Posted on 04/26/2024 8:21:56 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
I'm on my way to the ABC Islands of the Caribbean for eight days aboard the Celebrity Beyond starting Saturday April 27. The first place I hit will be the Ocean View Café BUFFET bar where not only a plethora of delicious food is awaiting me for lunch tomorrow but also I can start drinking again. In fact, I think I might start drinking a few beers today so all those drinks won't be a complete shock to my system. Oh, and our Steve Kane Radio Show group also has a serious mission project aboard ship. Namely to try out ALL the Martinis on the Martini Bar menu. Perhaps we shall determine which is the best Martini aboard.
Yes, I'm going to eat too much! I'm going to drink too much! I'm going to talk too loud! And I'll probably embarrass the hell out of my wife (again)! BUT I DON'T CARE! Because it's a ...CRUISE!!!!!
PING!
Blueberry Cheesecake is like CRACK to me. I am like the Hunter Biden of cheesecake.
It’s not killjoy to remind you that the biggest bummer on cruises is getting sick. I support everything you might do to have a great time. I worked on RCCL Jewel of the Seas for ten total months. Yes, Celebrity is sold as upscale from Royal Caribbean. It’s 5=10% better. BFD.
The fact of the matter is that when you use the handrails to steady yourself as you walk around the ship, you become at some level intimate with the bathroom habits of perhaps 5000 other people. Sorry if that is gross. The proof? When there are Novo outbreaks on ships, the crew break out the alcohol and bleach and wipe down the handrails.
There are multiple bathrooms on every level of the ship, all over the place. If you are traipsing around the ship and just wandering around, do yourself the biggest favor you can, and wash your hands in hot water every hour or so.
Trust me. And have fun!
We live near Tampa. We love the Celebrity ship ‘Connie’ Constellation. Been on her 4 times since 2022.
You will love the Celebrity brand. Just ask you will get ...
Ice bucket changed twice a day
Room change twice a day
Continental Breakfast in room at no charge.
Lovely staff.
Extension Cord if you need it at no charge, we bring our diffuser for essential oils.
Let me know if you have any other ?s
I have a great immune system so I’m not worried. BTW, it is recommend that young children have pets because it helps them develop good immune systems for later in life. That is why I am glad we had a pet dog (actually 2 pet dogs) when I was very young. They helped to develop my immune system. Also if I feel a cold coming on I either pick up a few containers of chicken soup from Trader Joe’s or just make it myself. That ALWAY works.
I already know Celebrity is a great cruise line because this will be our FOURTH Celebrity Cruise.
Congratulations! I for one hope you have a great time.
Don’t let the curmudgeons around here bring you down.
“”I’m going to eat too much! I’m going to drink too much! I’m going to talk too loud!””
Sounds like a typical trip to Walmart..
You can follow Captain Kate on instagram and TikTok !
Be sure to pet Bug!
Have a grand time!
Yep, most of the cruise horror stories occur on Carnival. Carnival is a classic case of getting what you pay for. They’re dirt cheap, but that cheap price comes with the antics of low-rent clientele, poor maintenance, and ships that look like the inside of a 1970s Vegas casino.
We’ve cruised a number of times, always on Royal Caribbean, and the experience has been nothing but fantastic. Celebrity is owned by Royal Caribbean, and so is also very well run. The non-cruisers who claim that any cruise ship is just a “floating Petri dish” should be ignored, because they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Extrapolating Carnival’s constant problems to other cruise lines, and using that as justification to avoid cruising in general is like refusing to buy any car because your neighbor’s 1975 Pinto breaks down all the time and occasionally explodes.
I’ve been to all 3 ABC islands. I detest cruise ships.
I do AirBnB and direct flights.
Which crusie ships DONT have buffets?
And small pools that a bunch of other people get in?
Which cruise ships can I be alone on a beach all day, every day?
Which cusise ships don’t have lines and crowds?
Why do you have to disparage the Pinto? All of the trash talk about the Pinto was media hype.
My wife and I loved our 1972 ginger metallic brown Pinto liftback with landau vinyl top.
My Somewhat Begrudging Apology To Ford PintoI never thought I’d offer an apology to the Ford Pinto, but I guess I owe it one.
I had a Pinto in the 1970s. Actually, my wife bought it a few months before we got married. The car became sort of a wedding dowry. So did the remaining 80% of the outstanding auto loan.
During a relatively brief ownership, the Pinto’s repair costs exceeded the original price of the car. It wasn’t a question of if it would fail, but when. And where. Sometimes, it simply wouldn’t start in the driveway. Other times, it would conk out at a busy intersection.
It ranks as the worst car I ever had. That was back when some auto makers made quality something like Job 100, certainly not Job 1.
Despite my bad Pinto experience, I suppose an apology is in order because of a recent blog I wrote. It centered on Toyota’s sudden-acceleration problems. But in discussing those, I invoked the memory of exploding Pintos, perpetuating an inaccuracy.
The widespread allegation was that, due to a design flaw, Pinto fuel tanks could readily blow up in rear-end collisions, setting the car and its occupants afire.
People started calling the Pinto “the barbecue that seats four.” And the lawsuits spread like wild fire.
Responding to my blog, a Ford (“I would very much prefer to keep my name out of print”) manager contacted me to set the record straight.
He says exploding Pintos were a myth that an investigation debunked nearly 20 years ago. He cites Gary Schwartz’ 1991 Rutgers Law Review paper that cut through the wild claims and examined what really happened.
Schwartz methodically determined the actual number of Pinto rear-end explosion deaths was not in the thousands, as commonly thought, but 27.
In 1975-76, the Pinto averaged 310 fatalities a year. But the similar-size Toyota Corolla averaged 313, the VW Beetle 374 and the Datsun 1200/210 came in at 405.
Yes, there were cases such as a Pinto exploding while parked on the shoulder of the road and hit from behind by a speeding pickup truck. But fiery rear-end collisions comprised only 0.6% of all fatalities back then, and the Pinto had a lower death rate in that category than the average compact or subcompact, Schwartz said after crunching the numbers. Nor was there anything about the Pinto’s rear-end design that made it particularly unsafe.
Not content to portray the Pinto as an incendiary device, ABC’s 20/20 decided to really heat things up in a 1978 broadcast containing “startling new developments.” ABC breathlessly reported that, not just Pintos, but fullsize Fords could blow up if hit from behind.
20/20 thereupon aired a video, shot by UCLA researchers, showing a Ford sedan getting rear-ended and bursting into flames. A couple of problems with that video:
One, it was shot 10 years earlier.
Two, the UCLA researchers had openly said in a published report that they intentionally rigged the vehicle with an explosive.
That’s because the test was to determine how a crash fire affected the car’s interior, not to show how easily Fords became fire balls. They said they had to use an accelerant because crash blazes on their own are so rare. They had tried to induce a vehicle fire in a crash without using an igniter, but failed.
ABC failed to mention any of that when correspondent Sylvia Chase reported on “Ford’s secret rear-end crash tests.”
We could forgive ABC for that botched reporting job. After all, it was 32 years ago. But a few weeks ago, ABC, in another one of its rigged auto exposes, showed video of a Toyota apparently accelerating on its own.
Turns out, the “runaway” vehicle had help from an associate professor. He built a gizmo with an on-off switch to provide acceleration on demand. Well, at least ABC didn’t show the Toyota slamming into a wall and bursting into flames.
In my blog, I also mentioned that Ford’s woes got worse in the 1970s with the supposed uncovering of an internal memo by a Ford attorney who allegedly calculated it would cost less to pay off wrongful-death suits than to redesign the Pinto.
It became known as the “Ford Pinto memo,” a smoking gun. But Schwartz looked into that, too. He reported the memo did not pertain to Pintos or any Ford products. Instead, it had to do with American vehicles in general.
It dealt with rollovers, not rear-end crashes. It did not address tort liability at all, let alone advocate it as a cheaper alternative to a redesign. It put a value to human life because federal regulators themselves did so.
The memo was meant for regulators’ eyes only. But it was off to the races after Mother Jones magazine got a hold of a copy and reported what wasn’t the case.
The exploding-Pinto myth lives on, largely because more Americans watch 20/20 than read the Rutgers Law Review. One wonders what people will recollect in 2040 about Toyota’s sudden accelerations, which more and more look like driver error and, in some cases, driver shams.
So I guess I owe the Pinto an apology. But it's half-hearted, because my Pinto gave me much grief, even though, as the Ford manager notes, “it was a cheap car, built long ago and lots of things have changed, almost all for the better.”
Here goes: If I said anything that offended you, Pinto, I’m sorry. And thanks for not blowing up on me.
Celebrity doesn’t have lines or crowds.
I cruise with Viking.
No casinos, no kids, no hard sells.
Very destination oriented.
They sell discovery and adventure.
One thing we never even considered is getting in one of those hot tubs where the gate hang out. Just eeeewwww!
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