lissie

I am - I'm trying to work out how many I need to bring!

Looking at the menus published here and elsewhere - I haven't even seen any Hendricks - the gin collection seems very,very limited - to basically Bombay

I must admit Iwas thinking more outdoors - getting up is a basical survival skill

Which cruise line would that be? We choose on itinerary - find me a cheaper cruise that covers the Maritimes/ Greenland/Iceland and I'm all ears - I did look!

Or use a dry bag or zip lock bag inside it - our $10 Amazon fold away pack is shower proof - but I have a dry bag for anything that needs to stay dry which goes inside it. I keep hat and gloves in my pockets - so its just an extra layer and a wet weather layer that goes in a day bag normally - and a water bottle

Partner won - we are flying home 😞

I have a very different experience. I've not sailed HAL yet - booked on 25 days ex Boston in July. Last year I sailed twice on Cunard - same ship as we'd sailed pre-pandemic. We did 35 days in July/Aug and 20 days in October. We'd previously sailed in Feb 20., We saw differences in July (repostiioning from West Coast to Europe) from 2019 - we had compulsory mask wearing most of the cruise, most senior officers were invisible because they were' allowed to mix for obvious reason, the dance hosts had gone for obvious reasons. The food/drink was the same. In October (a repositioning from Europe to Australia), we had much less mask wearing but far more outages of drinks in the bars. Now compared to HAL Cunard has a huge range of alcohol on board so having to switch to a different gin and choose from 40 odd isn't the end of the world. And the stuff they were out of was obscure (like a port mixed with tonic in a bottle - interesting). Cunard is Carnival too. The reason we booked HAL wasn't because we now hate Cunard - but htey have limited itineraries - we heard about the VOV on the QE and ended up booking the Boston return version. No other cruise line does that sort of loop at that price - unless you super-expensive expedition style trips which are not in our budget. We may or may not do the cruises I've booked in 2024 - and that has nothing to do with the cruise lines. Our insurance has gone through the roof. We have to have full insurance on cruise ships to cover medical and evacuation insurance. My partner has had cardiac issues in the past . Last year the insurance was US$1800 for the 2 of us for 90 days, this year is US$3000 for the 2 of us for 60 days. The increase is ENTIRELY because of the increased insurance claims resulting from Covid on cruise ships. Last year we could choose an option without Covid cover, this year that wasn't an option. If their rates don't go back to reasonable, we will be going back to land-based travel. We cruise to travel to places which are otherwise hard to get to (Panama, Suez Canal, Greenland) or expensive to get to (Maritimes, Iceland). But the insurance will shut us down from cruising much faster than a missing entree option or a drink.

I think one of the issues you are missing that the supply lines maybe working well in North America and Europe - but Westerdam was sailing Japan. Japan only just opened up to to tourism.. China r reopened even later. Tourism hugely affects supply lines and crew availability - because airlines cut flights to near zero if tourism is shut down (trust me I lived through 2 years of this in NZ - couriers from the US were taking months because of the lack of air freight - the government had to subsidze planes just to bring in pharmaceuticals ) . If there are no flights, you can't fly crew in/out. If there are no flights some of your supplies can't come - and even the sea freight may well be affected because its over-booked because of the lack of flights. Once NZ dropped most restrictions April 22 - it took a good 4-6 months for supply lines to get back to anything like normal. It's taken until now for flight prices to get anything near normal.

I just paid for excursions which had had the waitlist open up. I used a New Zealand Visa card and the Edge browser and it worked just fine. Worth a go changing browsers

Yes I think there is some confusion. I don't have a prescription for the patches - they are OTC medication in NZ . I'm surprised they are not OTC in the US but apparently that's the case. I can't get a prescription filled in the USA without a a US dr - and that most certainly isn't happening - my travel insurance would not be very impressed!

Interesting - we've always tendered in life boats - but have only cruise on one ship! What is the alternative - I thought it was normal and good practice for the crew to use the life boats. How long did it take you to clear US immigration into Bar Harbor- its our first port after Canada and Iceland so I was wondering if it would seriously delay things - or do the US officials come on board on your last Canada stop?

Do you have any details - cost ? when it departed. Our flight is not until 5pm - but the only transfer I see under shore excursions leaves at 8:30 and is 2.5 hours (and $135 pp) - so not that useful and gets us to the airport too soon. We'll have spent 5 days in Boston pre-cruise so will know what we want to do that day - my issue is the bags. Currently considering the water taxi transfer - its expensive @ $50 pp - but at least includes luggage storage and the flexibility of when we catch the 2nd leg to the airport.

I'm liking what I hear of this system - the only decision left is how many bottles we buy!

I used to know that 4oz was 125g /ml - because I have my mother's and grandmother's hand written recipes and 4oz is a common measure for butter / sugar etc

Funnily enough that was the calculation I googled - important to know! basically oz x 3 = ml

I worked in British Colombia in the 80s - as a 20 something year old I discovered Cider there. I'm looking forward to the eastern Canada version 🙂

What you are saying except for one important point. Its not humanity who got to this point is the USA! I will tip in the USA because its built into the way you pay staff. I will always call out Americans who throw cash around tipping in other countries were its totally inappropriate. By tipping where its not required all you are doing is encouraging employers to pay less because the customer will subsidize directly

The flight looks very nice- I'm a Cider addict - we are hiring a car and driving out to Louisburg on our Sydney stop - but I hope to have time for a flight on the way back!

I noticed that the ciders are listed in oz? Did you notice that a lot? Canada was a metric country the last time I was there and I'm hoping to minimize the number of translations I need memorized - I've got the important one (F to C) sorted out but otherwise as we are cursing Canada/Greenland/Iceland I was hoping for all metric

I'm trying to figure out the same we are cruising out of Boston and I'm determined to stay carry on only - so its a range of temperatures. A few years ago I did a land trip to W Sichuan, China - its Tibet without the travel restrictions - and its around 4000m most of it. The temperatures were around 10C max - minimums around 0C - dry, often sunny, but the wind was bitter. I was backpacking and I don't have/need heavy clothes. At home I wear fleece in the winter but its too bulky to carry. I went all Merino - my warmest set of clothes was - merino singlet - long sleeved merino baselayer - long sleeved merino jumper - down sleeveless vest - merino leggings base layer - merino joggers - down jacket with a hood - windproof layer with a hood - hat/gloves/buff - woollen socks - light weight boots The thing was that when I needed all my clothes basically my pack was empty except for some extra t-shirts and underwear/socks. And I wore that outfit for at least a week straight (and I mean straight - the Chinese don't do inside heating so basically I only took off the windproof and down jacket layers (and the jacket went on my bed - I've been warmer camping. Merino is very odor -resistant - so the trick is you need layers - and you don't need that many clothes. Frankly no one will see the inner most layers. And no one will expect to see more than one jacket. You loose a lot of heat from your head - and I live in a windy city. I don't own a umbrella, and a scarf is not much use either. Look for lightweight merino hat and gloves and then a jacket with a hood which will go over all. I merino buff is also very useful better than a scarf I will probably take pretty similar layers this time around - still not sure about the boots - they are a a pain to travel with as you need to wear them which is less than ideal. You can substitute silk or polyester for merino - but I don't find silk as warm, and polyester stinks after a day. Never wear cotton - its a disaster in terms of heat retention

I can't find it on Amazon (which is my goto because i can get them to deliver to our arrival city in the US) . They have patches but they are some un-named herbal - I wouldn't trust those

So that's beertooth not bluetooth?

Only old people and people with kids have printers anymore! And I certainly haven't had a doubled-sided printers for many years. I'm a tech geek that works from home - but printers are very much an optional extra.

Try deleting the app entirely and reinstalling fromthe app store

Does that work even if you are on shore on an excursion connected to local cellular service? ie your phone may have a different time than ship's time.