Organize your notes now!!

[krogerlady]

Auurrgh....I have been saving all kinds of suggestions and lists, etc, etc, etc, from CC since last Feb. Its all in an Alaska folder, and everything has reasonable names, but I wasn't too good about separating the different port cities we will be visiting. Now my sister wants me to organize all of it and send it to her, and its going to be a bigger job than I thought. So, my suggestion to all of you who are just starting to gather your information, start out by creating different folders before you copy and paste some wonderful hint or suggestion. I have an awful hodgepodge, that means the world to me, but sharing it with someone else is not going to make a lot of sense. Sigh....and I thought I was doing good! BTW, saw the Bering Straight Crab tour on the travel channel, and I had some notes on it, and now I am sure that would be a great excursion!! Any more comments on it?

[dustyroad]

i too do alot of research and save things i learn here. it is the way i spend my time before the cruise and it keeps me occupied. it is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate. i went through mine a while back and i had alot of the same things saved or copied. i threw out those things and the pile got smaller. im with you about keeping the ports in seperate folders. and then i add any tours or things i want to do there in the same folder. i have a seperate one for info about the ship and port city. good luck on getting organized. it is wonderful to have all the help here from our cc friends. have a great cruise.

[vbmom87]

Great Idea to keep your info organized early on. I started with one Alaska document and then soon realized I needed to organize by city. I ended up making an Alaska folder and then made documents within the Alaska folder for each city. Within the documents I included things like: Where to eat, What do do, Lodging, Where to Shop, Internet Access, and Transportation/Routing to and from, for each city. I also had some other documents within the Alaska folder like: Packing, Bear Viewing, Bincoculars, Books to Read, Travel Insurance, etc. It served me very well. I included info and cities that I didn't need for this trip, but collected in anticipation of possibly going back.

[knorrisb07]

definitely a great suggestion. You don't want to re-do everything many times over because of bad note-keeping.

[fleckle]

........ I ended up making an Alaska folder and then made documents within the Alaska folder for each city.........

I am guessing that many of us probably store our information in a similar way. Within my Alaska folder I keep a separate file for each port, plus an "Alaska-general" file for Alaska info that is not restricted to any one specific port.

For the embarkation-disembarkation ports I also maintain a separate file for hotel info.

 

When reading cruise critic, or any other online site for info, it is so easy to open the source web site and my appropriate file side-by-side on the screen to copy and paste from one to the other.

 

To Krogerlady, if I may offer a suggestion, just create a separate new file now within your Alaska folder for each Alaska port.

Open all the new port files and minimize them. Then open your "hodgepodge" file and leave it displayed on your screen.

Work your way down through the hodgepodge file from top to bottom, cutting and pasting each item from the hodgepodge file into its appropriate new port file, and you can have it all organized in no time.

 

[Lanaki]

I am guessing that many of us probably store our information in a similar way. Within my Alaska folder I keep a separate file for each port, plus an "Alaska-general" file for Alaska info that is not restricted to any one specific port.

For the embarkation-disembarkation ports I also maintain a separate file for hotel info.

 

When reading cruise critic, or any other online site for info, it is so easy to open the source web site and my appropriate file side-by-side on the screen to copy and paste from one to the other.

 

To Krogerlady, if I may offer a suggestion, just create a separate new file now within your Alaska folder for each Alaska port.

Open all the new port files and minimize them. Then open your "hodgepodge" file and leave it displayed on your screen.

Work your way down through the hodgepodge file from top to bottom, cutting and pasting each item from the hodgepodge file into its appropriate new port file, and you can have it all organized in no time.

 

 

Exactly! We are going on our first Alaska cruise next August and I bookmarked EVERYTHING I found interesting under "Alaska". After a few weeks I realized I needed to be even more organized and added sub-folders for each port, including Anchorage and Denali for our independent visit. (One-way cruise out of Whittier.) I had to move everything to the new sub-folders. Glad I caught it before it got too large. :p

 

I also started a notepad and have each port listed, with length of the stay, and list the things that we might want to do. It gives me something physical to hold and look at when I am not on the computer. As well as a place to write things down while reading all of the tour books about Alaska that I get at the library. (Including writing down web pages, for excursions and such, to look up later.)

 

I also ordered both coupon books (Toursaver and Northern Lights). I have gone through them and put sticky notes on the pages that have the coupons that we would be interested in using, writing on the stickies what the tour is so I just have to look at them and not look through the whole book again.

 

I did not realize that a trip to Alaska would be so overwhelming so the more organized you are the easier it will make things. I hope....:confused:

[krogerlady]

Hmmm, didn't think about the notebook too, but I might try that. Yes, I already have subfolders for the different port cities, and bless the person who came up with copy and paste. If I ever take another cruise I will create the folders before I ever paste a thing!!. Actually, I thought I was a bit obbsessive with all my searching and saving and collecting, and my sister was making me feel.....well....I just had to quit sharing with her, so I kept it to myself, but now I realize, it is more normal to collect than to purposely put it out of your mind until a few months before....can you even begin to imagine not planning for alaska...just cuz you have "gone on so many cruises, and Alaksa can't be much differnt'....boy...are they gonna find out....the HARD way. Just for fun .....count the number of bookmarks for Alaska, sub folders included...woohoo 92!!

[TexasJam]

Glad I'm not the only one who is, according to my family, "anal about my trip notes".:)

 

I have an excel spreadsheet with trip costs and word documents for our schedule, packing list, notes, and a date list for important dates leading up to our departure.

 

Who wants to copy and paste their notes on this thread? Maybe, we might find some more useful information from each others notes.

 

Jamie

[nothriver]

I often forward things to my family via email as I run across them. This way, they have ready access to the information and if for some reason I loose the info myself, I can find it in my Sent folder. I mostly cut and paste into one huge word file organized chronologically by the days we'll be at various locations with any misc at the end of the file.

 

I feel the OP is very kind to organize her info for her own sister! I personally felt that my own sister would be probably be the one person that could make sense of my notes!

[fleckle]

Who wants to copy and paste their notes on this thread? Maybe, we might find some more useful information from each others notes. Jamie

Sharing notes is a wonderful idea, but I don't think this thread is the appropriate place for it. There is so much information to be shared that if we were all to post our notes here, this thread would become another overwhelming "hodgepodge" with notes about all the different locations intermingled.

 

Would the moderators consider creating a sub-forum for each Alaska port?

Or perhaps just put a sticky for each port at the top of the Alaska forum?

Then we could have everyone's notes, tips, questions and answers about each port all together in one place.

 

For example, we could have one place to share info about Juneau, another place for Ketchikan, others for Icy Strait Point, Skagway, Sitka, Haines, Victoria, Vancouver, Seward, Whittier, as well as categories for non-port Alaska destinations such as Denali, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Glacier Bay, etc.

 

[gottagoacruzn]

Hi guys, what a good idea, to take notes. That's what I'm doing now as I have reading all these pages.:eek: It will help when next Sept will come along.

 

Virginia

[paddingtonbear]

. Actually, I thought I was a bit obbsessive with all my searching and saving and collecting, and my sister was making me feel.....well....I just had to quit sharing with her, so I kept it to myself, but now I realize, it is more normal to collect than to purposely put it out of your mind!!

 

I don't know if it's "normal" out in the real world but here on cruise critic you are among friends who are equally obsessive so it does not matter one bit what the rest of the world do :)

[knbcruisers]

Another compulsive researcher here....I have a year old laptop and MicroSoft Office 2013.. I am very impressed with MS One Note, it is very easy to create project folders with tabs for each topic. It lets you just type anywhere on the blank tab, insert an excel worksheet, or cut and paste from anywhere. So I have tabs for each port, air travel, cruise info, and land tour info. I cut and pasted all of the email reservations/confirmations I have (printed of course for back up). Its very easy to update and expand or delete as your trip evolves.

[bethohio3]

I started out using OneNote for our last cruise (British Isles) and ended up switching to WordPress. That was a lot of fun and let me share my notes with my travel companions and the people on my Roll Call who were interested.

 

I didn't know if people were really looking at it beyond my friends, until I was introduced to someone on the ship as "the Beth who has that website"!

 

I'll be doing the same for our September 2015 cruise to Alaska--we're going on the Star Princess September 5th, including the 5 day Denali Explorer tour. So far, our group is at 19 people! (And we just announced we were doing this about 10 days ago)

[gottagoacruzn]

I started out using OneNote for our last cruise (British Isles) and ended up switching to WordPress. That was a lot of fun and let me share my notes with my travel companions and the people on my Roll Call who were interested.

 

I didn't know if people were really looking at it beyond my friends, until I was introduced to someone on the ship as "the Beth who has that website"!

 

I'll be doing the same for our September 2015 cruise to Alaska--we're going on the Star Princess September 5th, including the 5 day Denali Explorer tour. So far, our group is at 19 people! (And we just announced we were doing this about 10 days ago)

 

Hi Beth, will be leavin on Sept 4th, on the Radiance, perhaps our paths will cross in the ports, but who knows.