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Just saying a quick hello here, first time in about four years. I just booked the 12-night Odyssey sailing in Jan 2025, which is an itinerary I've been wanting to do kind of since I first started sailing with Royal in 2018 and learned about it. Seemed like a nice way to celebrate turning 55. To everyone I haven't spoken with in all these years, hope you've been well!

We just completed an 8-day cruise on the Odyssey and we had 4 sea days. As you can imagine, the chair hogs were out in full force but Odyssey’s staff were ready. Each pool area had at least two attendants that worked all day long…They were tagging all unoccupied chairs and removing the items if the person didn’t return in time. They were using little yellow stickies to mark the time they placed the tag, the number of chairs and they placed the tag on the chair in a location the person would not notice. The staff got lots of thanks and I only witness one upset lady…She came back three hours later and was upset her stuff was removed. Way to go Royal!!!

I've always defended @Matt when someone claimed he was being a princess. Now I'm not so sure.

I enjoy Quantum class because they are different. I've sailed four of them and mostly to bucket list destinations like Alaska, Hawaii and New Zealand. Oasis class, until Icon came about, have always been in a league of their own and can't be compared to any other ship class. Oasis and now Icon are very wide ships, much wider than all other classes of ship. It's the extra width that allows things like Central Park and Boardwalk. On any other platform without the extra width it's not practical to install these areas without removing all guest cabins in those areas. Removing guest cabins to add more venues and features isn't practical for any cruise line. Oasis class are much larger ships at 225,000+ GT while Quantum class are around 168,000 GT. That extra 30% of space allows them to put more venues and areas on Oasis class. Why doesn't Radiance class have ice skating rinks and zip lines and central park and boardwalk and aqua theaters and so on? Because Radiance class is one third the size of Oasis class and obviously you can't put the same features and venues on a ship that doesn't have the space for them. The Windjammer on Quantum class is my favorite across the fleet. I really dislike the Windjammer on Oasis class. The food stations are all over the place with some on the side and some around the corner on the back. It's really hard to find seating on Oasis class Windjammers at peak times. Oasis class Windjammers are truly jammers slammed with people. Some Quantum class Windjammers have outdoor seating which I love. The lack of waterslides is known before booking. It appears odd to me to complain they are missing. That's like buying a sedan then complaining it's not a 4x4 pick up truck. Given where most Quantum class are deployed waterslides are impractical. It's okay not to like something but that doesn't justify calling it a dud. Royal's next class of ship, Discovery class, is not going to be a mini Oasis class ship. They too will be much smaller ships that won't have the space for all Oasis class features. Like Quantum class the smaller footprint will allow them to sail into ports that Oasis class can't fit into. That's kind of the point. They will be different too. Different doesn't make them duds. Oasis and Icon class ships are the destination and the ports you visit are less important. If the itinerary is boring it doesn't matter because the ship is as much the destination as the itinerary may be. Other classes of ships can visit more unique ports of call where mega ships can't sail. When visiting these areas the ship isn't the destination as much as the ports of call are the destination. Anthem out of Bayonne was a perfect pairing with two sea days down the coast and two sea days on the way back home in the cold Atlantic ocean where few would be using waterslides most of the time. The indoor family pool means kids are not trying to sneak into the adult only solarium pools on those colder sea days in winter months. What I love best of all my 14 Quantum class cruises are the memories of the destinations. Alaska, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand for example. Greek islands and Europe for Odyssey is a great summer pairing. I like that Royal's fleet is diverse and not just ships that are variations of the same thing. With research I can choose a ship that fits my needs based on the region I'll be sailing. I suggest doing more research next time and avoid booking a ship that doesn't have features that are important to you.

Had to make this borderline obnoxious post somewhere… woohoo! +

So, where are we going ? Not that it matters, of course…. 5 ports of call: Puerto Plata, DR (day #3), St Thomas (day #4), Antigua (day #5), Grenada (day #6) and St Kitts (day #7). We will be doing 2 excursions on this sailing (very unusual for us). We will be swimming with the stingrays in Antigua and taking a familiarization tour in Grenada since we’ve never been there. Dan is strutting about in his underwear with the curtains open, violating the #1 rule of interior view rooms, “thou shalt not expose thyself”. I did quickly pulled the curtains together but I’m sure it would have been too late for anyone looking up. He truly does NOT give a flying fu##. . Hopefully being up on 8 will protect everyone ! This is gonna be a fun cruise. I LOVE our Cap ! I couldn’t make out his first name but his last name is Mortensen (from northern Norway). He offered an unambiguous threat to all of the pool lounge chair hogs ! He said, “These chairs do not belong to you. They ALL belong to ME”. I love it ! He sounds like a fun guy.

As I’ve already mentioned, boarding was very timely and efficient. We stopped by our mustard (sic) station on the way in and got that out of the way. Then straight over to the specialty dining kiosk near the dining room to make our specialty rezzies. No one else in line…easy peasy. Woohoo ! On our way up to our room to sneak the keys off the stateroom door, we ran into Gigi, the Suites Concierge. I asked her if there were any Pinnacle exclusions to the Suite Lounge. Very sheepishly, she said, “Yes. Only the top 30 allowed in the Concierge Lounge” (EX STILL has not converted their Concierge Lounge to a Suites Lounge despite the fact that they underwent a dry dock fairly recently. Why ??). She continued, “If your key works, you’re allowed in”. My heart sank as I’m certain that we would be excluded. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. It was just a matter of time. “oh well” I tell myself. It’s not the end of the world. Truly, the Crown Lounge is actually nicer than the Suites/Concierge Lounge on this ship since the Concierge Lounge is still, inexplicably, located in an uninspired inside room on deck 9 while the Crown Lounge is up in the Viking Crown are with an ocean view. “We’ll be fine”, I said, as I choked back the tears of disappointment. So I went and snatched the keys from the door (we’re right by the elevators on deck 8 so I was and out like a special forces recon team. Nobody saw me come or go (except for security, of course)). Even though I knew it was a waste of time, I told Dan that we had to try the key to see if it would open the Concierge Lounge door. I held my breath. I slipped the key in. I heard the “click” that the lock makes when it magically unlocks the door. The light blinked. I couldn’t believe our luck ! Our successful record for Suites Lounge access was still intact ! Yippee ! Now…are we in the top 30 Pinnacles ? That’s a big “no” unless there are only 29 Pinnacles on board ! So either it’s a one-time lock glitch OR Gigi was hedging her bet. I guess we’ll find out the next time I try to get in ! I got my cappuccino, and a stale lemon cookie and we waited in the [absolutely deserted] Concierge Lounge until it was time for lunch. For those who need to know (Mike ? …the tag-thing isn’t working !) here are some pix of the unimpressive treats in the Lounge for embarkation. Poor Dan. He’s all alone in the Lounge !

I struggled with whether to do a live blog for these 3 rather mundane EX cruises but I decided to give it a go. I even have some photos ! Shock, I know….these might be the only photos you get but at least there will be some ! Absolutely nothing interesting to report about our drive in. Left Port St Lucie at 5:30AM and arrived at the parking garage (finally….more about that in a minute) at 8:00. Since we had an 8:00 reservation, right on time. We normally do not plan to arrive quite THAT early, but since we have a couple of “firsts” on this trifecta, plus, it being a weekday, we decided to leave a bit early. In the end, it was a very good thing we did.

I'm baaaaack on a ship! I'm traveling on the cheap this time and solo, so join me as I people watch and make the most of my 20 days at sea courtesy of Casino Royale

Dan and I hit a Royal Flush on video poker tonite ! Woohoo. Too bad we were only playing a quarter. …but it made us much healthier than we were ! He will definitely make Prime on this cruise as he’s more than halfway there and this is only night 3 of 9. Yikes. Sorry this picture is so big ! About 5 minutes ago we had an Alpha, Alpha, Alpha call come over the stateroom speakers. I don’t recall them usually making that announce inside the rooms. It is for a passenger cabin on deck 12. I hope whoever it is will be ok.

So what “firsts” are we doing on this cruise ? 1. First time ever parking offsite. The second “first” (how confusing is that ???) is really just a subset of the #1. This is the first time we have used Premier Parking in Miami. 2. The only other “first” has nothing to do with boarding day - we will be calling on Grenada for the first time ever. Rare for us to have a new Caribbean port, but we do. As a matter of fact, we will be calling twice b/c our third cruise in this trilogy is identical to the first so we will be visiting twice.

Last food pic (although I brought home enough ranger cookies for a few more days, lol)…

My phone and iPad finally synched, so I have some photos from Antigua and Grenada. Let’s see how this goes. I’ve had some trouble spacing them and inserting text. I’m terrible at this stuff. This is the floating platform in Antigua for the stingray swim. It made the entire experience so much better than in Grand Cayman. It was much easier to get into and out of the water These mysterious blobs are obviously stingrays. They are so docile and sweet. You can almost see the tail ! This is St George, Grenada with Explorer in the background. I really liked Grenada. Nice people, beautiful island, shitty roads. Obviously, I’m having a bad hair day. The town of St George really reminds me of Curaçao, which is one of my very favorite places. This town just looks so quaint. Shamefully, I got very few photos of Ft Frederick. These monkeys are native to the island and I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know their proper species name. We caught a fleeting glance at one in the rain forest. …and finally, the waterfall at Annandale. Very beautiful place. Kinda like a cenote in Mexico.

Lol. Um….no. I think Mario is a few cruises ahead of us ….but we are very proud of the way we have fulfilled our “lifestyle” dream/plan to move to FL to cruise MORE. It has truly worked out just the way we planned it. I documented the entire move in an old thread from 2020 but I don’t know how to copy the link so anyone that wants to read it will have to sleuth it out. It’s entitled “House Recon”…something something…. Actually, there are 2 S2S following these 3 EX cruises. We have 1 day in dry dock (4-28) then board FR for 4 days, then 2 days in dry dock followed by 7 nights on WN (5-5)….nearly 6 weeks of cruising ! Things slow down after that !

White night & formal night table pictures. I have a funny smile in the white night pic because the lady at the next table took it and didn't really tell us when, so I got smile fatigue. And my son's eyes are closed for the same reason.

And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling bloggers !

So here I am, blogging while gazing out at the Promenade, while Dan is doing the first of many, I’m sure, saunas. The man loves his steam room and sauna. I can’t stay in a hot sauna for more than 60 seconds. My poor, thin, white skin just rebels. ….which brings me to our stateroom info. We are in a Promenade view interior room on deck 8. It is the highest level (in elevation, I mean) of this category and so far, it is VERY quiet. We’ve been in this category a few times and truly, we’ve had some noise issues in the past - mostly related to shenanigans on the Promenade. But not so, this time -at least, not yet ! I’m always surprised at how OK I am with this stateroom category, once I’m settled in. I dread it until I get here and then I’m like - “This isn’t so bad”. Small ? Sure. …and the drawer space is very limited but we always manage to get everything put away and I’m sitting on the love seat, looking out the winder (sic) overlooking the Promenade and thinking how lucky I am to be here. This cruise is a 100% casino comp. As a matter of fact, I actually downgraded our offer (it was originally for an ocean view) to get this category rather than some porthole room down on decks 3 or 4. Knowing what I know now, I would probably have upgraded the OV offer for one of the panoramic OV cabins on the front of the ship but at the time that I made this booking, I had never stated in one of those panoramic OV cabins so I was woefully ignorant of that option. I’m ok with this room though. I did put in a RU bid for one of the panoramic OV rooms but didn’t win . Not to worry ! Cruise #3 (4-19) IS one of the panoramic OV cabins so I will get to enjoy it, but not for 2 more weeks ! We will be in this room for the first 2 cruises (14 days) and will move to the panoramic OV on the final one of the B3B.

On a recent sailing I was leaning over the rear of the ship admiring the wake. I was approached by the Captain and given a Stern warning.

Last night my handcuff beastie didn't show for dinner. Neither did scuba boy (who apparently won 2nd place at the belly flop competition). So it was just chatty Alaska and her new friend that she invited to join us. What killed me last night is Alaska made it a point to sit in the chair next to where handcuffs had sat the first 2 nights so she could talk to her, leaving her new friend on the complete opposite side of the table by herself. Then her friend's salmon was overcooked and that was a whole thing. I think I lost my voice from saying, "Thanks, everything was great" eleventh five hundred times to every random crew member that had to stop by the table because the salmon was dry. Alaska won't eat seafood on cruises because she catches and cooks her own and it is much better, which I don't doubt at all and didn't doubt any of the 10 times she mentioned it

Wonderland for dinner

WJ shrimp & ribs for lunch. Really not bad by WJ standards. Now sitting in a very windy & empty ELF for perhaps my last tacos of the cruise.

Creatures from Captain Bob’s excursion…

Excursion today was plane spotting at Maho Beach. It was really cool seeing the planes come in overhead and Sunset bar and Grill was really cool. We then hit front street where I went to my favorite bourbon place in the world Guhlomars and purchased some bourbon and cigars.

Picky person pizza…

27 days to go....... Since I made my brother prime, he gets a nice number of monthlies. Usually, they match with mine but of lesser value. Most of my offers are OVs and my brothers are interiors or "1 complimentary guest." It works out the same for us moneywise, but gets us double point, so we booked 2 sperate rooms for the first two sailings as the upgrade option is just OV when you combine. I hate OV so I will often just take the interiors, in this case the first two sailings are GTY. I normally prefer an aft cabin and to pick my own, but I also like a cheap sailing. I really spend minimal time in my room, so location takes a backseat to savings. My brother was excited about his first B2B and then he decided it would be nice to bring our mother along. She of course is sharing a room with him . But she didn't have enough vacation time to do all three, so she will just join us for the first two. We are gifting this as her Mother's Day present. For the first cruise, check-in opened on the 28th of March I believe. The earliest slot was 11am, which wasn't a big deal because we are flying in the day of......first flight out as usual. I never recommend this, but I have insurance and live in hub city, meaning there are usually 3-4 flights after mine that will get me there. Which brings me to a side rant: there used to be more flights. I remember when there were flights between 8pm-10pm that went to Mia, MCO and FLL. Now the last flight is often around 6:45 to 7pm, which is not ideal when flying with my mother who has church until at least 3pm and requires another couple of hours to be ready. So 5am flights are what I have to deal with, and the sucky part is my preferred airline makes those the most expensive flights. So even though I complain and say I hope to never fly them again, I am often stuck with SWA...... and their crappy boarding procedure . I don't know if 10/10:30 opened up, I didn't bother to check. We will be on the ship for 11 days so I can care less about getting an earlier time. Plus, there are no reservations required for Freedom class entertainment. My brother brought his own snorkeling gear, the price for snorkeling all day at PDCC is like $50 on sale now . No ecursions are planned. I used the barcode trick as soon as I checked in and I was able to see our room assignments. For the first leg we are on deck 3 in rooms #3253 and 3251. On the second leg we are on Deck 2 in rooms #2567 and 2569. I chose my own room for the last leg with deck 9 and room #9391. I was happy that the rooms were assigned so close to each other. We have traditional dining for all three legs at 8:30.........which will probably be 8 in most cases. Since the reservations are linked, they should sit us together at a smaller table, if we are assigned to an 8-top I will request a different table. My brother doesn't want people judging him as he eats all his meals. I will not be pre-purchasing anything. I get 2 free days as D+ and then can use my prime discount on the remainder. I will also be using my BOGO. There will be the B2B'rs lunch so I will take advantage of that to avoid the WJ. Plus, we will do embarkation day lunch at Playmakers. I plan to prepack each leg in its own packing cube. I am also bringing a ton of casino-friendly snacks as I have a 2025 S2S2S or B2B2B to plan. I am following @AshleyDillo advice and bring specific clothes for the casino, so the rest don't get smoky.

So things really did pick up at Hideaway after my last post. By the time we left the place was packed. The music finally got to me….and I tagged out. Will I go back ? Probably not. There is very little at Hideaway that I could not get elsewhere on the island for -0- $$. 1. Hideaway pool is heated. I liked that…but I was still chilly when I got out of the water. 2. Dan said the choice of alcohol was better at Hideaway. E.g, he likes Grey Goose for his Bloody Mary and he said he couldn’t get that on the “regular” side. I have no idea since I’ve never had a [alcohol] drink at PDCC 3. Padded chairs and couches. I don’t recall seeing that outside of the Beach Club. Maybe they are somewhere that I haven’t seen. 4. No kids Other than these few things, the “regular “ side and Hideaway are the same (to me). We each had a crispy chicken/mozz sticks sandwich and I had 1/2 of a fried dough ball with powdered sugar on it (can’t think of what it’s called). Pretty tasty.

Lost $45 today but I won’t cry too much as I’m still “up” slightly for the first leg. I just have keep this momentum going for 2 more weeks ! I earned enough points for a comp cert myself although it’s the lowest level comp cert so the pickin’s are pretty slim. Most likely I will still use the cash value to upgrade Dans comp but I purchased a Next Cruise future cert so I will have the choice to book from the very short list of offered cruises if we choose to do that. We picked a 10 night EX in March 25 for Dans comp. I won’t be able to book it until tomorrow so I hope there are still some of the pano ocean views left by the time I get around to booking. I’ll take care of that while we’re in port on TAD. Dan enjoyed his lamb shank and I had the spaghetti in the MDR. I love that they put the Pinns at window tables (at least, whenever they can). It’s a nice perk. Also, on EX, Pinns have priority seating for MTD so the waiting is minimal. They told us to just go straight to the podium and that’s what we did. I will say, the MTD lines have been longer on EX than they had been on some of the other cruises we’ve taken recently. The priority seating was particularly nice on this cruise. We have the same room for leg #2 so we don’t have to pack - thank goodness ! So nice to be staying on when you see everyone else’s luggage outside and you are still snuggled in your stateroom ! It’s a great feeling. Stand by for Part II !

If you are trying to effect change for future builds, all you can really do is log the suggestion/complaint. There really are no next steps there. If you want to switch to a room that's guaranteed to have the bed setup you desire on your future sailing, you need to pay for the upgraded room.

Pretty lazy day today. Sea day. Spent a fair amount of time in the casino and happy to say that my upward trend ($$) is continuing. Nothing to crow about, just slightly “up” each time I go in there. Up is better than down ! Dan hit his goal of 3000 points so he made Prime and will get an instant comp reward. Whatever points I have (currently at a little over 1000), I will use to upgrade his comp offer with my otherwise useless $$ off reward. It was Royal night in the MDR. We both ordered the lobster as an appetizer since that portion is pretty small. I ordered the chicken Marsala as my main course and Dan ordered some curry shrimp dish (can’t remember the name). Both were very good. I will give my little Promenade view room some kudos (8311, 2T). I truly believe that this room is the quietest room we’ve ever had. It’s far enough aft to avoid the Promenade noise and there is absolutely no noise at all associated with the elevators. It’s very, very quiet and I love being so close to the aft elevators. We’ve been very comfortable in this room, which is a good thing since we will be here again on the next leg (5 nights, 4-14). For leg #3 (4-19), we have to move.

Sushi at Izumi tonite. For some reason, they brought Dan 2 full portions (8 pieces X 2 = 16 pieces !) of sushi when they normally only bring half that amount….OMG we are stuffed ! …and we are both dying of thirst now after all that soy sauce ! I got 2 rolls that were the normal size but I still had too much. I don’t know how he ate everything he did…God bless ‘im. We hit another $1000 jackpot on video poker….this time we hit 4 deuces on Deuces wild but luckily this time we were playing for $1 so it paid $1000. I totally forgot to take a picture this time. We were both so stunned ! Believe it or not, we are both still slightly “down” since we both had abysmal casino sessions on day 2….but it’s not horrible now with the 2 big (for us) wins last night and tonite. Tomorrow is Antigua. We’re swimming with the stingrays somewhere. We don’t have to meet our excursion until noon so we don’t have to worry about an early wake-up. Good !

We’re pulling into St Thomas 2.5 hours early (Crown Bay). It’s 9:30 and we aren’t scheduled to arrive until noon. The Cap made an announcement that we pushed to get here early due to a medical emergency so I’m assuming it’s related to the AAA we heard last night, but that’s pure speculation. We are scheduled to leave at 8 PM. Strange schedule. We’re not getting off today in St Thomas but this remains one of my favorite ports as far as the view is concerned. It’s truly lovely here. Now that my expensive jewelry-buying days are behind me (thank goodness) I have little reason to disembark. …but for those of you who are still IN their expensive jewelry-buying days, St Thomas is an excellent choice. Today is my first W&F laundry day for this cruise. You’ll all be happy to hear that I have achieved a new “personal best” by stuffing 24 pieces into that W&F bag. I just keep getting better and better ! . I have begun using the “rolling” technique and it’s proving to be a game-changer ! So, today is doomsday for those who care. Apparently we will be treated to the partial solar eclipse at approximately 2:44 PM. Since NASA will be firing 2 rockets into the atmosphere, willy nilly and CERN has decided that it would be a great time to push the world’s most powerful particle accelerator to its maximum power for the first time in history, it should be interesting. I’m fully expecting the black hole to materialize whereupon the demons of hell will be transiting to our dimension. That should be fun. Put on the Armor of God and all should be fine. (I’m only partially kidding) Sitting in the CL as we dock in St Thomas. I’m very surprised at how few people are here in the mornings. We avoid all lounges in the evenings so I have no idea how things are in them during the happy hours. I guess I should pop in an evening or 2 just to report out.

Continuing day 2. Today is the first full sea day and is traditionally the day that they have the Top Tier Event and the Cheer With an Officer luncheon. Typically, they have the Top Tier event at 10:30 followed by the Cheers luncheon at 11:45/12:00. For some reason, today, the TTE was held at 5:00PM. The Cheers luncheon went as expected at 11:45. There must have been some kind of scheduling conflict for the morning TTE but if there was, we never heard what it was. The Cheers luncheon was typical; the food was surprisingly good. The event was held in the MDR, deck 4. The Pinns were on the port side of the dining room and the D+ were on the starboard side. Dan and I both had the clam chowder and filet. Lots of wine was poured. We skipped dessert as we usually do. We did manage to nap past the beginning of the TTE (most likely due to the wine consumption !) so we skipped it. Since our lunch was so filling, we decided to change our second BOGO reservation (Chops) from 6:00 until 8:15 which is very late for us, but we both knew we would not be ready to eat another big meal so soon. Looking forward to that, but no way will I eat another steak as I had a half of a filet yesterday for lunch and a filet today. I am actually not much of a steak eater so I’m “steak-out” right now. Probably get the shrimp. Tonite is formal night but we left the tux at home (intentionally) so we will relax the formal attire this time. Things have been pretty positive so far in the casino, which has been surprisingly slow. I expected lots of gamblers to be on this cruise and so far, there hasn’t been much evidence of that. Since we have now started a new casino year, I thought everyone would be scrambling to make Prime right away. That has been Dan’s plan and he’s succeeding nicely. I have decided to wait and make my “push” on our Wonder cruise in May. We are both pretty much dead even (money-wise) but of course, he has accumulated far more points than I have, which is by design. I may have spoken too quickly about the internet performance. Suddenly it is sluggish and has kicked me out twice today. Probably a gap in the Starlink coverage or some such thing. Hoping for a return to the robust service we had yesterday.

Loyal to Royal?!? Not so fast, here comes Princess Matt!

Overheard in the Crown Lounge tonight: "If I die, I want to die on a cruise ship. Throw me in the furnace and get another mile out of the ship." Not sure that's how it works, sir.

You are a shenanigans magnet for sure! I'm fortunate that I don't get unsolicited conversations from random most of the time..just the way I like it. Although last night when I was walking around the casino this vintage came up to me out of nowhere right up into my face and asked me how to use the slot machines. Before I knew it I was showing her how to set her PIN number and charge to her room. Then she asked me how she gets a drink and I told her to look for the servers as they roamed. Then I offered to get her a drink at the bar and she took me up on the offer

It's been amazing so far everywhere I've tried it. This is from the Crown Lounge. And since I'm here..snacks for @OCSC Mike

I got up super early this morning to make the 4 hour drive to Tampa from Tallahassee. No need for a hotel the night before this way. Not the best driving conditions..but the rain cleared up once I arrived.

I wasn't going to book Utopia, but with new seats in the terminal, I'm booking STAT!

Finally made it home. We left ship around 730ish with wonderful Norman and Kenny concierge escort. On road before 8am and arrived home after 500 plus miles of driving around 430pm. I’m smoked and have added joy of work tomorrow. Did I mention I wish I was retired? awesome week with getting to meet @OCSC Mike and his lovely bride and seeing matt briefly twice. Wonder is just an awesome ship. Crew killed it as always. Royal for the win! Next cruise is icon in August. y’all thanks for following our posts.

Our wonderful TA from MEI, Jennifer, gave us and my parents a bottle of wine and a cheese and fruit plate. She gave the kids some cupcakes. So we are stuffed from two meals in the last 5 hours, and we have a whole cake, cupcakes, and cheese/fruit plates in our rooms. We need an @OCSC Mike in our bathtub to help us eat it all.

Lost internet for a little while. Storm seems to be letting up but now the Solarium has become a mild flood zone, lol. Not sure where the water is coming from but there’s almost inch-deep water flowing in front of our loungers by the windows. Saw at least one flip flop float by.

I disagree that there is no way to identify staterooms with a sofa bed. Deck plans show which rooms have a convertable sofa vs. Pullmans. Do your homework before booking. Is it quick and easy during the booking process? No. Is it impossible to get the information in advance? Also no. I would also note that the implications that Royal should not allow a room with Pullmans to be booked with children younger than "permitted" to use a Pullman or that Royal is not "accomodating a family with young children" because of the existence of Pullmans as the lower cost option are both invalid. If you want the cheaper stateroom, the children can use the regular beds and the parents can use the Pullmans. We did exactly this when our youngest child was seven but very small - regular beds were Mom and youngest, Pullmans were Dad and older child.

We had a super awesome day with the rays. They are really so sweet. They had a much nicer setup for the ray encounter in Antigua than they have at Cayman. In Antigua they have some floating platforms that really make getting into and out of the water much easier. Aside from that, the encounters with the rays were the same. We had such a nice time. We snorkeled with them, fed them, held them, petted them. Of course, they were there for the free meal. That was plain, but we didn’t care. We had a great time with them. We were in the “hot rod” of boats that were shuttling folks out to the platforms. All of the other boats had 115 hp outboards on them but our boat had twin 250’s. Woot ! We kicked a$$. We had the cutest bus driver -Romeo. When we first got onto the bus Dan asked Romeo if they drive on the left side of the road in Antigua (since the steering wheel was on the right side of the bus). Romeo said - “Yes. The left side is the right side and the right side is suicide”. We got a good laugh out of that. I got a little sun but nothing extreme. It was overcast and actually rained a little bit while we were getting ready to board the shuttle boats. But when we got out in the water, it was perfect. Not hot, not cold, not windy. I took some photos but they are on my phone so I will post them once (if ?) my devices synch. Dinner tonite was in the MDR - a taste of Asia. It was really quite good. They should put this one in the regular menu lineup, IMO. They could definitely replace French night. Ugh. Good luck tonite in the casino. We had abysmal luck at the slots/video poker but I got lucky and hit a straight flush playing Ultimate Texas Hold’Em so I actually won a little bit in the end. Still a little down, overall, but very little. I think I read somewhere that the casino had FINALLY managed to synch the table games with the slots so now, the points that you see on the screen (slots) reflect a total of table plus slot points. Dan confirmed that, tonite….so it will make it much easier to know where you stand -points-wise, if you play both tables and machines, like us. Tomorrow is Grenada. It’s our first time to call at this port and we’re looking forward to it. We have an island bus tour scheduled. Should be fun.

Yes ! We ate lunch today at Chops, which is a kind of tradition for us. There were only 4 other people eating in the restaurant which is REAlLY a slow embarkation day for Chops. We are dining at Giovanni’s tonite and Chops tomorrow night (our BOGO vouchers). We also have a 3 night dining package so we are doing Izumi on night #4 (skipping the USA menu in the MDR), Chops on night #6 (skipping the Caribbean night) and Giovanni’s on night #7 (skipping Italian night). That leaves Mexican night (night #3), Asian night (night #5), Royal night (lobster, night #8) and lamb shank night (can’t remember the theme) on night #9 for the MDR. I actually like Italian night in the MDR so on the repeat of this itin (cruise #3 4-19) I will choose to do Italian night and switch it out for something else….plenty of time to make that decision !

Not much to really cover from the rest of the cruise. Chatty Alaska moved tables and tried to avoid me every time I saw her. So of course I went up and talked to her every single time Turns out handcuffs was my favorite person on the cruise . She's a casino degenerate and was at over 9000 points for this cruise. Got up early for my drive..was off the ship and ready to go. Now I'm sitting in Playmakers on Independence waiting on service. Managed to miss all the usual traffic I see in South Florida and it was a smooth, easy drive.

The Butterfly Garden

My parents went to the thing today and actually had to sign an NDA. So they haven't even told US what it was about.

Rest of Mason Jar story… Pretty sure I mentioned that my wife ran into the very friendly & excellent server we had with the family last June on day 1 while I was getting a drink from the bar. Anyway, she was our server for brunch on day 3 and we got to know her a bit more. The plan was to go back that night and my wife was going to get a milkshake. When we did, our server wasn’t there & someone told us she wasn’t feeling well & had to go to medical. Naturally we were concerned. Fast forward to tonight when I went there for a drink… my wife saw her and I think she’ll be fine but we went back to our cabin to get her some OTC meds to leave with her. She was very appreciative & even got my wife her favorite dessert (Gone Bananas) to go at no charge. I don’t want to share specific details and that stuff isn’t important anyway. I’m just happy to report that we’re still having many of the experiences that have always made our cruises so great. Sure the WJ has a bit less variety, the MDR may not be as good as it once was (you know I’m not even a huge subscriber to that one), our bed was only made once/day, etc. but our overall enjoyment hasn’t really diminished.