RachelG

No age restriction generally, though I have seen a couple of excursions where the operator imposed them.

Not as far as I know, and my husband loves to play blackjack onboard.

I don’t remember ever being cold in Antarctica, and I just wore a turtleneck or t shirt and sweater under the provided parka. And the waterproof pants also are helpful for insulation. But I do remember almost freezing to death in Greenland on a zodiac cruise through the icebergs!

I had the men’s both in the Arctic and Antarctica. Except the first time when we went to Svalbard and I brought my own. This was a long time ago, and you didn’t have the option of borrowing them,so I brought my hot pink ones that I wear at the ranch. But they take up way too much space in the luggage

He is not a particularly patient person, so probably not that long. And yes, the ship was moving. Wow, the price of a cab has definitely gone up. I think it was about $ 75 one way when we were that, but that was pre covid. Your pictures of the town look a LOT better than the villages we visited, other than Nuuk, which seemed to be doing ok.

same experience here. You just have to move the stuff in the safe and toiletries/meds, little stuff. I did supervise to make sure they got everything though.

About the getting locked out of the room on the balcony thing, good thing you had your parkas in that weather. Our very first cruise, other that 2 on a couple of tiny expedition ship voyages on CruiseWest back in the day they were in business, was on Regent Diamond. We had our 2 teenage sons with us in the cabin next to ours. I was out doing something. My husband accidentally locked himself out on the balcony. Fortunately it was in Greece in the summer. The boys were in their cabin, but he couldn't get their attention as the divider between the balconies was still up. He ended up climbing out on the railing of our balcony and onto theirs!! Then knocking on their door to get in.

we love the airtags. once we were flying somewhere, don't remember where, and had a connection in Dallas. It was a longish connection, but our next flight was international. When we arrived in Dallas, I checked the location of our bags as the check in agent in Tulsa seemed to be particularly unengaged in work that day. (Most of the AA agents in Tulsa are great, and we have known them for years. This person was clearly having a bad day.) At any rate, our luggage said still in Tulsa. We were able to get one of the ladies in the Admiral's Club at DFW get the Tulsa people on the line, and they put our bags on the next flight which caught up to us and our onward flight.

Yes. Again, very sad.

We have been there three times--no food allowed off the ship. And most landings aren't in towns so nothing to buy. The exception would be Nuuk where there are plenty of stores and even restaurants. We have been to a couple of other small villages where you possibly could buy food, but it would be really limited variety. I get hypoglycemic too, but just make sure I eat plenty of protein prior to going out.

Wow, so excited you got to extend the trip. That is really spectacular. Couple of comments--too late now, but you would have been better off just taking a taxi to and from the blue lagoon. We rented a car the first time we were in Iceland but it was a big hassle as you have described. I did the math, and it was cheaper to just take a cab even to the Blue Lagoon as that is right by the airport. I agree with Fletcher's observations regarding Greenland. It is beautiful countryside and fjords, but the towns are pretty awful, and the people are very grim. George befriended the police chief in one town. He came over from Denmark on a one year contract. He told George that most all the people there live on welfare--very few are employed except for the teachers and hospital workers who are mostly from Denmark and don't stay longterm. Fishing has pretty much died out. He has a big uptake in crime, mostly related to drunkeness the day the checks arrive. Otherwise, it is mostly domestic violence. Really very sad.

I am very much enjoying following along with your cruise and observations. We have been on the same itinerary before (plus St Petersburg as it has been a while) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I love seeing the places we visited. As far as the door being open, on this ship we had an issue with the door not latching completely unless you actively pulled it closed. So that may have been what happened. Housekeeping should know this, but maybe just forgot.

George also got yelled at for complaining about the steak

Agree about Stockholm-Arlanda and the no signs. Ridiculous. We wandered around there not knowing where to go several years ago. Finally went in an employee only area where someone yelled at us. George had the first part of your steak on our flight to LHR. Totally inedible. Uncuttable. He is not sure it even was beef. If so, very old cow.

Really enjoying all your posts as we did a very similar itinerary a few years ago, and I have been to almost all the stops. Brings back good memories. As far as free laundry, 100 nights, and it is yours, the holy grail.

Our flight from Hamburg to LHR was uneventful. We landed at terminal 5, and had to go back through security again even though our next flight was out of terminal 5 as well. The board didn't show a gate for our onward flight to Boston even though it said gate would be open at 1600, and it was 1620. Flight was to leave at 1715, so we headed to the BA lounge to find out more information. The first lady said no gate yet, but flight was still listed as on time. We waited a few minutes and asked another lady, who said go to the gate now, it is boarding, so we hustled on down. There had been a change of aircraft, so my carefully chosen seats had been changed and not in a good way, but we survived. We landed in Boston, collected our bags and went to the Hilton Airport and crashed. We got a good nights sleep. Back to the airport next morning, we found our flight was delayed, but only 30 minutes, so not a big deal. We eventually boarded, and waited, and waited. The pilot said there was paperwork to be done. After an hour (1 1/2 hr delay total),, we finally pulled back from the gate. I had been watching our once comfortable connection get smaller and smaller. Now we only had 30 minutes to make our connection, doable in DFW but tight. And a girl in her 20's comes running down the aisle demanding to be let off the plane as she was going to miss her connection in DFW and didn't want to stay in Dallas by herself over night. She was having a melt down, crying and running back and forth down the aisle. The flight attendants finally got her settled down, and we took off, but that took 15 minutes. So we missed our connection in DFW, but got the last 2 seats on the next flight. and our luggage arrived with us. And first night home, Tulsa had a huge windstorm with winds 100 mph, not a tornado, just straight winds. We didn't lose power but most of the city did. Still over 150,000 without power as of this am. one son lost his fence. The other was without power for 2 days. I slept right though the storm!

JP, have you scheduled your cardiac bypass surgery yet after that meal?

definitely would fly in a day early. We always do our own air.

9 nights is a lot to add in Iceland if your cruise is going there as well. It isn’t that big a country. We have been 4 times, once on land and the others on cruises, and much as I love Iceland, it would probably spend that much time elsewhere.

It does help to have a “kid” or at least a younger person on your trivia team, so you should be able to find some old folks like me who will welcome you and your son to the team. love your pictures, but that hamburger looks nothing at all like what they served on the Wind this past week. I should have taken a picture to demonstrate how bad it was.

Yes, it has been known that Explorer has been sold for quite a while. Cloud will be doing the Kimberley cruises next year.

Interesting that you found the hamburger at the grill good, as we just got off Wind and the hamburgers were borderline inedible. My husband even talked to the chef about this. He had said they had many complaints, but that they weren’t able to source American beef, and that the beef they were getting was Italian.

I agree as far as the veranda suites. They have not been updated at all. The upper level suite have been. The restaurants and lounges look updated but there were missing pieces of wood upstairs on the deck railing

That is a great itinerary. We just got off Wind today so following along will prevent me going into withdrawal

A comparison—veranda suite vs medallion suite on Silver Wind I thought I would write up a little side to side comparison of these two, since we had opportunity to experience both on the same cruise. Some things may surprise you. Background: we booked a veranda suite as usual-616. Unfortunately, every night at about 4 am, we would be assaulted by a strong cigarette smoke smell. The GM and staff did their best to figure it out and fix it, but it kept occurring, so after 4 nights, we were moved to a medallion suite—803, which features no smoke smell. Size—obviously medallion wins here as there are completely separate bedroom and sitting/dining areas. The balcony is much larger with 2 loungers, table and 3 chairs vs 2 chairs and a table. Unfortunately it was too cold most of the time on our cruise to use it other than to pop outside for a quick picture. Bathroom is considerably larger as well. Closet is configured differently but about the same size. More hanging space in the medallion. Bathroom—medallion is the clear winner here as the bathroom has been totally redone with double sinks that are inset into the counter. The veranda suites have a larger single sink which is above the counter and just not practical at all as, if you are brushing your teeth and don’t hold the toothbrush just right under the water, water goes every where. In the medallion, there is a proper shower with a shower door that closes completely. In the veranda, they have converted the TU to a shower, and there is no door, just glass half way across, so there is potential for water to go everywhere there as well. Veranda bathroom sometimes a sort of sour sewage smell. There is no smell other than that of soap in the medallion bathroom. However, the lighting is better in the veranda. Sitting/dining area—medallion has a sofa, coffee table and chair plus a dining table and 2 dining chairs. Veranda has sofa, coffee table and chair only, BUT the sofa in the veranda is a proper sofa length, while the one in medallion is very short, just large enough to seat myself and George side by side. Not long enough to stretch out on at all. The chair in the medallion is quite upright and uncomfortable as well. There is another chair at the desk which is the same type. These could be placed at the table too, if you had guests come in to dine. If you were a person who liked dining in the suite a lot, medallion would be better, but for us, I actually preferred the veranda sitting area. Veranda wins on this one. Bedroom area—basically the same, though the medallion one can be completely closed off which is nice if one person likes to sleep late and the other is an early riser. We liked this. So slight edge to medallion. Noise—medallion is the clear winner as it is almost too quiet. It is hard to hear announcements, particularly if you are in the bedroom, and there is no traffic at all in the hallway. Storage—surprising, but there is more usable storage area in the veranda suite. The drawers are deeper and larger in the veranda suite. I was barely able to put 2 sweaters in one of the drawers in the medallion suite whereas 4 easily fit in the veranda drawers. And there are more drawers in veranda. Windows—again, veranda wins here as there is a larger window and door to the balcony. In the medallion there are two, one in the sitting area and one in the bedroom, but they are smaller. The other issue is that, in the far north in summer, it doesn’t really get dark. In the veranda suite, there is a curtain between the sitting and sleeping areas which you can pull to make it very dark. That is not possible in the medallion suites. Accessibility—not an issue for us, but if a person has any issues with going up or down stairs, the medallion suites on 8 forward would not be for them. There is no forward elevator, and if the pool deck is closed off for cleaning or bad weather, you have to use the stairs as you can’t get to the elevators. So—bottom line is we enjoyed the medallion suite, but we would not pay extra for it.