Blazerboy

48 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Ouch.  I was going to recommend V. Sattui but that’s “popular with tourists”. So is Ferrari Carano.  My neighbors liked Sattui.  I like Louis Martini because they do more than cheap wine.

To be clear, "popular with tourists" often means it's a fun experience.  Also my partner works there!

Also, Chateau Montelena is fun, with beautiful grounds!

25 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Perhaps you could give us a recommended list of NAPA wineries to visit?  Thanks.  Looking for a couple of more for the list...

There are over 800 wineries to try! 

Love Ladera, of course. Small, family owned and high quality. Wines from $40 to $300.

Suggestions:

Frank Family,

Larkmead

Ehlers

- are all good choices in Calistoga.

Best sparkling wine in the Valley is Schramsberg - fun tour, too.

Popular with tourists: 

- V.Sattui

- Castelli d' Amorosa "the castle"  - also owned by V Sattui

-Sterling just opened up, and has a funicular to ride up to the tastings.

Sparkling wines:

-Domaine Carneros,

-Mumm or

-Domaine Chandon are popular.

Cabs: (besides ours) 

-Ehlers

-Chappellet

-Joseph Phelps

Cakebread, St. Supery, and Grgich are all big and fairly well known. Can be fun to see larger operations.

Tasting fees range from $45. per person to $125. per person, and some have add ons for food pairings.  Some wineries will refund fee if you buy enough wine.

Even huge Mondavi can be good to visit, as they are a big part of Napa history- for better wines, book the reserve experience.

And that is just scratching the surface!

Good luck and have fun!

On 12/16/2023 at 10:15 AM, mahdnc said:

The famous wine maker and founder of Grgich Hills, Mike Grgich, passed away earlier this week at the age of 100. 

Yes. I was there (Grgich) for an industry event to support the St.Helena Chamber of Commerce in November.  Calistoga Chamber of Commerce had their holiday party on Wednesday night, when his passing was announced.  I used to be a member at Chateau Montelena- where he made the famous '73 Chardonnay that won the "Judgement of Paris."  That is truly what launched his career.

In retirement, I'm working at a Napa Winery(tasting room in Calistoga), Ladera Vineyards, famous for its Howell Mountain Cabernets- coincidentally served on Celebrity ships back in early 2000's.  As they now start at $179. per bottle, not likely to find there anymore (it would retail for $600. or so on Celebrity with their pricing structure)

Sailing in two weeks, and will buy some good Spanish wines to bring aboard in Barcelona.  And drink more Bourbon Manhattans, I guess.

If you're sailings have the J Pinot/Vin Gris, it's a decent white from Somona.  J was Judy Jordan's winery, but she sold out a few years ago to Gallo Brands.  Reasonable price bt the glass and bottle.

I don't see reds that I'll like.  I am totally spoiled now.

Steele with an extra "e" was a Lake County winery founded by Jed Steele, former wine maker(many years ago) at Kendall Jackson.  It's since been sold to Clay Shannon of Shannon Ridge.  It was a decent Wednesday night wine.  

I think, given the list, I'll see if the Reserve Pinot from Kendall Jackson is drinkable, and stick with the Louis Jadot for white.  O.k., and I might have to try the Mlabec!  🤣

Just seeing this now, but have been enjoying your FB posts.  Hope the trip has been fun and relaxing.  We must try the line sometime.  Also hope your lectures went well- enjoyed them when you were on Celebrity.

Andrew 

We are on the cruise immediately following yours.  The roll calls for these cruises have been remarkably quiet. Nonetheless, have a great trip, and we'll pass you on the 2nd as you disembark, and we board the ship.🙂

Wow. Lots of thoughts. 35-40 cruises under my belt. (That the belt still fits is amazing🙄)

Started sailing when I was four.  First cruise with Celebrity at 39.  A similar comment to another poster- I adore having children at the dinner table...with a light hollandaise!  At 60, 21 years later, the product generally still fits us. 

Silent disco. Yuk. But that it's there for others? Great.

Never go to the shows.  But glad they are there. 

Love the Martini Bar, but don't always live the music volume. Smirk at the "oldies" trying to look like they enjoy feeling hip, and then realize I am one.

Ship is generally big enough that I can find food/drink/entertainment away from anyone annoying me (get off my lawn, kid!) 

Is there a point here?  There is room for everyone.  Bad behavior is just that, no matter the age.  For the grumpies, try to enjoy the young as a spectator sport...and remember your youthful follies.  For the young, have a little patience- we'll be napping soon anyway!

And for another perspective: the "oldies"  grew up with Rock n Roll, Woodstock and free love, so while our back braces hurt and our hearing aid batteries fail, we WERE once the radical young generation that were despised for our politics, lack of work ethic and our music.  The more things change..😂

Happy sailing to all.

Sounds like a great cruise, and glad to hear your thoughts on the condition of the ship.  We sailed on her for our first cruise with Celebrity, and many times since.  Will sail on her in January just prior to her next drydock.  All is good with another day at sea!

2 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

I was upgraded for free on one leg to business class on Lufthansa and they cancelled that or caused it to be cancelled.  If I had bought that, it would have been $8,400, so free is super attractive.

Some, in my other thread, seemed to think that cancellation was super great since I didn't pay for that.  I think you understand that isn't the point.

Yep.  Understand.  I wasn't charged, even though I booked, chose seats and gave my credit card. Saving the money was not the point for me either- upgraded seats for 17 hours of flying each way was!  Celebrity pointed the finger at Choice Air, and Choice Air pointed it at my TA, who explained that both were wrong.  I had to deal with this ON the plane.  Hawaiian Air was the only helpful party!🙄 

Since this experience, I have booked my own flights, leaving me in control. Flights by Celebrity claimed that, as a group booking, upgrades were not possible...not what they said originally when they took my credit card and assigned seats.(insert middle finger emoji here)

4 hours ago, Stockjock said:

This is a Flights by Celebrity gripe where I was given a complimentary upgrade to (1 leg) of business class due to a schedule change by Lufthansa, and Flights by Celebrity's actions cancelled it.

I have a separate thread on this, but I've also composed a letter to send to Celebrity.  I would like it to go to the CEO, or similar.

We had a really bad experience with Flights by Celebrity- they screwed up all out upgrades for four flights thia past January.  Never again.

4 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

Although this was not the reason for the competition, I have beaten you in the pathetic department with 23 nights in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.  We usually only take 1 cruise a year--around the holidays--and the calendar alignment of these two cruises allowed me to claim 23 nights:

 

Get in line!  Best for me was also 2019...17 nights total on two cruises.🙄  35 cruises total on all lines, spread over 56 years. I feel like a failure!😉

Actually, when I think about the average cruise for me being ten days, that means I've spent a whole  year of my life on ships.

See?  I can impress even myself!😂

1 minute ago, JoePDX said:

I was being delicate.  😂😂 I was going to add washing hair was a stooping maneuver…

 

We are well….Jeff retired in March….me sometime next year. 😊.  Hope all is good with you both….

 

Joe

Retirement for both of us last year...winery jobs and Winter vacations to warmer climates is suiting us both.  Morocco, Madeira and the Canaries next!

3 hours ago, JoePDX said:

If you are tall (I'm 6'2") standing the in tub results in nearly touching the roof....   

 

Joe

Nearly?  I'm only an inch taller, and I had to stoop. I hit my head on the ceiling every day!  (Hope you guys are doing well!)

All ships creak...some.  But the explanation about workmanship likely is true, as modern cruise ships have their cabins manufactured off-ship then they are hoisted into place...like stacking of rail or shipping containers.  The staterooms are the only area of ship construction done like this. There are videos of this process.  With different crews working in various sections of the ship, it makes sense that there might be some variation in the quality of the install. But picture two shipping containers rubbing against each other, and the noise makes more sense.

One issue is that these ships are not meant to sail in rough water.  They aren't built for open sea travel the way ocean liners were built.  Even with Cunard, there is a vast difference between QM2 and the others in their fleet, as it was designed to cross the Atlantic.

The other issue is that they want to give better views and fewer obstructions in cabin design, leaving larger expanses of beams supporting large panes of glass.  When you "twist" these things, they "groan" or "ping." 

My BMW wagon had a panoramic moonroof that creaked for 7 years on rough pavement.  Same principle, and the dealer kept packing the surrounding areas with sound deadening material, but it didn't go away...until I traded it for a Volvo!😉 

We sailed on Constellation in 40' swells, and combined with my over-consumption of Tiramisu- caffeine triggers panic attacks- the noises we heard all night made me think the ship was going to break apart.  It didn't, and I've since taken many crossings on M and S class.  All creaked, but it didn't bother me.

This seems like a construction issue that ship engineers can fix some of the problems, but not all.

Hopefully, they will continue to solve (as some have reported) and then address the issue more thoroughly during a drydock.

In the meantime, use information here for planning your cabin choice!  Or over indulge, as one person suggested...😂

Andrew

On 6/3/2023 at 3:11 PM, phoenix_dream said:

And which crystal ball did you use to determine that?  Maybe you're not aware but oftentimes they do some updates while they are sailing.  For example, on our last cruise we left one day to old balcony furniture and came back to brand new.  I understand they can't do a significant update while at sea, but they can make more changes than you would think,

 

I sailed Eclipse about 9 months ago and while it was certainly not perfect, I would not have described it as sad.  We were in an Aqua Class cabin.

We sailed in January, and I was left wondering WHAT exactly people did to the ship in the following 5 months!  😯

I don't doubt that the OP found issues, but more that, having grown up in houses where faded chintz slip covers were the norm, and having sailed on the ocean liners in 1st class when I was young, I think I have different standards of "luxury."  I do think Celebrity overplays the word in their advertising.  It's really more of a nice main stream line.

Our "Flights by Celebrity" experience was terrible- we paid for upgrades that didn't materialize once we were on our first (16 hour!) flight.  It was torturous to get this straightened out, and would make me never use them again.  If you can cancel and rebook, I would.  If not, spend ALOT of time on the phone insisting on documentation from them AND the airlines.  In our case, while we tried to get documents from the airline, they kept saying they couldn't help us as we booked through a  "3rd Party" (Flights by Celebrity).  Expensive lesson learned.

Actually, decanting young (red) wines can truly enhance their drinkability.  You aren't looking to filter out the sediments more common with older vintages, but to get the tight tannins of younger wines to relax with exposure to air.  We always say that air is first the friend then the enemy of wine.  

For storage, consistent temperature, ideally in the 50's, storing with the neck slightly down, and darkness are key.  For the wines on the ship, the movement, vibrations and mark-up are likely to deter me from ordering anything too rare or expensive. Not ideal conditions, so I mostly look for something simply pleasant.

And it kills me to pay those prices when, in retirement, I work for a Napa winery!😁

On 11/24/2022 at 6:58 AM, DenGNNJ said:

Increasingly, we’ve been booking cruises with more and more sea days to kind of acclimate us into a TA cruise.  I’m interested in a traditional Atlantic crossing on Cunard, but the idea of Gala Nights and packing suits again would be a step backwards for my husband.  
 

We were both glad Celebrity and many other lines did away with formal nights, but the idea of a “traditional” TA crossing on Cunard in a Queens Grill suite is an experience I’d like to try nonetheless.

It's pretty amazing...you should definitely do it!  We sailed in Princess Grill and in Queen's Grill, and both were amazing experiences.  We've also done a crossing not in the Grills, and that was great too (the fact that it was our honeymoon may have helped!)

To OP, I started crossing with my family when I was four, and have done dozens of crossings since- all were great, even in rougher weather.  As a kid, it was an amazing adventure.  As an adult, it's my favorite type of trip.

As far as dressing up on Cunard, it's actually easier, as you can wear the same tuxedo or dark suit every night...as long as you don't spill!😉  Or dance the night away in the disco.🕺

Hope it works out for you.

We will be disembarking when you all embark, as we sail from Sydney on the 2nd, but we will also be at the Royal Botanical Gardens for NYE celebrations!  See you "among/amongst the crowd!" 

We wanted to do the next cruise, but were persuaded by friends from the US who are renting a beach house in Auckland to stay on after the cruise.  And we'll break up the hideously long return flight with a week in Hawaii!

Have fun, guys!

Andrew

Been off the boards for several years...understandably, I guess. 

I love the traditional, but was also a "marching in the streets" type in my 20's and 30's.  We used to attend, but now mostly find a group of friends of all stripes quite naturally.  That said, just because I've entered (😯) my 6th decade and don't need it, others might, and good on them. 

LBGTQ+  might have a generational advantage as time passes, but my biggest hope is that we as a world don't lose our sense of humor...which is why I love the line about the community being called the "alphabet mafia!"   😁

On 2/5/2021 at 4:55 PM, rkacruiser said:

 

Who gave whom "rabbit ears"?  Love it!

Hugh gave then to my brother, James. 

BTW, for those who like stories of the rich and famous on liners,  in addition to Carroll O'Conner and his wife Nancy,  Alan Bates  was also on this crossing.  There was also a Broadway producer, Richardson Meyers- my mother dated him very briefly.  Quite heady stuff for an 11 year old from a small town in New England!

My brother and I spent the whole crossing together with Hugh as friends, and played a game called "Ditch," where two of us would look at eachother, call out "Ditch," run away from the third, and then play a ship-wide game of hide-and-seek. Because of sibling rivalry, Hugh rarely got ditched.

We also took "penny tours" of the ship- "heads," we went left or up, "tails," we went right or down.  We snuck into both Cabin class and Tourist class areas, as well as crew quarters.  We got into trouble often, including scaling up the  railings right below the bridge...the Captain knocked on the window!

I still have the toy model of the Rafaello that my brother won in some shipboard contest, as well as the dinner menus, deck plans and a few decks of playing cards.  We sailed back from Europe on her later that Summer for what turned out to be the last time. 

By the time my mother found out that she was being taken out of service two years later (she was on a cruise on the Rafaello in the Caribbean with another then-boyfriend) it was too late to book for the last crossing, but we did get cabins on the Michaelangelo a month or so later. (Spring 1975).  Without any real time to plan, we sailed over, spent the weekend at Lake Como, and flew home.  Bless my mother's heart, she was up for adventure! 

As a postscript to the 1973 crossing, we saw the O'Conners in Rome a month later, and, before they left town, they gave us their tickets to a Papal audience. We (and several thousand others) were blessed by the Pope as it was "The Day of the Child."  Didn't seem to help keep me out of trouble in life, but my mother's attitude, as a Protestant, was that it "couldn't hurt."

Thanks for letting me reminisce!

On 2/5/2021 at 6:27 PM, CGTNORMANDIE said:

And now we know how you came to be called Blazerboy...great picture.

Actually, a nickname from college, but the wearing of blazers certainly started long before.

My brother just sent this to me recently....this photo was taken in one of the First Class lounges on the Rafaello in the Spring of 1973, as we saled to Europe (April 28th or 29th sail date). 

On the right side on the sofa are me, the late actor Hugh O'Connor, son of the actor, Carroll O'Conner, and my brother.  On the left is a forgotten shipboard acquaintance and my mother.

So fun to find a photo from one of our memorable crossings on Italian Line ships!

Just got my refund from our cancelled Summit cruise (not) sailing  4-25-20.

I must admit that I was getting frustrated, but posts here kept announcing refunds for sail dates leading up to mine, giving me hope! 

Thanks, everyone!  

Andrew