"I won a free cruise, do you want to go?" my excited sister Kelly asked. "Come on, it's free." Now I admit that I have moments when I am not "the sharpest knife in the drawer" and I have learned to accept that evolution/devolution of my brain power and move on. However, what I do know is that there is nothing on this planet, especially in this day and age, nothing that is free. She showed me the email from the Casino and it looked legit for an email. She called to confirm and put it on speaker so I could listen, and lo and behold, yes, she had won a one week cruise anywhere in the world, plus there was a selection of various cruise lines.
There were cool options including a Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Caribbean, and the one that caught my eye, an Alaskan, leaving from the port of Vancouver. After some back and forth we agreed on the Alaskan primarily because of a tight timeline and getting time off work. She was starting a new job and I work a summer job and with trips like these a few days before and after at your port town is always a fun thing to do. That was not going to happen. Plus, she was sold on the wildlife that might be seen and the scenery from the photos was stunning, but now we needed to get to Vancouver.
Enter discount airline LYNX, well the former airline known as LYNX. I found a dirt cheap roundtrip flight Toronto to Vancouver for about $350 each, so I booked it. Without thinking we had a few date option and we choose June 22 to 29th and booked it, before I booked the flights of course. Wait! We have an inside room, we need at least a window, plus the drink package, we need a drink package. She was excited and the last few years have not been good to either of us travel wise, so sure book those. The drink package is 15 drinks a day for $325 so that was good, and the upgrade was around $500 if I remember. OK, better room and all I can drink, which includes coffee for $825, fine. Wait, that is in US dollars so now I am in for another $1230. My free Alaskan Cruise has not got me for $1580, in for a penny as they say. We were Booked, upgraded, Flights confirmed and everything paid. WAIT!
When we booked the date something was nagging me about it, June 22nd. I could not put my finger on it (see above comment about knives and drawers) and while I was ruminating on that for a few days an interesting headline came across my newsfeed. LYNX airlines to declare bankruptcy and will no long be in business. I will not go through the process of getting my refund because it was quite painless, and I found a flight with Porter Airlines for only $700 roundtrip so that was booked. My free trip was now up to $1930, plus the $100 airport parking so let's call it an even $2000. Something was still not right though.
Have you ever had a moment when you are doing something, anything really and a random thought comes to you where you go "Ah shit"!. Well sir, I had that. June 22nd is the date that my nephew was getting married. Now to our credit they had not booked a date, they were considering 3 other dates and we never got confirmation, so that eased the pain when I told him. He said it was ok, but did whine to his mother an sister about it later. His sister defended us on the "save the date" message that was never sent out to anyone. Anyways, here we sit. Our cruise was now $2000, our main airline declared bankruptcy and we are missing my nephew's wedding, but hey, "Congratulations, you have won a free cruise to Alaska."
Here is the bad boy, the Pinnacle Class MS Koningsdam by Holland America
