AusMum

10 hours ago, canderson said:

33"?  Strange size.  Not US, UK, EU or Aus! 

it's so you don't steal their sheets lol

35 minutes ago, Rothko1 said:

I think a lot depends on what you want from your cruise.  Do you want to be very active, constantly moving, exploring, seeing new sights and experiencing new places?   Do you want a more leisurely pace?  An excursion but then maybe time to relax, use the spa, sit on the deck with a book, have a long three-martini lunch followed by a nap (Yes Please!!).

 

 

I think it depends on where you come from too.  If you fly from Australia to Europe (around 20 hours) then you want to see/do as much as possible because it's such a long way to go, and you can 'relax' at home.

I didn't compare UK with US travel agents, but compared US with Australian.  Much to the surprise of a couple of US travel agents, they couldn't actually better the price quoted by the Australian TA (which was the same as SS direct).  It may well have been the itinerary we were booking.

14 minutes ago, ginadis2002 said:

We are beginning in Venice and ending in Rome with ports in Croatia, Tunis, Sicily, and Sorrento. I am toying with the idea of doing a food/wine tour and a history tour one day during the cruise. I am not sure I would do this more than one or two days throughout the cruise. One of the ports in which I would book two is Tunis. Another might be in Croatia. I’m really just kicking around the idea at this point looking for opinions.

Ohhh I have done a similar itinerary, but with Celebrity. We did Barcelona to Venice, with stops in Monaco, Nice, Sicily, Rome, Corfu, Croatia and a few other places.  My fave port was Sicily, out of your ports (which I didn't expect). Our port in Croatia was Zadar where we did the Krka waterfalls.  In Sicily we got to go to Taormina.

1 minute ago, Mr Luxury said:

Have you tried a pillow over his head

I don't want to incriminate myself lol

51 minutes ago, RyanJCanada said:

Today’s meals and menus:

 

 

 

 

Shrimp fried rice with bonus onion rings from my son’s burger. (Photographed after garnish had been removed but before I started eating - progress!)

 

Burger minus onion rings = delicious, according to my son

is today a sea day?

1 hour ago, ginadis2002 said:

Hi! My travel agent has indicated that as long as excursions do not overlap, more than one excursion can be reserved at a port. I’m wondering about the feasibility of this. Has anyone done this? Is it too much time in a bus and too little time to explore the port area? Exhausting? We are youngish and capable (I think, lol). Your thoughts?

I guess it depends on the destination? where are you going, and what tours did you have in mind?

On a 16 night cruise, will they stop my husband from snoring?

29 minutes ago, RyanJCanada said:

We have been told not to bring any food off the boat. I’ll see if I can ask if there are any exceptions for medical reasons. We haven’t visited any of the towns yet but I’ll have a look and let you know!

I looked at your itinerary and think ours might be quite different, but (as you've indicated) they can change the itinerary at any time to suit the conditions,

He really just needs to be responsible and eat a good breakfast.

Ps: enjoyed the video you linked us too about the do's and don't in the Arctic

31 minutes ago, drron29 said:

We did a similiar cruise in 2013 on the Explorer. We cruised from Reykjavik to Churchill in Hudson Bay via Greenland. however it was in late August which is a much better time to go. However it didn't stop us from having terrible weather on the way to Skjoldungen Fjord. Seven metre swell on the night before we got there and there were thoughts it may not happen. But for this Expedition we had the A team aboard with both Conrad Commbrink and Robin West leading the team. Several on that team later became Expedition leaders.

However the morning that we were to enter the fjord the weather settled quite a bit. Before getting there we had the bonus of 4 Fin whales passing by.

 

And then approaching the fjord. Once we were inside the conditions were perfect and the weather kept improving.

 

A second lot to come.              

 

 

That's good to hear - our cruise is September 2024, so hopefully even better weather?

2 hours ago, RyanJCanada said:

Good call! I’ve heard really good things about Yrsa Sigurdardottir in particular, but there are a lot of great ones out there 

I've been reading The Dark Iceland Series by Ragnar Jonasson.  He's not quite the Michael Robotham of Iceland, but he's not bad.

We also watched Trapped and Entrapped, and another series called Black Sands.

My hubby had a question for you regarding going on shore in Greenland, with their quarantine regulations (was really interesting when you mentioned velcro carrying potential threats, and amazed us that Australia hasn't adopted this practice with our pretty tight regulations) - are you able to take any food off the vessel? he is a diabetic and usually carries something in case his sugars go too low.

Did you purchase food/lunch in any of the towns?

Can’t wait to catch up on this blog - we are doing Iceland and Greenland in September 2024 on Endeavour, so it was good if you to take this cruise to give us a preview lol

On 6/21/2023 at 2:24 PM, RyanJCanada said:

Thanks, Jim - kind of you to say! I’m a commercial fiction writer so I write a lot, and by this point I’m fairly quick at it. I often have sizeable quotas (5,000 to 7,000 words a week) so I need to get my thoughts down quickly. As a point of comparison, it took me about 40 minutes to write yesterday’s update. We’re also not getting a tremendous amount of sleep - though that’s more due to the short nights at this time of year!

I’ve been getting into Icelandic crime fiction to prepare me for my Iceland/Greenland adventures lol

10 minutes ago, RyanJCanada said:

Bressay Island, Shetland:

 

 

the ruins look very very cool

1 hour ago, LAexNY said:

Prawns.

You are going to have to get some more of these crustaceans so we can get a better look 😉

I hope you get to see the whale sharks in Exmouth! we were there in July, a few years ago, and got to see Orcas - sadly, they were hunting baby humpbacks, but were pretty amazing to see.

Perth's population has doubled in the past few years - it's crazy!

Ahh, that would have been Kings Park.

12 minutes ago, Daveywavey70 said:

Agreeing with Lola, they look like Tiger Prawns caught mostly around Asia that we import to the UK. . Ive had these at Hot Rocks before and they were definitely prawns. 

Tiger prawns are really common in Asian and Australian waters, but they have a prominent red tiger stripe to them, and a different head.

 https://www.sydneyfishmarket.com.au/Home/Seafood/Species-Information/List/tiger-prawn

21 minutes ago, lincslady said:

No to me they look like very large prawns.  I wonder if they are what used to be called Nigerian shrimp on Seabourn, a rather peculiar name.

they don't look like tiger prawns or king prawns (like we get down here)

6 minutes ago, LAexNY said:

Hello, AusMum,

 

We are doing the Kimberley on Silversea this August and will be staying in Perth 3 nights before boarding the Explorer.  Looking forward to it.

Ohhh that's awesome!  it will be pretty cold in Perth, but should be lovely when you get to the Kimberley (it's amazing how many climates we have in one state).

What do you have planned for Perth? does the ship stop in Exmouth on the way?

7 minutes ago, LAexNY said:

Prawns.

They look a little bit like scampi?  I'm keen to eat them, not matter which crustacean they are 🙂

9 hours ago, Lirio said:

Last year we did a road tour in Iceland before going on a cruise in Greenland. We do like driving travels and we had 10 days driving around. We loved it, unfortunately my husband got covid and we could not finish. We would go back this year, but our daughter chose something else.

 

If you like driving around, do some hikings, picknics, 9 days would be great in Iceland, but I believe you also can do that in Scotland, as well.

 

I would consider 3 days in Reykjavik.

Thank you! we have a caravan here in Australia, and anywhere is a long drive from where we are.  We are off to a place called Exmouth next month (famous for whale sharks).  It's a 13 hour drive (without a caravan), we will only have covered half our state, and there will be miles and miles of nothing.

Sorry your husband got Covid whilst you were away.  I caught it (for the first time) about 3 weeks ago.  I've just gotten over feeling like I'm constantly drowning, so it would be scary to go through it in a foreign country!

3 hours ago, LAexNY said:

I like mine medium well.  The filet is so thick that after it cooks a while, I slice it down the middle and cook each half separately.

is that a lobster on the left hand side?

On 6/17/2023 at 6:55 PM, RachelG said:

Interesting that you found the hamburger at the grill good, as we just got off Wind and the hamburgers were borderline inedible.    My husband even talked to the chef about this.  He had said they had many complaints, but that they weren’t able to source American beef, and that the beef they were getting was Italian.

Isn't that part of why we travel though? to experience different food.  I don't expect to find vegemite on any cruise we go on.  When we go to the US, we struggle with a lot of the food, because it's sooo different to Australia.  Much of the food is too sweet for our palate (especially the bread), the chicken is a weird colour (being corn fed), the ham and bacon is just too different to what we are used to, and the eggs just 'look wrong'.  BUT, you try new things and accept you're not at home.

I'm super fussy, so always lose weight when we travel (we self cater when we can). I'm pretty excited about there being lobster available, as I could live off that, and who can stuff up lobster? 🙂

I guess Silversea still has a relationship with some Italian suppliers, and it's more economical to source some foods from the closest countries to the ports they get supplies from.

I do agree with you about Italian beef - compared to US and Australian beef it seems to be a bit insipid. We almost accidentally purchased horse from a butcher in Venice because "at least it had some colour".

We have previously traveled on P&O Australia, Carnival, RCCL and Celebrity.  This will be our first Silversea cruise.  We picked our cruise for the itinerary (Iceland and Greenland), but I am also looking forward to the 'Italian influence' that I hope still exists, despite RCCL now taking ownership.

12 hours ago, RyanJCanada said:

No red jackets on this trip - weather is unusually warm in the North Atlantic, with basic raincoats being more than enough to repel the breeze and the spray. Should be 15C in Shetland tomorrow.

It was something like 17C in Perth (Western Australia) and most people looked like they were on a ski holiday lol The media is reporting on how we are all "freezing". It is Winter 🙂

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/weather/wa-weather-state-shivers-through-start-of-week-with-temperatures-plunging-in-the-wheatbelt-c-11021006

17 hours ago, RyanJCanada said:

Ours are the only young children aboard. Seems to be quite rare on the expedition ships. Everyone has been great with them, though, staff and guests alike. Parents have been getting overruled when it comes to whether the kids get additional hot chocolate or Shirley Temples…

 

I can only guess at the motives behind our teachers… I grew up in Calgary (aka oil country) so perhaps that impacted whether kids were able to afford more elaborate trips. I believe the teachers travelled free (or at a heavy discount) in exchange for organizing the trip, which is fair enough. Either way, very grateful that they organized the trip for us.

I think these junkets are designed by teacher/for teachers.  My son's school (in Perth Western Australia) offered a surf trip to The Maldives, science and music trips to NYC and Florida, and trips to Turkey for ANZAC Day.  Some of the schools do regular trips to Indonesia, but it's considered to be 'just down the road' for us.

We have traveled a lot with our son.  We took him to Alaska when he was 4, and he was one of three children on that particular cruise. He got an award at school for doing a presentation, in front of the entire school, on 'glacier calving in Alaska', and now (at 25) is working his way to a career in renewable energy.  Your kids will gain so much from any travel you do with them!

I'm curious about what camera you are using?  In the past I have dragged a Canon SLR (and lenses) across the globe, but it does become a pain.  I'm thinking about investing in something smaller for when we do Greenland and Iceland.

Thanks so much for your informative updates!