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HI all, I am in port Canaveral sitting in my hotel room this morning and excited to board Oasis of the the Seas today. This is my 27th cruise, but our first time on an Oasis class ship so I am super excited. I have had this cruise booked for a year now, after getting an unbelievable on cyber Monday last year so I have $400 OBC this cruise. This is also our first cruise as diamond, so our first time not getting the drink package in a while. The OBC will help. Because it is a holiday cruise, their were no specialty dining packages available in the cruise planner. We will be stopping in Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten this cruise. I am excited. I have not been to St. Thomas and St. Maarten in a while. I have 2 excursions booked outside of the cruise. For St. Thomas we are doing the "Taphus sips and bites tour" and for St. Maarten, we are doing the Bernard's island tour and then will likely come back to the boardwalk and get some drinks. In Nassau, I plan to just get off and have some drinks and appetizers. Starting at our favorite restaurant in Nassau, Athena cafe. My plan is to get conch fritters and their basil martini. :). We stayed last night at the holiday inn vacation club in port canaveral. I am an IHG credit card holder, so I used my annual certificate to redeem the room. The fee to maintain the card is $75, so I feel that I got a bargain on this room for $75. We arrived here early yesterday morning from Cincinnati. Lyft from MCO to the hotel was $61.72, and super easy! Our room was not ready yet so we checked our bags at the resort, and headed to Grills for lunch right next to where Navigator of the Seas was parked. I had the fish tacos which I was able to choose my fish for. ( I got fresh tuna, sushi style) and an IPA. The tacos were delicious. DL got the burger which also looked great! After lunch, we caught an uber to the taproom and Florida beer company which was a great atmosphere with lots of TV's. I enjoyed their southernmost wheat beer and DH got a flight and then purchased some IPA's for the hotel room. The weather is amazing in florda today, 60's and breezy so I wasn't as inspired to go into the amazing pool and lazy river at the hotel. Once they called and said our room/villa was ready, we headed back to the hotel. I sat out by the pool bar for a while and listened to the band, which was great. I also had a $3 mimosa, and they had a happy hour starting at 4. Our room was perfectly situated facing the channel so my favorite thing about the hotel was watching the cruise ships depart and come into the channel this morning. Yesterday, we watched Carnival breeze, the norwegian EPIC, the Disney fantasy, 2 other ships, and lastly Navigator of the Seas. This morning I woke up early, and saw Oasis come in about 5:30 am. Since then Carnival liberty and Carnival sunshine also sailed in. The lighting was perfect for the Sunshine. My plan is to head to the gym now and then possibly take a float in the lazy river prior or check out the beach prior to boarding oasis this morning. We are less than a mile from the port, so it will be an easy uber or lyft ride. The hotel also has a tram to the beach every 15 minutes, but I have not yet been. I don't have Wifi onboard, so i will update the blog, but it will be delayed. I am hoping to do Chef's table tonight or tomorrow night if I can get a special offer on board and since we have so much OBC. I am also tempted to take the Guacomole class at Sabor on one of the sea days. I did the sushi class on our grandeur of the seas cruise in march, and really enjoyed it!

Muster drill time!

Cruise Day: All 6 of us are onboard. Left the hotel at 10 and they were boarding at 11:30. We were the first on the ship! A quick photo drop. Suite area pier 18 i don’t remember seeing umbrellas in splash away bay. Handwashing stations in windjammer skypad fun. I’ll describe later. JS toiletries

Sorry to report folks but your eyes aren't playing tricks. Starting tomorrow I'll be coming to you somewhat live from on board the Symphony of the Seas. This has been a cruise with right around 620 days of waiting. Booked the night reports had started to leak out that Symphony booking had opened up. Little did I know at the time of booking it would be a very short wait to learn this sailing would be part of something much bigger, an official Royal Caribbean Blog Group Cruise. Itinerary is somewhat port heavy, but still has time to relax. Day 1 - Miami Day 2 - Sea Day Day 3 - Roatan Day 4 - Costa Maya Day 5 - Cozumel Day 6 - Sea Day Day 7 - Nassau Day 8 - Eviction in Miami For those that are new to reading my LIVEish. Check out my previous one to get an idea of what fine quality work I produce: Finally, I'll leave this image for fun...

Day 7 - Sea Day Today's sea day was pretty uneventful. We went to Park Cafe for breakfast. It was a nice, quick option for something to eat with some protein. After that, it was up to AO for Ginny. Abby and I had our jacuzzi treatment in the spa. Before hand, we had a few minutes in the thermal spa. It was a very relaxing way to end the week. For lunch, we went to Johnny Rockets. The #12 was very good. Virginia is getting quite the complex, as everyone has been calling her "Princess" all week. She's going to be a handful when we get back. At lunch, the waitress decided that "princess" needed a milkshake, so she brought her a small one in a to-go cup free of charge. It's been awesome to see, but V sure is going to be in a shock when we get home. After lunch, we decided to catch another showing of the Aqua Theater show. It had been postponed from earlier in the week. It was raining, but Ginny wanted to see it anyway, so we sat out in the rain. They cut out the wire-act part of the show, but it was very enjoyable. All of the performers seemed more relaxed, and like they were having more fun since it was raining. The AD ended up getting towels from the pool deck and handing them out about halfway through the show, so that made it a little better. Ginny still wants to be a "swim-gymmer". Then it was a quick nap and back up to AO. Abby and I went up around 4:00 for the Circus of the Seas, which was adorable. Dinner was in Sorrentos, followed by some ice cream at Scoops and Cups, then another turn on the merry-go-round. We took V up to AO at 7 so that Abby and I could pack... Then 10 pm rolled around, and it was time for bed. Normally a sad sight to see, this was just a pause in the middle of our trip. Disembarkation this morning took a little while. For some reason, PC only had 4 lanes open for Customs. We got a porter and were through in about 10 minutes, but the other line was barely moving, and because of that, we were held on the ramp in the terminal for about 25 minutes before we got to our bags. Not sure why they wouldn't have more lanes open for such a large ship. Rental car was easy as could be. Then we headed to lunch at Long Doggers, which was very good and I would highly recommend. Now, as I type, we sit in the Holiday Inn Club Vacations room, overlooking the pool, as both V and Abby are taking their naps and we are doing laundry. Overall thoughts -Motion was barely noticeable, but enough to let you know that we were on a ship. -We definitely are #TeamSpecialty, and will be weighing the Ultimate Dining Packages in the future. We only were in the MDR for the Character Breakfast. Solarium one night for dinner, and the windjammer a couple of times for breakfast or lunch. -Giovanni's was our favorite restaurant by a long shot. Everything was delicious, and the service was great. 150CP would be next for me, then Johnny Rockets, Chops, and Sabor last. Chops was good, but everything we had was a bit bland. Sabor was ok, but nothing special. I hope this doesn't get me banned from the blog...The calamari was great, but looking back it was probably our least favorite specialty meal. The Windjammer for breakfast and lunch was also a bit of a let down... I was a big fan of Park Cafe. And V loved Sorrentos. -All of the staff we interacted with were great. We had a great experience on Majesty with the crew, and we were hoping it would be the same on Oasis, and it was. -It's hard to believe there were 6,000 people on the ship. They did a great job on design and crowd flow. Also, the Rising Tide bar was much more fun than I expected it to be. -The app and Voom were iffy. Every time my phone locked, I would get disconnected from Voom. Abby's was fine the whole time. I have an iphone 8 and she has the 8 plus... Signal was good when connected, except for Facebook. The app worked ok. My major complaint is that it didn't update the "My Calendar" for anything you did on the ship. So we could see the entertainment reservations we made before the cruise, but not any dining reservations we added. That would have been a big plus. All in all, this was a very enjoyable voyage. We will be booking Oasis onboard Enchantment for 2020, and probably going up to a Grand Suite, 2BR. Looking at deck 12 so we can get the whirlpool on the balcony... We're tired, but looking forward to Enchantment in about 18 hours...

I promise I didn't forget. I just got to a point yesterday that I figured I would finish this in the hotel on turnaround day. Day 6 - Cozumel This was our first time to Cozumel, and I would say this was our favorite port stop. I've been to Mexico a few times, and love it. When I was in college, Spanish was one of my majors, and I've always been enthralled with Mexican culture. We started our day by heading to Nachi Cocom. $20 taxi ride for the three of us, and it was worth every penny. There were 5 ships in port today: Oasis, Liberty, Carnival Tragic, Carnival Vista, and a MSC one docked downtown. Mr. Sanchos had to be a zoo, but Nachi was so calm and relaxing. The waves were pretty strong, so we just ventured into the Gulf shortly. The pool was freezing, but that didn't stop V. She was all about the pool, and making friends with anybody that cam near her. Around 11:30 we had lunch. I had been preaching to Abby how bad Mexican food in the USA makes me so angry. It's all relatively simple food, but you have to cook it with love. The food at Nachi is what I would consider "above-average" food IN Mexico, but would be fantastic Mexican food in the USA. It was amazing. Neither one of us are huge guac fans, but we would have eaten the guac at Nachi all day. Also, if you've never had it, get the cheesecake. It was phenomenal. Virginia loved the ice cream: After a little while longer at Nachi, we took a cab downtown for a few shopping stops. We stopped at COZ coffee based on recommendations from others on the board. Their pastries looked amazing, and we had a cinnamon roll. They also have a sandwich menu, and other patrons had sandwiches that looked amazing. Abby got a peanut butter coffee, and loved it. I'm not a coffee drinker at all, but we got 2 lbs of beans to go home with. When we were on the way to COZ, just around the corner on Calle 2A Norte, was a little place that caught our eye: As I mentioned before, Abby and I met in culinary school in Chicago, where we studied baking and pastry. Seeing the "Patisserie" sign immediately caught our attention. I wasn't able to get pictures of the two tarts we had because they were eaten too fast, but this was their case: The tarts were some of the best I've had period. We had a strawberry tart and a 3 chocolate tart. The crust was perfect, and the fillings were smooth and delectable. We bought a croissant and a pain au chocolat, but they got taken by security before we got back to the pier, since they weren't sealed... We tried to ask if we could just eat them, but they told us we'd have to go back through the security line... Lesson learned, but we will be back. It was called Sucre Sale. I recommend everyone go there, it was amazing. After that, we headed just a half block down the street to Chocolateria Isla Bella, per @CGTLH recommendation from a previous blog. No pictures here either due to distraction, but we got quite a few chocolates that are heading home with us. Very friendly in this shop, and it was absolutely delicious as well. After a short taxi ride back to the pier, we did a little browsing and then back onto the ship. Dinner tonight was in 150 CP. After the requisite salt introduction (for the record, the red Haitian was my favorite. The egg was strange), I had a little surprise for Abby. On Day 2, we had been in the jewelry store, and she found a pair of earrings that she loved. In Falmouth, we looked at jewelry, but nothing stuck out like these on the ship. They were a snowflake cut, which I'd never heard of, and Abby loves snowflakes. Plus, they were my birth stone. A couple of days later, Abby went back to stare at them again, but knew she would never get them. Little did she know, the next day, I went and got them while she was busy. The jewelry store was great, and had them delivered to 150CP as a surprise, along with a bottle of champagne. Even the waiter had to come over to see what was going on. The rest of the dinner was excellent. Our waiter, Srdjan, was fantastic. We had the lobster gnocchi and the angolotti as appetizers. Mains, I had the black cod and Abby had the chicken. The cod was probably the best thing I had all week. It was so tender, it almost melted in your mouth. For dessert, Abby had the donuts, and I nibbled on the bourbon chocolate tart, which was divine as well. After that, it was time to go get Virginia from AO and head back to bed.

We just got off from this itinerary last Sunday. I hope you and yours have a wonderful time and that you get as wonderful weather as we did!! If you're into such things, I believe there are three martini-making classes, the first being this afternoon, with Patrick in the Champagne bar. Have fun and smooth sailing!!! My favorite spot on the ship: Second favorite, in the evening after dinner - they have a piano/violin duo playing classical music and it's heavenly.

I know, I know been neglecting things. Some Windjammer info (sorry no picts) Stations in the back were Mongolian, pasta, crepes, and Indian. Didn't catch the dessert selections, do recall a huge pile of fruits. In the main section, seemed like the standard fare.

Fun of no tab at Playmakers, note this was four people enjoying.

Well, we finally made it down to Miami. Had two standing reservations with Enterprise for a minivan this morning. Got to Enterprise and no minivans. Had to wait a little bit for one to be brought in. Did a little trunk Tetris with the luggage and made the 7-hour drive to Miami. Uneventful other than traffic..but expected cuz Miami and before a big travel holiday..blah blah blah. Our hotel is the Hampton Inn and Suites Brickell. Great location if you are flying as it's about 2 blocks from the Metrorail from the airport. It is downtown Miami so of course not optimal if you're driving because you have to pay to park..so we checked in, ditched the luggage and drove out to the airport to drop off the rental. $14 Lyft or $2.25 Metrorail...hmmmm tough choice there. Now, I don't live in a big city so public transportation is a novelty and I embrace it whenever I can. Rode the 'Rail back and then hit up the gastropub next to the Hampton. Now our hotel rate came with coupons for drinks at two bars. One was this gastropub called Batch. We hit it up and I got their house Black Barrell draft. It tasted like KY Bourbon Stout but much, much lighter. We order some eats..and they made mac and cheese out of gnocchi. This was amazing comfort food and totally worth the hipster we serve grain bowls and avocado toast prices. The wings were alao good and the Brussels sprouts were also a hit. Annnnnd..ladies drink free sangria and well drinks from 10pm-1am. Whaaaaaaat? So remember that if you stay downtown Miami on Friday night..Batch in Brickell..look them up! Currently waiting on my free sangria in plastic cups to take it back to the hotel. Another bonus... @CGTLH paid the dinner tab...haha, sucker.

T-2 Packing and stressing out Who? Welcome to the Skis crazy family travels. I'm Mel, married to Mr. Ski and we have 4 kids: DD18 College Ski, DS15 Football Ski, DS12 Soccer Ski and DD7 Cutie Ski. I'm not a great blogger and I'll be without my computer this trip. All updates and pictures will be on my Iphone. I'll try to remember to upload the daily activity sheet and I'll send Matt the Cruise Compasses after the cruise. Where? This sailing will be Independence first regular Caribbean cruise after her TA and the "Bliss" clothing optional cruise. Yes, I have medical grade sanitation wipes to wipe down the stateroom. This 5 night Western Caribbean takes us to Labadee and Falmouth. Why? Why this cruise instead of the amazing group cruise on Symphony also going on this week? I'm having a bit of FOMO but this works better for us. We typically go to WDW every 2 years this week and I just couldn't do it again! WDW is the exact opposite of a relaxing cruise vacation. So in January, I looked at cruises and felt that we got a good deal during a school holiday for 2 connecting Junior Suites. Also, in the mix was College Ski. She wanted to spend some time at home seeing friends. So the 5 night was a compromise. I want my kids to want to vacation with us as we will most likely only be able to do family vacations with everyone for a few more years. What could go wrong? Flying separately on 3 flights over 2 days. Soccer, Cutie and I will fly out tomorrow. Weather looks good. I'm not worried which probably means I should be! And here comes the drama(s). When I booked in January, I knew there was the slimmest chance Mr. Ski and Football Ski would not make the cruise. That slim chance has become a 50-50. DS HS football team is in the quarterfinals (awesome) and if they win Friday night Mr. Ski and Football Ski will not be on the cruise (bummer). I have to root for the win even if that means missing the cruise. If the team loses tomorrow night, they will fly out Saturday morning. A day of the cruise flight and it would be horrible to lose and then miss the cruise due to a flight delay. Next, College Ski is in the path of the nor'easter that is hitting today. Hopefully by Friday night, it looks that by tomorrow night it will be dry. This is her first flight by herself to somewhere other than home and school. I've checked the aircrafts entire path for tomorrow and other airlines flights out to FLL. Fingers crossed. Starting to question the decision to take this trip. Too much pre-cruise excitement and I haven't started packing! Speaking of packing, I should start! I'll come back with plans, excursions, etc. It will be my reward for packing. Brothers Osborne "It Ain't My Fault" is my packing theme song!

Sounds like V is having an awesome time.

Here Some Thing That May Help You https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/shore-excursions/excursion/5026/

Try a Google search of " St. Thomas - Kon Tiki Party Boat" and you'll find a couple different links with good info/reviews. By the way, welcome to the message boards!

Yes I have seen it in shops all over the Caribbean but you will pay dearly for it. You would probably getting it cheaper on line. On some of the web sites for the Blue mountain if you buy the 5 pounds lots it comes close to the price you would pay in Jamaica. Be careful about the fake stuff and the blends, they are not the same as the real deal.

You're not neglecting anything, you're enjoying your trip!

Trying to distract myself as both of my teams lose their football games today, catching up on some blog reading. Came upon a Matt mention from EastSleepCruise! https://eatsleepcruise.com/2018/11/why-we-are-excited-to-sail-on-symphony-of-the-seas/ Hope they enjoy hanging out with our awesome RC Blog folks this week!

It sounds like you have everything, and I mean everything, covered. Your wife will be very pleased. Wishing you a safe and amazing vacation.

It was the whole ship. We were in the theater, so we thought it was just time to start the show. Lights out for maybe 1 minute in there. The. The captain came on the PA about 5 minutes later to talk about what happened and say that there were no other ships near us.

Sounds better than my wife so thats a positive straight away lol

All the footballs...or the ones they have rights to.

First day dining, depressed Hooked isn't open for lunch. Oh well, Playmakers will do.

Anyone thirsty?

Made it and waiting to board, Genie is chillin' with us.

My photo from our hotel view..this is why I stick with words ?

I’ll put it in perspective. Most times in turbulence, you move less than a foot. I’ve flown before when I lost over 100 feet in about 5 seconds. Coupled with the fact that we were at 500 feet AGL, that is what falling out of the sky and crashing feels like. They were lucky they found the seat cushion after that one. That said, though, I totally get why people don’t like turbulence, and I’m no great fan of it either. Now a ship listing like Carnival suddenly and that severely....

It is Officially Cruise Day here in Miami. In the meantime here are some pictures taken from the 6th floor pool here at the Hampton Inn and Suites.

When you're the family chauffeur, you get a free ride ???

Update: College Ski made it in. Football has had close first half but now a rough start to the 2nd half. Barring an incredible comeback, Football and Mr Ski will be on the cruise. Sad but happy, is that even possible? We are at the Springhill Suites by Marriott airport and cruise port. It’s a dated but clean hotel. We just need a hotel to sleep as we typically come in late the evening before. I like a free breakfast especially when traveling with kids. We ordered from Uber Eats when we arrived and food came in about 20 minutes. Pictures of the 2 queen suite.

Writing quickly as I'm about to pick up Soccer and Cutie early from school and head to the airport. We'll get in around dinner time and I plan on just using Uber Eats. If anyone has a suggestion for Uber Eats near FLL, I would love to have it! As of now, College Ski's flight out of the northeast is on time and I'm happy to see an earlier flight already departed from the airport. In 10 hours, we'll find out the fate of Mr Ski and Football Ski! Excursions Day 2 - Cruising and I scheduled the On the Roll Sushi class for myself, College and Football. It is at 11:30 so a perfect lunch! Day 3 - Labadee. The ship is here from 7:30-3:30 which is quite early to me. We have the Dragon's Breath Flight Line scheduled at 7:30 for 3 of us and the Beach Bungalows. Both of these IMO were a great deal. $78 each for the flight line and $197 for the bungalow. It was just a random sale and I haven't seen it that cheap again. I actually have 2 bungalows booked and need to cancel the more expensive one. I couldn't figure out online how to cancel only one and not both. Day 4 - Falmouth - No plans. We've done Blue Hole and loved it but didn't want to make the drive again. I was thinking of the white water river rafting but never booked it. Day 5 - Cruising I never saw any Sky Pad reservations on the Cruise Planner. I plan on asking once onboard. Dinner Plans We love MTD and plan on eating in the MDR each night. I am not sure what I did but I didn't book the MTD reservations accurately. The first night I included all 6 of us but the other nights I didn't. When I figured that out the 6:15 slot wasn't available and we'll be eating at 7:15. It may actually work a bit better for us as it gives us more time to enjoy the pools in the afternoon, get a snack without feeling like you could ruin dinner, etc. We'll see if it works for the shows too. Trip Insurance Some of you may be wondering if I have Trip Insurance and I do. I do not have Cancel for Any Reason Insurance. I did investigate and read the fine print but from what I saw I would need to cancel at least 3 days in advance of the trip under the Cancel For Any Reason clause. For this trip, I would need to cancel about 18 hours prior to the cruise. We knew the risk and we were accepting what could happen.

Day 5 - Sea Day Another beautiful day on a ship. We really spent today together as a family, and I totally took zero pictures... I’m updating this from my phone since I have no pics, and we are off to Nachi soon. We woke up and had Solarium Bistro for breakfast. It was serviceable. I do like that it is less crowded than Windjammer. After that, V went to AO, I went to the casino, and Abby went to run the track. We all got back together for lunch in the Windjammer. The food so far there has just been ok. Nothing to write home about. While we were there, one of the managers was making balloon animals, and made V a butterfly. That made her happier than anything so far this trip. In a small flash forward, it gave me a heart attack when it popped in our room at around 11 pm when we were just about to sleep... After lunch we went to the pool deck for a while. V loves the swirl pool thing. It’s actually warm. The rest of the pools are a little chilly. We were having some waves yesterday, so the pools were a little sloshy, but nothing too terrible. After the requisite pool deck ice cream cone, it was back to the room for a nap, and to get ready for another formal night. After Giovanni’s last night, we decided we’d go again tonight, this time taking V with us. We had seen the kids menu, so we thought we’d give it a shot on a walk in. They found us a table immediately, and we got to ordering quickly since we were going to the 7:30 show. We got V the butter noodles. For apps we got beef carpaccio, which was pretty tasty. Pastas we had the tagliatelle again. For our mains, I had the filet this time, and Abby had the prawns. The filet was just as good tonight. Virginia decided she wanted the prawns instead of her noodles. Our waiter was amazing with her, and when he saw this, he brought out an order of prawns just for her. It has been awesome to see all of the staff interact with her. For dessert, V got ice cream, and both Abby and I got the chocolate torte with ice cream. After eating it again, this has been the best dessert we’ve had. It is amazing, and not too rich. I can say that we are definitely #TeamSpecialtyDining. After dinner it was off to see the shows. First was Come Fly with Me. There was a little delay as the shipped experienced a blackout for a few minutes, and they had to restart the power system completely. The show was ok. Talent was good, but again there was not real story line. I was shocked at how rude so many people in the audience were. Many of them holding conversations at normal volume. It was very annoying. Due to the delay, we missed the start of Frozen in time. We got over there to see most of it though, and it was spectacular. In terms of storytelling, this was the best show, and very impressive athletically as well. Of all the shows, I would watch this again. On the way out, we had to grab a $3 box of popcorn. Seems silly to charge that much for a small box of popcorn... all in all it was a very nice sea day. V is still asleep this morning. She’s having so much fun. Going back to school is going to be rough on her.

Soon I guess we will expect refunds from the airlines for heavy turbulence

We just bought the photo package for $225 and got 147 photos (digital, not prints). All very high quality, so we're happy. As well as onboard, every time we stepped onto one of the islands the photographers were there ready to take our photos so we took every opportunity to have our snaps taken.