Rob and the California George Family

The cruise industry is doing a lot to try to increase the revenue per person once they get you on the ship. Don't get me wrong - you can have a great time without spending on any of the extras. The price includes a room, food, and entertainment. A "service fee" is automatically taken at the end of the week to cover the standard tips for the restaurants and the room steward. You have opportunities for extra tipping, but it is for anyone special that you want to recognize or for some of the "extras" on the ship.

One extra that we partook of was the ship's photography department. We didn't purchase all of the pictures that they took and we bypassed some of the photo opportunities. However, we did buy a few photos and a scrapbook. Our arrival photo purchase included a photo of the ship and the scrapbook included another photo of the ship.

Here are copies of the photos that we bought.

Here is our ship: the Pride of America. This is the photo that came with our arrival photo.


This is when we arrived to the ship on Saturday, April 3. We had flow in from LAX, taken a shuttle to the ship, and we were about to check in and get on the ship. This photo was taken in the arrival area with a few hundred of our soon-to-be-ship-mates around us. They had entertainment and some reading to get ready for the first day, so overall it was a decent check-in experience.

P.S. They claimed that it was an important tradition to set me on fire upon arrival (see my hand in the photo above).


The ship's photography department had opportunities for formal portraits. We didn't do that. However, we did have some fun with some green screen photos. Below is the only one that Celeste and I liked. The girls were busy with the teen club and didn't join us.


At each port, there was a photo opportunity as you left the ship. We skipped the photo opp in Maui and Hilo. However, we got a nice family shot when we got off the ship on Wedneday, April 7 in Kona on the big island. We were on our way to kayaking and snorkeling (I have already posted a few of those photos).



On Thursday morning (April 8) we arrived in Kauai. Bethany, Udara, and I left the ship for another one of our shore excursions. More about that in a future blog entry.


On our final full day of the cruise (Friday, April 9) we left port early enough to sail along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai. As you can see from this photo, the scenery is very dramatic. This part of the island is off-limits to any development.


The next day, we got off the ship at around 9:15am (after one last buffet breakfast). Little did we know that we had more adventures ahead. But that is a story for another blog entry.

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Rob, Scouts, Vacation