MJC

We have had Vistas on these ships too, and will have one on the Emerald in the spring, and possibly on the Sapphire next fall. We do try to book them early and on sale. They are our favorite cabins and we have our TA mark them no upgrade because we much prefer them over the next class up. We also prefer the starboard side. We only take Dolphin or Emerald deck so we have a corner one. Don't mind the beam bc it gives DH some shade out there. We love the white noise of the wake, don't mind the walk, appreciate that the end of the hall is quiet. Aft elevators are only truly busy at dinner time. Have always had great cabin stewards. I don't know what we will do when P eventually retires the Grands. Vistas are the bargain of the fleet IMO.

DH just asked the waiter for a diet coke and they would bring it. If there was a dispenser we didn't look for it. Amuletto was always "open" but had snacks and other food only at certain times, check the patter for that. But the buffet always had good snacks except when closed for dinner setup. There was an area for specialty coffees in Amuleto on the starboard side, with usually a line. I make my own lattes at home but we both just had the Lavazza on the ship so can't comment on those.

Was on the Island in October, and even though its gone, there are still signs in some places for La Patisserie. I looked for it several times before realizing it's now a bar. Yes to Lavazza in the Amuletto section in the HC. As a decaf drinker it is a HUGE improvement over the dregs they used to call decaf.

I keep my good stuff (diamonds, gold jewelry) in jewelers cloths or boxes, and use anti tarnish strips too in the drawer. When I clean them I use Hagertys for fine jewelry. I dunk them with the basket and use a soft brush if necessary, like on the prongs of my engagement ring (though not usually needed on other stuff because I never use hairspray etc with the good jewelry on). Then rinse well in warm water. Roll in a soft towel to dry. You can get a similar product for costume jewelry, but never use it on fine jewelry and vice versa. Never use any of these on stones that may be softer or porous like Mrs B said... opal, turquoise, lapis. I just use silver polish for silver jewelry, but keep it only on the metal parts not any decorations. I use a qtip to get the nooks and crannies.

We opted for the Princess bus transfer to Heathrow that included an excursion to Stonehenge. Mark had been there as a child when you could walk among the stones and touch them, but I had never seen it. It was easy to find the bus, it had plenty of stowage for luggage, our guide was informative without being too chatty, and the seats were very comfortable and had usb ports. As much as I am not a fan of buses, it turned out to be quite enjoyable. We drove through the New Forest and saw the wild ponies, donkeys, and some cows, but I also spotted a wild pig and some pheasants along the way. We drove through the charming village of Downton with its thatched cottages and inns. We were given excellent instructions at Stonehenge and had plenty of time but not too much to enjoy the site. The Visitor Center (which is very new and modern) had nice bathrooms, a big gift shop, and counter service food area. We were given a QR code for a tour you can listen to on your phone, but neither of us could get it to work, but there were lots of placards with information so we didn't mind. It was raining when we arrived. A lot of people opted to sit on the bus and wait it out. We did not. 🙂 There is a pathway around the roped-off area. Above, on the right next to Stonehenge in the distance you can see a knot of people. On that side you can get much closer to the stones. We went around the other way to avoid that little crowd and its rather loud guide. I'm wearing a long sleeved tshirt, fleece, and raincoat. I left my camera in the bus and just took my phone. After a bit the rain subsided. This is the side where you can get a lot closer. I am not shy at all about asking people if they want me to take their picture, and they often offer to take one of us in turn. But even if I don't want a picture, it's fun to offer so someone in that family isn't missing from the photo. It makes people happy. A very nice Japanese couple took this picture after we took one of them: We had a bit of time to grab a coffee and cookies and use the wifi. We were at LHR with plenty of time to spare and hung out in the United lounge. All in all, it was a very stress-free travel day, which is a nice way to end a great vacation. So, that wraps up my posts about our trip to Norway!

Thank you Melody. How are you doing?

Another beautiful Norman church. It was Sunday so we couldn't go inside. The canal area is very pretty with some beautiful old boats. A large part of the old city center was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1904, so the new buildings were built in the Art Nouveau style. Lots of charming details. The last time we board the Island Princess. Two sea days until Southampton. End of a sunny - cloudy - sunny - cloudy day in beautiful Alesund. Every place we visited in Norway was so clean and tidy and lovely.

Our last port was Alesund. Our plan was to taxi up to the top of Mount Aksla where there is a viewpoint with a cafe and lookout. You can climb to it... you can see the zig zag of stone stairs (418 of them!) in this picture. We heard later that they were very slippery. It was snowing up there when our ship arrived. There were no taxis in the parking lot, so we opted to take the tourist train up to the top. We sat on the train for about 15 minutes. Eventually someone came to tell us that it was so icy up there that the other train couldn't come back down, so they didn't want to risk it and were cancelling ours. We got a refund and changed plans. I had maps, of course, because our second planned activity was to walk around the historic part of the city. It was interesting in every city how they managed to have flowers and color even this late in the season. Many homes had window boxes and planters in all the places we visited. At one point during our walk, it started to hail. Hail the size of chickpeas. We were expecting a bit of rain but I could hear it hitting the car roofs so I grabbed Mark and we ducked into a doorway until it passed. So cool, bouncing around, people exclaiming. We rarely get hail in NYC. We later met someone on the train that had been stuck up the mountain, and he said they crammed everyone on a doubledecker bus to come down, so he and all the others up top in the open were hailed on. A great adventure story to tell when he got back to SoCal!

I have a very nice Canon SX60HS that I got specifically for our African safari in 2019, but believe it or not I ended up using my cell phone mostly on this trip. It is a Samsung Android phone. It was just easier to carry around, especially in London. I did use my camera all day at Lofoten. But after all the tinkering we did this summer practicing our night photography, we both got the best pictures of the northern lights with our phones on night mode. Had we been ashore, without the movement of the ship, they would have been sharper with either phone or camera because we could have used our tripods and timers for the NL. One reason I bought the camera I have is because it has a really great zoom capacity. I thought I would need it in Africa, but it turned out all the animals were so much closer than we had expected. The only time it was necessary was when we saw a rhino way in the distance, it was the only one we saw and it is veeerrryyy tiny in the photo. I had to put my camera on the car roof and set the timer to keep the camera still enough to get it. 🙂

Thank you Laurie, yes we were happy and having an awesome day. You know, you plan and plan and hope things go well, and stress over the details, so when it exceeds your expectations it's just a very special time together. The only times I was cold were at night. I do have to be conscious of my feet and hands which get cold easily and then get stiff. So having layers for gloves and socks was key. I had brought instant hand warmers but forgot to bring them ashore for our night excursion. They would have helped I'm sure, but it wasn't so bad that I stopped doing what I was doing. If you don't plan to be out at night, then it's easy to dress for the weather. It wasn't much worse than the coldest days in NYC which are gray and blustery. Our temps didn't drop below 20 but the wind chill was another 10 degrees or so. Our lunch was at Anita's Seafood, commonly recommended online. We stopped just before noon which was a good thing because it was quiet when we got there, and our food came quickly. By the time we left the parking lot was full. I had also read that some excursion buses stop there but we didn't see any. I had the fish burger, it was amazing. The chandelier features dried codfish: This was about 4pm. Because we were far north, the sun was always low in the sky to the south of us, and the daylight was short. That night after dinner, about 9:30pm, the captain announced lights up top. We scrambled to dress and everyone was rewarded with some beautiful northern lights for an hour or more. The pictures don't do it justice, and I am not a practiced night photographer. But they were streaking across the sky and also appeared to rise up from the mountain in the distance. Spectacular end to a fabulous day.

We are experienced snorkelers, looking for a good opportunity in Huatulco to go off on our own with a guide/boat to visit some good spots, or a resort day pass to snorkel from the beach and have some lunch. Any recommendations would be appreciated. We will be there in April from a cruise ship and don't want to follow the masses.

Thank you Melody. It's easy to take good pictures there. Now I want to visit the Rocky Mountains. When I was a child we drove through in the dark on our way to California, so all us kids slept through it.

The Lofoten Islands were the port highlight of the trip IMO. So beautiful. We rented a car for 8 hours. I had planned out our route to avoid the tour buses and get off the usual route a bit. I had used my driving app to plan out how long it would take to get from point to point, included a lunch break, and left a good cushion for pickup/dropoff. It wasn't difficult navigating because there are only a few main roads where we were at the very end of the island chain. We had at least an hour more to tour than I had scheduled for because rather than driving the attendant back to the rental agency, they had the car at the pier for us and then at the end of the day we just left it there with the keys hidden. I also studied Norwegian road signs! This was another instance where layering was so important. The tender was very cold. The car was warm. We spent a lot of time outside, where it was sometimes windy. Most of the day was sunny which was helpful though still cool in the shade. Then it got very gray and chilly later in the day. I wore a base layer, lightweight tunic sweater, down coat, scarf hat gloves, wool socks, insulated boots. It was perfect. We both have so many pictures. Here are some of my favorites. We did get to do a little hiking in the woods at one point. And we had to clamber up some boulders to get that last shot in Nusfjord. It wasn't bad going up, but coming down was a bit tricky, what with my two bum knees and Mark's two metal hips, but we did it! 🙂 You can see why this is a popular spot for mountain climbers.

We were going to be overnight in Alta, where we had booked a late excursion for the Northern Lights. We met our tour ashore at 5pm, and were back at 12:30am, a bit early, because the full cloud cover meant nobody saw any NL at Alta. We visited three locations and saw bupkis. This is how I dressed for breakfast on the ship. With the tenders going all day, it was cold on board except in the cabins: Look who was waiting for me when I got back: The sail-in to Alta was beautiful: Coming back after midnight. Our second day in Alta we just stayed on the ship and rested. Tomorrow would be a full day of touring on our own in the Lofoten Islands.

Our next port was Tromso and by now it was getting cold. We had planned to ride the cablecar for the view, but it was snowing while we were getting ready, so we changed plans and just walked to the Polar Museum. We had to take a shuttle bus from the port to the center of town. We walked by the cathedral, strolled along the waterfront, and had lunch at a waterfront restaurant with a view of the Arctic Cathedral. Our waiter showed us pictures of the Northern Lights on his phone, they had been seeing them in town for the last couple nights. I wore my leggings with my warm brown boots (but my legs got cold). This is one of my favorite cashmere sweaters, perfect for layering, and actually the only one large enough to do that well -- so I'm glad it went with my other clothes! This gift shop was doing a bustling business. But they have a free "restaurant map" that is good for the center of town and came in very handy. The Polar Museum is much larger than it looks. Hunting and trapping for food and pelts was an important part of life, especially for the Sami, and some of the exhibits involving dead stuffed animals and old hunting photos might not be to everyone's taste, but we were prepared about what we would see, and found it very educational. I especially wanted to see the section about polar exploration and Roald Amundson. They had a lot of photos and documents about that era. This restaurant along the marina had excellent fish and a really good beer selection. Excellent view of the Arctic Cathedral as well. The area around Tromso was really beautiful. But cold and cloudy. Later that night, I met a woman in the elevator with a cast on her arm. She had fallen on the ice at the cablecar viewpoint and spent the afternoon at the hospital getting her broken arm set. So we were wise not to go up there.

We skipped our first port, Stavanger, in order to charge ahead of a storm. So we stopped at Trondheim instead. This had happened before on this itinerary, so was I prepared? Of course! We no sooner got ashore and it started to rain pretty hard. Mark decided to stay on the ship. I had forgotten my warmest gloves and lost my lip balm, so I was on a shopping mission. I was quickly successful and by then the sun was out so I took a wander. Pedestrian shopping area: Old Norman Church: Famous view from the Old Bridge: Nidaros Cathedral, and burial site of King Olaf II. I got to hear the beautiful noon bells (and there was wifi there so I checked in): The next day was a sea day, so not much to report, but it was formal night. I wore my black sheath dress and silver peep-toe pumps. Love the lousy downlights! After dinner I was checking our cruise's FB page and people were reporting lights. So we got our first taste though they were very faint and distant.

Embarkation Day! You can see how lovely the weather was for October, not even a jacket. This covered pool area was only really cold in the middle of the cruise. The hot tubs here and even in the open pool area were often busy. Of course, this is also where the ice cream was. 🙂 Our cabin is what Princess calls a Mini-Suite. It does not have any suite benefits, but we like having more room and a bathroom with a tub/shower. Mark is 6'3" and takes up a lot of space! Believe it or not we actually used our balcony often, for taking pictures, sail in/sail out from some of the ports, even just to pop out and see what the temperature was like. We sat out there to drink our "champagne" during sailaway from Southampton.

Here are some photos from Southampton. We left our hotel in London about 10am and were there by lunchtime. This is a popular spot with cruisers and was within walking distance of our hotel. I had downloaded a walking tour called The Jane Austen HeritageTrail, which leads you to places she would have frequented when she lived here and is also a nice way to see some of the historic buildings within the old walled city. https://www.elnasmith.com/southampton-the-jane-austen-heritage-trail-tour/ I found the map here: https://tudorhouseandgarden.com/explore/old_town/ We had dinner at another Bill's. The decor was a little different, but with the same eclectic vibe. Through the windows we could see part of the old city wall.

I have a tablecloth at the lake that is very similar to that print. I love it.

I like the new drapes, and I think having blue in the laundry room will nicely complement the blue/gray tones in your floor. I bought new curtains for our bedroom at the beginning of the summer and they are still waiting for me to hem them. I need to just designate a sewing weekend.

Our last day in London was a work day for Mark, so I took myself off to the National Gallery. It has an incredible collection, if you like art I highly recommend it. There is so much to love, but I will only post one picture because it was an extremely delightful surprise, and is truly a world treasure. I didn't even know such a thing existed. It is the only surviving drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. OMG. It is all the way in the back on the left side of the building. Run don't walk. The area around the museum was bustling with activity. This guitarist was amazing so I stopped a listened for a bit. Nice view of Big Ben That night we had tickets to see Macbeth at the Globe. We had a quick early dinner at another Pret a Manger on the block behind our hotel and headed out. It turned out that three actors were sick and the show was canceled. Oh well. Our money was refunded before we were out of the subway. We grabbed some snacks and wine on the way back and had a picnic in our room. The next day we would pack up in the morning and head to Southampton. I'll take a break here and let Laurie post some pictures! Can't wait to see some more of your trip!

On Sunday we went to the Science Museum.I won't bore you with pictures and tales of all the cool inventions we saw. However, the exhibits about the earliest mechanical computers, vacuum tube computers, and the size of some of them was fascinating to us. I also enjoyed the section on the invention of wireless telegraph. Some of the earlier items like telescopes, clocks, and scientific testing apparatus were very beautiful and ornate. I was most excited about seeing an early Charles Babbage difference engine: There was even a working steam engine on the first floor. My best hint for this museum is when you go online to order your tickets (advance purchase required), also order box lunches. The cafeteria steam table offerings are not so great. There is a selection of sandwiches and wraps in cases that you can buy, along with fruit, chips, etc. However, we just walked to the cashier and said we had preordered, they went in the back and brought them out, we bought a couple drinks, and we skipped the whole line for food. There is a seating area right there (full of families) but go up the stairs where it is quieter. Check out the giant computer behind us! For dinner we went back to the same area to eat at another restaurant we had seen there called Bill's. It had a very diverse menu that we both enjoyed. Burgers, shawarma chicken, lots of vegetarian choices, you name it, something for everyone.

St. Paul's. It's not open to the public, but you can "attend" mass or evensong. They open the church 15 minutes beforehand, so you can visit briefly and sneak out before the service begins if you don't choose to stay. There's a man out front managing the line to get in. You can just see it in the bottom left of this photo. From there we took the underground back to Victoria Station. I stopped in a handbag shop to ask a clerk there where I could find a nightgown (since I had forgotten mine), and she directed me to an office complex that had shops and restaurants on the ground floors, including a Marks & Spencer. Mission accomplished. There were also several restaurants, so later we went back to one called Brown's. They have three in London. I had the BEST haddock fish & chips! Mark enjoyed his chicken caesar salad but had major food envy when he saw mine. Add a scotch and I was set for a good nights' sleep. 🙂

Laurie, I think dressing for Alaska really depends on when and where you go, and what kind of activities you will do. This was a pretty specialized cruise where there were some good threads about what to take. We felt well-prepared. Being out at night in the cold in the Arctic is a whole other level of preparation than the usual Alaska cruise. We were fine with the usual level of winter gear for our coldest days in Alaska, which for us was being outdoors for the scenic cruising among the glaciers. Given where you live, I'd lay a bet that you have everything you need in your closet. 🙂 Our first full day in London we went to the Tate Modern (art museum). It is in a former power plant that housed turbines. The entrance floor is very industrial with a large open area. The art galleries are at the two ends of the buildings on several floors. So you go up and down one side to see those galleries, then cross the big open space to the other side, and go up and down again for the rest of the galleries. Some of them have special exhibits that cost extra. We skipped those floors. There are escalators in the middle to move up and down, and elevators at either end. My mother was a painter so we all grew up painting and going to art shows, and I still have a love of museums of all kinds. I'll only post a couple pictures of pieces from the museum, which are ones that had extra meaning for me. So here are a few things I really liked and why. This first one just felt so dynamic, like it was moving off the wall. As a former dancer and choreographer, I really liked the motion in it. It is by Leonard Drew and is made of found and recycled objects. It was very large. This painting is by Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, and member of the Bloomsbury group. It is the first painting of hers I've ever seen, so I was happy to see it. I also just really liked it. This is a funny story, and one of the reasons we ended up at the Tate. Mark and I both read a book where the color International Klein Blue was significant. It turns out the painter Yves Klein invented it, and it was a big deal in its day. A big deal. We always wanted to see one of his paintings after reading the book. So here is one. BTW the book we read is called Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, one of my favorite scifi authors. The museum has a lovely restaurant at the top. It is a bit pricey but the food was very good, and it has lovely views across the Thames. This is the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance. When we left, this grassy area had children running around and people resting on the grass and having picnics. Since it was Saturday, the esplanade along the river had many people strolling, jogging, and generally enjoying the sunny day. Between the paved area that sticks out into the water, and the barge anchored out past it, there were probably two dozen swans hanging out. People were feeding them. There were stairs from that area down to the water's edge where you could walk along the water for a bit. After lunch we crossed the bridge and found a Pret a Manger for some coffee and a snack.

Arrival at Heathrow was very smooth. Going through immigration was super quick, and we found our bags easily. It took some time for our driver to reach us but eventually we found him and off we went. Our room was not available for early arrival, unfortunately, and we were both needing a nap and a shower. Oh well. We had lunch at the hotel and then walked to Buckingham Palace, took some photos, and found a bank. Mark had an assortment of old British pounds that were no longer legal after rolling around in a drawer at home for years. The bank was good about replacing them with new money. Tada! We have $100 more! We were happy. Eventually we got to our room, took showers, and settled in. This was our view looking over the train station. We wanted an easy dinner so I googled and found a French bistro across the street at Victoria Station. There is a small mall at one end where upstairs we found Café Rouge. There was one other party apart from us. It was quite good! It turns out it is a chain restaurant but with only a handful of locations around England. The train station is full of some handy stores and a few restaurants, including a McDonalds. There was a Boots and a M&S store for snacks and ready to go food, and most importantly, WINE. I knew as soon as I took this photo that I had a similar one from our previous trip to London. I knew then that our hotel was the same one we had been in before. It is across the street from a side entrance into the station. At the far end under the arch is where the main entrance is. That is also where the Underground entrance is. We used it a lot.