jpalbny

Fanny Pack

From our perspective (East Coast, and within 3h of Newark, Kennedy, or Logan), Europe is a quick hop. There are a ton of good, direct flights from those airports. Not much more time than California, and way easier than Hawaii. We've gone to Europe for long weekends before and we'll do so again over Christmas. This year we're taking an extra day - leaving the 21st and coming home the 25th. We'll fly direct from Newark into Paris, rent a car, and then spend a few days in the Loire Valley. I love visiting places in the off season. On the other hand, the flights to Southern Africa are long! Getting there we'll go Albany-Atlanta then the long but direct 15+h flight Atlanta-Johannesberg. We get into Joberg and we'll overnight at the Intercontinental before flying to Botswana the next day. We've done that flight once before and it's a killer. It's such a weird feeling to settle in, eat your meal, sleep for a long time, and wake up only to find out that your flight is barely half complete! We were booked on the reverse itinerary coming home (JNB-ATL-ALB) but a month or so ago, Delta canceled the JNB-ATL leg on the day we were coming home. So I had to really work hard on them to come up with an acceptable alternative routing. Now we're going JNB-CDG-ATL-ALB which is a longer journey overall, but the longest leg is only 11 hours. Oh well, more FF miles to boost our status ahead of the upcoming changes for 2024! Enjoy the train rides through the West - so many beautiful places to see.

We leave for Botswana in 6 weeks and definitely wish it was sooner. Work is killing us and I second your notion that all of the great cruise reviews are a lifesaver, even though they also make me envious of those off having a good time! We have 3 or 4 going at once over on the Silversea boards and it's nice to follow along vicariously. I still have some unripe tomatoes in the garden which can stay out a few weeks longer if it doesn't get too much colder. They probably won't ripen too much more on the vine but I can bring them in at some point and leave them in the sunroom to finish up. One year I didn't have to bring them in until mid-December and we had fresh tomatoes until New Year's! T-Mobile FTW! I hope you are taking advantage of their discounted plan for people of my age and older. Best bargain ever and the best part of turning that age so far! Looking forward to your blog when you finish it. Enjoy the cruise! Summer was here in full force until about 2 weeks ago and then left very suddenly. Cool mornings, clouds and mist, and sunny days with warm sunshine but it doesn't last and there is very much a chill in the air letting us know that autumn has arrived. No danger of frost that I can see in the near future though so I'm hoping that my orange and lemon trees can stay outside a bit longer. I have a couple of blood oranges starting to ripen and I'm hoping that the cool nights will trigger the red compound to form so that they get the proper "blood" coloration. Last year's harvest never got that color because I had to bring them inside too soon.

Definitely making me want to retire early as well.

So you went north from Copenhagen - you must have sailed through the Øresund strait between Helsingør and Helsingborg. Were you close enough to get a good look at (or pictures of) Kronborg Slot? We really wanted to go there on our last visit to Copenhagen, but our Air France flight was almost 3h late arriving so we didn't have time.

You've done a remarkable job with your posts just to be "only" two days behind. Safe travels back to the mainland and we all look forward to the rest of your posts!

We were lucky enough to see Lonesome George when he was still alive, in 2011.

What a nice itinerary! Looking forward to following along.

Definitely. Shadow was at Pier 90 last weekend. Sorry to miss you! It's going to be a rainy weekend here in Albany; hope you get some decent weather further south.

Hope you can dock! When we were in NYC last weekend we saw two cruise ships afloat by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. They were just sitting there waiting out the storm. That would really be no fun to be so close to the city but not at a pier. Sorry you're missing Newport. We visited once by cruise ship probably 25 years ago and were not impressed but when we went back in February for a weekend on our own we loved it.

I'll do my part, Silver. Wishing you a wonderful cruise!

Loved it! Thank you.

Definitely getting lower! Might have to rethink my retirement plans...

Yup, that's censored. Used to drive me crazy - back in the day when you had to post pictures by hyperlink to an online album, I used to upload to Picasa and every once in a while, the random link had those fateful three letters in sequence. So the link would get censored and wouldn't work!

Some of the ones on deck 3 and 4 did too. You're not misremembering. We stayed in the old larger suites: 323 once, and 427 twice. They were called "expedition" and "discoverer" suites. As illustrated on these old Prince Albert II deck plans from 2009, they had a huge walk-in closet that occupied the space between the entryway and the bathroom, and there was a second door that exited the closet into the bedroom. We loved those suites and booked one for our fourth cruise (November 2017) but alas during the dry dock that Summer, they split all of the deck 3 and 4 suites into two smaller cabins! So we got upgraded to 700. Not a bad tradeoff! I've attached a second set of deck plans "after refurb" which shows those 3rd and 4th deck cabins now split in two. The only remaining suites of that size are Silver Suites on deck 5. PAII_suite_and_deckplans.pdf RE15659_Deck_Plans_Explorer 2017 after refurb.pdf

I've been on cruises where Cloud and Wind used their lifeboats as tenders. Probably lots of factors that go into the decision to use them vs zodiacs, but I'm not privy to that! Enjoy the sailaway party! Have a glass for me (and one for Chris too).

Lol. Even I can read that without using Urban Dictionary. Relatively easy. Gotta expand your vocab, Stumble!

It must be such a nice feeling to witness that flurry of disembarkation day, but not have to participate! Some day...

It is definitely a challenge to write and publish such detailed posts while simultaneously doing all of these excursions. Kudos on your great posts so far! Keep having fun and we look forward to following along.

See you there! We're booked on the second leg of this WC, and we have a GTY booking. I'm sure that they will assign us a stateroom at some point before then; otherwise, we'll be the ones sleeping out on the pool deck.

I was taking bets as to which of our Canadian friends would correct us re: the St. John's vs. Saint John place names. I know that the difference exists with those two names, but have to look them up every time!

Thanks for the report! Looks like a beautiful ship, and your pictures are great.

Lucky you! We've never been there, despite it being on two different itineraries that we've sailed. The first time we tried, the weather was bad, so we couldn't get into the harbor. We spent a few hours bobbing around outside the narrows and then gave up. The second time, it was dropped from our itinerary a few weeks before sailing. No reason given. Hope you have smooth sailing from here on!

We saw Silver Shadow docked in Manhattan tonight. As we drove down the West Side Highway, she was visible at Pier 90.

Is it really Canada then? 😉 That hike looks beautiful!