OnTheJourney

Read that it was discontinued about two years ago.

Traded in my '73 Ford Maverick to get the Eurosport. We were thrilled with it - truly felt, for us at the time anyway, like a luxury car.

Huh...maybe it only came in a limited number of color combinations. It was a nice combination. Cool stories (well, except, of course for the accident!) All those cars met the true definition of "full sized"! I always get a kick out of, when traveling in Europe, most people have these little, short cars. I'd NEVER find a place to park or be able to navigate those narrow, winding streets over there with my 207" long Buick! That's pretty long by today's standards, at least for most cars I suspect. I'll be interested to see this Sony / Honda Afeela (EV) when it comes out. Very futuristic looking.

That's so unfair....shouldn't happen. Safe flight home.....

I did too!! Same car- '85 Celebrity Eurosport. Grey exterior with dark maroon upholstered interior. Very nice car. Gave great service. Not sure, in retrospect, why I traded it in after only 10 years, especially since the car I have now I've been driving for close to 28 years..which has given more than its share of problems during that time.

Oh gosh I HATE that stuff. Once we were doing overnight to Paris, and they came around with that nonsense of offering vouchers due to overbooking. Would you believe it got up to over $1,000? Started at like $100 for someone to give up their seat. NObody wanted to jump at it cause of next day connections and such. It's not like a short puddle jump from one state to another after all! I guess they got some takers cause eventually off we went. But, as expected, we missed our connection next morning. It got testy. At some point some airline official came over and said, "I REALLY need someone to get off this flight!" I know they overbook banking on a certain % of pax to cancel, but it doesn't always work out in their favor. Wonder if the cruise lines do that too? "Sorry, Lester...but the ship is full up so y'all will have to be towed by this rubber dinghy. We'll help you git in her and also here's a bottle of water and a sandwich to tide you over for the time being...."

Well, it IS Lent....so a good time to work on that 😁 I don't sense as much reticence and introversion as you accuse yourself of. So...another day on the ship..or heading home?

OK....I got it 😉 I can't recall ever going to a bar on a ship, other than to maybe take along a free drink through vouchers, etc. DW and I have pretty much decided we're done with those "Captain's Club" events. TOO many people for one thing. You wait in line to get in and then ultimately a whole bunch of already have-crocked people come storming out the elevator and butt in line anyway. Burns me up. One time some poor older guy was there waiting in line with his wife. Poor man must have had significant alzheimer's cause he kept asking, "why are we here"? I can relate since my Dad died from complications associated with dementia. Then, one of the last times they said there'd be ample food - they never came around with a single thing. I'd rather spend the time walking the decks. It's nice and all to see the captain and crew introduction but after you've done it a good number of times it starts to get old.

but wait...didn't you say you were bar hopping on the ship?? 🤔

Mine was a 70s Dodge Dart - not sure of the year. It was totaled in a near head-on collision (thankfully I'm still here) and then I replaced it with a '73 Ford Maverick...green with yellow pin stripes...Oh yeah...thought it was da bomb 😆 except it had no a/c. My dad, who was a mechanic and ran a shop, installed a homemade system with the blower right below the glove compartment, so when my wife and I started dating, she always brought along a blanket to cover her knees and legs since the thing blew right on her. Amazing she actually stayed with me. However, the bracket he made to hold the air compressor used to break occasionally - of course always on the hottest days while driving 2 hours to grad school. I could tell right away from the sounds coming from under the hood that the thing broke, only to be re-welded, and then would break again...and so forth. Speaking of a/c, my parents had a '65 Pontiac Grand Prix...man, that thing had some power. It was one of earliest models - at least of that car - to have factory air. Two vents were mounted on the back below the rear window, so when it really got cranked up it used to shoot ice chips at you...you'd be sitting in the back (or even front) and all of a sudden...ZING...right in the back of the neck!! Funny...guess they didn't have it perfected yet as to temperature regulation. Neat car though.

Quirks you say? How about the use of plastic intake manifolds on the 3.8 engines that had the EGR tube piped in right next to the throttle body, which eventually burned a hole through the plastic and wound up causing hydrolock once the coolant leaks into the engine? Happened on my '95 Riviera...while driving. You lose power real quick. Entire engine was ruined. Amazingly (more like thankfully) it happened only a few miles from home. We had just finished a 3,000+ mile road trip and then the engine blew only a few days later. SOMEtimes you get lucky. Though in the case of this car, a replacement engine that was put in also self-distructed after only 8 years - threw a crankshaft rod right through the block. BANG!!!! Most dramatic....once again, you stop REAL quick. 3rd engine is still going but really time for something new. I have a buyer for the '95 - a local guy that had the exact same car and model and so has often asked me about if I'd want to sell it.

We've only been on the Summit and Infinity...nothing else with X. Nope...not really into that on the ship, although we had some enjoyable round-the-table conversation during lunches that were included in our post-cruise extension in Athens. I typically don't initiate conversation but then fall into it easily if asked something depending on the course of the discussion. River cruising is much that way - larger groups around the tables. We generally prefer 2-tops - another reason we liked Blu!

Exactly. That's how our Baltic cruise was. When DW and I first started cruising we didn't care for sea days in the itinerary. Now...as we're getting older I say, 'bring 'em on!' That go-go-go all the time in every port starts to catch up to you at some point. Next to last cruise (another one in the Meddy) we often had two excursions on the same day. Too much after awhile. But, figuring we're not likely to get back to most of these ports again, might as well see as much as we feel up to. We didn't see any of Naples (other than what was visible from the ship in dock) but rather took an excursion to Pompeii....in the rain, though not too much of it. Amazing place but doubt if I'd be inclined to want to see more of it. The Holy Land, however, I COULD go back to since we lost one of our two days there. Wouldn't do it by ship though. WAY too much time on the bus back and forth. The one day was over 6 hours on the bus in all. The excursion to Delphi (from Athens) was a long day too.

Tell me about it. As a pre-diabetic a cruise is a test of will for me. I try to lean more towards the "no sugar added" offerings, but those little cream cheese tarts, cakes and chocolate desserts call to me, along with the cookies (sometimes there are no sugar selections). Proud to say that I (almost) completely avoided the ice cream line at the lunch buffets. Amazing how quickly that line formed (referring to a recent Viking cruise).

OK...now that you mention it I did see this thread. So your itinerary didn't include the Holy Land. I went back through your thread briefly. Well done! You retained alot of info about what was seen in the Acropolis museum. For some reason alot of that stuff just goes in my one ear and right out the other. Probably cause I'm always so focused on taking pictures and video. This trip inspired me though. Knowing relatively little about ancient history, I want to start doing some reading. Will start with the Epic of Gilgamesh (the earliest written story...ever) and then move on to the Homeric Hymns, Iliad, and Odyssey. Then, once I'm done, I probably won't remember 90% of it! Part of it is a very bad memory in general, and getting worse unfortunately! I had to laugh at your report of 60 degrees at the Acropolis! We got there twice. First time, during the one post-extension day, it was snow showers and really cold. Second time was during our free day - went up again with a private Viator tour. Overcast and SUPER cold. We had a good bit of rain on the trip. Weather was just crazy - it changed constantly.

Safe journey home....

Saw you did Cities of Antiquities. How'd it go? We were on the Jan. 24 sailing out of Rome and wound up losing one of our two days in Haifa. Most disappointing. Storm system was coming in so we had to leave port. After all the advanced excursion research, planning, and booking, the one we lost was to Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. Pre-extension in Rome was real nice, as was the post - Greece. All the ports were great. We wound up with an extra sea day, sort of - came into Cyprus towards late afternoon and then overnight there. Not originally planned. All the excursions were shifted to the following (full) day for Cyprus. Our full day in Jerusalem (from Haifa) was great also though started in alot of wind and rain. Even that day we lost part of since having to get back to port in time to shove off. CRAZY weather though in Athens. Snow! And freezing cold (like in the 30s) for much of the sightseeing there. Our guides said it was most unusual to have that. On the way to Delphi passed LOTS of salt and cinder trucks...and snow plows. They had a good amount of snow. By the time we got in higher elevation towards Delphi, sun was out. Weird. I would NOT do the Holy Land again by cruise ship though. WAY too much time on busses. Our bus to go back to Haifa broke down...twice actually. After sitting on it for like 20 minutes with no success to get it going, we were transferred to a different bus, and then later back to the first one again - which seemed to barely make it back to port - had to pull off the road several times. I saw several warning lights going on up at the dashboard as we went along. Once was when we pulled off for awhile in a tunnel - not comforting. Oh well...it was the Viking Sky, so we should have expected some weird happenings after what we went through back in '19 with the March Northern Lights cruise! Hope you had a good one...truly an amazing itinerary, although at this point I'm about archeological museum'd out. I don't think my brain would have been able to take one more.

Huh...I suspected as much. Our last cruise, with Viking, didn't have much masking either - maybe 5% or so? More during excursions and some ports required it on the busses and in certain buildings. Some of the crew still masked. Did you do a live thread during your cruise on the Beyond? Never been on any of the newer X ships so would be interested to see that.

Curious...where did you go? We just did one back in May that started in Rome, then went to Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, Majorca, and ended in Barcelona. A more recent one included Naples, Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, Nafplio, and ended in Athens - but also included Jerusalem and Haifa (for the Holy Land). Unfortunately we lost a full day in the Holy Land due to a storm system that was moving in - had to leave port instead of staying overnight. I've found the Mediterranean lovely sailing - for the most part quite smooth.

LOL...I have to agree. Some of the stuff looks great, but the taste doesn't match the appearance.

LOL..they're probably all jet lagged....😆 Give 'em a few days to come around..

ah well, maybe they don't know who they are either! I admire your spirit to travel alone like this. Not every spouse would be inclined to do that. Hope you enjoy Blu. Friends of ours highly suggested it, so that's partly what got us interested in trying AQ class. We loved it since we typically eat dinner really early and so got in there around 5:00 (I think? Maybe that changed by now) and always wound up at a window. Much quieter than the MDR.

Yikes. Out of curiousity...are you seeing much (if any) masking? The desserts, etc. look quite fancy. RCCL, on one of our last cruises with them, didn't trot out that chocolate fountain and the fruit skewers till the last day. They seemed to 'pull out all the stops' for the last lunch buffet. Looking forward to the Summit again in a few months. Glad you're enjoying...

Wow! Well that should be a lively group! Wonder if any of the team members or staff are along. Sounds like too much noise / partying for my taste.

what sort of charter?