StLouisCruisers

I appreciate that, Graham. I'm usually too hungry and forget to take a food photo so appreciate it when someone has the fortitude to snap a photo before digging in!

Graham @grapau27 your food photos looked delicious. I hope you will always feel welcome to post photos of any food you want. The rigatoni looked just like the delicious Ethan Stowell Baked Rigatoni with Italian Sausage we had on Zaandam recently. I looked the recipe up when we got home and printed it out for us to try at home. My best to Pauline and your Sarah!

Good morning friends! I'm seeing 68 degrees and cloudy skies this morning. We expect a high of only 79 with rain this afternoon. Thanks Rich @richwmn for your Fleet Report and Daily for today! Crab Fest Day will please the seafood lovers. I enjoy cream filled donuts but my favorite would be custard filled. I can certainly appreciate quiet days so would fit right in with my English friends. It took me two or three readings to understand exactly what Walt Whitman meant and feel he must have had some wonderful friends. No thanks to the ratatouille. The Irish coffee might be good but I don't drink coffee - ever! I would drink the pinot blanc if it isn't too dry. 🥂 The Gregorian calendar change is quite interesting. And way to go with the computer back in 1956. Thanks to Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard for their reports today. Prayers to all on the Care list and anyone needing them who aren't listed. That could be quite a large number. First prayers are sent to DB, and to my friend's DB Mark. Then special prayers for Baby Murphy and to Terry's @smitty34877 DH Lou who is now home and I'm sure relieved to be out of the hospital. Praying for comfort for him and for strength and calm for the entire household including Tana. 🙏 Hope those ailing such as Roy @rafinmd and Terri @Cruzin Terri feel relief from pain (and Covid) today. Congrats to our cruisers and all on the Celebration list. It's good to see so many enjoying life. Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for keeping those lists for us. I hope since the yard work is done you can relax today. Our port is Road Town, Tortola BVI this morning and it's a first time destination for the Daily. No links again today! We missed that port once so I have no photos to share. I'm sure we'd all enjoy seeing your photos if you have some to share. I only finished 5 pages and started a 6th on my Canada/Iceland/Greenland cruise photo book. DH needed my old laptop for a lot of the afternoon as he prepares the new one for me. I couldn't do this without him so very big thanks to him! Back at the photo book again today since we have no plans away from home. In other news DS and DGS return to Michigan from Lisbon today. A week from today that DGS will be moving into his dorm room at UCLA so DH and I will be in Frisco, TX staying with Ren while his parents are seeing to that duty. Hoping you all have a super Thursday. Stay safe and well!

Gerry @ger_77 that's the area code for my location, but I swear it wasn't me!! My landline has that area code but my cell phone has a Missouri area code. I always wonder who these people are sending us spam texts!📱 I forgot to mention that yesterday I finished 7 more pages of my photo book. I'm usually satisified with 4 a day so am getting ahead here. I have a limit of 111 pages to a photo book so if things don't look like they're going to work out at that length I have a big job ahead of me to edit and re-do many pages. The limit is Shutterfly's edict, not my own personal decision.🤞

Katherine @Lady Hudson how worrying to have little Jalen Alexander in the hospital for breathing issues. I'm glad he's home and hope he continues to do well from now on. Carol @mamaofami I'm very sorry to hear about Sam's increased brain bleeding. I pray they make the correct decision and that his medical team can fix him up as soon as possible. We want him back home with you and feeling good again before long.

Good morning friends! I heard some thunder overnight but I'm not sure we really got much rain out of it. It is 68 now and we expect 83 with cloudy skies and a chance of a thunderstorm. Radar is showing rain between Atlanta and Augusta at the moment but heading away from me. Thank you Rich @richwmn for our Daily and Fleet Report. I would be glad to celebrate defying superstition, fortune cookies and peanuts. Georgia is known for peanuts, peaches and cotton. Not sure what to say about the quote. I'm sure the shrimp tacos will be great but I like to stick to the tried and true beef or even chicken. The Zombie sounds a bit scary! And if our wine really is a brut rose I would give it a try. A very good day in history because of how amazing Michelangelo's statue of David turned out. Thanks to Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard, for their work on the food and beverages reports. Prayers this morning already said for our Care list people, especially Lou and Terry @smitty34877, Tana, Roy @rafinmd, Annie @marshhawk and Chuck @catmando, Baby Murphy's miracle, Terri @Cruzin Terri, Denise @CrabbyPatti for her DD as he comes home to hospice care. Also for my DB, my friend's DB Mark, and those affected by wildfire, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes and war.🙏 I cheer all those celebrating and cruising. Hope to hear from Jacqui @kazu soon. Also we haven't heard from Carol @mamaofami recently have we? Hope they are doing okay. 🥂 Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for your wonderful lists. Special thoughts to Pauline @Paw13 and Graham @grapau27 on this sad reminder of her darling baby brother's passing.😥 Our destination today is Invergordon, Scotland, the third time for that port. Prior dates were March 1, 2022 and November 5, 2022. We have been there once and will repost my photos. Here are the links for your convenience. I'm still using my old laptop but I believe the new one is nearly ready for its debut. Another program or two to finish up setting it up. DH has a mid morning dental cleaning so that will wait for afternoon. Hope everyone here has a great Wednesday! Now here are photos from our stop in Invergordon. In 2015 I visited Inverness while on a cruise stopped in Greenock, Scotland. It was a cold, rainy day and the following day I stayed on the ship while the Royal Princess was in Invergordon because I was sick with a new cold. I'll post the photos DH and our Myrtle Beach friends took in Invergordon. On May 17, 2015 we and our friends arrived in Invergordon, Scotland on the Royal Princess. As I said I felt badly because of that darn cold I caught so stayed onboard. I have DH's photos and our friend Bob's photos. Unfortunately his camera had not been set to the local time so they are not in sequence with our own photos so I'm having to go back and forth trying to keep up with their walk. Coming into port, the beautiful green countryside. Photo or three of the Church of Scotland in Invergordon. Charming small town streets A more modern, and modest, Roman Catholic church. St. Joseph's. The small train station They saw murals all around the town. Looks pretty real doesn't it? In the afternoon we took photos from the ship of the surroundings. I believe I saw Invergordon on an upcoming cruise for us so this time I intend to step foot on shore there!

My new laptop arrived early after being ordered only 2 days ago. DH is down in his study working on setting things up for me. If I didn't have him I'd have to call in the IT people. My DSIL and DS would be good candidates for my private IT service but both live many hundreds of miles from me and besides, they're not available and at my command. 😉 Tony @sailingdutchy a few weeks ago they told us while on the Zaandam that they would start work on repairing or replacing a stern thruster. It was going to be done over several weeks. Apparently yesterday's work took a lot longer than they expected. Probably something went wrong and they had to figure out a plan B. It looks like an enormous job and I'm sure not easy underwater!

That's pretty scary Bruce! Really dangerous like you said.🐻

I just got a photo from my DGS who is in Lisbon with DS at his engineering conference. He asked if we had ever been on Nieuw Statendam. No we haven't been on any of the larger HAL ships spending many days on the Prinsendam and the remaining smaller ships since then. Thought I'd share the photo with everyone here. The NS is on a 9 day Dover to Rome cruise at the moment.

We arrived in Casablanca, Morocco for the first and so far only time, on April 4, 2018. It was on the Prinsendam on the Grand Mediterranean and Africa cruise. The cruise line provided a shuttle to downtown because it was quite a long way from the ship to the gates of the port. Then it was even further to the downtown square where they dropped everyone off. And look at all this traffic! Here we are at the drop-off spot, from which everyone scattered to do their own thing. We had decided to walk first to the Place Jamaa Souk and then on to the famous Hassan II mosque. Exterior of souk. Continuing on without a purchase, we took a left turn (thank goodness for the map!), and soon saw this place – the Ecole Royale Navale. I didn’t know what it was at the time but research says it’s a university or learning institution. After a 55 minute hike from the bus drop off, we arrived at the Hassan II mosque, largest in Africa and 7th largest in the world. Honestly, it looked closer on the map! Look at the size of this plaza. It’s enormous! Such beautiful architecture In the distance you could see the El Hank Lighthouse With a last look at this fountain, which I would like to have jumped into at this point, we turned around and started back to the pick-up point. Tours of the mosque are available if you wish. We did not want to spend more time there though I’m sure it was spectacular inside. Along the way to the bus stop we saw one of the buses headed back to the ship and the driver picked up cruisers like us at stop lights. That cut off a lot of walking. When we returned to the Prinsendam we were quite ready for food and drink, and a long rest!

Good morning friends! I have 68F here with a high of 88 and mostly sunny skies later today. There is a chance of showers this evening. Yesterday we had several afternoon pop up showers with some loud thunder, too. Thank you Rich @richwmn for our Daily and Fleet Report. Yesterday I completed 7 pages on my cruise photo book and placed photos on 2 more pages so a very good day on that front. Meanwhile my current laptop is giving me some mechanical clues that it wants to be replaced so a new one was ordered and may be here tomorrow. Hopefully getting that set up won't deter me from posting here. A few varied days of celebration. Chocolate milk shakes are good but something I rarely indulge in. I don't do video games and I'm probably not coordinated enough to do so. A day of encouragement sounds positive. I like today's very good quote and would definitely try the chicken satay skewers. I have no idea if I'd like the drink but will pass on the red wine today. And what a day that was in 1940 for those four teenagers in France! Thank you Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard for your reports today. Prayers for our Care list people especially Lou and Terry @smitty34877, Tana, Baby Murphy, Roy @rafinmd, Chuck @catmando and Annie @marshhawk and Chuck's DB, Terri @Cruzin Terri, my DB and my friends DB Mark, all affected by natural disasters around the world, and anyone else who may be in need of them. Hope I haven't forgotten anyone here! Cheers and congrats to all on the Celebration list. Happy birthday to @puppycanducruise's DM! Enjoy your cruises everyone! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for your care in taking care of the C & C lists! Our port of the day is Casablanca, Morocco and that is a first timer for us. No links and everyone will have to search for photos on their own, me included. Good luck! DD sent photos of the Fall tree in her foyer. She says it's slightly different than last fall because she did the top differently. I'm off to get photos of Casablanca and will show them in a new post. Hoping all here have a wonderful day!

When we were on Zaandam a few weeks ago, the Captain said they were going to be fixing a stern thruster over several weeks/ports using divers.

Jake is this Halifax? Wow, pretty foggy! I hope the sun burns through the fog for the sake of the cruisers so everyone can enjoy their time there. Otherwise it's stay on the ship day!

On Feb. 25, 2012 on Star Princess we anchored and tendered to shore. During the day the skies would go from extremely cloudy to bright sunshine. You just never know! You arrive at the dock and visitor center and see something like this You could just walk up to the Gypsy Cove shuttles run by locals with 4x4s or small buses/vans. The price was right and at least you got to see some penguins that day! It's about a 20 minute ride and there's no admission fee when you get there. They have marked paths and you aren't allowed to roam because there are areas that could have been mined during the "conflict" with Argentina in 1982. You'll see some penguins below you on the beach, some in the brush and some right up near you at the path. There's a rocky area at the top you can roam around on called Ordnance Point. Some artillery left behind and a couple of ships anchored outside the harbor. Some fellows who came up to see us near the path. You can stay as long as you want. Just walk down to the parking spot and catch another van back to town. The town itself is quaint and uncrowded (except for several ship's worth of passengers added for the day), but never so crowded as to be annoying. On the ride back to town you'll see this ship the Lady Elizabeth which foundered in the harbor and blew onto this shallow spot over a hundred years ago. You can see a wide variety of buildings there. We walked up a street going uphill, that you see as soon as you get off the tender. On that road was this bar and amusing sign out front. A good spot to leave your husband if he's getting on your nerves and under your feet, so you can get some shopping done. Love it! Right across from the visitor center are these attached homes reminiscent of England. The hill we walked up and saw the tavern. The police headquarters We saw a lot of British flags and reminders of who they were. A war memorial Restricted entrance to the Government House Some horses and a pony living inside those fences. And from 2020 Coral Princess, on our walk at Gypsy Cove the penguins were building little nests right along the pathway tourists traveled on. There was someone stationed there to make sure no one attempted to interfere with or touch the penguins in the nest. And a penguin on the beach doing his happy dance. Lots of fun for penguin lovers!

Good morning friends on this somber day in history. Never Forget! Thank you Rich @richwmn for our Sept. 11, 2023 Daily and Fleet Report. Our days to commemorate are National Emergency Responders Day, Libraries Remember Day and Women's Baseball Day. We should always support our emergency responders but especially on this date! Libraries are an important part of our lives. And hooray for any women baseball players out there. An interesting quote. Macaroni salad is a pretty broad description so I'm sure there are many varied recipes coming up. A drink I don't think I'd enjoy unfortunately. However the pinot grigio sounds okay to me. Publishing the "St. Louis Blues" is nice, but this is a day we should never forget if we intend for it to not happen again. I feel badly for children who are being educated without mention of what happened to this country on Sept. 11, 2001 and how it brought us all together. Thank you Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard for your reports today on the food and beverages. We appreciate you and your abilities to de-code! Prayers today for those who lost their lives on 9-11-2001 and their grieving families. Extra prayers too for Lou, Terry @smitty34877, Tana and their entire household, Baby Murphy, Annie @marshhawkand Chuck @catmando, Roy @rafinmd and all others on the Care list including my DB and my friend's DB Mark. A salute to the Celebration list folks and all the cruisers and upcoming cruisers! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for keeping the lists for us! I did made 4 more pages on my Shutterfly cruise photo book yesterday. Tons of interruptions though so it wasn't easy! Meanwhile, DS reports from Portugal that on Sunday they went to a big food market and did some shopping, eating lots of good food. This afternoon and tomorrow afternoon he makes talks at his conference but Wednesday is free for exploring. They return to the US on Thursday. I remember when he used to have engineering conferences in the Bay area of California but haven't heard any mention of that the past couple of years. Understandably so. Our port today is Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. This is a popular port but often difficult to get to. We had that port here as our destination on April 9, 2022. Here is the link to that date. DH and I have been to Stanley 3 times and have never missed a visit due to weather. Our dates were 2012 on Star Princess, 2015 on Ruby Princess, and 2020 on Coral Princess. I'll open up a new post for my photos. Hoping everyone here has a blessed day!

Roy @rafinmd hang in there! Prayers are sent your way for a quick recovery.🙏 Tony @sailingdutchy your Mother looks great, and I hope her good health continues for quite some time. What a blessing for you all! Happy birthday wishes to her.🎂 Thanks everyone for all the wonderful photos of Amsterdam!📷

Thank you Tina! An excellent idea, Eva! We use WhatsApp while traveling for keeping in touch with family and have even used it for phone calls back to the states. When DMIL didn't answer her phone all day while we were in Antwerp, we called DD who couldn't get an answer either. So she called the police in DMIL's town for a wellness check, who informed DD that DMIL was taken by ambulance to the hospital!! We wouldn't have known until we got home if we hadn't had the ability to make those phone calls. Thanks for the suggestion Debbie, and you never know! We are usually in a hurry to drop the rental car off next to the hotel but on a short cruise we have driven our own car down and would have more time to stop in Palm Beach county. Is the new ship the Wish? That's the ship Dixie and George @summer slope are cruising on next April so looks like they leave from Cape Canaveral.

Debbie, we're trying to avoid those long international flights too. And as you said that limits our cruises quite a bit. Fort Lauderdale is a long distance drive from our house - 600 miles but we've been driving there quite often the past couple of years instead of flying. Less stress! Gorgeous sunset photos!

OMG! That's hilarious! Wanna change places with George and let him run the copier??😆

It IS a lot of work to plan all these things! Meanwhile our travel partner is usually oblivious and expects these plans to miraculously happen - voila!

Good early morning to you Matthew. I will do my best to relax even though I have some laundry to attend to. In addition I started a new photo book yesterday for my latest cruise adventure. Picked the style, made the cover page and 4 additonal pages yesterday. But at least I'm sitting while doing that so we can count that as relaxing.😎

Good morning friends! Up early this Sunday morning and it is 65 and clear outside. High of 84 with a sunny morning and a partly cloudy afternoon. Thank you Rich @richwmn for the Daily and Fleet Report for today. I had wonderful grandparents and miss them a lot. Appropriate that we commemorate sewing machines on the day it was patented in 1846. Even if you don't use one they are an important invention. Swapping ideas help us to understand different viewpoints. That Mae West is sure a sly one! The orzo pasta salad sounds unique. I'll pass on the whisky smash and pinot gris. Many thanks to our F&B team Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard. Prayers today for our Care list, and especially for Lou and Terry @smitty34877, Tana, Chuck and Annie @catmando and @marshhawk, DB and friend's DB Mark, Roy @rafinmd, the people of Morocco after the devastating losses in the earthquake, the Lahaina, Maui community, and those in the Ukraine. Congrats to all on the Celebration list visiting family, enjoying birthdays and anniversaries and cruising. Thank you Vanessa @JazzyVfor the list keeping each day! Amsterdam is the port today and it's a lovely port indeed. Too bad the cruise ships are being denied access there nowadays. We had that port once before on the Daily on April 23, 2022 and I will post the link for you to retrieve photos. Here are my photos from the last time. Our visits to Amsterdam were in 2015 on Royal Princess and 5 more times on the Prinsendam from 2016 to 2019. Amsterdam was the beginning or ending port of most of our times spent there. One time we flew there from a cruise which ended in Montreal. So we got a flight from Montreal to Reykjavik and then on to Amsterdam to pick up our next cruise on the Prinsendam. This was the view as our Icelandair flight landed in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam that trip. A few weeks later on turnaround day in Amsterdam. Busy day! The Prinsendam docked next to the Koningsdam that day. On deck at sailaway time we heard two ladies talking and wondering which direction we would be headed. Uh, do you see that low bridge ahead of us? I don't think there's any chance we're going to go that way. But the trip we spent the most time in Amsterdam was in the middle of B2B cruises on Prinsendam in 2017. Another turnaround day. It was a misty day but we went out anyway. The date was June 3, 2017. A short walk from the ship was the very busy Centraal Station. This building worried me. I wouldn't want to sit outside in front of it to enjoy a beverage, with those walls leaning like that. Madame Tussaud's This stop was just a walk around day for us, with no plans made ahead of time. We do that a lot. Once we took a canal boat ride. Only Amsterdam wasn't our port that day, Rotterdam was. This was on Royal Princess in spring of 2015 and we were with our friends who insist on ship tours if we take one at all. So we all four got a tour to Amsterdam, and on the way to our stop at the canal boat ride starting point, our bus was hit by an electric tram. We had to get off and walk a few blocks to get on the canal boat. It was our driver's fault really because we were stopped at a red light, the road was curved and he didn't pull the bus forward enough. The left rear bumper of the bus was overhanging the electric tram tracks. The blue and white vehicle outside the window is the electric tram. We filed off... You should have heard the irate motorists stuck behind our bus! honk, honk, honk! The scene from our walk to the canal boat. Now the sirens were wailing! The canal boat rides in Amsterdam are outstanding and I recommend them to you. We've taken canal boat rides in Suzhou China, St. Petersburg Russia, Amersterdam, Brugge Belgium and Copenhagen and probably others. Love them. Hoping everyone has a super Sunday. Stay safe and well.

Bon Voyage!!

You would be blessed to have Susan Flanagan as your guide today. Fingers crossed for you! The weather was ideal the day we were there, Aug. 18. I looked for photos of my teddy bears and found one taken exactly 3 years ago today, for Teddy Bear Day. Love those grins!

Terry my heart breaks to hear your news. 😥 Praying fervently for Lou, you, Tana and your entire family.🙏