CruiseVivaLady

On 12/10/2018 at 6:13 AM, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Day 22 - Antarctica Day 1- Dec 10^th

I will be posting out of sequence – jumping ahead to share some of the current Antarctica pictures.   I will backfill with more detail later.

We passed our first iceberg at 5:15 AM.  This one was pretty big but didn’t have a name.

Second Iceberg appeared at 7:30 AM – was 15 NM long and is named A57A

We saw this smaller iceberg around 5:15 AM

 

It was about 32 degrees with 30 knots of wind - wind chill about 14 degrees 

Your story is a pleasure to follow. Thanks for sharing.  This unnamed iceberg looks like a Borg ship from Star Trek. I therefore dub thee “BORG”. 

Hi Jilltoons. I think you'll enjoy the Holland brand. The ships are beautiful as you have seen and I like the food as well. Enjoy your cruise:)

Looks like no joy on viewing MSC.

Finally all caught up on this thread. When I started reading there were 63 pages:eek: and now we are at 70. Truly a great read and many laughs:D.

My husband and I are sailing the Bliss in August 2018. I did the Escape 7-day inaugural to the Caribbean. Loved it! Now I'm so ready for a ship in L.A. We have never been to Alaska but I'm thinking about jumping ship (heh-hum) for the Panama Canal Westbound sailing instead. We haven't done either destination actually so perhaps we may just do both.

Just a few more days past one year...woo-hoo!

I think service and experience is a better criteria to use as to whether or not you should change your TA. All the OBC in the world won't do you any good if there's a problem and your new TA doesn't have a clue how to fix it. JMHO.

 

 

 

Back at the ship it took some time to unload us all. I was sitting downstairs and waited until the crowd had cleared.

 

Here's a picture of feet on the stairway-can you recognize yours?

 

 

We sailed soon after the tender left and Grand Cayman, being so flat, was soon lost to view.

Another great shot...your cameras served you well in the Caymans:).

We returned to the dock after half an hour or so at the sand bar and boarded the bus for our return to the pier in Georgetown. There Carol caught a tender back to the ship while I went in search of duty free smokes once again. Once again my search was fruitless.

 

 

 

I took some random pictures near the port

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onward to the tender!

Very artistic shot...I love it! Pulled me right out of the shadows:eek:.

I've gotten used to the new format; it's fine. But, I would like it if they would return the "Jump to Page" feature. You have to click through every page one at a time now and that can be rather tedious when your trying to return to a page in the middle of a long review.

With a new grandchild on the way, I reworked a photo I took of her mom and big brother from three years ago.

 

 

'Shopped out some distractions - duplicated layer - brightened - applied Gaussian blur - Switched to background and converted it to B&W and added border in Silver Effects - merged at 25% opacity for the blurred, color layer.

 

 

Dave

They look so peaceful. Good job:).

Here's another I worked over. Wings Over Houston 2007 was a dismal, dreary day. When life gives you lemons, Photoshop it into lemonade.

 

superbug1 by Matt Barnette, on Flickr

Nice:). Looks like you know you're way around Photoshop.

I just reworked this shot from 2008 for enlargement and printing. I love color-isolation black & white images. RAW processed in Optics Pro 10, edited in CS6, with Dfine, Silver Efex, and Viveza. Might be a dash of HDR prior to conversion to B&W.

 

Wunala1SM by Matt Barnette, on Flickr

This is a great treatment. You turned what would have been a busy, full-color image into an interesting piece with a strong focal point.

I really like this picture that Nolan captured of the sea gull. I had never noticed how colourful these birds were.

 

 

Regards,

Kevin Reid

The coloring and in-flight posture of this bird are very similar to the Gannet. I'm not familiar with Gannets being Caribbean sea birds so perhaps with its coloring it's a relative species. Great shot...it's beautiful!

I had to laugh!! I always "round down" the price of our cruises to my husband! Sometimes he just doesnt understand what a good deal it is :D

We are sailing on the Breeze on 4/7, thanks for the review!!!

LMAO!! Too funny.

 

We are also (okay, I am also) looking at the 8 day itinerary that goes to Aruba and Curacao. If I can somehow convince my husband that it would only cost us like $250 a person then we might be able to go for Christmas. Just a little white lie...lol. ;)

What a great review. I'm so glad I found it and you oreomaximus, even though I am a bit late. Now I know it's not just my husband who needs the "vanilla" version of costs and length when planning a trip...lol!

The Big Pour - Celebrity Silhouette March 2013

 

I captured this footage during the first week of our Silhouette back to back 2013. Clip is only 1:03 minutes long so please give it a click. This video is not on my Vimeo channel but rather on YouTube with annoying ads. I should put it up on my Vimeo Plus account.

 

[YOUTUBE]dha3C9lt-tU[/YOUTUBE]

 

Regards,

Kevin Reid

I love this clip. I don't drink either but I may have to give this martini thing a try on my next cruise. Love your review. I devoured your first one last year and I've been looking forward to this one. Thanks for sharing.

Best,

LaDonna

In loving photography I certainly appreciate the memories. You can re-live an day,event, special occasion all over again when you go back through photos you've taken. But that usually takes place after. After the thrill of capturing the shot.

The tech side of photography has a thrilling grip on me that I can't shake. I can't wait to photography Alaska! I haven't even booked yet but I'm I'm already studying and planning for the photographic experience. The what, when, where, how of it all is my right now moment of joy in taking pictures. Then--later with the images saved, keyword tagged, and categorized--I can print the best of the best, create a slideshow and/or video, share with my friends and family and re-live a great time all over again:D.

Thanks for the great question.

LaDonna

Hi Budget Queen, I was was planning on pre-booking all of our excursions for Alaska to be sure we have a space for the tours we really want to do. Where do you get your coupons for these tours? Thanks for your help.

LaDonna

I have gone with both companies, and both certainly well run. I booked based on price and coupon usage.

I found this today while looking for something else:

Original Love Boat Cast Will Be Godparents to Cruise Ship

"As Princess prepares to celebrate its milestone 50th anniversary year in 2015, the company is honoring the role that The Love Boat played in its history by selecting the original Love Boat cast members to serve as godparents for its new cruise ship Regal Princess. All six Love Boat cast members - who played the roles of Captain Stubing, Gopher, Isaac, Doc, Julie and Vicki – will reunite to christen the new ship on November 5 in Fort Lauderdale."

The date of the story is August 13, 2014 citing princess.com as the source. Here's the link to the complete story:

http://www.shipdetective.com/news/princess_cruise_news.htm

Here's the link to the press release issued by Princess on August 13, 2014:

http://www.princess.com/news/press_releases/2014/08/Regal-Princess-Naming-Ceremony-Will-Launch-Princess-Cruises-50th-Anniversary-Celebrations.html#.VDV_j_ldVac

The ceremony will officially launch the golden year anniversary celebrations for Princess Cruises, which will celebrate five decades of operation throughout 2015.

Excellent!

CruiseVivaLady - most of the scenery and animals were taken with the Canons and the ones with us in them were mostly taken with the iPhone.

 

The lenses we used were a Canon 300mm fixed lens with a 2x teleconvertor; a Canon 17-85mm, a Canon 18-55mm and a Canon 55-250mm.

 

I liked to use the 55-250mm the most and Bill like the 300mm one.

Hi Yvette,

Excellent! I have the 18-55mm and the 55-250mm.

The other two lenses you have I have seen listed repeatedly as recommended camera lenses for an Alaska cruise. The 300mm with the 2x teleconverter is genius giving you excellent reach.

Both lenses are on now on my "treat myself list" but I think I'll make the best of the lenses I already have so we can spend more on our excursions in Alaska:D.

Thank you so much. Your review has become my template for planning our Alaska land/cruise vacation--great share:). I wish you the very best on your next cruise in December and congratulations on your upcoming 20th annivarsary:).

LaDonna

I will have to ask Bill about the lenses. We both have a canon body and we took 3 or 4 lenses. I preferred the ones that allowed me to take good scenery shots but also zoom in on things, and Bill prefers to ultra zoom in on stuff! I will ask and let you know.

 

We did not have a point and shoot apart from the underwater camera that died, a lot of the photos were taken on my iPhone.

The photo quality on the iPhone is really incredible! I have a 50mm fixed lens plus the two kit lens that came with my camera. After all the work you've already done I truly appreciate the additional effort for information. It's the cherry on top of a really fabulous review:):)

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Forums mobile app

Hi Cathy - yes, the story will continue as we head back up to Seward and Anchorage. Thanks for your kinds words. The photos are a mix of iPhone photos and photos taken with Canon cameras and different lenses. I just got a new iPhone 6 Plus today, so am really excited to try out the camera, it is meant to be very good!

I have Canon as well. Which lenses did you take with you? Did you have a point & shoot? Thanks:cool:

 

My summer fruits pie from 220 Parks Way - delicious!

 

After dinner we headed to our accommodations for the next two nights, the Alaska Spruce Cabins in Healy. We had side by side cabins and they were great, very cosy and warm, with a kitchen and bathroom in each. The beds were very comfortable and there were quirky little wood carvings of animals on the windowsills and door frames. They provided a coffee percolator and ground coffee packets as well. http://www.aksprucecabins.com

 

 

The view from the cabins was really nice and it was very quiet and peaceful.

 

 

Inside the cabins:

 

 

 

Nancy and Rod had introduced us to a dice game called Farkle, and we had managed to find the game in a shop in Anchorage with Moose on the dice. We spent a fun evening talking and playing Farkle before heading to bed ahead of our 4.30am wake up call the next morning.

Where did you book the rooms?

This is so amazing! Thank you for sharing:)

Well, it's not like they're Lurch or something... :D

 

Honestly though, you needn't utilize their services if you don't desire. They are not like true butlers - they have several cabins that they are responsible for. Though I will admit, the first one we ever had (Celebrity Century) always seemed to be very close by. They will tempt you will all sorts of tasty treats!

 

 

 

... and set up tasty (FULL) breakfast for two on your balcony:

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK -- enough of this... now I am starting to get HUNGRY!

Tom

The set-up on the balcony looks like CruiseViva life to me:D. Having a butler seems like a well-deserved reward. Thanks for sharing the pics.