StLouisCruisers

I see on Vanessa's list that Carolyn @Cruising-along and Henry are having an anniversary! A shout out to both of you on your special day!🥂

Good morning friends! Back home in Georgia it is 65F with a high of 76 later today and mostly cloudy skies with a bit of wind. Thank you Rich @richwmn for the Daily and Fleet Report this morning. Today we have important days to celebrate. World tourism is a big part of many country's economies. Voter registration is encouraged for any civic minded citizen. Forgiveness is not easy but sometimes you have to forgive to move on. Doesn't mean you have to forget!! I like the Roosevelt quote. I would accept a vegetarian lasagna if necessary. 😋 Not thanks to a blue martini but I would try the chenin blanc. Cheers to Henry Ford introducing the first model T automobile. Thank you to Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard for their F&B reports today. Prayers for all on Vanessa's Care list today. My condolences to Jacqui's @kazu BFF on the loss of her DH. Prayers for the family and friends. 🙏 May all who are ill find better health very soon. Also we hope for no damage to the UK as Agnes approaches. Congrats to all the cruisers and those celebrating happy events!🥂🎉 The number of cruisers here seems to be at an all time high!🚢 Enjoy yourselves! You can forget all the work of packing and planning for departure very soon. Thanks to Vanessa @JazzyV for keeping the lists updated for us. The port of the day is Dakar, Senegal. It was also port of the day Oct. 11, 2021 and March 6, 2022. I visited there on the Prinsendam so will repost my photos for you. Here are the links for you. Hoping you all have a great last Wednesday in September. Stay safe and well! The 2018 Grand Africa and Mediterranean cruise on the Prinsendam included a stop in Dakar, Senegal. Because we had been in Banjul, The Gambia the day before Senegal's stop, we were required to have a Yellow Fever shot (unless your doctor prohibited it due to any health conditions you had). If the stops had been reversed the shot wouldn't have been required. But that would have used more fuel to back track so HAL planned it the way they did. Dakar seemed to have a lot more infrastructure than Banjul, but I can't say we enjoyed it more. It didn't feel safe to us at all. There were people tracking us and getting in our personal space as soon as we stepped off the shuttle to a downtown area. We were afraid someone would distract us while another would try to pickpocket us so we were on guard the entire time. We walked around a town square and would have headed to a market a couple blocks away if they hadn't been right in our faces trying to sell us "stuff". Therefore we headed back to the shuttle drop-off/pickup area and got back on the shuttle. It was quite a disappointment. One person on the shuttle had asked to get off on our way to the drop-off spot downtown so he could get transportation to Goree Island all alone. Several passengers and the driver tried to talk him out of it but he insisted. 😲 This is the dock area in Dakar. The buses for a few tours. The cars parked above were covered in dirt and filth and looked like they'd been there a while. This was on our way to downtown, and right about where the man asked to be let out of the shuttle bus. This billboard was about an ex-mayor of Dakar who was imprisoned and the people felt he was unjustly held. He was later pardoned by the president of Senegal. This is the "park" where we were dropped off our shuttle. "Salespersons" heading our way with their wares. If they would have kept their distance we would have been fine. A foot away is not good! This looked like auto repair going on right on the street next to this gas station. Heading back to our home for 54 days, the Prinsendam. If, like us, you don't feel safe with people crowding around you and trying to stop you from proceeding, then I would advise a guided tour in Dakar. I know I wouldn't try it unaccompanied again. I'm sure there were some nice things to see and experience there, but not by us that day.

Good afternoon! We arrived home about an hour late. Our driver had a military affairs meeting at our community amenity center at 3 pm and he dropped us off at 10 to 3. Plenty of time! DH and I had an empty seat in our row so were able to spread out. That hasn't happened in years! In Dallas we were told they had to load sand into the cargo hold to balance the plane, but the pilot said due to runway construction at DFW they hold up arrivals to ease the strain on the remaining runways. So maybe it was both that caused the delays. It didn't affect us but several passengers were missing their connections. I felt badly for them. So I'm unpacked already. Glad to be home even if we did enjoy our family time. I'm sure you all have said the same thing at one time or another. 😉 I received my cruise photo book (Canada/Greenland/Iceland) and took a look through it. Looks good!

Well our plane has landed and is arriving at the gate as I type. The gate agent said the fight was “light” and they had to load sand on it to balance it. First time I’ve heard that excuse for a big jet and first flight I’ve heard of not completely full in several years. What a day so far! Edited to say the plane our flight will be on has just arrived. We are still waiting at the gate for our flight to Atlanta to board and depart.

Our flight is delayed because the incoming plane left Atlanta late. I don’t see any bad weather so who knows why it’s late. We will get home eventually. Just chillin’ here at DFW.

Good morning friends! Preparing to leave for the airport now and see many are up and about. Just want to say Freeport is a first time port so there are no links today. I have not been there but have seen other ports in the Bahamas. Isn’t Freeport a dry dock port? Sounds like I haven’t missed much! I’ll talk to you all later! Bye!

Thank you Bruce @aliaschief for the information.

Thank you Lenda, and safe travels to you as well this week. What a rotten thing to do to his customers! I can’t blame you for cancelling your subscription. I’m so sorry to hear about your lunch mishap. Hope you’re feeling better by now. Sounds like a good day for you all in all. Finally something to enjoy about your home! DS says while at DFW airport last night he ran into Colton and his Colorado team heading back home, too. He and Colton took a selfie together to send to Colton’s parents, Alan and Sandra. All the parents are extremely close from the Tigers and Jaguar years. Unfortunately neither of Colton’s parents are able to quit working to live with Colton in Colorado. So he is living with a host family instead. I’m sure they miss each other a lot! One reason Alan and/or Sandra try to fly or drive to as many games as possible.

I decided to do laundry this morning so I wouldn't have so much to do when we get home. Then we picked a good Texas barbecue place for lunch called Hutchins Barbecue and it was top notch! The meats, sides, sauces and even dessert (peach cobbler) were outstanding. Then we stopped at Toyota Stadium to see if the gift shop was open and it wasn't on Mondays. Maybe another visit we will go in there. Then we went through an open gate and I took some photos of the field. The first photo doesn't even show the full length of the front of the building but I didn't want to back myself into the street for a panoramic type photo. 🤕 This will have to do! That's where the professional league team played Saturday night. ⚽ Very nice facilities. Dinner tonight is supposed to be rotisserie chicken if we're even hungry, but Ren has to eat so I guess that is what it will be. Then one more sleep and home tomorrow afternoon.🏡

Bon Voyage Jacqui @kazu! We'll miss you but hope you have a wonderful cruise this time.

Thank you @Duck Creek for the photos of Isle of Pines. It looks very inviting. Welcome to the Daily!🦆

Bon Voyage Linda!🚢

Another beautiful day in Port Chalmers on Nov. 30, 2017. On this trip we were on Sun Princess for 62 days seeing all the sights in Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. I believe I booked a private tour from Good Company, so we waited in this special area for our group to gather. We would visit Larnach Castle, Speight's Brewery and a Dunedin city tour. Along the way to Dunedin we saw theForsyth Barr Stadium, third largest in New Zealand. We passed a different brewery named Emerson's. One place we stopped at seemed pretty popular for tourists guessing from the number of people already there. The so called steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street. I'm not so sure. I feel like I've been on steeper before. The tour stopped at the Dunedin Railway Station which was nice because I'm sure many on the bus had never been there before. Out on the Station lawn, you can see the Cadbury candy company across the road. Some tours actually include a Cadbury tour and it's quite popular. I know the crew made sure they got a good supply of Cadbury chocolates while in town. That's our bus parked in front of the train station. Time to head downtown to pick up more passengers. We stopped near St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral which is right next door to the Town Hall. I'm not sure why this statue of poet Robert Burns has an orange cone on his head. ?? We enjoyed a lovely view of the countryside as we headed out to Larnach Castle. That's Dunedin in the distance. We pulled over at this scenic view. I was enjoying this part of the tour a lot. Beautiful Larnach Castle. This was a residence and is the only "castle" in New Zealand. We had an extensive tour of dozens of rooms. This is the type of decor we saw inside. I won't bore you with a dozen photos like it. I enjoyed the outdoors more. Well, maybe a photo of this floor in the foyer, which proclaimed this home The Camp. I'd love to see what their city home looked like! There was a rooftop terrace we could enjoy the view from. The entrance to their garden. I used this photo as the cover of a wall calendar I made documenting our Down Under cruise. more for the Garden Club Next door was the Ballroom Cafe where we enjoyed lunch. We of course had the same beautiful scenery leaving the Castle and heading back to the city. We made our last stop at Speight's Brewery, the largest one in New Zealand. We began our tour in the production area, but evereyone had that tasting room on their mind. Our guide took us through the history of the company and its place in Dunedin's background. Our guide Keith went through the whole process. I don't remember much he said, but DH could probably give the tour for him with 29 years experience in engineering at Anheuser-Busch. On to the tasting room! Since I don't drink beer I took small sips of lighter beers. I would never want to waste a whole glass of beer like that. We had a full day on this tour and enjoyed it a lot. If I were going back I would check out their tours and no doubt find something new to do in Dunedin. Hoping no one is sick of photos already this morning. Have a great day everyone. This is our last full day in Frisco so will see what the plans are with DDIL. Ren has no practice the morning after a Sunday game so will get to school for classes around 10 am and will have a nice sleep-late day!

Good morning friends! Today in Frisco it is 72 with an expected high of only 89. Cloudy morning and sunny afternoon. There were scattered thunderstorms last night around Dallas and DS's plane left 90 minutes late because of the backlog of flights ready to take off. He arrived 64 minutes late in Detroit, well after midnight. Thank you Rich @richwmn for our Daily and Fleet Report. I will celebrate World Deaf Day, and will consider the memes posted today to be my comic book appreciation. Congrats to all food service employees for having their own day of recognition. They work hard! Quite a nice quote. I have to say the jerk tofu grain bowl sounds pretty unique. It will be interesting to see Debbie's report. No thank you to the Jim Rickey or the red wine. Nice days in history as well. Thanks to the F&B ladies Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard! Prayers for our Care list people and any others in need that we are unaware of. Also to DB and friend's DB Mark, those affected by the fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and war. 🙏 Cheers to everyone cruising or preparing to cruise soon!🥂 Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for our Care and Celebration lists, and so early in the morning too. Hope you slept well! Today we have the lovely New Zealand destination of Port Chalmers which is the closest port to Dunedin. We had that destination twice before on Oct. 5, 2022 and March 13, 2023. The links are below for you to grab your previously posted photos to share. Happily, we were there in 2013 on Diamond Princess and 2017 on Sun Princess. Both were excellent cruises. Here are my photos from Dunedin. We first visited Port Chalmers on Dec. 19, 2013 on Diamond Princess. We took a tour on the Taieri Gorge Railway train which came right to the ship for pickup of passengers. It was a comfortable ride and some seats had a table at them sort of in a booth configuration which came in handy at lunch. Four of us ate at the table and they even provided wine with refills if you wanted it. Made for a crowded table but no one minded. Along the way on our tour of the Taieri Gorge. The scenery was great and we saw a lot this yellow plant growing there. We saw horses and sheep and either alpacas or llamas. You could step off the car and take photos between the cars if you wanted to. We made a stop or two along the way at tiny little outposts, but the train stopped and reversed course at Pukerangi. Locals set up tables displaying good for the tourists to buy and enjoy. This guy was set for Christmas with his little hat on. I think he would rather have been at home taking a nap. The train station in Dunedin is famous and they stopped there long enough to let you take a little self guided tour. It's beautiful as you'll see especially on the opposite side from the tracks. At the end of the tour we decided to walk around Port Chalmers. There is a tall hill near the ship which we walked up, on a residential street, so we could take photos from that viewpoint. This is the sign along the steep street. Photos of the timber along the shore. and Diamond Princess The view from Upper Port Chalmers as a sign up there named it. And a crazy statue someone placed up there. A local church with scaffolding That's it for that visit in Port Chalmers. The next time we would do another tour which we also enjoyed. Photos of that visit coming up next.

Thank you. I'm hoping he gets off from DFW on time since he gets home after 11 as it is. He will be tired tonight I'm sure. He has recently started using American Airlines for flights to and from Dallas. They status-matched him to Delta which has been his airline for decades. So he has a very nice status level with AA but he complains they don't have free wi-fi on their planes like Delta does. That is something AA needs to step up with their planes. I feel sorry for him this week - he will be alone at home for the first time with his family scattered many miles away. That's why he comes down here so much, to see them and continue to support Ren's sport.

I have been able to lower costs sometimes by rechecking my fares on Flight Ease. But most of the time the exact same flights have gone up in price. A less favorable departure time might help to lower costs if it still works out for your schedule. I just checked my one way flights next summer and the fare went up so I'm staying where I'm at. To check the pricing, sign into your booking and click on flights. It will show you your flights and price. If you click on change flights, then input the correct class fare you can then search. If the prices are higher and you want to keep your original flights, then just start backing out of there. I just continue clicking the back button until I'm back to the beginning and leave. Your original flights are intact. I've never seen them up your price for previously booked flights. You can pay ahead of time if you wish but then you're locked in.

Not being an easy airport is sure the truth. It's fast to get to baggage claim and out the door to the pick up point, but I've never seen an airport where you have to know which terminal and even gate numbers to find the right place to pick someone up! Atlanta seems easier to drop off or pick up in comparison and most people are scared to death of ATL.

Sure, I will post your photos for you. Hope it all goes well and you're both home again ASAP. Final results today is a 1-1 tie. We are just now getting a late lunch. Pick up and brought back here so we can all relax until DS goes to the airport. Way too many airport runs this week!

Lenda @Quartzsite Cruiser I forgot to mention this but you asked about helping with links on Tuesday. Our port that day is a new one and there won't be links or photos to move over. Of course if you or anyone else has been there, we will all be happy to see photos. We leave here early for the airport and I won't be using the laptop since it will be packed. Weather at home Tuesday will be 82 for a high and cloudy skies. That should feel cool by comparison.

Enjoy yourselves!

I hear ya, Graham! I wouldn't want you to be on a cruise with your two family members either! We honestly thought about cancelling when they bragged to us about their many cruises booked. But then I thought, why should we be the ones to cancel? And then I thought, maybe they will cancel some of them. Obviously if and when we discuss this with those particular people we will let them know we want to do our own thing - no assigned dining with them or scheduling the same tours. And if they want to know why, we will tell them! Paul, when we started cruising more and more each year, they became interested in the idea too. So now that they are retired and with no dependents human or otherwise, they are doing their best to "catch up" with us. And I agree, exceptional bad luck! I often wonder if they are lurking here on Cruise Critic finding out what we are up to. Maybe I will have to go incognito and change my username here. What a disaster! I hear it is half time at the soccer field. Ren did not start but is coming in next. Score is 1 to 0 Dallas.

Thank you Linda. That would have been nice! I hope you get to meet Bill and Mary Ann and no, those two aren't who I was referring to!😄

I have decided to sit at home and wait for updates by text today. I get dehydrated too easily. They took hats, sunblock and water along as usual. DDIL stands on the top of the bleachers and takes photos of the game with her nice camera and then puts them all into a folder for each individual game. She gets some great shots. The fields are just a two minute drive from the apartment. The professional soccer stadium, where the FC Dallas professional men's team play (Toyota Stadium) is across the road from the apartment, too. There was a game last night against Columbus Crew which was televised. We saw all the people arriving and parking nearby and walking over last night. It was a tie 1-1. Frisco is a busy place!

Linda @lindaler I'm glad you are ready to go. No last minute packing will ease the stress of travel some. You are on the South Pacific cruise, correct? I seem to know some relatives that will be on that cruise. They also happen to be booked on two 42 day cruises next year that DH and I have booked. Oh dear, this is not going to work out well. We try to avoid them so that won't be easy for all that time.🙁

Good morning friends! Wow, it's 82 degrees (not even 6 am) and will be sunny and 100 today. The soccer game today has been moved from 9 am to 11 am. I'm not sure I can stand in the sun or even the shade from 11 to 1 in those temperatures. 🙁 Thank you Rich @richwmn for the Daily and Fleet Report. They have an international rabbit day? 🐰 Good for them! I enjoy cherries jubilee but have never been hunting and rarely been fishing. That's quite a quote by James Brown. I will also pass on the meat pie, mango mojito and cabernet sauvignon. This was a good day for Christopher Columbus but a sad one for Babe Ruth. Only 2,500 people watched him that day? Seems like not enough! Thank you to the ladies Debbie @dfish, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard for the food and beverage reports today. Prayers today for the Care list so carefully crafted by Vanessa @JazzyV. Prayers and hugs to Terry @smitty34877 and the family, Tana, and Baby Murphy and her family. That is such a tragedy... Prayers for DB and my friend's DB Mark. No movement on either person's health. Cheers to all those cruisers, and to others celebrating something. Congrats to Annie @marshhawk on the big sale. Hoping this is a good day for everyone and we all accomplish what we set out to do. Sorry to hear you are feeling a little under the weather Graham @grapau27. Pauline's car needed a drive anyway, right? I am thankful to be here with my DS and DDIL along with dear Ren. Too bad DS has to go home tonight to Michigan. He is such a joy to be around and I miss him a lot when we have long stretches between visits. 😇😘 DH and I go home Tuesday. Today our port is Isle of Pines, New Caledonia, another new port to the Daily. I have not been before so have no photos. I hope someone here had quite an adventure there and will share some photos today. As usual when I order a new Shutterfly photo book they decide whether I will be home or not the next few days to make their decision on how fast to create and ship it. Since we were going away a week, they got right on it and it's waiting for me at my post office already. Less than a week! If I am home they wait two weeks to create it and shipping itself then seems to take another 5 or 6 days so I sit there twiddling my thumbs waiting for it. Thanks Shutterfly!😖