Clocks

Been a little remiss in my blogging the last few days, so time to catch up. Couple of sunny days, couple of cloudy days, lots of water, no other ships. For those who read the blog last October, you know that along about now, the sixth sea day in a row, we have had our fill of the daily activities and are ready for a port. That does not come until day after tomorrow, as we still have today and Tuesday at sea.

We’re happy to report that the passengers offloaded onto the pilot boats off the coast of Bermuda are reported to be doing well. Tom has spent each morning doing his walking or elliptical and then taking a hot steam and jacuzzi. Cheryl has been attending port lectures. And we both have been doing a lot of reading and we have both been just sitting on the back patio watching the water. But we do both think this is likely our last cruise with a lot of sea days. Either it is the rest of the clientele that goes a little stir crazy, or it is us. But whichever, we notice a little craziness that seeps in around about the fourth day...as in the lady up in the Skywalkers who yelled at me for moving a chair in order to get out from the table. Actually told me the exit was on the other side and I should not be moving the empty chair across from her...!??

Beause of the time change and our direction of travel, we set the clocks forward each day for FIVE days in a row. Since the passengers apparently grumble about ‘losing all that sleep’ when one does that at 2 am, on this ship we do it at 11 am. Yes, as in an announcement comes on the speaker something like this: “the time is 11am, the clocks are being set forward one hour, the time is now 12 noon.” Since we are a contained group, it seems to work pretty well. No events are scheduled between 11 and 12 and the passengers are happy because it means less time between breakfast and lunch.

On Wednesday we arrive in Madeira, and I hope to have something a little more interesting to twll you by then.

Slight Detour

We’re going to Bermuda!

But not for long, as in we won’t even get off the ship. Early this morning about 6 a.m. a Holland America ship came quite close and offloaded an ill passenger to our ship. Turns out we also have an ill passenger, so both of them will be transferred to a hospital in Bermuda about 7 pm tonight. 😳

The captain has said that both patients are stable, so our thoughts are with them and their families with the hope that they both recover.

And off we go...really!

We are now at sea, enjoying our first full day of seven days crossing the Atlantic. Weather today is beautiful and warm, and we are feeling very virtuous with our restraint on food choices and our (well, make that Tom’s) determination to stay on track with the exercise program. He is out right now doing his four miles on deck. I am sitting out on the ‘back porch’ watching the ocean.

To continue with yesterday’s saga—The ship had been in drydock last week, and only left the shipyard yesterday morning, arriving in Fort Lauderdale around 7:30. Then came the government inspections; the ship having had some minor changes made meant the entire ship had to undergo a health department inspection. People had been notified by email that boarding would be delayed by a couple of hours, and we were asked not to arrive until 2:00, when they would start boarding. When we arrived at 1:30, there were 1500 people ahead of us in the terminal, which was packed full.

So they put all the newly arriving on-time people into a different terminal across the parking lot, and we all got to wait two hours while they emptied the first terminal before bringing the second terminal occupants back over to the first terminal and actually checking in. This made a lot of people grumpy, particularly since they had not yet eaten and thought they would have been aboard and fed three or four hours earlier. And even the delayed boarding plan ended up being further delayed, with people still coming onboard while they were running the muster drill, and that ran late, so first seating dining was started late, which made everyone else run late.

From what we have seen and from what the staff has told us, most of the changes were related to the implementaion plan for the Ocean Medallion, the new electronic wristband system that Princess (will- eventually-be) using on all its ships. The plan and the implementation are...umm...not matching. All ships were originally supposed to have this up and running in 2018. This trip on the Crown was planned to be using it. But so far, the first ship is still in the testing phase, with only a couple hundred rooms operational, and the ship-wide implementation is now something like six months in the making.

That did not stop them from rewiring much of this ship, however. We have new touch pads outside the doors, there are digital (eventually interactive) screens where the old ship maps used to be in the elevator lobbies, we even have three, count’em three!, little near field infrared gadgets in each stateroom. One in the bathroom (really? 😳!), one in the bedroom and one out on the balcony. I am beginning to understand why some people fear this new technology and want to keep the old-fashioned key cards.

We also got huge new TV’s in each room, 42” or so. It appears these will also someday also be interactive, but as of now it is still the same old system with a bigger display. There is new carpet in the hallways, but they still have a little design detail to distinguish the port and starboard sides. We’ve also seen new atrium decor, carpet and lighting.

The crew from the captain on down has bent over backwards apologizing for the ship being not-quite-ready or up to usual standards, but in reality, what’s missing is minor, correctable stuff; pools not filled until today, hot water was just warm, new carpet fuzz and contruction dust and bits and blobs here and there...all madly being tidied up by regular staff as well as a slew of contractors working on the Ocean Medallion program.

The Good News Is....

...it’s all gonna work out fine.

Bad News: Our travel companion Jackie was at the airport waiting to board her plane when it had mechanical trouble and had to turn back.

Good News: Delta re-booked her in First Class on a flight arriving only a few hours later.

Bad News: They aren’t sure where her luggage is.

Good News: Ever since her bags were misdirected during Superstorm Sandy in 2012, she travels with ‘emergency spare clothing’ in the carryon in case the luggage does not show up until, oh, Dubrovnik.

Bad News: Dubrovnik in this case is Funchal, our first port, in Seven days. The emergency clothing will be stretched thin by then.

Good News: The ship doesn’t leave until 6pm Tuesday. It’s only Monday.

Stay tuned for the Tuesday update.....

Tuesday Update.....

Bad News: The bag did not arrive in FLL with Jackie. It did go on her same plane to Atlanta, but then it got misdirected and spent a few extra hours wandering around the Atlanta airport.

Good News: They found the bag and delivered it overnight to our hotel; Jackie picked it up just before breakfast. See? I told you it was all gonna work out. 😁

Further News: Jackie discovered her brand new bag has a torn off bumper corner with exposed screws poking through. We’ll see what the ship repair staff can do about it, but until then.... duct tape.

Fort Lauderdale and More

Yesterday we did spring, winter and summer all in one day. Left Albuquerque where the fruit trees were doing their showy pink and white blossoms thing while the cottonwoods were all leafing out in the pale first green of spring. Landed in Kansas City where it was 27 and snowing. De-iced the plane and we took off for Fort Lauderdale, where it is 75, sunny and warm.

It was a long day, but we gathered our luggage, called an Uber and made it to the hotel without incident. About midnight local time we were tucked in bed and ready for a long sleep.

Today we did not have much pre-planned, so we called another Uber and went to the Museum of Science and Discovery downtown. There we experienced a hurricane, road an airboat through the Everglades, rode on a Mars Rover and fought the bad guys in a 7D flight, all in about 30 minutes through the magic of virtual reality rides. Then we went outside and played in their new physics exhibit. Used pulleys to lift ourselves seceral feet in the air, turned a flywheel to operate a fan and mister cooling system, used pressure to lauch balls through hoops ala quidditch, made sound waves into music qnd played dueling water rockets. There were a few kids out there, but the adults were having all the fun.

They have a 4K Laser 3D IMAX here at the museum, the only one in Florida. It has an 80 foot screen, 114 speakers and so we decided it would be the Ideal Venue in which to watch Ready Player One.

Oh. My. Was it ever. If you are going to see this movie, you really should see it on a giant 3D screen. Makes all the Virtual Reality scenes seem like, well, watching through VR glasses. Kind of blurs the lines between the reality and the virtual. The movie premise was a typical young adult book plot (boy meets girl, together with their friends they take on the big bad corporate villains and after multiple battles, difficult obstacles and tests of honor and humanity, the kids finally win in the end). I thought it was very enjoyable, and there were loads of early tech references that only senior-agers will fully appreciate. The original Batmobile, Back To The Future Deloreans, Atari game cartridges. And with the growing eSports business, the movie virtual world is growing closer to the Real World. Check out our nephew Matt’s company, Ghost Gaming on Twitch. (Twitch is a whole separate portal of the interet used by people who want to watch streaming broadcasts, such as esports games)

https://cybersport.com/post/ghost-win-pgl-pubg-invitational

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-twitch-4143337

And we’re off!

Almost. Bags are packed, diet compliant lunches and dinner packed, all we have left to do is await Peter, our airport driver, and turn on the alarms....and wait two hours. We finished up a little early, LOL. That, and we usually take a morning flight, but the best option for both price and connection this time leaves in the early afternoon. We don’t arrive in FLL until late tonight (temp. 75 and probably a similar humidity factor) after passing through Kansas City (temp. 28 with snow showers, 1-2” expected). Rather a wide range of weather today.

Because we have this extra time to kill, I have already checked our inbound flight information...our plane is on its way from Oklahoma City to Las Vegas. Then it goes from Las Vegas to Albuquerque where we join it, on to Kansas City, then Fort Lauderdale where we depart and then it goes on to Baltimore, arriving at some oh-dark-thirty time after midnight. And there were two legs before all the above, STL to HOU to OKC, making for quite a long day and definitely at least two crew changes. Yep, I am definitely finding myself with too much waiting time on my hands. Tom, not so much...

First let me say, Happy Easter to all of you, and second, I won’t be playing any April Fool’s jokes on any of you, so please don’t anyone play them on us. I’m already a Nervous Nelly what with Tom already yelling ‘Holy Shit, I forgot to pack my...cpap, passport, charger cords’. It would be funny if he was just trying to play a joke, but this is even funnier than that. He really did forget the Cpap, and the passport is still sitting on top of the dresser. Good thing he still has two hours left to remember anything else. Yes, we have a packing list, yes, all that stuff is on it. Tom just uses such lists as ‘yeah yeah, I’ll remember that’ reminders instead of actually checking things off as they go in the bag. 😳🙏🏻

And so it begins...

This is the latest we have started to haul out the ‘stuff’ in preparation for a trip. It is but one week before we head out on our next adventure, and while that might be too far in advance for the ultra-travelers among the rest of you, it is about half the time we usually like to have. Between laundry, checking which clothes still fit, sorting through the list of what we need, and don’t need....well, we just prefer having a few extra days to track down any missing or replacement travel needs.

Today I thought I would pack up the toiletry kit, along with the emergency pharmacy, the plane/hotel/ship anti-illness wipes, the money belt, electrical converters...and whatever else fits in that general category and is needed for this trip. Here is the photo of my supply boxes of things I might need:

Somehow, what I do need to take has to fit into that red toiletry kit on the bottom left. So I clearly have a bunch of sorting to do tomorrow, lol. Does it help that I did get my pill boxes filled for the full three week trip?