arctickitty

Very helpful. Thank you!

Not unique to Princess, but one cruise I chose to use my one and only drink coupon on a mojito and it was well worth it. Another time I read bar menus all over the ship and chose something with raspberry puree from the bar by the International Cafe. It was delicious and attracted all sorts of unwanted attention from everyone walking past me in the piazza wondering what it was. Looking at recent menus, I don’t see anything similar. My theory was to pick something with a real food ingredient. Not a cocktail, but if you order a glass of wine at vines, they offer you tapas, which is fun.

Looking forward to following along! Thanks for taking us with you!

KMom , I hadn’t logged into CC for awhile and your post here about Fighter was the only thing in my messages…thank you for the update on him. Hope you are doing well!

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle One thing that was fun about our trip was that I used Cruise Critic as a resource and since Special Someone FBs and I do not, I suggested he find our sailing on there and then we’d share things we found/learned. He showed me that someone posted that she found ALL THESE DUCKS on our cruise. Where??? I did not see a single one except for in the duck game/vending machine in the Warehouse Arcade. And, of course, wherever I took Alien. I’m impressed. But not jealous; Alien is enough for me. In the Anchorage airport, we found out that the Delta Sky Club “pop up” would not let us into their extremely empty lounge because they only accept Priority Pass WITH a Delta boarding pass. The only real lounge in Anchorage is Alaska and this location doesn’t accept Priority Pass anymore. So we were out of luck on the free food front. Because of the limited choices with our flight cancellation, we were facing a 4 hour layover, and while Anchorage has more than Fairbanks it doesn’t have much. For those of you who do have access to the Delta Sky Club “pop up” it’s on the mezzanine and you access it from the staircase behind Starbucks. It irritates me a lot that they took the art gallery and roped it off. To me that’s taking a public space and making it private. They have some really nice art up there, most of it Alaska Native, that’s not on display elsewhere so to me it’s highly lame to limit access to it. I did ask the Delta gatekeeper if we could still look at the art and she said yes we could, we just couldn’t sit down. Awkward!!! We went and looked at the art quickly anyway mostly because I wanted to show Special Someone an ivory carving by the woman who owned my house on the island before me, but after many years of it being on display, they’d changed things and it wasn’t there anymore. However, folks, if you have time in Anchorage, whether or not you have Delta Sky Club access, I do still recommend going up there and checking out the art!! You can see the art display cases in the Delta Sky Club pop up. I always forget how gorgeous the mountains in Anchorage are until I see them again and instantly remember. I spent a good deal of time walking around and doing what I called yogic sitting which was sitting on the floor in different ways to stretch out my muscles. We ate at Silver Gulch, which always sounds better than it is, and this was not the first time that I found the server to be a combination of indifferent and rude. In the boarding area my frustration with feeling like people had been staring at me the whole time I’d been in Anchorage came to a head and then I realized I’d kind of asked for it because that morning, faced with limited laundry choices and the desire to keep the vacation vibe going, I’d chosen to wear sparkly mermaid leggings with running shorts over them. Somehow these didn’t cause any turned heads in Seattle but the stares were constant in Anchorage and it was driving me crazy until I remembered why people were looking. I was cranky and done with transportation and waiting for it. Special Someone wanted to do early boarding and I’d previously won the decision to not do it, but he won this one and sat down right in front of the boarding podium. I told him there’s a term for people who have such behavior and I don’t think he really believed me, but it’s called gate lice. I was cranky enough to sit down and be gate lice right next to him, mermaid leggings on full display so the whole airport could glare at our atrocious manners. Special Someone’s method for qualifying for early boarding is to put his special ID under his boarding pass, peeking out a little so it’s not super obvious but the gate agent sees it and gives him the special nod. I have a special ID, too, but I’d never used it in this manner before but like I said, I was done with transportation and I was done with trying to win the battle that relaxing in the boarding area was better than sitting on the airplane so I tried the ID trick right behind Special Someone and I almost died of embarrassment when the gate agent ate it all up and said “Thank you for your service” and then Special Someone fell asleep. He slept through the excitement of sitting on the plane for an hour while we were on mechanical hold and I was full of see, I told you sos, because if we hadn’t boarded early we would have still been in the gate area with all the other people who stayed on the ground when they paused boarding. The mechanic duct taped the offending piece of broken plastic and then it took a very long time to get the paperwork filed. It’s always the paperwork. Eventually we did take off and fly for like all of 40 minutes to get back to Fairbanks.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle Now it’s time for the glory that was trying to drink our way through the Centurion lounge cocktail menu. I am usually a one drink wonder as I only drink occasionally and then not much at a time. But this was the last day of vacation and also the day that back in real life that a secret hearing was supposed to be being held to determine if I was guilty at work or not. I knew that I could get a call with the verdict any moment but I was throughly holding onto vacation mode and drinking in every last drop of fun. I did realized just now that it may be a little tough to tell you which cocktail is which. We started with the bourbon/whiskey recipes so these first three are the Capitol Hill, Copper Claw, and the Blue Door. All three were excellent. We paced ourselves with all the savory yummies like steak tips and asparagus and collard greens and chicken soup and cheese its. Cheese it’s are a rare guilty pleasure for me so it was fun to have them. I tried their berry refresher too and eventually found the fancy space ship like water machine that had a choice of flat or sparkling water. After I mastered it, I became the designated ambassador for it as I kept encountering lost souls wandering around looking for water. I’d point them in the correct direction and then they’d stare it at just like I did as the “on” buttons aren’t obvious. This was the Weizen Up and probably my first ever beer cocktail. It had local beer so points for that, but it just wasn’t as much my taste as the others. Wow I am now going to do a horrible job reporting. I was going to get the Team Spirit because I’ve never had blue Curaçao before and I’d heard the bartender saying you could sub soda water for the Mountain Dew but Special Someone wanted me to try some cocktail with a name that is not family friendly. All I have to say is it was a ridiculous drink. Meanwhile we saw another guest wander off with this and we asked the bartender what it was. Espresso martini. We already knew they didn’t have the ingredients to make the Via Veneto so we ordered one of these instead. The bartender has you go get your own double espresso shot from the machine and then they do their magic. This drink was magic and we couldn’t stop saying holy cow while we worked on it. We calculated we had time for one last drink before boarding and I chose espresso martini again. It was a different bartender and she said “with Baileys or without?” so I said with. This was very good but the without martini was excellent. And then it was time to fly to Alaska. Because our nonstop flight home was cancelled, we were flying to Anchorage.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle Food etc from the Centurion lounge in SeaTac.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle I took this picture to represent SeaTac. We took a conventional taxi to the airport. With our original flight cancellation, we got out of a super early flight and onto a 3pm one, which gave us plenty of leisure time. Lots of people in line were ornery but not us. This was my first time visiting a Centurion lounge and for whatever reason I felt I should share the bathroom with you. And that was before we tried to drink their whole cocktail menu. Here’s the menu so that you know the plan for the afternoon: Their espresso machine was also top notch.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle I took some more pictures of the water slides to give the green one some justice in attempting to capture just what happens on it.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle Disembarkation morning was also when I finally got around to playing mini golf. I really enjoyed this course. I’m not very good at it so I liked that I could hit the ball in the hole after about 4 putts. I savored the Seattle views.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back in Seattle After second breakfast I went one last exploring expedition around the ship. Pizza was not open disembarkation morning. This was when I noticed that outside the spa plays spa music seemingly 24/7. IMG_6900.MOV

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Final Trip Day Back to Seattle Sob. The final breakfast. One last burnt grapefruit and one last opportunity to have fruit that someone else cut up for me and made look pretty. After our late night visit to Victoria, everyone else had the idea to line up for pizza, so we didn’t line up and got some soft serve and ate snacks I’d stashed in the fridge like cucumber and peanut chaat from Masala Tiger. This is Special Someone’s omelet. He asked for “everything” and he got a lot of things in it, but not everything. This is the Belgian waffle and the French toast from the port day breakfast menu served with wayyyyy too much molasses syrup. They were both pretty good. This is avocado toast no eggs, served on wheat toast instead of sourdough this time. I also got my hashbrown fix in. I liked the chicken sausage last time so I got more and also asked for turkey bacon just to try it but they brought me regular pork bacon. No bacation here! We also got two of their scrumptious granolas, and had gotten smart to request “no milk” so we wouldn’t waste the milk we didn’t pour on it. The stuff is so jam packed full of nuts and seeds…yum. And then we went up to the buffet so that I could eat second breakfast. I don’t remember when exactly I filled my thermos with soft serve, but I’m pretty sure that happened.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9 Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada Some final images of Victoria…a few shop windows that caught my eye. Small boat harbor…didn’t have enough time to explore it… And on the walk back, I found a Little Free Library!

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9 Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada Finding and walking around on this bridge is what ultimately made Victoria completely worth it to me. Walking into town in the dark for hordes of other people who were also questioning why we were walking into town just to get there and turn around, I was wondering that myself. Once in downtown Victoria, it seemed like most shops and restaurants and whatnot were mostly closed. I mean, it was 10pm on a Monday night. We saw some very drunk, very well dressed business people trying to navigate their way on foot and that was about the extent of the nightlife. We saw this bridge from a distance and decided to walk towards it, and based on the timing, that it would be our turnaround point. I don’t know if I can fully explain why this bridge “made” our brief visit to Victoria but it’s something about the joy of discovery and I find those joys in odd places sometimes. Like the sign on the upper left. I like that one. These also might be my favorite pictures of Victoria. Sure the lit-up buildings were pretty but anyone could have photographed them and uploaded them; these pictures are mine and mine alone. Here is a picture of us, together. I just love those swirls. Time to walk back towards the ship.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9 Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada Immediately in the dock there are a million options for last minute tours. I have never seen so many different types of transportation choices all lined up in one spot. We’re not often tour people so we headed out the gate and followed the crossing guards’ directions towards the city. I just had to love and laugh how Canada had reflective yellow-clad crossing guards for us. A lot for people were grumbling about the delay in getting off further shortening this short port and to be honest I wasn’t entirely sure what we were headed towards or if it was worth it, but I wound up thinking it was because the main landmarks were all lit up and it was pretty in the dark.

Folks, I was in a vortex. I wrote that post a couple of times and it kept disappearing but this morning it was there and it actually went live when I submitted it.

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9 Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada Some deck views sailing into Victoria, BC. We listened to karaoke in Spectacular Spectacular while we waited to get off the ship. And waited. And waited. IMG_6865.MOV Special Someone suggested I post this video from karaoke so John Heald can tell that lady who thinks he’s a sinner because Carnival doesn’t sponsor organized church services on board that indeed there is church on board. And synagogue, too. IMG_6864.MOV It was about 9:10pm when we made it off the ship into Victoria and started our evening walk.

ArcticKitty Tackles Alaska - Carnival Splendor 02-10 May 2022- Trip Planning, Trip Report, & Mehhhhbe Some LIVE From Since We Have This Thing Called Cellular Data Now Hello new Carnival friends, ArcticKitty, a real Alaskan here. I love reading in-depth detailed to the nines trip reports, trip planning musings, live feeds, etc. The more the nitty gritty displayed the more I dig. I also enjoy the autobiographical background info that some folks slip in. I’m here to do my part contributing the kind of content I love to read! Since I'm Alaskan through and through, I'll be weaving every day Alaskan life into this narrative in order to provide context for my travel choices and to give all of you readers perspective on this amazing state. I am the queen of TLDR (too long, didn't read) but if you like to read and/or you are interested in anything of what I have to say, welcome aboard! The Carnival HUB app tells me that I have 51 days until boarding, which means I’ve had the Carnival HUB app for 14 days, had this cruise booked for 14 days, and even considered cruising on Carnival for about 20 days, and only even considered cruising at all for about 25 days, and I’m absolutely stoked. I am a planner by nature, but am also a loosey-goosey free spirit creative type (who is allergic to Type A personalities…they can smell me and cower, as do I) and love so many small joys, details, and pleasures in life. I’ve had some life experiences that have taught me how that appreciation is central to who I am and I unabashedly embrace it. Some of those same life experiences have also encouraged me to be spontaneous and say yes to ideas and opportunities that present themselves. I’m known for being a curious blend of tough, sensitive, and in my better moments, plain old bada— (am I allowed to use that word?). Let’s just say sometimes I’m Badabing Badaboom. My career path my whole life has been as a teacher, albeit of many different types and primarily in rural Alaska. I’ve lived and worked in remote corners of this amazing state that most visitors never get to understand, let alone visit. I consider these experiences to be among my biggest blessings, my four cats being the other four. (Left to Right) Tiger (age 3), Dandelion (age 9), Wonder (age 3), and Isobel (age 11 or 12) (Okay, last cat pic for now) Recently, several ideas popped into my head and I wanted to proceed with all of them, before I realized I didn’t have enough leave hours banked up. The first idea was already booked so it’s happening—I signed up for a five day woodworking class in the forest. This means tent camping, group campfire meals, and a full cell phone/electronics ban (how will I survive without audio books?) amidst somewhat free form instruction on carving and whatever else it takes to make things from wood. I have zero experience with this and wouldn’t have even said it was a goal to learn, but I read the program website for a few days and it sparked that something-something in me so I signed up and paid for it. Bang. Boom. What have I done? It will be interesting, that’s for sure. The next “thing” that presented itself was a trip to Guam. A good friend has been working there most of the pandemic and offered to buy most or all of my plane ticket. Seemed like a good thing to say yes to, right? A chance to visit a far flung island with someone with lots of local connections? Sounds like something I’d say sign me up for. Almost bang and boom. Except for those darn leave hours don’t just multiply themselves as quickly as I’d like. And the special someone in my life has some wrinkles in his plans that shifted my perspective and pulled my finger off the trigger. When we met a year and a half ago, (on Tinder! Thank you! You’re welcome!) we lived 90 minutes apart and both had significant pandemic restrictions due to our jobs. I wasn’t allowed to leave the state, he wasn’t allowed to go to a long list of establishments, etc, so we threw ourselves headfirst and head strong into the great outdoors of Alaska, and learned so many new things. Snow shoeing, skiing, snow machining, ice fishing…it’s been a blast. Special Someone was under the expectation that he’d be in Alaska for a good while, a few years, at least. Gear for two humans and four cats for two nights at a walk-in dry cabin. Four cats about to go for a sled ride. My cats are small (all 10lbs or less) and are accustomed to sharing their carriers when traveling. One of four very happy cats enjoying a cabin visit. This was their first sled-in cabin but second cabin trip. They love the heat from an old-fashioned wood stove and the magic of how warm air rises up to the high spots they like best. Special Someone and I now live only 20 minutes apart and almost all of the pandemic restrictions are gone. We’ve both worked in non-work-from-home positions the entire time and my current job just lifted the mask mandate for the first time and I cannot even begin to explain how strange it is to see peoples’ chins, cheeks, and noses for the first time ever. Meanwhile, Special Someone got unexpected news of needing to bounce around a bit, geographically. One of my first reactions to that news was that we needed to definitely go on the pricey-to-me snow machine trip we’d been thinking about. We also fine-tuned some of our activity and adventure goals. Although we’d been knocking these out early in the very long winter (I learned to cross country ski, we took all four of my cats on a snowshoe trip to a remote cabin!) the Snowmaggedon storm of Christmas 2021 put a damper on the outdoors for humans and animals alike. Massive dumps of snow alternated with massive pours of rain, creating layers of deep snow and sheets of ice. The moose are having a terrible time trying to walk anywhere on their spindly legs. We humans are finding unexpected conditions on trails we easily enjoyed last year. We’ve had two botched/failed snow machine trips that just didn’t work out because of the weather. We’ve tried and abandoned many other plans because of the ground conditions. We hiked in a state park not far from home and found out that we’d been far too close to a savage moose attack against a local dog team the very same day. Special Someone and I are very much Safety First and it was sobering to think about having chosen to walk where we’d walked, with fresh moose sign and no protection. We’ve had to pivot a lot and find things to do in more populated and trafficked areas. We’ve still accomplished great things! We rode fat tire bikes for the first time (it’s crazy hard!) and completed two different awesome fitness challenges, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Trail Challenge (snap a pic at 10 plus signs on area trails) and the Virtual Race Across Alaska (complete 225 miles by any means and raise money for the Alaska Long Trail), but we just haven’t done anything big or really special. With Special Someone’s upcoming uncertainty, doing something both big and special took precedence in my mind. Sorry, Guam. The flights sound brutal, anyway. In a former life I may have had gold status on Alaska Air, and I may have even worn their uniform, but I haven’t left Alaska since December 2019 and I haven’t flown more than 45 minutes since I moved to mainland Alaska in June 2020 (with all four cats as my carryons). I was a person who thought cruising would never recover. How could it? Special Someone and I were idly chatting about how cruising had been fun in the past and I stumbled across one of my favorite cruise blogs and discovered, wait, what? She’d been on several cruises. I took a few days of my elliptical riding and track walking time to read her every word, and got back here on Cruise Critic and poked around and realized, oh wait, cruising is a thing again. I had other doubts, however. Special Someone and I have only known each other during this pandemic. We’ve never traveled anywhere together except for camping and hiking and short road trips. The entire Outside world is pretty foreign to me right now, and I’m not sure how I’ll handle it, so how will it go with someone I’ve never been Outside with? I also had a long list of “this is how I cruise” and I laid them out and he said OK. Then he left on a trip, me still somewhat idly researching and reading. It wasn’t much of a topic of conversation between us. As I read and my mind wandered, all of my ideas about “this is how I cruise” untangled their rigidity and morphed and I realized I wanted to try something new and be completely open and flexible. I’d come across the idea that mid- or post-pandemic cruising, or whatever you want to call it, is easier to adjust to if you’re not familiar with the line’s product. If you sail with a company you know well, you might notice all the financial and pandemic cutbacks and changes. If you sail with someone new, it’s all new and you don’t know what you’re missing, right? I also thought I wanted a southbound from Whittier, because I love Whittier and it affords a chance to either camp in the shadow of the Begich Building (the tower almost everyone lives in) or, for a splurge, to sleep atop it in June’s B&B. I thought I wanted a drink package because I’ve never had one, and I liked the idea of being able to try whatever I wanted. I thought I’d want Glacier Bay because “everyone” says it’s the best part, and my prior Alaskan cruise went to Tracy Arm instead. I definitely thought I’d want Princess, because I’ve sailed with Princess 4 times and Norwegian once. I hated Norwegian and thought I loved Princess. I loved the dining room meals on Princess and liked being younger than most of their clientele. This meant for nice empty gyms, jogging tracks and sports courts. Princess has (or had) Zumba, DIY laundry, Italian-style pizza, specialty coffee punchcards with baristas trained in Italy. I knew which treats I liked at Afternoon Tea. I thought if I tried a new line, it would be Holland America, to enjoy an even older passenger base and fancier dining room menus. Special Someone had floated the idea of Carnival, but it wasn’t until I found all seven days of standard dinner menus on Profcruise.com that I started to consider it. How could it be that a line catering to Americans known for partying seemed to have more variety and fanciness on its menus? Then I found the breakfast and brunch menus and I started to really dream. And salivate. I’m what they call an elder Millennial, at the top end of that age range, and most of the Millennial trends go way over my head, but man, give me Millennial food trends everyday and I’m a happy clam. Kale grain bowls, avocado toast, salmon everything, I’m set. Plus frog legs and alligator on the menu, not just snails. Let’s go. And then, with beef prices being what they are, I haven’t been able to afford to buy steaks. Interior Alaska is blessed with local beef and pork, and it’s beyond amazing, but I get ground and sausage and mix it with lots and lots of vegetables etc to make it last for many, many meals. It seemed like the beef was just more plentiful on Carnival as compared to Princess so that helped tip the scales. Special Someone had been gone a week and we were idly texting while I was watering his indoor garden when we saw a bargain deal on a round trip sailing from Seattle. It was the opposite of what I’d thought I wanted but I knew it actually was exactly what I wanted, so I checked flights to make sure they were also affordable and, on the spot, we bought it. Whoa, so cruising is still a thing. At that moment, it was 65 days out. I was glad I’d sent my passport renewal in as expedited everything.