Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[lenquixote66]

1 hour ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Happy Birthday to your Daughter💐   I hope she has a wonderful birthday

Thanks very much ,Debbie

[grapau27]

5 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

Today is the birthday of one of my daughters.We will be celebrating tomorrow evening.

Happy birthday wishes to one of your daughters Lenny.

[grapau27]

@DaniDanielle.

Happy birthday to your son Marrietta.

[lenquixote66]

6 hours ago, Jimbo said:

 

I think by leaving the roof open it greatly helped Houston win that game last night. Because the wind knocked down Judge's long fly ball to the right field wall in the 8th inning which would have been a 2-run home run and would have gave the Yankees a 1 run lead and they might have won game #2 instead of being down 2 games to 0 right now. So leaving it open turned out to be a good move by Houston.

Would that not be the same for Houston power hitters ?

[lenquixote66]

9 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Happy birthday wishes to one of your daughters Lenny.

Thank you so very much,Graham

[FromSea2ShiningSea]

Sunday morning before we went to the cathedral for mass, DH went to the Galleria Della Academia.  I did not go because I did not feel like I could walk very much without much pain.  He took pictures of the famous statue of David, some other statues and some paintings.

 

 

 

 

[BonTexasNY]

5 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We didn't downsize so much as changing from "northern" furniture to "southern" furniture.  We kept enough stuff to fill about 3/4 of a moving truck though.  We used a multitiered approach to getting rid of our stuff from Cincinnati that we didn't want in Florida. In priority order:

1. Let our kids take what they want

2. Sell on FB marketplace.  Limited to only a handful of things of higher value.

3. Sell at a local consignment shop.  Limited to larger things or things that we thought someone might actually buy.

4. Give to Goodwill

5. For anything else, including things that Goodwill won't take, 1-800-Got-Junk.  Point at it and it disappears.

When we decided to downsize from our large TX house to an apartment, we had a wonderful woman  come to our house with shelving units and staged all of the stuff we wanted to sell, making our downstairs rooms look like a boutique.  Most of the stuff including furniture was sold.  We made good money and were very pleased in the end when a man purchased everything that was left.  If not, it would have been donated.  

 

 

[BonTexasNY]

Lenny I hope your daughter has a wonderful birthday.

 

Same to Marietta's son.

[lenquixote66]

2 minutes ago, BonTexasNY said:

Lenny I hope your daughter has a wonderful birthday.

 

Same to Marietta's son.

Thank you very much ,Bonnie 

[Jimbo]

9 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

Would that not be the same for Houston power hitters ?

Didn't notice any Houston hitters hit any deep drives to wall in Right Field like the Yankees did.

 

Can only go by where the players hit the balls. I can guarantee you Judge's drive to the top of the right field wall would have been a 2-run homer if roof would have been closed and NO wind blowing it back.

Probably  would have been 5 to 10 rows over the fence.

 

I really think all stadiums that have domes should keep them closed for ALL games, regular season and playoffs.

[bobmacliberty]

2 hours ago, FromSea2ShiningSea said:

Another must-do in Florence is a visit to the Piazza Le Michelangelo which is atop a hill overlooking the whole city.  Since this was our last night in Florence, we had to make our way up there along with tons of other people to enjoy the view and wait for the sunset.  This was our finale to our visit in Florence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your photos are stunning!  Absolutely beautiful.

[FromSea2ShiningSea]

In summary, we had a very nice time in Florence.  We really enjoyed the rich history of this city.  There was so much to see and take in.  Everyday, I clocked in about 12K to 15K steps.  It is no wonder why I was so tired and hurting by the end of the day.  At this point, I was really looking forward to boarding the ship, unpack everything once and just relax.

 

It is morning of 10/18, we checked out of our hotel and took the train to Rome so we could transfer to the regional train to Civitavecchia.  The train was delayed and the platform to take the regional train was what seemed like a mile away.  All the people that had to transfer literally had to run to catch this train.  I had to hop to it, too.  We made it to that train with literally 0 seconds to spare or we would’ve missed it.

 

We made it to Civitavecchia!

[Ozark_Kid]

I am behind.   I wanted to say if I remember I need to post a video of Kenzie singing.   You will love it!  I will set an alarm for Monday.   If you don't see it by Tuesday please remind me.

[FromSea2ShiningSea]

10 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Your photos are stunning!  Absolutely beautiful.

 

Bob, thank you so much!  It is all thanks to the new iPhone 14 Pro.  It is quite a step up for me from the iPhone 6S.  That was from 2015.  LOL.  Finally, it was time for me to upgrade.  I really didn’t have a chance to take any pictures with it until after I got to Florence because I was in no condition to play around with it before that at home.  I am pretty happy with it and still learning especially taking night time pictures.  I probably need to sign up for some Genius classes so I can learn a thing or two about this phone.

[Luckynana]

1 hour ago, taznremmy said:

So did I!
I am currently on Brilliance OTS fulfilling that dream.  Spent five nights in Venice then down to Ravenna (current departure port for Venice).

Start part 3 of my B5B tomorrow. 

What a fabulous trip!  Is your B5B going to many different Ports/countries?

We were on Brilliance for our 1st Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona, 12 day,  mostly Italian and Greek ports.

ENJOY!!!!

[Tree_skier]

1 hour ago, grapau27 said:

Good evening.

Some pictures from our dinner tonight.

 

 

What is that Graham?

[Luckynana]

@FromSea2ShiningSeaHelen, I sure hope your sciatica doesn't act up anymore for you while you enjoy the continuation of your trip.  I know what you've been going through.  Luckily, I've been good for some time now, especially since I completed my PT last month.

 

Your pictures are stunning!

Bon Voyage, Helen and Marty!!!🛳️

[Tree_skier]

35 minutes ago, FromSea2ShiningSea said:

In summary, we had a very nice time in Florence.  We really enjoyed the rich history of this city.  There was so much to see and take in.  Everyday, I clocked in about 12K to 15K steps.  It is no wonder why I was so tired and hurting by the end of the day.  At this point, I was really looking forward to boarding the ship, unpack everything once and just relax.

 

It is morning of 10/18, we checked out of our hotel and took the train to Rome so we could transfer to the regional train to Civitavecchia.  The train was delayed and the platform to take the regional train was what seemed like a mile away.  All the people that had to transfer literally had to run to catch this train.  I had to hop to it, too.  We made it to that train with literally 0 seconds to spare or we would’ve missed it.

 

We made it to Civitavecchia!

Great stuff, I'm enjoying your trip too. 🙂 

[taznremmy]

7 minutes ago, Luckynana said:

What a fabulous trip!  Is your B5B going to many different Ports/countries?

We were on Brilliance for our 1st Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona, 12 day,  mostly Italian and Greek ports.

ENJOY!!!!

Thank you!
In and out of Ravenna for the first three cruises, visiting Athens, Corfu, Mykonos, Argostoli, and Santorini, Greece.  Plus Kotor, Montenegro and Dubrovnik and Split, Croatia.  

Then we do a repo from Ravenna to Rome, stopping again in Split,   and Corfu, also Bari, Sicily and Naples, Italy. 
Then the TA from Rome to Tampa.

So far the weather has been great, and I still can’t believe I’m here!

[lenquixote66]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

Didn't notice any Houston hitters hit any deep drives to wall in Right Field like the Yankees did.

 

Can only go by where the players hit the balls. I can guarantee you Judge's drive to the top of the right field wall would have been a 2-run homer if roof would have been closed and NO wind blowing it back.

Probably  would have been 5 to 10 rows over the fence.

 

I really think all stadiums that have domes should keep them closed for ALL games, regular season and playoffs.

What I would like to see is all stadiums built with the same dimensions like in other major sports but that will never happen.

[Sunshine3601]

@DaniDanielle    HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR SON!    I hope he is having a Wonderful Day and has an Awesome Birthday weekend🍸

[bobmacliberty]

Update on my search for the perfect Mai Tai...

 

I was in Publix today and found Goya Passionfruit nectar.  I had previously mixed up a pitcher of equal parts pineapple juice, orange juice, and guava juice, so I made a Mai Tai today by adding 3 oz of the pitcher mix and 1 oz passion fruit juice...totaling 1 oz each of the 4 juices.  The rest was the same as before with light rum, Jamaican rum, Cointreau (substitute for orange curacao), orgeat syrup, and simple syrup.  It was too sweet so happy hour round 2 was the same thing but without the simple syrup.  Much better, but not really a Mai Tai.  Too much fruit juice.

 

I asked Micheline to taste it and she immediately said, "whoa".  I thought that meant it was too sweet for her.  Instead, it meant that it tasted just like fruit juice and she couldn't taste the 2 shots of rum at all.  She said it would be dangerous for a woman to drink that.  Hmmmm....

 

Next attempt will dial back the fruit juices a bit, add back the fresh squeezed lime juice, and use some true dark rum. Science is fun! 

[bobmacliberty]

9 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

What I would like to see is all stadiums built with the same dimensions like in other major sports but that will never happen.

 

I don't mind the different dimensions.  Things like the Green Monster in Boston make Baseball unique.  Then again, I'm a Red Sox fan.  I just don't like things that are too different, like the uphill section in the Houston outfield.  Is that still a thing, or did they remove that?  Not sure what I think about the old days in the original Yankee Stadium where the monuments were in play in the outfield.  

[FromSea2ShiningSea]

Now for Part 2 story of my trip.  First of all, challenges never run in short supply for me. They do not seem to end.  

 

After we arrived in Civitavecchia, we checked into our hotel.  We took out the Covid Test Kits and self tested.  The results showed Positive for both DH and me.  How could this be happening?  For a couple days, I had a sore throat but I thought it was due to all the cigarette smoke from so many people smoking. I had a little runny nose but it felt like I had a very mild cold.  That was all.  DH had a cough but that was it. Now all these thoughts are running through my head.  We can’t go.  We’d have to cancel our cruise.  We figured we had to go to the Pharmacy to get tested and get documentation for the results.  We would need these for if we have to cancel and get full refund.  Ugh.

 

We went to the Pharmacy but it was closed but would open back up at 4:30PM.  So we went back then and got tested.  These were uncomfortable brain ticklers.  Sure enough, after having avoided the plaque for almost 3 years, the Rona finally caught up with us.  We informed our TA who was on this cruise also.  We sent him the documentations and he started the process for the full refund for us.

 

Meanwhile, we still have the Transatlantic to deal with.  Because it’s a separate booking, we could not cancel that cruise without us testing Positive for it.  So what do we do for 12 days?  We have to hang around!  But we have to isolate at the same time.  We had to somehow make lemonade out of lemons and we decided to go to Pisa.  We’d wear our masks.  We stayed one night in Pisa. Then we found there is a Hilton Grand Vacation in Pisa, out in the country.  Thankfully, they had 4 days available for just when we needed it.  The last room available!  So we booked it.  Rented a car and drove to the Hilton.  It is not the same Hilton Grand Vacations like in Las Vegas or Hawaii.  Lol.  Only condos with kitchenette.  No free breakfast, no restaurants and no other amenities on property.  Just your basic condo. That’s fine.  We just want a place to isolate and relax and maybe just drive around the country side.  We went to the local grocery store.  Got some food to make for all our meals for the days we are here.  We are now planning what to do after Hilton.

 

I have no more symptoms- no sore throat, cough or runny nose.  DH still has a little bit of cough.  We won’t test again until 10/29.  Hopefully we will test Negative by then.  It was really tough to see our friends leaving to board Odyssey while we got left behind.  It all just seemed so unreal.

 

[A&L_Ont]

6 hours ago, TravelGirlinDallas said:

There were a couple of very happy Astros fans at my house last night. Brian needs his Altuve jersey washed before the next game because he's sure that wearing it is helping. 😄

 

6 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

Nooooo.  Don't wash it.  You'll wash all of the mojo out of it and the Astros will lose as a result. 😜

@bobmacliberty is right. Just be thankful it’s a jersey and not a teenager with his hockey gear.