Traveler

RCL logic - my timing queue for peoples that followed RC recommendations and reserved ahead of time - 30 minutes.  Queue for non reservations- 5 minutes,  guess which line we choose ... #beingPunishesForDoingTheRightThing

1 hour ago, Ampurp85 said:

I heard about this costing ice cream and it was argued that it was gelato, but this says ice cream. 

In RCL terms , Gelato is ice cream which you can charge for . 

Ice cream cost money in the WJ. Remember it use to free ? 

 

Day 4 Skagway. 

I know I am behind but had some good reasons (excuses  excuses) . Internet not the best on the ship as expected from Alaska cruise and its not much better once in port. My Tmobile Internet is very poor , like back to the noisy modems days. 

Today we had a very late excursion (good holiday excuse ) so we started by just walking to the city. Although the port is very near by due to the avalanche last year they force you to take shuttle bus for a one minute drive to the pier end. After that we just walked to the "town" we visit some souvenirs shops (expensive as expected) and walk around enjoying the view.

We walked back to the ship to get ready for our excursion. We went to north star, hoping to tide it again and as we expected , although fully reserved no one came. We actually had almost 20 minutes private north star experience for ourselves.  Always try the ports day for such activities .

Our excursion was a ride on the road to the white pass summit, gold fever and Salmon dinner. The ride on the road was nice and we had several stops to take pictures. 

We went over to the Canadian side were we had to show our passports. The immigration officer  went on the bus and took a quick look on the passports , did not bother to look on  our passport,  I guess he knew I following @Lovetocruise2002 blogs and might thought we are star class .

we had a 10 minutes stop at the Canadian side before heading to the US (the US immigration officer did not even bother to go on the bus).

 

Our next stop was the gold panning experience , what do you know we found 5 grains of gold , now for sure we can upgrade our next cruise.

Following the gold penning we had the lunch/ early dinner which contains salads, rice , BBQ chicken and fresh grilled Salmon (as many as you want) it was very tasty.

We returned to the pier at 4:50 , 10 minutes before all aboard to wait in a very long line to the shuttle. The line was quick and we went on the ship on the last minute. 

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, asquared17 said:

i've never seen macarons in the WJ before! (perhaps i live under a rock )

You are right they rare as lobster at day 1

This really annoyed me , Royal prompting many programs to save the environment and the wildlife bit then decide to promote a fur store ??? Really Royal ? 

Day 3 - Juneau.

Today our first sea day  we arrived to Juneau at 1 PM. Breakfast was at the WJ , they have there a nice cook to orders ege which you ask for what you want and they give you this device which is vibrates when it's ready.

Before arriving Juneau we had very mice view of the inner passage,  which made me  thankful for heaving a balcony.

For Juneau we booked long time ago to go to the Mendenhall Glacier.  Unfortunately due to finishing all the quota for this year it was canceled.  Royal gave us 50 $ as a compensation which was nice of the. The alternative excursion we booked was the whales watching.  We had a nice weather so we hot to see a glimpse of the Glacier from the boat. We did see some whales  , not many pictures as I used the binoculars to watch them , but maybe I will extract some tails from the video I took. 

When we came back we went to check the famous Tracy crab place. It was packed with long line took us 40 minutes to get in. It was very tasty but not sure I will wait again that long for it. Back on the ship we were quite tired from the long day so we felt a sleep very quickly,  there is jetlag for you. 

Have a wonderful cruise !

As promised a real Falafel recipe:

What you need:

2 cups of dried chickpeas/garbanzo 

1 chopped onion

Half cup of chopped parsley 

Half cup of chopped coriander

One spoon of sesame - optional

One tea spoon of paprika 

One tea spoon of cumin 

Half tea spoon of salt , you can add more if you prefer. 

Black pepper.

Two spoon of flour.

Optional one wet piece of bread. 

5 to 6 garlic cloves

Baking soda 

The chickpeas need to be soaked in water for 12 hours.

Wash and drain the chickpeas and add them with all the garlic , spices , bread to a food processor. 

Run the food processor until getting a rough paste,  if the paste is too dry you can add water.

Add the parsley, coriander , flour   sesame and  onion

Mix everything and put to rest in the refrigerator for an hour.

Just before frying the Falafel add the baking soda (optional).

The Falafel should be fried in 285 F 140C.

Create small to midsized balls (the mixture is good for 25 falafel balls) and fry several each time until they become brown/ dark brown.

Enjoy it with pita bread (maybe I will add how to do one at a frying pan) , chopped sald (tomato,  cucumber and onions), Thaini and Humos

 

Just now, Matt said:

Was there no one who reached a milestone, such as Pinnacle?

No , just top cruisers. 

Day 2 sea day.

I always thought  its good to start a cruise with a sea day (and end it with one), opportunity to tour the ship and relax.

We had a really early morning due to the jetlag and we were hungry ( I will say it's because of the jetlag,  not because we did not eat for full 5 hours). As we did not want to wait for room service we went down to the promenade cafe just to find out it was also late for the 24/7 place. There was no one there , the attendeds left and put out all the cakes and sandwiches trays out for whoever want , this was first time for me.

The weather was chill but nice , not too much rain or wind so we could go outside for some fresh air. At 6 am we went to the WJ , we and other many people (after all for all the east coast people it was already 9 AM) when it was not opened we finally checked the app to find out the clock was changed and it's only 5 AM , no note in the room like always,  we'll still a newbie mistake,  shame on us , we should be demoted to emerald if not to gold . Later we went to eat breakfast at the D club , not a WJ morning person.

We decided to do some duck hunting and we did found one in the pub, he was without tag so we guessed he was drinking too much last night and lost his ID (or it was confiscated when they found he is under the drinking age ?) . 

The C&A event took place at late morning , only 7 pinnacles on board 

That was the quickest event ever , ended after 10 minutes only

We took lunch at MDR as it was sea day , food not bad and more relaxed atmosphere comparing to the WJ. 

Next we went to watch the love and marriage show which was funny specially thanks  the most veteran couple who was hilarious. I went to the casino , wow , I need to find my luck somewhere else , :-), I guess I will not get a "free" cruise this time. We took some nap (have i already said we love sea days ?). We decided to skip the MDR dinner  and went to the WJ , nothing special,  Indian food was good but overall all I can see the WJ food was downgrade a little bit. We had reservations for the show in  270 but the jetlag striked again so we missed it, after all we should get ready for our first port. 

1 hour ago, FireFishII said:

I would love to see your recipe.  We have a family from the middle east that runs a restaurant.  I always love their hummus and Falfel. 

Sure,  going to add it later , it's very easy

You know the concept of hush party right ? So here they took it one step forward : Hush changing the clock ... 

37 minutes ago, Matt said:

Every time I find falafel on a Royal ship it all ends the same

I think I know the main reason , the main reason , not like Hummus (which by the way was OK) that is being made from cooked chickpeas the Falfel is being made from non cooked, 12 soaked in in water chickpeas. I guess they are using for both the Humos and the Falfel precooked caned chickpeas ...  

I will add a recipe later

 

 

 

 

 

Day 1 - Seattle.

The Jetlag again to the best of us and we were woken around 4 am, after all its a cruise day.  We tried to force some sleep but at the end we just decided to pack and get organized. At 6:45 we did our way again to Starbucks Reserve to catch breakfast,  as you can see we really liked this place (and not many things open so early).

After enjoying our time there we went back to the hotel and booked Uber to the port. The Uber cost 37$ which was better than the 55$ which offered by the hotel. Around 10:15 we arrived to the  port and started the check in process. Everything was very fast compared to the horror stories I was reading about Seattle port. 10 minutes after,  we were waiting in the holding area to start boarding. They started boarding two minutes after with suite,  pinnacles and keys , we were next. The nice thing they done was locating the ship security gates outside the ship allowing many more swiping cards  stations, preventing lines in the ship entry. After boarding and completing the muster check in we went to eat our first lunch in 270, it was quite good. We continued to the music hall to use the pool table were we competing who was the worse in this game, I think I won. We then visit the WJ just to see it had huge lines so we decided to catch something in Ship&chips.  I thought it's extra money venue but apparently it was free beside the lobster. I took the fish sandwich which was good. We booked the north star which is free for port days and watch the nice view of Seattle. 

By that time the cabin was ready so we unpacked and got organized. Still don't understand why they have power outlets only in one side of the bad , are they getting percentages from some marriage consulting organizations? 

For sail away we went to to deck 15

Although we had a nice view also from the cabin

For first day dinner we decided to go to the Solarium Bistro (you can understand by now, no CK access this time) the full meal was self service not like before were some of the dishes you needed to order. It was so so, I really wanted to catch the chef to explain him how to prepare Falfel and how to handle the Thaini , hint , you don't serve it raw. I still think it's not a bad option for first day. We went to check what we missed in the WJ, which was quite empty , they served some chops and had nice desserts. 

 

We went back to the room to take some rest before visiting the very packed casino. We called it early , as we were tired although next day is a sea day.

 

4 hours ago, SweetPea said:

Those sushi rolls put Izumi to shame!

They also taste very well and cost 9-12 $ each...

Well we found those two packages here which we never ordered , anyone know if it's the new C&A gift or someone thought we will be very very thirsty?

1 hour ago, Matt said:

Flying Tel Aviv to Newark and then another 5 hours to Seattle? I'm exhausted just thinking about it!

Actually used to do this route quite often,  not that bad , better than the 17 hours flights from Mumbai to EWR

For hotel in Seattle we took the Kimpton Vintage , nice small hotel in the fifth Avenue 10 minutes walk from the market. It has happy hour every day with wine and beer but no breakfast which was OK by us as we wanted to tast something  different. 

Day 0.1 Seattle.

The Jetlag is really hard  I think it was 3 am when we were already up trying to force ourself to sleep longer. I guess that what happens when you go to sleep at 4 PM ... we search for place to eat breakfast and decided to give Starbucks reserve roastery a try. We both not big fans of Starbucks (we are from a city that Starbucks decided to close there branches after failing to compete with many much better coffee places). But this Starbucks is different and it's open on 7 am :-). I would recommend a visit there for sure. Very good sandwiches and cakes. The atmosphere is also very nice.

From Starbucks we went down the Pike street to the market to taste the famous grill cheese sandwich in the market at Beecher , as we were quite full we shared one sandwich and it was very good

After the two  breakfast we had a one our boat tour out of pier 55 just to verify the cruise pier is there and ready for us. It was also nice to see the industrial port and the big cranes in action. 

 

Post the cruise to recover from the disembarking feelings we went to buy some last thing we forgot to bring for the cruise (mainly warm hats) and roam around downtown (no, we did not went to the needle,  as I have been there and my spouse doesn't care for the high places) . For late lunch and pre dinner we went to Japanosa resturant,  they have happy hour on everything until 5 pm and there food was just delicious. As you can see they don't serve half rolls like some famous venue in RC ship :-). 

 

We again  went to sleep quite early , suddenly I was woken up by my spouse saying hey , we are missing  the boat we need to go it's already 11:30 . It took me few seconds to understand that yes , it was 11:30 but PM ... The Jetlag strikes back 

 

We started our journey on Tuesday evening saying good bye and took train to the airport.

12 hour later  we landed  in Newark for a challenging 1.5 hour connection,  immigration went very fast although there were some lines but one of the suitcases took it time to arrive which push us to the not do comfortable zone. Lucky for us there were zero lines at security and our flight to Seattle was from the same terminal. We arrived the gate just when they started to board . Flight to Seattle took another 5 hours but it went smooth. When we landed the luggage came very quick and we walked to the train. The train  departures every 10 minutes and has enough space for luggage.  It cost 3 $ per person. It took us 6 more minutes to walk to the hotel , although it was uphill. Around 12 PM we arrived to the hotel to find that our room already ready which was nice.

We quickly got refreshed and went to catch something to eat in Pike market which is 10 minutes from the hotel. We went to the market grill , I got the Salmon sandwich which was very good.

We checked some other places in the market before going to the nearby Target to stock up.

We went back yo the hotel and decided to take some rest which we all know  with the Jetlag meaning sleep until the middle if the night

 

Several years ago, before we even started to cruise I had few business trips to Seattle. The office of the company I worked for used to be just adjust to the Pike market and I always got a nice office with panoramic view of the bay. Every Friday I used to watch the ships leaving the port going to Alaska while I had to stay and sometimes had to come to office during the weekend. I  said to myself one day it will be me over there, well, this day arrived. 

We went to many cruises during the last 10 years , many at Europe , Caribbean and some in Asia but Alaska was I guess just too far but always in the list. 

The plan, land in Seattle two days before the cruise, stay in downtown Seattle and board the ship on Friday. We will visit Juneau, Skagway, Sitka and Victoria. 

More to come.

So , they traveled without passports and without insurance ? 

Even if they left the passport on the ship once they did not arrive the passport will be with the ship agent in Mexico .  
Anyway hope everything will work for them soon and they will be back home with good health.

14 minutes ago, icf75 said:

Hi, currently on western med cruise with pay as you go drinks. Was surprised to see a tax added to the cost of my drink. Does anyone know what this is and whether it only applies in ports? 

If it is a cruise that goes only to EU ports everything as the EU VAT including drinks and purchases in the ship "Duty-free" . If you are not from the EU and purchases something above 70 Euro you can get the VAT back by filling  a form bit it's not the case with food and drinks.

Most of the airlines are asking for extra money for seat assignments, this is a major revenue engine for them. They do allow free assignments for elite members or you can assign it during check-in.