Z'Loth

Here is the Twitter Feed showing you the latest interview slot availability.

You are better off utilizing a music streaming service if it isn't blocked by the ship's network than trying to use a satellite radio because of line of sight issues and the coverage area. Better still is pre-downloading your music to your mobile device so that network connectivity isn't required. Oh, yeah, and get some noise cancelling headphones. I know that not everyone appreciates my taste in Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, or Joe Hisaishi.

I booked my next cruise, which is occurring in September, 2022, last September before any of these airport issues were known. My mother and I were already planning on flying in on a Saturday for a Monday departure, giving us a day to explore Fort Lauderdale. My previous cruise which was in September 2018 had me flying in five days early. At that point, it was less about "flight delays" and more about "Gee, I have never been in Miami before, let me get some sightseeing in before my cruise."

In the interest of full disclosure... I have been providing technical support for one of the major online meeting providers for well over a decade, and Internet support for almost twenty-five years (back when online connectivity mean a dial-up connection... tortoise slow compared to the broadband connections such as cable and fiber). One of the measures of Internet connectivity is the latency between the server and your computer including the time between when you click on something on the page and the time the server responds. For your home internet connection, the latency is probably less than 100ms (1 second is 1000ms) depending on which web site you are using. Shipboard internet uses satellite Internet, which has latency between 594 ms to 624 ms, although the Starlink satellites has less latency due to using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. Therefore, it feels like web browsing is so slow on-board ship. The other issue is bandwidth. Since Internet is a shared resource on board ship, there are bandwidth constraints and traffic speed limitations (traffic shaping). Computer audio (VoIP) is very bandwidth hungry, and webcam video consumes even more traffic. It is well known that video streaming sites sites are blocked on-board ship for this reason alone unless you want to pay a premium. Will on-line meetings work? Provided that the IP ranges for the meeting servers aren't blocked, maybe. Will they work well? No, and you can expected delays in the audio, video, and screen sharing, if not dropped UDP packets resulting in audio or video loss.

Your camouflage wardrobe.

Here is a map.

Try this Twitter feed which monitors for open slots.

Compared to others, mine was short.... Sacramento to Washington DC to Miami.

I don't know... I'm just a tech with a business degree who understands business flow and processes, yet manages a tiny yet mighty support team for online conferencing for a specialized business segment. Last year, I had scheduled a week off in September for my birthday. This was booked in early April, yet I spent a good chunk of that birthday week managing a major upgrade. I was so upset at that blown vacation that I immediately booked one year out a 10-day cruise. That cruise went into "jeopardy" status last week due to some health issues with my 81-year-old mother. Those would have been challenges enough during a "normal" year, but with emphasis added in this post-Covid environment. Can you look at me with a straight face and tell me, back in July 2019, that within one year, we would be in the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu, and that we would be converting guest bedrooms, kitchen tables, and living rooms into home offices for "six weeks to flatten the curse"? Sure, the price of gas dropped to an average of $1.34 per gallon here in DFW in May, 2020, but where can you go? DFW International, which is one of the busiest airports in terms of passenger volume (the busiest is Atlanta), went from 75,066,956 passengers in 2019 to 39,364,990 in 2020, a 47.5602% decrease and a level not seen since the mid-1980s. It was announced in May, 2019 that they would finally construct Terminal F for completion by 2025, but that project is now on yet another indefinite hold. A transit project called the "Silver Line" to the DFW airport starting in 2019 and was originally supposed to be completed in 2022. Now, the expected completion date is 2024. But hey, things are getting back to normal, right? After 720 days of the "six weeks to flatten the curve", we can start going back to the office at the beginning of March, something that I have been anxiously looking forward to since it's a nice walk to work. Guess what also happened in March? Russia invades Ukraine with the result that the average USA gas price jumps from $3.50 per gallon at the beginning of March to $4.32 per gallon in mid-March. How about mortgage rates? At the beginning of this year, Fannie Mae predicted that 30 year fixed mortgage rates would climb from 3.1% to 3.3% by the end of the year, while the Mortgage Bankers Association predicted rates would be 4%. They are now around 5.70%. Nobody expected the events of the past three years. You have to take a look at the data, take your best guess, and hope for the best. If you are seeing a 50% drop in passenger volume, do you continue to fly planes empty into bankruptcy, or do you reduce costs? If car production drops, do you cancel orders, or have completed cars rusting away in fields? We are seeing the effects of those decisions today, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.

Here is what I make sure to pack... The passport. No passport, no cruise, no refund. And I make sure it on me when I board, not in my luggage. Spray-on sunscreen. Power Splitter Cord. Surge-protected power strips are confiscated because they are fire hazards on ships because of the way the power is handled. Multi-port USB Quick Charger (Multivoltage). That way, I can charge multiple devices at once. Extra USB cables. Bluetooth headset. Water shoes.

I just blame it on 2020+2 and move on.

My current vehicle, a 2013 Buick Verano, has 95K miles on it. I'm taking nice, loving care on it as I don't think I can purchase a replacement until I get my home paid off. Thank goodness I don't drive much anymore.

From Live and Let's Fly (published April 29th, 2022): Ouch: American Airlines Fires 50 Flight Attendants For Dereliction Of Duty "American Airlines has fired 50 flight attendants who failed to report for duty on reserve, as their contract required. The move disproportionately hits junior flight attendants but should come as no surprise to those who deliberately violated their contract by not actually being able to fly while on company time." FULL ARTICLE HERE From AviationPros (published June 1st, 2022): ITA Pilot Fired After Allegedly Sleeping During Long-Haul Flight "The captain of a long-haul flight between New York and Rome was fired after accusations that he fell asleep and was unavailable while flying over France on May 1." FULL ARTICLE HERE In case you haven't noticed, it's 2020+2, and there are multiple challenges facing the world economy affecting more than just airlines. Tried to purchase a car lately--either new or used? Good luck getting what you want off the lot.

Reno Tahoe International (RNO) is also a two-hour drive away from SMF, although "International" means a single destination in Mexico (Guadalajara). What surprises me is that, despite living in Northern California for 41 years, I haven't been in SFO since the early 1980s, and definitely not to OAK, SJC, or RNO.

At least Kansas City International (MCI) is slightly better than Sacramento International (SMF) in terms of number of destinations, but only slightly. One of the reasons why I accepted (and embraced) relocation from Sacramento to DFW was the better flights from DFW International (DFW) and Dallas Love Field (DAL).

Non-cruise related, but the only time I had a major flight issue was when I was on a business trip returning home in July, 2017. Due to a major power issue that affected not only Costa Rica, but parts of neighboring countries as well that significantly delayed the departure time from San Jose, and I missed my connecting flight (although my suitcase made the flight). It was much easier to just call United Airlines than to stand in line, plus they were able to transfer me to Hotels.com at United's rates so I had a place to stay until my departure the following evening. It helped that I didn't get upset at the agent because it was 100% out of United's control, especially when the airport was not allowing any airline departures.

Now, the advice, per this Cruise Critic article Flying to Your Cruise: How to Travel This Summer Amid the Chaos, is to fly in two days in advance instead of one.

Anyone who calls for an industry to the "nationalized" should keep in mind that they are asking for a system that has the efficiency of the DMV and the compassion of the IRS. No, thank you. The airline industry is already a very regulated industry. You are also very ignorant of the events that have occurred since 2020 to the point that I've been calling this year 2020+2 instead of 2022. Remember, in the spring of 2020, the prevailing conventional wisdom was that all the shutdowns/lockdowns would precipitate a massive economic recession and it would take years for demand to recover even once things started to reopen. Most companies therefore made their decisions about how to handle the situation assuming this would be the case, and then got caught short when demand suddenly roared back way faster than expected. Many were laid off, and some used this opportunity to either pursue another career path if not retire entirely. You cannot hire someone on a Monday and expect them to crew a flight by Thursday. Even someone who was laid off and was rehired needs to be retrained on the latest corporate and government policies and procedures. That takes weeks. The same comments can be made of the rental car industry. In order to have cash, the rental agencies had to liquidate their inventories of then-idle inventory. Now, everyone wants to travel again, and because of supply chain issues, they are facing the same challenges in purchasing new cars that you and I have should be need a new (or used) vehicle at the moment.

There was just an article published on Cruise Critic (anyone heard of them? 😅) titled Flying to Your Cruise: How to Travel This Summer Amid the Chaos in which the author advocates "Arrive in Your Departure Port Two Days Before Your Cruise" simply because of the current challenges posed by the airlines. Also, "Download the Airline’s App, and Search Social Media".

I found this twitter feed....

I'm a technogeek, and I would be very hesitant about purchasing any electronics or watches (beyond a el-cheap-o watch so that you don't become a featured YouTube Pier Runner).... period. You can get better deals and selection from home.

Looks like Celebrity now have six tours available for that stop.

It also depends on the time of year. When I took a September 2018 10 day cruise on Celebrity, there were a total of six kids (all non-school age) on the cruise. It was also a shoulder-season cruise, thus it was cheaper.

I'm starting to plan out what I'm going to do for the 10 Night Ultimate Southern Caribbean this fall. According to the itinerary, these are the ports of call: Day 4 - St. Johns, Antigua Day 5 - Castries, St. Lucia Day 6 - Bridgetown, Barbados Day 7 - Fort De France, Martinique Day 8 - Basseterre, St Kitts & Nevis Of these ports, Celebrity isn't listing any excursions for Fort De France, Martinique at this time. Maybe I shouldn't worry this much, but with the cruise just over 140 days away, I'm surprised that there aren't any offerings for this port of call.