Detour

 September 30, 2026

Well, no Cabo San Lucas tomorrow. It is a tender port and the storm in the area has caused the officials there to close the port.  So we are detouring around the storm and heading for Costa Rica.  Bonnie and I weren't getting off the ship anyway.

After I finished my 10:30 talk today, Jason, the entertainment director, came to me and said since we were missing a scheduled stop he moved one of my two scheduled Sunday talks to tomorrow.  Today I did the celestial navigation talk, "Are We There Yet?" and the one tomorrow will be part 2 of the c.n., "John Harrison: the Man who gave us longitude.  Much better layout.

My technician today was Andrei from -- are you ready -- Russia.  We gavarooed a bit, he found the street in Samara where mom and I rented a flat.  Really neat.  Then after the talk there was a lady selling tickets for bingo and her accent was -- are you ready -- Russian.  Her name is Anastasia, and I pronounced it the Russian way which made her happy (Anna Stas E Uh not Anna Stayzyuh).  I guess you needed to be there.

Well I need to start rehearsal so we'll see yinz tomorrow.  Mom is sitting in bed, reading, and drinking a coke and using it to was down a Hershey chocolate bar.

TTFN

Love, David/Dad/Pappy

The Real 9/29

 September 29, 2026

Well, we started at 6:30 am with showers. On then to breakfast on Deck 3. He went back to the  room to study while I went up to the LIDO to get my cup filled with ice and water for the day. Then off to Deck 2 to sit and wait for his first talk today on Photography. I sit in front of the "Starbucks" coffee place. It is crazy busy with people order their lattee, etc at the cost of $7 or more. A cup of just plain coffee is $3. You can get a cup of coffee on the lido deck for free. I bought 2 cans of coke tonight and that was $9. Won't buy too many of those. Jason brought us 2 large boys of cold water for our room. Very nice because they cost $4.50 each.

After his talk we went back to the room so he could get ready for his second talk on Potatoes at 2:30. Today was a busy day. After this talk it was back to the room till it was time for our 5:15 supper.

I did get some crocheting done. And they finally got the temperature adjusted in our room so we are not freezing.

Tomorrow at 10:30 he has his first talk in the theater. Much bigger venue. He only has one talk so we will have some time to go to the shops, relax and play some cards. 

Tonight's supper was not satisfactory. My tomato soup and salad were good. However, my entree was not. I got what was described as "chicken in a creamy mushroom gravy with noodles and seasoned vegetables". Instead of nice pieces of chicken I had two small pieces of chicken with the bone in under the gravy. It took me forever to separate the small amount of chicken from the bones in order to eat it. I wound up having to remove little pieces of bone from my mouth which I couldn't see. It was not an appetizing meal. Dessert was pina colada cheesecake, sugar free. It was good.

Well, he has finished his practicing and will do his part now. We are getting up 6:30 tomorrow to be at breakfast by 8.

Miss you all. Haven't had anytime to get out on deck yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Love you all. Mom, Granny and Bonnie

September 29

 Hey everybody ! Welcome to the crazy farm.

We just rushed in from supper and he said BLOG! So here I am. Today up at 7 (went to bed at 8 pm) I was exhausted last night. We had gone to the show after supper and yesterday was his first talk. It was just a long day.

Today was slower, he had the day off. Tomorrow he has 2 talks, one at 10:30 and one at 2:30. It will be crazy .

Today we were talking about getting off the ship on the 12th and look at getting a shuttle to the airport. Can't be done our flight is too early. So he has spent all afternoon changing the plane flights so we can buy a ship's shuttle ticket.

Our cabin is on Deck 1. Kind of in the middle of the ship. If you turn right out our door we walk about 2/3 the length of the ship to take an elevator up to food. If you turn left out the door you walk about 1/3 the length of the ship to get to the Mad Hadder lounge where  10 talks are and the other 2 are in the theater two decks up.

As he has said our room is icy!! Even cold to me. Nice to sleep in but not sit or work. This is an older ship so things don't all work as well as they could.

We have had a breakfast brunch in the dining room twice. It is nice and I can get a cup of hot chocolate. Then, we don't eat again to supper because brunch is late. Today we did go up to the Lido deck and have a bowl of soup and an ice cream cone. The meals in the dining room have been good. Our wait staff (I Gusti, Dodi, Antari, and Alfi) are very nice and work very hard. They have many tables!!

I have done a little crocheting and some reading. People are hiding ducks and I found one tonight in the dining room. Yes, and I scooped it up. I shall be on the look out for more. There is not much to explore on the ship. Only 2 or 3 shops. Halls and spaces are very narrow. Not much opportunity to sit outside on deck 2 or 3 and there are no chairs outside. Haven't looked around on Deck 9 the Lido deck where pools and etc are located. Want to go back to the one shop that has souveniors and clothes. He bought a new shirt to wear because he forgot his sweater vest to wear for his talks. I found a t-shirt on clearance for just a little more than $4.

Well, he has studying to do and I won't be long out of bed. I am very tired again tonight.

OH, we did play one game  of cards and he beat me bad.

Love to all!! Mom, Granny and Bonnie

September 27

09-27-2026 A full day at sea, the first of many. We don’t make our first landfall until Cabo san Lucas, then another Mexican stop (at neither of which do we plan to disembark) and finally Cartegena, Columbia before Galveston. I had my first talk today, “Yes, We May Have No Bananas.” A good crowd in the Mad Hatter Theater. It looks like will seat 75. Mom guesstimated an audience of 60. I’m off tomorrow and then have 2 on Tuesday. At supper tonight Bonnie had “Southern Fried Chicken,” but it looked like and she said it tasted tlike “Banquet Frozen Chicken.” My pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon was good. And we each had Carnival Molten Lava Cake, with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream for dessert. And it was very good. Well, my cruise buddy is napping (she promised to blog tomorrow), and my demonic word processor, aka Word, is being stupid (Note to self: install the angelic WordPerfect before next cruise), so I will say TTFN.

93 Emails

93-Emails That’s how many emails were exchanged between your humble scribe and CCL before boarding the Carnival Miracle today. And among the last half dozen was the statement that we did not have a cabin assigned and we would have to carry our suitcases on by ourselves. This morning we prayed that when we got to the ship there would be an assignment. We walked up to a lady and said, “We don’t have one.” She looked and said, “There you are!” Thank you, Lord! That was one of several angel visits since leaving Augusta. Brooke, on Delta, the lead flight attendant tried to get Bonnie’s monitor working and when it failed, gave us a $25 travel voucher. When we checked into the Hilton Hotel last night, room paid for by CCL, Natasha said we were in one of the rooms selected for crew, outside and a good hike away. She said, “Let me see if there is an upgrade I can move you to,” and there was and we stayed inside in a king suite. At breakfast this morning I had a voucher for my breakfast and would have to pay for Mom. Our waitress, Savannah, said, “I have more vouchers. She doesn’t have to pay.” And she advised us to take an Uber to the ship and not a taxi because it would be faster and cheaper. For all of the above, as well as all of the safe travel, Lord we give you the glory, and our thanks! There’s more to tell, but it will wait until tomorrow, because I need to rehearse for my first talk, “Yes, we have no bananas,” tomorrow at 4 p.m. in the Mad Hatter lounge. So until then, TTFN.

Bonnie’s End of Cruise Musings

It is Tuesday May, 13 Tate”s birthday. We have been home for about 14 hours. This is the final blog for our last day of travel, yesterday Monday May 12 which was the great granddaughter ‘s birthday Wrenley..

Now about our last day. Well I was up at 2 am and back to bed at 3 am hoping to sleep some more. We had set our luggage out before 10 and heard them carry it away, very noisily. We got up at 5:10 before the alarm went off at 5:30 (this was 12:30 am in Augusta). We dressed, I packed up my c pap machine, we packed pj’s, dirty clothes from the night and the turtle into the green bag decorated with pink flamingos which would carry off the last of our stuff. I had my backpack ready to go and he had his computer case.

We headed off to the Windjammer for our last time for breakfast. Not quite as cold outside but typical England weather rain and fog. He had on 4 layers of clothes for our trip. I enjoyed one more bacon sandwich with mustard. He had eggs and bacon. Well, after eating back to the room to turn on channel 7 and see where the ship was in going off. It was about 30 minutes behind schedule. We were to be in the deck four gangway lounge before 7:15 go off time. We headed that way about 6:45.

They finally called green 19 tag. So we got up and headed to the line which wound through deck 4 dinning room around the back of it and finally out onto deck 4 to join the growing long line. As we were walking down the side of the ship I realized I had left the green flamingo bag back in the lounge. The line to the scanner was long so he went back to find it. I got out of the line temporally till he would return empty handed. It was gone!! We tried to remember what was in it. Pj’s, dirty underwear, electric toothbrush, hair brush. All replaceable. Then as we went through the scanner and were walking down the long ramp to pick up our suitcases it struck me TURTLE was in the bag. That is unreplaceable! David bought him for me when I had shoulder surgery and he has been my constant buddy in the bed at night. I have never seen another turtle like him . He is gone. He has traveled on every cruise and seen many countries often sitting in the window of our cabin looking out when we had one. SADNESS!

Next we found the bus for green tag 19 heading to Terminal 3 in London Heathrow airport. We were the last 2 of the last 4 people to board the bus. Back seats for us. The ride would take and one and a half hours. The lady on the bus who was giving instructions about ride said that they had provided the usual rain and fog for our journey. They drive on the wrong side of the road which was interesting as we rode. We finally got to the airport around 10 am. Now we had been up 5 hours. At Heathrow airport they charge 6 pounds if you drive and drop off passengers. Busses is 6 pounds per person. If you don’t prepay or pay by midnight the fine will be up to 80 pounds.

Well, we went into the terminal and found the check in computers to check us in. We didn’t have to pay for our bags, Yeah! We printed the luggage tags and attached them to the suitcases. Then we headed to the desk to give our luggage to be put onto the plane and get out boarding passes. The cases were checked through to Augusta. I was feeling pretty good and we said we wouldn’t need the wheelchair till we got to Atlanta. England is not as kind to the elderly when going through security. Shoes off, belts off, jackets off no matter how old you are. Beep Beep and the usually very through pat down. Way longer than was needed or necessary. Not a friendly young lady, nice or kind. Took about 5 minutes before she was through probing me. Well, Heathrow, like Lisbon, does not put up gate numbers till about an hour before scheduled take off. The board said our gate would be shown at 13:45( that is 1:45pm) it was now about 11 am. We took turns going into the shops, and there were hundreds of them. We limited ourselves to a couple around where we were currently setting so we could see a board. We each got a sandwich, chips and a drink. Cost only 6 pounds for each of us. One  sandwich alone cost about $12 in Atlanta.

I shopped and bought a couple of souvenirs. We had brought 100 pounds to spend but only used 50.  Finally they put up our gate, 21. We pottied along the way because they are few and far between. We got to the gate and got put into the group for first on. Our seats were Row 47 A and B. Huge plane. Held over 400 people. There was a blanket and pillow in our seats, a TV to watch and they gave us headphones.

The flight was taking off at 3:30 and was to take 8 and a half hours. It would land at Atlanta about 7:30 Atlanta time. LONG flight. I watched 3 movies. I couldn’t sleep. I crocheted and made a new pot holder as we flew. I had brought yarn to make one while we flew. Seats were not bad but both of my hips were not happy. The meal we were served somewhat warm. They literally almost threw it to you and ten minutes later came back to pick up the garbage. Really! It does take a while to eat. There were wooden utensils, yuck! We also were offered a drink two other times and one of those  time with a cookie during the 8 ½ hour trip. Attendants were very inattentive.

When we landed in Atlanta there were to be wheel chairs waiting for each of us. It was on our tickets. A lot of people were getting off wanting wheel chairs and did not have it on their tickets. Plus for some reason there was a large shortage of wheel chairs. None to be found right at that time. There were none. We finally got 2 and headed off to pick up our suitcases and go through security. Well, the people who were pushing the chairs were assigned to the international airport and could not take us to our connecting flight in domestic. They did pick up our suitcases and put them where they needed to be to go to our connecting flight. So they parked us outside the security and customs place and left. During our stay there more than 15 people were parked there at any one time. They took our boarding passes and gave them to a very uninterested young woman who was to get the people from domestic to come get us. We sat there over an hour waiting! Finally someone came. A very nice young man, and he took us up to the customs guy and the security. More beep and beep and patting down.

Our gate was D15. The restrooms were even harder to find here so we stopped and used them before we got to the gate. The young man took us to D15 parked us and left. We had received a text saying our flight was delayed from 10:55 to 11:28. About 15 or so minutes after the young man left we got another text to say the gate was now D21 and would leave at original time. It was around 9:30 by now. So Dad left his chair and pushed me to the new gate. It was not too far away. I was totally wiped out by this time. He walked a little way and found us a bag of chips and a drink. So we waited. Totally disorganized. Finally they were ready to board. We had seats 14 c and d  about 2/3 of the way back. They asked if I could walk out and I said yes and very slowly went. We got to our seats. We are use to planes in Atlanta they take forever riding around till they take off. I was so tired and I fell asleep before we took off. They next thing I know there was this huge jerk and bang and we were landing in Augusta. I have no memory of anything.

We got off the plane and slowly made our way to find our luggage. Standing just outside the doors to the baggage area was a tall young man named Matthew wearing a Pirate t-shirt. We got our suitcases and headed to the car and toward home. It was one o’clock Tuesday morning when we entered the house. Bed Now! Slept till 6 this morning. 25 hours traveling!!

Well, I had a nice nap this afternoon and still fill like I haven’t had any sleep for days.  Maybe I will feel better in a couple of days.

Well, I still love you all and missed you. We just sang happy birthday to Tate and he is wiped out because he spent the day at the Atlanta aquarium with his class.

Love Mom, Granny and Bonnie

Last Blog for this Cruise

 

May 11

I did not lose my pants. I did not  take my pants off. I had to take my belt off and hold onto my pants because I’ve lost 35 pounds and the pants have never been altered.  I’m going to wear my suspenders home, so there will be no danger of anyone seeing my Star Wars underwear and reading  Yoda say, “Try not.  Do or do not.  There is no try.”

Our bags are packed and we’re ready to go, they’re sitting right outside our door. At the time we get up tomorrow morning our time, it will be midnight in Augusta.  By the time we land at Bush Field it will have been a 24 hour journey. T raveling west seems to be easier, but still a long day.  Tuesday morning we will start the laundry – two weeks of it.  Then a nap maybe two.

Aside from being annoyed by my computer, this has been a good cruise.  A very good cruise. The tech staff in the theater kept things going and it was fun doing the talks.  Many good comments.  I think I told you, one woman said  I should write a book.  Maybe later.  My cruise buddy and I have laughed and carried on and had a really good time. 

It’s a couple of hours until bedtime, and so for whatever goodies she has to tell you, here is the bride of my youth, my beloved, my best friend.  And yes, whichever clever reader said, “Do you mean Mom?” 😊 Yes.

TTFN

May 11, 2025, Mother’s Day!! Happy Mother’s Day to all. It has been nice.

Well, my day started at 1 am up and back to bed. Then, up 4:45 read and played my game. Laid back down at 5:30 to go back to sleep then up at 10 to 6 when he got up just before the alarm went off. I had showered the night before so I dressed and waited for him to get up and get ready. Before anything it was take your passport and sea pass card and head to dining room on Deck 5 at 7 am. Awaiting us was English immigration. It was necessary that the ship scan the key card and we proceed in and have our passports inspected. It took about 15 or 20 minutes. Then, out the door and up to Windjammer for some breakfast. Mustard and bacon sandwich for me. He had oatmeal. Then, I had brought my jogger up and while he went to the room to study, I was going out to walk. WHOA! It was about 40 degrees outside and the wind was howling. I started on deck 12 but quickly moved down to deck 11. It was no better there. I made one round and was very, very cold!!! So I went back to the room and retrieved my cup and my crocheting and headed to deck 5.

I took two of his books with me. One he had brought with him on board and had finished and one he bought in Bermuda but decided he did not want. I was taking them to the library on deck 5 to leave for someone else to read on the next cruise. Another lady was going in as I was. She was returning books and looking for something to take with her and read as she traveled tomorrow. I laid down the book Dad had finished and said this is a funny book and a good read. She looked at it, read the back and decided it would a good one. She said they were RVers and it was a book about traveling. I hope she enjoys it.

I found my spot to crochet and got started. Dad came up and brought me all my Mother’s day cards. What a nice surprise. How thoughtful of him and you all. It made the day all that more special.

Then, it was time for his talk in the theater. It was a good talk. Crowds are small 100? But the ship does absolutely no advertising. We have talked to countless people who did not have any idea there were lectures and talks on board. SAD! Lots of great comments from the people who come.

Well, it was time for lunch so up to the Windjammer. As we went into the door they had set up a couple hundred mini cupcakes I a great variety of colors and Mother’s got to have one. How nice.

Well it was egg salad for him, chicken salad for me. We had bought a can of pringles and we enjoyed some of them, too. On the ship they have this guy called the “piano man”. He has an upright piano on wheels and he rolls it everywhere all over the ship. He was even in one of the elevators one day playing. It is  loudly decorated and he is dressed crazily. Well, I was just outside the entrance to the Windjammer and he comes around the corner pushing his piano. He comes over to where I am standing and says he wants to put his piano there. I took a step to the right and he says he wants to put his piano where I am still standing. I was messing with the guy but I think I made him mad because I acted like I didn’t understand and kept being in his way. I did finally move. He was not amused but he should have been. He is supposed to be a fun guy.

The wind and cold was still EXTREME outside but we ran outside and got an ice cream cone and brought it back into eat. Well, at least it didn’t melt.

After that we went to the room and took a short nap. He had gotten a text from Delta that said he could check in. So we went to the library which has computers set up with a printer and tried to check in but were not successful. So we took our cards and went out on the deck to play a few hands. Didn’t get the game finished but he is leading.

They had huge nets of balloons way up in the top of the promenade that were going to drop this evening. As we set playing cards some of the balloons would pop. It was amusing.

At 5 off to supper. Shrimp cocktail, spaghetti Bolognese and a very hard stale brownie for dessert for me. He also had the spaghetti. It was good.

Well, we came back to the room and tackled the packing. Suitcases are packed, both weighing under 40 pounds. I have a small bag into which I will put all the clothes from tonight and the couple of toilet articles. This we will carry off in the morning and put in a suitcase when we get to the airport. I have my pack back and ditty bag ready. He has his computer case ready, almost. He has clothes for tomorrow and so do I. I will have to pack turtle and the c-pap in the morning. Well, 5 comes very early and we are supposed to get off at 7:15. Then, about an hour and half bus ride. We don’t fly till 3 so we will have to wait a while before we can check in and get rid of the luggage. We have some pounds to spend. Lunch and maybe a new Arrowwords  puzzle magazine.

If all goes well we get to Atlanta and have a 3 hour layover. We will have to travel from the international terminal to the domestic terminal and of course go through customs. I don’t think we have to get our luggage there. Then onto Augusta where a sleepy Matthew will be waiting around midnight.

Well, we have had a good time and I pray tomorrow is good. Love you all.

Mom, Granny and Bonnie