Cruising

We have now steamed out of Seattle, headed for Alaska. I am still bemused by the fact that we are actually doing this. Sarah HATES the cold. With a passion.

But she did want to do a cruise. It’s on her bucket list, you see. When talking cruises, somebody mentioned how great the Alaska ones are, so she was sold. We are going. The only debate was which one, and when.

So. We are off. No turning back now. Stiff upper lip and all that.

One thing that has made me nervous about cruises is that I get motion sickness. Really badly!

Any of you who have had me as a passenger in your car for more than about 15 minutes will know exactly what I mean.

We were considering a cruise a few years ago, but the one we were about to book on … sank.

I Know!

That was around Singapore, and the idea went on the backburner until Alaska came into focus.

Did I mention I don’t swim? Not that it matters anyway. While on the “waterfall cruise”, we were told that it’s ok to swim in the freshwater part during some parts of the year, but never in the saltwater bit. The sea around here is cold. All the time! This is just a couple of blocks south of Alaska, don’t forget. North Pole, Polar Bears, Sarah Palin, Icebergs, bits of Russia.

Get in the water; you’re not likely to wash up on a tropical beach with a Brook Shields of any age. Not even a basketball called Wilson.

Someone of my weight might survive slightly longer in cold water than your average stick-sized castaway, but then I will probably be in more danger from a Japanese “scientific research” ship.

Back to the motion sickness. To be honest, for the first 24 hours I felt a bit fuzzy. Combine the expectation of feeling queasy with seeing a lot of water up close and personal from our window, and the prophesy was making an attempt at self-fulfilling. Closing the curtains seemed to fix that, but just to be sure, I popped an anti-sickness pill. Once we started to wander around, no problem. Realistically, you have to concentrate really hard to notice any movement at all. If you are on a lower deck, close the curtains. Otherwise, forget about it and enjoy.

I have to say that the cruise got off to a shaky start. For somebody as retentively organised as Sarah, the check-in and boarding process was a little random.

First, we entered the cruise terminal and joined the queue. It wasn’t till some time later that we noticed nobody else had their luggage with them. Apparently there was a luggage drop-off place on the other side of the entrance door. Nobody told us about it. Either they are used to passengers taking their own luggage, or they thought that this was only our hand luggage. I am leaning towards door number 2.

So we queue up, get x-rayed, queue up again, check-in, and queue up again for a photo and head on up the gangplank. Messy but bearable. During the above process, we had an assortment of people shoving forms at us to read or complete, while we are queuing.

Anyway, made it onboard. Now what. There really is no facility for cruise virgins to get their bearings. I have a sense now of how disrupted pax feel when nobody is telling them what is going on. Disoriented, a little lost, not a comfort zone in sight. Sarah was getting a little pissy as well.

The first thing we were told was that the rooms aren’t ready but lunch is being served in the restaurant on deck 10. Regretting that whole “carrying our luggage” thing right about now.

Luckily there was an announcement soon after, that the rooms were ready. Great. Let’s find our way to the room and get settled in.

We are on deck 2 (just below the waterline). Find the room, drop the bags, and start looking for level 10 for lunch.

Lunch on deck 10 is in a very large buffet restaurant. We don’t tend to do buffets often, so things are not improving. In CHC we have been to a family event at a buffet place called “Sequoia 88” at the Redwood pub. Very average. What’s worse, they allow kids! BLECH!

Once we get used to the layout and the flow, however, the buffet is not as bad as we first thought.

Dinner the first night. We found an invitation in our room for the second sitting of dinner in the restaurant, and our table number. We had selected the second sitting (2030) option when we made the cruise booking, so no surprises there.

What happens, though, is that we are assigned to the same table for the whole flight (sorry, journey). The table is set for 8, but there are only 6 of us at our table. Us from NZ, a couple from Canadia, and a couple from Gibraltar. Yes, the rock.

No Amrikans, so we are ahead of the game.

Lucky they are a nice group, so it won’t be too painful having dinner with them for the next week. Can’t speak for them, though. They got us.

Dinner is very nice. We have waiting staff who are tripping over themselves to ensure we enjoy the meal. Looking up at last.

Key Card

The key card you are given for your hotel room door, is also a credit card for everything you want to buy onboard. Clothes, duty free, excursions, and your bar tab.

The Bar Tab

We had made some assumptions about cruises. One was that everything would be free except for booze. Not strictly true.

They have a series of bar packages, paid for on a per-day rate.

You can survive without running up a bar-tab at all. To do this you are restricted to the juice dispensers scattered around the ship. Coffee, Hot water (for tea), water, ice, lemonade (real not sprite), two kinds of fruit punch and iced tea (cold tea not like the flavoured Liptons stuff we get).

That’s your bleeding lot, mate.

One package is for about $7/day you can have unlimited cans (coke, proper iced tea, etc).

Another package at around $12/day is a water package, for the bottled variety. All of those French ones.

Take it up a notch, and for about $14/day you can have all of the above, plus any non-alcoholic coctails.

To go higher than that, you get into the booze packages, for about $50/day, unlimited standard booze.

For the professional drinker there is a top-shelf package for about $70/day. Anything you want, just ask.

Obviously, there are prices on everything, so you can buy anything not in your package, on a per‑drink basis. Put it on the tab.

One last catch. This is an individual package. You don’t share the allowance. If you both want to use a package, get one each.