StLouisCruisers

Good morning friends! It's a clear, cold morning with a temp of 33F. The remainder of the day will be sunny and 60 degrees. I wish the big storm wasn't on the way tomorrow! Today is DGS Ren's 17th birthday so I want to wish our boy a very happy birthday! In addition I wish safe travels for all travelers today and through the weekend. Two family members cancelled their flight to Florida to board the Rotterdam due to the approaching storm and will be driving for two days to get there. Flights are too iffy anymore to trust getting to the ship. And twin, DBIL and niece Amy will be flying to Houston for a possibly final visit with DBIL's terminally ill sister. And for everyone on the roads please be careful! Thank you Jacqui @kazu for posting our Fleet Report and Daily for Rich. A lot of people smoked back in the 1960's when the warnings on smoking came out. These days I know virtually no one personally who smokes! I agree Melanie @puppycanducruise, as a girl I will hug my boy, too! Never been interested in hot toddies. A unique take with the quote today. I'm not interested in the meal, drink or wine today. Great days in history with the morse code, insulin for diabetes and the cigarette warning coming about on this date. Thanks ladies for your reports on F&B's - Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard. Prayers for all in Israel and Ukraine, the hostages still held, and our military in danger from rocket fire at bases and on ships in the region. Also for DB, friends Scott and Bob and their supportive wives, everyone here on the Daily in pain, in need of surgery or medical procedures, and those who have lost loved ones. A toast to those cruising and celebrating those happy events!! Thank you so much Vanessa @JazzyV for your hard work reading and noting our many trials and tribulations, as well as joyous happenings. Hope you are feeling better soon! Our port of Nha Trang, Vietnam has only been listed here once before, on Sept. 28, 2022. We were there once before way back in 2010 on Diamond Princess. Here's the link for you if you need it. Hoping FedEx can make it to our street today after promising my package was on the truck yesterday for delivery. If it gets to be 5 pm they just turn around and head back to Macon. What a way to run a business! Have a safe day everyone and get prepared for the storms coming!

Melisa, @HAL Sailer thank you for checking in to let us know. We send you lots of hugs and many prayers!

Terri, I've awakened early like that for a couple years now. I wouldn't know what to do if I slept all night long and woke up at 7 or 8 am! I do stay in bed when I wake up and try to get back to sleep. That's why I said I doze. Once in a while I'll doze for 20 minutes or so but I have a habit of waking up at a certain time for exercise. This morning I did go back to bed after I threatened it. Put on a sleep mask and piled on the blankets, turned on the white noise machine and rested. No sleep. But it felt good to be lazy for a change!

Thank you Graham. It's still dark and cold, and I'm sleepy so maybe I should go back to bed now! DH got up at around 2:30 and turned off the security system (with accompanying chirps) and went outside to get our rain gauge since it's partly made of glass and the temps were dropping towards freezing. It could have held some rain in it and would freeze. Then the alarm went back on with more chirps and by then I was wide awake. I normally wake up around 3:30 to 4 and doze a bit until exercise time but had my rest interrupted too much. 😴💤

Good morning friends! As I mentioned last night we had 5 inches of rain yesterday, and last night the winds were howling as temperatures dropped. This morning it's 35 with partly cloudy skies and the high will only be about 48F. January seems like it will be an active weather month. Thank you Jacqui @kazu for posting the Fleet Report and Daily for Rich. I have no objections to bittersweet chocolate, houseplant appreciation and cutting energy costs. I'm not sure what to think of the quote. I'm sure the slow cooked short ribs will be good. Not a fan of the cocktail but would try the sauvignon blanc. Thanks to Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard for the F&B reports. Prayers said for all my Daily friends especially Vanessa @JazzyV, Roy @rafinmd, and Terri @Cruzin Terri. Many prayers for DB and DGD, Scott and Bob and wives who care for them. And last but not least people of Israel and Ukraine, the hostages held and troops under fire at sea and on land. Sorry to hear of your fall Jacqui @kazu and resulting pain and tenderness. Get better quickly and stay safe! Hip hip hooray for all celebrating happy events and cruises! Enjoy them! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for the list keeping! The port today is Sasebo, Japan which was also our port on Nov. 13, 2021 and May 23, 2022. I have not been to Sasebo before so have no photos. If you have been and would like to share photos we would be very pleased. Here are the links to help you out. In the past we've seen Nagasaki attached to Sasebo and Nagasaki has different dates so if anyone needs those posted let me know. I try to keep up with the Daily during the day as I work on my cross stitch project. I would love to grab a nap today but feel guilty if I don't get enough done on the stocking each day. Dilemmas! Have a good day everyone and try to stay out of that bad weather!

Terri, the liquid nitrogen freezing method (as you said cryotherapy) should heal pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure you will be healed in three weeks' time. Good luck tomorrow!

On our last cruise in August, we would go to Ocean Bar before dinner each night. DH and I noticed a woman who usually sat near us, who was alone every night. After a couple of days of this I got up and went over to her to ask if she would like to join us. She quickly agreed and we soon found out she was a recent widow. She was named Sharon from the Toronto area and this was only her second cruise since her husband passed away. We enjoyed sharing where we liked to cruise. After a few nights of inviting her to join us she started coming in and coming right over to us. We always enjoyed sharing the before dinner cocktail time with her and I know she smiled a lot more after that. Someday it may be one of us on a cruise ship without our partner and we would love to find others who would like our company.

Our total rain was 5 inches. All drained well here and I hope low lying areas are doing okay. Probably some soggy property here and there. This isn't a totally flat area.

Please be careful until this is over. Prayers for your area and that things calm down.🙏

I just looked outside at the rain gauge in our front yard and it's showing approximately 4.5 inches of rain since it started last night. We will have to dump it out before it gets too full and overflows. The loud noise from rain hitting the roof has stopped but it's still raining according to radar and my glance outside. If the forecast is correct we should be finished with rain by 1 pm. The golf course retention pond is within sight out the back of our house and it looks full. It actually looks like a pond right now. Thank you for the photos of the Balloon Fiesta. I love the multi-colored shapes and designs best. I also appreciate the description of what goes on, and your experience. Roy, thank you for the detailed report on your radiation treatment. I'm glad you don't have symptoms and hope you don't have any side effects this time either. Wishing you the best during this experience. Back to the cross stitching. It's been so dark in here this morning I have lamps on either side of me and the sunroom windows behind me. Plus I have to use my magnifying glass to read the directions and see if the needle has gone in the right hole. We just got me a much higher magnification magnifying glass. Back to work.

Welcome to the Daily (I think)! Go Blue back to you! DS (born in Michigan) got his undergraduate degree there but returned after graduate school to become faculty. He's been with them now for over 23 years. He's very excited about the win.🏈

Corinto, Nicaragua If you got out of town on a tour to Leon then you might have better memories but I wasn't impressed. Unfortunately, I have to admit we have been to Corinto, Nicaragua. It's near or at the top of my list of least favorite ports of call. I have no idea why the cruise lines go there unless they are very kindly trying to boost the economy there. But the passengers have to suffer a day spent there. I took photos and tried to make it look nice in my photo book, but it is what it is. First images are as the Westerdam approached the dock in March, 2016. It looked like it was large enough and there were buses waiting for tours. Kainoa, the destination guru, was outside on the dock when the dancers and musicians began their performances. This was as good as it got. The street you walked on to go to the center of town. One of the nicer kept establishments. Looking for something to do. There was caution tape to keep you out of this area, a market. There were some people who had bikes with a covered seat area behind them that would take you for a ride but I'm not sure what you would see. The closest picture I have is this one with the fella on the left sitting on his bike. I did see a few people hire one. In the center of town there was a dusty park where people were searching for Wi-Fi. Our entertainment? Close by was a statue of Padre Jose Schendel (it says so in my photo book) and I took a photo of it with my DGS's Flat Stanley. And a local church across the street. This whole walk took a little over an hour and some of that time was looking for Wi-Fi. I recommend the cruise lines find a better place to stop. This was a Panama Canal cruise by the way. I have heard Leon City is not a bad place to tour so recommend you try that.

Good morning friends! It is raining hard and thundering here in north central Georgia. Temp has risen overnight to 55 currently. We are under a flood watch and expect more heavy rain, wind and a high of 62 today. Stay safe everyone! Congrats to University of Michigan for their tremendous win last night. I needed more sleep and went to bed at halftime. But let me say "Hail! to the victors valiant. Hail! to the conquering heroes!" Michigan fans know the words! Sorry to all our U-Dub fans but I bet Nancy @ottahand7 is thrilled! DS bought me a new long sleeve Michigan T-shirt Sunday and promises to mail it to me soon. He's suffering with a cold and congestion after his vacay in Cozumel. Can't wait to wear my new shirt! Thank you Jacqui @kazu for posting Rich's Daily and Fleet Report. Let's start out with loving apricots and always keep some preserves in the house. Also we should recognize choreographers and balloon ascensions. I say Ha Ha! to the quote. I would love some minestrone soup but would hate an Angry Lobster and prefer white wine to red. All were important days in history on this date, but the more recent announcement of the IPhone was groundbreaking. Thanks to Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard for your reports today. Prayers for our Care list people especially Vanessa @JazzyV. Hoping for less pain and suffering, good doctor visits and medical procedures, and fast healing. Good luck today to Terri @Cruzin Terri and Jim as she drives through possible storms to Jacksonville for her skin cancer procedures. If she gets to Jacksonville before noon she should be alright. Prayers for Jake @Crazy For Cats and Juan as they mourn their beloved Amelia. Prayers also for DB, DGD, friends Scott and Bob and their supportive wives. We can't forget to mention those in Israel and Ukraine, the remaining hostages, and our troops on bases and ships in danger from rocket fire. In happier news, cheers to those cruising or leaving for their cruises, and everyone celebrating happy events. We are in the process of booking a 2026 Princess cruise roundtrip Los Angeles across the Pacific to NZ and Australia. No long flights! So I'll include us on the celebration list! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for your great lists everyday! Our port is Corinto, Nicaragua (Leon City). That was the port on July 5, 2021 and March 18, 2023. We've been there once and that should do it for me! Lol! Here are the links for your convenience. Well off to get my photos of Corinto. Please stay safe and keep well my friends!

The Rotterdam shows nothing on the schedule until Wednesday in Bonaire. I guess she will just sail in circles slowly until then. Welcome to the Daily!

Jake @Crazy For Cats and Juan, my sympathy to you both as you mourn the passing of Amelia tonight. She was a lovely cat with beautiful eyes. So sorry.

Charlene I remember you telling us about that incident before and it certainly is a terrible comment he made. I hope the bus service fired him for that. I can see why that would mar your time spent there. Maybe you can go back again someday. I wondered if you heard the rocket that launched from Kennedy Space Center this morning? It's headed to the moon!

On Dec. 3, 2017 our ship Sun Princess arrived in Napier, New Zealand on the final cruise of our B2B2B2B cruises Down Under. As usually happened on these cruises, the ship provided us a shuttle ride to the downtown Visitor Information Center. The town appeared clean and had beautiful Art Deco architecture. Across the street and a short way to the right was an antique car show which all the tourists seemed to be enjoying. There were people there in period costume, too. I think this was a regular occurrence in town, especially with ships in port. The town was so cute and the weather was perfect so we took our time looking around. This pedestrian street made it easy to look around without worry. Being December the Christmas decorations were up too, to get us into the spirit. Love the reindeer faces at the bottom! A trolley in case you couldn’t walk far And along the beach was this pretty park-like area The beach was made up of black pebbles. Not black sand in my opinion. And here is the front of the National Aquarium which we passed by to get back to the shuttle bus. A great day in Napier, New Zealand.

Good morning friends! Today I have 31F for a temp and will rise to 51, partly cloudy skies and rain beginning this evening. That will continue all night and into tomorrow with the large storm heading this way from Texas and Oklahoma. Should be interesting to see how much rain we get. DH said we got 8/10ths of rain early in the weekend which is a good amount.🌦️ Hopefully no tornadoes! Thank you Jacqui @kazu for posting the Fleet Report and Daily this morning. Unfortunately someone thinks we should celebrate National Divorce Day on 1/8/24 which is disheartening. I wonder what group is in favor of divorce and thinks we need a day for it? Strange! Instead let's take a bubble bath and then dress in our argyles to boost our spirits. The quote du jour sounds interesting. So does spaghetti and meatball soup! I'll just pass on the cocktail and wine. We have some cool days in history on this date. The oldest surviving commercial newspaper from Haarlem, Netherlands in 1656. It would have been awesome to hear President Washington give the first State of the Union address in 1790. And how amazing would it be to have $0 national debt instead of the record amount we have in 2024?! 💲 Thanks in advance to Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard for their F&B reports! Prayers for all our friends here in need on the Care list especially Vanessa @JazzyV. Good luck to Roy @rafinmd for his radiation procedure today, and to Annie @marshhawk at her endocrinologist appointment this day. Prayers for Israel and Ukraine as they protect themselves in war, the hostages held and the military members under fire on bases and on ships in the region. Prayers too for DB and DGD, friends Scott and Bob and their wives who care for them. 🙏 Cheers to all celebrating today and for all the cruisers, especially the Dailyites on board ships. 🚢 Have a wonderful time! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for posting our Care and Celebration lists for us each day, through pain and weariness. You are a star!🌟 Our port today is Napier, New Zealand a lovely destination, which was only presented here once before on Aug. 21, 2021. I enjoyed a visit there once in 2017 on Sun Princess and will gather my photos. When we had it last time in August 2021 I didn't post photos because we went to the visitation in Macon for our dear elderly neighbor Copeland who died from Covid and also his own son Billy who passed away of Covid 2 days after Copeland did. Very surreal. Here is the link to the Aug. 21, 2021 Daily. Have a great day everyone and please try to stay well and keep safe! Watch out for the bad weather, too.

Without my not even mentioning it to DH he told me we're having BLTs today, Annie @marshhawk. Except no lettuce which is fine with me. Lenda @Quartzsite Cruiser I'd be in the right hand lane doing the speed limit. lol Maureen @RMLincoln you are quite welcome. Carol @mamaofami glad you are progressing well after your extractions. I had four extracted once before I got my braces a long time ago. Not the most fun I've ever had!

Oh Annie @marshhawk I'm sorry but at first I had to giggle at the thought of you rolling out of Shari's car so she wouldn't have to stop! Then I thought good grief! What if you'd been run over by a rear tire? I'm glad you lived to tell about it! No more wishing for snow! I forbid it! We like to eat our red skin potatoes with the skins on too, so don't peel them for mashing. Same with potato salad. Your BLT for lunch sounds good. We have a tomato and plenty of bacon so maybe I will see what DH thinks about that idea. Sorry to hear you've found so many injuries on Bubbles. I hate to hear about the new vet's philosophy on caring for money more than his animal patients. I hope you can get some help for poor Bubbles! Back to the cow I'm cross stitching!

It's nice you live near your DGC so you can spend lots of time with them, and attend those birthday parties. Happy birthday to both of them! I have 3 out of my 6 DGC's birthdays in January! One was last week, Ren's is Thursday the 11th and the eldest Tyler's on the 22nd. To quote you - not sure where the time went! Weren't they just babies? Good luck with your dry January!

It was my pleasure Melanie! Terry @smitty34877 I'm so happy to hear of your generous and kind neighbor helping you all out with the shoveling of the slush. Be careful out there!

I agree with that, Bob. 😋

Graham @grapau27 warm thoughts to you today as you remember your late mam and dad's 74th wedding anniversary.

I debated whether or not to continue the travelogue after leaving Antarctica yesterday but decided I would do just one more day. After this report we would have spent time in Montevideo, and departed the ship in Buenos Aires with a tour that day and being dropped off at the airport. So this report will be the last. At sea from South Georgia Island to Montevideo, Uruguay Jan. 7-8, 2017 onboard Seabourn Quest This will be an update on our progress towards Montevideo, Uruguay upon leaving South Georgia Island to stay ahead of a storm. At first on the afternoon of the 6th the weather was sunny and nice with fairly calm seas. But soon the waves grew, the wind howled and for about 36 hours we tossed and turned, rolling and pitching. This lasted through the night and the entire day of Jan. 7th. The 8th turned sunny with the temperature rising to 55 to 60 degrees so many people went outdoors to bird watch on the 8th. See the bird at the top? We did what we usually do to stay busy. I read and cross stitched with my friends. DH went to a lecture and read his book, and of course we ate and drank which is what all good cruisers do. We ate dinner in our cabin . It seems many people decided to do so because there were two playoff games on TV on the 7th, Texas-Raiders and Seahawks-Detroit. The next photo is the Card Room where snacks and drinks were set up for anyone who wanted to watch the football games somewhere other than in their suites. As you can see watching TV in your suite wasn’t all that much of a hardship because we saw only two people in here when we walked by. The TV was bigger in the Card Room, but you can’t stretch out in your PJs can you? Here is our dinner one night at The Grill by Thomas Keller. That is a specialty restaurant with no extra charge. The most difficult part is getting a reservation as often as you'd like. It's very popular and they would like to be able to serve each and every guest at least once on their cruise. I believe I ordered a Caesar salad which is prepared there in the dining room. DH asked for the crab cake as his appetizer. I have no idea what type of soup DH ordered but I order the jumbo prawns. They were so large you had to use a knife and fork to eat them. I ordered the Lobster Thermidor and DH asked for the filet mignon. Looks delicious! Turn your head Debbie @dfish! It's carrots! 😐 And we shared this huge piece of chocolate cake. Yum! They must have felt sorry for DH since he didn't order his own dessert so they brought us 2 chocolate cookies, too. After dinner we told our stewardess Michelle to forget the turndown. She insisted on changing our wall clock back one hour and we exchanged towels with her. That’s all. She joked with us that we were too neat and there was nothing to do so I’m sure she didn’t find a huge mess in our suite the next morning.😇 We were given back our passports and noted a cool stamp from South Georgia Island to go with the Chilean naval base stamp from Antarctica. Very exciting! Next stop is Montevideo, Uruguay. Unfortunately our cruise is rapidly coming to an end. Where did the 24 days go?🤷‍♀️