drron29

The Silver Dawn is slighly larger than the Nautica being 100 feet longer and 10000 tonnes heavier but takes less passengers. It will be able to sail into many Norwegian Fjords. There are over 1700 named Norwegian fjords so no cruise will see them all

In Laos the large belly on a man is attractive to the ladies but not for the reason most of you fellows are thinking.The happy Buddha has a large belly and to rub it brings good luck. I had many ladies come and rub my belly when in Laos. Later when we were in Burma (Myanmar is the Genral's name for the country and most locals call it Burma) I noticed 2 old ladies who were obviously of Laotian origin.They were looking after their grandchildren. I approached them and rubbed my belly. Both enthusiastically did the same giving me lots of thanks..

My only excuse is that yesterday was not a great day and I just wasn’t on the ball.

Even better over the last 15 years this is what I have been teaching my young colleagues working for me. It is so satisfying seeing them develop into excellent doctors. The one that really amazed me was a young blonde who was on my unit as a student, intern, basic trainee and a medical registrar. As a student I thought she wasn’t listening as always a vacant look but as a registrar I did my usual thing and swapped roles she became the consultant. Throughout the round I had this wonderful feeling that I was watching myself. She had taken it all in.

Have thought about it. When working I always started with a general chat about the person and their life before talking about anything medical. Amazing what some people have done.

I have had no problems getting my own wine pairing in La Dame using wines from the complementary list. I think for the first time they did try to push the premium wines on our August cruise on the Dawn. Said straight away I will be having the complementary wines. I knew which wines I wanted later in the meal so told them so they would have a bottle in the restaurant when needed and they did.

I had the honour of having a patient who was in Peking for the Boxer rebellion. Immortalised in the film 54 days in Peking. He was all of 8 years old at the time. He was there because his father supervised the building of the railroad from the port to Peking. One day he brought in the teapot that the Last Empress gave his father in recognition of his services. Truly magnificent and I was allowed to hold it. So there is another of my claims to fame - I have held a teapot made for the Empress of China.

Just Australia. 9 hours Brisbane to Singapore, 7.5 hours to Dubai, 6.5 hours to Frankfurt and finally 2.5 hours to Porto.

So now in Porto. Within 20 minutes of being in our hotel I had already had a Portuguese tart and a glass of port. But it was a total of 25.5 hours on 4 planes to get here.

A lovely, spicy laksa in the Brisbane Silver Kris lounge. And this morning I weighed 82 kg a loss of 24.5 kg or 4 stone. Wearing size 38 inch trousers. And when I took my belt off for security they began heading for the ground. I don’t have any smaller sizes so I can say I am at my smallest for over 50 years.

So we are on our way in the limo to the airport. We are still not up to speed getting ready for travel. Probably have forgotten some things. On the other hand Rojaan has been fantastic with packing so for a 10 week trip with 54 days on the Moon we have 2 carry ons and 1 bag weighing 23.3 kilograms. That is 51 lbs. I may post a few pics of the time before we board the Moon on here and then a separate thread for the cruise.

We really do need a sad or hugs choice instead of just like, laugh or thanks when these sort of posts come up.

Have a great cruise. We will get on after you leave. hope Lisbon is a little more organised for embarkation.

And I promised Elvis when I got remarried to Rojaan in Vegas that I would be her hunka hunka burning love. She had it much easier promising not to step on my blue suede shoes. have never owned a pair.

And I need to thank you @Daveywavey70 because we are now considering a trip to India using the Travel Agency you used. Rojaan is a very determined lady and long ago decided she would never eat Indian food because to her it is always too spicy. but the fellow will put together a trip using only Oberoi hotels. Sure it won't have the atmosphere of the places you stayed and will miss some places but they all have a western restaurant so 2 meals a day is assured for her. Plus those restaurants also have some Indian selections which will suit me.

We received our docs for our Moon 28th March cruise yesterday which was 13 days from cruising. Just made it as tomorrow we fly out as spending some time in portugal before the cruise.

And officially the BA flight from LHR is 3 hours and 25 minutes. On top of that it is on an A320 whose Club Europe business class is economy seats with the middle seat blocked and not what the OP would like. It does look like all Icelandair flights to Iceland from the USA are overnight flights. We flew them in Business clas several years ago from Boston and it was a day time flight and it was very good. It seems they have dropped Boston and now fly from Portland which would likely be a cheaper place for the airline to use. From Portland they may use their 737s. here is a link to pictures of the seating. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=AJOqlzV02rMo7t_wQsiutvO57VVbNJovxQ:1678919630254&q=Pictures+of+Icelandair+premium+seats&tbm=isch&chips=q:pictures+of+icelandair+premium+seats,online_chips:737+max:wkiizAjjGIo%3D&usg=AI4_-kTlO5GYuKha0SLcHd2oJ1cdgtNUKg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGtquB_979AhVE5XMBHc-JBOsQgIoDKAF6BAgYEBU&biw=1536&bih=731&dpr=1.25 Or their 757s which is what we flew. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=AJOqlzV02rMo7t_wQsiutvO57VVbNJovxQ:1678919630254&q=Pictures+of+Icelandair+premium+seats&tbm=isch&chips=q:pictures+of+icelandair+premium+seats,online_chips:boeing+757:ek5pr6kCRl4%3D&usg=AI4_-kTIE_OQfATLeZr8_HblQIao221X1g&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGtquB_979AhVE5XMBHc-JBOsQgIoDKAB6BAgYEBE&biw=1536&bih=731&dpr=1.25 They do also have 767s which you can link from either of those links for pictures.

Yes sweaters are fine. It is just a small number of us who would wear a jacket. In my case because we always do something before and after a cruise. this usually includes some upmarket dining where jackets are appreciated.

On the classic fleet it is always formal night on the evening of the Captain's Welcome cocktails which is always on the second night of every cruise.

On all our Expedition cruises there were no formal nights. There is the Captain's Welcome and farewll cocktail parties where a tiny number of us dressed up but not in formal wear.

Though you shouldn't believe everything you read. You probably have read how the Antarctic Sea Ice is melting furiously. It is true around the peninsula but studies have revealed a long series of underwater Volcanoes in the area that is probably the cause of the melting. As for the Antarctic Continent the sea ice extent is more than it was 12 years ago. In January 2011 we were aboard the Orion an Australian Expedition ship. We were able to get into Commonwealth Bay with just a short zodiac ride to the continent and visit Mawson's Hut. Sir Doulas Mawson led Australia's first Antarctic mission and the hut was constructed in 1912. The next year an expedition ship was only able to get to 10 Km from the coast so no one saw Mawson's hut for the Centenerary. A Russian ice breaker was chartered by Chimu in 2018 which did reach Commonwealth Bay but had to leave immediately as the weather changed. So as of now we were the last tourists to visit Mawson's hut due to the increase in Antarctic sea ice.