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I'm glad that you got to meet up! Maybe next time it will be somewhere close enough for us to join you.

Sorry to hear this. May those good memories bring you comfort. Dora has been very cuddly all weekend so she has had lots of extra attention. Will give her an extra hug for you and Marino.

Safe travels home and thank you for bringing us along on your journey! We enjoyed traveling with you.

Thanks - I had to look them up to remember the difference. And the fact that they both are in Antarctica for the Austral Summer. Here is my lucky shot, taken from the shoreline at Deception Island almost 15 years ago.

The terns are amazing. Longest migration route of any animal. If you think C2C is impressive, these guys go pole to pole! I got a lucky picture of one during our first Antarctic cruise, with a fresh krill in its beak. And I've been dive-bombed by them during the Arctic summer in Svalbard. Amazing birds. Enjoyed the shots of Inaccessible Island. Sorry the name was so apropos.

The struggle is real. I have so many on this site, saved in perpetuity. At least on my other blog site, there is no time limit and you can always correct them, even if you happen to notice them years later!

I hope so!

Ugh. That is a new one. Certainly an unpleasant surprise to those of us who are booking tours. I think this is another example of why it's a bad combination to (1) make excursions bookable years in advance, and (2) have the gimmick of "included" excursions part of your fare, which is/was set years in advance. Now they are trying to actually find operators who are willing to provide all these tours that SS has promised us, years ago when we booked, at yesterday's prices. And they are doing this in an economy where inflation is nuts, especially in the tourism industry. Silversea is undoubtedly "discovering" that the tour which they could buy for $X a few years ago (and what they budgeted $X for), is now going to cost them 2-3 times that much in 2024 and beyond... They simply cannot provide what they have committed to provide, without blowing their budget. Guess who's going to be on the hook for that cost increase? The esteemed (or steamed) customer. PS - I'm not saying that there isn't ample opportunity for price gouging on top of this.

Thanks! We're mainly visiting Sao Miguel in the Azores. This is a non-cruise holiday for us. We are there for the last week of March. So, we're just using Lisbon as a hub. We will have an almost full day there on a Sunday, assuming our plane arrives on time. We plan to rent a car and visit a few places that we've missed on previous trips. Or maybe we'll park in Cascais for a long, late, lunch on the waterfront before heading back to the airport for our hotel room. The next day, we fly to Sao Miguel bright and early, and spend the rest of the week there. We have friends who visited the Azores, and have been telling us to go for more than ten years now. It looks like a fantastic destination. Excited to visit!

T4 in JFK is pretty nice. They supposedly have a fairly new second Delta SkyClub that we have to check out one of these days. Hope you get to visit there when you fly through! The other SkyClub in T4 was pretty nice when it first opened about 10 years ago, though I don't think we've been there since before Covid. But we are spoiled because there is an AMEX Centurion Club which we almost always visit instead. We're flying DL to LIS in less than two weeks, but we're flying out of Boston, not Kennedy.

Outstanding color (sorry, I can't use the "u" or my spellchecker would go on strike) in those icebergs, and captured so well in your photographs! I definitely need to do a C2C cruise one of these days.

Looks fun! When are you going? That would be a nice way to discover the Seychelles. Or Corsica of course though we've already been there with Ponant. I could only find a French version at your link. Luckily, je peux le lire! Unfortunately (or fortunately) our cruise calendar is filling up quickly. We have the Kimberley cruise in June so we'll have to work the rest of the summer I guess. Then we have the two on Le Commandant Charcot in October and December, then Silversea again in late January. And later today, we're booking another Ponant voyage for April 2025 - a gastronomy sailing from Lisbon to Bordeaux! So for now I think we will not be able to fit this one in.

Wow! Great shots.

Your reputation precedes you, I see! Was.the maitre d' a frequent reader of Cruise Critic, perhaps?

Lola, nobody is spelling it wrong. Like most words taken from a language using a non-Roman alphabet, there can be several acceptable spellings. Loofah is taken from an Arabic word. Luffa is actually the genus name of the plant on which the loofah grows. Loofah is the actual entry in the OED. Wiktionary lists it that was also, with loofa and luffa as acceptable alternatives. Merriman-Webster says loofah, and luffa as a variant. I've always used loofah (in a sentence, not the shower...)

A few familiar faces! Claudia was on our first Antarctica trip in 2009 (as was Victoria). Claudia was also on board Silver Explorer a few years later, when it was hit by a rogue wave high enough to knock a window out of the bridge. Details available elsewhere (it was 2013).

Silversea roll calls on this site can be hit or miss. A lot of the latter, IME. I've had a few roll calls meet the minimum for a M&G but not many.

Agree; it's weird to be able to book excursions so early. I"m not sure I fully like the change but I've already booked an excursion for my Arctic cruise in July 2025 - and I've booked all of the excursions for my January 2025 WC segment. If all the other kids are doing it, I guess I better join them!

Barely old enough to drive to the ship! I know we sailed Horizon to the Caribbean in 1993. I'm going to have to look at my pictures; now my curiosity is piqued!

I know that the AMEX (Platinum Cruise Privileges) OBC is non-refundable. I am pretty sure I've had some of the refundable type from a TA here and there, but it definitely went towards wine and not back into my wallet.

Those outrigger canoes are pretty. We used one to cross the channel between Île-Sainte-Marie and Île aux Nattes!

I think it's been just about 25 years for us! We went twice in consecutive years, at the tail end of the 1990s. Both times we sailed out of New York and it couldn't have been easier. Drive down from Albany, down the West Side Highway, park at the Manhattan Terminal, and walk to the ship. We could see our car, parked on the roof of the parking garage, as we departed from the pier! It's really stretching my memory - but I think one of the cruises was on NCL and the other on Celebrity. I'd have to look at my (physical) photo albums to remember, because I actually used film back in those days! Have a fun cruise!

That plane has a cute paint job!

I think that you are both correct (in a way). I've been told that there are two forms of OBC - refundable and non-refundable. The first can be applied to the crew fund and the second cannot.

Glad you're enjoying Singapore, Terry. A fun place to soak up the tropical heat! Looks very familiar - thanks for taking me back.