This Trip Archives - Page 10 of 11 - Steve and Cathy On The Road

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Ha Long Bay, Vietnam on March 24th

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

This is what Cathy and I call a virtual Sea Day, as our new arrival time in Ha Long Bay is now around 6:00pm. We know that the staff of Destination Services has been working overtime trying to rearrange everything for everybody. It is an unenviable job, but we have seen them work miracles before. We choose to sit in Destination Services to be there when they open up at 9:00am. We are hoping that we

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Sea Day on March 23rd

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

We wake up this morning and immediately feel a change in the weather. Gone is the heat and humidity we have been whining about. The temperature is in the high seventies. The other condition we notice is that of the sea. It is active, with nine-foot waves pushed by a stiff wind coming right at the ship. Apparently the ship has been contending with this adverse sea condition all night. Once again, we are thankful that

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Mekong Delta, Vietnam on March 22nd

Posted on March 30, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

A quick note to two. First of all,we are having issues with the Internet. This was predicted by the cruise line due to the area through which we have been passing, which, coincidentally or not, is Vietnam and China (you may connect the dots or not). I have many more photos I would like to add to this post, but I can’t download them into the app I am using for this blog. I will update

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Saigon, Vietnam on March 21st

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

One of the primary objectives that we set when we decided to take this around the world journey was to test all of our preconceptions about the places we were going to visit and the people we would meet in these places. There was no country we would visit where this assignment would be more challenging than Vietnam. The picture above is Cathy with Enrichment Lecturer Peter Croyle who, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, has spent

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Sea Day on March 20th

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

After three straight days of excursions in the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia, a Sea Day comes as a welcome opportunity to dial down the activity level and spend the day in air conditioning. Some of our fellow guests from south Florida are saying that this is what it is like there in July and August, and that their days are spent indoors as ours would be during a winter snowstorm. Ooh, perhaps mentioning snowstorm

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Bangkok, Thailand on March 19th

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

Today we have a morning excursion and, yes, we chose it primarily because it has a boat ride as a major segment. Our guide introduces herself as Ann, explaining that her real name is Siri Kul but we can call her Ann. As seems to be the pattern, she is lively, entertaining and possessed of wonderful people skills. Since our guides are very much the window through which we view a city or country, it is

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Sea Day on February 6th

Posted on February 8, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

On Sea Days, as we have said before, we are establishing a routine. And in our case, the routine holds our interest but is not jam-packed. It probably is just as well that we are not on a larger ship as many of the activities available on such vessels would not see us in attendance, even though we would be paying for them. So here on Insignia, we do not feel we are losing out if

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Walvis Bay, Namibia on February 5th

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

Our excursion today has the intriguing title Moon Landscape and Welwitschia. We meet in Insignia Lounge at 9:30 and are assigned Bus 24. We were trying to be on the same bus as our friend Paula, but she ended up the last one for Bus 23 and we were the first for Bus 24. We have to work on coordinating better with our friends of we want to hang together on a tour. Our bus isn’t

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Walvis Bay, Namibia on February 4th

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

We sail into the protected and important harbor of Walvis Bay right on time around 8:00am to begin a 32-hour stay, the first port of call where we actually get to go ashore for two days. Even without docking, we can see that this is going to be different than the three previous West African ports. There are several huge dry docks, some with small ships in them being repaired, a large car carrier ship, and

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Sea Day on February 3rd

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Steve and Cathy

What a difference a day makes, as the song goes. As predicted by Peter Croyle in his lecture, there has been a considerable and very welcome change in the climate. The air temperature when we wake up is in the 60s, and the heavy humidity is gone. We had started to notice the change as we attended the Country Fair yesterday (a photo of the Housekeeping booth with the put-the-pillowcase-on-the-pillow contest that is at the beginning