mking8288

Well, folks ☹️ as you know from above supplemental live coverage, we were heading into Cadiz with 60 knots wind, 45 knots inside the channel - as captain said, simply cannot safely dock. Processing at 6 knots toward the Strait, reaching there around 2 pm and continue with a sea day, conditions remain windy, per the captain's & CD announcement. Sitting in MDR for a leisurely breakfast, that's now getting busy. Not everyone onboard have figured out what we aren't docked 90+ minutes later than scheduled. Cellular signal was available but faded & dropped entirely since. Those with shorex booked thru will get automated refund. Others, possibly scramble to contact tour operators about cancellations. An updated FSD is being printed & will be available shortly. Whether a pro-rated port charges & fees will get refunded or not ... TBA Ship's ride is fairly smooth as if normal conditions prevail, being in mid-ship ... until one look outside & check the live streaming bridge cam.

Glad to read you are feeling better and it isn't that ... Got Vitamins C, up the daily intake & get them O.J. in the morning from the buffet. Ask them behind the buffet counters if there's a cold cut & cheese section, they evilly hide them - will quickly give them out & put it on your plate ... at least they used to. I go to the MDR for my breakfast fixes ... smoked salmon. Granville Island ... been stopping there for nearly 40 years when in town, and to bring some back to the East Coast.

Yes, I was able to use the Anker 7-in-1 USB-C to output to our HD monitors at home on 1080p but not on QHD or 1440. The mini 4k USB-C to HDMI adapter was able to do that with ease, just played with it briefly w DW's Samsung Galaxy S22+ (formerly mine) while I kept her S22+ with 128GB (less) storage. The key is that Samsung monitors on the Epic will work with a HDMI signal from my Lenovo Chromebook, that's a big plus, given it's cross-OS compatibility and in running Android apps ... developer's mode enabled. Not all adapters work with these set-up as I had returned those to Amazon. Will play a little more before we disembark on Sunday ... this is the fun part & turned out sea days weren't boring and we're quite busy & occupied, despite the "lack" of production shows. Not fans of comedy or club music in a crowded setting. Maybe I am going to be using 2 flagship Androids but can't stand bloatwares from Samsung.

Midnight, local time and we are less than 80 nm from Cadiz-Seville, off coastal Spain cruising at 16 knots - early to ontime arrival. Night owls in NY and on the West Coast can track us on live shipcam, easing into the cruise pier before catching some shut-eyes 😴😴

Tonight's MDR menu is seen and use less often: Pear & Apple Turnover Seafood Cioppino - like this one Pearl & Apple Tart Thai chicken noodles, not close to tasting like Pad Thai (A minus for efforts)

Outside our balcony tonight, a full moon, or almost.

Beatles show postponed earlier & rescheduled for tonight, apparently cancelled again due to a cast member's illness - #cough #cough 🤭 TBA as to a new date Tonight's scene outside Taste, wait time is 45 minutes... let's see how well priority seating get us. The Epic system onboard isn't quite flowing smoothly for dining crowd surges What do other CC'ers think, I have no further comments for now - do a post-mortem later. Seated in about 20-25 minutes instead, cut the wait time a little 😬

Tomorrow's FSD is out - Day 12 Arrive into Cadiz at 6 am and all abroad is 5:30 pm. Garden Cafe will serve full breakfast starting at 5:30 am until 10, Taste from 6:30 (ending by 8:30 am) It's time for "Burn The Floor" again, an additional show, 7 pm only - maybe, I will go see it. DW saw it 4 times and she like the one on the Epic. Another $29 Laundry Specials offered - we've done about $400's worth thus far, if itemized 😬😬😬 not bad with using the perks. Clocks not being fast forward by 1 hour tonight - 😹😹😹 Tomorrow night, approximately 10:30 pm - Gibraltar Strait Transit ... open decks

These were our last sea day lunch in Taste, served in oversized portion ... a fairly typical practice onboard NCL. We had several wait staff team over the past 10 days in Taste, all are very good to excellent, friendly & reminders of reasons to choose NCL ... The fish cake sandwich, looked like a hamburger and I like it ... unlike the fish sandwich served in O'Sheehan's - which tasted odd as if it's stuffed with a mashed potato-fish blend. DW tells me to either eat it or send it back & get something else, and stop being a serious critic on everything onboard 😳🫢😆 Look at that simple salad, the dressing wasn't sodium loaded. The desserts each of us had were just right in being sweet, not the sugar-free varieties. OMG, we actually saw and found bananas in the buffet this morning, they aren't out of them entirely or maybe just got them at Ponta Delgada or Funchal - could that be the special NCL Air Lift Command logistics catching up finally, stay tuned.

Next door or inside that busy card room, I surely hope so b/c it's packed to full occupancy from dawn to & beyond dust, non-stop actions. No wonder I spotted a # of them wearing masks. Once upon a time, the CD plays a leading role in that funny all crew show on big stage, Fountains. There was a crew talent show too, plus the farewell on-stage as part of finalle to the leading production show. To the tune of the ... Norwegian way & NCL being the home away from home. Kindly help if you've seen widespread ?? distribution of mini Guest Comment Cards in the dining rooms or those Vacation Heroes Card to recognize outstanding crew members ... in going above & beyond. We shall see - cruise with an open mind is the buzz codeword these days.

Send out our #2 and #3 load of free laundry yesterday and cheerfully returned by our room attendant to our cabin mid-afternoon today. No charge, onboard account checked - will do a final load this Thursday before we disembark early Sunday - goosh, we passed the 2/3 milestone on this TA crossing ... oh, no - almost time to repack clean clothes again. But, we aren't going home, not yet - Barcelona, here we come. Hola, time to see how Google's Live Translate work 😀

The new brand of coffee pod is supposed to make 4 cups, maybe 4 tiny 4 oz. cup & weak ones, based on my preference for a strong cup. I say it's good for 2 cups or 6 oz. at most. The mini refrigerator was almost full initially. Tupperware and/or ziplock bags for storage, maxi functionality as you can imagine - for your (in) convenience as you can't even fit a smaller 8" round plate in there. Note - additional slim storage in that space, it's warm with the refrigerator's motor, good for drying wet lingerie or swimwear without an iron or drying efforts. A packing tubes slipped right into that slot.

WiFi calling - having trouble calling out today on my Android and yesterday using SIL's iPhone XR, dialed out okay but failed to connect or ring thru ... just wanted to note & document this. Using an alternate app, WhatsApp is okay and used Ooma, our home VoIP App - made a successful voice call that lasted 3 to 4 minutes. Will try Google Voice and cellular WiFi call with it's default settings again later. WiFi has been unreliable within the last 24 hours, iCafe notice posted about local interference ... 🙄🙄🙄 SMS & MMS seemed to work fine at the same time with friends in NY, go figure 🤔 Hence, always have a Plan B and a workaround or Plan C for contingency or secondary backup. Picked up this 220v 2-pin outlet adapter with an on/off switch, very useful - apparently handy for ship crew in their shares cabins. Just 2.50 Euro ... Thus, even with the 220v Hamilton Beach 1-cup coffee maker plugged in, still have 2 other 110v outlets free for other gadgets. Notice the wear & tear with the 110v outlets after 13 years of service.

Dex, you might recall seafood paella was once available cruising NCL long ago ... Doubtful they can and will bring it back anytime soon, if at all - maybe at Ocean Blue. GM will just punt it. The lunch mob is back, last sea day with it open - left is right (for the queue) for a pager, reversing the routine since day 1 ... now, right is for ... Priority seating does work, discreetly - 5 minutes wait instead of 15+ with a pager and hardly anyone noticed we skipped past them on a bypass. Whatever, imagine another 500+ souls onboard on a sold out cruise with several hundred restless youngsters. Walked past Le Bistro and the unmistakable tiles sound from multiple tables of MJ can be heard. Card room is a full house already. Casino is half to 2/3 empty, not making money on this TA ... ditto, duty-free & gift shops with the limited selections.

Day 10 - last night's MDR dinner at Taste ... roasted turkey and pork tenderloin were both very good.

Good Tuesday morning, all. ( With 3,900+ pax onboard plus crew, and approaching Spain off the northwest coast of Africa, satellite WiFi this morning is the slowest, thus far on this TA crossing - calm seas & no waves to speak of.

Good morning to dad and you, it's 10:25 am on our side of the ocean, the Atlantic ... somewhere between Funchal, Spain & Cadiz, Spain. Hola, that's a beautiful sunset you witnessed together.

Not going to invoke the Fifth. Only guilty of motivating our busy room attendant, as he has to do 22 rooms daily, each taking 15 to 20 minutes (thankfully: very, very few children onboard) - to track down a surplus or stored chair from somewhere, not responsible for where it came from. Besides, we didn't ask for 2 loungers and a bigger table for room service meals on the balcony. Weather is getting warm - going to be nice to sit outside & watch for pier runners ahead. Haha, just realized your eagle eyes & spotted the extra "hardware" outside - should've use the smartphone's Magic Eraser function, it's really cool. Try it - on all supported Pixel Androids, Samsung select series and even newer iPhones.

Thanks & hi Ellie ... as you know (see above) we sailed past Porto Santo in the past hour, looking at Navigation channel (21) on the Epic. We chatted with our taxi driver on the way back to the ship, as we deelacided to not use HOHO bus to loop around a 2nd time - the summer months are consider off-season with fewer ships calling, should be more relaxed & less crowded. NCL also contracted with the Yellow Bus, as we saw several of them parked idling right outside the fenced gate, next to the ship this morning - they're chartered by NCL to do shorex. For our online or digital booked confirmation, we had to walk almost 2/3 of a mile, relatively flat & level sidewalk & pavement to reach Stop #1 for the Yellow Bus. Had to wait about 20+ minutes extra due to island traffic (apparently, Monday was a Portugal holiday & many businesses and shops, stores weren't open) - at the designated Marina stop, there're 2 rep's on duty, one selling tickets on the spot & another going up & down the line to answer questions, handed out disposable earbuds for the onboard audio self-guide in multiple languages. With the expected surged in ship passengers lining up, they dispatched an additional bus & we got on, a third bus was 10 to 15 minutes behind us - normally, one bus every 30 minutes. At several key & popular stops, additional agents were stationed and they seemed organized enough to us. All HOHO tour bus pax were dropped off near the cruise pier, we stayed on & continued back to stop #1 (after stop #27) and continued, past #3 for the cable car and the driver was bilingual & answered questions about the stops, etc. The audio guide were working & provided in multiple popular languages, along with the printed guide - does an adequate job pointing out where & what ... driver was a safe & good driver, not rushing. There was also a red HOHO bus, not sure how they compare on a competitve basis. We wing this & book it online ourselves, and saved almost enough to paid for our nice seafood lunch in the Old Town. NCL shorex has the advantage of pickup closest to the pier & much less walking - 20 minutes for us; but we saved about 60 to 65% against inflated ship deals, even with the $50 "credit" for the 3 of us. Not something to sneeze at. Pack a hat, sun protection and bottled water for hydration, and if Sal is okay with the long walk - do it and enjoy the scenery, stop to rest & take pictures for memories ... like we did. (especially if things are similar on your upcoming one at Porto) I don't see any red flags or reasons to not use the Yellow Bus. Cadiz cruise terminal is just a 5 minutes walk to the center of town and easy to walk, and if we get lazy, will do another locally negotiated taxi tour again. We did pretty well scoring on our January Getaway, as you recall our posts on that Semi-Live. Will have more "field" reports from our cruise in the coming days. Best regards - Henry

Tonight - we move the clock 1 hour again. Already sailed about 75 nm from Funchal, with no pier runners to wait & all onboard, actually departed 5 minutes early out to sea. Currently doing almost 20 knots, with about 500 nm to go - expected arrival is 6 am on Wednesday and depart at 6 pm. Sunset is 8 am and sunset around 9 pm later today ... Cadiz will reach 81 degree F for our port visit ... should've packed less long sleeve (or none at all) and just 1 outer jacket plus 2 vest to layer ... oh well. There was almost no line or wait tonight at Taste MDR around 7:45 pm, perhaps many that went ashore for the day came back tired & just packed the buffet again - and didn't bother with a sit-down dinner leisurely. Tuesday is our last sea day - rest of the week are busy port days ... at this point, not going to be troubled with the lack of onboard entertainment. We sent out 2 more free bags of laundry today - will do 1 more load of mostly underwear & PJ's on Thursday, with regular/next day service & re-pack freshly washed & clean clothes to prepare to disembark early Sunday morning in Barcelona. Reconfirmed with BCN Day Tours today about our 2 half-day semi-private shared tours and will early check-in with our H10 Casanova Hotel toward the end of the work week.

Tomorrow's FSD ... while we still have a solid 5G signal, going to be a full sea day - next port of call, Cadiz on Wednesday All abroad local Funchal time is 7:30 pm or about 5 minutes.

Fixed the amended steps for you. Works on the Epic for us on our Epic TA. Regards

Look, look up and see what I see. Pretty much what I already knew, no Starlink upgrade anytime soon and definitely not on this sailing or rest of the remaining journey. That's the MTN satellite dish, which became EMC, still in operational mode. Oh well, still blessed that we had 95% score with WiFi at sea, and managed to make this report mostly live. I did "lose" about 100+ free data/WiFi minutes under FAS, 200 minutes was restored and I got some use out of that package but ... not going to make a big deal out of the "loss" since we had the paid unlimited plan on the other account.

@goldmom agree. Back to live "news" of interest, sometimes, we just have to learn to get along, show patience, agree to disagree, and laugh virtually at things happening on any given cruise, and not things personally ... just "Let it Go" Whether it's the pool deck chair hogs, atrium lounger hogs and now, buffet hogs and card room gaming addicts on this ship ... the problems aren't for us to solve or fix, I left comments & suggestions, constructively for the GM's team to see, know, address & diffuse or mitigate. Intention is to not pin faults or shift "blames" on others. Let that stuff go & drop, we have plenty of friends that cruise & I am pretty comfortable that they know ... Seating & spacing in the Great Outdoors is very good, between tables & chairs - the inside space is another story; and I can most definitely relate to some of the issues I read & heard with the Prima design. Some of the other public space like the art gallery, gift shop corridors and outdoor space could be better re-configured, not easy and costly & not something NCL can easily flip a few switches to make it happen in a matter of days or even weeks. If they could, some of the problems will mostly go away. Still, not going to fix inconsiderate fellow passengers & their behavior, like blocking the elevator buttons or not stepping aside or out briefly, to allow others who need to exit. Pretty sure that @AtSeaAlways know what I am referring to, being onboard.

@fstuff1 - hey, we are behind you on the Epic. No issues between NY & Bermuda on our crossing, between BDA and Ponta Delgada, the 2nd sea day had sparodic drops & lost coverage. iCafe manager claimed it's a known local interference issue. Between PD and Funchal, it's been 95% reliable with downloads a little slower, could be attributed to more users signed in & heavily shared bandwidth - patience & healthy, safe crossing.