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Slow start today. The shower is great, hot water and plenty of room. The drainage system works quite well. Didn't pay attention to the room service times so missed breakfast. Nothing sounded good on room service menu so we got ourselves together and headed down to deck 5 to see what's what. Amazing how dead the ship is while everyone is in port. Ended up at Cafe promenade. Tons of stuff. Dave got cheese pizza and a chocolate dessert. I got A ham and cheese croissant with some kind of dressing on it A vegetarian sandwich with eggplant, tomato, lettuce, cheese, and some dressing Cheese and tomato salad Fried artichokes I didn't get the muffalata sandwich or the king Arthur or the shrimp roll, or the pepper salad, marinated spicy cheese, marinated olives, or stuffed potatoes There are also 4 kinds of cookies, 6 kinds of desserts, cheese, vegetarian, and pepperoni pizza. Am I making everyone hungry? After all that Dave got Ben and Jerry's chocolate ice cream while I let stuff digest. I think we will head up to deck 11 in a few.

Here's the rest of the crew. We have Carrie, Brielle and Jake. All tagging along.

Ok, so guess it's time to meet the Hobby family This is your blog host, John. You have been hanging out with this weirdo. Yes, I'm also the one behind the periscopes... hope yall are enjoying. This picture comes fun the Loterie Treetop Adventure. It's a ropes course with some ziplines on St. Marteen. It was our second time doing it and is alot of fun.

Day 2- Mallorca It is the fourth time we visit this Island but the first time we planned a shore excursion using RCL , during all the pervious visits we just took the shuttle to the city and roam by ourselves. The excursion meeting time was 8:20 am so yes another night excursion. Around 7:30 we woke up, quick treatment in the sarcophage ( or the tardis, although the last should be much bigger in the inside) which RCL refer as the shower and of we went to the first breakfast. We choose the park cafe as it is much less crowded than the WJ and we like the bagels option. We went to the meeting point and after around 5 minutes we did our way to the bus . The excursion took us to the north part of the island, the guide was from the school of thoughts of I "I must say something until we reach the first point even if I run out of what to say so I will just repeat what I said before" lucky for me she was also monotonic so I felt a sleep for a while. The first point of the tour was some old house which had a small museum and very nice landscape , we roam it for a while and went to the nice backyard to take some pictures. Next we went to a local winery for a tour and wine tasting , I must say I have been to many wine tours around the world but this one was quite impressive as the tour was done inside the real winery and some visitors center that just demonstrate how to create wine. The winery guide was very good with excellent English. After the tour we went for some wine and food tasting , wine was good and the food that came with it was interesting. In the excursion description it said we will have three wine to taste but we finish up with four , do you think I should complain ? Something like " dear RCL I planned to have only three wines consumed for today and yet you have tricked me in drinking four, this really hurt my feeling and made me lost trust in your company and maybe even in humanity , shame on you , please some OBC " ? . Anyway we both liked this tour although I had to take another conference call, so bought some spices and nice strawberry vinigar . We went back to the ship to catch late lunch in WJ and get some needed rest. The daily visit to the Casino followed slice of pizza in Sorento , must say the pizza taste much better than on my last few cruises. We took a frozen mojito from the Casino bar and went to see what there is in the WJ as we knew we will miss the MDR to the aqua nation show. Food was interesting and contained all of the MDR menue for today (the first official night) including the duck orange and the lobster bisque. As I was full from the pizza I just took some berries they offered We grabbed another diamond drink from the Sabor bar and went to watch the aqua show , they had a towel station near the entrance as it was quite cold and people used them to cover themselves , nice touch. The show was a limited show due to the technical issue the theater still have due to the incident but it was very energetic and impressive Post the show we roam around ending in the Latin dance party , we even dance for a while , well my spouse danced and I did some movements while need to explain people I am not suffering from a stroke. After all tommorow is another day *Sorry for any errors , I am writing this directly on my phone while waiting for someone to finish shopping

Dinner at Jamie's

Day 5 - St Maarten This cruise is going by way too fast. I mean, it's supposed to be a 9 nighter ... should feel like a long vacation, right. Guess when your cruising time flies faster than you imagine. Oh well, it's a lot of fun and we still have a few more days. It was an early morning, since we forgot to cancel our standing coffee order. Oh well, we got the rest of the family up and dressed and headed up to CK. I said we got dressed, I didn't say they were in a good excited mood. Anyways, ordered up some waffles and French toast and bacon. Yeah, should have ordered 2 of the French toasts because it was basically one slice of bread ... the waffles, yeah skip those. Had a weird texture and didn't taste that good. We docked around noon and hooked up with Yen to get escorted off the ship for our excursion. I can make her laugh every time, though sometimes I wonder if it's the polite laugh ... humm... Our excursion was the zipline and ropes course... the bus drive was only about 20 or so minutes with about 45 of us. We got there, geared up and took off on the course. We tried to make our way towards the front since we move a little faster than some. Took maybe about 45 minutes to do the whole thing, then waited on the bus for everyone else to finish. I'll have to work on the pictures later and dig out some decent ones. The ride back was short and they even dropped us off near the main strip so we could shop for a few. The boys took off in search of The Yoda Guy and the girls went shopping. Last time here we bought his book which he signed and he signed it again for this yeah. Nothing else major happening, so we met back up and got back on the ship. We did have some of those strawberries waiting on us ... yes, put that as a standing order. Of to Jamie's tonight for dinner so watch for pictures. The sun had already set, so I wasn't able to scope it ... maybe another night I'll scope the setting sun. Of course, I have to wait for @Lovetocruise2002 to get home from work lol.

Afternoon snack, already dug into it before the picture Oreo cheesecake

Sorry it didn't work out for you.. LETS GO BLUES!

So, the muster drill. Our cabin steward came by at 3:45 to tell us to get out to our station. Got Dave in wheelchair, took elevator to deck 4, asked where D17 was. Yellow vested lady directed me and asked if I needed help, I said no, but then yellow vested guy did and I just let them take Dave. We wheelchaired out to deck, they scanned our cards, then brought us back in to dining room lobby and just told us to sit there. Eventually everyone made it to muster they sounded the alarm, explained what to do in a real emergency, and then the captain welcomed us aboard. Then we sat there while 2000 people left the dining room in front of us Observation: there is no set area for wheelchair users, they basically just check you in and then direct you to nearest seating area. Hopefully in a real emergency they have a mechanism to get you in actual lifeboat. Quite frankly, it would have worked exactly the same if we stayed in the room and just listened to the PA. I get that maritime law doesn't allow it, but it was a lot of effort to get down there and then sit inside and listen, no examples of how to put on life jacket or anything else useful. After we went out on deck and did sail away until we hit open water. I'm having trouble posting pictures. I bought the basic zoom package against @Matt's advice so I might have to rethink that. I'm going to try in a more public place and see if I have better signal. Dinner at 8:30 with whole group in MTD

I didn't have a balcony on my last cruise and I decided that I just can't do a cruise without it. When people say "you never spend any time in your room anyway", that may be true for some. And in a room without a balcony, that's true for me. But if I have a balcony, I actually do spend more time in my room, on the balcony, relaxing away from everyone else. So it's really a personal thing.

I would have a discussion with the deck supervisor. Going straight to the Hotel Director is the nuclear option but skips several layers of management.

Two different directions: 1. Give the room a attendant a $50 tip and see if service improves (This is a joke) 2. Ask to speak directly with the Hotel Director/Officer I don't think MEI can help at this point.

BS. Even a "Do Not Disturb" sign from embarkation - disembarkation would not prevent the attendant from cleaning the room after it had been vacated. Too bad if she's in trouble. She should be.

I have no August sailings....yet

Just called and got the Voom & Deluxe Drink Package and the Refreshment Package, totaling $418, including gratuities. I did a drink calculator and it came out to be about 410, but that was JUST with drinks, not with the VOOM, so I think we'll come out ahead, especially over the cost if we signed up onboard. And then just the fact that we won't have to worry about budget, etc. once on board.

Ah, so like many of the other things I've been trying to get smart on - it's totally unpredictable, makes little sense, and often RC's own staff doesn't understand it! Gotcha.

For those curious about the beach in St Maarten (I still can't spell it right every time), here's a few pics. You can rent those chairs and go beach lounge. There's the ship's in the background. The walk isn't bad but there is a ferry I think is around 5 bucks a person. The bar below is a cool place to stop and chill. I have a few pictures of our zipline that I'll post later.

OK, so we made it to port of Miami before noon. Porter right there to get luggage though a lot of people around. He directed us to wheelchairs across the street but when asked he called for one to come get us. That was great the pusher knew exactly where to take us, checked in our documents, took us through security then turned us over to a royal caribbean pusher. Left before I could tip. Obviously need to tip immediately if I want to make sure they get them. The royal caribbean pusher, whose name I didn't catch asked where we wanted to stay and wait for room to open at 1. We picked Windjammer so he took us up, a little bit of elevator waiting. He knew all the backways to get us there quickly and wasn't afraid to shave people out of the way. He got us to a table, said we could put wheelchair in hall when we got to stateroom and went on. I was able to tip him. Windjammer is OK to get around in with wheelchair as long as you pay attention. The tile floor is significantly easier than the carpet, though. Quit a few places on ship where you need to go backwards to clear thresholds. Met my friends, waited around and then went to stateroom a few minutes early on chance it was ready. I think we freaked steward out a little but he was just bringing in chocolate covered strawberries for us. Nice accessible room which ill take and post pictures of. Voom instructions in room, easy to setup. Special needs at sea had already delivered rented wheelchair and 2 oxygen concentrators, not sure why 2.there is also a small fridge for medication and a sharps container though I did not request those, and a gallon of distilled water which I did request. The TV is playing the safety drill spy adventure. Have cruise compass and shore excursion book to post when I get home. So all in all it went pretty well. Dave is significantly more tired and weak today so that complicated things a bit. In real life we never plan back to back activities I'll post some pictures later.

About to do our 14th cruise. Only once in a balcony. I thought it was okay. My wife didn’t really see much value in it. As others have said it’s really a individual thing.

Amen.

If money is no object then a balcony is nice. The counter argument is who spends a lot of time in their cabin? Some do, some don't. As I have climbed up the C&A loyalty ladder my balcony discounts have gotten better so I sometimes will get a balcony depending on price. I'm cruising a fair bit at the moment so a balcony isn't that important. If I was only doing a cruise once every so many years I might be tempted to splurge for a balcony. When cruising often it's much less of a "must have" feature and saving money on the cabin translates into money available for excursions or drink packages. My best cruise memories almost always occur away from my cabin, out experiencing the ship or ports of call. It all depends on the cost to upgrade.

Yes! I want the computer glitch.... in the other direction haha

You should do it - so many great historical and cultural sites to see. Some fantastic scenery too.

Perhaps it's via the Panama Canal, Fiji, Bora Bora and Capri ?

My experience has been to book as early as you can. Usually, the longer you wait, the higher the price. We booked a May 2020 cruise last December and the price now, even with a "sale", is over $500 per person more. If you do see a price reduction after you book, the price can be adjusted without losing the cabin you originally chose. Obviously, the earlier you book, the better the cabin selection. Black Friday pricing did provide a lot of savings on drinks, excursions, etc. For example, the refreshment package that was regularly $26pp/pd and $20 on sale, was $17 on Black Friday. The bungalow on Cococay was $214. Our cruise was on sale, but still wasn't lower than we paid originally. Good luck and happy sailing!

LET'S GO BLUES! Barbachev is BACK!

I told mine she'd be stuck going dancing with her dad and I! She decided the teen club sounded great! Jane

We're sailing on Harmony out of Port Canaveral this summer and I'm printing out my SetSail passes tonight. I noticed that my wife and kids have a green 'Expedited Arrival' bar at the top of their's and I do not. Any idea why they'd have it and I wouldn't? Does it make any difference? I'm picturing myself downtrodden in a long non-moving line while they're all smiles waltzing right onto the ship!

Random pictures of the game room near the teen center... Seaplex... on deck 15

Day 8- Helsinki The aches and pains of getting up this morning felt a bit like the day after running a marathon..not that I’ve ever ran one, but we had done over 40,000 steps the previous two days in 30 degree heat! Feeling a bit jaded we grabbed a quiet breakfast from the Park Cafe before setting out to enjoy beautiful Helsinki (I’d tried to go for an alliterative adjective but I couldn’t think of a positive word beginning with H...). It was another gloriously sunny day and we’d booked a ship’s excursion, another similar one to Stockholm- an unguided tour where the bus drops you off at three locations. Our main reasons for this were a) the price (£22 in a cruise planer sale, comparable with the shuttle bus!) b) the limited time in Helsinki (all aboard at 3pm) and c) The fact that the three things we wanted to see(main square, Sibelius monument and rock church) are so far apart that reaching them by foot or public transport would have been tricky. This tour was a bit smoother than the Stockholm one and we’re glad we took it. The only slight grumble is that here, as at Stockholm, we got significantly less time at the sites than advertised. I completely understand about traffic times and things, but the fact that it seems to be regular (and that the printed guide on the day was already displaying shorter times than the brochure) makes me think they’d be better advertising for a “typical case scenario” rather than “absolutely best case scenario”. Nonetheless, it was a good tour, of a beautiful city. We were back onboard by 1pm and enjoyed our first lunch in the Windjammer. This was followed by an afternoon in the glorious sun playing Shuffleboard (fast becoming a favourite) and swimming in the pool. For the evening, Mrs. M and I had a date night and used the third night of our 3 night dining package at Giovannis- her choice! I preferred Chops overall, but both were excellent and made a very nice change from the MDR and Windjammer. Theincluded food has been fine, but the Speciality restaurants are a bit like going to a nice restaurant on land. The beauty of being onboard is that you can order as much as you like, so for example we were able to sample octopus, which we probably wouldnt have wanted to risk paying out for! With Henry safely in the care of the outlaws (or rather, the outlaws safely in the care of Henry) we had some drinks, played some Shuffleboard and checked out the 9pm production showtime of Tango Buenos Airies. Dance shows aren’t really my thing, but one can’t help but be impressed by the quality of the music and dancers. Coming away from Helsinki today felt a little bit like we’re on the Home Stretch (probably because we literally are!) but we still have four more days to look forward to aboard the beautiful Brilliance of the Seas.

Enjoyed reading your blog on Rhapsody, as always. Looking forward to our trip on her as she is similar to Serenade and we loved Serenade so much.

This applies to everything on this blog! Although if his wife is anything like mine, she might beg to differ! ?

OK, the pusher Ms Ginger was very nice and we had precheck so that went OK, though I should have frisked DH better before getting all the junk out of his pockets. They almost made him stand up to go through security but after we said he was blind too they decided to just go through with wheelchair and do a minor pat down. She took us to gate, checked in our boarding passes, and by then BF and BFH were there. We decided to fly 1st class to make Dave more comfortable and I upgraded their seats too. First on plane, first off plane. If you can afford 1st it's worth it. I just budgeted it in. Pusher in FLL I didn't get his name but he speed demoned us to baggage claim and let us keep wheelchair. Left before I could tip him? Get bags, call for shuttle, made it to hotel Observations. When the pushers come to get you, you go, and you go to next destination. No stopping, no rest stops, period. They have other people to help. So, plan that in FLL airport does not have a family restroom on baggage claim. Major fail in my opinion. We either had to get our bags and go back up to bathroom or wait, so we waited until hotel. Check in was a breeze though and the accessible room at Springhill suites is very nice. Having BF and BFH was a major major help. Even though I planned for less luggage it was still a lot to keep track of and they were saviors. It's clear that if we do this again we either need to do it with another couple or bring a third person to help But everyone has been friendly and helpful and accommodating. Buying and bringing the travel walker was great. I almost left it at deplane but luckily BF was there to get it. But, it's light, it's small, and its helpful for between destinations like the hotel hallways. Now to rest.

Made it to airport. Got to shuttle a little late but it was full anyway so they sent it back for us. Shuttle driver nice and helpful and friendly. Delta air crew already in shuttle and they nicely and automatically moved farther back and helped us climb in. 7 minutes to airport. Found a skycap to do curbside check-in and leave bag, he went and got a wheelchair to push us to wheelchair waiting area. Pusher came after about 5 minutes but another couple was ahead of us, and they didn't have precheck but we did so we need to wait for he to come back. So far so good.

Pizza.... At midnight after exercising the drink package.

This is Matt's favorite spot: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2014/03/10/restaurant-review-comidas-caseras-tonita Ignore the 2014 date on the post, 5 years later he still hits it every time.

Have you ventured into the MDR for dinner yet? We're on the Anthem 7/13 for a 5 day Bermuda cruise. Really enjoying your blog, thanks!

June 12, 7 night, $1020pp July 6, 4 night, $749pp July 19, 7 night, $969pp

@GlowTheWeird Did you book through a travel agent? I would suggest calling them. If not, I would call Royal Caribbean about your reservation. I thought it was a computer glitch, but I am a travel agent. I checked my agency booking website, and every category on this sailing is closed, except these: 3B Spacious ocean view balcony for $6,084 pp (standard pricing) 6N Ocean view $3,010 pp (BOGO50 NRD) 6V Interior $2,485 pp (BOGO50 NRD) This is very strange, but especially since it is so far out.

Maybe others have had better luck than I, but Black Friday never had any better pricing on the actual cruises we had previously booked.

We were on the Harmony last week and Three Card was $5 minimum during the low limit times (10AM-1PM during the at sea days). However, I walked past it multiple times at night on other days where it was at $5 as well. The highest I saw it go was $10 minimum.

Thanks @FManke !

Matt is going to put in a vote for a lava flow with Kraken rum floater on top. I usually drink a martini or mojito, and before bed enjoy a toasted almond. My husband likes the Godfather, or just straight whiskey.

Sorry to hear the cruise didn't live up to your expectations. You did a great job of detailing your experiences. Based on what you said we would probably have come back commenting we had one of our best trips. I think it boils down to your individual tastes and expectations. If you try again sometime I would offer a couple of ideas that work for us. We spend the first day or so finding our bar. By that I mean there is usually one that seems to have the right mix of crowd and bartender. For us it is not the pool bar as that is almost guaranteed to give you the experience you had. Secondly we usually do a cash tip of a few bucks up front to the bartender that we like. It is amazing how quick they recognize you for the rest of the cruise. I'm a planning nut so one of the things I like about the large ships are the amount of things I can pre-reserve. Maybe you'd like one of the smaller ships as they tend to be open ended as far as scheduling is concerned. Hope you give it another try someday

Day Seven - St. Petersburg (2) We could have a slightly later start for our second day in St. Petersburg and so I ran up to the Park Cafe to bring back breakfast to the room. It’s quite an impressive selection and made a change from the windjammer and MDR. See pictures! Immigration was much swifter this morning and we were through in about 5 minutes, giving us chance to look at the souvenirs etc. at the port and for Henry to have a little longer to charm the socks off of the scary immigration officials. Julia and Alec arrived and informed us that, due to the World Economic Forum taking place our schedule had to change order slightly. This event made the traffic super crazy in SPB but they did their best to mitigate it and we still got to complete the whole itinerary. We started off with a 60min drive out to Peterhof, the Summer Palace with magnificent gardens and fountains. The fountains are an engineering marvel, and the main cascade comes on at 11am to the sounds of the Russian national anthem. The real highlight, however, was the series of “trick fountains”, controlled by an operator in a booth, that children can play in. Given that today made it up to 32 degrees these were an absolute hit with an overheated toddler! We then took a Hydrofoil ride (I’d never heard of them before, they look like a boat which is kind of out of the future or the USSR) back along the river into the city and disembarked right by the hermitage. After some Russian fast-food for lunch we had a guided boat trip around the canals and rivers. It was wonderful to see the city from this viewpoint - St. Petersburg is really charming. We then had a tour inside the iconic Church on the Spilled Blood before having a tour of the Metro. This sounds like a bizzare tour...but it was really interesting. Not only was it a glimpse into life for ordinary residents if he city, but St. Petersburg contains the deepest metro station in the world and some of the other stations are decorated with beautiful mosaics. I’d heartily recommend this kind of private or small group tour. If you can splurge and go private (which happened accidentally to us, thankfully without the splurge!) I’d go for it. Being able to go at our own pace, and see things that interested us was really quite super and this was especially good with a toddler- who wouldn’t have coped with the large ship’s group tours. That said, the outlaws took two ships excursions and, the disembarkation chaos on the first day aside, were very impressed with the quality of the tour. Their second tour was also nearly an hour late back to the ship and the ship waited without question because it was a ship’s excursion. To be fair, it didn’t leave until 1:45 in the afternoon, which was certainly cutting it fine. Back aboard, We cooled off in the pool. I’d heard that the ship is pretty much full but the pool area, even in today’s scorching weather, has never had more than a dozen people around it, and we’ve never shared the pool with more than a couple of people at a time. I’m so glad Henry is potty trained in time, else it would have been really hard for him not to be able to go in the pool. Dinner tonight was the MDR with the outlaws. We’ve had the same waiters all week and I think they are the biggest pro of the MDR. We went from start to finish in about an hour and 20 tonight. The food was “fine”. I think last night’s WindJammer was better on balance. I took a pepper soup and a crab cake for starters which were good, a lasagne for main which was pretty average at best and apple pie for dessert which was pretty good. The menu in the MDR is pretty big, but it doesn’t change so much each evening. I reckon there are usually about 4/5 starters that are different and 5/6 mains which is plenty of change I guess but dessert so far has been one hot dessert that changes and one sugar free dessert (and every time we’ve been the hot dessert has been chocolate brownie, cookie or cake...although that would be a hit for many!). Not so much a criticism, but an observation. In other stray news, today they brought out the 10 drinks for $75 cards. As we’ve a refreshment package it doesn’t effect us, but lots of people were getting excited about this and the pool bartenders were walking round trying to sell them. There was also a 10 Beers for I think $50ish package. A laundry offer of “stuff what you can except for trousers and shirts into this bag for $35” also appeared in the stateroom (I guess appeared makes it sound like magic... Franklin our stateroom attendant probably put it there in case you were worried the ship is haunted or something!). We keenly took up this offer because we’ve basically ran out of shorts and t-shirts...expecting the weather to be Baltic we only packed a couple of pairs and then mostly jumpers, trousers and arctic exploration gear! Most of the guests onboard seemed tired following two heavy days in St. Petersburg. I think this was reflected in the entertainment in the theatre tonight- movie night! We decided to skip it and go to bed early. I should also say that last night’s entertainment was a Russian Folkloric Show. We didn’t see it, as the only showing was 10pm but the outlaws did and said it was absolutely incredible- MiL said it was that good, that it was the highlight of the cruise thus far...and there was me thinking it would have been the dinner company and witty humour of her favourite (only) Son in Law. Tomorrow marks the fifth consecutive port day- Helsinki. I’m looking forward to Saturday’s Sea Day for a rest!

Have a Happy Birthday and an amazing cruise! We'll also be following! My MIL is now 80 and mobility impaired too (knee replacement a few years ago). We would love to take her on another cruise (my FIL has no desire to cruise ?) and Navigator is on the short list if we can coordinate it with her!

My first cruise was on Navigator in 2016. Looking forward to following along and seeing how she's changed since then. Have a great time ?

This thread has been locked due to continued political discussion, abrasive discord, and personal attacks. For more information on changes in itineraries due to new Cuba travel restrictions, please check https://RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com and https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/06/05/royal-caribbean-cancels-all-scheduled-visits-cuba