In this episode of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, host Justin Vacula discusses how to travel at low cost using credit card points, miles, and loyalty programs.
Joined by co-host Darren Remsburg, they delve into Justin’s recent Celebrity Silhouette cruise, exploring the benefits of traveling with points.
Highlights include detailed cruise experiences, insights into using casino rewards, and comparisons of different cruise lines. They also touch on the importance of stoic philosophy while traveling, as well as the perks and quirks of cruise life, including dining experiences, casino gaming, and notable port visits in Key West and Nassau, Bahamas.
The episode emphasizes the value of community among travel enthusiasts and encourages listeners to attend upcoming meetups and events.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel
00:32 Meet the Hosts and Upcoming Events
01:37 Cruise Adventures Begin
03:12 Cruise Experience and Onboard Activities
05:36 Dining and Room Details
16:10 Casino and Gambling Strategies
27:36 Poker Controversy
29:36 Casino Chaos: Drunk Players and Dealer Mistakes
31:23 Exploring Key West: Roosters, Trains, and More
37:29 Nassau, Bahamas: A Travel Hacker’s Reunion
41:14 Final Day and Stoic Travel Philosophy
46:04 Cruise Reflections and Rankings
50:45 Closing Announcements and Future Plans
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Rough Transcript:
Theme Song: Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
Justin Vacula: You’re listening to the hurdy gurdy travel podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vukula, here to help you travel the world and next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode.
Celebrity silhouette cruise report with podcast co host Darren Remsburg. Visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to [00:01:00] RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups. I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are April 12th and May 17th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes, follow hurdy gurdy travel podcast on Facebook and X.
Follow Justin Vakula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on YouTube, where you can also become a channel member for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, community, and bonus videos. Welcome back to the show, Darren Remsburg.
Darren Remsburg: Thank you, Justin. Great to be back. Can’t wait to hear about all these cruises that you have been taking advantage of through all the status matches and gaming and looking forward to hearing it.
I know you’ve been on a bunch, so I’ll also be curious to see what you think and how this one’s stacked up.
Justin Vacula: This is cruise [00:02:00] number four of 2025. And probably the hardest one to spell. Celebrity Silhouette. Although, the, Niu Statendam, is a fun thing to say and a little bit difficult to spell, but I think silhouette is an interesting word.
Darren Remsburg: I’m glad you’re the one that is spelling this for the, for the podcast notes and not me. That’s all I’m gonna say about that. Heh heh
Justin Vacula: heh heh. I, I had to use Grammarly multiple times throughout the cruise so I spelled the word correctly. Heh heh heh. We won the miles and points contest, but not always the spelling bee.
Darren Remsburg: If only Daryl were here to help us out, R. I. P. Daryl.
Justin Vacula: R. I. P. Daryl McEwen of the Seven Stars Insider and Mr. A. C. Casino. And casinos did indeed enable this cruise. This was a complimentary cruise thanks to the MGM Platinum status. We’ve discussed in previous episodes spending our way to MGM Platinum status with the MGM MasterCard by the First National Bank of Omaha, America’s [00:03:00] favorite bank of course.
Using the credit card for grocery gas purchases and also for online blackjack. So I was able to spend my way to platinum status. And part of that was getting a complimentary cruise. This was a five day celebrity cruise with a 200 onboard credit. So basically wiping out the wifi. I just had to pay taxes, fees, gratuities, a very little cost.
For a cruise that might have otherwise cost about 2, 000 in an ocean view room and a complimentary guest. I’m living
Darren Remsburg: vicariously through you, Justin. That’s always the case. Not always the case. Sometimes the case.
Justin Vacula: When you’re in Iceland and I’m in Finland. That’s
Darren Remsburg: right. No, that’s, that’s the great thing about having award travel enthusiasts as friends.
You get to not only experience travel and some of the benefits firsthand, but you also have the opportunity to talk to folks that have done things and live some of the, uh, excitement through them. [00:04:00]
Justin Vacula: Yes. And you had the Taylor Swift world tour as well.
Darren Remsburg: We did. Yeah. Last year was, uh, Edinburgh in Scotland, visiting friends and the Taylor Swift concert with the girls.
And so this year it looks like a bon air for a 20th anniversary trip with my wife. We just refreshed our scuba certification. So looking forward to getting back into that and then Greece with the whole family. So. That’ll be two good trips and we’ll see what happens after that.
Justin Vacula: Nice. Lots of ways to win with miles and points.
Even if cruising isn’t your thing. I was initially on the fence about cruising, but after going on the first one, seeing that there was good value, lots of variety of experiences and fun. I continue to go back, especially when they’re giving me comp offers. And this one was a double cruise in a way. I mentioned the Neustadtendamm.
I got off the Neustadtendamm with Holland America. And got on this ship two days later, got off another cruise. We returned a rental car, went to airport ride share [00:05:00] and back to the cruise port. It was about a 20 minute Uber ride from the Fort Lauderdale airport to the cruise port, got to boarding on the ship around 1130 AM.
There was almost no line. It was a very easy process to board the bag tags or the reservation. We had said that the boarding time was around two, but researching. Suggested that we can get on even earlier than two. At worst case, we would just be at the cruise port. Otherwise we’d be sitting at the airport, just waiting for a time to pass.
Boarding early lunch was available immediately. Grilled veggies, fresh veggies, Indian food made to order pasta, vegan station, salad bar, and a hummus station. So a lot was already available for lunch.
Darren Remsburg: That sounds like a great start to the cruise. Yeah. I remember you and I were talking and it was. You had just finished one cruise and you’re like, yeah, I’m getting on another cruise.
I’m like, Justin, how many cruises are you going to do? It’s March buddy. And you’re like, yeah, number [00:06:00] four. And I know you’re heading into the UK here in a couple, this will be on tape delay, but. You have another cruise coming up that I won’t spoil, but I know you’re excited about as well.
Justin Vacula: Oh, no, you can spoil.
It’s already public. It’s no spoiler. It’s April 29th. We’re recording March 18th, and this one is April 29th. This is the Emerald Princess. It’s a nine night European explorer. So I’ll be going to Boston, hopefully to meet with Amtrak’s biggest fan, Princess Perry. As I’ve been chatting with Harry, so hopefully a meeting in person there in Boston and then off to the UK.
And then there’s a Rotterdam cruise July 5th, spoiler alert, Ruby Princess to Alaska July 20th, and Margaritaville at sea December 12th. So at least eight cruises, I say at least because there might be more opportunities throughout the year. I think that seven stars is gonna come with even more cruise options, right?
[00:07:00] Ooh, Norwegian in the future, yes. Yes, so immediately lunch, it’s nice that you could just go to the buffet getting on the ship. You don’t have to go to your room, wait for luggage to arrive. You can just have lunch and that also saved a meal at the airport. So that was
Darren Remsburg: pretty common across the three or four or I think you’ve done a number of cruises last year as well.
So 10 or so cruises so far that there’s lunch waiting for you when you arrive and get on.
Justin Vacula: Yes, absolutely. The lunch is almost always immediately available. Maybe if you got on the ship much earlier, it wouldn’t be, but all the times I’ve gone on the ship, it’s been available. And a lot of healthy options, too.
A lot of people worry about, Oh, am I going to put weight on these cruises? I think that you have a lot of options for healthier food. As I mentioned, the grilled veggies, the fresh veggies, were really good. A lot of the Indian options, I really like. Maybe stay away from the pasta if you’re looking to cut carbs, but you could even just get the veggies sauteed.
And there was also various stir fry [00:08:00] stations or wok stations. Throughout this cruise, which I really appreciated if you could have made to order food I think that’s almost always going to be better than just taking the food that’s sitting out at the buffet.
Darren Remsburg: Oh for sure Yeah, the fresher the better I know that’s a Common approach for you and I when we’re getting our giant sushi that we’re asking for it to be made instead of picking out What’s in the showcase showdown there?
Justin Vacula: And of course in giant or inside giant and willow grove the made to order Chinese food is my favorite rather than just taking it out of the case So it’s nice to have the made to order options on the cruises, and they varied a lot of the dinners. There was a Mexican night, a French night, a Greek night, and American night.
It always seems like there’s nothing additional with the American night. You already have a lot of the American food options, but they do that anyway. But the stir fry station, the vegan station, was consistent. On Celebrity. I think it was really nice. It was a very spacious room. I got some [00:09:00] really good ocean views.
You could sit next to the window and see what’s going on outside. Especially at the beginning you can see all the activity at the port. And then throughout you can see the sunset. You could see other ships coming by. It was a really spacious dining room. The beverage area was separated from the food. It was really nice I think with Celebrity.
Darren Remsburg: Sounds like it was a good start to tell us about what happened next.
Justin Vacula: Another option was the dining room at Grand Cuvée, C U V E E. I looked that up using ChatGPT and it suggested a type of wine that they’re using it as a distinguished name for the dining room and they actually had a separate vegetarian menu that had healthier options on it because, again, looking to cut carbs and put off some of this post COVID weight.
Definitely avoiding some of the pastas, breads, and other things. So it was nice to have, it was a mushroom soup, they had an Indian vegetarian [00:10:00] option, they had all types of salads, and even on the main menu they had things like baked salmon, that could have been a good option as well. And requesting things like vegetables instead of potatoes, and you also get complimentary coffee.
So this was an anytime dining experience, although that was confusing because they had a set time in the app, so You had a time like six, but you can go at five 30 or six 30. So maybe it was more of a recommended time.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, that seems unusual. I’ve only done one cruise and it was 25 ish years ago now, but I remember, yeah, that seemed like there was always a, you had a dining assignment time and in table and, and all that sort of thing.
Justin Vacula: Yes. So I mentioned some of the other food options to keep items in a section, but after this lunch on day one. Went to the room was not ready. There were no bath towels. There were leftover used glasses with some water inside of them. Maybe because it was we were early on the ship, maybe not. They could have had a sign that said the [00:11:00] room’s not ready yet.
At housekeeping, I’m not sure what the deal was there, but not a big deal. I was able to get the attention of the housekeeper. They came in and finished cleaning the room and added towels. It would have been a disaster to go inside of the shower and then come out and realize there were no towels there.
But I, I did not do that, so I was okay.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, you know the situation. You don’t want that. That’d be a pain in the arse. You don’t want that.
Justin Vacula: You’re having to use washcloths bedsheets. Pull the bedsheets off. May or may not be clean.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. It’s not a, not a
Justin Vacula: good way to start. Not in that situation. Not in that situation.
Yeah, so the, the luggage was waiting. One o’clock, still not there. Say, okay, let’s go to dinner 530. There’s still no luggage. This was the first time this has ever happened. I went to the guest services or customer service desk and they said, could you please describe the luggage and gave him a description, waited, came back.
The luggage still wasn’t in the room. Then they had me fill out a [00:12:00] form like, oh, no, did they lose the luggage? How does that happen? How’s the porter? Lose the luggage. So I was without my new fancy pants, Insta360 camera and laptop. I wanted to take some video and work on some things, but I couldn’t do it.
So I was restricted to the mobile phone. Eventually the luggage did come and that was a relief.
Darren Remsburg: Uh, glad to hear that. It certainly could have been, uh, the start of a world of happiness, right? If you were on a cruise ship without your luggage, it’s, uh. No good way to get, get close to
Justin Vacula: you. Yeah. All those Dell credits gone to waste if the camera goes missing, but I didn’t want to carry too many things on the ship.
I was just relying on the luggage. So sometimes these things happen when traveling. I hope listeners don’t get too discouraged. I think that people come in with high expectations. Everything is always going to go super smooth and then they’re going to exaggerate that was a disaster. That was terrible. It just happens.
I don’t know why, there was no explanation. The luggage eventually came, and it worked out. So just a little bit of a delay. So it was time to go to dinner, go to the [00:13:00] casino, do other things on the ship, and we’ll certainly get into the casino later. But first about the room, I thought the room was really nice, although it wasn’t done, it wasn’t ready.
The desk area was okay spacious. The ocean view component was nice, as the bed was right next to that and the curtains would close. So you’d be able to see the sunset, you’d be able to see other ships as I mentioned earlier. One thing, the plug situation was really bad. There were no plugs near the bed area, not even a USB and the light fixtures.
I had to run an extension that I requested from the desk area to the bed area and then plug things in there. So just be careful of not tripping on a cord. There was a mini bar in the fridge area. And there was a bag of kettle cooked chips. That were marked as a 5 charge. They were not complimentary.
There was also water throughout that they brought to the room, but that was also not complimentary. I asked housekeeping to remove these items and they said that it had to [00:14:00] stay or a charge happened. So I just didn’t want to be responsible and paying 5 for a very small bag of potato chips. So it’s the eccentric things that they do sometimes with the cruises in the room.
So you just have to be careful and avoid the mini bar, avoid these things that they put in. Although on other cruises, like Virgin voyages. The water was complimentary. They brought snacks in at times that were complimentary, but here it was not on the basic no drink package.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. That’s wild that essentially you have an all inclusive, right?
That they’re going to feed you for free and plus or minus alcoholic drinks, but at least they’re going to. They’re not going to charge you for non alcoholic drinks, unless it’s water in your room, or unless it’s a bag of chips in your room. That’s wild. It’s the
Justin Vacula: special water. That’s what it was.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. I, it must be special to cost.
I’m sure it was also not cheap, so probably another 5 for a bottle of water.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Maybe even more than that. Just stay away from it. Another interesting thing about the cruise, I [00:15:00] saw many shirts that said college party cruise. Many lanyards. And I asked some of the party goers, the college students, they said that they were here as part of a college spring break package.
There were many Europeans and Americans. They said that there was unlimited alcohol as part of their package and they paid about 800 per person. So maybe not terrible as they got an age discount and the drinks included. I think it added to the cruise as people were more social. And it was a more lively cruise compared to Holland America that definitely had an older population.
So I didn’t mind it at all. Mandy, who was on the cruise said that it was like an episode of The Bachelor. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, Oh, all the women on the cruise, she found them intriguing, even as a woman, it wasn’t me making that comment. She was impressed by the quality of the people and a lot of the younger people that were on the cruise.
Darren Remsburg: Sounds like it was quite the contrast between the first Florida cruise and the second Florida cruise there back to [00:16:00] back. Different age groups, different. Cruise colleagues. I don’t know the right way to say that, but yeah, there you go. There you go.
Justin Vacula: All right. Moving on to the casino. It was a non smoking casino.
I think that was very positive. Sometimes I’m relegated to the better machines in a smoking section or previous cruises. It was half smoking, half not in the video poker was only in the smoking section. But this one was completely non smoking. So they had to leave the casino, go to a smoking area, and I think that’s a lot better for the staff and the non smokers.
Of course, not for the smokers as they have to take steps out and they will lament that experience. But so be it. It’s the house rules. I was told that on a previous cruise. We have house rules. So here it was non smoking. They invited me to play on day one with a bonus of 5 in free play. So they enticed you to come to the casino.[00:17:00]
They also said that there were free drinks under 15 while playing. So you can get alcoholic drinks, coffee, water that doesn’t cost 8. I think that was nice of them rather than having you spend extra, have to earn a certain amount of points or tier credits. So I did play. The video poker, you would earn one point per 10 played.
So if you were to run 10, 000 in credit card room charges through, you would end with approximately a thousand tier credits America loves math. So the idea through this cruise was even though I was playing a slightly negative game where I had about a 3 percent disadvantage, I was using the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Altitude Reserve.
To room charge. So I would play a negative expectation game, but I’d get the credit card rewards that would offset that. And I would also get the tier credits, which may lead to future offers or offers on the same ship. [00:18:00] So with my about thousand tier credits, unfortunately I did not get any offers while I was on board, except on the way out, there was an invitation for a future cruise with the discount of 300.
So not really worth much if the base price of the ocean view room. Would be around 3, 000 or sorry, 2, 000. So not much from the casino loyalty program there, but other offers may come. I played the video poker rather than blackjack because they wanted a 5 percent fee. If you were to room charge for blackjack buy ins.
So that was unplayable at that point. And there were many video poker machines, which was a plus compared to a past one with carnival, where they combine the video poker with Keno and there were very few machines. So there was no machine competition whatsoever. I looked through the different games, the different pay tables, and I found 8 5 video poker.
It was a one [00:19:00] dollar denomination, so at five credits it was five dollars a hand. If you played less than that, it would have been a lesser pay table. I saw 6 5, 7 5, so I’d play a little bit higher per round or hand to get a better pay table. The blackjack. I looked at it, it was a 3 2 game, 25 minimum bet, they didn’t offer surrender, they had the dealer hitting all 17s.
So the rules weren’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. But with the room charge for the 5 percent fee, Blackjack was unplayable, and I’m not going there with cash and playing. The idea was to only gamble with an edge, so that was playing the video poker deposits through. exactly once. I loaded for the room charges, and it throttled me around 4, 000, even though they said there was 5, 000 a day.
I don’t know why this happened. There was an error at the machine, but I didn’t ask them about it because it probably draws attention, and I don’t want that. So, day two, I just changed my credit card on [00:20:00] file from the Chase Sapphire Reserve to the Altitude Reserve, and then used that. I don’t know why it declined, but I figured to just change cards.
That seems like
Darren Remsburg: a good, safe strategy. And how did you get along? No problems the second day with a different card?
Justin Vacula: Yes, I was able to play the second day and then I did a third day. So I played slightly under 10, 000. And the reason I played under 10, 000 is it’s just less engagement with customs. And in previous crews, I went over 10, 000 and I declared the money.
And I think I got adverse action because of that. Although I’ll never really get the real answer about why that happened. But after playing through 9, 990, I ended up down 719. So here’s an America Loves Math moment. The game had about a 3 percent house edge. I was expected to lose about 300. I ended up down about 7%.
I did not hit any royal flushes. [00:21:00] And the royal makes up about 2 percent of the return in this Jacksorbetter game. I didn’t have any straight flushes. I had a few four of a kinds. But I got the rewards. So even at 30 K ultimate rewards from chase at 1. 5 cents per point, that’s about 450 rebate and at 2 cents per point, that would be about 600.
So I ran below expectation. I also use the altitude reserve. So that was 4. 5 percent cash back, basically. So pretty good. If I can play a game, that’s a 3 percent disadvantage. And in the long run, I’m going to get 4. 5 or better back on that return.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, that sounds like gambling with an edge, like you said.
Justin Vacula: Ah, like the trademark pending. Of course, we’re in it for the long run. There will be ups and downs with gambling. But of course, after doing this for 10 years, looking for advantages and playing, I’ve always been ahead, regardless of all the critics out there. You’re going to [00:22:00] lose money gambling. Oh, no, we’re doing it intelligently.
We’re having discipline and we’re looking for advantages. So definitely playing on these cruises. I wouldn’t have brought my cash and played video poker and I wouldn’t have overplayed the money. The idea was to play through exactly one time, stop playing, break the session into multiple days and come out ahead.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, it sounds like it worked pretty well. And then the thousand tier that you earned was for MGM, right?
Justin Vacula: No, this was with the celebrity. Oh,
Darren Remsburg: interesting.
Justin Vacula: So MGM just gave the crews offer, but they, all the cruises seem to have their own players club. Some of them are linked to one another. But this just was its own.
I think it was called the Blue Chip Club with Celebrity. So then in 2026, I’ll be back and maybe there’s some maintained tier, but I think all the tier goes to zero after each cruise. But you do earn points for days of cruises, and you could potentially get higher status with the cruise companies. So we’ll see how that works out after returning.
Darren Remsburg: I know some folks [00:23:00] have talked about instead of going into retirement homes, they just will cruise for the rest of their life. It seems like you’re, you’ve already retired from your job, Justin. So it makes sense that you’re already here and, and doing the cruise thing full time basically.
Justin Vacula: Yep. Working for myself at this point, right?
Darren Remsburg: Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And I really do enjoy the freedom of that. There, of course, is some effort and some negatives of it, but I think the positives are definitely. Outweighing the negatives. Like, cruise laundry is one thing I don’t particularly like. I like having fresh clothes, not re wearing clothes, but the laundry on board is really expensive.
So if you were to go from cruise to cruise and not have downtime in between, then you might end up spending a lot on laundry, and that’s not good. So, with the two cruises back to back, I intentionally left two nights in between, so I’d have time to catch up on laundry, make some phone calls, paying credit cards, by the phone with debit cards, of course.
And many other shenanigans also went to the Hard Rock Seminole casino in Hollywood and did a tier [00:24:00] match. So how about that for a world tour, because they’re saying in Atlantic city, you can’t rematch if you’re an active player. So here you can go to Florida and tier match.
Darren Remsburg: Love all the options.
Justin Vacula: The winds continue and.
One, one area where the wins were questionable was on board casino poker. So they had a 15 max rake, which is really egregious. So this means that if the pot builds up to 150, they take 15 out. This is a 10 percent rake. The games that I played in Vegas at win Las Vegas, the max rake was 5. And at win Las Vegas, I believe the 5 only comes out around a hundred or 150.
This rake was really punishing. This was a 2, 5 blind game with the 500 buy in, but there was match the stack. So if you sit at the table, someone else has 900, you can buy in for 900, but it was very hard to get hands in. This was a really slow game. [00:25:00] There was one table, no automatic shuffler, which is a regular thing at casinos to speeds the game.
There were many fills. So what would happen is people would buy in. The dealer would have to count out the money. Count out the chips and then the well or the rack or the cashier or whatever you want to call it at the table. For those that might not know poker, they would have to replenish it. So then you’re stopping the game to get the chips, to take the money, to count the money, to push the money and verify and all this.
So it was just a very slow process because at almost every other casino, there’s a cage that you could buy chips from, and then you bring your chips to the table rather than having to do all this counting down and verifying and. It was a mess, and all the rebuys were at the table too, whereas in other scenarios people can just go to the cage and get their money.
So it was very slow, if you’re talking like 20 25 hands an hour in a regular casino, we’re maybe getting 9 or 10 here, which was just one orbit. Oof, that’s brutal. So, very slow. Yes, but one salvation was [00:26:00] that there were bad players. The players, a lot of them were clueless. There were people playing every hand and they were just making ridiculous size bets.
There’d be like a hundred dollars in the pot and they’d bet 15. And this is a classic thing of, well, what is this bet really accomplishing that you’re going to want to bet bigger in proportion of the pot and not just bet like a real world amount. Because really, you’re just incentivizing everyone to call who has, like, remotely anything.
And you generally don’t want to give people great prices like that. There were also people making dinky raises with also nothing. Like, someone would bet 15 in a 100 pot, and a player would raise to 30, with, like, queen high, with no real draw or anything. So there was a lot of dinking and donking around, and lots of drinking!
And I think that had a lot to do with it, when you can just keep getting the drinks, and people are drinking for free. They’re rebuying, they’re playing, they’re just trying to play every hand. And it was painful at times. So there were profitable opportunities, but when the game goes very [00:27:00] slow, like some people didn’t even know how to count their chips, we had one player who had a stack of a hundred red, 20 red chips.
And instead of just cutting the stack out and calling or betting, she was counting the chips one by one and making a line of things. That,
Darren Remsburg: that does not
Justin Vacula: sound
Darren Remsburg: enjoyable.
Justin Vacula: There were some funny moments too. There was one hand that was completed. So all the hands were face up. All the cards were shown.
Everything was then face down. This is standard procedure. Okay. The pot is pushed and then everything goes face down and the dealer shuffles the cards. And one player says, wait, I think I had a fluck. And the dealer saying, no, you didn’t have a flush. And she’s debating the dealer turned the cards over.
There’s just no universe this happens where there was sufficient time to determine who was the winner in the hand. And then if you had an objection, you should have voiced your objection. You can’t just, Oh, all the cards are face down. Let’s flip them all back up. And they’re basically taking a shot at potentially getting a flush when they really didn’t have one.
So you just can’t do that. [00:28:00] And I think the dealer was being talked into it and I had to speak up and say, no, you can’t do that.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, that’s not, it’s never good when you’re the, it’s like going to go into the cashier and they’re like, what are the rules about buying gift cards again? And you’re like, Oh my gosh, this is going to be a lot of time for this.
Justin Vacula: How many money orders can I buy? Yeah, we know the cashier is like making up the rules, but unfortunately I have to play dealer and enforce the rules. And then the game is being slowed down even more. The dealers weren’t making correct change as a player would put out a 25 green chip. And instead of giving the players sufficient change for red, they somehow confused it and put it in the pot and a pot that should have been 20 was somehow 30 and I say, no, that’s incorrect.
And then they’re trying to reconstruct things. So it’s, it’s pretty bad. I think the situation here is that all the dealers deal all the games and split the tips. And one dealer was even talking about being a dancer. So I suppose he could be a Jack of all trades, but probably not. I
Darren Remsburg: don’t like [00:29:00] archeological
Justin Vacula: digs
Darren Remsburg: anytime, Justin, but especially not at the poker table.
That’s for sure.
Justin Vacula: You don’t want to dig through the model and try to find the potential flush? It’s
Darren Remsburg: a no thank you for me.
Justin Vacula: Yes. One, some dealers were making mistakes in players advantage as one dealer just wasn’t taking any rake. So I think there was a time where it was rake free for 10 or 15 minutes, which is funny.
I’ll gladly play rake free in a slow game, but with a 15 rake, I just don’t think you could hang out too long and be profitable, unless the players are really horrible. But when it’s a slow game and you’re hardly getting in hands, then maybe that’s not the case. Questionable, for sure. Then there was a drunk guy who was arguing with the dealer in the floor.
All the cards are dealt, it’s pre flop, and the guy just walks away from the table. So then the dealer mucks his hand, takes his cards, the guy comes back and saying, oh, why did you take my cards? You saw me, you knew where I was. And the dealer politely said, sir, if you leave the table, your hand is considered dead.
And the guy keeps arguing about it, he’s cursing at the [00:30:00] dealer, arguing with the floor. What a mess.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, that That, that sounds more like entertainment value than a gambling opportunity to me. But maybe if you knew which dealer didn’t take a rake, you could just hang out, wait for that dealer to come back and be like, yeah, I’ll sit down and play a couple of hands here.
Yeah.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. Pro tip to players. If you have any interest in a hand, don’t walk away from the table. It seems self explanatory, doesn’t it? Yeah, look at your hand first, see if you want to fold or what you want to do, wait till the action is on you, and then you could fold and leave the table, but these people just didn’t know better, they didn’t care, or, because the alcohol was free, as the Aelstorm song Mexico says, I guess the decisions weren’t always the best.
It’s,
Darren Remsburg: we call it fuzzy logic, I think, Justin.
Justin Vacula: Yes, yes. And the room was very loud. There was music playing in an adjacent room. There was a dance floor and band, so you couldn’t even socialize at the table that much. And it was hard to hear what was going on. So was the poker worth it? Probably [00:31:00] not. Although I was there for just a short time.
I ended up ahead 60. I had some small pots and. They took their rake, of course, but I just walked after a short session, so we can say we did it for the podcast. Yeah, I took on the pain of the world.
Darren Remsburg: Sixty dollars, Justin. That’s twelve of those little bags of chips in your room. Just think of the feast you could have had.
Or just
Justin Vacula: going to the buffet, of course. Of course, yes. All right, let’s move on to day two. So day two of the cruise was a stop at Key West, which I was really impressed with. There was an area called Mallory Square with many monuments and roosters. I’ve seen roosters on previous excursions or previous cruises, but here they were just walking around everywhere.
They were belting out the cock a doodle do’s, so I found the roosters extremely entertaining. I took video with my new Insta360 X4 camera, so that’ll be on the Herdy Gerdy Travel Podcast YouTube channel, as I’ve been doing a lot of these travel videos, so you got to see Harry Truman, [00:32:00] Tennessee Williams, and multiple roosters.
Darren Remsburg: That’s quite the, that’s quite the collection of folks there.
Justin Vacula: Former president, playwright, and some roosters. There you go. Yes, the roosters were everywhere, but they were particularly gathered in this square. And other elements of the square that were notable, there was a train. There was the historic Conch train, the world famous Conch train.
So you can get on, get a tour without walking. I think I ended up around 22, 000 steps. Samsung health told me I crushed my goal. This was the record of all the walking around. There was so much to see, but the train was very interesting. And it goes through the square through notable areas of Key West.
Very clean, very safe to walk. I thought this was a really good cruise port and you can go to the train depot or the train station. So I took a video of that. As well, there’s a gift shop. There is an area you can buy the tickets. So it’s not quite Amtrak, but what can you do? It’s Key West. So we had a cool train that was [00:33:00] going around.
So I was happy to take multiple videos of that in the square and then at the train depot. So that was really nice. You had that option. So perhaps if you had a hard time walking or maybe you’re elderly. You’d want to take a train tour rather than walking around.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. I didn’t realize there was a train there in Key West.
I’ve been down there a couple of times, so good to know. Did you pass any speedway huts while you were on the train?
Justin Vacula: No, no spending at sea, except for the spending in the casino, the creative spending in the casino, but there was a CVS. In Key West and I had used my CVS care pass now called the extra care plus benefit and got a Key West mug.
And you’re free 20. No, no 20 play this time with the cash at Abbott, not this time. I did have the extra care plus, so that’s a cool thing. You can get off the cruise and instead of paying the overpriced, probably overpriced rates on the cruise, you could just go to a CVS. In Key West. So there, there was a CVS right outside of the [00:34:00] train depot or train station, many other restaurants, many museums.
Some of them were free to go in and there would be optional fees if you wanted to see more or some just had an outright price. There was the Harry Truman Little White House. I thought that was really interesting. It was a building that, as you might expect, looked like the White House. And a presidential car that was parked towards the back.
Lots of trees, lots of flowers. So it was really cool. You get to go in for free, walk around, but if you wanted to go in the building, you’d have to pay for a walking tour. So I just took the free experience, made a video of that. There was also the southernmost point, which was a pier and a beach. Many of the college students went to this beach, very occupied and a lot of different resorts and hotels that were around there, there was another area, the butterfly conservatory.
Which you got to go in the front for free and then it was optional to get in the back I think it was about 20. There was the Ernest Hemingway house. [00:35:00] That was all pay to play and Inside I watched some videos online one from the cool buildings YouTube channel that there were the Hemingway cats and many other areas of the Hemingway House.
There is the Key West Lighthouse. There is a marina area with the historic Seaport Harbor Walk. And I went to Hyatt centric Key West. They had what they called turtle centric, where they had many sea turtles and some exotic birds. So I was very happy with Key West, lots to see.
Darren Remsburg: Did you do a mattress run while you were there at the Hyatt?
A quick, uh, check in, check out. I did not
Justin Vacula: check in and check out as I’m going to be getting most of my Hyatt qualifying nights from Rio to Las Vegas. And I will be back in April. How about,
Darren Remsburg: how about the Hemingway cats? Did you notice how many toes they had? Polydactyly.
Justin Vacula: Ooh, yes. Tell some listeners about that.
Yeah, that’s right.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, so the cats there have a [00:36:00] unusual genetic mutation that results in an extra toe, and they have what’s called polydactyly. And because that population of cats is fairly confined, it’s an island, there’s not a lot of new genetics, if you will, being brought in onto the island. So it’s a really common genetic mutation that’s observed in those cats.
So that’s one of the famous things about the Hemingway cats.
Justin Vacula: The more you learn on the hurdy gurdy cat. That’s right. I didn’t bring my multiple phones with me for the My Vegas games. I didn’t have the phone army, but there definitely were the turtle army and the cat army. That’s for sure.
Darren Remsburg: Did any of them look like they were practicing any sort of, uh, ninja or other Japanese martial arts?
Anything? No keyboard playing. With no rats, is there sense? Nothing. Nothing like that. No.
Justin Vacula: Hey, I know they did, they did not sing the song Memory from the musical Cats either. Yeah. Yeah, good day in Key West. Lots of walking around, lots of [00:37:00] sightseeing. I posted lots of photos on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast Facebook page.
And again, the videos will be out on the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Facebook page. I’ve been aiming for daily content at noon Eastern. And I took so many videos from all these cruises that I have about two weeks of content scheduled out. We’re recording here, March 18th, and we’ll be set for April and more travel is definitely to come.
Darren Remsburg: Looking forward to seeing those Justin. So after, after Key West, where was the next port of call?
Justin Vacula: I went to Nassau Bahamas and this was interesting because I went to Nassau Bahamas on the previous cruise. But of course I wasn’t going to decline this cruise because there was an overlap in destinations.
So, I went to Nassau once again, and there was something very different and notable that fellow travel hacker and past podcast guest Mark Kaczynski was also in Nassau, Bahamas. He was on a different ship with MSC, and we did not arrange our cruises to be at the [00:38:00] same time. We went on different cruise lines, we went on different cruise ports, but it just so happened that he said, hey, I’m arriving in Nassau
Darren Remsburg: too, let’s meet.
It’s like the opposite of the travel hackers dilemma, which we call that
Justin Vacula: a cool celebrity coincidence on the silhouette. All the time. The answer to everything is more credit cards, but sometimes the answer is more prizes. So we hung out in the port area, walked around, we went to the Junkanoo museum or the museum of Junkanoo.
I just like saying that. So we didn’t explore much. I already had that exploration period. So we just hung out there and talked shop and talked about our different cruise experiences. So it was cool. I still like it. I got off the ship. I got my steps in.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. That’s important. I think to get off the ship, walk around a little bit.
Like you say, it’s, it can be easy to sit by the pool all day and just eat and drink. And the, the clothes get, even if you have, even if they do deliver your, [00:39:00] your suitcase on time, sometimes the clothes don’t fit quite as well when you leave as when you arrive. Uh oh. Yeah. So gotta be careful.
Justin Vacula: Yes. We have it so good in Pennsylvania with Giant Weiss and so many other grocery programs.
We have the first world problem with too many grocery rewards. And at Weiss, we’re going to get some free frozen veggies again and some optional items like potatoes and pies. And more. Uh, we had the first world problem with too many grocery rewards here in Pennsylvania, but it’s also a first world problem of too many cruise offers.
So even though it overlapped, I said, yeah, I’ll, I’ll go anyway. Why not? I’m already there. It’ll be fun.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. Why not? You work for yourself, right? Like you’re, you’re generating content, getting some, some gambling in positive expectation gambling. And yeah. And then also get to meet up with, with other travel hackers out and about.
Justin Vacula: Oh, it’s been a great community. This has happened in other. Situations. I went to Atlantis and did not plan to meet other people there, but a Facebook friend, Brooke said, Hey, [00:40:00] my friends are there too, Janet and Stan Mira. Why don’t you meet with them? And then Umid was there or was not there in a different group.
Oh, hey, I’m here too. So we have all this since we’re traveling so often. It’s common to find.
Darren Remsburg: It’s a good point, right? The community of folks that really enjoy traveling and finding creative ways to fund it. I think it’s a growing community too, right? You think about the multiple events that are being held, multiple groups that are popping up on social media and in person.
And yeah, I think it’s great to be part of that community and get to talk to you about it fairly regularly as well.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, that’s how we met. We were in a Slack group with the mile nomics podcast. We met through there. I met other friends and after starting the podcast, doing the YouTube thing, then I got speaking invites.
I have business relationships, got to meet a lot of cool people. You got to see Taylor Swift rather than going to American shows and paying a lot more. So some interesting things happen as a result of this hobby.
Darren Remsburg: Absolutely. [00:41:00] Really? Yes. It’s fantastic. And it’s fun too, right? Sometimes the puzzle is half the fun.
Yeah. The travel is definitely the cherry on top.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And very low cost with this cruise. Again, just paying the taxes and fees and the onboard credit, mostly negating the internet. So, Nassau, Bahamas, a short stop there, and the final day, leaving the room at 7. 30 in the morning, this time waking around 7 a.
m. It’s rough sometimes, the last day of the cruise. It’s usually my least favorite, and I think many others would agree it would be nice to get off the ship maybe around noon, maybe go to breakfast around 9. 30, 10 a. m., so just have to wake up early on that last day. So, out of the room at 7. 30, leaving breakfast at 8, getting off the ship.
It was an Uber to the airport for an 8. 45 arrival, so it was a pretty fast process. Waiting for the Uber, maybe taking about 15 20 minutes for the Uber to arrive at the cruise port. Usually there are a lot of requests, so it’s a little bit of a longer [00:42:00] wait. There are taxis if you want to pay a premium and possibly get ripped off, but I just take the Uber and wait the additional time.
So it didn’t take too long to get to that airport. I had a flight that was later at 5pm. I was able to change that by calling American Airlines. I couldn’t do it in the airport. They said I had to call in, so I was able to change the flight and leave around 1230. So I went to the American Express lounge that was there.
It wasn’t a Centurion lounge, it was an Escape lounge. Which is the smaller version, but it was still pretty nice. They had a breakfast spread and I was there long enough to also have a lunch spread and I already ate on the cruise ship, so I didn’t have much there, but it was still nice to be in a lounge area that was relatively quiet and continue to work on my laptop.
And I passed it a little bit earlier, but the wifi on the ship, it took a while to upload YouTube content and upload things in general and to download from Google drive. This could be a multi hour process, and some of [00:43:00] the files would just time out. So it wasn’t as bad as it was on the Holland America ship, where it would take 15 or 16 hours to upload a simple 3 minute YouTube video, but it definitely had its slower times.
It seemed that when I was in port, that It wasn’t so slow, but at sea it definitely was. And it’s interesting going out of the cruise ship and going into the airport lounge. And then it would be reasonable upload times, maybe like 20 or 30 minutes. And the airport wifi, not always the best, but there’s definitely a marked difference.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, I can imagine that could be frustrating. I was just thinking back to your 7 a. m. wake up call. How many of the spring break package kids just stayed up till 7?
Justin Vacula: Probably would have considered
Darren Remsburg: that in my younger days.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, famous last words. Oh, I could sleep on the flight.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah, I guess the other thing, and not related to that, but you said earlier people get really upset when things that Lost luggage, right?
It certainly can be frustrating. I’ve been frustrated as well, but it’s one of those things where it’s [00:44:00] not, no one’s, as far as I know, no one’s maliciously trying to, to cause you problems or pain and, and so you have to decide, Hey, is this something that I’m going to let ruin my vacation, especially if it’s going to be at the beginning of your vacation?
Or is this something that like you did, you roll with the punches, you follow up persistently, but politely. Yeah. And things will work out one way or the other worse comes to worse. You try to figure out some sort of insurance claim and buy some clothes when you got the cue past or something. But it wouldn’t be plan a
Justin Vacula: all the clothing, the necklaces.
Yeah. We got it all. Some train, maybe we’ll take the conductor and be a rail fan. Yes. There you go. There you go.
Darren Remsburg: And it’s the same, right? So you can be upset about the 7 a. m. wake up call, or you can say, Hey, look it, I’m going to make sure I’m up and I’m ready. And, and I’m going to go enjoy my time. I’m going to take my time getting to the airport.
I’m going to schedule my flights that I don’t feel rushed and don’t feel like, Hey, I only have an hour to make it to the airport. And what if I’m [00:45:00] late? What if it’s crowded? What if all those, what ifs, and you plan it out to make sure that you have the time you need, and then like you did, if hopefully if things work out well, maybe you can.
level up and get out a little earlier or find a better seat or a better flight. But I think it really is the approach. It starts with the approach and the attitude of how are we going to either make the best of this situation or how can we put ourselves in a good position to start with?
Justin Vacula: Yes, I find a lot of solace in stoic philosophy.
That was my previous podcast, the Stoic Solutions podcast, the works of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus in thinking about what’s inside your control, what’s outside of your control. Is this situation really bad as I’m making it out to be? And they even note that the war on happiness can be self imposed so that we can just add misery, add interpretations to things that just aren’t real.
Oh, this trip is a disaster because the luggage was late. It was just a minor inconvenience. So we’re able to get through this and not drag [00:46:00] ourselves down in the process.
Darren Remsburg: Great reminder. Okay. For four cruises so far this year, Justin, how would you rank them?
Justin Vacula: Ah, interesting. I would put this in the middle.
Virgin voyages is still number one, but I think it’s fair to put this one in the middle. The Holland America one was okay. Maybe give that around a five or a six out of 10, the carnival panorama, maybe a six or seven out of 10 virgin voyages, definitely taking the top rank, maybe an eight or a nine. So this, I think would be somewhere.
In the middle, some of the inconveniences with the poker game, I think, or the slow nature of it, the high rake wasn’t great. The expertise of the dealers wasn’t so great. The food was good. I went for mostly the made to order options. Virgin voyages seemed like almost everything was made to order. Things were very fresh and there were lots of different options and all the restaurants were included, but this one.
In the beginning, people would come up to you. Oh, you want to buy the drink [00:47:00] package? Oh, you want to add on for this and that dining. But Virgin voyages, all the different restaurants were included. I think that was really cool. So for those seeking value, if you can get that comp cruise with Virgin voyages, I think that’s really nice.
If I were to, if you were to say, Oh, which cruise can you cruise again? I would take them as a cruise line. And I think there were times in the past where you were able to transfer American express membership reward points, membership rewards points. at higher rate and there were also some discounts on the points redemptions of the cruises.
So if that comes around again, maybe that can be another play with the Virgin Voyages. Otherwise listeners might have to status match into that with their MGM or Caesar status and see if they can get a comp cruise from Virgin Voyages or matching maybe from Ocean, not Oceans. With the MSC balcony offer is usually one of the first offers that people get, although now not even balcony ocean view is what Mark got on his cruise, but that can still match to another ocean view room.
Darren Remsburg: Just a reminder [00:48:00] that Virgin Cruises is all part of Virgin Red, right? And so that’s also Virgin Atlantic. And so you transfer your points there. Yeah, I think that Amex is a transfer partner. I think Chase is a transfer partner. And then you can move your points around. Does that sound right?
Justin Vacula: Yes. And now Synchrony, one of our newest favorite banks, although it’s an old bank, they also have an elevated offer on the Virgin credit card.
And we’re recording on March 18th, so I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to last, but there are some perks with high spend on that card. And you can earn points through spending on that card. So that could be something interesting. Although I went with other synchrony options first, but that might come up in my June, July ish apparama, and I might also be a rail fan myself and go for that Amtrak credit card with FNBO adding to the MGM mastercard.
And the Ford pass card that I got a long time ago.
Darren Remsburg: Yeah. You’ve gotten a lot of, you’ve gotten a [00:49:00] lot of distance, a lot of miles out of that Ford pass card more than I thought.
Justin Vacula: Yeah. It’s really underrated every year. It’s a 200 statement credit on a no annual fee card for spending maybe five or 6, 000. And of course, with all of our creative ways to spend, it’s super easy to do.
That’s no problem. I probably wouldn’t apply for it today because there are better options. Now, especially with Synchrony, Comanity, City, for those who can actually get City cards, but what can you do? We still use the cards that are older and try to make the most of every card we have. Absolutely. All right.
Any other questions about the cruise? Any other? I don’t
Darren Remsburg: think so. It’s, it’s a good reminder that there’s lots of opportunities here to do some cruising and hope the short cruises, long cruises, Caribbean cruises, UK cruises, and that really the status matching casinos are the gateway to that. So. Looking forward to hearing about the next one and always good to catch up.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, since 2026, I should also cruise Celebrity again. I’ve also been making [00:50:00] a running list of upcoming travels on hurdygurdytravel. com. As others have asked me, hey, I’d like to meet, where are you going to be? So I made a page for that and I’ve put some of the cruises on it. And some people say, hey, maybe we can meet on the same ship.
So I’m also open to that too. I would also hope that podcast listeners would tentatively reserve January for an Atlantis stay as well. So you can see my upcoming trips at hurdygurdytravel. com and I’d be happy to meet with some listeners. It should be a cool opportunity to make these cruises a little bit better.
Darren Remsburg: Hey, I appreciate you doing that. That sounds like a great opportunity.
Justin Vacula: All right. Thanks for joining me today and we’ll hope to have you on again soon.
Darren Remsburg: Thanks, Justin. I look forward to it.
Justin Vacula: Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. Some closing announcements, ticket sales for ZorkFest 2025, a miles points and gambling event are live at zorkfest.
travelzork. com. I hope to see you at [00:51:00] ZorkFest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th. Through December 7th. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and had a successful 2024 speaking at events with award travel, one on one travel Zork frequent traveler university, and both Chicago seminars events.
If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. Visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel. Credit miles and points meetups. I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are April 12th and May 17th, 2025.
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