Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

I am back, exhausted, but back.:p

I am sure that a wave of nausea has just hit the board.:D :p

jc

Hey jc! Welcome back! How was the wine? How was the pasta? When's the screenplay coming out? :D

Welcome back, JC. You were missed, at least by some of us.

Yes, you were missed. Had a good vacation I take it?

I can't believe that they let you back into the US. :p :D :D Welcome back Bud. :D

Beth

You know, I though the boards were dull and boring for the last couple of weeks...

and it seemed like Bicker was answering everything without a single rebuttal.:o

Welcome back

Welcome back. Where did you go? Was this the south america cruise or is that later? Please tell us all about it!:D

Hello JC, Welcome Home! I hope you had a great time in Italy. :)

Welcome home buddy,I was just thinking today about you,as my parents are on their way to Barcelona.....in under an hour......and they will be in Venice later in the week.....they have gone on the BOS.......aaaagh pass me the hankies.....I wanted to go.

So come on dish the dirt.......how was the trip.....no holds barred....we want all the gossip.Was it all how you expected it to be ....or even better.

Heck it has been quiet here lately,again Welcome home :D

Liz

Welcome back jc - How was that Italian Villa. You'll have to give us a full report on "Yahoo".

JC I didn't even know you went away! Where did you go? Bob & I are leaving Friday morning for Miami. We are taking the Explorer Western Caribbean. We will be diving in Belize, Coz (and maybe Nassau.) We will miss Grand Cayman unfortunately. Welcome back (time to plan your next cruise) Jane

Everytime I have visited CC today, I looked for my new topic and it never showed up, and now here it is an my buddies have been replying to it. Very strange.:confused:

The trip itself was fantastic, of course, I have never had a bad vacation. I am extremely tired as we boarded our first flight in Rome, and I woke up at 6am Rome time Sunday morning, ate a little breakfast caught a British Airways flight to London Heathrow, had to go thru security again what a huge pain. Had no time to eat or anything and ran to the plane. Flew AA to Chicago it was a little late, and we had to get our bags to go thru customs, then recheck our checked luggage and take the train to the other terminal literally ran to the security check in with 15 minutes til flight time, of course, I got to have my backpack with my computer and DVD player searched for bombs with the clock ticking. Ran to the plane for the 1 hour flight home. Landed at 10pm. Took our friends home in our vehicle, after they found out their 5 year old Siberian Husky had died from an accident the day before. Which, of course, turned an exhausting frustrating typical travel day into a miserable sad awful thing. We drove in silence with my friend sobbing the whole way. We had a GSM phone that I bought just to use in Europe, and the freaking thing didn't work, I am kind of glad now, as that kind of call is not conducive to a festive holiday atmosphere. Needless, to say I was at the deluxe Pet Motel at opening this morning at 6:30 to spring my babies. My oldest Welsh Terrier, acted like seeing me was the most normal thing in the world the baby was very happy. They were quite tired from playing with all of their new buddies at the Kennel. I have to pick up the cat from my sister tonight.

I will try to give a blow by blow description of the trip if you really want me to go off on one of my windy sililoquys. Quick version was went to London, did the new Andrew Lloyd Webber play. Did the tourist bit in Venice, and Rome. Stayed in a fabulous villa in Amalfi.

Tommorrow if you want to know the details I will share them, as I turned down Cardinals tickets for the game tommorrow, just so I could be at work and chat with you guys.:D

jc

jc.. you're crazy for having turned down Cardinal tickets!!!!

i would die to get out of work and watch my Angels thrash the Red Sox!

Being an Andrew L. Webber fan, and having seen all his productions, I was wondering how you like this latest one (name escapes me).

You may have been gone but you were not forgotten. I recall your name being thrown around on a post here and there.

I am so glad you were on vacation. When you weren't showing up here I wasn't sure if you had been locked in the "cellar" again. Hmmm, I bet you and I are the only two here who remember that thread. :D

Welcome home.........can't wait to read your review!:)

Welcome back.! I have been to busy playing at my new profession to keep up with much but you were missed!

Who's xpcdoojk?:rolleyes: :p ;) :eek:

Reggie:D

I will try to give a blow by blow description of the trip if you really want me to go off on one of my windy sililoquys. Quick version was went to London, did the new Andrew Lloyd Webber play. Did the tourist bit in Venice, and Rome. Stayed in a fabulous villa in Amalfi.

 

 

jc

I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip. My husband and I are still undecided about where we want to spend our holiday next summer. A villa in Italy is on our list of potential destinations.

Your trip back from Heathrow through Chicago sounds exactly like our experience in July. I just told my husband on Sunday that I would prefer to clear customs in any airport BUT Chicago. Our 18 month old, who is a very well traveled toddler, wasn't too thrilled with the whole process either! :D

Leah

Welcome home sweetie!! We missed you much both here and on Yahoo. Glad you had a ball, expected you would lol.

Now on to the important stuff: WHAT DID YOU BRING ME???? :D

Did you eat at Johhny Rocket's? Were you charged for their milkshakes? Did you order wine with dinner? Were you charged an automatic gratuity? Did you eat or drink anything out of your barfridge? Did you expect your cabin steward to fill it everyday? Did you receive any rain on your cruise? If you answered yes, are you blaming the hurricane and expecting to be compensated by the crusieline? Did you meet any rude staff? If you answered yes, will it be the last time you cruise on this line? How much did you tip? and to whom? Did you ask for additional pillows or blankets? Did you smuggle booze on board? Did you expect the cabin steward to fill your ice bucket daily? Do you go resort casual, suit or tux? What was your final bar bill? Chops or Portofino's? Did you use your new C&A card? Were there kids in the adult hot tubs?

See you didn't really miss much........sounds like you had a great time.

Buddy

I am serializing my trip, in word, and I will post it here as I get a rough draft done of a section. I generally try to make a dvd of pictures of movies and incorporate a power point written document for our own remembrances. Actually, I generally plan to do this and end up with some half created thing that I never look at again, but intentions being what they are and all. I am sure the pathway to a warm place is paved with them.:D

So without further ado, here is section 1.

Yes Buddy, I always had wine with dinner, lunch and sometimes breakfast.:p

Vacation to England and Italy 2004

Section 1 the planning and the group.

We had been planning this vacation since late fall 2003, when a couple of friends of ours had us over for dinner and they said we are wanting to rent a villa on the Amalfi coast in Italy sometime if we could just get a group together to do it. I said count us and two other couples in. The rest became our big vacation for this year. We started doing Villa research after rejecting the stuff the travel agents could find for us, and sometime around January I started saying I can find us a villa better than these expensive and not terribly attractive options the agencies that my friends used had offered, and I started doing research for Amalfi villas having only been there about 10 miles offshore on the Celebrity Millennium in 2000. We finally settled on La Nave, which is located just outside of the town of Maiori, Italy, of which I had never ever heard of. We went at the end of the season for two reasons. One it is cheaper, and two the roads on the Amalfi coast are simply notorious for their blind corners, sheer cliffs, and massive traffic jams especially during the high tourist season. I used lots of resources from the Internet to do just about everything on this vacation, and I rarely spoke in person to anyone regarding any bookings and activities that we pre-planned. For those who have cruised with us in the past the group that undertook this adventure consisted of myself, and my beautiful wife, Sue & Shelby, and David & Susie who have cruised with us before and who comprised the 2 other couples I had told our other friends Gary and Kathy would join us on this trip. I know nobody cares about all the planning details that went into this, but in many ways for me the taking of a vacation is as much about the fun of planning as the actual doing. Hence why you see me hanging around here at Cruise Critic even when I don’t have a cruise vacation planned. So if anyone wants to know any specific planning question, I will tell you what I did and who I used. My way certainly isn’t the best only or even an efficient way, but it works for me.

Sounds good so far!

jc

Do you prefer land holidays or cruising these days?

I cant imagine having a land holiday again.....I enjoying eating when and if I like,as on a ship.

Liz

Liz, I like both, about equally. In fact, when I cruise, I tend to combine it with a pre or post stay land vacation. I like to eat, and I like to find interesting eating places, off the tourist path, so land vacations work well for that. Cruises are easier to plan than land vacations though, especially, when we have great resources like Cruise Critic for information:cool: .

jc