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Dinner Night 1: Dinner was slow tonight. Even though we ate at 5:30pm and asked to hurry so we could make the 7:15pm Welcome Aboard show, it still moved at snail’s pace. We were a few minutes late for the show. Nothing special to report. It was the standard MDR fare. Caesar Salad: They had savoury bites! @Matt‘s favourite...Spaghetti Bolognese: Fish, Seafood, and Mash: Just need to vent on this one. We had this dish on Mariner and it was ok. Tonight on Indy, the breaded shrimp was barely edible. It was so dry and almost chewy. Hazelnut Chocolate Cake: After dinner we went to see the Welcome Aboard show, mainly because I have heard many good things about the CD, Jamie Fentiman, and I wanted to see if what I had heard was true. He’s good. Lots of energy. Quite comedic. After the show, D10 wanted to check out Sugar Beach. The prices there are ridiculous. However, as luck would have it, we got stuck in there while they were filming the morning show. Both girls ended up on it! And they got some free candy too! Win-win! ? ?D10 with Jamie (CD; right) and Daniel (AM; left). Going to call it a night now as we are all quite tired. Goodnight all ?

8+ ships in port today. Here are some shots taken this am from my boat. Enjoy!

So glad you are doing such an awesome job blogging this cruise. Now I don't need to in 3 weeks on Indy. ??

Good Morning! Day 2: Mornings are way better in the Diamond Lounge. Sitting here in peace and quiet (without WJ madness as I write this). Love the espresso machine and not sure if it’s in my head or not, but the standard continental breakfast offerings seem to be a bit higher quality than WJ or Cafe Promenade. A few notes from last night. Not sure if it was the weather or our room location but motion was more noticeable compared to our forward cabin on Mariner. Still not bad enough to deter me from booking a forward cabin though. Will keep you all updated on how this continues to progress throughout the cruise. Today is a sea day. No set plans for today. ?

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.

Here's a graphic I slapped together since I like to see fleet info with the tonnage listed. The pictures and below came straight from the RCI website. I only added the header and the tonnage info. I've attached a pdf version and also included a ppt version if you want to tweak the image to your liking. Enjoy! RCI SHIP INFO.pdf RCI SHIP INFO.pptx

I see Harmony!! ??? 70 days! ?

We left a little after 12 noon. Rhapsody is right behind us. Brilliance is skipping Grand Cayman and going right to Cozumel.... 3 sea days, 1 Port.

Random observations so far: Boarding Day quick guide also available on Indy. On board VOOM and Drink package prices:

Live blogs are a great way to learn from each other ? Haha! I was just saying to Hubby that while the separation is great, I am 100% hating the washroom. I have in the last 24hrs or so managed to flood the washroom with the shower head (don’t ask) and knock over a multitude of things while at the sink! There is space for 6 but I find that the storage space would be lacking if you had 6. Welcome show was standard. Agree about the odd time. We had dinner right at 5:30pm when MDR opened and it was a stretch to make the show on time.

Hi @JasonL, welcome to the boards! If your TA is on vacation, I don’t think you can really expect any kind of rapid response time. It’s not unreasonable to hope she’ll see it and be able to act quickly, but I would never expect it after getting the notice and disclaimer that email and phone will be checked “as much as possible”. If she’s on a long flight with her family that day, or you emailed when she’s not in ready access to the internet, or she’s in some location with a big time zone difference that makes it impractical for her to follow up, you could be waiting a couple of days or even several. She could even be dealing with an unexpected emergency that puts doing anything work-related to the far back of her mind. Does she have any listed secondary contacts in her out of office notice? I know my TA always lists at least one for any urgent matters like yours, but she’s part of a larger agency. If your TA is working solo and runs her own shop, you might just be out of luck until she can check for your message.

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

Have a great time! Enjoying reading along. I’m on Symphony Jan 5th and hoping to do my first live blog to give back as well!

So yesterday, having thought we'd be waiting a good bit longer for this to happen, we ended up with a new addition to our family. Everyone say hello to Cece! She's still getting used to being in a home with four hoo-mans and two kats, so she looks understandably nervous. But we're hoping in a few more days she'll be showing us more of her regular personality. Still need time to figure out how this impacts the future cruise budget. ?? At least we have nearby family with dogs of their own who can watch her when we travel, so no need for kennel expenses. Sorry, Cece, but no cruising for you!

Agree with this. On Voyager and Freedom class ships, the corner aft on deck 7 are the most desirable for view and size. On Radiance and Vision class ships, all the aft balconies have the view and that sound. Its like the sound of being on a balcony at the beach with the churning water. These balconies are larger(deeper) than a side balcony. People sometimes say they don't want an aft balcony because of the long walk to the elevators or anywhere for that matter. While this is true, we don't mind a bit. This is a deck 9 aft on the Brilliance(9658). Second pic is Serenade(7176)

Day 6 - Curaçao Sorry for taking so long to post. The WiFi got so bad, that it wouldn’t even load this website. I’m back on dry land now, though so I can catch up. We had already planned to get off the ship after the initial horde of people, so I slept in until 10:00 and didn’t meet my mom at the Windjammer until 10:30. We were done with breakfast and in Curaçao by 11:30. It was a pretty long walk from the ship, so we waited for a golf cart to to help the elderly ladies in our group. Then we walked through Rif Fort and walked through a couple of the shops. They were pretty expensive, but that’s what I would’ve expected with how nice the area was. While my parents kept shopping, I took the opportunity to take some pictures from the top walls of the fort. After shoppping in the Rif Fort area, we went out to some of the vendors right outside. The prices got significantly better and they had a better variety of items in my opinion. All it was missing that Rif Fort had was fine jewelery. While we were looking through the vendors, my grandmother started to not feel very well, so my parents sent me across the floating bridge with her friend while they tended to my grandmother. Before crossing, I took a few more pictures. When we got to the other side I was surprised at how many shops there were. And they weren’t just your run of the mill souvenir shops - they were actual clothing stores that I’m sure the locals shopped at. They had great prices and great items. My grandmother’s friend and I had more than enough stores to all around in and waste an hour (that was with half of the stores being closed for Boxing Day). My grandmother started to feel better, so my mom, my dad, and her met us over the bridge at about 1:30. They wanted to look around the stores too, so I went with my parents while my grandmother and her friend went off together. My parents and I ended up buying for pairs of really nice shoes for an awesome price. After shopping, my grandmother and her friend decided they were tired and wanted to go back to the ship, so we walked them back. By the time we got back it was 3:00, so we decided to try to find a tour. Long story short, we never found a tour. The taxi drivers were expensive and seemed uninterested and all the tour buses had already left. When we couldn’t find a tour we decided to just head back to the ship. Before going back, though, I grabbed a quick ice cream and my mom grabbed a frozen drink. Both were good. When we got back on the ship, we all took a quick nap then got ready for dinner. We were glad to be back with our normal waiters tonight. I could’ve sworn I took a picture of the menu, but I can’t seem to find it. None of us can remember what we ate either. When you’re eating that much food, all of the meals seem to run together lol. So no dinner details from night 7. Sorry about that. I know one of the best parts of live blogs is hearing about the food. I’ll have the menus from the other nights, though. After dinner, we were off to the top tier party at 7:15 in Studio B. The captain was unable to attend (I’m guessing he couldn’t come because we were leaving Curaçao at 7:30), so the hotel director, Steven ran things. My parents had met him before the top tier party and said he was incredibly nice. He started off by telling everyone that he would have a surprise for everyone at the end. It was pretty easy to guess what that surprise was considering where we were. They passed out free champagne and mimosas while all the officers were introduced. Then the crown and anchor society head recognized the top 3 cruisers. All three of them had more than 5 years of nights accumulated. I told my parents to forget about law school; my new goal in life was to be recognized as a top cruiser. Then came the surprise we had all been waiting for; a special ice show. I almost liked this show better than the actual one. It seemed as if the ice cast had choreographed it themselves, chose their favorite songs, and tried to do as many stunts as possible. After the top tier party, it was pretty much time for the 8:30 show, so we just headed to the theater. Bill Cook, a magician, was performing and he was spectacular. He was super funny and his tricks still have me confused. He also had an awesome story. He said that his dream of becoming a magician started when he was 16 and watched a magician perform while he was on a cruise ship. He told his dad that’s what he wanted to do one day and his dad told him that if he works hard enough he could make that dream come true, and so he did. After the show I just spent the rest of the night with my friends in the teen club.

Been there done that a couple of times ... we sat outside the skyway until about 4pm waiting to get clearance to head in and dock a couple of years ago. Its a rough sea day for everyone involved, luggage is all packed so no changes of clothing, etc. and the crew is geared up for turnover not passenger entertainment.

Freeze frame takes you through the era of the 40s through the 50s. No scopes as it was asked that no photography or video of any kind be taken. The show on Mariner was more fun and entertaining while this one was still good but different. It focused more on the actual skating. We wandered into the MDR after and stumbled upon yummy desserts. That meant snack time! For @Sweety Currently back in the Diamond lounge. Afternoon snack offerings: I think we are headed to watch Sexiest Man soon out on Deck 11.

Love It @tonyfsu21. Keep Up The Good Work.

Shorter cruises often require they run a modified show schedule.

Again, I only learn from the best ? I cannot do your photos justice.

Can’t get over those on-board prices for the Deluxe ($63) and Refreshment ($26) packages! Makes me really glad I caught the Refreshment package at $17 on Black Friday!

The room looks a lot like the room we had on Radiance (or Seranade...can’t remember which) on out TransAtlantic a few years ago. Very spacious. Agree about the bathroom. The Diamond Lounge looks huge !

You can ask for refundable rates from Next but time and again I'm disappointed with Next. If you see a good price you like book it through an agency now before sailing. If you luck out and see a good price from Next while on board that's great, you can transfer it to an agency after booking. While on board you can access the Royal website for free. Research before going to Next.

Great review so far. The CD was quite funny. Neat you got a picture of the two of them in the candy shop. Your room looks great...and although not a JS, at least its a step up from oceanview. Spacious and great views with those windows. How was the welcome show? We found it odd that they only had one show first night and it conflicted with dinner time.

Hi @Jason! My personal feeling is that once you have more than half your nights booked with specialty dining or some other venue like Coastal Kitchen, it makes more sense to just be on My Time Dining. You won’t really be seeing any table mates you’d have with Traditional Dining, and it open up the seats for anyone who’s been wait listed.

Hope the "cramped" space isn't cramping your style. Looks like the perfect room for my troop of 6.

Another vote for credit card because they put daily holds on the card which can stay for a few days. Don't tie up your checking account. We set up our bills to pay while we are gone so I wouldn't want hold on my checking account. Also, false charges and fraud are easier to fix on a credit card.

We’re in Brilliance now. Went to NextCruise today and got a price $300 more for 9 of us in 3 cabins. I guess that gets offset by the $100 OBC for the cabin.... I’ll work with Michelle instead....

Wishing a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous 2019 to all. And happy cruising!

Just came across your review. We were on Mariner in summer and DH and I got off Indy a few weeks ago. We loved the ship...and perfect for your kids ages. Looking forward to hearing more. Ps - we stayed at Holiday Inn Express too. Decent hotel for the price.

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.

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!

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

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.

Sounds like a great excursion to experience.

We had a great time on our Good Times catamaran tour (3rd Party Tour) They picked us up from the port and brought us to the catamaran for one of the most pleasant afternoons I've ever had on a cruise. We snorkeled in two different spots (one with turtles!) and they brought lunch from a local restaurant on board and it was amazing (fish of the day, chicken, a couple different kinds of salads). Unlimited drinks (Banks beer, rum punch, sodas, etc) and snacks while relaxing and watching the flying fish hop out of the water. I'll be happy to pass on more information if you're interested!

I would suggest https://www.sailcalabaza.com/ They only take 12 people max and provide a great lunch and beverages.

Here are my top 3 choices for all-inclusive in Cozumel based on the pool 1. El Cozumeleno 2. Mr. Sanchos 3. Iberostar

From experience I can tell you that it’s a fool’s errand to try and coordinate a big group for dinner. Traditional dining is the best bet so it’s a shame you weren’t able to get that scheduled. Since that didn’t happen I would just show up with whatever group is there and get as many seated together as you can. You may have to wait a bit for a big table but I have learned to just let everyone do their own thing. It’s a nightmare trying to coordinate everyone. I never do it anymore.

It’s very difficult to have 12 people together for My Time Dining. I don’t know what happened when you tried to make reservations ahead of time. May I suggest you get two tables of 6 next to each other and maybe rotate the people around. Try to enjoy your cruise and not stress. Even if you aren’t all together at a table at least you are on vacation together

The ATV tour sounds exciting!

Merry Christmas to everyone from the beautiful Lady G.

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Its a great reference . I was always having to double check ship info. Just printed it and put it in my cruise folder.

That figure looks right based on the picture I have. $7.95 to $9.95 depending on variety. Kraken, the preferred rum of the Royal Caribbean Blog, is $7.95 and a Kraken Colada would be $13. *Disclaimer: Using a bar menu from Oasis obtained January 2018. Please add an additional 18% for gratuity.

Savory bites are a bread item that used to be available on the tray of bread that came around for diners to select each night. They are no longer considered a "normal" offering and are only available by special request. As @Susie noted, they are small rolls (one big bite or two smaller bites) which have poppy seeds on them.

If RCL is going to introduce new on-ship excursions - how about the .50 cal pirate shoot? You get 200 rounds of .50 cal and whoever sinks the most Somali pirates - wins a prize!

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 .

As someone who has a Certified Therapy Dog, I always found the "emotional support" animal an issue. Not that people don't need it, but the ones that take advantage have no clue that at one point their animal could end up hurting someone or another animal if they are not fully trained. Our Liberty is a THERAPY Dog, not SERVICE Dog, a distinct difference. Many people think when I am visiting with Liberty somewhere that she is a service animal. She provides comfort to Air Force personnel, Hospice, children etc and travels sometimes with a group of Therapy dogs. She had 12 weeks total training with both my husband and myself. Service Dogs are trained for 18 months in a foster home then 2 years before being provided to their new Handler that needs them. I think it really has gotten out of control and like someone else here said, it takes a few to ruin for others that truly do need an emotional support animal.

People abuse the system all the time. A former neighbor claimed support animal so he wouldn't have to pay pet rent. I drove him to pick up his puppy from the breeder. It wasn't trained at anything, it was a ten week old puppy. Sure enough though, he didn't have to pay pet fees. With the talk of more restrictions coming, a year later he signed up for a 4 hour session that provided a whimsical certificate so that he could argue the dog had received professional support animal training. It was basically a play session with other dogs or so he told me as he encouraged me to follow suit. There have been many incidents reported on trains, planes and ships where a claimed 'service' or 'support' animal bit someone or otherwise behaved inconsistent with a properly trained service animal. I imagine there is potential liability if another guest is injured by a fake service animal. Even if the risk of legal action against Royal is low (or the chance of winning a suit is low), it certainly will create a negative experience for a guest to be impacted and have their vacation ruined by a misbehaving fake service or support animal. Seeing someone else getting away with it may tempt more to try it. "Why not bring Fluffy?, they did". If Royal needs to lean on the ADA to support this change in policy, I'm all for it.