jollyjones

Some numbers: Only 255 Venetians on the crossing, I would have expected more. The high number of solos was a bit misleading - there is a group on board and quite a few of them are solo in a cabin but perhaps they shouldn’t be considered as ‘usual’ solos as they are part of this group. I don’t know how big this group is or whence they came, but apparently dancing is their thing - they take over the dance floor in Panorama in the pre-dinner drinks slot so I’ve had to retreat to Dolce Vita which is OK as the waiters there are excellent. But hopefully I can return to Panorama tomorrow. In transit pax are 65 in number. My whole trivia team is disembarking tomorrow so I’m going to need another - I’ve had one offer but I’ll wait and see how things pan out. Dunno if drron will be interested as I’m only on for another 10 days. And must report that trivia has been HARD. We won a couple of times, placed a few more, and crashed and burned in ignominy far too often!

While I’m still sober, 😇, I shall mention a small but important, to me anyway, difference between the Moon and the Dawn cabins. On the Moon, the USB charging ports at the desk and beside the bed are two USB A ports, one labelled ‘high power’, the other one unlabelled. On the Dawn, the pairs of charging ports are in the same location but consist of one USB A port and one USB C port. Tempus fugit. Otherwise the ships are almost indistinguishable, just different artwork on the stairs.

Another small note - we have, as usual, had cloudy, cool and rainy weather here in the Azores - never been here when it hasn’t rained - and looking at the satellite view of the Atlantic there’s a pretty evil looking low pressure forming behind us. But it must be lifting out north of us, I’ve just checked the weather for Lisbon on Tuesday when we arrive and it’s showing sunny and mid - seventies, can’t complain, I thought I was done with my shorts for this cruise, obviously not! Currently at dinner on deck 11, excellent pizza. A bit chilly but the heaters deal with it fine, plus I have a cardie and a jacket on. Not sure what the waiter thinks of me, he poured my wine then left the bottle on the table …

A footnote - we have the cabinet but not the cobbler. I had a good look around and can report that he is not lashed to the deck somewhere. Maybe there is diminished enthusiasm for paying a fortune for a couple of scraps of leather.

And I was concerned that you hadn't realised how many more time changes we have to come - if you're not expecting them, then it's really disorientating. Like you, I travel many thousands of miles a year by air and am fully used to sudden time changes of four, six, more hours. I have done many cruises across the Atlantic, some across the Pacific, and every time I am reminded all over again of how much difference non-24 hour days make - even when it's only an hour change every few days. Our inner diurnal rhythm clocks are very powerful.

The Muse is the first in the Muse class and they got it mostly right but there's a few small things I'm not so keen on - Arts Cafe is too small and not very welcoming, the bar in the forward starboard corner of Dolce Vita makes the space look huge and not so inviting, and I hate, hate, hate the ghastly bright red running track up on deck 11 - I spend a lot of time walking on the upper deck when I'm cruising and this awful colour really annoys me. I don't like spicy food so Indochine is problematic (although Les thinks the food there is too bland!), even though I think the decor in the room is attractive. That said, if she's the ship with the itinerary I like, I book her without hesitation. The Spirit was my first SS ship so I've always had a soft spot for her, and I think the stretch was a great improvement. In the Dawn and Moon, SS has got it just about right for me.

Following on from Lois, I might add I don’t even look at the little ships any more, I’m only willing to sail the Moon, Dawn, Spirit, and slightly reluctantly the Muse. I do have the Nova booked but I’m very unsure about her.

Last time I sailed out under Tower Bridge we sailed at 5am on a dull misty drizzly morning which rather took the gloss off it. Take note of Spectre’s comments. Personally I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Dawn, she has so much more to offer than the Wind. The cabins, and especially the bathrooms are better on the Dawn, and there’s so much better choice for dining. But pick whichever itinerary suits you, both ships are good. You might prefer small with less to offer. But I suspect the Wind will be more expensive, being an expedition ship, you’ll probably get better value on the Dawn. Service should be wonderful on both.

Not sure why you're so keen on 'a couple of weeks'? The Azores are indeed one hour behind Lisbon but both the Azores and Lisbon move one hour forward to summer time on Sunday March 26th, ie in four day's time. We are currently on Acorean winter time and (I presume) we will remain on that for our visits to the Azores on Fri 24th and Sat 25th March. Six hours after we leave Ponta Delgada, Lisbon will go forward an hour from winter to summer time so instead of us having to go forward one hour to go from Acorean winter time to Lisbon winter time, we will have to go forward two hours from Acorean winter time to Lisbon summer time. So our full crossing goes from US eastern summer time to Lisbon summer time - a time change of five hours. We have had three time changes, we have two more to go.

Today's thoughts from afloat. It seems that all Covid restrictions are going. No masks required anywhere on the ship (ashore would only be if local regs required them). Cabins available at embarkation as they no longer close decks and fumigate. No more exile from cabin on in-transit days (this yet to be confirmed to me). There is still an isolation zone but only four cabins now, not six. There's 601 and 602, then a set of glass doors, then 603 and 604 then a set of glass doors and that's it. No sign of current occupation. Crew still need to wear a mask for first five days after joining the ship, and then have a negative test before going mask free. As I suspected, our delayed embarkation was because of the extended US coastguard inspection which happens when the ship makes her first US port after an lengthy voyage elsewhere - Moon has been round South America and across the Caribbean since her last US port. (She may have been into St Thomas but that doesn't really count as far as the USCG inspection applies) After all pax had disembarked in Lauderdale and the ship was zeroed, nothing and no-one was allowed on or off during the inspection which took some hours. We sailed promptly at 7pm that day and apparently there is a whole list of things that didn't get loaded in Lauderdale! Food and drink mostly made it - the only thing not available that I have noticed so far is arugula for the Prosciutto e Rucola pizza at Spaccanapoli. Plenty of wine of all sorts. Starvation is not imminent. Orchids weren't so lucky - I don't have one in my cabin, apparently mine died somewhere around South America and, for now, there isn't one to replace it. Oh the hardship!😁

Unfortunately Lisbon should be changing to Summer time this weekend so we may have to lose an hour on each of the sea days after the Azores to make the usual five hour change.

Maybe not, but I bet you lose points if the ball bounces all the way down the stairs. This being deck nine …

I’m on the Moon too. According to the Reception people, Starlink equipment is installed but not yet in action. We are definitely still on the old system (I look at Speedtest too), but I’ve got to say the Wi-Fi has been better than usual - pretty consistently 2.75Mbps down 0.2Mbps up for premium. Even for premium, it often runs at 1.8 to 2.2 down so I’m happy enough with this. PS just checked and at even afternoon usage it’s showing 2.92 down, 0.33 up.

No socks, but this is the corridor leading into Panorama. Takes the game to a whole new level.

Another little snippet to while away a sea day. The door hanger 'still relaxing/please service suite' may be on the way out. I'm not totally surprised, they always were a bit dodgy - I knew how to snick them down into the join between the door handle and the surrounding hardware so they were fixed in place, but I used to see many dangling loosely or falling off. At embarkation, I saw some cabins with the old hangers - these were apparently the in transit pax - but the rest of us had pieces of white card, slightly larger than 4ins by 5ins, double sided, bearing the same messages. I wondered if they were temporary, they were getting a bit grubby, but last night I found a brand new laminated version in my cabin, much better. They go in the perspex mail slot outside the door, much more secure. We are still holding on to the skirt of a high pressure dome as we cross the pond, the slow moving front to the north of us is staying, for now, to the north of us, so we continue with bright sunny skies, smooth seas, and much warmer temperatures than expected. Nothing 'interesting' (in the proverbial sense) is occurring, it's just a delightful crossing with all the 'uninteresting' things happening as they should. At sea, uninteresting is good. BTW did anyone notice this article from CC: https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/7315/ O. M. G.

Definitely all very subjective. I think the pizzas ARE great, never had a bad one at Spaccanapoli. Just my opinion, of course. But that is of no relevance to the OP since he's on the Whisper. An utterly unhelpful assertion - the hamburgers appear to please many pax. The only useful advice for the OP is to give it all a try, if something is not to his personal taste, then order something else or move on.

I did suggest OP drops SS air, takes the air credit and books his own flights but that suggestion seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Oh, don’t worry too much about the at thing, Stumbles does it just to poke fun at me. But I’m afraid downtown Apia was not amazingly wonderful, even with policemen in skirts. Very friendly though.

Sorry, as per usual I didn’t do a ship excursion, I just walked into town and wandered around. Can’t say I particularly recommend it though, it is a fair trek in very hot and humid conditions- I’m used to that sort of weather so I wasn’t too bothered but it could be a strain if you’re not. The main problem is that there isn’t much to see when you get to town. There was supposed to be a bit of a beach in the other direction from the port, I wished I’d gone there, at least I could have had a bit of a paddle. But I probably would have been disappointed - beaches in the South Pacific generally are rubbish compared to Bermuda or the Caribbean, although I accept that my standards are very high, given where I live. The picture is actually in American Samoa but it’s representative, and they really thought of it as a beautiful beach.

Another snippet whilst idling away a sea day: I thought I recognised the name Zanello for our Captain but at his reception the other night I didn't recognise his face so I must be wrong, I think I can't have sailed with him before. Perhaps just as well, he doesn't look old enough to be in charge of a bicycle without training wheels, never mind a ship. But his bio is impressive (see below), he comes across as a very confident and fluent public speaker, and so far the ship is going at the right speed in the right direction ... Officers Bios - Moon 2023.pdf

Deleted, wrong thread

Dim and distant past. Long gone. Was only a few of them anyway.

Stumbles, stop it! You know I don’t do social media, the @jollyjones is just silly. However, that apart, I have just had a truly delicious meal in Salt. All is good. Third in trivia today, seriously tough questions, only 13 points, really didn’t think we’d place. Definitely all is good. And we seem to be following a high pressure dome across the pond with sunny skies and calm seas so definitely definitely all is good.

A couple of little snippets to while away the sea days: Spaccanapoli used to present the dilemma that the full size pizza was too big and the smaller size was too small - they seem to have Goldilocked it and now serve only one size that is in between and is just right. I ate there last night - love doing that on formal night, I usually get the whole place to myself - and it was perfect. I overheard a conversation about Raphael (a Crystal refugee), the CD on the previous cruise with whom Chrism23 was unimpressed (see thread below), and it seemed that he was intending to be the CD on this crossing. No information on why he has been replaced by Roy, I'll have to have a little nose around - it may be nothing but ... And talking about trivia, my team came 2nd yesterday in a massively competitive field - the whole of Dolce Vita forward of the bar was filled with players. Not surprising on a crossing but gonna be pressure to keep performing well!

No, you can book as many times as you'd like once online booking opens (obs only one restaurant per night). Some people book for many nights, but that seems a bit restrictive to me. Since I won't know where and when I'll be wanting to dine months in advance of the cruise, I make a 'skeleton' selection of bookings, then add more once on board if that's what I want, and cancel any I'm not using. With the caveat that if you want very specific dates/times/places they may not be available last minute; and any unwanted bookings should for politeness be cancelled by at least 2pm on the day.