In A Holding Pattern

by | Aug 24, 2022 | Air travel

We were on our group text with my brother and his bride yesterday when I mentioned my frustration with our current situation. We are leaving for our almost month-long Mediterranean trip next Monday and to be honest, we are in what I call the holding pattern part of travel. That part of every trip comes around twice. We are in the middle of the first holding pattern.

This holding pattern is the one where you have pretty much everything you can do to prepare all done but you really can’t start packing yet. You can do things like take out the garbage, turn off the water to your washer, put the trickle charger on the car, and set your light timers. We really can’t even pack yet because we need to wear some of the clothes we are taking between now and then.

Sure we can make lists of things we need to do but in the meantime, we really can’t do any of it until Saturday, Sunday or early Monday.

Early Monday brings me to the second part of the holding pattern. Normally we get to skip this part of the trip because when we fly domestically we almost always fly early in the morning. Sometimes at a god-awful O-dark-30. But when we fly to Europe, it’s another story. Most of the flights from Seattle to Europe don’t leave until late afternoon or early evening. That means that on Monday, we will be all packed and ready to go by 10:00 am or so and then we will just sit around until it’s time to head to the airport around 2:00 pm.

Our flight doesn’t leave until 5:20 pm. But we do prefer it that way when we are flying across that many time zones. When we go at that time it really helps us to fight the jet lag. We board (if the flight is on-time…yesterday it was two hours late) at 4:45, get settled in, and probably have a glass of champagne in our hands by 5:00. Then take off by 5:30. If that all works they serve us dinner (yes, we are in business class) around 6:30 we will have dinner. After that, maybe watch a movie and then try and get some sleep for 4-6 hours. Then we are awakened for breakfast and land in Amsterdam around noon. That to me is a perfect schedule. But it does involve that holding pattern.

So today I am taking up some of our current holding pattern by doing this post. And then I am going to an afternoon Mariner game with my son. Watch this space either tomorrow or Friday for the full itinerary of the trip.

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting. —Joyce Meyer

Short and sweet note on the way the media covers travel

by | Aug 20, 2022 | Uncategorized

We who travel get REALLY TIRED of all the doom and gloom out there about travel. In the last few days pretty much every story I see about travel has to do with airports that are too crowded, COVID on cruise ships, flight cancellations, people jumping overboard, trains being late and so much more. It is hard to find anything positive about travel, especially since the start of the pandemic.

Those really get to me because then I start to get worried about our trips that are coming up. Will we get to go? Is my throat feeling sore? Do I have COVID? Will I test positive? Will our luggage be lost? Will our flight get canceled? The negative news just wears me down.

Today though I saw this on Facebook and I had to share it. It was a comment on a story on “the end of river cruising.” That the drought in Europe means that the rivers are all going to dry up forever. Here’s what one amazing person said and I wish I had said it:

I so wish people would be excited with a news story that said something like this:  5,670 planes landed today—safely. 11,340 pilots were available to fly today. 2,268,000 suitcases did not get lost or damaged. 314 cruise ships successfully went to every port and no one jumped overboard. 90% of travelers don’t have  COVID.

But sadly – these aren’t the stories the media thinks the people want.
—Facebook user Gillian

Well, I for one, do NOT want to read that. I would love to hear some good stuff. This woman got it right.

Why Viking?

by | Aug 18, 2022 | Uncategorized

Since my last post was about why we are leaving Celebrity Cruise Lines after 25+ cruises I thought I would give you a quick explanation of why we have decided that the first cruise line we will try post-Celebrity (other than some HAL, RCL and Azamara cruises we have already done) will be Viking Ocean.

The first reason is that one of our closest friends (who we met when we started working at our original Expedia office) has been on a bunch of Viking cruises and has many more planned. She sold us completely for a lot of reasons. For us, it pretty much comes down to what Viking has but maybe it is really more about what they don’t have.

Here are the things we love about Viking and why we can’t wait to board the Viking Sky in about two weeks.

  • No one under 18 can cruise on Viking. (It’s not that we don’t like kids; we took our grandkids on Royal Caribbean. That’s where kids belong.)
  • No smoking. Anyplace. We are vehement anti-smokers. I get the worst headaches when I breathe cigarette smoke.
  • No art auctions.
  • No casinos. These two normal places on most ships take up room that Viking uses for rest and relaxation.
  • No charge for beer or wine with lunch or dinner.
  • No ship photographers in your face all the time selling photos no experienced cruiser really wants.
  • No upselling in the spa.
  • No charge for internet access.
  • No charge for specialty restaurants. You are guaranteed two reservations per cruise and long-time Viking cruisers tell us it is no problem getting in to the restaurants on more nights than that once you are on board.
  • Viking includes one shore excursion in every port. These are usually walking tours of a downtown or coach tours of the surrounding area…or a combination of both. There are also other excursions you can purchase at reasonable prices.
  • All staterooms are at least verandahs. There are no inside (no windows) or outside (a window that does not open). There are also a few suites, but about 90% of the staterooms are verandahs.
  • Every stateroom has a minbar that is included. You know, like the ones in many cruise staterooms or hotels where a candy bar costs $5. Depending on the type of stateroom you are in, yours get restocked every day or every other day. Also depending on what stateroom you are in, you get alcoholic beverages in your minibar. In our Penthouse Verandah stateroom, ours will be refreshed every day and we do get gin, vodka, whiskey and one other liquor as well as mixers.

  • A couple relax inside a penthouse veranda stateroom on board the Viking Star

    All the staterooms are large staterooms. The smallest class of staterooms on the ship are 270 square feet. By comparison, the smallest staterooms on a Celebrity ship are 170 square feet. We are in a Penthouse Veranda (not a suite) and our stateroom is 338 square feet. That is only 40 square feet smaller than the Neptune Suite we were in last January on Nieuw Statendam. I am going to post a video tour of what our stateroom looks like once we are onboard. Based on what we have seen it is very comparable to what we had on Celebrity Flora.

    Penthouse Junior Suite Bathroom

  • The staterooms have huge bathrooms with heated floors and a gigantic (for a cruise ship regular verandah stateroom) shower enclosure and we get both a couch and a chair around a coffee table.
  • Only 928 guests on the entire ship. There are 465 crew members which is about a 2-1 ratio—above average for most cruise lines.
  • Their smaller ships can get into smaller ports. On our cruise next month we go to a lot of small towns in Greece, the Adriatic, Spain, France and the back side of Italy’s boot that a big cruise ship could not get near or would have to tender into.
  • Viking focuses on ports and traveling. Our cruise is from Athens to Barcelona with NO sea days (my next post will show you our complete itinerary). It will be exhausting but at least there are four overnights (Athens before, Venice, Livorno and Barcelona post-cruise).
  • No formal, fancy chic or “whatever cruise lines are calling it now” nights. Dress in the dining room is fairly casual. They just ask that you don’t wear shorts or jeans. That means less packing.
  • There is a full laundry on every deck. so more reasons you can pack less. There is no charge to use their laundry. All soap and fabric softener included. If you have clothes that need ironing, those are available too. And if you are in a PV or higher stateroom (like we are) all pressing is free.
  • No waiting in lines because there are so few guests and the ship is so well designed.
  • No nickel and diming. You can have a great cruise without paying an extra cent. Everything is included except gratuities and we pre-paid ours.
  • Much more interesting food. The menus look amazing as do the videos we have seen about the food.
  • The ships are gorgeous—a clean Scandinavian design. We have seen so many pictures, read a bunch of descriptions and watched a ton of videos.
  • No caste system. If you are in the lowest category of stateroom or the highest suite, no one will know what category you are in after you are on board. Everyone has access to everything. No special places/restaurants/sections for suite guests.
  • Longer cruises in more exotic places. I refuse to fly all the way to Europe for a 7-night cruise. Other than the Baltic, that’s about all Celebrity (and most other cruise lines) do anymore. Most of our Celebrity European and Down Under cruises were 14 nights minimum. Viking has 7, 14, 21, and 28-night cruises. That’s worth going to Europe for. And we are. Watch for our itinerary announcement early next week.
  • We have been told that their televisions play Downton Abbey on repeat. We LOVE Downton Abbey so we will be all set ? if we are stuck in our staterooms. I plan to watch the entire series all over again in between shore stops.

I think that pretty much covers it (as if that weren’t enough). And yes, it is more expensive. A Viking Ocean cruise is not cheap but we believe it is a great value. I priced out our 21-night cruise on Viking Sky against three seven-night cruises on Celebrity (they don’t have any 21-day cruises). When you add in everything we get and that they don’t have—Viking wins hands down. Come on along with us over the next few weeks and find out if we are right.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. —Warren Buffett

 

Why we are leaving Celebrity Cruise Line after 25+ cruises

by | Aug 16, 2022 | Uncategorized

Hi all! Long time, no write. Two weeks from today you will be hearing a lot from me as we start our next major adventure—almost a month in Europe. But before I get into that, I thought I should do a post to conclude our Celebrity Millenium cruise as well as answer the big question I have been getting from friends who want to know why we are abandoning our cruise line of choice since 2004—Celebrity.

Actually, they kind of abandoned us. Back in 2004 when we sailed on Infinity through the Panama Canal, we fell in love with a certain kind of cruising and that kind of cruising isn’t there anymore. Truth be told, we aren’t that kind of cruiser now either but let’s just say we have grown apart. But even though we have changed, Celebrity has changed in so many ways that we find just sad.

We have sailed on every ship in the old (and now retired) C class, all but one of the S class and all but one of the M class. Our Millennium cruise last May was our final one with mainstream Celebrity and maybe our worst with them yet (We will return to the Galapagos on Flora in 2024) but that doesn’t really count. Here are the changes X has made that really bother us:

  • Celebrity has bought into the caste system that so many other cruise lines are now into. When the majority of the ship can’t even see forward of the ship (other than from the gym) on sail away, this is just wrong. Some have bought into it because they sail in a suite. Most of most cruisers won’t have one. If you have money to buy into the “suite” life then they treat you well, otherwise, you are cattle.
  • The ridiculous Infinite Verandas. Call them what they are: an outside cabin that you pay more for and the window opens. And when the window opens, the AC goes off. And they are noisy. And the Captain can do whatever he wants with them (leave them open, close them all). Every single long-time X cruiser who we know that has tried one has said they will never get one again. Don’t believe me? Check out this video: Click here!
  • Celebrity has basically killed their Captain’s Club loyalty program. We worked hard and were ultra-loyal to become Elite Plus cruisers with them and now with their new “all-inclusive” program, they have negated 90% of the benefits to their loyal customers. We used to get 240 minutes of WiFi for free—now everyone gets it for free. We used to get a cocktail party for Elites members but not anymore. Now everyone gets free drinks so why bother? We used to get a lot of things. What do we get now? A bag of laundry and priority tendering (not worth anything).
  • When they brought out the Edge class they started refurbing the M and S class but doing things that I just hate. First, they took the wonderful Martini Bar (long a feature on all X ships) and made it a HUGE, impersonal place that is not the intimate, conversation spot that it used to be. Then they enlarged the gym by extending it out over the bridge where there used to be an open area you could stand and look forward. They made everything beige. Our stateroom on Millennium was so beige, that it was sometimes hard to tell where the bed was—it just disappeared into a sea of beige?. I could go on about all the blah stuff they have done to ships we love but why bother? Suffice it to say, their designers all are big into calm and soothing.
  • Digital everything is horrid. It’s amazing to me that Celebrity is owned by Royal Caribbean because RCL has the best internet at sea. Celebrity’s is horrible. Streaming is a joke. There were people on our Millennium cruise who tried to do an e-Med COVID test to get out of Canada and the chances of doing that online were next to zero. Their television choices are a joke. Movies that said they were free weren’t. And yes, who watches TV on a cruise? People trying to avoid COVID, people are quarantined, and people are sick. But nothing. Eight blurry channels and movies that said they were free until you got to the final screen and then it said $14, for an old movie. Even the map that shows where the ship is or the webcam on the bow were blurry. How can you not get a clear webcam video? We can get a better one with our Ring doorbell.  Oh, and their app (compared to others we have sailed with) is pretty poor.
  • Food—this has long been one of X’s strong points but not anymore. First, they removed so many restaurants that we loved. On our Millennium cruise, we didn’t go to a specialty restaurant, even once. They were either boring or ugly. And don’t get me going about the stupid Petit Chef which is all about the show and not the food. X replaced an incredible restaurant (Qsine–where the food was interesting and amazing) with this cartoon version of a restaurant. They took away the United States Dining Room on Infinity years ago (as well as the other ship-named specialty restaurants on the M-class ships) where we had some of the best meals of our lives and they removed Murano (a kind of successor to the United States Dining Room).At the same time, the food in the other venues got worse as well. On our May cruise, we sailed in Aqua Class so we ate our breakfasts and dinners in Blu, the Aqua class dining room. How bad was it, here’s what I had to say in my ship’s review:“The food was horrid. I actually sent back three different dishes. I have NEVER done that before. It embarrassed the staff in Blu. But when the pasta tastes like rubber (I tried to cut it with a knife and it would NOT cut) or the fries are cold when they get to the table, what else is there to do?
    You have ceased to care about little things. For instance, the Daily had Cinco de Mayo all over the cover. In the past when we have been on board over that type of holiday, there would have been Mexican food maybe…but nothing but the everyday chips, cheese and refried beans at the buffet. Not even salsa. Speaking of the buffet…so much of the food was cold. The door next to the salad station was kept closed but the door across from the pizza station to the Sunset Bar was wide open. Result=cold pizza and warm salad. And try to get someone to take a drink order and return before you finish your lunch or dinner—good luck”. 

For another take on the food, here’s what my brother said about the food we ate in Blu on the Millennium cruise in his post-cruise evaluation:

“While the service was outstanding, the food in Blu was poor or boring; if Blu were a restaurant in our city and we went there for dinner we would never dine there again. When we were on Holland America their “Orange” dining had bold and spicy selections that were remarkable. Holland’s breakfast selections were better and more extensive. Some notable food failures in Blu: veal scallopini that was so rubbery it was difficult to chew, pasta undercooked that it was sent back, and salsa that was only chopped tomatoes. The bread spreads offered with butter at dinner in the 3-bay tray were usually ground carrot, corn and peas. The carrots, corn and peas were BABY FOOD. Nothing was added to them; just BORING. The beet had some taste, but the carrot, corn and pea were just YUCK. On past cruises, there were other more tasteful options, e.g., olive tapenade. The dinner bread was just ok; on past cruises, there were more options in the bread basket, e.g., brown bread, and olive bread. The bottled wine selections were mostly “out”.  The wine menu on the Celebrity app noted too many wines that the ship did not have.”  

All of this just makes me sad. If we have to pay extra to get a suite we may as well take that money and move up to a better line like Viking Ocean (where we are going) or Oceania (we will try them in 2023). With Viking for the same price as a suite on X, we get a ship where everyone is treated equally except for just a few unnoticeable perks you get for being in a suite.

So that’s where we are on Celebrity. We still plan on doing one more cruise but on Flora to the Galapagos in 2024. But we won’t sail on one of their big ocean ships again unless someone offers us a free cruise. After more than 25 cruises, we will kind of miss them. But not enough to put up with all this. We just want the old Celebrity back…but we know that’s not going to happen. If you are new to Celebrity, we wish you well but just know you really missed their glory years.

Stick with me here on the blog. I will be back with a preview of our upcoming Viking Cruise in the next week. Then (I hope) there will be almost an entire month of travel to report on.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you’re ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out of the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off. —Nipsey Hussle

Life is certainly interesting

by | Jun 3, 2022 | Food Experiences, Photography

As I write this, I am sitting in the waiting area for Proliance Surgeons as Kathleen is getting her elbow repaired. We are now fully moved into our new home (except for about 20 boxes we still need to empty), have sold our old one (escrow closes on the 16th), and things are indeed…”interesting.”

When Kathleen asked me what I was going to do while she was getting cut (surgery takes 90 minutes, but she is in pre-op for 2 hours and then post-op for two hours), I said it was about time I finished up the Pacific Coastal cruise report, so here we go.

San Francisco—I used to like this town.

Ok, I still do like this town, but I am also kind of ticked at the city. This is the city where Kathleen found a nice lip on a sidewalk and took the fall that led to the surgery she is having now. But you already knew that, so here’s what we did that day.

Our ship was in port for two days. I had hoped to get up early and be on deck when we sailed under the Golden Gate, but we were already docked when I woke up and looked outside at 4:30 am. I guess I could have taken pics of us coming in but they all would have been black scenics.

The ship was docked at Pier 27, about halfway between the Ferry Building and Fisherman’s Wharf, right on the Embarcadero. After breakfast, the four of us set off on a walk towards Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39 and Boudin’s Sourdough Bakery. Lots of photos on the way you can see in the gallery below. We stopped for coffee at Boudin’s, and then Kathleen and I headed back to the ship via Uber while Jamie and Steve went exploring.

That afternoon we had scheduled another food tour with Local Tastes of the City Tours. We had chosen to do their North Beach/Little Italy tour. They also do a Chinatown tour, but we went that way since I love Italian food more than Asian. We took an Uber up from the ship to meet our guide smack dab in the middle of Little Italy. We four were part of a group of 14 who would take the tour, which started with us eating a cannoli on the street corner where we met up. They were delicious, but I sure would have liked to see the places where they came from. Our guide just brought them along with her from Stella Pastry about half a block away.

Then it was off to cross the street to Cavalli Cafe, where we tried Italian sodas (definitely the weakest link on this tour), but they did have a nice restroom. This was also one of the few stops where we got to go into someplace and sit down. The rest of the tour involved our guide (who was very good) going into the store/restaurant and bringing the food out to us to eat on the street. While all the food we had was excellent, this got a little annoying after a while—eating on a sidewalk with people walking by. But as I said before, life is certainly interesting.

After Italian sodas, we went on to a fun little Sicilian delicatessen about a block away to try arancini (rice balls full of meat and cheese). The food was fine, but the real attraction here was the owner, who came out on the street and pretty much put on a comedy show. As you can see from the photo, he is a pretty animated Sicilian who truly loves his store. A few days later, I have to say that we had arancini in Victoria, BC, which was a lot better.

I should also note that none of these places were more than about two blocks from another, so this was not a long tour by any stretch. As we walked, our guide Isabella told us all about the history of the neighborhoods we were walking through. She was genuinely well-versed in her San Francisco lore.

Our next stop was our favorite on the tour, San Francisco’s oldest Italian market, Molinari’s. Inside this place was AMAZING! If we had a place like this near home, I might ask for a job or spend a lot of money there regularly. I have some great photos of the inside of these places in the gallery below. BTW: This place had the best sandwiches I may ever have eaten. Don’t ask me why, but I think it’s because everything was just perfect, from the bread to the cold cuts and veggies inside. It was so good it would almost be worth a trip back to the city to eat there.

After we left Molinari’s, we walked a bit, and I climbed a high set of stairs to take pics with a few others from the tour (see the gallery), and we were headed to Z Cioccolato to get some of their amazing fudge. But sadly, we never got there. About 25 feet to the right of this photo is where Kathleen fell and broke her elbow. From there, we hailed an Uber and drove quickly back to the ship. We had hoped that she wasn’t hurt too badly, but by the time we got down to the ship, it was evident that we needed to get to a doctor or an ER.

At this point, I need to point out that we did have a little bit of good luck because the ship was in San Francisco overnight. If that had not been the case, and seeing that it was already after 3:00 pm, we would have been in real trouble as the ship would have sailed at 4:30 pm, leaving us behind to fly home on our own. That’s what happens with ships. That would have given us some real problems for so many reasons.

After we got back to the ship and dropped Steve and Jamie off, we grabbed another Uber and had them take us to the nearest Kaiser hospital (our HMO). It wasn’t too far away, but when you are driving bumpy streets with a broken elbow, it seems like 100 miles. We had high hopes that we would be out of there within a couple of hours and make it back for dinner. Unfortunately, that was not to be. We were in the ER for more than six hours from start to finish. And they were so crowded they wouldn’t let me in the building (not even a waiting room) due to COVID restrictions for the first three hours. I got so stand outside in the cold wind. This was not one of my most fun experiences.

Kathleen left with a fully wrapped arm in a splint (that had to be kept DRY), and we got back to the ship about 9:30. My brother had arranged for a wheelchair to get her back on board, and by that time, she needed it. So we got a very late room service dinner and went to bed.

One other thing I want to mention before I drop in the photos. The folks at Local Tastes Tours were awesome when this all happened. Our guide (after making sure we were doing OK) ran to the chocolate store and grabbed fudge for all of us to enjoy later. Then that evening, I got an e-mail from the tour company owner asking how Kathleen was and sending us a certificate for a free tour for four the next time we are in San Francisco. Of course, he did not need to do that, but this is the sign of a great company, and then our guide Isabella sent me a separate e-mail asking how she was doing. They were just wonderful. I can’t recommend them highly enough. Don’t forget, these pics look much better if you click on one and watch them as a slide show, either on a computer or a tablet.

That was about it for day one in the city by the bay. As if that wasn’t enough. As I am finishing this, we are back home after Kathleen’s surgery, and she is OK and doing well. Her elbow just needed some repairs but not a complete replacement. Thank heaven (or whoever) for that.

Nothing important has ever come out of San Francisco, Rice-a-Roni aside.
—Michael O’Donoghue