KarmaCruisers

Ohh wow! This is new..I know before, if you wanted more than TWO orders of steak/lobster, (on Gala night in the MDR) you’d be charged…but NOW, if you want a SECOND steak/lobster, it’s $10! I can’t believe they’ve cut it back so far!! Luckily my wife hates seafood so I can get a second lobster-McNugget (called that because the “lobster” they give you has to be the smallest legally allowable warm water lobster…as cold water lobster minimum size is still GOOD size)

Last sea day! (Next to the last DAY; womp womp) slept innnnnn today (woke up at 1pm; haha…but in our defense, we lost an hour last night because of the time change to Paris time, so it was 1am before we got in bed) Going to grab some lunch and then maybe take an “official” stroll around the ship (as this trip has been so busy we have gotten a chance to just leisurely stroll and look at the entire ship; as this is the first time we’re on her) Tonight is Gala Dinner (steak and lobster!) Then after dinner, sadly; will come the packing. We’ve decided that we can probably do an interior room from now on (we’ve only done balconies up to this point), as we really didn’t ever go out on the balcony, other than like when we got up (to see the port) then when we were sailing away (again to see the port). Both of these could easily be accomplished from just going up to lido and looking around. Although, if not interior, then definitely Deluxe Balcony (as we’d like to have the extra space for in-room eating). Unless the Grand Class ships have sofa’s in their regular balcony rooms (we’ve only sailed Royal class; which we love)

We booked the Princess Paris tour…so if it cancels then we won’t go..but we’ve been watching the news pretty closely..seems like the riots calmed down a lot last night, and we still have tonight and tommorow..so; fingers crossed; but I think it should be fine. Now, for YOU, I’d just recommend the advise by the French government..just stay alert and don’t go out late at night.

For sure it does! The only place it was “warm” was in London and Southampton..Guernsey was either/or shorts/pants..but for the rest of the ports, for sure pants and a hoodie.

And that wraps up our day in Invergordon! We got up at 8, cleaned up and went down and ate and met our Princess Excursion in the Symphony Dining room at 9:45. A short one today, with just a bus ride over to Loch Ness, coupled with a 55-minute boat ride around the Loch. (Which basically was a cruise over to Urquhart Castle, and back to the Clansman dock). Then they drove us through Inverness proper (which the high street looked like a cute little place to walk around), and back to the ship by 3pm. We grabbed some lunch in the buffet when we got back; then took a nap, lol. Just woke up for sailaway, and we’re going to go down to the main theatre at 7:30 to see the Illusionist they have. Man, we’ve taken a few Alaska cruises..but they’ve always been around this same time (July 4th) and they’ve always been hot as hell! (Like literally hitting 90*!) but THIS cruise has been the coldest one we’ve ever been on! The ship is so cold I have to keep my hoodie on, and out on the balcony..forget it! Blanket too! I think, if we get a “bounce-back” offer, we’re going to try to book it as far out as we can (as we have a cruise booked for October, November, and December); so we can hopefully book it in January or February..and we’re thinking about either doing a Norway/Iceland cruise or maybe a Greek cruise. (Although we know the flight tickets will again be suicidely costly)

I mean…I didn’t TRY to use them for free; but last year on our 10-day Alaska cruise on carnival; you tapped your card on the machine to start it; and I looked at our bill and I was never ACTUALLY charged, so; who knows. on another note; I came to Loch Ness..only to find (and buy!) one of the most rare whiskeys from the US! Haha

Yup, +1 to pods. The cost is $3 per load (wash or dry), we had two loads, so all in our cost was $12

Finally at 11:30pm the laundromat on our floor opened up! (Was jammed with people all day) so I’m wrapping up drying our clothes now. it’s just absurd; that even WITH StarLink, the internet is SO unreliable! I can sometimes get 3Mbps, but it’s not 100% consistent. I can run 10 speed tests in a row here sitting in my room and 5/10 will be 3Mbps and the other 5/10 will be 56Kbps! If I had to actually work from this cruise I’d be SOL! Literally the only thing I’ve seen it be able to consistently do is my wife uses gChat (text chatting only, no images at all; just maybe the small emoji’s) and it hasn’t skipped a beat she said…but I’ve tried to watch YouTube videos and they default to the lowest resolution of 144p (which is basically so blurry on an iPhone XR I can’t even see the video) Also oddly I’ve noticed, on YT here in the UK, they jam a TON of ad’s in and they’re LONG 20 second ads!

We will wave at y’all as we exit the ship (TBH; we’ll probably cross paths at the Southampton National Express stop haha)

Just messed around the ship today doing nothing in particular, watching the piper in the Piazza and taking a nap in the room. getting dinner now in Concerto dining room. tonight’s speciality is Shephards Pie, and English Roast Beef (with Yorkshire pudding)

Lazy sea day today. Got up at 10:30 and went and had some lunch at the buffet. Just relaxing in the room watching the Scottish coast go by. gotta do laundry at some point today..we went after lunch but all the machines were in use with people sitting in there (I told my wife we should have done it last night at midnight when no one was around) in other news; looks like major civil unrest in France large cities at the moment; hopefully it gets solved by the time our France port stop comes around!

That did it

How about this one from the highlands earlier..

Weird that pano photo is dining up as just black…

Cool not-quite-sunset from the balcony of the room

Whew! Stuffed! had the Frito mista, Papardelle, and Osso Bucco

Looking out the window at Sabatini..

And just like that, StarLink isn’t providing WiFi (I wonder for how long now; because 3Mbps isn’t TOO bad..but we’re back on good old SES with their HEO birds and running a ping of ~1500MS and download speed of 56Kbps!

So the Scottish Highlands were nice (reminded me of our Sierra foothills when they’re green; except here in the highlands the land was completely clearcut thousands of years ago and replanted with no native trees) we popped into Tesco that’s right across the street from the port; as we needed some laundry supplies (we entirely forgot them) and I wanted to get a REAL bar of soap (rather than the “body wash” they provide)…we also got some crazy crisp flavors haha (Dorito’s flavored as Burger King Whopper) we “earned” a free dinner at Sabatini’s tonight, lol (our $5000 dinner) so we’ve got that at 8pm.

Even if we could have “walked right in” to the library, with all the other stuff we did..ain’t no way..something would have had to get dropped also, good luck catching DART back to the ship at around 5pm on a weekday..workforce crush crowd going home.

Glasgow (but actually, Greenock)

Pretty picture of the loch here at Inverary

A stop in Inverary. We’re having lunch at The Cottage; so far the mushroom soup was GREAT! my main is a steak pie, haha. some photos from our ride so far

Scenic view of Loch Lomond