Christmas Ships

Posted on December 23, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

this is my very favorite Christmas tree ship – my aunt had it made for me one from one of her photos one Christmas after we sailed on the Veendam and I was disappointed that they did not have any ship model ornaments in the gift shop that cruise

The first thing I look for on a cruise as soon as the gift shop opens is a ship model Christmas tree ornament of that ship. They are far more likely to be available on wintertime sailings than other times of the year, though it would definitely be nice if they were always there. Many cruise lines have them, but not all. On MSC Divina they had an entire shop dedicated to models of the ship in many different sizes and varieties, yet out of all that not one ornament ship. None of the other MSC ships we’ve been on ever had ship ornaments either, though they too had numerous other ship models. On P&O the shop workers had no idea such a thing even existed, yet other lines in the Carnival family like Holland America, Princess, and Carnival have them – at least seasonally.

Carnival Breeze

Carnival Magic

Carnival Splendor

snorkeling Santa found in Carnival gift shop

I have more Carnival ships than any other line, too many to post photos of them all so this is just a sampling. One cruise near Christmas I found more than just the cruise ship model. They had an array of other ornaments to choose from as well. I love to snorkel, so I couldn’t resist the snorkeling Santa. I also bought a pirate hermit crab there, which is photobombing the Oosterdam’s picture.

Holland America Oosterdam

Holland America Westerdam

I did not get a ship model ornament on my other cruise on the Veendam either, but did get Holland America ornaments of the Oosterdam and Westerdam while on those ships.

Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas

Norwegian Sun

Norwegian Pearl

Celebrity Infinity

Other lines not affiliated with Carnival have ship model ornaments too. I have found them on Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian as well.

kayaking Santa

if you’re a fan of A Christmas Story you will totally get this leg lamp ornament.

Not everything on my tree is cruise ships. There’s lots of Santas doing all sorts of things, some other boats, and a whole lot of other stuff. Just no single color undecorated plain round balls.

Ruby Princess

Royal Princess

Princess ships have a name stand at the bottom that none of the other lines’ Christmas tree ship models have.

Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas – biggest ship and biggest ship model ornament

Not all the ships are made to the same scale. Even within the same line some ships that are smaller in reality have bigger models, but the biggest ship I had ever sailed on at the time had the biggest ship model ornament. It is considerably bigger than any of the others, far more so than the actual ship in comparison to other ships.

Wonder of the Seas ornament

Symphony was the biggest ship in the world when I sailed on it, but now Wonder of the Seas is bigger. It however did not have any ship model ornaments available on the recent cruise I took on it. It did have some ship ornaments, just not any that were also ship models. I got one of what they had when we first boarded just in case those sold out and they didn’t have anything better once they unloaded whatever new stuff had come in for the shop that cruise. Looking again later they still didn’t have any ship model ornaments, but they did have a wooden one that I liked better, which was also cheaper than the first one, which is just a flattened plastic ball so I bought the wooden one too.

nicer, but cheaper Wonder of the Seas ornament

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2022
Posted in Randoms, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Go Port Cruise Shuttle

Posted on December 16, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

MSC Meraviglia in Port Canaveral

Port Canaveral is the most inconvenient of any port we’ve sailed from. The nearest airport is in Orlando, about 40 miles away so it’s a bit far for uber or taxis. You can book shuttles through cruise lines, but the more people you travel with the less budget-friendly that is. Rental cars are another option, but unless you’re traveling with a large group it’s a pricey one. Plus you have to either turn the car in when you get to Cocoa Beach and take a shuttle from the car lot to the port, and then take one back for another rental car afterword (which we know from past experience can be a long wait with a crowd of other people doing the same thing), or pay for both car rental and port parking for the whole time you’re away on the cruise. For people flying in from far enough away to require a night’s hotel stay there’s another option. You can book a hotel through Go Port for a fly & snooze package. They provide busses that pick up from a number of hotels with varying prices for the night’s stay plus transportation to the port from the hotel and back to the airport from the port. Most hotels have airport shuttles so transportation is often covered from the airport to the hotel as well. We picked this option for a cruise on Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas, with a stay at a Marriott in Orlando. Go Port also has direct shuttles from the airport for people flying in same day as well as snooze and park or just parking options. There are also other companies that provide shuttles to Port Canaveral.

view from our room at the Marriott in Orlando

The hotel had a nice pool and a small bar with a bistro. It was next door to a couple restaurants so we had dinner at TGI Fridays. We were not there long enough to try the pool or any other hotel amenities

When we first booked we were given a cruise shuttle pick-up time of 9:30 am, which was changed to 8:30, then 8:00. The people at the hotel’s front desk said the bus would pull up to the front door where we could see it from the lobby seating, but it went to the side of the hotel where you couldn’t see the bus from the lobby at all instead. Go Port did send in someone to line up all the people and check them all in so nobody would miss it, but except from very close-up that person was not identifiable as being from Go Port. There were also a number of new crew in the same lobby waiting for their bus. We initially thought that line was for them until some very obviously not crew people got into it. Sometimes one bus will take people to several different ships, but they had enough people waiting that day for each ship to have its own bus. Our bus only picked up from one other hotel. Probably why the time got changed to earlier because the bus had to go back for another run of people to the port after dropping us off.

line nowhere near the actual boarding line

Ports these days usually line people up according to assigned boarding times, which are chosen when completing the online registration on Royal Caribbean. Our boarding time was noon. When we got there we saw they had lines for times starting as early as 10am, though noon had been the earliest of the options I had to choose from. Normally when you get to the port you line up in the section reserved for your boarding time. This time they would not let anyone from the earlier arriving busses into those empty lines, but rather sent us all somewhere else. By the time the port workers finally let us over to those lines they were already full of people from later arriving busses who were allowed to go straight into the boarding lines so we all got stuck behind people who came long after we did.  On that cruise we would have had a better place in line if the shuttle had stuck to its original later pick-up time.

Wonder of the Seas in Port Canaveral

To make matters worse this was Wonder’s first cruise out of this port after having just arrived from Europe so it had to undergo a coast guard inspection before boarding could begin, making the wait to board longer than normal. Avoid booking the first cruise after a ship has just arrived to the USA if you can as that inspection requirement can really mess with the boarding process.

Once boarding finally started they quickly emptied the priority lines and the ones for before noon, which hardly had anyone in them. The empty lines quickly filled with people just arriving at the port who were let in without so much as a glance at what their actual scheduled boarding time was while the people roped into lines with later boarding times who had already been waiting several hours waited more even though it was late enough that some of those lines should have already been boarding.

The GoPort shuttle did their part as scheduled, but once we were off the bus and at the port this was the most disorganized boarding we’ve ever seen. It definitely would have gone smoother without the hold-up for the coast guard inspection, but even with that it certainly could have been handled way better and far more fairly than it was. Of course none of that was Go Port’s fault as they just unloaded the bus where the empty lines were set up and then left for the next batch, probably unaware we were not let into those lines.

MSC Meraviglia in Port Canaveral

Getting on the MSC Meraviglia, which we boarded the day we disembarked Wonder of the Seas, went much smoother than boarding the Wonder. The Go Port pick-up from that dock after the cruise ended wasn’t so easy though. Apparently terminal 10 where the Meraviglia docked is the last stop for Go Port busses taking people to the airport after disembarking a cruise in Port Canaveral. A bus looking pretty much full pulled up after we’d waited about 20 minutes or so. Instead of incoming passengers for the next cruise who would get off and make room for the people waiting it was full of people from other ships on their way to the airport. Only the first three couples to check in got on. We were the fifth and had to wait for the next bus along with 2 other couples. It came nearly an hour later, again nearly full. By then there were significantly more people waiting than when the last bus came, but only 4 couples got on so there was only one couple out of those two busses that didn’t have to wait for a second bus. It looks like MSC passengers who don’t have a lot of hours between when they disembark and their flight could not count on Go Port to get them to the airport on time. If we had needed to get to the airport quickly we would have had to call an uber even though we’d already paid for a round trip on the Go Port shuttle. We weren’t in any kind of hurry that day though. We were originally scheduled for an afternoon flight, but the night before disembarkation we got a notice from the airline that it had been cancelled and we couldn’t fly out until the next morning so we had to spend an unplanned night at a hotel anyway. Hotel shuttles pick up at the same spot at the Orlando airport where the Go Port shuttle drops off, and one for the hotel we had booked just happened to pull up for a drop-off right after we got off the bus so we didn’t even have to wait for it.

Our sailing on the Meraviglia was a couple weeks before the one currently in the news where someone “fell” off. I put that in quotes because as much as the news stories like to make it sound like people just accidently walk off the edge of the deck and fall into the sea, that actually is not possible on any cruise ship. To end up in the sea a passenger would have to either climb over a safety railing or get pushed or thrown over because there is nowhere on any cruise ship where open decks are not surrounded by railings. Those railings are there for a reason since people who go overboard rarely survive.

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Northeast Scenic Drive

Posted on December 9, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

roadside creek

Traveling from Stoddard, New Hampshire to Jay Peak, Vermont, we took the long way so we could cross the Cornish-Windsor covered bridge. This bridge links Cornish, New Hampshire to Windsor, Vermont across the Connecticut River and is the longest wooden covered bridge of its era still standing. The bridge is 449 feet long and was built in 1886. It’s the third longest covered bridge in the world. The Hartland Covered Bridge in New Brunswick, Canada is the longest, more than twice its length at 1,282 feet. The longest one in the USA is the Smolen-Gulf Bridge at 613 feet crossing the Ashtabula River in Ohio.

Cornish-Windsor bridge

Cornish-Windsor is the fourth bridge on the site with the first 3 destroyed by floods. The first bridge on the site was built in 1796. The current bridge had some flood damage in 1977, which was repaired. The bridge closed for deterioration in 1987, but was restored and re-opened in 1989. There is space to park alongside the road for bridge tourists on the New Hampshire side. The Vermont side has no parking signs.

old church

Our route brought us along small country roads – one of them gravel – and through small towns. Throughout New Hampshire a lot of the towns had what looked to be an old church marked as the town hall, but once we got into Vermont the old churches mostly appeared to be still functioning as churches. Some of the towns were so small there wasn’t much other than the church there, but others were actually functioning towns. Gas stations and grocery stores are scarce or non-existent in a lot of them. Though we were there in October before heading to Vermont we’d seen more green trees than fall color. There were patches along the way where it was just the opposite with bright reds, vivid yellows, and even some orange leaves outnumbering the green.

view of the parking area and river through a window in the bridge

When we got to the bridge we were happy to see the area where people can pull over and park. It was quite the tourist attraction with cars bearing license plates from assorted states coming and going in the small roadside parking area, and people taking photos of the bridge. It’s just wide enough for one car going each way, but the traffic was not constant so there was frequently time between cars to get a better look.  One couple came wandering out of the bridge on foot saying the view was fantastic through the little windows on the sides of the bridge, so of course we had to check it out. They were right about that, and there is room to get out of the way should a car come through.

tourists taking photos of the bridge

The front of the bridge had a sign saying there was a fine for not walking your horse across, but there were no horses to be seen and as cars came fairly often and fairly fast it wouldn’t really be safe to take a horse across at any speed. In between cars people took photos from the road, ever watchful as you might have to move quickly out of the way at any second. From the far side of the guardrail people could take photos in relative safety from either side of the bridge. We did not ever see two cars come from opposite sides at the same time, but if they did one would have to wait as they could not pass by each other inside of the bridge. Across the street there was a small building with a giant saw blade out front.

building with a sawblade

Once we finished taking our photos we drove across the bridge. We were glad that the New Hampshire side had that little parking area since the Vermont side not only had nowhere to park near the bridge, but also signs saying there was a fine for doing so. Foliage in Vermont was mostly the same as it had been in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts, which is to say more green than color in most places, but here and there patches with more color.

skeleton horse and buggy driver

When we passed by a house with a Halloween display that had a life-sized skeleton driver in a buggy with a skeleton horse John had to stop and take a photo. Perhaps that driver tried to cross the bridge by horse and buggy amidst the car traffic!

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Things to Do on Celebrity Constellation

Posted on December 2, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Constellation in Curacao

Each night after the evening cabin cleaning a paper with what’s going on the next day was left in the cabin. It always included a schedule of the day’s events and activities. They had the usual cruise ship fare of trivia, dance classes, exercise classes, games, competitions, lectures, and shows. Instead of bingo they had something called Deal or No Deal, modeled after the TV show of the same name. We looked into it one day and saw in the lounge where it was to be held, in the line waiting to buy cards, the most people we had seen in one place since boarding the ship. That includes the dining room and buffet, neither of which were ever crowded. Not that there wasn’t room enough in that lounge for all the people there, or that it would even be considered a crowd on most ships, but for this one it was since there were only 700 passengers onboard a ship that holds over 2000. You could buy one card, or for a better per card price a group of 3. The prizes offered included a free cruise, $1000, and early on in the cruise an upgrade to a suite for the rest of the cruise. On the outside all the cards looked the same with little cases numbered in a row like on the TV show, but each card is different when you open the tiny paper cases.

Deal or No Deal in the Reflections Lounge

Each card has a serial number. At the start of the game one person is picked by that number. They know who has each number and the system knows what is under each case on each card. The choice appears as random as the numbers on a screen that rapidly change until they stop on the chosen one, but who knows how random that actually is when the computer system picking the winner knows everything. The person whose card number and name gets called goes down by the screen and picks cases like on the show, except these are just pictures of cases on a video screen rather than actual physical ones. The cases on the screen go up to $1000, but the ones on the cards only go up to $50. If your card matches 2 or more of the numbers in the same case number as shown on the screen you win something. 2 numbers wins $5 in casino play (where the minimum bet on table games is $10). 3 matches wins $10 in casino play. The max prize there was 8 matches for $400 in casino play. Several people won $5 or $10 and one $50, but that was all.

one of the ship’s shops

The person actually playing gets to pick cases and then gets offers from the banker for actual cash amounts depending on what they have left available to win on the board just like on the show. The game has 2 rounds, each with a different player. The offers throughout both rounds ran from $119 to $196. The highest amount the person playing can win is $1000. One of the players stayed in until the end and ended up with $0.25 in their case. The other one took a deal for $196, which was a good choice since their chosen case contained $0.01. After the 2 rounds another card serial number is chosen for someone to spin a wheel where they get a 50% chance of winning a cruise and a 50% chance of various amounts of casino play. It’s not a real wheel, again a computer image so the results may or may not be random. The winner got $100 in casino play. It’s a pretty good money maker for the ship selling cards at $25 each or 3 for $40 and not actually giving out much cash. Plus sending the winners into the casino to spend more money. They probably make pretty good money at the ship’s shops too. They did not have the one thing I always buy if it’s available though, which is a Christmas tree ornament ship model.

spa treatment room

As is normal with cruise ships, the Constellation has a spa, though massages and things there were priced higher than we cared to pay so we didn’t use it.

gym

The gym equipment is available to use for free on your own. They also had a few classes there.

guest lecturer

The lectures in the theater were actually real lectures about whatever the subject said they were, at least the ones from outside people. Their destinations lecturer even mentioned using reef safe sunscreen, something the cruise lines themselves should make an effort to educate people about considering how many people they bring to coral reefs daily. We tried attending a lecture at the photo shop that sounded like it would be information about go-pro cameras, but it turned out to be just a sales pitch to buy one. Go-pros were the only cameras they had for sale there. Usually there are little pocket cameras available. I bought one on a ship once when the one I’d brought died during our cruise. My cell phone would be the back-up now I guess, but it would not be able to go in the water when snorkeling like my waterproof camera does.

solarium

Our favorite hangout on the Constellation was the solarium, which is kind of like a bigger version of the pool area of some ship’s thermal suites, except on this one it’s a free space. It has what they call a thalassotherapy pool. Much like the pool in the thermal suite on some ships it had racks to lay on with jets under them and some fountains, except in the thermal suites the water in those pools is usually warmer. The solarium also has some hot tubs and cushioned loungers with a view. Towels are available near all Constellation’s pool areas without having to check them out on your room card like some ships require. The solarium even has a small café that serves smoothies for a price and things like small salads and other tidbits for free at lunchtime. It’s an indoor area under glass rather than out in the elements like the main pool deck so there’s protection from wind, sun, and rain. When the café is open there are things to drink that don’t cost anything like tea, coffee, water, and juice. There’s also a bar just the other side of the door to the main pool area where people can get something to drink when the café is not open, or all sorts of things not offered at the café even when it is. Of course drinks from the bar do cost extra.

view from the solarium loungers by the window

Ships moving through the water often scare up flying fish so it’s fun to watch for them while sailing along. Sometimes there’s other wildlife too. Usually birds, but people may see other things like dolphins occasionally too.

random ping-pong table

We tried the cornhole game sitting up on the pool deck one day, which was a slick plastic one that said baggo rather than cornhole on it. We’re usually pretty good at that game, but this one was both more flexible and slicker than the usual wooden ones are. Instead of sliding into the hole the beanbags would slide right over it and off the top end of the board. They only went in from a direct hit on the hole without touching the board at all. Even landing one on the board happened much less often than usual as any that hit tended to slide off rather than sticking. There’s also a ping-pong table onboard for something people can do on their own.

little nook by windows

The ship has lots of little nooks with seating where people can read or watch the sea go by.

library

It also has an internet room with computers available for anyone who didn’t bring their own, but you don’t have to go to the internet room to use the wifi as it is available in your own cabin and around the ship. You do have to buy an internet package to use it though unless you got one included in your cruise fare. You can use it free for the Celebrity app on phones, but not for anything else on the phone. A stairway leads between the internet room and a library on the deck below.

casino

The casino usually had high minimum bets and not much business, but one day they had a half price time to attract more people. Their daily schedule advertised poker tournaments and nightly cash games, but not enough people to actually hold them ever showed up so there wasn’t any poker during our cruise.

line dance class

We’re more the entertain yourselves sort than joiners of scheduled activities, but sometimes we give it a go. We participated in a few activities on the Constellation. I tried a line dancing class, which was fun as well as good exercise. They broke down each dance into a series of steps learned one set at a time, then put them all together for the whole dance. It really didn’t matter whether people were any good at it or not. It was all just for fun. That was nice since more people are not that talented at it than are – which is good if (like me) you are one of those not-so-good dancers because when a lot of other people suck at it too you can just have fun and not worry about how you look.

“ring” toss turned out to be throwing hula hoops on a crew guy

Their ring toss turned out to be throwing hula hoops over a crew guy. Each person got 3 tries. Nobody got more than one hoop around him. Some people didn’t get any, but John and I each managed to get one. They didn’t have any prizes for that game. Maybe because there was no clear winner since all the participants had a score of either 1 or 0.

ready, aim, miss the tiny little floating ball target

The archery had a blow up target booth with balls held up on streams of air to shoot at. The arrows had a big round rubber end, not a sharp point. A real arrow would have popped the target booth. Two people at a time shot at the 4 balls. You got 3 arrows each, but if you hit a ball you got an extra arrow for each ball you hit. The first time we tried it several people hit one each, and the three that hit 2 went another round. John was one of the 3, along with 2 women, one of whom had been on our kayak excursion in Costa Maya. She was the only one who hit the target on the shoot-off round so they gave her a medal. We went there a second time and less people participated. Only two of them hit any targets. A lady hit one and a guy hit 2 so he got the medal, no shoot off needed.

aircraft carrier – for paper airplanes anyway

We tried one other game. Lots of ships we’ve been on had paper airplane contests. Usually it’s somewhere inside and whoever throws it the farthest wins. Princess put a different spin on it with a hoop and runway. On the Constellation it was the usual whoever throws it the farthest, but held outside so wind was a factor. Some planes caught the wind in a way that made them go up higher and then back down without going very far. Others caught a better breeze and sailed across the deck. When we threw ours they were the only ones who had gone far at all, the previous ones not exceeding 20 feet, most closer to 5 or 10. A couple people after us got farther though, one all the way into the tables on the other side of the ship. He won, but there was no prize. I guess the Constellation wasn’t that big on handing out prizes for their games.

movies on the top back deck

Other things to do included several movie screenings a day at the outdoor theater, and nightly shows in the indoor theater.

pool deck

Of course there are pools too, and lots of chairs around them for people who like to spend the day lounging in or near the pool. There were also hot tubs on the pool deck.

cruising duck

Some people create their own things for themselves and other people to do. I found a little rubber ducky hiding in a sort of round chair thing in the entryway from the outside deck to the hallway in front of the Reflections Lounge. It had a note on it about cruising ducks that said to post a photo and re-hide it, or keep it if you want. We just left it there for someone else to find. A few days later it was gone.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2022
Posted in Celebrity, Constellation, Shipboard Life | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Olympic National Park

Posted on November 25, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

The dark green areas are Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park

Olympic National Park covers a significant portion of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. Most of the park is in the center of the north end of the peninsula, but there is also a strip along the coast. The park covers 1442 square miles, or about a million acres.

winter view from Hurricane Ridge

The park includes a variety of ecosystems from glacier topped mountain peaks to temperate forest down to beaches and rugged coastline. There is a lot of old growth forest within the park. Near the coast there are rainforests. Some places in the coastal area receive over 100 inches of rain annually. Quite a contrast to Sequim on the other side of the Olympic Mountains near the north end of the peninsula, which is the driest place in western Washington. Sitting in the rainshadow of the mountains it receives only about 16 inches of annual rain.

logs pile up in winter storms

Rialto Beach, La Push WA

To protect the wildlife dogs are not allowed in much of the park, though they are allowed in some of the lodgings and on a small list of trails. Trails in ONP that allow dogs are Peabody Creek at the ONP Visitor Center on the road to Hurricane Ridge in Port Angeles (not to be confused with the Port Angeles Visitor Center on the waterfront), Rialto Beach, Kalaloch area beach between Hoh and Quinault reservations, Spruce Railroad Trail at Lake Crescent, Madison Falls Trail (Elwha), and July Creek Loop at Lake Quinault.

Piper in a log at Rialto Beach

The park’s website says passes are required to enter the park, which can be purchased online or in person at the park’s visitor centers or park entrance stations when open and staffed. Not all areas of the park require passes or payments. There were no gates, lines to get in, people checking for passes, or places to buy one at Rialto Beach, Madison Falls, Lake Crescent, or Spruce Railroad trail when I went to those places, but there were at Hurricane Ridge and Hoh Rain Forest.

Kalaloch on the coast

The park covers much of the center of the Olympic Peninsula, a lot of which is mountains. There are entrances in various places around the outskirts of the park, some of which have campgrounds or other lodgings, and some that are day use only. Another strip of the park runs along the coast. Information can be found for Olympic National Park on the US National Park website.

coastal temperate rainforest

hiking the Staircase Rapids trail

Since the park covers such a vast area and has a number of different places within the park to visit, each with its own unique characteristics, it is best to know where in the park you want to go before arriving there. While it’s not the sort of place one would usually consider as a cruise ship destination, we once visited the staircase area of the park as a shore excursion from Hoodsport in Hood Canal on a small-ship cruise with UnCruise Adventures.

the lighter green surrounding the park is Olympic National Forest

Olympic National Forest

Olympic National Forest surrounds much of Olympic National Park, extending the forested lands, but with sometimes differing rules. While dogs are only allowed on a handful of trails and in some lodgings in the park, they are allowed on all of the trails in the National Forest. It adds an additional 633,600 acres of protected forest to the foothills of the Olympic Mountain range. Speaking of the Olympic Mountains, most people have heard of Mount Olympus in Greece, but there is also a Mount Olympus in Washington State’s Olympic Mountains. It is the tallest mountain in the Olympic National Park at 7,980 feet high. The Olympic Mountains are not volcanos. Washington’s volcanos are in the Cascade range on the mainland, not on the Olympic Peninsula. There are 5 volcanos in Washington’s Cascades – Mt. St. Helens which blew up dramatically in 1980, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, and Mt. Adams.

Olympic National Forest

Some areas of the Olympic National Forest require permits or passes so it’s a good idea to check out their website and find out if anything is required in an area where you want to go before going there. There are a lot of trails within the forest. Some trails have fees and others are free to use. Parts of the forest are within five designated wilderness areas. Some of the trails run through the wilderness areas. There are 20 campgrounds and 3 rental cabins available within the national forest.

copyright My Cruise Stories 2002
Posted in USA, Washington | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Burj Khalifa

Posted on November 18, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Construction on the Burj Khalifa started 2004, completed in 2009, and the building had an official launch ceremony in January of 2010. As the tallest building in the world at 2722 feet to the tip it beats Shanghai Tower’s 2073 feet by 649 feet. We went up Shanghai Tower when we disembarked the Holland America Westerdam there on a cruise from Vancouver to Shanghai. It was the world’s second tallest building at the time, but has recently been passed by Malasia’s Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur at 2227 feet. We visited the Burj Kalifa after disembarking MSC Lirica in Dubai from a cruise that started in Trieste, Italy.

daytime view from the Burj Khalifa

As the tallest man-made structure in the world it holds a number of world records – tallest building, tallest free-standing structure, most stories (163), highest occupied floor, highest outdoor observation deck, elevator with longest travel distance, and tallest service elevator. The Burj Khalifa is currently still hanging onto its title as the tallest building in the world. There is one planned to be taller under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia called the Jeddah Tower with a proposed height of 3281 feet (one kilometer). The completion date for this tower is unknown.

night view of Dubai from the Burj Khalifa

The Burj Khalifa houses the Armani Hotel and residences as well as 900 luxury apartments. Staying in the Armani Hotel doesn’t get you very high up the tower though since it starts at the bottom and has rooms on the 1st to 8th floors. There are also some hotel rooms on the 38th and 39th floors so the highest level with hotel rooms is on the 39th floor.

fountain at the Burj Khalifa

The 144 Armani residences are 1-2 bedroom suites from level 9-16 with fountain views. Both the Armani Hotel and residences were designed by Giorgio Armani. The other residential tower runs from the 19th to 108th stories. Residences there range from studios to 1-4 bedroom apartments to a 5 bedroom penthouse.

looking up from a balcony on the Burj Khalifa

Visiting the Burj Khalifa

The Burj Khalifa is at the Dubai Mall. Ticket counters and meeting points for tours are in the mall. There’s also luggage storage right by that ticket counter as well as elsewhere in the mall. It’s not cheap to go up the tower, but it’s the things you don’t do that you regret and it would cost a whole lot more to go back there again and do it later if you skip it for the price and then go home wishing you had done it. The regular tickets take you to levels 124 and 125. For an extra charge you can get the premium ticket up to Sky Level on the 148th floor (555 meters). It’s well worth the money to spend the extra for the premium ticket, though it’s still not the top of the tower.

daytime views of the Burj Khalifa

The highest the public can get is by booking a meal at a lounge on levels 152-154. It’s 585 meters at the top level of the lounge with an outdoor terrace at 575 meters, so still not all the way to the top of this 163-story building. The lounge offers 3 options with afternoon high tea, dinner at sundown, or evening cocktails.

looking down on the fountain show

What’s up higher than the lounge and why can’t people go all the way to the top? Levels 160-163 are for mechanical purposes. Levels 156-159 are used for communication and broadcast. Other than the lounge the uppermost levels are corporate suites mainly used by private companies.

night view of a balcony at the Burj Khalifa

The regular At the Top ticket to levels 124 & 125 gives you an hour and a half to stay in the tower. The premium one isn’t timed and with it you can go up anywhere from an hour before to an hour after the booked time.

sunset view of Burj Al Arab from Burj Khalifa

Sunset is the most popular time so for sunset visits it’s recommended to book in advance as there is a limit to the amount of people allowed up in the tower at any given time.

sky level had little niches with fancy things

Sometimes there can be quite a line to get up the tower. Whether you have the premium ticket or just the one that goes to the 124th & 125th floors, all visitors start out in the same elevators. With the sky level ticket to floor 148 you get a VIP sticker and get to bypass the line of people with a basic ticket waiting for the elevator going up. The first elevator takes just 1 minute to go 124 floors, the fastest elevator in the world. For premium ticket holders, from that floor you board another elevator which goes up the remaining 24 floors in 15 seconds.

sky level in the Burj Khalifa

As people leave the elevator on the 148th floor they step into a fancy lounge and are offered tiny cups of tea and little sweets, which included dates, macaroons, and other cookies during our visit. There’s several chairs next to a view window and some couches in an inner room open to the view window.

the outdoor balconies had very tall glass walls

Hallways lead to other view windows, and a walk through the little gift shop leads to an outdoor balcony where there are slits between the glass panels big enough to fit a phone or small camera through in order to take photos that are not done through glass.

sunset over Dubai

We were originally told that we could stay on that level for half an hour and then proceed down to levels 124 and 125 where we could stay as long as we liked. Once we were up there they said we could stay longer so we stayed long enough to get some sunset photos before going down to the next level while there was still some color in the sky.

sky level view table with free refreshments

Up on level 148 once you stop wandering around and sit in the chairs by the window with little tables, or the couches in the inner room, which also have tables, the guys working there come around offering coffee or tea. When they deliver it they sometimes bring a little plate of the sweets along as well. You can have as much as you like and it is all included in the ticket, no extra charge. Once you go down to the lower levels snacks and drinks cost money, and once you’ve gone down you can’t go back up.

swinging pod chairs

Level 125 has view windows pretty much all the way around, some swinging pod chairs, and a video floor you can walk around on that simulates looking down to the ground through a glass floor.

virtual fountain view through the video floor

it looks and sounds like the floor has cracked, but the cracks are as fake as the view

Periodically the video floor makes loud cracking sounds and gives the appearance of cracking glass. There’s also a gift shop and a virtual reality climb the spire experience on that floor. This floor had wings painted on a window where people pose for photos between the wings making it look like they are theirs.

wings over Dubai

All of the levels have some telescope things with a big video screen where you can choose actual camera or night or day views, and little labels pop up to tell you what you are looking at. All the ones on level 148 worked fine, but some of the ones on the lower floors had issues when we were there.

stairway between levels 124 and 125

There’s a stairway from level 125 down to level 124, which has an outdoor balcony bigger than the one on level 148. It has the same spacing between glass panels for unobstructed photos. It also has a gift shop and like the other levels photographers who want to take your photo so they can try to sell the pictures to you when you go back down. There’s a snack shack there too, and wings painted on windows for more soaring over Dubai photos.

fountain show at night

Back on ground level you exit through … you guessed it – yet another gift shop. Like just about all attractions everywhere this one exits through a gift shop. It also has hallways leading back to Dubai Mall that have various interesting displays about the Burj Khalifa. When in Dubai it’s definitely worth making a trip to the top. While looking out the window up there I couldn’t help but hear the line from a song that goes “I’m on the top of the world looking down on creation” in my head.

foggy day view from the Burj Khalifa

Unfortunately it was something of a foggy day when we were up there, though it could have been worse. Rain was dumping in buckets that morning before we left the ship, and in the Uber from the port to the mall we were driving through roads that looked more like rivers. It doesn’t rain often in Dubai so they don’t have drainage in their infrastructure to handle it. It rained some our first day there as well. The rain cleared off and the sun came out before the morning was over, but the fog only cleared enough for tower views of the immediate area rather than the distant views the tower would offer on a clearer day. We didn’t have the option of waiting for better weather though since we had a flight out late that night. Even with the limited view we could see a lot and were very glad we splurged the extra money for the premium ticket.

fountain view looking down from the Burj Khalifa while the fountain is off

There’s a parklike area next to the mall and in front of the Burj Kalifa. A good section of it is filled with water and a fountain. There are fountain shows periodically throughout the day.

light show on the Burj Khalifa

After dark the Burj Kalifa puts on a light show just before the fountain show, and the fountain has lights too.

fountain show at the Burj Khalifa

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2022
Posted in Lirica, Middle East, MSC, Port Cities | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Food on Symphony of the Seas

Posted on November 11, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Symphony of the Seas in St. Martin

Food on Symphony of the Seas

As is customary on cruise ships, the main dining room and the buffet are the major food sources on the Symphony of the Seas, but far from the only ones. There are also many smaller eateries around the ship, some of which cost extra, and others that don’t.

pork chop dinner

The main dining room had good food and a staff that would go overboard to try and please their guests. We had all our dinners in the dining room. When you have special dietary needs dinners for the dining room are ordered the night before so they can be tailored to suit your diet. Mostly it ends up as meat, vegetables, and a potato. Unlike some ships which just leave off the sauce entirely, Symphony did make gluten and dairy free sauces. The waitstaff often work other venues during other meals, and if they see any of their special needs clients they do everything in their power to accommodate those needs in other venues as well.

dairy free desserts often came with meringue instead of whipped cream

On this ship they would take pre-orders for dining room breakfast or lunch as well, but we preferred the freedom of eating those meals when we felt like it rather than at a set time. The dining room is only open a short time for those meals, so we had them elsewhere. Cruise ships often offer set time dining at the same time and table nightly, and a more flexible dining option where you can show up anytime during the open hours and get seated where space is available. The flexible time works great for people who order straight off the menu, but for anyone with special dietary needs, dinners are best accommodated at the set time dining where you have the same waitstaff every day.

this flourless chocolate cake showed up with our desserts every night whether we ordered it or not

My sisters and I all have gluten and dairy issues of various degrees and they did a great job with tasty adaptations of the menu and sometimes custom desserts. Apparently a flourless chocolate cake is their standard gluten free dessert as they brought a plate of that every night whether we ordered it or not. It was quite tasty, but very rich. If they could make whatever we each had ordered we got one piece of the cake in addition. If there was something they couldn’t make gluten and dairy free the person who ordered it got the flourless chocolate cake instead. Generally the desserts they make onboard could be adapted while the ready-made ones could not.

the photo does not do this delicious Grand Marnier Soufflé justice

The chef even made a delicious gluten and dairy free version of the grand Marnier soufflé. He made up the recipe for it just for us. It was quite a long wait for dessert that night as it took longer to cook than he anticipated since the regular version has a shorter cooking time, but it was so good it was well worth the wait.

The buffet sometimes had pink or white dragon fruit at breakfast.

Before sailing we weren’t sure what they buffet would be like with covid, but it was pretty much what I anticipated it would be. The buffet on Symphony of the Seas, called the Windjammer, was open, but nothing was self-serve for guests unless it was already portioned out so you touched nothing but the dish it was on. Anything served in larger containers had to be dished out to individual people’s plates by someone on the crew so that no passengers touched the serving utensil. One station of the buffet contained a variety of gluten free entrees, and at breakfast the station serving pancakes and waffles and things could make gluten free pancakes or toast on request, though getting them did require a wait since they are not pre-made and ready to serve like the regular stuff.

Johnny Rockets burger joint on the boardwalk

Other food venues around the ship are Wonderland, Park Cafe, Johnny Rockets, Dog House, Jamie’s Italian, Cafe Promenade, Starbucks, Sorrentos, Vitality Cafe, Izumi, Sugar Beach, El Loco Fresh, 150 Central Park, Chops Grille, Hooked Seafood, Solarium Bistro, and the coastal kitchen which is only for people in suites. People can also order room service. Some room service breakfast items are free (though a tip should be given at delivery.) Most of the room service menu costs extra.

Jamie’s Italian at Central Park

Premium eateries – in other words the ones you pay extra for – include Wonderland, which serves imaginative cuisine, Johnny Rockets burgers (which does serve free breakfast), Jamie’s Italian and Starbucks. Izumi Hibachi & Sushi serves Japanese cuisine. The Vitality Cafe, which is at the spa, has some free items, but juices and smoothies cost extra. Sugar Beach is just what it sounds like – a candy store. 150 Central Park has upscale locally sourced dinners while Chops Grill is more of a classic steakhouse. Hooked Seafood serves fresh New England style seafood. So a good portion of the restaurants onboard do cost extra. We did not visit any of those. Some of them require reservations.

Cafe Promenade on the Royal Promenade

Places that are included in the cruise fare besides the dining room and buffet include the Park Cafe which is open at breakfast and lunch with deli style food. We peeked in one morning, but they had nothing gluten-free so we didn’t stay. The Dog House is of course hot dogs, and open at lunch and dinner (if you eat dinner early enough anyway.) Cafe Promenade is the 24-hour eatery, which had sandwiches and desserts. It always had a few gluten free items. Sorrentos has pizza ready to go, but if they don’t have what you want out and ready they can make it on request. They will also make gluten free pizza on request. El Loco Fresh has Mexican food and was our favorite lunch spot. We tried to check out the Solarium Bistro, but never came by when it was open. The website says it serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Must either be short open hours or it just wasn’t open that cruise since there were only about a third of the number of passengers the ship holds on board. Though listed as a free eatery, their menu does include some pay-extra items.

El Loco Fresh on the pool deck

Besides all the eateries, there’s also free soft ice cream, which was practically right next to El Loco Fresh so we walked past it sometimes. Because nothing was self-serve with covid, 0ne poor crew member had to stand by the formerly self-serve ice cream station to make cones for anyone who happened by wanting one. Occasionally a line formed giving him something to do, but most times we walked by there he was all alone and probably very bored. He did not have any lactose free or non-dairy options so we never had anything there.

lobster dinner on formal night

It would be hard to go hungry on a cruise ship with all the different food choices available, and this ship certainly had more places than average. Of course it’s a far bigger ship than average so it has room for a greater variety of places.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2022
Posted in Royal Caribbean, Shipboard Life, Symphony of the Seas | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Le Petit Chef

Posted on November 5, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Qsine on Celebrity Constellation

When we sailed on the Infinity, Celebrity’s Qsine Restaurant had an expansive menu of all sorts of crazy foods. Now on our more recent sailing with Celebrity on the Constellation, they still have a premium restaurant called Qsine, but other than the name and orange and white color scheme, it’s not the same place at all. Now Qsine has become dinner (or lunch) and a show featuring Le Petit Chef, a little animated chef who prepares food right on your plate at the table. Lunch in this restaurant is a real bargain. Often the premium restaurants on cruise ships offer lunch at a reduced price from dinner, but the menu is not the same. In this one you still get the reduced price at lunch, but with the same menu as dinner.

table setting for La Petit Chef at Qsine

Things on the table are set just so, as they need to be in the right place for the show. What looks like a plain white plate lights up around the edge when the show is about to start. The projectors are in the ceiling above, one for each plate, so the tables and chairs in this restaurant have to remain in the same place for it to work.

When that white light rings the plate if you blink or move your head or eyes a bit you see rainbow rings for a brief moment instead of white. Once they show starts that light goes away and the whole table becomes a movie screen.

menu for Le Petit Chef

There are 4 courses to the meal. The menu has a main menu option for each course and on the back of the menu there’s one other option for each course. The main menu option is the one that it will show the tiny little chef guy preparing, but whatever you actually ordered is what you will get served. They can adjust your meal for special needs like gluten or dairy free.

Le Petit Chef making soup

The first course is soup. Bouillabaisse is what the tiny little cartoon chef guy makes, but you can opt for French onion instead. To make the soup, he catches a variety of sea creatures and throws them on your plate. An octopus much bigger than him creeps its tentacles up onto the plate, but ends up losing a couple of them into the soup.

the actual bouillabaisse soup

Once the show is over, actual soup is served.

the tiny cartoon chef bronco-busting a lobster

The second course is lobster. The little chef throws a fish on the plate, which attracts a lobster much bigger than he is. It doesn’t stay on the plate, but he ropes it, and after it goes back in the water, he comes out bronco busting on the lobster, which eventually after somewhat of a struggle ends up on the plate. The alternative for this course is sea bass.

real lobster is served once the lobster portion of the show ends

Every course in the meal was quite tasty, including the lobster.

La Petite Chef cooking steak on a plate

For the main course the plate turns into a grill. The chef barbecues a steak on it and harvests some potatoes and a carrot as well as sawing down a broccoli tree to go with it. Using a gas can to light the grill doesn’t turn out well for the tiny chef at the end of the course, but then end of preparing each course never turns out well for him.

chicken from the other menu on the back

The actual food is not eaten directly off the plate that sits on the table for the show. It comes to the table on other dishes. Neither of us ordered steak so I have a photo of the alternative instead, which is chicken.

the little chef emerging from a tiny igloo

On the last course he comes out of an igloo and rolls a snowball to make ice cream. When he gets a bit farther from the igloo he’s towing two sleds full of things he uses to dress up the ice cream snowball with sauce and whipped cream and stuff. At the end he lights up a firework on top, melts his little igloo, and ends up in freshly melted water where there once was snow.

sundae

The show ends with tabletop fireworks – and of course getting served a real sundae unless you chose sorbet instead.

mango sorbet sundae

The sorbet was mango on the day we went there. It normally just comes with a strawberry, but if you ask they’ll top it with sauce and nuts to make a sundae.

tabletop fireworks

This was both the most fun and the most time-consuming meal we had onboard as it took a bit over an hour to complete. The food was also very tasty and well prepared. For a very different dining experience from anything else on land or at sea, it’s definitely the place to go if you are sailing on a Celebrity ship that offers it.

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Posted in Celebrity, Constellation, Cruise Food | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Halloween Decorations

Posted on October 28, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

decoration on the deck at a bnb in Stoddard, New Hampshire

Traveling to the northeast in October, we saw some pretty fancy Halloween decoration displays in a few places along the way.

decorations by the golf course at Jay Peak Resort

It’s always fun to travel near holidays when there’s extra things to see at the places where we stay.

decorations in a garden

Jay Peak had little displays in various places around the resort.

skeleton buggy in a roadside yard in Vermont

Some people go all out with their yard decorations.

sign on the fence of a very decorated yard

You don’t always have to travel far to find people who love the holidays.

pumpkin people

witches

There’s a nearby yard decorated elaborately every Halloween too.

skeleton crew

That’s not the only Halloween yard around. Another one has some bike-riding skeletons.

bike riding skeletons

Happy Halloween!

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Posted in Randoms, USA | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Fall Colors of the Northeast

Posted on October 21, 2022 by LBcruiseshipblogger

several colors all on one tree

I’d always heard about the fall colors of the northeastern USA and thought there isn’t really anything so special about that. After all, there are deciduous trees in the northwest too. They turn colors in the fall. Then there’s the rest of the world. The USA isn’t the only country on the planet with trees that lose their leaves in the wintertime.

fall colors

I can’t say anything about the rest of the world, not having been everywhere in the fall, but after having been to the northeast during the fall I have finally seen just why the leaves there leave such an impression on people.

the trees are as orange as the tractors

It’s not just that there are trees that turn yellow, orange, or red. We have those in the northwest too.

red trees

What we don’t have are native trees that turn such bright shades of red or such a vibrant orange.

hills full of colorful trees

That’s not the only thing though. While there are evergreen trees in the northeast, there are also entire hillsides with nothing but deciduous trees showing off their brilliant colors uninterrupted by patches of green, where our hillsides are often dots of color between the greenery.

colorful trees by a ski lift in Vermont

It was also surprising just how rural Vermont and New Hampshire are. For tiny little states near to highly populated areas, these two states have a lot of countryside. Narrow winding roads, sometimes even dirt or gravel rather than paved run for miles through forest or farmland, passing through towns so small they may not even have a gas station or grocery store.

church ahead near the road

The towns do all seem to have what look like old churches, but in New Hampshire many of them were labeled as the town hall. Once we got to Vermont most of the churches were still churches. The towns we passed through in Vermont were also more likely to have a gas station than the ones in New Hampshire. In some New Hampshire towns the old church was just about the only thing in the whole town.

Cornish-Windsor Bridge

We did take a bit of a detour route from Boston, Mass on the way to Jay Peak, Vermont via a 2-night stay in Stoddard, New Hampshire and a route that took us over the Cornish – Windsor covered bridge between New Hampshire and Vermont.

Hutchins Bridge

On the way back we took a side trip to Montgomery, Vermont to go covered bridge hunting in a town that has 7 of them. The route google maps gave us from there to Boston included about 15 miles on a gravel road between Montgomery and the highway. Portions of that gravel road had bright yellow-leaved trees forming an archway over the road for quite long stretches.

view of Jay Peak Resort from one of its ski runs

Hiking up the hillside through the colorful trees at Jay Peak resort offered lovely views both in close-ups of all the different colors of leaves and views of brightly colored hillsides rambling off in the distance as far as the eye could see. From up on the top of the peak (which is accessible by a cable-car tram as well as on foot) the views were even more impressive.

looking down on colorful trees from the tram at Jay Peak

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Posted in USA | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments