Traveling Mike

Day 2 Norway I had a fabulous night sleep. This was one of the first nights I was able to sleep over 8 hours straight. I woke up and I joined some of my friends for lunch. I was able to ask for just chicken salad without the rest of the sandwich. After what I considered a reasonable lunch, I headed out for my excursion in Kristiansand Norway. When we got out to the meeting place, it was so disorganized. There was a couple of buses and people everywhere. I ended up grabbing the person in charge and explaining to her that everybody was confused at what they were trying to do. Then that person actually thought about it and explained what was was going on. Then the people moved where they needed to be. I was in the last group and we found out that the bus company sent our bus to the wrong place. After about a 20 minute wait a different bus showed up. The bus took us for a 20 minute drive to a town called lillistand. This is a quaint little village that we got to wander around for about 25 minutes. We should have gotten an hour there but because the fiascos with getting organized and waiting for the bus we lost 35 minutes. We then hopped on the bus and drove all the way back to where we started to get on the boat. At first it looked like it would not be a very nice boat trip. It was an older rundown boat that was packed with people. After we got out of the port it ended up being a pretty decent ride and we got to see the Norwegian coast. After little nap it was dinner time and we ended up eating at the chops grill. The chops grill is an upscale restaurant that we get because I have the unlimited dining plan. Without that dining planned it is priced at $60. I ended up having a 16 oz bone in rib eye and sauteed mushrooms. I was a very good boy and held to my diet no bread no appetizer and no dessert and no wine. After dinner is a little bit late getting about 10:00 o'clock but we ended up going to a show "finish that line". They split the room in two and they would play a song and stop it. Then people from the audience had to run up to the stage and finish singing the line to the song. It was so much fun that we went 15 minutes past the scheduled ending time. We capped the night off with the Casino. Earlier in the day I started with $40 and I had a ticket for $50 ($10 up). I played on penny slot machine for about an hour and walked away with a $40 ticket so I was $10 down for the evening but even for the cruise. I got back in my room by midnight and only had to toss and turn for 2 hours before getting to sleep. It is now 10 am on day three and getting ready for my Poker Pub Crawl. I will let you know about that late tonight.

Day 2 Norway I had a fabulous night sleep. This was one of the first nights I was able to sleep over 8 hours straight. I woke up and I joined some of my friends for lunch. I was able to ask for just chicken salad without the rest of the sandwich. After what I considered a reasonable lunch, I headed out for my excursion in Kristiansand Norway. When we got out to the meeting place, it was so disorganized. There was a couple of buses and people everywhere. I ended up grabbing the person in charge and explaining to her that everybody was confused at what they were trying to do. Then that person actually thought about it and explained what was was going on. Then the people moved where they needed to be. I was in the last group and we found out that the bus company sent our bus to the wrong place. After about a 20 minute wait a different bus showed up. The bus took us for a 20 minute drive to a town called lillistand. This is a quaint little village that we got to wander around for about 25 minutes. We should have gotten an hour there but because the fiascos with getting organized and waiting for the bus we lost 35 minutes. We then hopped on the bus and drove all the way back to where we started to get on the boat. At first it looked like it would not be a very nice boat trip. It was an older rundown boat that was packed with people. After we got out of the port it ended up being a pretty decent ride and we got to see the Norwegian coast. After little nap it was dinner time and we ended up eating at the chops grill. The chops grill is an upscale restaurant that we get because I have the unlimited dining plan. Without that dining planned it is priced at $60. I ended up having a 16 oz bone in rib eye and sauteed mushrooms. I was a very good boy and held to my diet no bread no appetizer and no dessert and no wine. After dinner is a little bit late getting about 10:00 o'clock but we ended up going to a show "finish that line". They split the room in two and they would play a song and stop it. Then people from the audience had to run up to the stage and finish singing the line to the song. It was so much fun that we went 15 minutes past the scheduled ending time. We capped the night off with the Casino. Earlier in the day I started with $40 and I had a ticket for $50 ($10 up). I played on penny slot machine for about an hour and walked away with a $40 ticket so I was $10 down for the evening but even for the cruise. I got back in my room by midnight and only had to toss and turn for 2 hours before getting to sleep. It is now 10 am on day three and getting ready for my Poker Pub Crawl. I will let you know about that late tonight.

Day one - boarding day Saturday night I could not go to sleep. I ended up going to sleep at 6:30 AM and I had to be in the lobby of the hotel by 11:00 AM. The nice thing is while I couldn't sleep, I repacked everything and I was ready to head out the door. When I got down to the lobby, I found something that was strange compared to what we have in the United states. We had to check out of the hotel. For years in the United states you give them a credit card when you check in and you just leave when you're done. At this hotel we had to stand in line and then we had to pull out our credit card and pay for the items charged to our room. After we were done with that process, we walked out outside the hotel doors and got in line for the shuttle out in front of the hotel. There was a very large crowd and they couldn't fit in the next bus that came so there was about 15 of us waiting for the next bus. Right before the bus came some people came walking up and asking us if that was the free bus to the cruise ship; we told them yes. When the bus came on up, they started getting on the bus in front of us. I nicely pointed out that there was a bunch of us that had been waiting a very long time and they thought I was being rude. At the port it went extremely fast and smooth except for one item. We got in line to turn our bags in and they wouldn't take them; they said it was full. How can it be full? Just line them up outside until there's room to put them on the conveyor. I don't understand what they were thinking. Instead they had us get in another line to go to a different conveyor. The bad thing is if you weren't checking any bags they were pulling people out of line and moving them in front of us which made our line even longer. After we got through the check-in bag fiasco, we went through a security scan and then straight up to the person checking us in. For me she checked my passport, my covid test and scanned my boarding pass. I heard it was slightly different for other people but it was just very fast. After you were done there we just walked on the ship was ready to go. As always, the first thing I did on the ship was to go to chops and set all my dinner reservations. I am traveling alone and solo but I have a friend that I've cruised with a couple of times on this ship. I ended up booking reservations for me, her and a friend of hers that's traveling with her. All three of us have unlimited dining so I set specialty restaurants for the entire cruise. If I was just setting them for me I would be having dinner at 6:00 o'clock every evening. If my friend Corey Joe was travel alone she would be setting her dinner at 8:00 o'clock every evening. So as a compromise we tried to get as close as we could to 7:00 o'clock. Since we were at chops and had unlimited dining we ended up having lunch there. I ordered the chops hamburger without the bun. It was an excellent choice, a very good hamburger Patty. You would think I could relax after that until the ship sailed away: not. After that we had to go to my room and drop off both of our luggage because Corey Joe could not get in her room. Then we had to go do my mustard drill which is on one end of the ship, then hers which was on the opposite end of the ship. We had a meet up with her roommate and then go to customer service because they did not print Cory Joe's ticket because her roommate had been in the same room the week before. If you join in somebody that did a back-to-back be ready to have problems with your room keys. After that I had just enough time to go to my room freshen up and then get to a meeting at 3:30 with the group coordinator and the bar manager. I was afraid the bar manager was going to tell me where you were not going to be able to do the poker pub crawl because my group it's over 120 people and there's no way to fit that in a bar. To my surprise he was the complete opposite; he had really thought about it and had a plan for us to be able to move the people through. He was simply fantastic to work with. As soon as this meeting was over it was time for the sell away party. Our Facebook / Cruise Critic group is almost 600 people. I think at any one time we had over 200 people at the meet and greet. I ended up spending the next two hours going from people to people answering questions, meeting people and get it thanks for everything I’ve done to organize things. The ship bar manager also came by to make sure everything was going smoothly. By the time we left the cell away is just enough time to shower and get to dinner. Tonight, we had dinner at Giovanni’s. During the dinner I talked to the manager and he told me a normal first night for them is 30 to 40 people. On our cruise it was 60 people. Our ship is only about 50 to 60% capacity but most of them are diamond, diamond plus, and pinnacle. After a very good dinner, mine was mignon, we ended up going to the casino to do a little gambling. To my surprise I was playing the penny machines and walked away $10 ahead. The last thing I did this evening was went to the show in the theater. I made it through about the first three to four minutes before falling asleep. I ended up waking up after about 15 minutes and realized the show was very boring. It was a BMX rider, a bike rider. After doing a few tricks he tried to do some comedy but in my opinion wasn’t very good at it. After realizing I couldn’t stay awake, I got some pizza and headed back to my room. I’m laying here half asleep, having computer trouble, and trying to dictate today’s information. I know if I don’t do it tonight, I’m going to have a busy day tomorrow and all the days were just blurred together, and I won’t be doing my job I volunteered to do; letting you know about my trip. Tomorrow we’re at Norway. I’ll try not to be so wordy tomorrow a little more precise of what I did and seen.

Day two in Copenhagen Well my sleeping habits aren't much better. I'm still sleeping don't noon and then heading out on the town. I got on the canal bus again and took it over to its first stop at Reffen. This place has a huge area of street food. It's just booths and booths of beer and wine and hot dogs and hamburgers and fish everything you can imagine. And for Copenhagen to be so expensive for food, this place was very reasonable. Walking through I did see a few places that weren't real busy and I really didn't trust them. Other places were real busy but I didn't come to Denmark to have Italian or Greek food. I ended up getting me a seafood basket with British dish Fish & Chips made with Danish fish, shrimp, calamari, crispy fries and delicious dip. I was kind of surprised that they did not offer drinks of any kind. They said I had to get it at the bar so I went over to the bar and got me a glass of Chardonnay. After I had left that area, I took the canal boat just across the river to Langelinie promenade to see the famous statue of The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid is a bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen, depicting a mermaid becoming human. I actually enjoyed this place more for watching all the tourists than the statue itself. It's funny to see all the people crowding around this statue trying to pose for their pictures. All the different poses and excitement. After watching this scene for quite a while I ended up walking around the area which had walking paths other statues, a church and a museum. I ended up going longer on my stroll around then I thought and all of a sudden I realized I had to get back for our cruise ship cocktail hour at my hotel. I ended up getting back to my room and I can't believe it but I took advantage of an extra 15 minutes for a nap. I cleaned up and went downstairs to meet some new friends. There ended up being about 15 people from my cruise there for cocktails. It's enjoyable to meet new friends and it was also satisfying that they knew who I was and thanked me for leading up a bunch of pre cruise planning. Now I've been in my bed for about four hours trying to sleep, watching TV, trying to sleep, posting on this blog and I guess trying to go back to sleep again. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow evening and tell you about boarding the ship in Copenhagen.

This is something I learned when I went to Japan. In Japan there is no English and they don't try to speak English. I went on purpose to a restaurant that was just local people to get real local food. While eating lunch with chopsticks, I realized why should they speak English. In the United States we do not try to speak any other language. We expect everyone to speak English.

I'm domesticated I told you guys I would let you know if I went out on the town tonight. All day I've been kind of under the weather. I know I would feel better if I went out but I've been on the road for seven days. My room has this humongous bathtub. I took all my dirty clothes from this last week and threw them in the bathtub with some laundry soap. I crawled in the bathtub it started hand and foot scrubbing clothes. When I was ringing them all out I realized I felt really good. Oh... how is this? I'm in Europe, I'm in a beautiful city and doing laundry made me feel good and happy.

Just today I was wondering what am I doing out here. I am old, I'm overweight, I can't move very well. At times all the negatives come to me. You made me feel a little bit better about myself. Thank you

Copenhagen day one I am staying at the Comwell Portside hotel. It's a new hotel and I got a great deal on the executive suite. I'm sitting here typing this blog feeling really guilty because the living room is the size of half my house. The bed is big and soft and have these really fluffy down blankets. Before I knew it my alarm was going off telling me it was time for breakfast. I didn't want to get up but I did it anyway. I went downstairs for the breakfast. I have figured out that I like American breakfast. I really don't like soft scrambled eggs. I don't like my bread hard. I don't like fruit at breakfast time. I want my arm lid are fried eggs with bacon and sausage and the whole wheat toast. I felt terrible so I went back to my room and went back to sleep. My alarm went off at 12:00 o'clock and I reset it for 1:00 o'clock and went back to sleep. I ended up getting up at 1:00 o'clock just to get my COVID test out of the way. I was worried about taking the test because I was so tired and sleepy and had a head congestion and I felt hot. I took my COVID test and passed it with flying colors. That forced me to get in the shower cleaned up and take off to the town. My recommendation of some girls I met on the train I got on the canal bus. This is a boat that takes you through a lot of Copenhagen. It's almost like a tour of the town. I ended up getting off near Freetown. Freetown is an old military base that back in the 70s a group of people took over and declared it a non government property. It was back in the hippie days and they said they're free. Walking around Freetown made you remember the hippie comments and stuff of this early 70s. I would swear walking around this place I ended up getting a high just from the second hand smoke of marijuana. There was a lot of places to buy souvenirs and food to eat. The only issue is there was no meat. They were all vegetable eaters. I also hadn't picked up any local currency and I'm sure they didn't take a visa. After wandering around seeing everything I headed back to my canal boat. I ended up getting off the next time in the main canal that has all the restaurants and places to get a drink. By this time it was 5:00 PM and I was getting hungry. Actually I really wasn't hungry but I knew I needed to eat. Walking down this canal I kept looking at prices and they were wanting$40 to 50 for simple meal. Towards the end of the street I got this whiff of something that smelt really good. I went over and it was a hot dog stand. All different kinds of dogs. I ended up getting me spicy dog with mustard, ketchup, dried onions. The dog and the water only ended up costing me about $9. And to top it off it was very very good. After my hot dog is able to find the metro real easy and by this time I understand how to ride one so it was quick jaunt and I'm at my hotel. Now it's kind of a debate of do I stay in my room and watch some movies our go someplace. I might just research and see if there's any nightlife in Copenhagen. I'll let you know tomorrow

That's not an airplane... That's a train I have never traveled by European train so that's a little bit concerned. The night before I walked over to the train station because it was across the street from my hotel. There was a couple of nice girls standing there waiting for refugees so I thought they might help me. I asked them if my online ticket was enough or I had to check in and get another ticket. The girl just laughed at me and told me it's a train... it's not an airplane. Well the next day I found out it's a train and it didn't make me very comfortable trying to figure out what to do. I couldn't sleep the night before because worried about sleeping and missing my train. I got up had breakfast and went over to the train station and hour early. I then found out you must watch the large board in the lobby for your train to figure out what track it loads on. And you don't get the track number and until about 10 to 15 minutes before the train leaves. Needless to say I stood there for an hour worried I was going to miss it because I didn't know where to go after I got my train number. When the time came it wasn't too bad because our train came up and a horde of people took off for it so I just followed the horde. It was really strange getting on the train finding my seat and nobody asking for a ticket. I was on First Class and First class wasn't much more money and to me it was a big difference. Now the train took off started heading away towards Germany. On our second or third stop a train conductor came by and asked for the ticket. We crossed into Germany and I was wondering nobody checked passports or anything else. About our fourth or fifth stop in to Germany some officers came through and asked for my ID they didn't care if it was passport or drivers license. In Hamburg I had an hour and 45 minute layover. I hadn't eaten since breakfast so I started looking at the different places to eat. All the signs were in German. There was a ton of people moving everywhere or standing everywhere I'll speak in German. Needless to say I was very uncomfortable trying to figure out where and what to eat. Then I looked across the train station and I knew what to do... A familiar face, something I knew... I went got in line Big Mac large fries coke zero. I was able to get on my second train a lot easier knowing what to do. They still didn't check for tickets or passports for a long time. I was told I didn't need a reserved seat but I ended up paying $5 and getting one anyway. After seeing people sitting on the floor I was glad I did. After getting to Copenhagen I had a mom with her three kids asked me if I knew where I was going and I said no. He told me she was going to the metro and to follow her and her kids. I ended up purchasing a 48 hour pass for the city transportation. That allowed me to just walk on the metro with my bags and ride my five stops that drop me one block from my hotel. I was never so glad to get to a hotel room and crawl in a nice soft bed.

Side question This is the picture of McDonald's in Prague. Everywhere I've been so far there's a McDonald's. Do you think McDonald's will be on the 1st spaceship of settlers to Mars? have you been to a country yet that does not have a McDonald's?

Walking Prague This is day 2 in Prague and I spent the day walking the Old Town. I just head down streets, turn left, turn right, and see what there is to see. I ended up making my way to the river and was able to walk the river path for miles. Before I knew it I hadn't made a large circle around town and crisscrossed the Old Town center. By then I was ready to go back to my room and take my jet lag nap. After the sun went down I went back out on the streets down to the big Avenue that had all the new stores and restaurants at it. The avenue has two lanes going each way and a large section in the middle with benches. This area was packed with kids hanging out. I found out that school has not started yet so they are all out on the town. Now I'm back in my room and trying to get some sleep before I could get up in the morning and have my train ride from Prague to Copenhagen. Talk to you tomorrow

My first day in Prague OK if you've been to Prague and you love it so my colon please don't read any further:). I had breakfast at the hotel and it was pretty good mixture between American breakfast European breakfast and a British breakfast. If you don't understand that statement American see bacon and eggs for breakfast. A European breakfast is more cheeses and fruits in little slices of meat. British breakfast it's usually running your eggs and pork and beans. My hotel is right near the center of the older town so it's great for walking. I took off walking looking at things heading towards the Old Town square. As I got near it and in it I just kept thinking big tourist town. The person at the hotel said I could have taken another route but that was newer town with the lots of shopping. I got down into the Old Town square and sat down to get a drink and watch people right in front of the Prague Astronomical Clock. I knew at this location I was going to pay a high price for a drink, but for a very inexpensive town I ended up paying $10 for a single drink. The person taking my order didn't speak hardly any English but I was able to figure out their drink selection wasn't great and I ended up ordering a drink. I ended up enjoying my drink and watching all these people stand around waiting for this clock to go off on the top of the hour. The closer it got to the hour the more crowded the place got. And then finally the top of the hour the clocks struck... hundreds of people watching... And two windows opened and different figurines of priests spun in a circle. I had my camera ready waiting for that really great picture of what's going to happen... And I never took a picture. That was pretty much it. Prague great tourist attraction was a big dud. I got up and started heading towards The Charles bridge. The area was actually really neat, the streets and the buildings is kind of what you see in Harry Potter. The buildings were all different looking colors shapes they're all tall very narrow streets and a lot of people. I got over to the Charles bridge and it was a neat bridge, very old, with different statues spaced out over it. I made the mistake and looked at the water... very dirty. The bridge was simi crowded with people selling items and people taking pictures. After I got 2/3 of the way past the bridge I got to this one plaque that was a picture of a person with the dog and on the other side a crowd of people hanging a man upside down over the edge of a bridge. Part of the plague is a bright gold color from people touching it for good luck. While I was standing there looking at it, a young man told me that you're supposed to touch the crotch of the man hanging upside down for the best luck. Well I had to, so I touched the crotch and instantly felt good luck coming my way. Let's see if it happens. After getting off the bridge I wandered over to a spot that was hidden, you had to know where you were going. I followed my map and got to this little bitty Street, back of nowhere and there was a bunch of people standing by this wall. I started looking at this wall and it was the first time in a long time as actually felt touched by something; I was impressed and actually felt something. I looked at this wall and it made me feel like I was a part of something really big. This was the Lennon Wall. It's based off of John Lennon's death and all these people have come to express their feelings in poetry and art. In my opinion if you come to Prague the Lennon Wall is the number one thing to see. From the linen wall I ordered my bolt car. It cost me $4 to travel about a 15 minute ride. I ended up going to the train restaurant. Before I explain anything I know this it's just a big tourist trap but they do it right. I got there and got seated and you pay a tourist price for a meal. It was actually a very very good hamburger that I got based off the recommendation of the waitress. If you go there don't get the Raspberry lemonade, it was pretty bad. Next to your table our train tracks and your drinks are brought up next to you by a train and you pull them off the train and the train goes on its way. Little bit later here comes the train again and it had my hamburger and fries. It was worth the $18 for the mail just for the enjoyment, it being a different restaurant, and just watching the kids get so excited to see the train come to their table. After a pretty good meal I had 15 minute walk back to my hotel. That was the end of my day in Prague. I've ended it by fighting with that jet lag guy. After sleeping a couple of hours I did walk back to the train restaurant to get my sweater that I had forgot. The very nice waitress seen me walk in, remembered me and brought me my sweater folded U nice and neat. Here are a few pictures from my day.

Overview of my flights I flew from Los Angeles to London on American Airlines. It was actually a very nice direct flight with no issues and the staff on the plane were great. I was terrified to get to Heathrow in London because everything I've heard all summer. I ended up spending almost 8 hours in the Heathrow airport. It was not crowded at all comment it was easy to get around and the lines were short. My flight from London to Prague was very very short because I slept the whole way. I sat next to a nice gentleman from the Czech Republic and he woke me up when we were getting ready to land. The customs at the Prague airport were very confusing. We went through passport check before we got our luggage. There wasn't much of a line and we probably could have just walk through the non passport lined. The man at the window just took my passport looked at me looked at my passport stamped it waved me through. Didn't say a word to me. I went through got my bag left the airport. When I got outside the airport I got on an app I found called bolt. It's a lot like Uber and Lyft; but the cars are mostly just all in Europe. It ended up costing me in the middle of the night about $25 for the 20 mile trip into my hotel in the middle of Prague. Is a nice car nice gentleman he just didn't speak any English but he knew where I was going. Today in Prague I used the bold app again and it costs me about$3.75 to go across Prague for about a four mile trip. I'm planning on using the bolt a little more tomorrow to get to some outskirt places and Prague I want to see. I'll tell you about Prague next.

Jet lag, no; Jet lag maybe; jet lag Oh my On my flight over I was able to sleep for about seven of the 10 hours. Then in my 8 hour layover in the London airport was able to sleep another couple of hours. Then on the flight from London to Prague I was able to sleep another hour and a half, which was most of the flight. I felt great when I got here. Wasn't tired, wasn't sleepy, I thought I had this jetlag whipped. Yeah... jet lag showed me who the tough person was; it knocked me on my can. I have so much to let you guys know and I hurt so bad and my mind won't concentrate and I can't even type. I did get smart and I hooked up my headset to my computer and I'm actually just dictating this. I could get it out of my head to you, I just can't function physically to type it for you. In my opinion for this old man jet lag is a nightmare. I can't wait till I retire so I could come and sleep for a week before I even do anything.

Economy vs Economy Plus Currently I am in the middle of my flight from Los Angeles to London and woke up and decided to stretch my legs. I also wanted to see if I could get me a diet coke. I headed back to the back half of the plane and noticed a big difference…. The low life section… the peasants… the cramped people. Don’t get me wrong, I am normally that person, but I did not know I was. This flight, I was able to get a good price for economy plus and I might have just runed my budget for flying in the future. Once I got south of the Economy Plus section there was a huge difference, the people were shoulder to shoulder and people’s arms and legs in the aisle. The aisle was also very narrow. I had to turn sideways just to walk down it. When I got back to my seat I realized, on this plane, there is a big difference between Economy and Economy Plus. The leg room is way more, a few inches make a big difference. Each of the seats is separated by a divider of 4 inches or so, economy it just the 2 inch arm. There was a footrest. My seat reclined back far enough to feel like I am laying back, not down, back. Right now I am reclined back with my feet up on a foot rest and comfortable with the laptop on my lap; It's not bad. Ok, I am sure you are the business class flyer and you are thinking I am stupid. Give me a break, people like me do not think about flying business or first class unless we have a lottery ticket in our hands. We do not think of cruising in a suite unless the cruise line decides to do an upgrade for some strange reason. I can look in the front section and see them on the plane laying flat and sleeping. But for people like me, we ignore that and pretend we are high class flying Economy Plus. Note: Getting off the plane we walked though business class. They are pigs. All of them left big messes for someone else to clean up.

My Pre-Trip Fun ☹ My adventure really started two days ago. I had a mini vacation as a warmup. I drive a passenger van full of High School Water Polo players to the California coast to play in a tournament. When I should have been home packing and planning, I was on the coast taking care of teenage boys. On Saturday afternoon we finished and I came back home as quick as possible to start figuring what I needed to pack. I got back, turned in my van for my car and then had my son take me to the airport to get a one way rental car. I finally got back home at 8:30 pm and figured out I needed to do laundry to have cloths for my trip. I got on my computer and started to double check paperwork and ……. THE POWER WENT OUT OK, wet clothes in the dryer, nothing packed and no packing list or documents printed. I gave up and went to sleep. About 4 hours later my 25-year-old son woke me up to let me know electricity was back on. Ok on to laundry and packing. I got to my dress pants and …. They were still at the Dry Cleaners. So I looked for my work pants and …… they were also at the Dry Cleaners. Well …. After trying on everything in both my closet and my sons closet I found a pair of dockers that will have to do. I finally got everything packed and got a few hours sleep. I left the house at 8:30 am to give myself time in case something happened during the 250 mile drive to the LA Airport. Now guess what happened….. everything went smoothly and now I am sitting in the airport for 6 hours waiting for my flight.

I have started one of my bucket list type of vacations. This morning I left Fresno California in a one way rental car. I drove 4 hours to the Los Angeles Airport. Now I am doing my 6 hour wait for my flight. I will be flying to Prague in the Czech Republic. From there I will be taking a train to Copenhagen Denmark. After a couple of days there I will be getting on the Voyager of the Seas for a Trans-Atlantic Artic Cruise. If this sounds interesting stay tuned for the details and pictures. Mike

I watched a video from a staff member that said everyone in the kitchen are part of the tip package.

I am purchasing an annual policy in November of this year. I had already purchased trip insurance for everything through my September cruise. I have not decided on what company I am going with because all of them are so different in what they cover and how much. I guess I am getting close enough that I have to make a decision soon. I am sure I will be going with Travel Guard or Allianz.

My son got an ear infection while on the cruise. Seen the ship doctor and he let us know what was going on and gave us medicine. My health insurance paid part of it and my travel insurance paid the deductible. Norwegian Cruise Lines shorted my TA cruise from 14-day cruise to a 10-day cruise the week before we left. My travel insurance paid me for trip interception and gave me $250 a day (for the 4 days) for hotel room in London. I had the choice to do that, or they would have flown me home and paid for the ticket. Covid canceled my cruise, and I had a hotel room and outside excursion that was nonrefundable. My travel insurance refunded me the amounts.

When you board the ship for the first time, it is local time. After that always go by ship time. The captain has the choice of changing time and when to change it. On my last trans-Atlantic cruise, we changed an hour each day, but the captain did it at noon. That really messed us up. You would get out of bed and know your time then at noon we would lose an hour and be late for everything.

What you need to remember is they cannot let you board until everyone from the previous cruise is off the ship and they get clearance from the customs authority. If they have people with covid or hurt during the cruise it can take longer to clear customs. That is why some of the time you have 11 am and you are on the ship at 11:10 am. And other times you have 11 am and you do not get on the ship until 12:30 pm.

You gave Gilligan an adventure of a lifetime.

Being in the hurricane, almost none. The ships watch the weather and take the ships around bad weather. Your ports of call could change based on the weather. The season is June 1 through November 30 and normally peaks in August and September. Just understand in September you might have different ports than what were there when you booked the cruise.

Before COVID, all of the cruises had a DJ or Band around the pool with a lot of ship staff. They would try to get everyone up and dancing and sell you a sail-away drink. It was a big party to make leaving port exciting and sell drinks. Now Post COVID they just have music everywhere and try not to have big crowds. Social Media Groups: Like @Pattycruise said the social media groups get together to meet each other and enjoy the ships departure. On my September 4th cruise I have over 500 new friends from the Facebook Cruise Group for our cruise to meet.