My participation in the 2025 Star Trek Cruise

My brother and I participated in the 2025 Star Trek Cruise, put on by Entertainment Cruise Productions.

My brother and I had gone on the 2018 Star Trek Cruise, and had a great time, but we decided that we weren’t so interested in immediately booking the following year’s sailing, nor during a nebulous period of “about five or so years”. We changed our minds in early 2020, thinking to book for 2021; however, difficulties in getting through the phone lines which were constantly busy and the subsequent world-wide event (which no doubt was the reason for all the busy signals!) made it clear that we shouldn’t continue with our efforts in 2020.

Fast forward to early 2024, we felt confident to book for the 2025 sailing: We booked passage on the 2025 Star Trek Cruise on the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas in mid-March, 2024. This was still a somewhat challenging experience, since the phone lines to reserve were always busy. My brother mused to the effect of “the next time we book passage, I should take the whole day off!” Fortunately, my brother persisted and got through, and managed to get a reservation for the two of us. As returning guests for the Star Trek Cruise, we received a small discount whose amount I don’t recall, and a further 5% discount for paying the full passage at the time of reservation.

Flights were booked in early June, 2024, with a decision in November, 2024, to change things slightly toward flying separately.

We reserved hotel rooms in the Brickell area of Miami in mid-January, 2025. This area was chosen for roughly three reasons:

  • We had stayed in Miami Beach in 2018, which proved to be an excellent experience, except that neither of us were interested in the beachfront luxury that was available;
  • We had a perception, rightly or wrongly, that the Miami Beach area, which seemed to be all semi-luxury hotels and little else, required that any transportation considerations such as Ubers and taxis travel further than from other areas, although this may well have been subjective;
  • We wished to find another location that was as close or (at least apparently) closer to the cruise terminal, while maintaining per-night pricing that was not exorbitant. (Unfortunately, this year, the cruise was at the very beginning of the spring break, and prices went up accordingly across the board.)

Leading up to our departure date, we installed the app for Royal Caribbean, which impressed me as to how sufficiently complete it is and how it integrated my reserved shore excursions and no doubt were I to have made other purchases, those too, the menus in the dining room, and my on-board bill.

Starting about a week before the cruise, and a few days after prompting from the cruise promoters, my brother and I checked in on the Royal Caribbean app – as we discovered, probably too late – and got later embarkation times of 14:00 to 14:30. We also looked at the shore excursion options, and only chose one relatively inexpensive trolley tour in Belize City – which was entirely pleasant and enjoyable.

We did not chose any other shore excursions because we checked sufficiently late such that it appeared that other cruisers had grabbed up many to capacity; as well, many that we might have considered were no longer available. As for the rest, little interested us, or otherwise involved activities that were too risky for the conservative, risk-averse approach we took to the trip (as in, we decided that even laid back swimming-related activities, in which we were not particularly interested anyway, could have been too risky.) Note that we also didn’t choose any on-board paid activities, as we had in 2018, perhaps simply because their availability never really caught our attention, certainly not in time.

My brother and I travelled separately to Miami and arrived at different times. I arrived first, and a few hours later, my brother arrived. Note that we arrived two days before the cruise not because we wanted to do touristy activities in Miami before the cruise per se. Rather, we wished to avoid the consequences of potential logistical changes and delays (and therefore miss boarding our cruise!) that can occur when travelling non-trivial distances. Concerns included airplane delays such as delayed or cancelled flights, airplane maintenance issues, airplane overbooking, and weather-related delays such as snow storms; the cruise was February 23rd to March 2nd, which is prime winter storm season in the northeastern part of North America where we live, as well as the broader region. Winter storms which easily can wreak havoc in multiple ways and multiple times with airplanes and travel, especially in eastern Canada and the US north-eastern seaboard, and which can cause domino effects with severe delays, are simply a fact of life in our region. Essentially, we were planning a buffer period to allow for an impromptu re-enactment of the movie “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles”.

In the end, neither of us had any delays, and I was even sitting at the gate for my departure about four hours before I was to board the plane, in plenty of time for the previous flight at the same gate to have a waiting period. I also used the US customs app, which allowed me to go in a short line at my home airport, and I passed through very quickly.

At this point, I should note that I carried some commercially packaged iced tea powder to always have a drink during my trip, and some commercially individually packaged granola bars for times before and after the cruise, including travel days, when meals may not or could not have been timed conveniently during the trip. I did not have any trouble crossing into the US, despite having declared in the US Customs app that I had “food” which I did not specifically identify. Except as noted below in Cozumel, Mexico, I did not have any other problems with embarking on the ship, or crossing other checkpoints, with my iced tea or granola bars.

As I was waiting at my gate – about three hours – I noticed that it took an extra half hour for people I recognized in the longer lines without the app to pass through and barely make it for boarding for their earlier flight at the gate at which I was waiting!

My brother and I did not do any proper pre-planning for the expected time to be spent in Miami (two days) – despite always telling ourselves throughout the year that we should. The reason for this is a toss-up between mostly procrastination and, at least nominally, saying that the point of showing up in Miami at least 40 to 48 hours before our cruise embarkation was not to do some incidental tourism, but rather to plan for delays in the travel logistical obstacles listed above.

We did, however, do the following activities and go to the following restaurants / brewpubs:

  • Friday evening: Bay 13, a microbrewery / brewpub that also serves excellent food — however, due to the travel arrangements, I had eaten a sufficiently large meal perhaps two to three hours earlier, and so I had to bring the chicken parmesan I’d ordered back to the hotel — a great early lunch on the Sunday morning just before checking out and going to the cruise terminal! Bay 13 was an excellent venue that brews its own beer, and while we were there, they were hosting a wedding practice dinner;
  • Saturday morning: We revisited the Bay of Pigs regimental museum in Little Havana, as well as a costume store, and walked through a busy main thoroughfare in Little Havana, on a tourist-heavy Saturday morning
  • Saturday lunch: We then went to the Tripping Animals Microbrewery tap room, at the brewery in an industrial park, where the beer was excellent, and the food, while secondary to the beer, was adequate and tasty; as I recall, I had the pulled pork sliders.
  • Saturday evening: Black Tap Craft Burgers and Beer. This restaurant was quite nice, but a bit too commercial for my tastes; I was hoping for a more local beer and food experience, much as it had local beers. And, the location we visited in Brickell City Center had open air escalators in a sufficiently widely open area, which triggered my fear of heights!

Traveling with a cell phone:

Over more than 20 years of carrying a cell phone and several models and generations of cell phones, I have never, until this trip, experienced difficulties using my cell phone while traveling. Well, barring having traveled to London and Paris in 2003 and 2005, when I left my cell phone at home, assuming that my North American cell phone would have been incompatible for use in European cities at the time, and in the case that it may have worked, that use would have been prohibitively and exhorbitantly expensive.

Despite my confidence based on prior experiences, I should concede that my telephone is a unit purchased in April, 2020, therefore being about five years old at the time of this trip.

Upon arrival in Miami, I called back home to announce that the airplane had landed safely; while it took a few moments to connect to the network, I thought little of it, assuming that the delay was due to a combination of the unit being just turned on again and trying to connect to the local network, the number of other cellphones being simultaneously turned on and competing for cellphone frequencies, and the relative concentration of cellphones located at the airport, certainly as compared to the presumed number of cellphone towers immediately local to the airport.

However, from that point on, while I had roaming data and SMS texting, as confirmed by my having been able to freely use the internet data on my phone as well as receive confirmation texts from the hotel and airline, I never was able to make a voice call in Miami, nor in any of the ports of call in Mexico and Belize. There was an exception when my brother managed to call my cell phone while in Cozumel, but it was an experiment, and while I was sitting in front of him; further, in the moments following, I could not repeat the experiment by calling him back.

Vague technical notes:

  • OnePlus 7, purchased in April 2020 (and cruise in late February to early March, 2025);
  • The physical SIM card was changed from Bay 2 to Bay 1, to eliminate any presumed possible bias, to no avail;
  • The settings were changed to choose and test with the various local cellphone providers, to no avail.

Sunday, embarkation day:

Come embarkation time, we were originally planning to arrive at the cruise ship port, against recommendations from the cruise promoter, about half an hour earlier than our embarkation time of 14:00 to 14:30. We eventually decided to leave even earlier than planned, at about 12:45 instead of 13:00. Unfortunately – note that I say “Unfortunately” – this proved to be a fortuitous strategy, because there were seven cruise ships embarking at the same time, and the traffic jam leading to the port was excruciatingly, and stress-fully, long. We were fortunate that the tunnel, which was closed at the time and making the traffic worse, opened up as we were approaching it at about 100 metres, and we could go through it. This avoided a long detour. We finally arrived at about 14:40, after a trip lasting close to two hours instead of a half hour or less. Embarkation itself was relatively smooth, during which we needed to simply present our boarding passes through the Royal Caribbean app at a few checkpoints, and pass our carry on bags through airport-style metal detectors and possibly x-ray machines.

Ship:

Explorer of the Seas, Royal Caribbean – this is the biggest cruise ship I’ve been on. It was quite the exercise every day to remember where we were relative to where we were going, including our cabins.

I was fascinated that the ship was wide enough to have five rows of cabins from side to side, at least in the areas fore and aft where there were said width of cabins, as opposed to the central part of the ship, which had four rows of cabins, plus the central promenade.

I found the shower in my cabin difficult to control for the hot water; either I got the room temperature “cold” water – which was far closer to room temperature – or with the slightest adjustment, the water came out too hot. It was not good at blending water. The rest of the room was eminently adequate for one person who spent most of my time in the room asleep.

TV on Board:

The encoding of TV shows was not great, although most of the time it didn’t matter.

  • Some episodes of the various Star Trek series would suddenly lose their sound, which was obviously an issue with the source material being broadcast, because the same issue would repeat at the same time in the episode when the said episode would re-air;
  • Some episodes from the shows that were originally filmed in the old 4:3 format were sometimes stretched to 16:9 or close, and sometimes not;
  • Sometimes, the episodes from the original Star Trek series shown were in the old 4:3 aspect ratio as filmed, instead of the newer re-scanned and re-boxed in widescreen;
  • Screen resolution was fairly low, which was especially noticeable in the movies, showing a good amount of pixelation;
  • No channel was showing Star Trek: The Next Generation, nor did I notice airings of Star Trek: Prodigy;
  • And, two or three 24-hour news channels, a 24-hour sports channel, and a drama channel or two, as well as a channel with the map showing the current location of the ship, as well as a channel with the host “JT” announcing the day’s activities.

Food on Board:

The food on the ship was plentiful, and sufficiently varied, but I was disappointed that there wasn’t more variation from day to day in the WindJammer buffet area, as well as the dining room — a First World Problem :). Not to say that there wasn’t any variation at all – there was, especially in the latter, but it seemed as though there was only daily variation of two of the items in each of the main course and dessert menus of the main dining room menu. I nonetheless managed to find different meals every day, and lots of fresh buns and croissants and butter, a treat for me. A significant number of the desserts in the WindJammer buffet area were disappointing: They looked like professional pastry shop offerings, but were actually rather bland and tasteless. I also, ahem, sought out prune juice – which Lt. Worf described as “a warrior’s drink!” – a few times starting early to mid-week, which I found you could order (for free) at the WindJammer buffet area. The prune juice indeed helped me maintain a warrior’s approach during the rest of the cruise. Ahem. 🙂

Drinks:

I didn’t get a drinks package because while I enjoy nice beers (which incidentally are usually significantly more expensive than most macro-brewed beers – which normally, in theory, could figure in calculation of the cost-value proposition), I am usually a rather light drinker; to make the drinks package worthwhile, I would often have to had to consume, based on a conversation with someone who had such a package and was taking full advantage of the programme, about nine alcoholic beverages per day, every day, of course depending on the value of the individual drinks – about as many alcoholic drinks per day as I reckon I had consumed over the whole eleven days of my vacation! (Including in Miami before embarking, and in the tourist zones at the ports of call.)

I did manage to bring a commercially packaged iced tea powder with me on the trip, which was the bulk of what I drank throughout the trip.

Internet:

I had purchased internet access before leaving for the trip, and I had installed the Royal Caribbean app on my phone. Once on board, I wondered how to access the internet; on my smartphone, I joined what appeared to be the ship’s “free WiFi”, and the app figured out how to sign into the internet on its own, based on the knowledge (sent to the Royal Caribbean app) that I had purchased internet access; the app gave me a code to activate internet access for my laptop. I then wondered how to know that I was connected to the internet (as opposed to simply the ship’s intranet), and asked the person I was travelling with how to access the internet – using an app that required the internet! (The suggestion was to try visiting a well known news website which, were it inaccessible – and were one to have properly working internet access – would be newsworthy on an international level.) The internet was excellent and more than adequate in its speed, with no limits, with no down-times or brownouts or lack of availability that I could tell. (My brother could not use wifi calling on his iPhone, nor VPNs, but he learned that the lack of WiFi calling was probably a problem with the cell phone supplier, not aggressive internet filtering on the ship.) My brother and I constantly used the Signal messaging app on our phones to keep in touch with each other; we learned later in the week that some people found the messaging function in the Royal Caribbean app to be slow and often enough time-delayed, inefficient, and apparently without an obvious notification function.

Swag:

As part of the cruise, we received the following items, which were delivered in our rooms on a daily basis:

  • a poster celebrating the cruise’s theme of 30 years of Star Trek: Voyager, which I left behind because I didn’t want to carry it home;
  • a Star Trek baseball cap;
  • a palette of small Star Trek themed buttons;
  • a Star Trek themed fanny pack;
  • a cruise t-shirt (front, back) late in the cruise (no doubt timed to coincide with the pool party with the complimentary watered down drinks, as well as to not compete with the “embarkation day” shirts you could purchase in advance, and which presumably were sent to the purchasers in advance of the trip via courrier; I did not purchase one);
  • and a bag of roasted coffee beans thematically branded to the cruise and Captain Janeway, who liked coffee a lot, but who had to limit her intake due to resource limitations because of their being stranded in the Delta Quadrant with no access to Federation supply chains (including, in the Star Trek Universe, an ample supply of matter and antimatter to create the energy required to do things like operate food replicators, which were rationed). This was a sore spot for me because I immediately thought that it would be a problem bringing it back into the US upon debarkation in Miami at the end of the cruise (it wasn’t a problem for all the people I saw disembarking), let alone returning back home to Canada (according to the ArriveCan app, it wouldn’t have been). I rashly returned the commercially sealed bag to a room service trolley because I didn’t want the problem of carrying a food product across borders (ironically, considering that I had been carrying iced tea powder and chewy bars, both in commercially sealed packaging, which I had brought from Canada), let alone very fragrant roasted coffee which may be suspected of being used to hide the smell of illicit items (ie. drugs, which *of*course* I wasn’t carrying!)

Cabin door decorations:

Many cabin doors were decorated in various ways, including one door near our cabins that was giving away things like various buttons of the kinds that have messages and cartoons on them, of which I took one, and key chains; the occupants must have spent several hundreds of dollars making the many items they gave away. Neither my brother nor I planned any such activities, perhaps mostly for lack of imagination and creativity on our part. Perhaps, this would also have been seen by ourselves to have been a frivolous expense, and perhaps a not so frivolous logistical difficulty to transport with us given a risk of damage, or inherent (and expensive) logistical difficulties involved in bringing certain types of decorations, which may have ultimately required significantly larger luggage.

Costumes:

There were a lot of costumes, mostly excellent, and even more shirts with a plethora of Star Trek messages on them. I had several such shirts from when I’d been on the cruise in 2018, and all of them still just barely fit, but rather snugly. I had also trimmed my sideburns to the curved Star Trek officers’ style, but nobody said boo (I must admit that I never looked for them on others, let alone noticed any). There was one particular person on the trip who could have replaced Scotty in some of the movies as a body double including his face, and it would have been easy to believe that he was James Doohan of that period of time.

I was fascinated and impressed how certain communities became more visible on the cruise than on land, as expressed through their costumes and other markings, and how several times the expression “safe space”, in reference to the cruise and its participants, was invoked, and sorely appreciated.

Again, we did not bring any costumes (beyond Star Trek themed t-shirts we had from the 2018 cruise), mostly for lack of any interest in participating in cosplay, but also perhaps also because it would have been an expensive additional expense. We also no doubt recognized a definite logistical difficulty to transport costumes with us given a risk of damage, or inherent (and expensive) logistical difficulties involved in bringing certain types of costumes in extra luggage. In fact, I could have brought a Star Trek: The Next Generation era toy phaser, and perhaps another item or two stowed in my luggage, but which I decided were not worth bringing. I have heard stories of people being questioned at national borders for toy replicas of weapons, even if in this case I would hope it to have been impossible to mistake the “phaser” for anything other than a harmless toy (at least insofar as the “weapon” part was concerned); I was also concerned that it could nonetheless be confiscated as being a suspicious item for just about any reason that I might consider inexplicable, but impossible to argue against.

Star Trek Actors / Stars / Special Guests:

I should preface my comments in this section with the following:

I understand that, putting aside the specific agreements for how many appearances the individual actors may have had with the promoters and to which I could never be privy, there were numerous reasons why I didn’t see some of the guests and celebrities as often (or so it seemed) as I might have liked, because of any of the reasons in the following non-exhaustive list:

  • they were busy with photo sessions and autograph sessions throughout the cruise, which did not interest me;
  • “I’m not interested in a sushi class, even if it’s given by Linda Park from Star Trek: Enterprise”;
  • “this show in which such and such is appearing was in conflict with another show which I did choose to attend”;
  • having chosen to be a “day person” who tried to take advantage of so many of the main shows and ports of call during the cruise, I was exhausted by the time the main show came around at 21:00 every evening (sometimes falling asleep during said evening show), and was at a point when I was going to bed. As such, I therefore would miss a show that I might have seen, which may have starred a celebrity I would have liked to have seen, were the show to have been at another time during the day, and were I to have found a time slot during which to attend it;
  • there were a number of paid activities (ie. wine tastings, etc.), fundraising breakfasts featuring or hosted by a given guest celebrity, and the like, which did not interest me, nor which in any case had I been, did not catch my attention early enough to make a reservation;
  • We saw most if not all of the celebrities throughout the collective of the various shows, but not much outside of those events; I suspect that the “Dilithium Pass Holders” (who paid a premium for them) may have had access to special private shows and autograph sessions that kept the celebrities busy beyond the public sessions, and which I did not purchase;
  • and, a somewhat minor point, but which was the case at least one evening: Lining up for the evening shows in the main theater every evening in order to secure seats which we wanted involved missing out on parts of earlier evening shows which we might have seen, were we not lining up.

I did spot John de Lancie sit at a table near me at the WindJammer Café. I saw Tim Russ walk by me one afternoon. I was mildly disappointed that the likes of Robert O’Reilly did not get made up as Gowron, at least not when I saw him; apparently he *may* have been in costume for another event I did not attend.

Guests seen often, whom I am calling “the hard workers”:

  • Lolita Fatjo: Ms. Fatjo, perhaps best known in Star Trek circles as a script coordinator for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, hosted a number of the panel shows and other shows I saw. Interesting thing I learned in writing up this post, after the cruise: According to her website, Ms. Fatjo’s current career appears to include managing “many actors from Star Trek and other sci-fi shows for convention appearances”, a role my brother and I surmised that she seemed to be performing while on the ship;
  • Dr. Erin McDonald, a science adviser for many of the Star Trek series, who hosted a few science shows as well as some guest panels;
  • Dr. John Grunsfeld, a NASA astronaut who was on at least three space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope, who hosted a couple of science and Hubble Space Telescope shows.

Guests seen often:

  • John de Lancie, who played Q, and who led the “War of the Worlds” dramatic re-enactment, and spoke about his sailing adventures, among other things;
  • Jeffrey Combs, who played Shran (Enterprise) / Brunt (DS9) / Weyoun (DS9) / Penk (Voyager) / Tiron (DS9) / Krem (Enterprise), and who was in “The Rat Pack”, the DS9 panel, and “The War of the Worlds”, among other things;
  • Ethan Phillips, who played Neelix (Star Trek: Voyager), and who was in “The Rat Pack”, Star Trek: Voyager panels, and other shows;
  • Robert Picardo, who played the Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager), was in an opera show one evening, hosted a charity auction benefiting the Astronomical Society, and at least one Star Trek Voyager Panel;
  • Garrett Wang, who played Harry Kim (Star Trek: Voyager); I learned, after thirty-some-odd years, that his family name is pronounced the way an English-speaker would pronounce the family name Wong, rhyming with “song”, “wrong”, and “gong”, not, well, pronounced the way the family name Wang is spelled in English, rhyming with “sang”, “rang”, or “gang”. Mr. Wang was in was in the “Voyager Family Feud” show, Star Trek: Voyager panels, and was the center square in Star Trek Squares;
    • Interesting story, again learned more than 25 years later: When the Seven of Nine Character joined Star Trek: Voyager, the producers decided that they needed to eliminate an existing character for the obvious cost issues associated with the rather large main cast that they had. Apparently, they’d chosen Harry Kim to remove from the show, and I’d presumed at the time that Harry Kim was chosen over Kes because the writers had originally seen more potential in writing Kes stories. However, at that point, Garrett Wang, the actor, had just been ranked rather highly in People Magazine’s “Most Beautiful People of the Year” list, and so the producers could not choose to kill off the Harry Kim character.
    • But here’s what I learned on the cruise: Apparently, Mr. Wang was quite the party person during approximately two years early on in Star Trek: Voyager production, and apparently commuted from Los Angeles to Las Vegas every single weekend to take advantage of Las Vegas party life. This led to his being late several times on Monday mornings, often enough delaying production, especially during expensive location shoots (ie. at some outdoor set in an “alien environment” instead of on a constructed studio set), and this led to his being an obvious choice, until of course he was listed in the People Magazine ranking.

Guests seen almost often enough:

  • Jeri Ryan, who played Seven of Nine, and who was in the “Voyager Family Feud” show, Star Trek: Voyager panels, at least one of the Star Trek: Voyager panels I saw, and other shows which escape my memory at this point;
  • Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Tom Paris (Star Trek: Voyager) (who had to leave mid-cruise due to other commitments, and had to wear a mask to hopefully reduce the likelihood of getting sick, because people working on his project at the time of the cruise had had a *lot* of illnesses, and as the director he wanted to not get sick, which would force a temporary shutdown of the project, instead of just a slowdown but under circumstances which would allow for some re-arrangement of the shooting schedule to accommodate ill actors and crew members as well as those who weren’t ill), who was the Star Trek Family Feud show, at least one Star Trek: Voyager panel, and possibly other shows which escape my memory at this point;
  • Tim Russ, who played Tuvok (Star Trek: Voyager), who was in “Voyager Family Feud” show, Voyager panels, and possibly other shows which escape my memory at this point;

Guests Seen Rarely:

  • Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager, and who only arrived mid-cruise, made an announcement on the PA system, appeared in the “War of the Worlds” dramatic reading, and in her show on the last evening. No doubt she was also involved in private-pay-to-attend events and autograph sessions.
  • Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar and a Romulan Commander in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as being known for her “Trekkies” documentary; according to the schedule, she did a late-night ad-libbing of the lines to a silent showing of some Star Trek episode, which I did not see because it was too late for me, and frankly I was so unimpressed with a similar rendition on a previous cruise that it did not seem to be worthwhile to me;
  • Linda Park; she hosted a trivia session while I was at the first evening’s show, and hosted a sushi making event for which I didn’t get tickets;
  • Chase Masterson; she hosted a charity breakfast for which I didn’t purchase tickets;
  • Wilson Cruz, who was Dr. Hugh Culber on Star Trek: Discovery, who was in the Star Trek Squares show and was very complimentary toward Canadians;
  • Jonathan del Arco, who was in the Star Trek Squares show;
  • Celia Rose Gooding; I did see her in a Strange New Worlds panel, and she was in a “birthday party” show early on during the cruise given that it was her birthday a day or two before the beginning of the cruise, and which I did not attend due to its late night time slot.
  • Mary Wiseman was supposed to be on the cruise, according to the cruise t-shirt. I’m not sure that I even remember her being presented at the opening day party!

Shows:

My brother and I attended a lot of shows. Usually at breakfast, which we usually ate “early” at about 7am or thereabouts, we would take out the day’s printed out show schedule and start choosing the shows that we’d like to see that day, marking up the sheet with a pen in order to not forget.

There were a lot of panels with question and answer periods, and often started with “what are you up to these days?” – especially since of course most of the actors were not on the currently produced shows, some for several decades at that point, and of course had current professional and life projects.

The evening shows had an annoying, (presumably) unintended feature: In order to get in and have a decent chance of getting seats of our choice, we had to line up about 45 minutes before the show, since lineups would typically easily extend well beyond a hundred feet. As a result, we spent a lot of time every evening lining up and waiting; as well, this effectively made it impractical to see even a small part of other shows after our early dinner seating but before the main evening show.

We did not got to the even later shows and parties after the main evening show, which we saw every evening at 21:00, and which typically ended at 22:00 or slightly later. At that point, we were tired every day and usually went to bed, except for a couple of evenings when we went to the WindJammer buffet for midnight snacks; unfortunately, the WindJammer buffet only reopened at 23:00, making a couple of the nights we did do this particularly late affairs for us.

Sunday:

  • Pool party / countdown to launch at the pool level, with introduction of the various guests;
  • After dinner, we went to a Star Trek trivia show with J.G. Hertzler, hosted by … I’m trying to remember, might it have been one of the “Morale Officers”, who were young-ish ladies dressed in StarFleet uniforms, who would often help out at shows with things like passing around the public microphone, or marshalling the guests into and out of the theatre, and if they happened to be “just wandering around the ship”, could also provide basic concièrge services relating specifically to the cruise’s theme;
  • Evening show: Star Trek: Voyager Family Feud with Jeri Ryan, Tim Russ, Robert Duncan McNeill, Garrett Wang, against four passengers, chosen by throwing out stuffed “Murf” dolls from Star Trek: Prodigy into the crowds, and the people who caught them got to go on stage.

Monday:

  • “This Year in Space Science” with Dr. Erin Macdonald;
  • “In the Hotseat” with Connor Trineer and Roxann Dawson;
  • Star Trek: Voyager Panel #1 with Robert Duncan McNeill, Jeri Ryan, Garrett Wang, Tim Russ, and Brannon Braga;
  • Strange New Worlds Panel with Celia Rose Gooding and Melissa Navia, hosted by Jonathan Frakes;
  • Qapla’! Meeting the Klingons with Robert O’Reilly, J.G. Hertzler, and Roxann Dawson, hosted by Lolita Fatjo;
  • Federation Trading Post, later in the afternoon of the first day: the lineup was ridiculously long, and the relatively limited selection of goods (and limited selection of shirt sizes, especially in the larger sizes) was rather wanting, and the prices expensive;
  • Evening Show: “Star Trek Rat Pack” with Casey Biggs, Jeffrey Combs, Vaughn Armstrong, and Ethan Phillips: This was an excellent show that surprised me. During the 2018 cruise, I did not see this show; my memory was that they usually performed late at night after I went to bed, and I assumed that they were another musical act that was generic and unrelated to Star Trek. In fact, at least for this show, it seems that Max Grodenchick (who played Rom on DS9 but wasn’t able to make it this year) wrote new Star Trek related lyrics for well known songs, while the group as a whole played parts / roles apparently reminiscent of the Rat Pack from 1960s Las Vegas (which I initially found distracting, but which quickly became endearing for me.) This was a treat of a show!

Tuesday:

  • Port of call: Costa Maya, Mexico, a port we had visited before. We disembarked the ship early, enjoying walking through the shops. We saw “Danza de los Voladore” in action – a ceremony in which people tied to ropes wrapped around the top of tall pole would jump off their perches simultaneously, and “fly” down as the ropes unwound, until they got to the ground. We also drank beer in the tiki hut restaurant, then returned to the ship by lunchtime.
    • One notable thing – in my mind only – is that in 2018, at this very tourist zone, I purchased a “Mexican” blanket, on the premise that the only true authenticity that I expected was that it was indeed a blanket, that was indeed purchased in Mexico. I paid $75 USD for it, after negotiating the price down from perhaps $100 USD (or possibly more), as I recall. At the time, I was suspicious that I may have been a “mark” to see how much money they could extract from me, because I was a tourist coming off of a cruise ship and that I was in a tourist zone. I nonetheless decided that I wasn’t completely taken for a fool, although perhaps not by much. Indeed, I like the blanket very much; I use it regularly to this day, and I expect to continue using it for many more years to come.
    • On this trip in 2025, I had the notion that it might be interesting to purchase yet another “Mexican” blanket, despite my past suspicions, and despite that I already possessed two such blankets meeting the above criteria of “authenticity”. However, I had a hard price limit of $30 USD, and I walked away from the piles of unpriced blankets in Costa Maya without even inquiring about the price, figuring that I would never get the price I was willing to pay, especially since I wasn’t all that invested in buying another anyway.
    • Note that I am supposing that had such a comparable blanket been purchased in Canada (where I live) or in the United States, the $75 USD may have probably been a reasonable market price, or possibly even at the low end. (See below.)
    • As such, having walked away, I moved on with my day, and I bought a souvenir for my Mom back home.
  • Back on the ship, my brother and I spent the afternoon either lounging at the pool or in our separate cabins.
  • When shows started up again, we went to a “Hubble Space Telescope” presentation with Astronaut John Grusnfeld: A standing room only event!
  • Evening show: Based on the announcements, I had hoped that this would be a dramatic reading of the original Star Trek series’ episode “For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky”. However, it proved to be somewhat rewritten to include a lot of juvenile jokes, so it was disappointing. However, the audiovisual part on the video wall was well produced, and unfortunately was perhaps the star of the show for me, given my perception of a poorly adjusted script with juvenile jokes inserted at various points (which normally might amuse me in my mind, but not as much in real life watching it on a stage. To be fair, I should state that I found similar humour far more amusing the evening before in the “Rat Pack” show.)

Wednesday:

  • Port of call: Cozumel, Mexico. My brother and I went to the tourist zone, which was principally a bunch of shops much like Costa Maya, some of which we browsed through. Indeed, at one such shop I found – and purchased – yet another “Mexican blanket” that I liked, but only for $8 USD. Given this spectacularly low price, I am now rather convinced that I might have been overcharged in 2018. However, I also think that the $8 USD price was severely below what the blanket may well have been worth, and would have certainly sold for far more back home in Canada. (Note after arriving back home in Canada: A well known internet marketplace listed “Mexican Blankets” for prices ranging from about $14CDN to about $40CDN with a few outliers up to about $60CDN, plus shipping, about $9.50USD to $27.50USD, and up to $41.50USD — so I *was* overcharged in 2018.)
    • Afterwards, we left the tourist zone, going beyond the gates “to see what there was to see”. We quickly set our sights on a sports clothing store which we could see across and just down the street, to see if they had extra-large size shorts or swim trunks for myself and my brother, which they did not. However, in short order, I insisted on returning to the tourist zone, feeling uncomfortable for unspecified, nebulous reasons related to being in an uncontrolled environment, and – beyond the sports clothing store – not being able to immediately see anything that caught my fancy to continue exploring.
    • Back in the tourist zone in Cozumel, Mexico, we decided to return to the ship by noon or very early afternoon. As a brief reminder, I had always carried a backpack with water and my iced tea powder, which proved to be an issue on this day. Not having brought the commercial package with me when I went ashore, the iced tea I was carrying was a problem when passing through the x-ray security operated, by appearances, by Mexican authorities on shore: The authorities asked about the powder I had, as well as the brown liquid I had in a drink container. They ultimately allowed me through without any hassle when a supervisor agreed – after inspections of both containers – that they were iced tea, and not some other suspicious substance. This was a stressful moment for me since my Spanish skills amount to “Holà” (“Hello”), “Gracias” (“Thank you”), and “No hablo español” (“I don’t speak Spanish”), while the officials principally worked in Spanish (though thankfully appeared to understand English quite handily).
      • Well, okay, I have a spattering of following words and expression in Spanish, which I do not have the wherewithal to use:
        • “Señor” — “Sir”;
        • “Señorita” — “Madam”;
        • “Por favor” — “Please”;
        • “Uno cerveza, por favor” — “One beer, please”, which is such a cliché coming from, well, a “Gringo” — “Foreigner”, usually a derogatory term for an Enlish speaking (North) American which for the purpose of this conversation to which I am equivalent as a Canadian, and which former expression I would think twice about using, even at a bar serving beer;
        • “Amigo” — in the familiar ways that one would use “Amigo” alone, “My friend”, meaning that I would likely never have an opportunity to use it.
  • We again spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the pool deck and/or napping in our cabins.
  • Evening Show: Star Trek goes to the Opera with Robert Picardo: This show was better than the “BFF” show that Robert Picardo performed in 2018 (and if I correctly understood half-heard snippets of conversations around me, Robert Picardo repeated his “BFF” show over several Star Trek cruises since, and possibly up to 2024!) for two reasons:
    • In Star Trek: Voyager, the Doctor sang opera on numerous occasions, so they were able to make a show out of the various opera pieces that were featured in the show, with each piece being introduced as being from a given episode, with a large TV screen also showing some of the relevant scenes or pictures therefrom.
    • Also, I thought that the quality of singing was far better than in “BFF” – well, the professional opera singer was unsurprisingly excellent, while Robert Picardo, in my estimation, sang better this year. I should note that I am not a fan of opera at all – in fact, I have a personal running joke about opera to the order of “Call 911! The person on stage is obviously hurt because they are screaming in agony!”
    • Additionally, there was an excellent piece sung, as a duet, in which there was opera music expressly composed so as to be used while singing the well known “Khaaaaaaaannnnn!” scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan!

Thursday:

  • Belize City, Belize, where we only got off the ship at about 11:00 since we purchased a trolley tour around Belize City starting at 13:30, which was to last for about an hour.
    • At this point, my brother and I were becoming mildly disenchanted with the completely commercial nature of the tourist zones, which consisted of stores selling souvenirs, silver, cigars, tequila, and rum, hence why we got off the ship so relatively late
    • This port of call required that we use tender boats to go ashore; seeing some discoloration of the water around the ship while eating at the breakfast buffet, I assumed sand was being stirred up by the ship’s stabilizers, which led me to believe that a port for cruise ships was not practical there, due to shallow water.
    • The Belize City trolley tour we had booked was very informative and pleasant: We passed through an area with a high density of schools, we were welcomed by an impromptu school drum band on the street, and we learned about the local stores and restaurants that were proudly mentioned by the guide, but which came across as small, local businesses that might not have existed a few years before, and hypothetically may not exist in however many more years from now, and replaced with another local business.
    • Belize City came across as a lot poorer than the impression that the (admittedly and very obviously completely contrived) privately-owned island in Belize run as a resort by NCL that we visited in 2018 as part of the 2018 cruise gave us. Nonetheless, this was a very pleasant tour.
  • Shortly after the tour, we returned to the ship early, and again, that afternoon, we passed extra time napping or relaxing on the ship.
  • Evening show: Star Trek Squares, with Garret Wang as the center square – I was expecting the center square to be Kate Mulgrew. Unlike in 2018, a Gorn with (intentionally) unintelligible speech did not occupy a square. (See below.)

Friday:

  • First part (about an hour) of “To the Journey: Looking Back at Star Trek: Voyager” documentary;
  • “The Weird and Wacky Science of Star Trek: Lower Decks” with Dr. Erin McDonald;
  • Trek Stars with Dr. Larry Nemecek and Dr. Erin MacDonald, discussing various stars relatively and not so relatively near the Sol System (our solar system!), and often a connection to star systems mentioned in Star Trek;
  • We did a short visit to the pool party with free watered down drinks;
  • “The Search for Life in the Cosmos” featuring Astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld;
  • Writing for Star Trek with Brannon Braga, where we learned that while Star Trek: The Next Generation did accept spec scripts from the public (which we knew already), at a certain point early on in Star Trek: Voyager, they stopped accepting spec scripts. Apparently, they had roughly 30,000 on hand, and putting aside the overwhelming numbers and presumably the amount of work for re-writes that would no doubt be required in using spec scripts, they were concerned with copyright issues and the logistics of balancing said issues. I presume that were they to mix elements from various spec scripts, or two or more had purportedly similar premises or other elements, by using one, the author of another might decide to sue because Star Trek had their script, which may have been unopened, and may have had a similar idea in it to one that was used;
  • John de Lancie Presents: “War of the Worlds”, which was a well produced recreation of the as-aired “War of the Worlds” broadcast in the 1930s, including a (small) live orchestra, and an increasingly growing Mars on the video wall screen behind the actors throughout the show. However, the show had the problem of not being directly nor specifically relevant to Star Trek, even if we were a receptive crowd given the subject matter. (I was later reminded that the radio programme’s copyright protection might have expired, although some cursory checks cast doubt on this hypothesis. Later still, I learned through Wikipedia that John de Lancie has a history with this radio show (here’s my archive of the page with the reference), having performed it with other Star Trek alumni for Public Radio in Los Angeles in 1994.)

Saturday:

  • “Science Balderdash” with Dr. Erin Macdonald and Dr. John Grunsfeld; the “Balderdash” game with audience participation, and Dr. John Grunsfeld wearing Spock ears and a Spock uniform;
  • The second part of a charity auction of various posters and other paraphenalia, props, and ephemera made for, and publicly displayed throughout the ship during, the cruise and autographed. It was rather stunning to see how much money people were willing to spend on such items, including one item, which proved to have a secret twin which was revealed at a point when there were extraordinary bids between two sole bidders; each sold for an identical extraordinary bid which would have been at or perhaps even beyond what the most luxurious cabin on such a cruise would have cost. (I also wondered how the winning bidders of various items would have been able to pay for some of the more expensive items; surely even most people’s gold cards could not clear at least some of those amounts!)
  • Star Trek: Voyager panel #2 with Lolita Fatjo, Brannon Braga, Kate Mulgrew, Robert Picardo, Roxann Dawson, and I remember Garrett Wang.
  • Star Trek: DS9 panel: Casey Biggs, Jeffrey Combs, Chase Masterson, Nana Visitor
  • “The Gorn’s Gong Show”, a talent show judged by Jonathan Frakes, Denise Crosby, and Nicole de Boer. There were ten contestants: Five were gonged by the Gorn. One participant was a great singer singing a Whitney Houston song I think from “The Bodyguard” movie (but *not* “I Will Always Love You”); another very good lady from Great Britain singing opera (who won with 107 dB of applause);
    • Three acts which were gonged were:
      • A Klingon belly dancer;
      • A lady using lighted balls at the end of strings to dance with, but the batteries for the lights died as she was about to start;
      • And another dancer with something like streamer dancing but using lit glass fibre optic cables.
  • An Evening with Kate Mulgrew, who answered a lot of questions asked by the audience, including a crowd pleasing answer to a contentious question at the end.

Sunday:

As we were leaving the ship, we saw that a good amount of the branding for the cruise’s Star Trek theme had been taken down overnight from Saturday evening to Sunday morning, changing the theme to an 1980’s theme (Radio Shack, anybody? 🙂 )

After the cruise:

We had planned to stay an extra night in Miami, so that we could plan a little extra touristy type activities; if nothing else, following our previous Star Trek cruise leaving from Miami in 2018, we were inspired by some impromptu good luck we’d had with a friend who was visiting Miami at the same time, who provided us with some tourist-like activities while we assisted them with some last minute purchases, before we headed for the airport for our evening flight.

Alas, this year, we did not plan nor do any such tourism; while we indeed did stay the extra night, we were so exhausted that we spent most of the extra time at the hotel resting or napping, save for going out on the last night to yet another brewpub, Biscayne Bay, which was in “The old Post Office building” in Miami. This restaurant had (literally) in house brewing capacity for presumably mostly in-restaurant consumption, as well as a remote microbrewery location where some of the products that are served at the restaurant are brewed, as well as in volumes to satisfy sponsorship agreements with external clients and for general distribution. I was personally so exhausted that upon our return from the restaurant at about 19:15, I went to bed within approximately 20 minutes. Further, due to our offset travel plans, while my brother left the hotel mid-morning on the next day, I only left the hotel at about noon (I couldn’t get an extended checkout beyond noon). I spent the morning in the hotel, and several excruciatingly long hours waiting at the airport during the afternoon.

Also of note, we learned in the days following our disembarkation of unfortunate news from the ship we were on, during the following week’s 1980’s themed cruise by the same production company, leading us to be glad that we were not on that particular sailing. Suffice it to say that any discussions about being on said following sailing – be it specifically for that theme, or as a case of “wouldn’t it be nice to do a second week in a row and not even have to change ships, and have a different theme to boot” – were purely whimsical. Our cruise was sufficiently expensive: Even as compared to a comparable but otherwise un-themed cruise, apparently the pricing for the following week was even more expensive than our trip, while we know that the shows would have been rather different and not as much to our liking as our whimsical discussions might lead one to suppose. That being said, the incident we heard of – which I will not specify for reasons of it being sufficiently upsetting and in any case beyond the scope of this post – would likely have been quite the damper on the on board spirits, as well as no doubt being something of a public relations nightmare for the cruise promoter and the cruise line.

My impressions of the 2025 cruise compared to the cruise in 2018:

This cruise had a slightly different and more polished feel to it compared to the 2018 cruise; this iteration was the eight year that it was produced, versus the 2018 cruise, which itself was only in its second year. In that sense, such a perception made a lot of sense, especially since the promoters also organize other themed cruises (such as the aforementioned 1980’s cruise, a motorcycle-themed cruise, some jazz-themed cruises, at least one 90’s cruise, and so on) and benefited from not only years’ worth of experience, but also many cruises’ worth of experience.

Some things in this polish included the video walls during the shows, and general branding, which no doubt due were due to experience in having produced 1, 2 (x2), 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, instead of just one previous year in 2018 (admittedly, they had a “practice run” the week before with the first sailing).

While there were a number of similar shows in both years, some were produced more smoothly; my principal example would be the “Scopes Monkey Trial” script reading in 2018 vs. the “War of the Worlds” script reading in 2025. I would characterize both as generic performances adjacent to the core subjects of “Star Trek”:

  • The former, questioning and upsetting the unquestioning societal behaviour reacting to arguably arbitrary directives from beyond the situation’s actors (ie. not tv actors but the “real people” in the situation), admittedly a recurring theme in Star Trek;
  • While the latter, a (supposed) visit to a planet from (supposed) outsiders, which itself is effectively at the core of Star Trek’s mantra to “… explore strange new worlds, (and) to seek out new life and new civilizations …”

Firstly I stand by my 2018 characterization of a number of shows put on by John de Lancie and Robert Picardo as “Had the cruise been themed for the Stargate franchise, both John de Lancie and Robert Picardo, who also were secondary characters in that franchise, could have performed almost all of the same shows I saw them perform on the Star Trek cruise, and there would be little difference”, even though for 2025, I can’t include Robert Picardo as much in that characterization. I will also underline that I said “… while I was clapping at the end and otherwise (usually) thoroughly entertained, I was often scratching my head as to what the show I had just seen had to do with Star Trek …” This year, I can say that more of the shows I saw addressed the second comment. In the specific case of Mr. Picardo’s opera show in 2025, I will give full credit that it was tied to the opera appearing in Star Trek: Voyager.

As part of the added polish, “The War of the Worlds” show seemed well-rehearsed – in fact, for the musical parts and the scheduled interruptions in the script, it would have had to be – and the inclusion of the video wall graphic of the planet Mars slowly growing in size over the length of the show. (The “Scopes Monkey Trial” in 2018 was more relaxed, because it *had* to be due to participation by members of the cruise participants, even if they were selected “sufficiently in advance” earlier in the day to allow a short rehearsal before the show.)

Despite my comments above regarding the Tuesday evening show, a reading of “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” in which I found the humorous re-writes distracting, I also found the video wall integration into the show to have been well done, despite the somewhat fuzzy pictures, which I presume were from the original show. Whether this was a result of enlarging shots done on 35mm film well beyond the size one could have ever expected out of such resolution, whether in 1969, or in 2025, or, if the resolution was intentionally somewhat reduced for any of a variety of reasons, or both, is unclear to me, and is of secondary importance.

Overall, in 2025 I didn’t think as much about copyright issues, although in my mind, it was clearly still an issue. A number of the shows were, entertaining as they were, neither existing Star Trek material, or original Star Trek material: Instead, there were a lot of panel shows, and, perversely, Family Feud and Star Trek Squares (ie. a renamed “Hollywood Squares”) (that were probably concepts reused on the 1980’s Cruise as well as their other themed cruises) which no doubt included royalty payments to the format copyright holders. I have to concede that the panel shows were of course composed of the various personalities, and *of*course* we all wanted to hear from the people who we saw on TV or who worked behind the cameras to learn about the shows and the personalities and the shows.

Music piped through to the public speakers across the ship was, as in 2018, composed of a lot of 1980’s tracks, but was more diverse than the playlists I recall from the 2018 sailing; I expect that this probably an evolution of style, planning, more securing of the rights to play a larger list, and, possibly a desire to be able to reuse the playlists at least during the following week’s “The 1980’s Cruise”.

In my eyes, there seemed in some ways to be fewer trappings than in 2018 – at least in the sense of invoking my “Paging the Squire of Gothos” perception – although in some ways there were at least as many in 2025 (ie. the storefronts in the promenade were “renamed” according to a large variety of Star Trek references.)

Final thoughts:

We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, and to the surprise of some to whom we have told stories, we were thoroughly exhausted at the end, due to taking advantage of the cruise and its activities as fully as we believed was reasonably possible. (Friends and acquaintances appeared to expect a response along the lines of “Oh, a cruise, how relaxing!”)

Will we be going on next year’s cruise?

(Perhaps, unfortunately) No, since we have other life priorities which we believe outweigh the value of doing so, as well as believing that we thoroughly enjoyed this experience because of the time elapsed between our two Star Trek cruises, as opposed to doing them on a yearly or otherwise more frequent basis.

But did we enjoy it? Of course!

My Varied Collection of Drinking Containers

I have a thing about glasses, cups, and containers for drinks of the water and non-alcoholic varieties, specifically for drinking iced tea (Nestea for those who are wondering), of which I drink really large amounts daily, and which itself is a personal trademark.

My obsession with drink containers is to the point that it would also be a bit of a personal trademark in and of itself except that, barring given containers that have been and/or are particularly noticeable or distinctive in their colouring scheme or design, most people would not notice my obsession because most of the containers I use — publicly, anyway — are actually rather mundane containers and cups.

That being said, I’ll start with what I use at home to drink my iced tea:

Some of my favourite glasses, which I use at home.

At home, my favourite drinking glasses are old glass candle holders of the variety that some restaurants have been known to have on their tables. I started using the glass candle holders back in the early 1990’s when I found one still with the wax in it; I took it home, reclaimed the wax for a hobby of mine that uses wax, and cleaned up the container. I have since found, cleaned, used, and unfortunately, broken well over a dozen of these containers over the years.

I also have a tall glass container that may have once served as a flower vase, which was found in a garbage bin.

When I go out, whether or not the drink container I use is distinctive enough to be a personal trademark depends on which container I bring with me. Below are three of my more distinctive containers:

A few of the attention-grabbing travel mugs I have.

The large “X-Treme Gulp” mug – the largest of them in the centre – holds about a litre and a half, and garners attention and incredulous comments to the order of it being “one really big coffee mug”. This was a surprise Christmas gift from my aunt in 2005; I had mentioned my interest in (at least somewhat) unusual drinking containers, and I probably joked about wanting a clownishly large container. That Christmas, a package arrived in the mail, with the mug in it. It is indeed clownishly large, and at the point of being unwieldy to use and drink from.

The yellow mug on the right holds about a litre, and garners similar attention. In 1995, I was driving around for work, and a yellow “something” caught my attention in a snow-filled ditch; I stopped and went to find it, and it was the thermal travel mug pictured above (but without a lid). Obviously, I grabbed it and took it home.

The smallest of them holds about a half litre, and its claim to fame is its wide bulbous base. In 1996, I was part of an organizing group for a party weekend with a wide group of friends, and we’d ordered a bunch of those travel mugs with custom artwork put on it memorializing the event — this one being the tenth edition of the event. We ordered enough for everybody to get one, so as to discourage people from leaving empty bottles of beer, liquor, and soft drinks laying around, which not only of course would have been a nuisance to clean up at the end of the weekend, but which also would have become a safety hazard when many of about a hundred, twenty-somethings became somewhat to very inebriated.

Found Containers

A particular characteristic many of the cups, mugs, and bottles which I have collected over the years is that they have been found on the street, or were found in recycling bins or the garbage.

A number of the mugs, bottles, and water containers I have found on the streets and elsewhere over the years

Most of these containers and mugs shown above have at various times been a favourite container of the moment, and have seen a lot of use over the years. In fact, the opaque container with the red top (second row, first on the left), which I found in the bushes while I was geocaching in 2002 or 2003, came with me on a trip to London, while the small greenish Nalgene container with the black lid (first row, second from right), was found in a lost and found pile in 2017, and went with me on a couple of cruises.

Of course, all containers I find on the street or elsewhere are properly washed in a dishwasher before I ever use them; it’s the same logic as “don’t you wash your dirty dishes before using them again?”

Unfortunately, a number of the bottles and cups I find in the street, including the stainless steel units, that were used for coffee, have a lingering coffee odour to them, and even after an initial cleaning, will impart a coffee taste when filled with a new drink. This is a mild issue for me since I do not drink coffee, nor do I particularly care for it. However, the taste disappears after a few uses and cycles in the dishwasher. Soaking in a mild bleach solution can help in extreme cases.

One virtually new travel coffee cup I found on the street in a snowbank in 2018 was branded with the logo of a well known goodwill organization; I imagine that the organization’s local major location being barely a block away made the chances of finding the mug there coincidental approaching zero. A family member guilted me into not using it, and tried to prevail upon me to return it to the organization. I ultimately gave the travel mug to my aunt when she visited, so that she may have a thermal coffee mug for when she were to go about her visits with friends.

Another travel mug I found in 2016 is a favourite given how well its lid seals (photo above, first row, third from the right); however, it has two little holes in its base, which allow water to enter in between the mug’s interior and exterior when I clean it in the dishwasher, upside-down. Mildly annoyingly — and a perverse reason why I like it all the more — it leaks a lot of water after I take it out of the dishwasher. However, its story lies in the corporate logo and company name which were silk-screened on it side; I was not familiar with the company name, and thought nothing of it, much as I would not think anything of most other common corporate logos on a mug. For months after finding the mug, I innocently used it everywhere, such as at work and other areas my life would bring me. One day, a work colleague saw my mug’s logo; he asked me if I knew what it meant, and suggested – in a suspiciously insistent way – that I should look it up. My immediate reaction was one of horror that it might be connected to a website of a particular type of explicit material (which could lead to unwanted consequences with my employer); I checked on my personal phone’s internet connection — of course not my work computer with the work internet — and found out that the logo was indeed generally connected with explicit websites. I quickly scraped the silk-screened logo off of the stainless steel exterior of the mug, and of course I continue to use the mug to this day.

Nalgene Water Bottles

Prior to learning about Nalgene containers for the consumer market in the early 1990s, and that they don’t absorb and retain flavours, then impart them in later contents, I only knew of Nalgene through school lab equipment such as squeeze bottles for lab-grade water and other reagents and solvents such as acetone and hexane.

Generally, I use Nalgene bottles for carrying water around, and I’ll drink my iced tea from another container or mug.

My current collection of Nalgene bottles

My first Nalgene bottle was one I found at a campsite in Vermont in 1994, left behind by previous users of the site. Unfortunately, after several years of service, I inadvertently left it – filled with water – in my car overnight in the middle of a particularly bitterly cold part of winter. The ice expansion caused the plastic in the bottle to split open, and I put it in the recycling bin.

Another early experience with Nalgene bottles was during a sales call with my employer in 1995, who showed a potential client two water samples — one murky, one clear — in clear Nalgene sample bottles in order to demonstrate his filtration device to recondition the process water or glycol in building heating and cooling loops. The sales demonstration was very effective on me, and I asked if I might be able to secure a bottle or two. I used the bottles he gave me for several years; however, the plastic was soft and over time became deformed by the heat in my dishwasher.

Over the years, I have found a Nalgene bottle in a recycling bin (second from the right, 500mL, blue cap), another in a lost and found bin (last on the right, green container, black cap), and others at used goods stores. My most recent acquisitions are two 1.5 litre bottles (first and second on the left), received as a recent Christmas gift (2019).

Stylish Insulated Stainless Steel Bottles

The “stylish” insulated stainless steel bottles I have: three new ones on the left, which I have never used, and three used ones I found on the street on the right

There are the relatively new fangled stylish insulated bottles that seem to have taken the water bottle market by storm. Although stainless steel insulated bottles and thermoses have been around for ages, S’Well and similar bottles seem to have started a style revolution in water containers over the past few years, with a lot of copycat competitors, ranging from low end look-alikes to high-end rivals.

I have three new such bottles which I have never used: One received from my employers in 2017, of course with corporate branding (third from the left), and which was the first time I’d seen the style; another received as a Christmas gift in 2018 (first on the left), which was a copycat; and one received as a promotional item during a themed cruise in 2018 (second from the left).

The only such bottles I actually use are the three I found on the street: A cheap discount store, single layer / uninsulated knockoff bottle in 2019 (third from the right); a salmon pinkish orange bottle of the S’Well brand in 2019 (second from the right), and a third, which I call “Le Chic” (because of the branding on it) in 2020 (last bottle on the right). All three show varying degrees of definite signs of wear and tear, and at least two leak very slightly, one a bit more than the other. The “Le Chic” bottle is a very recent addition, and it has the coffee taste issue mentioned earlier; it will probably enter into my regular usage rotation.

Glass Drinking Jars

I have known about glass drinking jars for a long time, although I only first had one in 2006, when I bought two at the tuck shop at a campsite I was spending a long weekend at; they were relatively expensive, but I purchased them anyway.

Since then, I have found a few at Walmart (the fruit design on the left in the picture above) at a far more reasonable price. Of the other two, one was found on the streets when it caught my eye one morning, while the other was given to me by the recipient of some of my pickled eggs who was returning empty mason jars.

Save for the fact that they are glass and hence susceptible to breakage, these jars are great travel drink containers: In fact, I brought one with me as my main drinking container during a month long business trip out of province in 2009. It served me well, and it amused me when I used it on an airplane. Once I’d finished drinking the water the flight attendant poured into it, I put a lid on the drinking jar. When the airplane landed, I opened it, and was amused by the popping sound caused by the relative vacuum created due to slightly lower cabin pressure.

However, as to the breakage factor, they can be difficult to use on a daily basis in a backpack, since I have accidentally broken a couple of them over the years by simply putting down my backpack on a hard floor in a less than ginger fashion, unfortunately breaking the jar in the bag.

What’s Next on the Horizon?

Of course, I haven’t told the stories to all of the containers I’ve seen come and sometimes go, let alone some that never were. But that is, in a sense, part of the story: There have been so many over the years — including old plastic containers never meant to be used as drinking containers, but rather should have been placed directly in the recycling bin once the original contents were consumed, or finding really good quality travel mugs on the street with excellent seals, that allow me to vigorously shake it to dissolve the iced tea powder I added to the water in it. Oh, and the sort of pear-shaped clear 500mL bottles that a certain type of inexpensive, convenience-store table wine came in … I have fond memories of using those for several years throughout the 1990s.

And while over time I’ve had — and continue to have — favourite containers in the lot, the choice of which container(s) is(are) today’s or this week’s favourite can be ephemeral over time, especially as the overall collection grows with new additions, and contracts due to losses and breakage.

Also, while I actually (somewhat) zealously protect my containers, including very much those found for free, this has also led me have a certain zen when one goes missing, especially if it was one of the “found for free” containers. Just as I found the container because somebody else lost it before me, sometimes I lose containers, leave them behind locked doors to rooms to which I no longer have access, or they get confiscated at a public event such as at a stadium that doesn’t allow participants to bring in items like mugs and bags, both for safety reasons (projectiles), as well as to protect revenue streams from the concession stands.

But this is one of the fun things about what I dare call a hobby: The collection evolves and renews itself, and while I may “mourn” the loss of one of my containers, all I have to do is wait to find another “new to me” container or mug in my various travels, and I’ll end up with a new favourite container.

Portable stoves spotted during a cruise ship cooking demonstration

I originally posted on cooking relatively large amounts – relative to routine home cooking, anyway – of soup for my church using portable countertop stoves I had purchased over time following having made some soup for the coffee / social hour. The intended central theme of the post, besides initially to discuss making soup for a group, was my collection of portable countertop stoves, and using them in non-traditional locations.

I was recently on a cruise; during which I attended some of the cooking demonstrations that were offered. The various subjects included cooking with chilies, and two sessions on Mediterranean cooking styles and dishes. Although these specific subjects were not interests of mine, a general interest character to the cooking demonstrations, that they were sometimes an activity to do with my aunt, and that the demonstrations were generally pleasant activities in which to participate at those moments, were attractions.

Various recipes prepared included a rice and chili sauce dish; lamb meatballs and couscous; and pasta with a garlic and olive oil sauce.

During the first of the cooking demonstrations, I became fascinated by two of the central cooking appliances: Two portable countertop induction stoves, incidentally of the exact same brand and model of which I own; this latter detail piqued my curiosity. I also realized later on while in the buffet lines and watching the cooks prepare meals in front of guests that there were a number of portable countertop induction stoves in use; in this particular case, usually to prepare fried eggs and omelettes, both to order. Some were of the same consumer grade make and model I had, and some were of a different brand, and I suspect of a commercial grade instead of a consumer grade.

Two portable induction countertop stoves (in black, one with a pot on it) used during a cruise ship cooking demonstration

The chef leading the demonstration was unsurprisingly confident and competent (although no doubt following a script, flawlessly and naturally), and she used the two countertop portable stoves as though she were using any other more traditional stove; I found her ease in using these appliances fascinating.

I imagine that induction cooktops were chosen for convenience, more precise cooking control, and perhaps electrical efficiency. No doubt ventilation and fire issues were also considered, (ie. in comparison to the use of gaseous or liquid fuel stoves) despite the presence of a fume hood, and no doubt the presence of a fire suppression system. Perhaps the promoters even considered the use of consumer grade portable countertop induction stoves as easier and overall less expensive to replace in the case of failure, since depending on the ports of call, they could easily send someone to the local department store with a credit card in order to purchase replacement units. But I digress.

Unfortunately, we did not get to taste the food cooked in front of us due to an apparent policy to not serve the food prepared during the demonstrations. To a degree, this may also have made it easier for the various demonstrations to be developed since they could be designed around relatively small amounts of overall food to be prepared, such as one or two servings, which would also make it time efficient (and incidentally somewhat more cost effective at least on the level of ingredients required).

While this case partly goes against the charm I see in portable countertop stoves – the ability to cook anywhere, any time, with portable portable countertop stoves instead of traditional stoves– I found it fascinating that this instance shows how portable countertop stoves can be used for everyday cooking – well that’s what they’re designed for! – and more generally as replacements for a traditional stovetop.

I admit it: I’m also excited to just see one of the things I bought actually being used by someone besides myself, and by someone in the know to boot. 🙂

Followup to the original post, which is mostly a rehashing of the original post:

My original vision for the post, which was somewhat blurry when I began writing, was in broad, vague, terms swirling about in my head. It surrounded the notion of “the joy of cooking” and doing so in a mobile fashion with the portable countertop stoves, anywhere, anytime, as long as you had a space and electricity. A part of my enthusiasm came from having once seen a home kitchen without a traditional stove and oven, but rather a 1500 watt portable countertop stove with two burners like one I have, and a toaster oven (which is in my mind an ubiquitously common kitchen appliance to begin with anyway). I certainly wanted to discuss the joy of cooking with these appliances.

The post ended up having two main points:

A) Expressing in general terms that you can cook with portable countertop stoves, though in a limited way, using the example of, and concentrating on, the relatively large amounts of soup I make at my church. I mentioned that cooking a full course banquet using one or two portable countertop stoves for a large crowd is not practical, even perhaps not for a small intimate group, depending on the menu, and that such was beyond the scope of the post. However, almost surprisingly, large amounts of “one thing” (such as soups, stews, and the like) can be prepared, again depending on the item. However, I should have intimated that limited amounts of other items, or perhaps other more complex items, could still be prepared with portable countertop stoves in non-standard cooking locations, usually given enough lead time to prepare, cook, and assemble the food. See, for instance, the cruise ship example above.

B) And, that cooking in the non-standard areas with the number of portable countertop stoves I have, using the collective maximum capacity of my portable stoves is not possible, because it is far above the electrical capacity of the church hall in which I prepare the soup. I have been learning the practical limits of how much soup I can prepare at once, as well as beginning to be worried about issues such as electrical fires (especially due to aging electrical wires) and ventilation, be it due to deliciously distracting soup smells wafting through the building, or due to having to evacuate combustion gases from other types of portable stoves, were I to be using them.

How A Walking Tour I Couldn’t Take Helped Me Learn How to Get More Out Of Travel

In 1988 when I was 18 years old and fairly naïve, I went on a school trip to London and Paris, graciously financed by my parents. Leading up to this trip, I had done little to no pre-planning, figuring, without any concrete evidence to support it, that « The school chaperone knew London and Paris, and would no doubt be an excellent tour guide. »

These were famous last words.

The school chaperone’s familiarity with London and Paris was probably at best that of a seasoned traveller who had passed through these two cities a few times, and who had done a bit of pre-planning for this trip; in reality, in my no doubt clouded view, she came across to me as hardly the enthusiastic, tireless tour guide with a boundless, intimate knowledge of the locales I somehow expected her to have been. This of course is not her fault; one can hardly ever live up to being as good as the expectations hoisted upon them.

Don’t get me wrong; the trip was great, and the school chaperone was effective at chaperoning a small group of 17 to 19 year olds, and dare I say even moderately effective at being a tour guide. In fact, I’m probably being ungrateful, and she was no doubt a fairly good tour guide.

I did nonetheless have a rather enjoyable tour, having visited various museums and attractions in London such as The London Dungeon (a favourite for me), the Tower of London, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, and the War Cabinet Rooms. Speaker’s Corner one Sunday morning was a highlight of the trip.

I also found it curious though memorable one day when a number of us in the group decided to visit a London pub at roughly 3:30pm, only to find the doors locked; the publican did eventually open the doors for us. This was in the day when English pubs still closed for a time in the afternoon, due to a law from the First World War meant to curb excessive drinking by munitions production workers.

In Paris, we visited the Champs Élysées, l’Arc de Triomphe, and, if I recall correctly, Le Rond Point du Champs Élysées.

I remember a person in our group being rather almost obsessed with the crêpes street vendors were selling; as I recall, he favoured the Nutella spread. I myself indulged in bringing to life a French stereotype, that of walking down a Parisian street eating a baguette. On one of Paris’ bridges over the Seine River, I haggled with a street artist for a charcoal drawing of myself, shown here. I remember being fascinated by the abundance of chestnuts littering the ground and streets in some neighbourhoods.

The charcoal drawing of myself drawn by a street artist in Paris on a bridge over the Seine River in 1988

A critical point in the trip came on the day before we returned home, when we were crossing the English Channel from France back to London to stay the night before going to the airport the following day, and ultimately returning home back to Canada. There was a dock strike, as I recall on the Dover side, which delayed us by a good six or eight hours while waiting in Calais for limited space on the minimal ferry service which was operating. We were lucky when we finally arrived in Dover; the bus driver for the charter to take us to London had patiently waited through the delay for us, aware that our absence at the appointed hour was no doubt directly as a result of the dock strike.

Upon arrival at the hostel (which was different from the first hostel at which we had stayed earlier when in London) at roughly 18:00 or thereabouts, I noted a promotional tourist pamphlet at the reception desk for a « Jack the Ripper Walking Tour » which began at about 19:30. The timing was such that I figured I could quickly place my bag in the room and then travel over to the meeting point for the walking tour. However, I quietly and somewhat reluctantly, though probably wisely, realized that in a group setting on the night before returning home, this would be logistically less than perfectly easy to arrange for several in the group. Perhaps – probably – it was something that the chaperone would frown upon, having already had choice words about some innocent but clearly gullible behaviour of mine several days earlier at an attraction, at which I also managed to get separated from the group for about an hour.

I went home disappointed that had I known in advance about this walking tour, I probably would have keenly tried to insert it into the group schedule when we would have had the time to do it, or on an evening when a small willing party from the group could have gone. I did not resent the dock strike for having deprived me of the opportunity, even though all things being equal, had the dock strike not occurred and we’d made it back across to London several hours earlier as had been originally scheduled, there would have been a good chance that participation could have been arranged, or at least realistically considered. Certainly, had I done some pre-planning, the disappointment of missing out on this activity may have been somewhat less.

I went home regretting not being able to go on the walking tour, squarely placing the blame on myself for having assumed that « The school chaperone knew London and Paris, and would no doubt be an excellent tour guide. »

About two years later, my parents went to London on a trip of their own; I was envious, wanting to correct my prior travel errors. The next year when they repeated their trip, I even listened for the first time to the walking tour cassette tapes I’d received three years earlier on my trip, and I became really envious of my parents, and I wanted to return to London.

Almost four years after the London and Paris trip, my parents brought my older brother and I to New York City over the Christmas holidays, and, as you can imagine, I planned out some attractions I would have liked to visit. My brother and I went to a winemaking shop I’d sought out (since I had recently taken up the hobby), taking the famed New York Subway; we visited the ConEdison Museum; and we patronized an electronics store to purchase a CD player for a home stereo I had. Passing by Rockefeller Plaza, we even decided on the spur of the moment to take a tour of the New York NBC studios, where we visited the studio for Saturday Night Live, as well as the studio for Late Night with David Letterman. This latter studio was surprisingly small, which on TV benefited from special camera lenses which made the studio appear larger. While hardly all trip defining or even noteworthy attractions, my brother later confided in me that he was glad that I’d planned out a few attractions to visit since he hadn’t done any such planning; I related to him having been disappointed in myself over not having done any research for the above-mentioned London and Paris trip and had as a result done some planning for this trip.

In the intervening years, I went on a couple more smaller trips, each time researching in advance to various degrees the various sites and attractions that I could visit.

One fateful day at the beginning of August, 2003, a bit over fifteen years after the school trip to London and Paris, my mother, now recently widowed, made an offhanded remark, perhaps just idly speaking aloud a passing thought without really being too serious. « I think I’d like to go to London in October. »

Without losing a beat, I replied « May I join you? »

And so began the trip of a lifetime for me.

I began planning my trip, while my mother planned hers. Plane tickets were purchased, and a bachelor apartment rented by the week was reserved, which we shared during the trip. I hit the internet, at a time when it was just beginning to grow and be useful as a means to plan such a holiday. I searched for festivals, museums, shows, recommendations, landmarks, tourist attractions, and the like. After I had spent several weeks researching a wide variety of museums and attractions, I felt satisfied with my research. At this point, a hunch lurked in my head, which fortunately didn’t backfire the way it had in 1988: I knew that while I had found a good variety of things to do and see, I also knew that I had found roughly only enough for about half the trip; however, I decided that I would leave the other half to chance findings once in London, something that fortunately worked well for me during the trip.

My trip brought me to several museums and local attractions, such as:

  • The changing of The Guard at Buckingham Palace, but I was disappointed because it was ultimately either cancelled or severely curtailed due to the rain;
  • The London Science Museum;
  • The Charles Dickens museum, located in one of the homes occupied by the writer;
  • “The Mouse Trap” at St. Martin’s Theatre;
Me at the London Dungeon in 2003
  • The London Dungeon, whose layout and exhibits had been changed enough from those in 1988, and which in 2003, had a greater emphasis on Jack the Ripper, as well as an indoor slow roller coaster type ride to bring visitors through a portion of the various exhibits;
  • The Medieval Banquet, which was good fun albeit slightly contrived and overly florid, with actors and animators costumed in what I would describe as 1940’s to 1960’s historical and period Hollywood movie attire (think Robin Hood movies prior to Kevin Costner in 1991.)
  • The Museum of London, which seemed to grow larger and larger through every door and passage I went, and in which I found a fully constructed house. I was fascinated by the presence of this house in general, but particularly because there was a toilet room separate from the main bathroom, a characteristic I found curious and very interesting, especially since I had only ever seen it before or since in my grandparents’ house;
  • Covent Gardens, which I visited a few times, including one spectacular Saturday with the clearest blue skies and beautiful mild weather one could ask for;
  • Pollock Toy Museum, which was spread over two neighbouring Victorian-era houses, each of which were similarly high, but one having one more floor than the other as a result of shorter ceilings;
  • The Imperial War Museum;
  • The HMS Belfast, a World War II era ship-turned-into-a-museum;
  • The Victoria and Albert Museum at which I recall having seen a good amount of iron works which were saved from being melted down for their iron value during World War II;
  • The Clink Museum, located in London’s oldest prison;
  • St. Paul’s Cathedral;
  • Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, which was rebuilt on a site 400 metres away from the site where the original had burned down, and the “new” buildings on that site were listed historical buildings which could not be demolished for when the current Globe Theatre project was being built.

Unplanned visits included:

  • The London Eye, which I did not actually ride in;
  • Southwark Cathedral;
  • The Swiss Bells in Leicester Square, visited twice;
  • The Sherlock Holmes Museum, yes, at 221B Baker Street (resulting from having taken a Sherlock Holmes themed walking tour);
  • Three walking tours.

This is not an exhaustive list; there are several more museums and tourist attractions that I visited.

Having been an avid geocacher at the time, I also researched in advance a small handful of geocaches to find if and when an empty afternoon were to present itself; this proved useful, since at the time, Zone 1 in London on Sundays appeared to virtually shut down, and there were few activities, attractions, and the like open for tourists, or just about anyone else. (But I do recall having found a walking tour, and having gone to Speaker’s corner, on the Sunday morning.)

This activity led me to finding geocaches at The London Stone; Postman’s Park beside the London City Presbyterian Church, across from the Museum of London; and St. John’s Garden, a short walk over from Farringdon Tube Station. As I recall, all three were fairly easily walk-able each from the others within the afternoon, and that I indeed had planned out the route in advance as a function of being able to walk from one to the next to the next.

Another highlight of the trip was the ubiquitous presence of pubs in Zone 1. I generally avoided well known restaurants – in fact, I don’t recall having gone to a chain restaurant, or at least one I recognized as being part of a chain, at all during the trip. Certainly, besides the ubiquitous presence of Starbucks and a few Krispy Kreme Donuts franchises (the latter of which I was obsessed with at the time, but which I did not consume while on the trip), I don’t even recall having seen any other well known chains, including McDonald’s. Eating at pubs was a pleasant way to eat for me: In Zone 1, it seemed to me that when I wanted to have a meal, all I had to do was stop where I was, and if there wasn’t a pub more or less in front of me, all I had to do was walk a block or two either to the left or the right, and I was bound to find a pub that served food. It was a wonderful dining experience for me! Interestingly, it did not occur to me until writing this post that, assuming that at some point I tried to enter a pub mid-afternoon, that I never dealt with a mid-afternoon pub closing hours.

In between, my vacation and my mother’s coincided on a daily basis. It was not unusual for her to show me the occasional attraction, and of course often enough we dined together, as well as of course having shared an apartment during the trip.

And, having done my research in advance, I had found information on the “Jack the Ripper Walking Tour”, in which I participated early on during my trip.

During my research prior to leaving on the trip, I found the website for “London Walks”, and it announced that a well known expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, would be leading the walk one evening while I was to be in London.

Leading up to my trip and on the advice of a friend, I bought a book on the subject of one of the various theories as to the identity of Jack the Ripper. I read much of the book in the time leading up to the trip, and indeed in the time leading up to when I took the walking tour once already in London.

I made a point of showing up at the appointed time and place on the evening that the walk was advertised to be lead by the well known expert. The walk was entertaining, visiting several of the key places surrounding the stories, evidence, and legends and lore of the Jack the Ripper story. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour and listening to the stories. One of the more amusingly memorable parts of the walk was when the group was brought through an area known as a gathering spot for skateboarders, and we had been warned in advance by the tour guide “Whenever I bring a group through here, I never know what to expect.” Indeed, we were not disappointed: One of the skateboarders saw our group, took his shirt off, and called out to us “I’m Jack the Stripper!”, much to our collective bemusement, giggles, and guffaws.

I asked the tour guide what he thought about the particular theory presented in the book I’d read. He politely dismissed it as just another author unfamiliar with Ripperology trying to capitalize on the subject. He went on to state that in his opinion, it consisted of connecting circumstantial evidence together insufficiently well, and that it lacked sufficiently substantial proof to connect the person in question above all others, given the available (and sometimes lack of) evidence in the case. As I see it, ultimately, the Jack the Ripper case is at its core indeed so fraught with insufficient and conflicting evidence, and in the meantime so much legend, lore and a certain romantic notion surrounding the mystery have been created around it, that it will continue for a long time to be ripe for many to capitalize on the subject – in an indirect sense, myself included here. But I digress.

The defining raîson d’être for my trip having been fulfilled, I continued with my trip as described above, thoroughly enjoying the various attractions I visited, and was enthralled by the vacation. Here are my pictures from the trip.

For many seasoned travellers, the above seems to be an easily compiled list of obvious and easy to implement options that so many tourists visit in London. Yet, in a lot of ways, it was the kind of trip that I’d wished my first trip fifteen years earlier in 1988 had been, and which I thoroughly enjoyed in 2003.

There was a key difference, however: I became personally invested in planning out the trip, and planned it out accordingly, in advance. I of course enjoyed myself due to the inherent value of the various sights and attractions; however, it was also due to how well it was being executed and the extensive planning I’d done.

As a result, in 2003, I managed to go full circle and participate in the walking tour that I would have loved to go on but missed out on in 1988, because of my lack of planning and engagement, not because of a dock strike, and certainly not for any rational basis to be disappointed in the school chaperone as a tour guide.

Katadyn Pocket filter capacity: The verdict is in

I purchased a Katadyn Pocket filter in 2012 for a variety of reasons, the principal amongst which was to have drinking water at my cottage during the off season (winter) when the water system is turned off to protect it from freezing. Issues such as not wanting to depend on neighbours and even just whether or not the neighbours were there, the relative convenience of having as much water as I was willing to filter when I wanted regardless of the hour, and not having to transport very large quantities of water from the city, circled through my head.

Like so many other people, I repeated in my blog the 50,000 litre nominal capacity of the filter cartridge as a deciding factor in the purchase of this particular filter. Despite having accepted the value as a ballpark figure to mean “you’ll get lots and lots and lots of water, a few orders of magnitude more than other filters”, I also recognized the ballpark nature of the figure, and that actual capacity would vary (possibly considerably) according to real world conditions such as varying water quality and just how vigorously one might clean the filter cartridge. Unfortunately, I have been disappointed with just how variable this figure has actually proven to be in my case.

In 2016, I began wondering about the real life capacity of the filter cartridge, given a noticeable change in pumping experience filtering water from my artesian well instead of melted snow from my front yard at the cottage. The obvious visual wear of the filter gave me a reference point, and, having kept notes, I revealed that since purchase and up to that point, I’d only filtered roughly 1,500 litres. I had estimated that I might attain a very rough total capacity of 3,000 litres.

In 2017, I had passed a benchmark: The plastic gauge that had come with the unit had passed over the filter, at about 1,650 litres, and by the time I’d written the post, I’d reached 1,750 litres. This represented 3.5% of the nominal 50,000 litre capacity. I mused over the lack of any reported real life capacities that I could find on the internet, going through some hypothetical arithmetic I was able to develop from one source.

I knew that I wouldn’t get anywhere near the oft-touted 50,000 litres. In anticipation of needing a replacement filter cartridge, I went to a store selling them, hesitantly because the replacement part has a fairly expensive price. I purchased a replacement, and was pleasantly surprised to get a 73.2% discount on the price at the counter (for reasons unknown). I surmised that a part of the discount was since the unit was in a box that had obviously been opened and resealed, although why it was so significant still eludes me. The only thing in my favour were the local consumer protection regulations requiring that in the case of a difference between the advertised price and the price at the counter, the consumer gets either up to a $10 discount from the advertised price if lower than the value at the register, or the value of the register price if lower than the correct price.

Since January, 2017, when the gauge passed over the filter unit, I have been bringing somewhat more water up to the cottage, up to five gallons at a time instead of just a single gallon, in order to somewhat extend the life of the filter cartridge. I have been continuing to use the original filter unit, wanting to take full advantage of its lifespan.

During my most recent weekend to the cottage in April, 2019, I began filtering water as usual. The filter had been cleaned and bleached prior to use. However, the filter quickly clogged, and suddenly, the plunger went down quickly; the unit’s internal pressure had been sufficient to collapse that which remained of the filter.  

The collapsed filter, note that the element has been worn and significantly ablated

It should be noted that the filter failure was due to the fact that over time and hundreds of filter cleanings, it had been physically worn away, and therefore the failure was due to it being thin (about 1mm to 2mm thick) and not because I’m inventing a frivolous claim of manufacturing defect.

I also have a definitive capacity of the cartridge I received with the original  purchase, under the various conditions of water quality I filter and maintenance: approximately 2197.5 litres (let’s round that up to 2,200 litres), or 4.4% of the stated 50,000 litre capacity. It was used up over seven off seasons at the cottage, providing a significant amount of the drinking quality water needed for cooking, cleaning, and drinking.

It seems that I didn’t get anywhere near the nominal capacity. Sigh.

Now it’s time to see how much capacity I get out of the second filter.

Hotel WiFi Passwords — 2018 edition (aka what a snore fest)

Yet again, I am in a hotel using their wifi. Again, after being asked during check-in if I wanted wifi access, I was curious about how their wifi password would stand up to any kind of security test as they handed me a slip of paper with the information.

Sigh, it is a terribly obvious password that would only barely pass a “security by obscurity” test by virtue that by and large, people don’t have wifi guessing software with standard dictionaries ranging from a normal library dictionary to a hacker dictionary that anyone’s 11 year old could probably compile, certainly with the help of their friends. In fact, while there are no doubt dozens, no hundreds, no thousands of “obvious” word combinations that would meet the following criteria, it in fact is obvious that it is intended to be very easily remembered by an overwhelming majority of people, be they a typical everyday-anyone-off-the-street person, or a tech savvy person, or a forgetful person, or children, or “even your mom” (I am trying to delicately refer to my mother, who is both not tech savvy in the least, and very experienced in life, if you take my meaning.)

Back in 2015, I was on the subject again, having been impressed at least that the wifi password given to me appeared to be auto-generated at check-in, and obviously not susceptible to simple dictionary attacks.

I started this rant on hotel passwords in 2009 during a series of business trips in which I was at a lot of hotels, and was frustrated for the innkeepers that their wifi would have been so easy to steal for the cost of a night at the hotel and a series of repeaters in the bushes.

Since then, however, I came to realize that my concerns were a bit overrated. Firstly, the potential of signal theft in that fashion was only really was useful for neighbours of the hotels. Secondly, the technical aspects of providing multiple repeaters and power cords down the street (or as the case may be, through the woods) make the cost, both financial and in terms of maintenance, somewhat impractical beyond a few hundred feet.

This is based on some personal experience of the legitimate variety: Since about 2011, my neighbour at the cottage has had internet provided through, I believe, line-of-sight microwave service; it includes VOIP service to provide telephone service, which apparently is prioritized within the router setup. He kindly gave me the wifi password. After about a year, I installed a wifi repeater so that it could be useful within the house, since there was only about one location within the house within a usable radius of the neighbour’s router (a solid two to three hundred feet away); fortunately, I could plug in the repeater at that location. I have since also been giving him some money annually in appreciation.

What have I found?

The repeater is useful. It itself provides constant signal, although it has been susceptible to things like weather, tree foliage, and the like. And, unfortunately, the general service seems to be susceptible to the same, plus things like mountains, and probably the dozens of customers just on my lake and neighbouring lakes. (Yes, people keep on complaining, and no doubt the suppliers’ techies just shift “prioritizing” their services to each successive round of complaining customers, at the expense of the rest of their customers.)

But to wit, the quality of service, at least on the repeater we have, is only barely useful for things like YouTube and the like under the best of conditions; the speed drop from beside the router to our repeater is such that we were able to demonstrate to our neighbour that even if we were consuming such services, we could not be the source of the fluctuating service affecting his internet service (see above.) In any case, by and large we respect a request from him that we not use it to stream video and download large files, since his usage is also metered.

My brother has been wanting to improve our end of the signal for years by setting the repeater near the edge of the property, closer to our neighbour, with things like “waterproof boxes”, electrical extensions, and Ethernet cable through the woods a bit, and then hanging in the air above the clothesline. I have been responding bah humbug, it seems far too susceptible to the elements. As a former geocacher, the notion of a “waterproof” container left out in the woods is no simple feat, and even were it to remain locked, it — and the power cable, and the Ethernet cable too — likely would become susceptible to the elements in short order, and not worth the maintenance effort. It seems to be a challenge beyond most commoners such as myself and even I suspect my brother, more along the lines of the phone company or electric utility face on a daily basis. Remember how annoying it is when the power goes out or the telephones (landlines or cell network) don’t work? Why do they have local teams on the ready 24 hours a day to deal with this? Such outages are regular due to trees falling, water infiltration, and the like.

Is it really worth going to all this trouble in order to have a series of repeaters going down the street for free wifi? I doubt it would be useful to any real degree except to demonstrate proof of concept to your friends for bragging rights.

So … does it really matter how easy it would be to hack a hotel’s free wifi?

Obviously, to the hotel and any costs incurred, of course. The reduction in service and inconvenience that in principle such a signal theft may cause to the hotel and its guests? Of course. And, any illegal activities in which such illicit users may be engaging (kiddie porn, spam, financial fraud, etc.), of course it matters.

But, is anyone beyond the immediate neighbours going to bother with the series of repeaters and power lines through the bushes and/or down the street, possibly spanning several blocks and neighbourhoods?

I have to say “Poppycock!”

PS The “snore fest in the title” was not meant as a pun, but realizing that it unintentionally is — well, I like dumb jokes and puns, especially the dumb ones. 🙂 So, keeping it is intentional.

In the modern world of prepared foods, it must be challenging to be vegetarian. Vegan, extremely difficult.

For the past several years during my summer holidays, I have been visiting the grounds of a Buddhist monastery near my cottage as an activity. Normally, my visit centres around going about mid-day and bringing a picnic lunch to be enjoyed on the grounds, as well as walking the grounds and admiring the scenery, the various Buddhas throughout, and of course the temple.

At the gate, there is a sign with a crossed-out pictogram expressly, at least on a literal level, forbidding chicken, steak, and eggs to be brought onto the grounds. Obviously, the pictogram more widely means “no meat or animal products”. Underneath, it says “only vegetarian food”. The specific use of the word “vegetarian” confuses the matter.

As per my understanding of vegetarianism, generally eggs, milk, honey (surprise — made by bees, it’s an animal product!) and a few other animal products are acceptable; the interpretation to which I personally subscribe is “no animal flesh”. I assume, given the inclusion of the egg in the pictogram, that the policy is actually veganism, as in no animal products whatsoever. (If I am incorrect on this point, then that is only somewhat beside the point I am trying to raise here. Update 20180805: See notes at the end.)

I typically eat three meals a day of the meat and two vegetables variety, although peanut butter, pickled eggs and cheese are central to typical breakfasts. However, especially since in the past I have flirted with vegetarianism of the meatless-but-eggs-and-cheese-and-other-animal-products-are-fine variety, I don’t have a problem with the sign; I consider myself to eat a wide enough variety of foods that it isn’t an issue. Further, I do not have any food allergies or particular dietary restrictions — for instance, I do not have any dietary requirement to eat, let alone at every meal, certain foods; certainly for the purpose of this post, foods which contain animal products.

And of course, the monastery is clearly and very well within its rights to place such a condition on the guests it invites to visit its grounds: One does not need to visit the grounds if one is opposed to the condition. In any case, when I have visited, I have never had my picnic lunch bag verified at the gate. Once, I noticed a gentleman eating his lunch on the road just outside the gate; I imagine that he didn’t know in advance about the condition, and his lunch presumably contained some offending ingredient. I can only imagine that based on my personal experience, the gentleman saw the sign, and complied of his own accord without any intervention from the monks.

Nonetheless, planning my picnic lunch for these visits has proven to be quite the challenge over the years.

I bring foods which I enjoy and which I assume are vegan. I even now somewhat plan in advance for this lunch, including when I go to the grocery store on my way up to the cottage. I usually check ingredients lists. As revealed below, obviously not well enough.

And, so far, I realize after the fact every year that I have failed to bring only vegan foods.

One year, I made a peanut butter sandwich on Challah bread. That’s the braided bread often found in delicatessens and jewish bakeries. Challah bread nornally contains eggs.

Another year, as I was planning my lunch, I looked at the ingredients list of various products I wanted to bring: One cake contained eggs. Another commercial snack cake also contained eggs. Two favourite varieties of flavoured potato chips and similar snacks contained milk products (sour cream and onion, and cheese flavoured snacks). Pleased with myself, I did not bring either of the cakes nor the chips / snacks. However, I failed on the sandwich I’d brought: I made my peanut butter sandwich on the bread I make at home in a bread machine. I later remembered that the bread recipe I use contains milk.

This year, I thought I was really well prepared: My peanut butter and jam sandwich, on a very plain bread that did not contain milk nor eggs. Dried pineapple, which I had dried myself. Caramel popcorn, whose ingredients list did not contain any animal products. Juice boxes. And a few other items, which I deal with in the following paragraphs.

To my amusement, though not surprise, I learned after the fact that the roasted and salted cashews I brought may contain milk, along with peanuts and other tree nuts. This is in a grey zone, as the warning’s purpose is to inform that the cashews were prepared in a facility which prepares other items which may contain the offending items, and that cross-contamination might have occurred, not to indicate that the cashews actually contain the offending items, at least by design.

The following items were also brought, and which I later realized were not allowed under the above-mentioned presumed vegan food condition:

– a brand of salt and vinegar potato chips, whose “seasonings” contain lactose, and whose label states they contain milk, to my great surprise: I had bought the chips on the presumption that they contain potatoes, vegetable oil, salt, and vinegar;
– a variety of chocolate buttons candy, whose label states it contains milk (this should have been a no brainer, since they are in the milk-chocolate range of chocolates);
– a store brand of a swiss-type chocolate bar, whose label states it contains milk and eggs (again this should have been a no-brainer, at least for the milk);
– a chocolate-coated granola bar, which contains honey and multiple mentions of milk and milk products (once more, this should have been a no-brainer).

As such, I guess I will yet again have to plan better for my visit during my holidays next year: I will have to buy fruit cups and fresh fruits, while excluding the various above-mentioned items. These aren’t a real problem for me, but I do admit that these items are not always the first things that come to mind when I go shopping or make a last-minute grab for food for my lunches, be they regular daily lunches, or my visit to the monastery grounds.

In the past, I have subscribed to the mostly-meatless form of vegetarianism, for environmental reasons, principally in that meat consumes enormous amounts of water to produce. (As a side bar, one complaint I had was that prepared frozen pasta dishes could have been made in one extra variety: In addition to the vegetable lasagnas that are made, why not make traditional meat lasagnas exactly as usual, save that the meat hoppers are not filled during some runs?)

However, I am generally typical of North Americans in that I eat meat very regularly. Lately, for health reasons, I have been somewhat, mostly only very slightly, cutting down on my meat consumption; the environmental reasons of water requirements and carbon footprint in the form of methane production (21 times as efficient as CO2 as a greenhouse gas), have also been present in my mind.

But this little exercise makes me wonder how a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, or for that matter, someone who is lactose-intolerant, suffering from celiac disease, allergic to eggs, nuts and peanuts, or seafood, or who has some other intolerance to some food ingredient, is able to navigate commercially prepared foods, restaurants, and even dinner parties serving only foods “made from scratch” but in kitchens with the following ingredients, given the omnipresence of meats, milk, eggs, honey, other animal products, wheat, nuts, peanuts, seafood and any other I consider to be common and basic foods, and which in and of themselves are mundane, at least to me.

Yes, I am aware of various commercial foods and food management systems, such as nut-free candies and gluten free foods, and restaurants catering to the various issues raised above. I am also aware that making foods “from scratch” present options for my picnic lunches. My point here lies in the insidious degree to which certain common ingredients are used in food products not purchased for the presence of said ingredients.

Update 20180805: I have done some cursory checking into Buddhism and vegetarianism, and according to the wikipedia page on Buddhist Vegetarianism, (here’s my archive), the traditions of the particular monastery I visit likely fall under the “no meat, eggs and dairy” category, although strict veganism does not seem to be the case.

Shows on the Star Trek: The Cruise II, a.k.a. Paging The Squire of Gothos

During the Star Trek: The Cruise II, I was often wondering about licensing issues related to everything that was going on around me. Besides amusing me, there was a particular reason: Early during the cruise, Michael Dorn (Worf) made an uncanny quip while introducing Nana Visitor and René Auberjonois for their show: “You would be still be clapping even if I were reading from the phone book!”

From that comment on, I was frequently commenting to myself what later gelled in my mind into “Phone Book Recitals”. As such, I was often wondering about licensing issues and the economic choices which were made during the organization of the cruise regarding each and every show, event, and detail on the ship.

For instance:

  • The on-board PA system alternated between sound effects and music from mostly, as I perceived it, The Original Series, and pop music from the 1980’s. I noted several repetitions of tracks from the “Invisible Touch” album by Genesis, making me assume that the ship was rotating through the same play list of music. Part of me wondered how much of this latter part was targeting the likely demographics of the passengers, as in those of us old enough to both have enjoyed such music in our youth, and be able to reasonably comfortably afford being on the cruise, and how much of the 80’s music was being played due to a favourable music licensing deal. Despite this, I rather enjoyed both the sound effects and the music.
  • On the in-house television in the cabins, there were two channels which carried Star Trek; by the end of the cruise, I’d noticed that there were three. I typically would watch bits over three episodes of Star Trek a day when waking up or going to bed. On one channel, the second Abramsverse movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, appeared to be in almost constant rotation. On the other, there appeared to be a preponderance of DS9, with just enough Enterprise for me to notice. I only starting seeing some TNG near the end of the cruise. So: Are Star Trek into Darkness and DS9 lagging behind on broadcasting rights royalty income?
  • Near the concièrge desk, there were a number of video screens, apparently with constant and perpetual loops of the TOS episodes Charlie X, Shore Leave, and The Naked Time; another appeared to always have Star Trek: The Motion Picture playing. What was it about these episodes and this movie? Is it the same broadcasting rights royalty income conspiracy theory I mention above? Or just that the DVDs or BlueRays or digital copies got stuck in a perpetual playback loop?

Then there were the live shows and events I attended, almost all of which I otherwise found thoroughly enjoyable. Several of the shows had nothing to do with Star Trek, other than the fact that the performers happened to have been, well, the actors who portrayed Captain Sulu, Lt.Cmdr. Laforge, Odo, Major Kira, Q, The Doctor, and so on.

Given the several shows I saw, virtually all starring one or more Star Trek actors and / or personalities, while I was clapping at the end and otherwise (usually) thoroughly entertained, I was often scratching my head as to what the show I had just seen had to do with Star Trek, and (usually) expecting that I would have been equally entertained had the performers been any other performers, be they known stars, or career cruise ship entertainers.

Don’t get me wrong: With one exception, all were thoroughly enjoyable, perhaps more so because of who were performing. (I’ll even grant the one exception the courtesy of having been interesting in its own right, albeit beyond what I would have chosen had I known what it really would have been about beforehand.) However, despite rather enjoying the cruise and the shows I attended, I felt like I was giving a number of the shows and the performers a bit of leeway, while wondering where the “Star Trek” part was. Often enough, I was wondering how much a given show or activity was being presented because it passed muster based on the promoter’s entertainment committee’s (and I’m pretty sure the cruise line’s committee’s) “entertainment index” (though ignoring for Star Trek content), and how many licensing issues arose regarding more Star Trek specific shows, be it more Star Trek script readings (or readings of scripts that didn’t make it to screen), dramatic adaptations of fan generated stories, or more exposés on the inner workings of Star Trek.

For instance, John de Lancie and Robert Picardo (as well as other Star Trek personalities) performed a reading of a dramatization of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial (The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes) as well as individually in other shows having nothing to do with Star Trek. Robert Picardo also performed his current show called “BFF” with Jordan Bennett, (apparently) known for starring in Les Misérables on Broadway; except for a song opening at the beginning in which the Star Trek theme song is performed, it appeared to have nothing to do with Star Trek. Had the cruise been themed for the Stargate franchise, both John de Lancie and Robert Picardo, who also were secondary characters in that franchise, could have performed almost all of the same shows I saw them perform on the Star Trek cruise, and there would be little difference.

Yes, these actors have virtually all had acting careers before and after Star Trek. I imagine that at least a modest ability to competently sing and dance is a somewhat more common skill amongst actors than the general population, while generally, their portrayals on Star Trek usually had nothing to do with song and dance.  Yes, they do have lives outside of Star Trek. And yes, I don’t only watch Star Trek on TV, or only watch TV all day long; yes, I have other interests beyond Star Trek that have nothing to do with spaceships or TV. I understand that thirteen, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-three or forty-eight years after the end of the respective shows in which the actors appeared, they have gone on to other performing activities and interests, and in many cases actually have current shows – take Robert Picardo’s current “BFF” show, which I thought was remarkable for rating very close to zero on a scale of one to ten in Trekkie-ness.

But … I went to, I paid for, a Star Trek themed cruise. I did get part of it: Star Trek actors and personalities, and a number of Star Trek themed window dressings on the ship. And yes, of course, I got a great cruise!

Yet, from my perspective, the cruise felt like a cruise that happened to have an (almost merely nominal) Star Trek theme. I found it hard to immerse myself in Star Trek.

Yes, I got to see Star Trek stars. Yes, there was a good amount of gawking at “cool t-shirt” or “great klingon costume” comments (at least three of my Star Trek themed t-shirts drew attention from others).

However, I did not happen upon any impromptu “heated” discussions about anything Star Trek. The type I might have in mind would be the likes of ethical discussions over the Dominion War, which episodes were the best (or worst), or whether or not they should have actually killed Kirk onscreen (which I think was a mistake, both in and of itself, as well as how they did it; that he wasn’t with Bones and Spock at the time isn’t the point.) Admittedly, I do recall, more as an afterthought, having one brief conversation with someone: “Which starship would you see yourself on?” I replied that I’d liked to be on Enterprise-D, but if I were really lucky, I might end up being one of Janeway”s lost sheep (a reference to an episode in which she takes a personal interest in three under-performing crew members.) And to be fair, I was often running from one show to the next such that I had little time to sit back and seek out these kinds of bar conversations.

Basically, I felt that at the core of the cruise, there wasn’t actually enough Star Trek. It was like Trelane in the “Squire of Gothos”: So many of the trappings, but not quite enough of the actual substance.

Do you think that instead of reading the Scopes Monkey Trial, they could have read through another Star Trek script?

Could Robert Picardo have sung (at least one of) “My Darling Clementine”, “Someone to Watch Over Me”, “You Are My Sunshine”, and the Doctor’s fantasy version of “La donna è mobile” in his show, since these are songs he sang onscreen in Voyager?  Edit 20240312:  Add his modified version of “Rockabye Baby” regarding B’Ellana’s yet-to-be-born child.

Do you think that Viacom or CBS or whoever deals with the licensing could have made the shows more Star Trek like?

Star Trek Cruise 2018

For the past year, I have been looking forward to a cruise from which I have just returned.

Being a long time Trekkie (please don’t start talking about Trekker vs. Trekkie, I find the argument as silly as Trekkie is purported to be pejorative) and now, well let’s say able, my brother and I bought berths on the NCL Jade for this year’s second sailing in the Star Trek Cruise.  We had a great time!

Here are my pictures.

UPDATE January 21, 22:45:

Ports of call included:

  • Roatan, Honduras (suffice it to say that beyond the small and minimal but adequate tourist zone, we turned back within minutes, disappointed in the overly ferocious solicitation by the locals);
  • Harvest Cay, Belize, a private island owned by NCL best described (positively so!) as Gilligan’s Island run by Mr. Howell for tourists (yes, I am aware of “The Castaways” Resort);
  • Costa Maya, Mexico, where I hope that the haggling over the price of a “Mexican” blanket in the large tourist zone, both of which I expect are about as authentic as the deed to a bridge in Brooklyn — but both of which I liked anyway — made me a little less of a mark than anyone who may have paid the original price I was quoted (assuming anyone else was labelled to be one of a given number of “marks of the day”, and outside of which I got to go out to see genuine Mayan ruins!

Actors on the ship:

On the cruise, we got to see many Star Trek stars, of course all of them anywhere from 15  to 50 years older than when they were first on TV.  On the first day, we managed to get a seat around the pool with a poor view onto the temporary stage where the stars were introduced, but we had front-row seats to the open air green room where the stars waited to go onto the stage!

In my personal view, the “hard workers” amongst  the actors were:  René Auberjonois (Odo), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Robert O’Reilly (Gowron), John de Lancie (Q), and Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun, Shran, Liquidator Brunt, and others).

And to a somewhat lesser degree:  Max Grodenchik (Rom), Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar and the Romulan Commander), and Nana Visitor (Major Kira).  (I learned that the correct pronunciation is “Nuh-naw”, emphasis on “-naw”, not “Nay-na” with emphasis on “Nay”).

The “Invisible Cast Members” whom I don’t recall seeing at all after the first day’s introduction of the actors:

  • Karl Urban (McCoy from Abramsverse) — who apparently possibly became ill, as well as apparently developed contractual conflicts after the first day, requiring him to leave the ship prematurely, and all of which I knew about early on, although not from official sources, at least not those to which I was paying attention;
  • Vaughn Armstrong (Admiral Forrest, and apparently 11 various other Star Trek characters over various series).  After a bit of research into the daily schedules, I learned that he:
    • hosted a celebrity bingo earlier in the week during my dinner seating;
    • appeared often in the “Rat Pack” musical group who played late at night, after I usually went to bed;
    • hosted Gorn’s Gong Show, when I was at another show with George Takei,
    • hosted a karaoke night the last night of the cruise, to which I tried to convince myself to go, but ultimately didn’t bother doing.

Which leaves Jonathan Frakes (I saw him in two shows), George Takei (who was actually all over), Michael Dorn (whom I only saw introduce a show once, but whom I bumped into one evening), Connor Trineer (whom I saw in the Star Trek Squares game, and who apparently hosted a Karaoke night as well as the Gorn Gong Show with Vaughn Armstrong, see above), Brent Spiner (who was the star of one shows that I saw), and Gates McFadden (who was in one show I saw but who did do at least one session teaching tap dancing basics).

Here is a review of the various shows I saw, and other activities in which I participated:

The first evening’s show

  • Michael Dorn introduced Levar Burton, who read a children’s book he’d written, as well as an essay he’d written.
  • Later when he introduced René Auberjonois and Nana Visitor, one of Michael Dorn’s quotes was “you’d still be clapping even if I were reading from the phone book” — a comment I found fascinating, and which followed me and the shows I saw all week long, since so many of the shows were NOT Star Trek related at all beyond the actors starring in them, but were still rather entertaining.
  • René Auberjonois and Nana Visitor reading various humourous quotes and a scene from DS9.

Day 2:

  • Photo op with George Takei (basically, 15 seconds with Mr. Takei)
  • Star Trek’s Script Secrets Revealed with Lolita Fatjo.  Interesting points:  Star Trek The Next Generation had an open invitation for the public to submit scripts, virtually unique in the TV world.  And, at 10AM, people were ordering noisy-to-make margeritas.
  • Scopes Monkey Trial with John de Lancie, Ethan Phillips, and Robert Picardo.  As I recall, Mrs. de Lancie, René Auberjonois and Jeffrey Combs participated as well, and three people from the passengers, amongst whom one who was a dead ringer for Col. Sanders of chicken fame, who also dressed the part.  The show was a dramatic reading / stage play based on the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 in Tenessee.
  • T-shirt party with DJ Needles:  Basically, a pool party on the pool deck offering free punch and carbonated barley water (oops, I think they called it Budweiser and Coors Light) to all those wearing the cruise T-shirt.
  • A Visit to the Galley:  Cooking Demo with Nana Visitor — Three recipes easy to prepare in advance party items:  A crab meat dish, kiwi and tequila in watermelon cups, and a third dish I have forgotten.  Apparently, Nana Visitor once was a co-owner of a catering business in New Mexico.  During the presentation, Nana Visitor played the comedian, and the ship’s executive chef played the straight man.
  • Interstellar Improv: An episodic overdub with Denise Crosby and Friends (René Auberjonois and Robert Picardo) — a really dumb show with the three of them ad-libbing dumb comments to a silent viewing of “And the Children Shall Lead”, including some shady comments about Captain Kirk.  (Ahem, NOT along the lines of “Spock is better!”)

Day 3:  Roatan, Honduras (see ports of call)

Shows:

  • A Visit to Original Trek with Gates McFadden and Jonathan Frakes (and Picardo, Philipps, Auberjonois, de Lancie, Mrs. di Lancie).  Reading the script to “The Trouble with the Tribbles” — Hilarious!  And, having had a good amount of time on my hands, I had showed up about 50 minutes early to get a good seat.  Good call, it was an overflow crowd!
  • Gow-Rom:  A skit and then Q&A with Gowron (Robert O’Reilly) and Rom (Max Grodenchik) — in full costume and makeup, and during the first part, in character!
  • In Search of Lost Time:  Brent Spiner performing Broadway hits.  As it turns out, despite having known about “Ol’ Yellow Eyes is Back”, I learned that Brent Spiner is actually a decent singer!

Day 4:  Harvest Cay, Belize (see ports of call)

  • “High Lord Cuckoo Face, 3 Little Klingons & O’Reilly Too” — a very deceptive title which, lacking any further explanation or context, unless one already was familiar with the reference, ultimately only relayed that the presentation would be given by Robert O’Reilly and have a vague reference Chancellor Gowron.  In fact, the talk was indeed given by Mr. O’Reilly, firstly explaining that the three little Klingons referred to his three triplet sons, who at a certain point in their childhood decided that “Chancellor Gowron” was a silly name for their father’s character, and that it should be “High Lord Cuckoo Face”.  After which, Mr. O’Reilly recounted poetry, and personal vignettes from his childhood.  I mentioned the deceptive nature of the title in conversation, and a cynic responded to me sardonically that it might well have been better titled “Poignant stories from Robert O’Reilly’s Life Experiences”.  Overall, it actually would have been a better and more accurate title, and in the process not have set me up to expect a hilarious slapstick routine.
  • Star Trek Squares, with George Takei as the centre square, and a Gorn with (intentionally) unintelligible speech.  The Gorn was definitely the hit of the show.

Day 5:  Costa Maya, Mexico (see ports of call)

  • Notes on the visit to the Mayan ruins:  The guide was excellent, and at least trilingual (she spoke French with me, to my pleasant surprise).  I learned that in a very flat area, not only were the ruins all built by volunteer labour (trying to get more “points” to get to the Mayan equivalent of Heaven), but also a low mountain!
  • Star Trek Online presents Gameshow Night:  The Liar’s Club with Jeffrey Combs, Phil Plait and Robb Pearlmann
  • Evening with George Takei:  George Takei spent an hour recounting his experiences in a WWII Japanese-American internment camp as a child, his path to becoming an actor, and as a civil rights activist both surrounding the Japanese-American internment camps as well as LGBT rights.

Day 6:

  • Behind the Scenes Tour:  A two hour walking tour of the ship in areas such as waste disposal, laundry, galley, and other areas, where passengers normally don’t get to see anything.
  • Klingon Pub Crawl:  A pub crawl to three of the ship’s bars led by Chancellor Gowron (Robert O’Reilly) in full costume and makeup.  As a part of his act, Gowron told two great dumb jokes, feigning a lack of understanding of the humour:
    • Two cannibals are eating supper.  One says, “I don’t care for my mother-in-law.”  The other responds, “Try the potatoes”.
    • Two cannibals are dining on a clown.  One says, “Does this taste funny to you?”
  • (Second half of) The “Women’s” View with Mrs. de Lancie, Nana Visitor, Denise Crosby, Lolita Fatjo
  • Oh My!  With George Takei, hosted by Brad Takei — Q&A with George Takei
  • Wine Tasting with Casey Biggs:  As it turns out, Casey Biggs, who played Damar on DS9, owns a vineyard in California, and is involved in making his wine!
  • The Real Life Search for Planet Vulcan, a short presentation on Mercury’s orbit, which at times fooled historic astronomers into claiming to have found another planet in close orbit to the Sun.
  • “BFF” with Robert Picardo and Jordan Bennet.  A show starting off with the Star Trek theme lyrics sung, and a cute set of jokes, stories and slides, but which ultimately featured a ho-hum performance by Robert Picardo and Jordan Bennet with a string of recognizable songs that (armchair critic here) could have been sung better, and which had little if any discernable link to each other, the show overall, Picardo and Bennet, and obviously Star Trek in general, and which left me scratching my head as to why they were included beyond a desire to fill up a one hour time slot.

On ship television:

  • In the midship bar, there was an area displaying various props (and / or reproductions, no matter) from the various shows.  There were TV screens showing TOS episodes.  Specifically, every time I passed by, Charlie X, The Naked Time, and at least one more which I never bothered to identify, as well as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, were playing.
  • In the staterooms, where I perhaps watched the equivalent of about an episode and a half over perhaps three episodes per day (ie bed time or waking up in the morning):
    • On one of the two Star Trek channels, I noticed a preponderance of DS9 episodes, then a far second of Enterprise episodes, and then even fewer TNG episodes.  No TOS or Voyager episodes that I saw.
    • On the second Star Trek channel, Star Trek Beyond appeared to me to be in almost exclusive rotation until about the second to last day.

To be fair, of course I didn’t sit in my room 24/7 keeping track of the episodes being aired, but I would have expected to see a far more balanced airing of episodes over the week.

Food:

Firstly, we had decided not to bother spending the premium going to the premium restaurants on board — this trip was admittedly rather expensive, even though we could afford it.

We had also discussed going to the Irish pub, such as for a late night snack (since it was pretty much the only 24/7 option besides room service), but we never did go.

Which leaves the buffet area, and the dining room.

The buffet area was large enough, and rather long — and, finding empty tables normally involved a walk.

The breakfast menu seemed to be roughly the same daily.  My only observation was that the scrambled eggs were undercooked and slimy some mornings (no doubt a way of countering the hotplates on which they were being kept).

Lunch menus varied somewhat daily along with standard foods like burgers, hot dogs, pizzas, and the like.

The supper menu also varied somewhat daily, and had some nice though typical items.

Dining room:

The menu changed daily, save five or six items which were repeated.  Additionally, there was a special menu to the effect of “From Neelix’s kitchen”, with a special of the day.

The food was definitely better-than-most calibre (only to distinguish it from that food with price tags to make the afore-mentioned Mr. Howell shiver.)

My disappointing choices in the dining room?

  • Not having ordered the moussaka on the first day, which the wait staff claimed was not available a few days later.  It looked and smelled great, but I was concerned about which of the many varieties of moussaka I expected I might be disappointed in.
  • The cheese plate for dessert one day; a bit too frou-frou for my tastes.
  • The steak-frites I chose one day; rather pedestrian, instead of the lamb shank I should have ordered.

Geek factor:

Obviously, there were a lot of Star Trek related shirts — I had a different Star Trek T-shirt for every day.  And, there were a lot of Star Trek uniforms from the various series — some home made, mostly excellent while none of the expected worst costumes ever, and a number of obviously purchased from professional suppliers.

To my mild disappointment, I never happened upon impromptu hardcore discussions about anything Star Trek.  I figured that they would be hard to avoid.  Of course, Star Trek was being discussed.  However, no obvious friendly debates over which series was the best, or who was the best or worst captain, which ship was the nicest or sleekest or fastest, or the relative merits of holodeck training vs. traditional field training in real environments, or shuttlecraft vs. transporters ….

Katadyn water filter capacity — update

This is an update to my post from 2013 on the Katadyn Pocket Water Filter.

In 2012, I bought a Katadyn Pocket water filter principally for use at the cottage during the off-season when our water system is turned off, plus a small handful of personal interest reasons like being a trained water techie, having been involved in Scouting, camping and hiking a long time ago (but no longer), having been involved in geocaching which can involve some hiking in the woods, filtering water from snow or ice for my homebrewing (mostly just to be able to have a story to tell about the “specialness” of the water), and generally to use for my amusement while hiking around at the cottage during my holidays and other times.

About two thirds of the way down the above post, I asked “So, does the filter work? And do I get the runs any more?” to which I answered with an obvious tone, “Of course, and of course not.” Those answers are as true today as they were back in 2013.

I use the filter principally up at the cottage during the off-season, about mid-October to mid-May (during the winter, when the water at the cottage is turned off due to freezing weather), for my water needs for drinking, cooking, hand washing, and dish washing (normally, just the rinsing part at the end.) Obviously, as long as the water isn’t grungy, a lot of water doesn’t need to be filtered to begin with, like for soaking dishes before cleaning them, or as long as it’s fairly clear, for washing my hair and taking a sponge bath.

Every year, I keep a register of the amount of water I filter, as a function of the five litre plastic jug to receive the filtered water, which I always fill up to the brim. I’ve checked the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 registers (I can’t seem to locate the previous two), and I respectively had filled the container 67 and 72 times. That adds up to roughly 695 litres of water. There is going to be some variance in this number, since I when I fill up my container for brewing water, I skip using my 5 litre container and fill the brewing water container directly.

Assuming that during the previous two winters (2012-2013 and 2013-2014), I’d used it similarly, let’s say that I’ve filtered about 1,400 litres. Add to that the very occasional use during the intervening summers, let’s say a good 100 litres, and I’m up to about 1,500 litres.

Here’s the clincher, though: The ceramic filter is visibly wearing down after four seasons of use, and I’m certain I won’t get 50,000 litres out of it.

Normally when I use the filter to filter melted snow or lake water, I have to clean the filter typically after about 12 or 13 litres, because it’s becoming too difficult to filter water at that point due to the ceramic filter clogging up. On general principle, barring the exact number of litres, this is normal and has always been to be expected.

However, recently I noticed something I find curious: During my most recent usage, I was filtering water from the artesian well, which is a good 60 feet deep. I was filtering this water since while the water system had been turned on, I hadn’t yet bleached the well after the winter to clean out the well as well as the house’s pipes. The curious part: I was able to get to 20 litres and beyond without any increase in difficulty in operating the filter, and were I not to have been too curious and opened up the filter for a preventative cleaning, I would have been able to filter an ample amount more.

The well, being a good 60 feet deep, is therefore supplying water that has been very nicely filtered by typically 60 vertical feet of gravel and sand. Further, since I’m assuming that the aquifer is at least somewhat dynamic, I assume that one day the water I’ve drawn from the well could have been rain water or lake water from a few days previous that trickled through the 60 feet of gravel and sand on my property, while another day the water may be runoff having traveled through I don’t know how many hundreds or thousands of lateral feet of sand and gravel from the hills behind my cottage. As such, the water is presumably — and I assure you, actually is — sparkling clear.

This is as compared to when I filter lake water or melted snow, the latter of which, may I remind you, is not quite so pristine as you may think, even when excluding the yellow variety; it is relatively chock full of dust particles that fell with the snow or became nuclei as part of the condensing and / or crystallization process. At this point I assume that at least some of the dust particles may be coming from the various chimneys at the cottages surrounding mine, including the chimney from my own cottage.

Which leads to the notion of this post regarding the filter’s capacity.

The filter is rated as having a capacity of “up to 50,000 litres”. When I bought the unit, I did recognize this to be codespeak for “Depending on the source water quality, the capacity may and will be reduced in real life.” Unfortunately, as it seems in my experience so far, possibly by a very significant margin.

However, I am wondering exactly when I’ll be needing to replace the filter. Yes, I have the little gauge to measure the filter thickness, and I use it occasionally. The question *is*not* “How will I know when to change the filter?” The question is “*When* will the ‘when’ be.” Let me explain.

I’d guess I’ve worn down at least half of the working thickness of the filter in the past four years of use over roughly 1,500 litres, especially if my vague memories of where the gauge the unit comes with was at when the filter was new are correct as compared to where it is now, and just visually guestimating the wear against where it obviously used to be when it was new.

And here’s the conspiracy theory:

I bet that the 50,000 litre estimate that they give is based on using either laboratory grade distilled water, or perhaps treated tap water intended to be potable.

I know that everyone’s source water will be different, and generally using it while traveling to areas where the tap water is clear but not quite potable is as legitimate a use for the water filter as filtering swamp water while out hiking.

(As a side opinion: Regarding dubious water systems while traveling, depending on where you go, unfortunately outside of the westernized world — and even within it in some cases — the tap water may not be quite potable at least from a microbiological point of view as one might expect or hope it to be. The water system can be dubious at best due to antiquated pipes, or the production plant is old and breaking down, or the employees are severely underpaid, or there aren’t enough of them to do the work well. And that’s just the areas which have a distribution system, and that isn’t delivering water that’s smelly or cloudy or outright foul.)

But I’m wondering just how long my filter unit will actually last. For the moment, I’m betting on another two to four cottage seasons, or “up to” another 1500 litres, the way I’m using it. That’s still far beyond other filters where the unit has a nominal capacity of a few hundred litres, and the filter unit itself is disposable and needs to be replaced the way a razor blade in a razor has to be, or ink cartridges in a “wow this printer isn’t expensive at all!”. Ultimately *a* *part* of what makes the other filters, razors with disposable blades, or ink jet printers so deceptively inexpensive is that the manufacturers make their money in selling you spare parts and refills.

I know that the kind of water I filter and of course its quality are far beyond Katadyn’s control. I know that if I’m filtering snow where a good amount of the particles to remove are composed of fine mineral dusts, there will be a sandpaper effect when I’m cleaning the filter, versus filtering stream water where the solids to be removed are more likely to be decaying organic matter in the form of fish poop and dead leaves, which will be easier to clean off the filter when the time comes. I know that the filter is designed such that when it is being cleaned, the process is meant to be ablative. But I’m wondering how much of my perceptions are, well, perceptions and not real life, how much of my use represents an edge case, how much my of cleaning is a bit too vigorous, and so on.

And I wonder just how much Katadyn knows that the 50,000 litre mark is about as close to an imaginary number as it can get. (Or conversely just how delusional I am. 🙂 ) I’d love to see their internal graphs on the real life capacity of their filters. I’d love to see the range that their customers get out of their filters.

So Katadyn: Here’s my estimate, for my filter — about 3,000 litres, given the kinds of water sources I’m using (cottage country snow, some lake water, and a small sundry other sources like streams when I’m hiking, etc..) At the rate I’m going, I expect that it may take as long as until 2020 to find out, though. 🙂

Any and all Katadyn Pocket Filter users are invited to leave your estimate — I hope at least somewhat evidence based — here, or send me an email malak at the site malak dot ca

Update, 2019:  Here is the verdict of how much water I filtered, in 2019, after about seven seasons