Last time I was in Seattle, I went for a big group run. Mid 50s, misting rain at 6 AM. A friend from Orlando was contemplating gloves for the run; the “warmest” thing I had on was a compression shirt 
I refuse to do anything that supports Uber in any way. It’s not about the drivers - the company has problems from the top down.
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Yeah, I was a bit concerned about supporting the company for the corporate shenanigans.
I think the main thing is I want a taxi service that runs like grocery store self-checkout so I can get the job done with a minimum of undesired human interaction. Lyft and Uber seem like the best options for these.
Of course, we’re also looking at the current flooding in New Orleans, which could make our trip interesting.
Some tips for survival from someone who has alcoholism in the family and deliberately avoids it:
• Space your drinks, with something hydrating. Lucozade is good, as is fruit juice.
• Eat! Eat all the things! Eat at least one thing per large drink.
• Ask what’s in a drink. It sounds like you want to make it at home, but you’re counting units.
• Drink with diminishing returns. In the first hour limit yourself to six units. Then five. Then four, three, two, and your last one.
• Everyone stops if someone stops. If a companion doesn’t want any more, you should stop too.
• Have Lucozade Sport ready in the morning. It tastes like cat butt and battery acid, but it’s helping you.
New Orleans is an amazing city, even with localised flooding; it’s one of the places I most want to visit in the USA. If you find somewhere especially nice to eat, drink, or just something that’s unique to the city, share it! 
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Honestly, we’ll probably end up nursing a couple an evening and that’s about it. That’s basically what we did on a cruise a few years ago and it worked great. Having a light drink at one of the smaller ship’s bars while watching people line up for assigned seating in the main dining room is a memory I savor.
My M.O. on our last cruise was:
- Dinner
- Random post-dinner stuff
- Get kids settled down
- Grab iPad
- Pick up an Old Fashioned at the piano bar
- Find a quiet place to chill out and read. Usually the library, but sometimes I’d hit one of the other bars.
- Repeat last 2 steps once, and once only.
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I tend to not drink on the boat much. On the islands everything is so much cheaper.
But, I get a giant frozen drink or two while in port before we leave. And while at sea I’ll have a couple hard ciders off and on.
I don’t get the $30 commemorative drinks.
I went on a cruise a few years back with my entire immediate family - folks, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces. Almost every night, I went with one brother-in-law to the casino for a bit, then to the cigar bar. Overall, I made enough in the casino to cover part of the cigar and whiskey costs, while my b-i-l probably ended up a couple hundred in the hole. Apparently, I’m cheap and lucky.
We did this once - my folks, my siblings, my sister’s boyfriend, my in-laws. It was a bit of a fiasco - NJ to Bermuda & back is really rough seas in early April, and we thought we’d get someone to watch the kids for us so we could have a date night but no such luck.
Most recent cruise was us, our in-laws and our nephews. Yeah, a 15 year old and 12 year old bunking with their grandparents. It was…interesting.
Next one is the same cast as the first one above, but hopefully calmer waters. What I don’t get is my parents saying “sure, we’ll go” followed by “we’re not huge fans of that cruise line, but it’s OK I guess” and “but we’ve been to these places already, so we probably won’t do any shore trips.” Then why did you sign up!? And for the record, I’m not doing any shore trips in Nassau anyway; I’ll just walk around town like last time.
I don’t get most of the shore trips, if you want to do something there are plenty of people selling trips for much less money at your destination. And if it’s a disaster then it’s a good story later.
That being said, I rented a cabana on Half Moon Cay that was worth every penny and then some. I think on our next cruise we might do the same thing again.
It’s a security/peace of mind thing. If you’re on a shore excursion run by the cruise line and get delayed, they’ll hold the boat for you. If you’re on your own, you’re SOL. You also can be reasonably sure that the cruise line has vetted the companies doing the shore trips and they’re not some sketchy group that’ll steal your kidneys.
That said, we did get one good “disaster” story out of a shore excursion on our honeymoon and that was organized through the cruise line. I complained to the on-board customer service desk who asked me to put it in writing, wrote a long complaint (longhand, on paper - ouch) and they ultimately refunded a nontrivial portion of the cost of that excursion.
That’s why I’m more comfortable doing it in Nassau that I will be doing that in Cozumel. And this time I have a passport, so if I miss the boat I can at least get home.
My issue with Mexico this time around is it simply has such a bad reputation right now for troubles with the law. The risks are so minute, but the consequences are disastrous.
I took a long walk in Cozumel, in the rain, solo. Probably 2 miles round trip (sure feels longer when your shoes are squishing). I felt reasonably safe, but it’s a tourist town and I was also on a main road (right along the shore). Then again, that was 8 years ago, so…
I would have done it 8 years ago too, and I’m not so worried about in town, but I really want to see some of the ruins. And 10 years ago I would have hired some random dude to do it. My wife went with her two daughters with some guy she hired at the post office before she met me.
I might end up paying the million dollars per person to see some of this stuff. Chicken Eatsya looks awesome.
The last several cruises I was on, they take your passport when you check in for the cruise and hold it on the ship until the end. With the onboard ID/credit card system, they scan you when you leave and return, so they know exactly who is/isn’t on the ship. If you miss getting back on at a port of call, they leave your passport with the port authority. From what my folks have said, that’s the policy/procedure on all the larger cruise lines.
That works, I wasn’t aware of it, but it makes sense.
Last couple times I haven’t had a passport at all, so my Ship ID was my passport, and if the ship leaves it’s no longer valid and I have to fight the mutant hordes to make it to the consulate and catch a spaceship for the home planet…
Wait… I think I messed that up somewhere.
I opted for the passport AND the passport card when I got mine back in '08.
I might give up one… but they ain’t getting them both.
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The last/only cruise I took I scuba dived 2 of 3 ports, and had a great time. I’d definitely recommend Unexso in the Bahamas for anyone interested in diving, although doing an ‘intro’ course while ona cruise may be a bad idea.
$Wife doesn’t dive, so she did beach-stuff one day, a tour of a large flower garden the other. The third port was the cruise line’s private island, and we didn’t do anything that day but chill on the beach.
Yeah, this was 2011-ish I’d guess and they did the passport thing. Better than losing it in port, I guess. And they’re very picky about making sure everyone is accounted for, although if you screw up and miss the boat you’re on your own, I hear.
I’ve heard of several incidents of this, and yeah, that’s what I heard, too… if you screw up, you’re screwed.
Should anyone happen to be going to Oregon to see the eclipse, take note that there’s a big bottleneck due to construction on I-5 in Tacoma. They’re already putting up notices about heavy traffic this weekend.