Mitsugirly had a JOYful cruise

[bkrickles1]

10 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

According to the Freestyle Daily, they are still there. I'm looking at Day 2 on the ship (which I'm getting ready to post) and it's on there at 7:30pm "Beatles Revolution Early Years" in the Cavern. 🙂

 

 

 

Thanks so much!

 

 

Yep, looks like it's still there according to the Freestyle Daily.

That's great news! 

Thanks for checking on that. 

As another poster said, it's always a fun sing along and I look forward to it again on my July sailing on Joy. 

[mitsugirly]

Ok, our first sea day is up and live now. 

 

I'll start working on getting our first port day put together. I took so many pictures and videos, so this may take a bit of time, so be patient with me. 

[evanskl4]

2 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

Ok, our first sea day is up and live now. 

 

I'll start working on getting our first port day put together. I took so many pictures and videos, so this may take a bit of time, so be patient with me. 

Thanks for the detailed report! Just FYI that the video from the 80s party is blocked (at least here in the US). 

[sid_9169]

Am I the only one who can't get to the next page? Scrolled down to the end of the first day on board, but there's no button to click for the following day. 

[quillwercruisers]

33 minutes ago, sid_9169 said:

Am I the only one who can't get to the next page? Scrolled down to the end of the first day on board, but there's no button to click for the following day. 

If you are talking about day 3 the sea day, she hasn't posted day 4 Roatan yet.

[mitsugirly]

7 hours ago, evanskl4 said:

Thanks for the detailed report! Just FYI that the video from the 80s party is blocked (at least here in the US). 

 

 

Ok, I have now corrected that and uploaded it straight from my computer. It should work now. 

 

 

1 hour ago, sid_9169 said:

Am I the only one who can't get to the next page? Scrolled down to the end of the first day on board, but there's no button to click for the following day. 

 

I have not posted Day 4 yet. I will post on here when it live and clickable. 

[300dtc]

So glad that you got to cruise again! We have been cruising a lot for the past two years and was honestly thinking about you (not in a weird creepy sort of way, I promise) and wondering if you were coming back to sea. We leave Friday for Florida and our 3rd cruise so far this year. Hope to see you on a ship someday!

 

Maryann

[Hogladyrider]

I must be doing something wrong when trying to read your review.  I have already read up to Roatan but I have to go back every time and start at the beginning!

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of your review when you have the time to post, I understand how busy you must be for sure.

 

Glad your foot is better and you were able to get back to cruising.  Our first cruise post Covid is in January 2024.

[blarko]

48 minutes ago, Hogladyrider said:

 

I must be doing something wrong when trying to read your review.  I have already read up to Roatan but I have to go back every time and start at the beginning!

 

Same here. In her other reviews, she used to put the link buttons across the top of the review but this one I have to start at the beginning every time and, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the button for each page.

[mitsugirly]

On 4/26/2023 at 8:28 PM, 300dtc said:

So glad that you got to cruise again! We have been cruising a lot for the past two years and was honestly thinking about you (not in a weird creepy sort of way, I promise) and wondering if you were coming back to sea. We leave Friday for Florida and our 3rd cruise so far this year. Hope to see you on a ship someday!

 

Maryann

 

Aww Maryann, how sweet that you've been thinking of us. I hope you have a wonderful cruise! Who are you cruising with and what ship?

 

1 hour ago, Hogladyrider said:

I must be doing something wrong when trying to read your review.  I have already read up to Roatan but I have to go back every time and start at the beginning!

 

Looking forward to reading the rest of your review when you have the time to post, I understand how busy you must be for sure.

 

Glad your foot is better and you were able to get back to cruising.  Our first cruise post Covid is in January 2024.

 

Oh my! I forgot to put the daily links to click to go to the page you want to be on. I'll have to correct that tomorrow some time. Sorry about that.

 

I'm posting a new day now.

 

Who have you decided to cruise with in 2024? What ship?

 

1 hour ago, blarko said:

Same here. In her other reviews, she used to put the link buttons across the top of the review but this one I have to start at the beginning every time and, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the button for each page.

 

Sorry about that. I completely forgot to make the buttons at the top. I'll correct it tomorrow some time.

[mitsugirly]

The Roatan page is now live. 

 

I'll add buttons to each page some time tomorrow. I'm sorry. I just didn't think about it for some reason.

 

HERE'S the latest link to make it easier.

[kelkel2]

I’m a long time reader of your reviews! I’m so glad you’re back and doing another. Im

headed to read it now. 

[Hogladyrider]

7 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

 

Who have you decided to cruise with in 2024? What ship?

Our 1st cruise to Hawaii on HAL 18 days!

 

We are retired so no more counting vacation days.

 

HAL is now our favorite cruise line.

[300dtc]

3 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

 

Aww Maryann, how sweet that you've been thinking of us. I hope you have a wonderful cruise! Who are you cruising with and what ship?

 

 

Oh my! I forgot to put the daily links to click to go to the page you want to be on. I'll have to correct that tomorrow some time. Sorry about that.

 

I'm posting a new day now.

 

Who have you decided to cruise with in 2024? What ship?

 

 

Sorry about that. I completely forgot to make the buttons at the top. I'll correct it tomorrow some time.

We are crusing on Carnival Horizon to the ABC Islands. We spent our honeymoon in Curacao 40 years ago this month!

[jethrojam]

Love the Review so far!

They put us in the Miami terminal after a Bermuda cancellation and had to do the customs in there in February.   It was a disaster as far as seating went.   Some things never change.

 

In defense of Mr No Help:    Well his driving sucked for sure.    However, since Covid, Uber drivers are told not to touch other peoples luggage unless disability necessity.    I am sure many no longer abide by that rule anymore for tips, but it is supposed to be a rule.    And the driver didn't bill you for the extra 20 bucks although his incompetency lead to it.   He gets paid by the mile and time, and if that goes over the expected miles/time, uber will bill the occupant.    

I drove for uber until a few months ago part time.   I guess I still do, I just haven't.    

 

Anyways Look forward to more!

[jethrojam]

Question to be answered at a later date.   Will Sakari get any of the double points that you have received over the years or is it just the single ones (assuming you took a cruise with double points offered).   I just turned Platinum and wonder if my son will too in a few years.   Thanks

[mitsugirly]

On 4/28/2023 at 9:29 PM, kelkel2 said:

I’m a long time reader of your reviews! I’m so glad you’re back and doing another. Im

headed to read it now. 

 

On 4/28/2023 at 9:31 PM, Hogladyrider said:

Our 1st cruise to Hawaii on HAL 18 days!

 

We are retired so no more counting vacation days.

 

HAL is now our favorite cruise line.

 

On 4/29/2023 at 12:43 AM, 300dtc said:

We are crusing on Carnival Horizon to the ABC Islands. We spent our honeymoon in Curacao 40 years ago this month!

 

Oh that's awesome! I have yet to go to the "B" but hopefully some day. Happy Anniversary!

 

On 4/29/2023 at 12:40 PM, jethrojam said:

Love the Review so far!

They put us in the Miami terminal after a Bermuda cancellation and had to do the customs in there in February.   It was a disaster as far as seating went.   Some things never change.

 

In defense of Mr No Help:    Well his driving sucked for sure.    However, since Covid, Uber drivers are told not to touch other peoples luggage unless disability necessity.    I am sure many no longer abide by that rule anymore for tips, but it is supposed to be a rule.    And the driver didn't bill you for the extra 20 bucks although his incompetency lead to it.   He gets paid by the mile and time, and if that goes over the expected miles/time, uber will bill the occupant.    

I drove for uber until a few months ago part time.   I guess I still do, I just haven't.    

 

Anyways Look forward to more!

 

I didn't know about the Uber drivers. We have been vacationing all during Covid and have never ever ran into an Uber driver that didn't take the luggage in and out (and that would be the case when we returned as well). It just caught me off guard. 

 

Good to know about the billing. Maybe that's why they were so quick to refund me. It's always good to know these things. 

 

On 4/29/2023 at 12:51 PM, jethrojam said:

Question to be answered at a later date.   Will Sakari get any of the double points that you have received over the years or is it just the single ones (assuming you took a cruise with double points offered).   I just turned Platinum and wonder if my son will too in a few years.   Thanks

 

Hmmm, I've never thought of that. I have only ask them if she will get the same as us and I guess I assumed that she would have the same points. I would think so ??  Because she was still on the same cruise and we still paid for her. It will be interesting to see I guess. 

[mitsugirly]

Sorry I haven't been on this week or updated the website. This week is my 4  12 hour day work week and it's been hectic. 

 

I've also been battling with a little depression since the weekend...let me explain. I think I mentioned earlier that I received a notification that I was over my pictures GB limit on my website and I was getting a countdown that, after that, I would no longer be able to put more pictures on my website. Well, I went into panic mode and started trying to get more pictures ready and started downloading them onto the website before I was no longer to do so. I managed to get 2 more days downloaded on there. However, it's going to be a hot mess because when typing up the review and trying to find the picture that corresponds to that post is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Scrolling through tons of photos downloaded just to find the right one and repeat. (I normally download the picture as I go along)

 

I upgraded my website 2 years ago and had to pay for premium in order to continue with the website. I'm supposed to have another year left of my subscription. However, since I ran out of storage, the only option is to upgrade again. My current storage was for 20GB and according to my website, I have used 51GB of it already (after this last panic download of 2 more days worth). The only option was to upgrade to the 100GB and that was going to be very costly (3 year subscription was $2125). I was astonished at the amount and not sure what to do. 

 

So, I have been looking into other options for moving my website to another place and server. However, that doesn't provide to be a very good choice either. I would have to pay a monthly fee to the server of $18.95-$28.99 a month, but they stated that once you get over 10GB, they would ask you to reduce your size or ban you (like I'm already 5x over that amount) and then I would also have to get a new website which would be around $45/mo (or $1,620 for the 3 years). So still looking at around $2,000 either way. Then Wix makes it VERY hard for you to transfer your website to another place and server so basically you pay another place to do that for you and they will recover all that they can...of course for a price. Which leaves you going page by page to see what was missed and manually entering that again. They like to nickel and dime you to death. I pay for so many extra's involved on the website to begin with on top of that and my domain name that this is just getting ridiculous!

 

They make it very hard on someone like me and it has really got me down wondering what to do at this point. I've been so down about it that I didn't even want to work on the website at this point. The hubby has been trying to lift me up and tell me that we will figure it out. 😞 

 

So anyhow. I just wanted to explain why there's been such a delay. It's not like me. I'll be working on it today and trying to get up another day: Belize, by sometime today/tonight.

 

Please be patient with me while I figure this all out. I'm sorry. 😞 

[blarko]

5 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

Please be patient with me while I figure this all out. I'm sorry. 😞

Maybe @Saint Greg could give you some advice? He has his own website and he’s pretty knowledgeable about all things interweb related…..

[mitsugirly]

9 minutes ago, blarko said:

Maybe @Saint Greg could give you some advice? He has his own website and he’s pretty knowledgeable about all things interweb related…..

 

Thanks!

[mitsugirly]

The next day is up for Harvest Caye Belize!

[Saint Greg]

34 minutes ago, mitsugirly said:

 

Thanks!

 

My cost is up but not because of size. What they did with me is sign me up to a really cheap deal. Then after a few years when the deal is up, they triple the price. You could always move to a new host that is offering a better deal. I thought about doing it but decided not to hassle with it right now. My google ads are more than paying for the site now.

 

I'm actually not even sure how much space my website takes up and how much I'm allowed. I know my backups alone are taking up 6.6 GB and those files are compressed. My website is backed up every Saturday and I keep the last two backups. So I would say the compressed backups of my website are around 3.3GB each.

 

I am very very careful with images because I know they will fill up space very fast. I don't host all of my images. I host the important ones. And I make sure I keep them clean. I have some menu pages. When I add a new menu, I make sure I delete the old ones. I host a lot of pictures of the Carnival Fun Times. I only keep them for two years. It's quite a chore at the end of the year to delete a year's worth of old ones, but I know if I don't keep up with that, I'm going to have a full website and a bunch of junk I don't need on it. 

 

Every picture I take is backed up to iCloud and Google Photos. If you have something like that you may be able to link them from there. One free site I can suggest is https://postimages.org/. If you just need an unimportant image uploaded quick you can do it right there on that main page and link on your website. I have an account registered with them and in there you can create folders and all that.

[AKR2011]

I read a lot of cruise blogs. I have many favorites, and yours is definitely one of them! @ProfCruise is another winning site. She did a blog about how she runs her blog. Not sure if is too simplified for you, but here it is anyway: https://profcruise.com/secrets-of-a-full-time-cruise-blogger/

[SeekingKillerWhales!]

Wait, wait, wait! Is no one going to discuss the elephant in the room? No one going to talk about the huge revelation the review provided? The horror, the terror, the extremism of it all? No one else thought it important enough to mention? No one else was startled into complete paralysis? Really? 

.

.

.

.

.

.

A retinal can detach without trauma? I mean it can just throw a temper tantrum and divorce your eyeball? Seriously? Just driving along and it's decides to get out of the car early? Add this to my growing list of nightmare scenarios of bodily betrayals!

 

In all seriousness, I hope he's totally recovered and the eye is going to behave from now on. 

Edited May 6, 2023 by SeekingKillerWhales!

[mitsugirly]

On 5/4/2023 at 4:41 PM, Saint Greg said:

 

My cost is up but not because of size. What they did with me is sign me up to a really cheap deal. Then after a few years when the deal is up, they triple the price. You could always move to a new host that is offering a better deal. I thought about doing it but decided not to hassle with it right now. My google ads are more than paying for the site now.

 

I'm actually not even sure how much space my website takes up and how much I'm allowed. I know my backups alone are taking up 6.6 GB and those files are compressed. My website is backed up every Saturday and I keep the last two backups. So I would say the compressed backups of my website are around 3.3GB each.

 

I am very very careful with images because I know they will fill up space very fast. I don't host all of my images. I host the important ones. And I make sure I keep them clean. I have some menu pages. When I add a new menu, I make sure I delete the old ones. I host a lot of pictures of the Carnival Fun Times. I only keep them for two years. It's quite a chore at the end of the year to delete a year's worth of old ones, but I know if I don't keep up with that, I'm going to have a full website and a bunch of junk I don't need on it. 

 

Every picture I take is backed up to iCloud and Google Photos. If you have something like that you may be able to link them from there. One free site I can suggest is https://postimages.org/. If you just need an unimportant image uploaded quick you can do it right there on that main page and link on your website. I have an account registered with them and in there you can create folders and all that.

 

Yea, I signed up when it was free. Then I ended up upgrading it because it was lagging and every so often I would get an "out of space" error and have to restart it again. This was happening A LOT with the last few reviews and I thought it was the site. So, I upgraded. I would later find out it wasn't the site but my computer being out of memory or something like that and not fast enough. I built a new computer and it's been fine for the most part since then. 

 

Yea, it would definitely be a big hassle to move an entire site over to another provider. How do you get your google ads to pay for the site? Enlighten me what you do to make that much. 

 

How do you back up your website? I thought the host automatically does this for you but how do you keep it yourself?

 

With my site, I wouldn't be able to delete every so often and the pictures I put in my reviews are one's that I pick out from hundreds that I don't share. It would be too much for sure. But nothing I'd ever be able to delete in the future for more space. I also want to keep the website as it is (even if some things or places are not longer there) because it also serves as memories for us that we can go back and look at. Kinda like a journal for me of all our trips. 

 

All my pictures are on my computer and saved but I'm not sure how I would put pictures on a hosting site and then be able to use them within the review? To put a picture into my reviews, you have to download them onto the site. When you say you host it somewhere and then put a link, that would mean everyone would be clicking the link and going somewhere else to see the picture. I need the picture to be within the website and flow with the "story" if that makes sense. Your way wouldn't work for me right?

 

On 5/5/2023 at 8:16 PM, AKR2011 said:

I read a lot of cruise blogs. I have many favorites, and yours is definitely one of them! @ProfCruise is another winning site. She did a blog about how she runs her blog. Not sure if is too simplified for you, but here it is anyway: https://profcruise.com/secrets-of-a-full-time-cruise-blogger/

 

Well thank you for that. I appreciate it. 

 

I'm going to check out the blog link you sent when I'm done with my review. I'll take any help I can at this point. 

 

I have searched everywhere on the internet and can't even locate another travel website (that isn't a blog) like mine. I wonder why? Just everyone is doing blogs? I honestly can't figure out how the blogs work or how to find stuff within them. I just don't think it would work for me. At least not the way I have my website set up. 😞 

 

 

On 5/5/2023 at 11:18 PM, SeekingKillerWhales! said:

Wait, wait, wait! Is no one going to discuss the elephant in the room? No one going to talk about the huge revelation the review provided? The horror, the terror, the extremism of it all? No one else thought it important enough to mention? No one else was startled into complete paralysis? Really? 

.

.

.

.

.

.

A retinal can detach without trauma? I mean it can just throw a temper tantrum and divorce your eyeball? Seriously? Just driving along and it's decides to get out of the car early? Add this to my growing list of nightmare scenarios of bodily betrayals!

 

In all seriousness, I hope he's totally recovered and the eye is going to behave from now on. 

 

Yep, you don't have to have trauma to the eye for it to detach. There was no trauma what-so-ever. It usually happens to older people (I have a patient now with one) and it usually happens to people that have had nearsightedness during their life. He was nearsighted all of his life until he got lasik to correct his vision. It has to do with the way your eye is shaped. Now he will have to have lasik again in the future to correct it again.

 

His eye is still red and weird looking at this point. He did go to the eye doctor and got a contact for that eye. He's still not seeing well out of it and he says there's a "hump" in his vision. Like if he was to read this, he'd see the words going up in a hump in the middle. Without the contact, it's completely blurry of course. When he drives now, he has to turn his head a little to the side so he's using his good eye mostly to see. 😞