Host Jazzbeau

Yes, down to a stone grill. But there's a restaurant over in Bar Harbor that does Prime steaks very well, so I'm not tempted to grill myself. Two sunny days, now what we call a 'typical Maine day.' Went out for a blueberry pancake breakfast, then back to the cottage for a quiet day of reading (Master and Commander – they have the complete series at the local library here, so that should keep me quite busy!).

The picture is of Sargent Mountain (center) and Norumbega Mountain (just rising off the right edge) in Acadia National Park. Our cottage is on the other side of Somes Sound [the only fjord on the eastern seaboard) near Acadia Mountain.

Our first time in Ephesus was on Crystal in 2014. We took a ship's tour, but it was a deluxe version called "Ephesus with an Archaeological Expert" – our guide was an archeologist who worked on the Terrace Houses, and there were no stops for rugs or shopping! Best ship's tour we have ever taken. Every other ship's tour and group tour I have seen includes lots of mandatory shopping stops. We felt quite safe in 2014 and 2016. I wouldn't go to Turkey now, but Ephesus is still probably the safest part.

We have made it to Maine for our annual vacation. Got tested for Covid [negative, as expected] but NYers were exempted from the test requirement right as we were having our nasal passages probed. We had the lightest traffic ever on the way up, and every motel has its Vacancy sign out. Went to dinner last night at a restaurant with lots of outdoor tables (full) and about half as many indoor tables as in prior years (also all full). Hiked in Acadia National Park – more hikers than we expected, but we were on a 'baby' trail for our warm-up hike. Here's a picture from the deck of our cottage:

We have made it to Maine for our annual vacation. Got tested for Covid [negative, as expected] but NYers were exempted from the test requirement right as we were having our nasal passages probed. We had the lightest traffic ever on the way up, and every motel has its Vacancy sign out. Went to dinner last night at a restaurant with lots of outdoor tables (full) and about half as many indoor tables as in prior years (also all full). Hiked in Acadia National Park – more hikers than we expected, but we were on a 'baby' trail for our warm-up hike. Here's a picture from the deck of our cottage:

Several countries have instituted very tight controls of their borders to contain Covid [e.g. New Zealand] with great success. Nobody owns Antarctica, so how is it going to be protected against spread of the virus by tourism?

All the 'P' category cabins were originally Veranda category. P1 was VX, P2 and P3 were V1. I don't believe the cabins were any different from the others. The biggest difference was that P1/VX have the forward and aft-facing views and larger balconies – and the aft cabins have lots of complaints about engine vibrations and soot on the balcony. The cabin numbers didn't change when they redid the categories, so the info in the spreadsheet is still accurate [but cabin size isn't one of the categories].

My post contained two types of prose: a statement of fact [about how Americans react when we are told what to do – amply proved by developments since June 8] and a joke about the lack of enforcement. Neither was a suggestion about how people should act. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Humo(u)r clearly doesn't travel across borders. 😉

ANNOUNCEMENT: I will not be able to update post #1 for the next two weeks. Thanks to all who have been posting updates as they find them!

That's true, but it seems that Windstar is substituting Star Breeze in Tahiti starting in October 2021. It does have elevators [but no sails]. The website hasn't been updated yet to show this, but @Petoonya has posted that she received an email notifying her of the change in ship for her booked cruise:

You certainly get the award for longest URL! This would work just as well: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/eu-healthy-gateways-issues-covid-19-guidance-restarting-cruise-operations

Windstar has just announced a "Week of Wanderlust" sale, and lots of Tahiti cruises are included: https://www.windstarcruises.com/find-cruise/?specials=91&destination=TAHITI Full disclosure: I just took advantage of this sale to book a Spanish Serenade cruise to replace my cancelled one – at a large savings! So that means I have 1 cruise booked on Windstar [none prior], vs. 0 on Paul Gauguin. Nuff said?...

Windstar [and all of the Xanterra brands] have just started a Week of Wanderlust Sale And it's real – I have been looking at the April 15, 2021 Spanish Serenade cruise and SS1 cabins are $400 pp lower today than yesterday. [DS are not on sale.] I just booked! This will replace the same itinerary on the same ship – Star Legend – that was cancelled when the Star Plus Initiative got delayed. And at a big savings: 2021 prices are already lower than 2020 for this itinerary, the sale reduces it further, and Windstar had graciously given us 10% FCC on top of refunding our money for the cancelled cruise. What a great introduction to Windstar!

I think Azamara is between a rock and a hard place on this UK/OZ travel agent refund problem. Remember the history of Renaissance Cruises, which went bankrupt in 2001 when 9/11 put a sudden end to travel. There were three reasons that have been suggested why Renaissance went bankrupt when most other cruise lines weathered the storm: (1) they were ahead of the curve prohibiting smoking on their ships [I think that was the least of their problems, since they had been doing very well up until then]; (2) they were heavily leveraged with eight new ships just built or still under construction, all on credit – and no big corporate owner to extend credit [a biggie, but too late then to do anything about it]; and (3) they refused to pay commissions to travel agents – and therefore were unable to generate new bookings as quickly as most other cruise lines. So why hasn't Azamara been transparent about when they sent refunds to travel agents? Possibly because they know they will need those same travel agents to generate new bookings once cruising returns.

New article in Cruise Critic, quoting our own @Roz [thanks to @notamermaid for pointing this out!]: What Europe Being Closed to Americans Means for European River Cruising