7/20-7/29/2019 - 7* cruise to Alaska and GGWU event

Just a quick placeholder. Leaving the house for a flight to Seattle with my 17 year old son. We're boarding the Norwegian Joy In Seattle for a 7 day cruise to Alaska.

After we return next Saturday, I'm heading to Las Vegas for a quick 2 day trip to the Cromwell.

I'll have a more detailed TR later once we're on board. The ship departs at 5PM tonight.

Wish me luck!!!

 

An Alaskan cruise sounds amazing right now. Especially since where I’m at it is a heat index of 115 today.

Hope you have a great trip with your son!

 

So happy for you and can't wait to hear about your trip!

We all love Vegas but Alaska has always been on my bucket list. I'm departing for my first cruise ever, and to Alaska, from Seattle, in late August. I'm in planning mode now. Very much looking forward to hearing about your experiences. I hope you have a great trip with your son! I am going on the cruise with my mom.

And wishing you mega luck!

 

Sounds great. I will be watching as I would like to do the same thing with the cruise.

 

Will follow with great interest.
My wife is determined that we are taking an Alaska cruise in the very near future.
Have fun!!

 

Good luck, sounds like this is the perfect time and weather to depart for Alaska

 

Good luck and have fun. An Alaskan cruise is on my wish list.

 

Have done the Seattle to Seattle cruise on the Inward Passage. It was my first cruise and awesome. Enjoy!!

 

Good luck!
Have a great time with your son, and enjoy the cruise.

 

@DaiLun Bon Voyage and have a blast with your son!

 

You and your son will have some wonderful experiences @DaiLun . We’ve been on two Alaska cruises, even better than anything we expected and the glaciers unbelievable.

 

OK, using up some of my precious 250 minutes to post this update:

First, the cruise lines are very efficient, moving people is their specialty, as well as upselling and selling in general.

And I'm sure that all of you cruise veterans will be saying you didn't know THAT!!" to al lot of thiings I will post in this TR.

Well, I didn't, but I do know now, and wanted to pass this along to fellow VMBers.

We checked in, and you have to have a current passport and they ask you for it several times during check-in.

OK, things that a cruise rookie like me has discovered:

There are a couple of ways to "do" a cruise.

1)The extremely "thrifty" way
2)The extremely extravagant way
3)Somewhere in between.

Since we received a large discount n this cruise, we are kind of doing #3, let me explain everything that we paid "extra" for and why.

As far as drinks go, there is ala carte, or you can choose a drink "package". There is nowhere to buy soda or water on the trip, and bringing beverages on board is prohibited. Unless you just want to drink tap water the entire trip, a drink package is the way to go. I ordered a club soda with lime, and was charged $4.50!!! Plus a 20% gratuity.



It was at that Point, that I said, well, I'm not drinking tap water the whole trip, so I'd better buy a "package".

The unlimited soda package is "only" $7.95 a day, but everyone In the cabin must take it. Note that this doesn't include bottled water. Bottled water is extra. and the prices are exorbitant.

six 1 liter bottles for $14.95
twelve 1 liter bottles for $27.95, and
twenty four 1 liter bottles for $44.95
If you take any of the unlimited soda packages, you must take them for the entire trip.

I told my son if he wanted water, he should order club soda at the bar.

So, I took he soda package for both of us and told him that he needed to drink two sodas a day to "break even"..
Many of the onboard attractions are an extra charge, like the speedway. This one costs $15.00 for 30 minutes. We will try it once, today, and maybe once again at the end of the trip.

I guess Las Vegas has "spoiled" me with "free dining". There are two categories of dining on the ship, "Complimentary" and "Specialty".

Complimentary includes the buffet and several other restaurants. There is no addl. $$$ to be paid, including tips in the complimentary restaurants, except where noted.
Specialty includes the premium restaurants. We took the "3 Specialty package" that came with the cruise, and chose the Teppanyaki, The Seafood restaurant, and the Steakhouse. I wanted my son to experience these different types of cuisines. More on addl. pricing and gratuities as we eat there Mon, Wed, and Fri.

Before dinner at the buffet, I went to one of the arcades. I found them to be "meh". The games are between $1 and $20 each!!! there Is an unlimited game package which costs $175 for the entire week!! And . . .they don't sell the package after the second day . . . same with most of the packages Including the drink package). If you don't buy them on the first two days, you're a la carte for the rest of the trip. The casino wasn't open, so I played my second favorite game, "token falls". I am an "expert" at these games. I "won" my son's 9.7" Samsung table through "token falls" at my local arcade. Pictures to follow from the casino. The games have a VERY "house loaded" redemption value, so I will probably finish today and quit playing there.

We skipped the opening of the shops. I was waiting for the casino to open, and told him that I was going down to the casino. I will publish pictures of the casino and the arcade and several restaurants on Monday when we pull into port.

My son was watching "Hotel Artemis", which he "hated". I went down to the casino. It was kind of a miserable experience. I dropped about $150, thanks to a $350 comeback in the last session. I paid $50 to play in the slot tournament this morning at 10AM.

All of the slot machines are new, they have three reelers and video machines, a good mix of themes, But all In all, it was rather, like the arcades, "meh". I giuess when you're used to a "real" casino . . . I will document the table games in a future update.

They also had "token fall" machines in the casino, except these were with "real money". The real money token fall machines, used to be played with dollar tokens or quarters, but these were played with tokens worth $0.25. The way it works is that you swipe your room key and $10 is billed to your room, and the machine drops 40 tokens.


you put the tokens in slots at the top of the machine and they fall to the bottom.

There is a set of "pushers", which push tokens over the side. The pusher runs continuously


Any tokens that are pushed over the side are returned for you to play. Excess tokens can be redeemed for $0.25 each.

So, why would you play this "horrible" machine? There are packets if bills on the Playing field, which can be "pushed" out. The "problem" is that although they are "packets" of bills, they are usually $1 bills and a larger denomination is on the outside.

Las night I won three "packets" of bills $22, $13, and $8. It cost me about $120 in tokens, but it ate up about an hour of my time. There is also a "bonus" feature that comes into play about every 100 token drops. You start at 3 tokens and are asked to "take" or gamble". The increments are 3, 6, 12, 25, and 50. I got 50 twice but mostly stopped if I go to 25 tokens.

I went back to the room and my son and I went for a "late night snack" a "The Local Pub and Grille" which was open until 4AM.
We split an order of Chicken wings

my son had a pub dog with bacon and sauerkraut

I had fish and chips.

We both had sodas. (even for today!)
Finished our satisfying snack and went to bed. Day 1 over. At sea all day tomorrow.

 

OK, I'm gonna start this one out, then sign off.

I woke up early, and my son was still asleep. I decided to go down to the casino.

I played token falls, and "spent" $80.00. I ended up with this:

OK, this is what the $20 packet actually was.

So, the end total was I "spent" $20 but killed an hour.

It's 9:15AM, and the ship is rocking ever so slightly, so we must be "at speed". The top speed of the Norwegian Joy is 25 knots.

10AM is my slot tournament round, and cash in $25 of tokens.

See you next update. Next, I will explain why this may be the last cruise I ever take.

 

Thanks so much for sharing this information, especially using your precious minutes! I'm a cruise newbie as well. My SIL told me to just get water from the casino as drinks are complimentary there as you are playing. That won't be a problem for my mother or me. I went ahead and did the specialty drink and dining package as well and my mother will just be loading up her scooter with water each day from the casino.

 

@DaiLun You might want to take advantage of the complimentary main dining from time to time as well, they serve breakfast and dinner each day, and lunch on sea days, so you have lots of different choices along with the buffet and your specialty restaurant pkg.

Since you are using a 7* cruise, have you checked in with the casino host yet? They normally provide coupons or stamp your card for free drinks including bottled water and other beverages from the casino bar based on your 7*. Also usually provide dinner for two to a specialty restaurant.

Looking forward to your port updates!

 

Good point Georgran. My brother is Diamond and I believe he and my SIL got 2 bottles of water a day as Diamond when they went on an NCL Bliss Alaska cruise last year, the same one my mom and I are taking next month.

 

@Geogran and others. Thanks for the tips! I'll go find my host right now. I finished 2nd in my squad in the slot tournament, so I move on to the Semi-finals on Thursday. Only the finalists cash, so I have to hope for a good two minutes on Thursday at 11AM.

 

You can eat breakfast at that pub too. That’s what I do on NCL cruises, when I don’t want to mess with the buffet. And as someone else pointed out the dining rooms do have some decent menus some nights. I would go by there and look at the menus. Lunch on sea days the main dining room will be open from 12 - 2 as well, so you can check out the menu.

Tap water in the dining room, pub, bars is free and it tastes fine. I normally drink bottle water. You can get bottled water from casino with the proper card.

 

Well, enjoy it as best you can. Different cruise lines do things differently, so you need to be familiar with them.

Btw - on a 7 day cruise out of Seattle, the ships don't have enough time to travel the inside passage both ways. You probably will be on the outside of Vancouver Island either going or returning (unless they cut short the ports in Alaska). If you want to hit the "inside passage" both ways, you need to cruise from Vancouver.

GG

 

Yay! Rooting for you in the finals.