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Haven't forgotten about the Windjammer Recon either. Tonight's them was Italian. Start off with the bird's eye view Next up is the action station (pasta) with Beef Wellington as the carvery item. Shots of the three hot lines Finish up with the dessert island Observations about Windjammer tonight, very very empty. Tonight was formal night so I'm sure that explains it.

Bonus post - Real Hummus recipe (not RC Hummus) As promised I am adding a real Hummus recipe , although it take much more time than go to the supermarket and buy ready made one I Guarantee fresh homemade Hummus is much more tasty and healthier. The main missing integrates In so called “Hummus” in many restaurants is the Tehina (sesame paste) You can get one in every middle eastern grocery shop or in many Natural food stores, I even found it once in Walmart. What you will need : Two cups of chickpeas (dry ones, not from a can) One cup of raw tehina/tahini One Lemon One onion 5-6 Garlic clove Salt/pepper Olive oil. Preparations: The secret for a good Hummus is to first soak it in water for at least 24 hours. So we will put the Chickpeas in a bowl and rains it. We will add water to the bowl, enough to cover the chickpeas grains. The water should be replaced every 6 to 8 hours. In places like Florida its better to put the bowl of chickpeas in the refrigerator. After 24 hours we rinse again the chickpeas few times. Now we are ready to cook. Cooking Put the chickpeas inside cooking pan/pot and add water (around 5 cm/2 inches above the chickpeas level) add the garlic cloves (peeled) and the onion. once the water is boiled reduce the hit, remove the foam that was created during the process using a spoon. From time to time , using a small sieve, remove the shells which are separated from the chickpeas. The Chickpeas should be cooked for around 1 to two hours , it is ready when you take out one grain and can smash it easily in your hands. As fresher the Chickpeas are the shorter time they need to be cooked , some people add a spoon of sodium carbonate to expedite the process , its possible , I try to avoid it. Once it is ready , remove the onion and move the Chickpeas with some of the cooking water to a food processor or a blender Grind the Chickpea and the garlic until getting smooth paste. Let the Hummus cool a while before mixing it with the tehina as tehina very sensitive to hit. Once the Hummus is chilled you can bring it back to the food processor/blender and slowly add the tehina, lemon Juice from one lemon , salt and pepper and a spoon/two spoons of olive oil. That’s its, now you have real Hummus , Enjoy. The prepared Hummus can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two days but if its left more than that it mean : or you do not like Hummus or something went wrong with the process ?. If you want to reduce the preparation time for the future, you can cook more Chickpeas and freeze them before processing it. Once you take them our from the freezer you can grain them with the tehina and lemon/salt. There is also possibility to use a pre cooked chickpeas from a can , but then you need to rinse it very well and the taste will not be the same (but still better than many other places).

I love the Radiance class - I didn't miss the Promenade (but still had the Pub!) and I loved all the glass around the ship allowing ocean views. I also love the outdoor seating option for the Windjammer.

Wow! That was easy and new itineraries haven't even come out yet! @Matt and @AnnetteJackson pick any week in July 2020 and 5 of us here can go already! Add that to the group of Insiders who I know want a Canada/NE sailing and I would say you have many interested already ?

...and all others who love Red Velvet Cake. We went to dinner last night at Chops (we are on Liberty) and when it was time for dessert, I was anticipating the Red Velvet Cake. Much to my disappointment, I was informed that the RVC has been removed from the menu ! I don’t know if this is just for Liberty or if it is fleet-wide. I settled for the apple pie ala mode, completely forgetting that their apple pie contains raisins <shudder> so I had the 1-2 punch of the extreme disappointments of no RVC and having to dig those noxious nodules from my second choice dessert.

Whatever ship I'm on at the time is my favorite type of ship!

No, just come hang out in our suite! We can order room service!!! We are blue collar as they come. The suite is a splurge for Hubby's retirement.

Sorry for leaving everyone hanging. Been having a relaxing day and poking fun at a few random observations. First the key question I'm sure everyone is wondering about, the weather. To sum it up, perfect. No rain, very little cloud cover, and temperatures have been warm but not roasting. The ocean does have wave activity but overall motion has been minimal. Arrival into Cozumel is planned for 12pm ship time (time change of an hour roll back will occur at 3am Wednesday), ship per compass the ship will be cleared at 12:30 pm. Time for all guests to be back on board is 9:30pm. The original time in Cozumel would have been 7am to 6pm. Heading back to the room tonight some creatures had escaped their rooms and were chillin in the elevator lobby/stairwell. In the Centrum at 11pm was the 70's Street Party Compass Deli after 9pm: Same spread as last night. For anyone wondering, the speciality pizza of the day was "Meat Lovers". Must be a popular topping, one of the Diamond/Suite Event hors d'oeuvres... On the subject of the Diamond/Suite event. Last night first thing it was very crowded, tonight (just before 6pm) very few people.

Majesty is just sooooo huge, it will take a long time to get everywhere! ? Just having some fun...

Day 7 and 8 (Sea day and disembarkation) So every good thing must end I guess, Day 7 came quite fast , I love sea days , no need to plan anything beside , well to leave some time to pack. Lucky for us we were told we need to leave the suitcase no later than 11 (its usually 10). As we did not had special plans we did a last tour at the ship , spend some time on the sundecks (which was quite pack but still we could find places , and yes many chair were empty for hours with books and towels). It was a perfect sea day from weather perspective, during most of out port days we had some rain for 30 minutes +/- but during the sea day the sun was out all the time. Dinner was again in the MDR , it was the last day to see our wonderful table companion , I feel lucky we got this table as we really enjoy the conversions. During this meal we took some pictures, shared emails. We said goodbye to the Casino and the Casino bar (who provide us with few drinks during this cruise) and went to sleep around 11 PM , I found out that one of the key making the disembarkation easier is to : try to sleep early, avoid to many drinks before going to sleep and pack early so it will not bother us. Before going to sleep I found our cabin attended and gave him extra cash gratitude as I think he did the extra mile. Our disembarkation was schedule to 9 AM ad included airport transfer so we had time to eat quick breakfast, get out from the room around 8:20 and waiting for our number to be called. It was a rainy morning but not that bad. As our flight was schedule for 6 PM we considered two options for the day , the first was to use RC program “stay a while” which allows you, for a payment to stay on the ship until 1 or 3 PM , use the different facilities and eat lunch at the WJ. We thought about it and we were not sure we really want to stay and watch all the happy people that just got boarded the ship and have full 7 day to enjoy it. The second option (and the one we choose) was to get to the airport, rent a car and drive to the nearest city mail for few hours of shopping with lunch break at a local restaurant. So, we went down to the port, collect our luggage and catch the transfer, we did not have to wait too long and the bus left to the airport with 10 people, it was about 15 minutes ride. At the airport the bus leaves you at a parking lot which you need to walk around 10 -15 minutes to get to the gates (take it into consideration if you consider this) . we dropped our suitcases at the luggage storage service (7 Euros per suitcase as I booked a small car and did not know if it will have enough space for the luggage) and collect our car. All in all, it cost us the same as if we used the stay awhile program but allow us more flexibility to do whatever we wanted. Flight back went without any major issues and we arrived back at home safely , starting another week and to countdown our days before our next cruise. So what I think about the Rhapsody?: It was our first cruise on a Vision class ship and we had some doubts (small ship , older ship etc) , the ship itself looks good, It is well maintained although you can find here and there some places which might need to be refreshed. Service – Service on the ship is very good and maybe even better than other ships we sailed at the past. Facilities dose not feel crowd, we always found place to seat at the WJ and the Centrum during major events was not crowded more than the promenaded during same events. MDR services was very good and quite fast. Ports - The ability to get to ports which bigger ships can not attend is a major plus for sure, I loved Mykonos, Kotor and Athens will try to visit them again. Food – food quality in the MDR was usually good , some of the dishes were better than I was eaten on other ships, Chef table was amazing , we did not tried other special restaurant. Off hours food – Here I Think RC could have done much better, the only facility offers food after 9 PM is the park cafe were you can get small salads, Pizza and hot dogs , some cookies were also offered. Most of the days it was open only until 12 AM and on some days until 2 AM , offering mainly Pizza. I think RC should offer bigger variety and leave it open longer. The area near the cafe was packed with people that were looking for something to eat. In one or two of the nights the place around the cafe was quite a mess with allot of used cups and dirty plates. Entertainment – Although they do not have Broadway shows on board they offered something almost every day, we saw one headliner show and one home production , it was nice. Live music was easy to find, and the Centrum was always offered something. Casino – Small comparing to the other ships but not very small, it has some new slot machines installed , six to eight gaming tables (4 BJ ,1 3 card poker, 1 roulette and 1 Caribbean Poker. Most of the times it was not too busy, 3 $ games were offered many times. Cruise Director / Events manager – The CD is Elvis from Chile and EM is Paulo from Italy (who looks to me exactly like the Austin powers character) , it was their first cruise together but they had good chemistry. I think both did good job , Elvis could been seen everywhere and they both organized nice events. The fact they added the Quest plus the love and marriage game show to a European cruise was a big plus. So, Based on our experience would we try another cruise with a vision class? I will say yes, if it is an interesting route or we can get a good deal on it. I think RC doing good job maintaining Rhapsody and if you are not comparing it all the time to the bigger classes she is doing not bad at all. Let me know if you have any questions. That’s it for this blog, as always II enjoyed sharing the experience. I would like to thank my spouse for her patient , for all the times I took the internet to update the blog, asking her to wait with the food before I am taking the pictures and leaving the lights on late at night to finish sending the updates ? Thank you , until next time.

Itinerary is all set... Fall Foliage Cruise will look like this.... .see i told you everything would work out just fine. ?

Today is day 4 of our cruise and I purposely delayed starting this blog. Voom suffers in Alaska being so far North and knowing I would take a bunch of photos I will be writing the bulk of thread after I return home and can go through thousands of photos to select the best ones. Consequently keep any eye out for updates next week, but in the interim if anyone has any questions they would like to ask while I am on board feel free to add those now. Itinerary Day 1 - Embark in Seward Day 2 - Hubbard Glacier Day 3 - Juneau Day 4 - Skagway Day 5 - Icy Strait Point Day 6 - Ketchikan Day 7 - Inside Passage Day 8 - Disembark in Vancouver So far every port has been awesome and weather has been great. Our time at Hubbard Glacier was incredible and very different from Explorer's trip to the Dawes Glacier in June. That's just a tease, I'll get into that in more detail once I go through the pictures and videos of calving I have. We've just arrived in Skagway and I am heading out for my day of self exploring. Later...

Found this on FB. Many of you probably have already seen it, but I thought this was too funny not to post here. The last few cruises, this has been me, it's all about the food pics! ?

When you can see your e-doc's...which for me the magical day was 45, that's when I could print our luggage tags.

So I eventually got off the ship around 11:45am (ship time) and, stubborn as I am, walked downtown to save the taxi fare. Made a few stops along the way and eventually wound up at COZ Coffee Roasting Company Enjoyed a Spiced Iced Coffee and the AC after all the walking around. Since the last time I was there on the side with seating they have added a window plus plastic curtains and now has AC. Side where the order is placed and the magic with the beans are done it is still open air. After enjoying my spiced iced coffee wound up heading back to the ship, this time in a taxi. At the pier I've notice another new addition since January, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (Technically I saw it from the ship for the first time) Figured I'd get the new view of the Cozumel sign. One positive thing, it blocked most of the view of that other pier...

Great, now when I want Ramen I'm going to feel like I need to drive to DC. ? All I have available nearby is a small place in the local mall and a Mr. Ramen (same chain owners as Mr. Sushi and Cowboy Wings). Used to have a great place in Jersey City when I'd have to visit that office once a month, but they closed down. ? ??

I agree. It’s even slower than normal. Hopefully they are going to update something and it’s not just slow due to technical difficulties

@Mljstr mine weren't available till 45 days out. Royal Caribbean website has been crawling for me as well. private browser isn't any better.

I voted for Voyageur but I have only done one Freedom ship, one Voyager(doing my 2nd on in Oct) one ship from Radiances, one ship from Vision and one Sovereign class ship (well 2 if you count Monarch but she's gone now). But its a toss up....different ships and classes have different things I enjoy.....and to be honest...quite often its the destination and the people on the cruise that make it more than the ship.....in my experiences so far.

You don't have to guess what Navigator will get. The list is here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2018/04/30/royal-caribbean-releases-royal-amplified-fleet-upgrade-schedule

@FlowBro Ty What's with all the polls?

Do Mariner Hands Down plenty to do between Sky pad water slides flowrider laser tag mini golf rock climbing perfect for teens

Well it is wishful thinking on my part! I would rather be on a cruise; however, work will be paying for this trip so I am going to enjoy it even more!!

Update: Expected departure is a little bit after 11pm. Heard things right, going to Cozumel first with expected arrival at 11:30 with departure time adjusted to equal out hours. Added: Sums up things well, from James Van Fleet. Update @RoyalCaribbean #MajestyoftheSeas, plan is to leave by Midnight, that will give us plenty of room to drop south behind Tropical Storm #Gordon. Expecting it becomes a Hurricane tracking towards New Orleans/Mobile. We will flip Itinerary but still make all Ports of Call. https://t.co/eO9Esv6OFy

Still haven't heard of any departure updates. Not going to complain either.

Here is a 360 photo album of the Junior Suite I'm in: https://www.mjcwebdesign.com/photos/index.php?/category/160

Will this become the unofficial drink of the cruise? Glamour shot

Thanks , The countdown is 21 days ? Symphony , I would not even have time to diet before

Day 6 – Argostoli Arriving at 11 to Argostoli , I like the fact they let us sleep more although it leave us less time at port. Noting special to say about the morning it was the usual ritual of WJ, morning emails, getting organized and off to the port. The port is right near the city so we just went and started and look around, The city is more modern than some of the pervious ports with wide streets and nice lagoon. By the way we learned that the word lagoon came from Latin word of Lacuna as the people near Venezia were fleeing from enmities out of the main land into the Venice area as it was water surrounded and empty=Lacuna , to avoid their enemy invasion. It was quite hot weather so perfect for whoever wanted to go to the beach and I guess many did. After a while we found some nice restaurant to eat our lunch, some variety of Greek cold palter which was good for small bytes as we had big dinner later. Post lunch we went back to the ship to enjoy laying in the sun and gain some color, so people back home will know we did not lie going for a vacation ?. Some rest and getting organized to the last official night. This time we had reservations to the Chef Table to celebrate my birthday. We reserved it online which might been a mistake as they did offer special prices on board. The Chef restaurant was very nice experience, we were joining a group of cruisers from Ireland, 3 couples which all are old time friends (over 25 years) that cruise together. It was very nice conversions and allot of loughs, we were lucky to share the table with them. The food and wine was very good , I loved the pasta with real truffles and the filet minion was the best I was eating (for sure over the RC ships), we got to taste six kind of wine , and when I say tasting I mean full glass of each wine (which added to the party ambient). The dessert was the chocolate ball from wonderland and some other small dessert that follow it (not that anyone could eat anything else). The waiter which was also the sommelier was very funny and give excellent explanation and tips about the wine. The chef came out between each dish to explain how it was done. I do recommended to try this experience at least once, just take into consideration that it took us about 4 hours to finish the dinner although we did not feel it as time passed very fast. We missed the quest game (yes they brought the quest to Europe, yeaaaahh , I hope it’s going to be now in all Europe routes. Post dinner , we listen to some music and went to sleep as such dinner can make you very tiered . Tomorrow we are at sea.

Well the wines were from Germany , France and US do not remember everything now will try to recall later. The maon dish was amazing filet mignon, the dessert was the wanderland one and they addedd to that chocolate strawberry and of her small cakes , the birthday cheese cake was not on the menue Oh and I loved all the wines

Tonight , Cheff table

Because I want to support jobs in my own country and I think its terrible a company would use their own employees to train other employees to take their jobs away is racist.....nope, not even close. Or because I have a hard time hearing/understanding people who's mother tongue is not English I am racist? Nope, wrong again! But its people like you that say these things and push these ideas and agenda's that has turned the US and the world into what it is today... I am 100% ok knowing that someone from China would NOT want me to be working their call center trying to speak their language when they are calling for advice or help or upset... Come on people..don't be so sensitive!!!!

Day 5 – Mykonos 7:30 am was the time we arrived to Mykonos, its not that I woke up to see its I just learn about it later. We took our time as we did not have any tour planned (Lesson learned) so we slept awhile, eat breakfast at the WJ and went down to the small city. This was the second tendering port during the cruise but since we left after 10 AM it was with zero lines , very nicely handled by RC team comparing to the previous tendering in Kotor which was more crowded. No tickets were required for the tendering boats. The boat leaves us around 50 M (150 F for the US readers who refuse to follow the rest of the world and adapt the very logic metric system) from the city so it was very convenient to just walk around. We did not have special plans for Mykonos so we just started to walk between the narrow passages, the small city is beautiful all the building are paint white with some blue and red on top of the churches, the street are very clean and we were lucky with the weather that was very good. We went all the way up to take some pictures of the bay and to try and balance all the calories we are eating on board the ship. The view from the heal is amazing, although the electric wires are in the way of some of the pictures, how so not thoughtful of Mykonos electric company. We did our way down and seat in one of the coffee shops near the port, we drank the local Greek coffee (again, its exactly like Turkish coffee, but do not dare to say it in Greece) added to it some cold coffee which we saw everyone else are drinking. Word of advice, Mykonos is very expensive , almost twice than Athens. We decide to go back to the ship and eat lunch. My spouse went to the SPA and booked some of the massage offers they had yesterday I stayed at the room to answer some of the working related email as I needed to escalate some of the issues (work never ends), I think its better to do it like that and not to return home and have thousands of emails waiting for me to handle but this is only my opinion. After some rest we went to the MDR for our 6 PM dinner ,the table was full again and we were happy to see everyone , interesting discussions and sharing experiences from the day. It was Lasagna night, we enjoyed it ,four of the people at the table ordered the fish , all of them gave it back and ask to replace to the lasagna as they said the fish was very dry and salty. For dessert almost, everyone ordered the Tiramisu beside me that ordered the Tiramisu and the cheese plate ? The tiramisu was excellent. after dinner we went to the high tier event , around 60 people attend the event and almost all the officers were there. No pinnacles on this cruise, in total only 600 C&A are sailing this week. Post the event we went to see the headliner show , it was some magic show but it all seem the same as other magic shows we saw on board of other ships so we went out at the middle (good we seated near the exit), next we went to the 70 show (I periscope part of it), visit the Casino (no jackpot this time ☹) and conclude the day at the park café eating pizza.

Ah, that's one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, and one of the inspirations for the Lincoln Memorial in DC.

Athens from the bus

Please, do not hate me for this ?

First of all thanks, Regarding the dress attire until now I could not see much different from cruises we took in the Caribbean, maybe more dress shirts at evenings , I will see today as today is the first formal night. I do not have the exact demography numbers but it seems to me that there are many from the US on this cruise , many from the UK and lot of Italians , maybe in the top tier event they will give the numbers again or in one of the morning shows.

Day 2 – Kotor , Montenegro Port arrival was schedule for2 PM (original 1 PM) which allowed us to sleep as much as we want , not that we used it too much , after all it’s a new ship for us. Breakfast was in the WJ, nothing different from other ships beside the egg station which you have a person that get your order and gives you a number, once your eggs are ready he announce the number, I think it is very good approach which reduce the lines dramatically. After touring the ship and relaxing at the solarium we had quick lunch at WJ and went up deck 9 to take some pictures while arriving Kotor. Kotor bay is very impressive, surrounded by dramatic mountains. I did some attempts to periscope but I think the quality due to the speed of internet dose not done justice with this wonderful landscape. Here are some picture of the bay and Kotor. We booked RC excretion during one of the 30% sells so we did our way to the theater. Kotor is a tendering port so I do suggest to book something from RC to avoid the lines although the tender time is very short (around 5 minutes). We went first up on the mountains to have a very nice view of the bay (and over Rhapsody) the way up is being done on a very narrow road and can be quite scary .Another stop was at a local restaurant that served some tapas create out of something that looked and taste like Parma ham, we eat it with some local honey wine. Next stop was the old city of Kotor, due to the missing hour (which the Venetian port authority stalled from us) we had only short time to tour this lovely old small city (we got 25% off the tour price because of it) I wish we had more time has we love to get lost in the streets of such cities , something which you can not do when your last tendering leaves in 45 minutes. Next time we will just go to the city. Back to the ship and WJ for dinner , we got back only around 8 PM while our MDR time was 6 PM , at the WJ they had Suflaki station which came with Pita bread and typical salads, to one of them they called Hummus , I am sorry but crashing some chickpea with garlic is not making Hummus its just mashed chickpea with garlic ?, if anyone wants I can give a good Hummus recipe . We went up to deck 10 to see the ship leaving Kotor : We saw several activities and called it for the day as the tour to Corfu was schedule to 9:15 and the ship was changing its clock to one hour earlier. Some observation – no snacks on the ship (at least on day 2 ) after midnight , the park cafe was closed and beside room service no other alternative , I do miss the promenade cafe and its small sandwiches you can eat in the middle of the night,

Kotor Bay / fyord

Day 1 – Venice After waking up too early as it always happens on embarkation day we finish packing and I did not found my driver license which was quite stressing as one of my plans to the post cruise was to rent a car (which might be challenging without the driver license). After some nerve breaking minutes and almost giving up I found it stuck in the master electricity switch (the one you need to push a card so the lights will be enabled) , I guess I pushed it in when we just arrived instead of the room keys. We went down to eat at the hotel buffet (as practicing ourselves for the WJ) and went to complete the checkout. As I wrote before , we had a problem with the shuttle (it was just not there) but the hotel gave us a free ride to the port due as compensation and that’s why I booked the 9:30 shuttle and not the 10:30 , it proved itself. The port is not something special it contains several old terminals, there were 3 or 4 other ships beside the Rhapsody. Inside the terminal there are 3 lines , suites and pinnacles, Platinum up to diamond plus and all the rest. There were no lines when we arrived, and we got boarding ticket number 2, interesting no health form were required to be filed (which was good as my spouse is recovering from cold and we do not like to lie on the forms). Not like in many other ports the security is after you are being called to board. We set for about 10 minutes when they call our number at 10:45. Boarding was very quick and again no lines. Once again the main important @matt tip (well after using a TA) proved itself , always come early to start the cruise as soon as possible. We were boarding at the centrum and went directly to the internet “office” to get our WIFI code which we did not got while checking in. We conduct a quick tour at the ship and went to the solarium to rest until the WJ will open. The WJ opened around 11:15 , it was the usual first day food but no decorations or welcome cake, word of warning for the addicted people , no honey sting chicken. After lunch we went to the SPA tour to add ourselves to the raffle and to pass the time until the rooms will be opened. The rooms opened at 1:15 , on the way to the rooms we located our luggage which was nice. Quick unpacking , for two people there is enough space to store everything, the only thing I was missing were the open shelfs inside the cabinet. We successfully pushed one of the suitcases under the bad but the second one was just too big (although in other ships we could pushed it also) but there was enough space in the main cabinet to store it. Many hidden places to store stuff and the room is well organized. We also got a bottle of sparkling wine and some fruits to our room which was nice surprise As we were tired we decided to take a power nap before the muster drill, another benefits of being on a small ship, no many attractions you feel you should run and do on the first day to beat the crowds , so you can sleep ? The muster drill was one of the worse I was ever participate , they really packed us very tied, it was not that comfortable, I like at least to get to know someone before, have a coffee, go out to dinner or something before being so intimate with them … After the muster ended we went to try our luck in the SPA raffle , strange , but we did not won. The ship started to move so we went to deck 10 for the sale away, the ship is going around Venice and the sites are amazing. There were many people on the deck so I had to clime one of the chairs to periscope and take pictures. Few minutes after it started to rain so I went to the WJ and took some pictures out of the windows. Quickly it was the time to go to the main MDR were we seated at a table with 8 other people from different countries, one of them won the SPA raffle, it was very interesting chatting and time passed very quickly , food was very good, better than I remembered. As we were the only veteran cruisers ,I handed many tips (love to do it) like the fact you can choose to change your dish or even ask for several of them (people use it when we got the dessert). Post dinner we went to one of the game shows at the Centrum it was “finish that lyric”, fun to watch and try to see how many songs we know. Later we visit the Casino, sorry @JLMoran no crap tables but they enter some new machines ,very tied machines. I play some 3 card poker and for sure , once I lower my bet I got a strait flush, the dealer was more annoyed than me for the fact that one hand before I had more money, but I was happy for winning. As always for the first day we were very tired so went to sleep , after all we still have 6 more full days ahead of us.

Sailing out of Venice , my first periscope attempt so do not judge me ? https://www.pscp.tv/w/blFytjF4TlFhYWthZUdhUWJ8MU93eFdXTU52dk14UUczzw6DWO9jbY0Hz_TWvMcJLn_VB5Z1HZA0_ar6CzDo?t=1s

Succsfuly mark off two first day traditions ?

Cruise emergency pakage to take on board

Some more Venice pictures I would not want to try and park my car at that street

We are on the December 2. We can wave at you as we leave the ship.

Following. Greek cruise is on my radar.

Here is more and less how they calculate the points (its true for most casinos). Its all about odds and math. each points has value , we can calculate it roughly by looking on the certification , to get a 1000 $ certification you need 4800 points to get to 4800 points in slots game (easier to calculate) you need to play 4800*5 = 24000 $ as you get one point for each 5$ you play , remember this number I will get back to it later Now each game has its own house edge which is the chance you will loose , in blackjack (if playing right) its around 1-2% in slots , its rally depends on the casino but can be 5% - to 15% and even worse, craps , again depends how you play , if you play the odds it can be also around 1% while 3 card poker is more around 5%. The way they calculate it for a table game is something like : the house edge * the average bet * number of hands you played = theoretical casino earning which % of it will return back as perks to the gamblers The average bet is exactly why everyone say you need to get the host attention (or the pit boss) since the house edge and time of playing are tracked automatically but the average bet is not. so lets say you were on a 5$ minimum blackjack table and played for 4 hours but you played 50$ per game , if the host/pit boss is not tracking your average the automatic calculation will be done as if you played 5$ bet only ... Back to the slots example , so if the edge is 10% and you need 24000 $ play to get a 1000 $ certification it means your theoretical losing for the "free cruise" will be 2400 $ (they will add to it also the free alcohol in the casino bar). To get to the same in a black jack table or crap (lets assume 1.5$ house edge) you will need to spend 2400/ 0.015 = 1600000$ ... The average number of black jack hands per hour is around 50- 60 so in other words if you play average of 10 $ to the the 160000$ you will need to play 266 hours ... while only 26 hours if you play 100$ per hand (which you will get if you play 4 hours per day * 7 = 28 hours) . The better the edge of the house in a game , the less time you will need to play . This not 100% accurate but it can give you a good example why you are not getting so much points playing table game, I think the most important is to remember : For the long run the house always wins , so play for fun , do not ever play to get certifications/other perks , 99% of the time its cheaper to pay for it directly.

So Chris, is it true that the Captain of the ship lets the crew member of the week (hardest working, most loyal/dedicated/best looking) drive the ship the following week?

Oh my gosh Chris!!!!! The trash, cups and plates guests leave everywhere irritates the YOU KNOW WHAT out of me too and I am guest! When I see anything out of place I pick them up and put them in the proper place. My husband gets SO irritated with me...he is like - Honey, why in the world are you cleaning? We are on vacation. I also clean up my stateroom like this. I make sure everything is in the trash and things are not left out and about. I make the bed and I even compile the towels and put them in the bathtub when we are ready for new ones. It drives my husband crazy (even after being together/married for 22 years)! But I know that it's appreciated. That is why I do it.