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Latest news on Islander progress: Margaritaville at Sea Islander Completes Sea Trials

Shadow is on the World Cruise until then. The passengers already packed and planned with the old dress code in mind.

OK Jeff: I'm not a baker but my mother was a baker in the WACs in WWII so I always check the dessert section of the menu before ordering! And full disclosure – I haven't tried this. But this recipe in today's Wall Street Journal looks really good and not too hard so I'm planning to give it a go after we get back from Italy: The Best Lemon Bar Recipe Is Also the Simplest - WSJ.pdf

Maybe they should call it 'Kaisekish' 😁

New article about The World on CruiseIndustryNews: The World, Residences at Sea, Awarded ‘Best Ship Wine List’

Please post about Villa Vie in the Villa Vie forum:

Villa Vie Residences Launches Docuseries on YouTube

• Still trying to get my head around the fact that ‘Take Out’ can mean food, dating, or murder. • The older I get, the more I understand why roosters just scream to start their day. • Being popular on Facebook is like sitting at the ‘cool table’ in the cafeteria of a mental hospital. • How did doctors come to the conclusion that exercise prolongs life, when…the rabbit is always jumping but only lives for around two years, and the turtle that doesn’t exercise at all, lives over 200 years. • I too was once a male trapped in a female body…but then my mother gave birth. • If only vegetables smelled as good as bacon. • Anyone who says their wedding was the best day of their life has clearly never had two candy bars fall down at once from a vending machine. • We live in a time where intelligent people are silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended. • The biggest joke on mankind is that computers have begun asking humans to prove they aren’t a robot. • When a kid says “Daddy, I want mommy” that’s the kid version of “I’d like to speak to your supervisor”. • It’s weird being the same age as old people. • Just once, I want a username and password prompt to say CLOSE ENOUGH. • Last night the internet stopped working so I spent a few hours with my family. They seem like good people. • If Adam and Eve were Cajuns they would have eaten the snake instead of the apple and saved us all a lot of trouble. • We celebrated last night with a couple of adult beverages...Metamucil and Ensure. • You know you are getting old when friends with benefits means having someone who can drive at night. • Weight loss goal: To be able to clip my toenails and breathe at the same time. • Some of my friends exercise every day. Meanwhile I am watching a show I don’t like because the remote fell on the floor. • For those of you that don’t want Alexa or Siri listening in on your conversation, they are making a male version…it doesn’t listen to anything. • I just got a present labeled, ‘From Mom and Dad’, and I know darn well Dad has no idea what’s inside. • The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The realist adjusts his sails. • There’s a fine line between a numerator and a denominator. Only a fraction of people will find this funny. • Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are. • I have many hidden talents. I just wish I could remember where I hid them. • My idea of a Super Bowl is a toilet that cleans itself. • Apparently exercise helps you with decision-making. It’s true. I went for a run this morning and decided I’m never going again.

Anywhere you like. Tuxes are never required. If you have a suit and tie, you're good. Even a sport coat and tie will pass muster.

That's cheating! When I get to Zenith from free Power Ups, then I'll pay for another cruise!!! 🤣

I never use the tote bag given out on that cruise – too confusing with all the other identical ones. I bring an older bag, preferably from a different cruise line.

BTW I owe you a credit Jeff for this thread title. During Covid I wanted to start something similar on my River Cruising forum, so I called it the River Cruising Water Cooler. Oddly that confused the European posters who weren't familiar with the concept of standing around the water cooler at work shooting the breeze. But it has caught on and works just like this one, helping to bring the community together without fear of the dreaded "off topic" complaints...

Maybe you're not quite as old as you think: it's only around 40,000 posts... The way the earlier segments were archived, I can't get to a screen that would show total views, sorry. I could find that post #1 in segment 1 was on August 9, 2013.

😁 I thought the cabin on Whisper was fine and didn't really notice anything that called out for refreshing. But we prefer the style and décor of older ships (nautical feel, darker woods)... The big disappointment was the food. There were plenty of choices in The Restaurant, and they changed often enough to keep it really fresh – so that wouldn't be a problem on a long cruise. [But recent reports seem to imply that the menus on all the ships are shrinking dramatically – that would become a problem on longer cruises.] One limitation of Whisper on a longer cruise would be the lack of dining venue choices. But the really big deal was that no matter where you dined the food just wasn't good enough. The Restaurant was almost always OK, but never great; and to make matters worse the alternatives (La Terrazza and La Dame) weren't really any better. And no Arts Café, and no good coffee anywhere on the ship. All of that would really become more and more of a problem on a long cruise. So no, I wouldn't take Whisper on a 22-day cruise. In fact I don't think I would book Whisper on any itinerary. I am hoping that Nova and Ray will bring Silversea back to its old form, or at least back to a more acceptable new form – and that the variety of dining options will provide a good bump. The Qantas questions have been answered above. I can confirm that they didn't have it on our flights (JFK-AKL and SYD-LAX) and I saw somewhere that they say they only have wi-fi on domestic flights. That was a real shame because JFK-AKL is over 17 hours – and as T-Mobile customers we would have had free wi-fi if there was wi-fi! Thank you!

Greetings to you Jeff and thanks for starting this Cooler enterprise! I did a little sleuthing for you and was able to determine the following statistics about the five segments of the Silversea Water Cooler: #1 5,264 posts 2013-2015 #2 5,035 posts 2015-2016 #3 5,118 posts 2016-2017 #4 5,188 posts 2017-2018 #5 20,319 posts 2018-present When Cruise Critic was running under the old software (probably using vacuum tubes and hamsters spinner mini-generators!), threads got very unwieldy above 5,000 posts so it was necessary to cut them off and start another segment. The new software, for all its own limitations, doesn't seem to have such upper limits so this segment will presumably go on forever. I added the dates to show that once the cooler caught on activity has been pretty consistent at around 5,000 posts per year, even in the latest segment and despite economic booms and busts and plagues and other disasters. I thought that was pretty amazing! Keep up the good work everyone! And, as Jeff says, let's all work to keep the Cooler a welcoming happy place.

Well, my mother lived almost to 96, but she spent the last 5-6 years saying "I've lived too long." Her health was still good, some dementia that didn't really bother her until the very end – just no joy left in living. So I'm not looking to outlive her – plus my estate-planning life insurance only has premiums guaranteed through 100 and I can't imagine how much they will charge if I make the mistake of living past that!!!

I happened to notice the list of included spirits on Atlas Ocean Voyages today. There are only 2 included gins: Tanqueray No 10 and The Botanist. Not too shabby. Would probably improve your putting...

DW and I had the pleasure of attending a lecture with music by Dion (and the Belmonts, but they weren't there) at Fordham University earlier this week. Dion btw is 85. In the middle of one of his songs he forgot the lyrics to the next verse – he vamped through the chorus and then was able to pick up [this song was about his wife, so not from the '60s but also something you'd think would stick in the memory...]. He also repeated several stories. But ... the point is: he is still going strong at 85! That's a role model I can look up to, since I've still got a good number of years to get there. Forgot why I went down to the basement? – no problem, all I have to do is go back up 2 flights to the bedroom and I'll remember... I woke up this morning, threw my arms out – and didn't touch a coffin. It's all good!!!

The Oceania R-ship PHs have the same layout and numbering as Azamara Onward CCs (but not the other Azamara ships). Unfortunately most of the reports in the spreadsheet are for the other Azamara ships, so it's necessary to map Journey-Pursuit-Quest numbers to Onward – that will give the answer for Sirena.

We DIYed Arenal after a similar cruise on Azamara that ended in Puerto Caldera. It was great, and we didn't feel a need for the hand-holding of a package tour. Details are in my blog: jazzbeauxcostaricacruise2018.wordpress.com Such an approach can easily be tailored to suit your needs, starting with pick-up at SJO and ending at the ship in Puerto Caldera. But the Azamara tour also looks very good and includes all the things you would want on an introduction to Costa Rica. If we had had that option we probably would have taken it.

I have been near elevators on several ships (not Silversea) and never heard any noise. [I wouldn't try this on one of the booze-cruise ships, but it seems safe on adult-oriented luxury cruises...]

Sorry this happened to you, but most cruise lines do this. Charters are guaranteed to be profitable and most of those affected apparently rebook so that income isn't lost either. The really bad stories are when this happens very close to sailing – since your cruise isn't for over a year, you can't have booked airfare yet so there shouldn't be any ancillary expenses (other than your time and disappointment). If you have travel insurance, you should be able to move that over to a future trip. I hope you find a replacement itinerary you like on Azamara.

I think the Canal experience will be much better on Windstar than NCL because of the size of the ships. We did the Canal on Coral Princess, which is still smaller than today's NCL ships, and the experience going through the Gatun Locks was interesting but the public areas never dropped below the lock walls. That was only a 'partial' transit so we got off the ship in Gatun Lake and took an excursion on the public ferry from the lake through the Culebra Cut and all the way to the Pacific Ocean – the experience on that small ferry was much more dramatic. A Windstar ship would be like the ferry experience all the way through.

The review is post #1 in this thread. The Four Seasons in Sydney was very nice and very well located [main entrance leads directly to Circular Quay, back entrance to The Rocks], but a little cold compared to boutique hotels. The hotel restaurants are very pricey [breakfast is $60AUS per person], but luckily there are lots of good restaurants in The Rocks and Circular Quay areas and uber is cheap and reliable to any other restaurant you fancy.

Now I understand what happened (I think). When I post, it initially comes up with some crazy-low number – never figured out where that came from, maybe you're right. But when it refreshes it gets the proper 'next' number in the thread. PS – this one initially came up with the same number as the post I was quoting, then changed to the correct one.