Re: Give Me Liberty or Give Me the Big Cats 9/15/07 (or Give Me Both!)
Or, Cris, the ship is going backwards!
Ok, so I haven't been on in a few days, so I have lots of explaining to do, I guess. And I also have to defend myself for not posting pictures yet. Remember, our modem was down for 4 or 5 days too!
So, earlier this week, my mother warned me that my brother might be visiting this week, because he wants to move back to this area. If you remember, 2 or 3 years ago he caused me anxiety when he moved to my town and I was hoping that he wasn't going to spend tons of time popping in unexpectedly. Well, he's living with my parents right now, in part because he was traveling a lot, and in part because he's a mooch! Now his company is in this strange bankruptcy/reopening stage, and he's not sure if he's going back with them. He has now decided that it's time to move closer to me again, and then hopefully my parents will finally get their house on the market in Louisville and get their butts up here.
On Wednesday I checked my e-mail at lunchtime at work, like I normally do, and I have a message that he wants to know if I want to go to dinner. WHAT? How about calling me and telling me you are going to visit and need a place to stay??? So I called him and he was already half way up I-71 North of Columbus. We met at my house, went through some classifieds, then headed out to check out a house. He liked it, wants to rent it, and he could be up here to move in as soon as the 15th. Well, I am leaving out the part of the story where he embarassed me by really foul language and innuendo at the rental property and his poor treatment of the server at the restaurant we stopped at. He left Thursday morning (thank you God) and we know that they are checking his references so that hopefully he can get the house and stop bugging me to look for houses!
So, last night we were busy watching the Indians kick the Yankees butts, and of course, we are hoping that they'll beat them again tonight. (Sorry Jim - I think that's your team, isn't it?)
Today, Greg went into work, and while he was on duty, a call came in to the Station for an ambulance run to the nursing home that his dad is at. And, of course, it's his dad. He's been doing remarkably well. Well, today, his sugar levels had dropped to 15 - normal is usually at least 80 - and he was having trouble breathing. They took him to the ER and gave him fluids, and also identified that he has an infection So, he's being admitted to the hospital as I type this, but is only expected to stay over night and then return to the nursing home. Yesterday we were told that he should be getting out of the nursing home on October 12th, which is Greg's birthday. We're hoping that is still the case, after today's events. So Greg took the rest of the day off and I'll get a further update when he gets home from the hospital. It doesn't sound like a big deal at the moment though.
I guess I should get my mind on cruising because that does make me happy!
Regarding the Freedom-class ships, I am definitely up for doing one of those again. I had absolutely no problem with that ship, in fact I loved the LOS and hope that I get to sail on that ship, or another ship in that class sometime. We kept on saying that it reminded us of a "stretched out Mariner." And we loved the Mariner. Like Jim, we just hit PLatinum Status and we're thrilled about the extra discounts and higher Crown and Anchor discounts that come with that. I think what got us talking so much about the Mariner for next year was the similarity to the Liberty of the Seas and the fact that we are all (I think) trying to watch the cruise budget in '08 so that we can afford the Alaska cruise in '09. And, we really prefer Port Canaveral too. It's always easier for us to get a cheaper flight into Orlando with good timing and no layovers. I was really discouraged by the number of direct flights to Miami this year, the horrible flight times, and the fact that I couldn't get a real plane (not a puddle jumper or toy jet) to go direct to Miami other than AirTran, where we had to have a layover and also several (8?) flight time changes.
And on to Alaska...I am making up for not posting with this long post....I am open to any and all cruiselines and combinations of ships/trains/landtours. So, I'm open to everything for '09 and I am willing to consider everything. My only slant would be that with these repeat RCCL cruises, I might be biased a bit to RCCL but if another cruise line offers a great experience for the cruise dollar, I want to consider it. The way I look at the Alaska cruise, I am going to start saving for that now, and I don't want to feel like I missed anything when we cruise, because I do see this as a once in a lifetime cruise.
Phew - my fingers are tired! I hope I covered everything!
Hope everyone is off to a good weekend so far. It's going to be warm here.
Sheree
) and our preference would be able to see / sail with all of you, than not. Certainly the ship is important, but sailing all of you is even more important. Rumor has it RCCL will be deploying a Freedom class ship to Port Canaveral in place of the Mariner in 2009. With that in mind that would be an idea worth considering in 2010. 