Island to Alaska with Pictures

[zonara]

inconsequential

 

~Z

[cworld]

Love you, but your wrong again. OOPS, somebody snuck in while I was typing. This was meant for my wife, and for my wife only.

[Joy2Day]

inconceivable

[wtevrfltsurbt]

Inane?

 

[cworld]

Inane?

 

 

OOOOOOH, that's a good one, but not quite.

[Joy2Day]

Only other idea I have is 'Ironic'

[SharB]

Icky?

 

How about Ideomotor?

[zonara]

How about idyllic or immaculate?

[prophotogirl]

cworld! Come on down to the DFW M&M! :)

[Shirleya53]

IDIOTIC like some of my DH's ramblings about our 25th anniversary cruise last month to Alaska. And by the way our actual anniversary was 6-6 and we had a very nice day--thank you, DH. And Sunday he was really sick--he caught a virus from me that laid me lower than a dead skunk on Friday.

 

So Mrs C, is he going to continue on with the travel journal?

[debinnh]

I= I Imagine they're good, but I didn't do them so I don't know

[cworld]

We stepped out of those swank elevators, onto the Sun Deck, Deck 15. We turned out of the elevator and bang what do we run in to? The golf center… My prayers are answered. We have reached the pinnacle of our trip. No boring shopping, no bingo, no “chick flicks”. Goodbye, Mrs. cworld, I’ve found where I’m spending the rest of the trip. If you need me you know where to find me. Yep, gone, See ya, Hasta la bye bye.

Yes dear, she says patiently, but why don’t you just fire off a couple of pics for now, and we’ll finish the tour first.

Oh, why yes dear, that would be a lovely idea. (This is the way I remember it, but, it’s probably not the way it really happened.)

We poked our heads in to the mini golf area. My first impression was, this is not very big. Again this is not a complaint. I rolled off a couple of pictures and picked up a putter, but since I was a little imbalanced from cameras and camera bags, I decided to wait and come back and try when my hands were not quite so full.

I then stuck my head into the golf simulator area, again very small. Only a couple of people at a time could get in there. Someone was hitting the ball at the time, so we ducked out quickly, but not before seeing the sign that said something about $30.00 for 30 minutes. Oops, I didn’t remember seeing that tidbit anywhere. THIRTY DOLLARS for thirty minutes, that’s hiway robbery. At 30 dollars for 30 minutes for a 4 hour round would be about 400 dollars or something. There’s only one golf course I’d pay one dollar a minute for, and that’s Pebble Beach. We’re in the middle of the ocean not anywhere near Pebble Beach. I’ve never been to Pebble Beach, but I pretty sure there’s some land around it somewhere. (What do you mean they might have Pebble Beach as one of the courses you could pick from?) NEVER MIND.

I’ve hit balls in a golf simulator before, and while it’s OK, it’s not a substitute for the real thing. I was not really tempted to return here and spend big bucks.

We stuck our heads in to the other end of the mini-golf area and click, click, a couple more pictures. Little did I know that this would be the last time I saw the mini golf area all trip. (It wasn’t a bad thing. It just slipped our (Yes, even mine) minds… We just didn’t fit it into the schedule.) (Preview: Rant about schedule... coming soon.)

 

Rating for golf area of the Sun Deck – B for Beautiful, but sadly we never tried it out.

 

Note to self – Thinking about exercise doesn’t exactly burn the same number of calories as actually exercising. The next time you take a cruise, it might be fun to actually pick up a golf club and swing it, or get in the swimming pool, or even play a little ping-pong. Just reading about these activities in the patter is probably not as fun as actually doing them. You might try to schedule (there’s that word again) some time to do some of these activities.

[cworld]

How about Ideomotor?

 

Interesting word, the more I think about it the more sense it makes. Wasn't what I had in mind, but it's probably the only way you were going to get me into one of those areas.

[joyride]

The "I" rating means imaginable. You can "imagine" what it might be like to work out in the gym or to have a massage in the spa! Am I right? I hope so, because an Onion Burger in Oklahoma sounds really good right about now!

 

Oops, I just realized that someone else suggested the word "imagine". I guess I'm a day late and a burger short! :(

[cworld]

I almost hate to do this, but it seems time is up. Our contest is sadly coming to an end. AAAAAHHHH, Sigh, Sniffle. The correct answer was (Drum roll please)...

 

IGNORED

 

But if someone had actually guessed IGNORED, I would have probably found another word, not really.

 

I want to apologize in advance. The story may get a little hit and miss for a while. Baseball is heating up, as is the temperature in Oklahoma, and I'm not having as much time to work on this as I used to. (It's kinda embarrasing to admit, but I do actually spend some time coming up with this stuff, as lame as it may seem.) I'll keep plugging away, as long as you all stay interested.

 

Thanks for playing the game,

Carl

 

PS. Stayed tuned, maybe we'll work in another game with an even more valuable prize package.

[ricktalcott]

Take your time, but do keep it coming.

 

Rick

[margord]

Yes, please do keep them coming.

[Singinman]

I've been lurking. I say keep going. You have gotten us this far so you cannot abandon us now. How will we find the story's end unless the bard of the Island spins out his siren song.

[cworld]

After we finished with the golf area we stepped out on to the deck. What an absolutely gorgeous day. If I remember that ship report channel correctly on this particular morning it was about 60 degrees. We walked on down the deck and got a good look at the jet engine.

 

WHAT’S UP WITH THIS JET ENGINE THING????

 

Alert. If you don’t want to know the real story about the jet engine things skip looking at the rest of this post.

 

After all of the months of looking at the pictures… After all of the trying to figure out just how those things would work… After telling everyone about the cool jet engines on the ship I was going on (I didn’t really)… I find out that those cool, funky, hip, sweet lookin’ things are just hollowed out pieces of oil cans or something??? They are just up there to fool the public? Just hanging there like some Christmas decoration???

Hey Princess, WHATSUP? You put those things up there for a reason. What was it? Am I supposed to think you have a jet engine below deck that you are using to move the boat? YES. Am I supposed to think that your propulsion system is new fangled, top of the line, super secret, “I could tell ya’, but then I’d have to kill ya’, type stuff? YEP.

 

Well, buddy, it ain’t workin with me. I’m smarter than that. I’m edumacated. I dun already passed the eighth grade, twice. So, one thing I knows is dem jet ingin thingys make lots of noise. Shucks, when we’s a flyin down here to get on this boat we’s on a big old jet plane that had 2 of dem ingine thingys, and they was real loud like. The place I works at is one of them real big things where dem flyin thingy-m-bobbers come to, and leaves from. Believe you me, dem things are LOUD. If you have one of dem jet ingin thingys, hows come I don’t hear it???

 

Go back to sleep Jethro.

 

Come on, let’s get real, were you really expecting those 2 little engine things to power a ship this size? A Boeing 747 fully loaded weighs about 500 tons, around 1 million pounds. It has 4 huge jet engines. The Island Princess weighs 92,000 tons. That’s a whole bunch of 747’s (Let’s see 5 goesinta 92, 45 times carry... remember Jethro, you’re supposed to be sleeping) that’s somewhere around 182 Boeing 747’s. At 4 engines each that’s 728 engines. THAT’S A AWFUL LOT OF NOISE. Yea, yea, before you start flaming me, I understand that we aren’t trying to get the Island Princess up to 500 miles per hour, (might be an interesting experiment, but I wouldn’t want to be sitting on the balcony) but it would still take a lot of engines to move it.)

 

I’ve said all of this to make the point that the Island Princess was much, much, MUCH, MUCH, more quiet than I expected. From what I remember, (and 25 years does tend to cloud the memories) the SS Dolphin’s engines were pretty loud. You couldn’t hear very much when the engines were running. So I was expecting the Island Princess to be at least as loud, after all, it’s probably 3 times as big. BUT NO, the Island Princess was extremely quiet. When the side thrusters were on, you could hear the water move, but I don’t think I ever heard the engines. AMAZING, TRULY AMAZING. It was so quiet that one day when we were passing an island, we could hear the birds chirping. I was totally amazed.

 

Rating for the engine noise of the Island Princess – U for Unbelieveably quiet.

 

BUT

 

Note to Princess – The jet engine things on the Island Princess, and the Coral Princess are pretty lame. They take away from the stateliness of the ship. These are outstanding ships. They have great looking sight lines, and overall they look incredible from the outside. All except for the engine pods. They look cheap, especially if you look at them from on the ship. There silly. If I were you, I’d fire the designer that came up with the idea, if you haven’t already.

 

PS. Take a look at them from the back, and see if you don’t recognize a symbol of one of your major competitors in the Florida market. You know the one that has the really big real estate area in Orlando, and in Anahiem. Check out my pictures, and see if you don’t see what I’m saying.

 

Rating for hidden M***** - B

[laughing husky]

keep em coming.......I think that you have been in cahoots with my husband......Reasoning?????? Well, he bought the same camera that you did.....one day before we sailed.....I heard the same boo hoos for more days than I want to say......at least a week......after all....have to take lots of Alaska pictures......But honey, we live in Alaska........See, thats what I said.....we need to take more Alaska pictures.......But honey, the kids don't want to look at more moose pictures.....Yeh, but now I can shoot them in the eye.......and they would really like that....and besides we will probaably see a seal or too, and you know,,,,they hop off those ice floes really really fast.....and the whales.....they don't look at you and slow down.....so he comes home with this camera thing....and a bunch of dingies thingies to go with it.....now all of this sounds very suspicious.....and.....we get on in Alaska....get off in Vancouver and you get on......now I am really getting suspicious.....he took pictures of those jet thingamajobs also.....and tried to figure out what they were there. He is a pilot but he flies a real plane.....182 RG...everyone else in the family flies 777's or some kind of bus like that....so, he takes 900 pictures...saves 42 million dollars on film and developing....and you both took the same pictures....except we didn't go to the lumberjack show.....Oh yeh, our first cruise was the dolphin also, and yes, the engines were loud...it was 25 years or so ago and I remember it well....Hot, Hot Hot.

[cruisingbug]

Hi - I've been following your review with interest, as we were on the cruise right after yours. Very detailed, I must say! Thanks for all the hard work.

 

Can't get this quote box to work right...

Then processing 6 rolls costs at least $10.00 per roll that’s $600.00 (aren’t I good at math?). That’s $700-800 for 144 pictures. Or something like that…

 

The only bad thing about the digital is that it is a battery drainer. It uses 4 AA batteries, which tend to last about 2 days. That meant that we would need to take at least 8 AA batteries with us.

QUOTE]

 

Where do you get your film processed?!! That's crazy. You can get 24 frame rolls done for under $5 if you're willing to wait a day or two. I paid $6.50 for TWO rolls that I sent to York. If I want them faster, I drop them at BJs for about $4 each.

 

Something we've learned about batteries and digital cameras - buy the energizer e2 batteries. We bought ours in January for our trip to S. America and they're STILL going, through 300+ pics in Alaska, and various pics here and there. GREAT batteries! A little more initially, but no need to carry double batteries (well, we do now because they HAVE to run out eventually...)

[cruisingbug]

We are booked July 6 for a cruise tour on the island. I have heard no-se-ums can be a problem. Were they for you?

 

We took bug spray and didn't use it once. Of course, that was in May and by July the bugs might be worse. The mosquito IS the Alaska state bird!

[cruisingbug]

Hey, laughinghusky, was your husband's camera the one my husband was drooling over at the Crooner's party? He was there when we arrived, and you came a little later - and ordered Bloody Marys off the special...

 

I didn't realize that THAT was the cworld camera. I'm sure that eventually it'll be a part of our household, too, as our digicamera is "old".

[cworld]

Secret Agent Alg,

 

I'm sorry, I just noticed your question about bugs.

 

Please enter your special decoder password to see the rest of the post

 

*********

 

Thanks,

 

After we boarded the ship, an I made sure to follow protocol and check things out. I took out my handy-dandy, goverment issued, super secret, model X, bug-o-meter and did a quick sweep of the cabin. I did find a couple of bugs. I pulled them out and got a good look at them. I'm pretty sure they were Chinese, but they might have been Korean, you know how confusing they are. I replaced them with the new noise generating type that we use these days.

Over the next few days, I did get to sweep the major areas of the ship, while wearing my invisibility cloak so I wouldn't be noticeable. I only found 10 more bugs. I was able to disable them, so you shouldn't have to worry about them. I couldn't find where the transmitter was hidden. If it was me and I was trying to hide the transmitter, I'd put them up in the jet engine thingys. No one would think to look up there. I tried to climb up there an look, but when my invisibility cloak flew off, I had to quickly climb back down. I was able to find my way back to the cabin. It was kinda cold without any clothes, but I don't think anyone else noticed. If you get a chance you might want to climb up there and see if you can find the transmitter. HQ wants it destroyed if possible.

 

Good luck

 

Agent C

 

Hit the return key to return.

 

 

We didn't see any bugs in Alaska at all. No mosquitos, or anything else. It might have been to early in the year.

 

cruisingbug,

 

SHHHHH, I'm trying to convince my wife I just had to have the camera. Any excuse I can come up with I'll try. Really, I have been wanting a camera with the features that come on a fully SLR digital camera that you don't get with some of the others. The battery problem comes from the make of the camera. It's a battery hog. All of the cameras of that make have the same problem.

 

THE NIKON D70 IS AN AWESOME CAMERA.

[prophotogirl]

PS. Take a look at them from the back, and see if you don’t recognize a symbol of one of your major competitors in the Florida market. You know the one that has the really big real estate area in Orlando, and in Anahiem. Check out my pictures, and see if you don’t see what I’m saying.

 

Rating for hidden M***** - B

 

Funny I didn't notice it til you pointed it out! I love Hidden M.M.s!