Petert102

Hi, Guys! Mike & Ray here! Looking forward to this cruise. Will spend 2 days in Sitges and 1 in Barcelona before the cruise. Fly from JFK on 10/23. Did the Silouette transatlantic last year. We had a large group of guys! We met.in the Martini Bar every evening for cocktails! Had a Great Time!!!

Welcome Guys. I used to live in Sitges a few lifetimes ago. You might want to rethink spending time there as opposed to Barcelona. The season will have ended and the local business folks will have taken off to parts distant for. Some well deserved R&R after a busy season, so almost all the bars and restaurants will be closed. In addition it will be cold damp and wet then

Have you thought of going to Madrid or Paris and taking the AVE or TGV High speed train to Barcelona, that would be a great trip

We will also be flying out from JFK but will fly to London foe six days before taking the BA flight to Barcelona. We will be on Icelandair our favorite airline to Europe from JFK. They have a baggage allowance of TWO 23 KG SUITCASES each as a baggage allowance. They also fly to Barcelona from JFK and have good one way fares

Mega Hugz

Peter

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Wooo Hooo!!! We are now single digit days away from sailing! I am soooo ready for this cruise that it's almost non-describable! :)

We are packed finally. Maude and Lily will be collected and taken to their Dog Camp and Spa at noon tomorrow, we will miss them terribly !!! Car service to JFK has been booked and all that remains is to check-in online for our BA flight that leaves at 9:30 pm tomorrow evening.

See you Guys on the Ship !!!!

Mega, Mega Hugz

Peter

Wooo Hooo!!! We are now single digit days away from sailing! I am soooo ready for this cruise that it's almost non-describable! :)

Now calm down otherwise you will give yourself a stroke. Just pop a Xanax

Hugz. Peter

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Let's hope so! Meantime, let's give this thread a bump. Maybe if someone sees this and knows we're here, they'll book the cruise. ;)

Take care, I had a temporary suspension for doing that

Hugz

Peter

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We seem to be the only folks here, but it is very early days yet. On past experience there should be allot of folks joining us

Hugs

Peter

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You are right, on this ship

It is the United States, still do not want to be stuffed like a goose for my pate !!!

We love our six pm sushi ritual, as we get into warmer climes we take it out to the open deck behind the buffet

Hugz

Peter

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I think that you will find the food in the MDR excellent. So good that we have not felt the need to go to the specialty restaurants for our last two T/As. I am afraid the QSINE is off limits for my diabetes as everything is stuffed with sugars. The Olympic stuffs you with heavy French food from the last century, they have never heard of light cooking. Bistro on 5 is good, but alas crepes are carbs and morph into sugar for me, so that too is off limits.

We do visit the buffet at 6pm for a plate of sushi. We have breakfast in the MDR or the Elite private breakfast. Lunch either in the MDR or one of their fabulous burgers on the pool deck

Looking forward to snails every night !!!

Mega Hugz

Peter

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Yes in select, you can reserve a specific table for a specific time. Actually they like you to this and it avoids the line

Actually, as we are married, I always introduce Paul as my spouse, it is for others to sort that one out. !!!! I never made the thing a secret in the NYPD and was at the 6th Pct which is the Command for the Village, most Officers were Gay there.

We close Fire Island next week for the winter, sad, but we have had a wonderful season here.

We are in touching distance from the trip, the countdown is now on. Cannot wait for Monday Oct 6 for the BA flight to lift off from JFK. Maude and Lilly will have been collected in their luxury doggie limo earlier for their trip to Connecticut

Mega Hugz

Peter

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I am a diabetic, we travel on Celebrity, but I know RCCL does the same. All menus are very carefully coded with what the dishes contain so are both easy to read and enormously helpful. There are plenty of sugar free desserts and alternatives to carbs. Remember in the Buffet that in the Asian section that Sushi is loaded with sugar as are the Chinese items

As to alcohol, I was diagnosed late and my liver was already under attack, so all alcohol is out, I take the premium water package and really enjoy my unlimited Perrier and San Pelligrino, also the ships carry a wide selection of teas. Before long you will not miss booze and wonder what all the fuss was about

Do not worry, being a diabetic is not the end of the world, by being careful you can eat all kinds of wonderful things, life will never be the same, but you will start on a road of life style changes that are very rewarding

Enjoy your Cruise

Hugz

Peter

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Thanx for the welcum !!!! Cannot wait, all is set except for our Lisbon lunch reservation which they will not take until a month before. Remember that Celebrity will allow you to take two bottles of wine on for cabin consumption

We are lucky as we are Elite so get showered with drink coupons, free laundry and internet ( if it actually works ) I do hope you guys are on either Select or Late Dining so that you can attend the nightly gathering of the Clans in the Martini Bar

By the way, good idea to visit the dining Room after you board to check on your table. A visit to the Maître D' with a request for a "Table with just Gentlemen" made with a discreet offering of a $20.00 bill works wonders !!!! We are on late dining with a reserved table for two. 14 days is an awful long time to put up with unsuitable table mates !!!!!

We are in 3180 in case you want to contact us

Mega Hugz

Peter

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Woops, yes we are booked on this but also the Eclipse for April 2015. We are about to sail on the Infinity on Oct 13 from HARWICH to Fort Lauderdale

Hugz

Peter

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Hi

We are Peter and Paul and are booked on this T/A. We did the same trip this April but different itinerary

We are from NYC and have been together for 31 years

Hugz

Peter

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Hi Guys

For some reason I missed this roll call. We are Peter and Paul from NYC and Fire Island. We have been together for 31 years and finally married in NYC three years ago. For some reason both the main and this Roll Call is light for this crossing, yet most of the cabins are sold out. We are booked on the Eclipse as well for a T/A in April 2015 and there are more than double the posts

We both love the T/As and do two a year, spring to Europe and Fall back, always on Celebrity. I think we may be surprised at the number of folks at the 7pm nightly gathering of the clans at the Martini Bar. The T/As are always popular and the large number of Germans seldom appear here

We will be flying over on BA on Oct 6 and spending a week in Brighton on the south coast that is very Gay

Hugz to all

Peter

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Hi guys!

 

Just discovering this forum and this thread. My friend Jeff and I will be on this sailing with you but not with Pied Piper ... we just booked directly (neither of us had heard of PP until we read this thread!). Hope to get to meet you all despite not being part of the PP group. :)

 

We're still sorting out which excursions, if any, we will do. We've both been to Nassau (and I Bermuda as well) but the Azores will be a new destination on the travel map. I definitely want to do something there ... just not sure what.

 

We're arriving Fort Lauderdale on Thursday 17 April from Seattle (Jeff) and Dayton, OH (me) and spending two nights at the Sheraton on the beach (SPG points redemption!). Upon arrival at Southampton, we'll take the train to Weymouth for 2 days (I have friends there who run a B&B) and then up to London for 2 days at the Hilton Metropole Hotel. We head back home on 6 May.

 

So looking forward to this trip!

 

Mike

Welcome

Sorry to hear that you are not with PP, so you will be missing their private events, shore excursions and dining arrangements ( Later sitting ). Still the troop congregate in the Martini Bar around 6:30pm so see you then

Hugz

Peter

Peter,

You're forgetting our world renowned 'Bus Replacement Service'. Pay for a train ticket, get half the leg room and 3 times the journey time! We set off for the States on Good Friday, but are travelling in our own car so only have to contend with the rest of the holiday traffic. Once at the airport, it's down to BA to get us to Miami.

And with only 3 weeks left, we have received PP's list of recommended excursions. The trip to the lakes in the Azores has been booked.

But oddly, no recommended trips in Nassau - not even to the illustrious Police Station. And I had my spray can all ready to tag it with 'The Leeds Massive - in da house'

See you soon

Roy

Good idea to Tag the local Police Station, very imaginative, but isnt "house" spelt Howze ????, but actually, I think you also need to arm yourself with a BRICK to toss through, the hopefully, fixed broken window at the Nassau Police Station

We are travelling to Fort Lauderdale the same day, we arrive on DELTA from New York-La Guardia at 12.05 pm. Alas, and I do feel for you Guys, BA is bound to arrive in Miami at exactly the same time as the Drug flights from Jamaica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia, expect massive, and I do mean massive lines which will go forward at snails pace ( especially as Congress has thoughtfully reduced funding for Immigration and Customs Agents ), welcome to America !!!! Expect your luggage to be opened and the contents gone through with microscopic attention, all to show that US Customs does not discriminate against the folks from the aforementioned countries ( Political Correctness has gone far too far !!! ). The only way to escape this is for Adrian to put on one of his Amature Dramatics Tony winning performances as being incapactitated, and order a wheelchair for him from BA before you depart, then you will fly through everything in just minutes ( The only way to go ). I was amazed on my recent Icelandair flight back to JFK when I started to go into Diabetic Hypoglycemic shock mid-flight and they radioed ahead for a chair for me, just how fast we sped through the formalities at JFK. As Paul is very woobly these days on his pins, we have ordered a wheelchair for all our flights and for getting onto and off the Eclipse.

Have a wonderful drive down to Heathrow and enjoy the scenery and do be sure to have a meal at one of the UK Temples of Gastronomic Excellence, the Highway Service Station !!!! Oh you lucky Boys, I am just so green with envy at the very thought of such an epicurean treat !!!!!

Congratulations, I see that you can now get married in England, Paul and I got married, after 29 years of being unable to, in New York just over two years ago. We had the civil ceremony at City Hall and the religious ceremony in Province Town in Massachussettes where Paul's niece, the Lady Rabbi, did the honors. She even made us a very special Rainbow Huppah and customized a charming service for us, lots of stamping on glasses and Mazeltovs. Maude and Lilly our two small Tibetan Spaniels were the Bridesmaids and looked very pretty in thier pink collars made of Orchids by the Lesbian Florist just for them.

Mega Hugz

Peter

curt - great pic

love your pic on the photo board

hugz

peter

The Monday after we get into Southampton is a Bank Holiday, so ordinary workers will get the day off. It's a different story for anyone in the service industry, so shops will still be open for most of the day - and you probably won't notice the difference in London. Coming so soon after Easter (it's always the 1st Monday in May), many Brits would have already have had a break - and then we get another one on the last Monday in May - there has been many a call (on deaf ears) to spread the Bank Holidays more evenly.

You are a bit like us, having our holidays in a Group, Memorial Day ( early summer ), Independance Day ( Mid Summer ) and Labor Day ( end of summer ), then almost Zero until the Thansgiving, Christmas, New Year Holidays which are grouped into a five week period and which were, I suspect, specifically designated with the Retail Trade in mind....... At least our Founding Fathers had the sense to announce plans to dump you Brits in the middle of Summer, just imagine Barbecues and Fireworks in January ..BBBBRRRR !!!!!

You neglect to mention your national Rail System, which tends to abandon any pretense of a schedule over the Public Holidays, shutting down whole swathes of the system, stranding folks unluckly enough to be arriving at Heathrow and Gatwick without any affordable means of actually going anywhere from the airport once they have landed and collected their baggage !!!!

Hugz

Peter

Thanks for the advice.

 

I'm solo, I did this last year too, also bank holiday, and traffic getting into London was creepily quiet. I fly out monday afternoon on a 4pm flight on United, used miles and got 1st class :-)

 

I can find 1st class train for about 45 GBP which would be helpful with the luggage.

 

I do love trains as well....But think once i get to London will use the trains to the countryside to visit friends who may be on holiday. I'll have 4 suitcases, 2 large, 2 medium. I'm a terrible traveler when it comes to packing and spending week prior in Denver for trade shows and fun then flying straight to Lauderdale...so a bus or similar makes that a bit simpler.

First Class, that will be a wonderful treat for you, especially being pampered at the end of the trip, a great way to get home, I am full of envy. First Class on the Trans Atlantic Flights is always very special and light years removed from Domestic, so called, first class. You are right with all those steamer trunks, it does not make any sense to travel by train. At least your hotel is super close to the flesh pots of Great Compton Street Soho !!! As you are packing so much stuff, we are all agog with pregnant excitement to see what couture, you will be treating us to each evening, especially Formal Nites !!!. We fly down to Fort Lauderdale the day before, alas for this trip we will be in Roach Class on Delta, although Icelandair have upgraded us to Premium Economy for our flight home to JFK from London Gatwick for both flight sectors, which is very, very nice of them.

We are located down near the Laundry on Deck 3 at 3123 !!!! We find that this is more stable for Paul and a similarly located cabin worked very well for us on the Infinity last October, oddly enough the Balcony Cabins were cheaper than ours and Bruce, bless his heart, did try to persuade us to change, We had some seriously rough weather on the Infinity in the Bay of Biscay ( they said it was a storm of the centuary ) that even broke one of the Main Dining Room Windows and delayed, by many hours, our arrival into Vigo. The Suite Folks suffered terribly from the movement of the ship which caused their closet doors to open and bang shut during the night. Fortunately a Lesbian PP Couple always travel with Duct Tape ( I suspect also with power drills ) so were able to assist the other PP Suite Guests taping their closet doors shut......Lesbians are so practical !!!!!!

Mega Hugz

Peter

Just catching up on the reading.

 

I've always said Nassau exists for the ships to dump trash and toilets one last time before going to the nice places. :D

Hi Reverend !!! ( Saw the Main Board )

I forgot to ask, but are you travelling solo or with a "Bedmate ? " Actually if you book far enough in advance, the UK rail tickets are very afordable. Do this online and collect your ticket from a machine on arrival ( do not use VISA or Mastercard ) as US cards do not have imbedded chips iike the cards in the rest of the world, having said that, the railroad ticket machines can read magnetic stripes on AMEX. The journey to London will be fast and comfortable and you can just jump in a Cab to get to your Hotel, when you get to London-Waterloo, it sure as hell beats being stuck in an expensive, crowded van with a bunch of other folks. We, Paul and I, have a 9:30 train from Sothampton to Brighton ( a seriously Gay Seaside town ) where we will be staying until May 6 before flying back from London Gatwick. It is a major long Holiday weekend when we arrive, so you may well find things in London just a tad quiet with some attractions closed or on reduced hours on the Monday.

Hugz

Peter

Just catching up on the reading.

 

 

 

I've always said Nassau exists for the ships to dump trash and toilets one last time before going to the nice places. :D

Wow, we have reached 3 whole Pages here !!!!........come on you Guys, we got to 20 + on my last PP T/A...wonder where all the folks are...must still be in deep hibernation in their respective Dens.....Hope they wake up in time to take the trip. There were a Couple on our last T/A who I know will also be here. Lets have some pics on Criusefellows.com so that we will recognize you all

That is precisely why we will have an unpacking and settling in day, once that is done, it is the Pool and one of Celebrity's fabulous Burgers for lunch that we became totally addicted to on the Infinity on our last T/A...... Was shocked to see that the locals had even vandalized the local Police Station which was right at the Docks

Hugz

Peter

Hello fellas!

 

I just booked this one. Fares fell, and I grabbed on!

 

Did the TA last spring with PP and had a great time, looking forward to these 2 weeks of bliss...and 3 nights in London after.

 

:-)

 

--Curt

Welcome Curt

I think we will have a great trip

Peter and Paul

FANTASTIC NEWS

Heard from Bruce today, fantastic news, he will be "Mother Hen" to our Group. Bruce did such an amazing job last time when we were on the October 2013 - Harwich to Miami crossing on the Infinity, he was very attentive and ensured everyone had an incredible time. He totally made our trip memorable

Hugz, only a Month, give or take a couple of days to go !!!

Peter

Peter,

The lawn on the Equinox last August was looking a bit tired and brown with some sections fenced off and signs asking cruisers to use a different part of the lawn to give it time to recover. During our 10 nights in the Med, it didn't get any greener as it was very hot with only the occasional downpour. The best part of the upper deck was the glass blowing show nearby - it was impressive to watch.

You're probably right about the lawn being changed once the ship gets into Barcelona. You'd think a good time would be during the repositioning cruise (the passengers are getting a bargain cruise, so a few amenity alterations can't be grumbled at), but the salty air would not be good for it. Same again when we get to Southampton, the ship still has to sail down to Barcelona through the Bay of Biscay before it gets to the Med.

Five weeks to go... I'm already stressed about my upcoming work load, some of which has a deadline by the end of April. My manager knows I won't be in the office for the 2 weeks prior to this - and it's stressing him out too. But I won't be there, so provided I look like I'm worried, I'll still be able to enjoy my fortnight away.

See you soon

Roy

Tell the poor Dear to take a chill pill !!!! he sounds a real pain

Peter

Six weeks to go and it's a lovely weekend here in Blighty. Which reminds us of one of the few things we will miss sailing across the Atlantic - the garden. Easter is usually the time we sort out the shed, clean out the greenhouse and start planting up the garden for the summer. Fortunately, Spring has come early so Adrian's pottering about pruning the roses, weeding the beds and excavating the cat poop. Apparently, it's therapeutic - I find it hard work and can't wait to get away from it all. But in the height of summer, it looks idyllic.

See you soon

Roy

Now Boys, do not despair, Adrian has the much fabled Celebrity Lawn to putter around on the Eclipse. he can pretend that you are in your yard, naturally, minus the grey skies, lashing rain and wind of the UK. I wonder if they will have replaced the grass before we sail. On a similar crossing on the Solstice, we were told that the grass that will tolerate the sun and heat of the Caribbean is different to European Grass so they would have to replace the entire lawn when we docked in Barcelona

Mega Hugz

Peter

Peter,

Adrian's the classical one in the family and doesn't much like pop. He only acknowledges Abba have musical talent because 'The Winner Takes it All' has 3 or more chords. No one can convince him of the abilities of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

But it works both ways. I saw him in an Am Dram version of Die Fledermouse. Imagine my disappointment - a child raised on comic books - when he told me he was playing 'the Bat' ;)

Have a good week

Roy

I wholeheartedly agree with Adrian,,,, Amateur Dramatics.....Dear God....is that what passed for Kultur in Leeds !!!! You poor deprived Souls. I am sure that you will love the shows on Celebrity with Dorota and Lazlo twirling on ropes from the ceiling ...such sophistication LOL

Hugz

Peter