RevNeal

...here comes peta!

People Eating Tasty Animals? :D

I thought he meant you were being escorted to the ship by two men in White Coats.

LOL ... could well be the case by Sept 25th.!!!!!!!

:D

Flatwallet:

STANDING OVATION

Two white coats???

I usually wear black! It's slimming. ;)

hehehe

FOFLMHO

9 pages and still going strong. What a HOOT.

I'll never be able to walk through the Lido pool area without cracking a smile at the mental images evoked on this thread. Thanks!

starting up the old chain saw

Chain Saw ... who's gonna bring the Chain saw?? And what about Gas for it? And .. when you're chopping up Bessie for dinner, she'll make quite a mess. Why don't you have them drain the Lido pool and then you can carve her in there ... next to the ice-sculpture carvings. Won't that be nice?

PULL! (Teach him to cut in front of me at the buffet).

"May I have your attention please. It's your cruise director with an important announcement. Will the Club HAL kids please make their way most expeditiously to the Sports deck, port side? Thank you."

LOL :D

AMEN!

There is a time and a place to violate HAL's "Nothing Overboard" Policy!

... what wine goes good with them dar Chipmunks.

"Chipmunks roasting on an open fire ....

Shuffleboard on the Lido deck ..."

reveal, your fingers must be bone weary!

Naw ... it's my day off. I should be working on my book, but my back hurts too much today to sit at a library, so I'm in bed, laptop on my chest, surfing the internet and laughing my head off.

What a GREAT way to spend my day off.

DirectTv ... the blender, toaster, george foreman

George Foreman?

Won't he suffocate in a space bag?

Besides ... he's a Mariner ... I met in on a HAL cruise once. I don't know if he brought his grill with him.

You may want to bring your mattress to be on the safe side. You could also hollow out the mattress and stuff a cow in it, to make sure you have the freshest beef possible.

How difficult is it to squeeze the air out of a space bag with a cow inside a mattress inside it?? Or ... should I also bring a vacuum cleaner to suck the air out??

...kindling fee (akin to corkage) to $17.50 a fire, plus 15% gratuity

15% Gratuity????? Do they light it for you, or is that for the Steward who delivers it to your cabin?

The space bags helped on my last two cruises, but it was a tight fit! We have a king size mattress and for some reason the airline insisted we check it through and would not allow it as a carry on. Then... oh well I guess you can get the picture. It's not pretty.

Oh, Lord help me ... I'm laughing so hard my side is hurting.

I can barely see the screen for the tears.

I haven't laughed this hard in days.

Thanks!

To be on the safe side do like I do and have 1/2 a cord of wood delivered to your stateroom.

How much does ship's services charge for that??? :D ;) Or, does one need to smuggle it aboard?

Hey, look!

It's superstein61 on a shore excursion at the Mendenhall glacier!!!!!! :D :eek: ;)

That blender could come in handy for that floating cocktail party.

That gas-powered one, linked above? Sure would ... except it would make a whole lot of nasty vibration-waves.

...as long as they are lobster pieces.

Ewwww, icky pooh! :p :eek:

Pretty soon people will be accusing us of being too flippant or ...egad!....HAVING FUN!

Yeah ... who would have thunk it?? Back around the turn of the millennium all we heard was that HAL and its passengers were all old, dull, bland, and boring.

:D "They don't know us very well, do they?" :D

Don't forget your own silverware ... after all, we've all heard the rumors about occasional food bits being found on the ship's silverware!

Oh, and:

...those battery-powered blenders couldn't swat a fly!

LOL ... I didn't realize one put flies into the blender?? What kind of drink do they go into making?? :eek: :p ;)

I enjoy going to the Explorer's Lounge after the evening show: there I can get a cup of coffee or tea, and on some nights, select a yummy chocolate from a tray of chocolate temptations. And all that is FREE, while I listen to live string music.

Yes, indeed ... I love the Explorer's Lounge at night. A cognac to warm the chest and relax the neck muscles as I sit and enjoy some lovely string music. Yes, indeed ... I can taste it already. Only 78 days to go and it will be ME. Just 3.7 cruise-durations to wait! :D Yippie!

Sadly, it has been hit-and-miss. I've been taken all the way and into my cabin by the steward -- yes, white gloved -- and, on other occasions, I've been taken to the hall and pointed the way.

Dad has a neat method for ensuring that the steward escorts them all the way to, and into, the cabin. When they come aboard and are introduced to the white-gloved steward who is to escort them to their cabin, Dad hands him their carry-on bag. It is more than a bit awkward for the steward to try and hand the bag back to my Dad before they're into the cabin, and so the Steward is -- essentially -- forced to take them all the way to and into the cabin.

It's not that Mom and Dad NEED to be escorted -- Dad is a 78 years young and still quite strong. Nevertheless, he hands the steward the bag and expects the lad to do his duty.

At the end of the trip, if they Steward takes them all the way to, and into, the cabin, Dad tips. As he says "perhaps that will re-enforce the tradition."

It worked for them on the Maasdam this May.

As far as I know, they cannot be locked from the inside in such a way that they cannot be opened from the outside. But, even if they can ... and even if you WERE stranded out there, all you would need to do would be move forward enough to be seen from the bridge.

By the way, if those doors are closed shut and a sign is hanging from the dogging leavers warning you not to open them ... DON'T.

:)

But, then, you'll know not to do that anyway because the ship will be slamming and, at times, you'll be under water. :)

Here's a secret no one has mentioned yet. Access to the bow-deck.

On an S-class ship you go forward on the lower promenade deck, to where you can cross over from one side of the ship to the other (port to starboard, or visa versa). There are two closet like chambers, glass walled, with doors facing inward. Open the door on one of them and climb the stairs you'll find inside. Those stairs will lead you up one deck, then turn and -- if the door isn't open -- push the water-tight door open and step through (carefully) and out onto the forward bow deck.

Here's a deck plan showing where to access it:

^^^

On an R-class ship you go forward on the lower promenade deck, to where you can cross over from one side of the ship to the other (port to starboard, or visa versa). Facing forward there's a set of double doors on port and starboard. No signs. Open either and climb the stairs you'll find right in front of you. Turn and push open the water tight door and step (carefully) out onto the forward bow deck.

This deck is one of my favorite places on the ship ... it's especially a great place for Alaska.

No one's mentioned the Java Cafe yet

Ah, yes ... coffee and popcorn at the movies! I'd never done that before ... until I went on a HAL cruise. I usually get a coke for the movie -- and, of course, popcorn -- but once they had actually run out of coke but they had coffee ... so ... what the heck!!?? :)

Yes, indeed ... it is so very dark up there at night that, if you're not careful, you might trip over the discarded walkers of all those older-than-average HAL cruisers making out. (I'm kidding, friends) ;)

Actually, yes ... it is THE place to go if you want to "do it" out doors. You can't see a thing ... unless the moon is full. ;) It's truly funny. Go up there, walk around, and be careful where you step if you walk back toward the Radar mast. :)

Of course ... you can do what I saw another passenger do one night; he came up wearing a pair of night-vision goggles. :) I could barely see his shape, blocking out the stars as he walked by, but when he turned his head toward me his eyes glowed. I don't know what he saw -- I had been doing some star gazing with my binoculars -- but I DO know that a couple was about 10 feet behind me, on a bench, doing SOMETHING. :)