KWong

@KWong, check out this thread from @CHRIS WONG. He's currently working for Royal and one of his earlier vlogs discusses how he gets paid and what the company covers for him while on board. You can go to his YouTube page from that thread and then go through his list of vlog posts.
 

Definitely Battle of the Planets and Robotech for me, although as a kid I was confused when Rick and Minmei disappeared and they switched to the Masters and New Generation episodes.
Was also a big fan of Transformers. Probably makes sense, right?

Interesting. I thought I saw most / all of the adapted anime from that time period when I was growing up, but I clearly missed one. ? The big ones from the 70s/early 80s for me as a kid were Battle of the Planets (originally Gatchaman), Star Blazers (orig Space Battleship Yamato), Robotech Macross Saga, and Speed Racer.
I was only active on Usenet for a couple of years in college as I recall, and then only for a few of the alt.rec forums around RPG groups and such. By the time I was using the internet regularly, Usenet was kind of on the way out and AOL was fast becoming the place to go. ?

Welcome!

It's actually from an anime from the late 70's/early 80's. It was called Getter Robo G in Japan but adapted over here as Starvengers. 
I started using the handle on Usenet, if you can believe it. 

Having seen the care with which the porters outside the terminal treat the bags, I'm not sure you want to leave it in checked baggage anyway.

I've done a few posts already, but figured I'd formally introduce myself.
I'm Kevin, and I also go by "starvenger" or "starvenger88" on other boards. I am a Hong Kong Canadian currently living in the Toronto area with my wife and 2 girls, and we love to travel! Not just cruises, but resorts and various places across North America and Europe. 
Hopefully I can provide some entertaining and informative posts for you.

I've done a few posts already, but figured I'd formally introduce myself.
I'm Kevin, and I also go by "starvenger" or "starvenger88" on other boards. I am a Hong Kong Canadian currently living in the Toronto area with my wife and 2 girls, and we love to travel! Not just cruises, but resorts and various places across North America and Europe. 
Hopefully I can provide some entertaining and informative posts for you.

Having seen the care with which the porters outside the terminal treat the bags, I'm not sure you want to leave it in checked baggage anyway.

I've done a few posts already, but figured I'd formally introduce myself.
I'm Kevin, and I also go by "starvenger" or "starvenger88" on other boards. I am a Hong Kong Canadian currently living in the Toronto area with my wife and 2 girls, and we love to travel! Not just cruises, but resorts and various places across North America and Europe. 
Hopefully I can provide some entertaining and informative posts for you.

I've definitely experienced hangover regret in my lifetime. Thankfully never on a boat.

This is all really good info, thank you all so much!

I think any one of the hotels in that 17th street cluster will suit your needs. I prefer the Hyatt Place myself - rooms are for 4, but could easily fit 8 - and like Embassy Suites and Holiday Inn Express it's close to a large cluster of restaurants, plus a Publix, Total Wine, Ross and Dollar Store for those "I forgot to pack" options. And wine. Price is $130/night in the late spring/summer if you go through a 3rd party site (don't know what board policy is on mentioning other sites, so not naming it here).
All of these places are a short taxi/Uber ride away from port. No shortage of those going around the area on cruise mornings.

We start trip at 2 o’clock after work on 12/31. Will met daughter and granddaughter on January 1 and fly from Baltimore on January 2. As you can see I’m beyond excited. YOLO has special meaning to me. I have been in remission for 2 years.

So a while back I started posting my cruise reports on the DISboards. And I figured that since I'm trying to be more active here that I might try and to a little cross posting. Hope you enjoy!
(Note: When I do these things I write. A lot. I try to inject humour (and pics/gifs) into what amounts to a very long essay, and that seems to break up the monotony.)
Usually, my go-to cruise time is in the summer. Given that I have kids, this makes sense, as I don’t have to deal with any issues associated with missing class during the semester. And yet, here I am, doing a pre-cruise post about a cruise in January. Why? Well, there’s a long story associated with taking this cruise.

On my last cruise, part of a restroom ended up on top of my wife’s foot. While not serious (my wife might disagree), Royal did express concern - consistently - for the rest of the trip. They offered a few incentives to my wife, who decided not to accept any of them. But, at the end of our cruise, they gave us future cruise certificate of roughly $450 CDN to apply to another cruise. So after some clarification as to how the application worked (they agreed that we simply needed to apply the certificate to a cruise prior to the 1 year expiry date), we booked a 4 night Navigator of the Seas cruise out of Miami for January 2020.

Now, you’ll notice that the title of this report says Independence, not Navigator. And that is because in early January 2019 we received the bad news that our cruise had been chartered. For the “Friendship Festival Cruise”, which appears to be an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival. We were given the option of moving to the cruise immediately following, but being a bit wary of boarding after a charter cruise, we decided to book Independence for a 5 night out of Fort Lauderdale instead. For rebooking, we received $200 OBC + $75 based on the booking offers at the time.

Ordinarily, you’d think that this would be the end of it, but in March my TA sent me an email saying that my Independence cruise had been chartered - this time for “70,000 Tons of Metal”. Which is an amazing name for a theme cruise, so kudos to them.

This time, the offer allowed us to rebook to a 5 night preceding the metal cruise, and given that this fit our schedule better (kids only miss a couple of school days), we decided to take it. As with the previous cancellation, we received an additional $200 OBC. $475 in OBC is a lot, even after you subtract gratuities from that amount.

Hopefully nothing else delays or cancels this trip. Like, say, 12 inches of snow.

Ahem. Moving on.

Flights
As per usual, I start looking at flights once I get my cruise booked or they become available, whichever comes last. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I hadn’t booked a flight at the time of cancellations, although I would’ve gotten a change fee credit from Royal if I had booked flights. But the less paperwork the better.

The interesting part about the flights to FLL from Toronto was that departures were cheaper on New Year’s Eve (would be a 2 night stay in Florida) than New Year’s Day (1 night stay). Conversely, hotels were more expensive on New Year’s Eve. Go figure. So it was a bit of a dilemma, but this was resolved in part by my starting a new job, and not having any vacation for the end of year. And thus, we are leaving New Year’s Day, and just staying the one night before the cruise.
Hotels
I’m currently booked at one of the more popular cruise hotels, Hyatt Place 17th Street. As usual, I booked via Valuetrips, although the discount at this time of year is not as large as it is in the summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better deal, but the proximity to various restaurants, shops, grocery stores and Port Everglades made it an appealing place to stay.

Excursions
The cruise has two stops - Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We’ve been to Grand Cayman once, off Disney Fantasy, and it was a fun beach day along seven mile. Well except for the part where my brother went into the water with his phone in his pocket. Good times.

This time around, we are doing something we wouldn’t normally do - swimming with stingrays. After doing my research, I decided to sign up with the well regarded Stingray Sailing and their sister company, Cayman Eco Adventures. Both appear to be focused on small tours (max 25 people) and being kind to the rays, which seems quite appealing to me.

For Cozumel, we currently have no plans. With only one other boat docked with us, We will probably try out Paradise Beach, since they have a low entry fee and a $10pp minimum food charge.

Onboard
Neither my wife nor I are big drinkers, and as a result the drink package isn’t something that provides a lot of value for us. The argument could be made that one could also find value by purchasing coffees, juices and bottled water in addition to alcoholic beverages. And you’d be right, but here’s the thing - without the package there isn’t much incentive to buy bottled water or fresh squeezed juices. Coffee… well, maybe, and to that end I’ve purchased the coffee card, as we can take that with us onto Symphony in the summer if there are still unused credits. 

We did purchase the photo package (Black Friday discount). Hopefully I’ll be able to include some of the shots, but time will tell.

Boarding will be a different experience. I checked in via the app, and thus have Expedited Arrival privileges. It will be my first time with this, and I’m excited to try this out.

Our room is a 1D Oceanview Balcony. We will be right by the “bump” on the ship so I expect some of our peripheral view to be a bit obstructed but we shall see. I did put in a RoyalUp bid for a Suite, at the minimum cost, and we’ll see if that’s accepted. It be nice if it was, but I'm not counting on it.

For now, it’s less than one week until we get on that plane. Can't wait.

So a while back I started posting my cruise reports on the DISboards. And I figured that since I'm trying to be more active here that I might try and to a little cross posting. Hope you enjoy!
(Note: When I do these things I write. A lot. I try to inject humour (and pics/gifs) into what amounts to a very long essay, and that seems to break up the monotony.)
Usually, my go-to cruise time is in the summer. Given that I have kids, this makes sense, as I don’t have to deal with any issues associated with missing class during the semester. And yet, here I am, doing a pre-cruise post about a cruise in January. Why? Well, there’s a long story associated with taking this cruise.

On my last cruise, part of a restroom ended up on top of my wife’s foot. While not serious (my wife might disagree), Royal did express concern - consistently - for the rest of the trip. They offered a few incentives to my wife, who decided not to accept any of them. But, at the end of our cruise, they gave us future cruise certificate of roughly $450 CDN to apply to another cruise. So after some clarification as to how the application worked (they agreed that we simply needed to apply the certificate to a cruise prior to the 1 year expiry date), we booked a 4 night Navigator of the Seas cruise out of Miami for January 2020.

Now, you’ll notice that the title of this report says Independence, not Navigator. And that is because in early January 2019 we received the bad news that our cruise had been chartered. For the “Friendship Festival Cruise”, which appears to be an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival. We were given the option of moving to the cruise immediately following, but being a bit wary of boarding after a charter cruise, we decided to book Independence for a 5 night out of Fort Lauderdale instead. For rebooking, we received $200 OBC + $75 based on the booking offers at the time.

Ordinarily, you’d think that this would be the end of it, but in March my TA sent me an email saying that my Independence cruise had been chartered - this time for “70,000 Tons of Metal”. Which is an amazing name for a theme cruise, so kudos to them.

This time, the offer allowed us to rebook to a 5 night preceding the metal cruise, and given that this fit our schedule better (kids only miss a couple of school days), we decided to take it. As with the previous cancellation, we received an additional $200 OBC. $475 in OBC is a lot, even after you subtract gratuities from that amount.

Hopefully nothing else delays or cancels this trip. Like, say, 12 inches of snow.

Ahem. Moving on.

Flights
As per usual, I start looking at flights once I get my cruise booked or they become available, whichever comes last. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I hadn’t booked a flight at the time of cancellations, although I would’ve gotten a change fee credit from Royal if I had booked flights. But the less paperwork the better.

The interesting part about the flights to FLL from Toronto was that departures were cheaper on New Year’s Eve (would be a 2 night stay in Florida) than New Year’s Day (1 night stay). Conversely, hotels were more expensive on New Year’s Eve. Go figure. So it was a bit of a dilemma, but this was resolved in part by my starting a new job, and not having any vacation for the end of year. And thus, we are leaving New Year’s Day, and just staying the one night before the cruise.
Hotels
I’m currently booked at one of the more popular cruise hotels, Hyatt Place 17th Street. As usual, I booked via Valuetrips, although the discount at this time of year is not as large as it is in the summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better deal, but the proximity to various restaurants, shops, grocery stores and Port Everglades made it an appealing place to stay.

Excursions
The cruise has two stops - Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We’ve been to Grand Cayman once, off Disney Fantasy, and it was a fun beach day along seven mile. Well except for the part where my brother went into the water with his phone in his pocket. Good times.

This time around, we are doing something we wouldn’t normally do - swimming with stingrays. After doing my research, I decided to sign up with the well regarded Stingray Sailing and their sister company, Cayman Eco Adventures. Both appear to be focused on small tours (max 25 people) and being kind to the rays, which seems quite appealing to me.

For Cozumel, we currently have no plans. With only one other boat docked with us, We will probably try out Paradise Beach, since they have a low entry fee and a $10pp minimum food charge.

Onboard
Neither my wife nor I are big drinkers, and as a result the drink package isn’t something that provides a lot of value for us. The argument could be made that one could also find value by purchasing coffees, juices and bottled water in addition to alcoholic beverages. And you’d be right, but here’s the thing - without the package there isn’t much incentive to buy bottled water or fresh squeezed juices. Coffee… well, maybe, and to that end I’ve purchased the coffee card, as we can take that with us onto Symphony in the summer if there are still unused credits. 

We did purchase the photo package (Black Friday discount). Hopefully I’ll be able to include some of the shots, but time will tell.

Boarding will be a different experience. I checked in via the app, and thus have Expedited Arrival privileges. It will be my first time with this, and I’m excited to try this out.

Our room is a 1D Oceanview Balcony. We will be right by the “bump” on the ship so I expect some of our peripheral view to be a bit obstructed but we shall see. I did put in a RoyalUp bid for a Suite, at the minimum cost, and we’ll see if that’s accepted. It be nice if it was, but I'm not counting on it.

For now, it’s less than one week until we get on that plane. Can't wait.

So a while back I started posting my cruise reports on the DISboards. And I figured that since I'm trying to be more active here that I might try and to a little cross posting. Hope you enjoy!
(Note: When I do these things I write. A lot. I try to inject humour (and pics/gifs) into what amounts to a very long essay, and that seems to break up the monotony.)
Usually, my go-to cruise time is in the summer. Given that I have kids, this makes sense, as I don’t have to deal with any issues associated with missing class during the semester. And yet, here I am, doing a pre-cruise post about a cruise in January. Why? Well, there’s a long story associated with taking this cruise.

On my last cruise, part of a restroom ended up on top of my wife’s foot. While not serious (my wife might disagree), Royal did express concern - consistently - for the rest of the trip. They offered a few incentives to my wife, who decided not to accept any of them. But, at the end of our cruise, they gave us future cruise certificate of roughly $450 CDN to apply to another cruise. So after some clarification as to how the application worked (they agreed that we simply needed to apply the certificate to a cruise prior to the 1 year expiry date), we booked a 4 night Navigator of the Seas cruise out of Miami for January 2020.

Now, you’ll notice that the title of this report says Independence, not Navigator. And that is because in early January 2019 we received the bad news that our cruise had been chartered. For the “Friendship Festival Cruise”, which appears to be an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival. We were given the option of moving to the cruise immediately following, but being a bit wary of boarding after a charter cruise, we decided to book Independence for a 5 night out of Fort Lauderdale instead. For rebooking, we received $200 OBC + $75 based on the booking offers at the time.

Ordinarily, you’d think that this would be the end of it, but in March my TA sent me an email saying that my Independence cruise had been chartered - this time for “70,000 Tons of Metal”. Which is an amazing name for a theme cruise, so kudos to them.

This time, the offer allowed us to rebook to a 5 night preceding the metal cruise, and given that this fit our schedule better (kids only miss a couple of school days), we decided to take it. As with the previous cancellation, we received an additional $200 OBC. $475 in OBC is a lot, even after you subtract gratuities from that amount.

Hopefully nothing else delays or cancels this trip. Like, say, 12 inches of snow.

Ahem. Moving on.

Flights
As per usual, I start looking at flights once I get my cruise booked or they become available, whichever comes last. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I hadn’t booked a flight at the time of cancellations, although I would’ve gotten a change fee credit from Royal if I had booked flights. But the less paperwork the better.

The interesting part about the flights to FLL from Toronto was that departures were cheaper on New Year’s Eve (would be a 2 night stay in Florida) than New Year’s Day (1 night stay). Conversely, hotels were more expensive on New Year’s Eve. Go figure. So it was a bit of a dilemma, but this was resolved in part by my starting a new job, and not having any vacation for the end of year. And thus, we are leaving New Year’s Day, and just staying the one night before the cruise.
Hotels
I’m currently booked at one of the more popular cruise hotels, Hyatt Place 17th Street. As usual, I booked via Valuetrips, although the discount at this time of year is not as large as it is in the summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better deal, but the proximity to various restaurants, shops, grocery stores and Port Everglades made it an appealing place to stay.

Excursions
The cruise has two stops - Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We’ve been to Grand Cayman once, off Disney Fantasy, and it was a fun beach day along seven mile. Well except for the part where my brother went into the water with his phone in his pocket. Good times.

This time around, we are doing something we wouldn’t normally do - swimming with stingrays. After doing my research, I decided to sign up with the well regarded Stingray Sailing and their sister company, Cayman Eco Adventures. Both appear to be focused on small tours (max 25 people) and being kind to the rays, which seems quite appealing to me.

For Cozumel, we currently have no plans. With only one other boat docked with us, We will probably try out Paradise Beach, since they have a low entry fee and a $10pp minimum food charge.

Onboard
Neither my wife nor I are big drinkers, and as a result the drink package isn’t something that provides a lot of value for us. The argument could be made that one could also find value by purchasing coffees, juices and bottled water in addition to alcoholic beverages. And you’d be right, but here’s the thing - without the package there isn’t much incentive to buy bottled water or fresh squeezed juices. Coffee… well, maybe, and to that end I’ve purchased the coffee card, as we can take that with us onto Symphony in the summer if there are still unused credits. 

We did purchase the photo package (Black Friday discount). Hopefully I’ll be able to include some of the shots, but time will tell.

Boarding will be a different experience. I checked in via the app, and thus have Expedited Arrival privileges. It will be my first time with this, and I’m excited to try this out.

Our room is a 1D Oceanview Balcony. We will be right by the “bump” on the ship so I expect some of our peripheral view to be a bit obstructed but we shall see. I did put in a RoyalUp bid for a Suite, at the minimum cost, and we’ll see if that’s accepted. It be nice if it was, but I'm not counting on it.

For now, it’s less than one week until we get on that plane. Can't wait.

So a while back I started posting my cruise reports on the DISboards. And I figured that since I'm trying to be more active here that I might try and to a little cross posting. Hope you enjoy!
(Note: When I do these things I write. A lot. I try to inject humour (and pics/gifs) into what amounts to a very long essay, and that seems to break up the monotony.)
Usually, my go-to cruise time is in the summer. Given that I have kids, this makes sense, as I don’t have to deal with any issues associated with missing class during the semester. And yet, here I am, doing a pre-cruise post about a cruise in January. Why? Well, there’s a long story associated with taking this cruise.

On my last cruise, part of a restroom ended up on top of my wife’s foot. While not serious (my wife might disagree), Royal did express concern - consistently - for the rest of the trip. They offered a few incentives to my wife, who decided not to accept any of them. But, at the end of our cruise, they gave us future cruise certificate of roughly $450 CDN to apply to another cruise. So after some clarification as to how the application worked (they agreed that we simply needed to apply the certificate to a cruise prior to the 1 year expiry date), we booked a 4 night Navigator of the Seas cruise out of Miami for January 2020.

Now, you’ll notice that the title of this report says Independence, not Navigator. And that is because in early January 2019 we received the bad news that our cruise had been chartered. For the “Friendship Festival Cruise”, which appears to be an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival. We were given the option of moving to the cruise immediately following, but being a bit wary of boarding after a charter cruise, we decided to book Independence for a 5 night out of Fort Lauderdale instead. For rebooking, we received $200 OBC + $75 based on the booking offers at the time.

Ordinarily, you’d think that this would be the end of it, but in March my TA sent me an email saying that my Independence cruise had been chartered - this time for “70,000 Tons of Metal”. Which is an amazing name for a theme cruise, so kudos to them.

This time, the offer allowed us to rebook to a 5 night preceding the metal cruise, and given that this fit our schedule better (kids only miss a couple of school days), we decided to take it. As with the previous cancellation, we received an additional $200 OBC. $475 in OBC is a lot, even after you subtract gratuities from that amount.

Hopefully nothing else delays or cancels this trip. Like, say, 12 inches of snow.

Ahem. Moving on.

Flights
As per usual, I start looking at flights once I get my cruise booked or they become available, whichever comes last. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I hadn’t booked a flight at the time of cancellations, although I would’ve gotten a change fee credit from Royal if I had booked flights. But the less paperwork the better.

The interesting part about the flights to FLL from Toronto was that departures were cheaper on New Year’s Eve (would be a 2 night stay in Florida) than New Year’s Day (1 night stay). Conversely, hotels were more expensive on New Year’s Eve. Go figure. So it was a bit of a dilemma, but this was resolved in part by my starting a new job, and not having any vacation for the end of year. And thus, we are leaving New Year’s Day, and just staying the one night before the cruise.
Hotels
I’m currently booked at one of the more popular cruise hotels, Hyatt Place 17th Street. As usual, I booked via Valuetrips, although the discount at this time of year is not as large as it is in the summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better deal, but the proximity to various restaurants, shops, grocery stores and Port Everglades made it an appealing place to stay.

Excursions
The cruise has two stops - Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We’ve been to Grand Cayman once, off Disney Fantasy, and it was a fun beach day along seven mile. Well except for the part where my brother went into the water with his phone in his pocket. Good times.

This time around, we are doing something we wouldn’t normally do - swimming with stingrays. After doing my research, I decided to sign up with the well regarded Stingray Sailing and their sister company, Cayman Eco Adventures. Both appear to be focused on small tours (max 25 people) and being kind to the rays, which seems quite appealing to me.

For Cozumel, we currently have no plans. With only one other boat docked with us, We will probably try out Paradise Beach, since they have a low entry fee and a $10pp minimum food charge.

Onboard
Neither my wife nor I are big drinkers, and as a result the drink package isn’t something that provides a lot of value for us. The argument could be made that one could also find value by purchasing coffees, juices and bottled water in addition to alcoholic beverages. And you’d be right, but here’s the thing - without the package there isn’t much incentive to buy bottled water or fresh squeezed juices. Coffee… well, maybe, and to that end I’ve purchased the coffee card, as we can take that with us onto Symphony in the summer if there are still unused credits. 

We did purchase the photo package (Black Friday discount). Hopefully I’ll be able to include some of the shots, but time will tell.

Boarding will be a different experience. I checked in via the app, and thus have Expedited Arrival privileges. It will be my first time with this, and I’m excited to try this out.

Our room is a 1D Oceanview Balcony. We will be right by the “bump” on the ship so I expect some of our peripheral view to be a bit obstructed but we shall see. I did put in a RoyalUp bid for a Suite, at the minimum cost, and we’ll see if that’s accepted. It be nice if it was, but I'm not counting on it.

For now, it’s less than one week until we get on that plane. Can't wait.

So a while back I started posting my cruise reports on the DISboards. And I figured that since I'm trying to be more active here that I might try and to a little cross posting. Hope you enjoy!
(Note: When I do these things I write. A lot. I try to inject humour (and pics/gifs) into what amounts to a very long essay, and that seems to break up the monotony.)
Usually, my go-to cruise time is in the summer. Given that I have kids, this makes sense, as I don’t have to deal with any issues associated with missing class during the semester. And yet, here I am, doing a pre-cruise post about a cruise in January. Why? Well, there’s a long story associated with taking this cruise.

On my last cruise, part of a restroom ended up on top of my wife’s foot. While not serious (my wife might disagree), Royal did express concern - consistently - for the rest of the trip. They offered a few incentives to my wife, who decided not to accept any of them. But, at the end of our cruise, they gave us future cruise certificate of roughly $450 CDN to apply to another cruise. So after some clarification as to how the application worked (they agreed that we simply needed to apply the certificate to a cruise prior to the 1 year expiry date), we booked a 4 night Navigator of the Seas cruise out of Miami for January 2020.

Now, you’ll notice that the title of this report says Independence, not Navigator. And that is because in early January 2019 we received the bad news that our cruise had been chartered. For the “Friendship Festival Cruise”, which appears to be an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival. We were given the option of moving to the cruise immediately following, but being a bit wary of boarding after a charter cruise, we decided to book Independence for a 5 night out of Fort Lauderdale instead. For rebooking, we received $200 OBC + $75 based on the booking offers at the time.

Ordinarily, you’d think that this would be the end of it, but in March my TA sent me an email saying that my Independence cruise had been chartered - this time for “70,000 Tons of Metal”. Which is an amazing name for a theme cruise, so kudos to them.

This time, the offer allowed us to rebook to a 5 night preceding the metal cruise, and given that this fit our schedule better (kids only miss a couple of school days), we decided to take it. As with the previous cancellation, we received an additional $200 OBC. $475 in OBC is a lot, even after you subtract gratuities from that amount.

Hopefully nothing else delays or cancels this trip. Like, say, 12 inches of snow.

Ahem. Moving on.

Flights
As per usual, I start looking at flights once I get my cruise booked or they become available, whichever comes last. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I hadn’t booked a flight at the time of cancellations, although I would’ve gotten a change fee credit from Royal if I had booked flights. But the less paperwork the better.

The interesting part about the flights to FLL from Toronto was that departures were cheaper on New Year’s Eve (would be a 2 night stay in Florida) than New Year’s Day (1 night stay). Conversely, hotels were more expensive on New Year’s Eve. Go figure. So it was a bit of a dilemma, but this was resolved in part by my starting a new job, and not having any vacation for the end of year. And thus, we are leaving New Year’s Day, and just staying the one night before the cruise.
Hotels
I’m currently booked at one of the more popular cruise hotels, Hyatt Place 17th Street. As usual, I booked via Valuetrips, although the discount at this time of year is not as large as it is in the summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better deal, but the proximity to various restaurants, shops, grocery stores and Port Everglades made it an appealing place to stay.

Excursions
The cruise has two stops - Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We’ve been to Grand Cayman once, off Disney Fantasy, and it was a fun beach day along seven mile. Well except for the part where my brother went into the water with his phone in his pocket. Good times.

This time around, we are doing something we wouldn’t normally do - swimming with stingrays. After doing my research, I decided to sign up with the well regarded Stingray Sailing and their sister company, Cayman Eco Adventures. Both appear to be focused on small tours (max 25 people) and being kind to the rays, which seems quite appealing to me.

For Cozumel, we currently have no plans. With only one other boat docked with us, We will probably try out Paradise Beach, since they have a low entry fee and a $10pp minimum food charge.

Onboard
Neither my wife nor I are big drinkers, and as a result the drink package isn’t something that provides a lot of value for us. The argument could be made that one could also find value by purchasing coffees, juices and bottled water in addition to alcoholic beverages. And you’d be right, but here’s the thing - without the package there isn’t much incentive to buy bottled water or fresh squeezed juices. Coffee… well, maybe, and to that end I’ve purchased the coffee card, as we can take that with us onto Symphony in the summer if there are still unused credits. 

We did purchase the photo package (Black Friday discount). Hopefully I’ll be able to include some of the shots, but time will tell.

Boarding will be a different experience. I checked in via the app, and thus have Expedited Arrival privileges. It will be my first time with this, and I’m excited to try this out.

Our room is a 1D Oceanview Balcony. We will be right by the “bump” on the ship so I expect some of our peripheral view to be a bit obstructed but we shall see. I did put in a RoyalUp bid for a Suite, at the minimum cost, and we’ll see if that’s accepted. It be nice if it was, but I'm not counting on it.

For now, it’s less than one week until we get on that plane. Can't wait.

So a while back I started posting my cruise reports on the DISboards. And I figured that since I'm trying to be more active here that I might try and to a little cross posting. Hope you enjoy!
(Note: When I do these things I write. A lot. I try to inject humour (and pics/gifs) into what amounts to a very long essay, and that seems to break up the monotony.)
Usually, my go-to cruise time is in the summer. Given that I have kids, this makes sense, as I don’t have to deal with any issues associated with missing class during the semester. And yet, here I am, doing a pre-cruise post about a cruise in January. Why? Well, there’s a long story associated with taking this cruise.

On my last cruise, part of a restroom ended up on top of my wife’s foot. While not serious (my wife might disagree), Royal did express concern - consistently - for the rest of the trip. They offered a few incentives to my wife, who decided not to accept any of them. But, at the end of our cruise, they gave us future cruise certificate of roughly $450 CDN to apply to another cruise. So after some clarification as to how the application worked (they agreed that we simply needed to apply the certificate to a cruise prior to the 1 year expiry date), we booked a 4 night Navigator of the Seas cruise out of Miami for January 2020.

Now, you’ll notice that the title of this report says Independence, not Navigator. And that is because in early January 2019 we received the bad news that our cruise had been chartered. For the “Friendship Festival Cruise”, which appears to be an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival. We were given the option of moving to the cruise immediately following, but being a bit wary of boarding after a charter cruise, we decided to book Independence for a 5 night out of Fort Lauderdale instead. For rebooking, we received $200 OBC + $75 based on the booking offers at the time.

Ordinarily, you’d think that this would be the end of it, but in March my TA sent me an email saying that my Independence cruise had been chartered - this time for “70,000 Tons of Metal”. Which is an amazing name for a theme cruise, so kudos to them.

This time, the offer allowed us to rebook to a 5 night preceding the metal cruise, and given that this fit our schedule better (kids only miss a couple of school days), we decided to take it. As with the previous cancellation, we received an additional $200 OBC. $475 in OBC is a lot, even after you subtract gratuities from that amount.

Hopefully nothing else delays or cancels this trip. Like, say, 12 inches of snow.

Ahem. Moving on.

Flights
As per usual, I start looking at flights once I get my cruise booked or they become available, whichever comes last. So I suppose it’s fortunate that I hadn’t booked a flight at the time of cancellations, although I would’ve gotten a change fee credit from Royal if I had booked flights. But the less paperwork the better.

The interesting part about the flights to FLL from Toronto was that departures were cheaper on New Year’s Eve (would be a 2 night stay in Florida) than New Year’s Day (1 night stay). Conversely, hotels were more expensive on New Year’s Eve. Go figure. So it was a bit of a dilemma, but this was resolved in part by my starting a new job, and not having any vacation for the end of year. And thus, we are leaving New Year’s Day, and just staying the one night before the cruise.
Hotels
I’m currently booked at one of the more popular cruise hotels, Hyatt Place 17th Street. As usual, I booked via Valuetrips, although the discount at this time of year is not as large as it is in the summer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a better deal, but the proximity to various restaurants, shops, grocery stores and Port Everglades made it an appealing place to stay.

Excursions
The cruise has two stops - Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We’ve been to Grand Cayman once, off Disney Fantasy, and it was a fun beach day along seven mile. Well except for the part where my brother went into the water with his phone in his pocket. Good times.

This time around, we are doing something we wouldn’t normally do - swimming with stingrays. After doing my research, I decided to sign up with the well regarded Stingray Sailing and their sister company, Cayman Eco Adventures. Both appear to be focused on small tours (max 25 people) and being kind to the rays, which seems quite appealing to me.

For Cozumel, we currently have no plans. With only one other boat docked with us, We will probably try out Paradise Beach, since they have a low entry fee and a $10pp minimum food charge.

Onboard
Neither my wife nor I are big drinkers, and as a result the drink package isn’t something that provides a lot of value for us. The argument could be made that one could also find value by purchasing coffees, juices and bottled water in addition to alcoholic beverages. And you’d be right, but here’s the thing - without the package there isn’t much incentive to buy bottled water or fresh squeezed juices. Coffee… well, maybe, and to that end I’ve purchased the coffee card, as we can take that with us onto Symphony in the summer if there are still unused credits. 

We did purchase the photo package (Black Friday discount). Hopefully I’ll be able to include some of the shots, but time will tell.

Boarding will be a different experience. I checked in via the app, and thus have Expedited Arrival privileges. It will be my first time with this, and I’m excited to try this out.

Our room is a 1D Oceanview Balcony. We will be right by the “bump” on the ship so I expect some of our peripheral view to be a bit obstructed but we shall see. I did put in a RoyalUp bid for a Suite, at the minimum cost, and we’ll see if that’s accepted. It be nice if it was, but I'm not counting on it.

For now, it’s less than one week until we get on that plane. Can't wait.

Actually, I made a mistake, because I said "cabana" but it's actually one of the bungalows at Columbus Cove.