SO HOW WAS OUR 35-DAY CRUISE ON THE NORWEGIAN ENCORE?

Our 35-day Norwegian Encore cruise from Seattle to Southampton was both very good and very bad. The ship, service, food, drinks and entertainment were wonderful. Probably best ever of any cruise.

The bad had to do with me. Maybe it was the traveling east, or that I'm more of a landlubber. My body is old, and could not adjust to the constant time changes. I found in the past that flying east was terrible for me. So all my global journeys have been in the westward direction. It's possible that I will in the future avoid anything going east, including on ships. The worst thing is that I had difficulty sleeping. Sleep is very important. Last night, for example, I was in bed for 14 hours and slept only 3 hours, at most. On land. I'm worried about the remaining days. We don't return to Hawaii until December 7, which is 16 days away. I hope I can ultimately recover at home.

With that dire thought, let me mention some of the other negatives.

I drank, ate and partied too much. Way, too much.
Did not exercise much.
Went on only one tour, mostly because we were sleeping until at least noon all the time. Plus, you had to pay for them.
Room air-conditioner sometimes did not work well.
I either caught a cold...or contracted COVID-19, a week into the cruise. Never tested myself. Thus, some coughing and congestion still remain today. Hurts trying to sleep.
The immigration check system in Miami was way too time consuming.
The performers in the main theater were mediocre.
The room TV was small and stations were terrible. The same films played for 35 days. There was MSNBC, Fox and CNBC, but not much else.
Donald Trump was re-elected president. Probably affected my sleep pattern.

The positives.

The workers were well-trained and made you feel welcomed.
Almost everywhere, and especially in the food service areas, there was constant cleaning.
The food was uniformly outstanding.

The noodle station at lunch was a must stop.
We had three meals in Le Bistro, the French restaurant, with the escargot and endive salad particularly outstanding.
The entertainers in the various small rooms were excellent. Beatles, Adda Band, etc.
Good karaoke in The Cavern Club, which is fashioned similar to where the Beatles performed in Liverpool.
Dancing to the great sounds in the Social Club with a DJ at least gave me some exercise.

The WiFi mostly worked well.
The bathroom was superior, with a safe and reasonably large (for a ship) shower and double sinks.

The Panama Canal transit experience should be experienced by all.
The ship did not encounter any bad seas. We barely missed two hurricanes, but the ride was smooth and safe throughout.

All in all, weighing the pluses and negatives, I would give this cruise a C+ grade, only because I just could not sleep well. I know at least one other person who gave it an A. Still have the Viking Christmas River Cruise remaining. I just hope I can sleep better.

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...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

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...

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