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The whole group made it to Houston, staying at the Marriott. Now folks, the hotel is nice but the whole area is a bit sketchy. Good idea to leave everything in your hotel but one credit card to use to get dinner. We tried to go to Spanish Mass at 8:30pm, as their web site listed. Lights off. Mass was listed at 6:00 pm on their door, but never updated on their web page. Hubby said, well we tried, and that’s all Jesus wants from each of us. Hubby is a daily Mass attendee, so if he says we are alright with Jesus, then there’s. a good chance we will be fine going on a ship out in the ocean. Our genie, MJ, gave us his WhatsApp number tonight. We started a group chat. Galveston limo and shuttle picks us up at nine in the morning to head to the ship. Fun times!

It's boarding day! I feel the appropriate level of festive pre-cruise happiness now that I've had a good nights sleep and my travel day is behind me and I'm about to leave this hotel. The forecast calls for scattered showers throughout the day but it's going to be a fantastic day regardless of whatever the weather does. I keep hoping I'll pass Icon of the seas and get a glimpse of it somewhere, but it doesn't look like our paths are going to cross. There are several people in our Facebook group who got here early and went down to the port and saw Icon and posted pictures in our group. So cool to see it up close. I had zero interest in booking that ship especially given the price, but now that it's here and everybody's excited, I'm excited too. Can't wait to see our mods take the inaugural cruise and follow along! I am caffeinating and reshuffling my packing cubes. I can see the charm of the packing cubes for sure but I think there's a learning curve here for me. Despite the beauty of the packing cubes I somehow have misplaced my toothbrush so now I have to pull them out and go through them. (Yes, I ended up going to bed without brushing my teeth last night, a very rare thing. Please don't judge me too harshly, I was exhausted. ) Mine are all lumpy and while they are well divided, I just feel like I haven't executed them to the utmost degree quite yet. I have an Uber lined up and I have an 11 AM boarding time although with the Key, I don't think a later boarding time would've mattered, I would've been invited to board at 11 anyway. As a matter of fact, as I was typing this I just got a text from Royal Caribbean reminding everybody to stick to their scheduled boarding times! Here's the current view from the hotel window. I did most of my sleeping from 1 AM to 7 AM but I do feel like a new person. My muster station is on the promenade in the karaoke lounge. How cool is that? It will be a breeze to go right over there and get that done. More soon!

We got to port at 9:55, and a lady outside at suite/star class called for a porter, and a terminal person to escort us in the terminal. Two porters handled our 14 pieces of luggage. They just opened the terminal, and only allowed star class to enter. Went thru a quick security then to suite lounge. Two ladies quickly checked us all. MJ was there (gave me a hug) then took us immediately to our room. In the room he explained all the benefits and answered all our questions. We soon went to our muster station then MJ met us at Jamie’s and had a nice table waiting. Lunch was really good. I’ll end here but soon tell you a couple of things that MJ too care of for us. He is amazing.

Hey all, just a fun FYI to those sailing on any Oasis-class ship, they recently changed the programming to 1 elevator on each side of the elevator banks that reach deck 17 to Coastal Kitchen and Suite Lounge (or also sun deck for Wonder.) We have just gotten off Symphony and confirmed with the suite Concierges that they adjusted behavior for a total of 2 elevators to always park on Deck 17 and ignore any calls that are from the lower decks. These selected elevators when boarded on deck 17 will express down to the floor(s) selected and will ignore all other floors on the way down and when it arrives on the destination floor, doesn't illuminate a green/red color to indicate direction to deter people from boarding and then returns back up to 17. The Concierges said the change was from up above of all the feedback from suite/pinnacle members commenting on long wait times trying to return to their floors and being stuck on 17 (obviously specific to Oasis class ships).

I am glad you made it safely. I have to say I get you on so many levels. I feel weird in the hotel by myself and usually try to get everything I need done and hunker down. I also have some travel anxiety and can never sleep before I fly out.

We are up and about ready to have all our wishes come true! It’s 42 degrees here, cold for our South Carolina group, but no coat weather for our Milwaukee guy!

Made it to Miami. In my hotel room for the night. Searching TV for some football games. This is the only part of solo traveling I hate....Staying in the hotel the night before the cruise. I get so jittery. I recall every horror story involving a hotel that I've ever heard, and I begin to wonder what exactly happened to Bob Saget anyway. I have no problems staying in a cruise cabin by myself but there's something about hotels that makes me nervous. Anyway, the hotel is chock full and everything's going to be fine and I'm in for the night and won't emerge from my room until it's time to head to port tommorow. The flight left late but somehow we still landed on time, there was some turbulence but nothing terrible. Everything went smoothly. Lots of people in my Facebook cruise group are getting bumped right and left due to snowstorms, some families have had to give up on the notion of rescheduling their flights and they have grabbed a car and started driving for 18 hours. When I got to the Miami airport I went and found the shuttle to take me to the hotel. On the shuttle ride over, there was a man sitting across the aisle from me, and he told a dirty joke to the lady sitting next to me. There was a lot of anatomical terms thrown around and the gist of the joke was exactly what wives do to "get their husbands to buy them diamonds." It was awful but the lady next to me slapped her leg and laughed long and hard. Somebody on the fringes of the group wanted to know what they were laughing at so the guy repeated that dirty joke AGAIN. And mind you, there were kids on board. Then he leered at both of the ladies and said he noticed they were wearing diamond rings and he knew exactly what they did to get them. I don't know, am I a stodge? I found it disturbing. And he doesn't even know these ladies. What is wrong with people. In any case, that's all over now and I am in the room watching airplanes come in to land at the airport. My son is studying to be a pilot and I am a lot more interested in these kinds of things than I used to be. In fact, he is taking his first solo flight tomorrow so I'm gonna be one nervous mama til I get that text that it's over. Thanks to everyone for weighing in on the packing cubes. Got to say I love being able to pull out my overnight kit-packing-cube for everything I need between now and tomorrow morning, and not having to rifle through my suitcase looking for that one lost item. As we flew over the port I caught a glimpse of some cruise ships. So exciting! I have forgotten how much I love cruising out of Florida and tootling around the Caribbean for fun and sun. I am so worn out. I can never sleep the night before I travel. I took a few naps during the course of the night but that's about it, and we were up at 5:30. Am I alone in that department? What about you guys? More soon!

Just have a few minutes. MJ as a genie is the best we have ever had. Seriously, request him! I’ll post later.

I have, but don't use the compression kind. Using the regular packing cubes, I overfill them and then zipper them down so they're compressed, but not as much as they would be with the compression cubes. It can make your luggage heavier for sure since you're packing more stuff into less space! Another note that I haven't seen mentioned is that my clothes come out of the cubes much less wrinkled than when packed without the cubes. My thought is that they are just so tightly packed that they can't shift around they way they might otherwise? I do fold them super carefully before putting them in the cubes. I know it kind of doesn't make sense since you're smashing them tight, but really! I love the packing cubes - as others have mentioned, it is so easy to unpack and just toss cubes into the drawers/on the shelves. For me, packing takes longer, but unpacking is so easy!

Have a great cruise. I'm excited to follow along!

ITS CRUISE DAY!!!!

Now I WISH I was on this cruise rather than the 9th! You are very gracious extending such a wonderful invitation! Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone else from the blogs is sailing on my dates and also has a suite! ENJOY!

It's cruise day!!!!!!

ITS CRUISE DAY!!!!!!!!!!

We use them. We use the ebags cubes. Iv'e used them for about 12 years, now. We have a lot of kids. Everyone has their own color. This way when you're traveling you don't need a suitcase for everyone. You can make 7 people use 3 suitcases and know who's stuff is in which suitcase right away. It helps us check less bags. The color thing works really well at home, too. Each kid's color is their laundry basket, toothbrush, towel, draw string bags, etc... It keeps. things so organized. Even when I go on a trip with just my husband we always use them, the suitcase is so organized. It makes it very easy to hit the weight limit for checking bags. You can more easily open the suitcase and move one bag to a carry on, if the weight is over.

Don't tell RCL, but I'd pay to avoid this pool.

We made it to Atlanta, where our plane to Houston has been delayed 30 minutes. Indiana son’s flight was delayed but now back to original time. SC family is in the air to Dallas, TX. By gosh, it’s looking like we are all gonna make it. Sitting in capital lounge where hubby is watching basketball, and I’m pretty much talking to myself!

We are taking train from Virginia to NYC (Penn Station) and spending night near Times Square. Anyone have a good suggestion for best way to get to port from Times Sq? When ship returns to Bayonne, we plan to UBER from port to Newark train station for the ride back home to Virginia. Will report back on how it went!

Have you seen the "Carry On Closet"?

I don't really compress (I'm fairly new to using cubes, and don't use them all of the time) because I'm worried about breaking the zipper and/or the mesh, so I think my bags are only heavier by the weight of the actual cube, itself, although it is made of a very lightweight material so I doubt that it is even a pound with all of them together. So far, I'd say my favorite reason for using them is the ability to pull out one with everything for overnight in a hotel, as others have mentioned. If I can get my act together on the last night of the cruise (we do put out luggage in the hall), I'd love to leverage my family's cubes to make it easier to do the carryon/checked bags swap once we collect our luggage before our flights.

That is great to hear! There was lots of excitement when he completed his Genie training. I think many were rooting for him.

One more thing to add, we barely saw our room steward. When we did, I asked him how many cabins he had? 35. I don't know what that number should be, but there is no way to offer good service when you have 35 of them. If working a 10 hour day, that is less than 20 minutes per room per day. If working a 12 hour day, he would have had 20 minutes per room. I'll not even bother to write about the customer service response we received upon my follow-up, but it was BAD.

I am talking to hubby about booking a S2S on Royal in 2025 when the schedule is release in February.

I was tempted to book to give it a try but not seeing the menus beforehand and having a picky eater in my party I didn't want to take the risk.

Have a peaceful and joyful cruise.

Maybe it's ship dependent... on Oasis twice this past year and both times they had the big 'ole pile of them at the table and gave them out right there.

Have a peaceful day and cruise.

It's cruise day!!!! Have a wonderful time!

An educated guess. Passenger load (double occupancy) on Mardi Gras is 5200, 6500 max. That's Oasis Class number on a ship that's 50K gross tons/ 60 ft. or so shorter. The ship must have been packed to the rafters on the sailing.

My latest update: I reserved Country Inn & Suites by Radisson (on Astronaut Blvd) for the night before our Utopia cruise. I think for dinner we are going to try and check out the Italian restaurant up the road…Zarrella’s. Anyone have reviews about that? I reserved the Home2Suites by Hilton, also on Astronaut Blvd, for the night in between getting off Utopia and getting on Mardi Gras! Both places had the best prices for these particular nights. LOL if anyone is interested…just 239 days to go for this Utopia Sept 9 cruise!!!!

Just a heads up, looks like they have switched which areas are the adults only area on the ship - was to be Cloud 7 but now will be the Hideaway ... saw it mentioned in a cruise critic article and now appears that way in the app

Have a great cruise!!!! 5 more weeks until my turn!!

It's cruise day!!!!

As if I don’t have enough of these! LOL but after reading @need2cruz post I checked out the ebag website and they have a huge sale! Well…”huge sale” is my middle name!!! (According to my husband…lol) so I ordered a set of 3 and a set of 4 in turquoise! My excuse is I am preparing for my 21 day TransAtlantic(14)/ Land(7) vacation in 2025!

We cruised on this day last year- you'll hit a little traffic, but the street closures will basically be done by 10am. We took a little longer to get in, but it was more because of the construction at the port than the marathon- getting TO the port was basically no problem, and you should be fine. Give yourself a few extra minutes just in case.

As soon as you walk on, right in the promenade near Sorrentos, you'll see a big table set up with cups stacked up and you go, give your name and pick a color!

You do not have to have the cup to use your soda package. You can get a glass soda at any bar on the ship using your sea pass card. The soda cup only comes in handy when you want to use the free style soda machine.

Usually on embarkation day they will have a table set up on deck 5, when you enter the promenade, and you can get your cup(s). They will check you off a list and you are good to go.

Just got off Apex, our first Celebrity cruise, and agree with all of the above. Kinda Quantum like in terms of venues although the ships tonnage is closer to voyager in size. I was surprised at the lack of bars in certain areas (casino and solarium and not many servers on the pool deck). Also more DJs than live bands (DJ on pool deck for example). Would definitely do an edge class again though.

Use em. They are flexible in so many ways. Organize your stuff any way that makes sense to you. Clothing type, by day, by activity, by snacks, by toiletries, by individual. They come in any size, multiple colors for further sorting. I like to think ahead how I will probably store my stuff in the cabin. Grab a cube, drop it in a drawer, put it on a shelf, done. I use one color, spouse uses another. Separate one night pre cruise bag, no problem. Separate bag for small electronics like phones, ear buds, USB cables, night light, charger....no problem. If you like to be organized, its a no brainer.

This is our second RC cruise - our first was on Mariner about a year ago. I'm so excited to try an Oasis Class ship. Not a spring break cruise for us - we are celebrating our anniversary. Three night dining package for us.

I use them now for every trip, I like the compression ones as they really squeeze everything down and make more room in the suitcase or bag

I am the same way. I even try to go to bed early the night before hoping to get some sleep but it never happens. At least I have no problems sleeping on the plane even if its only for a few hours.

We never travel without them. Perfect if you stay in a hotel the night before embarkation. You just pack one with the clothes you know you need the next day so there is no need to disturb your fully packed suitcase. We have one suitcase w next day cubes, then our other suitcases use cubes in the same way shared by others in this thread. I prefer the mesh ones and each family member has their own unique color.

Can I request three Mods "investigations"? I saw Matts video the other day and was surprised by a few bright spots that warrant some unbiased, in-depth analysis: Royal Bling-- Has Royal really just caught on to the amount of dollars spent in St Thomas for contraband Royal Caribbean jewelry??? I'd like to see what Royal Bling has on the shelves and well....would sorta like to see at what price. Warn me if I should be seated. Aquadome Market-- Wow! Have they really been paying attention to how young people eat in 2024? The menus seem really short but is this goods as promised? Celebration Table-- This is your reward for your hard work and this is your private party, but my question is: Can the food possibly match the venue?

you know what time it is….

I believe there are many negative NCL reviews. Carnival too. I think in the post Covid world, the almighty dollar is more important than ever to those companies. I have not heard a lot of bad RCCL reviews, so maybe it is different. I personally carried Carnival's water up until our Mardi Gras experience in October. Unless you want to be packed in like sardines, do not, and I mean DO NOT book Carnival.

I have no interest, never did, but I'd wait for a video of a standard day with passengers there to judge it.

I just mocked a booking for Celebrity and it seems that the issue is that they aren't applying their "75% off 2nd guest" discount on the solo supplement. Easy fix - book the cabin with a phantom guest who - oh no! - missed their flight.