mk-ultra

Doors open at 0500. The fruit, coffee and pastries were out right away, but the hot food matched your experience. Came out at 0530. It was really good. This lounge can be packed later in the day, and was starting to fill up when I left for my gate at 0620. It was blissfully empty this early.

Happy to report: completely uneventful flight. Did the terminal E to terminal C hustle at IAH in about 15 minutes. IAH-FLL flight was held at the gate briefly so a passenger on a late connecting flight could make it. This is a recent United policy, and it's a good one. Pilots were able to make up the time en route by shoveling a little more money into the engines. Pilot Flying absolutely plastered it onto the runway on landing. Much shrieking. I thought it was funny; others not so much. I'm easily entertained. Lead flight attendant started his post-landing announcement with, "You may have noticed we've arrived in Fort Lauderdale..." High-five to him. Cockpit door remained shut during deplaning. Yeah, door of shame. Stand in the galley and take your ribbing, coward. Taxi ride to the W Hotel on the beach in Fort Lauderdale was, um, interesting. It was totally a breeze until we hit A1A for the last couple of miles. Construction has necked-down a segment from 2 lanes to 1, so we spent the last mile watching pedestrians outpace us. No skin off my nose. I got a better chance to ogle what I may want to explore on foot tomorrow. Note if you're taking a taxi from FLL airport to anything close to it: Flag drop at the airport is $13 minimum with an additional $3 fee for whatever. So, $16 to move 100 yards if that's how far you want to go. Once you've used $13 worth of mileage/time, the meter starts ticking up like normal. FLL to the W was ~$25 for the 6.5 mile trip. This particular W has a pretty stellar reputation for the property, service, rooms, location and food. I'm digging it so far. Super smooth check-in. Met by their "Welcome Manager" Brian while I was being checked in. Very nice comp room upgrade. This is one of those places that does Amex "Fine Hotels & Resorts" bookings perfectly. Late check-out. Free breakfasts. $100 credit to spend on-property (to which the W added a surprise additional $50). Amex is also running a bonus right know that will knock another $100 off of my bill for spending 2 nights. [I'm not trying to pimp Amex, but if you travel a lot -- that Plat card pays for itself many times over.] Ate at El Vez tonight, the Mexican restaurant in the W. Excellent service. Great Margaritas. The mahi mahi fish tacos though. Erm. No. I saw tons of excellent looking food on other tables. I think I just ordered a dud. Prices are surprisingly non-extortionate for a hotel restaurant. Plan for tomorrow: wake up at an ungodly hour and lament still being on West Coast time. I wake up at 0530 in CA. That's 0230 here. It's gonna be a loooooong morning. Once the sun is up it'll be a walk across the street to the beach, then a saunter south to the cool looking venues on A1A facing the beach in search of brekkies.

I don’t know who at United concocted this awful egg white breakfast sandwich thingy, but I’d like to hunt them down and make them eat six of them. If this wasn’t breakfast #2, I’d be feeling stabby. ?

I never buy in-flight WiFi, but I’ve got some UAL credit to burn up, so here I am at FL350 trying it out. Speeds are laughable, and the 700ms latency tells me it's geosynchronous sats. I’m going to attempt to use my blazing .3Mb/s upload speed to post a photo. Not to worry. I’ve got 3.5 hours.

Oof. This flight has a bad gate lice infection.

Flight is on time. ? Won at gate roulette. Gate changed from 90 (ass end of nowhere) to gate 61 (stumbling distance from a variety of places that serve alcohol). Next up: IAH (Houston) layover. If there's an airport I hate with a burning passion, it's IAH. 80% chance of it being a cluster-f*ck. I'll be brave and wear my big boy pants.

Twist my arm then.

Thanks! ?

Man I love early AM flights. Quick 15 minute ride to SFO. Security Pre-Check line was literally 30 seconds. I'm now camped out at the Centurion Lounge in terminal 3 (opened at 0500) and there is a massive crowd of 3 whole people to contend with. I see 'em cooking breakfast in the kitchen, so I'm 100% sure I'm not going to perish from hunger. Too early for the bar? Food's ready! Their timing is impeccable. Fruity selection: Spinach & bell pepper scramble. Chicken apple sausages. Steel cut oatmeal. Mushroom frittata. French toast. Vegetarian farro dish I eyed suspiciously, but it was actually really tasty:

Timing feels really good on this trip. It's always a crap shoot during hurricane season. Hurricane Lorenzo took a nice early turn North, and Tropical Storm Karen has been meandering around like a drunk while dissipating the last two days. Weather on my flight route today SFO-IAH-FLL all looks decent. Yay! If you're a weather nerd, or just like keeping tabs on the Atlantic before an upcoming cruise, you can burn a lot of hours while pretending to be busy at work at: https://www.reddit.com/r/TropicalWeather/ and https://tropicaltidbits.com/

Yawn. It's 0330 and I didn't need my alarm to wake me up for my 0720 flight to Fort Lauderdale this morning. I'm always gunning to go when a cruise is pending. Might as well burn off some energy with my first stab at live-blogging a trip. ? Basics Ship: Allure Sailing: 9/29 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cabin: L2 Crown Loft (1722) View from the backyard. That isn't a sunrise. It's city lights.

Thanks for sharing! Cool too see how they trim (-4 port, +3 starboard) the pods to counter the asymmetric thrust. ? I know we've got some really experienced mariners on here. Anyone know why that starboard pod is +3 degrees? Dynamic stability?

The #1 tip I can give you is to fly out and stay in a hotel the day before your ship sails unless you live near your departure port. You don't want an airline/airport problem causing you to miss boarding the ship.

They can scan it from your phone or your printout. I carry a paper copy just for my own reference in case my phone croaks. Even if you show up without a paper copy or an electronic pass on your phone, you'll just present your ID at check-in and they'll just look you up and you'll be on your way.

Some other cruise lines enforce a minimum time limit between drinks and a maximum number per day. Royal doesn't. I've seen someone cut-off for the day when they were clearly hammered though.

I'll just drop a really weird question here just in case there is anyone else in my line of work. Please ignore it if it makes no sense. These tags are Vingcard (14443A MIFARE DESFire EV1/2), yes? Haven't had the opportunity to check one out yet.

Ah, the endless mystery that is the Casino Royale points system. It's pretty straightforward if you just play slots. Well, the scoring is more straightfoward-ish. The comps you get for your play seem to be all over the place. I'm sure there's some system struggling along valiantly on a 1980s vintage PDP-11 in some high-tech data center (basement closet in a parking garage in Miami) that figures it out. Or they use tossed chicken bones. Probably both. Table play is an exponential increase in scoring vagueness and rewards. I can sit 4 hours a night playing $50-$100 a hand at blackjack for a week and get an offer for a comped interior room on a 3-5 night cruise... or get a comped JS on a week long one at the end of my cruise. I don't think they use a fancy basement PDP-11 for this. Probably a TRS-80 with a fickle cassette tape drive and a Morse code key for the pit boss to input play rating.

Orlando isn't bad, especially if you're used to Ontario. If can be a bit busy getting out of the airport if you're trying to do it during weekday commute hours, but it's otherwise fine. Once you're on the expressway heading to Cocoa Beach, it's pretty stress free. DO note, Florida's turnpikes have a number of toll booths. I think there are 3 between MCO and Cocoa Beach.

I stayed in Cocoa Beach at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront property. I scheduled an extra day in Cocoa pre-cruise to buffer my trip and to just check things out like Kennedy Space Center. Rented a car one way from MCO to Cocoa and dropped it off at the local Hertz counter. They have a free shuttle to the port. The Hilton was nice. Right on the beach with a fun outdoor bar that has live music nightly. It's a short (under 15 minute) drive from there to the car drop off in Cape Canaveral.

Out of many, many cruises I've only been subjected to two alcohol-related incidents. One was a drunken family having a slap-the-shit-out-of-each-other disagreement poolside (which security quickly took care of -- not sure what they did after escorting them away). The other was was just creepy. Extremely drunk guy at a blackjack table decided to start harassing a female friend of mine that was on the same trip, but in a different cabin with her husband. She's got purple hair in dreads and tattoos. She's also an IT exec at a Fortune 10. Guy starting making all sort of insinuations and sexual innuendo hinting that he'd like to, "make her straight." He also cussed out the dealer any time he busted. The dealer just took it -- so I went to the pit boss and said, "this guy is being an asshole to your dealer and other guests." All they did was move him on to another table. That kinda pissed me off. Definitely pissed my friend off. She told him straight to his face to shut the F up.

Thanks!

I'm just curious if anyone cruising solo in a cabin has received a RoyalUP offer . If you did, do they handle the minimum bids like the (100%) solo suppliment (i.e., twice the price)?

Depends on table minimum and whether it's single-deck or six-deck. All < $25 tables were 6:5. $25 > were mostly 3:2 (with a couple of eeeek 6:5 tables thrown in). DAS allowed. All S17. No re-split aces. I always play the $25 > 3:2 tables. Same rules, but 3:2. This is a generalization, but house advantage is 0.5% on a 3:2 table, and 2% on a 6:5 table if the rules are the same. Sounds like you know that; just tossing it in for others.

Oh wow. Thanks for posting that link -- I haven't seen it before. I get Casino Offers via snail mail from Royal all the time, but never get anything via email (including RoyalUP). Something in my account is screwed up and they've never been able to sort it out. I'm glad there's an alternative way to check now.

ATP pilot here. I still enjoy being an aviation geek when I travel. Still fascinated by airplanes, airports, travel and aviation in general. Heck, when I'm a passenger on an airplane while on vacation, I can usually be found reading Smithsonian Air & Space mag on my iPad. I feel the same way about ships. Sure, being a ship's master is a very different job from being an airline captain -- but both jobs have massive overlap. Planning, navigation, systems and limitations knowledge, emergency procedures, craploads of regulations... on-and-on. I love a bridge tour and a chance to talk with the officers about their jobs. Everything about a ship is fascinating and I could easily see enjoying that as a career path if I had taken it instead of flying. You're definitely not alone! ?