PelicanBill

Always consider public use machines and public networks to be dangerous places. Don't log in to your banking and similar critical accounts. Logging in to your email isn't a great thing to do either, but from your own machines you have active session tokens instead if sending your password. Don't enter your passwords on a cafe machine.

Ah yes it could cause some steering around for a transatlantic! So today it is Tropical Storm Sebastien. I'm not going to make a new post as this won't generate a lot of worry or interest.

Thanks for the terrifically fun report. Hope to run into you on some future cruise or even here in cloudy, cold Rochester!

Yup. Was just there and the pier can't take more than one ship. But it was a lovely place for relaxing. Better than Coco Cay and what Carnival is doing with that!

I was on Breakaway at these ports in October (your 4th port should be Cozumel.) The only advice I can give is the announcement to go ashore was typically given 15-30 minutes AFTER they cleared the ship and let people go ashore. So if you want to be off quickly, be in the Atrium on deck soon after you see the ship tying up to the dock. Watch the line at forward stairs. get in it when it starts to get longer and follow when it starts moving down the stairs. in Roatan, your outside excursions typically line up outside the gates on the road. in Harvest Caye, as was mentioned, you have to get ferry tickets for everyone (can arrange on the ship at the excursion desk or when you arrive.) Excursions meet at the ferry dock in Placencia (mainland.) In Costa Maya you have to get outside the gate (long convoluted walk to get out) and maybe take a taxi or the open air tram if you are going to the beach area. In Cozumel you cross the pedestrian bridge and need directions from your provider. The outside excursion buses and taxi stand is ground floor at the back of the mall.

I also have been refused at customer service due to being low on small bills. So I always go to the bank now and have envelopes for every port and for the ship extra tips and work out how many I need of every size bill ahead of time.

Well it's hard to believe, but on November 18 we are watching an area with 50% chance to develop east of the lesser Antilles... or east of St. Maarten. It is forecast to make a strong curve to the north and if it follows that path it would also go well away from Bermuda.

On Breakaway a few weeks ago. No drinks IN the pool but okay on the sides. Drinks were allowed in the Hot tubs, or at least no enforcement as I think the policy is no drinks but rarely enforced. They were very quick to spot glass and bring a plastic cup to transfer your drink.

Yes. "Six", about the Six wives of Henry VIII from London's West End starts next week.

No change really today. It's been a weird season... but do I dare say it's over?

Well for those disagreeing, I have seen a couple cruises where few people out of 300 in discussion got upgrade invitations. And they came in waves. Some. at 80. Some a month later.

As a society we have an amazing capacity to ignore negligence when it is a family member or parent responsible, and call it an tragedy or terrible accident. The consequence is that we tolerate many deep pockets lawsuits to deflect blame -- and as one poster put it, try to replace their loss with money and focus on others rather than themselves.. That drives up costs, and closes or alters facilties for the rest of us. The most common example is child pool drownings in pools without lifeguards. Look at what has happened at Disney - several settled lawsuits in large sums, with all pools fenced, more lifeguards and hours reduced to afford lifeguards. I am glad to see the arrest. Let's have a jury decide if this was an accident or negligence.

No upgrade invite with one big agency, did get one with another agency. Invites are also driven by how many unsold cabins there are and in what categories. If all suites and Spa balconies are sold out, there is no sense asking the rest of the Balconies to upgrade...

we have this weirdo hanging around. Maybe it's because it's almost Halloween?

So here's the latest on the gulf storm. It has reached depression status and looks to get a name later as a tropical storm. It will be weak though and drop back to depression as soon as it comes ashore in west-central Louisiana. Then it's going to travel quickly up the Mississippi River Valley and merge with the other storm bringing lots of mucky weather to ... well interesting to see it projected to head to Michigan today as yesterday they were saying Ohio River Valley and eastward. So maybe this storm has more force than the other one and it will all turn more northward a while. We'll see. There's another likely tropical disturbance near the Azores, but going east over the islands and not this way.