Wonder in Alaska!!! May 27, 2013

[Brumbie13]

Hello quiet room!

 

[BigHugsForEeyore]

Hello quiet room!

300 days!

 

[annichan]

Hello quiet room!

I was thinking the same earlier today and wanted to post something, but couldn't come up with anything relevant. Seems like that shouldn't have deterred me.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Quietly sneaking in. Hello

 

[Magic3forme]

Good morning!!

Only 2 weeks until school starts !!

 

[dolphingirl47]

That is scary. Here the schools only broke up for the summer last Thursday or Friday (depending on the school).

Corinna

 

[annichan]

Here I believe school will start back up in a couple of weeks, too. Not having any kids though I'm not really sure - for me, this is pretty much the time to NOT schedule any vacations so my colleagues who have kids get their preferred vacation times.

Only four weeks today until we leave home for New York City (my first visit there ever, if you discount one time I was there at age 4 - all I remember is my awe at discovering there were kids' cartoons in TV at 6 in the morning! ), and one month until we sail away on our b2b cruise. That means that I will definitely be around this thread a lot more afterwards! DH even flat out refuses to talk about our 2013 holiday as long as the 2012 one is not yet "out of the way"

Have a good day everybody - while I'm back to suffering in the summer heat and wishing there was any other place in my life that had air-condition apart from the car ...

 

[Magic3forme]

Annichan--what part of Germany? dh travels there for work. In Sept he will be in Cologne!

Corinna-- John was just in the UK too last week... ( 2 hrs north of London)...and he travels to London too...

 

[dolphingirl47]

Whereabouts in the UK was he? We are about 2 hours north of London by train. We are avoiding London at all cost this year. First we had all the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and now it is the Olympics and Paralympics.

Corinna

 

[Magic3forme]

Corinna-- he flew into Manchester and was staying right outside of Litchfield.

 

[dolphingirl47]

We live in central Manchester and I know Lichfield as well. It is a gorgeous city.

Corinna

 

[SpeedFigure]

Whereabouts in the UK was he? We are about 2 hours north of London by train. We are avoiding London at all cost this year. First we had all the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and now it is the Olympics and Paralympics.

Corinna

Don't avoid the Olympics!! They are so wonderful to be a part of. I can't wait to be involved again. It's a rare thing to host in your country/city.

I've been reading Alaska trip reports that are posting and getting so excited!! Been thinking of shore excursions. No glacier stuff for us, but I think we'll find plenty to do. Wish we could see the Northern lights though...sigh...

 

[dolphingirl47]

Don't avoid the Olympics!! They are so wonderful to be a part of. I can't wait to be involved again. It's a rare thing to host in your country/city.

I am not really interested in sports. The three sports that I have some interest in are either not represented during the Olympics (Cricket and Formula 1 Motor Racing) or are part of the Winter Olympics (Figure Skating).

The reason I am avoiding the Olympics are the sheer logistics though. Yes, I only live 2 hours by train from London. However, it would take me about the same time again to get from the station where my train arrives at to Olympic Park. So this would make a 8 hour round trip, which is not feasible. Hotel prices in London during the Olympics have increased between 400% and 600% and they are pretty steep under normal circumstances. This means that really only people who live in London, know people who they can stay with in London or who are rich can afford to go. And that does not even take getting tickets into account. They had introduced a ballot system for the tickets and on the face of it, it was quite fair. You could enter a ballot for events that you are interested in and they would let you know if you won. A lot of those tickets were around £20. I know people through the UK Community Board who did not get any tickets even though they entered for just about every event. Others got tickets for 5 or 6 different events. I understand all about the luck of the draw, but this could have been organized better. To make matters worse, it actually appeared that they had oversold certain events. So some people who thought they had tickets for their chosen events got an email saying that they had not been successful after all. To add insult to injury, with about 2 months to go, they realized that they had a lot of spare capacity and tickets went on open sale at completely inflated prices. If they had been fair about it, they should have offered them to the people who lost out on the ballots for the original terms. Needless to say even they sold some tickets at those prices, they sold not anywhere near what they had. So in their infinite wisdom, they have now decided to just reduce the capacity.

I have to admit that I would have loved to watch the opening ceremony on TV tomorrow, especially as it cost the same amount that it would cost to build a new hospital. I figure that it must be spectacular. Alas, I am on a late shift tomorrow and will miss it.

Corinna

 

[Brumbie13]

 

[COASTIEandMATE]

I saw on another thread that you bought your airfare, DID YOU GET A GOOD DEAL? Please share... ALOHA, Karen

 

[Brumbie13]

Ha! Since I'm Mr. Mickeybars, when things get quiet for too long, or just when I'm excited, I liven the thread up by posting a mickeybar!

The photos used to be smaller, but on our last cruise, one of the cruisers was blind, and could see outlines if they were really big, so I made a habit if finding the largest pics I could find.


To answer your question, we went with Alaska Air, and two round trip tickets from Las Vegas to Alaska and back together came to about $750. I don't know if that's good or not, because I haven't flown very often, but it seemed good to me.

 

[jilljill]

Ha! Since I'm Mr. Mickeybars, when things get quiet for too long, or just when I'm excited, I liven the thread up by posting a mickeybar!

The photos used to be smaller, but on our last cruise, one of the cruisers was blind, and could see outlines if they were really big, so I made a habit if finding the largest pics I could find.


To answer your question, we went with Alaska Air, and two round trip tickets from Las Vegas to Alaska and back together came to about $750. I don't know if that's good or not, because I haven't flown very often, but it seemed good to me.

Any size Mickey bar pic is a good one. LOL!
My DD got a free Mickey bar the other day after work this past week and I was very jealous of her.


I hope you got your airfare to Vancouver and not to Alaska since you would miss the ship if you are in AK on the 27th.

 

[Magic3forme]

although I dont eat chocolate anymore, my son and daughter love the Mickey bars!! great pictures!!

I just heard about Tracys crab shack in Juneau, so that is now on our list to try!!

and ketchicandy store!!

 

[jilljill]

Ketchi Candies is the BEST!!! I was just reminding a friend this evening that he has to go there while working on the Wonder the next couple of weeks.

 

[Brumbie13]

I hope you got your airfare to Vancouver and not to Alaska since you would miss the ship if you are in AK on the 27th.

I often tell people they should listen to what I mean instead of what I say.

Ha! Yeah, it's to Vancouver.