Mibele

On our Panama Canal cruise in 2019, we celebrated both my father and sister's birthdays.   The day after they redeemed their cake voucher, they both received a free dinner voucher (delivered to the cabins in the morning) at one of the fee based restaurant.  

I have (which will probably be canceled by the cruise line) May 16 on the Ruby Princess which I booked through the casino and am in an accessible mini-suite with my parents and the Mini was upgraded to a Club Class mini.  Hope we will be able to get that at a later date this year also.  

I am booked on the May 16 Ruby cruise and called today to ask about it and was basically told just to hold on a few weeks to see what they are going to be doing with the cruises that are scheduled to sail into Canada before July 1.  But he seemed to think they will probably cancel (he did not say this, I just asked and he audibly nodded lol and I am guessing).  Very nice rep on the phone - I thanked him for taking the time to speak with me and he was very appreciative.  

7 hours ago, joepeka said:

Put me down as skeptical of this notion that Princess had anything to do with the "On the Grand" thread being deleted. The cruise lines do purchase advertising space on this web site but as far as Princess "sponsoring" this forum, well, right now there are a couple of items above advertising a "Win a 7 Night Cruise on Royal Caribbean...." and I don't believe Princess would stand for that if they truly had influence with CC over this forum and it's contents.

 

If anyone wants to know why that thread has disappeared, just email the forum moderators and ask (community@cruisecritic.com). When I've done that in the past, I've always gotten fairly prompt and reasonable responses.

The "On The Grand" thread was combined in here.  The original post there was the picture of the letter, lying on their sheets (at least that is where it looked like it was placed).  I know because I was the second comment on that thread and my comment is two under that post.  I'm sorry I don't remember what the post number was, but it's on page 6 or 7 of this one, I believe.  

EDIT - I found it!  The Original "On The Grand" post is #85 here on page 4 - my reply to that post is #88.  Post #86 on this thread is from one of the mods, who I think might have been the one to place the "On The Grand" thread within this one.  I am probably wrong.  

In the main dining room, I tend to get whatever fish entree they have that evening, but I do love when they have prime rib and yorkshire pudding.  All of the sorbets are fabulous and the Chocolate Journey desserts.  Hands down, my favorite one is the Coconut Mousse with dark chocolate cream and crunch roasted coconut.  Second place is the Hazelnut chocolate dessert with Citrus cream (I saw a picture of it above).  

Hope you are your family/travel mates are able to disembark and get home safely! 

I think Jose Andres is probably the only person who could set up and start serving that amount of meals.  

4 minutes ago, icat2000 said:

  I love the that some of the passengers are leaving little thank you notes on their doors for crew. Also on twitter there is a interview with a crew member from their perspective. I found that an interesting read. 

 

 

Yes!!  Those are surely appreciated by the crew.  

On 2/10/2020 at 3:29 PM, Outerdog said:

 

The dividers are trivial to open on most ships -- particularly those of that area. You can open them with a bottle opener, nail clippers, or similar. Hell, I've read reports of them being opened with wooden stir sticks.

 

Crew would have to enter the cabins to close them -- you're right, it was probably decided it simply wasn't worth the risk to do so.

 

The person who had their neighbor visiting said in her live that they were in connecting cabins.  So they can pop in and out through the doors in the actual cabin wall.  They are their travel mates, so I'm assuming that is not problem.  

We are missing our excursions in Bergen as the seas have been rough coming out of Narvik and we had to slow down a lot.  We were supposed to dock at 1pm but now estimated arrival is 10pm.  Flying home tomorrow and an entirely new group of people get to hunt for the lights!   Attached is Jan 19, 20 and the 21st reimagined daily that we got after the late arrival announcement.  

Jan 19.pdf New Jan 21.pdf Jan20.pdf

On 1/18/2020 at 2:56 PM, Phoenix cruiser said:

Idle question, have you or anyone you run across booked any excursions independent of Viking? For those using Viking have you heard of anyone who couldn’t get their first choice?

 

keep having an amazing journey!

There were people who did independent excursions and had a great time.  The only thing I did on my own was take the train from Narvik to Kiruna Sweden and back.  That was nice to see a different landscape.  I didn’t here any grumbling about people not being able to do ship excursions, but maybe there were some who couldn’t get what they wanted.  

We had another ship sighting of the lights tonight at midnight.  You can sign up to get a phone call if someone from the bridge spots the lights.  The bad thing is it doesn’t tell you where they are.  Thankfully, it was off our starboard side balcony.  So I could peek at them without going too far 🙂.  Pics tomorrow.   

Repost of Jan 18 daily 

Jan 18.pdf

Pictures from the Northern lights excursion.  I did the ship one that was from 10 pm to 2 am.  It was an hour long bus ride to a place outside the city to a place run by Glod Explorer.  You can look at their pictures on Facebook.  The ones I’m posting here, I took.  Except for the one of me.   

Lifestyle of the Sami excursion pictures 

Catching up on the dailies.  

Jan 16.pdf Jan 17.pdf Jan 18.pdf

15 hours ago, Phoenix cruiser said:

That is fantastic. Did you have to do anything special to capture them or just point and shoot? Also how was your Sami excursion?

Those pictures taken from the ship were taken with my iPhone using the NightCap app and the Star setting within that app.  It was recommended during one of the lectures on photographing the aurora.  

The Sami excursion was great!  The reindeer sledding was nice - it was around 30 minutes long.  The talk with the Sami was interesting.  We were there for maybe 31/2 / 4 hours total.  Included two breaks in the main lavuu (? Tent) that included coffee or tea and cake during one break and a reindeer stew for the second one.   If you are looking for something more adventurous, this isn’t it.  I enjoyed it  I’ll post some pictures from that excursion also.  

Alta - WE SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS!!  Off the bow of the ship 🙂 I’m doing an excursion to see the lights (hopefully) so I’ll post any of that tomorrow.  

13 hours ago, Phoenix cruiser said:

We are a year away from doing this cruise in reverse but this gives us a great preview of what to expect. Since sunset is so early, what do the night skies look like? Easy to see the Milky Way and thousands of stars or too much ambient light from shore and the ship?

The skies last night were pretty clear.  I was only out on our balcony, but I could see many stars.  I’m sure from the top decks, one could see much more.  We were out in the sea, so ambient light was not a problem.  

Day 6 - Tromso - Jan 15.  We are doing the Lifestyle of the Sami optional excursion.  Our included excursion is the next day.  

Daily Viking Jan 15.pdf

Day 5 - January 14 

A lovely day - sunrise was 10:24 and sunset 1:58.  During the daylight hours we did some more scenic cruising.  Out in the open sea now on our way to Tromso tomorrow.  Seas are not bad at all.  Back to PDF of the dailies.  

Day 5 Jan 14.pdf

2 hours ago, jgm said:

We are taking this cruise in Feb.  Are the ship's public areas chilly?  Are sweaters needed?  Any suggestions for packing?

The ships public areas are quite nice temperature wise, but you may want a cardigan or similar to take any chill off at times.   I know I totally over packed.   

15 hours ago, Geosez said:

Thanks for the beautiful pictures!  (I see that Mickey got to come along!). How’s the weather?  We’ve been checking temps and forecasts regularly before we start packing.  Reported temps have been higher than we anticipated.

All Mickey, all the time haha.  Weather has been beautiful, even from a Los Angeles living perspective.  I’m usually freezing at anything below 70.  It’s been in the 40s.  Rain only at night.   Our next three stops will be cold though.  20s.  I’ll let you know.  

Day 4 - Jan 13 - we ended up cruising through the Sognefjord as the seas were rough and they’ve canceled Bodo.  Tomorrow will be another sea day instead as we rock and roll up to Tromso.  Not as bad though if we had sailed during the day today.  I’ve added a few pics from the fjord also.