jpalbny

We almost booked this trip for our anniversary next June but we went with a Ponant cruise instead. It ends in Venice and we'll do a few days there afterwards.

Did they look like these heels, which I saw while walking around Pompeii a few years ago? Davy, that's why I eat so well. The wind has no chance.

A beautiful area, from what I've "seen" (we did a virtual series of hikes on our iFit treadmill). It's on the list for an in-person visit.

You and your family will enjoy it! The wildlife density is nowhere near to that of the Antarctic or the Galapagos but the thrill is in the hunt. The landscapes are amazing and there is a lot of history in Svalbard which makes for interesting stops. We now have four Ponant cruises booked so I hope you enjoy your journey as much as we will!

I like the way you think! Happy Friday!

Yes, on my Samsung phone. ß I have a dozen choices for the u key! Too bad I don't know what most of them are... And I have a French and German keyboard that I can switch to for Duolingo. Handy for the spell checker, and so that my English keyboard doesn't autocorrect the foreign words and give me extra errors!

We had a white night on Ponant earlier this year - they usually do one if the cruise is more than a week in duration. It was actually quite nice and for TTS, very civilised! We all gathered at the stern, where we were close to the water, and it was very pleasant there with the quiet electric drive and no exhaust smell (or particles to dirty your clean white clothes). And we sipped Champagne and wine with our pinky fingers extended! They even took a picture for their website... Just kidding. That's not us. Here is Chris on our white night. It was a pleasant evening!

What about reading glasses?

Thanks Lola. I've been thinking about age a lot lately. Being "old enough" to retire will do that to you I guess. Three of my four grandparents were relatively young. When I was born, they were aged 45, 47, and 49... all numbers which I've surpassed quite a while ago! And yes, when I was a wee lad they seemed ancient to me as well. I can't reconcile this, since I'm definitely not ancient yet! Anyway. This year for whatever reason, my tomato crop is rubbish, but I have heaps of beautiful basil to use up. I had stale bread lying around so I made panzanella salad with store-bought tomatoes for dinner tonight. Along with tons of my basil. It was delicious. Accompanied by a quick pasta dish with prosciutto and garlic. A Frappato from Sicily went well on this delightfully cool summer night. Pleasant dreams to all!

Undoubtedly. That's why we are doing as much of that as possible, now, while it's easier. We are very lucky to have this opportunity and we plan to make as much of it as we can!

Yes. But as I plan for my impending retirement, it's a reality check that I'm indeed that old...

Seems as if you've done more than that! I had also wondered if you've cruised other lines before moving to Silversea. All good either way; there are lots of ways to save on their fares. Welcome to the club! That status match is paying off big-time for them. We have three booked and are looking at a fourth for next June.

Ryan, I'll send you an email with more details, but it might be better for you to see if you can get a status match with Ponant (if you have status with any other cruise lines). Those discounts can be much higher than the referral bonus.

Agree; my TA gets me some extra onboard credit, plus cash back. The price is exactly what is otherwise available on the Ponant website.

Our cats celebrated this a day early. They left a small dead mouse for us, in the middle of the kitchen floor! Their parents were very proud of them and they got some extra treats for their efforts.

Homemade gnocchi last night, simply dressed with EVOO and fresh herbs from the garden. Chris was disappointed that I didn't add bacon! 😉 It was easy to make. Ricotta, egg, salt, and flour in the food processor. Put it in a plastic bag, cut the corner, then squeeze into a pot of boiling water. Five minutes later, dinner!

We only did a sail-by. Our Captain apparently knew that it existed, and refrained from hitting it. 😉

Mysty - apparently never? At least for us...

Absolutely. We saw a few who were denied boarding in Darwin, on our cruise in June. I got the same impression. Seemed as if there was good availability until a few weeks from our sailing then everything disappeared. And comparatively fewer Venetians on our cruise than I'd ever seen before. As I mentioned earlier, we were the top cruisers with our paltry total of 155 days which might be good enough for the bottom 10% on most other Silversea voyages. Thanks for the additional perspective. I wonder how they filled our cruise without last-minute discounts?

I prefer to think that it's more of a dilution of the talent pool. There are just so many experts available who want to be away for months at a time on an expedition. And now every cruise line knows that expedition cruising is a hot commodity so they are adding many expedition cruises all over the planet, and all competing for the same pool of expert naturalists. Kind of like baseball - when it was a three-man pitching rotation and 8 teams per league, you only needed 48 starting pitchers for 16 teams. Now there are 30 teams and five-man rotations so you need 150. Expansion dilutes the talent pool. ETA: plus the ships are much bigger now. Our first Antarctica trip on PAII was 120ish pax and about 12 expedition crew. Now on Cloud and Wind those numbers are double. So they need 5x the expedition crew to handle 3 ships compared to 15 years ago.

Or you could burn the CDs to MP3 files and play them on your home stereo system from a media server. 😉 I actually have done that, and I have a copy of most of the music on my phone as well. It's even easier to bluetooth the phone to my TV then I can play the music on the stereo system. I have a little brother who is a techie so that helps. All of our CDs are tucked away in a closet now and I pretty much never bring them out.

There was a shuttle from the dock to town in Kirkwall when we were there as well. We had arranged a rental car from a local agency and the shuttle driver insisted on taking us right to the rental agency!

Good luck! A big reason that we didn't visit Rapa Nui by cruise ship is because landing there can be iffy. It is a very special place to visit.

True. That's why we took dance lessons!

Last time I heard this, it was tequila.