seagarsmoker

Good morning dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report! I am feeling much better today and the job search continues. My toes are crossed for a couple of second interviews next week. 🙂 I hope everyone here has a great day!

Good morning dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Good morning and thank you for the Daily Report! We are supposed to get a bunch of rain today. It is a great day for the fish and geese. 🙂 I am continuing to feel a little better and the job search continues. I hope everyone has a great day!

Good morning Dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report! I am feeling better, closer to normal this morning. I hope everyone here has a wonderful day!

Hope to be here as well.

Will try to be here for sailaway.

The casino was remodeled with more floor space. All of the card tables are in the middle, surrounded by slot machines. In the lido area, they now just have ice machines (which were always empty when we tried getting ice) and no longer have tea or lemonade in those machines were self serve. We also noticed some of the areas had replaced the carpet since 3/23. They removed the adult only signs in the lido pool. Overall the ship looked brand new to us.

My email is JBROWN323@OUTLOOK.COM I have worked in information technology for over forty years. Started in DP, then as a programmer. Most recently as a Product Manager. Most of my skills are technical and business analysis and IV&V. Thanks for post and appreciate everyone's hopeful messages.

I had an interview for an open position yesterday and it sounded like I am a finalist for the last round of 3 which will be in a couple of weeks. Thanks for asking.

Good morning Dailyites and thank you for the daily report. Continuing to feel a little better each day. I hope everyone here has a wonderful day and weekend!

Good morning Dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. I am feeling better, but hopefully near normal this weekend... 🙂 Final thoughts on our 10-day Christmas cruise. I know food is subjective, however, on this cruise, the food was pretty much the same as the others in 2023. Meals were typically good to very good. We struggled on 3 of the 10 nights to find something we both would enjoy. It seems like many items are repeated often and not many new items are introduced each day. When we both found something, we wanted, all the meals were good to very good. For three nights we ate at specialty restaurants. Christmas Eve at the Pinnacle Grill, while the service was excellent, the quality of the steak was average at best. Both evenings at Canaletto’s we had excellent service and very good meals. Big thumbs up for continuing the cake festival. This is a new tradition that I hope will continue for several years. 😊 Cabin – we stayed in Neptune Suite 7084, and it was perfect. Right across from the Neptune lounge with two of the best hostesses we have ever had. While Suzi thought she would miss the dressing area not included on the NS, the bigger shower in the bathroom more than made up for it. A/C worked perfectly, room stewards both did an excellent job keeping the ice buckets full and the room clean. I think Suzi is now convinced we will be opting for the regular suites and our days of aft corner suites are over. 😊 The ship – two items of note here. We were on this ship 9 months previously and it had been to drydock recently. To us, the ship still looks brand new. 😊 The biggest item I noticed changing was the new layout in the casino with all the card tables in the middle surrounded by slot machines. I liked this change and enjoyed playing cards there every evening. The item that changed that I disliked was the self-service machine that consisted of ice/water/tea/lemonade have been eliminated. All that was left was ice/water and the ice (both ends of the lido in the buffet area) was always empty. The itinerary was good. We didn’t get off the ship until Bonaire. The first half of the cruise was the Half Moon Cay (which we were just a few weeks earlier, Grand Turk (off and on rain); Samana DR (no comment other than everyone we talked with who got off the ship here disliked it); sea day; Bonnaire (disliked the tour and once you are out of town, it's desolate – but clean); Aruba (did a little shopping); Curacao (enjoyed the time there and the locals did a great job with Christmas decorations, music, and trees); two sea days back to port everglades. Overall, this was our first and probably last Christmas cruise. While we had an abundance of children understandably for this cruise, I cannot get over the fact HAL now allows them full access to what has always been the adult area of the ship – the Lido pool. It is hard watching children sitting in the smoking area and also unattended in the pool. Thankfully, I did not see or hear of any pool issues, so I guess that is a positive outcome. We noticed less staff in the lido, however, I do not mind going to the bar to get a coke, but others were complaining. I saw no reason to complain about something that was not their fault, as I could see they were working hard and somehow still had smiles when facing customers. The casino staff was very nice, and it helped that I won for the week. 😊 I pretty much rank this one about the same as our previous two HAL cruises in 2023 – very good.

Jacqui, thanks for the Daily Report. I have been at Doctors office this morning and just returned with three scripts for bronchitis. I actually feel a lil better, however I understand I'm "no spring chicken" anymore and it takes longer to heal as I get older.... Hopefully I will feel better soon and will be back here soon.

Happy New Year!

Good afternoon dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. Feeling a little better, hoping to be back to normal soon. I hope everyone here has a Happy New Year!

Good morning dailyites. Sorry for no posts since the cruise, however, I got the flu on one of the last couple of days of the cruise and have basically been in bed since we got home Wednesday night. Hopefully, I will feel better soon. I hope everyone has a great day!

Bon Voyage!

We are having a good last sea day. Suzi went to see A City on the Sea and said it was excellent. Weather is ideal, 81 degrees and mostly sunny. 🌞 Lunch was my usual two tacos, Suzi had egg salad. I know, we eat exciting stuff. 😋 The best part was dessert. They finally had the cake festival today and we had the same as last month - chocolate cake with fudge icing. Excellent cake that tasted very fresh and homemade. We have spent most of the day talking with peeps we have met this cruise. Always bitter sweet knowing we will probably never talk or see them again.

Ray, I hope all goes well with the treatment.

Good morning dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. Our last full day aboard the NS heading back to port everglades. Yesterday was a good day. Santa visited the NS for the kids and even stopped by the aft lido for photo opportunities. We attended Deal, no Deal game show. My ticket wasn't chosen to go on stage, but we stayed and it was a fun hour. We had a good Christmas dinner. Suzi had the turkey and I had the ham. Broke even in the casino. No plans today other than the unhappy time of packing at some point. Weather looks good and the water is almost like glass. I hope everyone has a great day and I will check in later. Pics are from morning sunrise as we pass Cuba.

Good morning dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. Merry Christmas! Mostly sunny morning here on the NS north bound back to port everglades. We had an excellent day in Curacao yesterday. Weather was perfect 🥰 and the island was in full Christmas decorations mode. I have several pics on my camera to download and will share in the next week or so. The same three ships that were in Aruba, were also in Curacao. We did our usual walk to the swinging bridge and then to the shopping area in town. As we had thought, the combination of it being a Sunday and Christmas eve caused most stores to be closed. We had a coke at the Iguana restaurant on the waterway and was able to watch it swing open one time as a boat went through. We bought a few souvenirs from locals at the arts and crafts section that was open. For dinner we dined at the Pinnacle grill. Service was very good considering the place was full all evening. Our dinner was good, not great as the steak quality leaves a lot to be desired. My crab cakes and Suzi's ceaser salad were both very good. It was included in our HIA package so we can't really complain. That being said, even with the 4 star discount, we would not go back. I won a little at the casino at the blackjack table. Nothing planned for today except seeing if I'm a contestant in the Deal, no deal game this afternoon. Hopefully we will change the clocks back tonight so we will be back on eastern time again. I hope everyone has a great day and I'll check in later. PS according to the Daily, Santa's sled is landing soon, we are keeping a watchful eye out. 😉

We had a nice walk here in Aruba today. Suzi found a few "trinkets" for some of her office friends. We made it back to the ship just in time as it started pouring rain. Thankfully for everyone who was off the ship, it lasted for only 15 minutes. Other than that, it's been a beautiful day. Not sure what we are going to do for dinner. Looks like Jamaican night, so we need to eat elsewhere. We talked with the Canaletto's manager this morning and they are sold out for both Christmas and Christmas Eve. I hope everyone has a good rest of your day.

Bon Voyage!

Good morning dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. We are at the first pier on the NS in Aruba this morning. Looks like three ships today, so it will be busyat the port. We decided not to do the four hour tour after being crammed in the bus yesterday. I don't think either of us can handle that again. So we will go shopping by tge marina in an hour or so. Yesterday was Caribbean / Jamaican for dinner, so we opted to eat at the NY pizza restaurant. We both had sandwiches and split a small pizza. Food was very good and no dessert 😋 for a change. 😀 Weather was perfect for the day and today's forecast looks promising. I hope everyone has a great day and I will check in later. Pics are from earlier coming in to port.

Sorry, I posted earlier, but it didn't post.... Our tour was not very good. Island is very clean, mega cactus everywhere and outside of the city, not much else. I will post more tomorrow.

Good morning dailyites and thank you for the Daily Report. We arrived early this morning in Bonaire. Yesterday afternoon was pretty much relaxing by the aft pool in perfect weather. 😎 For dinner, we ate at Canaletto's again. Suzi had the shrimp scampi and I had the Italian sausage pasta, both were delicious with excellent service. I lost a little at the casino. 😞 However, still way ahead for the cruise. 😀 We are going on an island tour in about 45 minutes. We've never been here before, so it will be opportunity to check the island out and then probably Suzi will want to do some shopping. I will check in later. I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Bon Voyage to @pennynickel! Pics are when ship arrived about four hours ago.