Neaxan

You can do Split and Dubrovnik on your own. Uber from the port to the city centre, both are very walkable and easy to navigate. Most interesting sights are within the city walls. In Dubrovnik you can take a stroll on the city wall, the route along the sea has beautiful views. Just bear in mind that it's quite a few steps and expensive. We did it in autumn of 2020 when there weren't a lot of tourist arounds so it was worth it. Might be different if the city is full of tourists and you're shuffled around the wall in a long queue.

Sunday started not so bright and not so early, After a shower and a bit of repacking we ordered an Uber to the port. Amazing driver with awesome choice of music – him being a Venezulean with his own metal band. We skipped breakfast thinking the food coma would start soon enough – spoiler alert: it already has 🤣 We arrived at terminal C at 10 am sharp and were able to leave our luggage with the porters and get in queue as the terminal wasn’t open and they were still disembarking passengers. Fair enough, we received an e-mail telling us to arrive at least 30 minutes later than booked as boarding wouldn’t start before noon. Well, I don’t see an advantage in sitting around at the hotel compared to sitting around in front of the terminal so we chose to ignore the e-mail – along with everybody else with a 10 am to 10.30 am timeslot 😂 They opened the terminal around 10.30 am and check in was a breeze. Some more waiting around IN the terminal and boarding started at 11 am.

And that’s when the zoo started. The escalators in the terminal where still going downstairs so everybody had to drag their carry ons up the stairs. I might or might not have learned a whole new array of Spanish expletives 😂 Arriving on board we weren’t able to book entertainment via the app so we had to get in line at the kiosk. After waiting around some time a very nice crew member showed us that we were just constantly looking the wrong way – oops. With that out of the way I tried booking dining via the app but was unsuccessful. The app told me to go to guest services or a kiosk so we got in yet another queue. When it finally was our turn the mad hatter took our reservations but was unwilling to book our lunches or the second week. We were told that we could only book the second week dinners from next Sunday on as this was a new cruise. Ahem, I’m so not disembarking the ship in the middle of the Atlantic... Not being a Karen I unfortunately decided to let it slide.
 
We were tired from queuing and starving from skipping breakfast. We had planned to do The Mason Jar Brunch but it was closed for maintenance. The only specialty dining open was Giovanni’s so we went there for lunch. They were quite short staffed and it took ages to order. Not a problem, we made the most of our time by trying to book dining via the app. Well, after endless tries we were somewhat successful and have our dinners covered. Unfortunately by then Chops was already booked solid for the whole cruise so we only have one dinner there. We weren’t able to score a Mason Jar brunch reservation as it’s only open 4 times in 14 days ☹ Possibly due to staffing problems? To say I’m p***** is quite the understatement. With over 400 B2B cruisers, a few hundred Pinnacles and a forever sold-out UDP there’s only so much time you have until every slot is gone.
 
Lunch was a bit slow but other than that we really enjoyed it. I’ve apparently forgotten how to blog (or we were just starving that much?) that I mostly forgot to take pictures. I’ll try to improve in the future. For starters we shared the Meatball Gigante and the Calamari. Due to some hiccup in the kitchen we also got the Calabrese – funny enough this was the best of the 3 even if we didn’t order it. Michael went with Lasagna for his main and I tried Steak Muffuleta. Lasagna was meh or maybe just not what we’re used to. The steak was really enjoyable, just waaay too much. With dessert (Tiramisu and Go Bananas) we were completely stuffed.

 
We ended lunch about 2 pm and went to our cabin. We found all our luggage in the hallway and used the time to unpack. Met our staterrom attendant Igede and were able to order a kettle for Michael and distilled water for me. Our cabin has the bed next to the balcony – no idea if this is the better configuration or not. Writing this on day 2 I fear we may be spoiled already and can’t go back to an Interior cabin. Well, I have a few ideas about a Sky Junior Suite anyway – if Icon ever comes over to Europe… Between unpacking and dinner we managed to spend some time on the pool deck making the DBP magic work.

Dinner was at Izumi Sushi. We won’t be doing Hibachi this cruise as we feel it’s a been there, done that thing. For small plates we had the Pork Gyoza Dumplings and Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna – of course I forgot to take a picture 😋 Our large plates where (from left to right) Izumi Ryu Futomaki Roll, Crispy Philly Roll, Champagne Lobster Roll and Snow Crab California Roll. Three rolls were really good, only the Crispy Philly Roll was a bit boring. All in all, we had totally forgotten how much food you get at Izumi and food coma was already kicking in. For dessert we went with the German phrase „Eis geht immer“ (Icecream is always possible) and chose Assorted Mochi Ice Cream and Green Tea Ice Cream.

Tbh our food coma (and maybe sleep deprivation?) was so bad that we just went to the cabin and took a nap. We had a real hard time getting up for our inTENse reservation but boy were we glad we did. From our last transatlantic we had learned the hard way that you should reserve the Aqua show as early as possible. Hiro was postponed about a dozen times and the other Aqua show didn’t run once. The center seats were once again reserved for the Key guests, suites and Pinnacles with the exception of the center splash zone. I didn’t mind, because I was pretty sure the whole center seats might get wet. The fact that the reserved Star Class seats were quite a bit off center was a dead giveaway 😂 We thought inTENse was amazing, even more impressive than Hiro. Unfortunately the pictures don’t do it justice. We’ll maybe try to sneak in to the show again (time permitting), we‘re on deck 7 aft and there is a door that leads directly to some seats next to the rock climbing wall at the end of our corridor. We took a detour to guest services for the German cruise compass for tomorrow and to get our DBP cups – afterwards it was straight to bed.

Day 3 brings us to Valencia, another sea day for us 🤣 We slept in a bit and opted for a light breakfast at Park Cafe and a trip to Cafe Promenade for speciality coffee. We did a bit of ship-watching (Celebrity Reflection and our last cruise ship Mein Schiff Herz are in port with us) and were planning on playing some mini golf but it was way too hot for that. Instead we sipped a few drinks at the Lime & Coconut and checked out the Solarium. The ship is more crowded today, maybe because the port is quite far away from the city center and that’s why less people got off.




Lunch brought us to Playmaker’s and if you’re thinking a 20 $ credit on the UDP isn’t enough you’re wrong. We had Pile on Nachos with Pulled Pork, Playmaker’s Fries, Pulled Pork Sliders and Michael got 6 wings (I don’t eat wings). Well, the Nachos would’ve been sufficient to feed us but you know how it goes – we had to try different things in the name of research 😇



The afternoon was again spent in and around the pools. I did try to take a few calories off the grand total by doing „laps“ in the pool but the pools are just a bit short for real swimming. My smartwatch thought I was on the Crosstrainer 😂 Michael is taking advantage of no lines at the slides – or at the slide to be more correct, two are currently undergoing maintenance. For a new ship, there’s quite a few spots where maintenance is necessary. That’s what happen when you build them in France instead of Germany 😉 Will be interesting to compare Icon’s quality some time in the future, being built by an essentially German company (Meyer), but in Turku, Finland.
 
For the evening we had a whole lot of plans. First we were able to score a reservation for The Royal Society of Puzzle for 6.30 pm. This is in essence an escape room experience and located in what was planned to be the escape room next to Adventure Ocean on deck 14. For whatever reason they still haven’t built the escape room, it’s currently an empty room with a few chairs and tables. Maybe that’s why this experience is free of charge, you just have to have a reserveration and are grouped together with strangers to form a team of 6 to 12 people. I won’t spoiler anything, let’s just say the 9 of us did not solve the last puzzle but it was close. We still had a great time and once you get the explanation of how to solve everything you feel a bit stupid. Maybe 3 more players or a bit more time would’ve helped, this experience is designed to be 50 minutes. With the first bullet point done, we rushed down to the Royal Theater for Paul Zerdin, a ventriloquist who won America’s Got Talent. The show was hilarious but definetely not suitable for children. Go see his show if you get the chance!



From the end of the show we had 5 minutes to get to Wonderland for our 9 pm reservation – we even made it on time. We will be in Wonderland 3 times this cruise and are planning on trying the whole menu because we love fusion cuisine. I again forgot to take pictures in the beginning… I sense a theme here 😄 For today, we got to tick off Crispy Crab Cones, Mad Hatter’s Purple Potted Shrimp, Reconstructed Caprese, The Bird’s Nest, Tomato Water, The Chicken and the Egg, The Rib „I“ Luscious Short Rib, Mystical Mushroom Garden and The World from our list. Our favourite was the short rib and of course the inevitable The World. I usually hate peanut butter with a passion (sorry US readers…) but in this dessert I don’t mind it at all. After dinner we went to the Schooner Bar for some cocktails and listening to the piano player. We had so much fun that we went to bed really late – oops. Btw whoever once recommended the Espresso Martini on this boards – thanks a lot! That one’s really amazing.

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.

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.

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.

Sunday started not so bright and not so early, After a shower and a bit of repacking we ordered an Uber to the port. Amazing driver with awesome choice of music – him being a Venezulean with his own metal band. We skipped breakfast thinking the food coma would start soon enough – spoiler alert: it already has 🤣 We arrived at terminal C at 10 am sharp and were able to leave our luggage with the porters and get in queue as the terminal wasn’t open and they were still disembarking passengers. Fair enough, we received an e-mail telling us to arrive at least 30 minutes later than booked as boarding wouldn’t start before noon. Well, I don’t see an advantage in sitting around at the hotel compared to sitting around in front of the terminal so we chose to ignore the e-mail – along with everybody else with a 10 am to 10.30 am timeslot 😂 They opened the terminal around 10.30 am and check in was a breeze. Some more waiting around IN the terminal and boarding started at 11 am.

And that’s when the zoo started. The escalators in the terminal where still going downstairs so everybody had to drag their carry ons up the stairs. I might or might not have learned a whole new array of Spanish expletives 😂 Arriving on board we weren’t able to book entertainment via the app so we had to get in line at the kiosk. After waiting around some time a very nice crew member showed us that we were just constantly looking the wrong way – oops. With that out of the way I tried booking dining via the app but was unsuccessful. The app told me to go to guest services or a kiosk so we got in yet another queue. When it finally was our turn the mad hatter took our reservations but was unwilling to book our lunches or the second week. We were told that we could only book the second week dinners from next Sunday on as this was a new cruise. Ahem, I’m so not disembarking the ship in the middle of the Atlantic... Not being a Karen I unfortunately decided to let it slide.
 
We were tired from queuing and starving from skipping breakfast. We had planned to do The Mason Jar Brunch but it was closed for maintenance. The only specialty dining open was Giovanni’s so we went there for lunch. They were quite short staffed and it took ages to order. Not a problem, we made the most of our time by trying to book dining via the app. Well, after endless tries we were somewhat successful and have our dinners covered. Unfortunately by then Chops was already booked solid for the whole cruise so we only have one dinner there. We weren’t able to score a Mason Jar brunch reservation as it’s only open 4 times in 14 days ☹ Possibly due to staffing problems? To say I’m p***** is quite the understatement. With over 400 B2B cruisers, a few hundred Pinnacles and a forever sold-out UDP there’s only so much time you have until every slot is gone.
 
Lunch was a bit slow but other than that we really enjoyed it. I’ve apparently forgotten how to blog (or we were just starving that much?) that I mostly forgot to take pictures. I’ll try to improve in the future. For starters we shared the Meatball Gigante and the Calamari. Due to some hiccup in the kitchen we also got the Calabrese – funny enough this was the best of the 3 even if we didn’t order it. Michael went with Lasagna for his main and I tried Steak Muffuleta. Lasagna was meh or maybe just not what we’re used to. The steak was really enjoyable, just waaay too much. With dessert (Tiramisu and Go Bananas) we were completely stuffed.

 
We ended lunch about 2 pm and went to our cabin. We found all our luggage in the hallway and used the time to unpack. Met our staterrom attendant Igede and were able to order a kettle for Michael and distilled water for me. Our cabin has the bed next to the balcony – no idea if this is the better configuration or not. Writing this on day 2 I fear we may be spoiled already and can’t go back to an Interior cabin. Well, I have a few ideas about a Sky Junior Suite anyway – if Icon ever comes over to Europe… Between unpacking and dinner we managed to spend some time on the pool deck making the DBP magic work.

Dinner was at Izumi Sushi. We won’t be doing Hibachi this cruise as we feel it’s a been there, done that thing. For small plates we had the Pork Gyoza Dumplings and Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna – of course I forgot to take a picture 😋 Our large plates where (from left to right) Izumi Ryu Futomaki Roll, Crispy Philly Roll, Champagne Lobster Roll and Snow Crab California Roll. Three rolls were really good, only the Crispy Philly Roll was a bit boring. All in all, we had totally forgotten how much food you get at Izumi and food coma was already kicking in. For dessert we went with the German phrase „Eis geht immer“ (Icecream is always possible) and chose Assorted Mochi Ice Cream and Green Tea Ice Cream.

Tbh our food coma (and maybe sleep deprivation?) was so bad that we just went to the cabin and took a nap. We had a real hard time getting up for our inTENse reservation but boy were we glad we did. From our last transatlantic we had learned the hard way that you should reserve the Aqua show as early as possible. Hiro was postponed about a dozen times and the other Aqua show didn’t run once. The center seats were once again reserved for the Key guests, suites and Pinnacles with the exception of the center splash zone. I didn’t mind, because I was pretty sure the whole center seats might get wet. The fact that the reserved Star Class seats were quite a bit off center was a dead giveaway 😂 We thought inTENse was amazing, even more impressive than Hiro. Unfortunately the pictures don’t do it justice. We’ll maybe try to sneak in to the show again (time permitting), we‘re on deck 7 aft and there is a door that leads directly to some seats next to the rock climbing wall at the end of our corridor. We took a detour to guest services for the German cruise compass for tomorrow and to get our DBP cups – afterwards it was straight to bed.

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Sunday started not so bright and not so early, After a shower and a bit of repacking we ordered an Uber to the port. Amazing driver with awesome choice of music – him being a Venezulean with his own metal band. We skipped breakfast thinking the food coma would start soon enough – spoiler alert: it already has 🤣 We arrived at terminal C at 10 am sharp and were able to leave our luggage with the porters and get in queue as the terminal wasn’t open and they were still disembarking passengers. Fair enough, we received an e-mail telling us to arrive at least 30 minutes later than booked as boarding wouldn’t start before noon. Well, I don’t see an advantage in sitting around at the hotel compared to sitting around in front of the terminal so we chose to ignore the e-mail – along with everybody else with a 10 am to 10.30 am timeslot 😂 They opened the terminal around 10.30 am and check in was a breeze. Some more waiting around IN the terminal and boarding started at 11 am.

And that’s when the zoo started. The escalators in the terminal where still going downstairs so everybody had to drag their carry ons up the stairs. I might or might not have learned a whole new array of Spanish expletives 😂 Arriving on board we weren’t able to book entertainment via the app so we had to get in line at the kiosk. After waiting around some time a very nice crew member showed us that we were just constantly looking the wrong way – oops. With that out of the way I tried booking dining via the app but was unsuccessful. The app told me to go to guest services or a kiosk so we got in yet another queue. When it finally was our turn the mad hatter took our reservations but was unwilling to book our lunches or the second week. We were told that we could only book the second week dinners from next Sunday on as this was a new cruise. Ahem, I’m so not disembarking the ship in the middle of the Atlantic... Not being a Karen I unfortunately decided to let it slide.
 
We were tired from queuing and starving from skipping breakfast. We had planned to do The Mason Jar Brunch but it was closed for maintenance. The only specialty dining open was Giovanni’s so we went there for lunch. They were quite short staffed and it took ages to order. Not a problem, we made the most of our time by trying to book dining via the app. Well, after endless tries we were somewhat successful and have our dinners covered. Unfortunately by then Chops was already booked solid for the whole cruise so we only have one dinner there. We weren’t able to score a Mason Jar brunch reservation as it’s only open 4 times in 14 days ☹ Possibly due to staffing problems? To say I’m p***** is quite the understatement. With over 400 B2B cruisers, a few hundred Pinnacles and a forever sold-out UDP there’s only so much time you have until every slot is gone.
 
Lunch was a bit slow but other than that we really enjoyed it. I’ve apparently forgotten how to blog (or we were just starving that much?) that I mostly forgot to take pictures. I’ll try to improve in the future. For starters we shared the Meatball Gigante and the Calamari. Due to some hiccup in the kitchen we also got the Calabrese – funny enough this was the best of the 3 even if we didn’t order it. Michael went with Lasagna for his main and I tried Steak Muffuleta. Lasagna was meh or maybe just not what we’re used to. The steak was really enjoyable, just waaay too much. With dessert (Tiramisu and Go Bananas) we were completely stuffed.

 
We ended lunch about 2 pm and went to our cabin. We found all our luggage in the hallway and used the time to unpack. Met our staterrom attendant Igede and were able to order a kettle for Michael and distilled water for me. Our cabin has the bed next to the balcony – no idea if this is the better configuration or not. Writing this on day 2 I fear we may be spoiled already and can’t go back to an Interior cabin. Well, I have a few ideas about a Sky Junior Suite anyway – if Icon ever comes over to Europe… Between unpacking and dinner we managed to spend some time on the pool deck making the DBP magic work.

Dinner was at Izumi Sushi. We won’t be doing Hibachi this cruise as we feel it’s a been there, done that thing. For small plates we had the Pork Gyoza Dumplings and Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna – of course I forgot to take a picture 😋 Our large plates where (from left to right) Izumi Ryu Futomaki Roll, Crispy Philly Roll, Champagne Lobster Roll and Snow Crab California Roll. Three rolls were really good, only the Crispy Philly Roll was a bit boring. All in all, we had totally forgotten how much food you get at Izumi and food coma was already kicking in. For dessert we went with the German phrase „Eis geht immer“ (Icecream is always possible) and chose Assorted Mochi Ice Cream and Green Tea Ice Cream.

Tbh our food coma (and maybe sleep deprivation?) was so bad that we just went to the cabin and took a nap. We had a real hard time getting up for our inTENse reservation but boy were we glad we did. From our last transatlantic we had learned the hard way that you should reserve the Aqua show as early as possible. Hiro was postponed about a dozen times and the other Aqua show didn’t run once. The center seats were once again reserved for the Key guests, suites and Pinnacles with the exception of the center splash zone. I didn’t mind, because I was pretty sure the whole center seats might get wet. The fact that the reserved Star Class seats were quite a bit off center was a dead giveaway 😂 We thought inTENse was amazing, even more impressive than Hiro. Unfortunately the pictures don’t do it justice. We’ll maybe try to sneak in to the show again (time permitting), we‘re on deck 7 aft and there is a door that leads directly to some seats next to the rock climbing wall at the end of our corridor. We took a detour to guest services for the German cruise compass for tomorrow and to get our DBP cups – afterwards it was straight to bed.

Sunday started not so bright and not so early, After a shower and a bit of repacking we ordered an Uber to the port. Amazing driver with awesome choice of music – him being a Venezulean with his own metal band. We skipped breakfast thinking the food coma would start soon enough – spoiler alert: it already has 🤣 We arrived at terminal C at 10 am sharp and were able to leave our luggage with the porters and get in queue as the terminal wasn’t open and they were still disembarking passengers. Fair enough, we received an e-mail telling us to arrive at least 30 minutes later than booked as boarding wouldn’t start before noon. Well, I don’t see an advantage in sitting around at the hotel compared to sitting around in front of the terminal so we chose to ignore the e-mail – along with everybody else with a 10 am to 10.30 am timeslot 😂 They opened the terminal around 10.30 am and check in was a breeze. Some more waiting around IN the terminal and boarding started at 11 am.

And that’s when the zoo started. The escalators in the terminal where still going downstairs so everybody had to drag their carry ons up the stairs. I might or might not have learned a whole new array of Spanish expletives 😂 Arriving on board we weren’t able to book entertainment via the app so we had to get in line at the kiosk. After waiting around some time a very nice crew member showed us that we were just constantly looking the wrong way – oops. With that out of the way I tried booking dining via the app but was unsuccessful. The app told me to go to guest services or a kiosk so we got in yet another queue. When it finally was our turn the mad hatter took our reservations but was unwilling to book our lunches or the second week. We were told that we could only book the second week dinners from next Sunday on as this was a new cruise. Ahem, I’m so not disembarking the ship in the middle of the Atlantic... Not being a Karen I unfortunately decided to let it slide.
 
We were tired from queuing and starving from skipping breakfast. We had planned to do The Mason Jar Brunch but it was closed for maintenance. The only specialty dining open was Giovanni’s so we went there for lunch. They were quite short staffed and it took ages to order. Not a problem, we made the most of our time by trying to book dining via the app. Well, after endless tries we were somewhat successful and have our dinners covered. Unfortunately by then Chops was already booked solid for the whole cruise so we only have one dinner there. We weren’t able to score a Mason Jar brunch reservation as it’s only open 4 times in 14 days ☹ Possibly due to staffing problems? To say I’m p***** is quite the understatement. With over 400 B2B cruisers, a few hundred Pinnacles and a forever sold-out UDP there’s only so much time you have until every slot is gone.
 
Lunch was a bit slow but other than that we really enjoyed it. I’ve apparently forgotten how to blog (or we were just starving that much?) that I mostly forgot to take pictures. I’ll try to improve in the future. For starters we shared the Meatball Gigante and the Calamari. Due to some hiccup in the kitchen we also got the Calabrese – funny enough this was the best of the 3 even if we didn’t order it. Michael went with Lasagna for his main and I tried Steak Muffuleta. Lasagna was meh or maybe just not what we’re used to. The steak was really enjoyable, just waaay too much. With dessert (Tiramisu and Go Bananas) we were completely stuffed.

 
We ended lunch about 2 pm and went to our cabin. We found all our luggage in the hallway and used the time to unpack. Met our staterrom attendant Igede and were able to order a kettle for Michael and distilled water for me. Our cabin has the bed next to the balcony – no idea if this is the better configuration or not. Writing this on day 2 I fear we may be spoiled already and can’t go back to an Interior cabin. Well, I have a few ideas about a Sky Junior Suite anyway – if Icon ever comes over to Europe… Between unpacking and dinner we managed to spend some time on the pool deck making the DBP magic work.

Dinner was at Izumi Sushi. We won’t be doing Hibachi this cruise as we feel it’s a been there, done that thing. For small plates we had the Pork Gyoza Dumplings and Crispy Rice Spicy Tuna – of course I forgot to take a picture 😋 Our large plates where (from left to right) Izumi Ryu Futomaki Roll, Crispy Philly Roll, Champagne Lobster Roll and Snow Crab California Roll. Three rolls were really good, only the Crispy Philly Roll was a bit boring. All in all, we had totally forgotten how much food you get at Izumi and food coma was already kicking in. For dessert we went with the German phrase „Eis geht immer“ (Icecream is always possible) and chose Assorted Mochi Ice Cream and Green Tea Ice Cream.

Tbh our food coma (and maybe sleep deprivation?) was so bad that we just went to the cabin and took a nap. We had a real hard time getting up for our inTENse reservation but boy were we glad we did. From our last transatlantic we had learned the hard way that you should reserve the Aqua show as early as possible. Hiro was postponed about a dozen times and the other Aqua show didn’t run once. The center seats were once again reserved for the Key guests, suites and Pinnacles with the exception of the center splash zone. I didn’t mind, because I was pretty sure the whole center seats might get wet. The fact that the reserved Star Class seats were quite a bit off center was a dead giveaway 😂 We thought inTENse was amazing, even more impressive than Hiro. Unfortunately the pictures don’t do it justice. We’ll maybe try to sneak in to the show again (time permitting), we‘re on deck 7 aft and there is a door that leads directly to some seats next to the rock climbing wall at the end of our corridor. We took a detour to guest services for the German cruise compass for tomorrow and to get our DBP cups – afterwards it was straight to bed.

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Due to some technical difficulties (and a lot of sleep deprivation) I’m a bit behind on the live portion of the blog. But we’re now in Palma de Mallorca and I have some time to catch up.
 
Saturday was as long and relentless as imagined. We had an early start at 5.45 am to walk the dog and round up the cats. After dropping off the cats we had some time to cuddle with Ronnie until we had to drop him off at the kennels. Back home we did make final preparations for our house and finished packing. We took our Covid tests at 2 pm and received the results 20 minutes later while we were already on the motorway. I have never felt soooo positive about being negative 😊
 
As this Saturday was the first day of the Bavarian autumn school holidays, we arrived at the airport very early (4.30 pm). Unfortunately, check in only opened at 6.30 pm. If you ever use Munich airport, try to take an airline that uses terminal 2 because terminal 1 doesn’t have anything to offer pre-security. We were lucky to find some seats. Post-security there is only one restaurant and it was nearly sold out – not too nice if you’re starving. Boarding was delayed by 20 minutes because the plane arrived late – but hey, at least it was there. We had booked the two seats in front of the emergency exit to not have to cuddle with strangers but were forced to give up our seats because they had additional crew on the flight that needed these seats. Due to this „inconvenience“ they switched us to a row with 3 seats where we could leave the middle seat empty – I count that as an upgrade 😉
 
European airports currently have a lot of problems with getting the luggage to its destination, so we were really happy that all our suitcases arrived with us in Barcelona. We did crosspack, but I prefer having everything I planned with. On this cruise are quite a few people who have arrived in Europe days or even a week in advance and their luggage is still lost who knows where.
 
Due to a late shuttle to the hotel and a waaay too looong queue at the reception we finally made it to our room after 1 am. No pictures of the hotel (Alexandre Frontair Congress) as it is really nothing to write home about – we chose it solely for convenience – being near the airport and offering a complimentary shuttle to the hotel. If you’re still on the fence about how cheap it is… this is the hotel that Royal booked for their incoming new crew for Wonder. We met a few guys in the shuttle who will be starting their contract with Royal on this transatlantic and the hotel had a looooong list of crew for Wonder that would be checking in that day – were talking at least a hundred people. I really felt sorry for the guys as they also got their room around 1 am and their shuttle to Wonder was 6.30 am. At least we would get a few more hours of sleep with our 10 am boarding time. But Sunday is a tale for another entry as we’re now off to lunch 😇

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣

Haha, didn't even realize it, I'm just so used to seeing him with the neon yellow leash. Unfortunately he can't be off leash because he LOVES hunting everything from mice to birds, rabbits and deer. Lucky for us he dearly loves his feline brothers.

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣

Haha, didn't even realize it, I'm just so used to seeing him with the neon yellow leash. Unfortunately he can't be off leash because he LOVES hunting everything from mice to birds, rabbits and deer. Lucky for us he dearly loves his feline brothers.

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣

Some of you might remember my last live blog from the Symphony TA. We were so happy with this cruise that we decided there and then to do the Oasis 5 TA. Unfortunately Royal announced Wonder would be going to Asia, so no TA. Instead, we booked an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey for 2021. And then Covid happened. Odyssey was first relocated to Israel and afterwards to the US, our cruise was cancelled. We used Lift & Shift to protect our price for an Eastern Med cruise on Odyssey in 2022 – thinking Covid would be over by then. Well, how wrong you can be… In April we finally gave up on that cruise as neither Italy, nor Greece or Israel were showing any signs of stopping the craziness. As Germans can only book with non refundable deposits, we were looking for alternatives – and stumbled upon the Wonder TA. So four years after our first Royal cruise, it’s finally happening again – and it’s the cruise we wanted all along!
 
Here are the basics of this trip:
Travelling will be me (Kerstin, 39f) and hubby Michael (38m). We’re in 7310, an Ocean View Balcony. Funny enough, this will be first time ever we’ll be in a Balcony, we’re usually Interior people but got the opportunity to jump from Interior Virtual Balcony to GTY Ocean View Balcony for a steal price of 27 €. We have purchased UDP, DBP and Voom Surf & Stream.
This cruise brings us from Barcelona via Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Cartagena, Malaga and Nassau to Port Canaveral. We have planned nothing for the port days. If we’re in the mood we’ll just get off the ship and walk around town, if not, we’ll just stay on board and enjoy the empty ship.
Saturday will be a loooong day. Drop the 5 cats at the cat hotel at 8 am, drop the dog at the kennel at 11 am, take Covid tests and drive to Munich airport for our 8.55 pm flight to Barcelona. We’ll be arriving at 11.05 pm and have chosen the Alexandre Hotel Frontair Congress because they offer a shuttle and it isn’t far from the airport. Our boarding time is 10 am on Sunday which leaves us no time to do anything in Barcelona, but been there, done that… For disembarkation in Port Canaveral we’ve rented a car and will be spending a week in Florida essentially doing a road trip.
 
Last but not least, time to introduce the only good thing that came out of Covid (apart from this cruise of course 😆) – our newest addition to the family. This is Ronnie on our summer trip to Sweden with the RV. He’s a Romanian rescue dog of unknown breeding, history and age (approximates say 2 to 4 years). Thanks to Covid we can now mostly work from home and have enough time to do him justice. Even without Covid restrictions we’re only required to meet in the office once a month so it’s easy to make sure he’s not home alone. Only hard thing will be not seeing him for three weeks 😭 The cats are used to spending their vacation at the cat hotel, but we take Ronnie with us on our RV trips. He has been practicing by staying at the kennel for a few days twice so I’m sure he’ll be fine.
 

So in the spirit of live blogging, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, take pictures and keep this as ‘live’ as the DBP allows 🤣