Star Princess - 9/22/06 Transatlantic

[njfredd]

Hi All! We're booked on the Star Princess Transatlantic cruise from Copenhagen to NYC, sailing on 9/22/06. We are a GM couple from Hamilton, NJ (Princeton/Trenton area). Any other family or gay friendly folks booked on this cruise? Hopefully, we will not be "the only gays in the village":eek: .

[Oppgaard]

We will be getting off as you get on. We do the Baltic cruise that departs Copenhagen 9/12.

[njfredd]

We will be getting off as you get on. We do the Baltic cruise that departs Copenhagen 9/12.

 

Sorry that we are not going to cross paths along the way. Hope that you have a great time on the Baltics segment of the cruise. If you hear of anyone else on your cruise segment who is also planning to continue on the Transatlantic trip, we would appreciate hearing from them.

 

BTW, have you been to Copenhagen before? If so, do you have any recommendations for gay friendly dining/cocktails? I downladed information from the Out & About travel guide on Gay.com, but I am not certain how often these guides are updated. Thanks!

[Jerry & Kirk]

njfredd................Friends of ours, a gay friendly married couple from Philly

 

will be on this cruise too (as well as the previous segment). They are both

 

Message Board shy, so I don't know how to encourage them to participate in

 

conversation with you before the cruise. I'll have to think on it. Do you

 

have any ideas? Maybe a welcoming letter might help?

 

 

Jerry (and Kirk)

[njfredd]

Jerry and Kirk;

 

Thanks for your reply to us. We understand your friends' reluctance to contact us on the message boards, especially those living in the dreaded Garden State. I (Edd) grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, and we visit it quite often, so I know the city well. In fact, we are planning to spend the next two weekends there, overdosing on films at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

 

We are really looking forward to this cruise, as it coincides with our 20th anniversary:D . It would be great to converse with Philly folk and maybe meet up with them on the cruise. I have attached a "signature" card in case you want to pass our e-mail address on to your friends.

[Oppgaard]

We also would be more than happy to talk to them and hopefully be able to meet on the cruise. We are two gay couples and we are travelling with two straight couples and a single woman. All very gay friendly and we get along great. We have a lot of posts going on at the Princess Roll call for this cruise.

 

My email address can be found in profile under vCard.

[gretch]

Hi Guys - my name is Gretch, husband is Jim and we are the couple from Philly that Jerry & Kirk are talking about. This is my first time on the message board - so forgive any mistakes. We'd love to get together with you all and will also post a note to Desset Cruiser (?) as he is sailing on the first part of the cruise also. Jerry and Kirk pooped out on us and booked a cruise to Alaska!

[Oppgaard]

Hello Gretch! Glad you finally made your way to the message boards.

 

We would love to meet up with you on the cruise. Like I said before, we have a group of 9 going on the Baltic portion of this cruise. Myself and my partner from Yucca Valley, CA a friend of ours, Yucca Valley and his partner from Hong Kong, the friend's sister and husband from Orange, CA, another woman who the two guys met on an Australian cruise years ago and then another couple here from Yucca Valley that my partner paints with.

 

We have a roll call going over at the Princess Roll Calls board. We are all meeting at Skywalker's Bar the first sea day at 4PM. My partner and I are in Vista Suite E733 on the Emerald Deck and would like to invite the two of you over for a drink after the life boat drill on the first day. If for some reason you can't make that, just stop by anytime or give a call.

 

Have you planned all your shore excursions yet? We have a private tour arranged through Red October in St. Petersberg but other than that we are pretty open.

 

Looking forward to meeting you.

 

Jerry

[gretch]

Hi Jerry,

 

Sound great - Jim and I are in E727 for both cruises - Jim doesn't drink and I will probably already have a margarita in hand! We're from Warminster, Pa - outside of Philly. We've sailed the Star once before on a cruise to Australia - that's where we met Jerry and Kirk. Sounds like you have a fun group and you're all quite well traveled. This in only our 5/6 cruise with Princess and our 8th total cruise. Would love to do more - but still enjoy eating and having a roof over our head while not cruising! -

Later,

Gretch

[Oppgaard]

Your cabin is just around the corner from us so that will really make it handy. We love entertaining so we get a suite so everyone can come to our cabin. The more the merrier. We do have a good group and you will fit right in.

 

We are in the midst of very bad fires in our area. We just went to a friend's house and got her paintings out since she had already evacuated. The one couple from here that is going on the cruise just got home from a trip this afternoon to find that their backyard is being used as the heli-base for the fire operations. They live right on the edge of the runaway to the airport with a hangar in the back of the house for their plane so I guess this is not too out of line.

 

Our whole town has been put on alert to possibly have to evacuate but hopefully they will get things under control shortly. We are glad we are home for this and not out of the country.

[njfredd]

Hi Guys - my name is Gretch, husband is Jim and we are the couple from Philly that Jerry & Kirk are talking about. This is my first time on the message board - so forgive any mistakes. We'd love to get together with you all and will also post a note to Desset Cruiser (?) as he is sailing on the first part of the cruise also. Jerry and Kirk pooped out on us and booked a cruise to Alaska!

 

Hi Gretch (and Jim)

 

It was great to see your posting on the message board. Sorry for the delay in responding; however, work duty has beckoned this week. We’re impressed with your past cruise sailing record. We’re especially jealous that you have been on a cruise to Australia. That is my “dream trip”. However, with my job it is very difficult for me to get a lot of consecutive periods of time for us to take such a trip. My partner, Frank, on the other hand, as a worker in the government sector, is allowed so much time off, it is incredible (however judging from New Jersey and Mercer County’s tax rates, it is not surprising). Maybe someday!

 

Jerry in his posting to you mentioned that there would be a meeting for your group planned for the first day of the Baltic cruise. I believe that this same enterprising individual is also trying to coordinate a similar event for the first day of the Transatlantic cruise. Hopefully, we can meet and you can give us all the inside information on events/activities/ other “dirt” on the ship based on your adventures of the prior week. Like Jim, Frank rarely drinks, so I am the designated drinker in the family. I will probably be checking out t exotic martinis that hopefully will be offered. If we don’t meet up at that time, we are booked for unit C526 on the Caribe deck for our stay on board.

 

You mentioned that you live in Warminster, PA. I’m somewhat familiar with the area, as even though we live in Yardville (Hamilton), New Jersey “home of the anthrax post office”, my office is in Jenkintown, PA, near the Jenkintown train station. I also have clients in Warminster, so I have to travel there every so often.

 

Have your friends Jerry and Kirk been on the Alaskan cruise before? We did one many years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Hopefully, they will be able to take the helicopter tour In Juneau that lands on the glacier and allows you to walk and view. The experience was amazing!

 

Hope that you are coping with this “wonderful” humid weather. Looking forward to a cooler climate in the areas to which we are traveling on the Transatlantic portion of the cruise.

 

Take care!

[Oppgaard]

It sounds like we all have something in common. My partner Beurt very rarely has a drink so I am the designated drinker. It works out very well this way since I can drive to all the parties and he can drive home.

[gretch]

Hi All,

 

Our thoughts and prayers are with you Jerry and Beurt - see that Yucca Valley is right in the middle of the "fire storm" so to speak and that the town has been evacuated. Hope all turns out well. Am somewhat familiar with this - our son just this week moved from Santa Paula, Ca (outside of Ventura) and they were never evacuated, but on call several times and packed to move out. Somewhat difficult to do with 3 kids and 2 dogs! But that just goes along with living in the great state of California - with your two seasons of the year - rainy and fire! Plus I see your temperature is only going to reach abou 108 today - well personally I love the heat and am thoroughy enjoying our current heat wave - know you guys in NJ aren't loving it - but once again I'm the weirdo in the group - guess that's what drew Jerry and Kirk to me in the first place.

 

Jerry and Kirk have taken the Alaska cruise before - but find this Baltic cruise a little port intensive for Kirk. They have a nice size group they've organized for this cruise and know they will have a blast. We've never done the Alaska thing - once again I'm not fond of intentionally going someplace I know I will be COLD. This Baltic cruise is pushing it for me! I look at the Bridge cams from Alaska this summer and it looks positively BEAUTIFUL. So guess we'll have to consider that next.

 

Yes we have gone ahead and booked the ship's two day tour in St. Petersburg. We're not the savy sailors you guys are and are somewhat hesitant to go venturing out on our own. Since we probably won't get to St. Petersburg again, firgure might as well see it all. We also booked the Russian Folkloric evening the first night, instead of the Ballet. We have an association with a local Ukrainian Folk dance group and can't seem to get enough of that type of dancing.

 

That's the only tours we've booked so far. Haven't gotten our cruise documents for the transatlantic portion of the cruise yet, so don't want to spend a fortune on the first cruise and not be able to spend a fortune when we hit Waterford!!!

 

Gotta go get my chores done and plan to spend the afternoon laying in my pool with a margarita and my cruise literature and try to pick out more tours.

 

Later,

 

Gretch

[Oppgaard]

We just finished planning all our shore excursions in the other ports and as soon as we hear from the final person I will go ahead and get them all booked. Since I am everyone's agent I have been placed in charge of all this. We also decided today to get the Princess transfers from the airport to the ship. We just thought it would be easier this way.

 

It seems like although the fires are still close, we are out of danger. Either that or we are getting accustomed to the warnings and are not being as alert as we were at first.

 

Jerry

[gretch]

Hey Ed & Frank,

Give us a shout at 215-343-2714 and lets talk about the cruise.

Gretch