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Just saying a quick hello here, first time in about four years. I just booked the 12-night Odyssey sailing in Jan 2025, which is an itinerary I've been wanting to do kind of since I first started sailing with Royal in 2018 and learned about it. Seemed like a nice way to celebrate turning 55. To everyone I haven't spoken with in all these years, hope you've been well!

We just completed an 8-day cruise on the Odyssey and we had 4 sea days. As you can imagine, the chair hogs were out in full force but Odyssey’s staff were ready. Each pool area had at least two attendants that worked all day long…They were tagging all unoccupied chairs and removing the items if the person didn’t return in time. They were using little yellow stickies to mark the time they placed the tag, the number of chairs and they placed the tag on the chair in a location the person would not notice. The staff got lots of thanks and I only witness one upset lady…She came back three hours later and was upset her stuff was removed. Way to go Royal!!!

That’s a wrap for us. The end of an era for our family and our March Break sailings as 4. I will leave you all with a few pics. Our very first March Break sailing on Anthem of the seas. Our very first star class March break sailing back in 2019. Our last March break sailing this week as a family of 4.

Hello, We just got off Icon earlier this morning. Thought I'd provide a quick review while we're waiting for our flight back home... About Us - Me (49), my wife (48), and our two boys (13 and 15). Embarkation - Our boarding time was 11:30 AM. We arrived at the pier at 10:20 AM and we were onboard by 10:30 AM. I had a drink in-hand by 10:35 AM. LOL! Royal has the embarkation process down perfectly! Hats off to Royal! We were super impressed! Capacity & Crowds - A crew member told me there were 2,400 kids on our sailing, and the ship was at roughly 85% to 90% capacity. The crew member said they're going to 100% by the March 30th, 2024 sailing. The ship didn't feel too crowded to me, except for a few areas on the pool decks. We sat at Cloud 17 the whole week, since they have padded loungers up there . We never had to wait more than 5 minutes for a drink. On the other hand, Coco Cay seemed very crowded. We arrived at South Beach around 10:15 AM and all the loungers were taken. We should have gotten off the boat earlier, but no big deal. We went back to the ship by 1:00 PM and had the ship to ourselves and went on a bunch of the slides. I think next time, we'll stay on the ship . Food & Dining - We had the Unlimited Dining Package. I was able to lock in all our reservations right when we got on the ship at Izumi. The process took roughly 30 minutes, since the people in front of me were taking forever. Once it was my turn, I gave the lady my print up of all my desired reservations (used Google Calendar). She loved the print out and quickly locked in all my options. Only bummer was Hibachi only had 9:00 PM available, other than that, we were able to get all the times we wanted. We did not eat in the Main Dining Room at all. We ate at all the Specialty Dining venues except for Pier 7. The food was great! And the service was great, too! Only place I would not go back to is Hibachi. Guess it's more for the show, but we agreed the food was not very good . Way too much butter and salt (at least that's what we thought). My wife and I also did Empire Supper club and it was spectacular! What a great dining experience! Room & Accommodations - My wife and I had cabin 14756, and our boys were in an inside cabin 14747. Our room was on the aft of the ship, directly below the Hideaway. We had an unbelievable view of the back of the boat (please see pic I took from our cabin). My wife did not like the rattling and shaking feeling in the cabin. She said she would not want the same cabin again. There definitely was a lot of rattling and shaking going on, but I was ok with it b/c of the view. We also heard them moving around chairs each morning around 7:00 AM - 7:30 AM presumably cleaning the deck above us. We also noticed we felt the ship moving a lot more (overall) than we had expected. For comparison, we were on the Wonder of the Seas two years ago and we did not feel that ship move at all. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd say Wonder was about a 1 or 2 while Icon was about a 6 or 7. My boys were also complaining about it. One of the crew members also said she was surprised to feel the boat move so much and agreed it was more than Oasis class ships like Wonder. But overall, our room was fantastic! Shows & Entertainment - We saw Wizard of Oz on the second night and it was excellent! We were super impressed! We also did Starburst and the headliner show. Both were good, but Wizard of Oz took the cake! The comedians were also very funny! Disembarkation - Getting off the ship this morning was a breeze. We walked off with our luggage around 8:45 AM. However, complete chaos ensued when we got outside the terminal to hail a taxi, Uber, Lyft. People all over the place trying to hail their Ubers, Lyfts, etc. It took about 30 mins to finally get a Lyft out of there and then 20 mins to the Miami airport. The airport is also crazy busy, with very long security lines. It took us almost 1 hour to get through security and to our gate. We are on Southwest. That's all I can think of right now... Hope this helps! If you have any questions, please give me a shout! Thanks! Matt

Got my first sea day T-shirt ready for action.

I've always defended @Matt when someone claimed he was being a princess. Now I'm not so sure.

I enjoy Quantum class because they are different. I've sailed four of them and mostly to bucket list destinations like Alaska, Hawaii and New Zealand. Oasis class, until Icon came about, have always been in a league of their own and can't be compared to any other ship class. Oasis and now Icon are very wide ships, much wider than all other classes of ship. It's the extra width that allows things like Central Park and Boardwalk. On any other platform without the extra width it's not practical to install these areas without removing all guest cabins in those areas. Removing guest cabins to add more venues and features isn't practical for any cruise line. Oasis class are much larger ships at 225,000+ GT while Quantum class are around 168,000 GT. That extra 30% of space allows them to put more venues and areas on Oasis class. Why doesn't Radiance class have ice skating rinks and zip lines and central park and boardwalk and aqua theaters and so on? Because Radiance class is one third the size of Oasis class and obviously you can't put the same features and venues on a ship that doesn't have the space for them. The Windjammer on Quantum class is my favorite across the fleet. I really dislike the Windjammer on Oasis class. The food stations are all over the place with some on the side and some around the corner on the back. It's really hard to find seating on Oasis class Windjammers at peak times. Oasis class Windjammers are truly jammers slammed with people. Some Quantum class Windjammers have outdoor seating which I love. The lack of waterslides is known before booking. It appears odd to me to complain they are missing. That's like buying a sedan then complaining it's not a 4x4 pick up truck. Given where most Quantum class are deployed waterslides are impractical. It's okay not to like something but that doesn't justify calling it a dud. Royal's next class of ship, Discovery class, is not going to be a mini Oasis class ship. They too will be much smaller ships that won't have the space for all Oasis class features. Like Quantum class the smaller footprint will allow them to sail into ports that Oasis class can't fit into. That's kind of the point. They will be different too. Different doesn't make them duds. Oasis and Icon class ships are the destination and the ports you visit are less important. If the itinerary is boring it doesn't matter because the ship is as much the destination as the itinerary may be. Other classes of ships can visit more unique ports of call where mega ships can't sail. When visiting these areas the ship isn't the destination as much as the ports of call are the destination. Anthem out of Bayonne was a perfect pairing with two sea days down the coast and two sea days on the way back home in the cold Atlantic ocean where few would be using waterslides most of the time. The indoor family pool means kids are not trying to sneak into the adult only solarium pools on those colder sea days in winter months. What I love best of all my 14 Quantum class cruises are the memories of the destinations. Alaska, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand for example. Greek islands and Europe for Odyssey is a great summer pairing. I like that Royal's fleet is diverse and not just ships that are variations of the same thing. With research I can choose a ship that fits my needs based on the region I'll be sailing. I suggest doing more research next time and avoid booking a ship that doesn't have features that are important to you.

Had to make this borderline obnoxious post somewhere… woohoo! +

We leave on Friday for our 8-night Southern Caribbean cruise. I will be very busy Thursday - Saturday of this week, so I'm starting now in hopes that it will be easier to keep up with some smaller posts as we begin our travel. This will be our first time on Symphony - I'm super excited to cruise on this ship! There will be six of us: me, DH, DD (just turned 17) and DS (14) plus my parents (more below). Our itinerary is - Day 1 Cruising from Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades Day 3 Labadee (I'm fairly sure we won't stop here, but haven't heard yet what we'll have instead) Day 5 Aruba Day 6 Curacao I'm bummed about Labadee. The last time we were here was in 2014 (kids were 4 & 7) so we were very excited to do all of the adventure activities this year - superman zip line, coaster and jet skis - and bought them all on Black Friday special. Hopefully we'll have some sort of stop since they've had two weeks to figure it out. With an eight night, spring break (crowded) ship, I'd prefer for 3 of the days to be in port. We're flying from Newark, which is not our home airport - it is about 2 hours away - but was half the price. We also have a mix & match flight: JetBlue to FLL on Friday night and United back from PBI on Sunday. I've prebooked a parking space at a private location. My parents are cruising with us for the first time. The company my Dad works for used to charter ships in the 80s so they have cruised before, but nothing like what they'll experience on Symphony. They are retired so got a good flight deal by going down on Wednesday. They are renting a car and have a great price for the three nights for a room in a condo complex (offered as an add on to their Southwest flight). They will be picking up a bottle of wine, some bottled water and maybe a few other things since they'll have so much time. We don't get in until 9pm so essentially just sleeping, breakfast and an Uber to the port. We have an 11:30am check in but plan to get there around 11am. They originally booked a GTY ocean view, which was the same price as an interior at the time. I caught a sale and upgraded them to a GTY ocean balcony, they were assigned 6th floor really early, and then our fabulous TA moved them two doors down from us on the 8th floor. On our last cruise, we did a Discover Scuba for the first time and loved it. So we decided to do our PADI cert over the summer and our OW dives in a quarry in October - that was not fun at all - but we're fully certified and have a dive planned for both Aruba and Curacao. We also rented a car in Aruba. We have a very late day there (9 or 10pm) so we'll dive in the morning and then plan to drive around sightseeing for the rest of the afternoon. We rented from Top Drive and added on the chairs/snorkel/cooler package so my parents will hang out at Eagle or Palm Beach while my family dives. On Curacao, we will dive, my parents will snorkel, we'll change and grab lunch back on the ship and then we plan to just do a self-guided walking trip to the bridge, etc. I also want to check out the artist that @FionaMG mentioned and maybe pick up a print or two. We have all the shows reserved, Escape room booked, specialty lunch at Giovanni's on boarding day, and a meal at Wonderland booked to celebrate my daughter's birthday. I also got the birthday package for her, with the room decorations and cake. Have to run, but more to come!

I'm baaaaack on a ship! I'm traveling on the cheap this time and solo, so join me as I people watch and make the most of my 20 days at sea courtesy of Casino Royale

So, where are we going ? Not that it matters, of course…. 5 ports of call: Puerto Plata, DR (day #3), St Thomas (day #4), Antigua (day #5), Grenada (day #6) and St Kitts (day #7). We will be doing 2 excursions on this sailing (very unusual for us). We will be swimming with the stingrays in Antigua and taking a familiarization tour in Grenada since we’ve never been there. Dan is strutting about in his underwear with the curtains open, violating the #1 rule of interior view rooms, “thou shalt not expose thyself”. I did quickly pulled the curtains together but I’m sure it would have been too late for anyone looking up. He truly does NOT give a flying fu##. . Hopefully being up on 8 will protect everyone ! This is gonna be a fun cruise. I LOVE our Cap ! I couldn’t make out his first name but his last name is Mortensen (from northern Norway). He offered an unambiguous threat to all of the pool lounge chair hogs ! He said, “These chairs do not belong to you. They ALL belong to ME”. I love it ! He sounds like a fun guy.

As I’ve already mentioned, boarding was very timely and efficient. We stopped by our mustard (sic) station on the way in and got that out of the way. Then straight over to the specialty dining kiosk near the dining room to make our specialty rezzies. No one else in line…easy peasy. Woohoo ! On our way up to our room to sneak the keys off the stateroom door, we ran into Gigi, the Suites Concierge. I asked her if there were any Pinnacle exclusions to the Suite Lounge. Very sheepishly, she said, “Yes. Only the top 30 allowed in the Concierge Lounge” (EX STILL has not converted their Concierge Lounge to a Suites Lounge despite the fact that they underwent a dry dock fairly recently. Why ??). She continued, “If your key works, you’re allowed in”. My heart sank as I’m certain that we would be excluded. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. It was just a matter of time. “oh well” I tell myself. It’s not the end of the world. Truly, the Crown Lounge is actually nicer than the Suites/Concierge Lounge on this ship since the Concierge Lounge is still, inexplicably, located in an uninspired inside room on deck 9 while the Crown Lounge is up in the Viking Crown are with an ocean view. “We’ll be fine”, I said, as I choked back the tears of disappointment. So I went and snatched the keys from the door (we’re right by the elevators on deck 8 so I was and out like a special forces recon team. Nobody saw me come or go (except for security, of course)). Even though I knew it was a waste of time, I told Dan that we had to try the key to see if it would open the Concierge Lounge door. I held my breath. I slipped the key in. I heard the “click” that the lock makes when it magically unlocks the door. The light blinked. I couldn’t believe our luck ! Our successful record for Suites Lounge access was still intact ! Yippee ! Now…are we in the top 30 Pinnacles ? That’s a big “no” unless there are only 29 Pinnacles on board ! So either it’s a one-time lock glitch OR Gigi was hedging her bet. I guess we’ll find out the next time I try to get in ! I got my cappuccino, and a stale lemon cookie and we waited in the [absolutely deserted] Concierge Lounge until it was time for lunch. For those who need to know (Mike ? …the tag-thing isn’t working !) here are some pix of the unimpressive treats in the Lounge for embarkation. Poor Dan. He’s all alone in the Lounge !

Last food pic (although I brought home enough ranger cookies for a few more days, lol)…

Crisis averted. @GatorCruiser was kind enough to offer to grab my wife some chocolate croissants from the SL but they were out in the CL today.

@OCSC Mike here is photo evidence that I do like tequila. But it has to be Patron. Again, apologies for the quality of the photos. We took them from videos. @recogneyes’s Hubby was warned by Andrew that he might show up on social media. He asked what we would call him. I told him we would call him @recogneyes’s Hubby

I struggled with whether to do a live blog for these 3 rather mundane EX cruises but I decided to give it a go. I even have some photos ! Shock, I know….these might be the only photos you get but at least there will be some ! Absolutely nothing interesting to report about our drive in. Left Port St Lucie at 5:30AM and arrived at the parking garage (finally….more about that in a minute) at 8:00. Since we had an 8:00 reservation, right on time. We normally do not plan to arrive quite THAT early, but since we have a couple of “firsts” on this trifecta, plus, it being a weekday, we decided to leave a bit early. In the end, it was a very good thing we did.

So what “firsts” are we doing on this cruise ? 1. First time ever parking offsite. The second “first” (how confusing is that ???) is really just a subset of the #1. This is the first time we have used Premier Parking in Miami. 2. The only other “first” has nothing to do with boarding day - we will be calling on Grenada for the first time ever. Rare for us to have a new Caribbean port, but we do. As a matter of fact, we will be calling twice b/c our third cruise in this trilogy is identical to the first so we will be visiting twice.

White night & formal night table pictures. I have a funny smile in the white night pic because the lady at the next table took it and didn't really tell us when, so I got smile fatigue. And my son's eyes are closed for the same reason.

Mason Jar Brunch Another Mississippi Moonlight Chicken from the sandwich minus the bread with mashed potatoes & a biscuit Peanut butter stuffed French toast Chicken n waffles Blueberry johnnycakes with pulled pork Chicken pot pie Bread pudding Go Bananas Fried oreo

Might have been heat stroke. I have no explanation. MDR Italian night was unexpectedly good. Arancini (forgot a pic) was crispy & tasty, lasagna actually had meat & wasn’t mushy, & even my wife loved the chocolate hazelnut cake. Neither of us tasted any hazelnut. It was very similar to the molten chocolate cake which she loved on Allure. Thanks for the recommendation @FionaMG ! Apologies for the missing bites. Waiting for Name That Tune: 80’s and trying a “Metalliquor”

Dan and I hit a Royal Flush on video poker tonite ! Woohoo. Too bad we were only playing a quarter. …but it made us much healthier than we were ! He will definitely make Prime on this cruise as he’s more than halfway there and this is only night 3 of 9. Yikes. Sorry this picture is so big ! About 5 minutes ago we had an Alpha, Alpha, Alpha call come over the stateroom speakers. I don’t recall them usually making that announce inside the rooms. It is for a passenger cabin on deck 12. I hope whoever it is will be ok.

And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling bloggers !

Lol. Um….no. I think Mario is a few cruises ahead of us ….but we are very proud of the way we have fulfilled our “lifestyle” dream/plan to move to FL to cruise MORE. It has truly worked out just the way we planned it. I documented the entire move in an old thread from 2020 but I don’t know how to copy the link so anyone that wants to read it will have to sleuth it out. It’s entitled “House Recon”…something something…. Actually, there are 2 S2S following these 3 EX cruises. We have 1 day in dry dock (4-28) then board FR for 4 days, then 2 days in dry dock followed by 7 nights on WN (5-5)….nearly 6 weeks of cruising ! Things slow down after that !

On a recent sailing I was leaning over the rear of the ship admiring the wake. I was approached by the Captain and given a Stern warning.

Last night my handcuff beastie didn't show for dinner. Neither did scuba boy (who apparently won 2nd place at the belly flop competition). So it was just chatty Alaska and her new friend that she invited to join us. What killed me last night is Alaska made it a point to sit in the chair next to where handcuffs had sat the first 2 nights so she could talk to her, leaving her new friend on the complete opposite side of the table by herself. Then her friend's salmon was overcooked and that was a whole thing. I think I lost my voice from saying, "Thanks, everything was great" eleventh five hundred times to every random crew member that had to stop by the table because the salmon was dry. Alaska won't eat seafood on cruises because she catches and cooks her own and it is much better, which I don't doubt at all and didn't doubt any of the 10 times she mentioned it

Wonderland for dinner

WJ shrimp & ribs for lunch. Really not bad by WJ standards. Now sitting in a very windy & empty ELF for perhaps my last tacos of the cruise.

Creatures from Captain Bob’s excursion…

Excursion today was plane spotting at Maho Beach. It was really cool seeing the planes come in overhead and Sunset bar and Grill was really cool. We then hit front street where I went to my favorite bourbon place in the world Guhlomars and purchased some bourbon and cigars.

Picky person pizza…

Hooked tonight. apps: oysters Rockefeller and raw oysters me: blackened captains platter Wife: surf and turf interestingly the filet here was better than Chops

It’s a mere grand suite. I can’t keep up with the star class ballers on here like @Lovetocruise2002. It’s cabin 1714 a few steps from SL/CK. We booked it back in December 2022 at next cruise. The balcony is quite large actually. The room is gorgeous. My kids don’t deserve this but you can’t leave them at home, I guess.

For the record, I also went to Park Cafe but didn’t get anything. And I had a ranger cookie on my way out of WJ. Cabins were ready at exactly 1:00 and our luggage was waiting for us! We also met our cabin attendant within minutes. He quickly introduced himself & said he’d be back at 3:00. We told him no rush but asked if he could bring us extra hangers when he returned. He knocked on our door 5 mins later with a dozen hangers. Great first impression!

You’ve already been to the WJ AND ELF ? OMG….youre going to explode before the ship leaves the dock !

Final thoughts on the Royal Loft Suite: I don’t know how I am going to come back from this cabin. But I will have to find a way to. We cherished our time in our room this week. The hot tub was used every day, we spent time on the balcony every day. It was so awesome to have all the space, most times I would shout something to the kids and they would not even hear me. There was almost too much space in that room, but that is not a complaint lol I loved everything about that suite, but if I was to point out two things that I did not like, it would be the noise from the back sports area, and the master shower. You can hear everything from the basketball area, FlowRider, even Aqua80 if you are out on the balcony. This room has pretty much helped us decide that that we would never want a crown loft that faces the aft. Way too much noise. The master shower area is not that private. When we were parked next to Carnival Mardi Gras in Nassau, I really felt like I had to duck because the upper decks of that ship are almost as high as oasis. Next to Freedom in PDCC I did not feel as visible. However, if one is in the shower at night, and someone else is in the hot tub, well let’s just say they will most definitely get a very well lit shadow puppet show if you are using the shower closest to the window.

Insane clown duo ready to cruise !! They have their embarkation gear on as well.

So here I am, blogging while gazing out at the Promenade, while Dan is doing the first of many, I’m sure, saunas. The man loves his steam room and sauna. I can’t stay in a hot sauna for more than 60 seconds. My poor, thin, white skin just rebels. ….which brings me to our stateroom info. We are in a Promenade view interior room on deck 8. It is the highest level (in elevation, I mean) of this category and so far, it is VERY quiet. We’ve been in this category a few times and truly, we’ve had some noise issues in the past - mostly related to shenanigans on the Promenade. But not so, this time -at least, not yet ! I’m always surprised at how OK I am with this stateroom category, once I’m settled in. I dread it until I get here and then I’m like - “This isn’t so bad”. Small ? Sure. …and the drawer space is very limited but we always manage to get everything put away and I’m sitting on the love seat, looking out the winder (sic) overlooking the Promenade and thinking how lucky I am to be here. This cruise is a 100% casino comp. As a matter of fact, I actually downgraded our offer (it was originally for an ocean view) to get this category rather than some porthole room down on decks 3 or 4. Knowing what I know now, I would probably have upgraded the OV offer for one of the panoramic OV cabins on the front of the ship but at the time that I made this booking, I had never stated in one of those panoramic OV cabins so I was woefully ignorant of that option. I’m ok with this room though. I did put in a RU bid for one of the panoramic OV rooms but didn’t win . Not to worry ! Cruise #3 (4-19) IS one of the panoramic OV cabins so I will get to enjoy it, but not for 2 more weeks ! We will be in this room for the first 2 cruises (14 days) and will move to the panoramic OV on the final one of the B3B.

Overheard in the Crown Lounge tonight: "If I die, I want to die on a cruise ship. Throw me in the furnace and get another mile out of the ship." Not sure that's how it works, sir.

You are a shenanigans magnet for sure! I'm fortunate that I don't get unsolicited conversations from random most of the time..just the way I like it. Although last night when I was walking around the casino this vintage came up to me out of nowhere right up into my face and asked me how to use the slot machines. Before I knew it I was showing her how to set her PIN number and charge to her room. Then she asked me how she gets a drink and I told her to look for the servers as they roamed. Then I offered to get her a drink at the bar and she took me up on the offer

It's been amazing so far everywhere I've tried it. This is from the Crown Lounge. And since I'm here..snacks for @OCSC Mike

I got up super early this morning to make the 4 hour drive to Tampa from Tallahassee. No need for a hotel the night before this way. Not the best driving conditions..but the rain cleared up once I arrived.

Finally made it home. We left ship around 730ish with wonderful Norman and Kenny concierge escort. On road before 8am and arrived home after 500 plus miles of driving around 430pm. I’m smoked and have added joy of work tomorrow. Did I mention I wish I was retired? awesome week with getting to meet @OCSC Mike and his lovely bride and seeing matt briefly twice. Wonder is just an awesome ship. Crew killed it as always. Royal for the win! Next cruise is icon in August. y’all thanks for following our posts.

Playmakers for lunch. Was busy as hell. We got lucky and got good service. Others around us? Not so much. Me: wings wife: poke nachos. Pics below drinks: sauv blanc, new Belgium IPa and of course a goalpost marg #deluxebeveragepackage

Breakfast this am. Windjammer special brought back to enjoy on balcony. Food was fine but view was sublime

Onboard prices , lmao !

My happy place!

Lunch at Mason jar. Was very good. Had the Nashville hot fried chick Sammy and Cajun fries washed down with Bourbon mule. Wife had salmon avocado toast.

1st drink, Mississippi Moonlight from Mason Jar bar. More moonshine, less lemonade this time, still good.

On the way back to the room, we stopped by the pub to hear Stephen in his element. @recogneyes told me I had to do that lol. We ran into @recogneyes and her Hubby and Andrew & Lisa were there too. This was already way better than Cats! I was invited to do car bombs and politely declined because I never touch beer. I hate it. The guys talked Hubby into it instead. This is what Canadians in the wild look like. Apologies for the bad quality photos. I am taking them off videos. Go check out Andrew’s blog for the video.