bstrauss3

Temu sells a small hand-held welder... pack it for next time.

That may technically be true, but it's poor advise. You should ***always*** bring your passport and it needs to be valid six months after the end of the cruise. If something happens and you have to leave the ship, you will need your passport for return travel to the US.

There are different speeds where the ship is most efficient depending on how many generators are brought on line.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:374588/zoom:14

The Italian article, translated says they found contamination in one tank and it has already been fixed. Almost certainly there is something else they found,

It's not. The post office is a separate corporation that is wholly owned by the government. Passport processing is just a Department of State function. Where the money comes from and goes to is accounting, not within the definition of essential or non-essential services.

There was a hope that processing times would drop towards the end of the peak summer travel season, but that does not seem to have happened. And if the idjits manage to shutdown the government, it will take 3x the length of the shutdown to catch-up. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/processing-times.html Current Processing Times (applied on or after March 24, 2023) Routine 10 to 13 weeks Expedited 7 to 9 weeks