donaldsc

You ought to try a Clipper cruise ship sometime. They are more of a true sailing ship than Windstar ecen to the fact that all the sails are raised and manipulated by hauling on ropes. You can also climb the masts and lie on the nets at the bow spirit. DON

Looking at climate data for Japan in November it appears that is at least some rain many of the days in the month of November. It also appears that it can be a bit cool then. We are going to be out on tours most of the days we are there and wet pants and cool weather would be a bit uncomfortable. Has anyone brought rain pants w them on a Japan trip? I don't want to look silly but this might be a better alternative than being wet and cool. DON

Do the isolation days when the Diamond Princess was docked but isolated in Japan count as sea days or land days. After all you could not get off the ship so they might have well been sea days. DON

What ship is this? Looks like a really neat ship and cruise. DON

You have to realize that if you are cruising under sail a port arrival time will be just an estimate. They clearly say that on their site. Just wait until you get on board to deal with excursions where the excursion signup is really low tech - a clipboard with a bunch of sheets of paper where you put your name on the list for the excursion you want. Everything else on the cruise will albe be low tech.

All of these are really not very interesting IMHO but are a bit more of the same and personally sort of boring. Try a 152 year old Maine schooner that holds just 22 people and is without an engine so she is totally dependent on the wind. She was the 1st, best and most unique ship I have ever sailed on. My 2nd most interesting would be a recent cruise on a the Clipper Cruise line Star Clipper. Again a sailboat that goes under sail as much as possible although she does have an engine and holds about 150 people. Cruising at an 18 degree heel is a real hoot. I will take sail over power any day. DON

She may be suffering from mal de debarquement syndrome. Seriously. Look it up. https://www.menieres.org.uk/information-and-support/symptoms-and-conditions/mal-de-debarquement. I sometimes suffer from it after a cruise. DON

I would suggest that you go on the WEB sites for each line that you might be interested in and write down the launch and renovation dates for their ships. That certainly should not take too long. DON

When you are in a car you stop wherever you want to stop as stay there as long as you wish. If you are on a train you stop if and when they decide to stop and you have to get back on board when they leave. This difference is the reason that I do not do trains. In other words in a car you can sightsee. In a train you only get to whiz by and hopefully see. DON

I would normally not recommend any of the mass market AK ships since I feel that any ship anywhere with more than about 1000 passengers is not for me. That said - we take our grandkids to AK when they turn 10 as a coming of age cruise w/o their parents and we always do these cruises on Princess. Not as good as a AK cruise on a 200 passenger ship but I do have to admit that Princess does a good job in AK. DON

They did not say that. In fact they did not say anything at all about themselves and they have not been back DON

We have done the 7.5 hour tour w Major Marine 3x including last summer. This includes a visit to 2 glaciers. We obviously liked the tours. We have never done a Kenai Fjords tour but looking at their WEB site it appears as if the Kenai Fjords 6 hour tour also hits 2 glaciers. I wonder about how they appear to cover the same places in a much shorter time. I would compare both of them and then call them and ask them the same question that you have asked us. Also Major Marine gave us a reserved table for the entire cruise so we did not have to worry about someone else trying to take our table. Check as to how Kenai handles tables. DON

Anywhere in the world? Being a bit more specific might be useful. DON

Any line that has a passenger capacity of less than 500 people that does most of its stops at smaller towns. DON

Missed that. Sorry. DON

Have you asked NCL. Their answer is the only one that counts. DON

I would not worry about them being bored - just tell them to look at what is outside of the ship. I have taken 4 grandkids to AK who were about the same ages as yours and none of them had the slightest interested in any of the on-ship kids activities at all. To quote my 10 year old granddaughter and we did not prompt her about this statement - "I am in Alaska. Why would I want to spend my time in a boring kid's club and eat hot dogs when I can see Alaska and eat real adult stuff". Now that is one smart kid. Just remember that AK and the Caribbean are totally different places and your interaction w the ship will also be totally different. DON

Did you go to "staff" who he said set up the table and ask them to kick him off the table. I would have. DON

You If you bring a book someone would just steal your book or move it to another table. You could bring a foldable sign that says that the table is taken so do not sit there. When (not if but when) someone ignores the sign and says that they did not see the really big red sign call someone from senior buffet staff over and have the malefactors kicked out of the buffet. DON

It appears as if you have a choice of doing a bad cruise w friends or a much better cruise w/o friends. I know what my decision would be. The fact that the Bliss may be a nicer ship is irrelevant. Any Princess ship will not be a tub and in AK what is outside of the ship is much more important than what is inside the ship. DON

You are really asking about climate and not weather. WeatherSpark is the best climate site out there in my opinion. Very detailed very local climate data. DON

When we did Mendenhall this summer our guide said that in a year or so you will not be able to see any of the glacier at all from the normal easily accessible viewing sites. DON

You also should have a Permission to Treat form. DON

Weather Spark is the best climate site out there. DON

Besides all the other issues mentioned there is another really big problem w Viator and w any other tour consolidator - they always book tours that they do not actually have guides for at the moment that you book the tour. This is probably not a problem in AK but it can be a problem in other places. What happens is that when Viator accepts your booking they then go out and try to find a guide. If they can't find one they send you send you emails saying that they are still looking and repeat this process until you get the e-mail that says "sorry that we couldn't find a guide so your booking is cancelled." This happened to me several times when I was trying to get tours for my Japan trip. Luckily I realized what was happening and went ahead and got guides on my own. I will emphasize another important thing is that you should always try to book with a guide or guide group where you can communicate directly with the guide. When you book w Viator and have questions this is what happens - you call or chat w a person at Viator who has no idea exactly what you are asking because they don't know anything about the place that you are visiting; the rep contacts the guide or guide company but since they don't know about the area where you are going they get the question to the guide wrong or confusing; the guide hopefully gets back to Viator at some indefinite time in the future; at a later time the Viator rep gets back to you or maybe he never gets back to you and the answer that you get is useless. Here is another thing that you are probably unaware of which is related to my comments in the first paragraph. Especially for Anan Viator is almost certainly selling you tours that they do not have now and may never get. The way Anan works is that sometime in February 2014 the US Forest Service will allott permits for the upcoming year. There are only 60 permits issued for each day and there 19 companies looking for permits so most of the companies will not get many spots. Island Wings which is one of the companies that does cruise company Anan tours got only 60 permits for the ENTIRE summer. We have done 4 Anan trips w Breakaway which operates out of Wringell and they got about 400 for the ENTIRE summer. I am sure that some of the companies do some trading of spots but there is no way that Viator can or should be "selling" you spots that they don't have now or even know if they will be abet to get. Why should Breakaway or Island Wings sell spots at a discount if they can use them for their own tours. If they do not sell them at a discount but at their current market value Viator is going to have to charge a very high price for Anan tours as compared to the price you could get them for w a tour company. Remember that there are only a total of 3120 Anan slots available for the entire summer spread over about 2 months and 19 permit holders. Bottom line is that I will not say that Viator is lying to you but they are leaving out a lot of the story. I do hope that you do get to visit Anan. It is a great place to visit. DON