MJC

BTW I live in NYC and black is our default, so it's always the base of my evening wear, shoes and pants. I just switch out my tops and jewelry and that's where my color is. Jewelry is small to pack. I also think a winter coat is key. You don't want to miss the sailaway past the Statue of Liberty and going under the Verrazano Bridge.

Trust me, bring two. If you only bring one and you lose it, tear it, ruin it, forget it somewhere... it can be hard to find one that fits. Last year I left my suits in a drawer at the precruise hotel and had to buy the ONE that fit in the Princess shop for a ridiculous sum. I was quite racy up top! At least I got to swim though.

I haven't been able to Find a Cruise in over a week. Very frustrating. Logged in or not, no functionality available at all.

Thank you for the detailed info. Milkshakes! DH will be very happy!

I'm the planner in our family. DH will start packing the day before and wonder why I'm too busy to help. Then on the way to the ship he'll ask "what are we doing tomorrow?" I definitely feel second string now (or maybe third) because I only use a Word table for our daily schedules. 🙂

Laurie, how exciting to have another cruise to look forward to. And Melody's is right around the corner! We jumped on the last minute fares from Manhattan Cruise Terminal and booked an NCL to the Bahamas and back in January. It's nice not to have to book flights and a hotel and figure out how to get to port! We will visit Bermuda, Nassau, Great Stirrup Key, and Port Canaveral. We've already decided on our activities for each. The things that swayed us to try NCL for the first time are that the Gem is a smaller ship, and the fare included tips and a drink package (which we've never had). We snagged an aft balcony which is our favorite location. It seems lightly booked which makes me happy after my recent covid adventure. When compared to the other winter getaway ideas we were considering, it is a great value and easy to get to. One tradition we have is that we always talk about where we want to go next on our way home from vacation. Somehow it makes the trip home go by a little faster. So, we are booked on a Norway cruise for September and I just emptied our Skymiles account for airfare to London. 😄

We have a car for the day but we are now wondering how we will get back to the ship from an after hours drop-off (we hope to have dinner with friends that evening). The closest would be a 1/2 walk, which isn't terrible, but is that area safe at night?

We will have two days in Port Canaveral and want to visit the Space Center for one of those days. If we take a taxi or Uber there from the cruise terminal, is it easy or even possible to get one back to the ship later? We are used to quick availability where we live and don't know what to expect in FL, and certainly don't want to be stranded miles away. The other alternative is to rent a car, but we'd have to leave at 2pm to get the car back before the agency closes, which makes for a really short day.

We booked through Amex Platinum Travel and were told that we could only reserve the comped Le Bistro dinner once we were onboard.

Our local Macy's has some awesome dress bargains right now. We have three cruises on the books (2 in 2023 and 1 in 2024) so I decided to take a look, and came home with two dresses. And I already have shoes to go with both of them. This Alex Evenings was $39: and I found this Eliza J in a peach/apricot color... it was only $34! I love the asymmetrical hem:

I am wondering about the spandex in the orange dress. I don't like clingy things.

Gem for me

We're taking our first NCL cruise soon and would like to know too!

RIU includes towels too, so you don't need to bring them from the ship.

You can save time hunting around using Resorts for a Day. We just booked the RIU through them for January.

OMG the grilled grouper. Yes Yes Yes. So funny you posted that orange Chicos dress, Laurie. I got the sale email and that's one that I was seriously thinking about! I just haven't been to Chicos in a while so I don't know which size to order. Sometimes things from there run really big on me depending on the cut. Sometimes with the pants, there is room for hips that I just don't have. 🙂 I'm very straight up and down. I don't really have a favorite for you, Laurie. I truly love the formal green dress. So elegant and so interesting, and the color is divine, and it fits you beautifully. Surprisingly for me (because I can't imagine myself in a pantsuit) I really liked you in your red one. I imagine it could dress up or down really easily, and it was a good color for you. The ivory was just classic and elegant, which you know I like. You know, when you originally posted the tropical one, I was really wondering about the color. But it really suits you and the fit is perfect. I really like that one a lot. The trick with that shirt in your embarkation photo (that is loose in the front) is that you need to pose straight on in those (and cross your legs a bit). I have learned that the hard way. If you tuck yourself close to hubby, and drape your outside arm just so, you can hide the fullness of the fabric and look more like yourself. 🙂

Nice jacket!

Laurie, I'm enjoying your pictures so much! You both look relaxed and happy. Your outfits are beautiful. Did you have a favorite? Your hair looks lovely too. We noticed on QM2 that some of the photographers were waaaay better than others. We had our favorite and her pictures were always the best. We don't do all the poses, sitting ones especially, so after a while they got used to us saying, no, that's enough, thank you very much. 🙂 How did you like Chacchoben? We had a good guide and even the ride there was interesting. How did the sloth feel? Hairy or furry? I must say, I am a bit afraid of monkeys! No monkey pictures for me. I definitely felt like my packing could have been better. I relied on my memory of what I had already done earlier, so by the time I did my final pack I was not as diligent as I could have been. Like, I took the wrong hairbrush, so I had funky hair issues when I blew it dry. I didn't think to check that my pencil makeup items were sharp. I had changed my dress selection and hadn't revisited my jewelry selections. Not a tragedy, for sure, but just so annoying sometimes. Did I say I lost my glasses on the last day of the cruise? Grrr. I had some contacts and my prescription sunglasses, so I managed. Then, because I had covid when I got home, I had to wait to go in for new ones. Finally my new glasses will be in next week!

Thank you!

Our stated time to be in Nassau is noon. Is that when we'll be able to go ashore? If not, what time can we expect to be off the ship? Newby to NCL. TYIA

Also Lands End: https://www.landsend.com/products/womens-insulated-reversible-barn-coat/id_357465?attributes=44967,39555&source=GS&currency=USD&geo=US&skumv=5880092&promotion-code=IIWAJ30&promotion-pin=0&cm_mmc=139971612&SC=pla_non-brand&CMPGN=11383290717&ADGRP=114185176929&KYW=&MT=&DV=m&PID=5880092&TRGT=pla-821726894815&gclid=CjwKCAiA9qKbBhAzEiwAS4yeDd_qVKYE1NjDmOMXa1alf_whRUHmSD7Tzcf_v4haeYJCpicktS-EQBoCQP8QAvD_BwE&gclid=CjwKCAiA9qKbBhAzEiwAS4yeDd_qVKYE1NjDmOMXa1alf_whRUHmSD7Tzcf_v4haeYJCpicktS-EQBoCQP8QAvD_BwE&CH=Google AdWords&_cclid=Google_CjwKCAiA9qKbBhAzEiwAS4yeDd_qVKYE1NjDmOMXa1alf_whRUHmSD7Tzcf_v4haeYJCpicktS-EQBoCQP8QAvD_BwE

Those coats are all very different. I think the Ralph Lauren is very much your style because it's so tailored. I couldn't see the color you mentioned though. I think it's green? The CC one has a hood, and I don't like those if I expect to wear it while driving. Hoods mostly just bother me. I like the color a lot but I'm not happy with some of the reviews (though they are from last year). I would think about that though because CC charges shipping for returns, which can be both pricey and annoying. I do miss having a store here where I could try things on. I am a fan of that jjill coat. I have a similar furry coat (shorter, more like a jacket) that I bought last year at TJMaxx and I love it because it is fun. I call it my muppet coat. It's like a blue spruce green that looks good with my eyes, too. If I didn't already have that one, I'd be seriously considering the jjill one.

Laurie, good to hear from you. I knew you were back and was wondering when we will get some pictures. 🙂 We enjoyed the Queen Mary 2 very much. It is the only one of its kind, so it would be hard to know if the QE and QV cruise ships would be a similar experience. The ship is wonderful, but I would describe the whole experience as a bit more quiet and elegant than anything else we have done, and skewed older (which we expected). The activities are more on the enrichment side with no game shows or things like that. Trivia was VERY popular. Ballroom dancing in the Queens Room was VERY popular. The small gym was busy in the mornings.The disco where we hung out was sparsely attended most nights even though the band was amazing. We went almost every night. Then again, it was a two week cruise and those can draw an older crowd (like us!) and timing-wise it was not child friendly with regard to the school year. We didn't see any children until some got on in Quebec City. There was a family with little ones and a family with tween girls, and another I think with one teen boy, and that was all we saw. There is a kids club, but there wasn't a lot to attract children IMO with it being too cold to use the pools. The shows were mostly ok, but on the second week there was a lot of coughing, and plenty of stories of people who had been on the TA before us being in quarantine, so we stopped going. In fact, two days after we got home I wasn't feeling well so we tested. I was positive and DH was not. I was pretty sick for about a week and am just now past the fatigue. It may be just the current price of cruising for some folks, but it is not something to take lightly. We had a tiny M&G so we did have some friendly faces to see along the way. One couple from Brooklyn had done the TA and the Caribbean on QM2 and were very helpful. We wanted to see if we would enjoy a TA after a week in London or something like that, and I think the answer is yes. If we were running around in England as we like to do, relaxing on a ship all the way home instead of flying is definitely appealing. We had a similar balcony back in the day on the Dawn Princess, when all balconies were made that way. I really did think carefully about it, and we were very happy that we were able to be out there almost every day. We often had our afternoon snack and cocktail out there, and I sat out reading quite a few times. We could prop the door open and get fresh air whenever we wanted to, and run out to see what the weather was like. If we do take a TA eventually, I would get it again. One of the issues with QM2 imo is that you have to jump up several categories from ours to get a balcony that isn't looking at lifeboats or way forward/aft where you rock and roll a lot more.

Christmas ornaments from different ports. I got my first one on our honeymoon to Mexico and now we have a bunch on our tree that remind me of our travels.