The Fleet Report and Daily for Saturday May 4th, 2024

[kochleffel]

I would probably like the cod, although the creamy sauce might require Lactaid. I could enjoy the drink if it were served to me, but wouldn't order it. For the wine--no Malbec here but Cabernet Franc is our best-growing red variety--I'll suggest Fulkerson's 2018: "An up front nose of sweet cherry and creamy vanilla. The flavors are velvety with sweet cherry laced with chewy black pepper and strong tannins in the finish," $18.

 

[luvteaching]

Good morning from a grey overcast Pacific Northwest. That's ok - the rain is supposed to hold off until tomorrow and by mid-week we're in the mid to upper 70's. I'm taking that as a hint to get out the Spring/Summer clothes and change over the closet. I need to start packing DD DH's clothes and get them ready to donate. Just haven't done it yet for no good reason other than procrastination. Wednesday, the 8th, would have been his 84th birthday and last year our great-granddaughter was born on his birthday so I'll concentrate on that. 

Yesterday was the pool and errands as well as getting a few things done around here. I have a month until my first of 4 Alaska cruises. This one is by myself on Majestic Princess. I want to get my dining booked and then I can relax. Today will be a stop at a friend's Open House (she's a realtor and we get a visit in) and calling my Mom who will be thrilled the Vancouver Canucks won last night. I'm still working on getting my desk cleaned off and other lovely fun things. 

Have a good Saturday and enjoy the weekend!
 

Karen

[Cruising-along]

Good morning all!

As Karen @luvteaching said, it's a cloudy, grey morning here.  But our area is expected to get some rain (or drizzle, 30-40%) later today.  We're in the convergent zone here though.  

 

My next-door neighbor's son is a firefighter, and DH did some for the forest service while in college.  I have the utmost respect for the profession.  

 

I know I would like the drink and would like the last recipe for cod.  Will pass on the red wine and haven't been to this port. 

 

The big news here is that finally, after 6 days, the zebra who got loose on the way to Montana has been caught.  Thank goodness!  At least this time of year there would be plenty for her to eat where she got loose.  She apparently looks very healthy.  

 

 

 

[USN59-79]

Looks like three days of damp and rainy weather here in the Pacific NW, then Spring will have sprung with temperatures in the 70s.  My father was in the race horse business most of his life.  During WW2 the tracks shut down and he worked for Boeing, then we moved to a ranch where he started again.  I remember "walking hots" at the race track near Seattle as a teenager as we had to walk the horse to let it cool down after exercising it on the track.  Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack while walking one of his horses at a track near San Francisco while I was in the Navy.

I was surprised it took so long to round up the local missing zebra.  The back story is that there were two competing groups working to corral her.  They were not cooperating, and one was organized by a local home building company that was interesting the positive advertising feedback if they were successful.  Anyway, all is well that ends well.

Ray

[cat shepard]

Couldn’t resist. Dedicated to all us TNR folk!

 

[StLouisCruisers]

Well, we moved from the place we were staying because our host was defensive about our complaint.  He seemed to think live roaches in the bedroom on the bed and on the wall was okay because "Have you ever been to Florida before" was his first comment.  He claimed to have had the house sprayed "last week" but wouldn't bugs be dead or lying on their backs dying if they were seen by us this week?  That's how it usually works. He claimed no one had ever complained of roaches before.  Hmmm. I guess they just moved in yesterday.  He said he'd refund us the next two nights if we wanted to move on.  So we talked it over and found a hotel suite with two separate rooms for sleeping and packed up in 20 minutes.  Notified him and he initiated a refund for 2 nights.  It will cost us more but no roaches in the hotel.  We just didn't like his attitude towards us.

 

Tonight we have dinner with the whole crowd again at a nice Italian restaurant.  Graduation tomorrow but I think DD said you have to wait outside the venue an hour or so prior to them allowing us in so we don't end up in nosebleed alley in the top row.  

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

 

3 hours ago, Cruising-along said:

Good morning all!

As Karen @luvteaching said, it's a cloudy, grey morning here.  But our area is expected to get some rain (or drizzle, 30-40%) later today.  We're in the convergent zone here though.  

 

My next-door neighbor's son is a firefighter, and DH did some for the forest service while in college.  I have the utmost respect for the profession.  

 

I know I would like the drink and would like the last recipe for cod.  Will pass on the red wine and haven't been to this port. 

 

The big news here is that finally, after 6 days, the zebra who got loose on the way to Montana has been caught.  Thank goodness!  At least this time of year there would be plenty for her to eat where she got loose.  She apparently looks very healthy.  

 

 

 

 

Carolyn, that is good news they finally caught the zebra, and she seems to be in good shape.

 

1 hour ago, StLouisCruisers said:

Well, we moved from the place we were staying because our host was defensive about our complaint.  He seemed to think live roaches in the bedroom on the bed and on the wall was okay because "Have you ever been to Florida before" was his first comment.  He claimed to have had the house sprayed "last week" but wouldn't bugs be dead or lying on their backs dying if they were seen by us this week?  That's how it usually works. He claimed no one had ever complained of roaches before.  Hmmm. I guess they just moved in yesterday.  He said he'd refund us the next two nights if we wanted to move on.  So we talked it over and found a hotel suite with two separate rooms for sleeping and packed up in 20 minutes.  Notified him and he initiated a refund for 2 nights.  It will cost us more but no roaches in the hotel.  We just didn't like his attitude towards us.

 

Tonight we have dinner with the whole crowd again at a nice Italian restaurant.  Graduation tomorrow but I think DD said you have to wait outside the venue an hour or so prior to them allowing us in so we don't end up in nosebleed alley in the top row.  

 

Sandi, your post was gone by the time I got to The Daily, but from what others said, and having lived in the south and south Texas, roaches were my guess.  I'm glad you found a suitable hotel and got a refund for the unused nights.  Once when older DD was still using a crib, we found roaches all over our hotel room including the crib.  Even though it was late at night, we immediately checked out and moved down the road to a better hotel.

 

Lenda

[Cruising-along]

2 hours ago, StLouisCruisers said:

Well, we moved from the place we were staying because our host was defensive about our complaint.  He seemed to think live roaches in the bedroom on the bed and on the wall was okay because "Have you ever been to Florida before" was his first comment.  He claimed to have had the house sprayed "last week" but wouldn't bugs be dead or lying on their backs dying if they were seen by us this week?  That's how it usually works. He claimed no one had ever complained of roaches before.  Hmmm. I guess they just moved in yesterday.  He said he'd refund us the next two nights if we wanted to move on.  So we talked it over and found a hotel suite with two separate rooms for sleeping and packed up in 20 minutes.  Notified him and he initiated a refund for 2 nights.  It will cost us more but no roaches in the hotel.  We just didn't like his attitude towards us.

 

Tonight we have dinner with the whole crowd again at a nice Italian restaurant.  Graduation tomorrow but I think DD said you have to wait outside the venue an hour or so prior to them allowing us in so we don't end up in nosebleed alley in the top row.  

Thanks for coming back and explaining.  By the time I got online this morning it was gone.  We had a bad experience with roaches in the early '80's at a hotel in FL. 

And not roaches, but there were tiny little bugs all over our room at the Embassy Suites in Fort Lauderdale a few years ago. The room was a disaster too.  I couldn't understand why that hotel was so popular with cruisers and have never stayed there again.  

57 minutes ago, Quartzsite Cruiser said:

 

Carolyn, that is good news they finally caught the zebra, and she seems to be in good shape.

 

 

Lenda

Lenda it's good news indeed.  On a funny note, our SIL's sister lives in North Bend where the zebra escaped.  She has a zebra costume and ran down a busy street the other day.  Cars were honking and flashing lights as she ran by. 🤣 

49 minutes ago, Quartzsite Cruiser said:

 

Debbie, I did the same thing, including going back through yesterday's Daily too.

 

Lenda

I did too, couldn't figure out where it was!  😉  

[Heartgrove]

Thank you Sandi, thank you Roy, thank you Debbie, thank you Vanessa, thank you Ann, and thank you Dixie for all your work.  And thank you everyone for being here! 

 

Looking forward to embarking tomorrow! We arrived early enough today in Port Canaveral to get to “Fishlips Waterfront Bar and Grille” for the afternoon cruise ship parade. That is the Carnival Vista over my shoulder.

 

Stay Safe, and prayers for those in need. 
 

- Jack

 

 

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

1 hour ago, dfish said:

Yep, did that, too!   I keep forgetting to tell you that out of curiosity I looked up and bought myself a hula hoe.  I love it!  I can get through the weeds in the front garden in no time compared to what I did last summer.  

 

Once, when traveling with students, we had a bug infested hotel in Rome.  We packed up and left at midnight, driving to Venice.  The poor kids sat up all night the first night because of the bugs.  

 

I got a bedbug infested room in London once.  Just a bad case of itchy legs.  I got something from the chemist for that.  

 

Debbie, I remember you mentioning using the hula hoe, and I'm glad you like it.  It makes it easy to get most of the weeds out of the rocks in Quartzsite.  One wouldn't work here because of the mulch and plants in our two small flower beds.  Fortunately, they don't take long to weed, even when we've been gone for months.  It also wouldn't work in the grass where most of the weeds are.

 

Lenda

[erewhon]

12 hours ago, grapau27 said:

Same here.

68 cruises to date and 5 more booked.

We prefer the bigger ships.

 

@grapau27  How many days on board the ship was your longest cruise?

                      How many days on board the ship was your shortest cruise?

[grapau27]

7 hours ago, erewhon said:

 

@grapau27  How many days on board the ship was your longest cruise?

                      How many days on board the ship was your shortest cruise?

We always stay pre and post cruise in hotel's.

Our Grand Princess Hawaiian cruise in November/December 2019 was 15 nights with 3 nights pre-cruise in San Francisco.

Our 15 nights Caribbean cruise on Crown Princess in January 2007 was 15 nights with 2 nights pre-cruise in San Juan Puerto Rico.

7-14 night cruises are our preference because we both had work commitments.

Shortest cruise was a 3 night cruise from Southampton on a brand new ship.

How about yourself what is your longest and shortest cruise?.

Graham.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[erewhon]

@grapau27  thank you for your reply.

 

Our shortest cruise was 7 nights on the beautiful Volendam, we flew from Auckland to Vancouver to board the ship for the Alaskan cruise to see if we would like to have cruise holidays.  (  thank goodness for business class on the long flights)

Our longest cruise was 43 nights on the Maasdam around Australia. 

Before DH retired we did some 30+ day cruises, and a 28 day Panama Canal cruise which was very interesting.

[grapau27]

16 hours ago, StLouisCruisers said:

Well, we moved from the place we were staying because our host was defensive about our complaint.  He seemed to think live roaches in the bedroom on the bed and on the wall was okay because "Have you ever been to Florida before" was his first comment.  He claimed to have had the house sprayed "last week" but wouldn't bugs be dead or lying on their backs dying if they were seen by us this week?  That's how it usually works. He claimed no one had ever complained of roaches before.  Hmmm. I guess they just moved in yesterday.  He said he'd refund us the next two nights if we wanted to move on.  So we talked it over and found a hotel suite with two separate rooms for sleeping and packed up in 20 minutes.  Notified him and he initiated a refund for 2 nights.  It will cost us more but no roaches in the hotel.  We just didn't like his attitude towards us.

 

Tonight we have dinner with the whole crowd again at a nice Italian restaurant.  Graduation tomorrow but I think DD said you have to wait outside the venue an hour or so prior to them allowing us in so we don't end up in nosebleed alley in the top row.  

Wow that owner was not nice.

I'm pleased you found alternative accomodation.

Best wishes for Morgan's graduation tomorrow.