Leaderboard

Huge bonus having arrived two hours late, thus leaving two hours late...

Good morning from a very comfy, rocking and rolling Anthem of the Seas! If I didn’t live in the west, I’d always sail out of Cape Liberty. I LOVE how this ship handles slight seas like this.

The port recently announced that they have budgeted for the projects that they will do to support the new terminal next year. However the port also said that they expect to sign the final contract by the end of 2019, so it’s not signed yet. Construction would start in April 2020 with an 18 month construction period. That puts completion in late 2021, which was the original schedule.

Not something you see everyday...

Impressive. I don’t even know 14 people. ?

Thank you @Matt for this blog and the podcast, it’s the only reason I’m here. This is one of my best cruises out of 27 so far!

I do not have family in Rock Hill

More Trivia: Charleston is home to the oldest museum in the USA and the oldest municipal college in the US and oldest college in SC, The College of Charleston. The City was the sight of the first major defeat of the British in 1776. The first shots of the Civil War were fired on the Federal supply ship Star of the West, then later Fort Sumter.

On a more positive note, here is some Charleston trivia: Charles Towne was first settled in 1670 by the British on the west bank of the Ashley River. Currently the location is known as Charlestowne Landing State Park. It includes a replica of the original settlement and 17th century sailing vessel, a zoo of native animals, and the plantation that was owned by Dr. and Mrs. Waring. Mrs. Waring deeded the land to the state upon her death. Dr. Warring was famous for his painless injections and the MUSC historical library is named after him. He was also brother to Federal Judge J. W. Waring famous for beginning school desegregation cases that would lead to Brown vs Board of Education. The Waring House would become known as the Governor's House after the plantation was deeded to the state. If you are in Charleston, Charlestowne Landing is a great place to start your tour. It is not down town but only 10 minutes by car or taxi, Uber, Lyft, etc.

I was recently monitoring RRCL's website for room availability; I was trying to book a Junior Suite on Harmony of the Seas since one wasn't available at the time of booking. (About 75 days prior to sail date). I would frequently see a listing for a Central Park Balcony, or Ocean View Balcony, and rarely a Junior Suite. Sometimes, when I would attempt to select the room, it would show me the error message "Central Park Balcony Staterooms are unavailable" (or whatever the particular room was I was attempting to review). Last night, I noticed a Junior Suite finally displaying"available" (previously the "Royal Class Suites" would only show the "SOLD OUT!" banner). But again, when attempting to review the room's location and price, it would populate the error message " Junior Suite Staterooms are unavailable". I decided to call Royal Caribbean (since my TA wasn't immediately available to take my call), and I was informed by the representative that they indeed had ONE JS stateroom available for booking! I was able to book the room through my agent (who called me back almost right after I hung up with RCCL). I wanted to share this information since newbies (like myself) might not realize that the website isn't always accurate. (I reviewed the RCblog topic history and noticed there was a good discussion about RCCL's website not showing ALL rooms available for booking... Hope this helps! Have a great day y'all!

With a little traffic light luck, I'm 10 minutes from the terminal. As to the ports and cargo ships - there is a HUGE new cargo terminal being built on the old Charleston Navy Base that hopefully divert a lot of traffic from downtown. SCDOT is currently in the middle of an entire new interstate connector that should be finished in a few months. I would LOVE to be able to leave out of Charleston, but I'm skeptical that it will be done. Carnival just signed a new lease, and I'm sure they enjoy being the only dog in the kennel, not to mention the downtown bluebloods who simply hate the idea of "more tourists" in their town. I have a lot of friends who cruise out of Charleston, but to me, it's worth the 6 hour drive and hotel stay in Port Canaveral to sail on Royal. I'm not even interested in a Carnival cruise. Here is a link to the new terminal website if anyone is interested.

Oh. boy!!! The flooding at high tide and with rain storms has always been a problem. And when both happens it is a real problem. I do not believe it is any more so than 30 years ago. 1st find a map from say 1780 of the peninsula of Charleston. Then compare to a map from today. You discover two things: 1. Much of the current city is constructed on waist fill dirt. 2. Many of the current streets and roads sit on tidal creeks as mapped in 1780. Walk around some of the newer buildings in MUSC area and you will notice 2-3 feet of subsidence of the parking lots around the buildings and you can see under the buildings (large buildings like hotels and hospitals). Those buildings are build on pilings to a minimum depth of 33 feet some more. The buildings stay but the parking lots sink under the weight of the asphalt. Some of the streets are build on fill as well and many are built on colvert that contains the tidal creek under the street and acts as the storm sewer. Thus heavy rain and high tide means storm sewer flows in reverse. In approx 1992 or 1994 Mayor Riley enacted a flood control fee of $4 per month to pay to solve the flooding. The fee is much higher now. His plan was to pump the excess water underground during flooding and pump back into the ocean at low tide. A deep hole was constructed over 20 years and no improvement. (Currently a new bigger deeper hole is being constructed). Why no improvement? Because there is not a hole big enough or deep enough to pump the entire ocean into and that is what has to happen. Remember the tidal creeks flood the city and are fed by the ocean. I had this discussion with an engineer for the third firm hired by the city to solve the problem in 2005. He agreed with me. The only thing that would have a chance of working is to construct a dike/levee around the city. Then you could pump storm water out of the bowl. Like in New Orleans.

NEW VLOG IS LIVE! Today I talk about crew being in guest areas.

Based on the title of this post and yesterday being Halloween, I totally thought this was going to be about a haunted cabin. ?

I believe there are a few factors, chief among them are whatever the Captain feels like.

I have no reason to believe it will be cancelled. In fact, they just told Cruise Critic the other day things are looking great

People in our Facebook group for the 8th are getting their gty cabins today and some have got royal bid offers today so looks like it’s all good..

Feeling a bit deflated, another Halloween sailing has come to an end.

I pulled this photo off of Cruisedeckplans.com and it it appears that the bed is along the forward wall. Honestly, I really can’t say that I’ve ever been able to tell what direction the ship is moving unless I’m looking out a window.

Got upgraded. Majesty of the Seas 11/25/2019 $230 per person from Oceanview to Junior Suite. 25 days from sailing I was notified.

So, just a quick update, captain just mentioned ten min ago before we departed, that around 1-3am we’ll encounter 50 knot winds and 20 foot seas until around 11 am tomorrow. I’m currently in Wonderland for the first time and am blown away!

There are 3 reasons to book a specialty restaurant on the Cruise Planner before you cruise: 1. You can sometimes take advantage of a discount. This is not as common for a single meal as it is for the dinner packages but there are still sometimes "sales" on specialty restaurants. It's also true that they sometimes offer discounts on specialty dining once onboard...just to be fair. 2. When you pre-purchase the specialty meal, your gratuity is included in the price you pay online. If you purchase your meal on the ship, you will be paying 18% gratuity on TOP of the cost of the meal. 3. You get to choose the day and time that you want.

Even with two ships in things aren't all that crowded.

Hello everyone! We are Matt and Lisa (or MO and LO)! Matt is the main typer and poster with input from Lisa. We are now down to double digits for this cruise after booking it with more than 400+ days until we boarded. We don't remember the exact number of days because it was so painful to see such a high number so we did not pay attention until recently ?. We booked it at Next Cruise on a previous cruise and got a $100 OBC! Next Cruise is our preferred booking location for obvious reasons! Only 98 days until we board, 97 until we fly out! We are flying from Minneapolis to Miami so you can imagine how excited we are to leave Minnesota in February from the cold and snow! We initially had this booked on the itinerary right before this one but changed it after we figured out that the Super Bowl was in Miami in 2020. We would have been flying in to Miami on the Saturday before the big game so we decided that it would have been EXTREMELY expensive, busy, and not relaxing or enjoyable for us so changed it to the week later. Very glad we did this. Why this cruise?: We have never been to the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) and REALLY wanted to get there. We really enjoy longer cruises since we feel like we really get to experience it and settle in. For us, anything under 7 nights seems too short. We also like the Voyager Class of ships so it was perfect. From that class we have been on Adventure (March 2017) and Mariner (May 2019) in the past. We recently did our first 9 night cruise which was on Serenade (Jan 2019) and learned that the boat was a bit small for us for such a long cruise. This will be our 10th cruise together and give us a total of 100 points! Our first together was our honeymoon in 1997 on Monarch out of Puerto Rico. All our cruises together have been on RCCL. I (Matt) have been on 1 extra cruise that I took as a kid with my parents on the Big Red Boat (if anyone remembers that one). Flights: We are flying on Delta from MSP to MIA on February 6th. We always go atleast one day early because the weather is unpredictable in Minnesota that time of year and also because the stress of flying and boarding is just miserable......especially if something doesn't go quite right and we get delayed. We will not land until late at night so that day is purely a travel day. Unfortunately we learned something about companion fares........they only have so many allowed per flight so you need to book very early. We did not realize they only allow so many per flight and got burned on this. Normally we fly out a day or two ahead and hang out but they did not have that option available with the companion fares. So with the companion fare issues in mind, we had to stay TWO extra days after the cruise to get the first flight available home. We normally fly out as soon as we can on disembarkation day but now we will have 2 extra days in Miami. We have never stayed more than a few extra hours after the cruise is over so this will be interesting to try. We fly back on February 18th. Room: 9th floor balcony Excursions: So far we haven't booked anything but will update on that as we continue the planning Dining & Drink Package: We will be having every meal in the dining room because we love main dining. We enjoy the personal connection and attention we get from getting to know the dining staff. By the end of the cruise they have "learned" us and our needs/wants and we love that! We will be doing early dining (6pm on this cruise) so that we aren't eating so late at night! That is always our preferred choice. We will be getting the Refreshment Package since we aren't heavy alcohol drinkers. We WILL be taking part in the Diamond Lounge drinks every night though! ? Full Itinerary: Travel Day from MSP to MIA Day 1 - Miami Day 2 - Sea Day Day 3 - Labadee, Haiti (8am-5pm) Day 4 - Sea Day Day 5 - Kralendijk, Bonaire (9am-6pm) Day 6 - Oranjestad, Aruba (8am-9pm) Day 7 - Willemstad, Curacao (8am-5pm) Day 8 & 9 - Sea Days Day 10 - Miami Post cruise day - Miami Travel day from MIA to MSP Hotels: We are staying at the airport and downtown Holiday Inns. Holiday Inn is our preferred chain because of quality and price along with consistency. This Live (or mostly) Blog: We will be doing our best to give live updates as we are doing them but obviously not everything can be live so some things will get posted when we have a chance. Vlog/Recording/Youtube/Twitter: We will be recording/vlogging as much as we can. We have recorded numerous excursions for our personal collection and friends. We recently thought that people, like us, would be interested in seeing some of these excursions so they know what they are like and what to expect. It has helped us in our research of traveling/cruising. This turned out to be very popular on our YouTube channel so we wanted to expand on that. This will be our first attempt at that. Our YouTube channel can be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-JW4jgv_suiK-NCHyhQIVA/ . We will be posting these after they are edited and ready, which will probably be after we are home, but will try to get smaller/shorter things here. Please subscribe to our channel so you will know when they are posted. The videos will not just be excursions. They will include lots of other stuff and we hope to have fun with them. We will also post to our Twitter account with updates (https://twitter.com/MOLOonthego1). We just bought the brand new GoPro Hero 8 Black to upgrade from our Hero 4 Silver to get some better quality videos (and not have them shake and bounce all over). Final Thoughts On First Post: We are excited to bring everyone along and showcase how we travel and what we do!!! We look forward to everyone's comments and reactions to our first trip to the ABC islands! If you have any questions, suggestions, thoughts please feel free to post on here or reach out to us privately.

A few thoughts on our recently completed Adventure Of The Seas cruise; A BULLET POINT REVIEW OF OUR ADVENTURE OF THE SEAS CRUISE OCTOBER 7-20, 2019 · Overall we would give this ship a 4 out of 5 rating. · Ports were Quebec City, Prince Edward Island, Sydney, Halifax, Bar Harbor, Portland, Saint John, Boston and Port Canaveral. Disembark was in Ft. Lauderdale. Due to strong winds and choppy seas, we had to bypass Halifax. · Embarkation was a breeze, once we got to the terminal. The seapass we printed out worked for purchases on the ship until we got to our cabin and picked up the key card. · Our cabin steward was Corina and she was truly awesome! · Adventure of the Seas is a beautiful ship and accommodates about 3,000 passengers. We have sailed it before, in 2008, but it was refurbished not too long ago. · The food on the ship is very good. Some people will complain that there was little variety, but they must not have paid attention. Every night was a theme night in the Windjammer buffet that featured food from other cultures. There was also basic food that you could get every day. If you enjoy breakfast, the Windjammer was an awesome spot to eat because we could get almost whatever we liked. Their pastries and baked goods were really good. There was ice cream every night and a soft serve yogurt machine available all day. · Internet was very good most of the cruise. We got the single device package and traded off. No sense buying two packages when one will do. · Overall the service on the ship was terrific! Bar service in the MDR was really bad, though. This seems to happen a lot. · We encountered 3 major storms. As mentioned, we had to bypass Halifax and had to leave Boston early due to storms. We also had a major storm going in to Port Canaveral. We were able to cancel our planned excursion and get a refund. · You may have heard about the passenger that had a stroke and had to be medevac’d. That was our ship and the storm made it more difficult. · We only had to tender at Bar Harbor and that went pretty well. We also had to pass through customs twice and that went quite swiftly. · One minor complaint is the slowness of the elevators. Sometimes they would pass us by several times before stopping and often they were full. It really didn’t help that one of the 4 elevators was out of service often. · By far, our favorite bar was the Duck&Dog Pub. They had the best bartenders and servers. It is also close to food and entertainment. We also liked the Pool Bar, but it was a bit out of our way, and the weather generally didn’t lend itself to spending much time there. · Speaking of entertainment, we didn’t go to many of the stage shows. The magician was really good and the ice show is always worth going to. For the ice show, you no longer need to stand in line to get tickets. Now you need to stand in line before the show. First Come, first served. The Top Tier Event was a waste of time. The house band, Mega 4 was very good and we often planned what we were going to do based on when and where they were playing. We weren’t very impressed with the pianist in the Schooner bar, but seem to be in the minority as he had quite a following. We also didn’t like the bar service in Schooner, which is something I never thought would happen. Others mentioned specific bar tenders that were really good, so maybe we just had bad luck the times we were there. · Disembarking was fast and easy. Since we had already gone through customs in Boston, we did not have to do it in Ft. Lauderdale. Very hot and humid day. Plenty of taxis available, but we managed to get the last two seats on the airport shuttle. Much cheaper. We did curb side check in at the airport and I highly recommend this as the check in lines inside were very long.

Or drive to FLL, have a great dinner and margaritas at La Bamba to start the vacation off the only proper way, then drive to Miami the next morning. ?

you're welcome.. I had selfish reasons lol I am also on the 24th sailing.. But like I said I honestly think they are just having inventory issues..

We didn't get bits it was a whole tail with the Champagne sauce. We didn't ask for the whole tail that's how it came?

We are very excited for this itinerary! We have been wanting to do this for awhile and it finally worked out! So far our favorite island has been St Lucia so we will have to compare that to these new islands. We will refrain from using google to see what "My Dushi" means ? Going out of Florida was such a bonus for us! So does that mean it's too early to start our live blog for our January 2021 cruise on Harmony???? ? We were just so excited to start this! We have a few things left to plan and hope to get some input. I guess at least we waited for double digits and didn't start in triple digits ???

This is precisely what we do. Glad to see that you are keeping your Royal sailings despite your struggles on your last cruise.

Sounds like a fantastic trip, and even better for being able to do the ABC islands without having to leave out of OSJ. Looking forward to the coming updates! Oh, and @Matt / @Lovetocruise2002 -- please don't feel obligated to now start your next live blogs at 100 days out. You really don't need to maintain your titles of King and Queen of the Early Live Blog Start. ??

Ha, actually I made that choice 25 years ago.

February 3, 2020... Brilliance

Thanks a bunch. Everyone's feedback is making this a pretty easy decision for me. LOL.

we would love this as well...we live in the charlotte, nc area as well... not far from rock hill, sc and RC out of charleston would be fantastic for us.

Oasis and Odyssey disappeared from the website entirely today for a few minutes. A brand new search with no filters yielded only 24 ships: Then a few minutes later they re-appeared in the list. Perhaps they are having IT issues again. Or we can start a rumor that Oasis and Odyssey have been sold ?

@J_Keeble Adventure and Liberty will be getting Amped in 2021, so there's a possibility for another shot at that itinerary. Will have to wait and see when they release those TA's.

Royal continues to impress with how it handles events that are out of their control forcing them to make changes that impact guests. No one can control mother nature and it appears the choices offered are reasonable and fair. I don't imagine anyone likes to have cruises altered or cancelled anymore than when it happened to me this year more than once, all out of the control of Royal Caribbean. In all cases they were fair and pleasant to deal with through the process. I didn't like it but it wasn't Royal's fault.

I'm based in England so it would be the flight from Miami back to London but it is good they an honouring the C&A points as it take me up to exactly 80 points and diamond!

Here's every Black Friday deal going back to 2015: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/category/category/black-friday

I received my Royal Up bid opportunity 9/26/19 for my 11/24/19 7 night sailing on the Harmony. There were 4 separate offers, I am currently booked in an OS. I researched knowing our specific criteria and decided to place a minimal bid on a 2 Bedroom Aqua Suite. We are 23 days out and have not heard back yet, when I receive any response I will update but no communication as of now. I know this is a near sold out sailing so I am not that enthusiastic that our bid will be accepted but the process was neat, so much better then the way DCL handles begging for even eye contact at the "supervisors desk" . I enjoyed the anticipation and research that went along with the process, I will continue to stand by....

Distance-wise, LGA and JFK might be closer (they're located in Queens). But in terms of traffic I would say it's faster to get to Manhattan from EWR. About a 40-minute drive outside of rush hour via the Lincoln Tunnel and you're right in mid-town. My two times going to JFK (both on a weekend) it was closer to 90 minutes just to get from the airport to Manhattan because of the traffic.

All family. No choice but to know them. ?

I think some nice additional info to add would be how many nights the cruise is. $230 PP is a much better deal on a 7 night cruise than it is on a 3 night cruise!

It’s what the Halibut is cooked in.

When we did the Escape Room on Harmony this last May, we did complete it, but it took us 55 minutes. The RC staff member told us only about 40% complete it within the 1 hour allotted. There are certainly some puzzles that require multiple people to work together simultaneously to accomplish the task (one required 6 people!). There is no way you could do Harmony's Escape Room by yourself without additional bodies in the room, so you absolutely have to communicate and work together as a group. Booking this activity was very tedious. It didn't appear in the cruise planner until about 30 days out (everything else became available in the planner at 107 days out), and filled up VERY quickly. It became sold out with a week of appearance in the planner. When it was initially released, it was available most every day of the cruise, and several times a day (5 or 6 if I recall correctly), so there was many slots daily that could be filled, and they all did fill rather quickly within just a few days of release for booking. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and everyone in our group really enjoyed it! I highly recommend doing it if you have the opportunity!

Update: The strike is over.

The Royal Up offer for my 12/7 Brilliance cruise came on 10/11. I don’t expect to hear if it’s accepted or declined until a few days before we cruise. I am really not expecting an upgrade because my bid for a balcony was low, but I am totally happy with the location of our current cabin.

Yes, I've done this many times. I book as soon as itineraries get released (especially the Star Class rooms) and watch the prices like a hawk. You can re-price even if the cabin category goes. I've done this more times than I can count. The villa suite has turned out to to be the best deal ever. After grabbing it at release, I have now priced it down to less than $1000pp.

Some more photos on CocoCay