ATW Day 120!

It's time to play catch up, catch up since it's been a while since my last post and catch up since the wrap up post that I had nearly completed suddenly went blank.  So here goes.

We left Halifax and arrived at Boston in the late afternoon of July 2nd.  The ship offered shuttle buses into Boston proper but it was very hot so we opted to just stay on the ship.  We've been to Boston many times.  For some reason they had fireworks in Boston on July 2nd.  We got partial views from the ship.

I need to back up a bit before moving on.  The evening that we left Halifax, we had dinner with 2 crew members in the Grand Dining Room.  We purchased the opportunity to do this through an auction that was held to support the crew welfare fund.  The crew members we invited were Khriza, the dining room greeter and MariJa, a sommelier.  We have known both of them for quite a while.  It was a fun dinner that went on for 3 hours.

On the 3 days at sea until we arrived in Miami we had smooth seas, a bingo win (a second recent one for Linda), and Linda participated in the Sing Out Loud choir organized by the ATW hosts, Paul and Caroline.

And we also had an excellent lunch with Bob Binder and his partner Walter.  Bob was one of the founders of Oceania along with Frank del Rio.  He's been gone from Oceania for some time and he and Walter have a winery in Napa Valley.  They were on the ATW the whole time and were quite unassuming, and, quite nice.  Bob brought a bottle of his Silver Trident Pinot Noir which we love (as opposed to the Pinot Noir they serve by the glass on Oceania!).  It was interesting to hear Bob talk about the formation of Oceania.  They also have several other irons in the fire including the development of an AI based food app.  After that lunch, Bob asked us to do a test of it since they had not had any pescatarians try it.  You go through a series of questions about food preferences and the app can then compare those to a list of restaurants, restaurant menus and recommend the dishes you should order.  After we completed the questions, he had it come up with recommendations for 2 of the specialty restaurants on Vista.  It will also recommend a menu for a dinner party if your guests also go through the app.  

That brings us to disembarkation day in Miami.  Disembarkation was a mess.  With all of the ATW folks having so much luggage (we had 5 suitcases), the port did not have enough people to handle that load.  The result was a 2 hour delay for us to get off.  The good thing was that Oceania provided a private transfer for Linda and me to take us to cousin Jerry's where we had a nice, but short, visit and a nice lunch at Mo's.  Jerry took us to the Fort Lauderdale airport for our flight home where things got really messed up.  Due to weather, our incoming plane was very delayed due to weather which meant that we would miss our connecting flight in Raleigh, so we're spending the night in Fort Lauderdale and have an early non-stop flight tomorrow morning.

And to wrap this up, here are some final thoughts on the around the world adventure.  Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.  The major disappointment, as I've talked about before, is the dynamic and sense of entitlement among so many of the veteran ATW cruisers.  It made the experience on board so different from our usual Oceania experience.  We are certainly in agreement that we will not do another ATW cruise, especially since, starting in 2028, they will be going back to a small ship.  For such a long cruise, we really did not miss many ports but the ones we missed resulted in us not seeing some family and friends: Kona, my cousins, Mooloolaba, Linda's friend Lynne, and New York, Linda's childhood friend, Elizabeth, who she has not seen in over 50 years!  The change in itinerary did result in us missing an overland trip to Nepal.  And the last thing on the down side was my inability to tolerate the heat and humidity in some of the ports.

And now, to the good stuff.  While we missed Nepal, the change of itinerary did give us the opportunity to go on that fantastic safari in South Africa.  While we missed some chances to see family and friends, we did have a great day in Sydney with our friend Maria and her granddaughters.  We got to check a few things off of our places to see list - the lemurs in Madagascar and countries along the West Africa coast which was interesting to do once (which we now won't have to visit again!).  It was really great to return to some places where, the last time, Linda was unable to do much walking and we got to experience good walking together.  While I've ragged on the ATW folks, we did meet some very nice people who we will keep in touch with.  Linda joined a trivia team and it was through trivia that we met Kat and Garry who arranged that wonderful tour in Scotland for us.  And I can't help but point out again that we have visited all 7 continents and crossed both the Antarctic and Arctic Circles this year.  Finally, we have such a special relationship with the staff and crew on Oceania that brings us joy whenever we are on board.  We had many special meals with them - including Linda's birthday, our anniversary and the resulting redemption lunch, and the dinner I spoke about above.  It's why we always go back.

That's it for this journey.  Next up will be about a month of cruising around the South Pacific in October, during the dry season, where we are hoping for better weather than we had this time!

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry