The Alaskan Jewel! Welcome Aboard….You don’t Exist!

[jenseib]

skag16 by Jenseib, on Flickr

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Well that was incredible. We chatted a bit and ordered drinks and then I saw several people making their way to the window on the other side so I jumped up to take a look.

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And of course I snapped a few more pictures.

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With all the excitement over I headed up to the salad bar.

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[jenseib]

They have a system where you have a card and when you turn it to green you that means you want the meats to come, when it is red then that means you don’t need anything currently.

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In theory it’s a good idea. You just have to remember to keep turning it over when you don’t need anything. The down side to this is they kept bringing the same meats and we wanted to try other meats. We were offered sausages and chicken over and over, but what we wanted was the good steaks. Finally we asked when they would be around and our server said he would tell them. They took forever to come with the good meats and then only once and you only got one piece at a time. There were supposed to be around 25 meats to choose from. We never had that many to choose from and the ones we saw mainly were variations on the same thing…spicy sausage, mild sausage, etc.

If I remember right the rolls weren’t all that fabulous either.

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This tray of foods was brought out to the table to share family style. We pretty much only liked the mashed potatoes.

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[jenseib]

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Some of the meats were better than others. But none were stand out great. We really became more annoyed about what we were offered than anything. It seemed like pulling teeth to get any of the more expensive meats and Skip caught on quickly they were offering the cheaper meats over and over and grumbled. Plus the fact that it was so slow between each skewer coming out. The dessert they offer here is grilled pineapple on a skewer. It was not catching our fancy and honestly it just took too long at this point we just wanted to leave. Claire and I figured we would eat the cookies in our room later…which of course were gone when we went back.

We wanted to catch the show tonight so we declined the pineapple and headed out.

Up next…..Not quite what we expected….

[PyrHeaven]

Loving your review!! I just read the last 38 pages in 2 days. I've become very intrigued :) Alaska has always been on my bucket list. I'm thinking 2017 may be the year.

[darwinsrule]

Sounds about the same as our experience on Getaway this past August. Best "meat" was the grilled pineapple. Still it was a good experience. Not sure if we would do it again however.

[vampiress]

If I remember right the rolls weren’t all that fabulous either.

 

Brazilian rolls are not typical bread like diner rolls in america, they are made form tapioca flour. i know this because my gluten intolerant friend can eat and loves the cheese bread from the Brazilian restaurant. they can be a bit gummy because of the tapioca and cheese, so if you aren't expecting that, it can be weird and you might think the rolls are underdone.

 

they are called Pão de Queijo if you want to look them up.

[Ontario cruise duo]

We cruised Alaska last June. Loved it, even though we are warm weather (Caribbean) traveling Canadians. Anyway, I love the clarity of your pictures and I know you've already been asked this question at least once, but can you please let me know what type of camera you used for your pictures. I'm reliving our cruise through your cruise!;)

[jenseib]

Loving your review!! I just read the last 38 pages in 2 days. I've become very intrigued :) Alaska has always been on my bucket list. I'm thinking 2017 may be the year.

 

Thanks for reading! I have wanted to do Alaska for years but Skip always said never. I am so glad he changed his mind and of course he now says it was the best vacation her has ever had.

 

Sounds about the same as our experience on Getaway this past August. Best "meat" was the grilled pineapple. Still it was a good experience. Not sure if we would do it again however.

 

I was a little annoyed as this is advertised with all the different meats yet they almost made you feel guilty for asking for certain ones. We won't be going back there in the future for sure....unless I hear things change.

[jenseib]

Brazilian rolls are not typical bread like diner rolls in america, they are made form tapioca flour. i know this because my gluten intolerant friend can eat and loves the cheese bread from the Brazilian restaurant. they can be a bit gummy because of the tapioca and cheese, so if you aren't expecting that, it can be weird and you might think the rolls are underdone.

 

they are called Pão de Queijo if you want to look them up.

 

 

Thanks!!!

 

We cruised Alaska last June. Loved it, even though we are warm weather (Caribbean) traveling Canadians. Anyway, I love the clarity of your pictures and I know you've already been asked this question at least once, but can you please let me know what type of camera you used for your pictures. I'm reliving our cruise through your cruise!;)

 

I used 3 cameras on this trip. One was just my iphone. I also used a Canon 50D. I have a couple of lenses for it but I mainly used one that is kind of a good all in one type lens. And I had just bought an Olympus Tough TG-860. It really is a great point and shoot camera and I took it to NYC over Thanksgiving and used it a lot. I am really happy with it.

[jenseib]

We had a little bit of time before the show started so we went outside to enjoy the weather and views.

 

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And we posed for a few pictures.

 

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Then we headed to the show.

 

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[jenseib]

The show was listed tonight as Comedian Chris Pendleton.

We love comedians usually so we figured this would be a fun night. We arrived early enough and we got a seat basically right in the middle of the row. We each had a drink and patiently waited for the show to start.

Well Chris was a girl. We had kind of assumed Chris was a guy. I prefer guy comedians over women usually. I have nothing against women comedians; I just don’t think they are usually as funny. No big deal though, she may be funny. Well she wasn’t. Honestly it was hard to crack a smile for most of the jokes she told. Then she kind of went off into stories and her love of the fiddle and would play little snippets. I kept waiting for something funny to happen and it didn’t. She was just playing the fiddle. After a bit the whole show just turned into her playing songs on the fiddle. Not funny songs either. I don’t know why she was advertised as a comedian when more than half the hour long show was her playing the fiddle. Had I known that this was going to be that type of show we probably would have skipped it. It’s just not our thing. Yes she was very good, but that is not what we came to see. We saw a ton of people get up and leave and we all wanted to…..except we were in the middle of a row and we didn’t want to bother others or be in the way. So we sat through it. I would say by the end of the show at least ¼ to 1/3 of the people had left early. I blame NCL on advertising this wrong.

 

One thing in the show though was that her daughter was part of the show. She did a little skit where she talked about her younger days and her daughter played her as a child. We recognized the daughter…..she was at the Klondike Family Experience earlier in the day with her dad. We remembered her because she was extremely energetic and pushing her way to be one of the first to see the dogs. LOL.

 

After the show we went back outside to stretch our legs and enjoy the views again.

 

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We then separated then and Skip went off on his own and Claire and I went off to check our onboard account.

 

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I guess we made a bathroom stop on the way. LOL. I often take pictures of Disney’s bathrooms because they are so cute. This was just a basic bathroom.

 

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[jenseib]

Well surprise surprise….our account was NOT right.

 

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The gal I worked with also used to work on the Disney Wonder. I mentioned to her how the service here is nothing like DCL’s and she didn’t even blink or make any comments on that one. We had the printout of everything bought, charged, etc. in hand and every single drink was listed. Also not all of our excursions to date had the credit of $75 taken off. She went back into a room and had everything taken care of but told me I would need to talk to Florentina tomorrow and let her know so she could fix it. I am so glad we checked. I just don’t get how their account dept. can be so screwed up. Now I have heard of this issue for more than one person. It seems a lot of people get the free beverage package only to have it still being charged to their account, so just be warned to check your account throughout the cruise and keep on top of it…..And have the proof with you. Many times they will tell you they can’t do anything without proof.

 

We then headed back to the room and settled in for the night. Tomorrow is a sea day and we can sleep in!...Well you know I won’t but the other 2 can!

 

This guy was in our room tonight.

 

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Up next…a lazy day at sea!

[jenseib]

Day 7, Aug. 6, 2015, Thursday

 

Today was a sea day, which is a great day to be lazy and just do whatever your heart desires. I however just can’t sleep in.

 

I got up fairly early and headed out and about.

 

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It was very foggy and a bit windy. They had one side of the ship closed off even.

 

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I went and got myself some breakfast…which basically was the same thing every day now….pancakes with the crack whipped cream and hash browns.

 

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I then went off to explore a bit. It had rained just a little bit but ended pretty much early on. (and I think a lot of the wet deck was also do to them cleaning in recently).

 

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[jenseib]

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I went to head back to the room and saw the washy washy guy was out singing.

 

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I took a couple of videos of him singing too.

 

 

This guy loves his job.

 

 

I then stopped up to talk to Florentina about our bar bill. She said accounting must still not have us listed correctly and she would make sure they got it fixed. I planned to check again tomorrow afternoon to be sure.

 

I headed back to the room and we just lazed around and Claire got up and wanted to go to the kids club so we took her there. We had booked a lunch reservation at Teppanyaki today since Claire had liked it so much the first time we went. I did double check that it was actually made because I had done it through the app and I found the app to be kind of cruddy all week. We were listed! We gave Claire instructions on when we would pick her up, etc.

 

As I walked through the atrium a cooking demo was going on.

 

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I ran up to Moderno since I had seen that there was going to be an info session on disembarking for Suite guests. When I arrive not a single person was around. Hmmm that’s strange. Maybe I misread the time.

 

Skip had headed to the Casino so I joined him. I had a printed voucher from another time playing and I tried putting it in several machines to get it to work and use it up…or win more and it kept rejecting it.

 

I went up to the cashier’s desk and asked what was wrong and she had to do some long process of verifying it actually came from the machine etc. She said it would take a while. Good grief. Well for some reason I asked the time…..it was 11:55. WHAT???? The time had jumped forward an hour last night. We were supposed to have received a note in our room. We did NOT! I told the cashier I would be back later as we needed to be somewhere in 5 minutes. I ran and grabbed Skip and told him to go get Claire and meet at Teppanyaki and I would go check us in. Of course he could not remember where it was….by the bubble room! LOL. Now I know why no one was at Moderno earlier…I was an hour late.

 

So I ran and checked us in and was seated right away. I told them the other 2 were on their way and they said they would bring them right in. As I waited I saw Patrick the starfish walk by the window and he waved and they then opened a side door and he peeked in and waved to everyone.

 

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Soon after that Claire and Skip arrived. They had seen Patrick in the hallway and said hello.

[jenseib]

We made our orders and our soup soon arrived.

 

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And our salads.

 

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I only ate a little bit of the salad. It’s just not the same as the places at home and I didn’t want to fill up on it.

 

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Our Chef.

 

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Skip asked him if he knew how to cook like this before working on the ship and he said no they were taught this skill.

 

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[jenseib]

The show and antics were almost identical to the ones they did the first time.

 

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[jenseib]

Time to catch some food.

 

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Claire just loves the rice. She had a second helping and ate it all!!!

 

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I believe today I went with steak and shrimp.

 

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It was better today too…less saucy. We enjoyed the meal and Claire was on cloud 9 that we got to eat here a 2nd time.

 

Dessert was ordered and again we had the choice of fruit or the green tea cake and Claire and I went with fruit. She got adventurous today and tried the kiwi and found out she likes it.

 

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After the meal we signed the bill and headed out.

[jenseib]

Now I did not take notes but I believe Claire went back to the kids club and Skip and I played at the casino a bit more. I finally got the voucher fixed and they handed me cash.

 

Snacks were left in our room.

 

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The sandwiches were good too.

 

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Up next…the rest of the lazy day!

[scubacruiserx2]

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It was time to get ready for dinner.

Tonight we were eating at Moderno, which is a Brazilian steakhouse. It has a small salad bar and then the servers come around with skewers of meats. How could you go wrong with that? I think there were 25 different meats listed to choose from. We already know Claire is a lover of steak so I figured this would be highlight.

We were seated right away and ironically it was one of the 2 tables we always seated at for lunch or breakfast when we would go here for those meals.

I wasn’t paying too much attention, talking away and all of a sudden I looked up and said OH MY GOD!!!!!!

The lady at the table behind us says “You just looked out the window didn’t you?” Yes I did.

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Let me just say this picture does not do this justice in the least bit. We were so close to this mountain it was unreal and it was so bright and colorful. Just draw dropping beauty.

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Loved these photos Jen , thanks for sharing them !!

[jenseib]

Loved these photos Jen , thanks for sharing them !!

 

Thanks!

[jenseib]

We just basically had a lazy afternoon. Skip took off on his own and Claire and I bummed around and I think she did go back to the kids club for a bit too. BTW, she did get some neat little prizes there from playing games, etc. One being a nice t-shirt.

 

A towel making class was going on. I have done one of these on DCL and they are pretty cool to do.

 

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I got a drink while in the area and I just love the funky furniture in the atrium so I took some pictures.

 

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Looking up at the light fixture.

 

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I decided I wanted to get family pictures today. I had seen a lot of people doing it in the atrium and I thought, gosh we need to do this! I headed back to the room to get ready and Claire arrived shortly after and she showered and changed as well.

 

Our view.

 

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Playing with the HD setting.

 

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[jenseib]

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Once we were ready we set off looking for Skip. I had now wished I had brought some coordinating outfits, but we would be fine. We searched high and low for Skip in all the places he would normally be and I was starting to get a bit irritated. We could not find him. Now it was coming up on our dinner time and he was nowhere to be found still. Claire and I headed to Cagneys and sure enough, there he was, waiting for us. UGH!

I informed him that after dinner he was changing his shirt and we were getting pictures done. He felt the shirt he had on would be just fine. Um…No…It has a spot right front and center. LOL.

 

We were seated at the exact opposite side of the restaurant today but we had the same server we had a few days ago.

 

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Claire and I took some selfies.

 

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My appetizer.

 

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[jenseib]

Skip had soup, but I can’t remember what it was. I just know this one was not what he ordered.

 

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And Claire went with the chicken wings again.

 

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Sure enough, they came out with another bowl and told Skip they had given him the wrong one. The first one was more like tomato if I remember right, but spicy. He at part of both in the end.

 

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Another selfie while waiting for the main courses.

 

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Soon our entrées arrived.

 

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[jenseib]

Claire and Skip got steaks.

 

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Claire does not cut her own steak yet for the most part. I am trying to teach her how to do it and make her do it on her own…Skip gives in to his baby girl and cuts it for her every time. We have a joke that when she goes on dates (Of course not till she is in her 30’s), she is going to ask her date to cut her steak for her. Also she is shy at times and doesn’t ever want to order for herself. We also joke that her date will have to order for her. And we won’t have to worry about her being out too late past curfew because she won’t go to sleep without her dads kiss. LOL!

 

Just a side note…her birthday was last week and we went out to eat at one of her favorite restaurants with my family. She sat down at the opposite end of the table with all the kids. Her steak came and I was telling my sister across from me how she hates to cut her own food. My sister started cracking up when Claire’s steak arrived and she kept peeking down at our end of the table to see who was coming to cut her steak. I finally hollered down that she could do it herself and I think she coaxed her cousin into helping her too. I guess I am going to have to give her steak cutting lessons at home.

 

We were stuffed once again but I was not leaving without dessert. Skip was going to pass but at the last minute order this. I think it was some sort of apple crumble and he said it was one of the best desserts he had all week.

 

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Claire and I went with the oreo cheesecake again.

 

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That stuff is soooooo good!

 

I don’t think either of us could finish it today but we made a good try.

 

After dinner we headed back to the room so Skip could change his shirt. He kept telling me he would feel more comfortable in the shirt he was wearing and I told him it wasn’t about comfort and he was going to wear what I wanted for pictures.

 

We then headed out for pictures.

 

We hit all the spots set up in the atrium and I bought a few of our poses.

 

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[jenseib]

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Skip thinks shaving on vacation is sacrilegious so he was a bit scruffy.

 

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