Day 32 - Ocean Shores, WA - 3191 Miles

Still here. That probably tells you all you need to know so if you want to save a couple of minutes of your life, you could just skip the rest of this.

On the advice of several locals we took a walk through the Weatherwax property. I'm not sure who Weatherwax was, but my guess is he was into raising mosquitoes for scientific experiments. The locals probably direct tourists here as food to appease the genetically altered, intelligence enhanced mosquito king and his minions who still remain after disposing of Weatherwax. The property is now a small rain forest.

Mosquito Food

Rain Forest

I'm running out of bars on my list so I'm repeating some of my favorites. My favorites tend to be the ones frequented by locals and not on the weekends. They're usually happy to tell their stories to someone new and I just have to sit, smile, and nod occasionally while I drink my beer. I think they call that codependency. Pirate's Cove is becoming a favorite. It wasn't until our last visit that I saw how high-class the restroom was.

Pirate's Cove

High-Class Restroom

Yesterday during our morning beach walk I got a call from Carnival about our cruise next week. They're apparently making sure everything gets filled. They said if we wanted to we could upgrade from our balcony stateroom to an ocean suite for a relatively modest amount (at least by cruise ship standards). I told her I'd have to get back to her. I wasn't sure what an "ocean suite" was and I wasn't 100% certain this wasn't some sort of scam. After checking things out I called back, but she said the ocean suite she had offered us was gone, but since she already talked to us she would offer us a vista suite for the same price. I hesitated again while Terry and I talked about it.

In hindsight I can almost hear her thinking, "What is wrong with these people? This is the phone call cruisers pray to get a week before a cruise and these people aren't jumping all over it!"

I finally said, "OK. We'll do it."

Looking things up afterwards, it seems like our extra $500 got us about $2500-$3000 of upgrades. Instead of the stateroom we now get a suite with a separate bedroom and living room. Instead of maybe a 60sq ft balcony we get a wraparound balcony. In fact, the balcony of our suite is literally larger than the stateroom we started with.

We also get the perks that go with a suite such as when we go to Seattle we go straight to the VIP lounge for priority boarding instead of getting in line with all the peons - you know, the people we were until two days ago.

It was always true that our one-week cruise was going to cost a little more than three months in the Ocean Shores Ramada, but now it's not even close.

Crossed Red Genie Pizza off my list tonight.