UKCruiseJeff

It is remarkable how Villas have become so small over a single lifetime.

1. People can only sell their cabin back to the cruise-line and receive payment only if the owners respond and if they are cooperative that the cash is there. That for so many reasons seems totally unlikely. 2. You seem to be visualising a pseudo Ponzi scheme. A small number of new owners or renters can take up all of the slack of everything. But in a Ponzi scheme it blossoms because the potential punters are the whole wide world population. In this scheme it is only unsold/unrented cabins that can be harvested. It cannot work in any circumstances can it. Jeff

Presumably purchasers are starting to plan how and where they wish to spend christmas this year.

There are several reasons why it is extremely unlikely to work. Firstly for the model to work indefinitely in the way you describe you would need to have an almost unlimited supply of cabins to offer in order to receive new “increased” monthly fees otherwise as soon as you sell the last one your increasing revenue hits the buffers. Secondly in order to reduce costs their has to be a substantial share of the cost base to be discretionary. But virtually all of the expenditure in this project is not discretionary eg maintenance, fuel, insurance, fees, staff etc etc. There is very little of the total cake that can be salami sliced. Cash-flow is a very unforgiving master. It will implode when two converging factors meet. Static revenue with exploding costs. Implosion normally starts with a single unpaid bill or unaffordable essential bill and in very short time the card tower collapses. Jeff

Perhaps some here with commercial law experience might have noticed that “lba” in commercial litigation stands for “Letter Before Action” and one hopes that “Villalba” wasn’t a bit of a”dark humour”. Jeff

I am NOT an expert by any means in US law, because I am a Brit but have worked with US based corporations as clients in the consumer arena. My fear is that compared to elsewhere US consumer protection law is thin. For example, as a poor generalisation if a US consumer signs a contract with a US company which allows in it’s terms and conditions that the “merchant” can change the contract terms and clauses then even though it is unfair it has often been decided that it is enforceable. It may vary state to state and I have retired far too long ago to be in any way in touch with current law. In the UK, EU, Oz and other places such clauses are unenforceable. I really fear for these people and hope we are proved wrong. I really want to hear that my fears and others are wrong and they have a good life. Jeff

The monthly charge would seriously bug me. Ignoring the nonsense of having such a large monthly cabin-based differential for largely the same service provisions, ( I could be wrong but it seems to me that a couple in a large cabins spend around $1m more over the lifetime of the investment than a couple in the cheapest) I’d be concerned at the veracity and “good faith” of the guarantee not to increase the charge over the life span of the ship. No one can predict inflation or future costs over the next 15 years or so including what will probably be substantial maintenance costs down the line. Or does it imply the concealed option of an early scrapping? The owners know that this is a serious issue for future years. So why conceal it behind a questionable promise and guarantee? So what does the guarantee mean exactly? How safe is it to rely on it? Is it simply a “come on” made in bad faith to make the sales price seem attractive? Does it mean that imbedded in the contract is the ability to “demand” an increase and if refused you lose your investment? Is the company owners’ leverage that if the increases are refused the only option is that the owners then simply scrap the ship and prematurely declare bankruptcy and shrug and walk away with any cash balances leaving the owners with nothing or next to nothing? Does a future - in my view inevitable cashflow issue and subsequence bankruptcy - imply the selling of this ship to a VVR2 under the same management at scrap knock down price and a loss to the cabin owners? “MV Phoenix”? I think this enterprise is currently the 3rd attempt for some of the current players? Not closely thinking about this aspect and questioning the no-increase guarantee seems to me to be self-delusional and almost certainly going to end in tears. What will cabin owners do in say 5 years is if bankruptcy is declared and they have lost everything? Jeff

She sounded well balanced and her questions made to VVR were what a prudent, sensible, and reasonable concerned customer is entitled to have clarified. Her treatment coincides with an impression that current “cheerleaders” appear slightly “too” supportive and “optimistic” - and some were on the earlier enterprise. and considering the problems it is extraordinary there appears to be no mass public/media criticisms from existing concerned customers that you might expect. The assertion that they are remaining quiet because they are are scared of speaking out for fear of losing their “investment” feels right. It’s concerning. Too many promises seem to me to be unfulfillable and I hope that people are not disappointed. Jeff

It seems to me that there is a sub-set breed of naysayers that might agree that they can see this project starting and sailing but also see that all the promises are very unlikely to be delivered. A sort of halfwaynaysayer. I’m one of those. 🤔 Jeff

Sorry I meant FB! It was difficult to see as it was a small screen and he was distant, but I think the bottle was unopened and he was about to present to someone? Anyway …. There was a dozen or so posts below it saying basically “great news” before it was all removed. Jeff

FWIW A short video stream appeared on YT for a short while and has now been removed. It seemed to be of a party in a ballroom’ish and a person I took to be Mikael with what might have been a bottle in his hand and was saying (I believe) that the sea trials were a success and the words “next week” I believe were sort of discernible. It might have been removed because it was difficult to understand, but appears to be a celebration. Take what I say with a pinch of salt for the time being. I’m sure they’ll be some clarity soon. Jeff

Good Afternoon Coolers, Today I received an email from my village portal. I am tempted to comply Join the local Community Girl Guides 1st XXXXXX Guides is a small village unit, where all girls are welcome to enjoy our fun-filled space. You’ll make friends, learn to be yourself explore what your loves and do stuff you’ve never done before! What do you think? I will shave and focus on my feminine side. But will that be enough? 🤔 Jeff

You have led a far too sheltered life. I’m so looking forward to a Cooler posting that they make their own “O’s” and it’s worth the effort. Wait long enough and it will happen. 😜 The terrible thing is that the own brand we choose is 50p per tin. And it is wonderful and She is happy. As an aside, she is dyslexic. And she use to make me shopping lists. It use to say “spahittig”. How can you not be besotted and adore such lovely individualism that makes a person you love so completely unique. There is a unique language that only She and I have. It is precious. I’m getting soppy now so will stop. 🙂 Jeff

Good Afternoon Coolers, Yesterday’s schnitzel harvest was too much for one meal, so half were reserved for some relatively lazy planned kitchen down-time cooking for me and so I fried her favourite schnitzel in butter plus her favourite side which shows how low a standard she is prepared to accept from me. It’s tinned spaghetti hoops/loops … 🫣 .. + …. ! 😀 In my own defence, I added fried buttered mushroom, fresh chopped herbs (thyme, oregano, tarragon and parsley) and a sprinkling of reggiano. It was more than good enough if I hadn’t confessed. Also in my own defence, this is a picture of the actual rustic plate made by my own fair(ish) lazy hands. There are no days that cannot be improved by a schnitzel. Jeff

No probs. But don’t be overwhelmed … the end result will be worth the effort and bring those images alive. AI will fill in what the camera could have filmed if it had been a modern camera. AI is extraordinary for this stuff. 🙂 Jeff

Hi, Cine is a much bigger challenge and so I’d look to have a professional company do it for you rather than try and buy the equipment and do it yourself. It would be cheaper and the results much better. I’d look for a reliable company that can provide you with an AI remastered digital copy and ensure you use a reliable courier to pick them up and deliver them with complete tracking. If you have a look at YouTube there are a lot of remastered AI videos of original late 1800’s to 1930’s content which quite breathtaking and shows what's possible. You may find some of them are showcasing what they are capable of and might offer to help you with yours. Good luck. Jeff

Good Afternoon Coolers! We haven’t been back to Vienna since pre-covid and so the request was for schnitzel and beans and fries …… She was happy! Jeff

That’s kind … thanks. I loved those piccies of you. Jeff

I was thinking about this …. and add this in case you hadn’t thought of it. It might be totally irrelevant! I have an enormous collection of pre-digital age photographs and have therefore bit the bullet and invested in an Epson FastFoto FF-680W Photo and Document Scanning System and it really whips through scanning all those old photographs at stunning speed and also has acceptable automated (included) AI software to improve and correct the colour of the images as they are scanned. If you are solely slides then you’d choose a different scanner. I’m so pleased I bought it and spent a few hours digitally archiving and improving all those old “snaps”. I have converted old yellow snaps to gorgeous A3+ crystal clear perfectly coloured prints. The digital quality of the result is better than the original and is good enough for large screen viewing. For particularly precious piccies that I want to enlarge and print off I bought and use Topaz Photo AI which is extraordinary. I mostly view them on-screen but some of the most precious I upscale and print on an Epson EcoTank ET-8550 A3+. So I can print an old scanned postcard photo print having taken them through photoshop if needed for adjustments but then AI upscaled to A3+. The inks are cheap as they are professional size bottle refills and last forever. And AI upscaling is breathtaking. Topaz - although a once only charge - also gives you a free year of updates which has been great as they have really improved the AI engine. I’m really pleased with this workflow and setup and memories are too precious to abandon to old boxes never to be viewed again. Some cash, some time, and you have those memories back again. This may sound complex, but all I’ll say is that if I can do it anyone can. You learn a little at a time. Tell me what you think. Jeff

Your recollections are extraordinary and … dare I suggest … even precious because I don’t think we should overlook that we are the very first generation in our long history where everything we recall or think and then write in place like The Cooler will not ever be lost in the future mists of time as so much of what happened in our world just a short time ago. Everything will always henceforth be archived and available through increasingly clever AI search algorithms for anyone inquisitive to find out about us in the future. So we should do more of this sort of thing because we can both learn now and help others do so in the future. 🙂 Jeff

J, Thanks so much for these recollections and observations, which my wife and I have now read several times and found them both fascinating and illuminating on several levels. I think our first impressions was realising just how really small our country is because I have personal affiliations on several levels with almost everywhere you mentioned ... and the MG even! This is how small our country is. For example, I worked for a short time from an office at Clapham Common where my company car was a new MGB GT. I had an office for a while at 212 The Strand ... a couple of doors along from Twinings. I'm not aware that they ever had a restaurant there ... it was a place to taste and buy tea so perhaps you went to a place to eat nearby? Simpsons perhaps? Certainly having tea with desert is unusual here even now, but I'm surprised anyone said "no". I lived in Cheltenham for half of the week when I DJ'd and hosted at what was then Cheltenham Spa Ballroom a couple of nights a week and my uncle later owned an Egon Ronay restaurant just down from the Queens Hotel on The Promenade. He also had a shop selling expensive kitchen stuff on The Promenade. Cheltenham was a great place for a DJ because they had a rather decent Girls School. 😉 We now live a few miles from Stonehenge and Salisbury. It doesn't seem long ago that you could walk around the Stones without paying an entrance fee and walk straight from the road where you parked. . I think the tea experience is simply that before we all knew about different types of tea ... it was simply "tea" served from enormous normally aluminum tea pots with a handle at the back and another by the spout that stewed and stewed and then boiling water was continually added to accommodate the stewing until it was time to give up and make a fresh pot. And more ...... but .... the overwhelming impression is of how small our country really s compared to my impressions of my many visits to America. Thanks so much for your patience and efforts which we found really interesting and entertaining. We learned and it put what we take for granted into a new perspective. Jeff

Appreciated the gaps filled. I hadn’t realised that you were NY’er and so found myself pondering and thinking. Having been in reverse of you ie seeing NY and my other US explorations from the eyes of a Brit, (but never from such an early age as your school trip) … and I found on every visit so much that was new to my senses and was by varying degrees often challenging and sometimes for which I was envious … so I’d be interested to hear of your observations from the reverse perspective ie about your trips - from the school trip and onwards about your impressions and suprises and bewilderments from an American’s perspective. Sort of what is it that you saw and understood that was weird, or interesting, or disappointing or surprising … what did you envy of us … and what was it that you were pleased that you had at home that was better … if you get my drift. And if there is a question you think I haven’t asked .. then please ask it of yourself on my behalf. I’m incurably inquisitive and nosey. Jeff 🙂

Good Afternoon fellow inmates of The Cooler, 🙂 Today’s Eatings and Drinkings. Jeff

Hi, If you want to try some - say for a family event - then you order directly from KK for DPD delivery before 1pm next day. Small orders carry a £4.95 delivery charge … larger orders ie two boxes … are free. I know it’s not for you, but they can work great for family events where a few kids and “older kids” are expected. They can even be “personalised” for say some special event. We order every few months when the yearnings overtake. Jeff

I’ve been watching a fair amount lately about Mel Brook’s and his work. It is weird how genii make their craft appear so effortless and seeing more closely stuff about their creative process makes you reconsider them and respect them more. On cream teas, I always obediently complied with tradition with respect to clotted cream, but I discovered that both of us thought the other preferred it, but actually we both preferred thickly spread decent butter instead. And we always keep emergency supplies of scones. We love them on The Balcony. It never occurred to me but do you live in the UK or just visit? Jeff