mahdnc

We are going to sail on Summit this Saturday. The Chef's Table sold out well in advance.

Although the day started off with heavy fog and overcast skies, by the time the eclipse started we thankfully had clear skies in southern Illinois. Aug 2017 eclipse photo taken 30 miles south of the 2024 viewing location:

We took a small trip to southern Illinois to watch and photograph last week's spectacular total solar eclipse. It was the 3rd total solar eclipse for my wife and me. click/tap on the images to make them larger click/tap on the images to make them larger I took a look at the solar eclipses in the future to see if there were any that would visit the Galapagos Islands. Well it turns out that the Galapagos will see a solar eclipse on Wed Jan 26 2028! The bad news is that it will not be a total eclipse where the moon fully covers the sun--like the one last week. Instead it will be an annular eclipse where the moon goes completely in front of the sun, but the moon's disc will be too small to cover all of the sun. This results in the dark moon's disc being surrounded by a ring of bright light (link to image). The internet and the press like to sensationalize this by call it a "ring of fire" (astronomers do not refer it that way). The good news is that the eclipse will be underway when the sun rises at the Galapagos. At maximum eclipse, the sun will only be 17 degrees above the horizon (at 7:25 am) which will make for awesome photos of this "ring of fire" with spectacular foreground opportunities and vivid morning colors. Being low on the horizon also means that the sun will not be as intensely bright or hot which is another good thing (you will still need to wear some type of eye protection to directly look at an annular eclipse however). The above diagram is reproduced with permission from "Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC".

My wife and I were on Xpedition over Thanksgiving and we had an awesome time. We originally had booked the sailing on Xploration because it was the cheapest. However we opted for Xpedition because I am prone to seasickness and figure the larger ship would be a bit better and our cabin had balcony. The fact that Xpedition is only licensed to carry half the passengers she is actually built to carry is an enormous plus. That meant lots more space for everyone in the public areas. We simply did not want to pay extra for Flora although she is a beautiful ship. The one functional advantage that Flora has is that her zodiacs are designed to be much easier to get into and out of.

I have updated the summary PUP statistics: Number of PUP events broken down by year: Here are the number of Club Points that were available through the PUP program broken down by year and type of activity: Here is a table showing the amount of Club Points awarded through the PUP program broken down by month and year they were awarded:

The 3 points are now reflected in my total.

my points history shows it, but it is not yet reflected in my total.

As some of you will remember, when the Hot Glass Show was originally introduced on the first three Solstice class ships, the program was managed by the famous Corning Museum of Glass. Here is an old but interesting Q&A for prospective employees interested in taking an assignment on one of the Celebrity ships: link. It is 4 pages long and has some interesting insights.

Yes, I am planning on it and I am looking forward to getting back on Summit! This is the last time I saw Summit--in her old livery and she was docked at St. Maarten back in Jan 2015.

I’ve read your live thread several times over.

There seems to be a steady erosion in the number of on-demand movies available since 2014-ish is my observation. During our past Dec sailing on Solstice there were very few options. Most of the movies we watched were shown on a movie channel and very little from the on-demand library. Next Saturday we will be boarding Summit for her 14 night Panama Canal sailing which has 8 sea days. I am downloading a few movies onto my iPad because my expectations of onboard options are so low.

You could be back to Elite again—depending on the number of nights you spent with HAL.

If you were on HAL at the time, it is very possible that you will lose Club Points.

Since the 14th is a Sunday, I would look for it tomorrow.