RoyMartin

Wish you a wonderful cruise. I'll be on Sapphire for an Alaska cruise in June, God willing. Wondering if there's a single day internet option and, if so, what's the price. If you know, please let me know. Thanks.

That's a great idea. Thank you.

Special thanks to you, RJ. That's a great idea. I'm going to do that.

Thanks so much for all the responses. This is so helpful.

I know that Princess offers internet for $15 per day if one buys it for the entire cruise. Is there an option to pay a daily rate just for days when the ship is not at a port? I'll be cruising Alaska this summer and would like to keep the cost down. Thanks.

I'm cruising to Alaska on Princess in June. It will be a 14 day cruise. My first cruise ever. I'd like to be able to at least check e-mail every day. I assume the only way to do that is by paying $15 per day for the internet package (unless bundled in with other services). The bundled packages don't make sense for me because I drink only water. I assume that in Alaska the internet speed will be too slow for reliable Zoom meetings. That means I won't really be able to work on board. If I could work, it would be well worth the $15 per day. Since that's probably not realistic, I need to decide if it's worth $15 per day for the entire cruise to access wifi on days at sea. If I don't sort e-mail and respond to messages on a daily basis, it really builds up. Then I could be stuck wasting time in port digging out of holes, given that there will sometimes be two straight days at sea. Does anyone have thoughts on this? How fast is the internet on Princess in Alaska? Is it worth the cost to check e-mail? Any possibility it will work with Zoom? Please respond if you have cruised Alaska and have direct experience with the Medallion wifi. Thanks.

Thanks for that. Since this is our first cruise, we're just figuring out what we like. So perspectives are helpful. We have a balcony cabin on deck 12 of Ovation of the Seas. Figured would give us a panoramic view, which would seem to make sense since we're going to Alaska. Hopefully we'll have a chance to check out other cabins. One fellow was telling me he prefers inside cabins. The total darkness that can only be found there. To each his/her own.

Thank you for this gift! It's like a trip back in time. I appreciate how you recollect the various aspects. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but it wasn't so much cruising but transportation in those days. How expensive was your ticket? I'd love to know what it cost in every class. And what it was like to travel in each class. To some extent, we see a reemergence of class travel on cruise ships of late. Special parts of the ship reserved for suite passengers, and also entirely separate lines that cater to those who prefer a more refined experience.

Thank you. Out of curiosity, why do you prefer ocean view to balcony cabins?

Just visiting this old topic for the first time. My wife, son and I are set to take our first cruise -- to Alaska -- in late September (last RCL sailing of the season). I'll be 60 by then. My son will be 9. My wife wouldn't want me to share her age. For most of my life, I wanted nothing to do with cruises. When I was in my thirties, I'd throw on a backpack, get a cheap flight to Europe and find the most out of the way places, ideally where almost no one spoke English, and I'd go by the seat of my pants with no idea where my next meal would come from or where I'd sleep for the night. If I traveled for a month, maybe I spent $2,000. Honestly, there were places I couldn't spend a dime because people would invite me in, feed and lodge me, and refuse to take anything in return. Made some amazing friendships. Met my ex-wife that way. At the time, the idea of traveling in luxury without adventure had no appeal. But now I'm older. My wife isn't as adventurous as me. And we have a son with chronic health issues that would make that kind of travel impossible. So I looked into cruising. I've always wanted to see Alaska. Booked a late season cruise to keep costs down, avoid crowds and maybe, maybe (if we're really lucky) see the northern lights. For an unobstructed balcony cabin located on the 12th deck with a panoramic view, the total price for the three of us (on a 7 night cruise on a Quantum class ship), gratuities included, is $3,000. That seems to me a very fair price. Yes, the ship is larger than I'd like. And more like a shopping mall. I promise we'll spend zero time in the casino -- not our thing. I don't think we'll do specialty dining. I'm open to it but my wife feels it's a waste. We don't drink. We don't shop at overpriced stores and we're just not into accumulating "stuff". I'm open to taking some excursions but my wife feels that our son, who has certain challenges, wouldn't be up for it. So I don't think we'll spend a whole lot more than the aforementioned $3k. Maybe some things were once higher quality. Perhaps the food. I'd like it if the ships were smaller and quieter. But my son will love the bumper cars and he'll probably get a real kick out of the glitziness of the ship. So I'm very happy to be cruising for the first time now; not 30 years ago when I was having far more interesting adventures. As far as I'm concerned, back then a backpack was the way to go. If I were young and single now, it still would be (for me). But cruising seems a great value considering all you get for a reasonable price. Maybe we won't like it. But if we do, perhaps we'll seek out bargain cruises going forward. I see some great deals on repositioning cruises with incredible prices. Some as low as $27 per day per person plus taxes and fees. Sometimes one of the passengers is free. How can anyone beat that when a decent hotel room without meals costs around 8 times as much.

Thanks. Yes, we plan to check it out when we get there. It's a late sailing -- last of the year to Alaska. School will be in session so there may not be a lot of kids. Of course there may not be a lot of staff either. We'll see. I found the post helpful because it reminded me to temper any expectations. Since we have no need for time away from our son, it's not a big deal. If there's something that's enriching for him that he wants to partake in, great. If not, more time with him will be great too.

Thanks for your insights and most of all for your quip, "If you've seen one person with autism, you've seen one person with autism". I love that and will steel it freely.

I hope so. I'd like this to be the first of many cruises. Maybe when he's older, I can introduce him to backpacking and hosteling overseas but he's too young for that now. And his health challenges make it too complex for now. As for food, we're pretty easy going. We've found that he'll balance his intake over time. If he starts the day with something sweet, he'll next ask for hamburger or kale. Sometimes we have to limit the amount of sugar or carbs because of the blood sugar challenges, but it's more about time of day or whether his insulin has kicked in yet (which he can accelerate with exercise if he wants to). Type one diabetes presents challenges, sometimes harder or easier to manage based on which way the wind is blowing and zillion other unfathomable factors. But we have a lot of experience and the technology (continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps) make it way easier than it was for earlier generations of children and parents. Health outcomes are also far better now.

He'll be 9 by the date of sailing. Ovation of the Seas.

Could see it going either way with my son. Unless we try to force him to go, in which case he'll hate it. Fortunately, like you, we enjoy our time with him. There are so many things I'll enjoy showing him on the ship. He's kind of a "foodie" so hopefully he'll get interested in exploring new things to eat in a place where he can try various things.

Thank you.

Ah, record keeping, yes. A pile of rocks suffices perfectly. As the bison pass out of the gate, move a rock from one pile to the next. Return them to the original pile as they come back home. With each birth, add a rock to the pile. With each slaughter, remove a rock. Perfect, double ledger accounting.

Thanks Smokey. When we arrive, we'll go to the introduction and see how it goes. If there are just a few kids per adult, it may work for my son. Otherwise, it's fine. Whether he participate and how much will be up to him. Just as long as he enjoys the experience of being on a cruise, I'm happy. My hope is it will be a great experience and a happy childhood memory that stays with him.

I think Royal Caribbean's website is misleading to say the least. They talk about how well trained they are and how they're equipped to deal with special needs and then on cruise day they say the ratio is 25 to 1? I know they never claimed a lower ratio but there's no way they can handle any significant special need with so few staff members for so many children. They claim to be trained to handle autism. Again, very misleading. They should be much more clear about what they're not offering. We have a special needs son and travel in September. That's what caused me to visit this site. Fortunately, we have no need for a break from him. We assumed he would be with us every moment of the trip. Then I heard about Adventure Ocean and thought it might be great for him, a wonderful experience, if they have appropriate staffing and training. Until reading this thread, having only consulted the Royal Caribbean site, it sounded really promising. I'm glad I came here, because there's no way I'd consider leaving him there in that sort of madhouse with 25 kids to one adult. Regardless of whether that adult is supposedly trained in dealing with special needs children.

What, no chisel and stone?

Yes, and a full desktop system. Now our phones are way more powerful and the screens are light years ahead. Imagine what our children and grandchildren could live to see.

I get both perspectives. Perhaps because, coming up on age 60, I have a degree of techno-phobia but I'm also big time reliant on my phone. My father-in-law, who's 80-something rejects anything more than a flip phone and I get it. The effort it would take him to learn something new isn't worth it -- at least as far as he's concerned, and he has that right. My mother-in-law, who's a couple of years younger, tries and struggles (needing to learn the same things over and over again). She doesn't even really get e-mail, though she manages to use it a bit.

This discussion has helped me to feel secure traveling to Alaska and Canada with just a Nexus card but also leaves me realizing that, if we like cruising, we'll definitely want to renew our passports so we can take great deals, when they arise, to international ports. Just noticed a 17 day cruise from Miami to Haifa for something like $700 per person before taxes and port fees. In other words, around $50 a day. Seems crazy cheap. That's for an inside cabin but still. It's last minute and I imagine the troubles in Israel have caused those with refundable fares to bail. The ship's probably half empty. Since we're new to cruising, I'm not considering jumping on this. Too many days at sea when we don't have any idea if that's something that will appeal to us. There are port days but around half of the total are sea days, a whole bunch contiguous. We don't know if we tend toward seasickness. We have a 38 foot sailboat but it never gets out of the Puget Sound into the open ocean. All those days crossing the Atlantic could be a bit much.

Yes, thanks. I've ruled out deck 13 for several reasons. Those support beams and the fact that deck 14 is a public deck. Don't want to wake to the sound of chairs being dragged across a pool deck. I've also ruled out certain cabins on deck 12 because a bit of those support beams are visible from those cabins. So it's either deck 12 where it bulges out or deck 11 mid-deck, halfway between the elevators. The room that we're in now is a bit close to the elevators and the children's program. But moving down a deck means a slightly less panoramic view. Hard to know having never cruised or been on this ship.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't say I'd never kick a child out of my house. I believe in accountability. Just that I'd never kick the child out of my heart. Reminds me of a story I heard about a woman who got attacked on her way to a weekly meeting with a Buddhist or Vedic spiritual teacher of some sort. It was told to me as if true so I assume it was. She arrived at the class, upset and disheveled. She'd managed to scream and get away. The teacher looked at her and addressing her by name said, "You should have summoned all the love in your heart and hit that man over the head with your umbrella". There was a point when one of my children was acting out. He pulled a knife on his sister. I didn't think he would actually hurt her, and she didn't either, but just the same one doesn't ignore something like that. I called the police. An officer came to our home and scared him half to death, telling him if it ever happened again he'd spend the night in the juvenile detention center, sleeping on a thin mattress over concrete, waiting to be arraigned by a judge in the morning. That seemed to take care of that method of acting out but he remained troubled. I worried that I might have to, at some point, send him to some private institution if things got out of hand. Fortunately, we were able to muddle through. He's doing well now. Really well. He's a software engineer earning close to half a million dollars a year. Emotionally he's still young but he's learning and growing. For years he dated women who were older. His mom abandoned him at age three, which was super traumatic, so I assumed he was subconsciously seeking the mom he didn't have. But now he's finally with a woman who's younger and they seem to get along great. He's 31 and she's 24 but it's a good match because emotionally he's around 25 or so. Plus, unlike the older women, she's not pressuring him to make commitments like marriage or children for which he's not remotely ready.