harryfat1

Yeah. Unfortunately that's the typical weather in Sacramento in July. I grew up in the central valley and many summer days are above 100. Cooling off days are when its below 90. My brother in law is in Vegas now and they're at 112. The hard part is not everyone in the bay area has air conditioning if you live very close to the water with the natural air conditioner blowing in cold air from the Pacific. Days like these makes you think you should buy AC unit but hen it cools off by next week, you say "nah, I don't need it. I'll use the money for vacation instead..."

Thanks. Yeah. That's what I have been reading as the west coast is going through a big heatwave. I had packed long pants and long sleeve shirt to wear on the plane as SFO at night can be brutally cold even in July but opted for t shirts and shorts instead for the plane. The worst part of any vacation for me is the airport/plane ride. At least now I have TSA precheck to make things easier.

On the plane now going back to California after a 9 day trip to NYC. Free wifi and monitor on Jetblue flights as well as charger plugs underneath seats to power up all electronic devices

I wish I could take credit for being able to find all these Central Park places on my own but the reality is that we joined a "free" walking tour of Central Park where the guide took us to many places that we wouldn't be able to find on our own as first time visitors of the park. I put the cost of the tour as "free" in quotes as we all know there's no such thing as free tours. The business model is that you pay nothing up front to book the tour abd you pay what you think the tour is worth depending on how much you liked it. The suggested value is $20+/pp. It's a good value considering these are typically 3 hour walking tours and you get to see and understand the historical significance of some of the sights. I stumbled onto this free tour business model from my December cruise to Curacao when I was researching on what to do there. After doing the free walking tour there, I found couple of companies that does regularly for many cities worldwide, including NYC. So I booked 4 tours for our 9 days in town to get a better understanding of the city and historical background. You can Google Guruwalk.com abd Free Tours by foot to get some background info. Our tour guide took us into the dead center of Central Park where you can't see any buildings or hear any city noise. That's the place to go if you need a break from the concrete jungle of NYC. To tie things back to a cruise theme (as in theory this is a cruise forum), the cartoon movie, Madagascar, is based on the front entrance of the zoo. That's the DreamWorks company that used to have contracts with RCI to showcase their characters in the parades on the cruises.

Having to evacuate via the staircases of these tall buildings wouldn't be fun. They list one of the condos near central park at a mere $195M. https://centralparktowerpenthouse.com/

The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty may be tourist traps that most locals won't stop foot in it but I assume many New Yorker at one time or another have visited Central Park. I'm a big fan of the TV series, Law and Order, which is based on the Manhattan DA office. Based on that show, you would think every other that walks around Central Park has a good odds of bring shot or robbed. But the biggest danger I experienced during my half day visit at the park are the crazy bicyclists that think they own the road. It's a miracle half of the people walking around don't get run over by a crazy bicyclist.

You are welcome. Sorry that they won't allow pictures to be taken in the main section of the 9/11 memorial or else I would have. The indoor museum had the chronological order of the attack that day and many news footages as it happened for people to understand the story. Especially for young folks like my kids who were either too young or wasny born yet by the 9/11 attack, the museum is a good way to remind them of the history.

The new buildings nowadays are super tall but skinny so it's not surprising the footprint of the twin towers are not that big. check out how skinny the buildings in the background look but very tall

I don't know who is the red group. Only know they are Latinos. Saw a German group few days ago with yellow backpacks. NYC is a popular young people's destination as there are many free places to visit like Central Park and Time Square and Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue from a distance without paying a dime. 9/11 Memorial is worth seeing for the historical significance. All exhibits are build underground. They don't allow photos in 80% of the places so not too much to share but you can see the damages from the attack: Here are pictures from the 2 pools where the twin tower used to be. The north one is under maintenance so no water right now. The twin tower has special significance to me as I was up one of the towers observation deck in 1999 with my parents and my sister visiting NYC then and did the tourist thing to go up there. Surreal to see just an empty space now...

There are many young people's tours here from many parts if the world. I think the red folks are from Latin America. Saw a German group wearing yellow backpacks at Statue of Liberty on Sunday. I think they are required to wear the same color t shirt andback pack from the tour company so that if they wander off and gets lost in the crowded NYC, the guides can easily spot them. It sounds like a lot of fun to be in a big group to go to a foreign land.

Yeah. I was going to add Cable car and Lombard Street to the list of SF tourist places places that i have never been on but then I remembered I went on it once taking friends from out of town on it. Also only walked across the Golden Gate bridge once with the boys when they were young during 75th anniversary of the bridge.

Perspective of a tourist in NYC:

Yeah. I'm a firm believer that most tourists see more of a given city than many locals as the tourists spent thousands of dollars to get to the place and they want to see as much of the place as possible. I used to work in SF years ago and now only a bridge away but I have never been to Alcatraz or Ghirardelli Square that millions of tourists visit yearly. Tourists sees the city differently than locals, which is fine.

Thanks for the money saving tip. There's a $1.50 slice pizza joint about a block from our hotel. But I don't see myself eating there. At my age, saving a couple bucks to have lower quality food is no longer a top priority because as one gets older, we have to deal with heartburn and acid reflux and cholesterol and the list goes on. If I was still in college, the cheap pizza would be my regular meal. I used to go to Costco for lunch with coworkers in the old days for $1.50 hot dog and drinks combo. My old body can't take that type of good anymore...

Thanks for the kind words. If you plan to see Ellis Island, also try to book the Statue of Liberty crown visit. It's no extra cost versus general admission but you need to book it at least 3 months out. I couldn't get it as we didn't decide on the exact dates until late but that's something need to be able to climb up to the top of the crown. We only booked the pedestal view that gets you half way. Ellis island was very interesting. They talked about how the early immigrants were processed when they got off the ships from Europe. Not very friendly welcome for some. Here are few pics from Ellus Island as we as the Statue in case you or others are interested in going.

What would a Cheapo Dad's trip report be like without at least one Mooring line picture for the group? 🤪 Obviously not a thick as the ones used for the cruise ship but never stood next to someone actually working it either.

The passengers on the Celebrity cruise sailing today out of NJ got a special treat today on departure day in being able to have a direct front view of the Statue of Liberty. We caught these pictures as we were on the ferry leaving Ellis island on the way back to Manhattan.

Wow. That's too bad on having to pay extras on top of an already expensive WDW trip. I understand paying more for accommodations but paying extras to have a faster entrance doesn't seem right to me. The park access should be the same for everyone.

Thanks. Yes. NYC is expensive but that's the price of doing business. But I got some Groupon deals for 50% off pizza deal and some macarons tomorrow. Also trying to be cheap to eat at food courts. Will upload many pictures in my Odyssey thread next week after I get home. Too dumb to do live posts...

Mark, Thanks. Not used to the humidity of the east coast versus the dry CA climate. Maybe since you guys are paying the premium price to be at the Wilderness Lodge, they run more buses there. Whereas Cheapo dad and family stayed at the more ghetto resorts like All Stars that they only sparingly send few buses out there. I had more time to look at your schedule last night. I noticed you had only allocated 1 hour for the various sit down dinners. Most likely those are longer affairs. Unlike MDR on a cruise, they don't specifically allocated a table for you to walk in. The reservation is a time slot holder. Especially at popular places like chef mickey where the characters entertain the guests. Many people will linger over their meals for the next character to come out so the later comers will be outside waiting longer. Ohana took awhile for us as I reserved the time slot to watch the fireworks from the restaurant. Will find those pictures after I get home from vacation.

We 9.2 anal level people love to plan. @h20skibum Mark - In my previous experiences with WDW buses, they are not the most reliable sort. Sometimes you may see buses that go to other parks couple of times and not yours. For example, you want to go to Animal Kingdom but you keep seeing Magic Kingdom buses instead. So leave extra time to get to wherever you need to go. Speaking of anal planning, as luck have it, I'm here on vacation in NYC as this moment. Now at Day 4 of 9 days in NYC. Lost count of how many changes. Here are few pics so far (can't get some of my portrait pictures to upload properly on the CC app so landscape pictures are all I can do for now 20240627_120011.mp4

Yes, as you go from the front of the ship to the Aft, the numbers get bigger. So 9190 is toward the front of the ship and 9286 is toward the back. That's easy as it's similar to the planes where row 35 on the plane is toward the back compared to row 15. Your cabins of 9233 and 9633 are in the interesting location of a horizontal hallway. 9233 is being classified as being on the port side so hence the 2 number. 9633 is on the right side (starboard side) of the ship so it has the 6 number. The number convention is X1XX and X2XX and X3XX is on the port side and X5XX and X6XX and X7XX are on the starboard side. It's been over 10 years since I sailed on Carnival so I don't know their carpeting system. I will keep an eye out in December for the Carnival Jubilee. I only know about the Princess carpet color from one of the trip reports before my sailing (interesting info you learn in reading other people's reports)

Thanks for doing a live cruise report. I tip my hat to you and anyone else able to do one. Not everyone appreciates the time and effort it takes to put together a trip report. I know you said you have no immediate plans to go back to Alaska. I understand that as we only go back once every 10 years or so. But if you ever want to go back again, I highly recommend the one way route with either Princess or HAL or NCL as they go to Glacier Bay National Park where you spend an entire day there with the Park Ranger coming on board to guide you throughout the day. If you prefer just RCI/Carnival ships, then at least do the Radiance of the Seas as they go to Hubbard Glacier. Princess/HAL sails to both the Glacier Bay and the Hubbard Glacier on their one-way sailings and if you like glaciers, you need to check out those one-way sailings starting/ending in Vancouver. Hubbard Glacier: Glacier Bay: US National Park Rangers come onto the ship for 9 hours to guide people through the park and set up shop on the ship to answer questions/sell merchandise

As I’m late to the second half of the report (virtual party), I guess I am here to help clean the tables. One advantage of responding later in the report is we can chat about stuff that most cruisers don’t care to read and it doesn’t take up your valuable time during the cruise to respond while you are on the ship. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the RCI ship numbering convention either. They use X1XX to X3XX on the port side and then X5XX to X7XX on the starboard side. It becomes really confusing when you have interior cabins where if it's on the port side, it's X3XX, and X7XX if on the starboard side. For example, here you have the interior cabins 8305 and 8303 on the port side, and "logically" you would think the next one after that would be 8301? Of course not. The next one is 8703 and then 8705 as RCI now considers these cabins to the on the starboard half of the ship so the numbers need to be in the X7XX sequence. Good luck finding your cabin on the first night after you have had your 15th drink on the drinks package... I much prefer the Princess numbering system where the starboard side is an odd number and the port side is an even number. Here's the Majestic Princess deck plan that we sailed on to Alaska. Much simpler numbering system: In addition, Princess ships have a different color scheme for the carpet where one side is red and the other side is blue so as soon as I walk out of the elevator, I just look for the color of the carpet and can easily tell if I am on the correct side of the ship. Unless someone was totally plastered from the 15 drinks/day drinks package, in theory, most people could tell the difference between red and blue… As I said, most people don't care about this stuff unless they are 9.2 on the anal scale like yours truly...🤪

Some people will say that's my "biggest" contribution to these boards...🤪