nybumpkin

3 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

 

 

 

Thank you for the Kings Dominion photos! A long, long time ago (okay, 1978), our high school band in South Jersey went to Winchester for a band competition and then went to Kings Dominion for one of their parades. Doug and I sat under a tree and talked about where life might take us; we got the "get married" part right, but never imagined we'd spend more than 40 years in Upstate NY. At any rate, Kings Dominion always brings back good memories for us.

And many thanks to you and Patti for showing us what next year's cruise might look like!

9 hours ago, sid_9169 said:

 

As for Amber Cove and La Romana, I'll probably just call it a “sea day”, and enjoy the mostly empty ship. I've been to Dominican Republic a few times, and honestly it's among my least favorite ports. I'd even go so far as to say I'd put it down there with Nassau…

 

You just made the Dominican Republic sound like the most attractive port in the Caribbean!😃

1 hour ago, Jamman54 said:

That's the beauty of sailing to the Caribbean from NYC. A minimum of two sea days each way! 

We're sailing Venezia from NYC next year. I can't wait, because I love sea days, and Txteach79, I'm really looking forward to your thoughts about this cruise. In the meantime, we leave on Tuesday for a flight to Madrid and a week cruise on the Douro River. Doug's spending a fair amount of time trying to figure out what I might take for the flight - I can't stand flying.😮

On 5/22/2024 at 3:07 PM, wrcjr98 said:

If you like spicy drinks, my husband isn't normally a martini drinker, but, he did enjoy the Chipotle Pineapple Martini that he got in the Casino on the Celebration.

This one's my favorite Carnival drink. I normally get one from Alchemy.

On 4/13/2022 at 11:34 AM, iancal said:

In the past few years I have lost three former colleagues.  All were in a position to retire.  Two were in their very early sixties. The third waited until 65 to retire, then dropped dead.  He was in the process of planning a family cruse with children and grandchildren.  He never got around to it.

 

I did not want to be one of those people.   Retired early and changed our lifestyles-weight, exercise, and what we ate.

You have the story that prompted my retirement. DH's mom was Executive Director of a nonprofit; I used to hear her "when I retire" stories. Well, she finally did retire - and 5 months later was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was gone less than a year later. None of those "when I retire" stories happened.

I retired at the end of 2022 when I turned 62 after a 35-year career (and I loved my job), but am doing part-time work for them and probably will for another two years. DH isn't retired; his employer does not have a post-retirement medical plan, so he's staying to 65. Fortunately, it's a college teaching position, so he has a month off in December/January as well as three months in the summer. In the meantime, we leave for a river cruise in Europe next week....

On 4/24/2024 at 7:00 AM, BlerkOne said:

 

Thank you for reminding me that I need to soak beans overnight for tomorrow night's soup! Not kale soup (DH is rebelling😃), but I never would have remembered if you hadn't posted this. I'm enjoying your review - we've sailed Glory 5 times and she's one of our favorites.

Sea day, combined over 20 years of Carnival cruises:

Wake whenever. Probably wouldn't be much later than 8:00 - but then, DH and I aren't late night people.

Breakfast. Either the dining room or the buffet. If the dining room, I'm having eggs sunny side up (dippies!), white toast (got something to dip in the eggs😃), and bacon. DH gets an omelet, either in the dining room or at the buffet.

After breakfast, we settle in on the promenade deck for rounds of cards and coffee from Java. Maybe play a round of trivia.

Lunch: Probably the buffet. I'll opt for Guy's or fried clams if the fish place is open. Love the clams.❤️ If I see something I like elsewhere, I'll head there. (Maybe Chinese?)

Afternoon, we'll find some entertainment - or if the weather's good, we'll head for a pool. (Definitely a pool if we're in Havana.❤️)

Dinner: Probably the dining room. I've never had much to complain about in the area of food. Favorites? For appetizers, just about any of the soups (Carnival has always done soups right for me). Dessert? Creme brulee. 

After dinner: Maybe a show if we're interested. If not, we'll go for a band in one of the lounges (maybe Red Frog?)

End of day. Next day? Repeat.

DH has done guest choir twice - once in 2019 on  2-week WB TA and one last year on a one-week EB TA. Both times they asked for black and white as a preference (not a problem for DH - he travels with a tux), but nothing required. DH really enjoys the choir. Rehearsals are sea days after lunch. We'd have lunch and then he'd go to rehearsal while I found someplace comfortable to read.

We did this tour (wow - was it really 2014?) Absolutely a great tour - we've said that if we go back to Alaska, we'll do it again. Our sons were 14 and 18, and they had a great time. I think they'd do it again as well.

On 2/22/2024 at 3:11 PM, Saint Greg said:

 

A sad reminder of our cruise to Norway last year on Pride. I went to get wonton soup and found that someone had made off with all - and I mean all - the dumplings in the container. Nothing there except broth and scallions. Looks like you had a better lunch.

I've enjoyed your review. Spirit is the only Spirit-class ship we haven't sailed, so it's nice to get a look at her.

21 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

 

 

Once we were medicated, we enjoyed our snacks while watching the football games. I crashed during the fourth quarter of the Bills / Chiefs game.

 

Aw, Jeff - My youngest son was at that game. He's gone to more games since he went to Buffalo than he ever did before.😃

I'm really enjoying your report! Yes, I'm here to the end.

1 hour ago, Crusin Karen said:

Checking in! Thanks for sharing the memories with your boys. I love love OSJ. Would love to

move there for the winter but I can speak French but not Spanish and you can’t teach old dogs.

 

Y’all enjoy the game tomorrow. I’m rooting for KC but I’m surrounded by 49’er fans! 🥴🫣

Karen, I have a minor in Spanish. I can read Spanish fairly well (helps with the tourist signs) and it translates over to French - I can read it enough.😘 I think "old dogs" who have one foreign language down can manage the other. And one of my retirement projects is learning French.

On 2/6/2024 at 7:33 PM, depplep said:

Well that's cheating.

I was picturing a plastic stencil they'd use to put the picture on the drink. I guess I'm just too old.😶

16 hours ago, Crusin Karen said:

Following. Has been on Venezia my

last 3 cruises. Very popular and smells great but I’m one of those “I’ve already paid for

my food not gonna pay extra.” I’m a solo cruiser so I’m already paying double for my cruise! Wondering about the clam strips??? 

Hi Karen - I love the Seafood Shack! Last year when we sailed NYC-Eastern Caribbean on Magic we ended up staying on the ship at HMC (another story - but it was worth it to us!) and commandeered a table on Lido for the afternoon. I got the clam strips and DH went for fish and chips. I think the clams are very good - maybe not what I remember from HoJo's in the 1970's, but I really liked them. Oh, and they go very well with gin and tonics.😃

On 1/26/2024 at 4:04 AM, Jamman54 said:

Thanks for reading! Everyone should cruise from New York at least once, though some may beg to differ. The sail away from there is second to none! The Tribe cruise review will be going up next week. Stay tuned! 

I can't agree more with you about NYC, Jeff! I think we're up to about 20 NYC sailaways - mostly Carnival, with some Cunard and Norwegian in the mix. I never get tired of it.

I loved the Tribe live reviews - really want to see yours!

I sailed Norwegian Prima last year - my one and only time on NCL to date. Why? DH wanted to get me a cruise as a retirement present, and Norwegian works for sailing from Manhattan in the off-season. This was a 5-day NYC-Bermuda cruise; I sailed with our daughter-in-law. I liked the ship, but I have to say that if you made me choose between NCL and Carnival, my choice would be - Carnival. I'm not crazy about the "freestyle" sailing that NCL promotes. Instead of "do what you want, when you want,"  I found myself trying to plan meals and activities far in advance - otherwise, you wouldn't get in on NCL because you were expected to make reservations. We never did get to see "Summer," since the show we were able to book ahead of time had to be canceled due to weather. This just wasn't my experience with Carnival. Having said all that, the food on NCL was very good, and we never had difficulty getting seats for meals.

1 hour ago, Jamman54 said:

Due to copyrights. 😎

The first thought that crossed this retired lawyer's mind! But the pictures would be fun!

5 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

We went in circles the entire day waiting for the channel into the Port of Tampa to open up. We didn't pull up to the pier until nearly midnight. At that point what do you think Carnival decided to do?

 

Do you think that they allowed us to stay on board and leave the next morning after a long day? Nope. Here you go. Get off the ship!

 

This was before they really became aware of negative publicity and started offering people some kind of compensation.

 

 

I remember meeting some folks from your cruise in Cozumel - I think you had a much more difficult time than we did. When we were supposed to be in GC (but sailing instead to Cozumel) we were told that the Captain thought the Mississippi would be closed and that if anyone really needed to be back on time we should arrange transportation from Cozumel. I don't think there were many - if any - takers. And we didn't have to get off the ship in New Orleans until a reasonable hour the on the 11th.

3 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

Hopefully it won't top our trip back into Tampa on the Miracle many years ago (coming in on the tails of Cat 4 Hurricane Dennis in 2005). We dodged Hurricane Cindy leaving port and then got a lashing from Dennis on the way back home... ugh !

 

This poor guy sat hunkered down right where you see him for over a day. Any port in a storm !!

 

 

Tom

July 10, 2005 - We were supposed to be in New Orleans that day after our Carnival Conquest cruise. Instead, we spent the day sailing around rigs in the Gulf until they opened the port. We managed to deal with Dennis three times on that trip - once when leaving Montego Bay (we skipped Grand Cayman and went directly to Cozumel), once at the end of the cruise, and the last time on our flight home. Our only casualty was a drinking glass in our sons' cabin on deck 1.

20 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

NY is a perfect seasonal port for them. Exactly what their clientele wants. NCL and Royal can have the winter months and crappy cruising weather.   I would not go for free those months.    

I tried NCL out of NYC this past year - end of March, beginning of April. No, thanks - lovely ship, but you want to be outside to really enjoy it and that sure wasn't happening. At least now I can say I tried sometime other than summer in NYC.

We first saw Playlist shows in 2014; to be honest, I didn't care much for them. However, one of the "backstage" shows explained that Playlist was much cheaper to produce and easier to change. (I assume it's even cheaper not to change them often.😉) The live-action shows they produced "back in the old days" were much harder to change. And over the years, I've really enjoyed some Playlist shows; my favorite has to be "Celestial Strings."

On 11/29/2023 at 10:36 PM, jam19872016 said:

Spicy pineapple Chipotle martini 

 

 

Ship on a stick for the winner.

The drink that makes the Cheers package worthwhile.💗

8 hours ago, NE John said:

Commuter trains when people are taking highly detailed business deals and that info should really be kept in the boardroom. Dumb and rude.   

Back before I retired (wow - I love writing that), I was on a train with a lawyer having a very loud phone conversation with one of his clients. Another passenger finally got up, took the phone from the lawyer, and said to the client, "Congratulations - you and your lawyer have completely destroyed any expectation of privacy you might have had in this conversation. I'm with [number of] people who have just heard all of the details of your planned deal, and you'd better hope no one who knows the other party has just overheard this." We didn't hear another word from that lawyer for the remainder of the trip.

Jeff - I finally finished! (Sorry it's so late, but we went away for Thanksgiving.) That was a great review, and my thanks to Patti for some great pictures!

On 11/15/2023 at 5:17 AM, ace2542 said:

 

And of course the chart room best bar at sea.

Absolutely! The Chart Room was our after-dinner routine every evening.