JaneRetired

1 hour ago, KmomChicago said:

@KmomChicago, I was removing things from our old car before trading it in a few days ago, and I found our two White Pass -Yukon Route 2009 ball caps in a mesh pocket. Brought back very fond memories of our first cruise. My mom and dad organized The Alaska cruise it for all their children (5) and all the grandchildren. I got a small balcony room, mostly so they could sit out and view the glaciers, everyone else got inside rooms.  They were 80 and 82, and both died in the past year at 93 and 95.  We all rode the railroad, and you just brought back a very fond memory for me <3.

48 minutes ago, KmomChicago said:

Informal poll: 

 

Does baklava, by any chance, happen to count as a fruit or maybe even a vegetable? 
 

Select your best answer:
 

1. Yes

 

2. No

 

3. Well, it’s not meat so maybe 

 

4. One piece per day is fruit, two is cheating 

 

3. Honey comes from clover, a plant. Pistachios or walnuts come from trees and are high in protein and healthy fats. The nuts, honey, and phyllo pastry used to make baklava provide a rich source of essential nutrients, including protein, fiber, and healthy fats. Additionally, baklava may help to improve heart health, boost energy levels, aid digestion, help with weight loss and brain function ( that part from google). Also one piece is very yummy!

5 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

I have no choice but to post this.

 

Check out this incredible young woman REPRESENTING Chicago!!!! I love her name, I love that she’s a female Jr.! (She’s actually named after her grandmother). 
 

Can I get a little love for Chicago?

 

Yes!  I grew up in a minuscule farm town an hour’s drive south of the mean streets. I know Chicago’s reputation as well as anyone and a lot of it is deservedly not good. Really terrible. Nevertheless I love it. It is still my favorite city by a wide margin, after visiting NY, Paris, and many others worldwide. I use my Hyatt points for overnights up there whenever I can and it always feels like a magical place to me.

 

@KmomChicago.  I love Chicago! I was born at Presbyterian Hospital in the early 1950's, and our first home was 840 W Belden Avenue in the (now) McCormick Row House District. Back then, these houses were housing for McCormick Presbyterian Seminary students. The professors lived in the larger end units, and students in the others. I was too young to remember anything, but I have lovely photos from the house, the Chapel, which is now a music venue on DePaul University campus.I visited last year, paying homage also to my dad's first churches in Donnelson, and 3 other small rural churches nearby.  He was a student M-Th, and minister Fri-Sun. I visited our homes /parsosnages last year after my dad died at 95. ❤️ Chicago will always be my favorite city!

13 hours ago, Stem to Stern said:

Evidently I drank up the rest of my prefered Chopin vodka upon boarding.  When we returned to The Retreat Lounge in the evening there was no more available, so I settled for Belvedere in my Lemon Drop Martini.  I will continue with hard liquor since I refuse to pay $2 a glass extra to drink newly priced $19 glasses of wine such as Conundrum.

Evening snacks in The Retreat Lounge….

 

Conundrum costs about $20 per bottle in my local California grocery stores (Vons/Safeway/Ralphs) and about $25 per bottle at Bevmo. It's fine as a inexpensive grocery store wine. 

On 11/20/2023 at 4:52 PM, Jim_Iain said:

 

Thanks much.    It is hard to believe so my years have gone by.    We are like the Odd have say that he is first my Best Friend in the world.   Of course I am Oscar  (Jack Klugman).  

 

I never really came out .    I had fraught my inner self because I didn't want to be Gay.  Of course everything including ---- Oh NO Conversion Therapy.   Trust me it is the worst quack "medical/physocologic torture that could ever be done to and Individual.  

 

I finally figured out at 32 that with  3 kids I love dearly that I had to finally let my Wive of 12 years that I couldn't live a lie for the rest of my life.    The response was almost a mirror of the 1982 Movie "Making Love" with Michael Ontkean and Kate Jackson.

 

My wife was so angry she outed me to the world including my boss, parent and friends.   It was tough because  because I didn't yet know what it meant to be a Gay Man and also got fired from my job.  

 

I probably shouldn't be sharing all of this.   I met a wonderful hulk of a Guy that was 6'9"  he was my everything -  He Died of Aids 37 years ago today.   In those day there were no drugs or treatment and when diagnosed was a death sentence.   My next try at a relationship was also a failure -  He committed Suicide. 

 

I swore off relationships.    Eventually I met Iain after deciding to get my head back together and saw a Counselor for just 4 visits.   He was a very results only counselor and describing all my terrible relationships he gave me my assignment -  

 

Make a list of everything  of importance of Values, Character, Qualities and Things I enjoy   in your perfect mate.  Took me a full week to compile and I came back with the list.   He took the list and sealed it.    Now let's talk where you will meet that perfect person.  

 

I met Iain on what they called a Bulletin Chat Board.    I'm was not looking for one night stands nor was Iain.   We chatted and chatted for over 6 months and then finally met for a cup of coffee.   What can I say -   I already knew him and he was exactly as I dreamed and had everything on that list.   

OK i'm stubborn - I said I really like him and love our dating but for me I need to live alone for 6 months before committing to a relationship.    He was certain of what he wanted so he hopped in his car (and he can barely drive) and rented an apartment 3 blocks from my home.   

 

We almost made the 6 months but the Big Loma Prierta Earthquake hit the day his Concert Grand Piano was delivered to my house.    October 17, 1989 5:04PM. 

 

I spent 12 hours of terror -  He works in the city and was walking from the Federal Reserve to the Train Station at that exact time.    I started hearing of buildings collapsing on his route then on the highway collapses.     This was before cellphones and the few payphones had lines miles long to make a call .    I sat at the trains stations with no news and no trains until I saw a single engin coming down the tracks at 15 miles an hours checking the tracks and bridges.

It wasn't until early morning that the first train arrived.   We were in tears by the time we finally knew each other were ok.    

That became the day we moved in together.  

Ahh, Loma Prieta!  I worked in the Bank Of America HQ building 1978-1995 and had left work to take the Golden Gate Ferry home that day, walking under the Embarcadero Freeway overpass about an hour before the earthquake damaged it.  Although I have been on the ferry during other earthquakes, I was off and driving home, when it felt like my car was having car trouble. After the Bay Bridge collapse, the ferries all over the bay area were pulled into service to get commuters to and from work. I got home and the only damage I could find was a vase fell onto the carpet and didn't break.  My now hubby was at the Giants/Oakland A's world series game with his then wife. I like to think of the ferry commute as a mini cruise twice a day! It certainly was the love boat! 🙂

1 hour ago, bethfelk said:

Yep this is what I was talking about. Although I just checked and they have made the app schedule MUCH more user friendly than on my last cruise

#phrasing

19 hours ago, TxTeach79 said:

YOU again…

 

CC should award your luggage an award!  A Luggie?  My inner 7th grader started chuckling as I wrote that!

11 minutes ago, TxTeach79 said:

the world gets smaller! My mom got her masters of divinity at Perkins! 

Sweet! My amazing dad died at 95 in April this year. I  started rereading his "Connections" memoir when triggered by your posts about UNT. It took me on a delightful wormhole dive from 2nd grade at Stonewall Jackson Elementary, near UNT, to being outed on the cover of the Denton newspaper as part of a girl tomboy group taking over a boys treehouse in elementary school at Woodrow Wilson elementary, where the principal Sammy Spratt walked with a paddle named "Red Rider"- painted red with big holes in it, for more pain. Yes, teachers, in the 60's kids got beaten by teachers and principals.

Dad went on to get Doctorate in Ministry from San Francisco Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1977 at 50. He performed marriages for me TWICE! My first cruise (Princess) was on his idea, The was hired as a minister on many cruises, and he suggested all our family, kids, spouses, grands to one. Princess cruise to Alaska from nearby our home in San Francisco. Easy on them in 2009. I upgraded my first cruise room to a tiny balcony so they could sit out and see the glaciers, without walking up to see it on deck.. Dad made everyone, even the grands, carry a bottle of wine onboard! What a lovely memory. He and my mom cruised alot as a minister before, neighbor was was a TA.  That first cruise was first for all of us except mom and dad. ❤️

6 hours ago, TxTeach79 said:

Sup, @Stallion?

 

While a minister at NTSU (now UNT) my preacher dad got his Masters of Theology (Social Ethics) at Perkins Seminary, a branch of SMU. Graduated in 1963 with 4 kids one on the way! ❤️

Thanks @TxTeach79 for the links to all your other cruise live reports.  I lived in Denton TX in the late 50's and early '60's and my dad was the campus minister at then NTSU and TWU, 🙂 1959-1965, when we moved to California.  I attended Stonewall Jackson Elementary, Woodrow Wilson Elementary when it opened in 1960, and Denton Jr High. Your pictures of UNT brought back fond memories. I visited Denton in 2019 and attended several evening band class concerts. Princess was my first cruise (Alaska) line. 🙂

Lovely live post!  Loved your research, posts and wonderful way of sharing with all of us! One of my favorite CC reports! TYVVM

@Jamman54! Thank you and Patti for your tandem review! I love the repartee between you two, the humor in the posts, and I think by posting after a port-intensive cruise, you benefit from spur of the moment posts, and have the time to enjoy yourselves, and to reflect, research and recover once back home. You both have created an amazing story that current and lurking cruisers will appreciate. I've read a couple of your cruise reports, and, now, I want to go to husband daycare!

And the best performance by a suitcase goes to Paul's Luggage. Best writer @TxTeach79, best supporting writer @HelloItsMeB.  Best location assistance graphics: Airtags. Best locations not really helping: LHR and BCN. Airline support not provided: BA. Happy ending and what a magnificent live report! Thank you!

2 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

He resembles my DD's cat Boris.  Very sweet kitty but a bit skittish.

 

We had a feral mama cat bring her 4 grey kittens over our fence 12 years ago.  We named them the greyscale kittens. We captured them, got them spayed, found homes for 2 babies and invited 2 indoors.

Thank you for the photo essay and great captions of the Azores, complete with a quiz!  So many TA's cancel the Azores due to the weather, as mine did in April 2022 - Regent Miami-Barcelona, so we armchair sailors got be right there with you!  I had 24 hour refueling celebration at Lajes Field on the Azorean island of Terceria after a 10 day NASA/USAF Multi-Instrument aircraft mission to study the 1999 Leonid Meteor Storm flying from Tel Aviv to Terceria. I was really looking forward to that stop last year, but at least we crossed the Mid Atlantic Ridge. This entire post is one of the very best on CC!  Thanks! 🙂

1 hour ago, sanmarcosman said:

 

All over Los Angeles where I live.  Don't park your car or anything under them. Pretty but messy!

21 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

We are sailing on a casino comp, so we have a spa balcony, cheers for 2, and $1,000 Freeplay in the casino. We only had to pay port fees and taxes which was $551.04 for the cabin. We also paid an additional $200/cabin but that's rebated back as OBC. 

We stopped in Aomori on Seabourn Sojourn Kobe...Kamchatka... Vancouver. I search out soba noodles when I travel, and found green seaweed Okinawan soba noodles at a huge shopping mall, with dozens of food stands very near the cruise terminal.  Great walking city!!

18 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

We were there April 2022, and the groundskeeper pointed out one of the mousers on patrol around the pool.  One of the cats (who are very welcome and work hard) snatched a goldfish from this pool while we were there ate it under the manicured shrubs 🙂

37 minutes ago, TxTeach79 said:

Here’s a late night treat - my bag still at Heathrow 

 

Your luggage could do its own Live report! Thanks for sharing with such composure and humor!! (lurked for a day, then started following)

On 5/8/2023 at 9:24 AM, Jim_Iain said:

Next on our agenda was to figure out how to get to the Concert - Gebouw where we have tickets on Friday for Wiener Philharmoniker - Sjostakovitsj' Symfonie Nr. 5    (Vienna Philharmonic Symphony - Shostakovich Symphony Number 5) 

 

We decided it would be easier to walk from Central Station so off we went  

 

 

Munttoren next to Flower market.  Love the Delfts Store next to it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No trip to Amsterdam is complete without a stroll along Bloemenmarkt. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Jim_Iain long time follower/lurker. I am so jealous you are visiting the Amsterdam Concertgebuw. It's on my travel music wish list.  We try to see classical concerts in every major European city, stumbling upon I Musici 4 Seasons in Venice wafting from a church once. The annual Brecon Baroque Festival in the small village of Brecon Wales was a full week retirement exclamation point in 2019. Once on an Alaskan cruise, we stumbled upon the Bach's Lunch Music Festival in Sitka! Just typing these brings back so many wonderful travel memories!  Thank you for a great travelogue and tips!

On 4/9/2023 at 6:28 AM, mandyleighflies said:

Good Morning!!

 

Laundry is almost complete and kids go back to school tomorrow! 

 

Continuing our review on Lady G with some thoughts good and bad on our vacation. 

 

Good

Staff is excellent and service was usually very fast. The bar service at the main pool and Solarium bars was slow, but that’s going to happen on busy days. 

 

Lady G is showing her age in a few places. We were informed she is going into dry dock for a full refit next year. We were on Deck 8 and my dad found a massive leak from the ceiling walking from his room to ours. 

 

 

This was the result. I am not sure if those interior cabins were affected or if they were offered any kind of compensation but it for sure smelled “wet” in that corridor. 

 

If you look closely at the ship you’re going to find signs of aging. The places I saw it the most were in the Solarium and the outdoor spaces. There was visible rust in the solarium pool and portions of the jogging track were wearing out and previous layers of paint were visible. 

 

In our own stateroom, the bar around our bar area came loose. I was leaning on it slightly to put my heeled shoe on and the whole thing “jumped” out of its fittings. I was not hurt and upon further inspection, it had clearly been glued in place previously. I mentioned this to my room steward and Concierge and they both immediately asked about my health, they did not seem concerned with anything else, which was refreshing. It was fixed immediately. 

 

 

In fact, our Concierge surprised us with a 15% of this cruise value credit to use for another sailing valid for one year for our “troubles”. I thought she was handing me a bill for damages 😂. Very sweet and we will for sure book with this certificate soon, we have a gap year of sailings so far for 2024 so guess it’s time to start looking for something. 

 

 

Bad

 

Other People’s Children (OPC’s as we call them) There were 600 kids on this sailing and we saw MANY examples of “freestyle” parenting. This is NOT RCL’s problem, in fact, the poor staff were doing their best to manage situations, but they are not the parents so little they can do. Since my kids are older and prefer quiet spaces to noise, we hung out in the solarium the majority of the time. My son is 16 so “legal” for the solarium but my daughter is 14 so technically breaking the rules there but all she did was sit on a lounger and read her book so I doubt it really bothered anyone. Children were running a muck on sea days, that was the only time we heard or encountered them. We saw one group of adults traveling with at least 5 children under 6 who were using Schooner Lounge and Viking Crown Lounge as their own personal Adventure Ocean. One evening, my mom and I stayed up late to listen to the live music, this group was still at Schooner Bar drinking and carrying on while their poor kids were literally sleeping on the floor below their bar tables. Awful. We knew it was Spring Break so we dealt with it and luckily had suites so we had our space to hang out away from the crowd, but my own children were even asking about Virgin Voyages LOL. 

 

We had lunch in Izumi one sea day and it took nearly 3 hours due to some kind of inspection in the kitchen? They comped our meal which was nice but it did take up a majority of our sea day afternoon and aforementioned group was using Viking Crown as Adventure Ocean so 3 hours of waiting on food and screaming children was not an ideal way to spend an afternoon. 

 

 

Overall we had a great spring break!! Disembarkation was a BREEZE but being a suite guest that is probably the norm. We had our last breakfast at Chops, went to the suites “lounge” and was then escorted off the ship to the front of the lines. The entire process from leaving our stateroom to waiting for the Uber took an hour. 

 

 

I ALWAYS strip my beds and leave the space clean when we depart. Not pictured is the bathroom where I place all our used towels into the bathtub. I like to leave the room as easy for them to flip as possible, I know how quick that turnaround is for them and how busy they are on that day. 

 

 

Our farewell gift as well as a thank you card and additional tip for our room steward. He was amazing. 

 

 

He even made us Guinea Pig towel animals, which he said we could keep. 

 

 

They now reside in our upstairs hallway. 

 

 

Happy Easter from our “bunnies” to your family and that concludes this *Live* review!! Stay tuned for my next one!! December 2023 on Allure!! 

 

 

Thank you for the great review, and the wonderful tips about tips!

In addition to the other suggestions I brought these on a TA cruise in April, where several of our group did get Covid, but extra first aid is good for all the other illnesses on ships. I put these items in my 9 x6x4 clear zipper bag: a small first aid kit with the usual items mentioned above, Ayr no drip saline spray, Ayr saline nasal gel, systayne eye drops, TheraZinc lozenges and Zicam Nasal all-clear swabs. Several small travel kleenex packs (extra soft for constant sneezing and so forth). Baby wipes, Tums, pepto bismol, Immodium, Blue nitrile gloves, and because there were lots of reported toilet issues in quarantined rooms getting no service, I brought zip lock bags and a few scrub brushes to toss after use, and which I was very happy not to use, but glad I had. Now that bag is ready to go in case of fire, earthquakes, hurricanes or killer bee attacks, also in case of quarantine, 2 of all shared toiletries, lotions, toothpaste, device chargers, etc

18 hours ago, raudacruise said:

On a TA from Barcelona our discussion group for “The Shadow of the Wind” was led by a literature professor from a well-known German university.  I was actually scared to attend at first but the meetings turned out to be no-pressure fun. She was a wonderful teacher.

Reading, book groups, placename tours, lectures are wonderful cruise companions. 🙂 We 4 formed FOTSOTW and get together and share thoughts, read passages, and drink wine and eat pizza and play bridge.The daughter of our traveling companions on this TA cruise met us in Barcelona. Her boyfriend (both early 30's) formally proposed at the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc, with her parents there! So memorable!

1 hour ago, villauk said:

Joanie,

Just a minor correction, it’s Ethan Cross not Ian 👍.  TIA.

@GeorgiaPeach51 I read Carlos Ruiz Zafón "The Shadow of the Wind" on TA Miami to Barcelona (Seven Seas Splendor) April 2022, set in Barcelona, with a walking tour at the end of the book. Cemetery of Forgotten Books 4 Book series. A great cruise read for 4 of us!!

18 hours ago, Fishboy1947 said:

Names of restaurants would be appreciated. Will be there for two nights in October.

You'll find all menus online, and probably English versions as well. As with any meal suggestions, everyone has different tastes and these are mine. Covid was still causing staffing and supply chain issues in April 2022.

1. Els Quatre Gats (since 1896) Carrer de Montsió, 3.  Picasso's first exhibitions were here! We've eaten here about 4 times!  Great tapas - Catalan tomato bread and mussels for me, great paella, Crema Catalan. Great atmosphere, fabulous wines, music some nights

2. Nuria Rambla de Canaletes, 133 (since 1926) On Las Ramblas near the square, had tapas and beer Artichoke chips and homemade nachos were delicious!

3.  Creps Barcelona - about 5 locations, we only went to one (Via Laietana, 45) and had both savory creps and sweet creps on 2 or 3 visits. Owner remembered us from 3 years ago!

4. Restaurante Santa Anna on Calle Santa Anna 8. Our hotel window looked down on the restaurant and the street one one visit.  Excellent Paella and Fideuà and great wines. There are a dozen restaurants on this short and historic street. Have fun exploring!