Milhouse

We've used Ephesus Shuttle a few times during previous cruises that had a stop in Kusadasi/Ephesus; most recently last year and would recommend them. Our experience has been that the groups are fairly small with transport in a minibus with lots of room. IIRC, our most recent tour only had four couples including us. It's obviously kind of random what kind of guide you get but all of our previous Ephesus Shuttle guides have been pretty friendly, helpful (eg photos) and laid back, not pushy. My only complaint about our most recent guide was that he was a bit too chatty for my taste. I find they do ask the group if you want to do any shopping (so you are kind of at the mercy of a group decision) but my experience is also that most of the people doing Ephesus Shuttle tours are pretty independent so everyone typically declines. So we have never made a shopping/rug stop with Ephesus Shuttle.

Well... This is more of a quasi tourist attraction than a good restaurant suggestion but Loy Sing Meat Market. It's noted as North America's oldest continuously running Chinese business since 1889. We were in Victoria last month for a wedding and decided to try it out while out for a walk along the waterfront and looping back by Chinatown. It originally caught our attention at the beginning of the year when there were a bunch of news segments about the current owners wanting to retire and trying to find a new owner to keep the business running. We shared a plate of bbq pork and roast pork on rice for about $13 or so. It wasn't much to look at; just a big pile of pork cuts on rice. It was reasonably tasty/solid but nothing to write home about. The shop is kind of a hole in the wall (as it is a meat shop first) with a basic table and plastic chairs if you want to eat in. They also sell some small bottles of chili crisp oil which is an easy souvenir. The owners were pretty friendly making sure we were comfortable. Happy we visited and happy we supported this small biz. YMMV depending on what you are looking for of course.

Was out for a walk today to New Brighton Park this afternoon around 3pm (before the above test run pics) and took a pic of Radiance docked across Burrard Inlet at Lynn Term. Was kind of cool to see a cruise ship docked on this part of the inlet. (There was also another cruise ship there about a month ago that they were prepping to use as a floating hotel for workers for an LNG project in Squamish, north of Vancouver.)

Chris Young, who was involved with the Modernist Cusine book and founded ChefSteps and their Joule sous vide machine, has a pretty informative Youtube channel. He has a number of videos on steak preparation where he does empirical experiments and goes into the scientific reason on what works and doesn't. A couple of common concepts he addresses: Frequent flipping is good for even doneness but you need to allow for more carryover cooking You should temper your steak for a more evenly cooked steak (except when cooking sous vide or using reserse sear) Resting doesn't keep meat juicy I enjoy learning what optimal techniques are but I also very much appreciate good results with mimimal effort too. 🙂

We always try to make reservations for our select dining somewhat sooner than later and try to tailor it to port times and making the late show. We don't sail as much as others on the board but have experienced more desirable time slots (earlier) sometimes being fully booked ahead of departure, particularly on formal nights. As mentioned above, you'll still be able to get a table as a walk-in but may have a bit of a wait. But it's kind of hard to know what the demand is versus how many people may want to skip the MDR that night. I find that you can generally get in right at opening if you're ok eating that early. They also seem to try to seat you in the same section nightly so if you tell them you're open to sitting in another section for the night, that might help too.

There's also a lot of regional celebrations with music, entertainment, and displays. If you are staying downtown, the event around Canada Place is definitely the biggest and easiest. However, if you are inclined to check out a few within reasonable distance, there should also be events taking place on Granville Island and the Shipyards area just across the inlet. Yep, unfortunately, many of the fireworks displays (and parades) have been cancelled due to funding. There are still fireworks (and parades) happening at some of the regional events but probably not practical for you to go to. There was one year back in the day, when we went to four parades across town which was pretty fun.

Compensation for the services TA's provide is kind of complicated IMO. Breaking down the OP's original post: Service fees include: booking domestic - international air $50-$100.00 pp; As CDNPolar mentions, I also do not think TA's get a commission for booking domestic flights (save for business class possibly??). So if they help you book a flight, they won't earn anything from the effort unless you book something additional that does provide them with a commission. changes to booking - $25.00 pp for hotels, transfers, shore excursions, etc. File cancellations are $100 pp Again, I do not think TA's get compensated for any work they do beyond the base booking commissions such as changes and cancellations. One perspective is that you kind of hope that everything can be baked in and averages out in the end. I suppose the other perspective is that there's no free lunch and TA's should be compensated for specific asks. I don't know what the right answer is.

This is a bit dated but we ended up in Falmouth as an alternate port of call (hurricane) during a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2017. We walked to St Peters Church, ate some Jamaican patties at a shop, and checked out some markets. Personally, I think we felt safe enough walking around the town. YMMV. Inside the port gates was obviously fine. But we had mixed interactions with locals. The couple of folks in the tourism industry we chatted with were great which I suspect is in no small part, from them benefiting from tourist dollars. On the otherhand, we got sworn at from a random group of kids when we declined their request for some dollars. And a rando made small talk and walked with us a bit before also eventually indirectly asked for some money but beat it when we passed by a cop. We didn't feel scared/unsafe by the interactions but it was uncomfortable. Yet, I can understand it as well. On a previous cruise, we docked in Ocho Rios and had a somewhat similar experience. Had a great experience eating lobster on the beach from a friendly guy that was probably raking it in from tourists visiting his shack. Also got sworn at, at Dunns Falls by one of the trinket hawkers when we declined his somewhat manipulative sales pitch. Anyways, Jamaica is a beautiful island overall but it's my least favourite ports of call because of the mixed interactions. If we ended up there again, we'd probably do a tour to be sheltered a bit by the guide.

The only parts I would question are the western part of the loop that I think goes along Pipeline Road which would be a bit of a stretch of walking through a forested area (though that's what you might want to do) and checking out the lighthouse at Brockton Point which the tour seems to shortcut from. The carriage tours obviously need to stay on the road while you have access to trails and the seawall on foot. If going counterclockwise, I'd prefer to start looping back at the spray park/Lumbermen's Arch area. And then once south enough (roughly by the aquarium), take a trail back towards Pipeline Road if you want to see the Pavillion, Rose Garden, etc or turn earlier (roughly by the Japanese Canadian War Memorial) if you want to see the miniture train (but check to see if it's running because it's had on again/off again mechanical issues).

Pretty dependent on personal parameters but at a rough equivalent of $30-35CAD/year going forward, I think it would still provide enough value for me. Between the number of road trips to Bellingham/Seattle/Portland and trips involving flights we take, it averages out to costing about $5/trip/pp for us (it'll be less when I renew this year because I have a cc that has the Nexus benefit). For us, $5 is pretty nominal to save some travel friction. While I hate to admit it, it's becoming apparent that as the missus and I age, we're getting a bit softer in our travel decisions and are willing to pay a little bit more for comfort and convenience.

We took it once during a trip in 2019. Thought it was fine. Comfortable ride. Felt safe overall. Typical mini-effort trying to figure out how to buy the ticket from the machine but not rocket science. We're heading to Paris again this August and would have taken it again to get into town but we're staying near Gare du Nord this time in order to easily hop on the train to our cruise departing from Rotterdam. So it's just simpler for us to take the RER B.

Add me to the curious list too! 🙂 Also just saw it on our cruise planner for our August cruise in addition to a "Taste of Argentina: Hands-on Steak Class."

We're debating which train to take to get us into Rotterdam at different times: 11:32am, 1:32pm, or 3:32pm. There's a slight/neglible price difference but we're also trying to factor in how early we want to wake up and balancing a bit of the morning in Paris versus enough time to see a bit of Rotterdam. ie How much time/priority to give to Markt Binnenrotte; which is likely falling low on the list based on the feedback. We did see the Euromast on various lists. But it didn't make the first cut because it was a bit further out from where we wanted to initially explore. If we're able to get up early and explore the next morning before we board, we might jump on the metro and go a bit further afield and visit the broader areas of the Euromast, Delfshaven, and Heemraadspark. It's really going to be dependent on how we feel (might still be a bit jetlaggy).

Beat me to the punch but just to top up: The Canada Line cars have "normal" 2x2 seating on one end and a more open area (kind of for bikes, etc) on the other end. Travelling with large suitcases in the normal seating area and door area is kind of awkward IMO. More comfortable in the open area. I forget if the set of four across from the open area are designated seating for the elderly, etc though. Grabbed these photos off the internet which are a good view of the open area I mention. https://buzzer.translink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_0623.jpg https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3328/3444306028_b34f7b3ea8_b.jpg

Grabbed these photos off the internet. https://buzzer.translink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/img_0623.jpg https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3328/3444306028_b34f7b3ea8_b.jpg