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donaldsc

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Everything posted by donaldsc

  1. I did a shared room on the Quark Ocean Adventurer. That is the ship I was describing in my post. I booked a shared room figuring that I wouldn't have a problem sharing with a stranger and the saving was significant. DON
  2. Just a quick note. You are not allowed to mention specific TA names on CC. DON
  3. Totally agree with you. Also some people love rough seas. One my first Antarctica trip we had a force 11 gale off Cape Horn. It was a hoot watching them get the pilot on board.. On my most recent trip we had a day of 68 mph winds. DON
  4. I am going to come onto this from a different direction especially as you are trying to keep your costs down or else spend the same amount pf money and get a longer trip and maybe even a trip that does Antarctica and either the Falklands or South Georgia. You have to ask yourself which is more important - what is inside the ship such as luxury stuff or what is outside of the ship such as sea birds, penguins, seal and stuff like that. If you can live with smaller but comfortable cabins, good but not fancy food and a lack of fancy ship amenities you can save money or have more of a trip. That was the route I took the 2 times I went to Antarctica. If you want the 2nd option you will not get a lot of information on CC as it appears that most of the people who post on CC for Antarctica want to go the luxury route. You will also not get a lot of good information by looking at the WEB sites from the different cruise companies since all of them a puff sites. What you need to find a travel agent company that specializes solely in Antarctica trips. Not one that does both polar regions or one that does Antarctica and a bunch of other places. You need one that does just and only the southern Polar regions. They exist. That is where I booked my trips but unfortunately according to CC rules I can't tell who they are. Talk to them on the phone (not internet but phone) about what you want and what your budget is. They will come up with some good options. They also know what bargains there are out there. The ships I ended taking held about 90 people so the 100 people on the continent regulation did not impact us. They had small but functional cabins. After all what do you really need in a cabin but beds, a desk and a bathroom. The dining room was not fancy but the food was good. There was a large lounge where we had our meetings and also where we relaxed. After all what more do you need in Antarctica. The expedition staff was wonderful. We even had the person who was station chief at the Russian Antarctica station Vostok Station (look it up - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_Station) earlier in his career. He had some interesting stories to tell. Hope this helps. DON
  5. Except for the fact that it would ruin the puzzle for others a good response to this problem would be to take 8 or 10 pieces out of the puzzle box and hide them somewhere. DON
  6. Not surprising that the cruise lines will not give you the information even if they have it. They want to sell you ship tours which I assume are very profitable. Even if they did try to give you that information it probably be inaccurate and/or out of date. Use the internet for that information. DON
  7. Does buying 2 expensive fountain pens in Japan count? DON
  8. This is sort of relevant. We recently had a F1 car race here in Las Vegas and they expected a lot of visitors from overseas who typically either do not tip or tip at a low level. Many of the local venues apparently raised their prices partly to gouge the tourists but also to make up for the expected low tipping which would affect servers and and other customer support wages. Bottom line is that whether you like it or not you should tip at around the level expected by the local custom or just stay away. DON
  9. You get into port at 7:00 PM and the ship departs at 11:00. That means that you are probably off the ship at 7:30 and you have to be back on board at 10:30 which gives you a whole 3 hours on shore. I can hardly make any comment w/o being cited by the moderator about why the cruise company would schedule such a visit except to be able to say that you will visit Haines. IMHO it is hardly worth getting off the ship but you might as well walk around the historic district and visit anything that might be able be open at that hour. This is from the Haines visitpr site - chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://assets.simpleviewinc.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1/clients/hainesak/History_hound_web_site_1b928816-a1cb-4fda-aa15-008ef1ab6074.pdf. It is a shame since Haines is a neat little place that has not been spoiled by over tourism. It is worth visiting. DON
  10. I don't know about that particular piece of equipment but I would be very suspect of anything sold by Sharper Image. Most of those combination binoc / camera combinations combine a really crappy camera stuck on a really lousy set of binoculars . DON
  11. Another port that is fairly unruined is Sitka plus several of the smaller ports. However Sitka is beginning to be hit by Monstrosities of the Seas ships so if you can visit it now and not a few years from now.
  12. A comment with regard to DOS. There are things that you can do with file handling that are still much easier with DOS than you can do w Windows. The selective DIR command and the selective COPY commands were wonderful. DON
  13. For future reference and to make using CC more useful to you if you are looking for posts from a specific person you can just click on their handle and all the rest of their posts will be listed. DON
  14. You have not posted the rest of the itineraries so this info might impact my answer. However based on just the choice of glacier stops Glacier Bay is a sure thing. Hubbard is a maybe. Take the Take the Glacier Bay cruise. DON
  15. Different sides sounds like an intriguing solution to me. DON
  16. In my wandering around the internet I came across a intriguing baggage service for people who don't want to deal w their bags. It is called My Baggage - https://www.mybaggage.com/quote?quote=US%2CGB. I have never used them so I do not know if they are reliable but their prices are low. For example I can send a 66# suitcase from the US to the UK with pickup at my home for only $160. This is for 4 - 5 day service. Again and I repeat I have not used them so this is not a recommendation. Use them at your own risk. They do appear to have some good reviews however. DON
  17. Unless there is a real difference in cost I always pick my own flights and for me decent connections and flights are always more important than saving a few bucks. I will admit that you do have to spend a bit of time to find the best options and sometimes the connections that the the airlines try to initially route you by are not the best ones for me. My go to site for flight research is Google aIr. I do not book them on Google Air but I do my research there. DON
  18. You sound as if you know what you are talking about. I may need to replace my heavy 17" gaming laptop soon. What do you think about buying one of those higher end micro computers. You can stuff a lot of stuff into them including multiple hard drives into them and they are really small. I could even buy a large external SSD for it if I need a lot of drive space. The reason that I need portability is that I have 2 homes and I am tired of hauling stuff back and forth. I have screens and keyboards at both places so all I would have to haul is the micro computer. If I was totally crazy I could buy a small keyboard and a portable screen so I could take my full home computer any place I go. The cost for all of this might be around $1500. I should add that I do not run any programs that involve high level graphics. Does any of this make any sense. DON
  19. When we did our 3 month AK driving trip we used the Marine Highway extensively. It is really the best way to see AK. First of all you get to share time with real Alaskans. Secondly you get to stop at small towns that the people who go by the big ships don't stop at. Thirdly you get to stay in some really neat places. Finally and most important to you sometimes because of ferry schedules you are forced to stay at a place for a couple of days until the next ferry comes. This means that you get to see the town after the hoards of thousands of cruise trippers are gone. Funny story here. We were in I think Juneau on a Sunday and the town was overrun with people. We figured that we would relax until the ships left and we would enjoy our shopping on a relaxed manner. What we didn't know is that because it was a Sunday the 2nd the ships left all the shops closed and the shop owners went home. Who knew. However because we had our car our attitude was who cares as there was always Monday. DON
  20. One of the real advantages of using a TA is that when things go wrong and they sometimes will you have someone who is on your side. They care about your business. To the cruise companies you are just a number. DON
  21. My personal opinion is that if visiting Denali is a really an important part of your trip I would not go until the road is fixed. Driving just 43 miles into the park is just not worth it. However aas Northern Aurora points out Wrangell -- St. Elias National Park and Preserve is a really great to go to that you not be able to get to if you try to go to Denali. St Elias will also be less crowded than Denali. DON
  22. I bought a used Rokinon 12 mm f2 from KEH. It seemed a good fit for what I need at a price I can justify. I paid $150 for it. At the end of the trip I can sell it back for about $60 or else I can keep it. Will keep you posted once I get it and try it out. DON
  23. Unless there is a really good critical for doing the early flight my attitude would be that your idea is a really bad way and very stressful to end a vacation, DON
  24. Quick reply. I can't justify the Sony at ~$1200 used. What do you think about the Rokinon 12mm f/2 NCS CS Manual Focus Len which I can get from KEH for #130. DON
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