donaldsc

In that case she is not management and tipping is appropriate. DON

It did not say that there were 16,000 crimes which would hardly be likely in a city of less than 100 people. The crime index is based on the number of crimes as compared to the total population of the city. Remember the population of Ocean Beach. DON

Unless you provide us with some information as to your needs, wants, budget, physical limitations and what you are expecting to get out of your tour anything that we can tell you will be totally useless to you. Your question is the equivalent to you going to a car site and posting "I want to buy a car - what is the best car that I should get". However since you asked I will tell you what my AK selection parameters are based on a fair number of AK trips. I won't cruise on any ship that is larger than 1000 passengers and for me the smaller the better. We just came back from an AK cruise that held 180 passengers and I have done cruises on ships that held 50 passengers. I never do round trip AK cruises because you do not get as many ports. I will not take one of the cruises that visit just the big 3 ports of Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway. Been to those places and once or twice is enough especially when there are several cruise ships in town at the same time with 10,000 to 15,000 total passengers. The towns then become a zoo. I prefer to stop at posts such as Sitka, Wrangell, Haines, Valdez or Kodiak as these stops are more typical of AK. I will only do one way cruises. I prefer trip lengths of 10 - 14 days and only because it is almost impossible to find longer cruises. The standard trip length of 7 days is way too short. When I do a cruise doing Glacier Bay is a must. There are other places that have good glaciers but you sometimes do not get into them. You will always get into Glacier Bay. One thing that I have noticed that many AK 1st timers worry too much about ship on board amenities. That may be important when you do a Caribbean cruise but for an AK cruise what is important is what is outside of the ship and not what is on the ship. Basically you need to do your own research and then come back with specific questions instead of the totally non-specific question that you asked. DON

If you use that idea - consider the city of Ocean Beach NY which has a crime rate of 16,000 which is the highest rate of any city in the state. This is the most dangerous city in New York State to be in. Their crime rate is 16507 as compared to the runner up which has a crime rate of 3996. So is it really so dangerous to be in Ocean Beach. When Ocean Beach has a population of 59 while the runner up is Buffalo w a population of 260.000. The crime in Ocean Beach was probably a theft. DON

The tour director is management. Unless they do something way above and beyond what is expected I don't tip them. My general philosophy is that you do not tip management. DON

This is one of the few things in your post that I agree with. A good land tour in AK is usually better than a cruise tour except that cruise tours can get you into places that you can't drive around or easily get into. I always suggest that people doing AK should consider the limited area DIY option but lots and lots of people on CC obviously love AK cruising so the cruise companies must be doing something right. With regard to your comment about port times - you should have noted the port times before you booked the cruise so this should not have been a surprise. Port times on almost any cruise are awful. I find your comment about a whale breaching astounding. There are people who have gone tp AK many times and have taken many whale tours and have never seen a whale breaching and would die to see a whale breaching including me. When we did our last AK cruise w our granddaughter's one of them was looking in the right direction and got to see a whale breaching. The rest of us were not looking in the right direction and didn't see it. Not sure what would have made you happy. Maybe whales doing tricks like the dolphins at sea world? It is a ship. Docking or visiting any port is never guaranteed. There was a recent post on CC from a person who did an Antarctica cruise where he was expecting to have 10 landings. He only got 3 because of weather. Stuff happens. A friend of ours has taken a South American cruise 4 or 4 times and has never gotten into the Falklands because of weather. Again - stuff happens. I agree but that happens everywhere and not just on cruise ships. I live in Las Vegas which is the home of all-you-can-eat buffets. Lots of stuff gets wasted. Whenever we go to a restaurant where we can't eat the whole meal we take the uneaten food home in a doggie bag. Lots of time we see people leaving the restaurant with lots of good food left on their plates. You need to do your research before you pick a cruise and also to define your priorities. We cruise to get to see interesting places and to see interesting things. Some people cruise just to be on a ship. There is nothing wrong with being in the second group but you sound like that is your group. DON

I assume that you were not being serious on your response, If you were being serious can I ask when the last time you were specifically told that it was not legal to murder someone. By your logic it would be OK to murder someone because you were not informed that murder was not legal. . DON

Without you providing any information at all about your issue, I seriously doubt that hiring and paying for an attorney will be worth it even if you have a valid case. The cruise lines have attorneys on salary and you will be paying your attorney by the hour. Unless your problem is a really serious one that caused life threatening problems the best you could hope for is some FCC and since you probably don't want to go back to Princess what good will that be. DON

Two dollar bills and the one dollar coins are both equally stupid. Why use coinage that nobody recognizes as real unless you are trying to make a point for its own sake. Even worse when you foist those thing on crew staff who will have a great difficulty converting them from unrecognizable currency to something that they can spend. I found one of those $1 coins in a pile of change I got so now I have to go to the bank to convert it to a paper $1 bill so I can spend it easily. DON

I was not aware of the dredging option or what the possible environmental problems might be. I was just commenting of the ships going into Venice right through the tourist areas. I have been in Venice when this occurred and they are just disruptive. DON

whatever your restrictions are all you have to do is discuss it w them and they will do their best to handle it. Ships are usually very good at dealing w special diets. DON

Look at from the viewpoint of the people who actually live in Venice. I have been to Venice on an extended visit land trip and it is awful to watch those huge cruise ships going down the middle of the canals. They do not belong there. If you are going to have the crowds coming into Venice off the cruise ships what they are doing now is a reasonable compromise. The big ships just don't have to take over the city. DON

I understand that but it was a number that I could come up w easily. I did a further search and came up with this. New York is #11 at the low end of the number of violent crimes. Take a look at the ones at the bottom that are the worse state. How about we all move to Vermont. Sort of interesting that Illinois which has Chicago which is the murder capitol of the country is right about in the middle. I guess that my home state of Nevada is not so good on this list. Check out this site - http://www.usa.com/rank/us--crime-index--state-rank.htm. Lots of neat stuff on it. U.S. Crime Index State Rank A total of 51 results found. Show Results on Map. The crime index value is calculated based on the data using USA.com algorithms. It is an indicator of the crime level in a region. Higher crime index value means more crime. How about we all move to Vermont. Rank Crime Index ▲ State / Population 1. 950 Vermont / 626,358 2. 956 New Hampshire / 1,321,069 3. 985 North Dakota / 704,925 4. 1,017 Maine / 1,328,535 5. 1,042 South Dakota / 834,708 6. 1,068 Idaho / 1,599,464 7. 1,125 Virginia / 8,185,131 8. 1,136 Wyoming / 575,251 9. 1,171 Connecticut / 3,592,053 10. 1,180 New Jersey / 8,874,374 11. 1,194 New York / 19,594,330 12. 1,203 Iowa / 3,078,116 13. 1,227 Wisconsin / 5,724,692 14. 1,230 Montana / 1,006,370 15. 1,235 West Virginia / 1,853,881 16. 1,268 Rhode Island / 1,053,252 17. 1,298 Minnesota / 5,383,661 18. 1,305 Kentucky / 4,383,272 19. 1,335 Pennsylvania / 12,758,729 20. 1,368 Massachusetts / 6,657,291 21. 1,390 Nebraska / 1,855,617 22. 1,405 Utah / 2,858,111 23. 1,497 Oregon / 3,900,343 24. 1,526 Colorado / 5,197,580 25. 1,584 Mississippi / 2,984,345 26. 1,599 Indiana / 6,542,411 27. 1,608 Hawaii / 1,392,704 28. 1,616 Illinois / 12,868,747 29. 1,670 Kansas / 2,882,946 30. 1,691 Ohio / 11,560,380 31. 1,701 California / 38,066,920 32. 1,757 Michigan / 9,889,024 33. 1,855 Washington / 6,899,123 34. 1,858 Missouri / 6,028,076 35. 1,869 North Carolina / 9,750,405 36. 1,884 Maryland / 5,887,776 37. 1,911 Georgia / 9,907,756 38. 1,938 Oklahoma / 3,818,851 39. 1,941 Alabama / 4,817,678 40. 1,962 Texas / 26,092,033 41. 1,974 Delaware / 917,060 42. 1,986 Alaska / 728,300 43. 2,025 Arizona / 6,561,516 44. 2,065 Arkansas / 2,947,036 45. 2,095 Florida / 19,361,792 46. 2,167 Louisiana / 4,601,049 47. 2,180 Nevada / 2,761,584 48. 2,194 Tennessee / 6,451,365 49. 2,241 New Mexico / 2,080,085 50. 2,253 South Carolina / 4,727,273 51. 3,747 District of Columbia / 633,736 DON

The state of New York is 8th on the list of the number of mass shootings with 5. The top ones in order numbers are California (23), Florida (12), Texas (12), Washington (7), Colorado (7), Wisconsin (5), Pennsylvania (5). Do you plan to completely avoid all those states? Yes I do realize that these numbers are total and not per capita but they are still useful numbers. My home state of Nevada has only 2. DON

All parents or grandparents would sign such a confirmation. It would be worth the paper it was signed on. DON

So why didn't you remove them or have cruise staff remove them. There have been many times when I move people's stuff if staff will not do it and then play dumb when people come back to reclaim a seat that has been left vacant for a period of time. If you don't want to be that pushy pick up the stuff and give it to cruise staff and tell the chair hogs that the cruise staff has their stuff. DON

I know whereof you speak. Many years ago we lived in Richland WA which is close to the junction of the Columbia and Snake rivers. Both rivers have locks and this is the size of the locks on the Snake - The standard size lock in the system in 86 feet wide and 675 feet long. The river channel is a minimum of 14 feet deep. My daughter was a member of a local girl scout troop and one of the fathers was an engineer working for the Columbia River Authority or what ever it was called. Once he offered to take the troop on a short cruise on the Snake in a boat that was maybe 25 or 30 ft long with outboard engines. As part of the cruise we got to go through one of the locks. Imagine a 25 foot boat being the ONLY boat in a 86 x 675 foot lock. The girls sort of got it but it was amazing to me. We locked upstream and then downstream as the only boat in the locks. That sort of thing is not likely to ever happen to me again. DON

Using $2 bills is almost as bad as using the coin money. Why make it difficult for the crew and I would question whether most Americans get a kick out of a $2 bill. Tip people w real money and not w real money that looks like fake money. Why make it difficult for the crew. DON

The problem w the cruise company being responsible for getting visas is that there are so many different visa scenarios that it never work. Or at least it would work most of the time except for the times when it didn't. DON

I do have to say that AQ back office is a mixed bag. When we did our AK cruise with them we didn't get our final papers until about a week before the cruise. However when we called their office to ask them questions they were very responsive. Also the people on the ship were wonderful but they did not have some of the perks on board that were promised on the cruise description. The missing items were not serious and did not impact the quality of the cruise but they were missing. DON

One of the premium lines. I don't remember which one. DON

The Panama Canal is definitely worth visiting if only to see how wonderfully the 100 year old technology still works. If you decide to take a canal cruise make sure to do one that goes through then old canal and do a full canal transit. This is the best way to get to appreciate the canal. DON

This is a funny story wine story but it is true and not a joke. We have a friend who is a total cruise nut. They have done B2B2B2B2B2B2B Caribbean cruises. They are now on one of their many world cruises but they got to the Florida cruise port in a way that most of us would not think of. Instead of flying to Florida as most of us would have done they flew to California found a cruise that started in Los Angeles and ended up in their world cruise embarkation port in Florida. I put this long introduction to the post to show that they are valuable cruise customers and the lines that they cruise on really want to keep them happy. They were on a long cruise and the ship did not have her favorite type of wine and she made her disappointment known. I am sure that she did not do in an antagonistic way and I I am sure she did not say that this was the last time she would ever cruise with them but she did tell them that she was disappointed. The booze department on the ship made sure that someone went to a liquor store at the next port to get enough of her special wine for the whole cruise. Also she is never w/o that wine whenever she cruises on that line. Sometimes status does helpp. DON

When are you going to be in Athens. I have an Acropolis tour booked on 15 October already booked and I can add 2 people. I am also going to book a wine tasting tour on 8 October. DON

I didn't know that as I have stopped cruising on Princess and have switched to smaller ships. However I still don't see why they offered FCC to people who were quarantined with Covid but have never offered FCC to the many people who were isolated with other issues. DON