donaldsc

Something seems a bit fishy here. I am sure that something happened and the OP may be not surprisingly over reacting but I can't imagine that the security people on the ship would ignore a crime of that magnitude. DON

Many thanks to all of you. This will be my 1st visit to Japan. We will not be changing cabins. So since I will already been in country (my preceding port is Nagasaki and my following port is Shimizu) and we dock at 06:30 I should have no problems meeting my guide if I decide to use one around 8:00 to 8:30. DON

We have done lots of cruising including long cruises but as difficult as it may be to believe our 19 day Princess Japan cruise will be our true B2B cruise. Our changeover port will be Yokohama and we want to get off the ship and do a tour in Yokohama. How do they handle the changeover. Do they have us get off the ship and let us reboard immediately or do they just put us in the showroom until they zero out the ship. My basic question is that if the earliest disembarkation time is 06:30 how early can we arrange for the tour guide to meet us. DON

We have done lots of cruising including long cruises but as difficult as it may be to believe our 19 day Princess Japan cruise will be our true B2B cruise. Our changeover port will be Yokohama and we want to get off the ship and do a tour in Yokohama. How do they handle the changeover. Do they have us get off the ship and let us reboard immediately or do they just put us in the showroom until they zero out the ship. My basic question is that if the earlies disembarkation time is 06:30 how early can we arrange for the tour guide to meet us. DON

Why not? DON

We are doing a B2B in Japan with a changeover in Yokohama. Rather than waste the day sitting on the ship in Yokohama I would like book a private tour for that day. I have done lots of cruises but not a Princess B2B. I assume that the procedure is that they check you out and then immediately check you back in. The ship docks in theory at 6:30 AM. My question is about how early can I expect to get off the ship and meet my tour guide. I do realize of course it it partly depends upon the vagaries of the Japanese customs people. DON

We did a halibut charter out of Homer. It was great fun. We caught halibut and had it shipped home. It was delicious but also the most expensive fish we have ever eaten. DON

Ignoring the fact of the interior cabin the Crown is better. Better port times. One more port. To be frank I am totally unexcited about either cruise based on the itineraries but the Crown is less bad. DON

I am not down on Azamara. I just have not found any of their cruises that I was really excited about and I did find some on from other companies that I was more excited about. DON

I hope that you are aware that the Denali road is closed at mile marker 43 which means that you hardly get into the park. I have been to Denali several times so I look at the place differently but to me it is hardly worth going there now. Just remember that you do not have to actually go into the park to see the mountain. DON

I would repost on the AK board. DON

Post the itinerary please. DON

Nobody who has cruised on Azamara wants them to fail. Those of us who have cruised on Azamara did so because they had a wonder product. We cruised on them 5 or 6 times. However that was then and now is now. I have not cruised on them post covid but it sounds as if they are having problems keeping up their former high standards. Fixing the apparent current issues is their problem and the fact that they are under new management is their problem and not ours. DON

BORING! That is about the worse cruise ship itinerary anywhere anytime in history. Don

Using your logic one would assume that if you are a practicing Jew or a practicing Christian you should not visit Israel. Do I have it right. DON

Fugu. Look it up. DON

Regardless of where or when they went when I saw the word "group" I said NO WAY. Just a personal choice but you would not catch me dead on a group cruise. Just my very prejudiced opinion. DON

They are completely different. Tracy Arm is much narrower. We did not see much marine life on our way in. We got very close closer to South Sawyer glacier the 3 times we went in but you have to remember that we were on small ships. On Kenai we did the 7 1/2 cruise - see the map - https://majormarine.com/tour/7.5-hour-kenai-fjords-national-park-cruise/. You go over open water and we lucked out with sea life. On one of our trips we had a huge pod of orcas. The captain said that he had never seen so many. We got up close to 2 tidewater glaciers. On one of our trips we saw a piedmont glacier but we didn't get into it on our 2nd trip. You almost always get into them while you don't lots of time w Tracy Arm. You also get a nice lunch on the cruise. It is hard to make a decision especially as you will be going in on a cruise ship and went in on small ships with Tracy Arm but if you forced me decide I would say Kenai Fjord. DON

Do you really think that Princess cares about what you put on your survey? Princess has 15 ships. Assume an average load of 4000 passengers per ship. That is 60,000 passengers per week or 312000 passengers per year. Assume optimistically that 10% of the passengers fill out the survey which means that they will get 31,200 surveys per year. That's a lot of surveys to digest. DON

Just to add a bit more confusion to the mix. I have done the Kenai Fjord day trips out of Seward several times and the glaciers there are also very very good and you are almost certain to get into them. I agree that the only way to do Tracy Arm is on a small boat or a small ship. When we did AK on a small ship we got so close to the glacier that when it calved the boat rocked. We also got to the glaciers last summer on zodiacs. We were doing another small ship AK cruise. They got as close as they could and we went the rest of the way in on zodiac. Just to clarify my verbiage. To me a small boat is one that you take a day trip on. A small ship is a cruise ship that holds no more than 200 or so passengers. Our small ship cruises to AK were on ships that held 50 passengers and 150 passengers. My goal is some day to do AK on a 10 passenger trawler ship. One of the times we were in Tracy Arm there were people there on a small sailboat. That would also be way of doing it. DON

This is from a fellow Las Vegas resident. Our cruise ship sailed through that area when we were coming into Whittier and the scenery is spectacular. Unfortunately it is overlooked by most AK visitors as it is sort of out of the way and most people don't have the free time in Whittier to do it. We will be sailing through the area again this summer when we taker our grandson to AK w/o his parents. We do an AK trip with every grandchild when they turn 10 as a rite of passage. I have been to AK in ways and on different types of ships maybe 10 or 15 times. Love the place. DON

I do not know about a T6 with a housing. However the TG by itself which is waterproof w/o the housing will sink. I tested it w mine in the bathtub. DON

I was on one cruise where the person next door had their balcony lights on 24/7. I like to sleep w the curtains open and it was annoying. I called security who came and asked them to turn off their lights. The did apologize to me and said that they didn't know that they were on. DON

I never take original bottles and I have never had problems. I do take one precaution. I have diabetes and I take a shot once per week. I have a letter from my endocrinologist saying that I have diabetes and listing the medical stuff that I might be taking w me for the disease. DON

Just remember that some of the underwater cameras including the TG series DO NOT FLOAT. This means that if you let go of it underwater they sink. I bought a positive buoyancy strap for mine. Test whatever you buy at home in the bathtub before you leave. https://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Camera-Float-Strap-Underwater/dp/B00YR8ZNDU DON