We go to Orlando!

Thursday - December 10, 2015

Day 1: 12/10/15  Below! (all the links that is, not below your computer.  That would be weird)

Day 2: 12/11/15  Hello Magic Kingdom! My, what a big castle you've got

Day 3: 12/12/15  Part I: A morning in Animal Kingdom
                           Part II:  We meet Darth Vader & the Wishes Dessert Party
Day 4: 12/13/15 Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT)
Day 5: 12/14/15 Hello Tampa!  We board Brilliance of the Seas (again)

It's vacation day!  Which makes it okay that we had to get up at 6 am for our 10 am flight.  Otherwise, I'd want to punch myself on the face for getting up that early when I don't have work.  Like all people before going on a 2 week vacation, I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off the week leading up to vacation trying to clear off my desk at work, buying everything Amazon told me I needed in a panic because somehow I forgot I was going to ORLANDO, which has EVERYTHING we have here in Orange County, trying to run around and get my Christmas shopping done (it was a miserable, miserable failure) and generally just being a crazy OCD person who likes to have everything planned down to the minute.  I was up until about 2 am the night before (the morning of?) finishing up my packing (I kept taking stuff out, putting it back, etc.  I was a moron.  I should have just left it.  Because then I'd have more summer clothes - yes, in December - which was sorely needed).  So I'm groggy, but excited because hello!  TWO WEEKS OFF = super duper awesome times a thousand.  

Brian, the guy we always get to drive us to the airport rolls up early (as usual) and we load our 4 big suitcases and drive to the airport.  We got lucky and 3 of us got TSA pre-checked.  And it was glorious.  I didn't have to remove my laptop, little quart baggie, or take off my shoes.  Yay!

Except uh...my brother, who was NOT pre-checked, ended up at the gate faster than us.  Because my mom's carry on was searched.  The TSA dude was confused by the bag of rice (yeah...we're those people) and package of tofu (I know) she had in her carry on.  So we stood there while he took out a box of tofu and examined the bag of rice she had in her carry on.  Lord knows why it wasn't checked instead, but alas, we stood around for about 10 minutes while he searched our carry on for dangerous weapons and explosives.  Because we look like terrorists.  In our Skechers Go Walks and our hoodies and jeans.  Anyhoo, he confiscated our INCREDIBLY dangerous box of Mori-Nu tofu and we went on our way...to the gate.  Where we sat around for about 10 minutes before boarding.  We got lucky and because our tickets were booked with my parents' account so instead of being in boarding group 2084, I was in boarding group 2 (see, my unawesome boarding experience going to Alaska when I booked my own ticket with my own non-premier account - sob!) - which is awesome because 1) there's less people trudging backwards in front of us and we can actually get to our seat within 2 years and 2) there's room in the overhead bins for our carry ons.  Which are actual carry on sized bags (it's a touchy subject for me.  I get super judgey).  

I'm not demonstrating the Asian squat, I was actually digging through my carry on for hand sanitizer because I am crazy.

But we get lucky on the flight - we're seated in 2 rows of three across from each other and none of our rows have a 3rd person in the middle.  And because we're in Economy Plus, we have plenty of leg room, which is wasted on us shorties.  While it's not super comfortable, it was okay and I even managed to doze for a few hours.

I don't even know how to take a selfie!  :(

look how much leg room I've got!

my brother's the tallest of us shorties at 5'9" - look how much leg room he's got!

We knew that we wouldn't have time to grab food for our flight (because we are lazy and like to sleep) and being super cheapasses (and proud of it) we didn't want to spend $10 on a snack box with dried fruit and nuts, my mama (who is awethome!) packed us fake sushi as a snack.  Fake as in it ain't sushi.  But it has rice.  And seaweed.  Basically it's just steamed sushi rice with cooked salmon rolled up in seaweed so we can grab them without needing utensils (because we ghetto like that).  After a very unsatisfactory nap (you can only sleep so well on a crappy airplane seat) I stuffed my face.  So.  Good.  Then Raymond woke up and stuffed his face.  Then I was an anal retentive OCD person and took photos of the leftovers.  By the way, my mama made two containers.  This was what was left.  Which was soon eaten when we reached our rental condo.  

We arrive a little ahead of schedule, ride the cute tram and pick up our luggage.  

he's happy.  I swear.

see?  we're all happy

Hello Orlando airport Christmas tree!

Is it stupid that I thought the little tram was cute?  I guess because we don't have one of these at LAX.  I'm clearly deranged.

We got our rental car through Costco and were assigned to Budget.  We got a great price, but the guy who worked the desk (my brother swears his name is Mohammed Ali - I just remember the Ali part) SUCKED DONKEY BALLS.  He was rude, he was condescending, and an all around asshat when I refused to upgrade our standard Kia SUV into a BMW X5 or an Escalade.  Because uh...we're going to Disney World and leaving the car at a lot during our cruise and don't want a BMW or an Escalade it means we are stupid?  Anyhoo, he dicked us around, bullied and threatened me trying to force me to buy their crap insurance and became all offended when I told him I purchased rental car insurance through Amex.  Then he threatened me with liability issues like I couldn't speaky engrish.  Honestly, he'd sell so much more insurance if he wasn't such a dick.  What REALLY pissed me off was that he then assigned us a car in the furthest possible space in the lot...except after we dragged our suitcases in the Florida humidity, the space was empty. Like I said, the butthole of a retarded donkey.  So we wandered around in the humidity until we found someone who helped us out and pulled up in another gray Kia SUV.  Random black dude who was cool and found us a car and changed our paperwork = super awesome.  Mohammed Ali who dicked us around = sucks balls.  Do I make my dislike of him obvious enough? So Orlando didn't start out the greatest for us (thanks bunghole Mohammed Ali) but we bucked up and were determined to have fun dammit!

I really wanted to stay in the World, but I really didn't want to pay $400 a night for a hotel room with 2 full beds.  With four adults, there's no way we could function in a 300 square feet hotel room with 2 full sized beds.  For $400 a night.  We'd need two rooms, which would be $800 a night - and as I work for the government, that ain't happening.  Sadly, my dream of staying inside the World had to die (sob!).  So I hopped onto homeaway.com like I always do and found a great 3 bedroom 2 bath condo about 5 miles away from the Main Entrance for $500.  Total.  Win!

It was super clean, the beds were comfortable, and it was fantastic to have our own kitchen, as little as it was used.  And honestly, since the WDW portion of our trip was so short (3 days to do 4 parks - which I do NOT recommend ANYONE do - we were about to keel over from exhaustion), we weren't there except to sleep and shower.  And we didn't even sleep that much!  Paying hundreds of dollars a night for a room you're barely in is totally not worth it.  If I had to do it again though, I'd stretch out the WDW visit from 3 to 6 days.  It's that tiring.  

master bedroom

second bedroom - I stayed here

third bedroom - my brother stayed here.  And slept on both beds - one for napping and one for sleeping at night.  He likes variety!

our bath

master bath

dining area

Once we find our condo (ahhh...) and settle in and unpack for the next 3 days and my mama makes  magic in the kitchen.  Because that's how we roll.  She knew that we were in for almost two weeks of theme park and cruise food and wanted to delay that and alleviate the pain as much as possible.  So she packed the ingredients for potstickers and that's what we had for dinner our first night in Orlando.

Dumplings are delicious.  And my mama even remembered Sriracha!  Because she is magic.

After dinner we sit and watch NBA games.  And being the crazy person I am, I scour My Disney Experience one more time and find an 8 am ADR (advanced dining reservation) for breakfast at Be Our Guest, which is the FREAKING hardest ADR to get, and seeing BOG was one of the things I had to do.  Also, a pre-opening ADR means that we can beat the crazy ass rope drop crowds and get on the Seven Dwarves Mine Train whose Fastpass+ was gone before I could even book our FP's for our trip.  Seriously - this is what I've learned: booking and planning a Walt Disney World vacation is a fine art.  If you want to eat where you want and hit the rides you want without standing in line for 3 hours - it literally takes months of planning, researching, and scouring the limits of the internets.  Oy.  It's not for the faint of heart.  Because I couldn't get the Mine Train FP 30 days out (sob!) my original plan was to get to the gates by 8:15 for the 9 am opening and literally dragging my parents through the park during rope drop hoping to get in line for Mine Train without having to wait more than 30 minutes.  Fingers crossed.  If we fall behind even a little, that wait becomes 60-90 minutes.  Because that's how crazy Disney people are.  So getting a pre-opening ADR for BOG (which is right next to Mine Train) made me so freaking happy since we get to hop on the ride before the crowds from the main entrance arrive as we're so close to it.  Even if it meant paying $19/pp for breakfast and getting up at the butt crack of dawn.  Because 6 am Orlando time = 3 am So Cal time.  

I celebrate my ADR find by high-fiving myself because no one else shares my excitement.  Then we realize that we need drinking water. And snacks.  And mascara.  And we venture out in search of bottled sustenance and find the mother ship.  It was beautiful.  And wondrous.  I wish we had a Super Target, but if we did I'd be too poor to go on vacation because all of my paycheck would be going to Super Target.

Even though I could have spent oh...another 4 hours there, I force myself to leave because we have to get some sleep to prepare for the long day ahead.  Tomorrow we go to the Magic Kingdom!

We go home (sob!)

Wednesday - September 17, 2014

We go home today (sob!).  I'm always sad when vacations end (I have to go back to work - sob!) but I actually do miss home.  I miss my own bed - I miss having my own room and not having to share a bathroom (though the last two nights of just sharing with Raymond hasn't been too bad) and I miss my puppy.  I got my puppy three weeks before we left on vacation.  Yes, that wasn't smart - but he was so cute and I missed my Bento (God rest his soul, he passed away on July 26th of this year at 11 years of age) so much that I needed a puppy.  See?

Isn't he adorable?  I missed him a lot, so even though I was sad our vacation was ending, I was happy to see my baby.  

Raymond and I wake up and trudge our way down to the lounge to have breakfast.  Instead of their baked omelet dish, they had hot oatmeal, but plenty of carbs and croissants and other deliciousness available.  We fueled up knowing that we were going to spend the day traveling.  He was flying back to Hong Kong while I was a weenie and just flying home to LA.  But since airlines no longer feed us I knew I had to eat breakfast (not that you had to force me to eat.   Please).  So we stuffed out faces because that's how we roll.  Then we went back to our rooms to finish up.

Um....we had a lot of luggage.  A lot.  We weren't going to fit into a taxi - so Raymond called the front desk and asked if they could call for a van taxi for us - and they did.  Yay for service!  We had a cool taxi driver - he lived in Hong Kong for about a decade so he could speak Cantonese (though we speak Mandarin, though we both speak the language of dim sum - which to me is the most important part of Cantonese) AND he lived in LA for a few years as well...so he knew our teeny tiny hometown!  We even talked about restaurants and places we like.  It was probably the most entertaining taxi ride we've ever had...the world is indeed a small, small place.  

Because we're taking different airlines to different places, we say goodbye to Raymond and drop him off first.  Then we go to the Air Canada hub and check in.  Where are the people?  It's all machines now!  We had to find someone to come and check in our luggage for us since they wanted to charge us.  Alas, as my parents are premier gold, they can't!  But we had to get a live body to come over and waive the fee and print out the tags for us.  Check in was easy.  What was a pain in the butt?  Going through immigration.  OMG.  Once again, there are no longer people, but machines.  Which would be great and fast, except they pull random people to go and talk to the ICE people (all 3 of them, sitting there sipping their coffees with the most bored expression on their faces) in their little kiosks.  What sucked?  My dad got picked while my mom and I were cleared, but since we were all together, we all got in line (didn't want dad to feel abandoned) and shuffled our way through.  I thought it would be fast, but the guy kept asking us questions - where we went, what we bought, how much we spent, what I did for a living, why we were away from home for two and a half weeks.  Blah blah blah.  What I really wanted to do was ask him if we looked like terrorists or people smuggling small children, but I had enough sense to restrain myself because I know the bored looking rotund man had the ability to order a cavity search and keep me from going home.  That would be no bueno, so I kept my mouth shut, smiled my cheesiest smile at him and he eventually waved us away.    

Finally!  We were through.  Because my parents are gold card members, we got into Air Canada's lounge and we partook of their wifi, delicious coffees as well as assorted snacks (I also very much appreciated their spacious and super clean bathrooms).  We had about an hour until boarding, so we chilled on comfortable club chairs and each played on our phones/tablets and ate our heads off.  

This is how we roll - we play on our phones. All the time.

We then shuffled onto our flight to San Francisco where we were going to catch another 50 minute flight home.  We had originally booked a straight shot from Vancouver to LAX in the early afternoon, but in their typically dastardly underhanded moves, the airline decided to change the flight schedule so our 2 pm flight ended up leaving at 8 pm instead.  Uh...what the hell are we going to do all that time?  I'm not for wandering around the street like hobos for hours while lugging around my crap (see our Paris trip - sob!), so we ended up switching our flightr to a much better time even though it meant that there was going to be a layover. 

Can I just say, Air Canada's economy class sucks donkey balls.  We are not tall people.  I'm 5'2" with short legs, my mom is 5'3" with slightly longer legs.  My dad is 5'8" and his legs aren't very long either.  We come from a short people (with the exception of Yao Ming, who is a freak of Chinese nature.  We don't grow them that tall) and we felt super squashed.  Maybe I should have looked around for a tall guy and taken a photo of him smushed into the seat with his knees around his ears, but I didn't want to seem all creepy stalkery.  So all I have to illustrate the sardine can sized plan are photos of our very short legs.  

look how squashed this is!  Ahhhh!

Alas, our flight ended up being late.  We had about an hour and a half layover at San Francisco which ended up being pretty much all gone by the time we got off our Air Canada flight.  We literally ran off the plane and booked it half way across the freaking airport just to make it in time to board our next flight.  Whew!

Crappy crooked out of focus shot taken while power walking through the airport.  

We made it onto our flight and finally relaxed.  Look how happy my dad is!  And fortunately, because it's a United Airlines flight and we get upgraded to economy plus for free, we were MUCH more comfortable in our new seats for our very long 50 minute flight back to LA.  

dad happy about the leg room.  And about making the flight.

look how roomy this is: you can't even see my knees!

Because there was nothing else to do, and also because I finally had a window seat, I was fascinated by all the planes lined up to take off.  

So yes,  got a little enthusiastic taking photos of the sky, and the water, and the random houses and mountains.  But I also (if you have a microscope) snapped a super bad photo of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Which is neither golden nor did it have a gate that I could see.  

if you look really, really, really hard, you could sort of kind of see the Golden Gate Bridge

After the super short flight (btw, United has the cutest airline safety video now - way more entertaining and way less awkward than a very uncomfortable flight attendant showing you how to buckle your seat belt and waving at the exits from 2 feet away when you're not paying attention at all) we were home!  Yay for crappy LAX!

Except...we did not get our luggage.  We waited, and waited and waited, and our suitcases did NOT come down the conveyor belt.   Thankfully we saved our luggage check in stubs and we hustled our way over to the overwhelmed lady working the counter.  She clicked around on her computer and sighed, then talked smack about the Canadians as well as the morons (her words) who worked at SFO, because they put our luggage on the flight AFTER ours.  And we were not the only ones whose luggage didn't make it - there were about 4 other parties on our flight whose luggage was also on the next flight.  We opted to wait an hour and a half instead of driving the hour back to LAX the next day (or waiting a week for their slow asses to deliver my pajamas).  We grabbed some seats (which we were lucky to get because the baggage place filled up and people ended up sitting on the ground) and my mom had to call and placate our poor driver who was waiting for us.  Poor guy ended up waiting in his van for all that time (we made sure to tip him well) instead of leaving us behind.  So for the next hour and a half we just sat there, playing on our phones (again) and since I'm a snack hoarder, we ate random crackers, macarons, and cake I had stuffed inside my backpack - which was fortunate because we were starving by then.    Our baggage finally came out and we finally got into the van waiting for us and we finally made our way home.  Ahhhh.

Thus ended our two week trip.  We saw things we wanted to see, things we hoped to see, and things we never thought we'd see.  We had two weeks of quality time with family (something not easily obtained these days) and with friends.  We spent days in the boonies with no TV, no radio, no hairdryer (sob!), no Target (double sob) and ate some seriously bad pho we thank the good Lord we didn't get explosive diarrhea and food poisoning from.  We saw some seriously awesome natural phenomena, some beautiful unspoiled nature, and land and water and animals as God created.  All in all, this was a crazy successful trip, one we will remember for years to come.  

We go cruising!

Monday - September 7, 2014

I wake up and think Yay!  I get to go on a cruise today!  Can you tell I love cruising?  With a rare and beautiful passion?  We (I) jump out of bed, eat their free breakfast (eh.  But it’s free.  And they have waffles!) and go back to our room to pack up our stuff.  Yes, in one night we managed to spread out.  Raymond went to the Nordstrom was severely disappointed.  Clearly he is used to South Coast Plaza’s Nordstrom and not teeny tiny Alaskan Nordstrom.  He came back a little sad.  Me, I was just excited about embarkation and was hurriedly stuffing things into my duffle.  Then I sat on pins and needles waiting for everyone to be ready to go because check out was at 11 am - we had to drop our rental off at the airport and then wait for pick up by Anchorage Tours and Transfers (I found that they had the best reviews on Tripadvisor and I liked the idea of a smaller shuttle with less people) at the south terminal at 12:30 pm.  I had no idea how many terminals there were, so I wanted to get there early to scope it out.  Yeah...I shouldn’t have worried - there are only two terminals, and as nice as the airport is, it’s still pretty small, well marked and easy to find our way around.  We dropped off our mountain of luggage with the parents and Raymond and I went to return the rental car...where I was provided with a receipt for $538.  Say what?  It seems that when it’s not my brother’s money, he doesn’t choose to read contracts very closely and opted for the stupid useless $30/day “collision/damage waiver.”  If it weren’t for the fact that a pebble flew up (during one of the many road repair segments when we were driving on loose gravel.  And the little Civic in front of us kicked a pebble our way) and chipped the windshield, I would have thrown a $h*t fit to end them all.  But since I was expecting a big ass bill from Enterprise and was thinking I’d then have to contact my credit card company for compensation (the Explorer Card from United Mileage Plus offers primary insurance coverage rather than secondary coverage like most Visa cards).  Now that I’ve paid an extra $180 in unanticipated insurance, the guy said that I’d be off the hook if they find something wrong (they couldn’t see the chip under all the dirt) since I had the insurance.  Yay!  So an unhappy circumstance (which would otherwise lead to me bitch slapping the crap out of my brother) ended up working out in the best possible way.  Yay!

waffles!  Once again, the waffle saves an uninspired free breakfast.  But it's free!  You can't diss free :)

pretty Anchorage airport.  It may have been the train station - but it's still much prettier than LAX!

Once we dropped off the car and staked out where we were supposed to get picked up we picked up a snack at Cinnabon since we figure we weren’t going to be able to eat until at the very earliest 4:30 pm and didn’t want to end up eating our fists while on the shuttle bus.

12:30 pm arrives and we see a shuttle pulling a trailer drive up.  The driver, a very nice and rotund man with a booming voice (I think his name was Dave) gets out and announces the people he’s looking for.  And it’s our ride.  What ended up being really funny?  We were in a shuttle the seated 26, including the driver.  He was suppose to have 23 passengers on the shuttle.  His manifest stated 23 passengers.  Our shuttle was super full to the point where one in our party had to sit in the front seat next to the driver.  We never did actually “catch” who the couple who slipped on were even though the driver took roll (yes, we were all on the manifest and all paid for) - but Raymond and I think it was the European couple in front of us who never stopped making out because neither of us recalled either of them raising their hands or saying “here - party of 2” when names were being called.  Hehehe.  Anyhoo, I thought he did a really good job.  The driver/guide was friendly, knowlegeable, gave us a good mix of entertaining anecdotes, local yore a well as history as we drive by various landmarks.  We made a 10 minute stop at Beluga Point - but no whales because it was low tide...looked like you could walk to China or something.  Some passengers saw a small Beluga whale beached by the low tide (they’re round and white), but I didn’t see it :(

Then we spent an hour at the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center where we saw a bald eagle who had an amputated wing (he’s been at the AWCC for the last 20 years) because he’d been shot - I’d never seen a bald eagle before.  Especially one who was eating frozen dead mice while I was visiting.  Yeah...we got a little bit grossed out.  He would grab a dead mouse, take it to his perch and start ripping into it (surprisingly delicately) and consume the whole thing.  Then he’d go and grab another one.  Uh...ew.  But we couldn’t stop staring until Raymond said it was just too nasty and he couldn’t watch anymore.  Hehehe.

see his buffet of dead mice on the right?  Ewww...

I saw him actually stretch out his wing and flap - and his wingspan was enormous - I wished I was fast enough to have caught a photo - I can see how he'd look incredibly majestic flying. But it made me sad that he only had one wing.

We saw brown bears, we saw black bears as we drove by, but they wouldn’t come out and say hello when we were outside their house (pen).  We saw elk, moose - big ass moose and baby moose, musk ox, a super stinky porcupine and two lynx.  Which are surprisingly small.  We wandered into the gift shop (small, but they have lots of cute things...all made in China) and then used the facilities, which really aren’t that bad.  At least they had running water and soap and paper towels!  My standard are pretty low now.

captain stinky the porcupine.  So his name isn't captain stinky.  It should be.

musk ox.  He was kinda not pretty.  Then again, we were looking at his butt the whole time.

baby moose!

Ray was enthralled by this moose.  So we got lots of pics of him and with him

here's his friend the attention hog.  This moose was hanging out outside with people snapping photos of him like paparazzi.  We snapped a photo walking by - as we were leaving we saw him charge the fence and we hoofed it out of there.  Death by moose (especially before your cruise) is not the way we wanted to go.

We got back into the shuttle and stopped at the Portage Glacier overlook which was cold, windy, and beautiful.  Also, there were a gazillion mosquitoes buzzing everywhere!  NO BUENO.  We snapped some pictures before we got in line for the Anderson Memorial Tunnel, which is pretty freaking awesome.  I was fascinated by the 8 safe houses.  I tried to take a photo, but it was just too fast and too dim to be able to.  I know it’s not that exciting, but I enjoyed the tunnel.  I also enjoyed that the big ass bus that rolled in late and tried to get ahead of us was stopped by the tunnel nazis and forced to wait until ALL of us have passed.  Hehehe.  

I'm not sure what glacier this was.  But it was pretty.  Even though there were flies and mosquitoes buzzing everywhere.

getting ready to enter the tunnel (crappy pic courtesy of my camera phone)

there were 8 safe houses.  I tried snapping photos of all 8.  It's a telling display of my lack of mad photos skills that this was the best photo from the multiple attempts I  made to take a photo of ALL EIGHT of the safe houses.  

the Whittier side of the tunnel (actually taken from the balcony of our cabin)

We passed through the tunnel and enter Whittier.  It is...small.  But I expected it.  I was just glad it wasn’t raining.  Apparently it’s always raining there, so we had our umbrellas and waterproof shells ready in our packs and purses to bust out when needed.  It was smooth - we got off the shuttle, grabbed our luggage and handed them over to the porters who were right next to where we got off.  Then we get ready to embark!  Yay!

Hello Norwegian Sun!  We're so happy to see you again!

everyone getting off their buses/shuttles at the cruise port

the tiny town of Whittier as seen from the NCL Sun

Uh...we walked into what looked like a warehouse and it was kinda a hot mess.  Multiple shuttles from multiple companies all arrived at the same time and there were a ton of people trying to figure out where they were suppose to go.  We had to do a health declaration and one of the women sitting next to me as I was filling out my declaration was complaining because she had been pulled out of line and told to sit to the side for further evaluation when she said she had a cough/cold she caught while at Denali.  No bueno.  

craziness at check in because literally - 6 buses pulled in at the SAME time.  I guess it's because of the tunnel schedule, you can't just roll in when you feel like it.

We got a pretty good deal on a penthouse (category SG) when they ran the Kids Sail Free (even though technically we’re not “kids”, though we are our parents’ kids.  Even in our 30’s) and upgraded from a mini suite (it was a good one too!  9278 - an aft mini we booked 9 months out) to a penthouse when my brother said he was going to be able to cruise with us.  An aft mini is fine for 3 - but for four it would be too tight, especially since the sofa bed is so small. My parents an I figured we could hack it with just 3 - they'd take the beds and I'd take the sofa bed. But yeah...that wasn't going to work with two grown kids.  We weren’t going to sleep on that sofa bed together (we haven’t shared a bed in almost 30 years, since we were both in the single digits and he said I bitch slapped him in my sleep and he refused to share a bed with me.  I think he was like, 4) and it was too small for my parents.  I figured we’d just cope (and sob a bit)...that is until the Kids Sale Free promotion came out.  When I had originally priced the SG suite (we had the same suite the last time we did Alaska, on the same ship)  it was about $6500.  We got our aft mini for around $4200 or so.  When we added my brother on, it ended up being just over $4800 for the four of us in an aft mini.  After the KSF promotion rolled out the SG priced out at $5300.  So for $500 more we could be in a penthouse - a MUCH larger room with a larger balcony, a HUGE bathroom, not to mention all the suite amenities NCL provides for their penthouse guests.  What’s funny is that our room that we had booked for $4800 was selling for $5500 at the time.  So…who wants to pay less for a smaller room in a lower category?  I suppose we could have gotten an inside room and kept the aft mini if we wanted more space - but an inside room for two on this sailing was going for $1400.  I doubt they’d let me move out of the aft mini since it was after final payment anyway - but assuming they did, it would still cost more than all of us in a penthouse - and with none of the amenities.   We like each other and get along well enough to all stay in the same cabin, so for a week, that wasn't going to be a problem. Also, it's a cruise! We're going to be all over the place, so it's not going to be a big deal to be sharing a room.

The first time I called NCL refused to allow me to upgrade...even though I was asking to spend more money for a better room - and free up a room I booked low so they could sell high.  Uh...okay.  They wanted to penalize me for $1000 to cancel and then rebook - OR pay close to $7,000 for the room.  Yeah...no. Now, I realize that the KSF is for new bookings and blah blah blah, but I was still a little sad and let down. But I talked myself into feeling better about it. Except being an anal retentive OCD person who has a hard time letting things go, I called again the next day and this time got someone who went and spoke to a manager, who was fine with applying the promotion since I was asking to pay more than what I’d already paid.  Either way - happy ending!  We got into a penthouse! (btw, we booked through Orbitz because they had a better price on the aft mini than NCL did - so we had to do everything through Orbitz, which was a pain in the ass. The first guy didn't really ask or care, at least, that's the impression I got. The second time I called I got a super nice lady, and when I told her what I wanted to do and let her know that I'd be okay if they wouldn't let me, she was super cool. She was on top of it and kept me in the loop even though I was on hold forever).

One of the perks of the penthouse?  You don’t have to wait in line to check in.  There was a butler (actually Randy, our butler) with a sign for penthouse guests - you walk up to him and once he ascertains you’re in a penthouse (from his manifest) he escorts you to an agent without waiting.  I guess we looked like bums because people kept telling us we were in the wrong line. Do they think suite guests go on Alaskan cruises wearing designer jeans, stilettos and carrying their little Chanel totes? Because then we'd totally look like bums. They run your credit card (for incidentals), take your photo, check you in and and then you’re escorted to the concierge (Leah).  Leah gave us our room cards, introduced herself and gave us a brief overview of her services.  She’s friendly without being pushy and intrusive, so I like her.  She had Randy escort us onto the ship and into our room where he gave us a brief orientation on his services.  Basically he can make magic happen, even though we’re pretty self sufficient and didn't need a whole lot of magic. At this point, I was just soooo freaking happy to be on the ship.

Our room (9202) is nice.  It’s starboard forward room, almost a mirror image of the one we had last time (9003) except it doesn’t have the stripper pole 9003 has.  I know a lot of people don’t like forward facing balconies, but I really like them for Alaska since you see everything.  And you see it first.  You don’t have to choose which side of the ship you want to be on, and it’s so freaking awesome when you approach a glacier.  I don't know about others, but I personally didn't feel like it was too windy to use. Too cold to hang out on like I could in Hawaii or Europe or Mexico - but it wasn't too windy to use when it mattered.

the cabin as you enter

looking right towards the beds (and they separate!  yay!)

couch on the left

toilet stall and shower.  We might have used the shower once.  I preferred to show in the tub because of the space and the ledge where I can stash all my crap

dressing area that faces the bathroom

our front facing balcony.  The loungers were wasted because we never used them :(

other side of our balcony

obligatory family photos.  Yes, we are that family.  The annoying one with the tripod that takes lots of family photos.

snacks from the butler!

these were the best sandwiches the entire trip.  Not as in the most delicious sandwiches ever, but the nicest we got.  The rest of the sandwiches were just on plain wheat bread.  Though they did cut the crust off.

We didn’t get on the ship until around 4 pm, and because the only dining venue open at that time was the buffet, to the buffet we went!  Actually, I went to Moderno instead. They have a pasta bar, fresh pizzas that keep coming out, and a little sandwich and salad bar.  There was plenty of seating and a few people there.  Cognizant that we were going to have diner later (because come on, we’re on a cruise ship) we tried to exercise some restraint even though at this point we were going to eat our fists.  Well, I wasn’t because I had snacked on chocolate chunk cookies I’d purchased from the bakery the previous day (I was patting myself on the back while devouring my fatty goodness btw).  I was just a fat ass glutton who wanted to eat.  But everyone else was about to eat their fists.

Then we went to explore the ship.  Yes, the same one we’d sailed on 8 years ago.  And it looks the same.  And the convoluted floorplan and layout of the 5th floor was the same.  I went to the two sit down restaurants, Four Seasons and Seven Seas and took photos of the menus so we could figure out where we wanted to eat.  

it was too freaking cold for the pool area to be a happening place.  It didn't even become a partially happening place until the last day of sailing when it was nice and sunny outside.

The Great Outoors from the 12th floor (right outside Le Bistro)

I think this was the Four Seasons' menu

And I think this was Seven Seas' menu.  But I could be totally talking out of my butt and be completely wrong.

We ended up at Four Seasons because they had a rib eye on the menu.  It was...okay.  Not bad by any means, but it wasn’t an amazingly divine culinary experience.  And come on, it’s free!  I’d probably rate it at about the level of a Fridays or Applebee's.  Not gourmet, but perfectly edible.  Though it was much prettier than a plate from Fridays.  The french onion soup was pretty good and I really liked the bread pudding.  How can you not love something drizzled in caramel sauce?  Mmm…

French onion soup.  I liked it, even though the others thought it a little too salty

eggroll/spring roll.  It ended up being the same thing at both restaurants.  Maybe someone should tell them that a spring roll is not deep fried.  Not that there's anything wrong with deep frying, but my mama was confused when the spring roll came out deep fried.  

I think this was the potatoes and shrimp.  But I could  be totally wrong

the shrimp scampi

rib eye.  It was okay

my brother's genius creation that ended up being way too salty.  Spaghetti with a mixture of beef bolognese and bacon carbonara. 

the special of the night - beef short ribs and fried shrimp

probably one of my favorite desserts of the trip: bread pudding with caramel sauce.  Mmm...

kind of a crappy photos - but we had a view of snow capped mountains during dinner

Tired (and full), I wasn’t in the mood to disco with the partying seniors (this being Alaska, the average age skewed a bit higher - but man could they boogie. I felt like the old lazy person who just wanted to lay down after excursions), so I went back to our room to unpack and chill.  This was a good day.

Oh!  For those who are wondering (like I was, as there are so many conflicting reports out there) - yes, the beds in the SG suite (ours at least) DO separate into two twin beds.  I know the description says 1 queen bed and 1 sofa bed, but the queen does separate.  I had emailed the pre-cruise concierge about a few things 2 weeks out and they were ALL fulfilled.  I asked for the mini bar to be emptied (done), the beds separated (done) and for a sharp container for needles (mama is diabetic - also done).  So I had a good experience with the pre-cruise concierge.  I heard back from them in about 3-4 days that they had received our request and forwarded it to our ship and I was very happy that everything we asked for was done.  Yay!