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Azamara is in the same luxury class as Oceania. Much more affordable but still very upscale. Silversea, Regent, & Seabourn (amongst others) are considered ultra-luxury and their prices show it. I’ll probably never see Silversea.

First congrats, Adventure is an awesome ship. We sailed her a few summers ago. LOVE that class of ship. Second you can roll on your luggage, it just might be a pain with 4 bags. Have a great time and you don't have to stick exactly to that time you have booked if you want to board a bit early. Rooms will be ready by 1PM. Sometimes its earlier but still close to 1PM.

We have missed our MDR fixed time and gone to the MTD podium later and got seated.

I was told 4 hours minimum to clean a pool and refill. Lots of scrubbing with brush/stick mops. Lots of chemicals. I watched them clean the kid pool from up over in the Hideaway Pool. After cleaning it has to sit awhile. Long process. Royal needs to implement a 5 years and younger area. And not allow the little ones in every pool. It's not working at all. Don't get me started on the swim up bar. Kids allowed, why?

Maybe it's just a Baby Ruth candy bar?

I think first question to ask is it really issue with passengers or do lifeguards just not want to work? Maybe getting some "false positives?". In my local subdivision, the young lifeguards look for all sorts of reasons to shut pool down to not work as hard (lightening ridiculously far away, not enough staff, burnt feet, friends, etc.). Second, what's a realistic time to sanitize a pool? Waterparks can do it in about 1/2 an hour but I know Royal has higher standards. Even with that, I was under impression they could fully drain and refill pool fairly quickly, maybe not true anymore on newer ships? @Matt This would be an entertaining story at the very least.

Ok, Update! It was 2 pools today. The kids pool and the swim and tonic bar pool. Why they even allow kids in a pool that's a bar is beyond me. Royal Caribbean needs to rethink age policies on pools on this ship. It's really getting ridiculous. Lots of paying customers are MAD!

Travel insurance doesn’t always cover every scenario. “My dog is sick and we can’t cruise” is not covered by most insurance policies. Travel insurance is rarely something that covers everything. It depends. There are covered events that are typically well documented. Losing your job or an adult child is having a baby, or is graduating from the military, may not be covered events. When my child had a change in their military graduation I walked away from a cruise and got zero despite having an annual travel insurance policy. It was not a covered event. Just like refundable airfare there is an up charge for the flexibility that refundable fares offer. Rather than thinking of a refundable fare difference as an up charge, think of non-refundable fares as including a discount for committing, locking in, and having reduced flexibility.

Traffic can be brutal, with what it costs to go to US for the day and how long lines are it's not worth it IMO. You could pay $100+ to ride one or two things and risk missing the ship. You are no less than 45 minutes to an hour away from the ship and that is if you don't hit traffic or any accident.

I woke up this morning and for a second still thought I was on the ship. But then I felt my dog at my feet and knew I was home. Good to go, but good to come home too.

First time RC cruiser here! Our check in time for embarkment day at Port Canaveral is 2:00-2:30 pm. From what I’m reading, it seems staterooms should be ready by then (sources say 1-2 pm). If this is the case, I’m considering not checking in our bags and just taking them with us on board and going straight to the room. I have anxiety about lost luggage, even though I know this is rare. It will be 4 rolling bags between my husband, 10 y.o. child, and myself. Sailing on Adventure of the Seas if that matters!

Hi All, We made it onboard the Odyssey of the Seas today but once again I need to catch up on what we did yesterday. I have a feeling I am going to be continually behind but hopefully I will be able to catch up since tomorrow is a sea day but then I might quickly end up behind again as the port days start. Anyways all of that to say just bear with me . Ok so back to yesterday. We started our day heading to a cafe near the hotel for coffee and pastries. We opted to not do the hotel breakfast again after the first time so I literally searched coffee shop on Google maps and went to the first place that showed up. Here are some pictures of the pastries and coffee: After that, we once again ordered an Uber and headed to the restaurant for our cooking class. The class was called “3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & Tiramisu” and was conducted in the back room of a restaurant. Promptly at the start time of the class, our chef instructor Danilo came out to check us in for the class and had us come in and wash our hands before starting with the Tiramisu. Danilo already had the eggs separated in two bowls and then added sugar to the yolks. From there he asked for two volunteers to use the hand mixers to beat the egg whites and beat the yolks. I volunteered and ended up beating the yolks and sugar mixture. About halfway through the beating process we stopped and he got another volunteer up to drop spoonfuls of mascarpone in the yolk mixture as I continued beating with the hand mixer. Once the egg whites were stiff and the yolks, sugar, and mascarpone mixture was completely mixed, my job was done. From there he had a few more volunteers come up to fold the egg whites into the yolks mixture. My dad volunteered for this part and ended up being on of the people doing the folding. From there, Danilo instructed us how to assemble the tiramisu. We each were given a glass and two lady fingers (they have a much nicer Italian name that I don’t remember ). They had bowls of brewed coffee on the tables and we broke the lady fingers in half and quickly dipped the first half in the coffee and smushed it on the bottom of the cup (smushed is a technical term ). We then layered in the cream, the other half of the lady fingers dipped in coffee but not smushed and some more cream. Finally, we topped it off with cocoa powder. We then labeled our cups of tiramisu and put them on trays to go chill while we prepared our pasta. For the pasta making, we did the whole process by hand including the rolling and cutting. Danilo demonstrated each step and also came around to help. My mom has never been the cook in my household (she likes to talk about how she failed home ec in high school), and she required a lot of assistance to get the pasta mixed, kneaded, and rolled out. Thankfully he helped her out otherwise she wouldn’t have had lunch, he said there was one of her in every class . Not only did we cut thicker fettuccine noodles, we also filled and cut ravioli. We were given a card to write our name on and select one of three sauces for our fettuccine. My mom and I both selected cacio e pepe and my dad selected a tomato sauce with pork in it called Amatriciana. From there we left our finished pasta on our boards with the cards and headed to the actual restaurant side of the space to sit down at a large table as a group to enjoy what we made. The server came around with some house wine for everyone and then our pasta started coming out as it was prepared. Unfortunately one of my ravioli burst in the water so I lost one but it was still really cool eating what we just made. After we ate our pasta, they passed out our tiramisu and each enjoyed what we made. It was definitely a fun experience that while not a typical tour was a fun way to experience Rome. The class was operated by Eat and Walk Italy and I once again purchased it through Viator. The whole thing including the lunch took about 3 hours and at the end we got to download a recipe booklet of what we cooked to keep. The same operator also offers pizza and other classes and all the recipes for all the classes are included in the recipe booklet. Here are some pictures I took at the class: After the class, we finally had some free time so we walked to the Spanish steps (about a half mile from where the class was) and did some shopping. Let’s just say we did some damage and now have to figure out the VAT refund process when we leave FCO in 2 weeks. I will report back how that goes if we are successful. From there we got ditched by an Uber driver who started driving in circles trying to get us to cancel until he finally canceled so we ended up shopping some more before getting a cab at a taxi stand to get back to our hotel. We once again ate dinner at the pizza place near our hotel. Here are our pictures from this time: After that we got some gelato near our hotel: And finally went back to our rooms to pack up and prepare to board the ship the next day. Overall, this was our most relaxed day in Rome and definitely needed after the 2 busy days prior. My next post will probably be a shorter post about boarding day, it was rather uneventful as everything went pretty smoothly, as well as finally a hotel review. Spoiler: we definitely would recommend the Doubletree by Hilton Rome Monti. Thanks again for reading and TTYL! - Ashley

@JohnK6404 got it. Such a good drink. Unfortunately only available on Wonder (and soon Utopia).

@OCSC Mike , correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a Mississippi Moonlight from Mason Jar on Wonder! Delicious!

Thank you so much! We prefer a sea day, but PDCC is at least a relaxing day for us! Thank you!!!

That made perfect sense, thank you! Out of curiosity, what's the drink? It looks like my kind of thing!

My experience has been that they run just shy of double occupancy which is much lower than max capacity. This is typical of the guests with few families on board and a good number of older single cruisers. I just got of Odyssey and they where a tad over 4000. Double occupancy is 4200 and max is about 5500. BTW, it was an amazing cruise!

MDR Food was exceptionally good night one. Beef quality has improved. No tough as nails steak. Aqua show was awesome. Aqua dome at night. Nice place to just sit and relax. Very Star Trek / Star Ship kinda feel. That's 3. LOL. (It's a beautiful ship) Oh, one more major plus. Natural light from windows behind Pearl Cafe opens up the promenade. Not everything faces inward anymore.

This legit blows my mind that this is an everyday occurrence. If you have an upset stomach stay out of the freaking pools ya dingbats!

Day 2: Kids pool at back of ship closed. LOL. (And possibly more, haven't seen them all today).

@asquared17 no coconut it’s tres leches

I'd grab it now and keep your eye on the price...keep in mind your price includes gratuities and future prices may not. Always make sure you know the total price before canceling and re-purchasing if you see a lower price. Mariner is a good ship for UDP imo. They have Playmakers where you will get a $20/day credit per person and also Johnny Rockets plus Izumi sushi so you have lunch options. You can dine as long as they are open which sometimes they are even if it's a port day.

I came over to read this whole blog in one sitting after seeing the accidental post in @Ampurp85's blog. I knew I had to get over here and catch up on this one, and I'm glad I did. Looks like you had a BLAST and was a lot of fun to read along with.

So, am I the only one with a sense of humor on this topic? What happened to all the home made comics that used to post here? Come on Back!

That shrimp po'boy was so good, I think I had it twice on Wonder. I am craving Mason Jar now