RSS FeedCruise: Day 2
Day 2 on the cruise started out much later than day one. After the kids went to bed at 9pm, they didn’t wake up until after 10am this morning. The parents weren’t so lucky. Chris got up around 5, went to the gym and ran a couple miles. She woke me on her way out and I stayed up and wrote yesterday’s blog post. By the time she returned and showered, I was laying back down trying to go back to sleep. No dice. She got me up and we went for breakfast. We then walked around a bit and then headed back to the room. We played some cards and snoozed a bit before getting the kids up. The 4 of us then went for lunch.
Our ship is at sea all day today traveling towards Alaska. We will arrive at Icy Strait Point tomorrow morning, but until then, it’s open ocean. There is plenty to do on the ship, and they are kind enough to give you an itemized list each night of the next day’s activities. This is a big help.
After lunch, Chris needed to go to the Infirmary to get something to battle the sea sickness she was feeling. While she took care of that, I headed back to the room for more rest. All this vacationing is tiring business.
A little later I signed waivers for the kids that would allow them to use the rock climbing wall whenever they want. No need for a parent to be with them. There are actually a bunch of activities available JUST for kids, so that’s been nice letting our kids have the freedom to come and go as they please.
We had been on the lookout for whales since we heard several different people mention they saw them today. We did finally see 2 whales, but they were far off and not easy to see other than their spout. We did, however see a pod of dolphins. There were at least 20 of ‘em. They were just swimming alone dancing in and out of the waves. Generally having a good time.
Tonight was the first of 2 formal dinners. It was also the first meal we have had in the big dinning room. We somehow managed to get a table for 4 rather than for a group. This is cool and not-cool. Cool because we can just sit and enjoy our family, but not cool in that it would be nice to meet and chat with other passengers. One funny thing did happen at dinner tonight. after finishing my steak, our waiter came up and removed my plate and asked if I’d like a second steak. Had the steak been a little better, I may have taken him up on it. While the steak was simply “OK”, the rest of the meal was great. Lobster Bisque, Escargot, good veggies and baked potato capped off with Vanilla, Coconut layer cake. Yum!
After dinner our son ran off to go play Guitar Hero. Unfortunately the PS2 was broken so that activity got shelved. We went to the stage show instead. Before the show they had an auction for the Make-a-Wish foundation. I placed a bid on an unlimited wi-fi access package that would cover the entire week. Unfortunately, the bidding went too high and I had to give up. However, after the show I found out that there was another auction to be held before the next show. That was less than 30 minutes away. I went back for the start of show number 2 and was happy to see the show was only half full this time. While the first package sold for about 80 bucks, I was able to pick it up for only $50. What a sweet deal. Turns out that the joke is on me. After 45 minutes of trying I went back to customer service where I was informed that the wi-fi service is only available for the PC and not the Mac.
I don’t even know why I was surprised.
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Cruise: Day 1
After a year of waiting, the big day finally arrived. We set the alarm for 3:30 AM and started our journey towards Alaska.
Actually, I would be skipping some of the fun if I didn’t mention the night before. I went online to print out our boarding passes for the flight. I didn’t have the exact number Air Canada wanted so I ended up having to call them. This phone call saved me $200 bucks. After getting me the number I needed, the phone attendant answered some questions for me. One of which led to the fact that any bag weighing over 50 lbs is subject to an excess baggage fee of $50 per bag, per direction. After hearing about this charge I weighed our bags on our home scale and 2 of them were 55 lbs. so we pulled out an extra bag and dumped some clothes in from each of the two heavy bags. Crisis #1 avoided.
After the repacking I took the 5 bags to the car to load them up the night before so we wouldn’t have to do any loading in the morning. Turns out this wasn’t on our side either as the 5 bags would not fit in my Charger’s trunk. We ended up cramming the 5 bags in to the back of our Scion. It made for a cramped ride to the airport, but hey, we made it.
We got to the International terminal at the Las Vegas airport at about 5:10 am. There was virtually no line to check-in, drop off baggage and go through security, so by 5:30 we were sitting at the terminal waiting to board the plane. The flight was delayed about 20 minutes while they reset some sensor, but other than that, it was uneventful. I watched the movie “Jumper” and part of “Hellboy” and by 10 am, we were in Vancouver.
After we trekked through the Vancouver airport, we went through customs and got our first stamp in our passports. Woo hoo! We found our luggage, paid a porter $14 to carry our luggage about 100 feet to the Royal Caribbean counter and drop it off. We then headed outside to catch the bus to the dock. After a 45 minute ride we arrived at Port Vancouver and saw our MASSIVE ship.
When we first arrived we were informed that our trip has been delayed twice already. First was a coast guard inspection and second was due to an outbreak of the flu on our ship last week. They had apparently cleared the entire terminal, scrubbed it down head to toe and had done the same to the ship. They have placed automatic Purel hand-disinfectant dispensers in a few spots at the terminal and all over the ship and ask you to wash your hands every time you pass one. Also, there is a no-hand shaking policy for the crew so they don’t catch and pass on any germs between the passengers.
First we waited in line to go through security just like the airport (without having to remove our shoes, though). Next we waited in line to check-in and get our room keys. They have you put your credit card in the system and it’s all tied to your room keys, so once you are on the ship, there is no need for cash. They don’t accept it anywhere. You just swipe your card. I think this is going to be dangerous… Next we waited in line to go through customs again as we would be leaving Canada and entering the United States. Stamp #2 in our passports. And finally we were seated and waiting for our group number to be called to board the ship. At 2PM, we set foot for the first time on the ship.
It took me exactly 3 seconds of being on the ship to get yelled at (politely) by the crew. I had stepped on board first, turned around to take a picture of Chris getting on the ship. Turns out they don’t want you taking photos right there. At first I thought it might be some Homeland Security thing, but thinking about it later, they just don’t want you holding up the line. Makes sense.
Our staterooms wouldn’t be ready until about 3:30, so we had some time to kill. Only problem is we were all still carrying our carry-on luggage from the plane. We toured the ship a bit. We found the arcade but didn’t play anything after finding out it’s $1.25 per game to play anything. We then played a round of mini-golf and went and had a bite to eat. I tried to order a couple sodas with our snack. The lady asked if I had the “Soda package” sticker on my room key. I looked at her blankly and she informed me that it’s $42 for the whole week and you get as much soda as you can possibly drink all week. I picked up 3 glasses of water and headed back to the table. “All inclusive” my ass. I have to say that this is the first thing that has really pissed me off about the trip. I expect there to be unexpected costs, but for soda? Seriously?
We made it to our rooms and proceeded to unpack. Well, actually we unpacked 3 of our 5 bags and found that we have brought far too much stuff for the space we have in the room. We now have a luggage maze to get from one end of the room to the other. We hung out on our balcony and watched the ship set sail and we immediately headed off for dinner.
For our first night on the ship we decided to upgrade our meal. We went to the steakhouse which turned out to be a brilliant move. For $25 per person we were treated to a FANTASTIC meal. There was virtually nobody in there since it was the first night. The staff told us this is typical. We had a table right by the window which made for an amazing view as our ship left the harbor, went under the bridge and headed out to sea.
By the time we were finished with dinner, we were all exhausted. The kids left the table early to head back to the room. Chris and I finished up dinner, walked around the shops a bit and then headed back as well. We all hopped in to our jammies, and watched the water for a bit looking for whales. No dice. By the time we shut the curtains at 9:15, it was still light outside. The kids were both asleep instantly. Chris followed soon after. I laid in bed and began writing this blog. I fell asleep mid-sentence during the second paragraph.
Day 1 was a FULL day. Day 2 we are at sea all day traveling towards Alaska. There is a list of activities for the kids to take part in so we expect them to be off galavanting most of the day. As for me, I’m looking forward to doing not much of anything.
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Burger Wars
A couple weeks ago at work, Brian and I came up a plan to try and find the best burger in town. We then narrowed that search down to best burger in town for around $10 and it had to be a place we could get to from the office within time to drive there, eat and get back within the span of a lunch hour. We opened it up to the entire company and asked for people to nominate their favorite burger or burger place. We then picked the top 5 vote getters, invited some people to go along as judges and we set out to have a burger a day at lunch for a week. Thanks to a couple scheduling issues, we stretched it out over 2 weeks and ended up visiting 6 places total.
I had printed out score sheets that we handed out to each judge while we were at each restaurant. Each judge scored the burger on the following criteria:
Taste: max 20 points, most important part so it’s worth the most points.
Size: max 5 points, were you able to eat the whole thing and were you still hungry.
Prep-Time: max 5 points, did you have to wait a long time for the burger.
Distance: max 5 points, how far away from the office,
Value: max 5 points, total overall value based on size, taste, distance.
Bonus: max 5 points, pretty much anything you wanted to give it bonus points for.
After all the burgers had been eaten and the votes had been tallied, Here is how they fared.
#6) Claim Jumper, The Widow Maker (average score: 26.9)
The Widow Maker was big, the place is pretty close, they cooked it pretty quick, but the taste just wasn’t that great. It wasn’t bad, just not really a contender for the Best Burger.
#5) Nikki Lee’s, Pizza Burger (average score: 27.2)
If there was a category for messiest burger, this would win hands down! The Pizza Burger consists of the burger with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. I was expecting a little more creativity.
#4) Yard House, Western Burger (average score: 28.8)
I gotta say, I was expecting the Yard House to do better in this competition. I had eaten here before and had the chicken fingers and they were excellent. This burger was pretty average in the taste category.
#3) American Grill, Cowboy Burger (average score: 31.8)
This was a good burger! It had bacon, cheese and an onion ring plus some BBQ sauce. The sauce had a bit of a kick and that turned off a few of the people causing it to score a bit lower. It’s because of the American Grill that we threw in the bonus category. While we were waiting for our food they brought out 2 plates of chicken wings and a plate of chips with melted bleu cheese.
#2) Burger Bar, American Kobe Burger (average score: 33.4)
We almost disqualified the Burger Bar because of the cost. Burger, Fries and a soda ended up costing about $25. The quality of the beef on this burger is second to none. It really is a great burger. Cost, prep-time and the difficulty of getting to it quickly during lunch is what stopped it from winning.
#1) Steiner’s, Kobe Burger (average score: 38.4)
Let me start with the one downer about the burger, it didn’t come with fries. Other than that, this burger is nearly perfect. The cost was reasonable at $11.99, the place is less than 5 minutes from the office, we were served quickly and we all walked away plenty full. I will definitely be adding Steiner’s to my regular rotation of lunch spots!
Next time I go to Steiner’s I’ll make the following changes to the burger; grilled onions, add bacon. I think those two minor changes will make this the heavyweight champion of lunch-time burgers!
Next up, Pizza Wars. I’ll keep you posted.
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Recent gaming overload
Over the past few weeks, I’ve really stepped up my gaming. To start, we’ve visited the Pinball Hall of Fame once or twice a week for the past couple months. Honestly, I don’t see that stopping any time soon. No where else in Vegas do I know of where the entire family can go spend less than 30 bucks for 60 - 90 minutes of entertainment. If you know of a place, please let me know!
My current obsession with the pinball game Creature From the Black Lagoon remains in tact. The current grand champion on the game has just over 1 billion points. The next score is around 750 million. I hold the final 3 spots on the leader board at 620, 440 & 420 million. The 620 came this past weekend, but I gotta tell ya, I’m not giving up until I have that #1 spot. On my way home from the last visit I came up with a plan on how I think I can achieve the score. Unfortunately it’s going to be 2 weeks before I can get back to test out my plan.
Next up has been Rock Band. First I went out and bought a set of drum pads to help quiet the noise made by the sticks hitting the plastic. I had been using a set a guy at work made, but these are way better. They have cut the sound in half. Plus, these have the added benefit of deadening the vibration, so you are better able to hit all the notes in rapid succession. Next I went and bought some new sticks from Guitar Center. It was a funny conversation when I told the guy that I don’t actually play drums, but just played Rock Band. Apparently I wasn’t even close to the first person to come in looking for replacement sticks. The new sticks I bought are a little bit shorter (which I don’t care for) and a bit lighter (which I love) than the set that came with the game.
With the new equipment in place, my son and I set out to conquer the endless set. This is a 58 song set that you can’t stop and restart. Once you begin, you can push pause, but that’s it. You have to finish all 58 songs to get credit for any of it. So, he played guitar on hard and I played drums on medium. I went with medium because there are parts of Run to the Hills and a few other songs that I just wasn’t positive I could make it through. I would have hated to play for 4+ hours and then have to quit because I couldn’t get through a song. But, on a Friday afternoon we started around 4:50 PM and ended just short of 10 PM. We made it through the set scoring 5 stars on each song. It was challenging, but a ton of fun. Unfortunately we didn’t earn any new fans because I was playing on the lower level. We have already capped out the amount of fans we can earn on Easy, Medium and now Hard. To earn any new fans we need to play on Expert. To think that only a couple months ago I had never played drums before (other than just screwing around), I’m pretty pleased with my progress.
Speaking of drums, I saw the new drum set that’s going to come out in the new Guitar Hero 4, World Tour game. Just.Wow! 2 Tom-Toms, a snare, 2 cymbals and a bass drum. Apparently they are going for the most realistic video game drum set ever. So basically, if you can play drums on the harder levels of the game, you should be able to hold down a beat on a real drum set. I’ve heard that before, but don’t know that I really believe it. Yeah, I can play some songs on expert on Rock Band, but seriously, I’m just good at following the dots on the screen and hitting at the right times. That’s just years of video game play helping out. Last I checked, on a real drum set, there is no screen with scrolling dots telling you what drum to hit and at what time.
Back to pinball. My brother-in-law had been telling us about a game he’s been playing on the PS2 called Pinball Hall of Fame: the Williams Collection. I picked it up over the weekend and holy crap is it fun! First off, the list of pinball games they have in the game is fantastic. Funhouse, Black Knight, Pinbot, Taxi and 5 or 6 others. The game play is amazingly realistic. The bounces, gravity and even some of the nuances of the game are all accounted for. I just saw that Amazon.com has it available for the PSP. I may just have to buy it as well. This would be a fantastic game to kill time on a plane or in a waiting room.
I also recently picked up the game Lost: Via Domus based on the TV show Lost. I quickly realized something. I do not have the patience I once had for video games. Wow, I really suck at the game. I’ve made it through the first “episode” of the game, but am now at a point where I have to walk through a pitch black cave using a torch for visibility. I have died by falling in to the same pit several times. Thing is, it takes me 5-10 minutes to get to this point and then I have to start over after I fall to my death. As cool as the game seems to be, I think this one is bound for the dust collecting shelf.
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