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Embarkation Day: We made it! (Is anyone just a little bit sad when you no longer have a countdown?)We arrived by taxi to the ship about 1:20. The taxi from the airport cost us $31 for 6 people and luggage. The baggage lines were the longest, but after baggage, we quickly moved through the other stations for boarding. Overall, it took us 40 minutes from curb to ship. One advantage of arriving that late was that our rooms were ready. We went straight to our rooms, unloaded a little and then grabbed lunch at the Windjammer. It did not disappoint and crowd level was minimal. Awesome! Despite being super excited to board, we headed to the rooms for naps. We were beat from our red-eye and feeling the extra crowds at all airports and venues we encountered today. I was excited to see our rooms had been renovated with new carpet, bedding and draperies. Its a nice modern touch. The bathrooms and cabinetry are the same as before. We love dividing into girl rooms and boy rooms. It makes it easier to share our girly supplies and the boys have fun with March Madness. This is our first time staying in connecting rooms. My current observation is that walls are thinner ? and we get a chair instead of a sofa. We'll see how that goes, but it is nice going back and forth between rooms more easily. Dinner tonight was part of the BOGO deal at Chops (FYI The Izumi was offering 50% off the first two nights while we were boarding). We had a great meal and all of our steaks were delicious. Other than dessert, we had plenty of GF options. Sorbet/ice cream were the only gf options. No one left hungry! We also found GF Udis cookies behind the counter at the park cafe and a possible chocolate mousse type dessert. We ended the evening with the Welcome Aboard Show starring Mercedes as Cruise Director, and comedian Angelo Tsarouchas. We really enjoyed it. Comedians are probably our favorite entertainment while cruising. In case you were wondering, the ship offered some St Patrick's Day activities in the pub and we noticed a few green treats throughout the ship.

Here is a pic of the latest ice show now playing on Allure. I’m sure you will hear all about the fight tomorrow in the news papers

@Floski and @Skid thank you for your kind words. I had so much fun with it! Normally on a cruise, my family would do stuff and I would find quiet moments to read. This time, I just replaced those moments with blog time. It was much more enjoyable! As far as next cruise, you know where I'll be, you could always come with, it would make for an even more interesting live blog lol!

Haha! Unfortunately my own kids know this best! You can take the teacher out of the classroom but you cannot take the teacher out of the person! It truly is a vocation. Not just a job. But that is a whole other topic in itself. It becomes part of who you are. That's why avoided the Seaplex like the plague! It felt too much like recess or phys ed time in there ?

A true beauty. PS: Yes it’s perfectly legal for me to fly my drone right over her & take pictures to my hearts content.

Hello Everyone, I recently cruised on Allure of the Seas in February and filmed a video of our trip. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts! We had a wonderful time and enjoyed perfect weather sailing the Western Caribbean! Thanks, Ryan

My feeling is that they are following the Disney business model. Disney World (love it or hate it) has made a conscious and ongoing effort to take every penny you spend on vacation and make sure it goes to Disney in some way shape or form. You arrive at the airport, the free bus picks you and your luggage up and takes you to the hotel .... no need to rent a car or pay for parking. They have all kids of parks ... wait you want to leave and go shopping or to a restaurant ... fine lets build out Disney Springs to have all that so you don't leave. To me Royal has been heading this way for a while. When I first started cruising with Royal there was a debate about water slides on ships and at the time I recall it being strongly held that Royal would never do water slides because they looked tacky, were a Carnival "thing" etc. Clearly times have changed and now its all about cramming as much on board as possible. Now lets take over the islands and turn theme into theme parks as well. To each their own ... times change ... if you don't like it you don't have to pay for it ... they are a for profit corporation ... all true and so I certainly don't condemn Royal for the changes, they are doing what Market Research tells them they should do for the profitability of the company. But for me as a consumer, I feel like the focus has moved to "wham, bam, zoom, glitz" and charge as much as you can ... we don't care if you never come back because we have a line out the door waiting to take their turn. I used to be a Loyal to Royal ... but increasingly feel that is a one way street and although the other lines are going in much the same direction, more slowly.

Unfortunately, we took far more photos on the islands than on the boat itself, but here are some pictures from our trip!

Do you also like getting caught in the rain? ?

From time to time I see people asking about what drinks are included in the Coca-Cola Freestyle drink dispensers. @Matt has written blogs on the Freestyle machines. Here is one from 2015: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2015/07/20/coca-cola-freestyle-machines-royal-caribbean While I am on Anthem I have some free time so I grabbed some pictures of all the Freestyle drink menus. Let's start with the main menu: From here you can see the types of drinks available in each category. First are two pages for the "All Drinks" category: Here are the types of drinks available within each option: And of course plain water: The same drinks are sorted by "Low/No Calories" options: The same drinks sorted by "Caffeine Free" options: Finally the same drinks are sorted by flavor: Here are the Cherry drinks: Orange drinks: Raspberry drinks: Grape drinks: Lemon drinks: Peach drinks: Strawberry drinks: Lime drinks: Fruit Punch drinks: Vanilla drinks: Cherry Vanilla drinks: Mixed Berry drinks: For those that are asking what is a Freestyle drink dispenser? Certain Royal Caribbean ships have these Freestyle drink dispensers. See the blog above for a list of ships that have them. Freestyle dispensers work only with special cups provided with beverage packages. The souvenir cups have a chip embedded in the base that is read by the machine when you place the cup into the machine. There are various designs that are provided. When a cup is first used it is registered in the system and an expiry date is assigned. The expiry date is usually a few days longer than your cruise. The machines also function as ice dispensers. Lastly, these menus were captured in January 2018. It's possible that menus will vary over time and by ship.

My family and I went on a cruise on the Enchantment of the Seas last week. I'm a male in my 20s, and I went with my grandma in her 80s and my uncle in his 40s, for reference. MONDAY 3/5 (Leaving Miami): Getting on the boat was a breeze, especially because my grandma has been on enough cruises to qualify for gold status (the word on the card, not the actual gold-colored card), so we got to skip the longest lines. I remembered it taking much longer the last time I went on a RCI cruise (Liberty of the Seas in 2008), so that was a pleasant surprise. One annoying thing when we got on board- we had pre-paid for different beverage packages (they were nice enough to let my uncle get the deluxe beverage package with only making me and my grandma get the refreshment package even though we were all 21+) that all came with the Coke freestyle cups. But, they already had those in our room, which we couldn't yet access. Since Windjammer's machines are cup-sensitive, we were unable to get soda at the first lunch even though we had paid for it, but that isn't the biggest deal in the world. A touch I really liked was that they provided mini-buffets by the pool deck as we were getting ready to leave Miami. As it was a beautiful day, a lot of people were on the pool deck watching us leave, but we were able to get a table. Dinner was really nice. We chose the 6 PM seating and were paired with three other small groups of people. My family all went for the prime rib, which we really enjoyed. I will touch on this more later, but our wait staff gave us really good service too. We elected not to go to the evening show, instead walking around the boat. Also, we spent a couple hours watching the entertainment in the Centrum, which was pretty good (except when a drunk guy broke a glass on the dance floor). When my grandma went back to the room, my uncle and I continued to explore the ship. Even though the shuffleboard courts theoretically close at 9, there was nothing stopping us from playing and no one waiting, so we played several games (I eeked out the win too). A nice way to start the trip. TUESDAY 3/6 (Nassau): On Tuesday, we were in Nassau. Breakfast in the Windjammer was decent enough everyday (I certainly didn't need that chocolate covered cheesecake at breakfast though). Since we could do more for less money using a third-party excursion service, we had booked a Nassau tour through Viator with a company called Tyrone Wilson's Shore Excursions. Our guide, Kevin, knew everything to know about Nassau and even seemed to know everybody. While we did make five stops, one of the real highlights was getting to hear him talk about the Bahamas. My personal favorite stop was the Queen's Staircase, both for the history and for the views as we descended. My uncle and grandma also really enjoyed the rum distillery. I don't drink, so it wasn't the stop I was looking forward to most, but it was still very interesting to see and learn about the industry. The only real disappointing stop was the chocolate factory because they only gave you a tiny crumb as a sample (whereas all the other sampling stops were far more generous) and ridiculously overcharged for any additional chocolate you wanted to purchase. I had been there before (as a hotel guest), but we also had about 30 minutes to explore the Atlantis resort. Our guide also drove us through some poorer areas of Nassau, so we got to see the various ways people live there. We also asked him for a lunch recommendation, and he recommended us some place called Bahamian Cookin' (or something like that) a couple blocks inland in downtown that was excellent. We later went to this zoo and gardens that was somewhat disappointing, at least relative to the excellent tour Kevin had given us earlier in the day. We got back on the boat in time to get ready for dinner, which was formal night. Unfortunately, we were the only ones at our table who were able to get there. We again went for the beef, all getting the tenderloin. Since the dining room wasn't very full, they must have had a bunch of extra food, so we were offered seconds, which we happily accepted. I think there might have even been thirds. Additionally, the service was far better than I could have ever expected. Our waiter remembered that I had a Diet Coke the night before and had one there for me as soon as I sat down, without my even having to ask. When they realized how much we seemed to all like beef, they sent promoters from Chops Grille to offer us a discount for the next night, which we seriously considered, but decided against (largely because my uncle would have wanted lobster, which wasn't included with the base surcharge). After dinner, we split up, all having different things we wanted to do. My uncle had wanted to enter the poker tournament in the casino (by the way, the casino has tutorials of the different table games 30 minutes before opening every night, which I enjoyed, even if I wasn't really planning to play). Assuming full capacity, the winner from Tuesday was set to play Wednesday's winner on Thursday for a free cruise on the Allure of the Seas. I walked around with him for a while, but went back to the room to get out of my suit. My grandma went to the music show that night, which we allowed her to do alone since neither of us wanted to go. While my uncle was playing poker, I met up with my grandma after the show and we went to the Love and Marriage Game Show. That gameshow actually has importance in our family because, on our cruise 10 years ago, my grandmother and my late grandfather were the long-married couple on the show (they came in last). When they were trying to find couples, my grandma told that story, which was a nice moment for all of us. The show (in my biased opinion) didn't live up to the one ten years ago, but that could just be me. We still had a good time. Afterwards, I met back up with my uncle, who had unfortunately only come in third in the poker tournament, and we went back up to the pool deck because I had read in reviews that there was a big party with a poolside buffet when leaving Nassau. That was only partially accurate, as they only had food inside the Solarium, but there was music from the boat's DJ. It was a bit more of a party scene than I would have liked because there was a group of close to 500 spring breakers just from one school on a ship of only 2500, but we enjoyed it still. After that ended, we did briefly go to the Viking Crown Lounge, but that was a little too wild for me, as it was pretty much only the spring breakers (I'm about that age myself, but I am not really that wild). Some of them were enjoyable to talk to individually, but they were crazy as a group (my uncle actually described them as entertainment). We got some late night food from the Solarium (my uncle had the idea of putting pizza inside a burger, which he said was excellent) and went back to the room. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7 (Not CocoCay): While at breakfast, even though it was partly sunny outside, we heard an announcement from the captain that the weather would not allow us to go to CocoCay as planned because the seas were too rough and a cold front was approaching from the west. Royal Caribbean did do a good job of adding more events, such as ping pong tournaments, trivia contests, and game shows to try to let us still have a good time. But, as the weather was still pretty nice, we grabbed seats at the pool and hung out there (but unfortunately they weren't opening the main pool until 11). Before lunch, we went to play Family Feud, one of the added activities, which was fun. Lunch in the Windjammer was likely the same thing they were going to serve on the island, but it was good, and we rushed out of lunch to play sports trivia, which was harder than we expected (or, more accurately, a lot of the questions were from sports we didn't follow as closely as the Big Four American sports). By the time we finished with trivia, the bad weather had arrived, so we mostly had to stay inside. I did use the Solarium pool in this time (and found out that I'm actually 7 feet tall if that is really 5'6" deep). At dinner, to our surprise, again nobody else showed up, so we yet again got fed like royalty. My grandma was finally tired of beef and got a lasagna, while my uncle and I had multiple beef short ribs. If you are ever on this cruise, you must get the warm chocolate cookie with ice cream. I made the mistake of not getting it, but had a bite of my uncle's one, and it was easily the best dessert I had. But, since the dining room wasn't full, I was then able to order one anyway. After dinner, my grandma is a big North Carolina fan and wanted to watch their game, so we went to the casino, where the only sports bar is on the ship. We tried our luck with the penny slots before the game, and I wasted $5 in about 15 minutes and decided I had had enough. My grandma and uncle were up for a little while, but they lost theirs too. My uncle decided to give the poker a second go, but again finished in a tantalizingly close third, good for nothing. The casino sports bar was also crowded with some of the students on spring break, which really wasn't too bad. The only annoying part is that smoking is allowed in the casino, so you could intermittently smell smoke. I do wish they had a smoke-free place to watch sports other than your stateroom on board (and I know newer RCI ships do). After the game, my uncle and I caught the second half of the adult comedy show, which we definitely enjoyed. We took advantage of the midnight buffet in the Park Cafe before calling it a night. THURSDAY, MARCH 8 (Key West): This was my fourth cruise, but I had never been on one that reentered the US before returning to the embarkation port, so I had never been through the "you must wake up at a certain time to go through customs" thing before. It was pretty early in the morning, so we just rolled straight out of bed to do that and ate and got ready for the day afterwards. We did the hop-on, hop-off bus tour in Key West that morning. When we first got on, our guide, Louis, was excellent, so we rode around most of the way before getting off at the location of the Southernmost Point and the butterfly house, which we enjoyed (even if my grandma inadvertently took a butterfly out on her shirt and had to get an employee to return it to its habitat). We ate lunch at Sloppy Joe's, where they actually invented the Sloppy Joe and went around both on the bus and on our own to see a few more landmarks before returning to the boat. It was a sunny, but not hot, day, which made it perfect for exploring the island. The previous night we had considered seeing if we could take them up on their Chops Grille offer and even got to the point of asking them if it would still be good for Thursday, which they said it would. However, we really liked our waiters in the main dining room and were offered a discount on getting the Chops food in the main dining room, which we did. My grandma and I got the Chops filet, which was excellent, while my uncle got their lobster, which he seemed to enjoy. My uncle and I got the lamb shank as well since it still wasn't full (we weren't totally alone, as one of the other three groups did come that night). After that, we wanted to watch basketball again, so we went back to the casino. Before going to the casino, we checked out the Centrum entertainment and I somehow got drafted into doing some dance in front of everybody without even being told what I was doing. At least I didn't drop the woman from the activities staff when she jumped! Duke and North Carolina were playing in back to back games and my family is split between those two schools (I'm actually a fan of a different school, but I was rooting for both that night, and both won). Again, the college spring breakers were at the casino bar, but some were into the games since they were mostly from North Carolina themselves (I actually live in Tennessee, but my family is from NC). Once they had both won, it was about 11:30, so The Quest was already well into progress, but my uncle and I decided to go anyway. While I don't mind humor that isn't PG-rated, The Quest went too far for our tastes, so we left after about 10 minutes, went back to the room and called it a trip. FRIDAY, MARCH 9 (Returning to Miami): I had breakfast with my grandma, but, after breakfast, my flight to Tennessee was much later than theirs to North Carolina, so I stayed on the boat when they left. I decided to simply carry my bags off, so I went a little before when my number would have been called, but the line was already crazy. It likely took me well over an hour to get off the boat, but there was nothing we had to wait for after getting off since we had been through customs in Key West the day before. I had reserved a $30 shuttle to FLL, but that had taken me so long and I didn't know where to go that I found an third-party shuttle to the airport for only $20 that I took. In the future, I would just do that from the beginning. I got to the airport in plenty of time, but my grandma and uncle actually missed their flight out of Miami to get home. OVERALL THOUGHTS: -I really liked the refreshment package, but I probably could have lived with just the classic soda package if I had been paying for that part myself (my grandma was gracious enough to pay for most of the cruise for all of us). -The food was of excellent quality, and there was virtually always somewhere you could go. The late night food was actually really good too. -This was a relatively small RCI ship, but everything was running well and the crew did a great job. -We had fun plans for CocoCay (the Aqua Park and walking the nature trails), so I was disappointed it got cancelled, but it was handled well. -I didn't see what they gained from roping off the pools at night. I wouldn't have minded taking a night swim, but that was impossible. Also, the Solarium may technically be a retractable roof, but it was always closed, even though three of the four days had perfect weather. -They do need to have a place to watch sports that isn't smoky. I don't think it would be a big deal to put a couple TVs at one of the bars, possibly the Schooner Bar. -We did a bunch of the game shows and trivia and really enjoyed all of that. All in all, my complaints are minor, and I had a really good time and would go back on the Enchantment of the Seas. But, from seeing the pictures of the very newest ships, I think I want to try one of them the next time I go on a cruise.

HI there! I'm sailing on Adventure out of San Juan on Saturday, stopping in St Thomas, St Kitts, Curacao & Aruba. I'm kind of silent member, I listen to all of Matt's podcasts, and peruse the blog and forums quite a bit, but dont speak out too much. :) I've learned so much here and would love to help pay it back and help contribute. I'll possibly blog here each day, if there is anything you want to know, feel free to post here and I'll see how I can help. **5 days and 23 hours, but who is counting?!**

Still not working for me.....I guess I'm not worthy. Tried clearing the cache, nothing, went incognito, nothing. I keep getting the "Invalid password and user name combination" and the hell of it is, I haven't changed anything. OK I"M IN!!!!! Since I kept getting the "invalid password etc stuff", I hit the forgot password and changed it. Now it works!

My jaw hit the floor today. The new site is working one heck of a lot better! Dashboard now shows all my booked cruises, not just the one coming up in 13 days All cruises listed on the dashboard now let me jump to the Cruise Planner Those Cruise Planner links all work correctly -- no more need to enter my reservation number and other info, and the offerings are correct for the sailing I clicked the link from I was able to make my reservation at Chef's Table with no issues, will get to enjoy that on night 3. Unfortunately, no Mystery Dinner Theater for us on this trip. Price is currently $79 per person, which seems a lot higher than I remember seeing it earlier on (want to say it was closer to $35 or $40 back then, but I might be mixing it up with some other dining / entertainment offering).

I saw that recommendation on another thread! I have those luggage tag holders sitting in my bag all ready to go!

Great, glad it worked for you! Yes, upload your photos, will expedite your getting on board the ship. Once you complete your online check in you should be able to print off your set sail passes. The cruise documentation (which includes your luggage tags) may not be ready to print off for a couple more days. I strongly recommend these luggage tag holders from Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Cruise-Luggage-Holder-Seal-Steel/dp/B01E4SQNU4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1521395377&sr=8-6&keywords=cruise+ship+luggage+tags I have used mine on a couple of cruises and they work great. Inexpensive also. There are a lot of other folks on this blog who use them also. Time to dust offfyour luggage!

@JLMoran Yes mate, this is actually what happens. Because the cast have a lot of free time on the ship, some of them will find other jobs onboard by helping out other departments - and they can add these hours to the system, so they can earn a bit of extra money. The tech-crew actually helps us shop staff out whenever we have big set-ups to do, that require a lot of heavy lifting. In our crew areas, we actually have a bulletin board where departments can post jobs where they need a bit of extra help. @JLMoran The majority of us crew all socialise with each other anyway, so there aren't any hard feelings towards each other.

Thanks RestingBirds. I've just checked and they are also on sale now so will just go ahead and order the largest size for both of us. Bizarre sizing!!

@Sabrinaklai We know how you feel. Our daughter is a teacher and you are so correct about it not being "just a job". The world is definitely a better place because of you good people who really care. Thank you for caring.

If your cruising soon, your probable should call to get that straightened out. Just put the phone on speaker as you will be on it a while i hear. You have the worst luck with then new website that seems to be moving sooooo smoothly

At least that's one step in the right direction, at this rate the new web design should be completed by the end of the year. ?

Fantastic Blog loved how you graded each meal as if it were one of your pupils exam papers

Good progress today The cruise planner is now working properly. When you logon to your account and select the cruise planner it takes you in straight away without having to enter your reservation number.

There’s plenty of room for us all. I’ve never felt the airspace was crowded up. The Mavic Pro is slightly bigger then a plastic water bottle so it’s not taking up much space buzzing around.

We sail Grandeur in April 2019 and can't wait! We haven't been on a ship that small in a very long time, and are looking forward to it. We'll be in our first aft-facing room.

We're on Adventure in May - have a great time!!

Sabrina - what a wonderful cruise we've had, thanks to you. Your prose, insight, likes and not-so-likes, and lovely pictures made your blog fantastic. Every time I got on the message board, it seemed as if there was a new post - either from you or one of us. Looking as forward to your next cruise as much as you are! Well, maybe not "as much"....

Thanks for sharing these photos!

Thank you for your blog it was great and very helpful because I am on Anthem in 2 weeks I will be eating at CK a lot was not sure until this week after your Pics

Thank you Matt for creating such a wonderful platform that we can all share our experiences and learn from each other. ?

Nope. Not the part of Canada that I'm from! Got home today and it was way warmer than Jersey!

We made it to Baltimore yesterday evening and checked into our hotel at the inner harbor. Found a crab cake and a cold brew for dinner. I forgot to change my shoes to my sneakers this morning and really wanted to have them in the trip so we found a marshall’s close by and then proceeded to the world trade building to the Top of the World observation deck that we purchased on groupon. It was a pretty day and nice view. Some thoughts: - it is much colder than expected with the wind! I am not used to having to wear a coat for boarding day despite the fact that I have been on 4 alaska cruises :). We are packed up and heading to the port now! Looking forward to some much needed sunshine this week!

Here's the full review: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2017/04/17/excursion-focus-kukoo-kunuku-palm-beach-tour-aruba

Given the website issues of late... who wants to be the first person down the waterslides and up in the balloon that's coming soon to CocoCay?

Can't wait to follow along!!!

The sales are really for new cruisers who don't know any better. The marketing campaigns are aimed to draw attention and they do. I see newbies on other forums claiming how they just got a cruise on sale. It's very competitive and Royal is just keeping up with the competition who does the same thing. I had to unsubscribe from NCL for this reason - spam emails basically. If you are lonely and desire for your phone to ring, sign into NCL Latitudes, browse some cruises then don't book. Within 24 hours a cruise specialist will be calling to assist you - guaranteed. At one point I changed my number in my profile to a bogus number. Apologies to who ever has 867-5309.

Is that a rhetorical question? Here is my haul from our January cruise. I love liquor drinks but I'm such an idiot - I can't make a good mixed drink to save my life.

Hi @CHRIS WONG, very interesting read from the "insider's perspective"! I'd be curious to know if during your stints on the different ships you met crew members who had transferred in from other cruise lines and what their opinion was as far as how Royal treated everyone and general workload compared to their prior line. After reading so many comments here and on CC / ShipMate about MSC Cruises staff always appearing understaffed, overworked, and constantly stressed or frazzled, I can't help but wonder if folks who went through something like that decide to almost literally "jump ship" and never work on a cruise ship again, or do they switch to another line like Royal, have a much better experience, and feel like it's actually a good job after all.

If only they had Canadian/Mexican coke made with real cane sugar instead of the garbage that is sold in the USA made with high fructose corn syrup...