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

[jenseib]

810909 by Jenseib, on FlickrFlickr

 

810910 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

810911 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

After the pictures we headed over to the Stardust Theatre for tonight’s show….Le Cirque Bijou….which as you can guess is like a Cirque de Soleil show.

 

fog51 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

fog52 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

We got our seats and settled in.

 

fog53 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

fog54 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

The show was fabulous and they did some amazing things. Skip said many of the people he had seen in the show the other night…the one Claire and I missed….were in this show and doing some similar things but not the same. I was surprised at how much he liked it. I have been to the Cirque show in Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs) and though they did some amazing things I am not a big fan of the show and figured Skip would be bored out of his mind with it. I guess we may have to go as a family now in the future since he liked this show so much.

 

At the end of the show they brought out many of the crew members and talked about what a great job they do. This was the last show of the week because tomorrow we would be in Victoria for the evening.

 

fog55 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

And they brought out the washy washy guy and his guitar playing friend.

 

fog56 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

 

Tonight was the White Hot party but it held no interest to us and we were all tired. I think we did hit the gift shop and took a look around again and then headed back to the room.

 

We had this guy in our room waiting for us.

 

fog57 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

We got ready for bed and watched some TV. They often would show different game shows and activities that had been going on during our cruise and we recognized some people from around the ship participating.

 

Up next…..What a great day for a swim in Alaska!

[CRUZIN TOM]

Still great pictures and s super narrative about the cruise. You would make a travel critic for the travel industry.

[jenseib]

Still great pictures and s super narrative about the cruise. You would make a travel critic for the travel industry.

 

Thanks!

[jenseib]

Before I go on to the next day I realized I didn’t include the Freestyle daily for Aug. 6. Here they are.

daily6.1 by Jenseib, on Flickr

daily6.2 by Jenseib, on Flickr

daily6.3 by Jenseib, on Flickr

daily6.4 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[Starflyr3]

Was there still the Russian acrobat couple in le Circe Bijou? When we were on Jewel last March, they stole the show, and they had on of their own, where th showed a slideshow Of the hero training (rhythmic gymnastics and Matial arts.

 

You're making me so eager for this spring break on Jade!

[jenseib]

Was there still the Russian acrobat couple in le Circe Bijou? When we were on Jewel last March, they stole the show, and they had on of their own, where th showed a slideshow Of the hero training (rhythmic gymnastics and Matial arts.

 

You're making me so eager for this spring break on Jade!

 

 

Yes they were!

[caribill]

We then headed out for pictures.

 

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

 

 

What great family photos. No wonder you bought a few.

[jenseib]

What great family photos. No wonder you bought a few.

 

 

Thanks

[jenseib]

Day 8, Aug. 7, 2015, Friday

Today’s Freestyle Daily.

daily7.1 by Jenseib, on Flickr

daily7.2 by Jenseib, on Flickr

daily7.3 by Jenseib, on Flickr

daily7.4 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Today we were going to Victoria, BC, Canada, but not till much later. I believe our arrival was scheduled for 5 PM. Originally we were supposed to arrive at 2 or 3 (I can’t remember off the top of my head) but a few weeks before we sailed NCL did a lot of itinerary changes and this was one of them. For me it really didn’t matter, but I know some people were pretty upset.

It was another foggy day.

vic5 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic6 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

vic7 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic8 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I headed up for some breakfast.

vic9 by Jenseib, on Flickr

After I finished that I just walked around a bit.

vic10 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic11 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I decided I would go check out our pictures and buy a package. Claire and I had been looking at them off and on throughout the cruise and had some favorites but now that we had our family pictures taken last night I wanted to get the package picked out. I went in and asked if there were any specials for suite guests as I was told I would receive something in our room and it never showed up. These people could not understand what I was asking. I said over and over that I was told I would receive a packet from the photographers on the first day as there was an issue with our reservation. The girl looked up stuff and then went in back for a while. She then gave the task to a guy who took forever looking too. Finally he says I will just over ride it and started ringing up my package. I was buying 20 prints and a usb flash drive with my pictures on it. The usb is $10 more with the print package. He gives me the total and it’s $10. Hunh? I was honest and said no that doesn’t sound right at all. I wanted to know if there was a discount…and he thought I had prebought a package and the whole time they were looking for my package voucher. Oh good lord. I just gave up. I told him I did not prepay for anything and he charged me the right amount and that I could pick my usb up later.

They did have some cute frames here for sale and I was close to buying one that lit up. It was really cool, but with them being such idiots I just decided I wasn’t going to waste any more time or money here.

vic12 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

I went back outside and the ship was blowing the fog horn every so often and I kept trying to capture it on video…well the sound part.

vic13 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic14 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I then went and checked out our account again to be sure that everything was credited correctly and that the drinks were not showing up again and all was now right….finally!

Back to the room I went to get the rest of my family.

vic15 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

We got them some breakfast and then took a walk out by the pool area.

vic16 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic17 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic18 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Today was pretty warm and people were already in the pool.

vic19 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic20 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Claire decided she wanted to swim so I took her back to the room and got her changed into her suite and off she went to the pool.

Soon it was time for a beverage for me.

vic21 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

Claire was enjoying the pool.

vic22 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic23 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Skip and I found loungers and just sat back and relaxed. We spotted the kids club walking by as we sat.

vic24 by Jenseib, on Flickr

We noticed soon Claire was hanging with a friend and they were going down the slide together.

vic25 by Jenseib, on Flickr

At first they were going down separately but after a bit Skip noticed that the friend would go down and soon after Claire would dive right behind her. When we asked her what she was doing a little bit later she said she would grab her friends ankles’ and they would go down together and with the both of them going down like that they would go faster and not get stuck. Crazy kids!

We had music playing too. It was nice, but a little too loud for my liking at the pool.

Up next….a poolside lunch.

[jenseib]

I noticed they were setting up a poolside buffet so I went over to take a look.

vic27 by Jenseib, on Flickr

And I took pictures of all the different fruit carvings.

vic28 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic29 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic30 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic31 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic32 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

vic33 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I thought this next one was so cute.

vic34 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic35 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I scoped out what was being cooked so I could report it back to Skip.

vic36 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic37 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic38 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

In the meantime Claire was having a blast.

vic39 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic40 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I guess now we have switched to going down backwards.

vic81 by Jenseib, on Flickr

Once the food was ready I headed back and got a plate full.

vic41 by Jenseib, on Flickr

And Skip did too.

This was my attempt of me getting the view from my chair.

vic42 by Jenseib, on Flickr

It had cleared up but it was so eerie as we would be very clear and sunny and then sail right back into thick fog. At least the sun was warm.

The band was playing Wipe Out. I don’t think I ever heard a version WITHOUT drums. LOL.

[jenseib]

I got up from my chair to take a look out at what we were now passing.

You could see we were about to head into more fog.

vic43 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic44 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic45 by Jenseib, on Flickr

A look back.

vic46 by Jenseib, on Flickr

A look forward.

vic47 by Jenseib, on Flickr

As you can see I played with settings and took tons of pictures.

vic48 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

vic49 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic50 by Jenseib, on Flickr

We were now entering the fog and you can kind of see the mist with this setting.

vic51 by Jenseib, on Flickr

vic52 by Jenseib, on Flickr

[jenseib]

vic53 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

vic54 by Jenseib, on Flickr

 

 

Up next…Pool time, Snacks and Arriving in Victoria.

[lovemydentist]

seaday64 by Jenseib, on Flickr

seaday65 by Jenseib, on Flickr

seaday66 by Jenseib, on Flickr

It was interesting to see our route and where we were at the moment. (they had this on a TV station in the room as well)

seaday67 by Jenseib, on Flickr

We could’ve spent more time in there looking everything over but Claire was not quite as interested as us. And there were others in there so we didn’t want to block their views of everything. The room is fairly small.

We separated again with plans to meet up for the pizza making at 3.

Claire and I headed to the room. Our tickets were there! Yay!!!!!

I forgot to mention that when I talked to Florentina earlier today that she apologized for everything that went on yesterday. This was a heartfelt one and it meant a lot to me now. She was honest and told me she had never had an issue like this happen before and she didn’t know what to do. I hope that NCL now trains her on what to do, but the fact that she apologized and told me she was in a panic did smooth things over with me much more.

I don’t remember why we went back to the room, but I know I needed to take an ibuprofen. I didn’t have a drink with me…and why would I drink water? LOL. I really don’t know why I didn’t drink the water, but the sparkling wine bottle was there so I decided to try to open it. Let’s just say I rarely drink this stuff and had no clue how to open it. I started twisting off the wire and Claire had her head right over it watching. I said to her “you better back off as I don’t know how to open this and for all I know this thing is going to go poof”. At that exact moment Claire slightly backed up and the cork just went flying with a lot of force. I asked Claire if she got hit and she said no, but it just missed her. She said she felt the wind of it pass her forehead. Knowing that no one got hurt we then laughed about it. I poured myself a glass and it was pretty tasty. I am not sure if this is “good” stuff or not, but I liked it.

seaday68 by Jenseib, on Flickr

I sipped on this all through the week. Skip never had any.

It was time to head to La Cucina for Family Pizza Making. Surprisingly, Skip was there waiting for us.

seaday69 by Jenseib, on Flickr

It filled up fast and soon there were no tables left.

I am loving every minute of this review. I’m in love with your family already.

[lovemydentist]

I’m a little sorry you told us about the crack whipped cream. I didn’t need to know that. LOL I’m sure if my daughters saw this review, they would wish they could be reborn as your daughter. LOLOLOL

[CRUZIN TOM]

Only 2 days left, I am sorry that this story has to end. It has made me want to take another cruise, we just got off the Jewel in October. But it will have to wait another 2-3 years. We are going back to Hawaii for a week. Just my wife and I, in March. Then a last minute, not really, but a wedding for our niece in Kodiak, AK over Memorial day weekend. Then in August we are taking my wife's son and his 3 boys, ages 8,10 and 12 back to Hawaii for 10 days. Looking at 2017, but I doubt, no cruises that I like at this time.

Do you have another cruise lined up? I really enjoy your blog about all of your adventures, good and bad

[jenseib]

I am loving every minute of this review. I’m in love with your family already.

 

Thanks!

 

I’m a little sorry you told us about the crack whipped cream. I didn’t need to know that. LOL I’m sure if my daughters saw this review, they would wish they could be reborn as your daughter. LOLOLOL

 

 

LOL. That stuff is so wonderful. Claire doesn't realize how lucky she is sometimes.

[jenseib]

Only 2 days left, I am sorry that this story has to end. It has made me want to take another cruise, we just got off the Jewel in October. But it will have to wait another 2-3 years. We are going back to Hawaii for a week. Just my wife and I, in March. Then a last minute, not really, but a wedding for our niece in Kodiak, AK over Memorial day weekend. Then in August we are taking my wife's son and his 3 boys, ages 8,10 and 12 back to Hawaii for 10 days. Looking at 2017, but I doubt, no cruises that I like at this time.

Do you have another cruise lined up? I really enjoy your blog about all of your adventures, good and bad

 

Thanks!

I know, I have so many wants and plans but not enough time or money and then there are family things that have to be done as well.

 

Currently I am booked on the Disney Magic for Feb 7 with some co-workers. I am going down before to do a few days at Universal and then a few at Disney World.

We are supposed to be doing a family cruise with my extended family in Nov on the Disney Fantasy but it hasn't been booked and we already have a few members who don't want to go and trying to persuade us to do something else. This is a member that did not join us on our last one and has no clue how much fun it can be. If we don't do that then I may actually look at doing another NCL cruise with just us in the fall.