bobmacliberty

I'm all in Deb! Perfect timing as the lives from Greg, John, John, and Renee are all winding down.

It's now later John, and still no bathing suit picture. It certainly can't be due to not enough alcohol.

You can't just get the hat all by itself. These would look great with shorts and a Sea Dog t-shirt. 😁

Did you try booking with 3 or 4 people? Maybe they don't want to initially release these cabins for just 2 people.

Isn't that something that grandparents are supposed to do? Excellent hiding spot. Blends well into the camo.

Wow. Looks like a fantastic day for a quickly pulled together backup plan. I'm jealous. Keep the pictures coming!

Fun review as always. Thanks John.

I don't think she's allowed to drive after dark...you need to be at least 3 years old for that. 😜

Interesting that Lizzy goes straight to Linda while Charley went straight to you. Thanks for a fantastic Live review Greg. I hope that you were able to enjoy yourself with your shoulder, as much as you brought joy to us. You're going to need to cruise at least twice a year now and do a live review every time. 😁

I'm headed in that direction. I've dialed back the OJ in favor of pineapple.

Thanks OB. I appreciate you taking the time to get this. It's not far from where my experimenting has lead me. I use Cointreau rather than triple sec, but they're close to the same thing. And I'm using passion fruit juice rather than grenadine which means a slightly more tropical taste but less red coloring. I'm still trying to decide if adding orgeat syrup and simple syrup are worth it.

I'm impressed, even without a Kraken Colada. I kinda wanted you to drink a Dirty Girl Scout just so I could find out what it is.

Thanks for bringing us along this week John. Great review!

We picked the bottle of champagne. I wonder what that says about us? 🤔

That makes more sense. I can't imagine taking one of those worn, washed a zillion times, towels as a souvenir.

I just found this thread and am all caught up. Loving it so far. We were recently on Quantum and Ovation, and it's interesting to see what's different and what's the same. I'm also enjoying your story telling style. Having recently done a Live review myself, I know how difficult it can be to create posts on a mobile device (or are you using a laptop??). As far as long posts vs. short posts, do whatever is easiest for you. I will enjoy consuming it in whatever form you want to post it.

One of the bits of advice that I've tried to impart on my kids...never underestimate the stupidity of the average person. Or as Ron White more eloquently put it, you can't fix stupid.

An update on the search for the perfect Mai Tai. WARNING...I've seriously gone down the rabbit hole. Online research of the best rum to use for a Mai Tai is confusing. The original Mai Tai only used one rum...a 17 year old Jamaican rum that's no longer available. As I've said most current Mai Tais that contain fruit juice use both a light rum in the mix, and a dark rum floated on top. Online articles typically talk about the original recipe and using a single Jamaican rum like Smith & Cross or Hamilton 86 Demerara rum because of the "funk" in the taste of Jamaican rum. I really wanted to stay with the 2 rum light/dark approach to get the darker layer on the top of the drink. So off to my local liquor store to see what I can find. They don't carry either Smith & Cross or Hamilton. The best darker rum that I could get was Diplomatico from Venezuela. Since I already had a bottle of Appleton Estate Jamaican rum that's not light but more gold, I figured I'd mix the Appleton Estate in for the taste, and float the Diplomatico on top for the appearance. With the rum figured out, for now at least, it's on to tweaking the juices. First attempt last night was to recreate the Tahiti Nui Mai Tai version, which is the recipe that's a guarded secret. Some who have tried to recreate it say that it's the original Trader Vic recipe that just has an ounce of lime juice, plus about an ounce of pineapple and a dash of passion fruit or guava. So that's what I did. It wasn't bad, but tasted more like a sour than a Mai Tai. Attempt 2 used two ounces of Pineapple and a dash each of orange, passionfruit, and guava. That tastes more like the Mai Tais from Hawaii, but not quite there yet. And I still can't get the darker layer on top. I think it's a combination of 1) the basic "juice" itself being darker than in the picture from the Appleton Estate gold rum and the guava juice also being pretty dark, and 2) the Diplomatico float on top is more gold than dark. It was hard to tell how dark it really was in a very dark bottle. Not really dark enough for a floater. The other change that I made was to make my own demerara simple syrup. I just dissolved a couple of cups of demerara sugar in a cup of water over medium heat. Once the sugar crystals are fully dissolved, I removed the pot from the heat and let it cool, before transferring to an air-tight bottle for storage. My next attempt...Go to the ABC liquor store that's a little further away but has a bigger selection of liquor. Look for a Rhum Agricole that's clear and either the Smith & Cross or the Hamilton. If I'm not careful, I could end up with more bottles of rum than bottles of bourbon. I can fix that though. 😉Use just pineapple and passionfruit juices in the mix to keep the mix as light colored as possible. I may even attempt a version with Kraken. Although the "experts" say that you shouldn't use a spiced rum, I know that I like the taste and it should give a darker float layer. If you don't like the rabbit hole analogy, how about this...

We were recently in 9638 on Quantum, a J4 with the split bathroom. Having a separate water closet with sink is a great idea in that two people can be using the bathroom at the same time. I liked the walk-in shower as well. We moved from a JS on Quantum to a GS on Ovation and I prefer the Quantum JS shower. But there was almost no countertop space in either bathroom. In the main bathroom, there was literally about 3 inches on either side of the sink. I'm not sure what the other bathrooms look like, but we didn't really use both bathrooms at the same time, and I probably would have traded that for one larger bathroom with more space. The location was great...very close to the elevators. The way the elevator lobbies are configured on Quantum class, there are two entrances to the bank of elevators. Our cabin was between the 2 entrances, so people rarely walked by our cabin. That probably isn't easy to understand the way I described it so hopefully a picture will help The other complaint that I have with 9638 is the "sofa". It's a 2 person L shaped thing that they put in the corner. The idea is good but it's hard as a rock and very uncomfortable to sit on. @ReneeFLL is currently on Ovation and is staying in a JS that's like 9632 in the picture above. Not sure what category that is. She has some good pics in her current live review. Although it looks smaller in the deck plans, it looks bigger in her pictures...more like the Ovation GS that we had.

Is Sabor making their guacamole table side again? I can't remember if they stopped doing that because of Covid or before Covid. You're probably on the road by now. Safe travels home. I hope your should doesn't bother you too much in the car. Load up on the pain meds!

As an OSU fan, I wasn't impressed with the first half either. I have to give some of the credit to the Iowa defense. They played very well. The OSU offense played much better in the second half, and the OSU defense was great all game long. Would love to see a Georgia vs. OSU natty, although Tennessee and Michigan may have something to say about that.

The last time I got a roast beef sandwich I was very specific about the meat that I wanted. Yup, I was that guy. I "rejected" the first cut he made (too much fat) and then asked him to put on a second slice. No problem...he just did what I asked. It was tolerable, but far from a true Buffalo Been on Weck. Too bad they can't slice it a lot thinner rather than just use one think cut slab. Maybe they think that hand cut with a knife is somehow better than using a deli slicer?

Both pictures look about the same to me in picture quality on CC. The .png file might be a little bit sharper when looking at the waves in the water, but that might be my mind tricking me because .png files are less compressed than .jpg files, meaning less of the original image quality is lost, and the .png should look better. That's consistent with your saying that the pasted .png file is a lot larger than the "add files" .jpg version. I really couldn't swear though that one format looks any better than the other. I downloaded both and they are both the same dimensions...563 X 750. The downloaded .jpg is 86 KB, and the downloaded .png is 726 KB, so the .png file that CC stores is still quite a bit larger. That makes sense given that .png files are less compressed. I'd suggest doing whatever is easiest for you to do when creating a post. If it saves you some time when pasting in a picture and the upload time doesn't seem longer for the larger file size, go for it. If it's easier to use "add files" and find the picture in your camera roll, then do that instead. The end result picture quality is about the same either way.

Is that supposed to be the roast beef sandwich? That does not look good at all. Waaay too much fat.

Great opportunity for a frozen drink or 3. 😉