mahdnc

Today’s trip plan. Finish diving and check out of the Courtyard hotel. Drive back to Miami. Pick up a few things at the grocery store along the way and refuel the car rental. Check in at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay. Then drive over to the nearby JW Marriott Marquis to drop off the car by 4pm to keep the car rental charge to one day (Enterprise). Dinner at Osteria Positano (Miami Beach) at 6:30PM.

We just filled out the health questionnaire. Remember when this was not so straight forward 2-3 years ago?

The drive from Miami to Key West via Highway 1/Overseas Highway is very scenic and takes at least 4 hours on a good day and considerably longer on a not good day. So in my opinion, four days is about right. One day to get there, one day to get back, and two whole days to spend there. Don't forget a visit to the very nearby Everglades National Park.

I am waiting for our first Live thread created by ChatGBT.

The only thing kinda bad about this Panama Canal sailing is we disembark on Derby day. Are you going to Thunder tomorrow or will you skip the event and the crowds?

Good luck with your flight, Linda. See you onboard tomorrow!

Hello, Mary. My residential history is spelled out in airport codes for fun since this is a travel forum. So LAX for Los Angeles. I went to graduate school in Pasadena from 1982-1983. It's a nice area and I enjoyed the time I spent there. For Christmas vacation in 2021, I took my family on a Las Vegas - Zion NP - Bruce Canyon NP - Death Valley NP - Joshua Tree NP - Los Angeles vacation. On the last night of the trip, we had dinner at The Stand House and we really liked it. We also walked around Manhattan Beach to watch sunset on that New Year’s Day.

She took her GoPro with her. So we’ll see what she brings back. I dove Key Largo back in 2010 We took our kids to Key Largo for five nights and Key West for five nights back then. Katie and Chris got their open water testing done there which got them certified. The diving is pretty good here and Marcia has always wanted to come back. So here we are!

No. I’m not a big Key Lime Pie fan. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The food portions were huge and I couldn’t even eat all the lobster mac and cheese I ordered!

Cathy, because me asthma has been acting up lately, I’m a scratch for the diving unfortunately. Marcia is diving with a guide. I’m sure she’ll have fun. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy the marina view (and I got to sleep in).

Having dinner at this restaurant in Key Largo tonight. It’s not too far from the hotel and seems well reviewed on TripAdvisor.

We have checked into our room at the Courtyard at Key Largo. Fairly simple and clean hotel. A big draw for us is that it’s right next to tomorrow’s dive center, Rainbow Reef which is great because we have to be there bright and early at 7:45 am tomorrow. We booked a basic room with Marriott points but received an upgrade to a Marina View room at check in. The hotel is not very full tonight.

Heavy traffic to Key Largo.

We’re on ground. First things first.

We had a nice ride to the airport (ORD) today. It’s about an hour away from our house. For the last few years we’ve booked a private car through a driver. It’s $89 each way. Lately the person who has been driving us is his son. He’s in his late twenties. Nice kid. He is into cryptocurrency. I asked him how his investments were doing. He told me that he cashed some of it in for the new car he was driving us in. It was a nice hybrid Lexus and he bought it last week. I don’t think the $89 fare covered the depreciation on the car though. We had a long talk about ChatGBT. He uses it quite a lot. It was an illuminating discussion. I may try it at work when I get back from this cruise.

We arrived about 2.5 hrs before our flight. We checked our bags and breezed through security. We currently relaxing in a United Club near our gate. Like the airport itself, it is not very crowded.

Thanks, Susan. We will finally meet—a year from now in Solstice. I’m looking forward to that, too.

Thank you, Marge. I look forward to meeting Joe and you.

My wife and I are flying out to Miami today for this 14 night Panama Canal sailing on Summit. This will be our 18th sailing with Celebrity, our second time on Summit, and our first full canal transit cruise. Here is our current trip plan (link) Since this original itinerary (below) was posted by Celebrity, it has since changed. We are scheduled to be docked at Costa Rica from 5:15 am to 6:00 PM Today's trip objective involves flying out of Chicago (ORD) at about 11:00 am on a 3.2 hr non-stop United flight to Miami. We are planning on renting a car and driving to Key Largo and staying there for the night. On Friday will go diving before driving back to Miami to catch the ship which leaves on Saturday. I hope you find this Live thread to be informative. To broaden the documented experiences, I have invited other people on our roll call to post as well--we will see what happens. Our ride to the airport will be at our house in 45 minutes...... David and Marcia

Congratulations. It's nice to read that you enjoyed your balcony.

We are going to sail on Summit this Saturday. The Chef's Table sold out well in advance.

Although the day started off with heavy fog and overcast skies, by the time the eclipse started we thankfully had clear skies in southern Illinois. Aug 2017 eclipse photo taken 30 miles south of the 2024 viewing location:

We took a small trip to southern Illinois to watch and photograph last week's spectacular total solar eclipse. It was the 3rd total solar eclipse for my wife and me. click/tap on the images to make them larger click/tap on the images to make them larger I took a look at the solar eclipses in the future to see if there were any that would visit the Galapagos Islands. Well it turns out that the Galapagos will see a solar eclipse on Wed Jan 26 2028! The bad news is that it will not be a total eclipse where the moon fully covers the sun--like the one last week. Instead it will be an annular eclipse where the moon goes completely in front of the sun, but the moon's disc will be too small to cover all of the sun. This results in the dark moon's disc being surrounded by a ring of bright light (link to image). The internet and the press like to sensationalize this by call it a "ring of fire" (astronomers do not refer it that way). The good news is that the eclipse will be underway when the sun rises at the Galapagos. At maximum eclipse, the sun will only be 17 degrees above the horizon (at 7:25 am) which will make for awesome photos of this "ring of fire" with spectacular foreground opportunities and vivid morning colors. Being low on the horizon also means that the sun will not be as intensely bright or hot which is another good thing (you will still need to wear some type of eye protection to directly look at an annular eclipse however). The above diagram is reproduced with permission from "Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC".

My wife and I were on Xpedition over Thanksgiving and we had an awesome time. We originally had booked the sailing on Xploration because it was the cheapest. However we opted for Xpedition because I am prone to seasickness and figure the larger ship would be a bit better and our cabin had balcony. The fact that Xpedition is only licensed to carry half the passengers she is actually built to carry is an enormous plus. That meant lots more space for everyone in the public areas. We simply did not want to pay extra for Flora although she is a beautiful ship. The one functional advantage that Flora has is that her zodiacs are designed to be much easier to get into and out of.

I have updated the summary PUP statistics: Number of PUP events broken down by year: Here are the number of Club Points that were available through the PUP program broken down by year and type of activity: Here is a table showing the amount of Club Points awarded through the PUP program broken down by month and year they were awarded: