The threshold of new articles has been reached to put up a little compilation of new travel content published recently, and even though that threshold is imaginary and flexible and prone to being ignored when it’s convenient, I intend to obey the guidelines rather than rules I’ve attached to it on this occasion and go right ahead with that summary blog post now.
In the last of these blog posts (or newsletters, for subscribers) we’d reached as far as sailing away from Canada aboard Koningsdam. The first new post published since then was a little exploration of Koningsdam and an account of the first day at sea, meeting up with old friends, making new ones, and being a little underwhelmed with the speciality dining.
There then followed three travelogues detailing our first day in Alaska and our visit to Juneau.
We had time ahead of a booked excursion to have a quick look around Juneau where we spotted the first of many bald eagles and where, surprising nobody, we found a brewery.
The first part of our excursion while in Juneau took us to see the Mendenhall Glacier, a trip necessitating a walk through the Trail of Time. A chance to learn about moss which is more interesting than I’ve made it sound there, unless you found it very interesting when it’s probably not as interesting as I’ve made it sound there. An enchanting and easy hike, though, and we got to see a porcupine up a tree. That surprised us.
The main part of this Juneau excursion, however, was a boat trip out to see Humpback Whales. As with all wild animals, sightings aren’t guaranteed, but we absolutely lucked out on this cruise tour because we saw dozens, some quite close to our boat, and the fabulous sight of them bubble-net feeding too. Magical!
This past weekend we took a break, heading over to a hotel on the island one over along the coast from us here in Portsmouth, and paid another visit to Warner Leisure Hotel Lakeside. It was billed as a ska and reggae weekend, so not exactly what we’d say was our sort of thing on paper, but it was cheap, at the right time, and so convenient. Plus we wanted to see how the hotel experience compared to our previous visits there in 2022. After a slightly rocky start with disappointment over how the food service had altered and a drinks server who vanished for twenty minutes it was all uphill from there. The reggae from former-Musical Youth member Dennis Seaton was enjoyable and he was amusing. The ska from Ska Britannia was fabulous entertainment from a talented band. The surprising hit for me was the resident theatre team at the hotel putting on musicals numbers on the last night. Genuinely impressed with the small group’s singing talent and choreography, because musicals really do nothing for us at all.
That’s the new content done.
A new thing on the site now – not yet complete – is the addition of travel map posts. They’re set to be the first post on any grouped trip of worth, so that’s most of the cruises but also some of the trips around Europe, America, and within the UK that we’ve done where there are more than a couple of write-ups. If you’ve ever visited the World Travel Map page on this site then this will be a familiar-looking gizmo for you, showing you a map pinned with locations from the trips, allowing you to click on and jump straight to the travelogue.
You can find all the travel and cruise maps here although I appreciate that it’s mostly just a fun thing for me to see and look back at nostalgically.
As part of the increasing move away from platforms controlled by fascists I’ve started up a Pixelfed account now. That’s the Fediverse equivalent of Instagram. Think of it as Instagram how it used to be. A place to post photos and videos, to follow people, comment, share, and like, all in date-posted sequence, with no tracking, no adverts, no algorithm recommending stuff. It’s Instagram Basic, effectively, and there are some glitches, but new features are being added all the time. I’m enjoying it because like most of the Fediverse applications it’s just more laid back and it’s what you make of it rather than what some company wants you to do so that it can profit from you. Obviously, this is something for people to share without an incentive to get clicks and views and earn kudos or cash from companies.
My Pixelfed account is set up on pixey.org and you can find it here: https://pixey.org/markandmarietravel
I’m using it to post something from all the trips we’ve done every now and then, mostly in order, but I’m also looking to see how it does as a primary “we’re here” thing for when we travel. I will, however, still use Instagram because there are too many people I’d like to keep in touch with that I know would never leave the platform because of what’s important to them.
One thing I’ve eased right off from, but still haven’t pressed the Destroy switch on yet, is Facebook. For obvious reasons. I’m going to try to treat it like I treated Twitter, no longer actively posting anything, and trying not to check it very much, and if I get to the point where I realise I’ve not checked it in a while and don’t miss it then I’ll likely post a final appeal to get contact details or other online presences of people I might want to communicate with in the future, then nuke it.
Finally, it’s been a long time since I linked to other people’s content and that’s largely because nobody really posts the personal or travelogue style I like without trying to game the search engines, but it’s been fun reading the blogs of someone I’ve known online for a long time now finally getting on a cruise ship for the first time and discovering all the little wow factors that all of us veteran cruisers probably wish we could experience for the first time all over again. Here’s one – Another Wonderful Day – and I can recommend just reading the prior few posts too just to absorb some of his enjoyment.