(Another) Pearl Review - 7/22-29, 2007

[alansfreed]

Hello! Fellow cruiser Aloha Gal has posted a review of this same week at the link below, but I thought I'd add my .02 as well. Her review is here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=601800

 

And here goes...

 

BACKGROUND

 

We’re from Pittsburgh, PA, and this was the fifth cruise for my wife and me. And for the first time, we brought along our 8-year-old daughter. Each of our other cruises were on Royal Caribbean, so I’ll mention a couple pros/cons of Norwegian that we discovered along the way on this trip.

 

We drove from Pittsburgh to Seattle, and took in some other great sights along the way, like Yellowstone, the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. It’s not that we hate flying… we just had enough time to make the trip and wanted to show our daughter the amazing sights of the West, and we were able to do so for a little less than what it would have cost to fly.

 

 

EMBARKATION

 

Smooth as silk! We pulled into the Seattle parking garage (2,975 miles after leaving home), fully expecting that we’d have to drag all of our luggage at least through the garage and across the street to Terminal 66. But we were very pleasantly surprised to be met by cruise valet people, who whisked our bags away right from the car for us. Sweet.

 

Once we got into the building shortly after 11:00 a.m., we checked in, and were given a number (11, if memory serves), and they began calling numbers to allow people to board. We were on the ship in no time, which was great. The cruises we’ve done out of Miami always seemed to be a herd-like experience on Royal Caribbean… although we had a similarly easy experience boarding one of their ships in San Diego a few years ago.

 

The ship left port an hour or so late due to some sort of luggage issue, and we cruised a different path than they had originally planned due to weather – but we still made it to our first stop as scheduled.

 

 

THE SHIP

 

It’s always great to cruise on a very new ship. Since Pearl is less than a year old, it was in pristine condition and the colors were bright and cheerful. I will admit that I wasn’t quite as blown away with this ship as I’ve been with many of the Royal Caribbean ones. Pearl seems to be built around numerous restaurants – most of the main public areas are within an arms length of one restaurant or another.

 

What I really missed on Pearl was an “Oh Wow” sort of spot on the ship. On the Royal Caribbean ships, they pretty much all seem to have really big, open atrium areas with glass elevators that overlook several floors. There was no real spot like that on Pearl that made you kinda gasp in awe like what we’ve seen on the RC ships. But it’s still a darn fine ship.

 

Considering we were traveling with an 8-year-old, we were very happy to find that the pools were very well heated for this itinerary! There was an adults-only pool (and Jacuzzis) and a second pool with a very nice water slide. The pools were so well heated that we were able to enjoy them every day of the cruise, even while we were in quite chilly weather at Glacier Bay!

 

We enjoyed the food on the cruise – my wife will vouch for the fact that on just about an hourly basis my favorite phrase was, “Oh look! It’s time for a snack!” Here are a couple thoughts on a few places where we ate:

 

The Blue Lagoon: We grabbed a quick bite here as one of our first meals on the ship. They have a selection of “comfort food” on the menu, and I had Buffalo wings. I’ve always had the theory that the further away you get from Buffalo, NY, the worse the wings are… and I must admit that we were pretty far away from Buffalo… so my expectations were pretty much on the money. I think there were only four wings to begin with, and they weren’t particularly crispy. But they did come with bleu cheese, which is at least a sign they knew *something* about wings.

 

We went to Mambos (Mexican) the first night of the trip. I honestly don’t remember too much about the meal, other than we liked it. It was one of the free restaurants.

 

We paid the extra to go to Teppanyaki one night. Thankfully we planned well enough ahead to get one of the few tables there. I think that they were only able to accommodate something like 36 people at each seating, so you really need to plan ahead to get a table there. The Japanese chefs were entertaining, and worked together well. Their schtick was very similar to what we’ve seen at our local Japanese steak house. The portions were generous (I had to be removed from the restaurant via forklift), and we definitely enjoyed it.

 

Summer Palace is one of the main dining rooms. We ate there at least two nights, and found it to be very enjoyable. One night we were seated in the very back of the room where there’s a large window overlooking the back of the ship. You’re literally sitting over the engines and have an awesome view of the ship’s wake from here. As we were eating, a whale jumped out of the water less than 100 feet from the ship – what an awesome sight! And it kept doing it as we got further and further away from it.

 

La Cucina (Italian) was another of the free choices of restaurants. The setting was very charming, and well decorated. We really enjoyed the atmosphere here.

 

Cagney’s: Our favorite meal of the trip. We enjoyed a couple o’ big honkin’ steaks, and had especially friendly waiters. This was another restaurant that had a cover charge, but we felt it was well worth it.

 

Garden Café: I’ll speak more about the garden café in the next section about the Freestyle experience. The food was always good here with a fine variety. But it wasn’t without its problems, as you’ll shortly read…

 

 

FREESTYLE CRUISING

 

I was a little leery about the concept of Freestyle Cruising going into it, and it more or less turned out to be what I was expecting. I can see how the no-set-schedule experience is appealing to some people, but I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of it for several reasons.

 

First, it seemed like the Freestyle dining actually involved much MORE thinking than I cared to do on vacation. The commercials imply that there’s no need to bring a watch along, but that’s pretty far from the truth. We always had to be thinking about the next day’s itinerary, and making reservations that wouldn’t conflict with the time we were spending at port, or interfere with shows we wanted to see.

 

As a result, we missed a couple of the main shows (which we would never normally miss on a cruise). On Royal Caribbean, you were assigned a time to eat (an early dinner or a later dinner), and those times corresponded with their show times so we always knew that we were going to be able to make it to the shows on time.

 

I know that many people are weirded out by the idea of being assigned to sit at a table with complete strangers, but I definitely missed that aspect of cruising this time. We have always enjoyed sitting with the same people all week and sharing our experiences with them, and getting to really know them and our wait staff. On our previous cruises, they always did a good job of seating us with people who were similar in age, etc., so we generally always hit it off with whoever we sat with. In fact, we still exchange Christmas cards with some people we’ve met this way.

 

Unless you hit it off with another couple elsewhere on the ship, you simply sit with your family as you would at a regular restaurant. And after spending nearly 3,000 miles in the car together already, we were pretty much ready to meet someone new to talk to ;)

 

I know that some of Royal Caribbean’s dinner theme nights were kind of on the cheesy side, but I missed that, too. RC would have some sort of singing or bartender tricks, etc., during the meals since everyone was eating at the same pace… but there was none of that on Norwegian. The meals weren’t “productions” like they are on RC.

 

Our main problem with the Freestyle concept was that some areas became super crowded with people trying to eat at the same time, particularly at breakfast. Every morning we found ourselves off to a really frustrated start because the Garden Café was so extremely jammed with people that we couldn’t find a seat, not to mention that there were just people EVERYWHERE up there. Most mornings, we’d wind up taking our food back to our room to eat it because there simply weren’t any seats. And by the time we finally ate it, it was cold.

 

This problem is really the result of the placement of the Italian restaurant on Deck 12. Half of the back end of the ship was the Garden Café, and the other side was the Italian restaurant. They really should have devoted that entire area to the Garden Café to free up enough space to adequately seat everyone who is herding to the food at prime hours up there. We were also frustrated by the fact that there seemed to be plenty of people who were just sitting around up there, not eating, but taking up space that could have been used by someone with a plate of food.

 

 

PORTS

 

Juneau: It was a very nice place to visit. We visited the Mendenhall Glacier, which I thought was fantastic to see. I also took a guided photography tour, which took us to a few places we otherwise wouldn’t have seen. It was also really fun to watch the salmon that were coming in. They were huge!

 

Skagway: Definitely our favorite stop. It was tremendously interesting to learn tidbits about life in this small town. For example, we learned that when women become pregnant, by their 9th month, they have to move to Juneau BY LAW! Skagway only has a tiny medical building where a doctor and dentist visit on a monthly basis. As a native of Punxsutawney, PA (yes, the Groundhog Day place), I always thought that *I* grew up in a small town… these people REALLY live in a rural spot!

 

We did the White Pass train ride and the gold dredging, both of which were fascinating and fun. Our tour guide was also fantastic for these events.

 

Glacier Bay: Amazing! I spent most of the day on the top deck of the ship. I was very thankful that I bought a jacket to add to my layers of t-shirt/sweatshirt. It was plenty chilly up there! I did have the chance to see some calving, which was really remarkable. I saw one big chunk fall off soon after we arrived at one of the glaciers, and smaller pieces fell from it a few other times. It was nice to have the national parks lady on the PA system, adding tidbits of information as we were cruising.

 

Ketchikan: Another really neat little town. We enjoyed the lumberjack show, and I just enjoyed taking a walk through the little streets and the Creek Street area. Lots of good photo opportunities!

 

Victoria: We didn’t really research this stop at all ahead of time, but I took a very nice hike (several miles, actually) and found it to be quite a beautiful place! I think I heard the word “quaint” many times as people were talking about it en route back to Seattle. The harbor area was very… well… quaint, with a bit of an art show/sale taking place while I was there.

 

 

CONCLUSIONS

 

All in all, it was an awesome trip. The round-trip from Seattle was a perfect itinerary for us, particularly since we had driven cross-country and would have had to fly back to Seattle had we taken a different approach.

 

The scenery was just fantastic, and we found the entire staff of the ship to be extremely helpful and friendly. I can’t think of a single instance where anyone working on the ship was anything less than super!

 

My wife and I both kind of agreed that the Freestyle experience wasn’t really for us, although again, that’s really just a personal preference. I’m sure there are plenty of people who greatly appreciate what this type of philosophy has to offer. We’ll most likely go back to Royal Caribbean the next time, though.

 

Again, we absolutely loved the trip, and we pretty much had to pry our daughter’s hands from the ship to get her to leave (did I mention that she absolutely LOVED the Kids’ Aqua Club? Well, I’m mentioning it now!). The ship’s crew was certainly among the best we’ve experienced to date.

 

I'd certainly be glad to answer any questions... just raise your hand, and I'll answer them in order :)

[aug2007alaskacruise]

Thanks for the great review ... this might be hard to answer ... do you recall a great time to eat breakfast? Or at what time(s) was it the worse to eat breakfast. Thanks!

[hotspur]

Interesting comments regarding seating for the Garden Cafe. On our Jewel trans-Atlantic last fall, Mama's (the Italian restaurant) WAS open for buffet seating during breakfast. Also, there was always room sitting at the stern at The Great Outdoors, and much less crowding in the buffet line. Not quite the amount of choices as in the large buffet, but more than enough to suit us and no crowding to speak of.

[brunolvr]

Alansfreed, great review and it's good to hear you enjoyed the Pearl and Alaska.

 

You mentioned

"The ship left port an hour or so late due to some sort of luggage issue, and we cruised a different path than they had originally planned due to weather – but we still made it to our first stop as scheduled."

 

Does that mean you cruised up the east side of Vancouver Island after leaving Seattle rather than the west side (ocean side)? Cruising up the east side is much more scenic the first two days.

[Warmer Climes]

Thanks for the excellent review- very comprehensive and helpful!

 

Barb

[Cruz-On]

Wonderful review Alansfreed!!!

 

Did you do the Mendenhall Glacier and White Pass Train ride through NCL?

[alansfreed]

On our Jewel trans-Atlantic last fall, Mama's (the Italian restaurant) WAS open for buffet seating during breakfast.

 

It's possible that La Cucina may have been available for seating at breakfast... but if it was, it wasn't obvious. To get there, you'd have to physically leave the Garden Cafe either at mid-ship, or go clear aft through the open area and enter through the back. We honestly never thought to look there to see if it was available. If it WAS open, it would have been helpful to have staff members steer people that way, because the cafe seating was obviously mayhem.

 

There *sometimes* was seating way in the open area at the back of the ship, but being an Alaskan itinerary, it wasn't all that warm back there. The other option would have been beside the pool area where there were some tables, but that area was cool AND windy (the back end of the ship was more protected from wind).

 

this might be hard to answer ... do you recall a great time to eat breakfast?

 

We *attempted* to eat there at several different hours of the morning. And it seemed like it was either always busy when we were trying to eat there, or maybe that's just our luck to always pick the worst times :) We were there as early as 6:30 a.m. and as late as 9:00, I believe.

 

Does that mean you cruised up the east side of Vancouver Island after leaving Seattle rather than the west side (ocean side)? Cruising up the east side is much more scenic the first two days.

 

Yes, I do believe that's exactly what we did. I know we were staying inland because there were some issues with the weather, and people were saying that the views were better on this route anyway. That made me curious as to why they wouldn't always go this way?

 

Did you do the Mendenhall Glacier and White Pass Train ride through NCL?

 

Yes, we booked all of our shore excursions (including the lumberjack show) several weeks ahead of time through the NCL web site. And the tickets were promptly waiting at our door when we got on the ship!

[Crafti2750]

Ahhh, Alaska I was there twice and would go again if hubby would, first trip was RCL out from Vancouver , 1999, and it was great, the other time was from Seattle, Princess, 2003 and had a balcony, and Victoria was beautiful, having a balcony is the best way see Alaska, I do like the same time dinning and both trips we meet great people from different country and life stlyes and very friendly.

We are going on NCL, Sun, in Nov. 10 to Roataan, Belize,and fisrt time on NCL, so when I come back I will give a review, hope I like it.

 

Good review and loved Alaska cruise.

[Lib0007]

Thank you for the nice review. Happy to hear you had a great experience. We are contemplating sailing on the Pearl next spring (Caribbean) and we also have an 8 year old (son) so I was very pleased to hear good things about the kids program for that age.

 

I have only cruised with NCL once before and I pretty much agree with your opinion on freestyle vs the regular cruise dining, but we are willing to try it again. We have mostly cruised with Carnival lately.

 

Thanks again . .

[brunolvr]

Yes, I do believe that's exactly what we did. I know we were staying inland because there were some issues with the weather, and people were saying that the views were better on this route anyway. That made me curious as to why they wouldn't always go this way?

 

We also cruised east of Vancouver Island on the June 17th Pearl to Alaska which was the first time the Pearl had cruised that route.

We talked to the Captain at the VIP cocktail party about it and he said it was much more expensive to cruise on the east side rather than the west side as it is necessary to have a Canadian pilot aboard the whole time you are cruising the Canadian Inside Passage. The west side is open ocean so no pilot required.

So the bottom line is cost -- although I wouldn't mind paying a little more just to be able to cruise the Canadian Inside Passage!

[brunolvr]

 

Summer Palace is one of the main dining rooms. We ate there at least two nights, and found it to be very enjoyable. One night we were seated in the very back of the room where there’s a large window overlooking the back of the ship. You’re literally sitting over the engines and have an awesome view of the ship’s wake from here. As we were eating, a whale jumped out of the water less than 100 feet from the ship – what an awesome sight! And it kept doing it as we got further and further away from it.

 

Summer Palace is also open for breakfast and lunch!

 

 

Unless you hit it off with another couple elsewhere on the ship, you simply sit with your family as you would at a regular restaurant. And after spending nearly 3,000 miles in the car together already, we were pretty much ready to meet someone new to talk to ;)

 

You can always asked to be seated with another couple or family at a larger table.

 

 

Our main problem with the Freestyle concept was that some areas became super crowded with people trying to eat at the same time, particularly at breakfast. Every morning we found ourselves off to a really frustrated start because the Garden Café was so extremely jammed with people that we couldn’t find a seat, not to mention that there were just people EVERYWHERE up there. Most mornings, we’d wind up taking our food back to our room to eat it because there simply weren’t any seats. And by the time we finally ate it, it was cold.

 

Again, why didn't you try Summer Palace for breakfast? They have great breakfasts and lunches there!

[alansfreed]

Again, why didn't you try Summer Palace for breakfast? They have great breakfasts and lunches there!

 

I have no doubt that they have good food there... but there is one good reason we didn't attempt either of those: time.

 

For one thing, Summer Palace was only open until 8:00 a.m. for breakfast for some odd reason (according to my wife, who is rarely wrong :)

 

And we simply didn't want to spend a lot of time on either of those meals. We enjoy eating the one big meal late in the day, but there's so much else to do that we really don't want the whole cruise to revolve around sitting at a dinner table. Eating anywhere other than Garden Cafe would involve much more time than we would have wanted to spend on those early meals.

 

In the morning, we just want to grab a quick bite, and get out to enjoy whatever port/activity/scenery there is!

[romy]

Great review, so glad you enjoyed your trip!

 

Brunolvr, thanks for mentioning the Summer Palace for breakfast, you read my mind. When we were on the Dream in '04 we often had breakfast in the main restaurant and it was great. Other cruises, we didn't think to do this and always ate in the buffet for only an "okay" experience.

 

Happy Sails!!

Romy

[alansfreed]

There were a few other things I thought of adding to my initial post, but apparently you can't go back & edit 'em in...

 

I wanted to mention that the disembarkation was a breeze, just like the embarkation was. People had an option of keeping their bags with them if they wanted to zip right off the ship first thing in the morning, so apparently anyone can hop off very early if need be (granted, you'd have to lug ALL of your bags off at once, though).

 

We put our bags out the night before returning to Seattle, and were called pretty quickly in the morning to leave. We were actually pulling out of the parking garage by 8:30 a.m., which I thought was pretty impressive. A van with a trailer was waiting to take us from the sidewalk outside the terminal up to our car -- very convenient.

 

I also wanted to add that as we were getting help from various people with bags, from the guy at the terminal who loaded our stuff onto a cart, to the van driver, to the valet... they all actually seemed grateful and even *surprised* to receive a tip from us. In Miami, if we'd forget to tip someone, they'd follow us as far as South Carolina before we took the hint.

 

I just saw someone else posting on another thread about how they felt the soda cards weren't worth it. I bought one as soon as we set foot on the ship, and as a diet cola addict, I'm sure it was DEFINITELY worth my while. I normally drink Pepsi by the gallon at home, and I'm considering simply having it injected intravenously.

 

For $63 ($60 plus an included-for-my-convenience $3 tip) I enjoyed plentiful amounts of caffeine for the week.

 

For Internet access on the ship, we had brought our laptop along, which turned out to be very helpful. It was great to have the access right there in the room (wired -- so bring a network cable if you have one). By using the laptop, I could download my mail to my mail program, and read it offline. I could then compose new messages and send a batch of them again when I was reconnected. This saved a lot of time we would have been paying for at the ship's Internet Cafe.

 

Rates for the access, if memory serves, were $.75 a minute at the cafe. We bought a package of 250 minutes for $100, and that turned out to be just the right amount of time we needed to keep up with work issues (and sending a few "Wish You Were Here" messages to family) for the week.

 

My wife reminded me that if anyone else should find themselves in Room 5582, they should be prepared to wake up at some pretty whacky hours some days. When the ship would switch pilots, they'd come aboard right below our room, or right beside it, I'm not sure which. From the racket they made, it sounded like they were boarding the ship via our toilet or something. There were all sorts of metallic banging noises as they made these transitions. We were awakened during the 4:00 a.m. hour more than once this way.

 

I'm sure I'll come up with a few other random musings in the coming days :)

[Angelcreek]

I've enjoyed reading your review and extra tips on the Pearl. Even though freestyle wasn't for you, it didn't ruin your cruise and it sounds like you all had a great time! Thanks for giving such a well rounded review!:p

[swtpnk]

Angelique,

 

This is Diane from your last Alaska cruise!! we never did get to meet, but we did book our next cruise, a day or so before leaving the ship, on the Pearl also, only to the Southern Caribbean this Jan.... have a wonderful time in alaska again, it was GREAT last Sept!! cant wait to go back again!!

 

I too am just loving all the reviews on here!!

 

have a great time!!!

 

Diane :D

[Angelcreek]

Diane!!!!!!

So good to hear from you!:D

We were going to wait until next year to sail to Alaska again, but an AFT BA opened up on this sailing and we just HAD to book it! If I remember right, you guys booked an AFT suite on your sailing to the Caribbean, am I right? You are going to have so much fun and be sooooo spoiled!:p

I can't believe it's been almost a year since our great trip to Alaska on the Star! She is a great ship, but we are sure looking forward to exploring the Pearl.

Enjoy your trip and keep in touch. Here is my e-mail if you want to drop a line. ajvandercreek @ yahoo.com

Take care and I'll hopefully see you around the boards!:p

[cliffd64]

Good review:)

 

Wow... 2975 miles in the car... bless you!

 

Freestyle is definitely not for everyone, but at least you tried it ;)

 

Some people will always prefer traditional cruising, and there's nothing wrong with that. :)

[Avidcruiser]

Thanks for the review - It was just what I was looking for since we just booked the Pearl for August 08 and we are loyal Royal Carribean cruisers. We've never been on NCL but we liked the Pearl itinerary and the fact that it leaves from Seattle. Plus the ship looks pretty nice.

 

I enjoyed your insights and can't wait to try freestyle dining to see how we like it!

[brunolvr]

There were a few other things I thought of adding to my initial post, but apparently you can't go back & edit 'em in...

 

I wanted to mention that the disembarkation was a breeze, just like the embarkation was. People had an option of keeping their bags with them if they wanted to zip right off the ship first thing in the morning, so apparently anyone can hop off very early if need be (granted, you'd have to lug ALL of your bags off at once, though).

 

We put our bags out the night before returning to Seattle, and were called pretty quickly in the morning to leave. We were actually pulling out of the parking garage by 8:30 a.m., which I thought was pretty impressive. A van with a trailer was waiting to take us from the sidewalk outside the terminal up to our car -- very convenient.

 

I also wanted to add that as we were getting help from various people with bags, from the guy at the terminal who loaded our stuff onto a cart, to the van driver, to the valet... they all actually seemed grateful and even *surprised* to receive a tip from us. In Miami, if we'd forget to tip someone, they'd follow us as far as South Carolina before we took the hint.

 

I just saw someone else posting on another thread about how they felt the soda cards weren't worth it. I bought one as soon as we set foot on the ship, and as a diet cola addict, I'm sure it was DEFINITELY worth my while. I normally drink Pepsi by the gallon at home, and I'm considering simply having it injected intravenously.

 

For $63 ($60 plus an included-for-my-convenience $3 tip) I enjoyed plentiful amounts of caffeine for the week.

 

For Internet access on the ship, we had brought our laptop along, which turned out to be very helpful. It was great to have the access right there in the room (wired -- so bring a network cable if you have one). By using the laptop, I could download my mail to my mail program, and read it offline. I could then compose new messages and send a batch of them again when I was reconnected. This saved a lot of time we would have been paying for at the ship's Internet Cafe.

 

Rates for the access, if memory serves, were $.75 a minute at the cafe. We bought a package of 250 minutes for $100, and that turned out to be just the right amount of time we needed to keep up with work issues (and sending a few "Wish You Were Here" messages to family) for the week.

 

My wife reminded me that if anyone else should find themselves in Room 5582, they should be prepared to wake up at some pretty whacky hours some days. When the ship would switch pilots, they'd come aboard right below our room, or right beside it, I'm not sure which. From the racket they made, it sounded like they were boarding the ship via our toilet or something. There were all sorts of metallic banging noises as they made these transitions. We were awakened during the 4:00 a.m. hour more than once this way.

 

I'm sure I'll come up with a few other random musings in the coming days :)

 

Did they have "lobster night" on your cruise? On our cruise, it was on Monday for dinner but some are saying they aren't serving lobster any more.

[alansfreed]

Did they have "lobster night" on your cruise? On our cruise, it was on Monday for dinner but some are saying they aren't serving lobster any more.

 

Yes, there was indeed lobster! (Woo hoo!) I believe that was on Monday night in the main dining room. There was a lobster tail in one of the seafood dishes (not a whole lobster). I believe I even included a picture of it in a gallery of trip photos I just posted here:

 

http://www.freedmultimedia.com/alaska/

[Angelcreek]

I just checked out your pictures.....they were wonderful! What a beautiful family you have!:) Thanks for sharing.

[Aloha Gal]

Yes, there was indeed lobster! (Woo hoo!) I believe that was on Monday night in the main dining room. There was a lobster tail in one of the seafood dishes (not a whole lobster). I believe I even included a picture of it in a gallery of trip photos I just posted here:

 

http://www.freedmultimedia.com/alaska/

 

 

Hmmmm, maybe I'm misleading people by saying there wasn't a lobster night on my cruise. I thought lobster night was when all restaurants served lobster and it was kind of a big deal and published in the daily, as opposed to the main dining room serving a dish which contained lobster. We dined at Cagney's on a Monday and they did have lobster on the menu (for an additional surcharge). So alansfreed, did you see lobster night announced on the daily?

[alansfreed]

Hmmmm, maybe I'm misleading people by saying there wasn't a lobster night on my cruise. I thought lobster night was when all restaurants served lobster and it was kind of a big deal and published in the daily, as opposed to the main dining room serving a dish which contained lobster. We dined at Cagney's on a Monday and they did have lobster on the menu (for an additional surcharge). So alansfreed, did you see lobster night announced on the daily?

 

I don't believe it was something that they made a big deal of in any way... I think we heard it via word of mouth rather than as an announcement in the dailies (I'm not sure where my wife hid the dailies at the moment, so I don't have Monday's handy).

 

I believe it was probably an every day optional menu item at Cagney's. I recall seeing it on the menu when we were there (at an additional cost above the normal cover charge), and we were at Cagney's later in the week.

 

I *think* it may have also been a similarly priced option at the Japanese Steak House, too.

 

Here's what my plate looked like at Summer Palace:

 

[alansfreed]

I just checked out your pictures.....they were wonderful! What a beautiful family you have!:) Thanks for sharing.

 

Many thanks -- glad you enjoyed them! You'll see shots at the beginning and end from our drive. At the beginning are shots from the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone. At the end you'll see a few photos of the wildfires they're battling in Montana.

 

It's also worth mentioning that we passed less than a mile from that bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis just two nights before that disaster. Yeesh!