jpalbny

After years of only cruising Silver Wind and Silver Cloud, we too felt a little disoriented making the big move up to Silver Spirit. Can only imagine the quantum leap that you're experiencing! Looking forward to hearing about it in due time. Enjoy!

The abbreviations and acronyms in the medical profession drive me nuts. The kids these days make complicated descriptions out of everything, but then turn them into garbled acronyms. A simple concept like heart failure, which can be systolic or diastolic, has morphed into "Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction" or with "Reduced Ejection Fraction" which they write HF-pEF or HF-rEF. But they say "heff-peff" or "heff-reff" which sounds so silly. And since they can only speak in this weird new language, they can't explain things to patients very well. OK rant over. Just get off my lawn!

Ron, not much smoke from that hot rock! Did you ask for a cold rock so that you didn't overcook the filet?

I've almost been there. In fact from a technical point of view, maybe I have? We've stood at the corner of Argentina and Brazil, where we could see Paraguay, waving to us from the opposite shore. We've been on a boat ride along the Paraná River, and we definitely crossed the midpoint, but we didn't touch the opposite shore. So we were in Paraguayan waters. And the most objective evidence? Naturally, I picked up a cell phone signal and got the message, 'Welcome to Paraguay! Your T-mobile plan gives you..." So, have I been there? I didn't put a star on my map. But, awfully close! Great journalism. Hook the audience with a stunner in the first line, and they can't stop reading until the question is resolved!

Now that you mention it... Is this a new move by RCL to cut down on food costs?

Wow! Thanks @Reef Knot, for sharing. We'll be on board in less than 8 weeks, hopefully the waves aren't as bad.

I just emailed them, after I'd made the reservation. It was hertz@hertz.is I think. Double check on their Iceland website.

I hear you...

Beautiful horses! Beaux chevaux! Wunderschöne Pferde! Thanks for sharing.

Looking forward to following along! Did you grab any extra anticuchos de anaconda for the trip? Sounds like a nice lunch special for the grill.

Devizes is known for its large horses too? I'd only heard of large ears! "There once was a man from Devizes, Whose ears were of two different sizes! The one which was small, Was of no use at all, But the other won several prizes!"

He's probably out food shopping!

Fletcher, taking one for the team!

Much more risk of cloudy skies. It would be spectacular in that location but I don't trust the weather! That eclipse reaches the Med too I believe. Maybe better luck there? Egypt should have a much better chance of clear skies, and the duration of totality is supposed to be over 6 minutes (!) for the 2027 eclipse. Thus my desire to see that one.

I have not done this itinerary but I'm on a similar Ponant voyage at about the same time. We'll be in Tromso on October 17th and I'm expecting the lights to be there to greet us! I expect cloudiness to be more of an impediment, than the lack of the Aurora, per se. For clothing - prepare to dress warmer than you think you need to. For our Ponant voyage (Reyjavik to Tromso) I'm bringing warm clothing and also our Silversea Parkas (both layers). We did a trip to Northern Finland in November 2022, and while the lower-intensity Aurora looked like a gray film, the brighter ones were definitely colorful and we could see the greens with our own eyes. It was spectacular! But it's true that the less bright the Aurora, the more gray it appears.