Two weeks ago, I told you about Bonnie and me spending time at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee prior to a two-week European cruise. This is a continuation of that narrative. Those of you wanting a lot of video poker information from me, come back in two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) offers a lot of incentives to entice passengers. Those offers vary over time and the one I\u2019m discussing now may or may not be in effect at any time in the future. One of the incentives is 70% off airfare for the second passenger. With this incentive, you pay full retail only for the first passenger, but have little or no choice of which airlines they book you on. Still, it was the cheapest way for us to get back and forth to Athens from Atlanta, which is the closest major airport to Cherokee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
It was a Delta flight, which was perfectly okay, but they flew us into Athens one day early. That is, for a cruise that sailed at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, we arrived in Athens at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. Okay. We found a place to stay with free airport shuttle. Advertised as a \u201cLuxury Suite\u201d with free WiFi and Netflix, it sounded perfectly acceptable. Turned out to be two stories, with the mini-bathroom and \u201cminier\u201d-kitchen downstairs and the bed-and-only-television bedroom upstairs. The stairway was steep, with no railings. Not the best choice for two mobility-challenged senior citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The closest restaurant was more than a mile away, but there was a supermarket a quarter mile away. The supermarket wasn\u2019t so super, but we found enough for our Saturday night meal. We arranged for an early trip back to the airport and figured we could get breakfast there. Plus, we were about to embark on a two-week all-you-can-eat excursion and skipping a meal beforehand wouldn\u2019t hurt us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without going into explicit detail, I had an extremely painful gastrointestinal issue Saturday night and the problem remained several very unpleasant hours later. I decided a visit to the ER was mandatory. If we missed the first week of the cruise, we\u2019d just get a place to stay in Athens until next week and pick up the second week of our planned cruise. But if I needed hospitalization, it had to be better to not to<\/s> be air-lifted somewhere from the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using the Internet to find a nearby hospital with a 24-hour ER, we used our UBER app, which sent a taxi. At least the UBER app let us pay with a credit card since I failed to redeem dollars for euros at the airport. The hospital wanted to see my passport but was uninterested in looking at my insurance cards. If I had to pay for this medical visit, my credit card could probably cover it, but not being able to use insurance to help defray the expense was daunting. Some hospitalizations turn out to be VERY expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time I got through the check-in process and was in the ER area, it was 7 a.m. on Sunday. I was the only patient, which meant I wasn\u2019t going to have to wait. I asked to use the restroom. There were two toilets, neither of them with seats. The sink to wash up afterwards had water, but neither soap nor towels were available. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I saw the doctor, who spoke excellent English, fortunately, I mentioned the situation in the restroom and she responded, \u201cWelcome to Greece.\u201d To say I was a bit uneasy would be a gross understatement. After X-rays, she prescribed an enema. They used a bottle that looks like what is called a Fleet Enema back home, but whatever was inside that bottle burned and I suspect was much stronger than what we get in the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It worked, and my problem was solved, at least for the moment. I was released by 9:00 a.m. The doctor included three additional bottles of the super-strong enema and told me there was no reason we couldn\u2019t make the cruise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At checkout, I tried again to give them my insurance information, but they still weren\u2019t interested. They just wanted my passport and my credit card. Fifteen minutes later, both were returned to me, and I was free to go. Turns out there was no charge for the medical treatment. Welcome to Greece! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was asked when I first got to the hospital if I had come directly from the airport. I told them no. We had arrived the previous morning, spent the night in a hotel, and suffered the medical setback while in Greece. At the time I didn\u2019t know why they were asking me that. Now I think they were checking to see if I qualified for free medical treatment or not. They didn\u2019t allow people from other countries to fly in and take advantage of their medical system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I used my UBER app to get us a cab and we were at the port by 10:30 — too early to get on the ship. But we were there — exhausted. Our staterooms wouldn\u2019t be open until 2 p.m., but there was lots to do before we could lie down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, we went to Guest Services to order a scooter. While the NCL Jade isn\u2019t one of the bigger ships, it\u2019s still plenty big, holding up to 2,400 passengers. The price of the scooter was dependent on how long the cruise was. I argued that I should get the two-week price ($325) rather than the one-week price ($205) twice. I was told that this wasn\u2019t possible. I asked to speak with the supervisor, and I was told to take a nearby seat and they would get back to me. I marshalled my arguments for when I spoke to the supervisor. After all, I was Diamond level and Bonnie was Sapphire on NCL, which are different levels of the tier that used to be called Platinum Plus. I was ready to explain the distance from Las Vegas to Athens (never mind we actually started from Atlanta this trip, not Las Vegas), and that signing up for balcony suites for two weeks in a row wasn\u2019t cheap (never mind we get highly discounted prices because we\u2019re both Seven Stars at Caesars). I never got to make my arguments. Fifteen minutes later, the Guest Services attendant came riding up in a scooter — telling me my request had been granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Very good. Next step was the Cruise Next desk. While this is not a necessary step for lower-tier passengers, it was for us. It was there you went to sign for the free ship\u2019s tour (Bonnie only. My joints wouldn\u2019t allow me to go up and down that many stairs), officer\u2019s dinner, and to find out what night the Cruise Next party was. While this party isn\u2019t a big deal (it\u2019s actually a sales event where if you pay $125 now you get a certificate that can be used for $250 on future NCL cruises within the next four years), it includes live music we can dance to and a few other things. At a minimum, we didn\u2019t want to make a dinner reservation that conflicted with the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it was off to make dinner reservations. Although there are free dining options on the ship, we received four specialty dinners-for-two. Two of those were a tier-level benefit and two were due to an \u201cUltimate Dining Package\u201d promotion. If you make your reservations early on embarkation day, you have far greater choices of days and times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the larger NCL ships also have entertainment options for which you need to make reservations. There weren\u2019t any on this ship, but if there were, we\u2019d have made those the first day as well — taking care not to conflict dinner times with show times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, it was time to eat at the buffet. It was very crowded, as the cabins weren\u2019t open yet, but we found two seats and had some food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time we were finished, the cabins still weren\u2019t open, but we went to ours anyway. With me in a scooter and Bonnie in a walker, we told all room stewards in the area that I had to lie down immediately whether it was officially allowed or not. Nobody stopped us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a struggle to get to this point, but we were onboard and ready for a cruise — after a nap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two weeks ago, I told you about Bonnie and me spending time at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee prior to a two-week European cruise. This is a continuation of that narrative. Those of you wanting a lot of video poker information from me, come back in two weeks. Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) offers a lot of incentives to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}