Benthayer Gonbak

On a transpacific there was a guy that wanted his soft boiled eggs a particular way. It took few days but they chef got it right until about half way through the cruise. Then it became a joke with the waiter bringing a dozen eggs boiled for different times to find the egg cooked correctly. The only thing we could figure was the pressure had changed. I missed the whole gang that went down to eat the rejected eggs. He has done this trip numerous times and I never was clear that this hadn’t happened before.

Beautiful!

Thanks. As for meeting up we are headed to Africa, but it would be nice to share for sure.

The whole debate makes me angry! It’s a civil contract designed among other things to set property rights and inheritances! I guess spent too much time in those debates in the now defunct Amazon Forums. (Sorry for the rant! … Deep breaths,) Can you explain more about why your first marriage becomes invalid?

what kinda bug can live in those temps? 😂

And the us is getting scary again!

Thats good to hear. When we were to be in Uruguay and I think peru most of the yellow fever was rural and considered not worth the risks. I found that slightly odd because I’ve normally had very little reactions to any vaccine, most of which used to be live virus. I don’t even have a really pronounced smallpox scar! I’m not sure anyone could find it, and I think I remember it being redone because of that. My SIL went with use to Buenos Aires and decided to get the Yellow Fever shot while her system could handle it better. She had little to no reaction too. My primary care physician told me that there is risk to all vaccines and age was only one of the counter indications of them. our travel doctor last year gave us an almost lecture about how to avoid mosquito bites! We already have most of the gear. see ya soon?

The change of terminals is what caused us to have to go through security in CDG. We also did immigrations there too. We flew non stop from jfk to CDG international terminal, and then connected with a domestic flight to Venice.

If you are going from Bordeaux the flight to CDG would be domestic and avoid the extra security. Who knows what happens in the Bordeaux airport though. good luck.

My travel expert, MD, indeed refused to give me a yellow fever inoculation based on age and itinerary. For casual travelers that’s fairly normal. If I were going to work in Angola for a couple of years the decision might be different. It’s not particularly a cheap shot either.

We had hard visas stamps that we had to send off for. The day we docked there had been a threat at the port, all the container ship were waiting out away from the dock. We were let into a closed port. We found this out afterwards although the container ships looked suspicious. Azamara was less than 2 years old at the time.

Not a problem you’ll be answering for others later!

Thats attested to on the Yellow Fever Certificate in the same space. It’s pretty simple, or was when mine was done. I think they call it a waiver. At least in the US! it was also in short supply for a while because the manufacture was moving or retooling or something similar.

The red part was solved at the airport, after the electronic is done, at least for Ivory Coast. It’s possible this can be done at the pier. when we went to India immigrations decided they weren’t going to just go through passports from the document officer but wanted a face to face with each passenger. So, Azamara put them onboard a day or to early and set up a time for each group went to the Cabaret for a face to face meet. We picked up our passports at one door, walked to the front, then turned the passport back in at the other door. So Azamara is pretty good at solving changes that happen because of the country. Our visa were single entry so it was agreed that both ports were basically one entry with travel between. A special card was given to us that we carried and showed at both terminals and turned in at the end of the second port.

That explains why a waiver might have been needed before 2016 even with vaccinations. Now the vaccination is good again! for what it is worth, a waiver is put on a yellow fever certificate so this reads like a waiver is acceptable. Time will tell. we e been given Doxycycline for Malaria prevention. So we are good there. i found it interesting that the Tetanus vax in the UK doesn’t include Pertussis, whooping cough. Instead it includes polio. Thanks for the links. what’s missing is annual flu shots😇 for part of the cruise, winter, that could be important. Fingers crossed that Azamara makes an announcement soon.

I’ ve known of some that had alerts on their homes, before ring. But family checking seems to work best. We know snowbirds who had family checking but also come to visit. They had the house next door burn, we saved them the news articles, but notified them that their house looked fine, except for the tire tracks in the yard! one of the you tube cloggers from Canada has a son come stay in his home. Apparently he likes it because it’s bigger and I think closer to work, not positive. Our TA has family or friends that know the dog either home the dog, or stay in the house with the dog. ultimately, a lot of things that can happen overtime can happen just going to work. The strangest I know of was the steam baseboard heaters leaked and turned a home into a sauna damaging furniture cabinets etc. it was a son that dropped by that found it. You can only turn off so much! My Dad came home after a week to a furnace that wouldn’t stay on. Only one small pipe froze, he’d turned off the water or he could have had a nice flood. We came home from work and found a tornado had hit our neighborhood, but not us.

i think it was Angola that said yellow fever vaccinations are required to leave the ship. The others I think just say highly recommended. Hep A used to have to be repeated every 6 months, but it’s fairly easy to avoid. Typhoid is a three part initial vax, then single shots I think 5 or 10 years. Rabies was also listed but mostly for those in remote living conditions. I thought one of the items suggested Cholera although the old vax is known to never have worked. And, I found a site that included COVID vaxes. of course a waiver isn’t needed if one has a vax unless the vax is expired. Yellow fever is supposed to be a once and done hubby has had 4-6 of them! I’d like to be able to get off with a waiver though.

There is at least one story, told by Celebrity, where a Panama Canal area tour that was to return to the port by train had a rock slide on the track stranding the guest for hours. They ended up leaving them behind and getting them to the next port but what a logistics nightmare.

just to play devils advocate, although we used mostly local guides we did do some walking tours with a guide rather than on our own. Because of a language barrier it seemed like a better way to operate.

If everyone read that no one would be on the tour. There is no way not to need a wheelchair without at least 1 hip, knee and ankle😱

I signed up for one that sounded strenuous but was marked moderate. The description said it was a billygoat trail over rocks and narrow trails. Okay that’s iffy, then it said it was 2,5 hours and was .5 miles long. I figured shoot I can crawl that far, or scoot on my butt! When I got on the ship the pay sent out a flyer advertising the tour only it said 5. miles. I carried the flyer down to shore and knew at least one of the staff. Before I could ask she said yes it’s right, please don’t go on that! I repeated if it is indeed 5 miles I’m certainly not going but how on earth did a 5 mile hike get to be moderate. Turned out the rating was from the locals no one had been there before! The staff I knew had tried to talk me out of Ephesus and the terrace houses but the pics and descriptions seem doable and after asking 100 question I decided I was going. When I got out of the terrace houses that particular staff said that after seeing me function I could do whatever I wanted. I told them I still needed their input! The 2 tours were about 6-8 years apart and I knew my abilities had declined, but I tend to underestimate what I can do which is hard to measure. i do understand what you are saying though, I just need information that has the needed information. A 25 yard walk that turns out be straight up a cliff is different than a stroll down the pier!

watch the schedule a bit. I knew I was going to get to the port early for RCL but could only choose 1:30-2:00 well after I had to be out of the hotel. About a week beforehand the earlier slots opened up and I chose it instead thus leaving a later time open. it sounds to me like you TA got back an answer that matches hat if I don’t make it to the ship before 90 minutes before sail. That’s usually assumed to be 2 hours because they need the manifest 90 minutes before sail. I’d take the number and only call if you can’t make the gangway close time. With flights cancelled there have to be cases where the arrival is tight.

i remember captain Carl said that he had of discretion on even stopping to pick up extra foods for a special treat since e knew the area. I think what made Azamara a valuable asset was it’s crews, if the new owner runs too many off I think they may suffer.

I’m truly hoping that Azamara does all the visas, but I’ve seen that fail in China. It certainly was unknown in 2019 when we first booked the cruise. As for travel inoculations please go early, some are more than one shot, others can’t be given at the same time. As for the yellow fever you may very well end up with a waiver rather than the vax. Some places imply you just need something on your yellow card, others sound like the inoculation must be on the yellow card. I don’t expect any travel clinic to know what a country is actually going to do with waivers! For what it is worth, I also found somewhere that said proof of polio inoculation is required. I can’t imagine the nightmare that that’s going to cause for the documentation officer to provide.

Hubby lost a pillow for his knees and was told items of low value are just thrown away. I wouldn’t expect a lot of things to be recovered if they can be used again.