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Not looking for an argument but stating my thoughts that have been eating at me for awhile now: So not only would I love to see the pre-cruise testing stop…how about allowing the unvaccinated back onboard? I have never taken sides and I do not think it is my place to do so. I am me…and nobody else. I am vaccinated and boosted (twice) and got COVID for the first time 2 weeks ago after returning from a family vacation to Disney. There were nine of us and only 2 did not get sick…both unvaccinated! I think this virus is pretty close to becoming our next head cold or flu. Some will get very sick…some will have mild symptoms…some will never get sick! So…….why are the unvaccinated still being penalized this late in the game? I certainly hope my thoughts here do not start a war on words…but I feel better having finally stated how I think.

Update: I did get a response from RC via a question posted on Facebook: "...yes a saliva PCR will work. There are no limitations as long as antigen or PCR for vaccinated guests."

This will never stop. Just as people with colds and other contagious bugs get on ships every day. The big question is how to deal with covid cases on board. The next step is to get rid of the quarantine floors and just let people recover in their rooms like we do everything else that just requires OTC meds and rest to shake.

This is a fan site, and not affiliated with Royal Caribbean. Nobody there will read your complaint. I doubt when they advertised the amplification of Explorer of the Seas (and Allure), they had no idea that the pandemic would hit and cause them to shut down for over a year and lose billions of dollars, making the amplification fiscally impossible. I would never consider that "false advertising". Personally, I'd go anyway. You haven't "lost the money". You are choosing to do so by not going on the cruise. You could still have a great time if you chose to do so. Good luck. (I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, I sleep quite well at night).

I hope its removed soon...its prevented me from booking multiple cruises so far, as I cant financially afford the risk of getting to the port and failing a covid test.

I understand where you are coming from and you will get no argument out of me. I believe also that this is very close to becoming an everyday virus, just like the cold and even seasonal just like the flu.

Society is learning to live with the virus. The end of pre-cruise testing is a step in that process just as society has adapted to live with other viruses. The calls for change are the beginning. The question is... will the CDC make the change? They've been slow to change cruise ship policies throughout this pandemic.

The Day at Sea and The Day of Sadness I cannot express how glad I am that we ended the trip with a sea day. My feet have been aching from all the walking. I have no regrets about any of that, but I am so incredibly glad that we got a day off our feet to wrap things up. We began the day with breakfast in our room from the Mason Jar. Since the very first day, I had an idea that I wanted to try out: Spicy Chicken and Waffles. While we were in the restaurant on the first day, I noticed that the chicken used with the waffles was the same chicken used in the chicken sandwiches (including the Nashville Hot), so I stored that away for later. It was pretty good, but it was actually a bit less spicy than I expected it to be. I'd love to hear from other people how they feel about the Nashville Hot chicken and if it lives up to your expectations regarding heat level. On other sailings, we've really tried to take advantage of everything on the ship during sea days, but this trip was a lot less about the ship for us and more about the ports. We were tired and just ready to relax. So we spent most of the morning sitting on the balcony (one of the best parts of an Aquatheater suite after all!) In addition to our food, we asked Marla to arrange a mimosa bar for us, which is just basically a bottle of champagne with pitchers of various juices - peach, orange and cranberry. We sipped on our mimosas and watched the scenery go by. I couldn't have asked for a better morning. Different from most Caribbean cruises, you actually sail pretty close to land in the Mediterranean so there was a lot to see as we sailed by. That kept our attention longer than I would have expected. After a few hours of relaxation, we got dressed and headed down to Izumi for some sushi. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, different people like different kinds of food. I love sushi, but neither Ashley nor I are really big fans of fried, crunchy sushi. Fortunately, the menu at Izumi is pretty expansive, so we were both able to get food that we really enjoyed. As Star Class, technically you can order as much sushi as you want, but I was pretty worn out from eating at this point, so we kept it light. One small word of caution about Izumi is that it is on deck 4 and there are tables right next to the window. I do not recommend sitting in those tables if you have any kind of vertigo or motion sickness, because the waves+wake do some interesting gymnastics around that part of the ship. It only bothers me a tiny bit, but vertigo is a concern for you, I'd find somewhere else to sit. After Izumi, we headed back up to the suite sun deck one last time. I will reiterate what I've said before - Royal knocked it out of the park with this space. It's easily accessible, has plenty of seating, and it has a great bar. If you are in a suite on Wonder, you owe it to yourself to spend a bit of time here at least. Later in the afternoon, we went down to Giovanni's Wine Bar for some drinks and charcuterie. Despite rebranding from Vintages, and a few updates to the food menu, I have to say that it doesn't feel all that different from Vintages. It's a nice spot for sure, but I think the changes are almost all entirely surface level. We enjoyed our wine, cheese and meats a lot. The wine bar, like Vintages, has a wine flight option, which is a great choice if you do not have a drink package. If you do have a drink package, you are better off ordering the wine by the glass, and just having them one at a time. The bartender should make sure to tell you this, but I know some people are caught off guard. We headed back up to our room to change for dinner: Wonderland! I really enjoy the Wonderland concept, but I am a food and science nerd, so molecular gastronomy really appeals to me. One of the servers was dressed up as the Mad Hatter, which was a lot of fun. He was entertaining, at least! We've been to Wonderland before, so we tried to choose options we hadn't had the first time around. It was a very different experience than previously, since we didn't have our kids this time, so we weren't trying to work around their limited food preferences. The individual items in the restaurant might seem small, but you actually end up with a seven-course meal, all things included, so the size isn't that much of an issue. The only thing we tried that I would probably not order again is the Tomato Water. It's an interesting novelty, but it's only about 1 oz of liquid, and it just goes so fast. For dessert, I ordered the World (again), and Ashley ordered the Mushroom Garden. They were both delicious, just as expected. Marla came to visit us during the meal and we also asked her to send some desserts up to our room too! Sort of a final send off for the trip. I ordered the Fried Cheesecake (I may have mentioned that this my favorite dessert on the ship), and Ashley ordered the Go Bananas! from Giovanni's. Honestly, it might have been a bit too much, but we loved it. We had thought about finding a nice spot after dinner for one last drink but we were honestly just so tired that we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. We did eat our desserts, and sit out on the balcony for a bit, but mostly we spent the evening packing and preparing for the worst day of the cruise: debarkation day. Our flight out of Barcelona was pretty early at 9:50 am. In hindsight, we should have probably picked a later flight, but it all worked out in the end, even though things were a bit tense at the airport. We had a light, early breakfast at 6am and put our bags outside at 6:30. Not having to set out your bags the night before is another really nice Star Class perk. We met Marla at the elevator at 7:00 and began the long walk of sadness to the terminal. It was super easy to grab a cab right there, and we headed to the airport. On Friday, the US government announced that negative Covid tests were no longer required for flights entering the US as of 12:01 on Sunday June 5th. This was awesome news as it reduced the likelihood of any last second disasters. We had read a post on Facebook from someone who left the ship in Rome on Thursday, tested positive, and had to quarantine for an extra 5 days before they could return home. That would have been worst case scenario for us, so not having to worry about an accidental positive test was really nice. Side note: we tested as soon as we got home to Seattle. Negative. So I feel pretty good about that. The downside to the announcement was that the airlines, who had all been clamoring for this change for months, were completely unprepared to actually handle the change when it happened. Online check-in basically broke for everyone, so we had no choice but to stand in line at the airport to get our boarding passes and check our luggage. The line was long. Long enough that we got pulled out of line finally to ensure that we could make our flight (that's pretty common on international flights), we were right up at the front so we ended up being next in line to check in from there. At that point we scrambled as quickly as possible to security and to the gate. I would have been super stressed if I'd been any further back in line, because we literally got to the gate the moment our zone started boarding. Since the first leg of our flight was just to Paris, the boarding times are really narrow. I'm sure they got everyone on board, but I'd have been screaming if I got there much later than we did. The situation was pretty similar in Paris. After a brief 2 hour flight, we had a 1.5 hour layover in Paris, but that's really not that much time. The international gates are pretty far from the 'domestic' gates in CDG, so there's a lot of walking involved, as well as a brief stop at passport control, even though we were catching a transfer. We managed to find a food kiosk to grab some salads, but we had to carry them on to the plane, because boarding started so quickly. From Paris to Seattle is about 10 hours, which isn't terrible, but is still a pretty long way. We had economy seats on the way back, which might have been a mistake, but we survived somehow . The airline food was decent, and they did an excellent job of coming by often with water (something that did not happen on the Delta flight on the way out). We needed to stay awake as much as possible to fight the coming jet lag, so we just watched a lot of movies. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we arrived in Seattle! After a quick/eternal 45 minute ride on the train, we were back home to our kids, our puppies and our bed. Whew! What an absolute adventure! We had so much fun, and it was exactly the break we needed. Thanks everyone for coming along the ride with us. I loved reading your comments and seeing everyone's reactions. I hope you enjoyed it!

Viking have just announced they are dropping the requirement for pre cruise tests for certain cruises, hopfully we'll se others follow. https://www.cruisehive.com/cruise-line-ends-pre-cruise-testing-requirement/74038

I would never live in Florida Signed, guy who could see himself moving to Florida after retirement to make it easier to cruise more.

I don't mind the test as much as I hate the vaccine mandates. I have friends that I want to cruise with without any shots. They are more than willing to do daily tests.

I saw that Viking dropped all pre-cruise testing yesterday (except where required like US and Canada). If they can do it, RCI and other lines can too (at least overseas). As others have said, pre-cruise testing really sucks a lot of the joy out of the pre-cruise period since you have no idea if you’re going on the trip until two days before.

Cutting my photos size seems to be working thanks @twangster. Room service, excellent! Loyalty "party" 14 pins seems to be not many top tiers pretty empty. Napkins folding super fun! OMG no ducks, I am looking like crazy.

There are two components of Royal's technology in play as it relates to the user experience for satellite internet on board a ship. The satellite connection to the internet and the WiFi WLAN on board the ship. On many Quantum class ships I've had WiFi issues with poor coverage. Last month on Quantum I had an access point in the hallway right outside my cabin but I had to prop open my cabin door while blogging that trip. I literally used an empty water bottle to hold my cabin door an inch which was the only way I could reliably use the internet. This is an example of poor WiFi coverage. When I was done using the internet I could close my door. The other technology that will impact user experience is the satellite uplink to the internet. This is what impacts most users to a larger degree. Most users can understand that when a ship is in a rain storm the satellite internet can be impacted. That's easy to see, look outside to see if its raining. What's harder for many to understand is that what goes up must come down. The internet isn't in the sky, it's on land. At some point your internet bits that were sent up into the sky by the ship have to come back down to earth to actually reach the internet. The response from a server on the internet has to be sent up into the sky before that can come down to the ship. If that point on earth where the signals are sent and received is having a bad weather day that too can impact your ship internet experience even if it's bright and sunny where the ship is. There are many things that can impact satellite internet performance. As a technical person who does industrial WiFi for a living and as an Apple user with the latest Apple products I can tell that Apple sucks at WiFi. They really make terrible products from a WiFi perspective and they are getting worse in current times. Yes, you heard me, Apple sucks, but I still buy their products despite this. Apple really only cares about the ability for your device to reach Apple iCloud servers. For Apple, if iCloud is unreachable, that's the end of the world, game over. This impacts the way their devices behave when the world has ended (in Apple's eyes). As @Matt mentioned, auto updates can impact your experience. Cloud syncing software like Google Drive, OneNote, iCloud, Dropbox and more can silently be sucking up all your bandwidth. As a photographer I use Adobe products that are notorious for consuming 100% of all bandwidth for hours. Samsung devices get in on the act to upload gallery items to Samsung's cloud and Amazon Prime photos is another piece of software that loves to consume all or your bandwidth. Apple's Photos tries to upload all photos you take to the cloud just like Android phones. If your goal was to kill a satellite uplink a devious person would unleash a thousand phones taking hundreds of glacier pictures as a perfect storm to take the internet connection to a ship out of service. Yep, that's exactly what happens when all those pictures on Android and Apple devices try to get backed up to the respective clouds once the ship leaves the glacier. Every single guest who bought Voom and took pictures at a glacier is now participating in a denial of service attack launched against the ship's satellite connection. The enemy is you, and me.

If cases are increasing, it's only mirroring national trends (which are starting to decline as the surge is ending in the northeast), not anything specific to cruise ships.

I love 1804 and 1854 for the views. It's just hubby and me. I keep threatening him that his room is the bunk beds. With that said, credit card comes out and another cruise is booked.

Our first ever cruise was jumping in with both feet doing 3 back to back from Sydney on a Quantum class (Ovation) - not many kids on there, but was so large, and so many different areas on board (including some that were adult only), we could have found quiet spaces whenever we wanted to. So much to do. We loved it and got the bug! This year we did Grandeur for 14 nights from Barbados. Same great service and food but different kind of ship, more old school, but got to see some amazing places. Not many children as sailed in February so no school holidays/vacations. Which was better? Impossible to decide! In fact we loved them both so much we are booked on Grandeur again next year for back to back from Miami then going up to Oasis the year after for back to back also. I guess you need to do the research around what do you want from the itinerary OFF the ship v what do you want ON the ship. And factor in costs too I guess. There are people on here with a lot more knowledge and experience than me who may have a preference, but it is so subjective. Do the research, ask the questions, watch the videos and I am sure you will make the right decision for you! Enjoy whatever you decide to do.

Have you no trip insurance? When is the trip? Might you be covered under Cruise with Confidence? Can you move to a ship more to your liking? If you booked when the amplification was being advertised, it was clearly prior to Covid and probably CWC eligible. Did you book yourself through Royal? If so, call and ask what options you may have. If you used. TA, call them. Complaining here will do nothing.

Day Eight: Starting Our Post Cruise Adventure Sadly, we had to get off the cruise today. We had time to eat a quick breakfast and then go back to the room to get all our stuff. There was the option to check our bags and get them when we got off, but we didn’t want to damage any of our suitcases so we took them all. Once we got off the cruise we were in Seward where the bus tours are. We were really early to our tour so we sat on a bench and waited for the bus to arrive. Fifteen minutes before it was supposed to leave my dad got a text saying we were put on a different bus company. This bus was almost entirely full already and there were only four seats left and none of them were together. Only one each on the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh rows. I was in the seventh with a window seat. We had great driver and tour guide on the bus named Mike and Brenna. We drove for a while then got to the Exit Glacier. We got out and went to hike for about an hour. It was a bit of a difficult hike for me but that could just be because I don’t hike much. We got to this overlook pretty close to the glacier and got some awesome pictures. Then it was back to the bus and on the way to Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. We got to the wildlife park and they gave us all our lunches and a water bottle. The lunch had a sandwich (ham, turkey, or roast beef), carrots, potato chips, and cookie. It was a really good lunch, but we didn’t have any tables designated for us so we found these rocks that looked like benches near the bear enclosure to eat. After we ate, we went to see the bears, owl, bald eagle, wolves, porcupines, caribou, moose, and a lynx. We would’ve seen more, but eating took up a lot of our time and we had to get back to the bus. Our next stop was a ski lodge. We didn’t go skiing but we did go up the ski lift. It’s not like the benches that are open, it was a gondola and could hold thirty-ish people. It only took us five minutes to go about 2,000 feet up. Once we were up there it wasn’t much colder, but there was snow! I made a little snowball and threw it at the ground. An Alaska trip isn’t complete without snow. The last stop was the Ulu Factory in Anchorage. We only got five minutes there so we went in the gift shop then right back on the bus. An ulu is a curved kind of knife that’s special to Alaska. We got one at an earlier port. We were a little late on drop offs. We were supposed to be at our stop around 5:15 PM, but we got there at 6:45. If you go on this tour be sure to not have a immediate activity afterwards because you might be late. My dad’s cousin picked us up and it was an hour and fifteen minutes to her house in Willow, where we were staying for the night. We got there, had pizza for dinner, watched a show, unpacked, and went to sleep. Stay tuned for my Alaska Adventure!

This is definitely something to take care of ASAP. I have read many accounts of people getting “balance due” emails; some of them are told not to worry about it - IT glitch, we’ll take care of it and then wham ! Cruise cancelled for non-payment. While those tales generally end with the cruise being re-instated at the original cruise fare, any Cruise Planner purchases which automatically get cancelled when the cruise gets cancelled, do NOT get re-instated and are not price protected. You have to rebook those at prevailing rates which, of course, are considerably higher than what you originally paid. I would advise that when you call, do not hang up the phone until you get a new confirmation showing a -0- balance due. It’s rather sad that this same issue keeps coming up again and again and the cruise line keeps cancelling these cruises over and over again. You’d think that with this being such a common “glitch”, that they would hold off cancelling the cruise until they could confirm that it truly is a non-payment situation.

absolutely...you will be denied entrance to the terminal without. You will show your vax card, negative tests, and Passports twice. Once to enter the terminal and once to check in with RC. Have a great cruise.

The effectiveness of either will always be of debate, but maybe the compromise protocol is vax or test, you pick.

Remember what I said about ship at capacity?

My generous in-laws got our extended family of 8 an over the water cabana on Harmony a couple weeks ago. They booked it about a year ago at $1699 or so. Closer to the cruise, when there were only a few left, we saw the $3499 price listed above. Within the final week before the cruise, it "dropped" to $2499. Value, as with anything financial, is completely relative so no judgment on what anyone thinks is a fair price or too expensive. What I can say is that the experience was AMAZING! Our attendant could not have been friendlier or done his job better. He showed up with extra food before we even asked and even went to the snack shack to get us chicken sandwiches, mozzarella sticks, and many funnel cakes upon request. Drinks were flowing also and when we ran out of bottled water he showed up with a whole case. Unlimited lobster and filet mignon were both excellent. I actually enjoyed the coconut crusted lobster sandwich better than the plain lobster. Multiple seating options, couches in the shade, loungers in the sun, hammock over the water (very relaxing). Lastly, if you snorkel right off your cabana you will likely see some fish and even a lemon shark (harmless). If the price and availability work for you, I can't recommend this experience more highly.

While I see the logic behind your post, I would not be in favor of this myself. The 2-day-prior testing on your own is stressful enough...I can't imagine having to wait until getting to the port to see if you are actually going to get on the ship. Personally, I would be glad to see the pre-cruise testing go away. Normally at this time (< 2-weeks out) I am in full on ready-to-go mode, with passports dug out, boarding passes ready, activities planned and all necessary things taken care of around my house. Now, none of that is done because I'm not sure I am going on vacation. If I would have realized the level of stress I would be, and will be, feeling until next Saturday I would not have booked at this time. And won't book again unless and until the pre-testing is eliminated. If pre-testing is eliminated and cases rise dramatically on cruise ships, I'll make the call then as to whether I want to go. IF my family and myself test negative next Saturday morning, I am going to have a VERY busy Saturday and Sunday around here.

Our room attendant on Oasis 2 weeks ago, right after introducing herself upon us first entering our room, pointed to the master switch and firmly said " This button? Here? DON'T TOUCH IT or you will not have a good time" I found our cabin on Oasis (midship oceanview balcony on Deck 12) to be in great shape. No obvious wear other than slight wear/ deterioration of the curtains.

Headed to airport soon. Only mistake of this trip was renting a car at Barcelona airport. Rental took along time and price quoted online didn’t include lots of extra fees added on. We drove south along coast about an hour to Sitges. I hadn’t done my research and after checking into hotel and seeing room and vibe at hotel pool we decided to leave. They would not refund us even though it was only 1pm and we didn’t use room. I put in a dispute with my credit card company. We ended up driving back to Barcelona, past Wonder and got a hotel in Gothic quarter. The extra time in Barcelona was enjoyable. In summary, I don’t recommend renting a car and leaving Barcelona unless plans are well researched. Ended up being an expensive mistake with car rental cost, parking and time. Lessened learned. Other than this, the trip was amazing and we plan to be home late tonight after our 13 hour flight home.

Do you have kids? Specifically dependent minors under 18? If so then they can also qualify to be Diamond members. That's not a huge deal for you now, but if you have kids if could be a big deal for them later in life when they first start to cruise and use their wallet to pay for it.

Explorer of the Seas is a great ship, amplified or not!

Slow but I'm trying....

Slow but I'm trying....

Just for information, Kathy and I sailed on the ExOS in March, 2022 sailing out of San Juan. I've been on EXOS many times and found the ship to be clean, well maintained and properly staffed. We had a great cruise but then again we went with an attitude of having a great cruise! Bill

Guess I've got a lot to learn. I thought a charcuterie was a tower of food with finger sandwiches, cheese, meats, breads, etc. So I should have more correctly asked, if you ordered tea with finger sandwiches and a relish plate, would that then be a high tea? I see now, it must be stacked to qualify.

They'll make you anything they have the ingredients for, usually. I find it best to not request things like this when they are really swamped, and to give an extra tip when they make something special. Have fun!!

Oh boy. I must be having a lovely time, I just posted all about the Bamboo Room under dining and my Jamie's question. Readers digest version, Bamboo Room nice. No blue towels in room, QR code request yielded nothing. Will get on Barefoot Beach and the Beach Club I hope. Ice bucket went bye bye, did he think I would use it as a garbage? I asked for ice, he is not the best but I'm not complaining about him I can always make do just fine.

Inserting a comment on safety. Please realize, like any heavily tourist area that there are pickpockets, bag thieves at these types of ports/tourist areas. I went 2 bocks down a side street in Marseilles and saw a pile (about 4 ft high) of the contents of luggage and handbags on a corner. Scattered around it were said empty luggage and handbags. Even in my fairly quiet suburb/town there have been thieves that take a handbag off the back of a chair while dining or steal out of a stroller. In Marsailles I watched many people walk through the outdoor cafe that did not belong there, my thought were shopping for easy pickings, bags on the floor, bags over the back of chairs, or distract/ bump and pick.

We did a 3rd party whale watching in Juneau. Great trip as we saw at least 12 whales including 5 orcas which the crew said are rare to see that time of year.

You might want to look at Rick Steves' PBS videos or paperback guides as he is a bit of a rambler. Also, because of pickpockets be sure to keep the valuables you take with you very safe. As you walk, try not to look completely like a tourist. We found Pisa underwhelming, so we will go to Florence on our next opportunity. However, I did enjoy seeing the Leaning Tower having read about it in my youth. Have a great trip!

On my recent cruise on Odyssey it was 7 am to 9 am on some days and 7.30 am to 9.30 am on others. That was in Europe but I remember it being quite early on our past Caribbean sailings too. We are rarely up in time to make it.

Echoing the hop on/hop off, especially in Mallorca there is a stop when you (FINALLY! Longest terminal walk-to-exit I've ever seen) exit the terminal that runs regularly. We really enjoyed seeing Mallorca that way. Civitavecchia is a long (~1 hour) train ride from Rome and there is nothing at the port. Florence/Pisa there are good train options as it's a lot closer to the port. Not yet been to Capri or Marseilles. Good luck.

Nonsense! Cases of Covid onboard are increasing; not declining, certainly not eliminated. Loosened protocols are not happening anytime soon. A immediate change I would totally support would be the elimination of testing on your own in lieu of mandatory testing at embarkation as part of the boarding process. Add a fee to everyones cruise fare to cover the cost. As Matt has shown, Covid positive people are finding their way onboard and this needs to stop.

Here comes Dish trying to slow Starlink mobile use. It seems Dish is also vying for the same spectrum. https://www.pcmag.com/news/dish-demands-spacex-deactivate-starlink-dishes-used-on-moving-boats-and

IMHO - Look for information about Hop-on-Hop-off buses at each of the "minor" ports if available. At least there will be some sort of direction and explanation/history of the area and what you are looking at. Using Google, find a high rated, guided tour for Florence and Rome. There is just too much to see at those stops. You could spend a week in Rome and not get to everything.

Sometimes it's a supply/demand issue.

So you just decided not to go and you're upset at RC?

Thank you for reading! This has been such a fun trip, and I'm so glad you've enjoyed the blog!

Day Seven: Hubbard Glacier It’s the last day of the cruise, but don’t worry, it’s not the end of my adventure or of my blog just yet. We tried to wake up early but I slept till 8 am. We got bundled up then went outside to see the glacier from the ship. It was pretty cold but the glacier looked so cool. There were pieces of ice floating all around in the water. There was this one piece that looked like a swan. Ice bird instead ice berg! We then got a quick breakfast and went back outside to get some more pictures with it. After we had seen every possible angle of the glacier my mom and I went to do some scrapbooking. It was only thirty minutes long so we only had time to get the supplies and make a little scrapbook out of the scrapbooking paper. It was fun and seems like a good idea to keep memories. Earlier this week we signed up for the egg drop. Now it was finally time to build it. We had a design that had a paper cup with balloons all around it and a parachute on top. We went to the ninth floor in the Centrum for the competition and if we had been launching straight down the egg would’ve been fine. Sadly they made us launch over a bar and it tipped and the egg fell out. We went to get lunch and on the way I found another duck! This one looked like a Wonder Woman duck and she was hiding by a ship map. Afterward we went to do a riddle contest. We only missed two questions but still lost. We stayed to do another trivia and got smoothies. The smoothies were amazing, but each was seven bucks so if you get one, enjoy it. I sure did, my strawberry one was amazing. My brother and I left in the middle of the trivia to go rock climb. Neither of us had rock climbed in a while so we couldn’t make it all the way to the top, but I think I did pretty good for it being my first time. We all met back in the cabin and got fancied up again. Since it was the last night there wasn’t any photos though. We went to a variety show that had two songs by the orchestra, a tango dance, and comedy. It was really good and all the performers were really talented. Next it was time for dinner. I had a Caesar salad, turkey, and apple blossom a la mode. It was all amazing, but I didn’t have time to stay for dessert so my brother brought it to me at teen karaoke. A friend and I sung “If I Had A Million Dollars” together. It was really fun and my dessert was still warm when I got to it. I went to play some ping pong with a friend and my brother. None of us were really good at it but we had tons of fun. I’m pretty sure we hit it on the floor more than on the table. At least it was entertaining. We went back to Optix one last time. We got out Twister and played a couple rounds though we weren’t really sure who won. We played a bit of foosball then had to leave. We got back to the room and helped finish packing till about 1:00 in the morning then we were out like a light. Stay tuned for my Alaska Adventure!

Day Six: Skagway We docked early today so we woke up early. We had a very quick breakfast then got started on exploring Skagway. We were supposed to have an excursion, but it was canceled so we just explored the city. We went shopping for a while. My brother got a lot of cool display souvenirs with moose and sled dogs on them. I got some earrings with the colors of the northern lights. After we were finished shopping, we decided to rent some bicycles and go around the city to see some nature on them. I think we were going to rent regular bicycles but then we found electric bicycles for only a little bit more. They had two modes on them. You could pedal with varying amounts of help from the engine or you could use the throttle. I got up to 20 miles per hour in both, but for most the time I was at around 16 mph. It was really really fun and my favorite experience yet. The shop we rented from we Klondike Electric Bikes and they were amazing. On the bikes we went to Gold Rush Cemetery which was really beautiful. There was a waterfall there and the water was really cold. Then we went back on the bikes and went a little farther to a little beach with a ton of rocks. We tried skipping rocks, but since we’d never done that before, none worked so we went back and returned the bikes. We shopped a little bit more, then decided to go on a hike. We went to Yakutania Point which was a hard hike since it was really windy. We stood on a giant rock that made it look like we could’ve just been blown off into the ocean. It was really fun, but very windy so we left to the ship. We got to do some Harry Potter trivia but we didn’t win. Then I rushed off to do teen table tennis. I’m very bad at table tennis so I only got to do the first round but it was really fun cause I got to do it with a friend. We got back to the room and I blogged a little bit. Yet again we got fancied up and got some more pictures done then went off to dinner. I got Caesar salad, spaghetti, and molten chocolate cake with ice cream. They were all absolutely amazing and the cake was to die for. We went to Optix and we played twister. I lost the first round, but tied the second. Then there was a Mario Kart tournament. I made it past the first round but lost in the second. It was still really fun. We went back to the room and fell asleep in a snap. Stay tuned for my Alaska Adventure!

Having just gotten up the courage, after much support from my teenaged daughters, to actually be brave enough to show my cancer scars in a bathing suit on my upcoming cruise, I'm just crossing my fingers that I don't show up as a "cringe-worthy" line item on this lovely list.

Cringeworthy? ...folks that are so worried about other people.