Denise T

67 days to go. Our first port on this trip will be our embarkation port, Quebec. We are flying in two days early. We fly from Philadelphia to Toronto and then to Quebec. We are staying at a cute little hotel, Auberge St. Pierre. We will be in Quebec on 10/7 around 6 pm. we will be spending one whole day walking around before our cruise begins on the 9th. I have been watching YouTube videos highlighting Quebec and I am exciting to see it in person. One thing I know is that this is my vacation. I do not expect perfection (no one is perfect). Ports might get cancelled or the times in port might change. Flights might be delayed. Food might not be 100% perfect. I don't anticipate starving. I plan to have fun and enjoy myself. I don't get away very often. So regardless of what happens, nothing will stop me from having a great time. Even those conspiracy theories that suggest the powers that be of NCL (all cruise lines really) are sitting in their offices scheming about how they will cheat their customers will not deter me from enjoying my vacation. Nah. Not happening.

Happy Saturday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. We had thunderstorms yesterday. Now it is very humid. High of 89 today with perhaps more rain. My vegetables are loving it. Kept losing power yesterday which meant my Internet was going in and out which is rather frustrating when your work involves using the Internet. Oh well. Doing some chores around the house today. 67 days until my cruise. United sent my e-tickets. All set, just have to pack. Bon Voyage to @ski ww! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating, Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Friday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Another hot one today. Working on a ton of things today so this will keep me busy. Chiropractor appointment this morning. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Thursday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Very hot today. High of 95 expected. Back to the heat. Yuck. Busy with clients and my class today. 69 days until I cruise. My nephew's wedding is next month, and I need to go shopping for an outfit to wear. Nothing much else going on. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

I am not an extremely experienced cruiser, which is okay. This will be my third cruise. I have another scheduled for next year and hope to schedule many more. Each cruise, you learn something new, especially when it comes to things like packing. Packing can be a challenge, and I tend to overpack. I have huge envy for those who can go on a 10-day cruise with just a carry on. I hope to get there someday. On my first NCL cruise two years ago, I overpacked. I took clothes that I never wore. On my Alaska trip last year with HAL, I learned about packing for layering which was very helpful. I also packed a little less. This time around it will be a 10-day cruise and with coming in early and leaving a day late, we are looking at being away for 13 days. Longest time for a vacation that I ever took. I know, I know. I am a workaholic. I am learning to be less so. Since the cruise is in October, looking ahead at the weather, it looks to be highs around 60 and lows in the 40s. I know that two years ago, I had packed shorts and am glad I did because we had very warm and sunny days. I will definitely bring a pair this time. I will bring one pair of dressy pants for eating in specialty restaurants and a couple of dressy tops. I will be packing items that I can mix and match and reuse so that I do not overpack. I may take advantage of the laundry service. I am a mere Bronze in loyalty status, so it is not free. Who know. I will have more info on what I am packing a little closer to the cruise. I am a planner. My sister refers to me as her "travel agent" as I am the one making all of the arrangements. I love my sister, but if I leave things to her, it will never get done. If it does get done, it will be at the last minute and my anxiety will have been to the roof.

I say, go ahead and post. Celebrate the upcoming cruise! If they shake their head and laugh, that's on them. Where are you sailing to?

Happy Wednesday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. I thought that I would get rain last night. No such luck. Maybe this morning? The usual for today, grading assignments. I have been working on statistics for my dissertation. Uuuugh. I have always disliked statistics and I think I try delaying working on it. Just can't do that anymore if I want this thing done. 70 days until the cruise! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Tuesday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Might get some rain this evening. Several meetings today and work on my classes. Other than that, nothing much going on. 71 days to go until my cruise. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Yes, I know, it’s 72 days until my cruise. But I am so excited that I wanted to share my adventures preparing for our (my sister and I) cruise to Canada/New England on board the Norwegian Sky October 9 through the 19, 2024. I will switch this to a live review once I board. So, get ready and come along as I share my experiences with you! A little about me. I have sailed with Norwegian before on the Pearl to Canada/New England 2 years ago. That was my first ever cruise. I loved it! I loved the Pearl which will always have a special place in my heart. The Pearl is a great ship, I am not one for the big ships. I love smaller ships and the Pearl did not disappoint. It was small and easy to maneuver. We had a balcony cabin. We will always book a balcony as my sister tends to be claustrophobic, but we like to be outside. The service was great, and we enjoyed the cruise so much. The itinerary took us from Boston, Charlottetown, Sydney, Halifax, Bar Harbor, Portland, and back to Boston. I remember the excitement on cruise day as my sister and I were going to breakfast at the hotel and saw the Pearl in port. Sail away was later than planned but sailing away in the evening with all of the lights was amazing. We opted to tour all of the ports on our own. We are not big guided tour people. We knew when we disembarked, we would be back. This cruise is on the Sky. Yes, it is smaller and older. So, I am looking forward to experiencing an even smaller ship. I am not a big fan of huge ships. This time around we have an aft balcony so this will be a first for us. Yes, it is on deck 10 underneath the Great Outdoors so I do expect that we will have some noise. But sitting on the balcony watching the wake is going to be fantastic. Our trip starts in Quebec. I have never been there. I researched and watched YouTube videos of Quebec and it looks beautiful. We are coming in two days early. Our hotel is the Auberge St. Pierre, a cute little hotel. It is located a few blocks from the port. We will spend one day walking around and seeing the sites. Our goal for this trip will be to try different restaurants within each port so we are doing lots of research and making plans. I love getting to know the ports before I get there. We will visit Saguenay, Halifax, Sydney, Charlottetown, Bar Harbor, Portland, Boston, and disembark in Baltimore. We will spend the night in Baltimore before flying home. We were a little worried about the bridge collapse and the closure of the port but that is no longer a concern. Sometimes you have to be ready to pivot because you never know what might happen. We are all set. Hotels are reserved, flights booked, and we have our car service set up to get us to and from the airport. Just need to wait and pack. We do have two excursions planned, a duck boat tour in Halifax and the Hop on-hop off in Boston. We may book others, who knows. The plan is to post live each day of the cruise and take lots of pictures. We are not picky cruisers. We both work so hard and hardly take time off, so any time that we don’t have to cook or clean and can have a drink whenever we want, we know we will have a good time. Will there be disappointments, maybe. I don’t much care for the flying but once on the ship, we intend to have a great time. So, until I get on that ship, share your experiences on the Sky or this itinerary. What questions might you want answered while I am on the cruise?

Happy Monday! Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Expecting a partly cloudy day today, highs in the upper 80s. My usual grading of assignments for today. Working on some other projects as well. Now that I am working completely from home now, I have to remember to take breaks and get out of the house. Working on redecorating the office as well. It has to serve many purposes for several businesses. 72 days until I cruise. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Sunday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Cool this morning but will hit the 90s today. Going back into the heat. Maybe doing some yard work. Having a Zoom visit with family. 73 days to go for the cruise. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Saturday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. A lovely cool morning here. If only summer stayed this way. Nothing really planned for today. Perhaps I will watch some of the Olympics. 74 days until my cruise. I just made my car service reservations. I use a local limousine company whenever I go to the airport as I cannot stand driving there. So, everything is all set for the cruise. Just have to wait and pack. Bon voyage to @Horizon chaser 1957! Happy birthday to @superoma! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Friday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Sunny today. Should be around 83. Watched the deer this morning. I have a massage scheduled for today and then it is back to grading assignments, a never-ending task. Officially 75 days until cruise day. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Thursday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Cloudy today. Going up to 83. Woke up with a sore throat. Hoping just due to allergies. Spending the day grading assignments. Will also be dealing with my liability and business insurance today to make changes because I now work from home. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Wednesday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Rainy day today. Lots of paperwork stuff to do. Grading of assignments as well. Now that I am working from home, it is easy for me to forget that I need to get out for my own sanity. Hopefully as it cools down, I will take Fancy out to the park more often. 77 days until my cruise! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Tuesday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Warmish, highs in the upper 80s today. Yesterday we celebrated Fancy's gotcha day. She is such a sweetheart. Mischievous but well behaved. She brings such joy to my heart. Grading assignments as usual. Oh, and 78 days until that much needed cruise. We disembarked in Vancouver last June when we were on our Alaska cruise on Nieuw Amsterdam. Happy birthday to @summer slope! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Good Monday morning. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Not much happening here. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Sunday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Safe travels to all who are trying to get to their destinations. Well, the furniture is out of the office and in storage. Today, I need to paint some areas where the 3M tape did not do what they were supposed to do and come off the wall without damaging anything. I then need to vacuum the carpet. Then this chapter will be closed. It gets better. When my sister and I returned home we notices a trail of liquid on the driveway and on to the street. After parking the car, it looks like something leaked from the bottom of my car. We thought transmission or power steering. I was able to call the shop and they said bring the car right over. As I got in the care to take it over to the shop, I noticed that the carpet on the passenger side was soaked! There was nothing there that spilled, and this was a lot of water. I take it in, expecting the worse. Even started to look at buying another car. Turns out it was an oil leak due to the shop not properly sealing or closing something after my oil change last week and oil spilled out. The water was due to a clogged AC hose. They fixed these with no charge. They did find that I had a bolt in my tire. Because all of my other tires were pretty good, they said I can just replace the one. I had them do that. So, very good news. Even better news is that there are 80 days until my much-needed cruise! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Saturday. Thanks for the daily and fleet reports. Spending the day moving furniture from my office to storage. Some sadness in that I built my practice here. Some bitterness towards the landlord for not renewing the lease and refusing to tell me why. Some frustration yesterday trying to get my business internet sorted with Verizon. I want to cancel; they are trying to get me to transfer the contract to my home office, but I do not need it as I already have Internet. Transferred me to five different departments and I was supposed to get a call by noon yesterday. Nope. I got a message around 4 pm stating they will call me on Monday. I am not holding my breath. Oh well. Now to get my home office fixed up and redecorated. Did I mention there are 81 days until my cruise??? Bon Voyage to @cunnorl and @St Pete Cruiser! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Friday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Sunny and a high of 84 today. Just a tad cooler. I will take it. Having my business Internet connected in my home. I would have cancelled but I am in the middle of a contract and cancelling would have cost me $700. Tomorrow I will be moving the last of the furniture out of the office. At lease I will save on rent and travel time. Happy anniversary to @Lady Hudson. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Thursday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Got more rain yesterday. Temperatures have cooled but very humid. Going up to 85 today. Clients and my class scheduled for today. Saturday, we move the rest of my furniture out of the office, and I will be officially working from home. Now, I just have to fix up my home office. I need it to be very flexible as I produce videos and a podcast from there as well. So, I will teach my classes in there. I will see my therapy clients (virtually) and I am building a travel business. I have a wall that is going to be the backdrop for the videos and need to figure how to incorporate all of these elements. Sometimes I get overwhelmed just thinking about it. Deep breath. @kochleffel, as a diabetic, those hypoglycemic episodes are no fun. I have not had one in over a year since my doctor took me off of one of my medications that would drop my sugar too low. Take care of yourself. Bon voyage @Lady Hudson! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Wednesday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. We had several rounds of thunderstorms yesterday evening. Cooled things down ever so slightly. Expecting 90s today with more showers later. At least the vegetable garden got watered. One less thing for me to do. Spending the day grading assignments. 84 days until my cruise! It may be a little too early to pack. Happy anniversary to @Crazy For Cats! Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Tuesday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet reports. Another hot one. Going up to 96 today. I am over summer now. Nothing much planned except the usual work today. 85 days until my cruise. But who's counting? Bon voyage @Norseh2o Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.

Happy Monday. Thanks for the Daily and Fleet report. I love salmon. I was disappointed when I went out to eat with my sister this past Saturday and we informed that they were out of salmon. Hot and humid did, high up to 95. We did get a good drenching rain yesterday afternoon after I weeded and watered the vegetable garden. Won't need to water today. Lots of assignments to grade today and then later this evening I have a committee meeting in which I will be taking over the leadership role. 86 days until my cruise. Thinking of all on the care list. Celebrating with all who are celebrating. Have a safe and healthy day.