sherryf

You will change to Alaska time on the 2nd night of your cruise, before arriving at your first Alaskan port.

I was just there a few weeks ago and saw porters. I never use them myself, since I'm perfectly capable of rolling my own suitcase.

There are porters at Pier 91, but if a lot of people all arrive at once, especially the big buses, then there aren't enough porters to go around. You must have arrived at a very busy time if there were no porters and you had to wait an hour. I sailed out of Pier 91 a few weeks ago (on HAL) and did not have this problem at all. We walked right in and dropped our luggage, and were on the ship within about 15 minutes.

Inside the ship tends to be "room temperature" but of course that can vary a bit. It's no different than going to a restaurant on land at any time of year. If you tend to be cold, bring a sweater.

When we did the Bike & Brew in 2009, we went to Alaskan Brewing. Their tasting room was quite small then. My daughter and I just visited the brewery last week and the facility is much larger and nicer now. They could easily have an excursion group there.

Cool! We were there that day and it didn't seem that bad, but we were on a kayaking excursion way out of town, and it didn't really rain much there.

Just because someone wants to use their beverage package on the last morning doesn't mean they plan to do tequila shots at 7 am. They might just want to grab a specialty coffee, or enjoy a cappuccino or *gasp* a mimosa with breakfast in the dining room. I live in the Seattle area, so when I cruise out to Seattle to Alaska, I'm not in a hurry to get off the ship. I've had disembarkation times around 9 am, and my long travel home is about 40 minutes. I like to have a leisurely breakfast before disembarking, preferably with one last specialty coffee.

We hit all of these last year. I loved Barnaby and the cat. Their Day Late Coconut Pastry Stout is delicious!

We didn't care for it either. I'd rather drink Alaskan Amber any day!

It really depends on your interests. Totem Bight and Saxman are both good for learning about native culture, but very different experiences. Float plane over Misty Fjords was absolutely spectacular. We've gone hiking on our own couple of times. I went kayaking with my (adult) kids several years ago, and my daughter and I plan to go kayaking again in a couple of weeks.

Same for us. We did it on about our tenth trip to Alaska. We'd done many other better things on previous trips, so decided to check it out. I certainly would not recommend it for anyone's first/only trip to Ketchikan.

I drank Painkillers on Nieuw Amsterdam last summer and they were good. Looking forward to trying them again at the end of the month on Westerdam. I'm just mad that they raised the price so that they now are no longer fully covered by HIA.

You don't pass the Shrine when traveling from Mendenhall and ship. The Shrine is way north of Mendenhall. Renting a car is probably your best option. Have you priced taxi/uber for what you are planning? A car rental is likely cheaper.

I've done a lot of reading about this online. Most sources say that it's the salt in the FOOD, not the water, that is the culprit. I have never read that they ADD salt to the water. The reverse osmosis system removes the salt. I always drink the ship water and have never had trouble with swelling.

You can look up average temperatures for the areas you will visit at the time you will be visiting to get an idea. Once you get closer to your sailing (1-2 weeks) you can check forecasts for more current information. It will be cooler when sailing near glaciers. The best way to dress in Alaska is LAYERS. No bulky coats. A waterproof rain jacket with a hood. I tend to take short and long sleeved shirts, a light jacket, a fleece/sweatshirt, and my rain jacket, which doubles as a windbreaker. I can wear any one or all at once, depending on the weather, and can add or remove as necessary if the weather changes throughout the day.

Or you can just drink the water from your tap. It's quite good, and no plastic waste! 😁

3 hours. We are scheduled to be there 9 pm to midnight. I never bother to get off the ship there anyway.

I've never found the MDR to be overwhelming on embarkation day. We never reserve anything, just walk into a dining room when we want to eat and get seated relatively quickly. I few times we've been handed a pager, but even so I don't think we ever waited more than 15-20 minutes.

I've been to Glacier Bay on Holland America and Princess, and the experience has been pretty much identical. I would not say that HAL does it any better than Princess... but not any worse either.

Skagway Brewing is our favorite!

Yes, there are glaciers around that you can see, but the ship does't necessarily "visit" them in a way that they are close enough to see. The glacier in Juneau (Mendenhall) is nowhere near the port and can't be seen from the ship. You have to take an excursion or find other transportation to get there. There are hanging glaciers that can be seen from the port in Skagway, but not all HAL ships go to Skagway. Some go to Sitka instead. When cruise lines talk about "visiting" glaciers, that should mean that they have a glacier sailing on their schedule and that they actually go there and get close enough to see it. It doesn't mean that they briefly passed by a distant hanging glacier that people might happen to see if they are looking. It doesn't mean that the ship stopped in a place where glaciers can be seen if you take excursions, but cannot be seen from the ship. "Visiting" a glacier should refer to actual scheduled glacier viewing, at Hubbard, College Fjord, Glacier Bay, Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier, etc. My question is, what do they consider a "successful" glacier visit? If they sail into Endicott Arm but don't get in far enough to see the glacier, or barely get far enough to get a tiny distant glimpse, does it count?

I don't think you can count it as a "visit" if you are 50+ miles away and cannot see it. 🙄

LOL! There are glaciers on Mt Rainier, but you can hardly say that the ship "visited a glacier" because it was in Seattle. You can't even see Mt Rainier from Seattle a large percentage of the time.

I live in the Seattle area and I don't think I even own an umbrella. Even working outside (recess duty, etc.) for about 1.5 hours every day, I don't use an umbrella. I mainly sail to Alaska, where it also rains a lot, and don't use an umbrella. I have good, waterproof rain jackets with hoods, and wear a ball cap under the hood to keep the rain off my glasses and keep the hood from drooping over my eyes. Umbrellas are a hazard in crowded ports, and they don't work well in windy places, and especially don't work on moving ships. I've seen people try and it's hilarious!

I wonder what their definition is of not visiting a glacier. I would think that this would never happen on cruises visiting Glacier Bay, unless the whole day got cancelled due to bad weather or other emergency. Glaciers are more likely to be missed on the Endicott Arm/Dawes Glacier sailings. I've never been to Endicott Arm, but I've been to Tracy Arm a few times, and sometimes they barely get close enough to see a very slight, distant view of the glacier. So if they get close enough that you can barely see it in the distance, does that count as "visiting a glacier"? In all of my cruises to Alaska (13, with 2 more booked this summer) we have only completely missed our glacier once, and that was due to a very unfortunate major emergency.