jollyjones

The Silver Spirit cocktail was always my favourite but it is no longer on the cocktail menu and the recipe appears not to be immediately available. Gin, elderflower cordial, lemon juice and white wine (or was it fizzy wine?) were part of it, I think. I have reluctantly given up asking for it as it causes such consternation for the bar staff and usually a huge delay while they try and find someone who remembers what it was, or can find the recipe. A person could die of thirst waiting. So I retreat to other options. And, as mentioned, they have moved the plastic stuff down about a foot on the main stairs, thus returning the handrails to usability. Agreed it looks better too. Roy continues with his very general trivia questions - better than some CDs who have too heavy a reliance on only a limited number of topics - and my team continues to do quite well; first, second or third every day but one so far. Sadly, the library is extremely diminished. For a while it wasn't too bad, Vicki managed to get it restocked last November (2022) but there's not much left. Ellen, the assistant CD, tells me that it's because people take the books - well, I guess that must be where they go, where else? - and that it will be restocked in Fort Lauderdale. I hope so, I disembark in Fort Lauderdale but will be back on the ship in February and will be hoping for some new books. Of course I have books loaded on my iPad but I so much prefer a real book, e-readers are only a final fallback situation for me.

I have read that Newhaven is a tender port - you are implying TTS that the ship is docked there? https://www.whatsinport.com/Newhaven-Edinburgh-Scotland.htm I had the Spirit June 11th '24 cruise booked and cancelled it because from what my research showed, I thought there would be too many tender ports, I can't remember which off hand, it's been a couple of months since I did it. I was feeling particularly hard done by at the time having just disembarked from the Moon Reykjavik - Southampton cruise which had eight out of the ten ports at anchor with fairly long tender rides. Even ports, such as Falmouth, that I had always docked at previously, was a very long tender ride. I hate tender rides - I accept that there will generally be one or two on any itinerary and I often just stay on the ship - but eight out of ten!!!! SS is the only cruise line that I have dealt with that doesn't include the information of dock or anchor on the itinerary when you are making a booking. There appears to be no way of determining this information before boarding. I have decided that I must be much more rigorous in my pre-booking research, and for now am sticking to itineraries with which I am familiar. SS remains by far my favourite cruise line but this is an annoying omission by them. If you don't mind tendering this is a good itinerary, but it's not for me.

Sorry if I'm late to be looking at the details here, but mysty's post about available cabins brought one huge thought to mind - How can it be called a WORLD CRUISE when it doesn't leave the Pacific? That's ridiculous. PS not meaning to detract from your upcoming enjoyment mysty, I hope the cruise will be great but the name is absurd.

Yes, and I used to always refuse it too, but it has occurred to me that I may need it sometime in the future if the menu doesn’t offer anything much that I like!

It was the Spirit of Adventure, she's on her way from Arrecife to Cadiz. I use the MarineTraffic app - invaluable when cruising.

On a positive note, we are being very fortunate with the weather - sunny, clear blue skies and low humidity. We were about 20 mins late into Las Palmas this morning - waiting for the pilot boat - but now we're docked up alongside P&O's Ventura in absolutely (as Roy would say) glooorious weather - 20C/69F and almost no wind. I'm looking forward to my usual stroll around the nearby beach and shops. Tomorrow in Santa Cruz de la Palma the weather may deteriorate a bit, then we may have to cross a little something bumpy on our way out across the pond, but fingers crossed it won't be too much. And tonite I have my next booking for La T - I book them 3 days apart as the menu used to change every 3 days and, according to 'mycruise', it has changed, thank goodness. Still ridiculously abbreviated and both meat entrees from cows - I don't eat beef - but at least my favourite vegetarian dish is there - I'm not a vegetarian but the veg. selection often appeals to me more than a large chunk of dead animal.

My thoughts entirely. It's still NOVEMBER. If I'd wanted to do a Christmas cruise, I'd have booked a December itinerary. There's Christmas stuff all over the ship, it's way too early, I just hope they don't start playing Christmas music, that will be excruciating mid-atlantic, no way to escape. Fortunately deck 11 remains uncontaminated so far so I can have a pizza in peace. And a small safety point - the 'greenery' (it's all plastic) up the main stairs impinges on the handrail and makes it prickly and uncomfortable to grasp it.

They invite solos to these officer dinners because they: A - don’t believe we can possibly be happy dining on our own. (Oh, so wrong) B - they need a solo to offset the single officer, they usually add two couples, then you end up with an even number. Apparently an odd number at the table is poor form. (Who cares). I often get these invites (they were in abeyance post Covid but have now restarted) the evening usually works fine but I have had a few awful experiences with dreadfully mismatched pax - can never tell how it’s going to turn out!

I think she was pushed a bit hard by SS - when the SS senior CDs retired or left, suddenly she was it for everything. She was dumped on the World Cruise with less than a month’s notice and the responsibility worried her, then she opened the Nova. Maybe she wants a rest. And she has form, she’s jumped ship before, was it to Viking? I don’t remember.

A quote - "Vicki van Tassel is the new CD on the Symphony. She took over last evening when Russ went on vacation. I will try to upload her bio from Reflections when available. Welcome aboard Vicki."

Sorry about the download thing, I'll see if these load as pix. If you click on them they should come a bit bigger. Again, this is the entire menu - 3 antipasti, 2 primi, 3 pasta, and 6 main - 2 fish, 2 meat (both cow) and 2 vegetarian. Very stodgy vegetarian offerings at that. I hope they change it every three days as usual, or I'll have to cancel all the bookings I have made for this cruise.

Sorry, Port, I don't want to hijack your thread but I am on board now and feel the need to report on a change that quite startled me and may be of interest to some SS oldsters. Last night I went to La T for dinner as I always do on the first night of a cruise and after being given the menu I wanted to ask 'where's the rest of it?' Having become accustomed to the La T menu over my previous 500 SS days (oh, so accustomed) I wouldn't have minded a change but I really didn't expect on my SS day 501 to face a micro-miniaturised version - below is the entire menu, I hope the pix load OK and are adequate, I was so taken aback I didn't pay attention to quality - the only thing unchanged is the desserts, and they could definitely have done with an update, although I bailed out and went to the Arts for sweet things as I often do. PS the quality of my food was fine, it was just the choice I found lacking. IMG_0260.HEIC IMG_0258.HEIC IMG_0259.HEIC

Sorry, but I still beg to differ. Your statement is just not accurate - "No through way from the cabin to the rest of ship. You must go outside in the cold and rain to cross from Forward to Aft." If you are in a cabin on deck 8 and want to go to, for example, La Terrazza on deck 7, you can take the forward elevator down to deck 7 and walk aft indoors to the restaurant. This is exactly the same distance as walking across the pool deck and taking the aft elevator down to deck 7. And it is the most logical way to get from deck 9 cabins as the aft elevators do not service deck 9. And it's the only way up to the Observation Room. Or perhaps did you somehow miss the fact there there was a forward elevator? And stairs? Opposite cabins 833 and 933. Wherever you are going on the ship, the horizontal distances are the same, the only choice is whether to move vertically by the forward or aft elevators (or stairs). And it's not like the horizontal distances are endless on such a small ship, even with limited mobility.

Sorry, but that's just a bit silly. Use the forward stairs or elevator down to deck 7 or below, then walk aft indoors. Hardly difficult.

That's the really important improvement!

Generally crossings are reasonably priced and carry only a 25% solo supplement so there's always a lot of solos - 90 is rather more than most but may reflect interest in a novel ship. I am boarding the Dawn (my favourite ship) next week for the crossing - I chose it for the more southerly route (Lisbon-Canaries-Puerto Rico-Lauderdale) as it'll be warmer and maybe calmer - but I too am very interested in the Nova and am very much looking forward to my sail on her through the Panama Canal next April.

Are there any fiction books in there or is it all non-fiction?

Actually Lois, we are eagerly awaiting your thoughts. So far it's only the closet that looks like a negative to me - while that could be an irritation, it'll be a very tiny irritation compared to the pleasure of exploring a new ship ... I hope ... Please carry on!

Vest in US, waistcoat in UK. Vest in UK is what US calls undershirt, (or even 'wifebeater' - ugh, how I hate that term).

Hi Lois, That's not the point. I'm lazy, I like to keep all doors open all the while as I do at home (I live and cruise solo) and I ought to be able to do that and still see a tidy closet with everything neatly put away in the drawers. Having so much storage on open shelves seems a faulty design decision on a ship that might meet rough weather. PS But thanks for posting the pix!

Hi Candy, Stick with the new ships! I only look at the Moon, Dawn, Nova and Ray now (altho' the pics of the Nova closet Lois has just posted are disturbing). There's gotta be Spaccanapoli and the Arts Cafe or I'm not interested. And the much bigger and better bathrooms (compared to Wind and Cloud). Don't give up, I keep hoping we'll meet again aboard SS somewhere.

OMG I hate hate hate front to back hanging rails, you have to pull the front stuff off to get at the back stuff. Don't like the look of this closet at all. Don't want to have to nearly crawl on the floor to get stuff out of the drawers, and def. don't want to have the alternative being to leave everything on display on the shelves. Sigh ...

I'm glad to have read this information but only because forewarned is forearmed. What a dreadful way to end a cruise but I fear I shall have to follow rog747's mode of exit because I can't bear the thought of being stuck forever in long queues to get into the US, then get a taxi to the airport to get out of the US shortly thereafter. Sigh ...

I wonder where they moved it to? Is it just a question of the sound bar being hard up against the wall or moved out as far as the width of the mirror top allows? Can't see where else it'd go but moving it a small distance to completely solve the problem seems almost too good to be true.

They're youngsters.