jpalbny

We have wine checks that hold 6 bottles each. Since we usually travel with just carry-on luggage we have plenty of extra baggage allowance to check wine on the way home. Another alternative is to get something like this: 20 Packs Wine Bottle Travel... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S71QLLM?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share They pack flat and take up little room but once blown up they protect the bottles well. Similar concept to what taxatty posted above, but even more compact. Only downside is that they are single-use.

Much easier to buy it ashore, at retail. If you want truly local stuff. That's our MO. For instance, we did a 7-day circumnavigation of Corsica 2 years ago (on Ponant, but the principle still holds). Before we left home, I googled wine shops at each little town we planned to stop at. By the end of the trip I had a nice collection of 12 Corsican wines that I would have never found at home. And I got to chat about local wines with some shopkeepers in places off the beaten path, which was especially fun. But we do this on SS cruises as well. And sometimes we grab a bottle or two from the connoisseur's list and bring that home too. The SS connoisseur's list is going to be higher end stuff that is (sometimes) reasonably priced, but recognizable so that it will appeal to a large segment of passengers over all voyages. But not something hyperlocal and unique to the itinerary.

Well played, Stumblefoot. Well played. Good thing I read your post while I was at work and only drinking coffee. It would have been a shame to waste any wine!

We looked long and hard at that itinerary but didn't end up booking it. We visited Madagascar in 2016 and spent two weeks there on land. Some day we'll go back and finish the Southern half - just not sure if it will be by land or by cruise. Hope you post about your next cruise too!

Surely you must try! If they are that fragile then you could never use a movie projector to display them so you may as well try to transfer them to digital. What a treasure that would be!

I just look in my "Pictures" folder and there are separate subfolders for every trip, organized by date. Makes it easier to reconstruct the list.

The private evening tour of an otherwise empty St. Mark's Basilica is one of the main reasons that I want to do this itinerary! What an experience that must have been.

Have to share our experience with renewing Global Entry this time. We first got GE in 2013 and renewed in 2018. Not a bad process, filled out a form online, paid the fee (reimbursed by AMEX) and eventually heard that we were approved. No new interview required. So our GE once again expires in January and March of next year. Chris got an email saying that she could renew so on Saturday afternoon we sat down and filled out the applications. This morning we both awoke to see an email notification concerning "a change in your application status" and logged on to the TTP site, to see what the problem was... No problem, both approved and renewed until 2029! Not sure how they did that in 36 hours but I'll take it! So I guess we're good to go for another five years (and we can come home afterwards).

I was going to say that they are probably the same ones who reserved the deck chairs at 6AM... But you beat me to it. And I liked your humorous way of putting it!

Sometimes Y?

Have a fantastic time! And welcome back to cruising! We have looked at this cruise from time to time but have not booked it yet. Looking forward to following along on your journey. Glad to hear that you enjoyed Milan - we were there for 3 days on our own last year and had a great time.

Thanks Terry. We ate lunch at La Couronne a few years back (BC) when we were in Rouen. And I recognize the iconic roof of Les Hospices de Beaune from your picture. I have some mixed memories of Beaune; it was there I tried the (in)famous Andouillette sausage. It was good until it wasn't. In the end it will probably come down to a combination of things, including which area has the most convenient train schedules. And what trains leave from stations closest to the RER B line. Tonight we'll concentrate on whether the Loire itinerary is feasible then we'll look at some of the other options. Thanks for the suggestions.

Thanks all. To clarify - we're only going to try to do one of the three options. I'm asking for opinions as to whether any of you would have a preference given that we'll be there in December. Terry, we do travel fast but we won't try all three in three days! I know that connections out of CDG can be a pain; have done that a bunch of times. You have to try to find stuff that is close to a station on the RER B line. We've been to Lyon and Beaune. Definitely liked it. Would go again and it did cross our minds for this visit too. We have taken the TGV from Paris to Lyon to catch a Rhone river cruise, and it's very convenient. Just didn't bubble to the top 3 for this long weekend. Might have to look more closely. I think the Loire is the lead contender as it should not be crowded like I suspected that Alsace will be. If nobody has visited in December then I think I'll have to report back with an update if we do that!

Coolers - polling for suggestions. We are spending 3 days in France just before Christmas (22-24) and flying home Christmas Day. Tix are to/from CDG but we'll take the train elsewhere and at most, spend the last night in Paris if at all. The bulk of the time will be spent elsewhere. We arrive really early on the 22nd so we have essentially 3 full days to plan. I have 3 general ideas: 1. Train to Tours and then maybe spend 2 or 3 nights in the Loire Valley, probably some in Tours and some at a smaller town like Amboise or Bloise, etc. Would probably rent a car for part of the time to see some of the Chateaux. The downside is that the weather may be iffy and obviously the gardens will be dormant. Chris visited the Loire Valley for a day (a few years ago when she was in HS) and I have never been. 2. Train to Strasbourg for Christmas markets, Alsatian food, wine, and seasonal cheer. Would probably squeeze in a day trip to Colmar. We've been to Strasbourg before but not much else in Alsace and I love the area. 3. (probably my least preferred) Rouen, and car trips to Bayeux and other places in Normandy. We have been to Rouen and Honfleur already and liked them, not to the beaches or Bayeux. I have not fleshed this idea out much. Anyone been to any of these areas in the winter? We do not mind the cold and we definitely like to avoid masses of tourists who crowd these places in the summer months. We'll trade a heavy jacket for solitude any day (and it's easy, as we have those nice SS parkas!). As I type this I suspect Strasbourg's Christmas markets may attract crowds, as they are somewhat well-known. Has anyone been there for the markets? Thanks in advance to anyone who has experience that they can share.

Does this Ed Hardy make my butt look big? Or is it the other way around?

I've encountered some obfuscated servers before; luckily they are not common on SS.

You never know when one will come in handy. I can give you two examples where I would have been in much more of a mess without one, just in the past two years. One: we were in Paris in March, getting ready to come home in March 2022. We had brought Binax self-tests in order to do the Covid RAD within 24h of entering the US. Idiot me...didn't realize that the test needed me to download and install an app so I could use it! No problem, I can download it now. Wrong! The app was not licensed to be installed outside of the US! So I could not download it while I was in France. Solution? I turned on my VPN, switched to a US location, and downloaded the app flawlessly. Two: I made a wrong turn while driving a rental car in Italy in June 2022, and ended up in a city center where I could not drive without a resident permit. Eleven months later, they sent me a fine. There was a website to pay it online - handy! But I could not access the website at all. So I turned on my VPN and set it to Italy, accessed the website, and paid the fine online. And since I paid it within 5 days of the notification, I saved 30%! What a bargain, and I couldn't have done it without my VPN. (PS I paid it with PayPal so I got AMEX points for my troubles - bargains galore...) I don't use it all the time, and furthermore, when you're on board a SS vessel, the VPN seems to block the onboard web-based interface where you can see things about your cruise (the website that some call an "app"). That took me a while to figure out. But there are times when it's a life saver.

I can't wait to try this ship!

I've been cooking halibut and salmon using sous vide for a while now. It is incredibly handy and the texture of the fish can't be beat. I get it flash frozen from Alaska, individually portioned, vacuum sealed in thick plastic bags. So I can take it directly from the freezer, put it in a sous vide bath at 126 degrees, and it's ready to eat in 40 minutes. There is no other technique that lets me go from frozen solid to delicious in that interval. It never dries out and it is amazingly tender. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at your post. The burgers were just awful on our last cruise. Your post made me run for some omeprazole just thinking about it! Absolutely!

Even the same demographic can change their behavior substantially after a single keg.

Yes, it's in my Corsica trip review. Let me find it and add it here. ETA: It's in the Corsica review not Indonesia, sorry. Post #43. Link:

Sorry Les, it's been even longer than that since I've used a bus in Reykjavik. In fact that's the reason that we walked the coastal path from Skarfabakki - to get to the main bus depot to catch a bus to get to our rental car! And we have never used a taxi in Iceland so I don't know firsthand whether they take CCs or not, but a quick Google search suggests that they do. Iceland is pretty CC friendly so I'd be surprised if they don't.

I found this amusing for some reason.

Looks like something we should do once we retire! Although we already have The Kimberly cruise booked for next year.

True. We have walked from Skarfabakki to the downtown area. It's mostly pretty and follows the coastline.