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We are often back on the ship too late for our MDR dining time. Our next best choice is the Windjammer. And that's not a bad choice at all. And sometimes our dining time does not allow us to make a show, so again, we dine in the Windjammer. What a nice dilemma to have.

I'm so glad you had such a great time in Olden. I hope the weather stays good for your stop in Geiranger. Unfortunately for DD and myself, we had low cloud there for the whole day, so we never did get the chance to fully appreciate its reported beauty. Fingers crossed that you do. If you have time and want to try a tasty local snack, look out for this place in the pedestrian street: https://emob.no/en/fish-cake/# We bought some fishcakes for lunch and sat and ate them at a picnic table. In fact, the first pic above was taken from that picnic table. The fishcakes were delicious. We had them with the mashed potatoes. I could have sworn I'd taken a picture but I can't find it now.

I’m doing the “Island of Santorini and Oia Village” excursion through RC. Doesn’t give a detailed description how they return to the ship at the end. It says there’s a journey back to Athinio’s port. Not sure if it’s a bus back or cable car before tendering.

I would love to convince my wife to skip the MDR and just hit the Windjammer every night. Flexibility without reservations is great, especially with differing port departure times.

Ooooh I am so happy to be reading this after booking my first Celebrity cruise for next year! I had to book Aquaclass because all the verandas were sold out and I can’t stoop to Ocean View. I didn’t realize Blu was open for breakfast and lunch as well as dinner! Great to hear as we’ll be on 14 nights and thats a loooott of Windjammer potato croquettes (or oops whatever the buffet is called on X). haha can’t wait to read your blog showcasing the Blu menu items!!

So your mom and your brother got moved to a Promenade view room ? How do they like it. I really like that little window seat (BTW, did your mom actually SIT on that thing before deciding that she wanted to sleep there ???? It's rock hard !) for sitting and reading on my iPad....but it takes a few pillows behind my back.

Day 4 - Olden Wow , what an amazing combination of weather and location. We woked up at 4 am as someone forgot to close the curtain, let's say for the sake of the argument (and fact I don't want to sleep in the upper deck) it was me. It's amazing how it's saw bright here at 4 am . Anyway the view was amazing. After taken some pictures we tried to go back to sleep, the gangway were suppose to open at 7:30 pm but since we dud not have any excursion (the one we had from RC was canceled) we did not had to wake up so early. At 7 am I was already up , since my spouse was still sleeping I got organized and went to eat and bring some food back to the room , this is the vew from the aft part of the WJ . Around 09:30 we were ready to go , not before another coffee from the coffee shop. Embarkation was quick as most of the people are better morning persons than us. Per the very good and helpful advises of @FionaMG we waited to book our excursion at shore, it was very easy to find were they sell the excursions. Since it was such a sunny day , it was no brainer and we went with the Sky lift at Loen. It was around 90$ PP , much less than RC excursion. We waited fir the shuttle about 10 minutes , it's took around 10 minutes to arrive the lower cable car station. The view was already amazing even from the lower station. There were no lines so we went all the way up , it took us around 5 minutes. Up and above the view is stunning. Highly recommend in a clear sky day. Here is our little ship On the other side you could still see lots of snow , actually some of the snow at that session grows iPhone ( somehow I was responsible for that also, not for finding of course:-) ) There were some base jumpers with frying suites, it was amazing watch them jumping, sorry for not be able to deploy a video here. I sent the video on the famely what's up group saying "finally fulfilled one of our dreams" , for some reason people assumed we were jumping, not sure why. We started our way back, all in all it took us around two hours. Back on the ship we took a quick lunch before heading back to the shore. We checked if we can still take the glacier tour but it was fully booked so we just walked to Olden town enjoying the weather and the view. We stopped at the local supermarket to buy the local brown cheese which is one the Norway typical food we wanted to try. All is very green, Back to the ship my spouse wanted to enjoy the sun and have some pictures with her bathing suite withe the background of the white snow mountains. Amazing 75 f

To his credit, I believe @Ampurp85 mentioned that he works out a good amount. Maybe if I did I wouldn't have to diet pre-cruise to offset the weight gain... but that's not happening.

How can he eat so much and still be rake thin??? This is so unfair!!!

Santorini is a lovely Island but if you have more than one big ship docking it's become too crowded . Oia is super crowded and the cable car line can takes hours. I always try or to take excursion that goes back from the new port or we ending up sharing the the trail back with the donkey. If it's a very hot day I will avoid it .

yeah I don’t understand why they didn’t at least do every other row with chairs like the aqua theaters on oasis class. Seems like a big miss.

That's exactly what we did after spending 18 days in Alaska between land and cruise. We saw Shannon Falls then spent a very long time in the Vancouver airport. It wasn't a huge deal since we were exhausted but I wouldn't recommend it if you can come up with a better option that gets you to the airport later.

My mother shenanigans As previously stated, she has doesn't listen syndrome. The staff from specialty dining keeps coming around with their spiel. She doesn't listen so she always say "yes I want all you can eat....." and starts ordering. They ask her for room number and preferred time, she then gets confused. She claims she fails to notice the different uniforms . She then only focuses on certain words and we have to stand there and explain what they said, not what she heard. Despite them saying her name and looking directly at her, she doesn't acknowledge them when they are trying to get her order. This is despite the fact that she has been narrating her order since we sat down. Then the minute she gets asked, she brand new. Since she got drunk, she is requesting mocktails. But can't remember her drink, even if she hsd it in her hand. It goes " Alicia what's that drink I had? A virgin cucumber? You know the strawberry daiquiri?" So she knows but does straight tomfoolery . When the room got changed she decided instead of just asking the steward to separate the bed, she would sleep on the bay window couch. BTW she is 5'5.

It really depends on where you are, anywhere we stopped that had a public restroom, the guides would always point it out and if multiple people headed that way they would often wait, they would also point out if there wasn't any public restroom somewhere so to go "now" if you think you will need to (ex. in Santorini, there are no restrooms in Athinios so the cruise line announced multiple times while we were waiting in the theater to go as there would be none at the port, in our case the first open restrooms on our Santorini tour were in our second stop at Pyrgos; in Mykonos, when we started the walking portion of our tour, our tour guide told us to go at the tender dock before we started as there would not be any opportunities to stop when we got in town until the end). My dad has UC so he sometimes just has to run and I don't think he really had any problems on any tours as long as he went every time toilets were pointed out (hate to give TMI but here we are haha). Hope that answers your question!

Awww!!

The promenade on Icon is as wide as those pictures look. @JohnK6404 did a fantastic job capturing it!

Just got back from Vancouver. I spent 2 nights there, could've used a few more. The cruise will have a few excursions that will give you the city highlights tour, or to the suspension bridge, and there are a few others that end with a drop off at the airport. That option would take care of your luggage concerns and your transport to the airport but it would still get you there way ahead of your 11 pm flight though. If you do it on your own, I suggest finding somewhere to store your luggage and taking an Uber to Granville Island and walking around the public market and all the shops there and taking a water taxi across to English Bay (?), Sunset Beach and enjoy that side of Stanley Park and the views. If you haven't had enough shopping by the time you get off your cruise, Robson Street is the street for that.

And that's what you see if you wake up at 4 am in Norway

Day 3 Nassau We are getting off to shop at noon. I haven't gotten off on Nassau since my first cruise on carnival probably over a decade ago. My uncle just crossed 10 years sober and he requested a coffee mug from every port we visit. Surprisingly enough my brother and mother have never eaten breakfast in the MDR. So we made plans to try it. We were in line at 8:50, slept in , and sat by 9. Our server was short, like maybe she was overwhelmed. But when she came she said "the assistant will get drinks and bring out the assortment of pastries, give me hot food order." Both my mother and I ordered the quick breakfast, she requested all hers be cook hard. She black, so everything must be well done . I only wanted my sausage well done because otherwise they too grey for me. I also said I wanted hash browns and the waiter shut me down saying the quick breakfast came with hash browns, despite it not being listed. We didn't get pastries, nor juice and my food came out burnt. The single hash brown was about as big as a strawberry. Also that toast was both burnt and soft. No crisp whatsoever. I was disappointed because I needed my chocolate croissant.......so we went to the WJ. The WJ was crowded. It was the first time I felt the number of cruises on this ship. But I got my juice, donuts and chocolate milk. The hash browns were almost twice the size othe MDR ones There will be a coast guard inspection on turnaround day, so those embarking were asked to come an hour later. I took a photo of the B2B letter.

Darn, I'll just miss you !!! We board on 8-30. Congratulations on your first casino comp. It is an awesome addiction.

Had a great day in Sitka! The bike and hike was a great time, we recommend this but only if you have zero mobility challenges and can manage a 21 speed road bike with long but gentle uphill climbs and a two mile hike on uneven gravel trails. You do not need a lot of biking experience but you should be comfortable with cycling outside next to sporadic traffic. It was a fantastic way to learn about Sitka history and the ecology of the island. Our bus dropped us off downtown and we walked to the totem park, then shopped for our traditional magnet souvenir at a charming artisan boutique. We caught one of the last shuttles back to the pier. We were too late for our dinner time so we took a chance on the Windjammie and were pleasantly surprised by the quality. Lunch has not been the best there but dinner was much better. Depending on how long we are in Juneau today we may or may not make it back to the MDR. I might make the effort because it’s the Italy menu, which is one of my favorites. my mom went on her own tour she booked at the port that was essentially a three hour highlights tour. It stopped at the raptor center, fortress of the bear, totem park, and drove around the island. She loved it and thought it was worth the money, about $100. My in-laws stayed on the ship to rest and they plan to go to the glacier today in Juneau. Last nights entertainment was a very fun performer who had been on AGT and after I found the perfect espresso martini before bed. Super smooth waters and no rain but overcast skies this morning as we sail into Juneau.

this is why i love you guys!!!! giving us the REAL answers!!!!!

I think I've been spoiled in the casino. I normally average a dollar or less per point. Right now it's like $2 a point, which is still less than the $5. But I sometimes like to play fast and that's how I bleed money. Also I miss the quick hits machines and little shop of horror, which was my go-to on Wonder. I hit a maxi on a couple of machines, i was playing $1.76/1.98 a spin, which was $150/250. But I try not to stay on one machine too long. I just need 200 more points to win my mother her cruise. @asquared17 My brother said the best tuna sammies were on Wonder. He said Allure and Oasis were tied, and these aren't as good as the ones on mariner. That's why he only ate 2 .

I agree their customer service is so good! I can’t wait to see the pictures of the infamous cabana #22. Kinda makes me sad that we have no western Caribbean cruises booked in foreseeable future as we would definitely have gone back to paradise beach.