The Bistro- Off topic and fun posts!

[TER777]

I was on that cruise too. I forget whether it was with friends, Mom and Dad, or all of the above. 

[Roland4]

I also remember that after a rather pleasant day at sea past Halifax, we got slammed on the last night by violent thunderstorms. In the shallows of the Continental Shelf we got pitched around almost as badly, or possibly worse, than we had in the North Atlantic!! Going down the gangway the next morning, the lady in front of us got down on her knees and kissed the ground!!

 

Those of us who were on it don't call it "The Trans-Atlantic From Hell" for nothing!!!!😁😁

Edited September 16, 2022 by Roland4

[rafinmd]

That was a tough fall for the Symphony.  After the TA she did several New England and Canada trips and at one time broke down in Montreal with about a 2-day delay leaving and the final blow was Superstorm Sandy and missing the turnaround port of New York.  Just glad I had a very resourceful TA.

 

Roy

[ctjon]

I remember there were a bunch of us from Cruise Critic forum on that cruise - only time  that I did the meet and great cause I wanted to meet some of you.  The fact that I remember anything about anything 10 years ago is a surprise.

Maybe we weren't heading past Halifax that am but I remember looking at one of the electronic maps on a wall on the ship and discussing with another passenger about it looks as if we could have gotten to Halifax.  Who knows we could have been many hundreds of miles out to sea.  That cruise didn't stop us from being continuous Crystal passengers.

[rafinmd]

Today's sunrise represents a bit of an anomaly.   My first ever cruise ship was the Carnival Fantasy in 1993.  In 2014 I joined my brother in Charleston SC for a reunion of his submarine crew.  At that time, Fantasy was sailing out of Charleston so I decided on a 5-day cruise fro old times sake.  On September 16 we visited Freeport:

 

 

Roy

[rafinmd]

Today's sunrise is another from my 2012 Crystal Symphony transatlantic.  September 17 was a sea day from Reykjavik to New York and the day we would have called at Halifax if we had not been delayed by storms:

 

 

Roy

[KenzSailing]

 

The elusive, rarely photographed, smash Burger:

 

 

Admittedly, not my best compositional work.  But hey, tonight is Saturday night, and you know what that means...

[Roland4]

6 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

 

The elusive, rarely photographed, smash Burger:

 

 

Admittedly, not my best compositional work.  But hey, tonight is Saturday night, and you know what that means...

Sadly, the Russian Judge must give low marks for presentation, the plate is terribly bare, and the bun top is slightly off-centre (note the Canadian spelling!!😁)!!! The Canadian Judge, of course, wants to know "Where's mine??"😁😁

[BEAV]

7 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

But hey, tonight is Saturday night, and you know what that means...

Weekly bath night? 🤔 Whether you need it or not? 🤦 🙄

[Mr Luxury]

17 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

 

The elusive, rarely photographed, smash Burger:

 

 

Admittedly, not my best compositional work.  But hey, tonight is Saturday night, and you know what that means...

You can never complain about food on any ship if that is what you serve up at home 😁

[Noggins]

On 9/16/2022 at 12:11 AM, Roland4 said:

We were on that trip as well, and yes, the weather was the story! But as I recall, we were caught in the remnants of three post-tropical depressions in that part of the North Atlantic! I also recall we received the letter from the Captain about missing Halifax the morning AFTER we left Reykjavik, based on the tracks of the storms and the fact he was sailing toward Greenland to try and keep us out of the worst of it. And according to the navigation programme on our tablet at the time, we were due south of Halifax at 6:00 PM that evening, so no, we would never have made Halifax! And we took solid water off our balcony door on Deck Ten twice in the five days at sea!

 

Finally, the WORST thing that happened on that cruise was the kitchen RAN OUT OF oatmeal-raisin cookies!!!😮😁😮😁Actually, as I recall, there were a bunch of Crystal senior execs onboard for meetings, and when Toni Neumiester (sp?) found out, he told the pastry chef to make them from scratch!

 

And finally, Jim premiered Character Man even though he was suffering from the worst head cold! Yes, the show did go on!🙂

I find it amazing that this cruise gets remembered so often - especially as it was 10 years ago almost to the day.

There were so many CC members on board I wonder whether we can we ask for a show of hands for anyone that WAS NOT on that cruise?!

Our abiding memory was having metal plates bolted onto our deck 5 (OV) window and getting ushered upstairs to a balcony cabin on deck 8. And then wondered whether, from a motion of the ocean point of view, it had been a good move!

Adrian 

[ctjon]

Today in Portland, Maine with two large cruise vessels in port along with kite flying in the park across from the docking area.  Plenty of tourists around this time of year

[BWIVince]

22 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

 

The elusive, rarely photographed, smash Burger:

 

Admittedly, not my best compositional work.  But hey, tonight is Saturday night, and you know what that means...

 

First, bravo.

 

Second, to me, this is sort of the visual representation of one of my biggest struggles in the COVID era — the availability of Martin’s buns in slider vs. sandwich size.  Not that the sandwich size bun isn’t perfect here, the protein vs. bun ratio is probably perfect, but I’ve always leaned towards the slider size because I’ve never really needed a higher ratio of roll and 12 smaller rolls almost perfectly suits my week, vs. 8 larger sandwich buns, especially with the smaller sandwiches I prefer.  
 

Alas, since the start of Covid, Martin’s has trimmed stock in most of our stores up here to sandwich rolls, long (hot dog) rolls, and sliced bread — the top sellers.  I went to Wegman’s last week and used the opportunity to buy things that I can’t get anywhere else, like Martin’s slider rolls,  but alas that line of thinking ended up with a receipt over $300 and a half-cart that was less about half-full.  😳😒

 

I guess I still have to mark the mission as a success though, as I ended up with bags full of items that I couldn’t get anywhere else up here, none of it individually overpriced…. Though speaking of the (now paper) bags, that’s a separate rant.  It’s too nice of a day here for me to to be on multiple rants, so I’ll stop here.

 

Vince

 

[rafinmd]

Today's sunrise is from my 2014 Carnival Fantasy cruise.  September 18 was our sea day, the last day before our return to Charleston and meeting my brother for his reunion.

 

 

Roy

[rafinmd]

4 hours ago, Noggins said:

I find it amazing that this cruise gets remembered so often - especially as it was 10 years ago almost to the day.

There were so many CC members on board I wonder whether we can we ask for a show of hands for anyone that WAS NOT on that cruise?!

Our abiding memory was having metal plates bolted onto our deck 5 (OV) window and getting ushered upstairs to a balcony cabin on deck 8. And then wondered whether, from a motion of the ocean point of view, it had been a good move!

Adrian 

Sounds like the move was not your choice, and definitely NOT a good move vis a vis motion of the ocean but perhaps some view of the ocean made up for the increased motion and definitely better than having the sea come crashing in on you.

 

Roy

[KenzSailing]

17 hours ago, BEAV said:

Weekly bath night? 🤔 Whether you need it or not? 🤦 🙄

 

My dude, whoa.

 

By mandate of OLoPP, Saturday night is steak night at the Chez.  For a change of pace photo-wise, here's a beauty shot of last night's appetizer: sea scallops, perfectly seared, if I might say so:

 

 

[rafinmd]

Today's sunrise is from a 2003 land trip to Australia and New Zealand.  On September 19 we were in the vicinity of Ayres Rock:

 

 

Roy

[oakridger]

That's a really nice one in Australia Roy!

[rafinmd]

I have a sunset today rather than a sunrise.  It's from September 20, 2017 taken from Amtrak's Cardinal from Baltimore to Chicago as we chugged along the New River in West Virginia.

 

 

Roy

[BEAV]

A beautiful day in the SF East Bay yesterday following some badly needed and very welcome rain on Sunday. 
 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by BEAV

[rafinmd]

8 hours ago, BEAV said:

A beautiful day in the SF East Bay yesterday following some badly needed and very welcome rain on Sunday. 
 

 

Are there any wildfires near you?

 

Roy

[BEAV]

11 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

Are there any wildfires near you?

 

Roy 

Thankfully, no, Roy. So far this year, the SF Bay Area has been spared from smoke from fires in the Napa/Sonoma areas that have plagued the past few years. 
 

But I was in Reno last week, and the smoke was horrible from a fire in the Tahoe area. It lasted 6 days before finally clearing…

 

 

[KenzSailing]

1 hour ago, BEAV said:

Thankfully, no, Roy. So far this year, the SF Bay Area has been spared from smoke from fires in the Napa/Sonoma areas that have plagued the past few years. 
 

But I was in Reno last week, and the smoke was horrible from a fire in the Tahoe area. It lasted 6 days before finally clearing…

 

 

 

I can never read nor hear the word Reno without immediately thinking of this:

 

 

 

It's such a masterpiece of C&W, but with a core of bluegrass-hillbilly.  And his voice was mature, but so, so strong.

[BEAV]

51 minutes ago, KenzSailing said:

 

I can never read nor hear the word Reno without immediately thinking of this:

 

 

 

It's such a masterpiece of C&W, but with a core of bluegrass-hillbilly.  And his voice was mature, but so, so strong.

 

 

Interesting. 

 

After posting the Chez’s exquisite burger, I would’ve figured the AWFUL AWFUL would be your first thought when Reno came to mind…

 

The Awful Awful burger and preserving Old Reno matters amid COVID-19 (rgj.com)

 

(No offense, Johnny…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by BEAV

[KenzSailing]

1 hour ago, BEAV said:

 

 

Interesting. 

 

After posting the Chez’s exquisite burger, I would’ve figured the AWFUL AWFUL would be your first thought when Reno came to mind…

 

The Awful Awful burger and preserving Old Reno matters amid COVID-19 (rgj.com)

 

(No offense, Johnny…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huh.  If Johnny had known about this he might have let nature run its course and spared himself the trouble.

 

But now I have an excuse to tie in the word awful with how Evel Knievel got his nickname.  (You'll have to google it.)