MJC

I like the new drapes, and I think having blue in the laundry room will nicely complement the blue/gray tones in your floor. I bought new curtains for our bedroom at the beginning of the summer and they are still waiting for me to hem them. I need to just designate a sewing weekend.

Our last day in London was a work day for Mark, so I took myself off to the National Gallery. It has an incredible collection, if you like art I highly recommend it. There is so much to love, but I will only post one picture because it was an extremely delightful surprise, and is truly a world treasure. I didn't even know such a thing existed. It is the only surviving drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. OMG. It is all the way in the back on the left side of the building. Run don't walk. The area around the museum was bustling with activity. This guitarist was amazing so I stopped a listened for a bit. Nice view of Big Ben That night we had tickets to see Macbeth at the Globe. We had a quick early dinner at another Pret a Manger on the block behind our hotel and headed out. It turned out that three actors were sick and the show was canceled. Oh well. Our money was refunded before we were out of the subway. We grabbed some snacks and wine on the way back and had a picnic in our room. The next day we would pack up in the morning and head to Southampton. I'll take a break here and let Laurie post some pictures! Can't wait to see some more of your trip!

On Sunday we went to the Science Museum.I won't bore you with pictures and tales of all the cool inventions we saw. However, the exhibits about the earliest mechanical computers, vacuum tube computers, and the size of some of them was fascinating to us. I also enjoyed the section on the invention of wireless telegraph. Some of the earlier items like telescopes, clocks, and scientific testing apparatus were very beautiful and ornate. I was most excited about seeing an early Charles Babbage difference engine: There was even a working steam engine on the first floor. My best hint for this museum is when you go online to order your tickets (advance purchase required), also order box lunches. The cafeteria steam table offerings are not so great. There is a selection of sandwiches and wraps in cases that you can buy, along with fruit, chips, etc. However, we just walked to the cashier and said we had preordered, they went in the back and brought them out, we bought a couple drinks, and we skipped the whole line for food. There is a seating area right there (full of families) but go up the stairs where it is quieter. Check out the giant computer behind us! For dinner we went back to the same area to eat at another restaurant we had seen there called Bill's. It had a very diverse menu that we both enjoyed. Burgers, shawarma chicken, lots of vegetarian choices, you name it, something for everyone.

St. Paul's. It's not open to the public, but you can "attend" mass or evensong. They open the church 15 minutes beforehand, so you can visit briefly and sneak out before the service begins if you don't choose to stay. There's a man out front managing the line to get in. You can just see it in the bottom left of this photo. From there we took the underground back to Victoria Station. I stopped in a handbag shop to ask a clerk there where I could find a nightgown (since I had forgotten mine), and she directed me to an office complex that had shops and restaurants on the ground floors, including a Marks & Spencer. Mission accomplished. There were also several restaurants, so later we went back to one called Brown's. They have three in London. I had the BEST haddock fish & chips! Mark enjoyed his chicken caesar salad but had major food envy when he saw mine. Add a scotch and I was set for a good nights' sleep. 🙂

Laurie, I think dressing for Alaska really depends on when and where you go, and what kind of activities you will do. This was a pretty specialized cruise where there were some good threads about what to take. We felt well-prepared. Being out at night in the cold in the Arctic is a whole other level of preparation than the usual Alaska cruise. We were fine with the usual level of winter gear for our coldest days in Alaska, which for us was being outdoors for the scenic cruising among the glaciers. Given where you live, I'd lay a bet that you have everything you need in your closet. 🙂 Our first full day in London we went to the Tate Modern (art museum). It is in a former power plant that housed turbines. The entrance floor is very industrial with a large open area. The art galleries are at the two ends of the buildings on several floors. So you go up and down one side to see those galleries, then cross the big open space to the other side, and go up and down again for the rest of the galleries. Some of them have special exhibits that cost extra. We skipped those floors. There are escalators in the middle to move up and down, and elevators at either end. My mother was a painter so we all grew up painting and going to art shows, and I still have a love of museums of all kinds. I'll only post a couple pictures of pieces from the museum, which are ones that had extra meaning for me. So here are a few things I really liked and why. This first one just felt so dynamic, like it was moving off the wall. As a former dancer and choreographer, I really liked the motion in it. It is by Leonard Drew and is made of found and recycled objects. It was very large. This painting is by Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, and member of the Bloomsbury group. It is the first painting of hers I've ever seen, so I was happy to see it. I also just really liked it. This is a funny story, and one of the reasons we ended up at the Tate. Mark and I both read a book where the color International Klein Blue was significant. It turns out the painter Yves Klein invented it, and it was a big deal in its day. A big deal. We always wanted to see one of his paintings after reading the book. So here is one. BTW the book we read is called Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, one of my favorite scifi authors. The museum has a lovely restaurant at the top. It is a bit pricey but the food was very good, and it has lovely views across the Thames. This is the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance. When we left, this grassy area had children running around and people resting on the grass and having picnics. Since it was Saturday, the esplanade along the river had many people strolling, jogging, and generally enjoying the sunny day. Between the paved area that sticks out into the water, and the barge anchored out past it, there were probably two dozen swans hanging out. People were feeding them. There were stairs from that area down to the water's edge where you could walk along the water for a bit. After lunch we crossed the bridge and found a Pret a Manger for some coffee and a snack.

Arrival at Heathrow was very smooth. Going through immigration was super quick, and we found our bags easily. It took some time for our driver to reach us but eventually we found him and off we went. Our room was not available for early arrival, unfortunately, and we were both needing a nap and a shower. Oh well. We had lunch at the hotel and then walked to Buckingham Palace, took some photos, and found a bank. Mark had an assortment of old British pounds that were no longer legal after rolling around in a drawer at home for years. The bank was good about replacing them with new money. Tada! We have $100 more! We were happy. Eventually we got to our room, took showers, and settled in. This was our view looking over the train station. We wanted an easy dinner so I googled and found a French bistro across the street at Victoria Station. There is a small mall at one end where upstairs we found Café Rouge. There was one other party apart from us. It was quite good! It turns out it is a chain restaurant but with only a handful of locations around England. The train station is full of some handy stores and a few restaurants, including a McDonalds. There was a Boots and a M&S store for snacks and ready to go food, and most importantly, WINE. I knew as soon as I took this photo that I had a similar one from our previous trip to London. I knew then that our hotel was the same one we had been in before. It is across the street from a side entrance into the station. At the far end under the arch is where the main entrance is. That is also where the Underground entrance is. We used it a lot.

The first time we saw that background, earlier in the cruise, I said to Mark that I would never pick that for a photo, it's too fussy, lol. But look at our skin! So nice. I'll talk a bit about packing and weather. Anita's list for Fairbanks was a great starting point for us. There was a also a great packing list posted on the roll call for last year's Northern Lights cruise. We had four days in London where it was in the 70s, with one slightly rainy day. Southampton was about the same but windier. Then we dropped to mid to high 40's for our first port and stayed in that range during the days, and it was usually windy. Our night excursion in Alta it was 25-30ish but felt like 10-15 because we were always up high when we were outside. We were also looking for the Northern Lights on the top deck of the ship some nights until 1-2am, with the wind blowing, which was very cold. Sometimes we were outside viewing the beautiful snow-covered mountains. Chilly. The ship had lots of open space up on deck since the Island Princess was designed for the Panama Canal, and that was great when everyone was up top looking for the NL. It also has many wonderful inside viewing areas full of windows. If you were near the windows a lot like we were, it could be chilly. On tender days with the gangway open all day, the ship could be quite cold in the public spaces and also the decks adjacent to them. Our cabin was aft and not too high, which we were happy with because of the covered balcony, which allowed us to hop outside and take pictures even if it was rainy. The temperature in our cabin adjusted very quickly, but we could feel it get colder the closer we were to the glass balcony doors (which was the couch side of the room, thankfully not the bed side). So. As a person who hates being cold, I took more outerwear choices than I ever have before, I think, since we were outdoors a lot on this trip, even in London. And I wore them all, multiple times, even sometimes indoors. I took a parka, packable down jacket with hood, packable down vest, a rain shell, and a fleece. All got lots of use. The lightweight down vest was very handy indoors in the mornings when it was cool, as was the fleece. I needed the rain jacket and umbrella one day in London. My daywear was organized around 2 pairs of Skechers Go Walk pants, with black and navy blue/tan as my two colorways. They went with a black waterfall cardigan and a tan yoga hoodie thing. The pants are awesome because they are comfy, can also work for dinner in the evening, and have good pockets. I also brought one pair of dressier blue pants, and brown leggings. The dressier blue pants were one of the things I didn't wear. My brodder, gaiter, and puffy ski gloves were the others. The leggings I threw in at the last minute and I ended up wearing several times on sea days. So comfy. Here is my selection of tops. I had three t-shirts (plus one that I wore to fly), the blue one on top, the purple, orange, tan one under on the left, and a blue tan multi one under on the right: Four long sleeved Lucky Brand tops - blue, burgundy, (brown leggings), blue&teal, and on the far right, blue black brown. I usually wore these for dinner one night and then they became daywear: In the middle are some of the tops I wore for evening, the blue/black pattern at the top from Desigual, black plaid with flowers, red and yellow floral, and black velvet that I wore for the Captains Circle party (the loyalty program event). The Lucky top at far right I wore for the last night and then to fly home the next day. It is so comfortable. I also wore this silk-like Ann Taylor shell one night, it is a favorite of mine for the interesting color combination and has a pretty ribbon tie at the back of the neck: I took two slimming tank tops, black and nude, that I layered under these on the colder days. Sometimes I also wore my sleeveless down vest, like to breakfast in the morning so we could sit by the windows in the buffet for the scenery, or my fleece. And finally two sweaters, and two sweatshirt-type things. First one is prettier IRL than it looks, the colors are dark blue, gray blue, muted green and ivory: I was happy to have these tunic-length sweatshirt thingies to wear with my leggings and brown booties on sea days. So comfy: So, for footwear I had black/leopard slipons (wore on the plane) and brown Coach sneakers for daytime/walking shoes. I can't walk a lot in the same shoes day after day. Black suede booties and brown westernish booties for casual nights and dinners in London. My red suede pumps and silver sparkle heels for formal nights (3). Short brown snow boots for walking ashore where it was cold and wet, and worn on deck at night for the NL. Full on snow boots for Alta, where there was snow and ice on the ground and we were outside most of the night. And my Zumba shoes which I never wear outside. Zumba on sea days is a treat, and a big lure for me on Princess.

Even though I have a picture in this dress from a prior cruise, we both liked this one the best from this trip. It was toward the end of the cruise, and we were both relaxed and happy.

Laurie, I love all your pictures. I'm especially a fan of that orange botanical-like print dress. Sounds like you had a great cruise and you both look so relaxed and happy. We got home very late last night from our Norway cruise. We are so turned around time-wise, it's going to take a few days to feel normal. We flew United on miles and had Premium Plus seats, which were the most uncomfortable seats for me. It took a lot of pillows and a blanket to get comfortable. Part of it was that the seat was very deep, so it didn't hit the back of my legs in the right place, and it was flat and a bit too hard. Also they have hard sides so there's not a lot of choice about how to sit. I was very disappointed in that part because I got very little sleep. Otherwise all the travel aspects went smoothly. Norway was stunningly beautiful, and we did see the northern lights twice. The first time was from our balcony on the way north. The second time we had an amazing show for a couple of hours up on deck as we were leaving the Lofoten Islands. Everyone was so excited. I did not take outfit pictures. After our four days in London, I came down with a cold, so I didn't look my best. Also it felt like we changed our clothes more often throughout the day. Partly because of the weather... it would be cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon, and cold again at night, so we often changed during the day. We wore different things ashore than on the ship, and sea days we worked out, dressed for lunch, took a nap, dressed for dinner etc. We had two ports with tendering where the ship got so cold from having the tender area open all day. Other days the sun would shine and we'd be in tshirts. Layering was very important, even inside. As I was packing, I thought I was bringing too much, but it turned out there were only 3 or 4 things I never used. I even used my bathing suit for the hot tub at the covered pool on our last sunny day. Here is a taste. This was our driving tour day at the Lofoten Islands. It is so beautiful there.

So sorry for your loss, Melody. What a difficult month for you, so many sad anniversaries.

We have the same ship/same cabin booked for a full transit west to east (some will quibble that it's south to north) next year. Those Vista suites are our favorites and we always ask to mark them "no upgrade." We love the aft location. Those cabins are roomy and comfortable, with a great view. Also quiet, being that they are at the end of the hallway and have no neighbor on one side. The buffet, Terrace Pool and Club Fusion are all easily accessible from the aft elevators. Some of our favorite spots. 🙂 Edited to add that you may read some discussion about the small beam, but with the table and chairs on one side, and the loungers on the other, we don't find it impacts our balcony time in any way.

Can anyone comment on whether there is a decaf Lavazza available? Sadly, some of us can't take hi-test, and Princess has always had terrible decaf, so I usually have to bring my own Via. Would prefer not to.

I took my DSLR and my underwater Canon. If you plan to snorkel an uw is great to have. I have shots of penguins swimming, seals playing, even a couple hammerheads. With the DSLR I got some birds that I wouldn't have without the zoom, like tropicbirds.

We drop our carryon at our cabin and always do MDR lunch. Then we start at the top of the ship and work our way down, taking pictures if we want to. Along the way we stop by specialty dining to make our first night dinner res (perq with our cc). Then back to our cabin to watch the safety video and enjoy our balcony and a cocktail until the bags arrive. Even if we've been on that ship before, we always love our first day walkabout.

Congratulations Laurie on your bank anniversary! I'm happy to hear they spoiled you a bit. What a milestone. I have a master packing list that I tailor for each trip. This time I deleted lots of things since I won't need snorkel gear or shorts. 🙂 Aside from our three formal nights, I plan to pack two dark slacks and cardigans with a selection of easy wash tops for evening. I have a greater selection of outerwear than I normally would pack, with some that I can layer depending on our temps. Folks from England on our RC are saying an Indian summer is predicted for northern Europe, which would be nice, but can't rely on. Will know more about the weather by the end of the month. I need to work on my footwear choices for all the walking we will do. Very exciting! Laurie, you will get back just as we are preparing to leave. I can't wait to hear about your trip and see all your pictures!

My October cruise lists this as one of the morning activities. Any info on this class would be appreciated. Is it a true fitness class like Zumba? Or more slowly paced like the line dance classes? I do Zumba regularly and it has been one of the things that I have really enjoyed on sea days with Princess. Their instructors have been very good (I am licensed myself). In my experience on other lines, the "latin fitness" or similar class instructors can be really hit or miss in regards to training and choreo compared to the Zumba-licensed ones. I will be really disappointed if there is no true dance aerobics class on Princess anymore. It means I'll have to start skipping dessert!

We've always bought a bottle of scotch for the cabin. It's usually with the other gifts you can send to someone, like flowers or chocolates. Yesterday I was looking for it for our September cruise but couldn't seem to find it on the website. Then again, Mondays are terrible days to do anything on their website.

Wow Laurie that's beautiful.

I agree with Melody. It's fun and unique, not too much nor too little. I am waiting until September to get serious about my packing, what I need to focus on now are our port plans. I started with the difficult ones and have reservations for those, but I still have three walking-around days where my ideas need specifics. Finding out where we dock is important, and making my usual daily plan document with all the info for each one. For London I'm trying not to pack our days too full so we can rest if we need to. Saturday and Sunday are museum days. We don't adjust to time changes as easily as we used to, so naps at the hotel or just strolling around might figure in too. Weather may be a factor. Mark will visit the home office on Monday so I'll have some free time to shop, and we got our Macbeth tix for that night. The next morning we leave for Southampton, and I hope to do the Jane Austen Trail (basically a history walk) in the afternoon. Anita, if you have a restaurant app for London to recommend, please let me know. We use Around Me or Open Table in NYC. Around Me is nice for finding a quick bite nearby. We use Open Table when we want to make reservations.

I know what you mean Laurie. For me it's that I'm so shortwaisted, anything with gathering or detail at the waist makes me look even blocker than I already am in the torso. I have very little space between my ribs and my hips. I need straight lines and minimal fullness to create a look of balanced proportions. I try to take advantage of my long legs but it means a lot of my dresses have a similar silhouette. You always have a nice variety in your outfits even within whatever constraints you have chosen for yourself. It's not obvious at all that you are doing it. You just always look nicely put together.

You look lovely, Melody. Beautiful pictures of you both. Anita I'm enjoying your London report so much since we'll be there for three days in October before our cruise. We are opposite in that we will probably visit a museum each day, but that is because we have specific reasons why for the ones we've chosen. For example the Science Museum has a difference engine (early mechanical computer) and Marconi's telegraph. Yes we are big nerds. Both are things that featured in books we really enjoyed. Also we are not sure the weather will be conducive to strolling, so we have some indoor plans in case of rain. Today we are 60 days from cruising, an exciting milestone! Laurie you are way ahead of me with packing. I really have to focus this month.

Sorry I had to wait until I was home to find the link: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2773684-oct-07-2022-search-for-northern-lights-island-princess/page/31/#comment-64821635 I read from start to finish and took some notes. Yes I'm a travel nerd. 🙂

Nice!! That is very tempting, and we like the Ruby too.

There was a very active roll call from this itinerary in 2022 with lots of good information. We are doing it this year and that thread has been a wonderful resource.

I agree with Grand or Sapphire. Also, if the weather is bad and everyone is indoors, I think they feel less crowded.