shady

Sorry, a few days late in getting this out 😉
September 2023
3 - Crusin and Boozin (Allure)
3 - Snotarni (Wonder)
7 - shady (Liberty)
8 - mutantsfornukes (Independence)
9 - CruiseMsclDad (Mariner)
10 - AKM (Explorer)
14 - YOLO (Jewel)
16 - SuperStarian (Harmony)
24 - Mike.s (Explorer)
24 - A and M (Oasis)
29 - Snotarni (Independence)

Please add:

September 7 - Liberty of the Seas

After the tour ended we walked along the Halifax Waterfront towards the Maritime Museum. This is a really nice area with restaurants, coffee shops, and lots of photo op areas. We got lunch here. It was once again, delicious! 

The last two hours or so since we have been back on board, kids and Hubby went to do the slides and FlowRider. This is the first “nice weather” day we have had since Wednesday in NYC. It was steady rain both Thursday and Friday and cold too. 
We are switching it up tonight. Going to see “Encore! An Ice Spectacular” at 7pm and then keep it casual and have dinner in the WJ afterwards. No one is hungry right now anyway. We had a great eating day in Boston! 

Thank you!

No because I did not think that we could bring food back on board….please don’t tell me that I could have because there were so many other cannoli flavours that I wanted to try out! 
 
If there is anything specific you want me to find out, don’t hesitate to ask. We might get a Lobster roll in Portland too. But the ones in Quincy Market looked so good today we could not pass it up. 
 
Hmm…you learn something new everyday. 🙂

@Lovetocruise2002. My mom and I are on the next 9 night Canada and New England sailing on Liberty on September 7, so I've been following your live blog.
One of my must dos for the cruise is getting a lobster roll in Portland. I hadn't even thought of getting one at Quincy Market. Thanks for the tip!

@Lovetocruise2002. My mom and I are on the next 9 night Canada and New England sailing on Liberty on September 7, so I've been following your live blog.
One of my must dos for the cruise is getting a lobster roll in Portland. I hadn't even thought of getting one at Quincy Market. Thanks for the tip!

@NoobCruise Thank you so much for posting this! I haven't watched the whole video but I will. Although I am sailing on a different ship this fall, I have both gluten-free & lactose-free dietary restrictions (actually I am on a Low FODMAP diet, which includes, among other restrictions, gluten free and lactose free). I keep seeing people talk about dining gluten free onboard, never gluten free AND lactose free. So I'm very interested in your travel party's experience.

@NoobCruise Thank you so much for posting this! I haven't watched the whole video but I will. Although I am sailing on a different ship this fall, I have both gluten-free & lactose-free dietary restrictions (actually I am on a Low FODMAP diet, which includes, among other restrictions, gluten free and lactose free). I keep seeing people talk about dining gluten free onboard, never gluten free AND lactose free. So I'm very interested in your travel party's experience.

Here is my comprehensive video review of Wonder of the Seas in 2023. I review the drink package, unlimited dining package, WoW bands, ports of call, and much much more.  Enjoy.
If you don't want to watch it I can sum it up that we will continue to happily cruise with Royal Caribbean. 
 
 

http://www.cruiseliberty.com/directions_parking.html?fbclid=IwAR2YOVN7U3325SXjfjRfgF3cb9HQiBjOXFInoT_UtA6Ws7qteBuRx2g9F6o
It's finally happening.  The price is going from $25 a day to $30 a day.
Effective May 1st, 2023

Thanks, @WesKinetic and @Ampurp85, for the info. I was expecting the fees to be high but that is crazy! I will definitely be bringing cash and hopefully won't need to use the ATM or the casino.

Thanks, @WesKinetic and @Ampurp85, for the info. I was expecting the fees to be high but that is crazy! I will definitely be bringing cash and hopefully won't need to use the ATM or the casino.

Liberty of the Seas August 20-27
In an attempt to contribute to the website that helped me so much in preparing for our first cruise in over a decade, I would to offer a review of our cruise this week.  Hubby is on a fishing excursion this morning in Cozumel and I stayed on board to relax, document some memories and keep an eye on the news regarding Hurricane Harvey.
I will divide my comments into these sections: 
We are very happy with .........
Happy we were prepared regarding ........
The pleasant surprises we encountered......
There were a few disappointments............

We are very happy with .........
Our decision to spend the extra money on the Junior Suite Stateroom.  Our original intent was to try a Balcony stateroom.  After a closer look we decided to spend the extra money on the Junior Suite.  It was around $800 more total and it was the best "extra" money we spent on this cruise. We booked only 5 weeks prior to the cruise so I have no idea if this is the norm or if this was a clearance sale.  Regardless, the extra space and expedited boarding process was so worth it.Our stateroom was port side and in Roatan and Costa Maya we had view of the port which was nice.  
Picture of suite below
The Behind the Scenes tour overall was fantastic!  There were a few boring segments and I do feel it is overpriced, but the view from the bridge and the information learned in the control room made up for it (at least for these two nerds).  It was also interesting learning where the crew lived and played and that they have their own gym and disco! ( we only walked the first deck corridor but saw maps of where everything crew-related is located).
Picture of voyage stat sheet and ship directory including crew areas blow
Our favorite spot was the very front of the ship on deck 5.   It is almost spiritual as you stand there viewing the vast waters in front of you and feel the strength of the wind as it whips by. 
Picture of ship front below
The Solarium pool is a sanctuary!  Kid free and lots of shade made hubby happy and the bar tender served him while we were in the pool. The photographer was even there on day 2 and captured a great picture of us together in the pool. 
The All Inclusive Digital Photo Package. I remember the package was offered at around $249 in the Cruise Planner, but thanks to a post I read on this site I knew it might be the one thing that was cheaper on board. Sure enough the price dropped to $196 up until day 3.  For a couple who don't get many photo ops of them together, we had a lot of fun seeking out all the booths. We will have around 150 pictures of us by the end and it takes that many for us to get a handful of perfect poses to share.  The BIG SURPRISE was that once we bought the package you can download the images immediately and start sharing with the crew back home while you are still on board. 
So far I have not experienced any sea sickness. ( I am one who gets motion sickness very easily in a car or on a lake.). We have yet to sail home behind Harvey but the Bonine I took on Day 3 of our slightly rocky ride kept things in check!  I have also been taking a daily supplement of Ginger a Root at the insistence of my mother.  
Staff has been great!  Our stateroom attendant was quick to supply an extension cord for my CPAP machine.  (There are no electrical outlets on the headboard side of the bed.). I only had to ask once and fresh ice was in our room twice a day.)

Scheduled to leave YYZ at 930am. Scheduled to arrive at FLL at 1215pm.
 
At about noon we are cleared for approach. Then we go into a holding pattern for an hour due to t-storms in Fort Lauderdale. After an hour of left turns we are almost out of fuel. We have to land at MCO for jet fuel and to wait out the storm.
 
We landed safely but by the time our bags were off the carousel it was 4pm.  If we were flying in the day of departure we would have missed the ship!

It definitely sounds less than pleasant, but I'm glad you were satisfied with the outcome and that your TA was able to help you.
I wholeheartedly agree about using a TA! I will never take a cruise without using a TA because mine has been so great (she's from MEI Travel, btw). She possibly saved my cruise already. That's the most notable of a number of wonderful things she's done for me. I noticed a few months ago that Royal had my birthdate wrong. It was just one day off, so probably someone was typing fast and didn't notice the error. My TA got it fixed very quickly. If she hadn't gotten it fixed, I was worried that Royal might have been able to deny my entrance onto the ship because my (correct) birthdate on my passport wouldn't have matched their records. Maybe I could've fixed it later during online check-in or they could've fixed it at the port. But I'll never know because my TA understood my concern and handled it right away.

I thought I'd share my observations on our recently-completed cruise as first-time RCI customers. 
We sailed out of Galveston on board Liberty of the Seas on Sunday, July 23rd. Embarkation was painless. I dropped my family (wife and three kids) off at the terminal at about 10:15, parked right across the street at Cruise Park, then made my way back. At this point, there were quite a few people at the dock already (plus some stragglers still making their way off the ship and being picked up), but not enough people that the security and check-in lines were backed up yet. We walked right through. We didn't have to wait on anything until we got upstairs at about 10:45. Since this was our first RC cruise, our status was peasant-level, so once the boarding started at 11:00 we had several groups ahead of us before our group was called at 11:30. Then we were on the ship. We knew there would be a little bit of waiting so we were prepared with games, so this wasn't a problem. We decided if we did it again, we'd do the same thing again and get to the port early and wait in the upstairs waiting area in chairs as opposed to arriving later and waiting in longer lines.
Our first order of business on the ship was to sign our kids up for the teen activities. We have one 11-year-old who was hoping to spend the week with his older brothers as opposed to alone in the younger group. We met with a counselor who said this wouldn't be a problem since our son was within six months of his 12th birthday and was big enough to pass as a 12-year-old. He got them all registered, and we were off to Windjammer for lunch. 
This was our first mistake of the cruise. Everyone else had the same idea apparently. The place was a zoo, and there wasn't an empty seat to be found anywhere. We were forced to take our plates out to the tables by the splash zone. A bit later we swung by Sorrento's in the Royal Promenade and were surprised to find it and the Cafe Promenade comparatively deserted. Next cruise, we'll definitely just plan on lunch in the Promenade and skip the zoo upstairs.  We did most breakfasts and lunches in the Windjammer for the rest of the week and never had another issue finding room to sit down. We loved breakfasts in the Windjammer. We tried the MDR once for breakfast, but it took so long and the food was close to what you could get in the buffet, so we stuck with the buffet. Same with lunch.
Our second mistake of the cruise was to take the tour of the spa in the hopes of winning the drawing for spa credits. We weren't planning on using the spa, but we figured if we could get something free, why not try? So they gave us the tour, we got our entry for the drawing, and we were back after the muster drill (must be present to win!). It was then that they informed us that the prizes they were giving away were only good for port days. So much for that. We already had plans those days. So we left. 
We took all our dinners in the MDR, with my parents, so a party of seven. We showed up our first night and were escorted to a beautiful table by the window. With places set for six. Our waiter was puzzled that we were assigned to that table and claimed not to have known we were a party of seven. It was all rather odd since we had linked our reservations and all of our cards indicated that table. I'm not sure where the count on RC's end got fouled up. They kept us at that table, so dinners were very cozy. If our kids had been any bigger, I don't think it would have worked out. 
Our kids loved dinners in the dining room. They're all picky eaters but managed to find things they liked. Two of them had a standing shrimp cocktail order for each day. One quickly became enamored with the Royal Chocolate Cake with a side of chocolate ice cream. For me, the food wasn't anything over-the-top spectacular, but it wasn't bad either. I got to try a lot of things that I don't have often (shrimp, lobster, duck, lamb, etc.) and they were all good enough that they were enjoyable. On lobster night, we ended up with more lobster tails at our table than we knew what to do with. Our head waitress was very good about bringing out entrees or other things for us to try without anyone even ordering them, just because she thought someone might have been interested in it. 
Activities on the ship kept us plenty busy. Our kids had their hands full with teen activities, slides, flowrider, rock climbing, etc., and we kept busy with trivia, napkin and towel folding, people-watching, etc. The belly flop competition was a big hit. One complaint our kids did have about the teen activities was the lack of adult oversight in some situations. For the most part, they were allowed to do their own things and govern themselves, which in some ways is good. But other times, like when they're supposed to be playing a game with actual rules, our boys got frustrated when the other kids didn't follow the rules of the game (or didn't know how to play) and so they just winged it. There wasn't much direction in those cases.
If you're on Liberty, I recommend going to any event/activity emceed by Fritz from Philly. He's very entertaining and was a favorite of the whole family. If our 11-year-old learned anything on this cruise, it was how to make a bikini out of linen napkins.
A couple of ship-related complaints. The ship seemed crowded. Granted, it was sailing at capacity during a busy time of year. But thinking back to our first cruise (aboard Star Princess to Alaska at the same time of year), my wife and I couldn't recall feeling "crowded" at any point during that week. We definitely noticed it this week. Our second complaint was related - the elevators were terribly slow. Sixteen elevators and it seemed we always waited an eternity for one. The plus side is we got a lot more exercise than we had anticipated. But being on Deck 2, when it came time for breakfast or lunch, or pool time, not all of us felt like hiking it up to Deck 11. It seemed like we wasted a lot of time waiting for an elevator.
Aside from that, the ship was great. We saw shows in the Platinum Theater and Studio B and enjoyed both venues. We actually got front-row seats for the ice skating show, which was kinda weird when you could reach out and literally touch the performers if you wanted to (I practiced restraint). The rest of the ship was immaculate. The crew does a great job of keeping everything neat and tidy, and working around you as best as they can.
We had connecting rooms with ice delivered each day to both rooms as requested, and towel animals each night (except the first one, I think). The boys loved getting to our rooms after dinner to see what animal was hanging out on their bed that night.
Disembarkation/embarkation for port days was easy. I was expecting lines but we never really ran into any worth mentioning. We'd leave the ship as soon as we got the all-clear and there was never a big rush of people. 
In Roatan, we went to Little French Key and hung out at the beach. I'd recommend this spot if you're looking for a low-key yet beautiful place to relax. We brought our own goggles and swam around looking at the fish, and even spotted an octopus. My kids have never done any snorkeling or deep ocean swimming or anything like that so we were content to just stay close to shore and see what we could see there. The water was crystal clear - as clear as the swimming pool back home. 
In Costa Maya, we elected to do the Mayan Experience tour with Native Choice tours. I highly recommend this tour if you have the chance. They take you in modern vans to the Chacchoben Mayan ruins, with an experienced guide explaining the ruins and surrounding area, plants, and history. Then you're taken to a Mayan town where you're fed a traditional meal, after you help make your own corn tortilla over a fire. This was a great way for us to show our kids how some of the rest of the world lives. It's not a tourist town and there are no gift shops in this village. You get a very real sense of what this part of Mexico is all about. 
In Cozumel, my wife got to fulfill her lifelong dream of swimming with the dolphins. We were fortunate to book an early time (Dolphin Discovery, Chankanaab), because by the time we were done and eating lunch, a thunderstorm had rolled through and the later swimming times were postponed or cancelled. We felt very lucky. If you're planning to do the dolphin swim and want to buy pictures, be ready to haggle or pay through the nose. I'm not super-big on haggling but I didn't want to pay full-price either. So I low-balled them with a number, they went to "talk to their manager," and came back with a number I could live with.
On disembarkation day (sniff sob sniff), we went up to Windjammer for breakfast then headed back to our rooms to wait for our time to leave. We decided to do the self-carry disembarkation, since the group we were assigned to was supposed to be one of the last off the ship and we wanted to get on the road earlier than that. We left at about 8:40, were off the ship in seconds, but then got tied up in the customs line. I don't know if this was typical or not, but the line was VERY slow. We didn't get through customs until about 10:00. I jaunted over to the Cruise Park lot, got our van, and we were on the road back home. 
All in all, we had a great time. Our boys loved cruising.  We love not having to pack up to get to the next city. I'm sure we'll be cruising again. But I don't think we were so blown away by our experience this week that we're now RC devotees. I think our next trip or two will still be determined more by itinerary and scheduling than cruise line. But RC certainly didn't do anything to scare us away if the stars align for them next time, either.
In closing, thanks for all the tips offered here on this forum. I got a lot of useful information here and it all helped make the week go smoothly. Happy sailing!

I'd say mine is going to be the first drink I have on my very first cruise! (Non alcoholic, of course)

My wife loves the Miami Vice. Half Pina Colada, half Strawberry Daquiri, All tasty. Don't have a particular fave myself.

I got a response back within a day that they will have a jug of distilled water and an extension cord for my CPAP!

If this is something you need for medical equipment such as a CPAP machine you can complete the RCCL special needs form. They will usually confirm back to you within a couple of days. They will have the water and an extension cord in your cabin when you get there. Here's a link to the form:
https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/allaboutcruising/guestSpecialNeeds.do

Pre-Cruise & Day One Photos:

 
Saturn V Rocket

 
Faith 7 Mercury Spacecraft flown by Gordon Cooper 

 
Apollo 17 Command Module - Final Lunar Mission of Apollo Program

 
Space Shuttle Gantry

 
Space Shuttle Replica Independence and Boeing 747 Transport Plane

 
Day One 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Here is a an interest article about Apollo 13 written by my best friends' father, Jerry Woodfill.  The neighbor he refers to was my dad.
Apollo 13.pdf