#gf ninja

[glutenfreeninja]

Corona, covid, such a sad year!

[glutenfreeninja]

I have discovered Gf cider and gf mead. #lifeisgood #gfninja Blake’s Hard Cider

[glutenfreeninja]

The adventure (by Disney)

The adventure begins Yesterday, well actually Tuesday night we boarded a plane headed for London and our newest adventure! It begins with meeting up with Disney guides for a short adventure by Disney in london. Arrival at the airport was easy although the customs line was huge and took us well over an hour to get through. the guide had almost given up on us. But we made it!! Whisked away for the start of the adventure we are Checked into the Hilton at Park Lane. A beautiful updated hotel across from Hyde park. We are told we have an hour to freshen up and rest before our meet up with our fellow travelers and dinner. We are very tired and JAH elects to take a nap but I'm worried if I fall asleep I'll stay that way so I relax on the comfy bed and catch up on the Internet for the hour. The room is on the 11 floor with a view of the park. Two single beds pushed together in European fashion, a comfy chair and a window seat for the view. Blackout curtains, a fridge, a tea set, flat screen tv, plenty of closet space, a mini bar. The bathroom is quite large with one of those half shower doors. Nice amount of shampoos, etc and large fluffy towels. Everything is clean and the room smells great. At 530 we meet up in a conference room to get to know our guides, Damien and jennifer Plus to meet up the other travelers. It is a small group of about ten others which is a nice size. We are briefed on our full day of London and enjoy nice conversation and dinner and as we have all traveled far and are all tired by 830 we are all off to our rooms for bed. The bed is so comfy, drifting off to sleep... Tomorrow is a great adventure!

[glutenfreeninja]

Let our Disney Adventure begin!

[laenie]

Adult stay at WDW contemporary resort

Contemporary resort, concierge level July 15-19, 2015 My husband had a conference next to Disneyworld so we figured it was a perfect excuse to pop over and stay for a long weekend! We chose the Contemporary due to its great proximity and walking distance with Magic Kingdom and being right on The monorail to Epcot. We were just two adults, alone in Disney. Booked the concierge level as I love being able to roll out of bed and grab a coffee down the hall instead of fighting for a cup in the resorts food courts or standing in long lines at the coffee stops. Sadly the coffee at concierge was mostly cold, tried various times of day but never had much luck. Most the time the to go cups were missing, which cooled the coffee off even more. Arrival to contemporary was easy, we had a car and drove right over to the gate, showed our DL and headed to self park as valet is now a charge of $20 per day!! Wow! A short walk from the parking lot and we are greeted and shown upstairs to the concierge lounge, we are on 12 which is where the desk and lounge are located. Check in is quick and I mention my food allergy, which seems to not be I the record, despite filling out their form, emailing and chatting with the concierges ahead of time. I am promised some type of "safe" foods will be available for me. They are true to their word, and each time I ask I am provided with either a sugary donut or a muffins which I have to say are very unappealing, mostly because I do not regularly eat this type of food. One night I am given a delicious meat and veggie shish kabob that is great, but other than that. The same old donut or muffin. After viewing the regular breakfast though, the fare is not much better. A few chopped fruits, half a boiled egg, cereals and lots and lots of pastries! The cold coffee is always present and water and tea in a jug. A small fridge holds juice boxes and soda with some beers in the evening. The best thing is the wine and liquor times from 5-7 and 8-10. In the evening there is also offered some type of protein with cheeses and veggies. Things are going downhill around here!! Rooms: concierge rooms over look the vast atrium and monorail with sounds that echo and bounce into your room. The style is 60s modern with lots of browns and greens, dark furniture and glass. Dust covers our desk and tables, there ware two queen(??) beds and a sofa bed, plus small flat screened TV. Two small closets and a cube fridge and coffee maker singles. A safe, pack and play and iron with board are in closet. Extra bedding also for the sofa bed which we always grab the blanket as there seems to be very thin sheets only on the bed! We have a nice balcony which over looks the pool and water with two chairs and a small table. The bath consists of two sinks (no where to put your toiletries) no towel bar by the tub but it is full sized, shower head has a few different settings but none seem to really get you clean. Toilet is in a separate sliding door area, all which is frosted glass. I felt like I had landed straight in the 60s! Drapes have black out curtains which work well, noise for hallway and atrium goes all night. Wifi is non-existent, you can hook up but it works sporadically. No table inside room to sit at. Toiletries were sporadic as was housekeeping. One day we got shampoo and conditioner, two days later shampoo and lotion. Never got bath gel twice. We are early a.m. People, the maids would show up in our room about 3pm to clean, even though we were usually gone by 8am. We mentioned this a few times to concierges and to housekeeping, were promised our room would be cleaned earlier but it never was.one night we repeatedly asked and finally had housekeeping show up at 9pm! "Turn down" which consists of a tiny chocolate on your bed would come at 4pm right after the maids! Concierges were friendly but seemed overworked and busy most of the time. If they had time they would gladly help you but the stream of people at their desks was always deep and the ones taking care of the food were running. Child in adjoining room cried throughout their stay, children run up and down the halls from early morning until late at night. I know all of Disney is a family place but it seems they could do something to hold the inside room noise to a minimum. We enjoyed the close proximity to magic kingdom and the ease of the monorail but for the price we paid to stay in this resort hotel not sure if I would do it again. Come on Disney, I thought you were trying to entice adults to visit more!!

[glutenfreeninja]

just a few more days!

Time has been flying by, it has been a series of get up and tour most of the day, dinner, maybe the show and being tired in the evening. Then back up early for tours. Today we have decided to just wing it  and explore on our own. We had a long day tour scheduled and just decided yesterday we needed a break. The town we are in today, honningsvag is said to be easy to explore with some things like shops and museums within an easy walking distance. And today we've woken up to sun and a warm 50degrees! With the wind and rain yesterday we were frozen! But today looks to be a good day to explore. I hear there's an interesting ice bar also closely so we might get adventurous and fins it, we shall see where the day takes us! SoMetimes you just have to take it a little more slowly and go where life takes you! Last night we really never ate dinner, were full from our late lunch, so munched on some nuts, etc, and went to the show who's was surprisingly good. It was a group of musicians from Britain that played string instruments and did a silly show with classical music" it had us laughing out loud and clapping along! They say they will be back another night so we will watch for them. After that we walked around, chatted with some friends we've made, lost a little money on the casino and then relaxed in the cabin until bedtime. Today is a beautiful day and we had a leisurely breakfast in Cagneys and now are getting ready to go ashore. Let us see where our feet take us, carry on bloggies and talk more later.

[glutenfreeninja]

NCL Star onboard

Reflections on an NCL ship

The makeup of the staff on the ship is pretty much standard with an even mix of people from the Philippines  and Eastern Europeans with this captain being Swedish.

The people on the cruise with us are mostly Europeans and most of the U.S. Citizens we have met are from either the NY area or Cali. We have met people from Germany, holland, Norway and France. Quite a mixture and makes for an interesting cruise. Also makes for good people watching seeing all the different forms of clothing worn. A few people we met for Norway swim everyday as it is summer!! I should talk about the weather a little, since I am not a cold weather person, so why would I go to somewhere like Norway? Well I wanted to experience the beautiful scenery! The weather started out being beautiful in Copenhagen, when we boarded the ship it was sunny and 60, doable even for me. On our sea day it dropped some to about 55, still ok but I only saw one person on the hot tub and one in the poll. The shorts disappeared and I started seeing heavy sweaters. Yesterday in our first port, it was about 55 again but some drizzle, people brought out the gloves and hats, today it was 48-50 depending where you were so I added a hat. Tomorrow it will be about 45, I'll probably add the scarf, I hear once we get to the arctic circle it will be much colder!

We have eaten at two of the specialty restaurants, Moderno and la Cucina, Brazilian and Italian. Both have had good service and good food, both have been great with the gf aspect and had good knowledge of gf menu items. Moderno had all gf desserts, which was bad because I was already full, but our waiter insisted we try them! In la Cucina there was only the ice cream and I took a bite but it was just so much food! I had the Norwegian salmon and a yummy salad. Both other nights we just did the buffet as they have a different gf salad every night plus Indian food! Yum! Breakfast has been varied, sometimes Cagneys and sometimes room service (the suites have a upgraded menu) or sometimes I go upstairs and grab cereal and fruit off the buffet. So much food, as being in the suites we are never without something in the table! Ugh.... So.....much.....food.......

Clothing, I cannot stress enough to bring warm clothing on the cruise! Knee socks and thermal underwear, scarfs, gloves and a hat all are needed. I misplaced my gloves somewhere between London and here and had to buy more and they were pricey! Everything is Expensive in the ports, one day we forgot our water and it was $5 Usd for a small bottle. Gloves were $35 on sale for something you'd pay $5 at home. Be prepared and I would also suggest a tervis for water and coffee. This ship only has the buffet are to get things to drink and eat so it works to fill up on liquids. I did buy a couple of souvenirs so far, a troll as you have to have one of these since we're in the land of the trolls! And the gloves, which out of necessity became my souvenir!

[glutenfreeninja]

still can't post pics :(

Day 4 continued

The tendering was quick and painless, made even more so from the fact that suite guests get priority and the concierge walked us directly to the tender, no waiting! Within ten minutes we are in Geringer, surrounded by the fjord. Beautiful! We've noticed that this cruise is made up mostly of Europeans, we are the minority here, we are usually surrounded by different languages and many times have been the only ones native English speakers.  This makes it a little difficult when navigating through a crowd as we notice the factor that people use space differently in different countries. Many times we have been jostled or pushed and it seems to be the norm. Obviously space is a commodity. That said, we are squished on the tender and then the madhouse rush to get off the boat, we are happy once off and we get a little space. There is a Costa ship docked here also and so in this tiny town where there are three souvenir shops, everywhere is Crowded and it makes walking hard. We browse for knickknack sand through the Clothing, noting we probably have no need for most of this as upon returning home it will most likely be in the 90s. Outside there is a line for the coed bathrooms and since we will be going up the mountain we wait our turn. It is time to board the bus and start our journey. The views from the bus are amazing, the waterfalls and countryside. Beautiful little houses and red barns dot the area and we learn about how it became a Christian place and also how the roads do not connect. Here people I. The outlying towns take boats to and from their homes. The road is hairpin in most sections and jah takes a nap while I snap pictures out the window. Once at the farm, which takes about an hour, we learn about the goats and how the family has been making the cheese for many generations. After demonstrations we get to taste various cheeses (our fav bending the caramel one) and then it's back in the bus for the journey down. Many stops are made along the way at famous church, the seven sisters waterfall and for views of our ship.