On most other cruises a veranda upgrade can set you back anywhere from $500 to $900 or even more. But on some transatlantic cruises the upgrade charge is much more moderate.

I’ve booked a transatlantic cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas (April 2005) and on their Splendor of the Seas (October 2003) and was only charged around $110 for the veranda upgrade! And that’s for a cabin that is also a good deal larger than your usual outside cabin.

 

I once got trapped in Yosemite with terrible diarrhea and had no medicine. Eventually I managed to find some anti-diarrhea medicine in a local store where I had to pay $5 for two tablets. It cost me $15 to get control restored! I getting back and forth to the store was very difficult. I would have been much better off if I had the needed medication with me.

I empty my medicine chest into a zip-loc bag and keep it with me no matter what. I hope you don’t learn this lesson like I did – the hard way.

Your dinner table mates can add a great deal to your cruise experience. We have always been very fortunate and have had a long list of wonderful people with whom we shared our thoughts and experiences which added immeasurable to the whole experience.

I’m including the following tidbit of information as it may prove interesting but I in no way can guarantee its accuracy. Based on our experiences on a dozen cruises it would seem that the slot machines in the onboard casinos are set to pay off more heavily during the early days of a cruise. Later in the cruise the odds seem to be much less generous.

Is this true? One day toward the end of a 15 day long cruise I was sitting there in the onboard casino playing one of the "Double Diamond" slot machines. As I played a staff member in a dark suit quietly approached our bank of slot machines, took out a small hand-held computer and held it up against a small button on the side of the slot machine cabinet. He read the computer screen, thought for a second and then entered some numbers on the tiny keyboard. He waited to be sure the transaction was completed and then vanished as quickly as he appeared.

What was he up to? Did he change the odds on our machines or was he just monitoring the "drop" (the volume of betting)? I’ll never know but it could be that he did both.

We have always done well by using the following system. Play the slots only during the first few days of a cruise. Pick a machine and play it while you mentally track your financial progress.

Of course your winnings will vary widely but I’ve found that 90% of the time you’ll find yourself significantly ahead at some point. When you get thirty or more bucks ahead, stop playing. Mash the cash out button, convert your coins to paper money with the cashier and leave the casino.

Do not continue to play thinking that you’re playing on the house money. That’s a suckers game that pays their bills, not yours. I got this "secret" information from a pit boss at a major Vegas casino. He told me that if everyone got up and walked out when they were ahead the entire casino industry would be crushed in less than a year. The fact that people keep betting keeps the casino profits rolling in!