XBGuy

@marshhawk -- Two races today on Fox Sports 1, The big race on Sunday is on the Fox Network. Wine Day? I thought that was any day that ends in "y". Whale Day. I spotted this from our balcony as we were pulling away from Ketchikan on one of our AK cruises. A whale bubble feeding. Being on a moving ship, we were well past by the the time he popped up, So, this is as good a pic as I could get.

I am, pretty much, on the same page with you. The swag is delivered to your cabin sometime after the tour. There is no requirement to pack it up and take it with you. In fact, it will take up a lot of space in your luggage. Just leave it in the cabin, The point of the UST is the tour and learning about the behind the scenes operations from the people doing it. That was all I needed.

California enacted legislation that went into effect in 2022 requiring that kitchen scraps be deposited in the green barrel which had been previously designated for garden waste. I thought it made reasonable sense. Enforcement seems to be spotty, and, so, if you live in California, and you are not aware of this, then don't worry about it. ; I first saw the green compostable plastic bags at Trader Joe's where they are available in the produce and the meat sections. I thought they were pretty great. Subsequently, I learned from Cruise Critic contributor @JimmyVWinethat they were available from Amazon,, and, so, that is where we now get them We have been using them for several years now in our "landfill" trash barrel. The next time I visit Costco, I will check there. As we were transitiong to the new program our trash collection company advised not to put the compostable plastic bags in the green barrel because they do not breakdown fast enought. Reading @kazu's comments. I wonder if Canadian compostable bags are different from the one's available in the U.S. Not only does our trash collector ask us to no put them in the green barrel, but we store ours in the garage and have never had a problem with them deteriorating before we use them all up.

Thank you @marshhawk. That's a terrific program covering multiple styles and eras.

@marshhawk, if it is easy, could you post the program of the concert you are attending. I am always curious. Happy Valentines Day to all. Today has been pretty brutal on the credit card. I stopped at See's Candies to pick up a gift for Mrs. XBGuy--Milk Chocolate Covered Chocolate Butter Creams. Mrs. XBGuy, like many women has a thing for chocolate. See's is a Los Angeles company. I do not know how far they stretch, but Mrs. SBGuy is convinced that they have the best chocolate. Whether they really are or not does not matter. She say's they are the best, and, so, there is absolutely no downside to gifting a box of See's. Today is also new release day for a couple of my favorite wineries--Bedrock Wine Co. and Quivet Cellars. I make no apologies for my California wine prejudice. 😁

@Seasick Sailor, it sounds like you are taking steps to mitigate potential motion sickness distress on your upcoming Hawaii cruise. That is prudent. Anything can happen on the open sea, and it is winter in the northern hemisphere. My coffee shop buddy is on a Princess Los Angeles-Hawaii cruise right now. He departed last week. He reported that the first sea day was very smooth. Then, the second sea day was rainy with some bumps. He said that limited his promenade deck walking. My guess is that the forward portion around the bow was closed off. Yesterday, their port stop in Maui was cancelled due to high winds. So, it became an extra sea day,

So, the part about "a friend in Cozumel" was a lie.

I'll give a shout out to Opera Day. I think I'll do some binge listening over on YouTube. "L'Italiana in Algeri" sounds like fun.

I agree that I would not be terribly reliant on a telephone conversation, and it is highly unlikely that the person who answers the 800 number is knowledgeable in exception conditions such as this. The OP should consider this as a possible first step that might lead him to other resources. D'oh. You're right. It is highly unlikely that the OP would be traveling alone. I still think it would be something of a deal, though. For example how wide will the gangway be at the destination port? My guess is that will not be as wide as the gangways at most U.S. embarcation ports. It won't be impossible, but it might take some thinking.

Port side--mirror image of 101. It's a great cabin

My wife absolutely loved sitting on that cabinetry and watching out the window for whales.

I think you have nailed many of the benefits of the Premium Suite. A lot of people love the Suite Breakfast that is offered in one of the specialty restaurants. Another nice benefit is the ability to order room service of the day's dining room menu. It is not as elegant as, say, the Ultimate Balcony Dinner, because it is all delivered at once, but it is a nice option, and there is room in the suite to enjoy it. There is a stocked mini-bar in the suite, but, since you do not drink alcoholic beverages, you can have those swapped out with soft drinks. Your room steward can help you with that. I would like to underline the benefit of the Suite Concierge Lounge. First it is not available to Mini Suite guests. Yes, Princess does have confusing nomenclature. Second, my experience with the suite concierge has been outstanding. I found that I was able to use him to make specialty restaurant reservations and, even, Chef's Table reservations. The concierge can also help with little problems that arise. I mentioned a problem with the toilet in our suite, and within 20 minutes an engineer was knocking at our door. We were in B101 on the Royal Princess (sister ship of the Regal Princess) for one cruise. We LOVED it. We were on a 14-day AK cruise and loved the fact that we could view so much of the scenery--out the front-facing windows and the starboard side balcony--and Alaska is all about the scenery. I don't know what your concern is about the bridge. I don't remember it being any issue at all. It is a pretty fair walk to the Suite Concierge Lounge which is quite far abaft as you can see from the deck plan. It was not a big deal, at all, for us, but I don't know if you have any physical limitations. From our suite on Deck 11, we climbed two flights of stairs to Deck 14 and headed aft. Since you are booked on Deck 12 (A101 by any chance), you will have to climb one flight. Bon Voyage,

Welcome to Cruise Critic, @big_guy. You have, indeed, asked an interesting question. I have two ideas which may or may not be helpful. First, contact your cruise line. It may take a while to connect with the right person, but be persistent. I can't imagine that they care that you are taking your property off the ship, but I could. very well, be wrong there. Also, they might have some insight on Mexican customs regulations that you would have to follow. Second, contact the closest Mexican Consulate and ask if your plan has any customs implications. (I have no idea where you live but it appears that there are five or six of them in Southern California where I live.) I am not sure that this question would fall under their aegis, but it is a reasonable place to start. As several previous posters have mentioned, if you've dotted all the eyes and crossed all the tees, and you are completely cleared to go, the responsibilty for wrestling these "4 large suitcases" off the ship will be yours and yours alone. That seems nontrivial to me.

Vegemite?

🤣🤣🤣 Even when you're blue you can make me laugh. Oh gosh. I hope you were trying to make me laugh.

I'm a bit surprised that this one hasn't been posted here, yet. If I am wrong, and it has, in fact been previously posted, I guess I'll hang my head in shame.

An excellent response. Of course, one size never fits all. To Mrs. XBGuy and me, destinations are, at best, secondary. The ship is our vacation. We love the shipboard experience, and we love being at sea. Hmm. This opinion might very well fit this thread's topic.

I'll be darned. Apparently I was plagiarising Thomas Edison. Back in my working days I often had to explain to customers that "No, your computer is still down." This was, of course in the days when a computer filled a room, and reliability was nothing like an iPhone. I was a software guy, but, even though most failures were hardware, I was often asked to go out to help the field engineers. Invariably, I became the customer interface. Generally, the customers would let us work, but, obviously, they would need updates. If I had a good relationship with the customer, the update I might start with something like, "Well, we know a lot of things that don't work." I would, of course, quickly shift to a more serious tone. I thought I was so clever, but here I was stealing from T.A. Edison. One of our favorite activities on San Francisco port stops is to walk to La Mar Peruvian restaurant near Pier 2 for empanadas. Some of us are glad that the motor racing season has started. The D24 last weekend was awesome. We have a friend who is car chief for one of the cars--#27--and they won the GTD class. Very, very cool. NASCAR starts this weekend with a practice race in the Los Angeles Coliseum. We'll watch that race on TV, but tonight we are meeting up with friends from some of the teams for dinner at a pretty cool Italian restaurant in DTLA.

Where do I sign up for that? I have participated in two CTs and, for the life of me, I could not understand the appeal of standing around in the galley sipping Champagne and noshing on small bites. I agree that the Champagne and the appetizers were all good, but my feet were getting cold. I would much rather have done it seated at a table. Boy, talk about First World problems.

I learned to type (not very well) on a manual machine. I do remeber how to center a title. It was a clever trick, but not nearly as easy as clicking on an icon. . Dailyites, please help me out a bit. I've lived a sheltered life and, so, I have learned a lot on these threads. For example, I had never heard of that "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" thing until I started following these threads. Today it appears to be "Rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit." Why has it changed?

Just to be clear, the "Like" that I gave to your post was for the Tig, not for your disappointing dining experience. I am thinking about boycotting your posts. I get so jealous when I see that not only are you enjoying wines from outstanding makers, but they also have nice age on them.

Also, Royal Class ships, such as the Regal Princess, have a Suite Concierge Lounge This is a terrific amenity for suite passengers. It is a nice little getaway that offers coffee, tea and noshes all day and a happy hour with bartender service in the afternoon. There is a concierge on station most of the day who is available to assist you with many of your questions. I have used the suite concierge to make specialy restaurant reservations (including the complimentary first night dinner) and Chef's Table reservations.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. There are a lot of resources on this site, and I think a couple of them might be helpful to you regarding your question. There is a "Ports of Call" page where people can discuss questions regarding specific ports.. This link will take you to a directory, and from there you can drill down to specific ports. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/2-ports-of-call/ Another idea would be to check the "Roll Call" for your cruise. A Roll Call is a specific forum for a specific cruise. Cruisers on a specific cruise get to meet each other and socialize. Typically, these people are experienced cruisers and, often, have visited specific ports previously. I would bet, they would love to take a new cruiser under their wing. If you look at the top of this page you will see a "Find Your Roll Call" link. It is a bit tedious to find your Roll Call, but you drill down through the cruise line, through the ship to the exact cruise. Again, I think you might find it useful.

To these I would like to add: Today is Mozart's Birthday. Today is Berserker Day. To wine geeks Berserker Day approaches the level of a holy day of obligation. It is the anniversary of the "birth" of Wine Berserkers which is a very popular internet site for wine geeks--the wine geeks' analog to Cruise Critic. Named "The Black Friday of Wine Commerce" by Forbes magazine, everyone is invited to go Berserkers and celebrate their love of wine on January 27th. Wineries, retailers and other peddlers in the wine world offer unique deals for this one day, the 14th anniversary of the Wine Berserkers on line Forum. This offer is open to everyone. Offers are released in small groups throughout the day on Friday morning beginning at 7:30 am Pacific. This is really a terrific opportunity for guys like me to pick up terrific deals from old favorite wineries or to check out new smaller wineries. So far today I have grabbed a library vertical 3-pack of Petite Sirah and a 4-pack of wines made from Portuguese grape varieties. I was telling my non-wine-drinking coffee shop buddy about Berserker Day, and he commented that Cruise Critic should do something similar. I think he has something.

Another vote for aft suites--at least for Grand class ships such as the Emerald Princess. We love the fact that you can actually enjoy meals on the balcony of aft-facing cabins. You are completely protected from the wind. We've enjoyed Ultimate Balcony Dinners, Room Service Dinners, and Ultimate Balcony Breakfasts--not to mention numeroust late afternoon noshes with glasses of wine--on aft-facing suite balconies on the Star Princess and the Ruby Princess (sister ship to the Emerald Princess). To us it does not take long before the wind becomes tedious (best possible scenario) on the port/starboard balconies,