Cheapo dad's trip report on Freedom of the Seas

[dani negreanu]

8 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

So I’ll just say that the beginning pictures are Joshua Tree NP, then Vegas and then Death Valley. 

 

Amazing places and pics, may be, one day, we'll manage to visit..... thanks👍

[bobmacliberty]

Thanks Harry.  Your 2018 trip sounds fantastic.  We have lots of time on our hands but we'll need to see about how much energy we'll have.  Need to work on getting into better shape to be able to handle some of the hikes that seem to be needed to really see some of the parks.

 

I've been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times and to Yellowstone once during the winter...a ski trip with my guy friends where we added a snow mobile trip to see Old Faithful. My wife however has not seen either of those places, and neither of us has been to Yosemite.  We just watched a YouTube video of a father and son who went to Yosemite on the first day that it reopened and they practically had the place to themselves.  Absolutely stunningly gorgeous.

 

We've also not seen Mount Rushmore.  Since we live in Cincinnati, one possibility would be to drive a big loop through Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone on the way to Yosemite.  We would then drove a more southern route coming back which could take us through the parks that you mention.  That would be a LOT of driving though.  We might be better off flying into Vegas and renting a car from there.  Too many choices!  Fortunately, we don't need to rush.

[bobmacliberty]

And by the way, the reflection picture that you posted is VERY cool.  Looks like it was professionally done.

[harryfat1]

On 6/24/2020 at 6:00 AM, bobmacliberty said:

Hi Harry.  Do you have the itinerary from your National Park trips that you wouldn't mind sharing?  I just retired and since our grand 9 day Greek Isles/14 day Italy retirement trip was cancelled, we are thinking about a driving trip to tour some of the parks instead.  I've done a little research and there are a LOT of options besides the typical Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone trips.  As many here on CC have done, I'd be interested in learning from you.

 

Hope that you and your family are all safe and healthy.

Hi, Bob,

 

So continue on with part 2 of the 2017 road trip pics from yesterday.  I already talked about where we went and it took longer than I thought in trying to find the pictures I wanted as you can imagine I have tens of thousands of pics in the hard drive and not always easy or fast to find the info.

 

Anyway, I last left off at the Horse Shoe Bend.  I realized I also forgot to mentioned that we did a dam tour at Page, Arizona.  It was only like $5/pp (Cheapo dad prices) and you get a guided tour.

 

Getting to the Horseshoe Bend is a pretty decent hike.  No rails at the area when we were there.  There have been reports of people falling off the edge and died.    

[harryfat1]

On 6/24/2020 at 6:00 AM, bobmacliberty said:

Hi Harry.  Do you have the itinerary from your National Park trips that you wouldn't mind sharing?  I just retired and since our grand 9 day Greek Isles/14 day Italy retirement trip was cancelled, we are thinking about a driving trip to tour some of the parks instead.  I've done a little research and there are a LOT of options besides the typical Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone trips.  As many here on CC have done, I'd be interested in learning from you.

 

Hope that you and your family are all safe and healthy.

Part 3 of 3 of the 2017 road trip where we did the big loop around Arizona and Utah.

 

After Arches NP, the stop next day is Canyonsland NP. Note the bathroom sign...

[harryfat1]

On 6/24/2020 at 6:00 AM, bobmacliberty said:

Hi Harry.  Do you have the itinerary from your National Park trips that you wouldn't mind sharing?  I just retired and since our grand 9 day Greek Isles/14 day Italy retirement trip was cancelled, we are thinking about a driving trip to tour some of the parks instead.  I've done a little research and there are a LOT of options besides the typical Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone trips.  As many here on CC have done, I'd be interested in learning from you.

 

Hope that you and your family are all safe and healthy.

So after 2017’s summer trip, we decided to go back for more heat and punishment on another road trip in 2018. In between these two road trips, we did the Independence of the Seas cruise in December 2017.  This 2018 trip was slower pace compared to 2017 as we didn’t see as many places but more time at each site.

 

Same start at Vegas where we saw the Cirque show – Ka.  This one is much more martial arts oriented on a big old moving stage. One of a kind show and they actually allow photos of the show – just no videos so Cheapo dad didn’t break any rules in taking these legit pics.

 

From Vegas, we drove to Bryce Canyon City to stay for 2 nights.  Next day we went to Bryce Canyon.  The area is like a big soup bowl where the stops are at the top and you walk down the path to the bottom of the bowl area if you want to see things up close to if you are short on time, just drive by each stop area and see the park from the rims above.

 

After Bryce, we headed south to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park as my wife like sands. They call it pink sands but looks more orange to me.  Nevertheless, it was very hot to walk on as it was 90+ degrees outside when we there.  From there, we went to St. George and stayed three nights there renting another townhouse.

 

Then spent the next 2 days driving to Zion National Park to see the various sites.  The place is crazy popular/crowded.  During the summer months, they won’t allow any cars inside the park so you have to park your car in the nearby city and take the shuttle bus from inside the park to see various sites.  Of course, this was all before Covid19.  No idea what the new policy is currently.

 

The wait just to get on the tram in the morning to go inside is like 45 minute wait.  Worst than trying to get a tram at Disneyland.  Took picture of the sign that says 30 minute wait from here after we waited 15 minutes just to get there.

Zion is only ok in my book.  Maybe it was to hot – over 90 degrees everyday and we had to hike miles and miles with no shade and it was too crowded.  But after seeing other areas, this doesn’t have the “wow” factor but it’s very popular with hikers.  For the really adventurous crowd, just Google “Angles Landing Zion”, you will see some YouTube videos calling that hike the scariest hike in all the national parks.  Not my cup of tea…

 

Finally drove back to Vegas area and on the way home, stopped by the freeway area where they had the art work on the side.  Only dumb tourists like ourselves and all other dumb tourists would get out of the car at 102 degrees in mid day Vegas heat to walk around and take pictures of “whatever that is”…

 

Even with two  trips, we didn’t see the last NP – Capitol Reef as well as Grand Staircase National Monument and bunch of other places.  Maybe that’s for 2021 or beyond whenever I can retire.

 

This should give you (and whoever else) a quick overview of what’s out there.  Add in Grand Canyon in the South, you can easily spend weeks in Arizona/Utah region.

 

Come back with questions if you want to know hotels or whatever detailed info you need like more pics of the no toilet seat poop area 😷. You can email me at the Cheapodad@Outlook.com or post them here if you think it’s beneficial for others to know as well…

 

Safe travels,

 

 

Harry

[harryfat1]

On 6/24/2020 at 6:00 AM, bobmacliberty said:

Hi Harry.  Do you have the itinerary from your National Park trips that you wouldn't mind sharing?  I just retired and since our grand 9 day Greek Isles/14 day Italy retirement trip was cancelled, we are thinking about a driving trip to tour some of the parks instead.  I've done a little research and there are a LOT of options besides the typical Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone trips.  As many here on CC have done, I'd be interested in learning from you.

 

Hope that you and your family are all safe and healthy.

Part 2 of the 2018 Road trip.  After Bryce Canyon, we went to Pink Sand State Park and then Zion and then Vegas

 

 

[harryfat1]

On 6/23/2020 at 5:30 PM, Florida Glamazon said:

I am loving this "mental vacation" of learning and laughing with this wonderful review. I've been driving my husband nuts by laughing at & then quoting some of your funniest lines, and your family seems so nice.

  *** As far as not having to search for your guide- We had a Carnival ship tour in Nassau that made me thankful to be a fast walker. The guide pretty much race-walked ahead and she was super tiny-so even with her "follow me suckers" flag, she was tough to keep up with. I tried to keep up and so did my large/tall husband.

  I was giggling because people behind us were saying "I don't know, Ethel, just follow the big guy and his wife".

   I guess I was an unpaid Sherpa- or just dressed badly enough for both of us to stand out for the rest of the tour crowd.

Hi,

 

Thank you for the compliment. My joke writing team (of one) will be happy to hear the positive feedback on the crude juvenile humor throughout my cruise reports.

 

It’s good to take a “mental vacation” instead of an physical one – especially given the Covid19 virus.  Certainly much cheaper and you don’t have to deal with the heat and stress of flying across the country when you are at home.

 

Harry

[harryfat1]

On 6/23/2020 at 6:03 PM, loug1601 said:

Hi Harry! So miss your cruising reviews. You have a great looking family!

Hi,

 

Thanks for the post.  Yeah, we miss cruising as well.  Maybe summer 2021 Alaska cruise or winter 2021 Caribbean cruise once things are more settled with the virus situation.

 

Harry

[harryfat1]

On 6/24/2020 at 11:05 AM, Citymom92 said:

I am so glad I kept this thread in my pinned column for responses! It's been really nice to read this thread again, and also hear that I'm not the only one with kid who are soo focused on phones/laptops, etc, until we all go on vacation. My kids are now 23, 21 and 18, but they still all love to vacation together with us. Someday that will change. We are cruise newbies, having only been on three, and just one with the kids, but I am also interested to see what cruising looks like in the coming years. 

Hi,

 

Thanks for reading the info even though it's pretty outdated.

 

Nowadays the kids wouldn't know what's around them unless it's from an text/tweet/social media posting.  They never look up or around to see what's around them.  Just eyes on phones.  Vacation is only time they somewhat get away from that but they still posts or checks on social media to share in real time what they are doing that minute...

 

Harry

[retiredgram]

Thanks for the beautiful and amazing pictures.

 

[bobmacliberty]

VERY helpful info Harry.  We're still in the early planning stages but I'm quickly narrowing in on flying to Vegas and using that as our "home base" as you suggest.  I first looked at a complete round trip drive from Cincinnati all the way to Yosemite across the north and then back through Utah.  That would involve about 100 hours of driving, or 12 days of nothing but 8 hours driving.  Too much for us.  Here's a current idea that would do a loop...Vegas, Death Valley, Yosemite, Great Basin, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Canyon, back to Vegas (having fun using Google's My Maps with a base layer of US National Parks):

 

The longest driving leg on this trip would be about 8 hours from Yosemite to Great Basin.  I need to look into lodging and figure out about how many days to spend at each park, but I'm guessing this is a 3+ week trip.  We were originally thinking this fall (I'm getting cabin fever) but I want to be sure that we see waterfalls in their full glory (especially Yosemite), so we may wait until next spring.  We want to avoid the summer with the added crowds and heat.  Retirement gives us that luxury. 😁

 

Your pictures are inspiring me!

Edited June 28, 2020 by bobmacliberty

[bobmacliberty]

And just for kicks, here is what a full driving trip would look like.  Probably would take 2 months+.  More time than we want to spend, and way too much driving.

[Eddie Wilson]

BobMac, 

Fellow Cincinnatian here.  Thanks for the idea of flying to Vegas first.

 

Parents did 2 of the full circle trips from Cincy.  One year to the north, to Seattle then down to Vegas, headed back to Cincy via central states.

Next year the headed west via central US. Turned south at Vegas, came home via southern route thru Ariz, NMex, Texas........

 

Each trip required too much driving, too much for my back anyway.  So thanks for the idea of flying to Vegas first.

 

Eddie

[DaniDanielle]

All  I have to say is “WOW”!!!

[CsStingray]

I’ll pitch in as a Northern Kentuckian! 
 

First, thanks for sharing your trips with us, Harry.  I enjoy reading your travel reports very much!  As a fellow “cheapo mom”, I can relate!

 

We just finished a similar trip.  We flew from Cvg to Las Vegas, and rented an RV from Cruise America.  We drove to Moab, and worked our way back to Vegas.   We visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dead Horse Point State Park, Capitol Reef NP, Bryce Canyon NP, and Zion NP.  We spent two nights at each park, which I think was a good minimum.  The parks were all under 3 hours drive from each other, so it was easy driving.  It was a two week trip, including a night in Vegas at each end.  
 

The shuttle at Zion was not running, and after seeing your pictures of the crowds, Harry, I can see why!  They were letting cars drive into the canyon, but only a certain amount and then they closed the road.  We talked to some people who lined up at 4:30 am to get in and then waited until they opened the park at 6.  It was a bit of a mess.  We couldn’t even get in, because our 30 foot RV exceeded the 20’ vehicle maximum.  We had to stick to what we could walk to from the campground.  We had no problems visiting the other parks, but Zion would be better to wait a bit until the off season or post COVID.  Other than that, it was a wonderful trip, especially for staying away from crowds! 

[harryfat1]

On 6/25/2020 at 7:32 PM, Coralc said:

Nice photos! You didn't stop in Lone Pine? You will have to check it out on your next SoCal trip. You can go through Yosemite, over Tioga Pass past Mono Lake, Bode, and Lone Pine has the Alabama Hills where they filmed "Tremors" with Kevin Bacon and on up to Whitney Portal and Mt. Whitney. I always love your travelogues and photos Harry. The Disney parks in Japan look fabulous! 

 

And BTW, I retired too! Just in time for a pandemic.  I am still helping neighbors on Nextdoor with their bug and plant questions though. I'm still a biologist. 

 

~Patti 

 

The photo in front of your house looks like either Alameda or the City. You have nearby neighbors. Beautiful house, one of the Victorian styled. 

Hi, Patti,

 

Nice to hear from you.  I'm envious of your retirement.  I wish I am there now but have to wait until my kids are done with college and pay off the mortgage before I can retire and binge on Netflix all day long.

 

We were in Southern CA last December mostly for the college visits and the national parks were most just add on as something fun to see instead of "business trip" like environment of looking at colleges.  But we were caught in the Christmas week storm down there where they closed I-5 at the grapevine and 15 going to Vegas.  So we had to do almost double the driving time in going on 10 and then Joshua Tree to 95 over to Needles to get to Vegas on the backside away from the snow storm closure area.

 

The house in the background is the inlaws house.  We were there to drop off father's day gift last Sunday when I saw the post on this thread on my cell phone so I just took a selfie to say hi to everyone as I just happen to be wearing the Mickey mask that day.  My wife made over 150+ of masks for families and friends and donation to local charity that requested mask donation during the early outbreak so I have other patterns like Looney Tunes besides Mickey.

 

To keep social distancing, I didn't even go inside their house.  I stayed outside while my wife dropped off the stuff by the entrance way while keeping distance and wearing a mask.  So weird to be visiting families nowadays but can't go inside and must wear mask.

 

Here are few more pictures for you from Joshua Tree. Difference of one day before snow storm or after snow. And windmill farm for people that haven't seen them before...  

[Coralc]

Beautiful photos Harry! 

[harryfat1]

On 6/26/2020 at 6:12 AM, bobmacliberty said:

Thanks Harry.  Your 2018 trip sounds fantastic.  We have lots of time on our hands but we'll need to see about how much energy we'll have.  Need to work on getting into better shape to be able to handle some of the hikes that seem to be needed to really see some of the parks.

 

I've been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times and to Yellowstone once during the winter...a ski trip with my guy friends where we added a snow mobile trip to see Old Faithful. My wife however has not seen either of those places, and neither of us has been to Yosemite.  We just watched a YouTube video of a father and son who went to Yosemite on the first day that it reopened and they practically had the place to themselves.  Absolutely stunningly gorgeous.

 

We've also not seen Mount Rushmore.  Since we live in Cincinnati, one possibility would be to drive a big loop through Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone on the way to Yosemite.  We would then drove a more southern route coming back which could take us through the parks that you mention.  That would be a LOT of driving though.  We might be better off flying into Vegas and renting a car from there.  Too many choices!  Fortunately, we don't need to rush.

Hi, Bob,

 

We were at Yellowstone in 2012 and Mount Rushmore in 2015.  The Rushmore trip was the furthest we have ever driven eastward. We went as far as Badlands NP before turning back. Per Google map, that's almost 1,500 miles one way.

 

Seeing these national parks is like going to Caribbean islands (need to tie back to cruises somehow as this is CC afterall), it's too hard to try to see everything in one trip.  You should try to break things up to different trips.  Since you are coming from the north, I would do the northern sites like Yellow stone and Rushmore and Devils Tower as one trip and then leave the southern ones as another trip. 

 

Have to go pretty far back in the archives to get these old pictures from 2012 when the boys were so much younger.  This is even before our 2014 Allure cruise. We rented a log cabin at Cody for couple nights.

[harryfat1]

On 6/26/2020 at 6:12 AM, bobmacliberty said:

Thanks Harry.  Your 2018 trip sounds fantastic.  We have lots of time on our hands but we'll need to see about how much energy we'll have.  Need to work on getting into better shape to be able to handle some of the hikes that seem to be needed to really see some of the parks.

 

I've been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times and to Yellowstone once during the winter...a ski trip with my guy friends where we added a snow mobile trip to see Old Faithful. My wife however has not seen either of those places, and neither of us has been to Yosemite.  We just watched a YouTube video of a father and son who went to Yosemite on the first day that it reopened and they practically had the place to themselves.  Absolutely stunningly gorgeous.

 

We've also not seen Mount Rushmore.  Since we live in Cincinnati, one possibility would be to drive a big loop through Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone on the way to Yosemite.  We would then drove a more southern route coming back which could take us through the parks that you mention.  That would be a LOT of driving though.  We might be better off flying into Vegas and renting a car from there.  Too many choices!  Fortunately, we don't need to rush.

Here's the 2015 Rushmore trip, including Badlands and Devils Tower.  If you do Rushmore, be sure to do the hiking trail where you are underneath the Presidents as you look up.  Many people just take a picture from the platform and walk around and leave.

 

Oh, another thing we like to do is visit all the state capitol buildings for every state we were in.  This one is from Wyoming.

[harryfat1]

On 6/26/2020 at 6:14 AM, bobmacliberty said:

And by the way, the reflection picture that you posted is VERY cool.  Looks like it was professionally done.

Thanks.

 

We just got really lucky in getting to the Bad Water Basin area within couple days of a big rain storm where the water pooled in the more shallow part.  With sunset, it's as if you are standing on water.

 

BadWater Basin is known as the most sea level area in north America at 282 feet below sea level.  There's a sign up in the hills on the other of the first picture that tells you where the sea level is - 282 feet above you. But it's a pretty decent walk from the parking lot (at the foot of the hills) to the water area.

 

Few more pics from the area.  

[harryfat1]

On 6/27/2020 at 3:10 PM, retiredgram said:

Thanks for the beautiful and amazing pictures.

 

Thank you for the compliment.

 

I typically save my road trip pictures as an add on with my cruise trip report to break up the monotony on describing the daily route of the cruise.  But who knows when we will cruise again given the Covid 19 issue so I'm just going down memory lane to help Bob and others with my old vacation pics as well as re-living our previous vacations as it's unlikely we will have one this summer or this winter. 

[harryfat1]

9 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

VERY helpful info Harry.  We're still in the early planning stages but I'm quickly narrowing in on flying to Vegas and using that as our "home base" as you suggest.  I first looked at a complete round trip drive from Cincinnati all the way to Yosemite across the north and then back through Utah.  That would involve about 100 hours of driving, or 12 days of nothing but 8 hours driving.  Too much for us.  Here's a current idea that would do a loop...Vegas, Death Valley, Yosemite, Great Basin, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Canyon, back to Vegas (having fun using Google's My Maps with a base layer of US National Parks):

 

The longest driving leg on this trip would be about 8 hours from Yosemite to Great Basin.  I need to look into lodging and figure out about how many days to spend at each park, but I'm guessing this is a 3+ week trip.  We were originally thinking this fall (I'm getting cabin fever) but I want to be sure that we see waterfalls in their full glory (especially Yosemite), so we may wait until next spring.  We want to avoid the summer with the added crowds and heat.  Retirement gives us that luxury. 😁

 

Your pictures are inspiring me!

First of all, how do you insert picture within your text?  In the old days, I inserted my picture links from Flickr or Shutterfly using the embedded link.  But now with the new CC format, I can add a ton more pictures to the post but the software adds them for me at the bottom of the post.  Cheapo dad not up to date with the newer technology...😉

 

Depending on how much you are in love with Yosemite, if you want to cut off your trip into two smaller ones for later, it could save yourself some driving. 

 

One option is just do the CA based national parks on its own.  Fly to Vegas and then do death valley and go up to Kings NP and Sequoia NP and then Yosemite and back to Vegas.  That would be a lot less driving and you get to see 4 NP is one trip.  I have never been to Kings or Sequoia but I have been to the Redwood National Park up in the Oregon border.  If you want to see big old red wood trees, doing just the 4 CA parks is easier on the butt.

 

Then you save the Arizona/Utah parks as a separate trip. One thing you didn't have on your map is Grand Canyon. If you stay at Kanab, Utah and use that as a base, you can see Zion/Bryce and the north rim of Grand Canyon from Kanab as a day trip to each area.  The north rim of Grand Canyon is seldom visited as they said 90% of the people sees the south rim from Vegas.  North rim is more remote and likely less people.  But do note that they close the road to north rim during the winter season so check with their web site on when you want to go. 

 

 

[harryfat1]

7 hours ago, DaniDanielle said:

All  I have to say is “WOW”!!!

WOW - as in "Wow, what are you guys doing? This is supposed to be a trip report on Freedom of the Seas cruise and we have with bunch of old guys talking RV driving and rocks in area at least 500 miles from nearest ocean..."😜

 

Apologies to any new readers that started reading this thread recently and actually thought we are talking cruises...

[JamesEM]

Thanks once again for the trip report replete with great photos.

Jim,