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Bon voyage

We awoke well before the bellman was due to pick up our bags so we took the do-not-disturb sign off the door and prepared for the long travel day. The bellman arrived around 6:30. We had one extra baggage tag so I asked the bellman if anyone wanted to buy it but he didn’t know of anyone. We ordered some in-suite dining for breakfast, which arrived with a tablecloth, flowers, and a cool retro toaster that looked like Shelly Adelson had picked it up at a ’50s garage sale. There was a non-compable $1.75 delivery charge and mandatory 18% tip.

Just before eight we headed down to the VIP lounge to find the expected mob scene. Hunnybear provided me with coffee service and we waited until the last group to head out to the shuttle. It was a 40-seat bus but they called it a limo in Vegas. The bus/limo took us south on the Strip and drove us into the executive terminal at the airport, where the driver proceeded to take us right onto the tarmac and to the foot of the jetstairs leading up to a DC-9 flown by Allegiant Air, a charter airline that also has scheduled service between Fresno and Las Vegas. Their promotional literature declares, “Great destinations! Fresno! Las Vegas!”

Hunnybear and I had seats 1D and F assigned and were delighted to find we got the bulkhead on the side of the aircraft with more legroom. We got two of the 20 First Class seats but the whole plane had First Class service with individual DVD players, drinks, and snacks. In order to avoid a fuel stop en route to Bellingham we needed to take off against the flow of traffic so we waited a half-hour for a break in the flow and then used the whole runway to lift the old jet, which had just celebrated its 24th birthday, off the ground. Hunnybear thought it must have been 24 years since the aircraft was last cleaned but the dirt must have been smaller than golfball-sized because I didn’t notice it.

Ritchie passed out forms so we could pre-book shore excursions. Prices were outrageous as usual, ranging from $39 to over $300. Lunch was a choice of turkey wrap, Italian wrap, and veggie wrap so we had the wrap. We whipped out our Bose noise-canceling headsets and watched an hour and 14 minutes of The Mexican, starring Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Tony Soprano, before we had to shut down the DVD player for landing. Although I lived in Seattle for 19 years I had never been to Bellingham airport and didn’t even know it could accommodate a passenger jet. I had visions of the townsfolk gathered at the fence, pointing up in the sky. “Look, Jimmy. Have ya ever seen a plane that big?”

We landed successfully, using all of the 4000-foot runway, and taxied right up to three waiting charter buses even though the literature had said we were going by coach. The buses took us to the passenger terminal for a potty-and-smoking break and I saw the ticket counters for United and Alaska, the only scheduled airlines with service to Bellingham. I had brought my United 1K card with me and thought about introducing myself to the agents there but it was time to return to the coaches for the ride to Canada.

There was more food on our seats—a white paper bag with cookies, muffins, and chips and a bottle of water. Some guests brought the remains of their airplane food with them so they got double food. We drove a half-hour then stopped at a rest area just short of the border so all three buses could caravan through customs and immigration. The driver told us not to volunteer any more information than was asked for. I asked if this would be a good time to unload our weapons but he didn’t think that was funny. We went through truck customs, whizzed by all the trucks, and got waved through in a few seconds by Canadian immigration.

Once past the border Interstate 5 turned into Highway 99 and all the speed-limit signs turned into Canadian numbers. It must have confused the driver because as we descended into a tunnel he rear-ended a surprised dowager in a white Lincoln. We pulled over upon emerging from the tunnel and he gave her some information and made sure she was all right. They don’t believe in freeways in Vancouver so the one we were on ended and we took congested city streets for the next 45 minutes to get to Canada Place. We got stuck behind a car waiting to make a left turn onto Connaught St. I suggested to the driver that he ram him but he said only one per day.

Boarding was chaotic. Some passengers were now carrying both boxes of food in case there wasn’t enough on board the cruise ship. We stood in line four separate times, got numbered tags no one ever looked at or collected, and finally climbed the gangway onto the Carnival Spirit where we palmed the numbered tags off on a reluctant security guard and found our own way to our cabin. Hunnybear said the one thing she remembered about her Carnival cruise some years ago was it was very orange. Our cabin was also very orange but had a nice private balcony and a fair amount of closet space. It was a typical moderate-sized ship’s cabin. Hunnybear’s bags arrived quickly but mine was yet to come. However, several of other people’s bags kept arriving at our door, some with cabin numbers with transposed digits and some that bore no relation whatever. Finally they got it all sorted out and we settled in.

It was time to eat so we explored the La Playa Grill on deck 9 and shared a large hot dog with all the fixin’s. We found the casino and noticed the slot machines were turned on. Technicians were adjusting the video-poker machines, enabling higher-denomination play for us high rollers. The pay tables were laughably bad on the 25¢ machines I could see: they paid six coins for a Full House and five for a Flush as opposed to the 9/6 schedule common in Las Vegas. Well, they had a captive audience, but if I were choosing a cruise line I’d pick Royal Caribbean or Princess, both of which had looser machines.

We had a bon-voyage party in Club Cool hosted by Venetian so I had four C.C. Manhattans served by a nice Bulgarian waitress. Nowadays much of the staff on cruise ships was from former Soviet-controlled nations. Those eastern Europeans all had wry senses of humor and I enjoyed conversing with them.

The casino was open after the cocktail party so we checked out all the games and then went back to the cabin to change for dinner. We were preassigned a very nice table for six at a stern window on the upper level of the double-decker dining room. None of the rest of our table showed up and they missed a great meal. We started with some superb hickory-smoked salmon. I moved onto a nice gazpacho while Hunnybear had a low-fat salad. For the entrée we each had an order of excellent rack of lamb medium rare. It was so good John, our Indian waiter, suggested we have seconds. I knew I was going to like him. He has been trained as a sommelier and correctly picked out the 1997 Opus One as a highlight of the list. We decided instead to try the 1997 Battasiolo Barbaresco, which was yummy. Being close to the 1.5-seat helicopter weight limit I passed on the sweets but we each had a very nice assortment of cheeses.

We made a pass through the casino but forgot to bring any money so we decided to retire to the rock-rock-rocking of the ship as she sailed northwest on our adventure.

Lion thoughts:

Why do you have to wear seat belts in an airplane but not a bus?
The key to successful cruise dining is asking the waiter what he recommends.
Carnival is the king of nickel-and-diming. They charge $10 for gym classes!

Lobster night

I woke up and found Hunnybear out on our private balcony looking for whales. She didn’t find any yet but I assured her they would come in time. Meanwhile there was barely time to eat breakfast before the mandatory lifeboat drill at 9:30 a.m. so we went up to the Lido deck—Lido must be Italian for “buffet” because it was always the deck with the food no matter what cruise ship you were on—and had some decent grub. At 9:15 the drill announcements started coming and shortly after 9:30 we made it out of our cabin with our life vests and descended the crew stairs to the muster stations. They said in the event of a real emergency it would be women and children first but I whipped out a wad of money and waved it at the crewman with a smile and a nod and I thought we understood each other.

The casino was supposed to open at eight but because they did the lifeboat drill in the morning it didn’t open till after 10. Hunnybear and I found a couple quarter slots calling our names and she hit the big jackpot on X-Factor only one PowerPoint away from 10x so she got 1980 quarters instead of 5000. Still we rejoiced. We sat down with Ritchie at his host desk and noticed a brochure for Carnival’s new Ocean Players Club. Currently it was for table players only but you could earn dollars for the cruise-only portion of your next cruise. I signed up.

Soon it was time to eat so we went to the Empire dining room and sat at our regular table. Two of our missing tablemates showed up and we had mediocre hamburgers. When we asked John the Indian waiter what he recommended he said, “Dinner.” Apparently breakfast and lunch weren’t up to snuff.

We made a quick visit to the casino after lunch and I played a few hands of video poker while Hunnybear went to a kickboxing class. The rock-rock-rocking of the ship made me sleepy and I took a nap while Hunnybear provided ironing service for tonight’s formal dinner. Around six I changed into my tuxedo, went down to the casino and played a little blackjack. At 7:15 was the captain’s cocktail party. It was a roving cocktail party that roved right into the casino so I had a few complimentary Manhattans and played some quarter slots until dinnertime.

Our whole party finally showed up for dinner. It was lobster night but Hunnybear and I had to split an order of Pacific salmon as well. Both were delicious and appetizers of mushroom ragout and Caesar salad were good. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but there was a mandatory cherries jubilee so I had just one. We had time for one more swing around the casino before bedtime. Our steward had folded a towel into the shape of a bunny rabbit and left it on the bed. We propped the balcony door open with a deck chair and fell asleep to the sounds of the ship cutting through the cold water.

Lion thoughts:

All the new ships have shopping areas created by mall designers. Ours was “Fashion Avenue,” a serpentine corridor calculated to disorient consumers and put them in the mind to buy, buy, buy!
Our cabin came complete with two bathrobes. I wondered if they were provided by Venetian or simply included because we had a high-category cabin. Hunnybear declared, “It not matter because either way it make me happy!”
Although a new ship, the Spirit did not have in-cabin Internet access like the Explorer of the Seas did. They did offer $99 per person for unlimited access in the library.

Back-to-back salmon baby!

We awoke to find ourselves in Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world. There was time to eat before our shore excursion so we went up to the Lido deck and found pretty much the same breakfast buffet as yesterday minus the melons. We found a table overlooking the seaplane ghetto and watched them take off and land as we chowed down.

We put on our layers and headed down to deck A to catch a tender. There seemed to be a big line but everyone there got on the next boat. It was a 15-minute ride to the pier, where Norwegian Sky and Vision of the Seas were moored and Veendam was drifting in to take the last spot. The weather was blustery and we weren’t surprised when our guide told us our sea-kayaking trip had been canceled. We went into the visitor center and asked about other tours but everything on sea or in air had been canceled so we got a self-guided walking-tour brochure and guided ourselves. We walked in light rain for about an hour and a half. It was salmon-spawning season and we saw about a million of them swimming upstream in Ketchikan Creek. You could walk across the creek on their backs. There was a crazy guy with a fishing rod standing on the shore casting his line. He kept coming up with salmon by the fins or tail and throwing them back.

The rain started to come down seriously so we headed back to the pier and caught a tender back to the Spirit. It was time to eat so we went up to the Lido deck and had some adequate Greek specialties for lunch. Hunnybear was all excited about a movie they were showing in the Versailles Theater on Deck 1. It was advertised only as “big-screen movie” but turned out to be my favorite, Shakespeare in Love. I was astonished 50 people, including us, would show up at a mystery movie. We watched the whole thing and then returned to the cabin to change for the evening. There was a serious leak in the roof over the nine-story atrium and crewmen were laying down blankets to cover the piso mojado.

By the time I had changed the ship had set sail so I went to the casino to await the opening of the games. We had to wait about a half-hour until we were far enough away from the feds to open the casino. I lost more money trying to fill up the cherry pie and then lost even more when my 10x X-Factor came up with only 100 coins for the jackpot. Hunnybear said I should have let her play because she’s very good at what she does. The casino was jammed so I guess Carnival was happy with the deal they gave Venetian.

It was time to eat so we went to the Empire Restaurant and grabbed the window seats. World-famous gambling writer Jean Scott was there with her husband Brad and they joined us at our table because two of our party were playing in the blackjack tournament. The appetizers of king-crab legs and pickled salmon were excellent but the recommended venison was a bit too mushy and Hunnybear bailed on it and went with the salmon. I passed on dessert but had a cappuccino. We made another pass through the casino but then went to bed in preparation for our big day tomorrow in Juneau. Our steward had folded a towel into the shape of a sacrificial lamb.

Lion Thoughts:

All these cruise port cities seem to be part of some kind of convergent evolution: hot or cold, whatever the language, they all seem to develop the same mix of jewelry and souvenir stores.
After hearing for years about trendy oxygen bars, where beautiful people go to sniff scented air, I finally saw my first one, not in LA but in Ketchikan, Alaska.
Most cruise ships make the waiters do some ridiculous song and dance at the end of each dinner. Does anyone like it? Maybe they should let them do their work and get a mime instead.

Rodent-dogs

The ship arrived late in Juneau because the weather in Ketchikan so we had time to eat on the Lido deck beforehand. Cynde, our Venetian host, came by and asked us to join her at the Red Dog Saloon on shore this evening because her goal was to get hammered every night in port. I told her I thought that goal was achievable.

We threw on some layers and took the elevator down to the gangway. There was a long line of people waiting to get off the ship. I tried to get a line pass but it was not possible so we marched along to the end of the line and waited our turn. We were moored at the Franklin Pier, a fair distance from town, even though we were the only ship there and they had a nice cruise-ship terminal right in front of the visitor center. I resisted the temptation to call the captain and say, “Could you have parked any farther away?”

We decided on a whale-watching tour and the price came down $10 while we were standing there. We booked a noon tour and had time to grab a Torrefazione coffee and a bag of kettle corn from the cart by the tour office. We went upstairs and were entertained by a little rodent of a dog named Caper, a papillon dog so named because she flared her ears in a shape reminiscent of a butterfly. How adorable.

We took a purple shuttle with a large sign reading “tips are appreciated” down to Auke Bay where we disembarked the bus and boarded a similarly purple cruiser with a large cookie jar for tips seeded with a fiver. Captain Larry motored us out to the place where all the other whale-watching boats were and we sat watching some impressive performances by humpbacks for quite some time. There were no orcas because they were busy eating salmon but we did hear the humpbacks singing each to each. I did not think that they would sing to me. For some reason I was craving a peach but instead they had nice smoked-salmon snacks and cheese and crackers and I had the remnants of the kettle corn. As we headed back we saw a group of seals on a buoy. The crew passed out comment cards and I wrote I didn’t like tip hustling.

Hunnybear wanted a halibut taco so we got one from the restaurant at the dock with the big sign advertising them. Our ship had been joined by two others: the Westerdam, which I had sailed during the filming of Out to Sea with Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Lt. Data; and the Radisson Seven Seas Mariner. We had big plans for walking around town and doing another tour but we ended up watching TV in the cabin instead. I tried to get a martini but they didn’t have a shaker and I didn’t feel like a warm one so I passed even though their menu declared they had martinis made not just with the traditional vodka or gin but also with rum.

Dinnertime came and we were still moored in Juneau so it was just us and one other couple at our table. John the Indian waiter was concerned and asked us why people didn’t show up for dinner. I told him not to worry. He recommended beef Wellington so I ordered that along with a bottle of the nice Barbaresco we had had before. For starters I had some grilled vegetables and a yummy duet of mussels and shrimp. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but they had the chocolate tres leches so we all ordered one but it turned out to be sponge cake in chocolate milk. The waiters performed the Macarena and it reminded me of the first time I saw it done, by the grounds crew at Yankee Stadium.

In the main atrium bar we found our hosts from Venetian having a rip-roaring time. They tried to grab us for karaoke but we decided to hit the sack instead. The casino was still closed because the delay. Everything on this ship was late, including the ship’s clock by about eight minutes. On our way up we popped into the extremely nondenominational chapel, decorated at the altar with a painting of a man and women in Italian Renaissance garb chained by the neck to each other and an apple. At their feet was an infant holding one of those rodent-dogs, possibly a bijon-frisee. Who wanted to get married looking at that image? Back at our cabin our steward had folded a towel into the shape of a seal. Ork ork!

Lion Thoughts:

Through the magic of technology I am able to receive telemarketing calls and wrong numbers on my cell phone in the outer reaches of Alaska.
Dinner is the centerpiece of the cruise experience, where passengers are thrown for a week into a social situation with people they would never otherwise talk to.
Carnival, like other cruise lines, has gone to the automatic mandatory tip: $3.50 a day for the cabin steward and $5.50 a day for the waiter and busboy, plus a new affront of 75¢ a day for the people working the buffet. Why don’t they just pay them more and dispense with this obnoxious tradition?

Stone crab

We had time to eat before our 9 a.m. shore excursion in Skagway so we went up to the Lido deck for the tired breakfast buffet and then went down to the gangway. Once again the Spirit had the worst parking spot. I was thinking they ought to grease the harbormasters a little bit but then I’d been spending a lot of time in Vegas. Our bike trip had been canceled because the weather so we walked the 10 minutes into town and caught a free walking tour given by the National Park Service. Skagway was the jumping-off point for the Klondike gold rush of 1897-98. The ranger told some highly scripted stories as we walked among the points of historical interest, finishing at the restored cabin of the first white settler, Capt. William Moore. He told us how the settlers were spending their money “pell-mell,” an expression that did not flow naturally from the lips of a twenty-something kid.

We had a Starbucks coffee and then walked back to the ship for lunch. We tried the deli counter at the tired lunch buffet and had a couple bad Reuben sandwiches. At the last minute we decided to book the recommended White Pass Railway tour. The train backed right beside the cruise ship and we nailed a seat on the preferred left side for the 3.5-hour journey to the summit and back. The scenery and history were excellent. We had chanced into a seat with no corresponding seat across the aisle and when they asked everyone to switch at the summit we didn’t have to so we got double view.

It was time to reboard the Spirit, moored there alongside the Westerdam and the Radisson Seven Seas Mariner once again, so we cleaned up and went to the early-seating past-passengers party for free cocktails. The invitation said to bring it and I did but wanted to see if I could get in without it and succeeded. The hors d’oeuvres were mediocre but we had several yummy Amaretto sours. The ship sailed a half-hour late and the casino finally opened. I played a little video poker and quarter slots and broke about even. At eight it was time to go up to the Nouveau Supper Club, the premium restaurant where our Venetian hosts, Cynde and Ritchie, had reserved a table for us to dine with them.

The food there was good, especially the Joe’s Stone Crab claws which we ordered as an appetizer. The service took ridiculously long and we were practically asleep by the time the entrée came, porterhouse for me and more stone-crab claws for Hunnybear. We had a couple bottles of the Grgich Hills Cabernet Sauvignon. The menu said 1997 and I asked if they had any other years. The sommelier said no but brought the ’96 anyway. She decanted it, I assumed for aesthetic effect since there wouldn’t be much problem with sediment in a new California wine. It was good.

We crawled down to the cabin and crashed. Tomorrow was an early fishing day in Sitka.

Lion thoughts:

A weathered sign at the Skagway port read, “Be sure to return in 1997-98 for the centennial of the Klondike Gold Rush.”
An article in the daily New York Times news fax was written by a guy I went to Harvard with, David E. Sanger. We all used our middle initials when writing for the Crimson as they did and do in The New York Times. He was mature and professional back then and acted 40 when he was 20. I was impressed with his flowery prose. The last sentence of his article said the U.S. “acquiesced in”—rather than “to”—China’s nuclear arms buildup. I figured that must be some ultra-correct usage known only to the diction elite.
The constant waits at the buffets reminded me why it was called Carnival Cruise Line.

Baked Alaska

It looked to be a pretty nice day in Sitka, the original capital of Alaska nestled in the mouth of a protected harbor. It was just us and Holland America’s Ryndam here but they were anchored closer to town. We got up way early to go fishing, awakened by Monkeyboy playing John Philip Sousa’s Semper Fidelis march. We had time to grab coffee on the Lido deck and then met in the main atrium at 6:15. At 6:30 our guide led us down to a tender, which took us to a dock in Sitka. From there we took a bus 30 seconds to a different dock, where we got assigned to a fishing boat. Our captain was Kent, a rugged Minnesota transplant who came to Alaska to avoid the cold and crowds. A father and adult daughter, also part of the Venetian group, came along with us as we motored out a half-hour to where the fish supposedly were.

We didn’t have much luck although each of us reeled in something alive. Hunnybear and I just caught minnows but the other two each caught a keeper Coho salmon in the last five minutes. We motored back to port and walked through town to the other dock, where we stood in line 15 minutes to board a tender back to the Spirit. While we waited we were treated to a little girl playing the flute for donations, a trio of adorable blonde sweeties singing “Edelweiss” for the same, and two more li’l darlings selling cookies with a sign saying proceeds benefited the library, band, Salvation Army, and anything else they could think of.

It was time for lunch so we went up to the Lido deck and had burgers and pizza. We had a difficult time conversing with the Bulgarian pizza chef and every time we said something else we got another slice. We finally gave up and walked away with four slices. The ship was set to sail at 1:30 so I figured we’d sail at two and the casino would open at 2:30. I was pretty close. I spent the afternoon catching up on lost casino time.

It was a second formal night but since when we signed up for the cruise we were told there was only one we didn’t bother to go all-out and neither did most of the other passengers. I threw a blazer on over my polo shirt and slacks and we dined alone in the Empire dining room since all the other guests at our table were upstairs in the Nouveau Supper Club. We both had yummy salmon baked with crisp skin. When John didn’t take our dessert order I predicted correctly it was mandatory Baked Alaska night. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but since we had never had Baked Alaska in Alaska before I had just two pieces.

We made one last sweep through the casino before retiring. We found a towel folded into the shape of a nondescript long-eared animal on the bed.

Lion thoughts:

When there is a perception of scarcity, people tend to reserve tables at a cafeteria before standing in line rather than just grab one after getting their food. Depending upon the length of the food line and the time spent eating, this practice almost doubles the number of tables needed to accommodate a given number of diners.
After dinner the maitre d’ sang a couple of painful Frank Sinatra tunes. Does anybody like that? Where’s the mime?
Why don’t more places serve Baked Alaska? It’s so yummy.

Stone crab redux

Today was a day at sea so Hunnybear slept in while I went down early to check out the casino. We got a raffle ticket for every hand-pay jackpot so I cashed out each time I got a small win that put me over the limit and accumulated a fair number of drawing tickets.

This was the money day for Alaskan scenery. We cruised Prince William Sound and College Fjord, slowly sailing past the stuff that really looked Alaskan. Most impressive was the Harvard glacier, still advancing and beautiful. Unfortunately the Yale glacier next to it was retreating at a rapid rate and was no longer visible from the water.

The Venetian folks had set up a couple high-end tournaments for us so I entered the blackjack tourney and came in third, beaten by Howie, the Venetian VP, who took the big prize. I entered Hunnybear in the slot tournament but her machine was rigged and she didn’t win even though she’s very good at what she does.

We decided to have dinner in the Nouveau Supper Club again to get some more stone-crab claws. This time the service was prompt and it was a delightful experience watching the fading light over the misty coniferous islands in south-central Alaska. The $20 per person extra was like a tip in Vegas so I didn’t sweat it. I had a couple glasses of the Meridian Cabernet Sauvignon that went very well with the meal.

We thought about making a final casino pass but instead just went back to the cabin, packed, and put our bags outside the door for pickup. Tomorrow was a big travel day. There was no towel animal and our bathrobes had been collected by the steward so they didn’t inadvertently get packed.

Lion thoughts:

No matter how you’ve had the Alaska glaciers described to you, they’re indescribable.
A casino employee said this was the only bad weather they’d had out of 17 weeks cruising Alaska. Apparently it’s even more beautiful with the sun streaming down on the blue ice.
When we reached the cul-de-sac at the innermost point of College Fjord the announcement came that we would be turning the ship around “so passengers with verandahs on the starboard side may view the glaciers.” Thoughtful of them!

Follow me

I had taken several Carnival cruises early in my career and my strongest memory was of interminable blaring announcements in the cabin starting before dawn on debarkation day and continuing until you get your weary self up out of bed. Lately, cruising Royal Caribbean and Princess, we were spared that experience but today it was back in full force. The early-morning checkout was the first thing that was on time the entire cruise. They were calling passengers pell-mell by the color of their luggage tags.

We had time to eat one last time and then waited in the casino until the Venetian group, with pink luggage tags bearing number three, was called to the gangway. There was no customs inspection since we were cursorily examined leaving Vancouver as we boarded the ship and had been in America the whole time. We paraded out to find the most beautiful day of our trip. It was sunny and 55 in Seward, Alaska. We boarded an articulated Holland America Tours coach and began a stunning three-hour drive to Anchorage. On the way we stopped at Big Game, Alaska, to see a wild-animal preserve. Most popular were baby moose triplets and a yearling grizzly she-bear named Hugo. Hunnybear snapped a bunch of pictures of moose noses and we continued our journey, seeing an actual wild moose by the roadside shortly after leaving the preserve.

The driver told us to be on the lookout for Beluga whales at Beluga Point but we didn’t even see any Beluga caviar. We pulled into downtown Anchorage and stopped for a buffet lunch at the Snow Goose, where they served Grey Goose vodka that we didn’t have and held a drawing for $10,000 that we didn’t win. Hunnybear and I walked around town and stretched our legs. It was cloudy and 55. All the townsfolk were gathered in the town square enjoying the good weather. We reboarded the coach, which took us right onto the tarmac at the airport. There was our Allegiant jet waiting for us. We had seats 5A and C this time.

Our first leg was to Seattle, where we had a refueling-and-catering stop. En route we watched The Mexican again from the beginning. I liked it very much. We landed around 6:30 at Boeing Field and got off to take a breath of fresh air. I lived in Seattle 19 years and the weather was never better than this: sunny, 70, and breezy. I told all the Californians on the flight the weather was always like this and they should move up here.

On the last leg we got a nice choice of sandwiches and another movie. All the copies of Almost Famous were in use so Hunnybear watched Family Man while I played solitaire on Monkeyboy. Monkeyboy was the first laptop I’d ever owned that had a battery long enough to last a whole flight.

The Allegiant jet was a hodgepodge of parts from other airlines. The blankets were from American West. The upholstery in coach was from American. The galleys were from TWA. And the safety announcements seemed to be copied wholesale from United, complete with “primarily here for your safety.”

We landed in Las Vegas at 9:20 and piled into shuttle van-limos right on the tarmac. We followed an old pickup truck that had “follow me” painted on its tailgate and then headed for Venetian, where the VIP lounge quickly checked all of us in. We went right up to the suite, on the top floor but facing the construction, and waited for our bags. After an hour and a half I called down and said we’d pick them up in the morning but a few minutes later my bag arrived. I gave the bellman a generous tip and asked him to hold Hunnybear’s bags downstairs and we’d pick them up in the morning. We retired amid the booming sounds of construction and the Mirage volcano. A half-hour later Hunnybear’s bags showed up.

Lion thoughts:

Best week to take a childfree cruise: Labor Day. Best week to be overrun with rugrats: Thanksgiving.
Private balconies rule.
It was nice to have all these ports but they seriously interfered with my casino time.

National does it right

We slept between construction noises and got up at 6:15 to catch the 8:30 National flight back to LA. I hadn’t been certain National would still be flying when we returned from the cruise and was glad to see my favorite domestic airline still in business. We had reserved a limo to the airport and the driver dropped us at the National ticket counter since we had luggage to check. I gave him a generous tip and he patted me on the shoulder.

There was no line at National and we got our upgraded seats 2D and F, mine free since I was now a VIP and Hunnybear’s at half price of 30 points. We made it through security and trammed it to the D gates and the National Club where I used my last remaining coupon to get in. We had coffee and yummy cheese and headed for gate D1 at exactly eight. This airline ran like clockwork and they were just about to call First Class boarding as we arrived. We had preflight coffee and tea in mugs.

As usual there was a takeoff hold from LA and we waited 20 minutes or so for wheels-up. National, unlike United, figured this into the schedule and arrived exactly on time as usual. In flight we declined the yummy hot breads due to weight limits but had more coffee and tea and of course the hot towel.

National’s weakest service area was baggage claim and once again it took a half-hour for the bags to start coming out. Once they did we hopped a taxi, discovered rates had gone up another 11%, and arrived in an ever-changing Marina del Rey facing the next adventure, ready or not.

Lion thoughts:

With ever more mammoth ships being built and an endless supply of cheap labor, cruising will be a great vacation bargain for years to come.
I’m giving a big nod to ships with in-room Internet access.
While it’s a poorly kept secret that cruises, with a 10-to-one or better ratio of single women to men, are a great place for bachelors to prospect, my policy is bring-your-own-Hunnybear.

The end.

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I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com

[This message has been edited by QuietLion (edited 09-06-2001).]