HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT A GLOBAL CRUISE?

A newsworthy item today is the Egyptian Peace Plan for the Hamas-Israel war.

The good news is that neither side outright rejected it.
The Plan.

Mediation led by Qatar.
Initial cease-fire of up to two weeks.
Phased release of up to 50 hostages, in return for 120-150 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Formation of a government of experts to rule Gaza and the West Bank for a transitional period to work out presidential land parliamentary elections.

Getting more air time might have been the appearance, again, of Taylor Swift at a Chief's game. On Christmas Day she wore a Santa hat with the number 87, that of Travis Kelce. She came with her family: brother, mother, father. Travis' dad was also in the suite, as was the wife of Patrick Mahomes. She said she'll be there for the final game of the year, which is this coming weekend. Alas, the Raiders beat the Chiefs, 20-14.

Today begins a three-day cruise series. We almost went around the world on the Island Princess. We were supposed to leave Los Angeles in January of 2021, but that cruise was cancelled by the company. We could have had 15 drinks/per day for 111 days, or a total of 1665 alcoholic beverages, each. We would have died. Good thing the pandemic came.

There is a plethora of global cruises, many of them don't exactly circle our planet, and most of them depart in January. Here are some you can consider, although some are fully booked:

Island Princess.

Leaves Fort Lauderdale on January 4 for 111 days, returns on April 25 and space is available in all classes.

Interior $16,898 ($152/night)/person.
Balcony $21,498 ($194/night).

Ship eventually gets to Los Angeles, and you can initiate the around the world cruise there from January 18.

The Cunard Queen Victoria departs Southampton on January 11, and returns on April 28.

107 days.
All the cheaper staterooms are taken. Cheapest suite is available for $58,799 ($550/day)/person.

However, Cunard's new Queen Ann will take a 107-day maiden global journey in 2025, beginning with a departure from Hamburg on January 7 or Southampton on January 9, returning on April 24.

Alas, only suites are available from $117,598 ($1099/day)/stateroom. Thus about the same as the Queen Victoria.

The Holland American Zuiderdam departs For Lauderdale on 3 January 2024 and returns on May 11.

128 days.
Ocean View $24,899 ($194/person).
Verandah #34,999 ($281/person)

The Regent Seven Seas Mariner departs Miami on January 6, and returns on May 16.

132 days.
All cabins booked, but the Veranda costs $90,999 ($699/day) person.
The Regent alway includes drinks and tours. That is, everything is free.

The Oceania Insignia departs Los Angeles on January 14 and returns to New York on July 12 for a 180-day journey. So it's not quite around the world.

Inside $47,499 ($264/day)/person.
Veranda $68,799 ($382/day)/person.
All rooms are currently taken.

Royal Caribbean has an Ultimate World Cruise of 274 days, but it already left Miami on December 10. Returns to Miami on September 10.

Interior $53,999 ($197/day)/person.
Balcony $74,654 ($272/night)/person.
Includes everything (but tours), plus business class flights to and from port.

The above is mostly provided as background for you to plan a global cruise next year, for most of them do this annually.

We found that the food got stale, like a cafeteria, if on the same ship for a long time. Thus, what about shorter cruises, back to back, such as from Honolulu to Europe? That will be Part 3. Tomorrow, Part 2 will feature our next trip, which will be around the world. Air plus three cruises.

A post-Christmas ending. First, is this a green flash? Taken last night at sunset.

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...

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

IS FLORIDA AGAIN THREATENED BY A MEGA TSUNAMI FROM LA PALMA?

From the morning New York Times : Here is a graph comparing average daily COVID-19 deaths/100,000 people, and the USA is doing something really wrong: The difference between our country and Europe is that we have flubbed the availability of cheap and ubiquitous at-home RAPID testing. They have covered this base. There are two obvious problems: The FDA is much too bureaucratic about quickly approving anything related to this pandemic, including testing. We seem stuck with the test that takes one to several days to get your result. The good news is that the Biden administration has finally realized this problem and through executive order hope to soon flood the market with take home testing that at first will be subsidized to make it affordable. Now, on to getting everyone vaccinated, especially 5-11 years olds ( and we are close to getting to making this happen ), the undereducated and Republicans. What to do about the latter two? The other concern is whether we a...

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