clarkg

41 minutes ago, fredmdcruisers said:

Do you get paid for clicks?

No, I do it because I enjoy writing.

I wrote a blog about our latest cruise.

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2023/11/western-caribbean-2023.html

I finished my blog. You can read it here.

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2023/10/northwest-cruise-2023.html

This was our longest cruise at 16 days. We had our good friends with us so it was great.

A few pictures of our recent cruise and a link to my cruise blog.

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2023/02/panama-canal-2023.html

Just a few random pictures from the trip, Peggy's Cove, Saint John, and Boston Water Taxi.

In Portland, we rode the narrow-gauge train. I've never been on a 2' narrow-gauge before. I've been on the 3' one in Silverton Colorado. It was a there and back again train, but we really enjoyed it.

We visited the Plymouth, or Plimoth as it was originally spelled, village. These pictures aren't on the blog, I don't believe. I lose track sometimes. All the village people talked with thick accents. Then we went over and toured the ship. We also hit the grain mill. You can buy tickets that cover all three. We bought ours online and saved money. It was well worth the price of admission.

6 hours ago, GatorGirl1313 said:

Great review and a fun read.  Love your subtle humor. 

Thanks!

1 hour ago, emeraldcity said:

Thank you for taking the time to review your trip. I was on the Voyager TA last month and I was curious to get another person's take on the ship.

 

Frankly, I was disappointed in the food. It was hit-or-miss throughout the cruise. Some things were really great ... others unfortunately overcooked. So are they still pushing tuna like they got a great deal on a warehouse full of the stuff? The cafe had tuna sandwiches nearly every day ... sometimes two different varieties. And the WJ invariably had a tuna dish.

 

So sad they still have the Franki Valli guy. What a colossal disappointment. The way he mashed up songs was unfortunate and the long introductions, accompanied with prancing around the stage was pretty dull. I kept thinking he simply didn't have enough material to fill the allotted amount of time. As long as he stuck with Four Seasons songs, it was enjoyable, but I don't think half of the ones he did were theirs. (One of our group thought that perhaps there was a copyright issue that limited how much he could use from The Jersey Boys.) And yes, the rap number was ill-conceived. And as I recall, he closed the show with Build Me Up Buttercup ... the show closer should have been a Four Season song ... but that's just me.

 

I was also surprised that there was often no major entertainment on many evenings, but I rationalized that the length of the TA was the culprit ... but your cruise was certainly shorter. I wonder if they limited entertainment is a new trend.

Nice to have your perspective. Our transatlantic, years ago, struggled for entertainment too. I would have liked more and better on a seven-day cruise. I do think its a trend I don't want to see.

I'm adding a few pictures here that I didn't put in my blog post. The blog can be found here: http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2022/10/new-england-cruise-2022.html

I will answer all questions.

We took a New England cruise starting in Boston and then up into Maine and on to Canada. We didn't miss any ports even if the seas were a little choppy for a couple of days. We came three days early because we were traveling all the way across the country and also wanted to have some time to explore the Boston area.

6 hours ago, cruise wizard said:

 

Very nice. I enjoyed reading your blog. How was the lunch at Moe's?

 

We are taking the Serenade from Vancouver to Tampa on a B2B starting on 9/25 - cabin #9260 on the first leg and 1102 for the second. 

That sounds so much fun.

7 hours ago, cruise wizard said:

What cabin were you in? We are on the Serenade on 5/15 for a 7 night Alaska adventure in 1602 aft JS. Trying to find out the testing requirements for our S2S with the Eclipse.

1104

On 5/3/2022 at 7:44 PM, Coralc said:

Nice review. I hope your books are more upbeat than your blog of this sailing. 

Sorry it wasn't upbeat. The travel requirements were tedious but the ship and the crew were great. In fact, I just booked another cruise with RCCI.

On 5/3/2022 at 7:44 PM, Coralc said:

Nice review. I hope your books are more upbeat than your blog of this sailing. 

Sorry it wasn't upbeat. The travel requirements were tedious but the ship and the crew were great. In fact, I just booked another cruise with RCCI.

21 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

50,000 copies sold.

 

Now I want to see what he writes about

clarkgrahamauthor dot com

50 minutes ago, Janet524 said:

Great rev?iew.  Serenade is my favorite ship.  Her crew were always fantastic.  Do you know if Mario is onboard as one of the concierges?

I don't, sorry. I didn't have a suite this time.

Thank you. Here are some more pictures.

Just back from Serenade of the Seas. I thought I would share my blog post and a few extra pictures

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2022/05/coastal-cruise-2022.html

4 minutes ago, skrufy said:

Seems like we might be a hazard to travel on the Miracle with.  This was our second time on her. The first was a 14 day Alaska cruise in September of 2020. Returning to Long Beach off the coast of Oregon the ship went dead in the water. Lost all power for an hour.  Uneasy feeling  for a few minutes just floating out in the middle of nowhere. Just a warning we are booked on the Miracle for Hawaii in 2022. 

Just added that to my Calendar. No Hawaii cruises on the Miracle in 2022.

1 hour ago, Roger88 said:

Your photos I wonderful. I hope you are having a great time on board. How is water in the pool? Food? How is weather in general? So based on the pics its somewhere in South America, what is your route? By the way, can you share photos of your cabin? People tend to take pics of thing on board but they always forget about the cabin. To me its the most important. 

Post #3 has a cabin picture. We are home now. We went from Miami to L.A. though the canal.

Last picture post. We didn't get to Cabo, so I'm posting a few pictures from the ship. I hope you all enjoyed the blog, those of you who read it, and I hope the rest of you enjoyed the pictures. Until we all cruise again!

Puerto Quetzal Guatemala

More pics from Costa Rica

Costa Rica