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Room Tour: Surprise! It’s an Ultra Spacious Oceanview. Still roughing it but at least the kids get a bunk. There are only 2 with this configuration on Freedom class ships. The rest are more like the standard JS with the bunks in the walk in closet area. This setup allows for more separation between the living spaces. I found this room about two months ago. It just randomly popped up one day and it was $200 to upgrade from our original 1L. This is a Cat. 1K. It sleeps up to 6. I kept it it a surprise from the kids until 1pm today. They love it! I still desperately miss the decor of the newer ships. And the bathroom is small! For those of you wondering, the suite snob in me is still struggling.

Pre-cruise evening: Lyft Plus from FLL to Holiday Inn on 17th Street, $20. One seatbelt in the back seat was not working. I was not too impressed with that. First time ever that I did not leave a 5/5 rating. La Bamba was excellent as usual. I did not take pics of the menu as it is the same as my Mariner blog. See the link in my signature below if you would like to see it. If you have not had a chance to try this place yet, you must. They have 6 locations in South Florida. Huge portions, excellent food and service, and of course, tasty margaritas! We are creatures of habit so food pics are the same. Posting again to make you all jealous and hungry. ? Chips & Salsa are always complimentary: Hubby and D12 dream about the Cheese Dip...literally: House Margarita tonight for me: Chicken Tostadas: Chicken Quesadilla: Chicken Fajitas: Kids Beef Tacos: Kids Chocolate Sundae: And my personal favourite...Fried Ice Cream (minus the whipped cream): With full bellies, we made our way over to Publix for the usual pre-cruise stop. Purchased some water for tonight and tomorrow morning and some shampoo/conditioner and body wash for the kids. Hubby asked why we needed those this time. The answer? No suite...no upgraded bath amenities tomorrow. ? This hotel doesn’t have many frills but it does have a 24hr hot water and coffee station. That is a plus in my books. The front desk told me that inspection was happening today and their new section should be opened anytime now. I think I will keep my reservation here for March. We booked a suite during the week of Black Friday (when we booked this room) and it looks like we’ll be able to get into it by then.

Good morning! Out of dry dock! This hotel provides a hot breakfast selection: the usual, sausages, pancakes, waffles, omelettes, etc. Nothing photo worthy. Snapped a few pics of the dining area. Would I stay here again? Yes. For the price, value, and proximity to Port Everglades it is decent for a one night pre-cruise stay. Just know that you won’t be getting the Renaissance or Conrad and it’s all good. Just finished with breakfast. Going to pack up the room and headed over to the port. It’s cruise time!

As we plan our 2020 cruise, we asked our 9 year old if he wanted to go to new places on our cruise or have cool things on the ship. We explained that not every ship has water slides or laser tag. He said, totally seriously, "What about buffets? Do they all have buffets?" We assured that any ship we take him on will have a buffet. #priorities

Here’s a few photos from this afternoon on the water. I went through the port & saw Indy as well as Holland America Oosterdam. Enjoy. This represents basically every normal weekend here in East Fort Lauderdale... #endlesssummer #FLL

The balcony:

Boarding started at 11:30am. Standard suites/pinnacles first then by C&A status. Finishing up in the WJ now. It is a complete madhouse here. There are people standing to eat. Indy WJ looks identical to Mariner.

Sorry I have to chime in on this. I love cruising. I love roller coasters. But sorry they don’t really go together for me. Cruising is for relaxing and roller coasters are for thrills. A roller coaster doesn’t add to my cruise experience and limiting the scope of the coaster to fit on a cruise ship, probably makes it not very exciting. Water slides and flo-rider rides sure but not coasters, keep the coasters at Cedar Point.

Woot! It's cruise day! Very envious. Enjoy your cruise!

Greetings from St Kitts. Raining off and on but our train excursion isn’t until this afternoon. Have a great boarding day !

sometimes good things come in small packages. New Year's Party will be super. ?

Now I'm hungry for some Mexican food ?

Had no problems with taking water aboard the Anthem in August. FYI: The Coke Freestyle machines that are part of a drink package will dispense ice to anyone into any container. I washed out a coin bucket from the casino and used it as an ice bucket. Crew members who saw me chuckled.

Hmm - want to elaborate more on what the games are and how it works? How is the OBC redeemed? Seems tempting for a free game to earn points with while sitting in airports or on travel!

Having one right now! It is as tasty as ever! It was a bumpy ride today but all good! Nah, we’ll save that for the Brilliance GC. It was McDonald’s. @WAAAYTOOO @bellemiche suite snobs know each other well. Hubby is living in a dream world ?

I've seen that show a few times and it's quite good.

Look what my Grands gave us for Christmas. We can't wait to use it!!

Greetings from Terminal 18! Lyft Plus to Terminal 18: $11.83 Noted that at terminal 18 there is a separate security line for Diamond and above. They still took our pictures at check in even though we uploaded ours already. Currently waiting to board. 10:43pm. No one has boarded yet.

On Freedom and Voyager class ships, you are a bit removed from the ships wake on the aft balconies. However, I would book one anytime. This pic is from deck 7 corner aft looking down. You can see that we do have some view of the balconies on deck 6, but not a lot.

Have a great trip. Ringing in the New Year at sea......what could be better!!!

I saw those rewards. But we could not make the sail dates due to our work schedule.

We're going to have our first one on Grandeur in April 2019. Personally, we would not book one with an infrastructure - ruins the wake view.

So you are the one kicking us off the cruise. We are on the New Year's cruise.

Reminds Me Of When I Got A Gopro For Christmas. The Gopro Came In Such A Small Box. And My Harmony Cruise Came In A Envelope Sitting Under The Tree

I get it. I have one of those too. It’s all about the WJ. ?

Well I Started The Year With Well Bad/Okay Pizza On The Freedom OTS In April. The Pizza On The Freedom Was Never The Same. Sometimes It Was Good. Sometimes Was Awful. Skip A Few Months Till July. Then I Went On The Mariner And Well I Was Afraid To Try The Pizza Because I Was Afraid The Pizza Will Be Terrible. Then On The Oasis In October The Pizza Was Always The Same. The Pizza On The Oasis Was So Good. So I Think The Pizza Got Way Better.

We were on the Freedom in late Oct. The pizza was better than previous versions. You are never going to get Chicago Deep Dish or New York Thin. But for a quick snack or kids it will do. FWIW our waiter at Chops was being paid outside his normal shifts to survey people's impressions of the improved pizza. At least they are trying to improve and measure the results.

@Lovetocruise2002 Glad You Made To FLL Safety. Have A Good Meal At La Bamba.

I hope the government will reopen well before the fourth week in January, as the shutdown causes adverse consequences on your sister and hundreds of thousands of other government workers. Thinking good thoughts that the insurance will not have to be used and, if it does, that it will come through.

It was bumpy flying into Tampa today. Major system across the top of Florida.

Well I Just Booked That Sailing. Can't Wait To Meet Back In The Teens Clubhouse

This is great. Making me more and more excited for our first cruise in 78 days, to the ABC islands as well!

We went to Cabbage beach last year in December, prior to this trip we did and excursion through Royal where we paid $85 per adult, and $55 per child to go to the beach on Atlantis. When we got there we had a beach chair and a towel and it was the same beach that Cabbage beach is on. When we went back last Christmas and I saw the rock formations in the water I knew where we were, and I felt pretty ripped off! The beach itself is great, it cost us $16 one way for four people in a taxi, only complaint was the amount of vendors going up and down the beach. They were not rude at all, and you just had to tell them "no thank you" once and that individual would leave you alone. You could rent chairs for the whole day for a reasonable price, I would gladly go there again with the kids, did not feel pressured or harassed whatsoever!

I talked to the tour operator, it's about blocks into town. Not that bad, but now the problem is that they need a minimum of two people to book, so I'm screwed. I'm an odd nerd.

Day 5 - Aruba The WiFi still isn’t great, so no pictures until I get back home. After sleeping awfully last night, I slept in a bit late and didn’t wake up until 9:15. For some reason, my allergies always get bad in desert climates, so as soon as we docked in Aruba, I started getting stuffy. I grudgingly made my way down to the Windjammer and grabbed some breakfast. Then my mom and I got off the ship to meet my dad at 10:30 at diamonds international since he had already gotten off the ship before us. After some shopping (most of the stores were closed because of Christmas), we went back to the ship to grab some lunch for our 1:30 trikes tour. We booked the tour through Aruba trikes and had a blast. It was a fun way to see the island, and we loved our tour guide Ramses. He was originally from the Netherlands and he spoke SEVEN different languages. We didn’t finish the tour until 6:30 so we were stuck with my time dining. We were happy they could fit us in, but we still missed our normal wait staff. Our assistant waiter during my time dining was pretty good, but none of us were a huge fan of the head waiter. We understand how much harder being a my time dining waiter is, so we didn’t hold it against her that much. I stuck with the kids vegetables for my appetizer (they were forgotten at first), my mom got her French onion soup again, my grandmother and her friend got ceaser salad, and my dad got the bay scallops. He was the only one to try something new and he said they were delicious. The portion size was a bit small, though. Then for the main dish I got another kids grilled cheese which was fine. My parents got the coq au vin which they thought was pretty good and my grandmother and her friend got the prime rib which they also enjoyed. For desert, my grandmother and I tried the brownie. We both enjoyed it. My dad got the citrus berries cheesecake which he liked more than yesterday’s cheesecake, and my mom and grandmother’s friend got their favorite again - the apple pie. After dinner we ran to the 9:00 show and barely made it in time(dinner took forever). The show tonight was called, Now and Forever, which just showcased the singers and dancers doing broadway songs. The show was pretty good. I especially liked the part at the end where they did a compiliation of ABBA songs. When the show ended we went back out to Aruba and caught a taxi to ride around and look at Christmas lights. Since we only had an hour before we needed to be back on the ship, we couldn’t go to black mountain which is where they said had the best lights because it’s an hour round trip to get there. Instead we just rode around the downtown area. The lights were pretty nice, but nothing spectacular. We really liked our taxi driver, though. We got back at 11:15 and got back on the ship. Then I just met up with friends and hung out with them until 1.

Hahaha - oh that was 100% me making a joke not coming across in text. There are a lot of pizza opinions here.

Do you want to start a fight on the RC Blog forums? Because this is how you start a fight on the RC Blog forums.

Yes, we are having a great cruise. First port stop today was St. Croix. We did not get off the ship (it rained). Tomorrow is Antigua and we have a catamaran excursion. Praying for nice weather. The internet has been horrific but better for the past 24 hours. Apparently they rebooted something and we are at least able to stay connected! Yes, Francis is still the Concierge. He is great. He comes to see us every morning while we’re having b’fast in Chops. We had no problem at all getting specialty dining in the restaurants of our choice during the “special” holiday nights. My guess is that demand for the upcharge Christmas meals wasn’t there. We ate wherever we wanted. Meal fatigue is getting to us, though. Very grateful for a Port day today so we could skip the big lunchtime meal. I don’t even know where we’re having dinner tonite. I can’t remember ! Francis will know... The shows have been good. Casino has been kind. Something interesting... Has anyone ever gotten a gift from Housekeeping ? We’ve gotten gifts from C&A, from the casino and from the Concierge but never received one from Housekeeping before. It is a rather complicated-looking “7 piece wine set”. It uncorks, recorks etc. Very odd. Speaking of gifts, we received 4 royal Caribbean tote bags from Loyalty. Uhhhh.... 2 is certainly more than we need but 4 ? We trotted 2 of them back down to the Loyalty Ambassador and said, “WTF” ? Dan had asked for RC beach towels but apparently those are precious, scarce and completely unavailable so they sent tote bags. He assured us that we had ordered totes all around and declared that he would send us something else but that we could not have towels as he didn’t have any. Earlier this afternoon we received 2 Royal Caribbean beach towels. Apparently 2 of the rare prizes were unearthed from somewhere. I HATE that they have removed the ability to choose your C&A reward gifts online. You now have to call them to get anything changed and obviously they f’ed it up. Whatever. We are now the proud owners of 2 RC tote bags and 2 RC beach towels. God only knows what we will get in Feb on Anthem.

I consider it to be a lovely gesture, nothing more ..... and for those that got their panties all in a bunch, GET OVER IT!!! The world does NOT revolve around YOU!!

Perhaps some of the people in suites think enjoyment of the cruise is a zero sum game....and they can't have full enjoyment if the staff is sharing extras with people ;). I'm not like that.....then again....the concierge is always like "How come you don't come up to the lounge" when I am on board ship ? and I'm always like "ohh too busy" but the real reason is that it is often filled with people who complain about free bread on a cruise ?

These warnings are necessary especially with some sailings leaving Nassau at 11:59pm.

If it also had huge bones (oxtail) and peanut sauce, it was kare-kare. Tripe alone sounds like callos if it was in a tomato sauce. Callos is influenced by the Spanish, kare-kare is more Malay/Asian. Eating oxtail in a formal dining room is like having spaghetti in a white shirt - challenging.

We were in Nassau this past June with DCL. They had emailed a similar letter prior to embarkation. We decided to leave the ship anyway. We went as far as The Fence and turned around. What a freak'n mess at port.

Have a great time. The group cruise should be fun. I've done the itinerary twice and loved it. It's one I could do again, and again, and again. Enjoy! Have a great Christmas at sea. Remember, you don't need to cook or help clean up the dishes. Enjoy our B-day at sea. Happy anniversary.

I just booked the 2020 Allure TA on board RH today -14 night cruise $100/ person deposit. Otherwise it's $450/person.

Reminds me of the old Folgers coffee crystals commercials:

With more widespread legalization (medical and recreational) around the world, I think this is going to happen much more often. And that $4,000 fine is probably the tip of the iceberg for how much it'll cost in the end after lawyers fees and everything. You have to abide by the law of the land you're in. Just because something is legal back home, doesn't mean it's going to be legal abroad!

Fluffy? I would love to bring Gabriel Iglesias on a cruise anytime. Martine? Not so much. (crowd chants) Fluff-y. Fluff-y. Fluff-y.

I am still going to bring my therapy wife on future cruises if they like it or not. I will make sure her vaccinations and papers are in order. She does not bark a lot but her moans can be bothersome .