Well, we are booked to spend the night of November 10 at the Suite Hotel Eden Mar in Funchal - Junior Suite with a sea view.

Don; where you are staying was sold out, but from what I read I think our hotels are quite close to one another.

CROSSERs, you have been busy since I was away from the boards -- for, among other things, a wonderful POW WOW in Santa Fe.

Sue and Tom, welcome back! We'll be neighbors. John and I are in 726.

Kathy, I hadn't thought about the time changes, giving us 25 hour days! How great is that? All the better to enjoy CROSS -- and sleep in without guilt.

JoAnn, I haven't given it thought recently, but I think I'll be in for bridge. Can we stay a little loose about the plans, to see what all is scheduled on board? I don't want to miss anything! Warning about my bridge abilities: I'm definitely a recreational player, not a serious competitor. Full disclosure up front. John is not a bridge player, so he won't be joining us. No telling what he will find to get involved with.

Thanks Priscilla and it will be great to have you as our neighbor! :)

Priscilla - of course we can stay loose, thought that was the plan in the first place. I too am strictly a "social" player, no pressure from me here. Frank wants me to take some lessons, so I will be more confident when we play with our friends, who, as is he, are very good, and they are all very tolerant of me and my low level of playing. So anyway, I do want to take some lessons, without Frank around, so that I can learn on my own and learn to bid on my own without his help. I just thought if Kathy, and her Frank wanted to take some lessons, and you and I both did, we could be a foursome, thus our level of play could be very relaxed and loose.

Lets just play it by ear when we get onboard, there will be so much to do, and I would think most of this stuff will happen on the TA portion in any case.

Right now I just want to get on the ship!!!

JoAnn, that sounds perfect. We'll see when the lessons are scheduled and go from there. I learned bridge in college when we would get games going for hours, with people dropping out and others coming in as their schedules permitted. So I've never taken formal lessons, which would help me with bidding in particular.

I agree, as long as I'm on the ship, I'll be happy!

Yes, definitely time for a cruise fix...I am off for a pow wow of Crosser's on Monday we board the HAL Amsterdam (if Hal can decide which port it is sailing from - it's changed 4 times now! Long Beach or San Pedro) to Vancouver where we will be picked up a week from today by Freddie and Pat for a few days at their house where we will do some excursion planning and the ever important wine sampling. We will probably prepare some dish we did in the Cordon Bleu class on WAVE last June.

Have fun Kathy - I hope HAL decides which port they are using. Sorry for all the confusion, I am just as confused, everytime I call them for you I get a different answer. I think the one I got this week is right.

Nope, it got changed again. I got a phone call from someone else ,,,,I am going to check the webcam at Long Beach. If I see it, we go there. If not, we go to San Pedro.

Just catching up after our trip to Nassau where the weather was fabulous, the people were warm and friendly and the food was out of this world. We had some great times with Don and Michele--it was good to see them.
Welcome back Sue and Tom --we're down the hall from you in 745. FYI--I'm signed up for the Cordon Bleu class (but not Jerry--he's not into cooking at all). Jan and Fred--it'll be great to see you again. This should be a great trip!

Cool, now there are 8 of us. Kathy, me, Peggy, Freddie, Jan/Fred, Don/Diana, so everyone will have a cooking partner - if they pair us up into two's like they did before.

Frank, Frank and Jerry can hang out at the pool!!! <img border="0" alt="[beer]" title="" src="graemlins/beer.gif" />

My Frank will find a nice spot to take a nap...or read a book - or go to a lecture...or play backgammon or bridge....no shortage of things to do or not do...

Well Kathy - we know Frank and Frank will do a lot of those things together, as they both love, hanging out, backgammon, bridge, a beer now and then, they will be fine.

Reading all the TAP reports and viewing all the wonderful photos.....Are we there yet??????????

You have soooo much to look forward to Denise!!!

I'm with you Denise!!! It can't get here soon enough!

I forgot to post yesterday at the six month mark for those of us who will be joining everybody in Funchal on 11/11! Maria and Denise, you are both right, it can't get here soon enough! I am ready to go now!

Hi Don,

We'll probably start dancing the day we have to pay in full! How sick is that??

Yes, we're ready to go too...but first to Seattle area and do some planning with Fred and Pat. We're packed for our departure on Monday.

Hi Kathy,

Have a great time! It looks like you'll keep busy between now and CROSS!

Kathy, have a great trip!

Don, six month milestone duly noted. That means those of us getting on in Monte Carlo will have had eight days to get the ship all ready for you, and we'll be a great welcoming party. I promise!

Yippee we are under the 6 month marker - CROSS will be here before we know it. Tom and I are so excited to make this sailing and meet so many of our LCT friends. :banana:

Kathy, have a great time on your HAL mini-cruise!

I am at least ready to do the Doc dance! Can I pay early and get the docs early? :banana:

Don,

You can Doc Dance all you want - I have docs here! Wishing they were RSSC's, and you and Diana are with us, but we will just have to suffer with the 550 sq. ft. suite we're booked in. We'll drink some champagne on your behalf - and no calories or carbs for you that way.

Whoa, Kathy! 550 sq. ft.? That's huge. Can't wait to hear.

Don, Diana, Sue and Tom, champagne will be flowing freely on your embarkation day!!!!!

Yes it will, the Welcome Aboard party will be taking place - suite 861! I promised and I will deliver. Invitations to follow. :pass:

That is sweet of you, JoAnn, to have a party - we actually had one for 11 on Mush LOW sq footage - tight but fun!! I could care less if I had 1200 sq feet if it's not Regent...

Are you kidding Joanna????? Any excuse for a party! It will be fun and we are looking forward to it.

Yeah its true, those HAL full deluxe suites are pretty awesome, huge, not to mention the largest verandah I have ever experienced.

But nothing beats RSSC overall.

They must be great - we have friends who cruise HAL and love it - we compare $$$$$ and, of course, they think they have super deal - :rolleyes: :rolleyes: I'd rather stay home just me NOT to knock the BIG lines

Oh well, if Regent has more ships and could do all the itineraries to the places we want to go, it'd be a slam dunk.

We booked this one because we were looking for a cruise for my friend to host a big party later in the year and we found this one while we were planning our spring getaway. We were originally going to drive up north and spend a couple weeks in Washington (our main destination - to visit Fred and Pat), Oregon and British Columbia when we won the 12 day Oceania cruise. We're not retired and we're already away for 6 weeks this year. We had to give up our driving trip. It's perfect. And some friends of ours are on it coincidentally - they were married yesterday so we're on their honeymoon. They're cruising up and spending a week doing what we were planning on doing but they're doing a week of B&B's. We'll have a blast. I already packed a couple bottles of Dom! And HAL is non-smoking in most areas of their ships now too.

Right nothing beats Regent - :cool: :cool: :D :D

We're gearing up for CROSS. We dined on authentic Moroccan cuisine this evening for our Mother's Day dinner. Wonderful! We felt as if we were in Morocco and were ready to doc dance in the restaurant!

:ch:

Denise,

What kinds of dishes are Moroccan? I have never eaten in a Moroccan restaurant and have no clue!

Thanks!

Good question Maria, you must be a mind reader, as I was thinking the very same thing while reading Denise's post.

Alan and I shared Kemia -

Kemia
Meat filled Moroccan "cigars", meat filled Moroccan "pastelles", vegetable roll, roasted peppers, eggplant, crudites, pita and hummus.

Our daughter, Rachel, had Moroccan fish -

Moroccan Fish
Two salmon steaks baked the Moroccan way with authentic Moroccan spices. Served with saffron rice.

Here is the website for BBC Cafe in Beverly Hills to give you an idea of some of the other dishes. Please keep in mind that this is a Kosher restaurant. I'm guessing that many typical Moroccan dishes are not on the menu, as they adhere to stickly Kosher (no pork, shellfish, for example, on this menu).


BBC Cafe

Sounds great, Denise! And so totally appropriate for a pre-CROSS dinner.

Well if you eat out on CROSS, you will know what to order! Sounds interesting.

Moroccans eat a lot of lamb and a lot of stew-like dishes prepared in a tangine. It's similar to the food from other Middle Eastern countries (eg the pita bread, hummus, eggplant dishes, etc)We've eaten at several interesting Moroccan restaurants here and there. There's a Moroccan restuarant at Epcot center (not really that good), a super Moroccan restaurant complete with belly dancers in Vail, Colorado (also a branch of this restaurant in Atlanta--can't remember the name, but you sit on pillows on the floor and eat with your fingers--no utensils). Last, but not least, there's a really good Moroccan restaurant in St. Martin out in Mullet Bay. The food is spicy and really good for our taste, but we like all kinds of Ethnic food --it's one of our things.

Peggy,
Imperial Fez? Haven't been, only heard about it. Too timid a palate!!

That's the one!!

I'm no expert in Moroccan cuisine, but there is a local restaurant (Marrakesh) that we've been to several times and enjoy very much. It's a fun atmosphere with low tables and belly dancing. They offer a multi-course set menu, with the main course usually being some various meats with couscous. Our favorite course is the b'stilla - it's a delicious chicken pie that is both savory (chicken, almonds, eggs) and sweet (cinnamon and powdered sugar). Yum! I'd highly recommend trying b'stilla if you have the opportunity in Morocco.

Dena