Well…we made it.
First and foremost…I need a laptop. Posting using an iPad is a colossal PITA! Any typos are not my fault! Second, bandwidth on the ship is good, not great. Transferring pictures from my phone to the iPad doesn’t seem to be possible.
So….this will be short and sweet.
British Airways sucks! In addition to the hoop jump required by there cancellation of our second leg of the flight, service aboard was marginal. For instance.the meal service started, and the purser got on the intercom, and announced the menu. There were a couple of meal choices as well as a choice of wines. There were two options for whites, Chardonnay (of course) and Sauvignon Blanc. We’re in the second row. As expected, service started at the front. Stewardess asks me if I’d like wine. I asked for the Sauv Blanc. She responds “We’re out”. So, I switch to red. (I absolutely loath Chardonnay, if the commies had captured me, the quickest way to get me to talk would be forcing me to drink it. But…I digress.)
When she returns to take my plate, I ask her about the Sauv Blanc. She responded saying the had only had one bottle of it when they were serviced in Austin. By one bottle, she meant ONE single serving bottle, a mini! Why bother to say you’ve got a choice.?
Second strike was the meal itself. Some inedible cut of beef doused in”Barbecue sauce” and some cold vegetables.
I switched to Scotch It did'nt help. Morning came, and breakfast was even worse. But we arrived in London on time.
RDV’d with our winemaker friends and the 30 something wine cruisers. Now Halfway down the Danube. Scenery’s great, food’s better, wine’s even better. Not positive I want to return to reality. But… we dock in a couple of hours and…
Sorry, posting from an iPad just isn’t working. Pictures are just NOT possible. Have to wait til I get back.
More to follow.
Told ya I heard British Airways has become sucky. Sorry for your... bad flight.
ReplyDeleteBeans,
DeleteYeah...They were...The crew was doing their best, but....ground/headquarters support just wasn't there.
What a shame! I flew on BA a lot in the 90's and loved them.
DeleteOf course any commercial air travel has all the charm and comfort of Greyhound anymore. As long as the aircraft lands wheels-down on the proper runway, I've come to consider that a success
Boat Guy
On the phone, email the pictures to whoever. On the iPad open email and sent mail, download pictures.
ReplyDeleteOr if your Ipad receives email, just mail it to yourself.
DeleteTSquared/Don,
DeleteYep, that's the way I reduce filesize on pictures all the time. However, (as you both are aware) both Email and Internet require bandwidth and available bandwidth varied greatly and frequently over the cruise. Most of the time there was sufficient to surf, which was good, but even doing that took away from total bandwidth, so...My future laptop (being built in my head now) will have photograph manipulation software installed on it from the git go. So...Hopefully, future problems will be avoided when I am, say....cruising down the Seine or something.
...Coming from a time when 1100 baud was a luxury, I feel your pain...
DeleteRemoved a long string of spaces and some random letters. Here it is: At risk of offering dumb advice (that you probably know). You can copy pictures into Word or Excel. In there, you can crop the picture, apply some enhancements, and save the new version. That reduces the picture size some. Now in Word (clicking on the picture), there is an option "Picture Format", then "Compress Format" (losing resolution, then "Save Picture As" (under a different name). (I tried a test of one of my pictures - took it from 2.7 to 1.2 MB..
DeleteDon,
DeleteGot that one saved in my Clue Locker. Thanks. Will try prior to next cruise.
Thanks
juvat, sorry to be so late with this. When you get back, take a look at ImageJ (I used it at work, but after retirement had forgotten about it for four years). It is an image processing package originally developed for medical applications by the National Institutes for Health. The price is right (free download from NIH). Not flashy, intuitive (once you learn where the commands are and what the operations actually do, and easy to use. The best way to learn is to use a picture and see what each operation does to it. What you may have need of is conversion between picture formats, picture enhancement, rotation, cropping, and changing picture resolution (pixel size). It has functions to do a lot of other things too, some of while I have no idea how or why I would want to use them.
DeleteEnjoy the cruise juvat, don't worry about us. And tsquared's words are big medicine.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarge, You would have loved this cruise. Lot's of big History sites and the guides were very up on that history, so I learned a lot. More to follow.
DeleteIt ain't just British Airways. Current definition of service (even at Publix or CVS): Whaddya think I am, y'slave?
ReplyDeleteCurrent definition of service (at almost any restaurant): Waa! Waa! I want my 25% tip up front!!!
Boron,
DeleteLotta truth there, brother, lotta truth!
Juvat, my experience leads me to conclude Brits. have a congenital ability to screw up the ingredients of what might produce a good meal. Not surprised they (BA) had accomplices in austin who participated in screwing up the drink selection.
ReplyDeleteCletus
BA used to be known for the quality of its air food. And the quality of their service via the stewardesses and stewards.
DeleteNothing is safe from the woke-scolds and penny-pinchers.
Cletus,
DeleteThe flight crews were very good, polite and helpful, but the food, well...sucked. Another indicator, I think of BA's demise. Cokes were served in 150ml cans. According to Google, 12 oz is 340mL Got to save money don'cha know?
On the bright side, they did have a decent selection of single malt scotch's, so I had that going for me.
Beans,
DeleteAs I mentioned to Cletus, the folks working were pretty sharp, so I think this problem starts at the top. I agree with your last.
Have a great cruise! Airline travel service quality sadly has declined quite a bit recently.
ReplyDeleteAnon,
DeleteThanks, we did. (More to follow, gotta have something to write about on Monday!)
Lotta truth in that last statement. Proof would be the sigh of relief when we transferred from BA to American
Juvat, sorry to hear the air trip was less than ideal, but sounds like the cruise is more than making up for it. We can (im)patiently wait for pictures upon your access to a better posting platform.
ReplyDelete(Yet another reason I keep thinking I do not need a iPad/Surface sort of unit. I really need a keyboard and the ability to do things.)
THBB,
DeleteThanks. The cruise was fabulous, no complaints there. Food, Service, Tours, Views, Fellow Passengers (with a few exceptions) were great. Mrs. J is starting the planning for another one in the near future.
As to the iPad issues. Not sure why, but the combination of the lack of bandwidth, not being sure I'd selected the right control from a drop down due to the language, and just the dag-nabbednis of the iPad OS took the fun out of it. My BD is coming up shortly. I've asked Mrs. J if she'd give me a PC based laptop for it.
Ugh, I'm taking BA to Ireland (SAN-LHR-DUB) this summer. I can hope they'll get their $#1# together by then, but I'm not confident. I agree on the Chard. SovBlanc is my go-to white.
ReplyDeleteTuna,
DeleteI really believe they're very close to going under. We had an incident at the Budapest airport with a flight control problem. When they explained the issue and what they were doing to fix it, the hair on the back of my neck started standing erect. One of the flight control computers was not functioning properly, and they couldn't seem to switch to the backup. After about an hour and a half, they said they were going to disconnect the primary and test the secondary. OK, not optimum, but at least you're trying something. Another half hour later, they said, apparently, both computers were inop and replacements were on order. No worries about an hour to replace.
That's when the hair went straight.
I don't think the question was ever asked "Why did both computer's fail? And what else do we need to fix to prevent that again?"
I sure as you know what would have.
But, as you can see (me writing this after the fact) that didn't occur. I think my fervent praying was a factor.
Last flight I was on was San Diego to San Francisco. About 1992, I think.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your trip. Don't get arrested or do anything that will be the subject of next week's safety briefing.
Joe,
DeleteYeah, Commercial Airlines have gone down hill a lot. Kinda like downhill skiing off Mt Everest.
Score one for the “against iPad crowd”. Oh, and my fat fingers. I was going to ask if you’re including unoaked chard. I sort of like it, but SB is generally more satisfying. Found a good eight dollar one at Publix last week.
ReplyDeleteD4,
DeleteSpent quite a bit of time (it was a "Wine Cruise") drinking local wine. I've always liked German Dry Riesling, but I've acquired a new one I like, Grüner Veltliner from Austria. Nice, Fruity, but dry, just the way I like whites. Gonna keep an eye out for it locally and talk to my HEB Wine Guy.
Back in the USA, well, if Boston counts. Details to follow, but HIGHLY recommend amawaterways! Cruise was fabulous
ReplyDelete29 hours from Alarm Clock to head hitting the pillow in Austin. I'm hitting the rack again shortly.
DeleteIn other words, 'typical' airline service these days... Hope the rest of the cruise goes well!
ReplyDeleteWent fabulously OldNFO. Way more laid back than the Cruise ship ones. Way more.
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech here. Grrr, even ole reliable BA is now becoming like United, eh? Bad grits, that. As for Chardony and Savyynon Blanc, neither is a Qualitatswein mit Pradikat, so neither rises to the standards of the Crusty palate. Spatlaese, Auslaese...ahhh, yes. Surprised the Brits didn't offer a nice Sherry or Port, that's more their language.
ReplyDeleteBuona Fortuna on the cruise!
I much prefer Kraut wine over frog water myself.
DeleteBeans,
DeleteNaw, like wine all over the world, there's good and bad. The trick is to find the good and avoid the bad. I've had the privilege of drinking some out-fricking-standing German/French/California/Texas/Italian.....fricking dot. wines. It taught me that Good Wine and bad wine is made all over the world and it ain't where it's made, but by whom. Oh, and the Big Guy, being in control of the weather, gets a big vote also.
I have a logitech laptop sized keyboard solar powered that I've used for the last 10 years with my ipad. Makes all the difference in the world to a touch typist using ipads. What tsquared said should work, or, you could by an iphone. doesn't have to be the latest and greatest. I updated to 8 from a 4 about a year and a half ago and it cost me around $140.00 and works great/lasts a long time and all my devices share photos from iphone and ipad to my mac at home.
ReplyDeleteBA was bought by a Spaniard a long time ago and went irretrievably downhill ever since as much of England has over the last 80 years.
Enjoy the cruise.
Anon,
DeleteYeah, but I really think it was more of a bandwidth issue in general. But, I have other tricks up my sleeve for next time. On a laptop!
BA owned by a spaniard? That explains so much.
ReplyDeleteBeans,
DeleteDon't it though?