The Alaskan Cruise Experience (Ep. 27)

Transcript

Angela (00:00):
Hi, I am Angela Deloretto, and you're listening to Travel Fuels Life.

Drew (00:17):
Hello everybody, and welcome to Travel Fuels Life, the show where we share stories, tips and inspiration to help you live a travel lifestyle. I'm your host, drew Hanish. Now stick with me for a second. I want you to close your eyes unless you're driving, of course, and imagine that you're at an all inclusive resort. And not only that, but you are floating. And that floating all-inclusive resort is taking you straight to your destination. And all you had to do was pay for this upfront and you really didn't have to have any money to bring along with you. Well, that my friends is cruising. And cruising is a fantastic way for first time travelers to get out there and get their feet wet. And it's also a good way for you to get to some destinations that might be a little bit tougher to get to by car or by plane.

(01:11):
And Alaska is one of those locations. So this week my guest from Fitting in Adventure is Angela Deloretto, and she's just returned from a cruise where she went up the inside passage and I thought, what better time than right now to have her on talking about the cruising experience? So we're going to talk about how she got into doing these cruises because she's done more than one. We'll chat about her life as a resident in Vegas, and we'll talk about her upcoming podcast. So from my home here in Greenville, South Carolina, it's time to dial up Vegas and do some chatting with Angela Deloretto. Angela, how are you doing today?

Angela (01:54):
I'm doing well. How are you?

Drew (01:56):
I'm doing great. Doing great. So just so everybody knows, we met over Twitter and since then we've kind of connected on the marketing level of things. So we've been masterminding a bit together on those things, and we both worked ourselves to a degree into doing travel blogging, and now you're talking about doing podcasting as well. So tell me, how did you arrive at this point and this destination in your life?

Angela (02:28):
Well, I've been doing the marketing for online for a variety of different companies, some of them travel based as well, and I just kind of looked at it a couple of years ago when I had a lot of changes in my life and a lot of realizing that life is very, very short and too short and decided that it was time for me to do it for myself rather than just building these giant communities for other people. And I'm just now getting around to that because it wasn't in the mindset to do it until now, but this is exactly what I've been doing. I've just been doing it for large corporations, entertainment based and travel based, and now it's time to tell the stories the way I want to tell 'em.

Drew (03:16):
So have you put together the magical bucket list of places that you want to go?

Angela (03:22):
Well, in the last two years since all that happened, because what happened was we actually lost a lot of people in our lives, my husband and I. So it started with October one shooting here in Vegas and just continued on By the end of the month we've lost several other people, including my dad. So that just kind of sent it all home for us. I think it was May before the next May before we didn't get a call that month that somebody very close to us had passed away. And so it was just hit after hit after hit during that time, and we started traveling then in August and just kind of the whole life is too short and we can always say someday for these trips or we can just do it. And so we've hit eight countries in 18 states during that time.

Drew (04:14):
Oh, nice. And when did you get to a point where you said, I need to turn this into a business?

Angela (04:21):
Well, I kind of knew from the start, but by about the January after all that happened, I knew that it needed to be. I just haven't been clear enough headed to do it until I'm getting there now between handling my clients that are still paying me to do their things, that was all the energy I had in the day. And so now I'm just now getting to that point of I'm ready. Yeah. So you mentioned podcasting that I was actually in the process of we were about to go live and that was one of the friends that passed away was somebody that I was working on that with. So I have all this, it's all there and ready, but I dunno if I'll do that one or if I'll do a different one. I've kind of want to do a different one.

Drew (05:05):
Yeah. So you talked about maybe doing one around Las Vegas, right?

Angela (05:11):
Yes, yes. The history of Las Vegas is so much fun, and it's not, I mean, everybody wants to watch it. Everybody turns on the travel channel or history channel or whatever, what it's on there and watches and is like, how did this ever happen in Vegas? And there's people here that lived through it that were working in the casinos when it all went down and things like that. And they have amazing stories when you catch 'em out on a happy hour or have lunch with them, they have amazing stories that they start to tell you just on a personal level. And these are stories that I feel like everyone would want to hear,

Drew (05:48):
Well as many, especially the true crime and all of those types of podcasts and mysteries and all that sort of stuff. I would imagine that it would be fascinating, especially for Las Vegas. I mean, you could probably do a hundred years worth of podcast episodes and never cover everything that's gone into Las Vegas,

Angela (06:09):
Just the eighties alone, the seventies and eighties alone.

Drew (06:13):
So getting into your travels now, and I got interested in your recent trip because you and your husband went off to Alaska on a cruise, and I guess I'd start off by saying, is cruising something that you've done before? Was this your first cruise? Are you somebody that does cruises all the time? How does that go for you?

Angela (06:36):
Well, we did our first cruise a couple years ago, and it was a short little out of Long Beach down to the Baja Mexico. Well, it was supposed to be that to see if we got seasick, if we liked it or anything like that. It was an awful, awful trip. We didn't make a single port.

Drew (06:53):
Oh, no.

Angela (06:53):
Awful. The weather was so bad that everywhere you went, people were getting sick because they took us further out to see them so they could open the casino so they could try to make the best of it for them. And we live in Vegas, so we have a casino, but entertainment usually isn't something that interests us on a cruise either. So it was awful. And I came home, I said, never again, never. And then we went through everything we went through, and I hadn't changed my name from getting married, and so we had turned in my passport to change my name because partway through it with the whole to settle my dad's estate and I needed to hurry it along. So he turned in my passport to change the name, came home, turned on Netflix and watched Papa Hemmingway, and I was like, we need to go to Cuba before it changes too much. And so start researching. And a cruise was, at the time, not anymore, but at the time, the easiest way into Cuba for Americans to go in and just, I have some food allergies, so it was going to be safe. I could eat on the boat and not worry about language barriers or anything like that. So we took that cruise and that one was okay. It was a different cruise company, and that one was okay because we were on that cruise within two weeks of seeing papa Hemmingway.

Drew (08:20):
Wow. That was quick

Angela (08:22):
Then. Yeah, we did it quick. As soon as that passport was back, it was booked and we were on a flight, and then we planned to take our daughter to Greece in the summer, and that just kind of included a little bit of a cruise too around the island. So we did that one too. And it was actually while we were in Cuba that we booked Alaska because they give you that horrible day at sea and you're bored. And we had a few drinks and I guess it was drunk shopping.

Drew (08:58):
Nice. Yeah, you got to watch and maybe hide your credit card when it's late at night and you've had a few.

Angela (09:06):
Yeah. Well, it happened again on this one.

Drew (09:09):
Oh man. We didn't

Angela (09:10):
Even learn a lesson.

Drew (09:12):
Yeah. So you got used to cruises pretty quickly then. I mean, would you say that your impression of cruises is a whole lot better now, especially after the Alaska experience?

Angela (09:23):
It was a good experience. I think that for me anyway, probably a lot of, because of where I live with casinos are already here. We have world-class entertainment right here, so none of the things on the ship really appeal to me between the restaurants we have in Vegas too and everything. It is just a way to get there and not have to unpack and repack and move hotels and things like that as you move from city to city. So it's a transportation method for me.

Drew (09:54):
So I take it then that you mostly go onto the cruise line websites to get your reservations, or do you go through an agency or how do you handle that?

Angela (10:04):
Well, we went on the cruise line website for Cuba, and then, like I said, it was the future bookings or whatever that we did this for Alaska through and got a pretty good deal. The crews that they got us interested in on this trip that we're going to do is to the Galapagos Islands, and we did not book through them because a friend of mine had told me about a website that clears out kind of like the last minute cruises 90 days out, and they are way cheaper, way cheaper. She pulled up the cruise that we were on for Alaska, and it was like a 10th of what we spent. Oh, wow. And it didn't have all the internet package that was already in ours and everything, but you can add that for a whole lot cheaper than 10 times more. So the Galapagos, I think going through the last minute deals like that, you can kind of know I'm going to go sometime in August of 2020, but you've got to wait until a couple months out to actually book it. But that's usually not a problem for people these days. Yeah, I'm sure the cruise lines don't want to hear me say wait till 90 days out to book your cruise and then go through a discounted broker, but hey.

Drew (11:28):
Right. Well, I mean that's part of what we try to find here is how can you travel more and you can't travel as much if you're paying top dollar for every place that you're going. So I mean, I give shameless plugs to Scotts cheap flights.com because for me, any way that I can help people who are listening to the podcast find a really good deal and be able to save that money so that can spend that extra on another trip or doing something that they really enjoy when they go on a trip. Because the worst thing is spending all of your money on the transportation to get there in the hotel you're staying in and have no money to do anything when you actually get to the location. So if you don't mind sharing that link to the website that you're getting the deals off of, I would happily post that.

Angela (12:16):
Sure. It's vacations to go.com. Okay. My husband's a veteran and there's actually even deeper discounts for veterans, so

Drew (12:25):
Good, good, good. Galapagos is somewhere I would love to go. And actually, I talked to somebody else who I'd like to get on the show sometime soon and talk about their experience to Galapagos because again, how do you know how to plan out how long should you be there? Of course, you're going with the crews, you're kind of structured on your time, but when you're planning out the Galapagos thing, do you have a certain amount of days that, I mean, are they giving you a package where it says you will be at the islands at these three ports for one day each, or what have you seen on that?

Angela (13:07):
Well, the package that we're looking at is through celebrity and everything. Once you buy it, it's pricey, but once you buy it, everything's included. So everybody's doing the excursions. They are pretty adventure. You're diving, you're doing different things. You always have a naturalist with you to explain the animals and the things that you're seeing and everything, which I like. That was also on the Alaska trip. They had a naturalist on board that explained all the wildlife and the different things that are happening in Alaska and everything. And that was the entertainment that was interesting to me anyways, but I'm kind of a geek when it comes to, yeah, let's talk about whales all day.

Drew (13:50):
Yes. And have your camera ready. I saw that you had a whale opportunity and your camera wasn't quite ready for the snapshot.

Angela (14:00):
I missed every whale shot that we saw that I don't even care. I don't even care, because it was so amazing. And the first one I got teary eyed. It's amazing. So I don't even care that I missed the shot. You can buy those, whatever.

Drew (14:21):
It's funny because I was in Theodore Roosevelt National Park and I was driving along and there were these two bison and they were locking the horns with each other. And I don't know, it just looked like a territorial thing, and they weren't hurting each other, but they were pushing each other back and forth. And I pulled my camera out and I'm taking a video of this as it's going on, but I'm not looking through the viewfinder thinking, this is not something you see every day. I'm going to look over my camera and just watch this, but keep it aiming. And of course, they were going backwards and forwards and they were going out of my camera view constantly, but I had no idea because I was so enthralled with watching this activity go on. So I think there's times when we kind of the camera, we should just sit there and enjoy it for the moment that we're having.

Angela (15:15):
Exactly. Well, that's definitely what I did. We did one whale watching in Victoria, but the best place was supposed to be up in Juneau, but we were doing the helicopter onto the glacier at that point, so we didn't have time to do whale watching up there too, which I wouldn't have given up the glacier either. But

(15:37):
The naturalist that was on board, he actually told us about another kind of vacation booking called earthwatch.org. And when you look at it, they have some things on there and he does some trips with them. And basically you fund the scientists work with your trip, and then you get to go out there and do the research work on whales or anything like that. And he has stories about being down in Hawaii when they're birthing down there and the whales, the orca coming up and kind of hugging the sea kayaks of the researchers. And I'm like, oh, I'm in. Whoa

Drew (16:13):
In. Yeah. Holy cow. No, you can't. I mean, those are experiences that you'd pay any amount for that. So I mean is is there a discount for doing that or you're basically paying full price? You are making a donation here basically, it sounds like.

Angela (16:33):
Yeah, well, on the website it does say it's tax deductible. I don't know, you'd have to check with your C P A or whatever. But as I was scrolling through and looking at some, there's archeological digs in Tuscany, and I think that the dig there was like $3,500, and that does include airfare, but then you're there and you're getting into some things that you don't normally get into.

Drew (16:57):
Yeah. Well, let's talk about, because the plane fare was something else that I wanted to get to on these trips. When you're doing a cruise, for instance, with this cruise that you went to, do you usually get the plane flight in as part of your cruise through the cruise line, or do you try to book the flight separately and then if you do book the flight separately, how do you time it out so that if you have a delay in your plane, you're not missing your boat?

Angela (17:24):
Well, we got really lucky with Cuba because we flew into Miami, hit the ground, grabbed our luggage, and went straight to the port. And we were lucky that there wasn't any delay because that was really dumb. But this last one, we booked the flight separately and used points actually. And then we flew into Seattle a couple of days ahead of time and enjoyed Seattle because we left out of Seattle. So we just enjoyed Seattle for a couple days and all the breweries that are there, and then the tourists see things too and just tracked on a couple extra days.

Drew (18:01):
Yeah, I mean that makes sense. I know I've heard people with nightmare stories before of missing their boat because they scheduled on the same day. I can't remember because it's been 20 years. We went out of Vancouver. And so you went out of Seattle and then when we went, we straight up to Anchorage and we got off the boat there, and then we did a little tour around Alaska in a rental car and then flew back from Anchorage. But did you take the boat up to the inside passage and then just straight back down or how was the voyage for you?

Angela (18:41):
Yeah, basically our ports were Ketch can Juno and Skagway and then Victoria.

Drew (18:47):
Alright. And so when you went on, because I saw that you did a Yukon train trip, was that out of Skagway?

Angela (18:54):
Yes, and it was amazing too.

Drew (18:56):
So were you spending multiple days at each of these ports or you went on the train trip and really didn't see Skagway?

Angela (19:05):
We went on the train trip and I feel like we still saw Skagway actually because they're tiny little towns. So we hit the ground running hard and fast. When we travel, we can sleep when we get home.

Drew (19:20):
I

Angela (19:20):
Hear you. It's about seeing what we're there to see.

Drew (19:23):
Yeah. The sad part for me was that I wanted to go to the Yukon when I went on my trip and we went to Skagway as one of our ports of call, but I never got off the boat because I picked up a flu bug that was horrible, to say the least. And getting sick on a boat is one of something I never ever want to go through again. And they really weren't very helpful. I went down to see the nurse and the nurse says, well, we can't do anything for you. And then I've been dry heaving for hours and finally she sent me into the room and I'm sitting in it, she can hear me banging on the toilet. It's just so violent what was happening to me. She says, I can get you a shot. And I said, thank you. So I think it's kind of last resort thing, but then we had to fight with the cruise line about refunding my ticket for the bus tour that I was going to take because there was no way I was going to be able to take this bus tour. And on your trip you had a situation where you had, there's been some recent unpleasantness with planes up in Alaska and you were going to do a plane excursion, I think. Is that correct?

Angela (20:52):
Yeah, that was the one that we booked ahead of time before getting on the ship, and we were all excited. We tend to always do helicopters everywhere. Anyways, we rented a helicopter and flew over Tuscany to see the walled cities. It's just kind of, we've done it Lake Tahoe, we've done it obviously in Grand Canyon, big Bear, just, it's like what we end up doing. So we were like, we're going to get out of our boxes this time and do the sea plane. And then the week before we went was when they started having a lot of the problems with them and got us a little bit nervous. Honestly, though I called celebrity. I said, Hey, this is making me nervous. They said, you're not scheduled to go on with one of the companies that's had the problems because we've actually canceled all of those excursions. But if you're uncomfortable, you have till 24 hours before your excursion time to cancel it and reschedule something else. So they were great.

(21:49):
That first cruise we were on, we didn't have any excursions planned because it was just Mexico and we were just going to find our own way and everything. But just the cruise in general, I called him afterwards the cruise line afterwards and said, Hey, listen, people were getting off in San Diego and going to work because they worked two blocks away from the port and you didn't make a single port. You didn't try to do anything to make it right on the boat. Everybody was getting sick. A guy broke his hand from falling into something. I mean, I talked to somebody at dinner that had actually just paid $99 for the entire cruise. We paid substantially more than that. How are you guys going to make this right? And they just flat out said, we've decided we're not doing anything. Wow. I was like, okay,

Drew (22:40):
Well,

Angela (22:41):
You'll never have our business.

Drew (22:43):
Yeah,

Angela (22:44):
We travel a little

Drew (22:44):
Bit. It's a little shortsighted sometimes when companies do stuff like that. I don't completely understand it. I had a company, well, actually I had, and this wasn't as expensive as what you're dealing with there, but I mean, I had a scotch distillery that canceled my tour and they sent me an email and said, no, we have to cancel your tour. Can you do a different time or day? And I said, no, because I'm so tightly planned that this was my only time to do it. And they came back and said, well come in anyway and we'll take care of you somehow. We don't know how we'll take care of you, but we'll take care of you somehow. And when I got there, they gave me, I just found a bottle of it's art bag, and I just found a bottle of one of the whiskeys that they gave me and they gave me a pretty healthy pour on it, and it's their 22 year old and it's $600 a bottle here in the United States that along with a flight of all of their other whiskeys.

(23:50):
And they just let me alone in a room and said, just sit here and enjoy and take it in. I mean, I will forever have a fantastic feeling about aba. And aba Bag of the distilleries in is probably, it was not my favorite, but boy, they are up there in my book now after that, it's like you can win somebody over. And you know this from marketing. I mean, you make a mistake in how you're promoting something. It takes a lot of work to get new people to come in and take part in your product. And so you got to value the ones that are already on board. So it's crazy.

Angela (24:37):
Exactly. And I wasn't even asking for a refund from that cruise line. I was simply saying, what will you do? I mean, there were people on, honestly, if they'd offered me the deal that the guy that we had dinner with had on that cruise, I'd have probably been like, okay, yeah, we'll book it again next month, but just nothing. And I'm just like, well, I think that you do see an older clientele with the cruises, and I think that the cruise lines in general kind of haven't kept up with that marketing and the idea of how to get the Gen X or millennials even on the cruises. They're just, they're going to age themselves out if they don't catch up in some way.

Drew (25:20):
So you bring up an interesting point because when I took my cruise with my mother, it was definitely more her age group that was on that boat than mine. And in fact, they had a nightclub. And I went over to the nightclub one evening and it was empty. And I said, what's going on? And they said, well, on the Alaskan cruises, we don't really tend to have younger adult entertainment on board. Did you kind of get that same feeling or was there a mix of age groups on there? We went around the same time of year. We went at the end of May.

Angela (25:54):
Yeah, I think that we were among the youngest there for sure. There wasn't a whole lot going on later in the evening, but I think that might be with the Alaska too. It might be a price thing because you have the crews itself and then the excursions. And the excursions, at least any I felt like were worthwhile weren't exactly cheap, especially by the time you pay for two people. So it might just be a pricing out of it type thing because most of the excursions were between 300 and a thousand a piece

Drew (26:32):
That is significantly higher than what I paid back. I think that, well, the bus ride, you took a train ride and we were going to take a bus ride and I think it was $99 to the bus ride.

Angela (26:44):
The train ride I think was a little bit cheaper, but when you got up around Juno, most of Juno was like three, $400. And then they had a private fishing tour that was like a thousand dollars, which we're not fisher fishermen. So we didn't do that. But other than walking around the towns, which you could do and still enjoy Alaska because you're seeing land most of the entire time you're on the boat, because you're right there in the inner passageway and the land isn't too far away. So you're seeing land and you're seeing things. We actually didn't get to sail into Tracy Arms because they'd had a lot of the ice break off and there was too much ice in the water. So we were 20 miles out and the captain said he had to turn around, so we didn't get to do that. But they made a movie about how that's a bad idea. I okay

Drew (27:35):
With it. That's true. Somebody told me they're coming out with a Titanic two, which I dunno if that's a great idea, I'd go with a different name

Angela (27:48):
And I don't know where they're going with that. Maybe it's Tracy Arms, but you could start to see huge chunks of ice and everything. And the captain came on and said, it's just not safe for us to proceed. So that was one of the days we were supposed to have not off the boat as an activity that would've been included with the crews. But other than that, you're booking excursions or walking around the towns.

Drew (28:15):
And then you did actually get on top of a glacier. You took a helicopter ride.

Angela (28:21):
We helicoptered from right near the boat and helicoptered onto the glacier, the Menden Hall glacier, and they left us there, had a guide up there to kind of show us around and walk on it and everything and drink the water from it, which I'm running for any other water in my entire life now.

Drew (28:41):
So what is the experience of walking on a glacier? First of all, I'm thinking slick, but second, I'm thinking that when I've seen glaciers and that kind of just that pure blue that you see along with the white had to be incredible.

Angela (28:59):
Right? Well, they give you glacier boots, first of all. So they have spikes on 'em, so you're not slip at all and they put you on a part, but they're not the deep crevasses or anything to where you're not in danger. And I'm sure they've kind of checked out as much as they can that everything's pretty solid. I don't know you hope. But the odd part for me was the blue ice, which they say that's the densest part of the ice. But something in your head is as you look down and you start to walk on it, you're like, this is thin. Something in your head tells you that it's a thinner ice and it's hard to make walk on

Drew (29:42):
That

Angela (29:43):
Because you're thinking I'm going to fall through. But it was really amazing to be up there, the helicopter ride up through the canyons and everything to get up into it was beautiful. And I think our helicopter pilot was all of maybe 16,

Drew (29:59):
But

Angela (30:04):
He got us there safely and got us back safely. So it's all good.

Drew (30:08):
Well, I hear that when you're in Alaska, you have to get used to the fact that everybody is airborne. And that's why for people who don't know, when we were talking about it a few minutes ago, the problems they were having with the airplanes was that they were having mid-air collisions between these planes and it's like there's too much air traffic. The only way you can really get around. And they're doing these excursions as well. So it's just like an overpopulation of planes in the air. And then are these people really qualified to be flying planes around? It makes you wonder.

Angela (30:44):
Well, that's just it. In talking with them, they said that all the pilots that had the issues had just gotten there the week before because so many people go into Alaska for the summer, just for the summer work, for the tourism. So they're not there all the time. And I don't know if the conditions are that much different. I'm not a pilot, so I don't know. But they had said that two of the pilots had just got there the week before they crashed, and they felt like that was the reasoning. But I don't know. Yeah. I think the other thing with Alaska, you have to get used to is the light. I am such a lover of the ocean that we had the balcony room and everything, and I'm like, prop that door open and don't shut it till we get off this boat. I need to smell the ocean, I need to hear the ocean, everything. But with that came the four hours of darkness and that was all.

Drew (31:40):
Now did it get totally dark at night or did it stay twilight all night?

Angela (31:47):
It got somewhat dark, but you are asking a person who lives in Vegas.

Drew (31:54):
That's true. The glow from the desert when you're driving into Las Vegas is crazy.

Angela (31:58):
Yeah, they called it dark enough. There was one night that they thought that we'd have a chance to see in the Northern Lights. We did not, or at least we didn't. But it was crazy. You're just hanging out and then you're like, oh crap, it's midnight. How's that happen? It looks like it's like four o'clock in the afternoon.

Drew (32:22):
It is very much like Vegas because in Vegas they always, you're in the casino, you have no windows, so you have no what idea what time of day it is. So it's almost like Alaska has this wired so that you have the same effect except it's just light all the time.

Angela (32:40):
We don't hit the casino as much as locals, but we do the outdoors activities around Vegas, which is a completely different world. But I definitely understand what you're saying. Yeah.

Drew (32:50):
So another thing in relation to Vegas, well maybe not. When you went to Ketchikan, you went to Dolly's house.

Angela (32:59):
Yes.

Drew (33:01):
She was a busy woman. She

Angela (33:04):
Was busy. All those women up there were very busy. I think that's the only place in America where they might have more sex than Vegas.

Drew (33:14):
And you had sunshine while you were there. I mean, Ketchikan is the rainiest place on earth. So how'd that work out?

Angela (33:21):
The temperatures while we were there were higher than the temperatures in Vegas. Wow. We had like 86 degree days. I completely did not pack for it. Not even close. I go to Northern Nevada often throughout the year, and they teased me up there because I never pack warm enough, but this is my coat. And they're like, that's a fashionable jacket sweetheart. That's a Vegas jacket. That's not a coat. And so I shopped for this. It was hard to shop for that in May in Vegas, but I found it. I did it. We get up there and we were having an unusually cool snap in Vegas, and they were having an unusually warm snap up there, and we were hot and needing the T-shirts.

Drew (34:11):
So when packing for Alaska, we were told layers. Did you plan out layers?

Angela (34:18):
Yes. Yeah, we did layers and only used the T-shirts.

Drew (34:21):
Okay.

Angela (34:22):
We did not even break out our coat, our heavier coats at all.

Drew (34:27):
And that's what I did in Scotland. I packed in layers and then I had the same situation. It was nice and warm there for a while, and then I ended up ruining one of my layers by spilling coffee on it, and then it turned cold. It's like, ah, wait a second. Yeah,

Angela (34:45):
There you go.

Drew (34:47):
Bad timing. Bad timing. The

Angela (34:49):
Layers is what I try to do all the time with packing though, because you never really know what you're going to run into unless you're going to Europe in the summer and then it's just hot. It's hot, it's hot.

Drew (35:00):
And I don't go to Europe in the summertime. I'm too attached to air conditioning. And for some reason they don't really use air conditioning too much in Europe.

Angela (35:08):
No, they don't.

Drew (35:11):
So okay, you are just like me. You're speaking my language. When you say you're not a fan of the day at sea, how many days at sea did you have on this cruise?

Angela (35:23):
Well, because we didn't, the Tracy Arms was considered a day at sea, so we didn't really get to see that, but it was a day and a half. And when we were booking, we were saying as few as possible because we know we don't want those. There are some cruises out there that don't have 'em. Like Galapagos, I don't think there's a single day at sea. You are like half a day to get over there because you fly in and then you head over on the boat. So there are some out there that don't really have 'em. Obviously the cruise lines like to have 'em because that's when they can open their shops. That's when they can open the casino and they have you as a captive audience there to buy their stuff.

Drew (36:07):
So do they still do the formal nights? Because I did cruises when I was younger and I really haven't done cruises lately, but it seems kind of like people are getting past high fashion and moving more towards just I want to pack light and go.

Angela (36:24):
Yeah, there were some people dressed up. It is an older crowd. I was in my leggings.

Drew (36:29):
Okay.

Angela (36:31):
Because I mean, nothing is, you don't have to do it. And I'm just like, this is vacation. I have a million opportunities to dress up in Vegas for different things and I don't want to, for women, it's pack at different shoes. That's way too much packing.

Drew (36:48):
Yeah. So the other thing that really frustrated me about a cruise was that, and again it's been probably eight years or so since I've been on a cruise, but if you wanted to use wifi to connect with the world, forget it. It was so slow and they were charging you by the minute and exorbitant rate. So it's kind of like a double whammy. Is it any better than it used to be?

Angela (37:16):
We had a package that didn't allow streaming, but it moved fairly quickly. I mean, I've had hotels that ran slower that are not on the water, so I didn't really have complaints about it. I had wifi packages for Cuba and here I didn't in Greece just because they didn't even offer it on that one. It was like some small Greek cruise line that I don't even remember the name of it.

(37:45):
They didn't offer it. So I just used, I'm with Sprint. So Sprint luckily has this program where I think it's like $20 a week when we're overseas for most countries and it gets me to four G or l t e. So I stay pretty connected when we travel, which is nice because of that program that they have. And as soon as you land and turn on your phone, it activates or it gives you two G and it asks you if you want to upgrade to four G, which in case you've forgotten how horribly slow two G is, it's horrible.

Drew (38:22):
Yeah, I can imagine. Well, I had Verizon when I went over to Europe and what I couldn't stand about it was that every country you had to pay for the extra package. And then I ended up going to Monaco and didn't realize that Monaco was not included in the plan. And so I ended up with a nice bill from, luckily it was only a day in Monaco, and then I switched to T-Mobile because everybody said, well, T-Mobile is all over Europe and you'll have no problem. And it's true, I have absolutely no problem with T-Mobile when I go over to Europe and it automatically connects. It doesn't cost me any extra money. But the problem is in the United States, they have not good service. So it's like this is where I live, I need it here. And so I don't know if there's a perfect plan out there or not, but it seems like you have to pick what just can work best for you for your lifestyle, I guess.

Angela (39:21):
And Sprint has worked okay for me in the US and that is a definite benefit when we're overseas because my husband's with at t and he doesn't have it, it's substantially more for him. I forget how much, but substantially more for him to activate any international plans. And so we stay in touch off my phone and wifi.

Drew (39:42):
You work it however you can, right?

Angela (39:44):
Yep.

Drew (39:45):
So let's talk about some of the, because it sounds like you're a bit of maybe not so much a foodie but is maybe a little bit more into the breweries and that sort of thing. So how did you find the beer and the breweries up in that area?

Angela (40:01):
Well, Alaska paled in comparison to Seattle, that's for sure.

Drew (40:07):
All

Angela (40:08):
Because Seattle really, anybody that loves craft brew should definitely be booking a trip to Seattle. They were everywhere and just very, very good and helpful once you're in there and we're talkers, so we sit down and start talking to the bartender. We're not just over there in the corner having our drinks on our own. And they would be sharing then with us, oh, well you want to hit this one next and this one next, and things like that. But I do think that Alaska has kind of grabbed onto that and realizes that people want to taste the craft local brews when they travel. And there were so many breweries just right there at the port that you could almost fall off of the boat, one of the breweries. And they were good too. I just think it's a fun thing to do when you're traveling, is to try the local drinks and get into the whole local scene a little bit more.

Drew (41:06):
So you have something with Wyatt Earp. What's up with Wyatt Earp and you and travel?

Angela (41:14):
Well, it's not meant to be, but I think because of where we live, we always end up in these old bar saloons that Wyatt has been in. And it happened in Alaska and then we started adding up, well, which bars have we been in that advertised that Wyatt drank here because there's quite a few of the old old Oatman. Arizona is near nearby Vegas about 90 miles. And then there's just like 20 minutes outside of Vegas. There's the Pioneer Saloon, which is super old too. And from the 18 hundreds sometime, and it's where Clark Gable set and waited to hear about his wife, Carol Lombard, when she was killed in the plane accident. And that was one of 'em. And then the one in Oldman and then Nevada and the Old West. I mean, most of the bars from the old West time of Nevada are still around in some way. If you go to the right town, that's like up in northern Nevada and Genoa, they have the oldest thirst parlor in Nevada and Mark Twain used to drink there. Teddy Roosevelt, there's all these people like that. And I'm pretty sure why at IP was up there too,

(42:33):
Because he was the mayor of Goldfield Nevada, which is between here and there.

Drew (42:37):
Right. So have you been to Tombstone yet?

Angela (42:39):
I have not. Isn't that crazy?

Drew (42:41):
Yeah. So that's the most important Wyatt IP spot you can go. Yeah.

Angela (42:45):
But it's like, well, I think if we drove the travel trailer down there, it'd be like a six hour drive each way and we just haven't made it down there yet. Yeah.

Drew (42:54):
Well that's what you got to put that on your bucket list now since you apparently are a Wyatt Earp trailer, I guess, however that works out. So I also saw pictures of your two puppies jumping around when you got home. How does that feel after coming back from a trip to such a welcome?

Angela (43:17):
Oh, it's always great. They're rescue puppies and we have a live-in, we call our herd dog or doggy au pair. The live-in dog sitter that stays with them while we're gone because they're so used to me working at home and being at home all the time. They get a little freaked out. Somebody just comes in to feed. So they're well taken care of while we're gone. And it's a great welcoming committee, especially Gracie. She does a little fan girl thing and it's like you're the Beatles walking into the house. She's screaming so much.

Drew (43:48):
You stole my line. The whole reason I brought this up was because somebody posted the other day, he said, bill Maher, the comedian, said that he loves his dog because he's the only one that makes him feel like the Beatles when he gets home from work. There you go. That's great. All right. You were reading my mind at that time. So when people want to keep up with the stuff that you're doing, what's the best place to see? I mean, you're taking pictures and posting stuff. Where would the best place for them to see this be?

Angela (44:20):
I have my account on social media under Angela m Loreto, D I O O R E T O. And they can also find me on social media under fitting in adventure for all official posts or whatever of the less personal, less dog posts that way.

Drew (44:38):
All right. So what was that one again? Because you kind of broke up when we were hearing it

Angela (44:44):
Fitting in adventure.

Drew (44:46):
Okay, excellent. And I'll post these also on the show notes page so that everybody can click through and see what you're doing. And you said you have a blog potentially coming down the road?

Angela (44:59):
Yes, it will be@fittinginadventure.com and it should be launching within the next couple of weeks.

Drew (45:04):
Well, I appreciate the conversation today and it's always fun chatting with you online as well, and I am looking forward to seeing how your Galapagos trip goes. That's on my list somewhere. I don't know when that's going to happen, but I definitely will be checking out the cruise information that you gave us to see what options are out there for that, because that would be really cool and see all the stuff that you're doing. So I appreciate you being on the show and look forward to seeing what you're doing down the road.

Angela (45:38):
Well, thank you. I look forward to your travels as well.

Drew (45:42):
Well, I hope we got everybody all excited about getting out there and doing some cruising. And you can cruise on out to the show notes page and get yourself all of the information that we talked about today on the show, fitting in adventure.com. The link is out there. Also, Angela's Twitter accounts are out there and the sites we talked about during the show, the vacations to go.com and earthwatch.org plus lots of great information to help you get out there and start sailing those seven Cs. And all you got to do is go to travel fuels life.com/podcasts and look for episode number 27. And make sure to follow my social media pages to, because I am doing tons and tons of travel and putting content out there. And now we've got whiskey stories coming on top of that and whiskey travel. And you're going to find those links all out@travelfuelslife.com and@whiskeylore.com. And you'll see the social media icons, follow the ones you want to right there in the upper right hand corner of both of those sites. And until next time, have a great week. Safe travels and thanks for listening to Travel Fuels Life.