TiogaCruiser

I once worked at a place where about half of us shared the same birth year, and we were cross-trained to staff another adjacent facility. Our day shift supervisor was an excellent baker and she would bring in a cake for one’s birthday and we would celebrate at shift change. One afternoon she saw “C.B. Birthday” written on the staff calendar and was a bit stressed that she had forgotten a staff member’s BD the following day, and was hurriedly made plans to surprise that staff the next day. The following day at shift change we all gathered and sang “Happy Birthday” to our CB, who was really surprised- it wasn’t HER birthday, but it turned out to be CB assigned to the other facility. So we razed her about being a year older than the rest of us. And we would occasionally randomly add candles to a cake someone brought in to share, call her in and again sing “Happy Birthday” to her. (I think we added about 5 years to her age.) 😇

You bring it with you in your carry on. Usually there is a table set up and staffed that will note your bottle(s) ( type of wine) and sticker them. They will note your cabin number and you (should) see a charge on your account in the first couple of days. Once I left it with the wine desk after security so it could be taken to storage. You take the bottle to dinner with you, or you can drop it off at the desk at the MDR. When/if you take your bottle to the dining room they will check for the sticker. They will store it for you if there is any left. Or you can take it to your cabin. When you board, I highly recommend you carry it onward to your cabin from there and not let staff “check it in”. I “checked” mine through (from the wine desk after security) in BsAs and it was no where to be found when I went to the MDR that first night. It DID show up in my cabin the following afternoon after I followed up a couple times with the FD. The bottle had been sent to the contraband storage accidentally. (They were going to have me meet with the sommelier to pick out a replacement, but I really wanted the bottle I had chosen in BsAs…. and once found asked that nothing more/no fuss be done on it.)

Ah- the Special Edition Rolls. They were the best. I make them for neighbors at Christmas and Easter. Which ship?

We put beans in our chili too. But in our house it’s a Federal Offense if you share any with our pooch: the penalty is you sleep with him- outside!

Exactly. Same thing happens on multi use trails around here. As a hiker and mountain biker I detest it when hikers walk abreast- frequently it’s a pack of 30 or so, 3 and 4 abreast. And them n there’s those individuals who walk in the middle of the trail READING their iPad or FaceTiming, of course with earbuds in. They are so absorbed in what they’re doing then get irritated at us when we finally make it by them.

Cindy and Geoff are sooooo special! Id love to have them paged to the front desk.😈

And of course, if the cabin was empty due to last minute cancellations, HAL has at least part of that revenue. (They would have about 20% (platinum returns 90% and the cost is roughly 10%) if the pax had purchased platinum, and 20% + whatever the cost of the HAL insurance is, or the total fare if the canceling pax had private or no insurance. )

I’ve wondered that myself. And parking too- if one has to go to the port with luggage in hand, not knowing for sure if they are boarding or returning, (at least in my situation), parking would need to be thought out: it’s sort of hard to know to pay for a week or 2 reservation or if you’re leaving that afternoon. For me, San Diego is about 2 hours away. My method of choice (amtrak) I believe isn’t running. So that leaves car rental and Uber. oops- just checked and it looks like they do have mixed service and a few through trains- so they must have handled the mudslides.

This was pre-Covid (2018) but my HAL tour/ transfer left me at Santiago airport some 5 or more hours before my flight. We also got there a bit early. The guide told us that they usually do not let you in early, but to at least try. I did- no luck. I had to wait (sat on the floor) for about 90 minutes. In addition, I had my suitcase on a cart and my tote sitting up on top of it but not in my hands. A security team walked up to me and told me to hold onto it as it was likely to be grabbed.

We went with them in 2013 and had a great tour also with Mark. I noticed he apparently is still with the company- he’s the John Denver looking guy in the back right. https://www.enpatagoniatours.com/our-crew

Same here. Nor do I want to be in port with one of them.

So 3 days out

@OlsSalt Somehow I missed those discussions, and am sorry to hear that. I guess that also perhaps explains the lesser variety of breads, and the “special Edition” cinnamon rolls will never return. It probably takes a lot less staff without making from scratch then. And maybe they can cross train non-bakers to pop the goods in the oven.

Here’s a display of thank you notes from the Ukrainian refugees that lived on Volendam for several months:

A local restaurant started that here also: 3% added as a line item after everything totaled up. They should just increase their prices. I no longer go to that restaurant because of that. There’s plenty of other restaurants we like that don’t do that. However, I personally am happy that HAL uses the autogratituity system. It makes things so much easier for me, and the employees get more take home due to their countries tax structure. And yes, I normally add a bit for my stewards and sometimes a food service worker or 2.

OP: one more matter to be aware of is shore excursions that involve a meal.

In this circumstance the device looks for but does not find any air printers. It’s not just my model series, nor Samsung /HP printers from what I am finding on the forums ( both Apple and HP), and it’s not all printers. Bluetooth and AirPlay still connect (per the senior support tech, AirPrint uses some of those protocols). They ran through a troubleshooting list that was extensive and got back asking me to remove a program that ended up not changing things. Frankly, although disappointing, I was impressed with the follow up and testing. I’ll be more impressed if they (can) fix it, but perhaps there’s a security issue that the printer company(ies) need to address.

Good morning all, @StLouisCruisers Praying for Morgan. She might want to look for a therapist who practices EMDR. It’s a very effective treatment for trauma and tends to have positive effects rather quickly. It’s used a lot in the child abuse community. @superoma Am looking forward to trying the first recipe. Just sent it to my new printer, and AirPrint* works! Have a great day everyone! *(Have been without that feature since Apple released ios17, which apparently “broke” many printers. A patch is supposedly in the works…. Our remaining device with iOS 16 still works…. Have had several calls to and from Apple support, including extensive assessment and device log dumps.) So if your AirPrint feature “quit”, supposedly a fix might be on the way.

Good morning all, We had goulash sometime in December or early January. I added the second recipe to my “try it” list and just made it last week. It’s now on our go-to list. It was really good. https://www.daringgourmet.com/traditional-hungarian-goulash-gulyas/ Beautiful day here in SoCal. The ground remains saturated as we dry out. Have a great day everyone!

Well said. That’s exactly why I think DH gets them. We booked our second cruise under his name in 2009. All cruises afterwards were in my name, including 4 solos. Add to that he entered a demographic that is likely to have more time to sail…..

Oh my- I totally forgot that one. And there were chefs hats for all of us to wear.

So I have a current promotion coded “U”. Any ideas?

I found the costs by logging into DHs account. The upgrade costs were there, so we had already hashed it out and decided before I called to book.

If it’s from HAL you likely will have to pay $200 or so as a deposit, and the port taxes and charges. Once onboard your $200 is refunded as OBC. If you decide to upgrade, you pay the amount indicated in your account for your category of cabin. It’s a guarantee, so you will be assigned a cabin close to sailing. You still get your $200 OBC. My DH received one of those a couple of times and we did it once.

I’m under the impression HAL has a NSA cake mix they use. Several years back I was able to get a copy of the recipe for Chocolate Delight and it gave NSA cake mix as an ingredient. It was probably something in the range of a couple of pounds of it for that non-scaled down recipe.