Canada Place and three ships in port

Yesterday Cheryl, Dave and Lexie left on their first post COVID cruise!  They planned on going to Italy and I'm so happy they decided not fly overseas.  It was just too uncertain when they needed to make final arrangements.  They are on the Majestic Princess for 14 days!  It's 7 days northbound to Whittier and then 7 days southbound back to Vancouver.  They were scheduled to dock in Skagway but the dock was damaged with the rock slide.  The experts checked and there is a huge boulder that's sitting waiting to fall on the dock so the decision was made to cancel all ships that were to berth there for the rest of the cruise season and make the necessary repairs.  

The substitute ports are Haines, Icy Strait and Sitka.  Fortunately they have Sitka on the northbound and Icy Strait on the southbound cruise.  Cheryl and Dave have never been to either port.  Lexie was at Icy Strait with Cec and I in early July but was disappointed when we wouldn't go on the longest zip rider in the world!  Dave booked her on the zip rider in Ketchikan and now she can go on the world's longest!  Icy Strait Zip Ride

What a gorgeous day to sail out of the port of Vancouver!  They left at 3:30 to sail at low tide under the Lions Gate Bridge.  The ship is too large for Seymour Narrows so they will sail the west side of Vancouver Island.

The expedition ship Ocean Victory was in port today.  It sails around the world to exotic ports.  It has the highest Polar Code 6 certification and Ice Class 1A.  It's highly stable in tough Antarctic conditions.  It has accommodations for 93 passengers and is a true explorer ship.  

The new Holland America Koningsdam was in port also.  It's the first time I've seen her and looking forward to my May cruise next year.  

I will never get tired of this view.  I love being on the deck of a ship pulling out of Canada Place and listening to all the cruisers comment on the gorgeous scenery.  My favorite port to sail into is Sydney, Australia and Vancouver is a close second.  

They walk among us

THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY THOMAS COOK HOLIDAYS FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:

1. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to BUY things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."

2. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."

4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price"

5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."

6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."

7. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax. "

8. "No one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."
(??????)

9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."

10. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."

12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."

13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller."

14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the resort'. We're trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."

15. "There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."

16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."

17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."

19. "My fiancé and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-imbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. !!!!! This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

This makes you think......

 I read this today and thought it was well written:

Here is the truth about how I feel about the Pope visit.

Let the church pay his way to come and visit everyone.

But don't pretend he is an honorary Chief.

In fact, The problem with honorary Chiefs is that they think they are some kind of Chief for the rest of their lives.

Anyone with an honorary title should have to be elected year after year like any other chief.

I bet the majority of them would be tossed out after one term.

And all this blame is not doing any of us any good.

There are still a few of us left who actually went to Indian Day School and Residential Schools.

Some of us blame everyone for what happened to us, and some of us have already dealt with it.

And some non indigenous people say they are sorry for what happened to us, and others try to deny that it ever happened.

To those who keep apologizing, please stop.

You were not there.

It is not your fault.

And to those who say it never happened, please stop.

You were not there. Stop being disrespectful.

I find it ironic that all of this happens just a week after the final deadline for all of us who went to Day and residential schools to fill in the ten pages of documents, have them notorized, and sent away.

Like a cheque is going to erase history.

So if you want to know how I feel about all this, I don't like it at all.

I think the Pope is fine.

I think the Church is fine.

What I don't like is how this part of our history causes us to disagree.

It's divisive.

And that is not what this country needs right now.

More than ever we should be able to recognize that we have all been through some pretty bad things in our lives, and cut each other some slack.

I have said some things on people pages, and I should erase my comments.

The ones that hurt the most are the ones who pretend that none of us kids were abused, and none of our relatives died while they were in Residential Schools.

It happened.

Stop denying it.

And I promise that I will never blame anyone who was not there.

Have we got a deal?

Thursday humour

 

Happy Birthday Cheryl

Today is Cheryl's 48th birthday.  That is an old picture but one of my favorites as it showed her red hair and chubby cheeks.  We decided a few years ago birthday's will be celebrated with a family dinner and the birthday person chooses the venue.

Cheryl chose sushi!  We all love sushi and it's within walking distance from our house.  I hope she has a wonderful day!

Where The Crawdads Sing

Yesterday Kathy and Dina asked me join them at an afternoon movie.  This is the film they we went to:  

Before we went, I read the reviews and they were mixed.  Some were not good.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it two stars and the Tomatometer read 35%.  However, the audience score was 96%. So, I went with an open mind.  It was based on Barnes and Noble's best book in 2018 by Delia Owens.  

I loved it!  The story follows Kya whose parents abandoned her and she raised herself in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina.  The story was so good with a twist at the end.  

We thought it was more of a "chick" flick and the people who panned it were men.  

One of the producers was Reese Witherspoon and Taylor Swift sang "Carolina" at the end.  At the end of the show when they started the credits and Taylor Swift sang Carolina, everyone stayed seated.

A wonderful way to spend a hot Monday afternoon!

COVID cruising

The CDC has dropped COVID cruise ship program.  It's not monitoring ships or asking for testing before you board a cruise ship.  The Government of Canada still requires all passengers sailing from Canada to be fully vaccinated and wear masks inside the terminals.  I've read masks are required on ships sailing to Alaska from Vancouver.  I believe this is a cruise ship rule as most people go one way and the depart on a land package around Alaska then fly home.  

Cheryl, Dave and Lexie leave for Alaska for 14 days soon and I wonder how many people will actually wear masks on board?

I read this on one of my boards from a frequent cruiser:

I am currently sailing on a Disney Ship in the Caribbean. In the Port of Miami, we were in a waiting room with probably 200 other people for about an hour. A sign on the wall said “Masking Required” however I would guess only about 5% of the people were wearing masks. Ship policy is that masks are required when indoors if social distancing is not possible. That same 5% are wearing masks on the ship and I promise you the elevators are no exception.

Another fact: We are at 60% capacity on this cruise. There were supposed to be 2600 on board but almost 200 people were left behind because they had COVID positive tests for embarkation. I am thinking if they had tested positive one day later, the ship would have been to blame and it would be reported that the isolation deck was bulging with COVID. It would probably make the news!

Now I have to ask myself if people are really so terrible these days that very few can follow the rules. I look around and see people from many countries and all ages from children to the elderly, all enjoying this cruise. They do not look like a group of future convicts. They look a lot like normal everyday people out having a wonderful time. But don’t they know about COVID? Why didn’t the Port of Miami enforce the policy to mask? Why are the ship employees allowing everyone to be so disrespectful?

What in the world is the CDC thinking to be dropping COVID standards of safety?  

Sunday Funday

 

Emirates statement on operations at London Heathrow!

I have never read such a scathing media statement.  It was sent to Operations at Heathrow Airport.  Good for Emirates!

14 July 2022 - Emirates values our partnerships with airport stakeholders across our network with whom we engage continuously, and collaboratively, to secure our flight operations and ensure minimal customer disruption, particularly over the peak travel months.

It is therefore highly regrettable that LHR last evening gave us 36 hours to comply with capacity cuts, of a figure that appears to be plucked from thin air. Their communications not only dictated the specific flights on which we should throw out paying passengers, but also threatened legal action for non-compliance.

This is entirely unreasonable and unacceptable, and we reject these demands.

At London Heathrow airport (LHR), our ground handling and catering – run by dnata, part of the Emirates Group - are fully ready and capable of handling our flights. So the crux of the issue lies with the central services and systems which are the responsibility of the airport operator.

Emirates is a key and steadfast operator at LHR, having reinstated 6 daily A380 flights since October 2021. From our past 10 months of regularly high seat loads, our operational requirements cannot be a surprise to the airport.

Now, with blatant disregard for consumers, they wish to force Emirates to deny seats to tens of thousands of travellers who have paid for, and booked months ahead, their long-awaited package holidays or trips to see their loved ones. And this, during the super peak period with the upcoming UK holidays, and at a time when many people are desperate to travel after 2 years of pandemic restrictions.

Emirates believes in doing the right thing by our customers. However, re-booking the sheer numbers of potentially impacted passengers is impossible with all flights running full for the next weeks, including at other London airports and on other airlines. Adding to the complexity, 70% of our customers from LHR are headed beyond Dubai to see loved ones in far flung destinations, and it will be impossible to find them new onward connections at short notice.

Moving some of our passenger operations to other UK airports at such short notice is also not realistic. Ensuring ground readiness to handle and turnaround a widebody long-haul aircraft with 500 passengers onboard is not as simple as finding a parking spot at a mall.

The bottomline is, the LHR management team are cavalier about travellers and their airline customers. All the signals of a strong travel rebound were there, and for months, Emirates has been publicly vocal about the matter.  We planned ahead to get to a state of readiness to serve customers and travel demand, including rehiring and training 1,000 A380 pilots in the past year.

LHR chose not to act, not to plan, not to invest. Now faced with an “airmageddon” situation due to their incompetence and non-action, they are pushing the entire burden – of costs and the scramble to sort the mess - to airlines and travellers.

The shareholders of London Heathrow should scrutinise the decisions of the LHR management team.

Given the tremendous value that the aviation community generates for the UK economy and communities, we welcome the action taken by the UK Department for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority to seek information from LHR on their response plans, systems resilience, and to explain the seemingly arbitrary cap of 100,000 daily passengers. Considering LHR handled 80.9 million passengers annually in 2019, or a daily average of 219,000, the cap represents greater than a 50% cut at a time when LHR claims to have 70% of ground handling resources in place. 

Until further notice, Emirates plans to operate as scheduled to and from LHR.  

This was published the next day:

15 July 2022 - The President of Emirates Airline and the CEO of Heathrow Airport held a constructive meeting this morning. Emirates agreed the airline was ready and willing to work with the airport to remediate the situation over the next 2 weeks, to keep demand and capacity in balance and provide passengers with a smooth and reliable journey through Heathrow this summer.

Emirates has capped further sales on its flights out of Heathrow until mid-August to assist Heathrow in its resource ramp up, and is working to adjust capacity.

In the meantime, Emirates flights from Heathrow operate as scheduled and ticketed passengers may travel as booked. - ends 

Surrey City Elections - it's getting more interesting

Old picture of Gordie Hogg
I love Social Media, these pictures live online forever!

Gordie Hogg, former Mayor of White Rock threw his hat in the ring for Mayor of Surrey.  Unless he's moved, he doesn't even live in Surrey!   He's had quite a list of elected offices.  He was on White Rock Council for 10 years, then White Rock's mayor for another 10 years.  He served as a Member of the BC Legislature from 1997 to 2017.   In 2017 he was elected as a Member of Parliament and lost in the next election in 2019.  He ran federally in 2021 but lost again.  

We have another current Member of Parliament running for Mayor.  Sukh Dhaliwal who is the current MP for Surrey-Newton.  He hasn't said if he's taken a leave of absence to run for mayor.  He was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2008.    In 2011 he was defeated by Jinny Sims.  He defeated Jinny Sims in 2015 and has been an MP since.

Jinny Sims, former President of the BC Teachers Federation, Member of Parliament from 2011 to 2015.  She then ran for provincial politics in 2017 and she's been my MLA in Surrey-Panorama since then.  She has taken a leave of absence from her MLA position to run as mayor.  Didn't hear that from Mr Dhaliwal!  My many nice emails to Jinny didn't even receive a reply.  However, they did manage to send me a request for money.  They enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope so of course I answered it with a long letter of why I would never support Jinny as she's done little for the citizens of Surrey.  She's running for Mayor?  

Doug McCallum our current mayor has announced he too will run.  He's been criminally charged, but that doesn't seem to deter his political ambitions.  He is innocent until proven guilty but his trial isn't until after October 15 election.  Years ago the RCMP gave him a DUI and that's why he wants them replaced.  He's started to transition the police and made himself chair of the police board.  He's facing a criminal charge and refuses to step aside as mayor or chair of the police board.  That pretty well sums him up.  

Brenda Locke was an MLA from 2001 - 2006.  In 2018 she was elected as a Councillor in Surrey and has served us well ever since.  BTW, I'm on Team Brenda!  She answers phone calls and emails.  She supports the homeless and women's shelters.  She works tirelessly in Surrey to make this a better place.  She's been very outspoken about the Surrey council members and mayor who banned seven senior citizens from city council meetings.  She's opposed the transition of the RCMP to our own police force as no business case or cost/benefit analysis was ever done.  Today a city employee reported the salaries of over 100 police officers are not being charged to the transition but to another account.  Dougie the creative accountant!  We have never been told what the real cost to taxpayers for replacing the RCMP with our own police force will be.  

Why are so many people with a lot of legislative experience running in Surrey?

With all these candidates the vote will be split and I have no idea who will win.  It will be an interesting couple of months before our election.

Happy Wednesday

 

Queen Elizabeth and her US Presidents

 

The Queen Of England …

I was a little shocked by the pictures when it penetrated my brain how long she's

been around. She gives new meaning to the phrase "Long Live the Queen"!

How old does this one make you feel?

Scroll and keep going … back in time.

I don't know about you, but I went OMG somewhere between Eisenhower and Truman.

(After looking at this - I am shocked at how long I've been around, too.)

Lyndon B. Johnson is missing because he never met the Queen!

IF YOU REMEMBER ALL OR MOST OF THESE  TWELVE PRESIDENTS, YOU MUST ADMIT YOU'RE NO SPRING CHICKEN EITHER!

Monday laughs

 

Boundary Bay Air Show

Yesterday we got invited to view the Boundary Bay Air Show from our favorite patio close to the air strip.  The City of Delta sponsors it and the admission is free!  Parking is $10 onsite but there is free parking with a shuttle.  What a wonderful idea for families.  Three years ago the Snowbirds performed!  They didn't come this year.  The maneuvers were awesome. I tried to get pictures but they weren't good so I found these online:  

Alpha Aviation and the City of Delta are excited to announce the return of our annual airshow which will take place on Saturday July 16th 2022. This year we are organizing a “Welcome Back” show featuring a high caliber of talented performers from all over North America. 

We are thrilled to feature the Northern Stars Aerobatic Team at the 2022 Boundary Bay Airshow. Founded by unrestricted aerobatic performer and former Canadian Forces Snowbird, Brent Handy, flanked by Wingmen Todd Farrell and Greg Hume-Powell, the Northern Stars Aerobatic Team formation aerobatic routine combines discipline and precision with adrenaline-filled, heart-pumping tumbles, torque rolls, and loops. The Pitts Special is THE air show airplane to inspire young and old to pursue their passions! 

Now in existence for over 10 years, the Boundary Bay Airshow continues to be a tremendous success and a prevalent community event for Alpha Aviation Inc. and the City of Delta. It not only showcases aviation at its finest, but it is one of the few remaining free admission airshows that provides spectacular excitement and entertainment for the community.

Cruise ship reaches North Pole!

On July 13, 2022 at 12:00PM EST, Ponant's Le Commandant Charcot reached the geographic North Pole, marking the first time for a luxury passenger vessel to bring travelers to the location, according to a press release.

This follows Le Commandant Charcot’s first voyage to the North Pole in September 2021, the first French vessel to reach this latitude.

“It is with great humility, and emotion that we have reached this latitude, each of us aware of the exceptional character of this moment we have been living,” said Captain Patrick Marchesseau, at her helm.

That would be a wonderful cruise!  If this type of expedition cruise interests you, here is the link:

Ponant Cruises

I read at the end of the last cruise to the Arctic many of the departing passengers were stranded in Spitsbergen because of the SAS Pilot strike!   So, another cruise ship to the rescue!

Mein Schiff to the rescue