Ottawa Lynne

On 3/25/2024 at 9:58 AM, YVRteacher said:

Any other people in Girl Guides/Girl Scouts who hear port and starboard and start humming Barges??

Yes!!! I so loved that song! What a great memory unlocked.

@YVRteacher so glad that you love the new job!!!! And it sounds like the repairs will happen! And a visit from a cruise friend sounds like such fun!! Glad Dad is doing well too! So happy for you!

@YVRteacher I miss your posts! I find myself wondering how the new teaching/library gig is going?

On 8/24/2023 at 7:45 PM, YVRteacher said:

got the job!!! It’s my dream job! I was so happy when I found out I cried. The interview was 45 minutes and was intense.

 

I’m still a teacher librarian (yay!) and in the new position at a new school I won’t be doing all the primary literacy groups, intermediate literacy groups and personal interest project groups I was doing at my previous school. I’ll be able to focus on kids and books! The school has more than double the size of student population and is in a great location. 

Fantastic news!!!

I hate the expression when one door closes, another one opens - but this really seems to apply to your case!

Congratulations!!!

@YVRteacher thinking of you today - for both the interview and the remediation company. I hope both go well!! What a lot of stress!

8 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

Sometimes you come home and the pipe in the upstairs bathroom bursts the moment you turn the water back on at the source and you have water damage all through the walls and the downstairs bathroom ceiling and the downstairs bathroom walls.

Oh no! I hope you were able to quel the damage and it's not too extensive!

Adding my thanks for your travel reporting! I've enjoyed following along on your adventures. I admire you for going solo - not sure I could do that. You have a great sense of exploration that clearly does you well.

I hope your new teaching gig goes well. I'm sure your former students will miss you - I loved hearing how you adapted books to current issues.

thanks everyone - it was great to hear people's experiences/plans!

8 minutes ago, Cruisewilm said:

 

My husband lives for dessert!  I plan to go back through your posts - took lots of notes when I first started reading them.  We are hoping to find bakeries and walk in as many ports as possible.  With 11 ports, it is just not possible for us to do organized tours and afford the cruise too.   And please can someone come up with  name of the app or the company with the program that is like AirBNB but for cars. Using a person’s car for the day as opposed to renting from an agency, especially in Harstad. Please, does anyone know the name of this program?

@YVRteacher is it Turo? I know that's the one in North America.

Looking forward to hearing about your Faroe adventure. We stopped there on a cruise and I found it to be the most magical place. More sheep than people! I loved all the folk stories about how things came to be and was heartbroken by their sad stories too.

Loving seeing and hearing about your adventures!

On the news tonight here in Canada was a piece on awful flooding in Norway - specifically in the south. I was very sad to see this.

Sorry about your food troubles - that's just awful.

There are not many electrical outlets in staterooms. NCL does have extension cords for CPAPS that you can order but they do suggest bringing your own - make sure it is not surge protected. If you bring your fan and your CPAP you won't be able to plug both in at the same time unless you bring a power bar or extension cord with many plugs on the end (we do this - it works well).

I have been on a dozen NCL cruises and they have always brought me distilled water. I just filled out the accessibility form and requested it and it appeared like magic.

Enjoy your cruise.

Hi! We'll be in Le Havre on a Sunday in May. Our first time there we took the excursion offered by NCL to Paris and enjoyed a day there but were disappointed that everything off of the Champs was closed because it was a Sunday. The next time was a Saturday and we stayed in Le Havre and enoyed the art gallery (highly recommend) and walked around the market getting fresh pastries. I see that the market will likely be opened in the early morning again. Anyone have any experience in nearby cities on a Sunday?

2 hours ago, YVRteacher said:

Wow.  I don’t know what the sheep are eating here but it must be a combination of tree branches and thorns because this wool is itchy. I keep thinking about the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon seeks retribution and makes Leonard wear the itchy red sweater and Penny asks Leonard if the sweater is made of bees!

LOL! We made the same joke here!! My husband didn't know he was allergic to wool until I brought him here. WIthin seconds of being in the building he started sneezing and getting all stuffed up. I'm allergic to wool but so wanted to look at all the amazing things here!

Sorry that you have a cold. I hope it's better tomorrow.

So looking forward to your trip report! I really enjoy your writing and wit. Have a great time! I would love to do this cruise!

What a shock about your position! I hope you can get another position that is a good fit. 

Glad the disembarkation was such a success!

Sorry to read about your experience. It would have upset me. We went there on our first cruise many years ago and I loved it but it's not for my husband. I was hoping to go back on our next cruise in 2024 but all that noise would drive me crazy. I think you did the right and respectful thing but getting out of there. I'm glad they could accomodate you in Moderno. Hope you got some sleep last night!

We love the aft balconies. We've never had a problem with vibration or soot though. The large balcony makes it for us. The downside is that we spend all our time on the balcony and no time meeting new friends in the Haven proper.

I love the Haven. I would enjoy it as a solo even if I didn't need more room. The only downside I could see is spending more time in my room so meeting fewer people. I like the idea of eating in my room when I want.

Thanks for posting this well-written, "just the facts" account of your wife's experience. It was really helpful to hear how it went.

I hope she fully recovers!

We are in the exact same situation except we have a different travel credit card. I'll be interested in the answers you get.

I am loving this review of your trip! Thanks for sharing in such great detail how you and your family enjoyed your time!

We always decline the drinks package. I have one virgin daquiri a trip and one soda a day and my husband has none so no package makes sense for us.

We had an interesting thing happen to us last cruise just before Covid hit. Our card was mistakenly swiped at Cagney's for drinks - about $75 worth - on the last night of the cruise so we didn't catch it until we were off ship. We contacted NCL and told them that we don't drink and this was an error. They told us we should have bought the drink package if we didn't want to pay for drinks. We could not get them to understand that we.don't.drink. They refunded our money finally with a stern warning that they would not do it again. Interestingly, the other couple we travelled with (we shared a Haven cabin) had the same thing happen to them that night at another restaurant for $23 which NCL said they would refund but it never showed up on their credit card and they decided it wasn't worth the hassle to follow-up. It was too bad because it left a bad taste in our mouths.

22 hours ago, rabidstoat said:

I very rarely drink alcohol, some sailings I might have one drink, others none. And I hate Pepsi. I therefore always decline the drink package too. 

 

Now if I could get them to stop putting that free bottle of wine in my cabin every sailing I'd be set! Is there a way to get them to stop that? It just takes up space as I never drink it. It would suck if you were a recovering alcoholic who doesn't drink and they kept putting it in your cabin.

We just told them not to include it and it didn't show up last time. Previously we tried to give it away and no one wanted it! They did offer to give us "wine" without alcohol.

This is all Pre-Covid....

We ask for the coffee machine and accompaniments to be removed and it always has been. We appreciate the counter space and neither of us drink hot drinks.

We've had dinner in our room on mulitple occasions including Valentine's Day. But we got dinner all at once - no seperate courses which was fine by us.

I mentioned that I love the chocolate covered strawberries and we got them many times. So not a request but a nice touch.

We also asked for cookies once and suddenly there were cookies every day and we couldn't keep up so we had to put a stop to that! lol

We were told there was a shortage of gummy bears and m+ms on one cruise and then on our last full day got about a pound of m+ms! So we took them home with us lol

Wow. You have my sympathies. That's a truly sucky thing to have happened. I'd be angry too.