THE REGENT SEVEN SEAS EXPLORER IS WONDERFUL

These long travel itineraries generally draw the most readers. Many will not get to Dubai or take a cruise on Regent Seven Seas. Living vicariously provides sufficient satisfaction for some, as they've now been to the top of the Burj Khalifa and visited the largest mall in the world. On the other hand, it's still best to live vicariously through your own life.

After an up and down Dubai stop, which included highlights like the tallest building in the world and low lights like food poisoning, we headed off to the port in seven buses, first passing the Queen Elizabeth II. If you keep up with these things, the city of Long Beach in 1967 bought the Queen Mary, which was converted into a museum, restaurants and hotel. It was closed in 2020 and might never be again re-used. The Queen Elizabeth II entered service in 1969, was retired in 2008, and acquired by Dubai World, which had plans for a 500-room hotel. It was opened to visitors in 2018 as the new QEII Heritage Exhibition and Hotel. Accor of France purchased the ship this year, and plans to have 447 rooms, 9 restaurants and 60,000 square feet of outdoor event space., keeping the ship in Dubai

We boarded the Regent Seven Seas Explorer, and if there is a Heaven, this certainly is one possible scenario. Check-in was flawless, and in consideration of all the visa and vaccination protocols, quick. Started with a champagne greeting and lunch.

Ended meal with Glenmorangie on rocks at 3PM, then wandered to our room to see if it was ready. Only one of five bags was there, but not a concern, for we saw all of them unloaded into our bus. The cabin is something else. King size bed, bathroom with shower and bath, huge walk-in closet with loads of drawer space, a kind of living room with large TV screen and a lanai that was double, if not triple, the size of other cruises ships.

The ship was scheduled to depart at 5PM, so we went up to the observation room and ordered glasses of Glenmorangie, Glenlivet and Glenfiddich to compare them.

The direction of the Explorer shifted, so we went back to our room to see the Dubai skyline fade away.

For our first night on the Explorer we selected the French Chartreuse, probably the best restaurant on the ship.

An excellent meal, where the best dish was a mushroom truffles confit soup, with the entrés being lamb and foie gras/truffes filet. We had finished lunch at 3PM, and began dinner at 6:30, so the full enjoyment was compromised by supersatiation.

Then for breakfast this morning, the usual.

The ship docked in Bahrain just as we finished breakfast. As this stop was only because we couldn't go to Qatar, we were the first Regent to visit the country. A marching band greeted us.

All tours were taken so we will just spend the day on the ship. Dinner tonight is at Prime7, a steakhouse.

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

THE FIRST 84 YEARS OF MY LIFE

The first half of my life was spent preparing myself for my final 42 years. This was a mostly trying and stressful period involving a less than ideal youth, then struggles to get through school, my first few jobs and accompanying life, ending two months later on a Sunday with Part 15E , so it was a spiritual conclusion to my final transition. I never did count the number of actual postings, but I suspect it was around 25 parts. The ending had to do with golf, the disappearance and re-appearance of an 8-iron cover. That was the final clue to whether the beyond after death would be eternal gloom or Heaven. Today, I provide only one transition, but hint about a final one, for this, after all, is Sunday. I'm 84 years old, so let me summarize what happened during the first phase, from 0-42, and follow with the years 42-84. As this is 2024, that key transition year was 1982. I can't seem to find this photo, but as a one-year old baby, I was fat....

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