Well, of course the food on the cruise was great. Like most cruise ships, there are healthy selections in amongst the gourmet food, so I tried some of them. Considering they made the 'spa' menu items as alluring and tasty as they could while keeping down the calories, I'm here to tell you it's really boring. But maybe you all who watch your weight figured that out a long time ago.
We spent our time reading on deck and in our room snuggled under the duvet. Miracle of miracles, there was network TV, so I didn't miss Survivor, and to our great joy it was all the Denver stations (our home town). Hot damn! We saw news from home and what the weather was doing (snowing and then the sun came out). As my English cousins would say, I was over the moon.
Mr. Troutbend went to the casino some times, but I didn't get the impression that he was doing a great deal of gambling, and of course we had discussed that the odds would not be good on the ship. I pointed out at least once that he wouldn't be making any points with his home casino so it was senseless to spend a lot on the ship.
Do you think he listened?
When we checked the bill at the end of the cruise, it was $4,000 something because he'd been gambling, and he didn't win anything back. I'm sort of disgusted about it, because here I was thinking what a great free cruise it is, and all the time it's costing us probably twice as much as it would have if we'd paid for it.
I know, all you out there are sniffing and saying I told you so, stupid Laura, you never get ahead with gambling. No sense in me telling Mr. T what I think - water off a duck's back with him. He did remark that now he has to go back to the Rio (where he did so well last summer) and win it back.
Well. Shoot. And we didn't even make any friends within our group, and no other friends from the cruise, and on and on. At least I have my blog friends.
9 comments on Free Cruise - the Grim Reality
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OK, lemme get this straight. Because he gambles a lot and loses money in the Vegas casino, they reward him by sending him off on a cruise to lose more money gambling. And now ol' Mr. T thinks he has to gamble some more to win it back? Guess what? Sorry, but I fail to see the fun in this. I hope you keep a separate account for yourself.
Oh yes, the logic escapes me, too. I just do the best I can to let him know I have my eye on things.
Definitely different accounts. He says he has won at least $4000 at the Excalibur this weekend so we'll go put it in the non-gambling account on Monday.
Dear Laura, sorry there has to be a drawback to these things but Steeve's advice seems sound -- put some dollars away in a separate account. My b.i.l. is now gambling with his own money on casino machines and is doing very well. He has a system. Don't ask. (A while back he worked for a syndicate that paid him $24 an hour to gamble with their money and did very well for them. He and the group he managed did so well, the casino changed its odds.
When I go somewhere there's gambling, I have a certain amount I'm willing to lose. If I win, I play on the casino's money; if I lose I stop when I hit my pre-set limit and avail myself of other distractions.
Sorry about all the "negative" things that happened on your cruise, but thanks for filling us in on the whole of it. Good to have you back.
Oh yes, and Vegas has really been in the news lately!
The whole town is in a tizzy. I guess I'll blog about it over on that other place. Go look there.
Well Laura, did you have free rum punch parties and the choclate madness? Both are fun for me. What ports of call were there? We are going in November but we never go near the casino...we realize that we don't gamble, we contribute. We aren't one bit lucky.
I expected the chocolate buffet to be mobbed, but it wasn't so that was a good thing, and we bought one of those foo-foo drinks and then I refilled the glass with pass-o-guava juice (passion fruit/orange juice/guava juice) every day because it tastes tropical and fun to me. I didn't think 'we' were going to the casino, either. Silly me!