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Ok. I’m gonna try and upload these Ocean World photos. Wish me luck. I know this is hard to read but it will give you an idea of the content of the Park. It’s much bigger than I would have thought before I saw it for myself. Again, maybe not so easy to read, but some idea of the show schedules This is the only photo I got of an actual dolphin since the dolphin encounter wasn’t included in our excursion. I will say though, they make it very easy for you to watch all of the interactions/encounters, even if you haven’t paid to participate. The shows are all readily visible from a distance. You just don’t get to interact with the animals if you haven’t paid for the excursion. Lots of opportunities to observe. We (at least, I did not. Dan watched a bit) did not watch the dolphin show but this is a photo of the dolphin show area. As you can see, it’s pretty easy to watch a show from this vantage point even if you’re not directly involved. Fresh water pool Dan actin’ the fool. This is by the kiddie area of the fresh water pool. OBTW, the fresh water pool was COLD They have 2 bird houses. This is the macaw area. Beautiful birds. The second bird house was for the smaller birds, primarily love birds. No explanation needed for this one… …or this one… The snorkeling area had a couple of plexiglass viewing areas. Lots of fish and coral to see. I really enjoyed snorkeling in this area but we were fortunate enough to have done this early. Later in the day it was crowded and chaotic as there were kids in there who had no idea how to snorkel and were thrashing about maniacally. I’m sure it was very disruptive to the fish. Glad I missed that… Bizarre photo of Dan in the snorkeling area. Actual arms and reflections of arms. Yikes ! This is a rather crappy photo of the shark encounter area. It’s actually quite large. The sharks in this interaction are nurse sharks and the are extremely wimpy as sharks go. They ran and hid in the rocks once the snorkelers entered the water. When this photo was taken (before the snorkelers got in) the sharks were just looking for a free meal. They know when the chow is coming out ! Moving on to the sea lions. Here is Dan about to get a kiss. While I was taking this picture, I had an employee telling me, “Sorry, no photographs allowed”. I just ignored him and took this one but put my phone away after that. I had no interest in seeing the inside of a Dominican jail. After the encounter was over, photography wasn’t a problem. This was during an actual sea lions show which was open to the public Obligatory balancing-the-ball-on-the-snout photo. Heres the sea lion (I can’t remember his name) giving mouth-to-mouth (or boca-a-boca, depending upon which narration you were listening to) to an unfortunate member of the staff who nearly drowned when this SAME sea lion pushed him off the rocks, moments earlier ! Scene of the crime… Welp, that’s all of the exciting things we saw and experienced at Ocean World. If you get the chance to go when in Puerto Plata, I do recommend it.

Today was Puerto Plata and we did the Ocean World Sea Lion Encounter & Snorkeling with sharks and Lunch. This is one of the best excursions we have ever taken. I have lots of pix but of course, they are not yet on my iPad so I will have to post them later. We had soooo much fun and saw so many awesome critters. Ocean World is a Dominican Sea World -an Aqua park with shows and exhibitions. I was very surprised to find it was very well maintained and well organized. I have been to aqua parks before in other countries that were…well….sad. But this one is not. It was thoroughly enjoyable. There were dolphin and sea lion shows as well as the shark encounter and multiple snorkeling/swimming aquariums. There were aviary enclosures (small but fun). There was a beachfront swimming area as well as fresh water pools. Some of the interactions were additional $$ (dolphins, in our case since we paid for the sea lions and shark interactions) but we did not pay for anything more than our original excursion included and we had a blast ! Lunch was a pretty typical Caribbean buffet….nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t bad….but was very busy ! Transportation from the port was in a big, comfortable, air conditioned bus….may 15 minutes from the port, fast, efficient and well organized. I will definitely recommend this excursion or the one like it that included the dolphin interaction. This excursion wasn’t cheap. It was nearly $200 PP but you got a lot for your money and I think it was worth the cost. We go on VERY few excursions. We were exhausted by the time we got back to the ship. The bus left the port area at 8:30 and we got back at 2:00 so it’s a very full day and there’s lots to do.

Tonite dinner was Izumi. There is no hibachi on EX so it’s always sushi only….which is fine with me. I’m not a fan of the hibachi menu (or the “show”) anyway. This was night #2 of our 3 night dining package. Chops on night #9, the last night. Insider tip: if you see chopsticks nearby, this is probably NOT guacamole. We went to the casino after dinner (who’s surprised) and it was a mixed bag. Dan and I played some Dancing Drums (b/c the pigs were all occupied) and we lost a little bit. Dan went and played some video poker and won while I played some UTH and lost. Ugh. Back in the room now. Tomorrow is St Kitts (again) and we have no plans to get off. Today was another visit to Grenada and we just got off for a little while and browsed the terminal shops. I bought Dan a couple of new Caribbean shirts which he DESPERATELY needed. He’s been wearing the same sad ones we bought in Aruba probably 12 years ago ! Most of them are missing buttons and I’m a terrible wife who has never fixed them for him. It’s easier just to buy some new shirts ! He now has 2 new ones…

I used the Facebook group's slot pull as an excuse to take a break from my work and leave my room. But I got there too late and they had already started so I played a little video poker instead and I'm up $25 for the cruise and have 28 casino points despite not wearing red undergarments Since it was 2:30 and I have 5:30 early seating in MDR, of course I went to the WJ before it closes at 3:00. They had shrimp pad thai...burger bun for reference.

Oscar has been killing it with the mini menagerie.. Matches the theme of the little choking hazard I found yesterday..remote for scale. And got my B2B letter!

Dinner was very good. I had the garlicky shrimp and Dan had the seafood linguine. I was surprised that he chose the pasta dish as we had both eaten pasta for lunch at the B2B luncheon and Dan is not much of a pasta guy. But he did, and he said it was very good. I absolutely love their olive bread and you could tell that it had just come out of the oven. Oh, Lordy ! We both won a bit in the casino. We broke even on Dancing Drums and then played a bit of UTH and both cashed out ahead. I suppose my purple drawers we “red enough” to bring me a little luck ! Sea day tomorrow. We’re on our way to Puerto Plata, DR where we will be snorkeling with the sea lions and the sharks !

Greetings, RC Blog friends! It's me, Mrs. Regular, back again for another blog. This year we are leaving the Regular kiddos at home and making it an extended family affair! Follow along for preparations, travel, and semi-live updates from the Brilliance of the Seas! Background Info Picture it... Sicily, 1929... Just kidding. I'm in my Golden Girls era so I often channel Sofia when I begin telling a story. Picture it... my living room, November 2022. Alaska 2024 deployment would be announced and bookings opened within a few days. We already had cruised in the Mediterranean, cruised from NYC down to the Bahamas, and were booked for summer 2023 on the Mariner of the Seas for my 40th birthday. Generally we are a "one cruise at a time" kind of family but something struck me about the 2024 Alaska deployment that just felt.... right. Like it was the exact right time for Mr. Regular and I do book something for ourselves. A treat. A reprieve. Alaska has been on our bucket list for a long time and at first glance when bookings became available, the price was pretty good. I knew I couldn't just book something without speaking with him first, so I laid out all the benefits and trade-offs (small ship! leaving from Vancouver! Aft balcony! I just got a pretty sizable raise so I will foot the bill! He saw no tradeoffs, lol), and got his ok to contact the travel agent. YES! It was so early in the deployment I got to hand pick our room and with over 600 days to go, we started planning and researching. Eventually, our other extended family (mainly our parents) caught wind of our plans. We scheduled a mid-May itinerary for a few reasons, one of the best being our kids wouldn't be able to go. I know, we are Regular mean parents. But also because the likelihood of the ship being overrun by school kids would be lower. We love kids, we have two, we have kids in our family and extended friends group. There's nothing wrong with kids. But, we loved our experience cruising during a non-break time. The last two cruises we've taken have been with our kids during school breaks and they have been vastly different experiences. Not bad, but different. We wanted to return to those non-break vibes. But this time in Alaska. Anyway, our parents wanted to tag along and we were ok with that. Getting my sister to come rounds out our merry group of 6! The Intergenerational Regular Family Tree Me, Mrs. Regular. 40 years old. Working at a university full time and full time PhD student. I am finishing up coursework and successfully defended my proposal last month. This itinerary falls over the one break I have between spring and summer terms. I have been on 3 RC cruises and will reach Emerald on this cruise. Husband, Mr. Regular. 45 years old. Working at the same university and teaches snow sports on the side. He is bummed there will be no skiing or snowboarding while visiting Vancouver or Alaska. Has been on the same cruises as me and will reach Emerald. Regular Mom. My mother! 70 years young. Doesn't travel much, retired 3rd grade teacher. Has always wanted to go to Alaska. Will be her first cruise. Regular Sister. My sis! My best friend. 38 years old, never cruised before. Just there to show up and have fun! Regular Father-in-Law. Mr. Regular's dad. 79 years old, has cruised once before from FL. Certified renaissance man, he is an acrobatic pilot, flight instructor, motorcycle racer, and welder. Ran a multi-million dollar business but never earned a bachelor's degree. He is just so cool. Regular Mother-in Law. Mr. Regular's mom. 84 years old, has cruised once before from FL. Recovering from a mild stroke in January, she is a remarkable person. She's improved so much in 4 months mobility and speech wise. She's still sharp as a tack but just a little slower than before. In her 80's but acts not a day over 60. Why are we "regular people"? My username and the name of my cruise blogs came out of an observation that post-COVID restart, most people in the RC Blogs were taking their "revenge" travel trips and there was a run for a while of suites only travel blogs. No shade to the "suite snobs" out there or to those who are blessed enough to cruise frequently at the premium of a suite. But, while I am still fairly new to cruising I wanted to read more from perspectives that didn't go for all the extras or bells and whistles. Thus, "regular people cruising" was born! Not only do we not tend to travel in suites with the amenities, we also don't splurge on other luxuries like drink packages, unlimited dining, spa treatments, a lot of excursions, etc. Now, this will change a little bit this trip because I think Alaska affords some special opportunities. Our Itinerary My in-laws are flying in on their own schedule, but mom, Husband, Sis, and I are all traveling together from NJ on a direct flight to Vancouver on the 11th. Crossing fingers for smooth travels! We are all staying at the Sheraton downtown and will get brunch on the 12th before heading to Canada place to board our ship! Day 1 - Vancouver Day 2 - Inside Passage/At Sea Day 3 - Sitka in the afternoon. No plans other than walking around port and maybe going to the totem poles Day 4 -Juneau. Mom, Sis, Husband and I have the dog musher's camp excursion in the morning. Regular in-laws may or may not get off the ship, much will depend on how MIL is doing. She can do activities in small bursts but then needs time to sleep and recover. We will be done at the camp by 1 but the ship is in port until 7 p.m. so I am sure some sub-group of us will explore Juneau a bit. This night Husband and I have date night at Chops. Day 5 - Haines. We all have the White Pass Railroad excursion booked through RC. Most looking forward to this one! Day 6 - Tracey Arm and glacier viewing/At Sea Day 7 - Inside Passage/At sea Day 8 - Vancouver. The Regular In-Laws are staying at a hotel on Vancouver Island to relax for a few days and traveling home later in the week. The rest of us have a red-eye back to NJ. We will look into storing luggage somewhere and taking a tour around Vancouver before heading to the airport. Next Update: Packing! Packing! Packing!

Last night dinner was in Chops and we were extremely fortunate to have @JustMeJoe and Mrs JustMe join us. Our favorite waiter, Andriy was his usual enchanting self and we had a great time. Consumed 2 bottles of "champagne" and a bottle of red wine. Fun, fun Then we were off to the casino where I first lost and then ended up walking away a bit ahead. I have all but given up on the slots so I'm spending most of my casino time at UTH which is where I usually was before I tried slots. The machines just do not like me. I will be sitting at a machine and all of the ones around me are ding, ding, ding-ing away and mine just sits there and frowns. Today we are in Antigua with the Emerald Princess. Since we did the stingray excursion here 2 weeks ago, we are staying on the ship today. It looks like a beautiful day so I'm hoping that those who are going out will have a great time.

I realize that this topic is about the Game Show but I just can not resist saying: "When did Love & Marriage become so unpopular?" For some it was right after they said "I do"

21 days to go....... Work has been stressful all around and the weather in Chicago has been bipolar. Sat and Sunday were like 30 degrees and today on Monday it was 65 and sunny. My documents were right on time for the first cruise but a full day late for the 3n and a day early for the last cruise. Royal IT strikes again. The luggage tags for the first two cruises are still GTY. Last time they updated around 10 days before I cruised to say the actual room number. So, I will wait until later and print them out. I believe I saw in another post that a few blog members and Matt will be on the May 20th-24th Freedom cruise. When I booked the cruises, it was just my brother and I going, each with or own room. But my mother turned Emerald after our Mariner cruise and now she is obsessed with making it to Diamond so she can relax in the lounge. Yes, not the drink vouchers or internet discount......but lounge access is her goal . She was upset that she couldn't go on Wonder, I had booked her, but she allowed her bf to talk her out of going. During that Mariner cruise I offered to help make her prime to get offers, she said she was going to be land traveling with her bf and don't bother. In March when she found out we would be doing these cruises she was sad, her bf had cancelled 2/2 of their land vacations. So, my brother was like, we can add her to my room, and she can come with us. She was so happy to be going. As usual she is brand new. I feel like she gets amnesia every time we travel, and I have to hear the same questions. This is her sixth RCG cruise and she texted me about luggage limits. Somehow her logic was that shorter cruises only allowed weekender bags and/or carry-ons . I just told her to pack as she would normally. Last week she fell at work and thankfully she is okay, but her front left tooth got chipped slightly. The dentist rounded it out and it is barely noticeable, but she was afraid she might have been toothless for the cruise, she is so dramatic. I did my pre-cruise shopping: which involves going to Kohl's, Marshall's, TJ Maxx and Walmart for any essentials, and giving Bezos his offering. After reading about wearing red (I hardly ever wear it) to ensure some casino luck, one of my casino outfits is a newly acquired red shorts and a red shirt. I am currently making my packing list and the plan is to pack a separate cube, with special casino outfit to contain the smoke, in each cube. I figured I will need about four cubes since I always carry an extra not in my checked bag.

Today we are in Nassau. There is Liberty to my left. And Anthem to my right. I feel like the inside of a Royal sandwich.

Thanks. It's very "resting bitch face" while doing everything in your power to NOT look at your partner. Right! I loved my Capezios. That was exactly my thought. These are designed for west coast swing, so the toe box isn't blocked for stands and the soles and heels are thinner. Other than than that, they feel just like my old Capezio pair. So we met up at the dance shoe store and we both bought a pair of shoes. I'm not sure what happened, but somehow a new practice skirt made it into my car as well. They had a cute tank top, but it wasn't meant to be. We have a west coast swing class tonight, so we'll try to break the shoes in. DH will have to get used to the different feel of the more plastic-y soles for sure. Keeping this a cruise live blog and not a dance journal...I also dropped off a little bit of dry cleaning. The at home laundry saga continues as well. We can ALL officially start packing now too.

My purse arrived, and I was a little disappointed, but not surprised, that the pattern was not aligned as in the photo. However, when I opened the flap, she was waiting for me! I have no idea why I find this so amusing, but I'm taking votes on names. I mentioned to DH last night that I want some dance sneakers for the ship, and he jumped onboard. I know this may seem weird, but cruising is actually our second obsession. Our biggest concern wearing our usual dance shoes is water or spilled drinks on the floor because they have suede soles. Getting them wet would break down the glue, or cause long term sticking or slipping issues in the case of a spilled drink. Because of that, we leave the cabin in our everyday shoes and carry our dance shoes with us to change into when we want to dance on the ship. It's a little inconvenient to carry them around when we want to also do other things like go to a show or hit the casino without dropping them off at the room first. Plus we still have to worry about someone spilling a drink on the dance floor. I rationalized that I could wear a hard sole dance sneaker around the the ship, and I can use them to teach in this fall - I'm teaching dance at our co-op next semester. Anyway, we're meeting up to buy some for both of us this morning when our local(ish) dance store opens at 11. I'm sure this seems nuts to most of you, but we all have that one thing, right? This also happened yesterday! One more to go!

Yesterday we had a mysterious bottle of “champagne” show up in our room. It had an apology note with it from C&A so we assumed it was due to the fact that they royally screwed up our loyalty gifts twice on both of our turnarounds. I bumped into @JustMeJoe this morning and he asked me if we had received our bottle and then explained that (apparently) everyone that was B2B on that last leg got a bottle. You may recall that our TAD was something of a Charlie Foxtrot due to the number of Guest Services “issues” on the 4-14 leg (those that were disembarking) and that disembarking and reboarding were delayed for over 2 hours that day. One thing that I failed to mention in that discussion was the weirdo fact that we actually checked in for our new muster station BEFORE we even left the ship on our turnaround ! First time that’s ever happened. It just so happened that our new muster station was in the Star Lounge which is also where we were assembled for rurnaround…so we scanned our new Seapass cards and completed the muster station requirement before we even departed the ship to go through CBP !

@OCSC Mikehas it right. Retirement is the key. Of course, our cruising style has taken a bit of a downgrade since retirement, but where the quality went down, the quantity went up ! Nothing truer than the old adage, “When you’re working you have the money but no time and when you’re retired you have the time but no money”.

What we have to hide for two weeks

For me…once you’ve been to a few of them…you feel as though you’ve seen them all! Almost always same or very similar questions. Just not entertaining enough to sit through.

Thursday, day 7. Due to call at St Kitts today but not arriving until 11 AM. Nothing planned for today. We have been blessed with beautiful weather and calm seas for this entire trip. So fortunate ! Off to breakfast at Giovanni’s. It’s one of my very favorite Pinn perks.

Here's the Crown Lounge snacks since I was up here to grab a coffee..

I wasn't quite as done with pre-cruise purchases as I thought. I bought two new formal night shirts and a polo for DS. One day, he'll stop growing, right? DD got a new pair of athletic shorts that she will use as a swim suit cover up. She's been using a pair of shorts from a soccer team she was on when she was 10 for almost 5 years... it was time for an upgrade. My trusty black Travelon mini travel purse has been used everyday for the last 6 years, and the strap finally came unstitched from the body of the purse. I'm not sure how to fix it and it look right because of the anti-theft cable that runs through the strap. So I bought a new, slightly bigger version and deviated from my usual black with a paisley pattern. I really hope the pattern placement is the same at the picture - I see a dragon looking back at me. Amazon should deliver it today. I've been silently stalking the current live blogs, and thanks to the tip from @WAAAYTOOO I guess I need to run out an grab some red undies as well. I'm also contemplating purchasing some new dance shoes, but I'm on the fence. I don't know if I mentioned in previous blogs that DH and I met 20 years ago as competitive dancers. We competed pro/am, both being the am (amateur) with our respective instructors. When we got married and had kids, we stopped dancing. Last year for Christmas we started dancing again. We decided to start competing again, and our first competition actually dancing together is next month. After buying practice shoes, ballroom shoes, latin shoes, plus costumes...do I really need another pair of dance shoes? Um, probably! I'll make that decision later today, but the little devil on my shoulder is pretty loud on this one. We're also going to have to find a space to run through our routines on the ship - I'm thinking Dazzles early in the mornings or maybe the gym has an open aerobics floor? We'll scope that out day one. DH is checking his clothes tonight, but is pretty sure he won't need anything. Paradise Beach sent me a confirmation email this morning. I don't remember getting one in the past, but we haven't been there in a couple years. I haven't heard anything from Roatan Getaway Tours beyond our initial communications, but I did not expect to. No headliners have been posted in app yet, and night 5 MDR is still not showing. Pre-pack is in full force now. All the miscellaneous cruise essential type stuff (towel clips, hooks, etc.) gets unpacked from the cruise box and packed today along with our travel pharmacy. Pre-cruise laundry has started, and the ironing board is about to make it's semi annual appearance in my living room. 5 days to go!

I skipped MDR on the last night..Caribbean night is not my fave and I had ruined my dinner with a late snack from Fish & Ships. Did some damage in the casino and ended up with an instant certificate...it was all 10-hand video poker. I am definitely qualified for Prime now despite my prior 2 sailings this month not showing points on the Club Royale site. I decided to hit up 3-card poker on the way out and hit a 4 of a kind so that was a nice little payout. Packed up for turnaround day...and set an early alarm and woke up before the sun had burned off the yuck. I was able to stay in my cabin and work until 9:30 and then I met up in the Star Lounge with about 50 others. They will have a lunch for us in the dining room at 11:30. Now we are waiting to be called to get our new SeaPass cards.

Packed a little but will pack the majority in the morning. Shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. Pretty uneventful night. Dinner was in the MDR; Italian night. Dan got some kind of lamb curry dish and I got the chicken parm (who’s surprised ?). Actually, it was the best chicken parm I have ever eaten on Royal ! Maybe I was just super hungry but I thought it was really excellent. Having -0- Italian genes, maybe I’m just easy to please. Purists probably laugh at me. So leg #3 starts tomorrow. Day 15 of 24. We barely darkened the door of the casino. We both played some Ultimate for maybe 30 minutes and then both cashed out slightly ahead. I’m still down about $400 for this leg but I’m pretty sure Dan is either up or even. The slots were not particularly friendly on this leg. We played some pigs yesterday and we thought for sure we would get our pig to “pop” but he never did. He was quite the porker though…so fat his feet wouldn’t even touch the ground. IYKYK.

I had to check out Fish & Ships again for quality control. This room is handy for running up/down one flight and grabbing some..or some soft serve..or hitting up WJ for a to-go plate. The chicken fingers were different this time. The fish they were frying fresh in small batches. It tasted less bland this time too..maybe because it was fresh. Of course I had dinner 3 hours later. I'm at a 2-top in a row of other 2-tops so I have neighbors to pretend to ignore. No great people watching to share. Now I'm in WJ for second dinner I needed vegetables because the MDR doesn't know what those are. They are frying donuts up fresh tonight... Those mugs are labeled as sugar donut with chocolate milk..because everyone likes their milk to sit under a heat lamp.

Others have already posted tibs and tabs about this but I don't think there's a thread devoted to it...at least, not that I know of. There has been a CP "sale" going on for a couple of days. It is "on again/off again" but it's back on today. BUT - BE CAREFUL. Some of the dining packages include gratuities in the "list price" and some do not so be careful cancelling something that you already have until you know for SURE that it's going to be a savings. 1. It appears as though MOST of the packages - UDP and 3 night, already include the grats. If the grats are included, it will say so below the advertised price. If it says "Gratuities Included" then the final price will simply be the number of packages that you are purchasing, multiplied by the price of the package(s) you are purchasing. If it says "pre-cruise savings", the grats are NOT included in that price so you will have to calculate the total price to see what the final $$ will be. 2. It APPEARS as though the requirement to eat at least one meal on nights #1 or #2 is gone. The CP no longer required me to choose a "first" meal time. That's a good thing, IMO. Hopefully you can now use your packages on any days/nights that you choose. 3. It appears as though all of the individual restaurants still require you to calculate gratuities....IOW, the grats are not included in the posted price for individual restaurants. Some of the individual restaurants that I checked were less $$ than when I first purchased and some were not. Just be sure that you know what you'll be paying BEFORE you cancel anything and/or purchase at the "reduced" price. It seems like the package prices include grats. 4. I was not able to use any of my available OBC when I purchased/repurchased my specialty dining. It gave me the option of using the OBC but the final price was never reduced by the amount of the OBC so I am HOPING that the OBC is still there. This is uncertain to me at the moment. Hopefully the OBC will reappear in a day or so. 5. As far as I can tell, the ability to make pre-purchased dining reservations ahead of time has still not been implemented. I was never prompted to make any specific reservations. 6. Other items in the CP may also be on sale. I have only looked at dining so I am unaware if other areas of the CP are similarly affected. The prices are pretty good (considering the upward trend for specialty pricing) and I saved quite a bit of $$ by cancelling and repurchasing but it took me a while to figure out the secret code.

This morning we enjoyed a dirty duck swap. Renee was the big winner.

Our love birds

Consecutive cruiser lunch menu...only about 15 of us are here and they sat me solo

If I'm being honest, I will say that the shark encounter was the least interesting of everything we did yesterday. They are nurse sharks, and they are quite boring, TBH. Big ? Yes. ....but they run and hide in the rocks whenever people are in the water. This is maybe one of the only species of sharks that doesn't have to continuously swim to keep oxygen in their system, so they go to the bottom, sit and hide. I totally understand the concern for SHARKS ! ....but these are wimpy, totally benign sharks. They look more like big catfish !

Sisters nails this cruise.

In our cabin

Now I have to buy purple underwear. Prime is getting expensive.

It was the Macarena. Didn't want to leave you hanging.

Pre-gaming before work with a Crown Lounge coffee. Scoped out the breakfast snacks..same old usual.

I did meet my room steward yesterday. He is a talker. His name is Oscar..he is from Belize and he has done the drive from the US border to Belize and it is beautiful. Oh, and Quiet Riot is his favorite band. He asked me when I get up in the morning which is new to me. Usually they just tell me they clean once a day and give me their AM and PM hour range. This time he didn't even mention PM. So now I've committed to relocating from my cabin at 9am daily. I have to work today, so I will just spend a few hours working with a better view.

Here we are again it’s time for another cruise. This time we are celebrating our 35th anniversary. We originally booked these dates as a b2b. But things changed when the cruise line decided to cancel those dates and change it to a a transatlantic. I was so upset first because it was our favorite ship and it was going to be our anniversary cruise. So after many sleepless nights the transatlantic dates and cabins showed up so we snagged our new cabin choice. We changed the cabins we had on the b2b to just one cabin for the 14 days. Who will be going this time : Me, hubby, sister and sisters fiancé Saturday we made it to Miami with no flight delays. We are staying at Intercontinental Miami.

Adding my 🫨. Holy crud. That's really unfortunate. Pretty sure we only use our range bag for the range but now I'll be paranoid and extra cautious. I've accidentally brought aboard airplane bottles of liquor that they gave me on the plane and i kept in my bag and didn't think about. Or heaven forbid the time i forgot i had some gummies in my bag that were never caught (thank God). You often forget that what's perfectly legal and normal in your every day life doesn't translate when you travel.

Suite Lounge must be boring. The Pinns keep infiltrating the Crown Lounge and blinding me with their bling

Lunch was Izumi

For those of you who Facebook, the official Royal Caribbean Blog Facebook page was taken down by Meta. @Matt has had no luck getting the page restored, so a new Facebook page has been created. Please visit the new page and like and follow it. Thanks! https://www.facebook.com/royalcaribbeanblogcom

It was actually three carrot slices, thank you very much! I felt like I won the lottery.

I didn't see if @WAAAYTOOO mentioned it; but to give you an idea of what a cluster TAD was; yesterday they delivered an apology note along with a bottle of champagne to all of the B2Ber's.

We have been on 80+ cruises with Royal Caribbean and we have never ever gone to a L&M game OR a Quest. Just not something we enjoy.

Any other Prime or above casino folks just order a drink from every roaming waiter that walks by to up the chances of actually receiving said drink and then ends up accidentally double fisting or is it just me?

Back onboard for the last leg. This is a 9 night cruise with the exact same itinerary as leg #1, 2 weeks ago. TAD was kind of a mess although it didn’t really impact us much. More of a problem for new cruisers boarding and, of course, for the crew. Apparently, the number of folks with “Account issues” was enormous, which caused a 2+ hour delay in boarding of new guests. When I passed by GS ~8AM, the line stretched all the way to the entrance of the MDR. I should have sensed, then, that this was going to cause issues. Apparently, it did. Finally, some time around 11:45, they began the B2B parade. Everything went smoothly once we got started and the B2B luncheon, which was supposed to start at 11:30, got underway at around noon. Presumably, general boarding began shortly after that. As was the case with leg #1, our Loyalty gifts were incorrect. On leg #1, we got a bottle of St Michelle “champagne” rather than the Chandon “champagne” that we have chosen. On this leg, the champagne was again wrong, as well as missing Cokes and missing water. We strolled down to the Loyalty Ambassadors desk and she, I’m sure, will rectify everything. We had to change cabins on this leg and we are now in a panoramic OV cabin on deck 12. These are the “newer” rooms created when they downsized the spa. It’s much bigger than our Promenade View dungeon and the sunshine and view are an extremely welcome change. I’m not as fond of the location of this new room but I’m glad to be here. We’re pulling away from the dock right now (4:45) so the last adventure has begun ! Dinner tonite at Giovanni’s (first of our BOGOs) at 7:00.

As a SPED teacher, I will be buying the shirt and doing the walk.

They are selling the Make A Wish shirts down in the Promenade. $19.50 of the $25 price is donated. At 11:15am each Sea Day they're doing a walk up the track.

I am super late to this party. The freeloaders have been keeping me so busy I have not been on the blogs for weeks now. This is the perfect time for me to read this blog. @TheBoss518 and I just booked Indy for August. We actually got a casino comp for the cruise. This is our first "free" cruise (we of course paid to upgrade to a suite gty) I feel pretty lucky because the last time we were in the casino was two years ago. I ran the Facebook page for that sailing and ran a slot pull. depite not spending any more money there, we still get offers and this was the first one we have been able to do. We are excited because we are leaving the freeloaders home with the grand parents for this one. I do have a question for all you casino pros. When you book a casino comp, do you get the opportunity for royal up bids? We did a suite gty rate because we would be perfectly fine in a jr suite since there aren't big differences in suite benefits moving to a GS. I don't feel like paying an extra 1k per person to book into a GS directly. There are so many rooms open still so fingers crossed we get a magical room assignment by default. I just found out that this cruise is also a Gaming and Anime convention cruise so I cant wait to see all the kids in their cosplay This should make for a fun blog when we go!

Sorry for the extra picture above. as we were walking this morning we spotted the full moon

Yesterday was a very busy day. We had breakfast in Coastal kitchen and then off to hide ducks. We hid ducks till lunch at Johnny Rockets and then immediately went for the bridge tour. after the tour we went for a 3 o’clock show. We saw The ventriloquist again but a different show this time ,he was very funny. We lost another hour at 2 pm.time will not change today. dinner last night was 150 service was off we may not go back there on this trip. Filet veal fried cheesecake

We all have passports, but the kids' will expire in a few months. Just in case, I'm bringing birth certificates for them too. I don't think we are visiting a country that requires expiration to be 6 month beyond the trip, but I would rather be prepared. Anyway, I went to add them to the case we use to carry our passports, and I was very excited to find our C&A cards from 15 uears ago! Do they still mail physical cards out anymore? I guess we can use them as the card to keep the lights on in the cabin.