Skigoofy

That's identical to what my pricing is. Overwaters Cabanas were 1499 when I scored mine and then  jumped up to 1649.
 
Very excited to be one of the first in one. Cabanas are well worth it to me when it comes to how I enjoy a beach day!
 
Current cruise status report: nap on the balcony before formal night
 
 

We are having a blast and the weather is amazing!
Daughter was too short for flow rider. After some convincing I got her to go down the water slides. She loved them, i got 4 rotations in the bowl too. Tips from the lifeguard helped!
 
Daughter won the jackpot in the ticket machine too.
 

Room Goodies 
 

Apparently I forgot to add this:
Day 6 – Debarkation Day (aka You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here)
I know people don’t like talking about this day, but I’ve always found it helpful to know how people got home, especially when you have to fly. For us, we had a 2pm flight back to Toronto, so realistically we had plenty of time to get off the ship.
For this trip, we were assigned tag number 32, with an estimated debarkation time of 9:30am – about as middle of the road an assignment as one can get, I think. This gave us, in theory, plenty of time to get ready, pack up and leave.
When we woke up (roughly 6:30-ish), I looked outside and discovered that we were in the process of docking, so barring any unforeseen clearance issues, we’d be getting off the ship shortly.
We got dressed (in our travel clothes… le sigh), and headed up to Windjammer one final time. The buffet was actually not that busy, perhaps a testament to our going up a little later than the norm. And this worked out well for us. Not that we were going to overdo it on food, but certainly we weren’t “fighting” the masses to find a seat.
After breakfast, we went back to the room to do finish packing our carry-off bags and do a final sweep of the room. After exchanging goodbyes with our attendant, we headed down to the Promenade to wait.
 
 While we were waiting, we saw some of the charter cruise workers come in with display boards for their t-shirt stands. In hindsight, I should’ve taken a picture and/or bought a shirt. Not that I’m a huge metal fan or anything, but “70,000 Tons of Metal”? You know you’d want a shirt with that on it as well.
 Regardless, we were called ahead of schedule, around 9:15, and dutifully made our way to the 4th deck and the exit ramp. Unlike previous Oasis class cruises, we headed straight down to the baggage area – a nice surprise, given that I was expecting a 30-60 minute wait to go down. The lines were indeed kind of long – I estimated about 45 minutes for the Suites, 60-90 for everyone – but since we have NEXUS, it was a simple matter of picking up our bags, showing the officer in the centre exit our cards, and heading through customs. Our debarkation, from ship to outside the terminal, took us under 10 minutes.
 With so much time before our flight, we debated going somewhere else for an hour or two, but we decided just to go to the airport. Bit of a misstep on our part, because we were at the terminal well before 10am, and the 3 hour bag drop window was still over an hour away. So that meant some waiting.
 
Once the window opened, there was somehow only one Westjet employee at the counter helping three separate lines (special assistance, check in and bag drop). So this was… interesting, but eventually some other agents made their way to the counter to help out. This was not ideal, but since we’d checked in on the ship and had TSA Pre-Check, we had very little concern about making our flight. And indeed, we were through security around 12. A little later than I expected, but still nothing to worry about at all.
We got a pre-flight meal at Shula Burger (note: onion rings look much better than they taste), and with little fanfare, got on the flight home.
Once at Toronto Pearson, we went over to the NEXUS line, where there appeared to be only a few NEXUS kiosks working. Fortunately, there were several of the standard kiosks available, which we used to breeze through customs. Easy peasy, and after picking up our luggage and car, we headed home.

@Lovetocruise2002 I hear your pro tip about blogging solely from my phone. Here is an elderly tip:  I can barely see the damned thing!??

Here are a few more pictures from the items in our room when we arrived.  Each of our preferred drinks.  Ranger cookies for Taylor.  Graduation cake for the Dr.  Birthday cake for the twins.  Gifts for everyone. 
And we have already asked for adoption papers for our room steward.  Her name is, sing along now, G. L. O. R. I. A.  GLOR-I-A!!!.  Her assistant is Iwayan.  Pictures of these two sweethearts will follow.

Good morning, it’s day 2..This blogging thing that some of you make look so easy, isn’t!  I’m still learning how to transfer pictures from the camera and my phone to the IPad.  Also still figuring out how to actually post them.  I should have it all mastered by day 7?  So back to yesterday.  We took an Uber from Staybridge Suites at MIA to the port. 5 people, 5 suitcases, $30.  At Terminal A we got out and walked the last 200 yards because it was faster!  Gave our names at the Star Class kiosk and we were whisked upstairs to the lounge. The checked us in and called for Allan  This all took about 10 minutes.  Plenty of drinks and snacks were there.  Super Mario was definitely the celebrity in the room! Taylor immediately began her quest to eat her weight in Ranger cookies.  Allan took us and one other family immediately on the ship and into the suite lounge.  We were on deck 17 eating more snacks 20 minutes after getting out of the car an it was still only 1040am  Allan pulled me aside to explain that he was making sure all of his welcome surprises were ready in the room.  After 10 minutes he escorted us to the room and I found out how fun and creative he is!  From gifts to jokes to cakes he did an amazing job of welcoming our family  We hung out in the suite for a little and then ventured out to Playmakers for lunch  i believe we ordered all of the appetizers.  Our waiter, Djuro from Bosnia, was amazing!  Today is his niece’s 4th birthday.  His mother back home grows all of her own vegetables.  He appreciates his parents more now that he’s older.  You think we had some time to chat???  This is one of th great things about cruising - the interaction with others from such diverse and different backgrounds.  This young man was just great fun to talk with.  And, according to the bevy I’m cruising with he’s not too hard to look at either!
 
 
 

I’m downloading pictures now from my camera and then will post some of them.  I think I only took 275 or so since we boarded.  
We had lunch at Playmakers.  Maybe a star class tip here:  it was empty.  Pretty much had it to ourselves.  We sampled almost everything and it was all good.  
The suite is amazing, as always.  
We have met with Allan now several times.  I’m impressed!  Just the things waiting in our room showed creativity and humor.  I think this will be a very good week!
And for the M&M gang - we had M&M’s in the room?
 

We are Home!  Suite 1740!

We are on!

The included breakfast at the hotel. Leaving for the O-Asis in about 
an
 

So I started this whole thing by quoting Garth Brooks.  Tonight it’s Tom T. Hall.  Y’all sing it with me...”I was sitting in Miami, pouring blended whiskey down..”. And I did.?  Lots more to share about today, including our shuttle to the hotel with the most talkative and funny guy every.  We are now tucked into our two bedroom place at the Staybridge Suites which is comfy and ok for the 5 of us.  We’re all ready for some sleep and ready to be on the ship!  We are due to meet Allan at 10:15 to begin the food and fun frenzy!  Thanks for coming along.

I did.  Like 30 bags. They will be a part of the blog, obviously.?

One more flight note:  American Airlines knows exactly squat about Star Class. ?. Off to Miami now. 

Welcome to Dallas!  One step closer. By my standards in was an excellent flight - we had an equal number of take offs and landings.  I watched a “free” movie that AA had, Angel has Fallen.  Action flick with probably 3000 rounds fired, bodies everywhere and lots of blood.  Having served nearly 8 years in the White House I can confirm it portrays a typical day in the life of a Secret Service agent. ?? Had a gentleman fall ill about 30 minutes out of Dallas so we were met by paramedics at the gate. He appeared to be not too serious and left under his own power. As luck would have it he was seated next to Katie so he had his own private nurse until we landed.  Had lunch at Friday’s and are now waiting to board the flight  to Miami. More from Miami in a couple of hours!

On the way!  

I got these two guys for Taylor when they were really tiny. They would go to sleep in her lap. Now she has grown and moved away. And they have grown into big old ugly goats that I feed everyday. That’s the story @WAAAYTOOO. Say hello to Sammy and Oreo. You can guess which is which. 

Ovation of the Seas, 11 Nights departing from Sydney Australia to New Zealand
For many years I avoided Alaska cruises on the premise that bikinis are better than parkas.  Then I finally did an Alaskan cruise.  Just wow!  Why did I wait so long? 
That experience got me looking even farther from home and I realized the same could be said for Australia and New Zealand.  Learning from Alaska I decided to just do it. YOLO! 
I've always wanted to visit both Australia and New Zealand so hopefully this will be a rehearsal for more cruising down under.  Practice makes perfect.
This is me doing my single digit dance.  

It's a long flight to Australia,  I take off early one day and land two days later.   Somehow it ended up being 2 days and a few hours to get there with a connection.  Fortunately it takes less than 6 hours to fly home.  Strong tailwinds I guess.
With the time change it's already well into tomorrow there.  I can never keep that straight.   All I know is that this cruise is costing me two days of my life just to get there so I have high expectations. 

This is an 11 night cruise but weather permitting we'll have one day sailing through Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sounds.  With the three sounds all on day 9 the itinerary looks longer than it is.  Here's hoping for good weather.
Just one tender port so that's a plus.  I tendered on Ovation in Hawaii so that doesn't concern me. 
With the time change it seems that Sydney always celebrates New Years Eve before North America so on that basis I'll get to watch the Super Bowl a day before you folks in North America.  I'll post the outcome here, get ready to place your bets.  Super Bowl Monday here we come.  The game starts mid-morning so there may be some day drinking involved.  At least it's on a sea day.  
Flying into Sydney two days prior and staying downtown my plan is to take the train into the city and sleep for the rest of the day.  Other plans include the Sydney Bridge Climb and a tour of the Sydney Opera House after which I'll either crash hard or have some gas left in the tank to explore a little bit more.  If I have time I may try to find Alice.  Maybe I'll get up early (or be up already) to watch Ovation come into port.
My bags are packed, I'm ready to go... 'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane...

Yeah sorry about the food pic. I might just skip those all together lol.
 
11 of us on the ship. Only 3 of us in a suite. We have most of the dining where we can all go. I have at least 1 day planned for CK, and breakfast tomorrow. 
 
Anyway, it was way too early to go to sleep so I did some wondering around solo, got some decent night pics.
 
 

I haven't felt this stress free in a long time and we haven't even left yet!

Concierge is Jeremias and Mohamed . Haven't met them yet though.
 
Here are some pics of 1702. The obstruction is there but I dont think it's an issue at all.
 
 

Yeah I'm going to be here in the lounge a lot. This coffee machine is great.

So far this is a full on live blog. In the Suite lounge!

At the port, little early. Took like 2 mins to get to suite area. Pretty nice in here!