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

[akcruz]

@brillohead thank you for sharing your beautiful story with us.  So happy it has all turned out as it has.  I think you already won the lottery, but yeah the other one would have been nice too.

[Husky1987]

 

2 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

There are several golf resorts that I haven't yet been too (Bandon Dunes in Oregon and the Kohler Resort in Wisconsin in particular)

 

I've been to Bandon a couple times.  It's a fantastic place that every golf lover should visit at least once.  Four (now five) top 15 public courses in the US.  

 

This is the closest I've ever come to a hole-in-one...#12 on Old MacDonald - 205 yd par 3.

 

[grapau27]

3 hours ago, brillohead said:

Tuesday report on the newly discovered family!

We started the day with a mid-morning breakfast with my son joining, as well as my new Aunt Linda. And I did bring my pen and a notebook to write down all the immediate family members!  My grandfather had four kids with each of his three wives, and the family refers to them as his "litters"... "the first litter was these four kids, and our litter was Jack, Bill, Charles, and Linda, and then he married that old cross-eyed witch and that litter was these four kids...."  LOL  And then each of the brothers from my litter married / had kids with three different women.  Aunt Linda was the "easy" one -- she just has the one husband, but they still had four kids. 

After breakfast we went to their hotel to drop off Uncle Jack so he could put his swollen feet up on some pillows (sound familiar, Bella cruisers?).  Bill showed my son his Army pictures from Vietnam (my son just completed his Army enlistment at Christmastime) and gave him a medal from when he was in the Army.  

Then Bill drove me and Matthew around and showed us a few places he used to frequent back in the day (he lived here for five years in the late 60s/early 70s). We dropped my son off at his place for the afternoon, did a bit more driving around, then back to the hotel.  Bill and Jack told stories on each other all afternoon (these guys never stop teasing each other!), then we went off to meet "the kids" (my son and his girlfriend) for dinner.  

After dinner, Bill and Jack and I went out to Aunt Linda's house again, and I got to meet one of her daughters and son-in-law.  When it was time to leave, it was hugs all around again, and Linda hugged me tight, let go, then pulled me in for a second hug and told me how glad she was that I found them. 

 

I'm invited to "Easter Dinner" on Saturday night at Linda's house.  I will only be able to stay for a couple hours (because I work the night before and that night), but I can't pass up the opportunity to get to know these loving people!  I'm hoping I can get my son and his girlfriend to join... my son has half a dozen cousins (technically second cousins -- Aunt Linda's grandkids) who are right around his age (within five years in each direction), and I think he'd fit right in with these kids.  

We left Aunt Linda's and went back to the hotel. Bill and Jack were going to hit the road early this morning, so we said our goodbyes last night.  Not gonna lie, I teared up a little saying goodbye to Bill... this sweet man is still beating himself up for not knowing about me for the past 50+ years, and nothing I say will stop him from feeling guilty about something he had no possible way of knowing about.  I hope that with time he'll learn to just accept it like I have, and just enjoy the time we do have together now that we know the truth.

And I don't usually post pics on CC, but I feel like you guys are invested in the story.... here's a pic of me with Bill at dinner last night:

 

 

Oh, and my luck has officially run out -- I had five tickets for last night's Mega Millions lottery drawing, and I had one number on one ticket and one number on another, so no big Group Cruise courtesy of the Michigan Lottery!  😂
 

Nice photo.

[Sea Dog]

36 minutes ago, Husky1987 said:

 

 

I've been to Bandon a couple times.  It's a fantastic place that every golf lover should visit at least once.  Four (now five) top 15 public courses in the US.  

 

This is the closest I've ever come to a hole-in-one...#12 on Old MacDonald - 205 yd par 3.

 

Great shot! That’s a gimme!

[HBE4]

2 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We had this problem driving from Florida to Pinehurst.  What should have been a little over 5 hours took more than 7.  It took more than an hour to get through the Savannah area northbound, because the highway squeezes down to 2 lanes in South Carolina.  

 

2 hours ago, Luckynana said:

Oh yeah..don't get me started about SC with their 2 lanes, and never any road improvements in the 23 years we've been driving back and forth to Florida.  This past December, we were at a standstill for well over 2 hours...once we finally began moving, there wasn't any evidence around to show why we had been stopped.😲

 

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We're usually only on I-95 as far north as the I-26 interchange to Columbia.  I hadn't been on I-95 north of I-26 in more than 20 years.  I was really surprised how bad some sections of that road were.  Come on SC...do a little road maintenance.

 

When I was in Bluffton, SC (just outside Hilton Head) this past January, we flew into Savannah, GA airport and took Uber there and back. Both Uber drivers complained about I-95, the condition of the road and the bottlenecks created when the highway dwindles down to 2 lanes as you cross the state line. Both said sometimes they will refuse fares to SC. Fortunately , both of them knew the back roads to Bluffton to avoid the  traffic jams on I-95.  One did say that highway officials are planning to add a third lane in each direction but it's going to be a 10 year project.

 

Which got me thinking Is there any good section to I-95? I've driven it from Boston to Baltimore over the years (many small road trips) and most of it is just bad, too congested. The one good section is the NJ Turnpike thru central NJ. Eight straight, flat lanes in each direction, anything less than 80 MPH and you'll get run over. I've had NJ State Troopers pass me while I was doing 80!

 

 

[mo&fran]

13 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

 

 

When I was in Bluffton, SC (just outside Hilton Head) this past January, we flew into Savannah, GA airport and took Uber there and back. Both Uber drivers complained about I-95, the condition of the road and the bottlenecks created when the highway dwindles down to 2 lanes as you cross the state line. Both said sometimes they will refuse fares to SC. Fortunately , both of them knew the back roads to Bluffton to avoid the  traffic jams on I-95.  One did say that highway officials are planning to add a third lane in each direction but it's going to be a 10 year project.

 

Which got me thinking Is there any good section to I-95? I've driven it from Boston to Baltimore over the years (many small road trips) and most of it is just bad, too congested. The one good section is the NJ Turnpike thru central NJ. Eight straight, flat lanes in each direction, anything less than 80 MPH and you'll get run over. I've had NJ State Troopers pass me while I was doing 80!

 

 

When my job relocated  to Florida in 1976, I drove down I95.  Problem was, it wasn't completed in Georgia,  so there was a long section on US1,which I95 was to replace.  I swore I would never drive back and forth up and down the east coast again.

 I did  do it again, like 1984, and at that time, the only section that wasn't finished was between Palm Beach Gardens and Ft Pierce , but the Florida Turnpike was close by, so it wasn't that bad.

 My opinion is that the  worst section was in Connecticut, although NYC was no picnic, so I always tried to get up to the Tappan Zee if I had to go by the city.  

[bobmacliberty]

1 hour ago, Husky1987 said:

 

 

I've been to Bandon a couple times.  It's a fantastic place that every golf lover should visit at least once.  Four (now five) top 15 public courses in the US.  

 

This is the closest I've ever come to a hole-in-one...#12 on Old MacDonald - 205 yd par 3.

 

 

That's a big trade off.  On the one hand, you're accomplishing something that most golfers go their entire lives without doing...a hole in one. On the other hand, you'd be buying drinks for the clubhouse...a potentially very expensive proposition!  Who am I kidding...a hole in one is worth it.  I say that from experience as I was lucky enough (luck is definitely involved) to get one on hole #14 at Old Silo Golf Club in Kentucky, which is now closed.  

 

Bandon looks absolutely spectacular, especially the new Sheep Ranch course with 9 greens on the ocean cliff.  The biggest problem with Bandon is getting there.  Unless you can fly your private jet into one of the smaller, relatively nearby airports, us east coasters have to fly into Portland and then drive 4 hours, or possibly Eugene and drive 2 hours.  

[Husky1987]

6 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

That's a big trade off.  On the one hand, you're accomplishing something that most golfers go their entire lives without doing...a hole in one. On the other hand, you'd be buying drinks for the clubhouse...a potentially very expensive proposition!  Who am I kidding...a hole in one is worth it.  I say that from experience as I was lucky enough (luck is definitely involved) to get one on hole #14 at Old Silo Golf Club in Kentucky, which is now closed.  

 

Bandon looks absolutely spectacular, especially the new Sheep Ranch course with 9 greens on the ocean cliff.  The biggest problem with Bandon is getting there.  Unless you can fly your private jet into one of the smaller, relatively nearby airports, us east coasters have to fly into Portland and then drive 4 hours, or possibly Eugene and drive 2 hours.  

It's definitely in the middle of nowhere, and it's not like there's anything to do other than golf! Some of the people we played with from Chicago went through San Francisco and hopped a commuter plane to one of those smaller airports in North Bend, OR.  

 

It's by far the most fun I've had playing golf.  Very lucky with fantastic weather (in April one time, May another).  I had one day of wind that was crazy.  Not too many places I can hit my 3 hybrid off the tee on a 480 yard par 4 and be 40 yards from the green for my 2nd shot...and then turn around a couple holes later, crush my driver and it's sitting in the middle of the fairway 120 yards off the tee.

 

The caddies are the best as well.  I/we had the same one all three days, and by the afternoon of the first day they know your game inside and out.  So many times I'd be 100 yards out and they'd know exactly what I needed to do - "Play it 130 yards right at that trap (which may be 30 yards away from the green).  They'd bet amongst themselves from time to time how far away they were from the flag from the fairway...and 9 times out of 10 they'd only be a yard or maybe two off.

[akcruz]

50 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

 

 

When I was in Bluffton, SC (just outside Hilton Head) this past January, we flew into Savannah, GA airport and took Uber there and back. Both Uber drivers complained about I-95, the condition of the road and the bottlenecks created when the highway dwindles down to 2 lanes as you cross the state line. Both said sometimes they will refuse fares to SC. Fortunately , both of them knew the back roads to Bluffton to avoid the  traffic jams on I-95.  One did say that highway officials are planning to add a third lane in each direction but it's going to be a 10 year project.

 

Which got me thinking Is there any good section to I-95? I've driven it from Boston to Baltimore over the years (many small road trips) and most of it is just bad, too congested. The one good section is the NJ Turnpike thru central NJ. Eight straight, flat lanes in each direction, anything less than 80 MPH and you'll get run over. I've had NJ State Troopers pass me while I was doing 80!

 

 

 

We have been on 95 from at least Connecticut to the north and all the way south to Miami.  There are very few "good" spots.  Probably the best, although same days nowherebis good, is southern Virginia into northern North Carolina.  A lot of it is 2 lanes but usually there is less traffic in that area.

 

Even though we live in SC, we drive very little on 95 in the state.  When going north we get on in NC, going south we get on just above Charleston but have gone all the way to Savannah.  Tough call some times which is better, smaller roads with lights or highway with traffic.

[FromSea2ShiningSea]

On 4/3/2023 at 9:19 PM, brillohead said:

I took the time to look in Bill's eyes and tell him that he has NOTHING to feel guilty about -- he had absolutely no way of knowing that I ever existed.  I can tell that he does feel guilt over it, but hopefully in time it will fade.  The second he knew the truth, he stepped right up and claimed me and accepted me, which is more than anyone has really ever done for me before. 
 

 

^^^This ^^^, made me cry.

 

6 hours ago, brillohead said:

When it was time to leave, it was hugs all around again, and Linda hugged me tight, let go, then pulled me in for a second hug and told me how glad she was that I found them.   

We left Aunt Linda's and went back to the hotel. Bill and Jack were going to hit the road early this morning, so we said our goodbyes last night.  Not gonna lie, I teared up a little saying goodbye to Bill... this sweet man is still beating himself up for not knowing about me for the past 50+ years, and nothing I say will stop him from feeling guilty about something he had no possible way of knowing about.  I hope that with time he'll learn to just accept it like I have, and just enjoy the time we do have together now that we know the truth.

And I don't usually post pics on CC, but I feel like you guys are invested in the story.... here's a pic of me with Bill at dinner last night:

 

 

Oh, and my luck has officially run out -- I had five tickets for last night's Mega Millions lottery drawing, and I had one number on one ticket and one number on another, so no big Group Cruise courtesy of the Michigan Lottery!  😂
 

 

This, made me cry, too.  But this beautiful picture made me smile.  It is precious.  The resemblance is definitely there.  I love your hair down.

 

You finding your dad and your whole new family is priceless.  I wouldn't trade it for a million bucks.  

[ReneeFLL]

On 4/4/2023 at 3:43 PM, Jimbo said:

No Iceland Ports, leaving from Bayonne, NJ. Wouldn't be enough days to get to Iceland being this is only a 14 day cruise. This cruise does get us to Greenland though 🙂

We will be on the 12 night British Isles and the 17 night Arctic Circle cruises before this one. Wished we could stay on for 14 more nights, but we will already be gone for 33 days already. Still 4 years until retirement. 😑

 

15 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Nice to see the sun has come out in Sydney this afternoon.  View from my friends’ balcony on Ovation.

 

 

We love Sydney. We have done 3 TP since 2017. Unfortunately, I don’t know when we will be back. 😔

 

9 hours ago, reallyitsmema said:

It was said as a joke, thus the emoji. 

Sometimes an emoji doesn’t change the meaning/intent of the comment. You have told people to “move on” several times when you are tired of the conversation.

[jagsfan]

21 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

For all my friends on CC who celebate Passover.

 

Happy Pesach to you and yours 

Plus 1 because I sure couldn’t find anything that says it better!

[Momof3gurlz]

4 hours ago, Luckynana said:

Oh yeah..don't get me started about SC with their 2 lanes, and never any road improvements in the 23 years we've been driving back and forth to Florida.  This past December, we were at a standstill for well over 2 hours...once we finally began moving, there wasn't any evidence around to show why we had been stopped.😲

Between yearly FL road trips since 1991, two of our girls going to college out of state (West Virginia and Roanoke VA) and now our oldest living near Philly, we’ve driven I95 North & South more times than I can ever count.  IMO, South Carolina has the worst road conditions.  The two lanes are bad enough but the road surface in many areas is awful.  There are some nice stretches of 95 in northern Maryland and as someone else mentioned, the ‘new’ NJ Turnpike although even that is once again under construction.  There’s been ongoing and never ending road work on I95 in CT as long as I can remember.  As far as the DC Metro area & VA, I have three words - EZPass Express Lanes. We will never not pay whatever the fee is to use these (when they’re available).  

[jagsfan]

15 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Nice to see the sun has come out in Sydney this afternoon.  View from my friends’ balcony on Ovation.

 

 

What a gorgeous sight that is!

 

[reallyitsmema]

3 minutes ago, ReneeFLL said:

Sometimes an emoji doesn’t change the meaning/intent of the comment. You have told people to “move on” several times when you are tired of the conversation.

 

I have never told anyone to move on.  I have suggested that people scroll through a topic that they weren't interested in as I have done many times in this thread.  Move along, nothing to see here is from Men and Black and a similar line was used in The Naked Gun and parodied in South Park and many, many memes.  It is a joke, plain and simple.

[jagsfan]

7 hours ago, dani negreanu said:

 

Same here, Renee.

 

I'm "keeping an eye" on Bella 2, and just had a promo email from El Al, that they'll be opening a FLL route. There's hope 😘

🤞🤞

[ATG]

4 hours ago, CruiszBug said:

 

Tom and his brother are leaving for the Masters, soon. His brother gets tickets every year. They are going to stop and play some golf in Savannah on the way there. I'm happy they are able to spend some guy time together doing something they love. Phoebe and I will try to stay out of trouble... 😇😄

Unless their tickets are tomorrow, I hope they brought rain gear.  Saturday the forecast is 50 as a high with 99% rain chance.  Augusta is about 45 minutes south of us and the warm weather we had early goofed up the azaleas.  One of our neighbors went to the Monday round and said it was not nearly as beautiful as usual.  This year they admitted 50,000 each practice day and 40,000 for the actual tournament.

[jagsfan]

7 hours ago, brillohead said:

Tuesday report on the newly discovered family!

We started the day with a mid-morning breakfast with my son joining, as well as my new Aunt Linda. And I did bring my pen and a notebook to write down all the immediate family members!  My grandfather had four kids with each of his three wives, and the family refers to them as his "litters"... "the first litter was these four kids, and our litter was Jack, Bill, Charles, and Linda, and then he married that old cross-eyed witch and that litter was these four kids...."  LOL  And then each of the brothers from my litter married / had kids with three different women.  Aunt Linda was the "easy" one -- she just has the one husband, but they still had four kids. 

After breakfast we went to their hotel to drop off Uncle Jack so he could put his swollen feet up on some pillows (sound familiar, Bella cruisers?).  Bill showed my son his Army pictures from Vietnam (my son just completed his Army enlistment at Christmastime) and gave him a medal from when he was in the Army.  

Then Bill drove me and Matthew around and showed us a few places he used to frequent back in the day (he lived here for five years in the late 60s/early 70s). We dropped my son off at his place for the afternoon, did a bit more driving around, then back to the hotel.  Bill and Jack told stories on each other all afternoon (these guys never stop teasing each other!), then we went off to meet "the kids" (my son and his girlfriend) for dinner.  

After dinner, Bill and Jack and I went out to Aunt Linda's house again, and I got to meet one of her daughters and son-in-law.  When it was time to leave, it was hugs all around again, and Linda hugged me tight, let go, then pulled me in for a second hug and told me how glad she was that I found them. 

 

I'm invited to "Easter Dinner" on Saturday night at Linda's house.  I will only be able to stay for a couple hours (because I work the night before and that night), but I can't pass up the opportunity to get to know these loving people!  I'm hoping I can get my son and his girlfriend to join... my son has half a dozen cousins (technically second cousins -- Aunt Linda's grandkids) who are right around his age (within five years in each direction), and I think he'd fit right in with these kids.  

We left Aunt Linda's and went back to the hotel. Bill and Jack were going to hit the road early this morning, so we said our goodbyes last night.  Not gonna lie, I teared up a little saying goodbye to Bill... this sweet man is still beating himself up for not knowing about me for the past 50+ years, and nothing I say will stop him from feeling guilty about something he had no possible way of knowing about.  I hope that with time he'll learn to just accept it like I have, and just enjoy the time we do have together now that we know the truth.

And I don't usually post pics on CC, but I feel like you guys are invested in the story.... here's a pic of me with Bill at dinner last night:

 

 

Oh, and my luck has officially run out -- I had five tickets for last night's Mega Millions lottery drawing, and I had one number on one ticket and one number on another, so no big Group Cruise courtesy of the Michigan Lottery!  😂
 

You’ve given me and probably everyone else such joy by sharing your story!

Sometimes in this sad old world, something really wonderful happens!

❤️❤️❤️

[jagsfan]

5 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

I'm finally caught up.  I've been on a guy's golf trip to Pinehurst Resort the last 4 days.  Way too much alcohol, not nearly enough sleep, and a lot more physical activity than I'm used to, means I'll need a couple of days to recover.  

 

For those not familiar with Pinehurst, it's located in North Carolina about an hour from Raleigh.  It's known as the cradle of American golf, with the first course there opened in 1901.  They currently have 9 courses, which are all known by a number.  We played No. 2, No. 8, and No. 9, plus their par 3 course called The Cradle.  Pinehurst Number 2 is the most famous course.  It has hosted 3 US Opens (and will do so again in 2024 plus 4 more times in the future), a US Women's Open, a Ryder Cup, a PGA Championship, and numerous other senior and amateur tournaments.  It's a bucket list course for golfers.  It has brutally hard greens that are high in the middle and slope away in all directions.  You must hit a great shot to keep the ball on the green.  If you roll off (which happened to me WAY more often than not), you have a difficult chip shot, or long putt from off the green, to try to get back near the hole.  That course kicked my butt!  It really makes you appreciate the talent that professional golfers have.  They play a very different game of golf than I do.

 

We stayed in the Carolina Hotel, which is a 100+ year old, 4 diamond hotel.  The hotel itself was great but service across the resort was generally poor, especially in restaurants.  That seems to be a common problem everywhere these days.  However, we had a great drink called Eagle Fashion.  

The recipe is Makers Mark Bourbon, Muddled Orange, Cherry and Brown Sugar with Maple Syrup and Bitters over an Ice Sphere, garnished with a Slice of Bacon.  Yup, bacon.  Bacon really does make everything better.  Eating that slice of bacon (that has soaked up the cocktail) once the liquid is gone is a great way to finish a drink.  

 

While I'm glad we went there, and especially played the No. 2 course, that resort is a one and done for me.  My friends had the same opinion.  There are several golf resorts that I haven't yet been too (Bandon Dunes in Oregon and the Kohler Resort in Wisconsin in particular), and many that I very much want to return to (Kiawah, Bay Hill, Streamsong, PGA National), that are ahead of a return visit to Pinehurst.

Bob, have you been to the World Golf Hall of Fame off 95 just north of St Augustine?

It is going to move to Pinehurst, but in a much reduced form. 
The Hall of Fame is full of the history of the game (that where I mostly volunteered for 5 years), it has a locker room full of mementos lent by the pros, and so much more. 
Worth a trip while it’s still there. 

[jagsfan]

5 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We're usually only on I-95 as far north as the I-26 interchange to Columbia.  I hadn't been on I-95 north of I-26 in more than 20 years.  I was really surprised how bad some sections of that road were.  Come on SC...do a little road maintenance.

You should have driven through SC in the 40’s and 50’s. 
It was  like the 20th century didn’t exist between the state lines. 
The roads have vastly improved since then!

[HBE4]

26 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

I have never told anyone to move on.  I have suggested that people scroll through a topic that they weren't interested in as I have done many times in this thread.  Move along, nothing to see here is from Men and Black and a similar line was used in The Naked Gun and parodied in South Park and many, many memes.  It is a joke, plain and simple.

 

My family have been using the "Move along, nothing to see here folks" line for as long as I can remember. Not sure who started it but at least I now know where it came from.

 

 

P.S. - Part of the magic of Dani's thread, I can learn things about my own family. 😀 Although I guess we added the word "folks". Making it our own, I guess. LOL.

 

P.S.S - The guy in the video is having a really bad day. 😁

Edited April 5, 2023 by HBE4

[A&L_Ont]

Made it to Toronto, after a heavy rain the whole way. Dinner at the Keg. Food porn to come. 

[ReneeFLL]

8 hours ago, dani negreanu said:

 

Same here, Renee.

 

I'm "keeping an eye" on Bella 2, and just had a promo email from El Al, that they'll be opening a FLL route. There's hope 😘

You can always ride up to Port Canaveral with us.

[A&L_Ont]

Blue cheese wedge. 
 

Petite Filet. 
 

[brillohead]

6 hours ago, dpostman said:

 

 

I cannot comment on how well this works on Macs, but I use Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows and have been using the Tour Box Neo controller for the past year.  I'm really enjoying it and had increased my efficiency substantially.  Once you get everything setup to your liking and customized the many buttons to your most used functions, it is faster than keyboard shortcuts.  There is also a wireless (I think Bluetooth) version, but I have the USB version.  It is also quite hefty so it does not slide around and feels nice.  It also changes it's functions automatically to whatever software/window is active.  I even use it in Excel.

 

dp

 

 

Wow, I bet that makes a HUGE difference when editing video!