jpalbny

Each has its place. Especially when someone else is cooking all the different little nibbles! Absolutely delicious but way too much work to make at home. I'm happy to cook the steak and frites. Though @Stumblefoot will dispute whether I actually "cook" it, or just warm it slightly past room temperature... As long as it's warmer than the red wine, I'm happy. I'm looking forward to see what they serve us for meals in Botswana. On our past two safaris, the food has been an unexpected highlight. Interesting ingredients and great preparation. Maybe they are just fattening us up to feed to the lions! PS, enjoy your lunch! I bet it will be delicious.

The stops on and around Komodo Island were great! Glad you enjoyed. And those dragons!

If you want a guide, and/or want to visit places other than wineries, I've used privatetours.cl a few times and have been happy with the quality of the tours and guides. The only problem with "boutique" wineries is that you'll never be able to find their products once you get home. We visited a mix of smaller and larger wineries. The smaller places are nice but you're not missing out if you mix in some of the larger and/or more established places. And I still buy wines from the places we visited when I can find them.

Not for long! ETA: sorry for the hijack, Ryan. Stumblefoot and I were on the same January 2020 cruise.

Ponant (I suspect) does not have a big customer base in the USA so I doubt many (if any) TAs have extensive experience or volume with them. The owner of our agency just happened to know the former Ponant Chair for The Americas through a prior business connection. So back in the BC era when we were first looking at Ponant, he arranged for us to have a phone call with her to answer any questions we might have about booking with Ponant. That was quite a treat... Otherwise, our TA gives us about 10% of the fare as a rebate check, which comes to us after final payment has been made, before the trip: around the time you'd get your "cruise tickets" if such a thing existed any more. No other special perks on Ponant (though they do give some extra perks like additional OBC when we sail on Silversea). And as an example of nobody knowing a lot about Ponant, I told our TA about Ponant's status match program right after reading about it here on CC. She was happy to hear about it and said she'd pass the word around the agency in case others needed to know.

Hope you get good enough weather to see it. If you're lucky, you will be able to launch the zodiacs and see it from a closer perspective. It is EXCEEDINGLY uncommon to actually land there because almost no part is flat enough to land (even with zodiacs) and almost any flat part is covered with nesting chinstrap penguins. Don't count on it. Most of our expedition staff had never landed there (or so they said), and they say it's 50/50 about even launching zodiacs. We got a nice zodiac ride, close enough to Point Wild to see the plaque honoring the ship that rescued Shackleton's crew, and then later in the morning the fog lifted so we could see the snowy peaks from the ship. Magical. Yes - that's when we were there. We did a 15-day South Georgia to Antarctica loop so SG was first (early January). Fur seal pups all over the place. And tons of adolescent king penguins with their ugly brown feathers morphing to adult plumage. *** Agree with Ron and carefreecruise - the earlier you go, the cleaner/more pristine the scenery because the penguins haven't been sitting on their nests for so long, ejecting guano in every direction. Nobody cleans up after them... The later you go, the more likely you are to see chicks. Go too late though and it's "dead chick" season (from what I've heard). We went once mid-December and saw 95% eggs, and only a few tiny Adelie chicks in one stop. Second trip was mid-January by the time we made it to the peninsula, and there were Chinstrap, Gentoo, and Adelie chicks everywhere. Many nests had two each. However if the hunting is poor one will likely starve, so that's what they refer to later (too late) in the season. It's an amazing destination no matter when you go. I probably preferred the chicks over the eggs, but both were wonderful trips and I'd go again tomorrow if I could.

A few premature beats can keep things interesting. It's a pain for sure. They just tweaked our flight times for the return from Africa (less than a month now until the return leg). Every time I get an email from DL with the subject "Your itinerary has changed..." I get palpitations. Like Mysty. It definitely keeps things interesting!

Yes. IIRC there is a big intersection along the way but easy enough. And a good portion of the route after that is pedestrianized.

Go for the train. We have visited Regensburg via train from Munich and it's not a far walk from the station to the river bank. Depending on where you dock, you could almost walk to the train station from the boat if you're traveling light. I know that I'd try!

Have a great trip! We have only been on their "regular" sailings (expedition cruises, but not Smithsonian or A&K). The ship is beautiful and I hope you enjoy.

Say Hi to Drron and Rojaan from us!

*at And yes, there have been intermittent problems (logging in, and others) for about 2 weeks.

Every Sunday night... 😞 Drives me insane!

That must have been stressful! Poland is on Chris's list for sure. I'd love to go there. Thanks for the pics.

We visited Perge and Aspendos on our own from Alanya, nine years ago. The theatre at Aspendos was worth visiting, we thought. The dilemma of course is whether to leave it in its original state, or renovate it enough to make it useable according to modern standards. One of the most dramatically situated theatres we've ever seen is nearby to Aspendos, in Termessos, which we drove to when we visited Antalya. I don't think I've ever seen a more impressive vista from a Roman Theatre. And there's no way it will ever be restored given its remote location. If you want original/unrestored ruins at Aspendos, there are a lot of them just behind the theatre. Including the remains of an Aqueduct. Perge is a great site, I agree. That colonnaded street is really impressive. We wandered into the stadium before we got to the main site and it was really cool to be the only ones there. But we did not visit the theatre. Maybe because we had just come from Aspendos? 😉 It was the end of a long day where we already visited Alara Han, Side, Aspendos, and by the time we got to Perge it was getting late. And we had a 2h drive back to Alanya. Next time?

Their responses seem to run the gamut from none, to half-complete, to fairly thorough. I eventually got a reply that they had matched my status to Grand Admiral. Chris got a reply that they had "completed the status match" but didn't tell her to what level. About 2 weeks ago we both got emails that our new Grand Admiral Cards were "ready" and we would receive them "soon" but they have not arrived yet. As has been Jazzbeau's experience, our new status is reflected on the Ponant website for some time now. Suggest checking there if you have not done so already, as it may be that they've completed the status match and just not told you.

Sad, and a big change from when we have visited. We've done a bunch of drives through Turkey on our own and always felt safe. Years ago, we were driving around the back roads of Cappadocia in a rental car, and we saw a police checkpoint ahead. They stopped the car ahead of us and made the occupants get out, and seemingly gave them a hard time. We were worried, but when it was our turn they waved us through quickly because we were Americans, and sent us on our way with kind words, thanking us for visiting. I've always found the people of Turkey to be warm and welcoming; would be disappointing if that has changed. But the world has become a different place I guess.

The relationship between wine consumed, and dancing prowess, follows a bell-shaped curve. With no wine, you're too shy to dance well. With an appropriate amount to loosen one up, the dancing quality improves. You do reach a point of diminishing returns though! Chris and I always know when it's time to give up and start drinking water. When I can't lead and she can't spin as well as usual, it's definitely the wrong side of the bell curve.

Maybe they mean that the Peloponnese is technically an island, now that the Corinth Canal separates it from the mainland? *ducks and covers* Just teasing, Jolly. I know it's still part of the Greek mainland, even though they dug that canal.

We have been fortunate enough to have been on safari trips to South Africa (private reserve on the border of Kruger), and Tanzania (Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Tarangire), as well as going on a gorilla trek in Rwanda. This will be our third big safari trip to Southern Africa. There is nothing like it. We are splitting the time between four lodges/locations. We start in Dinaka which is on the northern border of the Central Kalahari game reserve for 3 nights. Then 4 nights at Vumbura Plains, in the Okavango Delta. Three nights at Duma Tau in the Linyati region. Lastly, we cross over to Zambia and stay 3 nights at Tongabezi which is a little upriver from the town of Livingstone. I heard there is some little waterfall near there whose name escapes me. But Chris loves waterfalls so I guess we'll check it out. Whatever she wants; happy wife, happy life. Flying in/out of Johannesberg. We originally bought RT tix on a great route, ALB-ATL-JNB, as DL flies an A350 on that nonstop long haul from ALB-JNB. But then about 2 months ago, they canceled the return leg on us, and put us an a flight leaving a day earlier! I spent a long time with DL customer service and in the end they put us on a nice itinerary back, on our original day, JNB-CDG(on AF)-ATL-ALB with no upcharge. T-2 weeks. I have my long lens, and I'm dragging the DSLR with me. I bought a big bottle of Malarone and I have lots of Cipro for the inevitable. Just like Silversea, we get laundry at all the stops so we can pack light. And it will be at least 90 degrees so we won't need the parkas!

That'll be us in a few weeks. In Botswana. After petting the cheetahs!

From the article that I read, there was a problem with an engine which occurred on the last night of the previous cruise. Two tugs were dispatched to assist the ship to Piraeus. The issue must be fixed, as this cruise seems to be progressing normally. Here is an article: https://crew-center.com/silver-spirit-safely-towed-piraeus-after-engine-problems?fbclid=IwAR3kr8W6OvHFQFipUMGp3HEyEA0tHDdZfrgnmFMK2gk_ZRTyl8EsikkVIX8 and another: https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1222822/cruise-ship-towed-to-piraeus-port-after-mechanical-issue/ Glad that all is well and we can continue to enjoy updates from on board!

We finally tried a "big" ship (Silver Spirit) 2 years ago, after many Cloud and Wind cruises, and we were surprised how much we liked it. Hope that your experience on board is as fun as ours was. I didn't realize there was a train from the airport to Piraeus! Last time (probably 10 years ago) we just took the airport bus to the port. Good to know for future reference. Thanks!

I've always just received text messages fine using the ship's WiFi; I put the phone in airplane mode first to prevent it from connecting to the onboard cellular network first. Is there another way to do it?

Do you mean they would not permit a donation to the crew fund at all? Or just that you could not make the donation using your onboard account?