Eli_6

Wow. Re-read this post and I must give off a "non-alcohol sneaker" vibe because I have never once had my Dr Pepper cartons opened or inspected and have never had my wine inspected. Once I even walked on with the alcohol for our entire party (6 or 7 adults) in one carry on suitcase and didn't get inspected. Our party got split up and I was concerned about it, but they didn't say anything.

I was also wondering if Firenze might do a transatlantic or even around the tip of South america or if they will sail her empty to Long Beach. She has to get there somehow...

1. I don't think this will work. 2. Yes, you can buy a bottle for your room even if you have Cheers. If you buy a bucket of beer or bottle of wine before you hit your 15-drink limit (you can't pay for them with Cheers), I don't think it goes against your drink limit. If you do it after hitting your drink limit, they won't sell it to you.

O'Hare would be going out of the way. I fly from Houston. The only US airport it would make sense to fly through that would be both closer and also have more flights than IAH would be Atlanta...maybe MCO or Miami. I think even JFK would be out of the way because I recently tried to take a flight through NY to get to Scotland and it was going to add 3 hours to my travel time and was more expensive to go IAH-JFK-EDI than IAH-LHR-EDI. There were fewer flight options, too. Having flown out of Atlanta before, it is a complete cluster and I would prefer to avoid it. More passengers go through the Atlanta airport every year than any other US airport. Plus, I often fly on British Airways Avios rewards flights and the majority of their flights go through Heathrow if you are flying from the US. You can probably find a few direct flights, but not many. Pre-pandemic, London Heathrow was the second busiest airport in the world in terms of international passengers and flights so it is going to be hard to beat in terms of availability of flights.

Personally, I would prefer more sailings from England (although, I wish they would switch to Southampton) as we can fly direct to London. Layovers following an international flight are always a huge PITA. I don't know if it is the airport I fly out of (IAH) or what, but I have quite literally never once had a long-haul international flight depart on time. This isn't even a post-pandemic issue as I had it happen before the pandemic, too. Therefore, I always feel like I have to schedule a long layover at Heathrow between flights to account for the fact that we may land an hour or two late...which isn't fun with two kids coming off of an often overnight long-haul flight. I would imagine there are more flights directly to London for most US cities than there are to Rome, Barcelona, etc.

True. Also may be considering which Baltic Ports, although they did it this summer just skipping Russia.

I have to know: Which cruise ship had fights on it that were so bad that it to be escorted by the coast guard back to port? I somehow missed this. I knew of one instance where there was a sexual assault on board and they returned to port and took the perpetrator off, but I had not heard about returning to port due to fights on board. Brawling on board somewhat goes to age/demographic of passengers (i.e. I have never seen senior citizens get in a physical altercation), but SA doesn't really follow those same lines. I used to work at a DV/Sexual Assault non-profit many years ago and we had victims in their 70s/80s (even of stranger sexual assault--in fact, sometimes elderly women living alone are specifically targeted) and perps of all ages because sexual assault isn't really about sex, but power. Point being: Sexual assault could occur on a more expensive line as easily as it could on Carnival. Not meaning to bring a funny conversation down or anything...

In my experience, it is hit or miss and somewhat depends on how many people are out there watching the movies.

John Heald said yesterday that the Avatar movie was going to be on the IMAX on the Horizon and Vista, but he hasn't said what is playing for the Dive In movies.

FWIW, I have never had a *really* bad experience cruising out of Galveston. Worst experience was just with people cutting in front of others for the elevators. Most people are fun. I have been on the Breeze before and it was a super fun crowd. Galveston is my "home" port and I have never seen a fight or someone who was drunk and obnoxious. (I have seen people who were obviously drunk, but it was more of a "fun" drunk and not a "get in a fight" drunk.) Been on ships out of Galveston twice at Christmas. I don't mean to stereotype, but it seems like a lot of the bad behavior comes out of ports or during times that one might expect bad behavior -- i.e. spring break, the "booze" cruises, the short cruises out of New Orleans. And not that I am bashing NOLA because I love NOLA, but if you look at the stats, there have been a lot of problems on the Valor with fights, people jumping/falling off, etc. I have never personally witnessed any of that out of Galveston. And I certainly don't think that Thanksgiving is going to attract the party crowd.

You are so priority that you get beamed on to land.

FYI (not being snarky) but I think there is now a curfew for minors. Not sure what it is because my kids are too young to wander around by themselves anyway.

I was hoping there would be an update today from him, but no such luck. It is almost 6 pm in England so I would have thought he would have posted today. Still nothing on the website.

I am feeling more confident it is going forward because they have been adding excursions. I think they even added excursions for one port within the last week. I think every port now has excursions listed except for Belgium. Also, I would hope that they surely would cancel before final payment is due in a month. (With that said, they didn't for 2021...but Covid was an issue back then.)

I like it better now. I built an office building in 2016, my lake house in 2017 and we renovated our main house in 2021-22 so I have been staying on top of design trends. As much as I know many people like the Farcus (sp?) designs, they aren't exactly what you are seeing in design magazines or on design websites these days. Plus, our house we just renovated was very "Farcus-ey" before our reno and I really didn't like it. Lots of wood paneling. Lots of dark colors. Lots of very "over the top" and "faux" design that seem (to me) to be dated. For example, we removed this giant open fireplace that was literally in the middle of the living room and was big enough to roast a whole pig on.

@ShakyBeef 🤣🤣🤣 I busted out laughing when I saw that picture. I definitely would have noticed that had it been there...and I am sure my kids would have pointed it out, too.

The "Sparkling Rosé, Domaine Ste. Michelle, ‘Brut Rosé’, Columbia Valley, Washington" is pretty good for an inexpensive sparkling wine...although, I might be confusing it with Chandon's Brut Rose which I think they do carry on Carnival.

That looks like someone already licked the chocolate off the strawberries.

I hope so! I don't think this will happen, but in my "dream world" they would let Firenze do the Europe sailings.

I missed that one. Not sure if it was still there or not. The Alchemy was in a newer design, I recall that because it was a bit at odds with the rest of the ship.

Maybe they commented on the fig leaf. All I remember is that I had to listen to so many comments throughout our Europe trip about the naked statues. And in one instance (I think maybe at Hever Castle), the penis had fallen off of the statue and that was talked about for at least the next two days.

This decor is not consistent with my personal taste in design, but maybe that was cool back in 2001...

Just googled. I was right. There is a giant faux David statue in the middle of that area on the second level of the steak house...

David's steakhouse "balcony" also seems like wasted space. Why does the steakhouse need to be two stories? It seems like I just recall there being weird statues on that level with their private parts showing...or maybe I am recalling the Splendor. (May be thinking of Splendor as it had the weird artwork of the guy sitting on a toilet.) I personally have no problem with private parts, but OMG my boys have to point it out every.single.time.

They could get rid of the Rapheal conference room and the Raphael Lounge. Not even sure what that is....and I have been on the Pride. I have no memory of either. The two-story Beauties Night Club also seems like a waste of space. Or make it just one story. They could put an eatery or bar on the upper story of the Beauties Night Club across from the Alchemy. They could use the deck space by the apollo forward pool (along where that wall is where the bathrooms are but they open to the interior) to do a Big Chicken or a Street Eats. Or put an eatery where the beauty salon is and put that in the night club. There also seems like there is quite a bit of wasted space on deck 10 where they could do something. And what is the Captain's Club fest annex? Is that where they do the Chef's Table?