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Good morning all! In the words of @twangster, IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! Our stay last night at Embassy Suites was quite pleasant. All in all, a very decent hotel. Beds were comfy, tons of space in the room (all the rooms are suites here), friendly staff. The bath products here are Neutrogena, that might be important for some out there ? and the bathroom here more than passes hotel snob approval. Just sitting downstairs waiting for the kids to finish up breakfast. We are impressed, the complimentary breakfast buffet here is quite extensive. There is the usual continental breakfast items, oatmeal, fresh fruit, the usual hot items (French toast, bacon, sausages, hash browns), 24hr hot beverage station, and even a made to order omelette station. Hubby was pretty impressed by that as most of the other complimentary hotel breakfasts that we've had in the past did not have that option. There's also tons of space here for eating. Overall, this hotel is not a bad choice at all for a pre-cruise stay. My only complaint, and it's minor, is that you can hear the planes quite clearly at all hours. So if you are a light sleeper, that might be a problem. The plan for the next few hours is to pack up, check out, and head on over to Cape Liberty. It's -1 degrees Celsius (feels like -7) right now. It's a cold one! For my American friends, it's 30 degrees Fahrenheit (feels like 19). @SeasTheDayNJ I think it might be too cold for sail away in flip flops and sandals lol. Better luck next Saturday. Off for now, will check back in when we get to the ship!! ?

So its food post time :). Today was actually kind of fun because they brought out the kitchen staff to parade around and introduce themselves. It was also lobster night. Sandra and I ended up splitting 3 between us and a prime rib (soooo worth it) we did start with the caesar salad but didn't take a photo because it was the same as my previous post, we'll just say I've had it 3 nights in a row. For desert we both had the chocolate molten cake and was so good. My only complaint was the crust could have been a touch more crispy but still had great flavor. The kitchen staff The shows got canceled for "technical difficulties" and the comedy show got adjusted in time and moved to Studio B. When we got back to the room we found this guy waiting for us.

Made it to Newark. All checked in at Embassy Suites. Nice hotel. Super busy. Lots of cruisers for tomorrow. The hotel offers a complimentary happy hour from 5:30pm-7:30pm. We checked it out for a bit and now having dinner at Ruby Tuesday which is about a 1min walk. Other things within walking distance from here are IHOP and Jersey Gardens outlet. Here are some pics of our home for one night:

Maybe when I do finally try to log in(in a few days to spare me the aggravation) I will be lucky and instead of booked cruises disappeared, I will have free/extra ones added!!! Trying to think/stay positive here people....

Quick update before muster drill... Arrived at 10:20am. On board by 10:30am. Fastest check in ever! Ate, walked around, it's cold, sanitized ? and totally unpacked. Off to muster drill. The alarm is going. Will follow up after sailaway.

So it was a great day at the window caves. Our guide, Ernesto, was very detailed and very helpful. Here are some photos from the window cave's property. Sadly because Royal said they need to rush so we reach Laberdee on time (which I am not looking forward to) we missed most of San Juan itself and had to be all aboard by 1:30. This was very disappointing as I wanted to spend a few hours and not feel rushed. For us we can get the Laberdee experience without all the extra fees Royal tries to up charge you with. We had around 30-45 minutes to explore Old San Juan to look for a shot class and a local beer. Here is what we saw.

Not just first time cruisers. Up until Friday, hubby was telling everyone that we were flying to Florida. At the border into the US earlier the conversation with the customs officer went like this: CO: Where are you headed? Hubby: New Jersey CO: How? H: uh...by plane CO: What airline? H: uh...(looks at me) Me: Delta CO: When are you coming back? H: uh.... Me: on the 17th Not sure at this point if he knows what ship we are on tomorrow. ?

take it your not that impressed with the website

Lyft Plus to Cape Liberty - $36 The sight of this never grows old. Love pulling up to the ship! Zero wait time at the terminal. Arrived at 10:20am, proceeded through security, checked in at suites area. Did not even have time to look around or take a pic. I don't even know what the suites waiting area looks like lol. Right after we checked in, we were directed to the suites entrance. And made our way board. After wandering for a bit while we waited for WJ to open we made our way there around 10:50am to find that they were already open for lunch. And it was pretty full already. We manage to get a nice table by the window to view the NY skyline. I also found this for @Sweety: Word of advice...not sure if it was just for this sailing or the norm but by the time we finished lunch at 12pm the line into the WJ looked like this: They were actually holding people back from entering. The line was at least 50-60 people deep. I have never seen this happen before on any ship! So eat early or elsewhere if possible. Drink package prices on board: It's 4pm. Sailaway was scheduled for 3pm. We are just moving away now. Good bye NJ! Hopefully onwards to some warmer weather! ?:Hubby

I loved the pictures in the Schooner Bar menu.

Best smell not coming from the Windjammer!

Has anyone else noticed that smell when walking onto the ship? With only 4 cruises before this it already feels like I'm home when that smell hits me. Great feeling. Dinner was in the MDR most of the week. The first night i had the horseradish salmon. It was delicious, and my favorite dish of the week. For dessert I had the hazelnut chocolate cake...amazing, and the best dessert of the week. The NY strip was really really good. I tried the duck, and lamb, later in the week, both were so so. The lobster bisque was pretty awful. We had dinner in the Windjamair one night, so I was able to try the chicken curry, and sapi jamur (beef), both were delicious. The pepperoni pizza was pretty decent for a buffet. My wife visited the omelet station in the Windjamair every morning. The rock wall had weird hours all week, so I didn't get to climb as much as I wanted, but I made it to 3 sessions I think. There was 1 route on the wall I just couldn't complete, but I got a little farther each time I tried, so I'm happy with that. The wall was closed on day 4 due to high winds. I had to skip the adult speed climb this time around due to formal night dinner. I had lunch at Izumi on day 2 (1st sea day) while the baby and wife napped. I haven't had raw fish, so this being my first time trying sushi I started with something cooked to some extent...the crispy spicy tuna roll, and the champagne lobster roll...wow. I absolutely loved both of them. They organized the rolls beautifully on the plate. It was more food than I thought it'd be, so I only ended up eating 9 of the 16 pieces, and took the rest back to my room for later. I loved the crispy spicy tuna roll so much I got it on day 4 (2nd sea day) for lunch and took it back to my balcony. Cruising with a baby was not the best experience. We enjoyed the cruise, but there just wasn't a whole lot for a 1yr old to do, which is fine, Brilliance is a wonderful ship regardless. It was a great learning cruise I guess. My wife said our next one will have to be on a ship with a toddler pool, so Freedom-class or above. Our son loved the Schooner Bar (as did I), the Colony Club, climbing stairs, and the mini golf course. But, his favorite activity was riding the elevators by the Centrum and/or ocean. The crew loved him and would stop to say hi to him when they could. We left him in the nursery 3 times. The first time he did great, but the last two times he screamed as we dropped him off, so we ended up picking him up an hour early each session. We're hoping he'll grow out of it for next time. We took him to the open play twice and he loved it, since we were there with him. Our day in Grand Cayman was...interesting. We did the Trolley Roger tour, which was nice and short for the baby (we booked it on board, on embarkation day I believe). We walked around town afterwards and long story short I lost my phone. I freaked out, finally settled things in my head after back tracking and searching our bags, then we got back on board. My wife dumped the diaper bag out on the bed...there's my phone. Hooray! It had fallen to the bottom of the bag and I missed it each time I checked in there. I felt like an idiot for a few hours, apologized to my wife, and we moved on with our day. The next day in Cozumel went much better. There were 4 ships in port...Empress, Liberty, Brilliance, and Carnival Breeze. We received the "dangerous ferry" letter about Cozumel, so we decided we'd better try to book an excursion in Cozumel before everyone else started rebooking due to the ferry cancellations. We wanted somewhere our son could run around and get in the water. I probably should've booked Nachi like I originally planned, but we decided to go into this cruise with no plans. So, during our sail away in Grand Cayman we booked Chankanaab National Park day pass. For us it was a good choice. A small beach our son could walk into, a splash pad, a small playground, a pool with a swim up bar (in this case it was full of booty shaking spring breakers...I thought people only acted that way in movies/tv, lol), a sea lion show, and more. Our pass got us all that and more, including a small buffet lunch, and open bar at 3 of the bars on property. It was $50 per adult, the baby got in free. We were there 3hrs, but could've stayed longer. Our Junior Suite was amazing. The space in the room, and hump balcony were great. The bathtub was perfect for our little dude. Also, I really liked having the bath robes. We were able to put a blow up pool on the balcony for little man to play in. Overall it was a good cruise. Brilliance is a great ship. We've been on Serenade as well, so now I can say I'm a fan of the Radiance-class. Next time we cruise we'll have a 2 1/2, and 1yr old, so we'll be looking for that toddler pool on Freedom-class or higher, and we'll be looking into 2 connecting cabins as Matt and others have suggested. All my wishes came true...honey stung chicken, rock climbing, sushi, and meeting Michael Poole. I'll post some random pictures whenever I get around to it. Thank you to everyone on the forum, blog, and podcast for all the little tips and tricks!

Just to close this out, the pack and play, though smaller than he's used to, was large enough for him to move around. We pulled the sofa forward and put the crib between it and the wall. The cabin steward congratulated our layout, saying that despite his recommendation to do it like that, most folks ignore him and put the crib in front of the sofa, rendering it unusable for seating. The room darkening curtains attached to the ceiling with small, strong magnets from Amazon and clipped to the wall with (barely sufficient strength) dollar store magnetic clips, create a tiny bedroom for the little guy. We had to pull down an opening at the ceiling and aim the back panel inward whenever he was in the crib so that all of the AC didn't blow directly down into the crib. Otherwise, sweet!

Cruise day is here!

I'm in my Toms! The rest are flip flops. Lol. I refused bring boots too! ?

What probably happened: Senior Management: "So... can we go live now or what?" QA: "Well we still have some test to r..." Development: "Works on my machine!" QA: "Wait hang on..." Senior Management: "OKAY LET'S ROLL IT OUT!"

Like any of this is a surprise??! People, you HAD to know this was going to happen based on past track record!

Seems odd to have launched the "website" on all their unsuspecting customers this week while planning on doing testing at corporate next week ... anyone else think they might have skipped a step in the manual ?

I think I finally understand ... Royal IT has taken it as a challenge to design the worst website ever ... and they may have finally met their goal !!

Haven't had much opportunity to follow many threads. Here's our superior balcony stateroom 9536 on the Jewel of the Seas out of San Juan on March 4th. The extra length and width is making our son in law jealous as their cabin just ahead of the forward elevators is shorter and narrower. Heh, even the safe is larger!

April Fool's came early

At DTW waiting for our flight. Just tried Chick-fil-A for the first time! All is good. Flight is on time. Plane is already at the gate ? Here's a pic near our gate to show @bcarney that DTW is not as bad as people think. At least not here at the McNamara terminal where Delta flies out of.

Looking forward to following along! It's been forever since I've cruised...

Enjoy the cruise!

Have a great cruise!

Bon voyage!

@Digmenow Wow! That is an awesome set up!

I think that I just tripped on a seam...

Personally I've never seen the need for a midnight buffet. With all the food available during the day, eating at midnight was never a priority for me. I don't need or want four meals a day, including one just before going to bed. I'm fine with it being cut because I do believe it was mostly wasted which in itself creates more expense - having to deal with all that waste in an environmentally friendly manner, short of just dumping it overboard. All the effort to prepare it, then all the effort to dispose of most of it, all for a handful of guests who actually took advantage.

Saved $200, any little bit helps and I just told my TA and she handled everything for me.

Ha. i'm wearing flips either way! Jersey girls are either in uggs or flips -- no in-between and i'm certainly not bringing my uggs!

I've been to Baker Lake, more than once. Interesting place where you share your hotel room with complete strangers. Enjoy your cruise, look forward to hearing about it. I'm looking into some Brilliance action later this year.

There are two Freestyle machines on the Jewel of the Seas. They are located on the starboard side of the Windjammer, all the way aft. Rare was the time they both worked but we always got our refills (as long as the Windjammer was open). Come to think of it, the two soft ice cream machines were on the port side of the Windjammer and only one worked the entire cruise as well. The ice cream line was usually long but it moved quickly.

Well, what about your job? Oh, the weekends? How about reading books that have a nautical flair...like "African Queen"?

Forget about the woodshed! Just beat the crap out of them right where they are at their computer keyboards, break room, bathroom, where ever and then give them the YOYO (you're on your own...as in you're fired).

@invkevin, we're all having the same problems. Royal's IT department needs to be taken to the woodshed for this botched upgrade release. Others here have pointed to the old login URL, which still works and does still properly allow you to get to the Cruise Planner and documentation. Just hit this directly instead of trying to log in through the Royal site's Log In link: https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/mycruises/processLogin.do

Yup, I sure can! Thanks for that. Unfortunately, cruise planner shows the prices are just stupidly high for my cruise in 3 weeks now. Compared to the prices back in October / November, it's back into rip-off territory. So I guess it's time to start watching for the mega-deals on my October Anthem cruise. Probably nothing great before July 4 weekend, but I need something to do while I wait these next 3 interminable weeks, plus the time after I'm back!

I'm sorry to hear that your cruise is over, but I'm hope you and your family had a fantastic time :)

We sail in 18 days, glad I printed off my set sail and cruise documents last month! It seems to me Royal would have emailed a notice to everyone last week about their website upgrade so folks could print what they needed. As Forest said:

I'm sure it will be fine for you :) we have a backup port so its rare we get missed but does happen. I think of all last month they missed once. We are on the bus now heading back to San Juan from the Window caves which was amazing and I'll post some pictures once we are back on the ships WiFi. I would say that the locals are happy that people are visiting again and I noticed something that I never thought of. While we were waiting for the bus I noticed a generator near the main area. This would explain how they can keep going even when somewhere else is having issues. Also never thought of just how big Puerto Rico really is. When they say 40% is without power I would expect most of those to be outside the main cities. We were talking on the way and I think we might have to start planning a trip on freedom again after she moves to San Juan for the south.

I've generally been happy with the desserts - there was a Grand Marnier Souffle for dessert on Adventure one night that was amaze-balls. Actually - I usually opt for the cheese plate for dessert. Not a huge sweets person.

I was able to log in my using my email address instead of user name. Then clicked for a password reset. I got in but can't figure out how to find cruise planner. Also can't figure out how to get into my own crown and anchor account when we both share the same password and I'm the one that sets up the account, not hubby.

Safe travels! I am also thinking of trying a live blog on Harmony. I should have some time in the afternoon to write a bit but I worry about trying to keep it up. Can't wait to follow along. All I can say is Go Preds! Says a girl from Chicago, married to a guy from Pittsburgh, which of course makes us Predator fans!

Have a wonderful trip. We didnt cruise until our kids were teens (i was busy being disney obsessed) and i look forward to reading how your little one enjoys the trip! Jane

Good to know...i was thinking it was all the time. My teen vegetarian "picky as #$%&#@" might eat sushi and if i can get her to eat something other than french fries that would be good! Jane

As promised here are some photos from St. Martin. So to start the tour we went to a rental property that had been ruined. We then headed to the national flag pole on the dutch side. The sites you get from this are quite nice. On our way to Maho we stopped at a flipped over boat and say a few others damaged near by. We then worked our way to Maho beach (sorry forgot to take pictures but I did a scope from here you could see). After Maho we went to the French side and worked our way through the French streets to Fort Luis. Really neat place with amazing views. Its crazy how different the island is depending which side including languages. After the fort we went to Friers Bay. The had a small little restaurant to grab a quick lunch. A little warning the food wasn't that good in our opinion and the prices were higher then I expected (5€ [yes the French side is based on the euro] for fries). I couldn't get too many photos here as people were sunbathing topless here. After Frier Bay we went Orient Bay. The tour took us to the clothing optional area so I was not able to take photos here (nor did I want to.....) This is definitely the area that looks like it got hit the hardest. There are a few places open however, many converted shipping containers as temporary bars or shops and others using tents. There were also a few temporary options for the bathroom facilities. Not the perfect solution but is definitely a start. We got back on the ATVs and went back to the start where I visited Great Bay Beach (right near the port and is the many shopping district). These conditions where really good in my opinion. Everything is pretty much operational and even saw a hotel open here. We walked back to the port after getting a new shot glass. One thing I forgot to mention is that if you plan to use bubbles (tour company) then you are best just to confirm with the information desk as there are no actual signs. I would actually recommend this tour to anyone who's up for a nice drive with some wind in your hair.

What the hell is wrong with these "whiners & complainers"? Diamond level tells me they are seasoned cruisers and know/should accept the hazards of cruising. Can you imagine if the Captain had said "damn the surf and waves, we're heading into port" with catastrophic results, like the Italian Concordia, talk about whining and complaining! Good for you Orange, I like your course of action!

Last night "Britain's Finest" were in the main theater. They are a Beatles Tribute band. They are very good. Cruise summary All in all it was a great cruise. I got a great rate booking it under 90 days out. I'm glad I was able to book one of the newer rooms on the ship. Those slides on her have been calling my name and they didn't disappoint. I ended up eating most meals in the Windjammer. The vegetable curry last night had great flavor. Traveling solo the Windjammer is just easier. With this cruise in the books I've completed the Freedom class trilogy. Galveston worked out pretty smoothly but next time I'll likely do a B2B. Almost to Hobby airport and should arrive there around 8:40am.

So on board now. Got in around 3:15 after running around doing last minute shopping (we do not shop much at home as its expensive). Only really took us 15/20 minutes to go through security and check in. It was pretty much empty as everyone was already on board. Did a scope and now waiting for muster drill to begin. Will check in later. i will be checking probably later today or tomorrow :) they gave us a discount token and Sandra isn't wanting alcohol yet so will see how the day goes. Will post more

To be honest with you, I remember some CDs who were pretty good and some not so good. But then again, I have no idea who they were! As long as my drink package is good to go, they all are OK with me.