Summit in review 7/15/2005

[b8tzm]

Our inside cabin next to boiler room had terry half wraps & oxygen masks provided. We used them formal night

[boxer_mommy]

Hi Al.

 

I am thoroughly enjoying reading your review (and sense of humor) of the Summit. We will be on the Summit in March 2006 sailing to Hawaii. I'll be in good company with Phil (cruising with marti) and Joan (Ma Bell).

 

Did you ever get my response to your e-mail? Please be sure to give Sunny plenty of Boxer wiggles and kisses from us. :D

 

 

Mei Li

[L11]

Great review! And I liked the formal night rental. Now I want to see a picture of you wearing it...

 

Linda

[slomotion]

No, No,No, our robes were much fluffyer in our CC cabin in May, than they were in our sky suite last fall.:D

 

 

Phil

 

that's becasue you had the old style robes.

 

==============================

I could be wrong, but I'm reasonably certain that there are only 2 grades of robes ... the fluffier for CC and above ... and "regulation" for those below. I happen to absolutely love the regular waffle-weave one without all the fluff! So much, in fact, that I bought one on our last trip. Great robe and not to bulky. The one thing I need no more of is bulk or fluff ;) .

and you are quite possibly incorrect, because in my extra fabulous sky suite 6126 the robes were very wonderful and ever so extra soft and extra fluffy, and probably very special

 

Great review! And I liked the formal night rental. Now I want to see a picture of you wearing it...

 

Linda

 

Linda, sorry I don't have a photo, but just use your imagination. If it helps I used to be a dancer at Chippendale's.

 

Best to all, and stay tuned for the next exciting episode of

"As the Summit Turns"

[dedlaw]

Al, I was on the cruise with you, and I'M enjoying this too. I did try out our meeting spot at about 5:35 on sailaway, saw no Murican flags and returned to the bosom of my family.

 

Folks, I plan to post a review of this cruise soon. It won't be as entertaining, I may have missed some of the furniture stains (or seen different ones), but it is already clear that Al and I had somewhat different experiences -- I hope the places where my opinion varies will provide a different point of view, certainly Al's is very legitimate and well-considered. A simple (and timely) analogy:

 

We enjoyed a land tour of six days' following the cruise. One stop was the Tundra Wilderness Tour at Denali National Park. On our bus, we saw specimens of almost every large mammal in the park -- those on the bus just in front of us saw nothing. Was the trip through the park worthwhile? Depends who you ask.

[b8tzm]

I am ready for a serious one from a non-suite non-butler type. I've had enough jokes/wise cracks for a while, if I need them I'll watch Leno and/or Letterman LOL

[slomotion]

Al, I was on the cruise with you, and I'M enjoying this too. I did try out our meeting spot at about 5:35 on sailaway, saw no Murican flags and returned to the bosom of my family.

 

Folks, I plan to post a review of this cruise soon. It won't be as entertaining, I may have missed some of the furniture stains (or seen different ones), but it is already clear that Al and I had somewhat different experiences -- I hope the places where my opinion varies will provide a different point of view, certainly Al's is very legitimate and well-considered. A simple (and timely) analogy:

 

We enjoyed a land tour of six days' following the cruise. One stop was the Tundra Wilderness Tour at Denali National Park. On our bus, we saw specimens of almost every large mammal in the park -- those on the bus just in front of us saw nothing. Was the trip through the park worthwhile? Depends who you ask.

 

Dedlaw,

 

Sorry we missed meeting.

[slomotion]

Wednesday

 

Got up put on my robe (you know which one) and off to the men’s sauna etc. The “Out of Order” sign had been removed from the 3rd shower stall. You Go Celebrity! Fixed it on the 5th day of a 7 day cruise.

 

Alice went to the ladies sauna a little later. So I’m in the stateroom and the phone rings. It’s Alice calling from the ladies’ sauna! phone’s been found and plugged in.

 

So now we know that among the things that Celebrity does not want you to know, is that paying guests are the ones who are supposed to be the spotters for the facility manager. Hey at least they did something.

 

Oh, the goop? It looked like someone went at it with a brush and some bleach and actually made it look worse.

 

Back to basics. After a nice breakfast, we went to Michael’s Club, trying not to be seen. There were about 20 of us suitekateers there. We gave our priority tender passes to one of the guys and sat down to wait. We spoke in hushed tones not wanting to be discovered. After about 10 minutes I heard our “guide’s” walkie-talkie crackle and a voice saying, “Michael’s Club, how many?” He replied “20”. She said “Wait One. He said “OK.” I then heard, the voice say “Celebrity Theater, how many?” and heard a voice reply “40”. I then heard “Michael’s Club, please direct your guests to the tender.” and a moment later heard the same message for the Celebrity theater group. We sprang from our seats (need to beat the riff-raff from the other location) and headed to the tender. We boarded the tender, and right behind us, on the very same tender no less, were the non-suite folks. Damn! We had to share a tender with the butlerless.

 

Icy Point Straight is a neat small little town. Interesting. They’ve done some nice work to cut several different paths through wooded areas, but did it in away that did not destroy ambiance of the port which is old and quaint but not cute. Good for them!

 

Whale watching is a popular excursion here although we did not go on a WW trip. Our dinner companions did and were very pleased.

 

Thursday.

 

Woke up early (6:00 AM) dressed warmly and headed to the helicopter pad which was going to be open to the public for viewing the Hubbard Glacier. An unbelievable sight.

 

There’s this gigantic mountain of ice, and I mean gigantic. Much larger than the Summit. The Capitan brings the ship into this small area and sort of up close. (Think Titanic) This is one spectacular thing to see. He then apparently turns the front thruster pods to the left and the rear pods to right, and turns the ship on its axis, nice and slow. We were there for a couple of hours doing this. A couple of times he changed the position of the ship and then went back to the rotation. This was superb. No matter where you were on the ship, you got the “A” view.

 

Suddenly there is this sound like a loud clap of thunder followed by a noise that is hard to describe. Then there’s this fair sized chuck of glacier that is falling away into the sea. I know, I know. It’s calving, but I didn’t hear anything moo.

 

We spent several hours there and then ever so carefully left the bay being careful not to hit any ice flows.

 

Celebrity had staff at the helicopter pad walking around selling hot chocolate in aluminum thermal mugs. Nice touch! Hard to figure why they did not set up a couple of large urns with hot chocolate and paper cups. Nuff said!

 

The rest of the day was spent with robe routine, funky shower, breakfast, packing, lunch, packing, soaking in the thalassotherapy pool. packing, dinner, late show, packing, and wondering how we got all of this stuff into the suitcase the first time, and where we would pack the stuff we bought.

 

Bags out by 11:00 PM

 

Friday

 

Regular morning routine. I bid adieu to the funky showers, and wore the fabulously extra soft and extra fluffy, custom tailored white robe with blue “Celebrity” robe for the last time.

 

Had breakfast, grabbed our carry-ons and went to the Martini Bar as instructed. We were asked to be there @ 8:40 AM. We were called at moments after 9:00AM and led to our exiting gangway where we were met by a tour coordinator who directed us to the proper coach for our 4 day post-cruise sojourn.

 

Celebrity has a great logistics team! Go Celebrity!

 

This is one neat coach, Spiffy! Our tour guide, Ken introduced himself and our driver Sheila and we were off to Anchorage. It was a nice trip, and a comfortable coach ride. Lunch on our own, was followed by a visit to the heritage museum. Then on to the hotel (Anchorage Marriott) where we found envelopes containing our room keys waiting for us. Up to the room and lo and behold our luggage! All of it.

 

Celebrity has the logistical stuff nailed!

 

Saturday,

 

Bags out @ 8:00, we're on the motor coach at about 9:00 and off to Denali. Once we were out of the “city” area it was a very picturesque trip. Damn nice motor coach, great tour guide, and a super nice driver. We pulled into a nice little park and had a box lunch provided by Celebrity. Back on the motor coach and off to Denali.

 

The hotel was situated way up, and man, I do mean well up a hill, and I do mean one he!! of a hill. Some might say it was half way up a mountain. Dirt road to the top, lots of switch-backs and finally pulling into the parking lot we were met with a parking lot full of old, restored touring cars from the early 40’s and well before. A lot of Caddie’s, Packard’s, a Cord, a RR touring car and so forth, A very interesting assortment of rolling stock. A touring club was having its annual tour here. Great bonus for us!

 

The accommodations were less than we all expected. Sort of mediocre. The staff was so-so, and the service left something to be desired. These were the comments of many of my newest group of 36 best friends.

 

Sunday

 

Our day to do whatever it was that we wanted. We took a bus to the park and walked around a little, headed back to the village, and hit the gift shops to see if they had anything with the word Alaskaon it.

 

Clever huh?

 

Monday (Last Day) Up early to board a DenaliPark bus and I do mean bus. Off to the sights of the great Wilderness Tour. This tour, while the bus is not all that great, is a great tour. 62 miles into the park, and 62 miles out, occasionally interrupted by the shout of “Stop the bus, bear at 9 o’clock”, or “Stop the bus, wolf at 1 o’clock.” The driver had told us that we were to be his spotters and to holler out when we saw something. We saw a pack of wolves, a half dozen or so bears, some with cubs, several moose, mountain sheep, some fantastic scenery, some unbelievable scenery at a place called Polychrome pass, where the rock colors are vividly bright and vary, Mt McKinley and other neat stuff. This trip was well worth the time. The guide explained that wild animals being just that do what they please where they please and most importantly when they please, and there is no way of knowing if we’ll see anything. Later he said, in his opinion this trip “happened” to catch more than just a fair share of animals. The other interesting aspect is that the weather was unusually clear, affording us several different views of McKinley.

 

At about 3:30 PM the Alaskan Railroad train pulled into Denali with two private Celebrity dome cars at the end of the regular cars, and a couple of private Holland America cars beyond ours.

 

Celebrity spent a bundle on building and furnishing these private rail cars. The clear domes wrapped from side to side, the seats were over stuffed leather recliners, there was a bar upstairs, and a private dining room downstairs. I had Prime Rib ($25). It was excellent. Alice had pasta ($18.) It was superb.

 

The train trip from Denali to Fairbanks took a little over 5 hours and was truly a great experience.

 

We stayed in a very nice motor inn in Fairbanks and caught a plane the next AM to home.

 

Travel is great, but coming home is always best.

 

The next (final) segment will be a wrap to cover my opinions and impressions of Celebrity, the company, Summit, the experience, and Alaska, the destination, which after all was what the trip was all about.

 

 

.

[ali-ali-oh]

Back on the subject of robes - are they available in many colours?

Thanks Joseph ;)

PS - Are pax segregated dependent upon their sense of humour (or lack of it)?

[slomotion]

Back on the subject of robes - are they available in many colours?

Thanks Joseph ;)

 

PS - Are pax segregated dependent upon their sense of humour (or lack of it)?

 

Joseph,

As far as I can tell, they come in bright (out of the package) white, white, tell-tale gray (that's a US advertising phrase), off white, and way off white.

 

Ahhhhhhhhhh the sense of humor. Well let me share one more story.

 

We had taken the tender at Icy Point and were walking around the village area. There were seveal indians in their native garb standing near one of the paths previously mentioned. They were pointing to a deer who was grazing a few yards away. The deer, as they all are, was cute. It would eat a bit, and then stop and raise its head and then look at us, and then eat some more.

 

As we began too walk away, I said to Alice. "that's not a real dear, Celebrity brought in one of those Disney animatrons". We heard a woman behind us say "That's not an animatron, that's a real deer!" and she was quite emphatic. We we said nothing, just contiued walking. I imagine she had something to talk about over dinner.

 

Hey, you got the $$'s you get to cruise!

 

Best

[greatful]

Nice review even though you appear to look down on your butler-less/suite-less cruise buddies, such is life. Take care & thanks for reminding me/us of how great the week was!

[HeatherInFlorida]

I loved your review. slomotion, and I'm sorry that not everyone "got" your humor. I think you're hysterical.

 

But for those who couldn't read the smile in this review, trust that slomotion was putting down absolutely no one. I hope I'll be forgiven for stepping in with that comment, but I cannot let it go unsaid.

We can read a thousand reviews and many are so similar. I think it's fun from time to time to read one that's just a little off beat and very, very funny. I loved it. Thanks, Slomo!!!:D

[b8tzm]

I hope my message was taken with the intended humor, Al writes great reviews

[slomotion]

The wrap is coming. . .

 

Please wait . . .

 

All will be explained plus my personal opinion of Celebrity ;)

[greatful]

Where's the beef?

[slomotion]

Boxer Mommy

 

Hi Al.

 

I am thoroughly enjoying reading your review (and sense of humor) of the Summit. We will be on the Summit in March 2006 sailing to Hawaii. I'll be in good company with Phil (cruising with marti) and Joan (Ma Bell).

 

Did you ever get my response to your e-mail? Please be sure to give Sunny plenty of Boxer wiggles and kisses from us. :D

 

Mei Li

Got your email. Sunny was all wiggles and kisses upon our return.

 

I loved your review. slomotion, and I'm sorry that not everyone "got" your humor. I think you're hysterical.

 

But for those who couldn't read the smile in this review, trust that slomotion was putting down absolutely no one. I hope I'll be forgiven for stepping in with that comment, but I cannot let it go unsaid.

 

We can read a thousand reviews and many are so similar. I think it's fun from time to time to read one that's just a little off beat and very, very funny. I loved it. Thanks, Slomo!!!:D

Heather,

thanks for the kind words.

 

the grand (not so grand?) finale follows.

[slomotion]

It’s a wrap.

 

First, let me comment on the Vancouver International Passenger Terminal.

 

I have never been in an airport as beautiful as YVR. The extensive use of glass, the steel/aluminum girders, the diorama with the piped in sounds of the wild are all absolutely fabulous. Customs was quick and easy. Baggage arrived at the carousel very quickly, and almost best of all, our neighbors to the north provide the use of baggage cart for free!

 

Summit, the experience.

 

Entertainment

 

The Celebrity Theater is magnificent. It is nicely laid out. The rows are unusually widely spaced, permitting someone to walk in front of those already seated without having them stand. Loads of great seats. Nicely done!

 

The Summit’s singers and dancers do a great job. They have 5 (I think) different shows. Each is a very high energy show lasting just minutes under an hour. Some nights the early and late shows are almost back-to-back. Kudos!

 

The choreography is certainly of a professional standard, and the dancers demonstrate that they have rehearsed their hearts out. There are 4 boy dancers (industry term) and I think 5 or maybe 6 girl dancers. All of whom look to be good enough to work in any Broadway show.

 

There are 4 vocalists. All very good and capable of performing vastly different numbers flawlessly.

 

If you are not entertained by this ensemble, I would guess you’re a grouch.

 

The musicians are excellent as well.

 

There are a couple of other acts, one billed as a comedian who is actually a juggler and performs on a ladder. His act is hard to describe, but is fantastic.

 

Staff

 

The staff is very well trained and accommodating. We had Butter Pecan ice cream one night for dessert. The next night I asked the waiter if there was any Butter Pecan left over. He came back and said he was sorry, but there was none left. I thanked him for checking and ordered something else. Just as we were leaving, a gentleman came up to me (I’m not sure who he was) and asked if I were the person who had requested the butter pecan ice cream. I said yes, but don’t worry about it, there’s lot’s of other stuff for dessert. That was it, or so I thought. The next night, the waiter brought out the dessert tray to show off the pastries, took dessert orders, and left. He quickly came back and presented me with a huge scoop of freshly made Butter Pecan. They served it to me each night thereafter. I had not asked them to do that. I only asked if there was any left over. Kudos to Celebrity!

 

The entire staff of the Summit is well trained, experienced, and in tune with providing great service.

 

Kudos to Celebrity.

 

Suite/Butler Issues.

 

I trust (hope) that most who have read this far realize that I have been poking fun at the concept of having a butler as opposed to the butlers themselves.

 

I clearly want to say that I have not meant to poke fun at those who did not have a butler or a suite.

 

My apologies to anyone who may have thought that.

 

As we began to look around for a cruise line for an Alaska trip we first turned to RCI and the Radiance. We had enjoyed two cruises on that ship, liked it, liked RCI and would, in a heartbeat cruise with them again. We knew that we wanted was a one-way north-bound cruise with a land tour to Denali after the cruise. I could not find any such cruise on RCI, although I think I blew it, and they did in fact have one. But, the cruises I saw were all round-trip, which meant a flight from Vancouver or Seattle on up to Anchorage and on from there. Then I thought about RCI’s sister line Celebrity and found that they ran exactly what it was we wanted. That’s how we go to Celebrity. We used Celebrity’s Alaska 2005 brochure to review the various accommodations and wanting a room with just a bit more space settled on their “Sky Suite” which looks pretty much like their Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Veranda except for the size.

 

The description of the Sky Suite from their brochure is:

 

251 sq. ft. Veranda: 57 sq. ft. Features floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors*, sitting area, some with sofa bed and lounge chair, entertainment center with TV and VCR two lower beds convertible to queen-size.

 

That’s it, no mention of butler, no mention of robes, no mention of priority anything. Just square footage. We contacted two travel agents to compare pricing, and selected the one we had used before, sent in the deposit, and we had a lock on 6126, and we were done.

 

If memory serves me, Celebrity was having some web site problems at that time, and I was in the process of upgrading my system, so I was not on-line as much as I usually am. A bit later, with my computer problems resolved (more memory and a second hard drive), and Celebrity’s new site up I logged on and went in search of the Summit and it’s Sky Suite pretty much expecting to read the same stuff that is in their Alaska brochure. That’s when I discovered that we would have a butler.

 

I think Celebrity has made a great corporate decision in calling a larger stateroom a suite, adding a butler to that suite and boosting the price way up. I say that because their ships are full and the sky suites seem to be sold out. That’s the criteria for a great corporate decision.

 

From this passengers point of view, I’d like to see maybe half of the sky suites called exactly what they are, Larger Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Veranda, and not provide butler service and price them at a higher rate than the Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Veranda and less that the butler included sky suite. Not likely to happen.

 

Looking at the day-to-day stuff.

 

In a non-suite, if you want breakfast in your stateroom, you hang the white menu on you door knob at night and in the AM it is delivered by room service and you give him a $5 tip.

 

In a suite, it’s the butler that brings it.

 

In a non-suite, if you want your laundry done, you write it up, place it in a laundry bad and call your stateroom attendant. The next day it is sitting on your bad, laundered, and folded.

 

In a suite, it’s the butler that picks it up and the next day it is sitting on your bad, laundered, and folded.

 

In a non-suite, if you wanted a box lunch prepared, you would call room service, tell them what you’d like to have and it’s delivered, and you give the young man a tip.

 

In a suite, you call the butler and tell him what you’d like, and it’s the butler who delivers it.

 

In a non suite, if you want your shoes shined, you do it your self.

 

In a suite, you call the butler and he does it for you.

 

I have to tell you tell you that my Nike’s did not look any better after shining!

 

(Again, I have played fast and loose with the truth.) .

 

Actually I gave my dress shoes a pretty good shine before we left, and that was that.

 

On a pure dollar value basis, I believe that it is simply not worth the extra money for a sky suite with its butler.

 

In a non-suite, we could have had any service we used, and it would have been provided by someone other than a butler and would have cost far less.

 

Would we rent a sky suite again? NO! The value is not there. It is simply not worth it.

 

Are we happy we took the trip to Alaska? Absolutely.

 

Shore Excursions.

 

We did the White Pass RR and the Mendenhall Glacier by Helicopter trips. Both were magnificent and have provided us with memories that will last a lifetime and photos to treasure, and occasionally bore our friends to death with.

 

Others did whale watching and were very happy especially those who booked that at Icy Point Straight.

 

I think Celebrity does a great job on shore excursions.

 

Iteinerary

 

Could not be better.

 

Celebrity the company.

 

As a company Celebrity has obligations to its shareholders. They need to make a profit and are certainly entitled to do so.

 

That said some of the stuff they do is bothersome. Some of it is big, some small.

 

If you are going to tout yourself as an upscale operation and charge as if you are, then I think you need to be an upscale operation in every possible respect and implement a top of the line quality assurance program.

 

We’ve previously discussed the facility’s manager and their lack of attention to on-board damage. I know where to buy and how to use a tile cleaner, so that my shower is not crud infested. I know how to repair a shower head or buy a new one, if need be. I know what a shabby piece of furniture looks like. I’m somewhat good at fixing gouges in furniture or paneling, or cleaning a couch cushion or replace one if need be. This is not rocket science, this is the hospitality business. This is usual and customary and Celebrity fails here.

 

A Celebrity cruise costs 1,000’s more than other lines. It should be better.

 

The on-board guest relations department never had sufficient staff to handle phone calls during the normal times that people call. This is an indication that Celeb intentionally short staffs their ships. Not good!

 

Our memories of the food and beverage service on RCI were that it was excellent in every possible respect. We honestly do not remember exactly what the steak, or Caesar salad tasted like, or how great the pastries were, but we do know at the time we very well pleased. Was it any better or worse than Celebrity? I think it was probably about the same although I heard one guest state that the food on Celebrity was about 1.25 times better than on RCI. I have no idea how he came to that figure.

 

Celebrity handled our air arrangements and as sometimes happens screwed up on the last segment by giving us a 50 minute connection between the estimated arrival time at the gate and the departure time of another airline at SFO.

 

We were on a Fairbanks to Anchorage to Seattle to San Francisco flight on Alaskan and then a United commuter flight home.

 

The departure terminal was three buildings away, and we needed to exit the arrival terminal, trot over to the departure terminal, clear security, get boarding passes, and get to gate 86 (second last gate at the terminal in that wing), get on the shuttle bus that would take us to the commuter terminal and on to the commuter flight home.

 

I called Celebrity from Fairbanks to try to fix this and was dealt with by a surly bit** (rhymes with witch) (Alex,(sp?) by name) who first provided me with erroneous information and in a second call stated that they had given me an FAA approved legal connection. When I explained the time and distance factor she got really huffy. I asked to speak with her supervisor. She knew I was minutes away from boarding and instead of helping us she plugged me into her supervisor’s (Ella) voice mail. A lot of good that did.

 

In Seattle a dynamite Alaskan gate agent moved us from row 20 to row 10 for the final leg of the Alaskan part of the journey. Back on board I spoke with a flight attendant and she said she would lend a hand. As we approached the gate (seat belts still on) the chief flight attendant, made the following announcement. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a couple seated in row 10 who have a very close connection, we’d appreciate it if everyone would stay in their seats so we can get them off the plane first, thank you.”

 

Wow! Everyone did. We raced through the terminal, (as fast as an old fat guy could) out the door and down to the United terminal, got through security, and raced back to the gate.

 

It was a little like that scene from Chariots of Fire.

 

Click here to hear music

 

http://sg1.allmusic.com/cg/smp.dll?link=m54rkkzj6nixnex6gb6iwb4&z=MP3&r=20.asx

 

We got to the podium as they were doing last call and were in our seats about a minute before they closed the door.

 

Alex in the air department, you stink!

 

Arrived at SBA safe and sound.

 

Our luggage was another story however. The FAA approved connection apparently does not take into account that the original carrier has to transfer luggage to the second carrier. Not that you really need to know, but every stitch of underwear that I own, except for what I was wearing was in those bags.

 

Attention Alex at Celebrity.

 

FYI There was a flight from SFO-SBA at 7:20PM, another at 8:20, and yet another at about 10:00, any one of which would have been better than the one Celebrity did.

 

In closing.

 

Most likely we’ll be back to RCI and based on some comments from others will look at Holland America.

 

Alaska is a great destination. We enjoyed ourselves, had a great time, and were happy that we went. We met some great people, in particular some folks from this board. We’ve had the opportunity of sharing some great banter with some of you like Phil (CA), and Phil (across the pond), and Wonder Dog and his Blazer Buddy.

 

I’ll hang around here for a while and answer any questions or comments that may come up. If anyone would like to send me an off-board comment, please feel free to do so to heysailor@myway.com.

 

 

[HeatherInFlorida]

Slomo, this review has been such fun. Again, thank you. I loved your "wrap-up":D

We have cruised on the Millennium and Zenith on Celebrity and the Maasdam and Oosterdam on HAL. In many ways the 2 lines are interchangeable (IMHO). However, we feel that the food and the service are better on Celebrity (from our experience). We'll see how I feel after our trans-canal cruise on the Summit in October.

Comparing the HAL Vista class and the Celebrity Millennium class in terms of the ships themselves, Celebrity wins again. The Vista class doesn't come close.

I'm usually on the HAL boards because I've made a lot of friends over there, but even they know that Celebrity is my line of choice. If you choose HAL one day, I'll look forward to your thoughts. Better yet, join us on our group cruise in October 2006! You'd be a great addition.

I hope our paths cross on a ship out there on the sea one day:) ! Thanks again.

[plumeria]

my husband is installing Prego flooring in our bedroom and it is not going well, he kept calling me to help then saying I didn’t no what I was doing so I called 22 yrs son to come help left immediately and started to read your post, I laughed and laughed you should write comedy for Everybody loves Raymond (I know going off the air) or some other show you are so funny or better yet get a gig on your next cruise as a comedian and get cruise free,

 

 

Anyway I was stressed out big time and you made me laugh

 

Thanks

 

Plumeria

Can’t wait for more installments

[Kiwis]

Slomotion.. thanks for the review.. we're first time cruisers so very interested in your insight on your trip!

 

Just one question.. the box lunches.. can you get these to take off the ship? Do you need to pay for these?! :)

[slomotion]

Kiwi,

 

Just one question.. the box lunches.. can you get these to take off the ship? Do you need to pay for these?!

 

Yes, we had them packed to take with us on the Whie Pass RR excursion in Skagway.

 

There was no aditional charge for them.

 

Al

[Ma Bell]

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but I think the box lunch was an accommodation by your butler. I know they don't generally provide box lunches for passengers going ashore and in fact many ports will not allow food to be taken ashore from the ship. I've seen them take food from people who are trying to bring it ashore.

[slomotion]

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but I think the box lunch was an accommodation by your butler. I know they don't generally provide box lunches for passengers going ashore and in fact many ports will not allow food to be taken ashore from the ship. I've seen them take food from people who are trying to bring it ashore.

 

Ma & Pa too

 

Wow!

That being true, and I'm not doubting your for a moment, makes those the most expensive sandwiches I've ever had in my life! The suite life was a couple of grand. That works out to be abut $500 per sandwich or maybe $495 per and $20 for the tater chips.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

They came with lettuce and tomato.

 

Best.

 

Al

[Ma Bell]

See, that butler was special after all.;)

[TechKnowBabble]

William Jefferson Clinton loved thongs !

 

*snicker* You guys are just too much. Please continue with story AND well-added comments :D