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Daily briefing for Port Stanley tomorrow. Expecting wind. Looking past Port Stanley we have two sea days to the South Georgia Islands. The first sea day won't be too bad with waves estimated to be 2.7m. On the second sea day the wave estimate is higher at 4.5m. Meanwhile the winds have died and it's a beautiful evening.

Do you mean how tall you have to be? Because those are two different things I'm tall enough to do the zip line on Oasis, but I don't know if I could get high enough to try.

The moon of the summer solstice. With a guest appearance from Jupiter - the small dot on the right.

Nothing like coming back to hot chocolate and other beverages to warm you up.

More Black-browned Albatross. More chicks at this nesting site.

Summer solstice. Longest day of the year. From my balcony it looked like a sunset was happening. Time of day - 21:15 I spotted the moon and thought that might warrant changing lenses.

More 360 camera fun on the zodiac ride.

The hike back was a little easier. Felton's flower. Our guide pointed out the wind blown trees. The Falkins are known for their winds. These trees didn't grow this way, they were pushed this way.

There were many Albatross soaring above and buzzing the colony close to ground but not landing. I suspect this was part of the ritual to find a mate, a bit of showing off. Definitely some mating rituals on display. Some birds of prey looking for a meal.

Day Four - Port Stanley Position report:

The Tea House. Unfortunately the group before us took forever to load the zodiacs on the way here and we lost a lot of time. We had 10 minutes at the nesting site and by the time we reached the Tea House they were closing it. Time to head back to the ship.

This poor guy had one leg. More Rockhopper penguins.

Leaving late but we finally departed for West Point Island at 3:30pm. It's a lot of uphill walking. For those that can't do the hike they offer limited vehicle service. Most of the uphill is in the first 20 minutes. Austral Thrush Hiking in bog boots added a new twist to a hike like this. Finally we made it to the nesting site.

Back to regular scheduled cruise content - Genie news Having too much fun in Texas and I forgot to confirm the dining schedule. My bad. It’s now confirmed Our private flowrider session is scheduled for Day 2 at 7:45am. Berty confirmed the star class session is from 8:30-10am on Day 3 so that is perfect that it doesn’t overlap on the same day. He asked if we wanted to reschedule our private session to a different time. I didn’t know that was possible so I have asked if a later time that morning or early afternoon is available. Will finalize plans for all the celebrations once onboard but Berty has a preliminary plan so all is good. Star Class Priority Check in & Baggage handling instructions - no new information; arrive at zone 6, meet with terminal genie Jessica, don’t give your luggage to anyone but Jessica or a star class porter. Expecting boarding to commence at 10:15-10:30am.

We ate at Mama Teresa’s Flying Pizza & Italian. It was within walking distance of our hotel. Food was excellent but we ordered way too much given the large portions.

Ocean Star Off Shore Drilling Rig & Museum This was a self guided tour, reasonably priced at $24 for all 3 of us. We were in and out in under 45 minutes. Boys thought it was worth it. Warning that’s their silly faces.

Look who we saw today. NCL Prima and Voyageur. Carnival Dream just left and Jubilee is expected later today for its inaugural sailing tomorrow. We drove by Royal’s terminal to scout out zone 6. It seems like it will be easy to navigate. I have read multiple accounts of Uber fares not being picked up, leaving you scrambling cruise day. The front desk in our hotel confirmed this is in fact true. I think Lindsay will drop us and our luggage off, then return the car rental and we have arranged what we hope is reliable private transportation to pick him up at Enterprise. We did a test run and it was 9 minutes from terminal to Enterprise. I just to need to confirm with Berty that Reyd and I can wait in the terminal as heavy rain is forecast.

We made it!! I felt like I just finished the Daytona 500. Love, love this room. Initial impressions have met or surpassed expectations. I like the vestibule area where you can store luggage you don’t need, the separate thermostats in the living area and bedroom, lots of dimmable lighting, spacious bathroom and dual entry to the bathroom. Lots of character throughout the room and hotel. We booked the 1 bedroom suite that comes with a king bed and sofa bed (rollaway bed is available) We opted for the rollaway bed. There is no self park option, only valet. There are atrium rooms that overlook the first floor. I think they would be loud as live music plays well into the evening. Picture taken from second floor.

Booked on Vision today two future cruises. Thinking about adding a third.

I'm going to give the OP the benefit of the doubt that this was an auto translation from somewhere and not a question about one's post-toke status.

Reyd looked up the history on Tremont House last night and we were surprised to learn the original Tremont House was built the same year Galveston was officially founded in 1839.

I don't know if it's related to the sale or not, but the price for CocoCay cabanas for my Mariner of the Seas Jan 1 cruise fell to pre-pandemic prices

Check in Day! Well I didn't do anything like log in at midnight or get up extra early to do my check in. I actually did it after eating my pop-tarts at work. Still got a 10:30 check in time. Easy Peasy. This was my first time using the App to check in. I usually do it online as I check in my whole family all at once and the interface has been easier for that in the past. I think it might still be just because of the selfie. The app did not give me an option to upload a pic from my album and only had the "take a selfie". This isn't a super big deal. It also didn't like scanning my passport. Typing it in was pretty easy and it is what I have done in the past any way. I am thinking in November, for the fam, I will use the browser on my desk top, but who knows they might have more options by then. Some how Check-in Day always makes an impending cruise a little more "Real" for me. Now things are moving and more will happen as embarkation day gets closer. Boarding documents will populate, Luggage tags get printed. In no time it will be time to start packing bags and watching weather and wave forecast. Of course the next big thing will be Royal-up. Do I bid for an upgrade and hope or just stick to the plan of an Interior and not bother? Both thoughts have merit. I guess I will figure that out in 15 days. Who knows, there might not even be any upgrades available. Voyager is in Port today and I would think about posting a pic from one of the Galveston Web Cams but for the famous fog. The port is neatly blanketed in. There are a few good cams to watch the port though. https://www.visitgalveston.com/webcams/north-galveston-webcam/ https://www.galveston.com/webcams/cruisevideocam/ https://www.galveston.com/webcams/emeraldvideocam/

It's a great hour! Usually when I'm eating my 2nd breakfast of the morning.

We had a direct flight from Cincinnati yesterday morning. The flight went smoothly and we got into Fort Lauderdale around 11 am. We called the Hyatt for their free shuttle and met them at the hotel pickup spot to the right of the terminal. Our room wasn't ready yet so we stored our bags and walked to Cooper's Hawk for a wine tasting. I am a member of Coopers Hawk's wine club so I get 2 free wine tastings a month. Greg and I both did the regular tasting. Another great benefit is you can add on one of their chocolate truffles to the tasting for $1 each. I got white chocolate and DH got the dark peppermint. After the wine tasting we decided we would stay and have lunch. We were enticed by the short rib grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup so we got that to share. I also really like their pretzel bread. I had birthday money on my account too so it pretty much paid for most of the mean. Another benefit of the wine club is that you can get any of your wine club bottles in the restaurant without any additional cost or corkage fee so that was a win! I could not drink all of the wine so we took the rest of the bottle back to the room with us stopping by the Nike outlet on the way. We checked into our room. We had a nice kitchen area and dishes in the room. We decided to have a low key evening in the room. I walked to Sprout's market and picked up a 6 pack of beer and some snacks for dinner and we watched some movies on Amazon prime. We are up early this morning and plan to head to terminal 25 at around 10:30! So excited to board the Beyond today! I like that Celebrity let's you drop you luggage at your room and explore the ship without having to wait until the rooms are ready! We will do that, get our muster out of the way, and try to change my dining reservations for Eden. I have an 8 o'clock reservation for tonight, but I want to go earlier. Entertainment is now available in the app. Given that this is a longer holiday sailing, it looks like their are a lot of different guest performers on board this cruise in comparison to the standard shows on the Beyond! I have noticed the Edge class also tends to feature a lot artist and showcases of their work. The resident artist on today is Lenier Martinez. She will be showcasing at two times today in the Grand Plaza. Tonight's performer is Leslie McDonel who has a history on broadway and film. Her show tonight will feature the female musical pioneers celebrating the legendary women of rock! Showtimes are 7 and 9 pm. There is also a game show tonight in the Club, "True or False" Will post updates tomorrow!

I was in Texas for thanksgiving and the subject come up . You Australians don’t tip ,such cheap Charlie’s. And I went through it and why . At the end of the day they were shaking their heads and saying ,how did we get this system. They said it’s out of control even the self serve check out wants a donation.

Hike summary: The elevation profile says it all. This hike had a larger elevation gain compared to the morning session.

Nice. Glad some of you have been able to take advantage of this. None of mine are showing a senior discount. Wonder what age it starts at? Not that I'd be buying it anyway since we don't drink alcohol. I do wish they'd offer a senior discount on the Internet though! ETA, just signed in on DH's account and the senior discount is now showing up! Guess I'm too young! Note to self: when doing my daily price check, check under his account too!

This is a random post about nothing….We saw a man wearing a t shirt that read “Sick of people, they are EVERYWHERE”. For some reason the phrase was made even funnier by the man that was wearing the t shirt. IYKYK I wanted to take a picture of the man but the guys wouldn’t let me.

As our high angle/rope instructors used to tell us in training: It's not the fall but the sudden stop at the bottom that's a problem............

I know right! Especially the royal loft. If I was going to bid on anything it would be that one but in the off chance we got it, Lindsay may kill me if he lost his aft views. So I’m going to pretend I didn’t get this email.

Just as people are all so different, I think expectations must be all over the place too. For a ship to feed thousands of people, I personally feel it's unrealistic to expect 5 star food quality in every meal. Local restaurants certainly vary too. If the great majority of MDR meals onboard are better than we typically eat at home, or even in a local restaurant, we're quite pleased. If we paid extra for a specialty dining experience, I would then have a higher expectation. Overall, we have been happy with MDR meals -- even when we occasionally get something that isn't quite what we expected. Our attitude is that we are fortunate to be able to cruise and have a decent variety of choices in different foods that we maybe don't normally have at home. If we don't like something, we might eat more of what we do like. We never go hungry. Maybe we're too easy to please.

On the 12/2 sailing on Symphony for the craps table, you could bet the pass line @ $5 and then with a point could bet 6-8 with multiples of $6 as min bets. The sucker bets like hard numbers or the horn for $1.

Well this doesn’t surprise me. Lindsay’s driving stats from yesterday.

Received another email for Royal Up. The recent offer is considerably less than the initial offer. It doesn’t really matter as we have no desire to change suites but I have never received a second offer with bids lower than my initial offer. Or if I have I completely missed it This mornings offer Initial offer

Day 4 Chronicle: 22 DEC - Port Stanley.pdf

I must admit I really do love being in a country that doesn't normally tip and includes tax and all other costs on the price tag. It makes a heck of a lot easier. Ocassioanlly I'll tip for absolutly exceptional service but or if I seea a servier worker is having a tough day but it is certainly enver expected). It used to be a pain when I lived the US to try and work out the cost of a meal because you had to work out tax and tips on top of the menu price.

That's my friend! Says the chick who thinks 7:45am is an ungodly hour on vacation..... Seriously, if you recall, i did send them post cruise feedback that the 8:30a SC session was a copout. Good to know my feedback was not taken seriously. I mean, why would it?! Anyway, Batman and I are both working Christmas Eve and Day, and so I'll be blowing off work where possible to read your blog, and i can't wait to meet Berty!

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/12/19/how-royal-caribbean-celebrates-christmas-and-new-years-holidays-its-cruise-ships

Think I found the dry slide on Deck 16 in this video someone took earlier this month when it was in dry dock (pretty cool video overall) - it is at the 3:20 mark

That was my understanding as well, limit to one entree at Chops but can do multiple apps and dessert

I’ve never known Chops to limit apps but they definitely limit your entrees to one.

Yes! I much prefer the MDR to the WJ when we're not in a hurry. It's a much more pleasant an experience. On ships that have them, the Solarium Bistro is a good choice for breakfast too.

Well we’re now giving away how old we are.

Yes you can. It's 4 for Diamond, 5 for diamond plus and 6 for pinnacle.

If you've never played, in the past there were also classes you could sign up for where they walk you through the basics of roulette, blackjack and craps in the casino while it is closed. I think you even got a few bucks in casino credit, too. I'm not sure if these still exist or not, it's been several years since I did it, but it was a nice service. Bonus: since the casino was closed, no smoke.

It’s probably 65

Thanks, Leroyr55 !! This is like a holiday gift from you! I had just rebooked drink packages for multiple cruises yesterday for a nice savings. Now I just did it again! I hope I can keep track of the credit card accounting. CRAZY, but I'm liking it. THANK YOU !!

I never knew there were so many sesquipedalian types on here.............