Getting our sea legs again…

Friday, November 29; Saturday, November 30; Sunday December 1, 2024

Dates will be a little confusing because I’m writing about several different days! Thursday 11/28 was our first full day at sea and Thanksgiving as well (and yes, we had a delicious turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, but I’m already missing leftovers!).

We are re-learning our way around the ship (we did spend 14 days on board Quest in September and October this year, so we sort of know our way around) and actually learning a few new things. For instance, we thought there was only one place (Seabourn Square) to get coffee before 8am. Nope, at the Observation Bar (which is MUCH closer to our “suite”) they have coffee available from 6am to 8am.

We had the distinct pleasure of dining with Milena Kotinska (the Learning & Development Manager) for our first (of five, I believe) “formal nights.” She remembered dining with us on our Montreal Quest trip and asked us to join her again on this cruise. She is part of the “Hosts” for dinners. Senior staff invite Quest guests to have dinner with them and somewhere between two and six other guests. This was our first Hosted dinner on this cruise, but we had three on our 14–day cruise. A very interesting experience!

Our waiter was also on our previous cruise, so it was nice to see another familiar face! Our room stewards, Jennifer and Donnard, are new to us but delightful people.

Randy has already been immersing himself in the talks being given in the Grand Salon. Friday was The Peoples of Polynesia and—I have no idea what this means—Zane Grey, Fishing, and Social Change. Yesterday (11/30) is the 1^st and 2^nd voyages of Captain James Cook and today is The 3rd and Final Voyage of Captain Cook.

Tonight (11/29) was our first “formal” night, which has the following rules: “Tuxedo, suit or slacks and jacket for gentlemen. Evening gown [!] or other formal apparel for ladies [in The Restaurant].” Randy used to bring a tux on our cruises, but we’ve relaxed a bit and he only brings a jacket. I don’t own an “evening gown” so I’ll make do with a long skirt and flowy top. I imagine there will be some truly dressed-to-the-nines folk in attendance.

Meanwhile I have to figure out how to solve a computer problem: I need to keep up with our financial records but when I went to sign-on to our credit card company, it had to “validate” my sign-on. The ONLY way, apparently to do that is to send a text to my cell phone. I have turned off my phone so I don’t get international roaming charges (quite expensive). So, they can’t validate me. Most places will use an authenticator app or will send a code to my email. Not Chase and not Citi. Only a text will do.

 Willie and I are going to take some photos around the ship today and I will ponder the validation problem.

Willie and I did take some photos. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring either a card reader (XQD or SD) or the specific cable I need to connect my camera, a Nikon D500, to my computer. Damn. So, I must wait until Hawaii to get one or both of those! And yes, I asked the Seabourn Square if they had any. Nope.

 

Only two more sleeps!...

November 24, 2024

Two more sleeps! Our good friend, Melinda, introduced us to the concept of “how many nights (sleeps) until we leave?” It is so great and so easy for appreciating just how much time is left until our getaway. So, two more sleeps means we don’t have much time. We’re doing things for the last time before we leave. We had the last zoom call with our son and DIL in Australia (also known as OZ) yesterday (there won’t be enough bandwidth/speed on our cruise ship’s (Seabourn Quest) internet connection for zoom calls so the next time we’ll probably see them or our daughter and SIL will be when we get to Australia in about 48 sleeps!

My life is checklists. Like the old saying, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached, I have to have checklists to remember what to bring and what we’re doing, especially for a trip as long as this one. Not the longest we’ve done, that was probably our ‘Round the World cruise and trip to OZ in 2012 or our trains/planes/automobiles trip to OZ in 2008. Both were about 3 months+. So, checklists are my necessity.

Randy and I had a bit of a discussion about “Willie.” You may remember that Willie is the stuffed bear in a San Francisco Giants baseball uniform that I want to take with us. Randy thinks he will be too much trouble and we should just take a photo of Willie and take that with us. He will be a lot of (Randy’s words) or some (my words) trouble, but I think the fun we can have makes it worthwhile. We can take photos of him doing fun things on the ship or on excursions off the ship. We did the same thing with Cubby Bear (as in, Chicago Cubs bear) when we went on our Baseball Trip (a game in each of the MLB stadiums in 2015—we’re thinking about doing it again).

He even has my blog address on his uniform and my Instagram page (I have GOT to learn to do more with Instagram)! You can’t see it in these photos, but he has a glove and ball and a bat in addition to the uniform. The SF Giants are our favorite team!

So, back to packing for our departure after two more sleeps!

To Do, What To Do!

Friday, May 3, 2024

Today is “Doing-a-bunch-of-‘to-do’items-Day” including making a list of “to do” items. How did I live without Evernote?

Met a friend of Kathy’s who is a genius at creating drinks so one of my (many) Evernote notes is recipes for his drink creations. Such as a Paper Plane (mainly bourbon), a Poet’s Dream (mainly gin), and a Jungle Bird (mainly rum). Then there are the drinks that folks on Seabourn cruises have had created for them (84 at latest count—we’ll be hard pressed to get to all those drinks in one 12-day cruise and one 46-day cruise) such as: Test Pilot, Jet Pilot, Upper East Side (a New Yorker and a pilot as is Randy HAS to try those three!), Sakerinha, Sex on the Beach, Caipiroska, Bahama Momma, and a Black Martini, plus 76 others. At last count.

About the only thing I’ve done on my to-do list is buy airplane tickets to YUL (aka Montreal International Airport). I still have to: get a hotel in Montreal, get a hotel in Los Angeles, get airplane tickets back from NY (where the Montreal cruise ends), get a hotel in Australia for Australia Day (not until Jan 26, 2025, so I still have a bit of time!). Randy and I need to shop for summer clothes (the LA – SYD cruise will be summer but trying to buy summer clothes in September or October will be impossible).

One thing I really wanted to do, I have actually done! We will be taking Willie (a SF Giants Build-a-Bear) with us on both cruises. We’re hoping he will have some interesting experiences both on board the ship and on tours. I named him for Willie Mays (of course) but also for Willie, one of Kathy’s Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies who were born on my birthday.

Now I’m exhausted thinking about all I have to do in the next several months!