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Neaxan

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    Neaxan got a reaction from Thumper44 in Confusion about Wonder's escape room   
    I did the Royal Society of Puzzle on the Wonder TA. It's not a full escape room experience compared to other ships like Symphony, so it lacks the original decor and everything. But they have a game designed for the current state of the room that technically is an escape game. The room is prepared before you arrive, then you get instructions and have 50 minutes to solve it in a group of 6-12 people. You search for keys and clues and solve puzzles and riddles. So it may not look as cool as other Royal escape rooms but it's complimentary so there's that. We still had a lot of fun. Booking is via the daily planner in the app as soon as you're connected to the ship's wifi. If your group is smaller than the required minimum you'll be playing with strangers which adds to the fun.
  2. Love
    Neaxan reacted to wordell1 in Semi Live Allure of the Seas - Jan 15th - 22nd   
    We made it to Galveston! Easy drive this morning with the obligatory stop at Bucee's 
    For those of you who are not familiar, Bucee's is basically a Texas size gas station/truck stop. It has everything you can think of and the cleanest bathrooms you will ever see. There is one 2 hrs into our trip so it has become a regular stop on our Galveston cruises.




  3. Love
    Neaxan reacted to Lovetocruise2002 in 🎊⚓Shining, Shimmering, Splendid! NYE SY 12/31/22 – 01/07/23🎊⚓   
    Since I have some time now, I wanted to give some feedback on the Portrait Session. Originally, we booked this for the March Oasis 2022 sailing. But for those who follow the live blogs, you all know how that story went. Anyway, we rebooked it for this cruise at the Black Friday rate of $174.99. That is the sitting fee, plus it includes 5 digitals on a USB. 
     
    The plan has always been to take the 5 digitals and run with it. I have seen @dodgestangpost his pics several times in the past and the look fantastic, but we were pretty skeptical on what they could do.  We have one empty wall in our house that has stayed empty for 10 years now (since we moved in) and the goal was always to fill that wall with the large family portrait. That was the main mission here. But we would use the digitals to make our own canvas back home. 
     
    The instructions when purchasing in the cruise planner is to make your appointment with the photographer once on board. We did that first thing last Saturday and no one was around. The next stop was the suite lounge, and Mohamed very quickly secured us a reservation for the next day. Had we had the opportunity to do this on the Oasis sailing back in March, Allan would have made the reservations for us. We wanted this done asap as we seasoned cruisers know that the sea air shrinks our clothes 😉
    The next day, we met with the photographer and he suggested we take some in the studio and then head to Central Park. All of us, except for Hubby have long hair. It was a sea day. That was an easy pass. And humidity is bad for curls lol. We took all our portraits in the studio but they can basically go wherever. You can even schedule them on a PDCC day and take beach pics. 
     
    Going to be very honest here, our session with the photographer was super quick (maybe 15 mins actual photo time), and we did not feel like the poses were great. It felt like he was rushing. The kids would not stop complaining and eye rolling. Teenagers are most difficult. Leaving there, we did not feel too great about whether or not we could even choose 5. 
     
    We had a follow up session with the photographer the next day to view photos. This is where I would suggest to do this earlier on in the sailing because this is the part that is time consuming. They show you the photos in the form of a slide show, then they show you your photos in various layouts for canvas or acrylic products.
     
    We were floored. The photos came out great! There was no way we were going to just be able to walk away with only 5. We have not taken family portraits for almost 10 years. Life is busy at home, and there are not many good photographers around that will do the style that Hubby likes. We asked for time to think and consider the prices, and we made another follow up appointment for two days later.
    Here is an example of some of the prices: 




     
    If you purchase a product from them, then you get the digital packages at 50% off. 
     
    Two days later (on the second sea day), after much debating, and giving up my Effy purchase from Cozumel, we decided to go for it and walked away with a canvas of the Parquet collection, as well as 15 digital prints. 5 from the ones included with the original purchase, 5 additional ones that we purchased, and they included the digitals to the 5 canvas selections. We are happy with our decision, although Hubby did grumble slightly. In the end, the decision maker was the fact that we probably would not do this back at home, and we really did like many of the shots. 
     
    Is it worth it? That depends on your situation. For us, it was. If you are the type who does this frequently with your family back on land, then no, probably not worth it. We did some research while on board to compare the cost of just purchasing the digitals and doing the canvas on our own at home, it is pretty much the same, except Hubby was saying that if we did it on our own with Shutterfly or something similar, we would not be able to get the sizing or layout that they were offering with the Parquet collection and he really liked that. 
     
    We were able to pick up the digitals on USB the day after confirming the order. We picked it up last night between Flight and the comedy show. The canvas product will be shipped back home to Canada. Shipping is included to Canada and the US. Other countries they have additional info but we did not ask. It should also be exempt from duties. Hopefully they are correct on that. They said to expect shipping to take 6-8 weeks. 
     
    I know that many of you might be wondering at this point what the final product looks like. Keep in mind that Hubby downloaded the files to his laptop, and sent these to my phone (which I blog from) so the quality is a lot better with the original file (which I do not have). But here you go…
    Hello, from the @Lovetocruise2002 family. Come say hello if you see us on board one day. 🙂
     




  4. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 15 – you know what this means – disembarkation. For breakfast we had the fruit from yesterday’s room service delivery. We had originally requested  - and received – luggage tags for an 8 am disembarkation. We’d reserved our rental car for 10 am and thought this should work. I was under the impression that Port Canaveral couldn’t f*** up as bad as with the Symphony TA but boy was I wrong. At 9 am we had to vacate our cabin with the last time luggage tags being called about an hour ago. Royal Promenade was packed with people but Royal wasn’t allowed to let anyone off the ship… Hold a few thousand people hostage with no food and drinks (other than Iced Water) being available and see how the mood is – spoiler alert: not good. We were finally allowed to disembark at 10 am and were released into total mayhem. The port building was packed and there was absolutely no organisation to it. We managed to locate our luggage but were unsuccessful in finding the end of the queue for immigration. There were queues all around the terminal with no idea where it starts or ends so everybody just stood somewhere and hopped into anything that looked like a line. Port staff were of no help whatsoever as they were completely out of their depth. After standing in the „queue“ for about an hour they finally managed to bring some organisation into the mess and formed what really looked like a line. After another hour or so we finally made it through immigration - halleluja! Lucky we only had about 4000 passengers on the cruise - imagine this with 7000! At 12.30 pm we finally had our rental car – but only because we walked to the office. If we’d tried to get on the shuttle like everybody else we’d probably still be there 5 days later. We were off in the direction of St. Augustine, trying out the A1A (thanks for the recommendation btw). The weather was abysmal with torrential rain but I had one ray of sunshine – we went to Buc-ee’s 😄 
     
    This concludes my not so live blog. Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long but live got in the way – as it does. We’re currently in Key West - sadly bad weather again today – and will fly home from MIA on Saturday. At least we really liked Florida so far, we’ll have to take the time to explore it with our RV in the future. No idea when our next cruise will be, we haven’t got much on our bucket list anymore. Maybe Hurtigruten‘s postal route and maybe a week on Icon if she comes to Europe. We will see.
  5. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 14 is the last full day of the cruise – this time even with breakfast. Well, we did order room service continental breakfast and half the order was missing but as we ordered with empty stomachs the end result worked quite nicely with our after-Izumi-state. I’m hearing about the strangest complaints to the crew so I won’t be adding to their work load – we’ll just go with what we got. Which was still enough to save some fruit for tomorrow.
     
    This morning we’re in Nassau together with Freedom of the Seas. We had thought about visiting Atlantis but was all on board is already at 1.45 pm we didn’t want to pay the hefty price tag for the day passes. Royal’s excursion weren’t really to our liking – especially when comparing pricing to value – so we decided to spend our last morning in the pools and hot tubs. Michael finally managed to try all the slides while I went boiling in the hot tub. When the pool deck started seeing more traffic from returning passengers we decided to call it a day and went for showers and then to our last lunch at Playmakers. This time we had two of our favourites: Pile on Nachos with Pulled Pork and Playmaker’s Classic Burger. No pictures because you’ve already seen the show. After lunch we headed to the Aqua Theater for the dive exhibition. This „show“ is comparable to the Ice Showcase yesterday – you get to know the cast via interviews and they can show a few of their tricks. I’ll really miss my Aqua Theater Suite Balcony 😉 on deck 7. Now late afternoon, it was time to finalize all our packing so we could put out the luggage before dinner. It’s a mixed feeling this time as I’ll sure miss the ship but on the other hand I’m looking forward to an end to the ship’s movement 😄


    Before dinner we had reservations for the final showing of the Ice Show – 365. While it was impressive, we felt it didn’t compare to Symphony’s ice show. This brings the final result to 2:2 comparing Wonder to Symphony. We prefered inTenSe to Hiro and Effectors II to Flight but Symphony scored on the ice show and with Hair Spray. Our final dinner was at Wonderland. We had all the good intentions going in of not eating too much because I had the Campfire Cookie on my mind for later but you know what they say about good intentions… Instead of sticking to an entree and be done with it our lovely server (who recognized us from our first two visits) made sure we did try most of the rest of the menu – including the Kid’s menu 😄 Today we had Wonton Soup, Sashimi of Red & White Tuna, Tomato Soup, our favourite Mad Hatter’s Purple Potted Shrimp, Halibut Cooked in Clear Paper, King of Hearts Royal Wonderland Burger (Kids) and Mad Hatter’s Crispy Mac & Cheese Fries (Kids). Oh my god, the latter were to die for! I don’t even like mac & cheese – quite the contrary – but this version was awesome. If it wasn’t so filling I’d have ordered another one. I was completely stuffed after this but Michael managed to order the Forbidden Apple for himself. Needless to say we didn’t make it to Playmaker’s for the Campfire Cookie – instead we went to bed early expecting a very tiring day tomorrow. 









     
  6. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 13 started bright and early – possibly because we went to bed early yesterday. Again no breakfast today because we had speciality lunch and dinner on the cards. Instead we just got speciality coffee from Cafe Promenade and then went to hang out on the pool deck as the weather had greatly improved. This of course meant that many people had the same idea as us but Wonder handled the „crowds“ without a problem – you could always find loungers as well as space in the pools and hot tubs.
     
    Lunch was at Chops Grille which we really didn’t look forward to after the fiasco with the last dinner. We had contemplated to cancel the reservation but ultimately chose to give them another chance – and we’re glad we did! Food was improved and service was exceptional – in fact our waiter today was the best we had the whole cruise. No idea how he managed to work all his (really numerous) tables and still found the time to chat with everybody. Foodwise we had Wild Mushroom Soup, Charred Beef Carpaccio, Filet Mignon (this time medium as ordered), Chops Dry-Aged Steak Burger, Key Lime Meringue Pie, Red Velvet Cake and Warm Chocolate Cake. Glad I remembered Sweety’s preference for the Red Velvet as it was my favourite dessert.





    We spent the afternoon starting to arrange our packing. It’s not the last day of the cruise but it’s getting near now. And we wanted to organize our packing so that we’ll only use one piece of luggage on our Florida road trip – the rest can stay in the car. Provided we receive our rental car, we’ve heard some horror stories that due to Ian and now Nicole the rental agencies don’t have enough cars going around. Let’s hope we get lucky because I have no idea how we would manage to get to our hotels without a car.
     
    This evening started with entertainment – we went to the Ice Spectacular. This is not a normal show but similar to Spotlight Sowtime where the cast is introduced in short interviews with CD Mike and they then showcase a few of their tricks to music of their choice. Our CD being able to iceskate a bit was a nice touch. It’s a pity the show was only 30 minutes but we’ll be back tomorrow for the regular ice show. Dinner was at Izumi – but this time we managed ro really pace ourselves. We only had the Salmon Lovers Roll, Spicy Crispy Tuna Roll and had to again order the Izumi Ryu Futomaki Roll. After dinner was spent at Playmaker’s again.






  7. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 12 was exceptionally unspectacular. We didn’t have anything planned other than dinner and pool time didn’t really work out due to rain – caused by Nicole? Who knows… We had toyed with the idea of trying to get into Mason Jar brunch but this morning we were still too full from yesterday to even attempt breakfast or brunch. Instead we had a slow day in the cabin and went to Playmaker‘s for lunch. The venue was a zoo so getting our order (Truffle Burger and Onion Rings) took about an hour. Not a problem for us, this gave us more time to try and empty Wonder of Angry Orchard cider 😇 Sorry, no pics - just imagine a burger with fries and a tower of onion rings.
    The afternoon was again mostly spent in the cabin until it was time for dinner at Mason Jar. This time we tried Blueberry Johnnycakes, Crab Beignets, Shrimp N‘ Grits, Southern Burger, Gone Bananas and Warm Bread Pudding. We did spill dinner down with some more Angry Orchard and went to bed early.





  8. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    It took us until Day 10 but we finally had enough room for a real breakfast. We’d planned to go to Johnny Rockets but after seeing the queue we quickly rerouted to the MDR. Guess this will be the only time we’re in the MDR this cruise. Ok, we were here for the Muster Drill but that’s it. We started the day with Breakfast Burrito, Market Vegetable Breakfast Bowl and shared Banana Pancakes. Having breakfast meant skipping lunch – I’m pretty sure we won’t be booking the UDP again. Just way too much food and we didn’t even always get a lunch reservation.



    Most of the day was again spent either on the pool or in the cabin. All this relaxation makes for a boring blog but we really needed the opportunity to switch off. The time zone switches are also taking a toll on us this cruise – maybe because we both still have a bit of a cold or even a light form of seasickness. Wonder is moving much more than Symphony was – no idea why as I thought she’s more or less the same than her older sister. I haven’t felt a 100 percent since this cruise started so I’m napping way more than I’m used to. Hey, at least the cabin upgrade really paid for itself, we’ve never spent so much time in our cabin.
     
    This evening’s entertainment was Spotlight Showtime – Beyond Broadway. This is a special show to fill up the entertainment calendar for this longer cruise and you won’t get it on 7 night sailings – or that’s what our CD Mike said. In this show you get to know the vocal cast for the Theatre. They’re interviewed by the CD and each present their favourite broadway song. The show has a bit of an improvised feeling to it, but we really enjoyed it. It was far better than yesterday’s Voices. You can never go wrong with Broadway songs.
     
    Dinner brought us back to Hooked. With skipping lunch Michael was getting ambitious and opted for two appetizers – he didn’t even regret it later 🤔 We had Maryland Crab Cake, Ceviche (the spicy version), Clam & Crab Chowder, Surf & Turf, Messy Fish Sandwich, Coconut Cream Pie and Cherry Pie. They give you a bib for the Sandwich, but I could’ve made better use of it for the Chowder 🤣







     
  9. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 9 brings the last Sudoku Challenge for this cruise. As per usual (mostly), Michael won this round and received Royal highlighters for his effort. Now the morning trivia crowd can have Schooner to themselves. We spent the morning in the Solarium Pool and hot tubs as the main pools are still dry. Rumour has it they will be filled during the day but even so, we’ll let them warm up for a day or two. Being able to cool off is nice and all that, but we wouldn’t want to overdo it 🤣
     
    For lunch we scored a reservation in Hooked. Well, theoretically… because it never showed up in the app although it was confirmed twice by Hooked staff. When we showed up for our reservation they suddenly didn’t have us in the system anymore. Strange, but they thankfully still seated us. We had Drunken Mussels, Baked Oysters (once and never again 😉), Maryland Clam Strip Sandwich, Maine Lobster Roll, Lemon Tart and Decadent Chocolate Brownie. Be careful, the latter realy is decadent and can put you in a chocolate food coma on its own. But the best part of the menu were the crisps - it's a pity you only get them for lunch.






    Unfortunately the afternoon was mostly spent in the cabin still trying unsuccessfully to sleep off my cold. This evening’s entertainment was the  Signature Production Voices – completely a capella although part of the voices is prerecorded. Sadly, this show didn’t do much for us, it’s the least impressive we’ve seen on Royal. We’d very much prefer another Broadway show but it is what it is. Dinner brought us back to Giovanni’s (again). This time we shared the Italian Stromboli appetizer and had Osso Buco, Chicken Parmigiana, Chocolate Ravioli and Mamma’s Tiramisu. We went to bed with a few drinks.



  10. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 8 seems to be the first day with no lunch planned. About time, too. Food coma is a real thing even though we haven’t had any real breakfast yet. No Sudoku Challenge today, so we just had a morning speciality coffee and Michael went to Laser Tag. We spent the morning at the pool deck and playing table tennis. Emphasis on pool DECK, currently all pools are drained with the exception of the Solarium Pool. Maintenance on one main pool had already started on day 6 and as they’re not working on the other pools my guess is they were drained because of the ship’s motion but who knows. We still had an enjoyable morning. When we eventually got hungry we tried the Royal Kummelweck and a hot dog, followed by dessert at Playmaker’s. Wow, the Campfire Cookie is really amazing but very rich.

    The afternoon was spent around the ship as we had no real plans apart from dinner. We’d initially booked today’s matinee of the Effectors II, but this has been postponed again, this time due to the ship’s movement. Guess you gotta go with the flow 😉 Dinner brought us to The Mason Jar for the first time. They were really having a hard time with not even half the tables filled but other than that dinner was enjoyable. We had Pimento Cheese, Charred Watermelon Salad, Smoky Deviled Eggs, Southern Burger, a mix of all available meats (Chicken, Ribs and Beef Brisket), Maple-candied Bacon Ice Cream and Twice-Fried Oreos. I even tried my first float (Floatin‘ on Sunshine) but it’s not really my thing. While we were there, we also tried the PBJ Old Fashioned, while the drink was nice I have no idea why people eat PBJ sandwiches, maybe you have to be American to understand this? I'll add this to my list of American things I don't like... which now contains PBJ, floats, mac & cheese, root beer and jerky. We'll see what I can add in the future 😂








  11. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 7 is the second official sea day of this cruise. We’re finally getting an hour of additional sleep each day for 6 days in a row – this does always come in handy. It would be even better if the beds were comfortable but well, you can’t always get what you want. Wonder is experiencing quite a lot of motion, especially considering the waves are not that high – the barf bags haven’t made an appearance yet. Maybe my memory is off but I think Symphony handled the waves better. We’re 100 percent certain that Symphony’s cabin weren’t as loud and creaky as Wonder’s cabins. We don’t mind as much but there are lots of people complaining about the noise.
    While we’re on the topic of complaining… the C&A crowd is on the war path. Pinnacle (about 210 on this cruise) are royally p***** that they’re only allowed in CK for 2 dinners for the whole cruise and not at all in the Suite Lounge. On the other hand they’re annoying everybody else by having the whole Solarium Bistro for themselves for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the Music Hall for every afternoon. Diamond (around 900) and Diamond Plus (about 800) are breathing fire because there is no overflow Diamond Lounge. The complaints on the roll call of an unmentioned website are hilarious for a lowly Gold member 😂
     
    But back to day 7. You might’ve guessed it, we went to the Sudoku Challenge and got speciality coffee from Cafe Promenade. The only difference to the other mornings: Michael only came second place. The winner was a young woman who was wicked fast. Unfortunately no prices today, she would’ve earned it. After Sudoku we went to the first session of Laser Tag. The lines were bearable and we had some fun but didn’t play more than once. Lunch was at Giovanni’s where we completely forgot to take pictures – oops. We had our favourite Stromboli and Caprese, Meat Lover’s Pizza, Uncle Alfredo’s Fettuccine, Tiramisu and Cannoli. After lunch Michael did take on Laser Tag again, I had to pass because my knee said no way. After tearing my meniscus and having surgery for it last year it’s still not back to normal. That’s also why we’re taking the elevator this cruise, so I haven’t seen many staircase art pieces.




    Dinner brought us back to Wonderland again. This time we mixed some favourites with some new dishes. We had Baby Vegetables in the Garden, Citrus Seas Shhhh, Liquid Lobster, The Bird’s Nest, Mad Hatter’s Purple Potted Shrimp, Reconstructed Caprese, Branzino in Crispy Bread, Snap, Crackle and Pork, Forbidden Apple and I tried Tweedle Dee’s & Tweedle Dum’s Banana Split from the Kids menu. Our server additionally brought us The World but we were too full to make much of a dent into it. The banana split also had way more Cotton Candy than I was expecting.







     
    This evening’s entertainment was a bit difficult to organize. We had originally booked Adult Comedy for 10 pm. Due to the main villain for Effectors II being ill, they had to move around shows to give him the time to recover. This meant that our reservation for Tap Factory tomorrow was moved to today 10 pm. Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. Fortunatey we finished dinner early enough to see the 8 pm show of Tap Factory and could still make it to adult comedy. Tap Factory was really enjoyable and different to what we’ve seen on Royal so far. Our resident comedian Simeon Kirkiles apparently reads this sailing’s FB group, the creaking cabins made an appearance in his act 😇 Like most evenings, we had some drinks at Playmaker’s and then called it a day.







     

  12. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from mom2mybugs in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 2 on this cruise is a port day in Palma de Mallorca. This is THE vacation island for Germans so we didn’t get off – again been there, done that. Don’t believe me? Well, my sister and her boyfriend left Palma a day before we arrived. If they’d stayed another day, we would have gotten off but without a meet up we prefered the empty ship. Pre-Covid-tests the passenger count was rumored to be 4200-4300, no idea how many got eliminated by the test.


    We skipped breakfast as we were still full from Izumi and went straight to the Sudoku challenge. There weren’t many contestants but I was l completely shellshocked to win. I can’t just „see“ the numbers and that means meticulously trying out everything tends to be much slower than Michaels way. I only got the upper hand because the first Sudoku was too difficult to just go by „seeing“. I even got a really nice prize – a t-shirt from Wonder of the Seas! Morning trivia started right after the Sudoku challenge and we decided to flee the Schooner Bar and relocate to Cafe Promenade. We weren’t too happy with how trivia went on the last transatlantic so we decided to skip it altogether and use the free time for more relaxation. Last cruise we were so busy that we nearly never got to the pool. Tbh the abysmal weather could’ve played a part too. Not a problem this year, temperatures have ranged from 22° to 28° celsius so far. Last time we also forgot that speciality coffees are included in the DBP, so we’re trying them out this time. I might also be on the hunt for the famous Ranger Cookie, who knows…

    The rest of the morning was spent getting to know the ship and catching up with the blog. I’ve already given up on truly catching up so I’ll just go with the flow to make the most of this vacation while still making sure I can remember it for years to come. With no normal speciality restaurants open we had lunch at Johnny Rockets. I forgot to take pictures yet again but we had Bacon Cheese Fries, Smoke House & Route 66 burgers, milkshakes and Michael was crazy enough to also order a Sundae. Don’t worry, he regretted this at dinner 😄 Afternoon was spent on the pool deck, alternating between pools and hot tubs. The pools get a bit chilly after some time but the hot tubs are waaaay too hot to spend much time in them. No idea how people can stay in there for hours, I felt boiled after 10 minutes. On the way to the cabin we came across The Mason Jar and it was finally staffed. We got ourselves on the wait list for any brunch they’d have us but chances are slim. With 4 brunches with 90 people each that’s less people than the consecutive cruisers – no surprise we didn’t have a chance booking it. Apparently they don’t have enough staff to open more days or open up more capacity – that’s true for all speciality dining venues and the bars are a bit short-staffed as well. When the bars run out of ingredients they don’t have enough staff to get them and the people doing rounds refilling the bars are far and few in between. Hope Royal will be successful in hiring more crew as I’m sure it takes a toll on those who are currently working. 
     
    Dinner brought us back to Giovanni’s. We started off with the Meat & Cheese platter and the Stromboli. The latter was amazing and the platter looked big enough to feed at least 6 people. For mains we ordered Filet Mignon (yummy) and the 7 Cheese pizza. Amazing pizza but this is sooo much food. Forgot to take pictures of the dessert, we had Pistachio Panna Cotta and Chocolate Ravioli. The Panna Cotta was the better choice between the two. On the way back to the cabin we made a detour to Chops and were able to score a lunch reservation - yeah! After dinner it was time to dress up for Halloween. Same costume as last time, and make up did again take forever – oops. We had fun watching the parade but there were way fewer people in costume than last time. There were also no decorations done by Royal and now balloon drop – your guess if it’s due to money or staffing or delivery chain problems. We had another drink at Playmaker’s and then called it a night.






  13. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from DDaley in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 14 is the last full day of the cruise – this time even with breakfast. Well, we did order room service continental breakfast and half the order was missing but as we ordered with empty stomachs the end result worked quite nicely with our after-Izumi-state. I’m hearing about the strangest complaints to the crew so I won’t be adding to their work load – we’ll just go with what we got. Which was still enough to save some fruit for tomorrow.
     
    This morning we’re in Nassau together with Freedom of the Seas. We had thought about visiting Atlantis but was all on board is already at 1.45 pm we didn’t want to pay the hefty price tag for the day passes. Royal’s excursion weren’t really to our liking – especially when comparing pricing to value – so we decided to spend our last morning in the pools and hot tubs. Michael finally managed to try all the slides while I went boiling in the hot tub. When the pool deck started seeing more traffic from returning passengers we decided to call it a day and went for showers and then to our last lunch at Playmakers. This time we had two of our favourites: Pile on Nachos with Pulled Pork and Playmaker’s Classic Burger. No pictures because you’ve already seen the show. After lunch we headed to the Aqua Theater for the dive exhibition. This „show“ is comparable to the Ice Showcase yesterday – you get to know the cast via interviews and they can show a few of their tricks. I’ll really miss my Aqua Theater Suite Balcony 😉 on deck 7. Now late afternoon, it was time to finalize all our packing so we could put out the luggage before dinner. It’s a mixed feeling this time as I’ll sure miss the ship but on the other hand I’m looking forward to an end to the ship’s movement 😄


    Before dinner we had reservations for the final showing of the Ice Show – 365. While it was impressive, we felt it didn’t compare to Symphony’s ice show. This brings the final result to 2:2 comparing Wonder to Symphony. We prefered inTenSe to Hiro and Effectors II to Flight but Symphony scored on the ice show and with Hair Spray. Our final dinner was at Wonderland. We had all the good intentions going in of not eating too much because I had the Campfire Cookie on my mind for later but you know what they say about good intentions… Instead of sticking to an entree and be done with it our lovely server (who recognized us from our first two visits) made sure we did try most of the rest of the menu – including the Kid’s menu 😄 Today we had Wonton Soup, Sashimi of Red & White Tuna, Tomato Soup, our favourite Mad Hatter’s Purple Potted Shrimp, Halibut Cooked in Clear Paper, King of Hearts Royal Wonderland Burger (Kids) and Mad Hatter’s Crispy Mac & Cheese Fries (Kids). Oh my god, the latter were to die for! I don’t even like mac & cheese – quite the contrary – but this version was awesome. If it wasn’t so filling I’d have ordered another one. I was completely stuffed after this but Michael managed to order the Forbidden Apple for himself. Needless to say we didn’t make it to Playmaker’s for the Campfire Cookie – instead we went to bed early expecting a very tiring day tomorrow. 









     
  14. Wow
    Neaxan got a reaction from FireFishII in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    From what I can gather from the FB group Port Canaveral usually uses facial recognition which should at least eliminate US citizens from the queue. Nobody knows exactly why they didn't use it for our cruise - maybe because we embarked in Europe? No facial recognition meant every passenger had to be interviewed by an Immigration agent. They also had problems with their system. It recognized me but not Michael - he had to do the whole nine yards including finger prints again. This seemed to happen to quite a few people. We were really happy to stay in Florida for the week, many people with same day flights were panicking. At least it was only inconvenient for us. 
  15. Thanks
    Neaxan got a reaction from Nicci in Confusion about Wonder's escape room   
    I did the Royal Society of Puzzle on the Wonder TA. It's not a full escape room experience compared to other ships like Symphony, so it lacks the original decor and everything. But they have a game designed for the current state of the room that technically is an escape game. The room is prepared before you arrive, then you get instructions and have 50 minutes to solve it in a group of 6-12 people. You search for keys and clues and solve puzzles and riddles. So it may not look as cool as other Royal escape rooms but it's complimentary so there's that. We still had a lot of fun. Booking is via the daily planner in the app as soon as you're connected to the ship's wifi. If your group is smaller than the required minimum you'll be playing with strangers which adds to the fun.
  16. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from Skigoofy in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 15 – you know what this means – disembarkation. For breakfast we had the fruit from yesterday’s room service delivery. We had originally requested  - and received – luggage tags for an 8 am disembarkation. We’d reserved our rental car for 10 am and thought this should work. I was under the impression that Port Canaveral couldn’t f*** up as bad as with the Symphony TA but boy was I wrong. At 9 am we had to vacate our cabin with the last time luggage tags being called about an hour ago. Royal Promenade was packed with people but Royal wasn’t allowed to let anyone off the ship… Hold a few thousand people hostage with no food and drinks (other than Iced Water) being available and see how the mood is – spoiler alert: not good. We were finally allowed to disembark at 10 am and were released into total mayhem. The port building was packed and there was absolutely no organisation to it. We managed to locate our luggage but were unsuccessful in finding the end of the queue for immigration. There were queues all around the terminal with no idea where it starts or ends so everybody just stood somewhere and hopped into anything that looked like a line. Port staff were of no help whatsoever as they were completely out of their depth. After standing in the „queue“ for about an hour they finally managed to bring some organisation into the mess and formed what really looked like a line. After another hour or so we finally made it through immigration - halleluja! Lucky we only had about 4000 passengers on the cruise - imagine this with 7000! At 12.30 pm we finally had our rental car – but only because we walked to the office. If we’d tried to get on the shuttle like everybody else we’d probably still be there 5 days later. We were off in the direction of St. Augustine, trying out the A1A (thanks for the recommendation btw). The weather was abysmal with torrential rain but I had one ray of sunshine – we went to Buc-ee’s 😄 
     
    This concludes my not so live blog. Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long but live got in the way – as it does. We’re currently in Key West - sadly bad weather again today – and will fly home from MIA on Saturday. At least we really liked Florida so far, we’ll have to take the time to explore it with our RV in the future. No idea when our next cruise will be, we haven’t got much on our bucket list anymore. Maybe Hurtigruten‘s postal route and maybe a week on Icon if she comes to Europe. We will see.
  17. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from Skigoofy in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 14 is the last full day of the cruise – this time even with breakfast. Well, we did order room service continental breakfast and half the order was missing but as we ordered with empty stomachs the end result worked quite nicely with our after-Izumi-state. I’m hearing about the strangest complaints to the crew so I won’t be adding to their work load – we’ll just go with what we got. Which was still enough to save some fruit for tomorrow.
     
    This morning we’re in Nassau together with Freedom of the Seas. We had thought about visiting Atlantis but was all on board is already at 1.45 pm we didn’t want to pay the hefty price tag for the day passes. Royal’s excursion weren’t really to our liking – especially when comparing pricing to value – so we decided to spend our last morning in the pools and hot tubs. Michael finally managed to try all the slides while I went boiling in the hot tub. When the pool deck started seeing more traffic from returning passengers we decided to call it a day and went for showers and then to our last lunch at Playmakers. This time we had two of our favourites: Pile on Nachos with Pulled Pork and Playmaker’s Classic Burger. No pictures because you’ve already seen the show. After lunch we headed to the Aqua Theater for the dive exhibition. This „show“ is comparable to the Ice Showcase yesterday – you get to know the cast via interviews and they can show a few of their tricks. I’ll really miss my Aqua Theater Suite Balcony 😉 on deck 7. Now late afternoon, it was time to finalize all our packing so we could put out the luggage before dinner. It’s a mixed feeling this time as I’ll sure miss the ship but on the other hand I’m looking forward to an end to the ship’s movement 😄


    Before dinner we had reservations for the final showing of the Ice Show – 365. While it was impressive, we felt it didn’t compare to Symphony’s ice show. This brings the final result to 2:2 comparing Wonder to Symphony. We prefered inTenSe to Hiro and Effectors II to Flight but Symphony scored on the ice show and with Hair Spray. Our final dinner was at Wonderland. We had all the good intentions going in of not eating too much because I had the Campfire Cookie on my mind for later but you know what they say about good intentions… Instead of sticking to an entree and be done with it our lovely server (who recognized us from our first two visits) made sure we did try most of the rest of the menu – including the Kid’s menu 😄 Today we had Wonton Soup, Sashimi of Red & White Tuna, Tomato Soup, our favourite Mad Hatter’s Purple Potted Shrimp, Halibut Cooked in Clear Paper, King of Hearts Royal Wonderland Burger (Kids) and Mad Hatter’s Crispy Mac & Cheese Fries (Kids). Oh my god, the latter were to die for! I don’t even like mac & cheese – quite the contrary – but this version was awesome. If it wasn’t so filling I’d have ordered another one. I was completely stuffed after this but Michael managed to order the Forbidden Apple for himself. Needless to say we didn’t make it to Playmaker’s for the Campfire Cookie – instead we went to bed early expecting a very tiring day tomorrow. 









     
  18. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from Skigoofy in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 13 started bright and early – possibly because we went to bed early yesterday. Again no breakfast today because we had speciality lunch and dinner on the cards. Instead we just got speciality coffee from Cafe Promenade and then went to hang out on the pool deck as the weather had greatly improved. This of course meant that many people had the same idea as us but Wonder handled the „crowds“ without a problem – you could always find loungers as well as space in the pools and hot tubs.
     
    Lunch was at Chops Grille which we really didn’t look forward to after the fiasco with the last dinner. We had contemplated to cancel the reservation but ultimately chose to give them another chance – and we’re glad we did! Food was improved and service was exceptional – in fact our waiter today was the best we had the whole cruise. No idea how he managed to work all his (really numerous) tables and still found the time to chat with everybody. Foodwise we had Wild Mushroom Soup, Charred Beef Carpaccio, Filet Mignon (this time medium as ordered), Chops Dry-Aged Steak Burger, Key Lime Meringue Pie, Red Velvet Cake and Warm Chocolate Cake. Glad I remembered Sweety’s preference for the Red Velvet as it was my favourite dessert.





    We spent the afternoon starting to arrange our packing. It’s not the last day of the cruise but it’s getting near now. And we wanted to organize our packing so that we’ll only use one piece of luggage on our Florida road trip – the rest can stay in the car. Provided we receive our rental car, we’ve heard some horror stories that due to Ian and now Nicole the rental agencies don’t have enough cars going around. Let’s hope we get lucky because I have no idea how we would manage to get to our hotels without a car.
     
    This evening started with entertainment – we went to the Ice Spectacular. This is not a normal show but similar to Spotlight Sowtime where the cast is introduced in short interviews with CD Mike and they then showcase a few of their tricks to music of their choice. Our CD being able to iceskate a bit was a nice touch. It’s a pity the show was only 30 minutes but we’ll be back tomorrow for the regular ice show. Dinner was at Izumi – but this time we managed ro really pace ourselves. We only had the Salmon Lovers Roll, Spicy Crispy Tuna Roll and had to again order the Izumi Ryu Futomaki Roll. After dinner was spent at Playmaker’s again.






  19. Like
    Neaxan got a reaction from Skigoofy in Here we go again - Wonder TA Barcelona - Port Canaveral, Oct 29th - Nov 13th 2022   
    Day 12 was exceptionally unspectacular. We didn’t have anything planned other than dinner and pool time didn’t really work out due to rain – caused by Nicole? Who knows… We had toyed with the idea of trying to get into Mason Jar brunch but this morning we were still too full from yesterday to even attempt breakfast or brunch. Instead we had a slow day in the cabin and went to Playmaker‘s for lunch. The venue was a zoo so getting our order (Truffle Burger and Onion Rings) took about an hour. Not a problem for us, this gave us more time to try and empty Wonder of Angry Orchard cider 😇 Sorry, no pics - just imagine a burger with fries and a tower of onion rings.
    The afternoon was again mostly spent in the cabin until it was time for dinner at Mason Jar. This time we tried Blueberry Johnnycakes, Crab Beignets, Shrimp N‘ Grits, Southern Burger, Gone Bananas and Warm Bread Pudding. We did spill dinner down with some more Angry Orchard and went to bed early.





  20. Thanks
    Neaxan got a reaction from need2cruz in Confusion about Wonder's escape room   
    I did the Royal Society of Puzzle on the Wonder TA. It's not a full escape room experience compared to other ships like Symphony, so it lacks the original decor and everything. But they have a game designed for the current state of the room that technically is an escape game. The room is prepared before you arrive, then you get instructions and have 50 minutes to solve it in a group of 6-12 people. You search for keys and clues and solve puzzles and riddles. So it may not look as cool as other Royal escape rooms but it's complimentary so there's that. We still had a lot of fun. Booking is via the daily planner in the app as soon as you're connected to the ship's wifi. If your group is smaller than the required minimum you'll be playing with strangers which adds to the fun.
  21. Thanks
    Neaxan got a reaction from NotPayinExtra in Confusion about Wonder's escape room   
    I did the Royal Society of Puzzle on the Wonder TA. It's not a full escape room experience compared to other ships like Symphony, so it lacks the original decor and everything. But they have a game designed for the current state of the room that technically is an escape game. The room is prepared before you arrive, then you get instructions and have 50 minutes to solve it in a group of 6-12 people. You search for keys and clues and solve puzzles and riddles. So it may not look as cool as other Royal escape rooms but it's complimentary so there's that. We still had a lot of fun. Booking is via the daily planner in the app as soon as you're connected to the ship's wifi. If your group is smaller than the required minimum you'll be playing with strangers which adds to the fun.
  22. Thanks
    Neaxan got a reaction from KristiZ in Escape Room on Wonder of the Seas?   
    There is a dedicated room but it hasn't been equipped yet. On the transatlantic you could still have an escape room experience there with keys, boxes, riddles and so on. It is called The Royal Society of Puzzles or the Royal Puzzle Society - something like that - and takes 50 minutes. You could reserve it in the app once connected to the ship's wifi in the daily planner and it was free of charge. Seeing that they most likely spent some money to get the game designed it's likely to stay as an offer as long as the room isn't furnished.
    We did the game on the TA and had a whole lot of fun, unfortunately we didn't solve the final riddle.
  23. Wow
    Neaxan got a reaction from WAAAYTOOO in I see your Panama Canal cruise and raise you the Corinth Canal   
    My parents cruised through the Canal of Corinth about 20 years ago and say it's the most amazing cruise they ever had. It feels as if you could touch the walls (of course you can't). Their ship even had to drain all the pools to be able to pass through the canal because they'd have had too much draft.
  24. Like
    Neaxan reacted to smokeybandit in I see your Panama Canal cruise and raise you the Corinth Canal   
    " with its travelers almost able to reach and touch the sides of the canal, 24 meters wide at its narrowest point."
  25. Thanks
    Neaxan got a reaction from KristiZ in Confusion about Wonder's escape room   
    I did the Royal Society of Puzzle on the Wonder TA. It's not a full escape room experience compared to other ships like Symphony, so it lacks the original decor and everything. But they have a game designed for the current state of the room that technically is an escape game. The room is prepared before you arrive, then you get instructions and have 50 minutes to solve it in a group of 6-12 people. You search for keys and clues and solve puzzles and riddles. So it may not look as cool as other Royal escape rooms but it's complimentary so there's that. We still had a lot of fun. Booking is via the daily planner in the app as soon as you're connected to the ship's wifi. If your group is smaller than the required minimum you'll be playing with strangers which adds to the fun.
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