fitzwest

What ever you do don't forget ponchos. The year we went, there was an inch of water on the parade ground at the end. It wasn't there when the performance started.

When a scot see's clear blue skies, he think hmm it's going to rain today.

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The immigration at Astoria were late. That caused everyone to backup. I was one of the first in line. It was the only time I can recall being a non-us citizen let me beat my wife (us citizen) by several minutes. Princess also make passengers line up to do immigration before getting off the ship when returning to SF. This may change with the new terminal opening this week. First ship docked on Friday.

I've never been any closer to the Sawyer glacier than where we turned around on this trip. I knew going we wouldn't get very close to glacier from past experience and wasn't disappointed.

We had a great trip, we did get the worst ship docks. We were also the smallest ship in each of the ports, so it's easier to transport 1800 passengers into town than 3000 on one of the big ships.

I would also say that the captain was the most visible we've seen on any of our previous cruises. We bumped into him in two ports and around the ship. He did hook my wife with a story of his "Rose garden" on deck 12. For the second straight cruise we got a last minute invite to the Captains table. Although this was the first time it was the actual captain.

My wife and I would already be Elite under the new system, under the old system 13 nights in a CC is the same number of credits as 12 nights in CS and 11 nights in a RS is one day shorter and 1 less credit. The 3 credit cap on a single sailing disadvantaged guest would took longer cruises.

RS 11 Night Ultimate Alaska Cruise 2 c or 11x12 = 132

CS 12 Night Classical Mediterranean Cruise 3 c or 12x12 = 144

CC 13 Night Ultimate Alaska Cruise 3 c or 13*5 = 65

old system 8 credits covered to 265pt or under the new system 341

I did get the Elite coupons when sailing the suites. I did get chastised for not coming to the Elite cocktails by the club host (right before we got off the ship), strangely we where never told we could attend.

I would have to guess it is fuel and demand. Sailing under the Golden Gate bridge is not to be missed. For the Bay Area folks, this is too convenient to pass up. This also means the ship sailing maybe 2X the distance of the Solstice.