Island to Alaska with Pictures

[wtevrfltsurbt]

Dear Mr & Mrs CWORLD

Please adopt me! I would be a good child and do ALL your shopping for you:D

 

p.s. I don't get seasick either:)

I have to read your musings every day to keep you on the "staight and narrow".

 

Your loving wife

 

P.S. You might remind your readers that we both absolutely hate to shop. So it was a real chore for us to think of something to buy with our insurance money.

[Joy2Day]

I leave for the airport in 10 minutes -- and still no bag and $500 waiting to be spent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh well! Alaska here I come.

[cworld]

I leave for the airport in 10 minutes -- and still no bag and $500 waiting to be spent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh well! Alaska here I come.

 

In honor of Joy2Day, maybe we should put off talking about the bag until she gets back.

 

 

Or, maybe not.

[Perley1]

I have 31 days left before cruising - I have high hopes you might make it to a port by then! :)

 

PLEASE KEEP WRITING! THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING US! :cool:

[cworld]

I have 31 days left before cruising - I have high hopes you might make it to a port by then! :)

 

PLEASE KEEP WRITING! THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING US! :cool:

 

I don't know, 31 days to get in 12 hours of interesting happenings. Could be difficult.

[cworld]

As we walked into the cabin the phone was ringing. This can’t be good news. How many times during the middle of the day has your phone rang and its been good news? I figure it’s probably not some telemarketer, or some poll taker. My minds racing, 3:30 pacific that’s 5:30 central. OK which kid has a hangnail?. Wait, 5:30, on Sunday, they should be at church. Now I’m really panicked. One of them must of cut off their arms, or they must have burned the house down, or they cleaned their rooms and the house fell down. CARL, just stop and answer the dumb phone.

 

“Hello. “

 

“Why hello, Mr. Trent. This is Dave, Mr. No Worries, from the customer service office, how are you this afternoon.”

 

“Fine, Dave, but didn’t I just talk to you.”

“Oh, yes, I guess you just did. And it’s kind of a funny thing, but as soon as you left the desk, I pulled up my email and there was a message about your bag.”

 

“OK” (Notice how I have a real way with words on the telephone)

 

“Yes, they found your bag. Apparently, someone picked up your bag in the Vancouver airport (Ya think). They’ve brought it back to the airport in Victoria (huh?) and apparently Continental Airlines is in the process of sending it to Ketchican. Apparently you’ll have it some time tomorrow, we hope.” (Hope?)

 

Thanks, Dave. Is there anything we need to do?

 

“No, Mr. Trent, we just have to wait until we get the “advanced” (I’m having a brain cramp, I can’t remember the exact term that he used here) tag, then we will know when and where to expect the bag. But it’s great news that the bag has been found and hopefully it will be in your cabin tomorrow.”

 

OK, Dave, thanks. (Such verbal perfection)

 

“Thank you for your patience Mr. Trent. Do you need anything in the meantime, formal wear for tonight, I know you already told me no, but I just thought I’d ask one more time.”

 

No Dave, nothing thanks.

 

“OK, if you need anything just ring us up, and remember that 500 dollars is only good until you receive the bag. (What I heard here was, “You need to spend $500.00 in our shops today.) I hope you have a nice day, NO WORRIES.

 

Goodbye, Dave (and if you tell me NO WORRIES ever again I’m gonna come down there and stuff that phone right down… Calm down dear, I’m not cleaning up the mess if your head explodes).

 

So now the dilemma is, to shop or not to shop. As my wonderful wife said earlier, we are not the shopping types. I shop out of a catalog. Usually the same catalog. I’ve worn the same slacks/jeans/shirts/anything else you can think of, for 20 years. Most of my clothes sizes start with 2, and have a T in them. You normally don’t expect to find that on your standard gift shop rack. Besides, it's only my coat, my jeans, my sweatshirts, nothing important. (Can't be important if it's mine right guys?) It's going to be 75 degrees in Ketchican tomorrow. I don't need a coat. And if I need a sweatshirt I'll just wear one of Mrs. cworlds. You know they don't have any jeans around. I'll be fine wearing these jeans for 3 days straight. Like the man says, No Worries.

 

In fact, we're not through looking. Normally when I go shopping experience, we look once, I come back and look at it a second time, and then maybe on the third time I buy it. (I had a we in this paragraph when I initially wrote it, but my dear beautiful wife is not exactly like me. She goes buying, not shopping, and I don't mean that in a bad way. She doesn't go on shopping sprees. She's very frugal. But when she goes to a store, she buys what she wants and leaves.)

 

YES WE”RE WEIRD.

The question now is do we take a nap, or do we shop?

 

 

Nap won.

 

 

Note to wtevrfltsubt - you'll have to work that out with Mrs. cworld. I don't do the shopping thing. Do you clean your room?

[wtevrfltsurbt]

 

Ummmmmmmmm......................sorta

[cworld]

One really cool thing slipped my mind.

 

While we were paying for our stuff at the Calypso Cove, an announcement came over the loud speaker (ding, ding, ding) that the Princess Alaska Cruise Book would be available on deck 6 by the mid-ship elevators, and that the Captain of the Island Princess, whatever his name is, (yea, like we thought Captain John Smith would be on the Island...) would be there to sign any books purchased. The price for the books would be $20.00. Since I was still in my looking stage on the book, this sounded like a great idea. So, since we were on deck 6 almost by the mid-ship elevator, I figured I could find this place and pick up a book.

 

Warning…Warning… Danger Will Robinson…The unshopper is about to make an impulse purchase.

 

I walked out of the store and (since I have such a keenly trained eye for these things) quickly spotted the table where they were selling the books. This area would have been hard to find for the novice sleuth, but me being a highly experienced sleuth...

 

Insert a little sleuth training here.

 

So how did I find the table so quickly? Huh? I know everyone out there is dying to know. Here’s were the clues that gave me a hint. There was a man in a white shirt with gold bars on his shoulders. He was surrounded by 4 or so Princess employees. They were around a table loaded with books. BINGO. JACKPOT. Found it. This is the place. It's right here in plain sight. Only us specially trained sleuth types were able to find it.

 

I had told Mrs. cworld that I'd meet her in a little while in the cabin figuring that I'd have to stand in line for a while. I also knew that she doesn't have any sleuth training, and has a hard time finding these hidden things.

 

I hopped in a one person line all by myself. I guess there weren’t too many trained sleuths on the ship this afternoon. I walked right up and got my book, paid my money, (YES, I SHOPPED!!!) and got the Captain to sign the book. I asked if I could take his picture, and he said sure, or, jes, or something like that. There was a really helpful Princess employee standing there that said she would take a picture, using my very expensive Nikon D70 camera, with the 40-200 zoom lens on it, of me and the Captain together. REALLY COOL. She even did a good job pushing the picture taking button. The Captain tried to make conversation while we took the picture. He was very cordial and accommodating. Nice guy, didn’t speak great English, but nice guy.

 

By the way, while I was busy getting my picture taken that sly thing that I'm married to walked up and waited quietly for me to get finished. I still don't know how she found me. She must have more slueth training than I thought. Hmmm?

 

Or maybe it's just that she had to walk by the table to get to the elevators.

 

 

Rating for Captain signing book and picture – A (really cool)

 

Note to Princess – While on the Island Princess, I was purchased your Alaska Cruise Book, and had the Captain sign it at your little signing table. I noticed that not a lot of passengers were taking advantage of this perk. I hope you don’t discontinue this practice, because I thought it was about the best thing I did on board all week. (At least while clothed) I truly appreciated meeting the Captain. Thank you.

[wtevrfltsurbt]

cworld, can you look in the book the Captain signed and tell us his name? I am curious to know if he will be the same Captain slated for our cruise.

Thank you!

[cworld]

I'll look at the Patter when I get home.

[cworld]

Here we are, It’s almost 5:00 in the afternoon, we’ve been on the boat for over 24 hours, (and I’ve been writing about it for 27 days, one hour per day, that’s just not right, gonna have to speed things up a little bit) and what have we accomplished. Let’s see there’s eating, taking pictures, sleeping, eating, walking around taking, taking pictures, eating, walking around, shopping, taking pictures, napping (well, maybe not napping)… At this time, I have to pause to ask, ARE WE HAVING FUN YET? Come on, lets get real. Is this really the way to vacation? Eat, sleep, shop, eat, sleep, watch a movie, eat, sleep, drink that awful Coke stuff. And what’s our plan for the next 12 hours, eat, show, sleep, eat…

 

We got almost 9 hours of sleep last night. That’s got to be illegal. Nine full hours of sleep, we never sleep for 9 FULL hours. We average less than 6 per night. Another night or two of this and my body is going to start to rebel.

 

Hey, Carl, You’re relaxing. That’s what vacations are for…RELAXING. That’s just not right. Relaxing is what you do when…well I don’t know exactly when relaxing happens. We certainly don’t go on vacation to relax. When we’re on vacation we have to go, go, go, GO, GO, GO. I’ve got a burning desire to do something every second, I have to see and do everything, preferably today.

 

Relax, I’ll relax when I’m at work. Until I go back, I need input. I’m getting a little restless. We’re not doing enough for my tastes. Can’t we find a seminar on thermonuclear interactions, or since we’re on a ship isn’t there someone who knows something about hydrodynamics that I can talk to. How about a nice game of 3 dimensional chess, I need something to occupy my mind. (Hey dummy, since you’re so bored, why don’t you take that nice looking Apple Laptop of yours, out on the balcony and compose a 30,000 word trip report? Nah, since I’m part procrastinator, I’ll just wait until I get home and do that.)

 

I’m officially bored. What are we going to do now? WHERE’S OUR PLAN??????

 

For all of you that have been waiting with baited breath… (By the way, what does that mean? Baited breath. Have we been eating dead, uncooked fish, or worms, or stinkbait… Does anyone have a clue? I certainly don’t. But I’m still gonna say it.) here comes the promised schedule rant. (Check off item #6.)

 

Our normal vacation consists of 5 or 6 days at the greatest vacation destination in the world. It’s a rather large theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. It’s the home of a very large rodent and his friends. This area is a great place to take an active vacation. It’s also a place where if you want to visit you need to (IMBO) have a plan. When we go to this fabulous destination we have each day meticulously planned. Every meal is mapped out. Reservations are made. The daily plan is laid out on a spreadsheet and transferred to daily cards that are distributed each morning to every traveler.

 

Months and months of planning and preparation goes into each trip. I will spend hundreds of hours researching prices, park times, rides and attractions, and extras that in and around LakeBuena Vista.

 

Hi, my name is Carl and I’m a compulsive planner, and this trip is KILLING ME.

 

Why is this trip killing me? We didn’t do a lot of planning before this trip. I booked this trip about 5 weeks before sailing, without a lot of research. Do you know what I paid for this trip? HUH? I’m sure it was too much. I didn’t go every day to look and see if Princesssavers.com had posted new special deals. I didn’t go to 300 web sites to see who had the cheapest price. I booked this trip the stupidest way possible, I marched down to a travel agent I didn’t even know, told them what I wanted, including air, transfers, and insurance, they told me the price, I whipped out my credit card and paid what they asked. I know better than this. Yes, I’ve already surrendered my smart vacation shopper card. But I’ve got an excuse, it’s my 25th wedding anniversary, and I’m trying to impress my wife. Besides, it’s baseball season… I’m busy at work… We have a new dog… (Any others I can use?)

 

We booked our shore excursions through Princess (again I know, not always the best or brightest way, see above excuses). Then I found these boards. WHY DIDN”T I FIND THIS BEFORE I BOOKED THIS TRIP??????

 

This is almost like the place I go to find my LBV information. It’s great. If I’d have found this a month earlier, I’d have had time to get things really together and had a plan, and maybe I would have even printed some daily happenings cards.

 

I would have at least had a list that looked something like this.

 

Saturday, May 7, 2005

 

5:00 Leave for airport

6:30 Depart for IAH on COA1912

7:30 Arrive IAH, grab breakfast

9:30 Depart IAH on COA412

11:50 Arrive CYYR (I’m an Air Traffic Controller, I know all of the technical names for the airports)

12:00 Go through Candian Customs

1:00 Bus to Island Princess

2:30 Eat snack on Island Princess and familiarize with shi

6:00 Dress for Dinner

6:30 Dinner in Bordeaux Dining Room

Some kind of evening entertainment

 

Sunday, May 8, 2005

 

No alarms

9:00ish Eat Breakfast in Horizon Court, tour ship and take pictures

12:00 Lunch at Pizza Place

1:30 Movie in Princess Theater

3:30 Afternoon entertainment

6ish Dress for dinner in Horizon Court

 

I’m not going to go any further, because it might ruin the surprises to come. But I would have planned out the whole week this way. After I got it down on paper I’d present it to Mrs. cworld for her approval and improvement. (By the way for you compulsive planner type people, don’t neglect this step. Did that once, and I’ll never do that again. Share your plans with your traveling companions. It’s there trip too.) Then when we came to an agreement, I’d put everything in a useable form and I’d print it out.

 

BUT THERE IS NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO DO IT THIS WAY!!!!!!

 

There’s no way to know when the movies are playing until you get the Patter. The entertainment isn’t listed anywhere. The menus aren’t posted in advance.

 

NOTE TO PRINCESS – Help me, help you. You send out a lot of precruise information, but it doesn’t contain the information some of us are looking for. I have a desire to plan my days before I reach the ship. We missed a lot of ships activities (where we might have spent some extra money) because we didn’t think about them and plan for them in advance. For example, you have a pretty good idea of what movies you are showing on your ships a few weeks in advance. Go ahead and standardize the times you show them and post that information on a web page for each itinerary. Something like…

 

Northbound Alaska

 

Day TIME Movie Location

 

1 1:30 “The Avaitor” Princess Theater

2 2:15 “The Terminal” Princess Theater

 

You could also do the same thing with the shows and daily happenings. While I’m dreaming I’d also like to see the menus posted. I know you already have them printed, why don’t you go ahead and post them? A lot of us new travelers are addicted to information on the internet and it’s my opinion that your web site could use some help in this area. You could be the industry leader in providing cruise information to your customers. What a great selling point. END OF NOTE TO PRINCESS.

 

Man, I better stop there. Just suffice it to say, I would have liked more time to plan this trip. But since I’m already there, or is it that I’ve already been there, or is it that I’m talking about…Just shut up already.

[cworld]

cworld, can you look in the book the Captain signed and tell us his name? I am curious to know if he will be the same Captain slated for our cruise.

Thank you!

 

 

Andrea Poggi

[wtevrfltsurbt]

Thank you cworld, he will be our Captain as well, hope they are still doing the book signing thing!

Andrea Poggi

[Flintstone]

I just found this thread today !!! I LOVE IT!!!

 

We leave Friday for the Sapphire.....why do I think I'll be done with my cruise before you are!!!! Please hurry!!

 

 

Look out Pamwinn....you have competition!!!

 

Deb

[margord]

Okay, so you bought some post cards, a magnet and a book. Anything else? What did you do with the other $475?

[luv2travel2beaches]

cworld: The DH and I celebrated our 25th anniversary last year on a cruise to Hawaii, but our hearts are always tied to the mouse house in LBV too. I have cruised those similar boards you are talking about and I know I have read your posts there. Same style...same obsessive planning and detail organizer. But, from one obsessive planner, detail organizer to another, keep up the great posts. I'm really wanting to know if you had a better time on this trip since you didn't spend endless hours planning and organizing, or did you feel like you weren't as prepared as you should have been? I can't help myself.....I spend MONTHS planning, reading, organizing and obsessing over every trip we take. I'm lucky...DH just goes with the flow and lets me make all the arrangements. Some day I wonder what it would be like to let somebody else do the obsessing! But PLEASE stop torturing us....DID YOU SPEND ALL OF THE MONEY?????

[cworld]

Note to my friends on the compulsive planning boards - I humbly (there’s that word again) apologize for my lack of planning for this trip. I will be back over there soon and I faithfully promise to again devote my normal 4 hours a day to reading and responding to your posts.

 

To luv2travel2beaches I hate to admit this, it can be done. You can take a vacation and relax. I know, I know, it’s usually not possible, but (and this is really hard to admit) YES, I ENJOYED IT. But I would have enjoyed it more if we would have had more time to plan, but we did have a great time. If you do have time, work on your shore excursions, but otherwise, sit back and let Princess take you on a marvelous excursion.

 

To my compulsive planning friends. Please, don’t throw me out of the compulsive planning club. Please don’t throw rocks at me. PLEASE DON’T FLAME ME. It’s even hard admit it here where I'm almost unknown, (or I was almost unknown) (and if you think I’m going to post this on the compulsive planning boards your as looney as I am), and if any of you go over to the those other boards and say one peep about this I’ll deny it ever happened. I’ll scream that there is an imposter. Please help me hide my problem.

 

I've got to drive my parents around Oklahoma for the next couple of days. I probably won't post anything major again until Sunday. I'm sorry, I'll make sure that things progress a little faster next week. We'll get in to the shore excursions. Those will be fun.

 

As for the shopping thing...

 

Patience is a virtue. ROFL

[stephv710]

Relax, I’ll relax when I’m at work. ….

 

Um, didn't you say you are an Air Traffic Controller? I may never fly again.:D

[naplesam]

Um, didn't you say you are an Air Traffic Controller? I may never fly again.:D

 

At least in and out of Oklahoma! :D

[Catsailor]

For all of you that have been waiting with baited breath… (By the way, what does that mean? Baited breath. Have we been eating dead, uncooked fish, or worms, or stinkbait… Does anyone have a clue? I certainly don’t. But I’m still gonna say it.)

 

From http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm:

The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: “She hasn’t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath”.

It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it has the meaning “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

[cworld]

refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

 

Thanks, Catsailor.

 

Hmmmm... AWE, extreme anticipation... Sounds like I used it correctly. I know (because I used to be addicted to this kind of story too) every last one of you are lurking around, waiting for the next incredible episode to come pouring out of my furtile mind. Honey, he's at it again. Don't he write pretty? Ain't he the greatest. When they made him they broke the mold. He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Ain't He somethin'.

 

Yes, and if you're not careful they start giving you pills for that somethin'. And by the way, you're watching way too much Blue Collar TV... Think so?

[cworld]

The proceeding words were brought to you by the W*** D***** Company. Where dreams do come true, but, only if you pay through the nose for them.

 

Yes, I know, I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Well the schedule fell in to place, and I had time to dash out a couple of lines.

 

I’m getting lost in my own nightmare, where did we leave off? Oh, yeah, my out-of-this world (I mean that in the best way possible dear) wife and I were climbing out of bed, fully rested from our afternoon sleepless nap, and starting to prepare for supper. I was so in the mood for LOBSTER, that I wanted to run down to the dining room just to check out the menu. That way, if it was LOBSTER night and there wasn’t any LOBSTER in the Horizon Court, I’d break all of the rules and slip meekly (that’s pretty hard for me to do) into the dining room and eat piles of LOBSTER.

 

This uncertainty was caused by just the very thing I was talking about in the compulsive planner rant. If I had been planning to go to that other place I vacation at, I’d have had the exact menu for each restaurant and I wouldn't be walking another mile and a half just to look at a stupid menu. Because, since this was the first Alaska voyage of the year, no one knew which night was LOBSTER night, not even the crew. (For you that are sailing on the Island this summer, on the Northbound cruise, the second formal night is LOBSTER night.) So we trudged down to the dining room to check out the menu.

 

Do you know how it is when you have your mouth set for something, when, your anticipating it so much you’ve got the taste in your mouth, when you can feel the texture, when you remember the times you had it before and so look forward to what’s going to be sliding across your tongue in just a few short minutes? And the you look at the menu. Orange ducks, and patties of some kind of grass, and squabs. WHAT?

 

STOP RIGHT THERE! What’s going on here young man? Well officer, ya see, it’s like this… One of the staff upstairs told me that we were having LOBSTERS for dinner tonight. My mouth was watering so much that I had to change shirts 3 times today. And when I came down here tonight and saw the menu, I just snapped. I couldn’t take it. I exploded. I went postal right there. I must have destroyed… SON, HOLD IT. Stop right there. Before you say anything else I have to tell you, you have the right to remain silent…

 

Yeah, yeah, I made that whole officer thing up, but I was disappointed. I was ready for LOBSTER. I’ve never eaten duck, and I’m not about to start now. It was officially International Night. And the menu contained lots of very fancy sounding foods. I can’t really remember what all was on there, but there was absolutely nothing that sounded even remotely like what some steak and potatoe (had to throw that in, in honor of Dan Quayle) loving Okie would eat in public. So, it was probably a good thing that we were planning to eat in the Horizon Court. That way we could see what the food looked like before we put it on our plate.

 

We went back to the cabin and dejectedly changed for dinner. Yes, while we didn’t have our formal clothes, we still dressed up for dinner (dockers and button up shirts).

 

We headed up to the buffet. We filled our plates. We ate. We left. That’s about all I remember about this meal. The internationally famous Mrs. cworld tells me that the Egg Nog Ice Cream, and the Pecan something Ice Cream was absolutely fabulous. I’m not much of a flavored ice cream connoisseur, banilla and chocolate for me. (We have a nephew that calls vanilla ice cream banilla.)

 

The only thing I remember about dinner is that squab tastes like chicken.

 

When we finished dinner, we pranced back to the cabin to get ready to go to the show.

 

Coming soon to a computer near you. A comprehensive review of the Island Princess performers presentation of

 

CURTAIN UP

 

A salute to Broadway musicals

 

I bet you’re waiting with bated breath.

[HMcruiser]

:eek:

[Kaylas Mom]

Carl,

 

On behalf of all of us who think that our cruises go by way to quickly, thank you. You have finally taught us how to make the magic linger. And I mean that in a very good way.

 

Forever thanks,

Cathy

[margord]

...but what about the $500 credit? Did you spend it?