bobmacliberty

What do they call the move where he flips back his hair with his hands? 😜 Ah, to be young again...and have hair. We need an Andrew vs. Toby competition on an upcoming cruise!

Blanton's included with the plus package? Very impressive, especially if they can keep it in stock.

I don't remember noticing any issues at the Grand Hyatt at all, in either our room or the public spaces. I checked with Micheline, who is more sensitive to that kind of stuff, and she didn't see anything either. All seemed perfect. I don't know if there are newer or older sections at the resort but we were close to the main building with the lobby. Our room probably would have been there since the resort was built. For what it's worth, we were in a "KG PRT OCN VW" which is a "Private lanai: 1 King pillow top: Partial ocean view from lanai; 500 sq feet". It was a step up from a base room in terms of view, but not anything fancy enough that it would have received special cleaning attention. It was just above the number 29 on the resort map below, overlooking the pool area with a view of the ocean in the distance to the right. As for Lihue vs Poipu, it's probably a matter of what you plan to do/where you plan to go while there. The Royal Sonesta looks like a very nice resort and the beach looked really nice when we had lunch at Duke's, which is right there. The Hyatt pool complex is great and would be a nice advantage if that's important (i.e. if you'll have extended family with you). You probably can't go wrong with either choice purely from a resort perspective. We've only been to Kauai once and I'm far from an expert but here's what I would say about the locations. Advantages of Lihue...close to the airport (including helicopter tours) and the main commercial area of Kauai. Slightly shorter (about 15 minutes less) drive to Princeville and other attractions in the north shore area. You're also a little closer to things near the east coast like the Smith's Family Garden Luau (considered but didn't do) and Wailua Falls. Advantages of Poipu...more of a vacation/resort area when you leave the hotel property. Slightly shorter drive (about 15 minutes less) to the Napali coast boat trips and Waimea Canyon. If you'll have a rental car, the driving distance differences aren't that big of a deal. In planning for Kauai, I listed a lot of potential things to do in OneNote. In case it's helpful for your planning, I exported it to a .pdf file. Hope this helps. Kauai.pdf

The Aquadome has me the most intrigued. The Aquatheater is my favorite venue on Oasis class ships and I'm hoping that the Aquadome is a step up.

Chris Wong just posted a video of when he joined the Icon crew in Cadiz, Spain a few weeks ago. In the video, they're still doing a lot of last-minute work on the ship. You can see many of the different areas of the ship, including a few crew only areas. Makes for a good tease before seeing the finished product this week.

Thanks for the recommendation. We're always looking for new things to watch. We recently started watching something old...True Detective. We're 3/4 of the way through the first season with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and like it a lot. We've got 2 more older seasons to watch and a 4th season just started. Should keep us busy for a bit.

I'll definitely post a quick review and some pictures here.

Secrets makes a point of saying that tipping is included in the price. I'd assume that you can tip additionally if you'd like but wouldn't be surprised if it was like George said and they don't actually allow tipping. We also typically like to be active and we've got a beach/pool right here, so beach vacations, especially where you never leave the resort, aren't normally our thing. We'll fly there on Monday and fly back on Friday so I think I'll survive 3 full days of reading and relaxing. They do have continual activities including some form of show in the evenings, which will help.

The weather here was great yesterday but in the few weeks before...not so much. Lots of gray skies and temps that were even dipping into the 30s. While that's nothing compared to what many of you have been experiencing, it's still a little depressing. We therefore decided that we need to go someplace warm. We'll be flying down to Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) in 3 weeks. We were there 20 years ago when our kids were young (to address winter cabin fever while living in Cincinnati) but have not been back since. We'll be staying at Secrets Cap Cana, an adult only all-inclusive which gets good reviews. This will be a pure relaxation trip with no "excursions" planned. Just beach, pool, food, drink, repeat. Has anyone been to Secrets Cap Cana?

I'm late to the party @twangster and just read your review end to end. Spectacular, as I've come to expect from anything that you post. A couple of questions if you don't mind... 1. I've got the Canon version of your 70-200 2.8 but I don't own any extenders. Did you find that you used both? If you were to bring just one, which would it be? Was the light penalty a problem...the 2X is 2 stops, correct? Seems like your Sony does very well at high ISOs. 2. Was your Royal C&A status (we're D+) worth anything on Silversea? I read somewhere that only X recognized C&A status but would love to her any confirmation from you. Thanks for all of the effort that you put into this live report. An Antarctic excursion may have just moved to the top of my next planned cruise list. Off to check 2025...

I'm fully with you on this Twangster. Currently looking at Oceania and/or an Anarctica sailing. We'll only sail Royal now for multi-generational family cruises. Off to read your Antarctica thread.

Here's a video of Michael Bayley doing Crown's Edge. It looks like there's a video camera on each harness. Maybe a video is included for the $90?? Knowing Royal, it's probably an extra charge.

He started off the concert by saying something like, "I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I don't have any new songs to play. The good news is that you'll probably know every song that I play. You won't need to listen to any new music that you've never heard before." He was right.

A story that confirms HS football in Texas is indeed a religion...A town in Texas was growing and needed to build a second high school. Since separate schools would typically have separate football teams, the town decided to make one school for freshman and sophomore year, and the other school for junior and senior year. This was done solely (at least as it was told to me) so that they wouldn't need to "dilute" the football talent across two teams.

Impressive slides and I agree about the steps. Go for it!

Congrats on the win Greg. It was a tough ending to watch. My only consolation is that the Bills went farther this year than I thought they would after so many injuries to their defense. I wasn't sure they would even make the playoffs. It caught up with them last night against Mahomes. There wasn't enough quality left in our LBs to handle Kelce or Pacheco. KC at Baltimore should be a good game, but I don't really want to see either team win. My years in Cincinnati always have meet rooting against Baltimore, and I'm tired of seeing KC there year after year. Add me to the list of those pulling for the Lions to win the Super Bowl. I did enjoy watching Jason Kelce celebrating with a Blue Light.

This should be great! Thanks for sharing your time with us.

My understanding is that the closest airports to Manhattan, in order, are LGA then JFK then EWR. We flew in and out of LaGuardia. Getting into Manhattan was easy by taxi and LGA is very nice now after the update. Not sure that it's worth changing from EWR though if you'll pay a big price increase to use one of the other airports. If you've got an extra $200 per person to spare, consider taking a helicopter from either JFK or EWR into Manhattan. Sort of like booking a helicopter tour excursion.

I saw a couple of lists showing Piano Man as his #1 fan favorite. I think everyone in MSG was singing along to Piano Man. At one point, the band stopped playing and the crowd sang the entire verse. I remember being at a Springsteen concert MANY years ago when the crowd sang the entire first verse of Hungry Heart (Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack...) to open the second set, back when the Springsteen concerts were so long that they'd take a break in the middle. I really like a couple of Billy Joel's slower songs...New York State of Mind and Vienna.

We didn't find Manhattan to be as bad as some of the reports that we had read. It may have been the area where we were staying, but there weren't many homeless people. Times Square was, well Times Square, but nothing new there. The only thing we noticed was the smell of pot in several places. We never saw anyone actually smoking though. We never felt unsafe. One other general thing for people who take taxis...download and set up the Curb app. You get in a taxi, enter the pairing number of the taxi that you're in, and your trip gets automatically charged. No need to handle any money. There's a screen showing a running total of exactly what the charge will be. You can also use the app to schedule a taxi but we never did that. We just flagged one down, or had the doorman do it. It's as easy as Uber.

My brother and 3 of his buddies have had season tickets for 30+ years. He sent me some pictures from the game. Their pregame tent city which had heaters and was toasty warm. Their seats. They moved enough snow away to be able to stand but could never sit. Their view of the field

One more...the Billy Joel concert. As I said earlier, we really enjoyed it. We had floor seats, about 30 rows back. For @HBE4, if the stage was by the goal, we were about at the opposite blue line. We sat right next to the sound mixing board, so the sound for us was perfect (although a little loud for Micheline). Micheline did wear her Loop Earplugs which helped a lot. If we were to do it again, I'd aim for one of the more elevated seats on the side. I was tall enough to look over/around the people standing in front of us and see the stage, but Micheline could only see the overhead monitors. The concert was almost 2.5 hours long and I think everyone knew every song that he played, other than maybe a couple that he tossed in that were not his songs to help show off the talent of his band members, like his rhythm guitarist singing Nessun Dorma. I thought he always finished with Scenes From an Italian Restaurant but he played Piano Man after that as the last song, until he came back out for a 5 song encore...We Didn't Start the Fire, Uptown Girl, It's Still Rock and Roll To Me, Big Shot, and You May Be Right (with a little Led Zeppelin Rock and Roll in the middle). I shot a little bit of video of each song as a way to remember the concert in general and what songs he played. Here are a few. Disclaimer...the guy in front of me was singing loud and proud but couldn't carry a tune at all. You can sometimes hear him in the video. It's not Bill Joel that sounds bad, and it's not me, it's him. Untitled video (15).mp4 Untitled video (16).mp4 Untitled video (17).mp4 Untitled video (18).mp4 I put all of the video that I shot into a single video (with almost no editing) and uploaded it to YouTube. If you're really interested in seeing all 40 minutes of it, you can find it here.

For you John Wick fans, I was interested in seeing where this scene was shot

Micheline and I both realized that in all of our trips to NYC (which isn't a lot, but still...) neither of us had been inside Central Park. The closest we had come was the Met, which I guess is in Central Park, but you get my point. We decided to walk through the Mall to the Bethesda Fountain and the Lake. Central Park must be beautiful in the spring. Billionaire's Row, from a peasant's perspective. We finished with a drink (OK...maybe 2) at the Tavern on the Green.

A few more posts about our NYC trip and then I'll be quiet (at least about NYC that is). On Friday, we visited the Intrepid Museum. I wanted to do that the last time we were there, but I was overruled by my wife and 2 daughters. Without our daughters this time, Micheline said that she also wanted to go. For those who don't know, the Intrepid is an aircraft carrier commissioned during WWII. It's permanently docked at Pier 86 on the Hudson River as a museum. There are several aircraft on the flight deck and in the hangar deck, plus the Space Shuttle Enterprise, and the Growler Submarine (a cruise missile submarine from the early 60s). You can walk through many of the working areas of the Intrepid. We both enjoyed it greatly. I won't bore you with pictures of planes, but I will include several pictures of lines for @harryfat1 and @Sea Dog And some bonus pictures...anchor chain. You can get an idea of the size of the chain links when compared to my size 10 sneaker. OK...maybe just one plane picture. Maverick's F-14 Tomcat. How could I not show that? And since this is Cruise Critic and not City Travel Critic, here's a shot of the Norwegian Getaway docked next door.