Vict0riann

Talking about the pink dolphins, on our Amazon cruise on Prinsendam, we went on a private CC tour to see them, Pat went in the water with them, I stayed on dry land! They were curious. A face only a mother could love!

My DH says it is wiser to walk counter-clockwise because then your heart is on the inside, which would be less stressful. I think that's the way horse races are run - except in Ireland...

Good morning, Dailyites! Thanks for all the news. Reading the "days", my mind immediately went to my father, who had a strange ability to polish whatever was in his pockets, even before I read Graham's explanation. People were always giving Dad bits of jewellery, spoons, coins, etc., to polish for them. I have no idea how he did it - his mother was reputed to be a witch, so perhaps it was another bit of the family magic! I miss him, now I have to get out a polishing cloth... After a small snow flurry yesterday, it has been rain ever since. Reservoir still at 100%, but I imagine it will go down quickly as soon as the rains stop. DD made vegetarian chilli yesterday, but I made chestnut chicken, so that's what we had. She can freeze portions of the chilli for future reference. Prayers for those needing them, and cheers to those celebrating! Just one more day and it will be March - which will be a busy month for us, lots of doctors' appointments and things to do before our cruise. We are both feeling restless. I have to have my Prolia shot in March, but I would like to get in to the dentist before I have it, and he is away at the moment. I will keep trying! We also want to see if we can get a (slightly early) Covid booster before we travel. I have an eye checkup, and Pat has ENT and a couple of other appointments in March. DD is going for a hearing evaluation, as she is still quite deaf after her fall two months ago.

Good morning, Dailyites, we have been busy, Pat had the Epley maneuver done on Friday and had no ill effects from it. Hopefully, that vertigo will not reappear, but he's not going back to exercise until after his ENT appointment on Friday. He had a few nosebleeds after the cautery, but hopefully that's the end of it. Nice to see Annie posting again, I always enjoy her stories and adventures. Those ailing are in my prayers. We are having strange weather. too, a snowstorm yesterday and freezing last night. Pat brought in the hummingbird feeders to keep them from freezing. February is definitely going out like a lion, I don't know what March will do. We haven't been to Phillip Island, but we visited a small island off Western Australia called Penguin Island which also has the fairy/little penguins. You can walk around on raised walkways so as not to disturb the nests, and there is an "arena" where injured or damaged penguins are kept and fed, and become quite tame.

The azaleas are gorgeous! When we lived in Northern Virginia, they grew like weeds. I remember when they used to sell "babies" for 25 cents, and you could plant dozens, and it didn't matter if a few died, because the others would quickly fill in the spaces. Here in the rainy, cool, northwest, I have no luck at all with azaleas, but the rhodies are happy. They think they are in the Himalayas! The trees are starting to bloom here, there are lots of daffodils out, and the early rhododendrons. They're going to have a shock this week when the temps go below 0! Better late than never, DD brought up her amaryllis for me to make bloom, it is supposed to be "Apple Blossom", a very pale pink, but it's orange. Very strange. The one not blooming yet is supposed to be "Red Lion", we'll see soon what it really is...

These were the teas at the Indonesian tea: And the offerings at the regular afternoon tea:

We missed a wedding anniversary once crossing the Date Line - made our eldest illegitimate! 😁

Last time in Rotterdam we took the HAL transfer with a tour of Rotterdam, it was great to not have a full day in Schipol Airport! They had other tours as well, connected with the transfer, one was to Kinderdyke, which I would have liked but it was too long for us to make our flight in time. I think they did not appear until after we were on board. This next cruise, our flight is 12:10 to Reykjavik, so I'm hoping we can get to AMS speedily!

For our cruise in April we were offered (waitlisted) four hotels, one was the Embassy Suites. another the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, I'm afraid I don't remember the other two, but Renaissance sounds familiar. We had asked about HAL hotels as we were late booking the cruise, but eventually did find our own hotel, so didn't need to take what they offered. The one advantage would be being met at the airport and then transferred to the ship from the hotel.

Good morning, Dailyites, the ABC's of science fiction (which I grew up on), Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke - who knew he was so astute! I think the only time I've told the truth about the bathroom scale is once as a teenager when we were flying "over the pole" and they made you stand on a scale before boarding! Just had word from HAL today that our NS transatlantic itinerary has changed - Brest is cancelled, and Cobh is added in. Pat is thrilled and will take his Irish passport, we hope to meet up with @VMax1700! We were in Penang 10 years ago - actually February 19, 2014, so almost exactly. My main memory of that Asian cruise on Volendam was the heat, which I don't love. I was not inspired to return. We just walked around on our own that day, so I have no idea what we saw, a lot of religious shrines, and there was a "village" built on stilts over the water in the port. Even the cat was wiped out! The monk was busy on his cellphone Fort Cornwallis The houses built over the water

We will be cruising with relatives who haven't cruised before, but I know they like a drink or two of an evening, so the Elite SBP was a bonus, too. We can do without, there will be internet in the ports, we get half-price wine packages, etc., we'll just have to drink at Happy Hour - so, no, the regular HIA is not worth it for us.

We just tried to add the Early Booking bonus HIA to an already-booked cruise in 2025 (it shows as available on the HAL website). Our PCC said she would have to re-fare the cruise to add it, which put the cost up to almost $100 a day, or she said she could add the regular HIA for $55 a day. We wanted the one with the crew appreciation included, so we declined., Goes to show that they will find a way to get their money!

DD sent pictures of where she works in Gander (the ATC centre) The door was completely blocked after the storm. (Fortunately not the main door!)

Oh well, the whistle got rained out - just the one toot! Thanks, all, I guess I figured out where our room is more or less...

A really dreary day!

Made it - just in time. I need to see if I can figure out where our room will be on deck 6 kind of midway between the forward and middle elevators!

Good afternoon, Dailyites, I started out typing morning, and then saw it was after noon... I haven't posted for a few days, we have been busy, but I'm thinking of you all. Pat had an episode of dizziness last week, and I rushed him in to the doctor, but there we decided it was inner ear and not his heart! He explained he rolled over on the floor during exercise and when he sat up the room swam around him and he threw up. What a to do! One of our neighbours, a nurse, saw him home and he lay down for a while, but was still dizzy when he got up. The doctor said it might be a good idea to see a PT to do the Epley maneuver. He is still a bit dizzy, so on Monday he'll find out about getting that done. He also has had a nose bleed since yesterday, but the ENT specialist said that would probably happen as the scab fell off the cautery wound. It's not like a real nosebleed, just dribbles of watery blood. We hope that is all it is, and that it stops soon. Life is an adventure... Lots going on here on the Daily, I try to at least do a bit of reading every day, I guess I have to go back to yesterday to check on Baby Murphy, but it sounds good... Pennie, that is funny, if they expected you to share your room with another couple! (I would have swiped the drink cards right away!) I know that Lisbon was the port of the day a few days ago, and there was a discussion of Fatima; Our Lady of Fatima asked the children to have the Pope consecrate Russia to her, which Pope Francis did last March. We should all be praying hard for Russia these days.

Hello, Jacqui, We have re-booked the Nieuw Statendam for April 7, 2024, but this time only the 14-day TA. And we booked (wishful thinking?!) the 22-day Norwegian Fjords Crossing: Scotland Brugge & Paris on October 4, 2025, on Rotterdam. Thanks for doing this. Ann

We have booked it for our next cruise. I thought I would post the menu, it actually looks quite extensive.

Good afternoon, Dailyites, I'm sorry there are sadnesses today, my prayers for all. Pat has an autistic nephew in Australia, the parents had a lot of help with their very bright son as he was growing up, and he just graduated from university a few days ago. He is a lovely lad. It has been raining for some time here, the reservoir has been at 100% for a few days, and the moss on our garry oak trees is sooo happy. (If the sky was clear you'd see the Olympics in the gap on the right.) We have been to Taormina a few times, but never from Giardini-Naxos. I'm sue there are lots of photos of other areas, so I will just show our visit to the city park which we did with DD in 2016. Beautiful views Pat was fascinated with the Italian human torpedo from WW2 in the park. Just a taste of cannoli

Bon voyage!

Good afternoon, Dailyites, Happy Birthday to @Haljo1935, Happy Anniversary to @JazzyV and @cunnorl, and my thoughts and prayers for Tana and everyone ailing! This hasn't been a good week here, but it's over now, and Pat did get his "nose job" yesterday. Actually, the doctor was quite amused by his memory of every date he has had a nosebleed, and said he must have a rare condition called autobiograpical memory. The doctor did find, hopefully, the errant blood vessel and cauterized it. My mother was born in the year of the Dragon, I was born in the year of the Dragon, and our DD was born in the year of the Dragon. Imagine having three dragons in the house! I have a beautiful wooden dragon I got at the Shanghai Friendship Store, Pat the Rat broke his tail off many years ago, it still needs regluing. But at least Rats are good companions for Dragons. A friend in China sent us this

We consider the crew appreciation fee (gratuity) to be part of our cruise fare. But say, if one is paying $100pp a day as your cruise fare, $17 is 17%, if you're paying, say, $170, you are "tipping" 10%, and so on. If the cruise line had to remove those tips and include an additional $17 into the wages of the crew that were originally covered by the gratuity charge, because of tax implications for HAL and for the crew involved, they might have to double the charge to the passenger, so instead of paying $100 a day, one would be paying $134 a day, or $204, and so on, with no option to remove anything....

I don't know why, but we have never had a problem. We stay at a more distant hotel, and arrive in a taxi, which we have found always just drives in and deposits us and the bags right at the door of the terminal. Our bags are taken and we walk right in. I'm not sure if that is the proper way to do it, but we have never asked and the taxi drivers seem to know their way around. Once you are in the terminal, you are directed to whichever line is appropriate, although the last time, I seem to remember we had to go through quite a long line and a scan of our boarding passes before they would let us go to the CO line.

Good morning, Dailyites! Thanks for all the news. I'm happy that the consensus is that Spring is on the way! I have a single little marsh marigold blooming in my flowerbed, and I have no idea where it came from, it is definitely a volunteer and I hope it is happy with us. I count that as Spring. If we had a groundhog, it would not see its shadow today, I guess we would use a Vancouver Island marmot instead. Gerry, I'm so sorry about your DH, what a worry! Annie, hope you feel better soon, and I'm sorry about Bubbles. You are such a caring cat person! Terry, I hope your household's health improves and you don't catch the bug, too. And I hope the weather improves for the Dailyites on the way to Hawaii. Well, we've had a busy couple of days. First, we went downtown to apply for new passports, I also found a couple of new needlepoint kits, they are darned expensive nowadays, but I think they will be beautiful. I can't do counted cross stitch any more, and I had to look for light coloured needlepoints, as I'm finding the darker colours difficult to manage. I do need new glasses. Then, yesterday, we booked two more cruises! Pat is getting antsy, and as the cardiologist said he was good to travel, we decided to re-book part of the cruise we cancelled earlier - just the TA, though, and I got flights to FLL using my Air Miles and Pat organized return flights in business class on Icelandair. I could only get economy for the three flights out, so I'm not looking forward to that. Just hope Calgary isn't snowed in, like it was last year. Talking to our PCC, she said she has had many, many complaints about Stockperks, and I told her we were going to try to do it the old way first! I want to ask the doctor if I should take the low dose aspirin with us, just in case. I don't know if that has anything to do with heart valve problems. And we are going out today to run a few errands, and I think I might have a look for something new to wear on the cruise. It's either that or a lot of dieting!