 2 days prior to the cruise to avoid any airline related issues (hopefully none) and have a shuttle scheduled for cruise day to go from there to Seward. We have a late check in time due to the shuttle service timing but still there several hours before departure (about 4-5 hours before) so we should be good there. I am just following through on things we should or shouldn't do once we get there/on the trip. Please feel free to comment or add on with suggestions for us since this is all new. First day things (as I have read elsewhere) Once we arrive at port and check in with our paper documents (back up will be on our phones) we should then take care of doing the muster and safety drills first. After that I assume we should get on the ships wifi so we can look at shows etc and book reservations for those as we see fit. We are not doing any specialty restaurants and have a fixed dining time of 7:45pm each night (all that was available when we booked, no other choice) so nothing to book there. As I understand things once on board and away from port we should turn on airplane mode and turn wifi back on for our phones. We have a Verizon and live in the US and as I have verified we do not have domestic roaming fees with our VZW plan and do not need a travel plan either. Anything else we should do here? We should also avoid guest services at all costs on the first day and maybe the second since they will be flooded with people. Shouldn't need them unless we have a real problem of course. Additionally we plan to hit the MDR right away to find out where our table will be as to avoid standing in line to be escorted (yes I read the whole big post on this topic and while it may seem to upset some passengers i.e. bypassing the line it seems to make a lot of sense to know where you are sitting and avoid unnecessary delays for meals) Post first day - sit back relax and enjoy the next 7 days. Most importantly have fun!! - Are there any must see shows or things to do on Radiance (and yes I know this is a smaller ship with less activities than the other ships but this was the cruise that fit our schedule best) 2 days before cruise ends we will need to complete the ArriveCAN form. I have already installed the app and set up an account with them. I put in as much info as the system would allow me to at this point. The rest needs to be done as we get closer to Canada on the app. Thanks for taking the time to read this and comment if you like.

Mine is down to $19 which I would have done as it would make it just a hair over my current Voom 2 device package but alas the system says not for sale online check onboard. This for my sailing in 2 weeks.

This is interesting for sure (and good to know). We are cruising in 2 weeks and will be ending in Vancouver and going to Seattle as well. We currently have flights booked but the wife hates to fly and the flight is on a prop plane so she is freaking out even more about it. I haven't been able to find a rental car I can book now anywhere. Guess I need to decide if we should "gamble" and just go to the airport to rent a car anyway. At least it sounds possible.

Canada killing me, lol. Oh well have to hope for the best for my Alaska cruise in 25 days

Did GTY Suite on Radiance to Alaska on 9/16 got my assignment at check in last week at its #1092 (Jr Suite) and located under Izumi. GTY room was $1200 per person less when I booked it so it made sense to gamble.

Well if I look a little closer to the cabin maps I think our cabin is more under Izumi than Windjammer. Kinda have to overlay the 2 different pages to get an idea

Well that sucks. Not sure there is anything I can do unless I "upgrade" to another suite.

Got to check in for our cruise today and added my SeaPass to my Apple Wallet. Looks like we are in cabin 1092 (Jr Suite). Looking at the maps it seems this is under Windjammer - will this be an issue? Anything else to know about this location?

Glad I booked airfare when I booked our cruise. Cruise in Sept and was booked in December 2021 before things got out of hand. We did end up changing cruises in May when the NFL schedule came out but since my flight from VA to AK was with Delta miles it was an easy change and no money involved. Flights to get back home from SEA to VA were with my Chase points so the changes wasn't bad either (had to go American vs Delta when we changed in May). We have one other flight on this journey which is Vancouver to SEA but if that goes haywire for some reason we can take a bus (no train service and can't rent a car). I checked prices recently and the same tickets we have now are 5X more miles than they were when I got them. $$$ wise they are at least triple the price. It really is crazy. The big thing we are worried about in all seriousness is lost luggage (we should only have 1 checked bag - or at least that is what were are trying for). Not as worried about flight changes and cancellations as we are heading out 2 days prior to our cruise just to avoid this issue. Getting back home if we get delayed getting back so be it. I own my own business fortunately so an extra day is not an issue just means a crap ton of extra hours once I get back, lol.

You have to spend the whole offer amount in one billing cycle to trigger the statement credit. So if you have spend $500 get $150 statement credit it has to be $500 in RC charges during one billing statement. This part I can tell you was not the case for me. Last year when Amex had the $500 credit for RC I had it on both cards. On one card I made the initial $500 deposit then before the offer expired like which was like 2 months later I made $1000 payment on our cruise. It triggered the offer just fine. It took another billing cycle for it to show up as a credit though but I did not spend the entire $1500 required in one billing cycle. Terms may have changed so who knows.

I don't believe that will work. If you cancel and excursion it will credit back to the credit card it was charged to automatically. If that happens AMEX will claw back the offer credit from you as well (this is part is well known about AMEX). I would suggest just making the call to purchase OBC its the easiest method.

We will be in Anchorage for a night before we go to Seward to depart on our cruise on 9/16. It would be great to get a chance to see the lights while we are there. I see there are tours but most of these are not only pricey but 6-8 hours. We don't really need anything of that length. I realize they go to several spots to get the best views etc. Is there a simple tour or car service that would be a couple of hours at best to take us to a spot or 2 to see the lights/get pics and then back to our hotel? And yes I am aware that seeing the lights is dependent upon the weather etc and we may not be able to see anything. TIA for any suggestions

LOL make that 4 changes to my flights. Just logged in right now and my ATL-ANC flight has changed again. Nothing major just times but still this is crazy.

My flights have changed 3 times since being booked back in December - all by Delta. I recently changed my flight this week (for the first part from RIC-ATL) due to a Delta change that meant we only a 30 min layover in ATL and I felt there was no way with all that is going that our luggage (heck even us) would make our connecting flight so I moved us to an earlier flight out of RIC. My flights were paid for with miles so I can rebook online pretty easily. Problem is that moving the flights up one day (from 15th to 14th) means I have at least 2 stops instead of one, 3 hour layovers at both stops and the number of miles needed is almost double what I have available. Therefore I am kinda stuck. Booking flights other than Delta are of course possible but I run into the same issue as above multiple stops, long layovers and I have to pay $$ which as we all know prices are quite high. So its either deal with the issues above or live with what I have and gut through it or cancel our tour which the wife really does not want to do. I will contact Delta but not expecting much from them tbh. Thx

We are cruising to AK on 9/16. Original plan was to fly out of Richmond, VA on 9/15. Currently booked on Delta for it. Some things have changed and we are considering leaving on 9/14 instead. Can't find any sort of flights that are reasonable and all trips to get from RIC - ANC are at least 2 stops and several hours layover at each. I am considering splitting up flights now - fly from RIC - ATL on 9/14 spend the night. Then fly ATL - ANC nonstop. Reason for the change is we have a tour booked in ANC for the 15th to see the lights. If we keep all of our current plans we will be up for 25 hours straight then sleep for about 6 hours and then hop on a 3 hour shuttle to Seward and hop on the cruise which leaves at 8pm. This seems like too much and we will most likely be miserable the first 48 hours or more of the trip. Here is the question. My current Delta booking is for 9/15 from RIC - ATL - ANC. I can of course change this to just ATL - ANC problem is the price sky rockets (both $$ and miles - we used miles and won't have enough to cover the flight change). Can I keep the above trip intact but just "miss" the RIC - ATL flight the morning of 9/15? Will my ATL - ANC tickets still be valid that afternoon?

Thanks everyone. We are not drinkers so not doing the DBP. We just have the refreshment package for wife and soda package for me. Sounds like my assumption was correct that its not worth the extra $$ for us.