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Starting to feel like I'm slummin' it in a JS... on the corner...

Day 8 Disembarkation day The day everyone dreads. Not as much this time for me as I was ready to get home and get back to my own bed. Having a departure tag of 33 we knew we’d be called around 8:40, so we got up at 6:45 and got everyone dressed. Addie and I walked down to Park Cafe to pick up a quick breakfast. As I mentioned yesterday, this is normally the day we order in breakfast as it’s nice to have to head down to a packed buffet for breakfast. Luckily, Park Cafe is nearby, but it was busier than we had seen it any point in the week. As the tables were full we walked it back to the room and ate there while Nikki got ready. Shortly thereafter we were ready too early as always and just sat out on the balcony. One of the features I like on RC is that you can see which groups have been called on the internal TV stations rather than running into the hallway to try and hear the muffled numbers. Once again I checked out the map from our journey which gets really just looks like we’re patrolling Cuba for 7 days. At about 8:25 they called the few numbers before us so we walked down to 5 for disembarkation. No wait to speak of getting off the boat, but once we got to luggage claim the terminal mess began. People were backed up all over and groups that hadn’t been called were allowed in line and groups that had were being herded off to the side. Given that we were in a suite and had been told we had Priority Disembarkation this certainly didn’t feel it. Per Matt Hochberg’s advice, once down the escalator grabbed the first porter and grabbed our luggage. Even though we had global entry he said it wasn’t necessary and he cut through the lines and found a line seemingly for portered customers that only had one person. After a very cursory glance at our passports and quick question about buying jewelry we were on our way. The Uber we called only took about two minutes to get there and another 10-15 to get to FLL. The B gates at FLL are always a mess with twice as many people as seats and only lackluster dining options to choose from. We ended up finding three seats a few gates away and setup shop till our flight. We boarded right on time but didn’t even close the door until 30 minutes after our departure time and then with much confusion left by less than communicative crew we sat for another 90 minutes. Finally two hours after scheduled time we took off back for BWI on our completely full flight and this vacation was officially over.

Anthem does have the picture upload option.

From what I can tell, the shorter the sailing the more valuable that The Key is. If I was on a 3 or four night sailing then The Key is a no brainer purchase. But as the number of nights goes up The Key loses a little bit of its value. I think that anything over a 7 nights would not be worth buying The Key.

Personally, I would not consider that kind of an option. To be honest, I think it's border-line rude. A simple "no thank you", combined with not making eye contact goes a long way. You can practice in New York City! ?

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think which side of the ship your room is on matters. Ever.

That'll buff right out

Using MEI will get you a travel agent with an abundance of knowledge of RCCL and will help you in every way they can. They also price check your sailing every time there is a sale, and will get you a lower price if one is available with out you even having to ask. We've used Brock and he's awesome. We met him personally when sailing on a Royal Caribbean group Cruise. Here's his contact info: https://mei-travel.com/about-us/team/brockt If you do a search, you'll find the names of many happy customers of Michelle & Sharla (just to name a couple.)

In Costa Maya we docked next a small shipe from Regent of the seas (Seven seas Voyager) As I understands that suppose to be a luxury cruise ship. I could not to notice the dents on the side of the ship Looks like they had an issue and someone went to the CEO and told him " let's not activate the insurance so our fee won't get up. I will take some of my guys and with hammers plus several packages of Bondo we will fix it"

Rushed a bit to finish aforementioned breakfast, but I managed to meet up with Mr. Grey of Thenford Grey Tours for my Grand Island Tour of St. Kitts. Mr. Grey was our guide of our group of 20 and he was very funny, very knowledgeable, with a passion for his home country and meeting visitors. He pointed several historical landmarks en route to our first destination, Romney Manor. Quiet day in port with just Adventure and another ship from a luxury line tendered in the distance.

I wrapped up Day Five with a show by ventriloquist Kevin Johnson, Holiday Harmonies on the Promenade with some of the RC singers, and the Dancing under the Stars party on the pool deck.

Dinner again in the MDR was excellent, with a performance of O Sole Mio by the waitstaff during dessert ?

Waivers sound like you're signing away all rights due to the risk but they really only cover your own actions and stupidity. Any accident due to equipment malfunction or incompetence by the zip line staff and the waiver won't save the company from a lawsuit. (I've talked about this with the staff at my rock climbing gym. Their insurance is very expensive because they know the waivers are pretty weak.) I don't see how Royal Caribbean is at any fault though. You'd have to be pretty dense to believe RCI was running the zip line. I assume they are only getting sued because they have deeper pockets than the zip line company and the lady thinks there's some chance they'll just pay the $1 million to avoid more bad publicity.

Looking forward to live Blogging my first RC cruise on Harmony next week. Countdown has now reached 7 days. Now if this week of work would just fly by.

Outstanding! Thanks so much for that information! We realize we may have to Uber to a couple places, but if we can find dining and shopping within walking distance, that’s a huge bonus!

We found this event disappointing. Hors d’ouerves tasteless & skimpy. Staff less than friendly and cruisers pretty snooty. We attended the first night for about 30 minutes & never went back.

Thanks everyone! As a newcomer to RC, I'm trying to catch up on what's a feature and what's not on the different class of ships. I just didn't want to miss something. Very much looking forward to our sail on the new Navigator. ?

Thanks for the input. I certainly don't want to treat them rudely, and actually thought that might help save them some time and energy too. No offense meant.

We did a cruise out of Galveston in December 2017 that stopped at Progreso. We did an excursion thru RCL that included a stop at Mayapan Mayan Ruins for several hours and then swimming/tubing in a Cenote (Underground sinkhole/cave). Mayapan is called 'Little Chichen Itza' and was only 45-60m drive from the ship. You can climb on these ruins and the tour guides did a great job explaining significance of each building type and overall Mayan History. Wasn't crowded at all.. Might consider this as an alternative... (one day I'll finish my write-up on this cruise and post it...)

If you are booking privately, my opinion is that Prince of Whales is the company to go with for Victoria Whale Watching! I grew up in Victoria and gone with them few times and it was always good! Also it's super easy to cab from the ship to downtown. When we were there this summer the cabs were charging $10 flat fee from ship to town.

When you reprice a cruise you are basically rebooking. You will lose whatever booking promotion (those coming from Royal Caribbean) you got with the original booking BUT you will be eligible for any booking promotions association with the new pricing. So yes, you will lose your RCCL-generated booking promotions (OBC, etc.) but if there are any promos going on when you rebook, you would be eligible for them.

We were on NAV over Thanksgiving and they did not have the early photo scan option then...my guess is they still don't have that feature for NAV. I think that option is just getting started on the largest ships. It may or may not ever make it down to the Voyager Class. Royal Caribbean does not pre-scan passports anywhere, that I am aware of. They will scan you PP when you get to the port. Enjoy Navigator. She's a great ship !

Pictures weren't an option for our sailing in late Nov. this year.

As someone who is anticipating his first, RC cruise in a couple of months, thanks for writing these up! Helped me to see the differences between some of the lines.

There is a new development called “Dania Pointe” located just East of I-95 and Sterling Road (see pics). I went by there the other day and noticed a couple new hotels that look like construction is just about complete. There is also offerings from Hilton (Hampton and garden inn) and I believe a Fairfield that have been located at that intersection for awhile. If your on a budget you should look into staying in this area as it is most likely far less expensive then Fort Lauderdale 17th street and it offers many dining options within walking distance. You are no more then 15 minutes away from the port and 5 minutes from the FLL airport. Overall a great option for a better deal.

If the videos are correct it does face aft and has a small wraparound.

Thanks @CGTLH For The Info

I think this is the correct answer. They made a special point of saying "total of 18 decks" so it makes me think they were including non-pax decks. I thought there was more than 1. Guess not.

Haven't done it for one reason: It's 90% commuting and like 45 -60 mins of actual time at the place. I really, really, really want to go there, but I think we are going to do a land vacation to be able to go there.

You're likely right. Unless you have an aft suite, which I will still gladly trade one GS for another ?

ya.. I've looked at a bunch- but the waterpark at Playa Mia is what tips the scale.. that's my 5 year old's jam.

You will need to enter your Full Name/e-mail address when you redeem your reward. The name does not have to match the name provided to Facebook.

IT had to run to the pet store to get more hamsters for the wheel. . . .

@LandstromCruise , the form that @mworkman , provided is the same form I used this summer for my Grandson, he was 11 at the time and also had his passport. You have to have some document giving permission for the minor to travel with you, otherwise they cannot board the ship. Mine was signed by both parents and notarized (No custody issues). When you get to check in, go ahead and have a copy made for the agent, just saves time with them having to leave and go make a copy. One mistake I made was that I thought the notarized copy was for them and the copy copy was for me, it was the other way around. We never took the copy with us on shore excursions, only his passport. One place I probably should have had it out was on disembarkation day to show to the customs agent, but he was really nice and asked my Grandson if he knew who we were (He had to say it), and if everything was alright and if everything wasn't alright he knew he could say something (Basically Safe place protocol), he had to verbally acknowledge these things. Hind site, if I had the letter out he probably wouldn't have asked. This was at Galveston from cruising on Liberty

@FlowBro Ty Just keep in mind that with this particular category (1K), they layout will vary depending on the location/deck. From what I have seen, at least on the Voyager class ships, some of them look like a Junior suite with the bunks in the walk in closet area. Some have a totally different layout where there is separation between the master bedroom and the living area and the bunk area. You will have to look into which decks have which layout. This might apply to the Radiance class too.

Make sure you have their proof of medical insurance and insurance card.

I had asked about this a while back, and the consensus seemed to be that it really doesn’t matter. When the ship is at sea, she’s too far from land to make anything out. It’s not like Alaska where you have land close by on both sides.

Anyone else hiding a cruise under the Christmas tree this year? Any fun delivery methods? I'm getting ready to book one for mid next year as a surprise for my husband since I've traveled so much for work and it's nice having things like that on the horizon to look forward to since it looks like the travel pattern will be continuing. I have a small cruise figurine that I'm wrapping in a box with the cruise booking confirmation.. and that wrapping that box in a bigger box... and then wrapping THAT box in a bigger box... and then putting THAT box in a bag.

It is now Day Six, a.k.a I grabbed a quick breakfast at Cafe Promenade before heading off the ship to St. Kitts.

Welcome party in Costa Maya

Day 4 Cozumel : Regular breakfast in WJ , it was quite empty and off we go to the port. Near our ship we had Celbrety Edge , we were so close we could see what people order for in room breakfast As we did not any special plans we be just took a taxi to down town and started to walk around drank a margarita and tryed to avoid the over pushy store people (one even called us and ask if " want to see his junk ?" , at least he was pointing his store and not something else. Soon it was time for lunch. We got some recommendation from this site for few options and we choosen Casa Denise which was very close , it's was quite good and I liked that they did not try fishing for customer. Post lunch we walked over to Mega supermarket which I was reading about in @Matt posts. It's really a good place to buy some local food, spices and even Alcohol (cheaper than the ship prices for rum and tequila) they accepted dollars with good exchange rate , We bought some hot sauces and candies. It was very easy to catch a taxi going back to the port. It was almost time for all aboard so I went to the balcony to watch the process and some peer runner , well all on board was 5:30 PM , last people boarding was around 6:05. At the evening we went to WJ for a quick bite before we went to watch the aqua show. As always it was a nice show , the fact the ship moved allot adedd to the difficulty level. I

Do the "Secret Sands Beach Getaway" in ST. Thomas. Fantastic beach, great water and a nice grass covered sand bar about 50' off shore. Excellent for snorkeling, turtles, tropical fish and shallow (about 10'. Best part is the fellow "in charge" of the lounge chairs. His name is Kareem and he will provide you with a chair, drinks (rum punch, cold beer, soda, water) snacks and snorkeling gear. He is also a very good photographer with your smart phone. No charge for anything he provides for you, all he asks for is an appropriate tip. We've been to that beach twice and will definitely go back in the future. Oh yeah, plenty of shade and a bath house (very clean) that's a couple of years old.

I then headed up the ramp to the upper level with sentry boxes, more amazing views, and the lighthouse which was rebuilt in 1908.

Day 3 - Sea Day We woke up much too early for sea day , again I had to join some meetings at the morning. Post the meetings we went to eat something small as we schedule Sushi class. This time the cruise team did not done really good job in coordinating the activities , between 10 am to 11 am we had : The C&A welcome back party, the meet and mingle meeting and cruise port talk , Anyway , I took the numbers C&A numbers from the TV recording , total 2780 C&As , 1521 Gold , 526 Platinum , 212 Emerald , 322 Diamond , 164 D+ , 37 pinnacles 2 cruisers were with 1700 points and the top one with 2035 points IT was time to go to Izumi for the class, we arrived at time , signed some waver, washed our hands again and started the demonstration , I do not have many pictures from the class as we were wearing gloves to prevent any food issues. The class was nice, I learned some new things and yes its allot of food to eat at 10:30 AM (or any other time). Most of the people did not complete the food they created. All in all I am happy we booked it and will recommend to try it at least once, I just wish they have done it in a better time (lunch time maybe). Here is my creation : Post the class , we went to explore the ship once again to see whats going on , it was quite cold and windy outside so we went to the casino for a while, later we went to eat some very late lunch at the park cafe , we were still full from the morning sushi, after we thought its a good time to take a nap. we were planning to watch the water show but it was canceled due to the ship movement and it was moving quite allot , when I walked I thought I might had too many drinks , but considering the fact I was only drinking water I guessed we encounter some rough waves. later went to the WJ for recon only and we found some interesting dishes so we had to taste them for the research only ... sure . Velvet cake strikes back They established a pasta station, some veg/fruits drinks, jerk chicken and tasty Indian food. around 10 PM we went down to the Casino as they were going to have a raffle of an upgrade to a crown loft suite for the rest of the cruise , three names were announced but none of the people were not around so they lost it , at the end some lady won it (She was in regular balcony room) , surprisingly I did not won , its not that I needed the upgrade , I just wanted to have more pictures to share in the blog ?. Love and marriage was our next station, there were many volunteers so the eliminate process took some time but was very funny , the activity director (Fabio) was very funny, the cruise director Jemmy was less fun , but we will give him another chance during the quest. The interesting thing was that none of the couples were watching the show before (after all its the same questions every time and you can prepare for it if you really want to win). it was time to go to sleep as we were tired from the early morning , quick email round and I called it for that day.

I use this wrist strap... got it at Walmart, michael’s sells a few different ones too. I hate wearing a lanyard. I never once felt like I was searching for my card all the time wearing it this way.

The One, The Only....Oasis Class Denier is now actively looking at the Oasis for sailing out of New Jersey...That is all!! ?? @JLMoran

Ummm.... NOPE!! ?

How confident are we that the person in question isn't @Big Dawg Ron?

Yes this person “Balsam” seems like a real piece of work. It’s really easy to sit behind a keyboard and bully defenseless older folks when there are no repercussions.