pdmlynek

That sounds great. That way you do not have to even get a hotel for that night, saving yourself lots of money.

Yes, of course you cannot have a cruise do only Greece, or only one contry. Every cruise must stop at ports in at least two countries, due to cabotage laws, such as the Jones Act in the US. If a ship stops exclusively within one country, then it is a domestic cruise and not an international cruise, and must obey domestic labor laws etc. If the ship were not to stop in Turkey, the costs of the cruise would be much higher.

We faced similar option as well. Between the three options, I'd go with Option 2. The problem with visiting Istanbul on a cruise is that Istanbul is such a great city that you need at least a week so begin to scratch its surface. It is like trying to see New York or Paris in a day. It is a quixotic endevour. Sure, you won't get to see much of any of the islands during a brief 1 day stop over, but at least you'll get a taste of the island at each stop. Good luck!

One problem that you'll encounter is that if you want to sightsee Athens on the way to the airport from the cruise ship is that you will have luggage with you. If you are a light packer, and are able to put everything into a day pack and sightsee with a daypack (I often do that), then you are all set. If you are an average packer, and you have bags with which you do not want to climb the Acropolis, then you'll need to store them someplace. Sightseeing with heavy luggage in tow is no fun. Here are a few places in downtown Athens where you can store you luggage: The Lockers Syntagma - Automated Luggage Storage Kolokotroni 9, Syntagma, Athina, off Stadiou, off Syntagma Square; across from National Historical Museum, 37.9773°N 23.7325°E; +30 693 241 2302 Lockers4All 2 Nikis str, Athina 105 57, Greece, +30 694 562 4229; 37.9762°N 23.7334°E Luggage Storage in Athens Nikis 17, Athina 105 57, Greece; +30 21 0322 3531; 37.9745°N 23.7331°E Just take X80 to Syntagma Square, leave your luggagu at one of the aobve-mentioned places, do your sightseeing, come back, pick up your luggage, then catch the metro or bus to the airport. Good luck!

This is what we were planning to do as well. But we were pleasntly surprised that the X80 bus stopped right where our ship docked. In retrospect it makes sense that the bus company would go all the way to the ship, and not make the passengers hike a km to the road.

There were 12 of us, 6 adults and 6 kids (10 to 16 yo). We did it with HAL Vancouver to Seward, and then did a week land portion. During the exursion, we'd typically stay together for the morning, and then we'd split up into 2 to 4 groups, depending on how everybody felt. Sometimes, we had kids and adults go their separate ways, sometimes men/boys went their way and women/girls went another, sometimes the more active went different places than the less active, etc. The secret is to manage expectations. "In Ketchikan, let's do __ together for a few hours, and then we can split up", "Everyone meet at MDR for dinner at 19:00", etc. It worked, and we all look fondly on our trip together.

Two hours should be plenty of time, but for many people, this is cutting things needlessly close. I'd risk it, but most people on cruise ships would not.

You need to specify when you are going, and which whales you are trying to see. But to answer question: for orcas, see them in Johnston Straights.

Speaking of stumps, Ketchikan is well known for totem poles. As a matter of fact, the highers concentration of totem poles is supposedly in Ketchikan. There are a great number of exhibits associated with totem poles. There is a Totem Bight State Park, a Totem Heritage Center, Saxman Totem Park, etc. Further, you'll see totem poles throughout the city, in various city parks, bus stops, etc. Sure, many of the exhibits are modern kitchy totem poles put together for the benefit of tourists, but there seem to be plenty of genuine historical artifacts, and recent totem poles of the Tlingit people.

OK, got it, thanks! That makes sense.

What does that mean? Does this mean that they will refund you in full if the ship with you does not make it back to from the excursion? As in, if our ship sinks, we'll refund your money?

I find it very problematic that we, as a society, have identified global warming as a serious problem for our world, yet, we have not agreed amongs ourselves, that huge ships should be nuclear powered, instead of using dirty heavy fuel oil. Why is nuclear power not subsidized as an alternative energy source to petroleum products? (Sorry, I know that this is pointless rant... 🙂 )

According to https://www.cruisehive.com/norwegian-removes-popular-port-from-multiple-cruises/93033 , some NCL ships won't visit Corfu anymore. No reason given. Can someone shed some light on this?

According to https://www.cruisehive.com/norwegian-removes-popular-port-from-multiple-cruises/93033 , some NCL ships won't visit Corfu anymore. No reason given. Can someone shed some light on this?

One more alternative to Athens: Since you are going to be in Piraeus anyway, consider a daytrip to Hydra. There are plenty of ferries to this close by island. It should take something like 1h30 ow. (Though many people like it, I don't have personal experience with Hydra, thus, per cruisecritic rules, I am not able to recommend it.)

OK, good, thanks for the explanation. I had no idea that you were doing b2B cruises; I thought that the 17:00 was when your plane was taking off. In that case, that this is even better. Grab a rental car in Piraeus, drive to Corinth, and then drive back to Piraeus. A question: What do you do with your luggage? Do you leave it at the port? Or do you have to take it with you?

I really wish that these huge ships would stop using dirty bunker or dirty heavy fuel oil or similar fossil fuels. The ship builders should switch to quieter, safer, non-polluting nuclear power.

This is a tough question. Based on your extensive list of cruises, it appears that you are a well experienced traveler, so you know how long it will take you to find a rental car in early morning hours, or when to get to the airport for a 17:00 flight, or dealing with heavy Athens traffic, etc. Corinth is wonderful, but given your shortness of time, I wonder if it is worth it. If you have a late afternoon flight, you'll need to get to the airport between 14:00 to 14:30 (more if you are flying to US ns), which mean leaving Corinth around 12:30 to 12:45. Lunch before that at 12:00 or so. If you can get a ow rental from Pireaus to ATH, from a car rental agency that is open that early in the morning on Sunday, then you could be in Corinth by 7:30 or 8:00. This would give you about 4h of sightseeing time. I think thats acceptable. If you can't find an early morning car rental in Pireaus that allows ow rentals, then you'll need to take an X__ bus to the airport (the only place that rents cars that early in the morning), get a car and then drive to Corinth. That would add another 2h or so, meaning that you'll have only 2h of sightseeing in Corinth. I seriously doubt that it would be worth it. Personally, I think that there is just so much to see in Athens, that it would take weeks to see it all. I'd recommend just do more sightseeing in Athens. Good luck! Let us know when you come back how you decided.

In Juneau, because it is not linked to the rest of mainland due to glaciers, you really can't drive very far. Thus, all taxi trip will necessarily be short. I don't think that it makes much sense to reserve a taxi. If you don't show up exactly at the designated place and time, and there is a long line of people looking for taxis, what do you think that the taxi driver will do? And if you show and he is not there, will you have to wait for him to show, 15 minutes, half an hour or 2 hours later, or will you catch a different taxi? If your ship is the first one in port, I would not wait around for 50 to 60 minutes. Get off ASAP. And get one of the taxis there.

Thank you for the kind words. 🙂 I liked hiking in all three destinations, because currently I live in a flat part of the US, and hiking in mountains is precious to me. I presume that if you are from Indiana, you understand. 🙂 As far as whales in Juneau go, I don't know, but there is plenty of information available about where and when to see which kinds of whales. If I remember correctly, for example, the best place for Oracas is Johnston Straights, typically early in the morning.

I think that this makes sense. The only reason it would matter is if you could see something from your room on one side that you would not be able to do from the other side. Cruise ships sail through some surprisingly narrow straights, and thus, you should see the shore on both sides of the ship. In cases where the ship has shore only on one side, say between Cross Sound and Seward, the ship is so far away from the shore that you won't see it anyway. But if you want to see the sunrise or sunset, you'd prefer the eastern or western side respectively. However, you are going to go through the itinerary and calculate the ship’s heading and the sun’s azimuth to ensure that it will make sense. Good luck!

The reason why this is an issue is when waterproof shoes are not fully covered by the chaps, exposing the streams of water from the chaps to pour onto the ankles and ulimately into the shoes. But it seems like your system works fine.

Well, to each his own, but it seems weird that one would wear athletic shoes when you know that it will be rainy. And not a warm pleasant rain. Just how do you wear athletic shoes with your rain chaps? Your boots extend several inches above the bottom of the rain chaps, but how does that work with athletic shoes?

People really canoe up to a glacier? During summer? Do they not worry about getting killed by glacier calving? If you want to walk on the Mandenhall glacier, just approach it from the west.

I loved Juneau, but unlike in Australia, in the US, most car rental agencies won't allow you to drive off road. Note that all jeeps in the Unplugged Adventures promotional video are on sealed pavement.