Squidward Q Tentacles

The pool deck takes on a new look and feel at nights, my favorite time to go. Also, the forward hot tub is hotter than the rear ones.

[YOUTUBE]xUaVBOV6-wg[/YOUTUBE]

Kid's Cafe - between the buffet and Great Outdoors. Nice place for the little ones to sit and eat at tables their size. Adult size chairs and tables also located there.

[YOUTUBE]pV_BN0mW-tE[/YOUTUBE]

Freestyle deck - deck 15 forward of the pool. Very unused area most of the time, a great place to lay out on the sun.

[YOUTUBE]wLMJjO-GQXs[/YOUTUBE]

On deck 11, forward port, is the Bridge Viewing room. It is a very cozy and quiet area to relax and read. It also has a very detailed model on the Pearl on display.

[YOUTUBE]Sf30Qw8BTpc[/YOUTUBE]

Thanks. I figured out all the "dear" ones but couldn't understand why people just didn't type wife or hubby.

I use the term Missus for my wife, she is just to special to me to refer to her as DW. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I hardly use any of the acronyms in my posts.

ANBTTRP

And Now Back To The Regular Postings.

Thanks for the info on the Murphy Bed, that makes sense.

Where are the beds in the SJ suites on the Dawn? I looked at the floor plan and see the main bed and the couch which I assume folds out. But where is the third bed?

So I found out where the confusion comes from......

On our Dec 2015 Pearl cruise we will stopping at Harvest Caye, Belize, the Lamanai Tour tour sounds like it will be fun! I hope they offer it through NCL.

From our December, 2014 Pearl cruise.

[YOUTUBE]tqhwfI0dBwo[/YOUTUBE]

 

I don't remember if anyone mentioned it, but the brain and eyesight sometimes needs to be reoriented. Look out at the horizon so the brain finds itself and readjusts.

 

While on the ship enjoy looking at the horizon, it is a beautiful sight, especially in the morning and evenings, and it helps you feel less sea sick.

That will help for many people.

That is not so straight forward - bigger the ship, the more wind surface it has and the more side wind it catches and rolls as the result.

 

I'd rather say that modern ships are built more with passenger comfort in mind than older ships - as long as you are talking about ships (not boats), even smaller modern ships can manage with weather much better than ships build couple of decades ago.

The wind effect on a ship is different from the sea effect. The bigger the ship the less the seas will affect it. Imagine two ships sailing alongside each other, an 1,100 foot aircraft carrier and a 500 foot destroyer. Which one will be affected by the seas the least amount?

The wind effect is usually a constant wind with variances in speed coming from one side of the ship. That has less affect on the ship than the effect caused by the seas which has a dual axis rotational effect.

The bigger the ship the less it is affected by the seas. The new cruise ships are designed to give passengers the best ride possible, they have ballast tanks to make the ship heavier when needed and make it a "bigger" ship. They also have stabilizers that help keep the ship level that can be used when needed.

Many people get motion sickness, some it is mental and some it is a physical condition. I don't like pushing a grocery cart because it does not sway with me as I walk, but I love the swaying of a ship.

Do as some said and plan for the cruise ahead of time, look into getting some pills, patches or bands for motion sickness. Don't start worrying about it until your cruise, you can worry yourself for no reason. Bring some bottles of ginger ale to enjoy on the ship, that helps a lot of people feel better.

While on the ship enjoy looking at the horizon, it is a beautiful sight, especially in the morning and evenings, and it helps you feel less sea sick.

You will be safe, have a great cruise and enjoy being at sea.

I always thought the spewing of water was a great way to spread germs!

And many other things, I would not want to play a role in this production.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

 

SPOILER ALERT!!!

 

too late, but if you have never seen this in person, you are doing yourself a dis-service watching it here.

 

We love it by the way.

Did you like the video quality? I shot it on my Nikon D7100 DSLR instead of my camcorder.

[YOUTUBE]7E8ckVcuDn4[/YOUTUBE]

I can't imagine where you've read such a thing. NCL is about as casual and non-dress-code as a cruise line can be. I am a female and I've sailed on five NCL cruises and I've never seen anything that required me to wear a dress or a skirt, including in the specialty restaurants. And I'm sure not bringing a skirt or a dress on our May cruise aboard the Gem. :)

 

Even on formal nights aboard Celebrity, dressy slacks and tops are "permissible" for women.

 

Have a great cruise!

I agree, NCL is a very casual cruise line and I really enjoy that about it. I love it when I wear my work style kilt to the main dining rooms for dinner. The host folks usually just smile when they see the kilt.

I am glad that NCL has people stationed at the entrance to the dining areas offering hand sanitizer for the simple fact that not all people will wash their hands.

Funny story, my missus and I stopped at a local station one day around 2 pm for gas. The lady that worked there, a hearty southern woman, came up to us and apologized for how she looked. Her arms and face was covered in thick black grease and she was a mess. She said she stayed up late the night before helping her husband unloading some used automatic transmissions.

After we left we started to wonder what her bed sheets looked like!

Some people are just not concerned with washing their hands, always assume everyone you meet is not a hand washer.

As a responsible adult, I prefer to be responsible and wash my hands with soap and hot water, often. This actually kills germs and prevents the spread. Washy, washy actually does not. It does give ignorant passengers the false belief they have washed their hands effectively when in reality they have not. If you enjoy the entertainment value, great, but don't try to convince anyone washy, washy helps prevent spread because I believe it actually encourages the spread of germs and diseases.

I agree, but I think too much hand washing can also be bad. If you use just a basic natural hand soap that is great. But if you use Anti-Bacterial soap too much I believe it is actually bad for you.

Here is from another website:

1. Antibacterial soaps are no more effective than conventional soap and water. As mentioned in the announcement, 42 years of FDA research—along with countless independent studies—have produced no evidence that triclosan provides any health benefits as compared to old-fashioned soap.

"I suspect there are a lot of consumers who assume that by using an antibacterial soap product, they are protecting themselves from illness, protecting their families," Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the FDA's drug center, told the AP. "But we don't have any evidence that that is really the case over simple soap and water."

Manufacturers say they do have evidence of triclosan's superior efficacy, but the disagreement stems from the use of different sorts of testing methods. Tests that strictly measure the number of bacteria on a person's hands after use do show that soaps with triclosan kill slightly more bacteria than conventional ones.

But the FDA wants data that show that this translates into an actual clinical benefit, such as reduced infection rates. So far, analyses of the health benefits don't show any evidence that triclosan can reduce the transmission of respiratory or gastrointestinal infections. This might be due to the fact that antibacterial soaps specifically target bacteria, but not the viruses that cause the majority of seasonal colds and flus.

2. Antibacterial soaps have the potential to create antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The reason that the FDA is making manufacturers prove these products' efficacy is because of a range of possible health risks associated with triclosan, and bacterial resistance is first on the list.

Heavy use of antibiotics can cause resistance, which results from a small subset of a bacteria population with a random mutation that allows it to survive exposure to the chemical. If that chemical is used frequently enough, it'll kill other bacteria, but allow this resistant subset to proliferate. If this happens on a broad enough scale, it can essentially render that chemical useless against the strain of bacteria.

This is currently a huge problem in medicine—the World Health Organization calls it a "threat to global health security." Some bacteria species (most notably, MRSA) have even acquired resistance to several different drugs, complicating efforts to control and treat infections as they spread. Health officials say that further research is needed before we can say that triclosan is fueling resistance, but several studies have hinted at the possibility.

3. The soaps could act as endocrine disruptors. A number of studies have found that, in rats, frogs and other animals, triclosan appears to interfere with the body's regulation of thyroid hormone, perhaps because it chemically resembles the hormone closely enough that it can bind to its receptor sites. If this is the case in humans, too, there are worries that it could lead to problems such as infertility, artificially-advanced early puberty, obesity and cancer.

These same effects haven't yet been found in humans, but the FDA calls the animal studies "a concern"—and notes that, given the minimal benefits of long-term triclosan use, it's likely not worth the risk.

4. The soaps might lead to other health problems, too. There's evidence that children with prolonged exposure to triclosan have a higher chance of developing allergies, including peanut allergies and hay fever. Scientists speculate that this could be a result of reduced exposure to bacteria, which could be necessary for proper immune system functioning and development.

Another study found evidence that triclosan interfered with muscle contractions in human cells, as well as muscle activity in live mice and minnows. This is especially concerning given other findings that the chemical can penetrate the skin and enter the bloodstream more easily than originally thought. A 2008 survey, for instance, found triclosan in the urine of 75 percent of people tested.

5. Antibacterial soaps are bad for the environment. When we use a lot of triclosan in soap, that means a lot of triclosan gets flushed down the drain. Research has shown that small quantities of the chemical can persist after treatment at sewage plants, and as a result, USGS surveys have frequently detected it in streams and other bodies of water. Once in the environment, triclosan can disrupt algae's ability to perform photosynthesis.

The chemical is also fat-soluble—meaning that it builds up in fatty tissues—so scientists are concerned that it can biomagnify, appearing at greater levels in the tissues of animals higher up the food chain, as the triclosan of all the plants and animals below them is concentrated. Evidence of this possibility was turned up in 2009, when surveys of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of South Carolina and Florida found concerning levels of the chemical in their blood.

What Should You Do?

If you're planning on giving up antibacterial soap—like Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser Permanente and several other companies have recently done—you have a couple options.

One is a non-antibiotic hand sanitizer, like Purell, which don't contain any triclosan and simply kill both bacteria and viruses with good old-fashioned alcohol. Because the effectiveness of hand-washing depends on how long you wash for, a quick squirt of sanitizer might be more effective when time is limited.

Outside of hospitals, though, the CDC recommends the time-tested advice you probably heard as a child: wash your hands with conventional soap and water. That's because while alcohol from hand sanitizer kills bacteria, it doesn't actually remove dirt or anything else you may have touched. But a simple hand wash should do the trick. The water doesn't need to be hot, and you're best off scrubbing for about 30 seconds to get properly clean.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-reasons-why-you-should-probably-stop-using-antibacterial-soap-180948078/#mILHtBDkoZ5oDX75.99

Here is a video my wife shot of the Freestyle deck on the pearl.

[YOUTUBE]wLMJjO-GQXs[/YOUTUBE]

If you are going to the the Baths be careful if you do it on your own. On our Dec 1, 2015 cruise the ferry getting back was late and some of our friends almost missed getting back in time. What saved them was that were about 30 people on a ship excursion and they were late because of the same ferry ride.

This was her first day ever on a cruise ship and was just so excited! She now knows that it is a ship, not a boat. :D

It was also my first time on a ship that I was not required to doing any work on.

This was our first cruise video. Someone sent me an email about it and my missus and I just watched it, it has been a long time since we watched it last. We laughed so hard, it was fun to watch and I thought someone here might get a laugh out of it also.

Take care,

Squidward

[YOUTUBE]V4PdYPTlIn8[/YOUTUBE]

From our Antigua excursion to Devil's Bridge, and how I really soaked my camcorder!

[YOUTUBE]7V0hW7oUAJQ[/YOUTUBE]