Your Frequent Dose of Animal Activities along with Health and Humor Tossed into the Mix!
This was the last night of our cruise and we were docked in Victoria for a couple of hours.
We discovered some NEW Phobias and decided to share them with all of you in our most recent “Trend Chat”.
Enjoy the video from our balcony of the cabin.
Do you experience any of these phobias? Which ones?
We just took our first cruise ever! The ship was incredible, there was so much to see and so much to do. It was my birthday and I was EXCITED!
There was only ONE problem. I was SEASICK! When the ship departed Seattle, I felt fine and thought WOW, this is nothing. After a couple of hours, something felt funny, and I don’t mean funny HA HA! The constant rocking made me feel wobbly and off-balance. I had never experienced anything like this before. I was BUMMED!
Even taking Meclizine didn’t help. For some reason, the only thing that helped was to lie down.
I was a whole different person once in Port AND when we sailed slowly through the inside passage. In fact, I was all over the ship having a great time and taking lots of pictures.
On TV in our cabin, there is a channel that constantly reports the sea conditions. When it showed “Calm, Rippled” or “Wavelets” I was fine. When it said “SLIGHT” I was a MESS. It’s not like there were even huge waves out there, so not sure why it affected me in a such a bad way. Mark said he had an interesting time on the treadmill where he actually had to HOLD ON. That made me feel better! He also saw some guy near the buffet, holding his hands against the wall like he was going to get sick. That REALLY made me feel better.
Besides standing, what else made me feel sick was focusing on the computer screen or looking at myself in the mirror. I know I know, looking in the mirror isn’t pleasant anyway, but seriously it made me sick. Stop laughing…
Honestly I don’t know how I survived 50 hours at sea on the way back. It’s a miracle!
I had a fabulous time in Alaska, and it was fun being on the ship, but I think next time, our vacation will be on land.
Watch the humorous video below:
Have you ever been seasick? What do you use…pills, patches or bracelets? I really would LOVE to know. Please share below!
Recently, before going on our Alaska cruise, we were wondering what kind of exercise would be available.
We discovered that there are different exercise options available on the ship including a gym, stretch classes, circuit training classes, and even a 5K race on the Jogging Track.
The jogging track was 1/10 of a mile. So in other words it takes 10 times around to make 1 mile. This is a great alternative if you are at sail and cannot leave the ship. You can also climb the stairs if you’d like to. We climbed the stairs a couple of times from deck 6 to deck 14.
When you CAN leave the ship, you WILL do a LOT of walking.
Have you ever played Pickle Ball? We were told the ship had a Tennis court and a little shocked to not find a Tennis Court but a Pickle Ball court. Thank goodness we left our racquets behind. A Pickle Ball court is a shorter court with paddles similar to ping pong paddles. Plus when you hit the ball, you have to really SMACK it hard. It’s not as easy as it looks.
Watch the video below to see a few of the fitness ideas available on the ship.
What’s you favorite way (besides eating) to participate in exercise while on a cruise? Share a comment below!
Yes, it was possible to eat healthy on our Alaska cruise! We went to the buffet everyday. Sometimes it was a little challenging to find vegetarian food, but we managed to find some every day.
I discovered cooked pumpkin which was delicious. I also had a vegetarian burrito and ate quite a bit of vegetarian pasta. Several times a day, Mark cruised the pizza bar for vegetarian pizza. He also ate desserts, which I didn’t partake in. Sometimes I had scrambled eggs with my oatmeal (the oatmeal I brought from home…just in case). I also made sure to get my greens everyday, steamed asparagus, spinach, peas or mixed veggies. The salads were good too!
One thing I didn’t care for was the veggie burger, but Mark loved it. To each their own.
At the entrance of each buffet there is a hand sanitizing station, which truly helps the spread of germs. Me and germs don’t get along too well…
I’m happy to say that even though we ate healthy, we still had a lot of fun! Not to brag, but we both came back not gaining an ounce!
Ahhhhh…Alaska. Is there anything more beautiful? Well, not that I’ve seen.
We boarded our Ship on July 31st (my birthday). On the fourth day of our Alaska cruise we started our day cruising through Tracy Arm for about 4 hours. This is the part of the trip I had been waiting for. There is no way to describe in words how beautiful the scenery was. I think the Naturalist quoted John Muir as saying that “Tracy Arm is Yosemite with Ice”. So, of course after experiencing this, our next big trip will be to Yosemite. I know I know, I’m from California and I’ve NEVER been there. What can I say?
When we arrived in Juneau, we hopped a tour guided bus to Mendenhall Glacier. Another spectacular afternoon of beautiful scenery. From the bus, we managed to see 4 bald eagles. That’s right, FOUR!
To experience the gorgeous scenery of Alaska, watch the video below.
If you’ve been here or other parts of Alaska, I’d love it if you would comment below. Where did you go and what kind of scenery did you get to experience?
This summer, we boarded the Sapphire Princess Cruise Ship in Seattle, destination Alaska!
Watch the boarding process on the video below.
More videos of the cruise itself coming soon.
Have you cruised to Alaska? If so, what was your experience?
As I mentioned in the last post, a power outage struck Western Washington and we did whatever we could to manage and keep warm.
My best girlfriend who lived 15 miles away was one of the lucky ones NOT to lose power. My husband dropped me off at her warm house early one morning on his way to work, and I spent the entire day with her. We sang, watched TV, and went Christmas shopping as the Mall had power as well. We also charged up all of our electronics devices! It was one of our best days together and I was grateful to be warm.
On the way home from her house, we stopped at Home Depot to buy batteries, but they were out. My sweet Mom called me on the cellphone and offered to MAIL batteries to me from California. Just when she decided to do this, a friend from my neighborhood called me and told me that the power was slowly coming back on. I immediately started crying with joy. Our power had already been out for FIVE miserable days.
When we arrived in our section of the neighborhood, it was still pitch black and the power was NOT back on. After we got home, we went to bed frustrated. About 10 minutes after getting into bed, I happened to look up and suddenly saw the light on in the hallway. I jumped up and yelled “THE POWER IS BACK ON”! I had never been so happy in all my life. Mark ran around the house plugging in all of the appliances and I ran downstairs to turn on the dishwasher. What a happy evening that was.
I’ll never forget my five days with no power. It made me count my blessings. The next year we purchased a generator and haven’t lost power since! Knock on wood!
Do you own a generator? Are you prepared for a power outage? Post your comments…
Have you ever lived in a place that had a major power outage?
We had just moved into our new house in November of 2006. Three weeks after we moved in, almost the entire Western part of the state had a massive power outage. If you live in Washington, I’m sure you’ll remember. I never in my life had experienced such a crazy thing.
It was freezing cold outside and I didn’t know how we would survive this. We boiled water and chicken soup on the barbecue and bundled up day and night. Going to bed at night was horrible, it was so cold we could actually see our breath. Luckily our water heater still had hot water in it, so we were able to take showers. It was horrible to step OUT of the shower into the freezing cold.
Night after night, the entire neighborhood was pitch black. It had been reported on the news that some people were heating their cold houses with propane stoves and dying, due to carbon monoxide poisoning. One dark evening a caring neighbor, whom we had not met yet, knocked on each neighbor’s door to make sure that they were alive and that they were not using propane stoves inside the house. I thought that this was an unbelievably kind gesture.
When the power went out, we unplugged all of the appliances. My resourceful husband hooked up our car battery to our lamps and fireplace blower so at least we could have light and some needed heat. We luckily had our electronics devices charged and were able to watch movies on our DVD player. We also had a tiny black and white battery operated TV that we could watch, but no cable. We had no working land phone line, only cellphones that only worked occasionally.
I bet you want to know when and if the power came on, right? Find out in the next post…
Have you ever had a long lasting power outage? What did you do to survive? Post your comments below.
In the last post, I mentioned that we moved away and I had to go to school with a whole new crowd, and how I was about to TAKE THE BUS.
I finally arrived at the bus stop. I stood there for a minute and something very strange happened. For some unknown reason, I started feeling really dizzy and I suddenly PASSED OUT! I was so embarrassed! Right in front of my future class-mates, I fainted in the street! After a few minutes, I started to wake up and heard kids laughing at me. One one of them said that I was faking it. I was completely horrified.
While I was still lying on the hard ground, I noticed that the kids were all staring at me. As uncomfortable and embarrassed as I was, I slowly got up, brushed my self off and walked home. I was afraid of what my Mom was going to say. I opened the front door and my confused Mother asked me why I was at home when I should be on my way to school. I told her the story and I don’t think she was pleased. I ended up staying home the rest of the day.
The next day, My Mother took me to school and dropped me off. Again, I was extremely nervous, and DID NOT WANT TO GO. I managed to get out of the car and found each of my classes. All day I was referred to as the “girl that passed out”. I ended up meeting some kids my own age and from that time forward I took the bus to school every day. Eventually I think the kids got over it and going to school became fun again.
Have any of you done something so embarrassing you didn’t want to go to school? If so, post a comment below and share with the rest of us!
When I was young, I attended Pinecrest, a private elementary school in Granada Hills, CA. Unfortunately, before entering the 6th grade, my Mom and Step-Dad decided to move to Saugus, CA, which was far away! Well at least it was to me! I loved my school and didn’t want to leave my close friends. This was very upsetting.
My parents put me in a new local public school in sixth grade and I knew not one person. I was very quiet and shy and it was very hard for me to easily make new friends.
The year after that, still not knowing many of the kids, I had to attend Junior High school. Because the Junior High school was at least 10 long miles from home, my Mother made me take the bus. I had never taken a bus to school before so this was going to be a new and scary experience.
I remember my first day, I had to walk to the bus stop by myself. It was couple of blocks from my house. On the way there, I passed a dead bloody animal. It was either a rabbit or a skunk. Poor thing. As I got closer to the bus stop, I saw a crowd of boys and girls my age, waiting for the bus as well. I’m sure my heart was racing and beating out of my chest.
You won’t BELIEVE what happened next. Tune in for the next post!
Did you ever have to MOVE and attend a school where you knew no one? How did you feel? Post your comments below…
