Hi everyone. I want to apologize for taking so long to come back to this. I came here for some help before our cruise last summer and some of you here were super generous and helpful and it made a difference in our trip, so thanks. I wanted to post a bit about our experience, the challenges we had, and what I think now, so it might help others. I am not great on chats or social media stuff, and my health took a turn after the cruise so again sorry for the delay.
We cruised Alaska on RCL Ovation of the Seas last July. We had great weather and overall I was happier than I expected I would be after going. I was very reticent to agree to go, but now I would consider another cruise in my future.
Before the cruise:
Dealing with the cruise line ahead of time was not a great experience. In our case there were several poor moments. One was we had an excursion we wanted to do, we had even contacted them and they said good with the dog but they said we needed to book through the access desk, by the time the access desk got back to us it was sold out. We had to go with other options, which were very limited by this point.
We did an otter boat tour in Sitka, the train ride in Skagway, and did some stuff on our own in Juneau and Victoria. If I had to do it over again I would book the tours I want, then call the cruise. I learned that you should never wait for them, they may never call back.
Getting on board:
This was one of the least good moments, though a bit self-inflicted, I left some paperwork in the luggage on the pier. That created a crisis. We had a long sit while my wife ran around trying to solve the issue. Security and crowds are always a lot for me, we made a mistake by picking a later boarding time. If I had to do over I would try to go early and beat the crowds as much as I could.
Finding the Box:
Cue another long sit. We asked people who wanted to help, but they had no idea what they were doing. We were sitting in the center of the ship where everyone gets on board and some steward told us to stay there while he went to find out. This was a long time of not getting anywhere, finally, an officer from the engineering department asked if he could help. He made some radio calls and we were finally able to go to the potty box. He took us himself. I added a pic so you can see it. It was on one end of the ship, in a corner.
Using the box itself:
The box was 3x3, small for my dog, and its location in the corner made it hard for her to walk in a circle to get herself in position. There were a lot of starts and stops with that. It was also right by an automatic door so every time it opened she jumped out of the box to see what it was. Her first # 2 was on the deck 20 feet from the box, we had two misses like that on the first two days.
We practiced for a month before, but she did not like it initially. Our cruise had a couple of full days at sea right at the start. After the first misfire, I was worried and embarrassed, but no one said anything and after day two she was a champ. We took advantage of any time we had off of the ship for her to have somewhere else to go. Honestly, she figured the box out quickly and it was a lot less stressful by the end.
Because the box was outside, they locked the doors when the wind was up. We had to go find someone to let us out of the locked door so we could use the potty, but then we were locked outside on the deck. Luckily my wife figured out where the emergency door open button was. I think although the location had a challenge with the corner, I still would have preferred it to others I have read about here.
All this stuff was stressful and frustrating, but my dog did amazing. Most of the cruise staff was super helpful and, as the only dog on the boat, we had plenty of attention. Alaska was beautiful. Now that we have had one semi-successful cruise. I can see how this might be a way someday to go to some places I want to get to like New Zealand or Australia but having a dog makes it hard to fly there. The potty situation was not A++, but she can handle it and that means even it if takes me 12 days to get there, I could cross an ocean on a crusie ship, if we really wanted to.
We are hoping to fly to Ireland with Muppet this summer, I just have to figure out what to do about the fact her trainers are not part of the right international trade group. There has to be a way for us to go, but reading what some of you had to do here does scare me. There are still a lot of things I am not a fan of about the whole experience but my illness and having a service dog has changed everything about travel for us and in the end we had a really decent time overall.
Our next cruise I think will be a fall Canada/New England one, that looks like something my wife and I could enjoy. If any of you had a great experience on one of those, please let us know. Thanks again for all your help, you guys are awesome.