HaveDogWillTravel

Maricel ( I spelled her name wrong earlier) made us the most magnificent Manhattan. The quality of alcohol available on this ship has been above and beyond. Great wine list at reasonable prices and actually in stock. Woodford reserve Bourbon and Antiqua sweet vermouth….like really? …..my jaw dropped. Oceania had Martini and Rossi vermouth which is garbage and High Ten bourbon which is worse than garbage on our March 2023 sailing on Riviera. It is made with 1.5 ounces of bourbon and 3/4 ounce of vermouth. I know someone asked about the size of pours earlier. It cost $34.22 for two with tip. It is not covered under any drink plan. If you have a package you’d still pay that price. Which is one more reason I don’t buy a package. I don’t need or want to drink all day to “get my monies worth”. What I REALLY appreciate is having access to quality drinks. At $17 including tip I’m super happy.

Captain Terry said there’s no news yet of where the Legend will be moved to. The next two sailings out of Athens are unaffected. He leaves with us on the 20th. He told me the name of the captain who is returning to the Legend but I’m sorry I don’t remember it now.

My notes from this morning. The cell service is poor on the ship so I’ll just post these comments and call it done. Tomorrow is a sea day so no service. 10/17/2023 The weather on this trip has been perfect. It was 66-73 in Istanbul with one day of drizzling rain. Since setting sail it’s been 73-79. Yesterday at the winery was the warmest at 79. The seas have been like sailing on a lake. Which for me has been a bit boring. Much to my delight I woke up at 4 am to a wonderfully rocky sea. It lulled me right back to sleep. Adam was saying that the Culinary Experience did not meet his expectations and after talking it out I realized that we really didn’t get what we signed up for. I had such a nice time I did not notice! There were supposed to be only 10 of us and we were expecting to actually learn how to cook the foods. Instead there were 19 of us from Windstar and Chef met us at the market with 10 more. 29 shopping with Chef is a far different experience than 10. Once at the winery we only did things like shell beans & peel eggplants with little knives that were so dull they were dangerous in my opinion. We were given sliced phyllo and prepared fillings to wrap. Chef had a pot that she would tell us what was in it, but we did not really see. All cooking was done inside out of sight so I still have no idea how to actually cook these Turkish foods. We were shown a card on the bus ride back that we could take a picture of so we could watch her cooking these online. When I looked at it thru Adam’s lens I understood his disappointment. But he did say he would try this type of experience again on a future trip in the hopes of learning how to cook regional foods. I know I have been going on and on about the food. I have to admit now that I finally have had things served that were less then. Of course food is subjective so take this with a grain of salt. The 2 fails were my Belgian waffles and the Korean ribs at Star grill. The waffles were not made with a yeast batter so they were too dense. My serving of ribs were mostly fat and gristle. The meat I did get off was tough. So there you have it Windstar is not perfect! Lol. We’ve had great experiences with room service breakfast. We phone a little before 6 am to place our order and it comes by 6:30 or so. Others have said they’ve been using the door hangers to order a 7:30 breakfast and did not actually get it. Maybe at that hour there’s orders than they can handle. We still have not been to Amphora. It doesn’t open until 7 pm (like Star Grill) but by then my social battery has run pretty low and I’m not up for that much interaction. I love that we can order that food for room service though!

I am currently on the Star legend. We will ask Captain Teri about this and let you know if he has any news.

Marisol our fabulous Star Bar bartender is our Windstar person with us on our Santorini Wineries tour.

Rude tourists. Poor guy was just trying to enjoy his back deck.

I had poor cell service on the ship this morning so will try to post my notes this evening. We are in santorini now. I will try and post pictures from Oia. Windstar tour is around 20 or do folks and we left the ship at 8 am. We were only the second bus to get to Oia. It was not crowded at first but by the time we left at 11 am it was a madhouse. Hopefully my photos will post. We are on our way to the winery now.

We are driving back to the port after a lovely day on the culinary excursion. I didn’t take a ton of pictures but I’ll post a few. the food and wine were all delicious. I found these wooden spatulas that I love at the market where we met chef and shopped for lunch. My originals were from Finland 20 years ago and I’ve destroyed all but my last one. So happy I was able to replace them. Six for 100 tl

Yes we did really enjoy the Azamara’s live band. Cindy said that it was unusual for another ship to be in port so late with them and that it really added to the festive atmosphere. The Maitre d’Hotel threw open his arms and hugged me to welcome me back. I know Windstar is 180 degrees different but I had no idea what that meant explicitly until this sailing. I am excited for our fall sailing on 2025 on the Legend we already had booked and will be booking a 17 day Tahiti sailing this afternoon when we get back. Or as soon as we can get a break in all the fun activities. We have a local performance coming on board tonight for a Turkish Belly Dance show at 5:30.

Our welcome home! My wonderful Barista, Cindy was a bit hoarse this morning. She said the Azamara passengers were going thru our line for the fun of it. There were 2 chocolates but sooooomebody ate one before I could get a photo. I really liked the note Joseph wrote. IMG_6954.mov IMG_6955.mov IMG_6956.mov

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Ephesus at night

Where we would have dinner at night

Ephesus by day

Todays planner and the dinner flyer

Yesterday was amazing. There are cruise companies that excel in certain regions…(of course this is only our opinion) Princess excels in Alaska, Queen Mary 2 is the only way to do a TA and I will now add that Windstar is the best way to visit Kusadasi. The dinner in Ephesus was truly incredible. And only Windstar does this. It was extremely well organized. The lovely wine flowed freely and the food was very good. We enjoyed our table mates and the chamber orchestra was a really special treat. We are doing the culinary experience tour thru Windstar today so I will just let some pictures from yesterday tell the story. A note regarding the ship: when we returned from our private tour yesterday our cabin was freezing and the fan was going full blast. I really needed a nap so I just took it and told guest services on our way to dinner about the issue. It was all fixed by the time we got back. I know it seems like a small thing and it really shouldn’t be so impressive that Windstar simply delivers consistently on all things one should reasonably expect (as a poster earlier pointed out), but there you are….I am impressed.

I didn’t get my stargazing this morning as it was a little overcast.

The outlets in the room.

Room service breakfast today. I love that room service always answers the phone! Food has been coming in 20-30 minutes.

Our tour today. We bought the Turkey Museum pass in Istanbul so our cost was reduced to $180. We will have to add the entrance fee for the Terrace houses. It’s not on the list but we will add it when we meet our guides. We brought tl for tips, lunch and incidentals. But we will charge the tour fee.

The daily planners. Yesterday Joseph had sign ups for shopping with the chef that he’s doing today. I would have loved to have done that!