jpalbny

Ron, those pictures look very familiar...If it's the place that I think it is, it's a great place to visit! We were there when we were in Barcelona before our Spirit cruise in November 2021.

That would be the DL flight which leaves annoyingly early... We looked at it a few years ago and decided against it. Too many things that might go wrong, even though KEF is a fairly efficient airport. It's far from the city. Even if everything goes perfectly it would be hard to get there before 9AM. We flew Iceland air instead, which has afternoon departures. Less stress.

Nicely done Ron! I agree. Looks like a lovely evening for the grill.

Ah! Saturday morning and Mysty posting funnies in the Cooler. All seems back to normal in the world. Happy Easter to all! I might watch Chris make Pysanky today.

Yes

Concur. Have never seen a list of included wines but after almost 150 nights on SS I can say that we've enjoyed the vast majority of them. A few have been familiar but most not, which is part of the fun of traveling. If the wine that's offered is not to our liking then we simply ask for something else. It's really not hard to say, "I don't like oaky Chardonnay, do you have something with more acidity?" You really don't have to be. You can always ask for something that you like. And be as specific as possible so they can find something close. They will not tie you down and force you to drink the included wine of the evening, if you don't like it. Exactly. "I'd like to have a (dry rose) (glass of Riesling) (bottle of Malbec) (dessert wine)" all would work very well in this situation. Ask and you will receive. Like the wine servers at any other dining establishment, they vary. If they can't help you to your satisfaction, the sommeliers certainly can. We usually make it a point to find the Somm early on in the cruise and maybe ask about (or order) something from the Connoisseur's List. Once you do that, they will check in on you for the rest of the cruise and often find "special" bottles of included wine for you to sample. This works on other lines as well; on our recent Ponant cruise we had a bunch of OBC to burn so we started ordering from the list early on. The Somm always came to us and made sure we were well plied with the included wines, and threw in a few extras as well. Yes and yes. It depends, IME. On the smaller ships (with only 4 restaurants) the wine selection seems to be similar throughout the ship on each given night, and the selection changes nightly. On our one cruise on Silver Spirit, the wines seemed to vary significantly between each restaurant, so the key to getting different wines was to hop between restaurants. Within each restaurant, the wines were somewhat similar from night to night. That made sense in some ways; a wine that goes well with spicy food in Indochine wouldn't necessarily go well with steaks in Atlantide, so it makes sense to keep it in Indochine because the menu doesn't vary all that much from night to night. But as someone else already mentioned, if the wine is available on the ship, they will bring it to you if you ask for it.

We Myst you too!

The bread, or the wine? After all, it is Friday!

Still missing Mysty. Hopefully her power will be back today! Some more cat humor. Wishing a pleasant Good Friday and Easter Weekend to all!

Not the way I understand it. The upcharge is for the food. You can get complimentary wines in La Dame with your meal (which costs $60) for no additional charge. If you want to buy wines from the connoisseur's list to go with your meal, that's extra. Every time we've gone, they have found nice included wines to match with the different courses. Things may be different now as we have not done La Dame since just B.C., back in January 2020. We have a reservation for June on our next cruise.

She is indeed without power. But doing well the last I heard. Since she can't post here are some silly cat cartoons to pass the time.

Several things to consider. Most of the time it's more expensive to book with the cruise line but not always. I'd check both options and see what the price difference is. Also you may give up transfers if you book independently so there's that to consider. I don't remember if Milan has an easy connection to the city from the airport - are you arriving in Malpensa, or Linate? If you book through the cruise line you'll stay in the same room for both reservations. If you don't you'll probably be able to contact the hotel and have the two separate reservations linked. It would be a serious pain to check out in the morning (from your first reservation) and check back in later that day into the Uniworld room. We have done this previously and it's worked. What hotel are you/they using? We were just there last June and had a great time. We stayed right near the train station in a smaller non-chain hotel. Enjoy!

Sleep well! We drove to Ronda for a full day of wandering, back when we spent a week in Marbella. Such a unique place! We still think about it often and would very much like to visit again. Thanks for the memories.

M, it's not the pitcher plant flesh itself that gives me the willies. It's the contents therein. Pitcher plants have a liquid in the bottom that they use to digest insects that fall into the pitcher. Thus, I hope they wash all the little half-digested bug parts out really well before they serve it! Otherwise, a few insect parts in your rice might make for some extra protein. Maybe you'll be ahead of the curve though; I hear we'll all be eating insects soon enough!

Yikes Mysty! I hope they clean out those pitcher plants really well before you eat them. Decomposing insects might not go very well with your scrumptious rice filling!

Great pix! Thanks for sharing. What a great excursion that was! I hope the rest of your cruise is as much fun as ours was.

Love the pics! Did you go into the Atomium? Such a unique structure.

I know of one gin from Argentina, called Principe De Los Apostoles Mate Gin. It's reminiscent of the northern rainforest part of Argentina (Misiones). We have tried it and enjoyed it. The flavor profile has peppermint which we found refreshing. And it was just after we had been to Iguazu, so the Yerba Mate was familiar too.

Ah yes, you get two sea days in a row on your itinerary as it's the reverse of the one we did. We enjoyed the down time after a few busy days but it's probably not so good for you, just starting out and ready for adventure! I hope you get some good sightings of the orangutans! Post some pictures if you have a chance. We had the reusable water bottles on our voyage - guess they ran out and didn't get a resupply during the drydock.

That would be amazing! Terry, thanks as always for the visuals. And thanks for the warning! We've lost some cameras due to unexpected water, and bad preparation...

Looks tasty Ron! I grilled some skirt steak yesterday. Just the way we like it!

I can't resist!

Haha! I didn't know that was his name but I was pretty sure that's who you meant!

I've been looking forward to hearing about your trip! Hope you're having a great time, and that the wildlife sightings are memorable.

Good to know. They definitely ASK that you choose one menu or the other. We have always chosen the traditional menu.