bobmacliberty

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.

Nah. I had enough "cold" weather last week. I'll watch with the local Bills Mafia at our regular spot. If Houston somehow beats the Ravens though, and the Bills host the AFC Championship game, I'll definitely look into how much tickets would cost. I don't want to look past Mahomes though...that's dangerous.

We noticed that also...he had to shuffle a bit walking around. He also messed up the lyrics once starting the wrong verse and we wondered if he was reading lyrics and/or music from the tablet/prompter that he had sitting on his piano. I just assumed that he could play any of his hundreds of songs without even thinking, but that might not be true (anymore). None of that detracted in any way from our enjoyment. And we're happy that we got the MSG experience.

When I was working, I had one cup of coffee on the drive to work, and one after I got there. I enjoyed having something hot to drink so I'd usually have a couple more decafs after that. After several trips overseas, and with a better understanding of how ounces in equals ounces out as you get older, I've switched to a double espresso every morning. Gets both my heart and my brain jump started in one go. No more caffeine after that.

After SUMMIT OV, we decided to check out Grand Central Terminal and have lunch in the lower level food court. The food was surprisingly good, and we witnessed some of the mental health issues in NYC first hand. Sad. We then took a walk to the Public Library. You couldn't go into the main reading room unless you were doing research or quiet reading (no tourists walking around, talking, and taking pictures). However, there was an exhibit called Treasures that we were able to view. It was an interesting mix of various "treasures" across a wide variety of topics, like an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Dickens desk and reading material, original manuscripts from Mozart and Beethoven, and various documents from a variety of religions. One of my favorites was the original stuffed animals that belonged to Christopher Robin Milne, and inspired his father A.A. Milne to write Winnie-the-Pooh.

Thursday had the best weather forecast so we decided to go to SUMMIT One Vanderbilt Thursday morning. This is one of the 5 observation decks that now exist in NYC. The OGs are the Empire State Building and Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Center. The newer players are the SUMMIT OV, One World Observatory at One World Trade Center, and The Edge in Hudson Yards. We chose SUMMIT OV because of the immersive art experience and its proximity to Grand Central Station, the NY Public Library, and Bryant Park. I'd highly recommend it. SUMMIT OV covers the 91st, 92nd, and 93rd floors on the One Vanderbilt Tower, which was opened in 2020. There also some introductory things in the lobby area at the ground floor. The elevator ride to the top is very quick and barely feels like you're moving. You are let out on the lowest of the 3 floors and you work your way up. The lower 2 floors are completely indoors with floor to ceiling windows everywhere, and the top floor has an outdoor area. The immersive art experience comes from the mirrored floors and ceilings, a silver mylar "balloon room", and a large digital display screen. There's also a completely glassed in area (including floor) that you can stand in. The website does a better job of explaining the "art" than I can. Here are the views from the lower floor, starting with the view west looking at Hudson Yards and New Jersey. West.mp4 Then looking north toward Central Park North.mp4 And then east toward Queens/Brooklyn, wrapping around to see the indoor space East.mp4 I didn't take a video facing south but got a few pictures in that direction. Of course, I had to include a picture of the Empire State Building. Interesting point of view looking DOWN at the Chrysler Building And I worked up the courage to overcome my fear of heights and stand on the glass floor. Looking 1100 feet down to Madison Avenue. 🫣😵🥴 You may notice the little booties on my feet. Everyone had to wear these to protect the mirrored floors. The also gave you sunglasses if you didn't have your own (to be returned at the end) since all of the mirrored surfaces brightly reflected the sun. Here's the open area of the bottom floor, called Air: Transcendence. Untitled video (12).mp4 And looking down toward that area from the floor above. Untitled video (14).mp4 It can definitely be a little discombobulating. And finally, what the artist calls Air: Affinity, but what I call the balloon room. Untitled video (13).mp4 Like I said earlier, I'd highly recommend SUMMIT One Vanderbilt.

We took a stroll through Bryant Park. The Winter Village physical booths were still there but most were empty, other than signs showing what used to be there. People were still enjoying the ice rink and food/drinks.

I'd also suggest buying Wicked tix in advance. Our show (Saturday matinee) was sold out, although some of those tickets could have been sold earlier by TKTS. The line for the TKTS booths was VERY long...extending well past the roped off area for the line and snaking around Father Duffy Square. I'm guessing it was at least 30 minutes long, maybe even an hour. I doubt that's not normal but certainly possible. We glanced at the monitor showing which tickets were available and there were very few Broadway shows listed. Mostly just off Broadway stuff. We were there midafternoon so maybe the good tickets were sold earlier in the day??

After checking in, we walked 4 blocks to Times Square and spent about 30 seconds there. Check. We then walked to the Rockefeller Center area. The tree was still up and lit. The area looked great at night. Micheline surprisingly had no desire to go into Saks. That probably saved me a few dollars. 😜 We then took a walk though St. Patrick's Cathedral. What an absolutely beautiful church. We found a friendly Irish Pub called Sean's Bar & Kitchen where we enjoyed some food and drinks before calling it a night.