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Norton Explorer(er)s Trumps BFF Putins land


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It was fun last time, but I needed a vacation from the vacation - so many things to see, especially in St. Petersburg (and Moscow:halo:). This should be an interesting trip. A bit on the short side, but the addition of my brothers uhh imps should provide some umm...interesting insight into kids on Regent when there are no kids club days (kids club is only on sea days and having only one I doubt well see it then).

 

Thankfully this will be for the most part a repeat of my first Seabourn cruise. If I feel I've missed something this time around I'll just post a gallery from the Seabourn trip.:cool:

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Will vicariously join you--as will other CCers--on this trip. Previous Baltic experiences sailing from either London or Stockholm on Holland America, Silversea, Seabourn, and--back in the day--Radisson Seven Seas.

 

We will be back on Explorer for btb Stockholm-London; London-London segments beginning August 30, 2019. Much the same itinerary as yours on that first leg, with extended time at St. Petersburg.

 

So, blog away!

 

GOARMY!

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Normally this part would contain images of libations from the Buena Vista meant to keep the wee travel beasties at bay. However someone forgot to take pictures of those things. Instead how about a Mai Tai and some oddly flavored sparkling water?

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I'm not sure if there's a market for this, but if you need the hit of hops in a package more refreshing and less alcohol laden than beer I guess this fits the bill.

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Next up, getting up at oh dark thirty to be reminded that getting there doesn't seem to be half the fun anymore.

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First snag. The car service I usually use decided we didn’t need to get to the airport when we did. Thankfully someone else did.

 

The downside to the first flight out is nothing was open until 15 minutes before the flight. No Centurion lounge, no Untied lounge.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Even at oh dark thirty there were lines.

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Were I a child this would have been fun. As an adult I'd hate to get stuck in a terminal with an kids play area.

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I'm not sure what this wall was for.

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Breakfast offerings on the SFO > EWR flight.

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Breakfast. The grey flaccid sausages reminded me of what they serve on Seabourn.

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Either they're starting cage matches in galleys or someone came to the conclusion that a cart blocking access to the cockpit probably wasn't an overly effective solution.

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Not mad keen on the look of the breakfast but the fruit and drinks look good.:D

This is such a great itinerary you are doing, we did it a few years ago and had a fabulous time. Our favourite was Klaipeda in Lithuania, it was stunning.

Looking forward to your reports.

 

Pam.

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The flight from EWR to ARN was on another (older) 757-200. This one was still running a previous version of their inflight entertainment system that has a host of issues.

 

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Nuts.

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The appetizers weren't terrible for airline food.

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The did however do something impressive. Never in my life have I had shortrib that had been cooked to death. I didn't think such a thing was possible. United killed that thought. The veggies tasted like anise. The wasabi mash was the best thing on the plate.

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Dessert was a low grade vanilla ice cream with what was probably a knock off Hersheys syrup and off brand Oreos.

 

 

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How you know the airline doesn't respect you.

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You lost me with that image (the code not the dessert). What does it all mean? Thanks!

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It's means United and their supplier (IIRC Matsu****a/Panasonic) are using an outdated Linux base on old hardware that doesn't seem to have the capacity to push all the on demand content. The screen usually appears after the system has been reset to resolve an issue by the flight crew. Or when the system crashes on its own (not sure if its a memory leak, too much stress on the hardware or some other bug). On one flight the system seemed to crash almost like clockwork - so you could never make it through an entire movie. If you tried to fast forward to too far into the movie to return to the point the crash occurred - the system would crash. Again. The previous flight used a more modern system and while not as responsive as I'd like it didn't crash.

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It's means United and their supplier (IIRC Matsu****a/Panasonic) are using an outdated Linux base on old hardware that doesn't seem to have the capacity to push all the on demand content. The screen usually appears after the system has been reset to resolve an issue by the flight crew. Or when the system crashes on its own (not sure if its a memory leak, too much stress on the hardware or some other bug). On one flight the system seemed to crash almost like clockwork - so you could never make it through an entire movie. If you tried to fast forward to too far into the movie to return to the point the crash occurred - the system would crash. Again. The previous flight used a more modern system and while not as responsive as I'd like it didn't crash.

 

Thank you for the explanation.

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