Kmom on Carnival Radiance Semi-Live May 30-June 3, 2022 - FOURTH time on Carnival since resumption of cruising

[Saint Greg]

14 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

Next morning we boarded a very yellow jet airplane where I took the final selfie and photo of the trip, because I decided to make this an unusually comfortable four hour flight and it was 100% worth it. 
 

Okay maybe it’s not an ultra low cost flight anymore when you do this, but it’s what Kmom and family consider luxury and we loved it. 

 

How'd that big front seat treat you? I have that booked to/from NYC.

[ontheweb]

@KmomChicago, you have my blessing to again play the Willie Nelson/Paul Simon version of Homeward Bound I sent you the last time you were heading home.

 

Never saw them together, but I did see Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel at a Parents' Day concert my junior year in college. I am quite sure they sang that song. I have seen Willie Nelson twice at Bethel Woods (the original Woodstock site), and DW and I have tickets to see him later this year, actually on our wedding anniversary. ( Not a cruise in Europe, or landing in Paris, or a land trip in central Europe as we have done on past anniversaries, but I am sure we will have a wonderful time.)

[KmomChicago]

3 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

 

How'd that big front seat treat you? I have that booked to/from NYC.

I was so unbelievably comfortable. The four hours flew by and I was in no particular hurry to get off the plane at the end.

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, ontheweb said:

@KmomChicago, you have my blessing to again play the Willie Nelson/Paul Simon version of Homeward Bound I sent you the last time you were heading home.

 

Never saw them together, but I did see Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel at a Parents' Day concert my junior year in college. I am quite sure they sang that song. I have seen Willie Nelson twice at Bethel Woods (the original Woodstock site), and DW and I have tickets to see him later this year, actually on our wedding anniversary. ( Not a cruise in Europe, or landing in Paris, or a land trip in central Europe as we have done on past anniversaries, but I am sure we will have a wonderful time.)

I should add that if all goes according to plan, on our anniversary next year we will have a sea day between Norway and Iceland. 🤞

[wikoffclan]

2 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

I was so unbelievably comfortable. The four hours flew by and I was in no particular hurry to get off the plane at the end.

Thank you for mentioning this. I checked for my non-stop flight in July from New Orleans to PHL and the Big Front Seat was only $35. Score!!

[KmomChicago]

13 hours ago, ontheweb said:

I should add that if all goes according to plan, on our anniversary next year we will have a sea day between Norway and Iceland. 🤞

 

Fabulous. I have a bit of Viking (about 25%) in my ancestry, and I did a land vacation to Iceland  in 2019 with my meanager, our last spring break trip of The Before.  The North Atlantic can be an angry body of water, but awesome in its beautiful way. Enjoy!

[KmomChicago]

13 hours ago, wikoffclan said:

Thank you for mentioning this. I checked for my non-stop flight in July from New Orleans to PHL and the Big Front Seat was only $35. Score!!

 

You're most welcome @wikoffclan. I am not loyal to any airline and fly mainstream and low cost carriers interchangeably - but I think Spirit's BFS is an absolute genius business move.  I'd only used it once before when I was flying alone and found a price like you mentioned, several years ago from ORD to DFW, and it made the journey like butter and made me feel like the 1%.

 

As you note sometimes it's very cheap to upgrade and a real no-brainer in those cases. It wasn't in this case, but I had booked the Bare Fare on points from my Chase Sapphire care - and I had also booked our flight out, in coach on American, the same way, so I didn't mind paying the $300ish total for the cash upgrade which also included one checked bag for each of us. My husband's birthday, our anniversary, and Father's Day all fall close to each other, so this was part of his collective present. 

 

It seems I also bought an annual membership to the  Spirit Saver's Club, which I don't remember doing but I assume the fee more than covered the discount on the upgrade.  If I go anywhere else the next few months I need to remember that I have that. 

 

I bought the Discount Den for Frontier for one year in 2021 and used it enough to make it worthwhile, but I wasn't thrilled with Frontier's very inconvenient flight times (a lot of red eyes for their nonstops) or their choices to occupy what seem to be the most inconvenient gate and terminal locations at some airports.

 

I actually like Southwest the most, overall, partly because Midway is a much easier airport to deal with than O'Hare, it's the closest to my house as the crow flies (not that it's necessarily a super easy drive to actually get there or park), and there is less a la carte add-on pricing to sort through than most airlines nowadays. 

 

I like Allegiant as well. The dinky airports they use are quiet and nearly foolproof with very cheap parking lots right next to the terminals.  

 

I suppose I could do better being loyal to one brand as I have been with World of Hyatt for over ten years, but I never seem to actually think I am ever going to fly anywhere again after whatever trip I am on. Because I hate that part of travel.

 

 

[ninjacat123]

1 hour ago, KmomChicago said:

.Fabulous. I have a bit of Viking (about 25%) in my ancestry, and I did a land vacation to Iceland  in 2019 with my meanager, our last spring break trip of The Before.  The North Atlantic can be an angry body of water, but awesome in its beautiful way. Enjoy!

Did you do the 23 and Me?  My DH and I did and it was very interesting.  I thought I was at least 20% Irish but no, I'm 2%.  Found out my DH is 44% Irish which surprised him.  I'm basically a mutt😄

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, KmomChicago said:

 

Fabulous. I have a bit of Viking (about 25%) in my ancestry, and I did a land vacation to Iceland  in 2019 with my meanager, our last spring break trip of The Before.  The North Atlantic can be an angry body of water, but awesome in its beautiful way. Enjoy!

We have previously done a land trip to Iceland and saw among other things the Northern Lights. (I don't off hand remember what year, but DW probably could come up with it.) We were supposed to do a Norwegian Fjords cruise on Princess in the summer of 2020 which of course did not happen.

[Von & John]

On 5/26/2022 at 1:52 PM, KmomChicago said:

Well as of now we are still going forward with everything. I guess we will know more tomorrow after all of our medical appointments:

 

3 Covid Tests

1 Optometrist

1 Orthopedic Surgeon

And a partridge in a pear tree. 

 

Somehow as messed up as my life gets, usually things work out miraculously so I guess we shall see. 

 

I already prepaid the kid for the kitty chores and he is solid!

 

Dang Kmom...

You & I should not be in the same room together!

Our lives have too much happening @ the moment, truly always...
For instance - I started reading your pre-review - way back when...
Six weeks later, I finally made it from the first couple of posts to Page 4...

Yes...  All the way to Page 4!!!

 

I know you've already been on the cruise...

However, @ this point in the review...

You Truly Need this Cruise

& to Get on the Ship!!!

Happy Sailing

May EVERYTHING that follows

be Worth the Effort to get There!

[KmomChicago]

3 hours ago, Von & John said:

 

Dang Kmom...

You & I should not be in the same room together!

Our lives have too much happening @ the moment, truly always...
For instance - I started reading your pre-review - way back when...
Six weeks later, I finally made it from the first couple of posts to Page 4...

Yes...  All the way to Page 4!!!

 

I know you've already been on the cruise...

However, @ this point in the review...

You Truly Need this Cruise

& to Get on the Ship!!!

Happy Sailing

May EVERYTHING that follows

be Worth the Effort to get There!

Thanks so much @Von & John. It was looking bad there around page 4, wasn’t it? And it all worked out fine and it was worth it, but I’m actually looking forward to NOT having any more  travel booked for a bit, outside of short overnights in Windy and environs perhaps. 
 

No planes, no drives longer than 90 minutes, nothing that makes use of a passport. I want to do several housecleaning projects at the residence and the rescue. I have plenty if kitties begging for affection. 
 

I don’t even want much food, good or otherwise and I’m successfully OMADing because it was all too much. I’ve barely been hungry since landing in Illinois and have no cravings for anything. 
 

I can’t remember another time in my life when More Travel felt unappealing and I hope in a few months the itch returns.

[KmomChicago]

On 6/16/2022 at 7:46 AM, ninjacat123 said:

Did you do the 23 and Me?  My DH and I did and it was very interesting.  I thought I was at least 20% Irish but no, I'm 2%.  Found out my DH is 44% Irish which surprised him.  I'm basically a mutt😄

 

I have not done it @ninjacat123 because  I'm a genetic skeptic. It seems to me the whole world is a mutt.  I don't understand the genomic precision well enough, but I don't believe they can really tell European people apart with any trustable accuracy and I feel like there was plenty of conquering going on around there for hundreds of years, mixing up those genes across ever changing boundaries and political systems anyway, so what does it really mean?  Yes, I am a Debbie Downer at heart. . . always finding the cloud behind the silver lining (and vice-versa, I must say, so it balances out). 

 

Since I have dabbled in this subject in my spare time, this will be a TLDR for everyone (really just for myself) that is a total non-sequitur to cruising and probably worth skipping.  I find this stuff fascinating. I also find it fascinating how vanishingly small each individual's chance of being born was in the first place, but that is another long muse for another late night drunchie chat. As you might guess, I don't have many of those, don't get invited to many parties as no one wants to hear my intellectual nerd blather.

 

I have read the explanations about how all people of Euro descent are descendants of Charlemagne - and also of every other man alive in Europe (perhaps on planet earth) in the year 800 who has any living descendants.  It seems unlikely at first but the math really shows that it would be nearly impossible to be alive today and not have a tiny smattering of, well, everyone else. 

 

In my childhood my dad once asked me how much money would be generated in a month if someone gave a penny on day 1, then doubled the amount daily. Of course in my innocence  I assumed starting with a paltry penny, multiplied by something like 30, wouldn't amount to much. But I did not yet understand the difference between arithmetic and exponential growth.  Dad gave me an excellent lesson that day, showing me how even fractions of small numbers grow into the millions and higher very quickly, and probably helping me comprehend future school based math lessons.

 

The same deceptively simple math governs human reproductive history. When you start realizing that biologically we all have two parents, and four grandparents, and by doubling you get to numbers like those described here,  https://www.nature.com/articles/news990311-2  you find that going back just 800 years or roughly 40 generations, already you have about a trillion ancestors. And each generation back doubles your number once again!

 

This is a big problem because the best guess science can provide is that somewhere between 105 billion and 120 billion people have ever lived throughout all of human history. Worse, plenty of those never even had any children.  The math thus says, at a minimum, that you are descended from many of the same people more than once, through more than one line. Even if the documented records can't directly prove we are all related through Charlemagne, we have to all be related through someone, really through vast numbers of someones, many times over. 

 

Anyhoo, I know where some of my pre-USA ancestors came from just in the past couple hundred years in Europe - Norway, Germany, and the British Isles (probably a mix of Irish and English) cover around 75% for certain, but I really don't think it makes much difference to know that.  My mom thinks my German ancestors may have previously gone there from the Netherlands. Who knows?

 

I enjoy being able to claim fierce Viking descent but because I then overthink everything to the nth degree, even that is not as much fun as it could be, because the actual Vikings were rather horrible people, like all pirates and conquerors. (See, Debbie Downer again).  Then there is an even more problematic legacy I carry from antebellum south plantation owners, among other questionable characters.  It's troubling at best to know, really KNOW my history.

 

Culturally, I am not that or anything other than an ordinary, random late 20th Century, Inland Northern American person. 

 

If I did 23 and Me or any of the others, I would just pick apart their conclusions and Kmomsplain why it's nothing I didn't already know.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by KmomChicago

[Hogladyrider]

2 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

 

I have not done it @ninjacat123 because  I'm a genetic skeptic. It seems to me the whole world is a mutt.  I don't understand the genomic precision well enough, but I don't believe they can really tell European people apart with any trustable accuracy and I feel like there was plenty of conquering going on around there for hundreds of years, mixing up those genes across ever changing boundaries and political systems anyway, so what does it really mean?  Yes, I am a Debbie Downer at heart. . . always finding the cloud behind the silver lining (and vice-versa, I must say, so it balances out). 

 

Since I have dabbled in this subject in my spare time, this will be a TLDR for everyone (really just for myself) that is a total non-sequitur to cruising and probably worth skipping.  I find this stuff fascinating. I also find it fascinating how vanishingly small each individual's chance of being born was in the first place, but that is another long muse for another late night drunchie chat. As you might guess, I don't have many of those, don't get invited to many parties as no one wants to hear my intellectual nerd blather.

 

I have read the explanations about how all people of Euro descent are descendants of Charlemagne - and also of every other man alive in Europe (perhaps on planet earth) in the year 800 who has any living descendants.  It seems unlikely at first but the math really shows that it would be nearly impossible to be alive today and not have a tiny smattering of, well, everyone else. 

 

In my childhood my dad once asked me how much money would be generated in a month if someone gave a penny on day 1, then doubled the amount daily. Of course in my innocence  I assumed starting with a paltry penny, multiplied by something like 30, wouldn't amount to much. But I did not yet understand the difference between arithmetic and exponential growth.  Dad gave me an excellent lesson that day, showing me how even fractions of small numbers grow into the millions and higher very quickly, and probably helping me comprehend future school based math lessons.

 

The same deceptively simple math governs human reproductive history. When you start realizing that biologically we all have two parents, and four grandparents, and by doubling you get to numbers like those described here,  https://www.nature.com/articles/news990311-2  you find that going back just 800 years or roughly 40 generations, already you have about a trillion ancestors. And each generation back doubles your number once again!

 

This is a big problem because the best guess science can provide is that somewhere between 105 billion and 120 billion people have ever lived throughout all of human history. Worse, plenty of those never even had any children.  The math thus says, at a minimum, that you are descended from many of the same people more than once, through more than one line. Even if the documented records can't directly prove we are all related through Charlemagne, we have to all be related through someone, really through vast numbers of someones, many times over. 

 

Anyhoo, I know where some of my pre-USA ancestors came from just in the past couple hundred years in Europe - Norway, Germany, and the British Isles (probably a mix of Irish and English) cover around 75% for certain, but I really don't think it makes much difference to know that.  My mom thinks my German ancestors may have previously gone there from the Netherlands. Who knows?

 

I enjoy being able to claim fierce Viking descent but because I then overthink everything to the nth degree, even that is not as much fun as it could be, because the actual Vikings were rather horrible people, like all pirates and conquerors. (See, Debbie Downer again).  Then there is an even more problematic legacy I carry from antebellum south plantation owners, among other questionable characters.  It's troubling at best to know, really KNOW my history.

 

Culturally, I am not that or anything other than an ordinary, random late 20th Century, Inland Northern American person. 

 

If I did 23 and Me or any of the others, I would just pick apart their conclusions and Kmomsplain why it's nothing I didn't already know.

 

@KmomChicago...this post is a HOME RUN, I love it....we think a lot alike!

[ninjacat123]

3 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

 

I have not done it @ninjacat123 because  I'm a genetic skeptic. It seems to me the whole world is a mutt.  I don't understand the genomic precision well enough, but I don't believe they can really tell European people apart with any trustable accuracy and I feel like there was plenty of conquering going on around there for hundreds of years, mixing up those genes across ever changing boundaries and political systems anyway, so what does it really mean?  Yes, I am a Debbie Downer at heart. . . always finding the cloud behind the silver lining (and vice-versa, I must say, so it balances out). 

 

Since I have dabbled in this subject in my spare time, this will be a TLDR for everyone (really just for myself) that is a total non-sequitur to cruising and probably worth skipping.  I find this stuff fascinating. I also find it fascinating how vanishingly small each individual's chance of being born was in the first place, but that is another long muse for another late night drunchie chat. As you might guess, I don't have many of those, don't get invited to many parties as no one wants to hear my intellectual nerd blather.

 

I have read the explanations about how all people of Euro descent are descendants of Charlemagne - and also of every other man alive in Europe (perhaps on planet earth) in the year 800 who has any living descendants.  It seems unlikely at first but the math really shows that it would be nearly impossible to be alive today and not have a tiny smattering of, well, everyone else. 

 

In my childhood my dad once asked me how much money would be generated in a month if someone gave a penny on day 1, then doubled the amount daily. Of course in my innocence  I assumed starting with a paltry penny, multiplied by something like 30, wouldn't amount to much. But I did not yet understand the difference between arithmetic and exponential growth.  Dad gave me an excellent lesson that day, showing me how even fractions of small numbers grow into the millions and higher very quickly, and probably helping me comprehend future school based math lessons.

 

The same deceptively simple math governs human reproductive history. When you start realizing that biologically we all have two parents, and four grandparents, and by doubling you get to numbers like those described here,  https://www.nature.com/articles/news990311-2  you find that going back just 800 years or roughly 40 generations, already you have about a trillion ancestors. And each generation back doubles your number once again!

 

This is a big problem because the best guess science can provide is that somewhere between 105 billion and 120 billion people have ever lived throughout all of human history. Worse, plenty of those never even had any children.  The math thus says, at a minimum, that you are descended from many of the same people more than once, through more than one line. Even if the documented records can't directly prove we are all related through Charlemagne, we have to all be related through someone, really through vast numbers of someones, many times over. 

 

Anyhoo, I know where some of my pre-USA ancestors came from just in the past couple hundred years in Europe - Norway, Germany, and the British Isles (probably a mix of Irish and English) cover around 75% for certain, but I really don't think it makes much difference to know that.  My mom thinks my German ancestors may have previously gone there from the Netherlands. Who knows?

 

I enjoy being able to claim fierce Viking descent but because I then overthink everything to the nth degree, even that is not as much fun as it could be, because the actual Vikings were rather horrible people, like all pirates and conquerors. (See, Debbie Downer again).  Then there is an even more problematic legacy I carry from antebellum south plantation owners, among other questionable characters.  It's troubling at best to know, really KNOW my history.

 

Culturally, I am not that or anything other than an ordinary, random late 20th Century, Inland Northern American person. 

 

If I did 23 and Me or any of the others, I would just pick apart their conclusions and Kmomsplain why it's nothing I didn't already know.

 

I haven't heard of the Charlemagne theory but I have heard that Genghis Khan or Atilla the Hun had hundreds of children and that he could be a potential gene spreader king.  What I love are the people who think they lived past lives as Cleopatra but in actuality they were Cleo's snake herder.  😜

 

[KmomChicago]

43 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

I haven't heard of the Charlemagne theory but I have heard that Genghis Khan or Atilla the Hun had hundreds of children and that he could be a potential gene spreader king.  What I love are the people who think they lived past lives as Cleopatra but in actuality they were Cleo's snake herder.  😜

 

True and how silly of us to value the notorious over the mundane, salt of the earth people who actually did the work commanded by the outliers who became powerful through lucky anomalies of inheritance or circumstance. Brilliance was sometimes a factor but surely millions of smarter people never had a chance in early societies. I figure those were my people. 😂
 

I don’t buy into reincarnation, just lineage.  As for Cleo my understanding is there is no credible record of descendants surviving to the modern era. There was a Zenobia of Palmyra who laid claim in the 3rd century CE or thereabouts but it’s not clear that claim was accurate or that she sent the genes forward in any case.

 

So snake herder may be as close as anyone will ever get.

Edited June 18, 2022 by KmomChicago

[TrqoisWtrs]

21 hours ago, KmomChicago said:

No planes, no drives longer than 90 minutes, nothing that makes use of a passport.

I agree!  I had the Pride booked to Iceland next month, but was able to move the funds to a cruise in November.  Travel right now is just not worth it, with the low staff on the ships, and the mess with all the airlines.  I would have flown into Heathrow - have you seen the pictures of the luggage build up the other day because everything is so messed up...I can't even imagine.  

 

[KmomChicago]

1 minute ago, cruisin*tigger said:

I agree!  I had the Pride booked to Iceland next month, but was able to move the funds to a cruise in November.  Travel right now is just not worth it, with the low staff on the ships, and the mess with all the airlines.  I would have flown into Heathrow - have you seen the pictures of the luggage build up the other day because everything is so messed up...I can't even imagine.  

 

Holy cow. 

[KmomChicago]

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