Haljo1935

Hey @Iamthesea I believe you only pay any difference +18% for drinks over the amount allowed in your drink package. No tip expected by repairmen on service requests. As you said, they leave quickly once they're done.

I toyed with the idea of having a Monte Cristo, but decided instead to go with something I had not ever tried. Except for the berry crisp - it's so good I can't pass on it. 🫣 Notice the mimosas have an unlimited option, but the Mary's do not? 🤔

I hope Jim does well on your upcoming cruise and you are able to go to Italy. We are enjoying our cruise now to the Italian ports - it's our first time and even with the bum foot & shoulder, I'm so glad we came. I've heard about the bad weather, but other than showers between Split and Trogir Italy we have not experienced any. We are due to dock in Civitavecchia in 4 days...

@JazzyV DH is a die hard Steelers fan. I hope you're having an easier time coping w/Ben's retirement than he is, lol.

@Lady Hudson Bon Voyage

Tried to watch an American football 🏈 game on the Lido big screen, but neither of the teams (Tampa Bay & (Houston) particularly interest me; chose a box of Bari Italian 🍕 over Chinese food, but it was still takeout; everyone should love their hair no matter the color, so I can certainly support red heads. Pass on the meal and drink, would try the wine, not been to HI, so I offer you a sunset over Bari Italy as seen from my balcony. Don't know what I think about the quote; the day in history was important. All the walking has not miraculously restored feeling to my foot and I think DH is a bit tired of watching me wince as I pull myself up into the shuttles and rubbing my shoulder at night (result of all the said pulling), so I'm sure he's ready to see me spend some time back in actual PT vs HAL cruise version of PT🫣 It has definitely been worth it; we'll see how I feel about that next month when I do the TA. Cruising may be good for the soul, but don't think the same goes for shoulders...

Getting the charges switched from CC to OBC only takes as long as the line is at Shore Exc Desk. Currently on NS where my excursions were moved on Embarkation Day in 16 minutes (based on the photo timestamps). I was 4th in line having arrived 2 min before they opened (1pm) and by 1:14 the change had been made. As mentioned by others, when done this way, the credit is returned as refundable OBC which is then refunded back to the CC you have on file or in cash, whichever you prefer.

Bon Voyage - have a wonderful time!

Greeted by clean laundry and the "tv repairman." He showed me a short orange cable that he replaced and voila tv is once again working. So I'm able to show you our current location enroute to Messina Sicily and today's forecast. As well as tomorrow's forecast Laundry put away and now I'm enjoying the best seat in the house before heading out to find something of interest to do. Since I seem to have a decent connection and the weather out here is soooooo nice, I may stay on the balcony and get caught up a little on the posts I owe y'all.

Time for Sea Day Brunch. Pretty good turnout at 10:30am; that's an hour into serving time (9:30-12:30). No waiting though - we were led right away to a great table by the window. In the distance, we see 2 ships. DH is having steak & egg skillet. I ordered Scandinavian potato cakes hold the gravlax. It had to go back - the eggs were way too runny (ordered hard fried). I seldom return food, but that was beyond what I could handle. 2nd time was much better. The yogurt parfait was very good - lots of fruit in there. Does anyone else notice the logo is in the wrong position, lol. Bloody Mary's were popular - there were 3 on that tray before he delivered ours 🫣 Menu: Food was served hot and tasted good, but service was unacceptably slow. I took and edited pics and did this post while waiting for them to bring a refill of coffee and clear our dishes. This is why DH prefers the Lido - he does not like to wait. I think his patience is gone and we will not wait much longer, so you may not see the berry fruit crumble.🤔 And just like that, crumble is here...

Last night was the Orange Party & Bar Hop. We are party poopers and did not go. It was also NFL 🏈game night on the big screen Lido poolside. We are not fans of either team that was playing, so we didn't go. Based on the number of empty chairs / available chairs, there are 4 Tampa Bay and/or Houston fans onboard🫣 The roof was open and it was a beautiful night. I took the pool picture when I went to Gelato for post pizza & salad dessert. I got mint chocolate chip; it was good, but did not meet the level of what we'd been enjoying on port days.🥴 Freeze squeezed smoothies & juice are also available at Gelato, as well as milkshakes. Tonight is Chocolate Surprise Being the party poopers we are, we'll likely skip the Chocolate Surprise and have already canceled our spots at the premium wine tasting. Why is that sideways and why will it not let me fix it?🙄

I could probably go on forever with Bari pictures, but if I do, I won't get back to the other ports. So I will leave you with some pictures of the castle that I missed. We think maybe the grassy area was originally the moat and the city park. "G" Maps directed us to it when we searched for public toilet. We had been using the ones at cafes, etc, but this time the timing didn't work. But in a way it did - a woman was cleaning them when we arrived 😏 Entrance we used, the opposite side did not have a fence Yellow wall portion houses the restrooms

Sunrise this morning, well slightly after sunrise - I missed sunrise so here's the best I could get. There is land to the left, a ship in the distance directly behind us and another ship off to the right in the distance.

Sunset last night over Bari as seen from our balcony.

Glad you're here and enjoying. I'm behind on posting, but promise I will eventually get caught up.🫣

Misc photos of magnificent buildings around Bari. Because we were just walking around, not on a tour or doing a mapped walking tour, and because we haven't researched them yet, we don't have the names of any of the buildings. I have a thing for doors and windows, so you'll probably see a few, lol. There's no order here - I'm just uploading some of the pictures I took. Here's a statue in the middle of the street and the inscription on the base. Here's a cute planter sitting in a shop doorway; no idea what the shop was selling. And some artwork on the side of a building. It was behind a construction fence. This unique clock caught our attention - close-up shot of the clock plus a pic of the building it is on. Based on the timestamp of the picture, it seems to have the correct time. DH needed cigars; being Sunday, all the tobacco stores are closed and the only place to buy tobacco products are from the 24-hour vending machines. They did not have cigars, but you can buy Camels and Chesterfields, lol. Zoom in - top left of the bottom picture. This building has an interesting corner on it. It is a concave course rather than a square corner. Notice it is like that at street level and the base is "car high." I wonder why? Sunday is definitely laundry day in Bari - saw a lot of laundry; seems every street had several occupied lines. We saw quite a few of these planter boxes. Fresh roasted nuts. Fresh made pasta for sale everywhere. We didn't buy any as we didn't know if they would let us bring it back on the ship since it's not in a sealed bag. I'm sure it's very good. I think there's a church by the pasta cart on the right. There are not many colorful doors; most blend in, so these really stood out. I bought a magnet from a shop on a side street. It was the only shop open; a man & woman were out front painting miniature landscapes. This is a picture of something in the shop he had made, kind of like a diorama, but front view. It is a typical street in Bari. Here's the magnet I got along w/the ones from Dubrovnik and Corfu. Sokraki is the small mountain town we visited during our 4x4 excursion in Corfu. Want to own a place in Bari? This one is for sale. Lots of churches - some are obvious w/crosses prominently adorning the walls, others are more discreet and down side streets, like the one by the pasta cart. This large church has a cross on every column. Some other buildings and architectural features. I tried to zoom in on the amazingly

Update on the castle we did not tour - the entry line was so long because on the 1st Sunday of the month (which today was) visitors get in free!!

The art inside the church is an exhibit called Bibart 2023; it will be in 3 places - it opened yesterday in Bari. The church is Chiesa di San Gaetano Ex Convento dei Teatini dating 1774 - 1776. Here's another picture from the exhibit; apologies if it's a duplicate. 😪 Not knowing what it was, I didn't walk all the way inside, so I know I missed a lot, but what I saw was just beautiful.

Tomorrow is our final Sea Day. That means Sea Day Brunch in the MDR. Also means it's time for a little Chocolate Surprise.

Oh, no!! The horror! I hesitate to tell you how yummy it was.🫣 Tomorrow we will have Sea Day Brunch in MDR, so we will not subject you to another round of PG torture 😉

Thanks - I'll let him know you noticed 🤭 It sure brings him a lot of comments, lol. He is not even from that area, just a die hard fan! He's having a tough couple years now that "his guy" has retired.

Sunrise over Bari (Puglia) Italy. TV forecast is 76° w/45% humidity. Watched the team take out & tie off our lines. Is that line supposed to have so much slack? 🤔 When we got back from breakfast all is right w/the world - all 4 lines are taught. 🤭 No excursion planned; we are taking the HAL shuttle to town and just explore. BettyAnn presented the following maps during her port talk; 1 shows estimated distances and public transport costs, she's pointing at our berth #10: Apologies the pictures from our visit to Bari are so "rough" - I wanted to get them posted & have not cropped most of them. We walked to the castle Svevo - line was very long so we chose not to tour; cost for adults was 8eu. We walked around downtown Piazza Mercantile and Piazza Eroi Del Mare where the shuttle dropped us off, eventually making our way to Old Town. Lots of interesting buildings, but also a lot of new construction. We walked through the local green market, listened to music on one of the side streets leading to the market, 20231105_123516.mp4 stepped inside what we thought was a church, but there is a poster for a museum inside, so I'm not really sure. As I go through my pictures, I'll see if I captured the name from the outside, but I don't think I did. This church/museum was down a narrow side street; not in the square. Ate pizza at a local pizzeria. Menu: Unique artwork w/a number identifies the tables; we were #1. #2 behind us had colorful art. The bruschetta was as expected - fantastic! DH had the spicy salami (what we'd call pepperoni) and a red beer. I had ham and a Sprite. I passed on the complimentary lemonciello, DH drank his but I think he wished he hadn't. The leftovers rode the shuttle back with us and are now parked on the table in our cabin. We're thinking leftover pizza & wine 🍷 on our balcony sounds like a great dinner option. Weather was perfect - mostly sunny, wispy clouds & breeze just when we needed them, no rain. We certainly could have spent more time exploring and would love to return. I'll post more of the photos later.

My happy place - a discussion of HAL laundry service!! Looky at the lovely note I received from them yesterday. 😊

I spent 13 days on Venezia on a B2B in Sept. Like @Jamman54 I report the good, bad and in-between in my Live review along with pictures. I did comment on a few minor things needing attention; the only one I didn't have a picture of (and likely didn't mention) was a stain on 1 chair in the MDR that I saw during Muster. Other than the numerous missing door scan lock plate covers, all the items I mentioned were isolated to my cabin - mentioned with supporting pictures in my review. I did say the crew was fantastic and friendly - they absolutely were and that contributed to a great cruise! Not once did I pass crew in a hallway or anywhere that they didn't greet me, smile, ask about my day, etc. The crew on Venezia was fabulous!! Is the ship brand new? No. Is it a dog, past her prime ready for salvage? Absolutely not!! Does she need a bit of polishing? Sure. Is it bad enough to ruin my cruise or keep me from sailing on her again? No way. Oh, look - going through my pictures, I did find the picture of the chair with the stain; didn't even realize I had captured it. Here's the chair w/the offending spot, lol.🙄 And here's where it was located during Muster.

Sunset in Split as seen from our balcony. If you zoom in, you can see the sailboats. Well, if I upload the correct pictures you can. 🫣