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Ovation of the Seas, 11 Nights departing from Sydney Australia to New Zealand For many years I avoided Alaska cruises on the premise that bikinis are better than parkas. Then I finally did an Alaskan cruise. Just wow! Why did I wait so long? That experience got me looking even farther from home and I realized the same could be said for Australia and New Zealand. Learning from Alaska I decided to just do it. YOLO! I've always wanted to visit both Australia and New Zealand so hopefully this will be a rehearsal for more cruising down under. Practice makes perfect. This is me doing my single digit dance. It's a long flight to Australia, I take off early one day and land two days later. Somehow it ended up being 2 days and a few hours to get there with a connection. Fortunately it takes less than 6 hours to fly home. Strong tailwinds I guess. With the time change it's already well into tomorrow there. I can never keep that straight. All I know is that this cruise is costing me two days of my life just to get there so I have high expectations. This is an 11 night cruise but weather permitting we'll have one day sailing through Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sounds. With the three sounds all on day 9 the itinerary looks longer than it is. Here's hoping for good weather. Just one tender port so that's a plus. I tendered on Ovation in Hawaii so that doesn't concern me. With the time change it seems that Sydney always celebrates New Years Eve before North America so on that basis I'll get to watch the Super Bowl a day before you folks in North America. I'll post the outcome here, get ready to place your bets. Super Bowl Monday here we come. The game starts mid-morning so there may be some day drinking involved. At least it's on a sea day. Flying into Sydney two days prior and staying downtown my plan is to take the train into the city and sleep for the rest of the day. Other plans include the Sydney Bridge Climb and a tour of the Sydney Opera House after which I'll either crash hard or have some gas left in the tank to explore a little bit more. If I have time I may try to find Alice. Maybe I'll get up early (or be up already) to watch Ovation come into port. My bags are packed, I'm ready to go... 'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane...

@Lovetocruise2002 I hear your pro tip about blogging solely from my phone. Here is an elderly tip: I can barely see the damned thing!??

We are having a blast and the weather is amazing! Daughter was too short for flow rider. After some convincing I got her to go down the water slides. She loved them, i got 4 rotations in the bowl too. Tips from the lifeguard helped! Daughter won the jackpot in the ticket machine too.

Here are a few more pictures from the items in our room when we arrived. Each of our preferred drinks. Ranger cookies for Taylor. Graduation cake for the Dr. Birthday cake for the twins. Gifts for everyone. And we have already asked for adoption papers for our room steward. Her name is, sing along now, G. L. O. R. I. A. GLOR-I-A!!!. Her assistant is Iwayan. Pictures of these two sweethearts will follow.

Good morning, it’s day 2..This blogging thing that some of you make look so easy, isn’t! I’m still learning how to transfer pictures from the camera and my phone to the IPad. Also still figuring out how to actually post them. I should have it all mastered by day 7? So back to yesterday. We took an Uber from Staybridge Suites at MIA to the port. 5 people, 5 suitcases, $30. At Terminal A we got out and walked the last 200 yards because it was faster! Gave our names at the Star Class kiosk and we were whisked upstairs to the lounge. The checked us in and called for Allan This all took about 10 minutes. Plenty of drinks and snacks were there. Super Mario was definitely the celebrity in the room! Taylor immediately began her quest to eat her weight in Ranger cookies. Allan took us and one other family immediately on the ship and into the suite lounge. We were on deck 17 eating more snacks 20 minutes after getting out of the car an it was still only 1040am Allan pulled me aside to explain that he was making sure all of his welcome surprises were ready in the room. After 10 minutes he escorted us to the room and I found out how fun and creative he is! From gifts to jokes to cakes he did an amazing job of welcoming our family We hung out in the suite for a little and then ventured out to Playmakers for lunch i believe we ordered all of the appetizers. Our waiter, Djuro from Bosnia, was amazing! Today is his niece’s 4th birthday. His mother back home grows all of her own vegetables. He appreciates his parents more now that he’s older. You think we had some time to chat??? This is one of th great things about cruising - the interaction with others from such diverse and different backgrounds. This young man was just great fun to talk with. And, according to the bevy I’m cruising with he’s not too hard to look at either!

You must be confused with your cruise lines, Royal has never had self service laundromats (at least not in the 20 years I have been using their ships)

Yeah sorry about the food pic. I might just skip those all together lol. 11 of us on the ship. Only 3 of us in a suite. We have most of the dining where we can all go. I have at least 1 day planned for CK, and breakfast tomorrow. Anyway, it was way too early to go to sleep so I did some wondering around solo, got some decent night pics.

Day 3- Boarding Day Today is the day, we finally board the Oasis of the Seas. It may not be a Disney ship, but it's a ship and it can't be too bad right? Again I wake around 2a to watch the ship dock, these windows are giving me insomnia! I wait until she turns in the basin and makes her way back to Terminal A until I lay back down. We have our alarm set for 8a and plan on leaving the hotel at 10a. Usually when we sail with Disney we leave the resort area around 8:30 to get to the port and return rental car by 10a just to sit in the terminal until 11:30 but that is what my mother wants to do and well we do it. So sleeping in and just going at our leisure is new and feels odd. But who needs an alarm clock, I just woke around 6:30a and showered and was gonna let Scott sleep and go to Starbucks for my coffee and egg white bites. But Scott woke up and wanted to go, not sure why as he hates their coffee and didn't get anything but across the street we go. Once I ate and then brought my coffee back to the room Scott showered and then we sat around the room waiting to leave. We make sure everything is packed, luggage tags on luggage and excitement in check. I hailed a Lyft at 10:09a and was getting into the car at 10:11, arriving at the terminal at 10:41. Traffic was a nightmare but its what you expect when 5500 are getting on the ship while the last cruise is also leaving. We were graced with the "Expedited Arrival". First impressions at the bottom of the escalator is this place is HUGE! Love the propellers and lighting as you transcend up to the next level. Once at the top we show those Expedited Arrival Sea Pass cards and are sent to the far left where they were scanned and then told to move on to security. Security was empty and we put my backpack and Scott's "murse" (man purse) through and walk through. Wow these security bins are high tech and really night. It appears there are 2 lanes set up for the Expedited Arrivals and the rest were the others as there was a big line that appeared to move swiftly. Up to level 3 and bingo we found all the people, we walked toward the toward front and low and behold they start calling for boarding. I don't know the levels but when they called Diamond they also called for Expedited arrivals and luckily we were right there so we just walked forward, again Expedited Arrivals had the 2 far left lanes but they announced you could use any lane. We walked up to the Facial Recognition cameras and were told we were cleared to board. There must be another line someplace as this is going extremely to easy! Next is photos and we passed by them and then just kept walking, then onto the gangway and then on to the ship. It is now 10:55 and we are on the ship! Holy crap that was so easy and a much better process than Disney at any of their terminals. Once onboard it is time for lunch as Scott only had the left over donuts for breakfast from 2 nights ago. We walk through the beautiful Promenade and then up to the Boardwalk to look around. Wow this ship is so big but so beautiful. Every Crew member we encountered were very friendly and almost always said Hello. Next we head to El Loco Fresh as we both LOVE mexican. Not sure what all was eaten but it is a great meal and we are in love with the place. After lunch we head up and went to check out Windjammer. Scott something else to eat, something small. Then we headed out to explore the ship and low and behold we are now at The Solarium Bistro where you guessed it Scott got something to eat! Again if we are on vacation Scott needs to eat and he was worried about going hungry with not being on Disney....so far so good he is full. The Solarium is beautiful and peaceful. I love the new sun deck on the front but it is still quite windy and we just look around and head back in. We now head back down to the Promenade and walk through like 2 salmon going up stream since this is ground zero for boarding. We take a look into the theater and then down to the casino. They announce the staterooms are ready so we head up to Deck 6 to our room. As we are walking down the hall our luggage is there so we grab it and take it with us. Our keys our on the door just like everyone said they would. Open the door and explore our home for the next week. It's a nice room, clean and everything we need it to be. Once unpacking there is plenty of storage for both of us and we have a few cubies and could easily make more room in the closet for another person or for even more clothes and our luggage fits nicely under the open bed frame. Scott lays down and takes a nap and I just sit on the balcony and FaceTime my momma until the life boat drill. When it is time we are already on Deck 6 and our station is at the Aqua Theater so it is a quick trip. The drill was painless and over in no time. Scott heads back to the cabin and I head to the Sailaway Party. I was shocked with such a small stage and entertainment for 5500 people but most people just watch us leave port anyway so the music is good background as we float away. Sure I am used to a big production and a few characters but I went to the side of the ship and just watched the land drift away. Dinner is at 7p (My Time Dining) so I head back to the cabin around 5:30 to shower and get ready. If the cabin was lacking anything the shower made up for it, the water pressure was amazing and after one shower I am in love! If you enjoy lots of water pressure you will be so happy, I hope that is throughout the ship after saying that ? Dinner was good, only 3 course meal as Scott pointed out as opposed to 4 course on that other ship. Food quality was good, temperature of the food was hot and service was good as well. Very friendly wait staff and we were in and out in under an hour! I hate to keep bringing up that other ship but dinner always took at least 2 hours and was so annoying to me. After dinner we walked around the ship and strolled through Central Park, are we even on a ship? Everything is just so lovely and first day impressions are looking great! Love the Royal App and being able to check your room charges as I did this frequently. On the first night when I checked there was a charge for a cocktail on Scott's card for a mixed drink, a quick call to Guest Services and it was removed. The Promenade is hustling and we check out a few shops and then back to the Boardwalk to walk around some more. We decided it is an early night and time to get some rest. Before going to sleep we order some coffee and pastries for the room in the morning. Day 2 coming up, its a Day at Sea. ?

Check these out. Granted, we're only just getting started.

That's identical to what my pricing is. Overwaters Cabanas were 1499 when I scored mine and then jumped up to 1649. Very excited to be one of the first in one. Cabanas are well worth it to me when it comes to how I enjoy a beach day! Current cruise status report: nap on the balcony before formal night

Got our letter with the overwater cabana info. Cabana 10! Not until Saturday though

We are unlike other cruise forums. We are cool. ? We're glad you're here!

I haven't felt this stress free in a long time and we haven't even left yet!

Found a really useful site to get historical average weather conditions for a given month -- weatherspark.com. It covers every single place I'll be visiting on my Iceland & Greenland cruise, including the Prinz Christian Sund waterway that we'll be traveling through when we leave Qaqortoq. You can view the average data for an entire month, and it gives a ton of useful information -- high-low temperature range, hours of daylight (useful in the far north!), average rainfall chance and total over the month, average wind speed and direction (hugely useful in a place like Prinz Christian Sund, where we're standing on deck much of the day observing the scenery and need to dress warmly enough), average water temp (I remember @twangster's comment about how, absent any major land nearby, ambient air temp is driven by the water temp), and more. This just made planning our wardrobe and what layers to pack a lot easier! Figured I'd share since I know there are others here who've been trying to figure out what to pack for a cruise that changes climates, and visits variable climates, kind of quickly over a few days.

I decided to celebrate my 40th birthday with my first ever cruise! My birthday is in August, but I decided to go in June. Oasis of the Seas, leaving June 7th from New Jersey. Anyone else going? I appreciate Brock with M.E.I. Travel for helping me. He'll probably be sick of all my questions by cruise time! ?

Room Goodies

Here are some photos of the work being done on Freedom

My husband and son had some fun with the car and a ship photographer on Allure. We think it was some type of Auburn Cord. Replica only, not a complete vehicle.

Welcome to Dallas! One step closer. By my standards in was an excellent flight - we had an equal number of take offs and landings. I watched a “free” movie that AA had, Angel has Fallen. Action flick with probably 3000 rounds fired, bodies everywhere and lots of blood. Having served nearly 8 years in the White House I can confirm it portrays a typical day in the life of a Secret Service agent. ?? Had a gentleman fall ill about 30 minutes out of Dallas so we were met by paramedics at the gate. He appeared to be not too serious and left under his own power. As luck would have it he was seated next to Katie so he had his own private nurse until we landed. Had lunch at Friday’s and are now waiting to board the flight to Miami. More from Miami in a couple of hours!

To celebrate my Mother in Law’s birthday this year, we’re taking her on her first cruise! My FIL passed away a couple of years ago, and then she had a really hard time selling her home of 40 years. She’s finally settled in her new place, and my husband and I thought she was overdue for a getaway...or maybe we are just using her as an excuse to YOLO go on another cruise. ? Either way, we are boarding Enchantment of the Seas ON HER BIRTHDAY for a 5 day Western Caribbean cruise! I’ve been sending her videos, photos, reviews, menus and the like just about weekly since we booked, and it seems to have become all we talk about. She is so excited! I'll post all the specifics over the coming days as I get a few minutes of free time. In my typical fashion, I've crammed as much as possible into this last full week at home - 4 client meetings, orders to fill, doctor and dentist appointments for everyone, hair appointments, plus our regular school and evening activities... at some point I'm really just going to learn to clear my calendar the week before and after vacation! Here are a few of the details to get us going: DH, the kids, and I haven’t really changed from our September cruise on Liberty. Well I have purple hair now, but otherwise, we’re the same! My mid-life crisis included drastic hair coloring and buying a bicycle ? - I figure it’s a lot less expensive than a new sports car! Here’s a link to my post from Liberty a few months ago. In case you want the short version, DH’s a VERY early riser and a type A personality who likes to relax and do nothing on vacations. I’m a night owl, and much more relaxed in our day to day lives, who wants to do it all when we travel. Sounds like a sitcom, right? Did I mention he’s 6’4” and I’m barely 5’? I homeschool the kids on an almost year-round schedule, so this will be one of our two spring breaks. My DD is 11 and on the Autism Spectrum, and my DS is almost 8 and made of rubber. My MIL (Mimi) will be turning 7… Well I’m not going to say exactly, but DH (who I have no problem ratting out) is 47, so you get the general idea. She broke her ankle a couple of years ago, and we have tried to be sensitive to her walking long distances and on shifting beach sand in our planning. MIL and I get along really well and we’re all staying in a 2 Bedroom Grand Suite (8052) similar to the one we stayed in on Liberty. Besides squeezing in another person, we’re on the side, not an aft this time, so the balcony is sadly going to be much smaller. The two aft 2br suites were both booked already, so we're in one of the remaining two that are directly under part of the Windjammer. From deck maps, it looks we pretty close to the very front of the WJ annex though; hopefully there won’t be too much scraping of chairs above us (and gnashing of teeth in our cabin).

I sent a bag out on the second to last day of my first cruise last week. It came the last day. Now I have clean clothes for this cruise. All you can stuff in the bag was $35 thats kinda splitting hairs after paying for two cruises.

I feel like there are always ways around anything. On our 5 day cruise for the Nile river in Egypt we washed all our clothes and hung them on the balcony. Of course it was at least 105 degrees each day and most of our clothes were linen and light cotton. So this was easy. I also wouldn't necessarily say its a rip-off because RC hasn't had self serve laundry in years. I always check irons, laundry facilities, etc before I book.

I cant nap. Got 10 mins kid free so we took a walk to the suite deck and solarium. Wife was so happy to stand were seth was in the movie "like father". Guess I'm lucky she likes overweight middle aged guys lol. The voom hasn't gotten any better. 3 pics takes a couple mins

Lol. I just meant that it was wrong because it was not the Filet in CK. ?

Currently in the Delaware Express transport van on the way to port! I didn’t sleep too well last night. Too excited!

Could we assume that the $18 Drink package intern was reassigned to issuing luggage tags on day 49?? ??

Well I'm the other way... I grabbed a post it and a pen wrote "GOLD C+A" on it and proudly rub everyone's nose in it! ? Actually kind of sad that my old days time in suites was treated so poorly. less than a point a day or I'd be a proud Platinum... Work schedules during my career didn't allow much time for cruising and I had spent a lot of time on other lines before I found RCL... I'm loyal to them even if they aren't so much... I am on a mission to get to diamond as soon as plausible...

I was a "passenger" when my husband did the "flying." It was an hour, I think, and he accomplished four takeoffs/landings (I think he got a little extra time because the simulation 'hiccuped' once. I will say that it was super realistic, and the owner was fantastic! He actually met us at the cruise ship pier and we walked over -- it might be about a quarter mile or a little bit more; but an easy walk. If mobility is an issue, I'm sure it would be easy to get a cab there and back. Just to give you a hint as to how realistic it is -- while we were 'taxiing,' we had a close call with a building -- and I ducked!

Did you have a chance to converse with some of them at one of the bars on board? Did they fill you with mirth and humor about their oral adventures into the depths of cavities or the gloom and dome of gum disease or were they "just flossin"?

So far this is a full on live blog. In the Suite lounge!

Made it Country Inn and Suites Port Canveral. Room is pretty nice. In laws in route with some cuban sandwhiches too. I'm more excited by these sandwhiches than the cruise food! Doesnt look like this hotel has a bar though, going to need to take a trip out for beers and icecream!

Really?! Aren't you on vacation? Stuff as much as the plastic laundry bag will hold for a flat rate price and it all comes back clean and folded for you. That's a deal in my book. I'm not bring laundry detergent...sitting with my clothes....guarding then against walking away...etc. Get the picture? It's a Win Win in my book! I love this service and use it every cruise.

Matt's podcast is great on remembering or knowing what to take for a cruise. we also pack "door art" to liven up the hallway walk and be able to find the room easily.

Thank you all for your help and info. I have heard from my TA and I have received the $150 obc....and my refund will be credited to my credit card within the week. ?

We each had one rolling suitcase so it was easy. Kept them all the way to the Star Class banner. And @Lovetocruise2002 your’e right, the waiter didn’t sit down to chat because of me!? But the Chef at Izumi today did list my name as Handsome. I’ll take that. And the food. Coma is real.

@Andrew72681, I’m not sure I could even figure that out! Maybe my 20 year old a can. I’m actually amazed that Jack Daniels and I have been able to even do this much?

We purchased 100 shares in July 2019- We had 3 cruises in 2019 where we received on board credit. As of December 31, 2019, the stock went up in value over $2000 so we feel it was a good investment.

Apparently I forgot to add this: Day 6 – Debarkation Day (aka You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here) I know people don’t like talking about this day, but I’ve always found it helpful to know how people got home, especially when you have to fly. For us, we had a 2pm flight back to Toronto, so realistically we had plenty of time to get off the ship. For this trip, we were assigned tag number 32, with an estimated debarkation time of 9:30am – about as middle of the road an assignment as one can get, I think. This gave us, in theory, plenty of time to get ready, pack up and leave. When we woke up (roughly 6:30-ish), I looked outside and discovered that we were in the process of docking, so barring any unforeseen clearance issues, we’d be getting off the ship shortly. We got dressed (in our travel clothes… le sigh), and headed up to Windjammer one final time. The buffet was actually not that busy, perhaps a testament to our going up a little later than the norm. And this worked out well for us. Not that we were going to overdo it on food, but certainly we weren’t “fighting” the masses to find a seat. After breakfast, we went back to the room to do finish packing our carry-off bags and do a final sweep of the room. After exchanging goodbyes with our attendant, we headed down to the Promenade to wait. While we were waiting, we saw some of the charter cruise workers come in with display boards for their t-shirt stands. In hindsight, I should’ve taken a picture and/or bought a shirt. Not that I’m a huge metal fan or anything, but “70,000 Tons of Metal”? You know you’d want a shirt with that on it as well. Regardless, we were called ahead of schedule, around 9:15, and dutifully made our way to the 4th deck and the exit ramp. Unlike previous Oasis class cruises, we headed straight down to the baggage area – a nice surprise, given that I was expecting a 30-60 minute wait to go down. The lines were indeed kind of long – I estimated about 45 minutes for the Suites, 60-90 for everyone – but since we have NEXUS, it was a simple matter of picking up our bags, showing the officer in the centre exit our cards, and heading through customs. Our debarkation, from ship to outside the terminal, took us under 10 minutes. With so much time before our flight, we debated going somewhere else for an hour or two, but we decided just to go to the airport. Bit of a misstep on our part, because we were at the terminal well before 10am, and the 3 hour bag drop window was still over an hour away. So that meant some waiting. Once the window opened, there was somehow only one Westjet employee at the counter helping three separate lines (special assistance, check in and bag drop). So this was… interesting, but eventually some other agents made their way to the counter to help out. This was not ideal, but since we’d checked in on the ship and had TSA Pre-Check, we had very little concern about making our flight. And indeed, we were through security around 12. A little later than I expected, but still nothing to worry about at all. We got a pre-flight meal at Shula Burger (note: onion rings look much better than they taste), and with little fanfare, got on the flight home. Once at Toronto Pearson, we went over to the NEXUS line, where there appeared to be only a few NEXUS kiosks working. Fortunately, there were several of the standard kiosks available, which we used to breeze through customs. Easy peasy, and after picking up our luggage and car, we headed home.

The mini-fridge is good for keeping pop/wine/snacks/etc cool. If you have a need to keep something at a regulated temperature (medicine, milk, etc) you need to fill out a special needs request.

Can everyone explain why the one on Symphony is scrunched up in a ball?

Here is the car on Navigator

Thank you all for your posts...it has given me a great first impression of the forum ?

I’m downloading pictures now from my camera and then will post some of them. I think I only took 275 or so since we boarded. We had lunch at Playmakers. Maybe a star class tip here: it was empty. Pretty much had it to ourselves. We sampled almost everything and it was all good. The suite is amazing, as always. We have met with Allan now several times. I’m impressed! Just the things waiting in our room showed creativity and humor. I think this will be a very good week! And for the M&M gang - we had M&M’s in the room?

Concierge is Jeremias and Mohamed . Haven't met them yet though. Here are some pics of 1702. The obstruction is there but I dont think it's an issue at all.

We are Home! Suite 1740!

We are on!

At the port, little early. Took like 2 mins to get to suite area. Pretty nice in here!

San Juan is still in business and anyone booked on a 2021 cruise from there shouldn't worry about anything. Many cruise lines have adjusted their ship home ports as they always do from time to time. Freedom is going to Cape Liberty for a summer to give folks in the greater NYC area a chance to sail on this recently amplified ship. Other cruise lines may be making similar adjustments. Cruise lines continually optimize ship schedules and place ships where demand is highest so they can increase revenue. All cruise lines are businesses that will make changes from time to time in response to changing market conditions. With the port of San Juan shifting to privatization costs are changing for cruise lines to operate from there. That may have played a factor in the business model that determines where ships should be homeported. In the winter months it appears to remain a viable home port compared to other options but perhaps with the changing ports fees it no longer is a viable summer home port. It will take more than one year of future itineraries to know how this play out in the long term. Three or five years from now we'll know a lot more.

I have no problem in that area. They are struggling to provide for their families. Yes they will invite you to visit their booth. No one has ever touched me so it's just a matter of looking around to see if anything interests and if not moving on. Yes sometimes there are two or three inviting you to visit their booth at the same time. It's just words. "Come look what I have for you", "I have something for you", etc. It's hardly offensive or scary. When I took my adult son there he walked into several booths and bought a handful of small items. Later I told him he could have negotiated the price down. He acknowledged that but recognized they are dirt poor so he didn't try to beat them down. We don't appreciate how well we have it, the people of Haiti have very little and jobs are non existent. It's not unsafe, just a different culture.