markeb

A little nuts for me. Traffic will "probably" be fine southbound, but who knows. It's Friday. Book a room near Pike Place, spend the day in Seattle, and have a leisurely trip to a 10:20 flight on Saturday (assuming the same flight schedule on Saturday). Tons to do in the area if you don't want to do downtown Seattle. That sounds a lot better than stressing over an early flight or wasting the day "homeless" for a 3:00 pm flight.

That's the thing, isn't it? I just thumbed through the wine lists in the app (not thorough; I'm not that into this question) and finally found Decoy (presumably the Cab) by the bottle. It's showing $19/glass on the current Equinox sailing. It's a $19/bottle retail wine. IF they're offering it by the glass, it should be $85/bottle ($19 * 5), which would be truly outrageous. Even crazier, it's actually $70 a bottle (again, the app only says Decoy, so I'm making the assumption that's the Cab) which makes no sense whatsoever! It's not that good of a wine to begin with, and that's a crazy stupid markup. The packages really skew the wine prices! There's no way I'd spend $70 for a bottle of Decoy when Freemark Abbey is $110, or even better, Penner-Ash Pinot Noir is $100. But if you have the premium package, Decoy is "free" and the much better Pinot Noir is $100, less 20% discount for the premium package plus 20% gratuity, so really $96 that you're actually paying. There is a level of insanity here! Just returned from an amazing week in Napa visiting wineries and tasting real wine. Need to breathe deep, calm down, and avoid wine threads on Cruise Critic...

Uber. No need to mess with a shuttle.

Asking about food allergies has become pretty common in many if not most restaurants. This "may" have been your comment, but we were asked both times we ate at Sushi on 5, and maybe Tuscan. I don't remember if they did asked the first day in Luminae. We get asked all the time eating out in DC and NYC. Sometimes sarcasm can get you in trouble... 😱

It's been awhile, but a lot of the better Lodi producers were very small and you'd be hard pressed to find them outside of California. Some of them, sure. Michael David, for instance (7 Deadly Zins, and a number of much better Zinfandel based wines). But the ones we enjoyed when living there were mostly very small. Had no idea Josh marketed a Lodi wine. Don't know that I've ever had Josh and don't know that I would. Wente makes some pretty good wines. No, not top tier California, but better than a lot of the $15 bottles out there.

Why? Have you had Lodi wine? For decades it’s been the other percent in Napa and Sonoma wine. Many of them are very good. Some are excellent. Maybe North Carolina wines are good. Never had one. I’ve had plenty from Lodi, Amador County, and Livermore.

Try something unoaked or neutral oak from Russian River or Carneros. Totally different animal than Monterey (or the heavily oaked 100% malolactic chards from Napa).

That’s the Steel. It tastes wonderful. Crisp, clean, some nice fruit notes. It does not taste like a stick of butter left in a wooden churn. Which is a good thing.

I’d agree. The big shopping enters will probably take anything but the smaller vendors usually don’t take AMEX. And you need Visa/MC for the transit system.

Definitely in Singapore. Be prepared to switch to Visa/MC if you normally use AMEX. ApplePay, Google Pay or contactless cards work on all public transit. The only place I remember using cash was at the true Hawker Markets. But $10 US will pretty much buy you a meal there.

Yeah. I still have an a6500 with the notorious NP FW-50 battery. I need multiple batteries charged. May move to FF for an Alaska cruise.

And there are a ton of aftermarket USB C chargers out there for Sony batteries…. (And Canon, Nikon, Olympus, etc.)

No. French. And it’s Steel.

Steel Chardonnay is as stated French. No oak, no butter. Perfect for food.

Why? They’d almost certainly use an underpowered USB A port in a world of USB C. if you have a newer iPhone you’d have to buy a separate cable just for that purpose. And it would be slow. If the really wanted to do this they’d install a USB A/C hub that plugs into a power outlet so they can easily replace it when the technology changes. Hard wiring a USB A charging port in 2023 makes no sense whatsoever.

Exactly. You can mute that as well.

Many of us have had plenty of great RCL cruises. No idea why you haven’t.

I want to be, but that’s the trend. Go to an MLB or NBA game. Same and maybe worse. They did have Dogfish 90 in the premium package on Equinox. If they start moving that into surcharge territory…

Decoy is one of Duckhorns introductory level wines. They’ve always been acceptable, but never great. That largely translates to their Pinot Noir. They make a Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir that I remember being pretty good, but their base white label is just listed as California and is pretty forgettable. Duckhorn’s (parent company) Pinot Noir label is Goldeneye (named for the duck, not the James Bond movie or Ian Fleming’s estate). Goldeneye is made with Anderson Valley fruit and is generally excellent. Not a huge Reddit fan, but I’d agree here…

You must. Most of your $10 a glass wines retail for $10 a bottle. Not usually true for higher priced wines $100/bottle will probably be $30-35 a glass.

It’s still $14 in the app (Equinox current sailing) and not listed in the paper menus posted in this thread.

Are you following the used Rolex market? Not sure about that today unless you’re buying new at or (laughing maniacally) below retail. The crazy stupid days of the last 2-3 years are cooling.

That was my quick read as well. And new wines in the elevated group not previously available by the glass. The Grgich chard is the only wine I see that moved up. It will be interesting to see if they add an Elevated package. Not sure it makes sense for either the buyer or seller…

Someone help me here. And I’m reading this on my iPhone. I see several wines on the “Elevated” list that were only available by the bottle 2 weeks ago on Equinox. For instance the Penner-Ash Pinot Noir. Which ones were in the premium package before and aren’t now? The Oppulence Chardonnay? For the reds I’m seeing new offerings at a higher price point, not increases in previously offered wines by the glass. But that’s a quick glance and I may be missing some.

If it’s become the accepted norm, is it even rude anymore? (Flippantly rhetorical.) I’d probably just load Killing in the Name Of (Google the lyrics if you don’t know them (NSFW…) on repeat. As loud as possible.