Full disclosure: the image above is AI generated. But I expect it to be relatively accurate.
Our stateroom for this trip is our first-ever suite, as I've mentioned before. We were in an aft balcony for our previous fall foliage tour on the Escape, in 2023. I loved sail-away the most of all, but it's also pretty sweet in the middle of the night and at sunrise, just watching the wake play out behind you.
Here's where we are. Aft, port side, second from the corner. Here's a photo of the balcony (credit Cruise Desk Plans):
On every sailing, I work up a spreadsheet with all sorts of... some would call it trivia, others would call it useful planning. Each day's arrival/onboard time, sunrise/sunset, average highs/lows, moon phase, and moon rise/set, along with tidal times. Here's the sheet for this trip:
Sunset Sail-Away Steak
Sail-away is at 4 pm. Our tradition on the first night is Cagney's. We're going to have a balcony dinner to kick off this 35th-anniversary trip in style.
- Here are some interesting facts:
Sail-away 4:00 pm
Moonrise 6:39 pm (Harvest Moon)
Sunset 6:52 pm
And based on her track from this Saturday, Jewel should be about here, southeast of Wilmington:
Generated by Claude Code using Open Streets mapping and the actual AIS track of Norwegian Jewel September 5th, 2026.
So, what you get above is "Claude, take all this stuff we know, and some pictures of the balcony and a couple of Google Earth 3-D views of that place in the river, and show me what it might look like during our balcony dinner at sunset.
I must say, I love it when a plan comes together.
There's a Whole Lot Special About This Trip
But that's a story for another time. I'll get there, I promise.