Alaska Cruise

Dave Smith wrote in message ...
jcoulter wrote:


I have never met anyone who has not been satisfied with an Alaska cruise
and I have sold a lot of them. the scenery is fantastic especially if
you are not the type to rent a kayak and paddle up tracy arm by yourself
or some such adventure. For those who like the amenities of life and
fantastic scenery alaska while eating in the best restaurants in Alaska,
cruising is a great value.

Same here. I have not done it and personally am not likely to take a cruise
vacation, but I know several people who have taken cruise from Vancouver to
Alaska and they raved about the experience. They all reported the scenery
and the food to be incredible.

Just one bit of important advice. If you are traveling from the east coast
be sure to go a day early. Know many folks who missed the boat because of
delays, emergency landings , and other things which caused people to miss
the boat, lierally. It happened to us and we almost went mad. Royal Carribean
did not help out at all...12 people were on our plane from Dallas to Seattle
when some woman got ill and the plane landed "hard", had a 2 hour delay, while
plane was checked over. I had the flight attendant call ahead to Royal
Carribean and tell them about our delay...BUT when we got there at 3:15p.m.
which left us enough time to scoot to Vancouver had a bus/van been standing by
we had to hunt down a RC rep who said it was too bad but the van
had left already. Then she had a long argument/conversation with an American
Airlines rep over who was going to make arrangements for us. ( As if this
had never happened before!) We were all going mad with frustration, many
yelling.."Royal Carribean sucks"...so forth and so on...they finally
arranged 3 Limos to take us to a small airplane field to get a ride up
there....it took aalmost an hour of waiting while they called in pilots
and then they told us , "we can take you but not your luggage.."!!!!!!

Most returned to Seattle and spent the night in a Marriott.
Next day (Monday) they flew us to Skagway where they attempted to put us up in
the rattiest motel I think I have ever seen ( we paid for a suite with a deck
on the ship and they put us up in a rat hole)
Wednesday afternoon we finally got on the ship and not one rep from RC said
sorry... it was nice to see the few places left but I still can't believe
Royal Carribean did not prepare better for this slight delay...we could
have made the boat if they had prepared....will not cruise with them again.
But do consider going a day early if you are flying across country...I have
heard other stories similar to mine.

"robbielynn" wrote in message
m...

Just one bit of important advice. If you are traveling from the east coast
be sure to go a day early. Know many folks who missed the boat because of
delays, emergency landings , and other things which caused people to miss
the boat, lierally. It happened to us and we almost went mad. Royal
Carribean
did not help out at all...

You didn't get to the departure airport on time and then blame Royal Caribbean
for your problems? You have to be kidding!!!

Tom J

On 05/23/2004 12:35 PM Edward Bertsch consulted a Magic 8 Ball and
declared:

can anyone recommend short (1-2 day) cruises that start and return in the
vicinity of anchorage? especially something that would be somewhat family
friendly? (2 kids under 7)

thanks one and all



Edward,

If you factor in the cost of getting there, a 7 day cruise would be just
as economical. There are several more options available to you if you
do a 7 day or 4 day cruise. Since more and more families are opting for
cruise vacations, more cruise lines are including child friendly
activities. If you ask your question at rec.travel.cruises you'll get
more responses from families who have taken Alaska cruises.


--
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Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951

non-smoking restaurants in Alaska
http://www.smokefreeworld.com/alaska.shtml

robbielynn wrote:

Royal Carribean did not prepare better for this slight delay...we could
have made the boat if they had prepared....will not cruise with them again.
But do consider going a day early if you are flying across country...I have
heard other stories similar to mine.

This goes double if you fly to Alaska itself.

I would never have missed a vacation start in numerous tries if I
had not always gotten there a day early, but I have had three
extremely close calls.

On trips where I had flights connecting in Miami to points
south, I WOULD have missed trip starts, however, on three
occasions, had I not been a day early.

Doug McDonald

"Tom J" wrote in message ...
"robbielynn" wrote in message
m...

Just one bit of important advice. If you are traveling from the east coast
be sure to go a day early. Know many folks who missed the boat because of
delays, emergency landings , and other things which caused people to miss
the boat, lierally. It happened to us and we almost went mad. Royal
Carribean
did not help out at all...

You didn't get to the departure airport on time and then blame Royal Caribbean
for your problems? You have to be kidding!!!

Tom J

Not the departure airport dummy...we arrived at the arrival airport
ready to get on a Royal C. van to take us up to Vancouver. The rep
knew the plane was late
yet no one was there to meet 12 passengers. We were not the only ones
who felt the cruise company let us down. Did you read about the
sub-sub
standard rooms they attmepted to put us up in? I refused and found
another
hotel which they ended up paying for...By the way our travel agent was
the
one who said we would have no problem getting to Vancouver from the
east coast
in one dday...she was wrong!

Doug McDonald wrote in message ...
robbielynn wrote:

Royal Carribean did not prepare better for this slight delay...we could
have made the boat if they had prepared....will not cruise with them again.
But do consider going a day early if you are flying across country...I have
heard other stories similar to mine.

This goes double if you fly to Alaska itself.

I would never have missed a vacation start in numerous tries if I
had not always gotten there a day early, but I have had three
extremely close calls.

On trips where I had flights connecting in Miami to points
south, I WOULD have missed trip starts, however, on three
occasions, had I not been a day early.

Doug McDonald

Good for you...cross country connections are just too tough to accomplish
in one day. I've learned my lesson.

"Doug McDonald" wrote:
On trips where I had flights connecting in Miami to points
south, I WOULD have missed trip starts, however, on three
occasions, had I not been a day early.

I have found that, even when traveling only in the Eastern U.S.,
its foolish to plan on any activity within 5 hrs. of the scheduled
arrival time. Whenever I try to fit-something-in that time slot,
inavirably something screws that up: Weather, luggage issues,
rental car lines, getting lost or traffic tie-up.

Once, when I flew from Jacksonville FL to Ft.Lauderdale. The
flight was supposed to take 45 min. Due to rainstorms, we
circled the Bahamas for 90 min. and would have longer, but the
plane ran low on fuel, so we landed to gas up... in Orlando!
When we finally got to FLL, we sat on the tarmac for another
45 min. waiting for a gate to open. Passengers joked about
calling for pizza delivery. [R]