We got delayed leaving port in Alaska today. My parents said they saw someone hauling all their luggage off board along with someone being removed off the ship via ambulance.

Well, they had another emergency overnight, they made a general call out on the PA at 3am for the med staff to attend to a specific stateroom. We diverted to Juneau to offload them before heading on. We're about 6 hrs behind sched.

Oh, and since it is Alaska, you've got a pretty good chance of seeing the Aurora at night. Got some ok pics last night, but tonight and tomorrow night are predicted to have higher Aurora activity.
Only challenge is the ship is lit up 24/7 on all decks.

Otherwise, how are you liking it bud? you guys enjoying the food on das boot?

stiffy on board was the joke on shore

nothing like 7am ambulance waiting at Ballantyne pier with the sun coming up and ship pulling in

Holy fuck, how many old fuckers end up dying on these things?

I had no idea this was a regularity, why would you go on a cruise if you're damn near dead?

Bucket list before dying kinda thing?

Late post, packing up from the cruise, Bellingham trip and work.

Good, we did the sit down dining every night, my 9y eyes lit up after he found out he could have steak every night. No more kids menu the rest of the trip lol.
We really only ate at the buffet for breakfast and lunch.

Enough that cruise ships have a cold storage freezer they don't like to talk about.

Lots of folks on O2, scooters. Besides the perennial jokes that cruising is cheaper than long term care homes, it does make sense the mobility challenged would like to cruise. Essentially your home/hotel travels for you. Maximum mobility for minimal effort.

After cruising this time with kids (7y/9y) a couple of parent specific tips.

1) make sure your kids wear and don't take off the princess medallion. Older kids should be ok, but on day 2 we found a medallion on the floor in the elevator area. We turned it in to guest services. The things pop out of the included lanyard holder easy enough. I bought silicone airtag watchband holders for everyone in our group to use.

On day 6, a crying 3yr old came down the stairs where we were waiting for dinner, no medallion, and didn't know what room they were in. After dealing with bar staff (their english was marginal for the situation) my daughter and I walked the kid to guest services and ran into the frantic parents. My daughter managed to get the kid's name. Turns out the medallion we found day 2 was hers.
So make sure your kids have the medallion on them so you can track them if they wander off.

2) The bunk beds have a 2 foot gap between the 2 guard rails. My 7yr old fell out on night 5. I have lengths of paracord in all my bags, so an 8 foot length was just right to MacGyver a rope barrier for the last night.

Yeah. I would too if they were cheaper than a good assisted living facility. It's estimated 200~ passengers die on board cruises per year.

Some lines do not report deaths as on board.

So you could pull a number out of thin air and say every day someone dies on a cruise.

Thanks for the heads up!

Hows the in-app chat, the thing is both my kids are using old hand me down phones with no sim in them (but i heard the princess app lets you chat with your group and we do tend to "separate" with the kids at some point during the trip (only on the ship) most 100% staying together if we are leaving the ship).

Otherwise our back up plan is to bring Walkie Talkies, but that is extra things to bring during the cruise and we are really trying to pack light, so far just 1 backpack each for the 4 of us and 1 large suitcase and 1 carry on.... and i think we are pretty much done...

The ship is all metal, I don't think your walkie talkie will be able to penetrate very fair unless you get the professional stuff, but the HAM radios get into gray areas of the law.

Just use the in app chat. It works. Walkie talkies will be lost within the day.

Also you gonna be one of those parents that leave their kids unattended so they can jump off the side of the boat ?

The pizza onboard is quite good.

ive only been on one cruise ever when i was a kid and all i fondly remember was the arcade and the 24/7 pizza lol

100% My kids are old enough to know what to do and not to do, not that we will leave them hours on end, but yea, they can go do their own stuff if they want~

The princess in app chat works perfectly, the tracking of medallion through the app works too.

Chat via the app worked ok, we used it with my parents, who didn't buy wifi access.

Walkie talkies won't work on board, ship's all metal so that'll kill the range between decks. It could be useful on the same deck or on shore if you split up, but the on shore times are short enough that we all stuck together. FRS/GMRS Radios 'technically' require a license in the USA from the FCC, but realistically, no one bothers.

Princess specifically restricts HAM equipment in it's terms of service. I checked as I have a few Baofeng radios from my airsoft days, they're programmed on the FRS/GMRS freqs. (which you're not supposed to use)
I wouldn't bother, as there's cell service at all the stops if you really need it.

There's a kids club with 3 diff age ranges, 3-7, 8-13, 13-18, and they have lots of activities, games, video games, skeeball etc, to keep the kids occupied during the at sea days. We pretty much only picked up the kids for lunch and dinner, after breakfast, they headed off for kids club at 9am. After dinner, kids club opened from 7p to 10p so you can go to the evening entertainment too.

Check the weather before you go, we packed 3 mid size checked luggage cases + 1 carry on size (for the 7yr old to use.) and backpacks. Dress shoes + runners + blundstones for iffy weather ate up a lot of space. Depending on the weather, you may have to pack more clothes. We packed a few sweaters and hoodies. You definitely want a shell and a insulating layer for the cooler nights/on deck.
Wife wanted to pack carry ons only, but since we're not flying, why compromise? I'd rather have a few more clothing options and space to pack and not smush my blazer and dress pants into a carry on.
We did do one load of laundry on board on day 5 ($3 usd for wash cycle and $3 to dry) so bring a tide pod to save the $1 for detergent if you want.

The medallion tracking was useful. "Where are Mom and Dad? We're seated for dinner already?" <opens princess app> "....Why are they still in their room?" =P

I 100% recommend everyone to take a cruise... it was an experience....

coming from a back ground of doing alot of road trips... i love driving... but there is nothing like waking up when you like (kids learned to go to buffet on their own, or pizza with ice cream without waking my and wifey up real fast).... walk out on the deck... enjoy the sun shine...... check out the buffet.... walk back on to the deck.. order kids to go get ice cream.... and actually entertainment on the boat was decent, 7 days is just enough to check out all the different spots without getting boring...

It was so relaxing... that me and wife on like the 2nd day was like.. yo... cruise needs to be part of our lifes... maybe once every 3 years if our income allows... this is the shit... like real shit, it was the first vacation where i came back not tired.... thats crazy

And the all-important question that everybody on RS is dying to ask -- have you put yourself on a scale yet? :pokerface:

Did you get off the boat at all?

When we cruised with Royal Caribbean to San Diego, the port days were pretty good as we went out and saw things and did things, and our son was entertained. We were trapped on the boat in Astoria because it poured and that was a rough day.

There were also 2 sea days and those were rough. I think maybe it would be better if our kids were older, but imo the entertainment was limited on the boat. We don't gamble, we don't drink excessively, trivia during the day was boring, I don't like sun tanning and wife said she's too old for sun(sounding like a spy balloon we know). I did a whiskey tasting which was a thinly veiled attempt to sell JW. And even then the dumb thing was.... the one that everyone wanted to to get, they didn't have any stock of.

Crossing the border was hard as they made us disembark to cross in Seattle.

Getting off the boat was even harder.

My older one loved it, but he's still much too young and timid/shy to head to the buffet by himself.

I think I'm just not old enough to be really enjoying a cruise. I miss blitzing through cities hitting multiple viewpoints a day.

Check the weight loss thread... but yes I have.. i am now 191 LBs ... fook

10lbs in a week. Sounds like you were doing this portion a lot..

Reading this thread just confirmed what I already thought about cruises being filled by a bunch of land whales just killing time before their next meal lol

I only gained 2lbs, and it's gone already. That's with eating 1-2 appies and 1.5 mains at the sit down dinner each night.

Doesn’t that sound like fun ?!? The gym on the boat was deserted. Not a soul in sight for my trip.