Mercury to Alaska

[poma]

Anyone just back from this ship? I have seen mixed reviews. How is the ship etc. We are sailing 8/20/04.

 

Thank You,

Lorrie

[MGLASER356]

just got back from the mercury yesterday

 

the ship is beautiful, service was as good as it could possibly be.

 

one thing that must be said, the rules for attire are a joke. thankfully most

 

people adhere to the rules but since 10 to 15% don't, and the cruise line doesn't

 

care the reality is their are no rules.(a person in the second row of one of the

 

production shows was shoeless and had her feet up on the chair in front of her.

[bbeasley]

Hi - We are also on the 8/20 cruise and I just found out that our arrival times have changes slightly (Juneau and Kietchikan arrival times have been delayed an hour and we leave Skgway 3 hours earlier). I was able to reschedule our Misty Fjords flightseeing and I hope we can reschedule our whale watching with Captain Larry. I would love to hear more about your cruise you just returned on. How long did you visit Hubbard Glacier?

 

Thanks!

Beth

[polodad]

I don't get it. The ship has been doing the same route all summer week after week. Why change the times now? Celebrity seems to frequently change port times on late notice.

[sdcruiser]

Hi Lorrie and Beth,

 

We are also on this cruise with you, with an extended family of 7, of which 2 of them have been on numerous Mercury cruises in the past several years. This is the main reason we chose the Mercury, as my in-laws have loved it each time they've sailed her.

 

I wouldn't worry to much about the mixed reviews posted on CC recently. I've read them also, and believe that repositioning cruises tend to have more problems than ones which sail the same route over and over again. I also believe one of them was written by a teenager..

 

Anyway, since we're on the last sailing in and out of Seattle for this year, we will have a teriffic time...even though the port times have changed slightly. At least we found out about this early enough to reschedule our tours...:)

 

See you both at the CC party in 5 weeks...counting down the days..

 

SDCruiser

[poma]

How did you find out that some of the port times had changed? I haven't seen that yet. Let me know. We are so excited about the cruise. We are travelling with our 17 and 13 year old and my 73 year old parents!

 

Lorrie

[sdcruiser]

Hi Lorrie,

 

We're also on this sailing with and signed up for the CC party. I saw the time changes on the celebrity.com website. I think the port times changed about a week ago or so.

 

Since we had some tours already pre-booked on their website, we had to cancel and rebook for different times.

 

I don't know why they just changed the times. As the previous poster said, they've been doing this sailing all summer long. However, I think that every sailing so far this sumer has been different with their actual port times and Celebrity probably had to wait until they had done this 'new' route on the Mercury a few times, before they felt comfortable enough actually posting the changed times going forward.

 

I also just read another post on the Alaska board just now that someone posted from the Mercury today, confirming the new times in Juneau and Skagway and they said the reason they were told is so that the ship could spend more time at Hubbard Glacier the following day..we'll see if this holds true.

 

Lucky for us, we have plenty of time to reschedule our tours. The people just now finding out about this and who are sailing next week, will not be so lucky..I hate surprises like this, especially when you've already pre-booked shore excursions on the cruiselines website.

 

We're looking forward to this vacation..my 6.5 yr old son, wife and I will be traveling from San Diego..

 

SDCruiser

[kotchie007]

My wife and I just got back. It was the first cruise for us. The experience was awesome. The food and the service at Manhattan Restaurant was excellent. The evening shows were really good (don't miss Gordon Bennett).

 

Embarkation: We reached Pier 66 at 10.30. We had booked through one of the internet auction sites and did not have out tags. There was a seperate line for it and we were among the first. We were having lunch by noon. The buffet lunch was not bad but i would recommend going to Manhattan restaurant for lunch.

 

Juneau: We did the Pilots choice helicopter tour with 2 glacier walks. We had 50 mins of flying time and about 25 mins on glacier. This was the highlight of our Alaskan trip. It was worth every penny of the $299 that we spent on it. We did the Mount Roberts tramway as well. I would definitely advise everybody to skip this. We regretted not doing a whale watch tour at Juneau.

 

Skagway: We did the Train Ride. It was a really good experience. Make sure you sit on the left hand side as you go up though.

 

Ketchiken: We did the Lumerback show which was quite amusing.

 

Hubbard Glacier: Mercury was the first one there. We went to the Navigator club at 6 AM. It was all fogged up and we felt that we will not be able to get close to the glacier. The captain did an excellent job and we got really close! We got some awesome pics.

 

Disembarkation: We were split into 60 groups, each having a different color and time. We were off the ship by 9.30.

 

Overall, our experience was really good and we would love to do another cruise with Celebrity. However, we saw Summit a few times and it looked bigger, had more balconies and had a capsule lift as well. We might prefer that the next time.

[kotchie007]

I forgot.....if anybody has specific queries re. Alaskan cruise or shore excursions, you can write to me at kotchie007@yahoo.com

[poma]

Since they have made port time changes, will we have enought time at each port to really explore them. It seems like you aren't given much time at each port. Enought to do a shore excursion and then back to the ship? Any information would be helpful.

 

Lorrie

[kilted scout]

Jane and I had booked the Mushers tour in the morning and the railroad in the afternoon - we have not yet been advised of any problems so I rang them to point out that at the moment we are getting back 90 minutes after the ship has sailed!!

 

They are investigating, but my guess is that the ship may not be leaving exactly at 3pm

 

I'll let you know

 

Rodney

[sdcruiser]

Hi Kilted Scout,

 

We ran into the same scenario as we had booked the PM train also. The ship has been leaving Skagway promptly at 3pm the last few weeks. Why they continue to show the 12:45pm train is beyond me. I had to cancel my afternoon train ride myself, as I never got a straight answer from Celebrity shore excursions. They will probably move you to the morning train departure, but for us, we have another tour already in the morning, so we had to cancel the train altogether..:(

 

Celebrity likes to keep their shore excursion money as long as possible, until you end up cancelling or rescheduling on your own. They will refund your money promptly, if you choose this option.

 

Even though this is somewhat of a letdown, there is so much more to see in these ports, that you'll have to come back to Alaska to see it all. This will be our second time here, and I doubt we'll see everything we want to see this time around as well..

 

Good Luck

 

SDCruiser

[kilted scout]

We are looking forward to meeting you on board as we seem to have created our own little 'board' party.

 

Should you wish to email me direct to have a chat it is

 

randjturner@btinternet.com

 

Rod

[kilted scout]

As we have the mushers camp booked for the morning are we better off doing this and missing the train out, spending the rest of the time in Skagway, or should we train ride instead and then have time in town?

 

Advice sought

 

Rodney

[sdcruiser]

We ended up cancelling our PM train due to the port time change and instead booked a Tour to the Summit via bus. It follows the same path the train takes, but completes the tour in 1.5 hrs rather than 3.5 hrs. The departure time in the afternoon for this tour is also at 12:45pm. I know it doesn't do the train scenary justice, but at least there will be some nice picture taking opportunities, as the bus stops several times on the way up and back...

 

This will leave us approx 30min at the end of the day to see Skagway, although on the run, rather than walking..:)

 

SDCruiser

[canadian_cruiser10]

look at post below

[canadian_cruiser10]

I went to Alaska on the ininity, a bit bigger boat than the mercury. THe ships are fantastic however the trip to Alaska I dont think Id do again. There were too many days at sea and all the ports had novelty shops ONLY! every store was a novelty shop at every port...everything was the exact same!!!!! Speaking for an 18 year old who went on the cruise, your children(if u are taking any) may be a bit board if they are over the age of 14

[canadian_cruiser10]

Have you been ont the Alaskan Cruise before? If you havent I can tell you some things you would like to know. I went last summer in August

[sdcruiser]

I have been to Alaska once before on a cruise. This will be the second but probably not the last time to Alaska. My family likes the whole experience of cruising in and of itself, not to mention the scenary, and then the ports, in that order. Days at sea are fun for us and relaxing time away from the day to day work grind at home.

 

I agree that there are lots of ships offering different itinearies and activities. The one-way cruises from Anchorage to Vancouver seem to have more time in ports, than do the round-trip cruises out of Seattle. Either way, cruising beats traveling any other way these days, at least for us.

 

SDCruiser

[canadian_cruiser10]

Didnt you find that the alaskan port stops kind of looked all the same? novilty stop after novilty shop? I went last year and my it was SOO cold..I just got home from the constellation ship which went around scandanavia....a MUST GO ON CRUISE!

[sdcruiser]

I suppose the shops do look somewhat alike, but I didn't really concentrate my time on shopping in each port as much as the out of the city type excursions..

 

Granted, a European cruise I would expect the ports to look different in each country visited..can't wait for this one when I'm retired..

 

SDCruiser

[sdcruiser]

Celebrity just changed the excursion times on their website for the Mercury. The afternoon train excursion in Skagway has been rescheduled to a 9:25am train departure.

 

You might want to check your other excursions pre-booked for other changes which might affect your tours planned.

 

SDCruiser