Blogs from Atlantis, Atlantic, Oceans and Seas - page 6

Geo: 21.9759, 96.0842Mandalay is only one and half hour flight from Bangkok. It is worth going Premium Flux for front seats and luggage first off the plane. Our driver was waiting to whisk us through a pleasant landscape of fields of corn and peanut bushes. Golden stuppas abound. A few years ago the government decided to switch from driving on the left to the right. However all the cars are still with the steering wheel on the right so everyone is inconvenienced as they haven't started importing left hand drive cars! We arrived at the Mandalay Hill Resort hotel, probably the best hotel in Mandalay at the moment. The rooms are spacious but the bathroom is surprisingly small. Initially we thought it was very cheap until we realised all the prices are in dollars. We sat ... read more

Geo: 42.5075, 1.5218Enough of cutting you folks slack on pictures, we are holding you to the iron now, we are sending twelve. Quit complaining! So, we are out of Spain for a day. Furthermore we have left Fernando's apartments. We have made two mistakes with accommodations in Europe, one last year in Prague, and Fernando's in Barcelona. Both now in the rear view mirror. Barcelona, it is really a beautiful city, yet we are looking for history, not much there, but very pretty and nice folks.Now in Andorra, which is the third smallest country in the world behind Lichtenstein, where Doozer never set a foot but Baby Bird and HP did. The other is Monaco. These three are Principalities, we think granted independence by the Holy Roman Emperor, although their size did not deserve it, yet ... read more

Geo: 54.8438, -48.3368It's another relaxing sea day. I don't remember much about this day, not because I was drunk or asleep all day. I didn't write anything because I was busing finishing up the previous days in our blog. Yes, I was behind and needed to catch up. Since today was just a "sea day", I concentrated on cleaning up earlier posts, adding pictures and writing details missed in a few entries to prepare for sending. Nevertheless, we must of done something.After breakfast, we went to a lecture at 11am. The subject concerned our next two stops in Canada, St.John's and Halifax. Barbara was the lecturer and her presentations are always very interesting. I can't comment on our lunch but I can guarantee we ate something. From the photos, it was probably pork. We attended the ... read more

Geo: 60.7201, -46.0268We arrive in Qaqortoq, Greenland, at 8am to a beautiful blue sky, the first we've seen in many weeks. A few icebergs are floating in the harbor, nothing huge but they're still interesting. The last time we saw them was in Alaska in 2011. We're here until 4:30pm and the cruise director suggests to everyone that we take our time to get ashore. "Avoid the initial rush", he says. We have a leisurely breakfast, then around 9:30 we report to the theater to get our tender tickets. Unfortunately, there's a long wait, about 30 minutes, to get aboard a tender going to town. We wait, listening to the numbers as they call them out, slowly working their way toward #5. Finally we hear, "Blue 5", and off we go. The ride through the harbor ... read more

Geo: 64.028, -35.5487Today is a sea day and we have no planned activities. Well, not exactly. I want to go to a lecture on Greenland at 10am, Karen has laundry to do, we have a Mariner's luncheon at 1pm and our passports need to be picked up at 3:30pm. Add to that breakfast, lunch, gala dinner and the 8pm show and we actually have a pretty busy day ahead of us. It's breakfast as usual but I'm carrying my IPad with me all day so I can use any free time to catch up on my blog. Karen goes back to the room to bag up the dirty laundry while I head to the lecture. She has conceded that paying $20 for a bag of clothes to be professionally cleaned is easier than going to the ... read more