mysty

Que, I hope this works out for you! Sending good vibes!

Greetings Coolers! Today's funny..... Have a great safe fun day all!

Status report....our ISP has had a major melt down. No eta for the return of service. Currently hotspotting via data on Myster's cell phone. Hope to be operational again soon. If interested search for "Roger's outage".

Greetings Coolers! Today's funny..... Have a great safe fun day all!

We typically took an excursion in each port so our choices of favourites are mostly based on our excursions. First I will identify the excursions we enjoyed by country: France: We enjoyed all the French ports (St Jean de Luz, Bordeaux, Saint Malo, Rouen and Honfleur) United Kingdom: Here are our favourites: Fishguard for the excursion to St. David's Liverpool where we met a friend and toured with his excellent guidance Belfast for the excellent Black Taxi Tour (it was very insightful regarding The Troubles) Iceland: We had 3 favourites here: Djupivogur for the Valley of the Waterfalls excursion Heimaey, Westman Islands for the Circumnavigation of Heimaey tour. Note that we had an excellent guide for this one. Patreksfjordur for the Mountains and Waterfalls excursion Norway: We had 2 favourites here: Olden for the Cruising Lake Loen and Kjenndal Glacier excursion. Note that the road to the glacier was closed so that part did not happen. Stavenger for the Cruise to Lysefjord excursion Poland: Only 1 port here: Gdansk for the Malbork Castle excursion Sweden: Visby for the Visby on Foot excursion It is very difficult to pick our most favourite. Here are our top 4 in no particular order: Belfast Heimaey Olden Stavenger Iceland was our favourite country on this itinerary. The only port that we decided we would not want to visit again was Aalborg, Denmark. Sorry Aalborg!

Cruzin I love the question! I need to review my blog to give you the answer. I'll get back to you!

Indeed I did! OOOPS! 😅

Greetings Coolers! Today's funny..... Have a great safe fun day all!

Love that High! Thank you! 🥰

I'm going to provide my impressions of the recent Grand Northern Europe Voyage on the Silver Moon. First some caveats: The following comments are based on my personal experience. There will be comparisons to my experiences sailing on Silversea pre-COVID. These comments are not intended to smear Silversea. They are meant to reflect differences which I think passengers (new and old faithful) might be interested in. My comments are not intended to start a debate! If you disagree with my comments, that's fair. However, you are not welcome to argue. I will not hesitate to report your post! To give some background on my travels I have done 4 cruises with Silversea pre-COVID (2 World Cruises, a Transatlantic, a British Isles) and 1 cruise following COVID (the Grand Northern Europe Voyage) for a total of 367 days. I won’t comment on entertainment because we avoided the Venetian Lounge except for gathering for tendering. I won't comment on the quality of the staff and crew because on every voyage they have provided spectacular service! Okay....now the meat and potatoes....... Staff and Crew Shortages: Of course it is to be expected that since COVID it has been difficult to keep the staffing levels up to what was happening pre-COVID. When a number of crew and staff are down for the count with COVID it is reasonable to expect service delays in the various restaurants. And there were definitely delays. All staff were masked. Their smiles were in their eyes! Food: If anything has suffered with the advent of COVID it has been the food. On pre-Covid cruises there were always hits and misses. Not every meal was spectacular and most were delicious to my taste. On the recent Moon experience the food had more misses than hits. The Grill was always a hit. The Grill Chef was amazing. La Dame was La Dame. Enough said. Kaiseki and Spaccanapoli were good. We dined once at Silver Note and once at La Terrazza. The other restaurants (Atlantide and S.A.L.T. Kitchen) were very uneven. Excursions: The quality of the excursions has changed with the advent of COVID and the introduction of "included" excursions. The "Select" excursions we took (with the exception of one) were consistently better than the "included". Of the many "included" excursions we took over the two month Silver Moon cruise only about 10 were good. The rest were long bus rides with crowded buses. The quality of the guides on the "included" excursions was hit and mostly miss. To be fair, it may be difficult these days with the dearth of tour companies on offer. When shore excursions came at a price before the introduction of "included" excursions they were almost always well worth the money. If you were unsatisfied you could talk to the Shore Concierge office and voice your concerns. When the excursion is "free" did people do that? Not sure. When COVID counts started to climb many excursions did not have a Silversea escort. Once again...staff shortages. Supply Issues: Supply shortages were definitely an issue on the Moon cruise. Not fair to compare with pre-COVID as the reasons for shortages were missing expected shipments. They ran out of Kleenex at one point and paper napkins were stuffed in the empty Kleenex boxes. No chips or bar snacks for a few weeks. No maple syrup for much longer. Atmosphere: Again not fair to compare as the current COVID conditions are making social interaction the challenge of avoiding COVID. Meeting for drinks and dinner became a guessing game as to whether your fellow passengers were actually COVID positive once the daily temperature checks stopped and the testing for in transit guests was discontinued. That doesn't make for a comfortable environment. And yes, I know that I took that risk when I boarded the ship! There was also a difference in the conviviality of the group. I think the social isolation and the general level of fear which resulted from COVID have eroded people's social skills. And yes, there were also this kind of passenger pre-COVID. It just felt like there was a higher percentage on the latest cruise. Do I hold Silversea responsible for these differences? No I do not! Will I sail with them again? Indeed I will! We have another World Cruise booked for 2024 and a Christmas Cruise booked for December 2013. If the Goddess of Finance smiles we will be on those cruises.

Have an awesome sail! It doesn't have to be an equivalent to Silversea. If you enjoy the ride that's enough! Enjoy! 🥰

Greetings Coolers! Time to get back in the saddle. I don't ride so please excuse me if I sometimes fall off the horse. 😁 Today's funny..... Have a great safe fun day all!

Which bit called me to mind Jazz? The cloudy or the wine? 😅

Late breaking news......our walk about piece of luggage has just been delivered! We are hoping to pick up the three ship ahead pieces tomorrow at the FedEx location at the airport after it has cleared customs! Happy dance!!!!!

From the bottom of my heart I am wishing you luck and a stress-less experience Lirio! Enjoy your travels!

Okay, buckle up! To be fair I think all airlines are struggling. Here is our story. After spending a wonderful 5 days with our friends in Stockholm we spent the last night in the Radisson Blu hotel at the airport. We had a flight to Amsterdam at 6:30 the next morning. We got up at 3:00 am and went to the airport. Easy part as the hotel is connected to the airport. Our three flights were booked with KLM with the last leg with WestJet (an affiliate airline with KLM). First flight from Stockholm to Amsterdam went beautifully. Then the nightmare began. The flight to Toronto departed late because loading the plane was slow and they were waiting for 4 passengers who had arrived at the airport from Mumbai 2 hours previous and had not shown up at the gate. They then had to take their luggage off the plane. Flight and food were awesome. We arrived in Toronto late and missed the connecting flight home. We talked to the KLM agent at the baggage area and she rebooked but didn't give us new boarding passes. When we attempted to go through security they wouldn't accept the paperwork she gave us. We were shunted between KLM and WestJet for about an hour battling crowds of people as we went. Finally KLM gave us a new electronic ticket which we had to take to WestJet to get boarding passes. We got to the gate in time. Late boarding and sat on the plane for about 1/2 hour waiting for a toilet issue to be resolved. When we got to Ottawa our checked bag did not! Now we are waiting to see if it will be found. Considering that we had been up since 3:00 am (9:00 pm the evening before in our time ) and we eventually got home around 7:30 pm it is not surprising that I was a bundle of sagging bits. Brain function barely registering. Air travel will be curtailed until they can get a better handle on things. It's not for the faint of heart!

Thank you Ann! Please do say hello for us. Neither know us by Mysty and Myster but William will recognize the guy who had the daily fish for lunch and sat at William's station with his wife who had daily french fries. 😆 Chef Andrii will recognize the folks for whom he prepared cabbage rolls from his grandmother's recipe. Have an awesome sail! 🥰

To tie up loose ends.....we arrived home yesterday after a travel day too gory for public consumption. In a nutshell.....air travel these days hearkens back to medieval times when the dangers to life and limb and sanity were the norm. Until the next time.....

Greetings Coolers! I'm here in body however my mind is not! Trip home yesterday is too gory for public consumption. Instead a funny..... Have a wonderful day all!

Currently sitting on the veranda of suite 517. There were tears last night as we said goodbye to the awesome Grill staff where we dined frequently in an attempt to stay in the open air. Wiliam (our amazing waiter at the Grill) took such good care of us. Chef Andrii at the Grill is a very talented chef! Now the tears are threatening again. I hope I can make it off the ship without becoming a blubbering mess.

Here are pics from Myster's tour to Fortress Island. This involved a city tour, followed by a ferry ride to Suomenlinna Island (Fortress Island). Sibelius Monument..... Ferry departure..... Fortress Island..... Tomorrow we disembark. It's been quite the ride. Not sure when the next post will be. We are spending time in Stockholm with friends. I want to thank everyone who took the time to follow our journey! And to those fellow passengers who shared their photos and their thoughts...bless you and thank you!

Unfortunately, some really good pics that Myster took are portrait and not landscape. When we get home I'll see if I can do something to deal with the obvious glitch for posting pics here. It is beyond frustrating!

Today we are docked in Helsinki, Finland. Another beautiful sunny day. Myster has gone off solo for the excursion called Fortress Island. I will continue to wrestle stuff into the luggage prior to disembarking tomorrow. For your entertainment here are the photos Myster took yesterday in Tallinn.....

We are currently steaming to Tallinn, Estonia with an expected arrival of noon. Myster is going solo for the excursion, The Best of Tallinn. I am going to try to wrestle our stuff into the luggage. We disembark on Tuesday in Stockholm. The past 2 months have been a whirlwind and we thoroughly enjoyed the chance to see our wonderful world again!

Thank you! Everyone experiences things differently. We are unique individuals and we see things through filters we pick up over the course of our lives. I just attempted to present my personal experience seen through my eyes. I'm very glad you enjoyed the trip! 🥰