bobmacliberty

After being in Hawaii, I'm going to be on a Mai Tai kick for a while. I was experimenting with the original recipe Mai Tai before we left, but I think I like the recipes with fruit juices in them better, particularly POG juice. I believe that POG is passion fruit, orange, and guava, but one bartender said pineapple instead of passion fruit in their recipe. I found Goya guava nectar in my local grocery store but no passion fruit. Since I already have pineapple and orange, I think I'll start with pineapple, orange, guava. I may need to do more scientific experimentation again. 😜

Here's YouTube video that someone posted a few months ago showing the melting of the sphere that Greg described. You can also get The World for dessert at the Wonderland specialty restaurant.

Woke up to 48F in this part of Florida. Not a fan. High temps will be back in the 70s tomorrow and 80s early next week. I'll suffer through.

Looks like a great Chef's Table and a perfect way to celebrate your anniversary. We've been tempted but have never done a Chef's Table. One of these days. I think I'd prefer one of the dedicated, quieter rooms, although I can see how being in the MDR can add a certain energy. Congrats on the anniversary! Hope your collar bone is not giving you too many problems. Pain management is everything. 😉

I see that the New Fashioned got added. What did you think?

I agree. Everyone we met in Hawaii was very nice and helpful. Must be a side effect of living in paradise.

My mistake. CK was definitely starboard side on Ovation. Same layout as Quantum. I do agree that the SL view from Quantum Class is much better than Oasis Class. I was so happy to follow your review before we started our trip. It got us so pumped up!

That's a great idea. You'd probably get a lot of people posting. I've got some old pics that I could add.

While Greg @Sea Dog has popularized these shots lately, @harryfat1 was taking them many years ago as part of his Cheapo Dad trip reports. He's the OG, as far as I know. Doesn't really matter though...the more the merrier. Harry...since the original context was lost, we're talking about mooring line pictures.

Might need to laminate it next time and bring a hole punch. Hang it around your neck from a lanyard. Looks like you have an asterisk next to a few things. Are those repeats? John is both different and special. 😉

The pictures look fantastic. I might need to get my new phone sooner rather than later. Was the above picture shot in portrait mode? Looks like it might have been, but it would be fantastic if that was just normal depth of field from one of the 14 Pro Max lenses.

One other thought about the Schooner Bar on both Quantum and Ovation. The piano players on both ships were very talented but played what I'll call background listening music. I'm used to the Schooner Bar piano being upbeat, sing along music with the piano as the centerpiece of the bar. Maybe that's just a function of who the piano players were on our cruises, rather than an intentional change in the Schooner Bar vibe on the Quantum Class. I did mention that Kelly Goodrich was supposed to be on the Quantum crossing, and he's one of our favorite sing along piano players.

Happy to answer any questions that you may have Greg. We haven't done the Big Island yet but have experience with Oahu, Maui, and now Kauai.

OK...Let's wrap this thing up for real with some final thoughts. Seattle - We greatly enjoyed the Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and Chihuly Glass & Garden. Those areas of the city, along with the waterfront, were very busy. Our hotel was downtown by the Westlake Center and that area was a bit depressing. There were several closed stores. Across the street from our hotel was the huge Bon Marche Building...One of those 7 or 8 story tall buildings that covers an entire city block. There's a big Macy's sign on the building that makes me think all or most of the building was a Macy's Department store at one point. Now, it's almost completely empty and boarded up. I think there's one coffee shop on one corner of the building. Several other buildings were similarly boarded up. There were a lot of homeless people living near the entrance to stores. We were told that the police department is very understaffed because many cops have chosen to leave. They are underpaid and have been told not to arrest people in certain parts of the city. I'm not sure how true that is, but downtown Seattle is not in great shape right now. Vancouver - Vancouver on the other hand was great. We didn't get to do as much as we wanted to and we definitely want to go back. It's a gorgeous setting (the area around Seattle is also beautiful) with the mountains and the water. Alaska - It didn't feel like we gave Alaska a fair chance. We really enjoyed Ketchikan and the weather there was perfect, but things started going downhill from there. Part of that was weather related as it rained, part of that was the itinerary changes that we had, and part was Micheline hurting her back. If we do Alaska again, we'll probably do a 1 week northbound or southbound and spend more time on a land trip there...maybe combined with Vancouver. Although we've been loyal to Royal, we would definitely look at other lines that specialize in Alaska...possibly even smaller ships that don't have as many bells and whistles but do a lot of port stops and have great food. Cruise Ships - I'll lump Quantum and Ovation together because they are sisters. Service was hit or miss on both ships. Sometimes, service was outstanding...other times it left a lot to be desired. I'm guessing this is not specific to Royal and is just a sign of the times post Covid. There were a few things about this class of ship that we really like. The Two70 lounge with the Cafe and shows there was spectacular. The theater technology was really impressive and the views were amazing. We also really liked Music Hall and found ourselves hanging out there more than the Schooner Bar, which is our typical hangout on other ships. I really don't like the long, skinny layout of Dazzles on Oasis Class that is supposed to serve the same function. We still prefer the Royal Promenade over the Royal Esplanade. Although they are very similar, the Esplanade just seems more broken up. We only ate at Izumi (specialty restaurants) but we did not like the location at all. We waited in Wonderland for the suite walkoff and the Oasis Class Wonderland seems like a much better room/location. There were a few other minor annoyances with the Quantum Class. There's a half wall on the outside of the mezzanine level stair in the Royal Theater such that you can only access the center section. Why? Our Grand Suite was perfectly fine but seemed to have been designed more for form than for function. There was no power outlet on my side of the bed. There was a useless telephone in the bathroom. Coastal Kitchen had some advantages being larger and with nice views out the port side of the ship. But the Suite Lounge felt very disconnected. I like the Oasis Class deck 17 better. We did like the Quantum Class art scattered around the ship which was more digital and interactive. Overall, we'll still chose an Oasis Class ship over a Quantum Class ship. Hawaii - In case it wasn't obvious, Hawaii was the highlight of our trip. Lahaina/Maui felt like home and Kauai was absolutely beautiful. It was nice getting off the cruise ship and already having your body clock adjusted to Hawaii time. That said, there were too many sea days in a row on the Vancouver to Hawaii cruise and we were a little bit bored. We agreed that next time, we'd rather fly to Hawaii, deal with the jet lag, and have more time on the islands. As Dani said, heaven on earth. That's all folks! Any final questions that I can answer?

Yes. Got home Saturday morning after flying all night. Getting back into the normal routine...football on Sunday, golf in a few minutes. 😁

Welcome to the neighborhood (almost)! Sorry to hear that you will be leaving your current house, but I think you'll love it here. We were just saying how nice it is to return from a vacation to a place where it feels like you're on vacation all the time. 😁 Looks like your rental is in Amelia By The Sea?? We were across the street from you on Sunday at The Surf, watching football. Let me know if you have any questions that I can answer, or if you're looking for another opinion about anything. Happy to help. One thing we were told when we were looking, that we didn't know, is that the north part of the island is part of the city of Fernandina Beach and therefore you pay city taxes. Outside of the FB city limits...no taxes. I don't recall how much of a $$ difference that makes. I don't think it was a lot, but something to consider. Happy house hunting.

Micheline is doing great. Thanks for asking. She was almost good as new during our cruise to Hawaii. She was more worried about moving too quickly the wrong way and popping her hip out again, than she was dealing with pain. She's had some Active Release Therapy done in the past that's work very well for her and she originally called from Hawaii to book another treatment for when we got home. By the end of our trip though she felt so good that she called and cancelled her ART treatment and replaced it with a massage. 😁

Never heard of it. There are still some strange liquor laws in this country.

Difficult decision. Maui is our first love but Kauai is just beautiful. Micheline and I are talking about bringing our daughters and their significant others on a family trip to Hawaii (don't tell the kids 🤫). We asked ourselves...would we take them to Maui or Kauai? Our daughters have been to Maui twice but neither of their boyfriends have been to Hawaii at all. Maui is more built up and I want to say that there's more to do there, but there's plenty to do on Kauai, so I'm not sure that's true. You can't lose either way.

Self-serve in the DL of both Quantum and Ovation recently.

On our last full day on the island, we drove the Waimea Canyon Drive. I previously mentioned that we used the Shaka Guide app to give us directions, point out interesting things to see/do, and provide some interesting history about the island (both factual and legendary tales). After stopping at the Kauai Coffee Company, we continued on to Waimea Town, and turned right onto Waimea Canyon Road. This road runs for 19 miles, traveling almost exclusively upward, to the end of the road at the Pu'u O Kila Lookout. The Waimea Canyon (aka the Grand Canyon of the Pacific) is on the east side of the road. There are various stopping places with lookouts and hiking trails. The lower lookouts gave us a nice tease of what we hoped was to come. There was also a stop with a small waterfall that clearly showed how red the dirt was in the area. The red comes from iron in the soil that has rusted. Waimea is actually the Hawaiian word for red water, the water that comes from erosion of the soil. As we continued to drive up the canyon road, we start to climb into the clouds. The promising views from the lower lookouts just became views of the clouds, with an occasional peak at part of the canyon as the wind blew the clouds. We hiked on a couple of very short trails, including the Iliau Nature Loop. This trail included signs showing some of the native trees and flowers. The trail is named after the Iliau Shrub which is only found in the Waimea Canyon (and is related to the Silversword that is only found on Haleakala on Maui). It takes at least 7 years to flower and when it does, it dies. Tough life. We found one that was flowering. We continued driving up the canyon road, stopping at a few places to look at the clouds, and then stopped for lunch at the Koke'e Lodge. They have decent food and a small gift shop there. There's also a small museum. And as Dani pointed out earlier, lots of chickens. There are bathrooms there, as well as at most of the larger lookouts. The final part of the road takes you first to the Kalalau Lookout, and then a little further up the road, to the Pu'u O Kila Lookout at the end of the road, at an elevation of around 4100 feet. Both of these lookouts are on the left side of the road and give a view of the Kalalau Valley that goes down to the Na Pali Coast rather than the Waimea Canyon itself. Like the Waimea Canyon views, the Kalalau Valley was very cloudy. The clouds were constantly moving though, and if you waited a few minutes, there would be a clearing of the clouds. Usually, the clearing was just small enough to give you an idea of what you might be looking at. Those clearings didn't last long, and the view went back to full clouds. If you wait long enough, you were awarded with a nice, but very brief view of the valley, the beach, and the ocean beyond. There was a little boy there with his parents and grandparents. They told him that if he blew hard enough, he could blow the clouds out of the way. A few seconds after he started blowing, there was a clearing in the clouds. We took one last set of pictures and then thanked the boy for clearing the clouds for us. 😁 The Pihea Trail continues further along the ridge at the top of the Kalalau Valley. We read that it's not too difficult to hike and that if you go about a mile, there's a nice view almost straight down the valley. We started down the trail, but it looked to be rockier and with more elevation changes than we thought. We turned back since it was almost certainly going to be a cloudy view after hiking a mile. Looking back up the Pihea Trail. Looking further down the trail, where we decided that it wasn't worth it. Here are some brief videos of various lookouts IMG_9922.MP4 The drive back down went fairly quickly. The Shaka Guide app did a good job of telling a few stories to keep things interesting. When we got back to Waimea Town, we looked at a few other things that the Shaka Guide App suggested, and then went to the town of Hanapepe, an artsy little community. Micheline found a few things that she liked in a couple of stores. It was then my turn and we went to the Kauai Island Brewing Company for a local beer. It was a neat little place. We sat at the bar next to a guy who had moved there with his wife just 2 weeks earlier. He has a fully work from home job (mortgage loan officer) and they decided that his "office" should be in Kauai. I half respect him, and half think he's crazy! Overall, it was a very good day, even with the clouds. The clouds are apparently very common and it's always a crap shoot as to what you will see. We were very happy that we had such a clear day on our helicopter tour a few days earlier and could see everything perfectly from the air.

Sure...best done after a long day of filling in your drink list.

Hey Ken @Ourusualbeach...how is Vikki doing?

We got home from our month long trip on Saturday. I'm finally caught up here, and just about caught up from the trip. Still a little bit of laundry to do and a couple more posts to make on the live review. Our local Bills Mafia group enjoyed watching the game yesterday at our local bar. We are now officially a Bills Mafia Chapter, as recognized by the team Our chapter leader also created a logo and made shirts for everyone last year. There's a banner with the logo hanging in the bar. The group is large enough (typically 20-40 people) that we've been given our own corner with 2 big TVs. 😁

You teased us with a picture of your bathing suit, but no picture of you wearing it.