Vision to Alaska June 30-July 7th

[Majesty Fan]

I will have to say my cruise cost a whole lot less that $13,000! Firat I flew free on Delta using SkyMiles. We left Florida on Tuesday and got to Seattle around noon. We booked the Silver Cloud on Lkae Union for a $125 AAA rate I asked at check in for a water view that was $172 a night I declined that idea. There were other hotels for about $99-$120 range but did not have transport. The silver cloud had both an indoor,outdoor pools plus hot tub, free washer dryers and a nice breakfasts daily. They also had transport to downtown that went every thirty minutes. The first day we did the ride the ducks tour which was $25 but I had booked it online before I left home. It was really good and gave you some good sighnts of Seattle plus it was funny too and later towards the end of the tour you go into the water and have some good photos of the needle and houseboats. We then had diner near the market at an Irish place it was ok I have had better food elsewhere but we were tired so that might have been it too. The next am we rented a car to go to Boeing Plant which was 30 minutes way. If I had booked it with a tour company it would have cost over $100 I booked the ticket my self for 2 of us and ran us $$60. We did the future of flight and has history of the first boeing planes to the new 787 which will be in production this fall. You can make a T shirt or poster of a plane you deisgn complete with colors. Mine was hot pink! Next you go to the plant part of the tour this go every 30 minutes. You have a list of things you can not take like cell phone, camera, etc. You can rent a locker or not take them at all. We saw a 777 in production it was very iteresting. We then returend the rental car and had lunch downtown at Ivar's which is a fast food type of place but the fish and chips and chowder are famous. You can buy the chowder at Sams. For diner we had diner with a freind that lives in Seattle they paid for the diner. Thursday we went to the Market Place but only the market was open the other shops do not open until 10am or 11am so we opted for the acquarium next which was about $13 a person. You could easily spend several hours in there. The otters and sealions are the main attractions. Plus there is a touch area where you can touch some sealife like starfish etc. There was whale demo going on which was interesting sicne we had a whale tour in Juneau. We then went to the locks and gardens. This is where I lived for 3 years and was nice to revisit it. This was free. My friend later that night took us to Kerry park which over looks the city. Any picture you seeo f Seattle comes from there. The space needle was $15 we did not do this as the view from Kerry Park was great and it was free. Friday we had arranged with hotel to take us to the ppier at 11am. We had 6 of us going and tipped him $10 because it was out of his range so the drive got $30 for the van. We then got to the pier and handed our bags to the porters we tipped $2 per bag which for us $8. We then went to Diamond check in and showed them our set sail pass and then 5 minutes later we were on the ship. The walkway to the ship is quite long and could be an issue for someone who has troulbe walking. Along the walkway they were selling hats and sunglasses an binoculars. Cabins are not ready until 1pm so we headed to the Windjammer on deck 9.

 

The WIndjammer is a buffett style place to eat we ate lunch and breakfast here. They are also open for diner but ate in the dinning room. For lunch there was a great salad bar with every type of topping you can imagine. there was always some type of mashed potatoes or broiled potatoes, rice, fish, and carved meat. Then in different stations were small sandwhices, panini's and wrap sandwhiches. The tunna wrap was really good. Then the top station had soups, ethnic foods like curry. taco's, pasta's, rice, plus deserts. I felt the desserts were lacking they had a lot of roulages, and cakes. I do not like either I like the tarts and pies. They had sugar feee deserts plus cookies too. On every day but boarding day there was also hot dog hamburgers with the toppings for that too. The solarium wwas not open until after we sailed too. For breakfast there is the typical breakfast items like scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with saussage or with salmon, biscuits and gravy, hash rounds, salmon, bagles, toast, muffins. danishes and doughnuts, hot and cold cereal. They had omletes already made. Too me there were dry so I only had them two times. Plus there was pancakes, sausage and turkey sausage, french toast with toppings. I thought the food was good but anytime I don't have to cook or clean up that's a good thing. If you are expecting gourmet food in the windjammer you will be disapointed. Also I bought a coke cup which was $6 a day for adults or $4 kids. They have a new cup which is bigger and can close! We also did the wine package I think it was platnium since there was 6 adults and we divided it bewtween the six of us and came to $100 per couple for 10 bottles or around $300.The cabins were ready at 1pm and we quicky headed to that area and wnet back to the pool.

The Pools were heated and do have salt water. It was quite warm for sSeattle it was in the 80's. Along side the pool was lots of departments showing off some of there items. You could get a raffle ticket for a chance to win something! My name was not chosen. There was a band playing by the pool too. I ended up getting a sun burn! There was the typical sail way party but we had early diner so we had to go and get ready for diner. Our bags were in our cabin but we had brought our diner wear in our carry on. Our cabin steward was really great and made some great towel animals! We had an inside and we had ample room for the 2 of us. Our wait staff was great we had Rolando Waiter and Ila Ast, and Jackie Chan for HW. All were terrific and tried to accomaodate everyone. We had seconds on somethings like Escargot! I thought the food was good. I do wish they would change up the menu. We were on the Enchantment in Feb and saw a lot of the same things. Things that were really good. Escargot, Seafod Risoto, Mahi Tempura, Chicken Kiev. You can always have ceasar salad and steak. We were on the cruise over the 4th of July and there was a special menu for that night. There were 2 midnight buffetts one was in the centrum on the night we left Juneau it was a chocolate buffet and the other was the gala buffett and it was the night we left Icy Straight.

 

The entertainment: The frist night on board was a comedian. I can't remember his name but he was good and offered another show later in the week for adults only. There were 2 RCI production shows the second Boogie Nights? was the better of the 2. The Coasters were on the ship nad they were good. I would have liked to have seen the second show but hubby said no. They did sign autographs and sold CD's which I bought and they signed that too. We did not see the newlywed show or do the quest. We did do several trivia games. We won one game and the others we were close. We got the lovely Royal Caribbean Key chain! My cousin and I went to the shopping talk. I normally do not do that but hubby was watching world cup so I went. I did get the coupon book which was advertised as only 125 can get one but then later by the pursers desk had a sign for them. They were $20 which did have coupons for Skagway, Ketchican, and Juneau. You got a free strip of bingo cards for buying one. I bought it for the bag from Del Sol which recquired a $20 purchase. They did have some good coupons in there if you are into shopping. Bingo and Casinos took doantions. I did win about $40 on the slots.

 

Ports we went to Juneau 11am-11pm- This was our first port of call and we had booked a whale watch tour with Orca Enterprises. If considering doing a whale watch tour book it through them. We had a 130pm tour and was worth every penny! We had naturalist Sean and Capt Larry on the Orca odessey. We saw lots of whales. We even had one breach out of the water right in front of the boat. Everything we saw after that was just ok and we carried that with us for the rest of the cruise. This was $110 we had 10 people plus we went to the glacier after the tour. My hubby got that on video too! We went to the glacier after the whale tour. We were starving at this point we missed lunch so we stay for about 30 minutes and then got on one of the buses back to the ship. To get to town in Juneau you had to pay $2 for a bus ticket but was good for allday. We raced back to the ship and had diner then went back to town. We did some shopping. There were your typical jewelry stores every place like Diamonds International, and Good Mark and Tanzanite and Del Sol. I bought some Russian staking dolls for $6 with my coupon, tanzanite whale tale. Diamonds International gave you a free bracelt when you bought the $5 charm and then gave you card with lots of ports on too collect different charms. There were several cheap T shirt shops too. We did the Red Dog Saloon and had some drinks and hubby had a Duck Fart Shooter.

 

Skagway-7am-7pm- We did another tour booked by Frontier Excursions. We did a 4x4 jeep tour it was $205 for the two of us and was 4 hours long. You drive a jeep and follow the lead jeep which the person tells the history of the Yukon and the area you are going through. It paralells the train plus goes a lot further. You make plenty of photo ops too. The highlite of this tour was going to an Eagle Preseve. The guy and his partner live very primitive. The live in a tent and raise sick or injured eagles and birds. They have 5 Eagles there. Bald Eagles do not get there white neck until they reach 5-6. One of the eagles will never be able to be released into the wild. Plus of the 5 2 of them were babies less than 6 weeks old and we were allowed to pet them too. Shopping again lots of Jewelry stores. We had lunch on the Vision and then came back to town. It's a bit of a walk or you can take the bus $2. Here there is the Red Onion Saloon where the good time girls are and you can have lunch and drinks there too. Here there were more native shops too. I ended up getting a pair of sunglasses from Del Sol and the free bag and nail polish. With the sunglases they were $40 but they are good for a life time as long as you send the card in. After this we haeded to the pool and hot tubs.

 

Icy Straight Point- 7am-4pm. We had booked another whale watch tour I wished we had not. Not that it was bad or anything but after waht we saw in Juneau it was just ok. But the whales here made a lot of noise plus there were sea lions too. The boat we went on was huge and booked this with RCI at $120. After the tour we went to museum and shops. I thought everything was over priced. T shirts were pricy $15-25. Juneau and Skagway had T shirt combo's for $15 and with my coupon was second one free. I looked at a hand made bracelt and they wanted over $275. I did get a cute bear claw neck lack for $20. They had some really nice Northern Light Posters for $40 unframmed again a little pricy for a poster. The Store which is sponsered by the school had the best stuff in it to me! This was the only day that was cold to me the rest of the days were in the high 60's and 70's. There were 2 restraunts we looked at one before going back on the ship. Fish and chips were $15. So we took the tender back to the ship and had lunch.

 

Seaday- Hubby watched world cup and I did some Bingo I did my free cards and my free card I got with Bingo the dog. I got nothing. Hubby and I used the card room and played travel Yahtzee which I had brought on the ship with us. In the evenings we played another card game with my cousins.

 

Victoria-12pm-7pm. Welcome to Canada! Again another bus ride $3 to get to town. The Empress was doing tea if you booked on the ship it was $80 I wonder waht it was if you did not. I have been here before. The gardens would have been nice to see but we had 10 of us so we just walkd around. Had a stree fair going on and had lots of artwork. I bought a Christmas Ornament and some Olympic Pins.

 

Debarkation- This was a night mare to get luggage! In other ports you can get the smart carts but not in Seattle you either had to carry it or find a porter which after 15 minutes of waiting we opted to carry our luggage all 4 pieces of plus 2 carry on. When you get the RCI reps try to sell the bus to the airport tickets which was $25 per person we opted for the taxi. with tip it was $35.

 

 

Airfare- free

cruise $1700 had inside cabin and $150 off the price of the cruise

hotel- $425 (3 night)

duck tour, boeing tour, acquarium, $150

shore excursion-$$650

stuff on the ship $305 it was actually $500 but had a $200 onboard credit with stock and $100 onboard credit. Things we bought in town $150

grand total$3400

Lexi

 

We had a wonderful time the weather was sunny in every port and we brought too many cold weather clothes I wore only a polar fleece vest in one port and took it off because I was too hot I wore capris in every port.

Lexi

[Cruisechick82]

Thanks for the review, sounds like you had a great time.

[thawan]

Thanks for the review. I printed out the Seatle section cause I know some day we'll want to start from Seatle not Vancouver. The hotel you had sounds just right. :)