Cruise Day 14
At Sea
Saturday, June 22, 2024
I slept pretty well last night, but still woke up feeling tired. I am better than yesterday, but having COVID is turning out to be like having a light to moderate cold and it’s not going to go away overnight. Because I was still tired, I was in no hurry to get up, but I finally got up around nine and Val and I headed down to the Neptune Lounge for breakfast. It looked like everyone slept in as it was pretty crowded and most of the seats were taken.
We returned to the room and relaxed until mid-morning when we decided to visit the shops. We have a lot of onboard credit on this cruise and because we have what’s called a “have it all” package, most of the things we normally would use the onboard credit for are already taken care of so it looks like we will have trouble using up all of the credit. Once the cruise is over, the credit is not transferable so if we don’t use it, we lose it and so it looks like we’ll have to find things in the onboard shops to use it up.
I found a t-shirt and Val found a necklace, but other than that we didn’t find anything of too much interest, so we still have a lot of cruise credit left. One of the side effects of taking Paxlovid is a strong metallic taste in the mouth, and I have it. Online people have suggested sucking on hard candy to help get rid of the taste, so I looked for that, but the ship didn’t have any, so I guess I’ll have to put up with it for the next few days until the Paxlovid is gone.
We returned to our room, and I went back to resting until it was time for lunch. It is pretty boring for Val, but I just don’t have the energy right now to do much. Because of the foul taste in my mouth, I didn’t think I would be hungry, but once I saw and smelled the food, my appetite came back, and I had my regular lunch.
Today our Cruise Critic Roll Call Group had arranged a gift exchange for anyone that was interested where people bring gifts representing their local area and they are randomly exchanged through a drawing. Val had signed us up for that and it was scheduled for right after lunch, but I just didn’t feel like going to it and Val had to go alone. Even though I am wearing a mask, I felt uncomfortable being in a large group of people while still contagious with COViD. Val had a good time and brought back several nice gifts from the Florida area.
I didn’t do much for the afternoon, but I did write up the blog for the
day. My cough has greatly diminished,
and the other cold symptoms have subsided, but the lack of energy is still
here. It is frustrating not being able
to motivate myself to do much. We did
our usual dinner and casino routine and then returned to our room and relaxed
for a bit, before calling it a night. We
did stop for a short time to listen to some music in the Rolling Stone
Lounge. The band is quite good and
although we haven’t spent a lot of time there, we have enjoyed it when we have
stopped by.
Cruise Day 15
At Sea
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Today is another day at sea, our second of three before our next port. I woke up feeling better and not so run down. I am slowly recovering, and I think the Paxlovid is helping, but it does have some unpleasant side effects. Oh well, I’m halfway through the five day course so I won’t have to take it much longer.
We again slept in until around nine and then had our breakfast in the Neptune Lounge. Today our Cruise Critic Roll Call group has a slot pull scheduled so Val and I will be participating in that. A slot pull is where everyone puts in a fixed amount of money and gets a set number of spins on a slot machine and then any winnings are split up among the whole group at the end. There were thirty-six of us each contributing $16 with $15 going into the slot machine and the other $1 going into a pool for the highest score. It was a lot of fun and we ended up winning enough that everyone got $10 back for their $16 investment. Val and I both didn’t win anything during our spins on the machine, so we contributed nothing to the final win, but that’s the point of the slot pull, it’s a group effort.
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| It's Val's turn to try her luck at the slot pull. |
After the slot pull finished, Val and I hung around the casino for a bit and then it was time for lunch. We have been sailing south down the west coast of the Aleutians, but just after lunch we reached the Unimak Pass that will get us back to the east side of the Aleutians. It’s a pretty narrow passage only nine miles wide, and quite scenic as we could see beautiful snowcapped mountains for most of the afternoon from our balcony. After passing through Unimak Pass, we will again turn north as we make our way to Kodiak and then Anchorage.
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| This is where I sit and write the blog, not a bad view while I work. |
At 4:00 Val and I headed to the World Stage for a question-and-answer session on the upcoming ports of Kodiak and Anchorage. We didn’t learn too much except that Kodiak will be another tender port. The original itinerary of this trip listed only two tender ports for the entire trip, but we have already had three and expect more. I think the main reason they have done this is because of a lack of local shuttle buses as many of the docking facilities are outside of town and by tendering, we are dropped off right in town. This is helpful except that tendering is usually a slow and tedious process, but there is nothing we can do about it except be patient.
Tonight was a formal night for dinner, so we needed a little extra time to get ready. As usual on this cruise, dinner was excellent, the food has been great so far. We finished the night at the casino, but not quite as usual, at least for me. So far on this trip my luck has been terrible, but tonight I finally changed that in a big way.
There is a quarter slot machine I have played and done so badly on it that I swore I’d never play it again, but of course I did, and it was a good thing I did. After playing for a bit, I hit a jackpot for over $600, finally a big win for me on this trip! It didn’t end there though, as a little later I went back to the machine and surprisingly, I hit another jackpot, this one was smaller, but it was still almost $300, altogether tonight I had won almost $900, what a turnaround. Val had a pretty good night herself and won $300 just before we called it a night. We both returned to our room happy and relaxed for a while before calling it a night.
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| My luck finally changed, I won $628.75. I came back to the same machine later and won another $300 and it was a machine I had tried almost every night and had zero luck. |
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| As we sailed southward, sunset got a little earlier. This picture was taken at 11:30 PM. |
Cruise Day 16
At Sea
Monday, June 24, 2024
This is our last sea day before Kodiak, and we slept in again today. We have been getting lazy lately, but that will change tomorrow as we have to get up early tomorrow. We did our usual morning routine and then went up to the Lido Pool area where the shops were having a sale and Val found a blanket she liked. We usually don’t buy things at the shops, but as I said before, we have a lot of onboard credit that we have to “use it or lose it” so we keep looking for ways to spend it.
We spent the rest of the morning relaxing until lunch and then headed off to the Lido Buffet. After lunch, since we were both feeling lucky, we returned to the casino and while we weren’t nearly as lucky as last night, we played for quite a while without losing too much before returning to our room.
We relaxed and read for a while and then I downloaded the pictures we have taken the last few days and then caught up on the blog. I backed everything up and got everything ready for our tour in Kodiak tomorrow. We have to be up at six for that, so I wanted everything ready, so I don’t have to worry about it in the morning.
After that, we read and watched a little TV until it was time for dinner. It was dinner and the casino as usual with neither Val or I doing particularly well tonight. We didn’t stay too long as we have an early morning tomorrow so it’s early to bed for us.
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