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Hi everyone, I have been working and traveling and just wasn't able to really check the boards and periscopes the last few weeks. Excited to read all the new live blogs from harmony and again get psyched for my March freedom cruise! I still haven't purchased my excursions and drink pkg... keep hoping they will run a sale on my sailing but no luck on labor day or July 4. I'm also waiting to see what happens with the drink pkg and if they change policy for everyone having to get it. We will make money on mine, lose it on the hubby. Since it is only a 6 day cruise, we are flying in to ft lauderdale on Saturday and will have the Saturday and part of Sunday after. Would love hotel ideas and things to do. The plan would be to go less nice on the first... one where we could get to water taxis and tour/sightsee and then the last hotel more relax by the pool/beach. I have tried to follow Irma damage but am not sure how bad the damage was in ft laud. Anyway, just wanted to say hi I'm back and enjoy everyone else's cruise info! Jane

For all of the past Random Wind customers and future ones....the boat and crew are alive and well! Here's the link:https://www.facebook.com/Random-Wind-Charters-493899760716618/ There is also a Go Fund Me link that Diane has set up for contributions to help out the St. Maarten effort.

You're right about not getting bummed out. It's going to be great! Just focus on the positives, like you will be spending two weeks alone, relatively speaking, with the person you will grow old with and let all the other stuff fall away!

Rough Seas and Wind ..... yep, that's exactly the reason for a lot of the water related excursion cancellations last week in Bermuda. Which is why I'm so glad we were able to do the Crystal Caves excursion .... TON OF FUN!!!

Lunch is from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm.

You can always buy it now and if price drops, cancel and rebook. Little risk

Honestly, in between the stresses of work, planning a wedding, and losing my brother two months ago I'm really just going to be happy to be sitting on our balcony quietly with a beer and reading a book or just talking. I'd be fine if it was 7 sea days... just need to get away at this point.

Yep! Using as an excuse to try something new in Cozumel, head out for lunch in Nassau, and check out a new-to-us port in Costa Maya! :) I'm pretty happy just to be on board and at sea, and don't see the point in getting to bummed out about it.

You can reserve a ticket before your cruise via the Cruise Planner. This gets you in the theater before others. As to how necessary the tickets are, it boils down to how important to you seat selection is. Do you have to sit front row center? Or is 8th row on the right fine?

Just saw that they cancelled your sailing with a full refund on the cruise line's update page. You'll also receive a 25% future cruise credit if you rebook within 30 days.

Yes, this cruise is still on. See you on board!

They sure have!

That seems like a big hassle. I've just decided to bring a sun dial.

One problem with that, after that many drinks will you remember the name of the one in the pic? Unless you get really lucky after drink 1 or 2.

Where is your cabin located on the ship? Regardless of the time zone, the forward cabins will always be ahead of the actual time when arriving at the next port.

I thought you'd be happy to know I figured out how to turn off my mobile data!

Ok before I get started let me say that at the last time I parked there was about 3 years ago. But we did not have any issues whatsoever It was a great convenience, we got off of the boat, we carried our luggage off and got off around 8am. Price was about $20 per day, and yes you can find cheaper if you look. Second point about the drink package on Coco Cay is yes. Third is a point that several may not care for on here and there may be a some difference of opinion but yes you can get other things onboard. My sister drives cross country for our yearly cruise so she has quite a bit of snacks with her. She does not want to leave her food in the car so she carries it with her onboard. She carries her own brand of water because she is EXTREMELY picky about her water and only drinks that while she is onboard or during shore excursions. I actually have started carrying one case of water for us for when we are on excursions. Customs usually opens the package and shakes a few of the bottles to ensure it is not alcohol. I usually bring a empty carry on for that reason. I know it may change but for what a case of water costs vs buying it onboard a few bucks is wort it if they say no, not a big deal not much money lost. Several have said that it depends on the port but I have sailed from Tampa, Port Canaveral, as well as Port Everglades without any problems. I am not advising you to try it, just telling you my experience! I wish I could help you with the clubs on the ship, as December will be the first time I have sailed Majesty and am looking forward to it! And that pretty much sums up your last question as well! Happy sailing and I hope you guys have a great time!!

Day 2 - Sea Day I love love love sea days! One of the many reasons I love cruising is because I love being on the ocean and sea days are a great opportunity to enjoy the views, sound, and smell of the sea. On this morning I started a little habit that got my husband way to spoiled, that is going for my early morning stroll around the ship and pick up some coffee for him before heading back to the room. But before that I went to the aft of deck 5 off the running/walking track to enjoy the sunrise at sea. This is a must do, even if it's just once. I love my sleep but I love this view so much more! ???????????????????????????? After coffee, we got ready for the Dreamworks Experience breakfast. This is a super fun activity for the little ones and with only a $10.00 cover charge per adult, it's a very good deal! One of the main pluses is that you get lots of photo opportunities with the characters without having to wait in long lines or being afraid of missing them later on in the cruise. They dance and put on a little show and then they come to your table to greet you. It's very fun for the little ones. Breakfast is basic Main Dining Room options and the littles get a cute menu with fun names. I had an omelet that was AMAZING! I was honestly not expecting it to be so good. After breakfast we took my daughter to the carousel on the Boardwalk and then to Adventure Ocean and headed to enjoy the pools for the day. We had hotdogs for lunch, from the hot dog stand near the carousel. They were very very good! Later that evening we got ready for dinner as it was Formal night. We took the little one to dinner at the Windjammer and couldn't resist having some pre-dinner ourselves (choice we later regretted when we couldn't finish our dinner at Chops because we were too full). Though I will blog about our dining in a later post, I must say that I was very impressed with the quality and variety of the food at the Windjammer. My daughter was able to partake in lobster night at the Windjammer and the quality was just as good as the lobster we had at chops with our dinner. If you do choose to have dinner at a specialty restaurant on lobster night know that they will happily serve the lobster with your meal at the venue. We also took a bite of the very fresh and creamy Mac and cheese and both my husband and myself were very impressed. Just to compare, we ate at the Windjammer several times during our Liberty cruise last year and thought the food was great but the food on Oasis blew it out of the water. I can see this venue getting very crowded on a regular sailing, but on our sailing it's been great with plenty of seating. Dinner for us was at Chops grill and the service and food were superb. Like I said above we weren't able to finish it, partly because of pre dinner and partly because our waiter Dominic kept bringing us amazing choices for appetizers and size. We both ordered the bone in rib eye with lobster tail and then enjoyed carrot cake and cheesecake for dessert. We chose to eat outside which was the perfect setting with central parj as a backdrop. After dinner we enjoyed walking around the ship for after dinner drinks and then headed to the late showing of the Oasis of Dreams show at the Aqua Theatre. This was a truly impressive show and a must see. I won't give too much away but it has very much a circ du soleil feel with lots of water involved. Visually, it was stunning and it continued to blow me away with all the stuff that can be done at sea. We decided to pick up my daughter after this and head back to the room as we had an excursion booked in the morning. Stay tuned for day 3 --- Cozumel!!!

Day 1/Embarkation Day Embarkation day is so exciting, kind of like Christmas morning. And I had great plans for this one in particular. It was going to be so seamlessly smooth and I'd arrive to the port around 10:30 be on the ship by eleven...yada yada yada. Well it didn't quite work out that way and it seemed like Murphy's Law was at play and intent on delaying our vacation. Our first cruise last year was on Liberty of the Seas out of Galveston and embarkation was fine and pretty standard but it was our first and we were very overwhelmed by how quickly things moved. Fast forward to this year where we had a game plan and well Irma got in the way again. We drove from Texas to Florida on Friday (probably the last time doing this) but in the case of Irma it worked out because we didn't have to worry about cancelled flights or airport closures. Our hotel was able to extend our stay through Wednesday and on that end we had no stress. We also lucked out that we chose to book a hotel in Orlando (Marriott Grande Vista Resort) and our hotel was spared from damage and water damage. Little did I know that other areas of Orlando weren't as lucky. I woke up at a quarter to six that morning to take care of some errands that needed to get done before leaving. Well the offices I went to had no power. I went to gas up and gas stations had no gas. The Walmarts that people had suggested had damage and were closed. All of this to say we didn't get to Port Canaveral until 1:00 pm. We parked at the Radisson parking and then shuttled to the ship. This is a great and affordable option. We got delayed there also thanks to Irma as they issued a refund for the 7 days and the rebooked for 4 nights. This was very generous of them but honestly we were just dying to get to our cruise (we probably will park closer to Port next time). Once we finally got on board (check in was very smooth from door to ship about 15 minutes) the Royal Promenade seemed crowded, but then again we arrived at prime arrival time. My husband and daughter were tired and well we were offered so many choices for drink packages and dining plans and VOOM. Though we had booked some of these things we made adjustments and purchased more, we did after all have all this extra onboard credit to burn. I'll for sure write an entry about the packages and onboard spending. But once all of that was settled we made our way to Park Café for the famous roast beef sandwiches, and they did not disappoint! I found Central Park to be so amazingly impressive. Pictures and videos don't do it justice! It was quiet and lush and green. This is a must see and it's hard to believe you're on a cruise ship when you see it for the first time. After a quick bite we followed Matt's advice to sign our daughter up for Adventure Ocean and/or Royal Tots. Our daughter is 2 weeks shy of turning 3. We weren't sure if they'd allow her to move up and even if they did we weren't sure how'd she react to being in the older group. They did allow her to try it out. We were told the policy is if they are at least 35 months old and fully potty trained ( check and check) then they can stay. With the condition that even if they have one potty accident they would be bumped down to Royal Tots again. This was a game changer for us, because Adventure Ocean is free up until 10 pm while Royal Tots has an hourly fee. This fee is way cheaper than any babysitting back home but the hours add up quickly and it's something to keep in mind budget wise if you're traveling with infants and/or toddlers. The other big difference is that the extended hours for Adventure Ocean is a 3 hour difference which gives us the option to do more of the late night activities we couldn't do during last years cruise. Once all of that was settled I took my daughter to the kids pool area while my husband checked on our bags and got settled. She loved this area so much. Muster drill was next, nothing too eventful but I truly enjoyed the clever little short film highlighting what to do in case of an emergency. That evening we decided to try dinner at Izumi (we purchased the 4 night dining package). Dinner was amazing! I'll share my review of the Dining Package and specialty restaurants at the end of the live blog. What I will say is that it was the best sushi I've had in a very long time. Definitely lived up to the hype. They went so above and beyond that when I couldn't decide between two rolls they merged it in one for me. Yum! The rest of the night we strolled and took advantage of our drink package and just celebrating having a decent date night again. We then picked up my daughter and she was having such a blast she didn't want to leave! Once I saw that I knew she would have a great stay. Tomorrow we'll take a look at our first sea day --- Day 2. Thanks for following along! Social Media: Instagram (I share a lot of my cruise on the Instagram story feature) - www.instgram.com/theFAITHONISTA Periscope: @WNOPtribe or @theFAITHONISTA Twitter: @theFAITHONISTA

rjac, I believe it is called the "S.S. I've spent WAAAYTOOO much money in the casino this trip". Candie

1. Not likely, but they all serve the same food, so there's no reason to visit the other two except from a design perspective. Breakfast will be served in one of them as well as lunch on sea days, so that might be a way to see them if those meals, which are open seating, are served there. 2. Are you early seating main dining? If so, it could be tight, but just let your serving know that you need to be done by 7 to make the show. 3. No, but if you're at a table with others, it is helpful to let your server know so that they don't hold up service waiting for you.