Skigoofy

Wow....tough question, really.  The room is unbelievable.  We like it better than any room we’ve ever had. I will say that the band noise has been horrible. I think that the band location and configuration is new with the amplification and I believe that there are going to be MANY complaints about the nonstop noise.  It’s bad for us but I can’t imagine how it must be for those in Central  Park rooms. I believe that there will be so many complaints that they will have to change where the band plays.  I can’t believe they will be able to keep it as it is now.  IF they solve the band noise, I would book this room every time. If they don’t, I would probably still book it.  What I don’t know is whether the noise is a problem for those in the Loft Suites too or if it’s just us on the “ends”. 
 
As I said earlier, the only downside to the suite itself is the small balcony. It didn’t negatively impact us at all so it’s not a problem for us. It might be for some 

People often ask what the Genie can do for you and the answers are usually pretty much the same - reservations and personal seating being the norm.  I thought of something while Dan and  I were having dinner at Giovannis tonite. We out outside. The weather was so amazing. We were marveling at how mature and lush the Central Park garden has become. We then began to recall a special event that we had on our second SC cruise and I thought I would mention it to everyone. 
 
Those of you who have been reading my blogs for a while will probably be hearing this for a second time. If so, I apologize. 
 
A couple of years ago we were in an ATS on Harmony. We somehow managed to sail in between hurricanes. There had been cancellations and rerouting everywhere the weeks prior but we managed to get ours in just before another one popped up. As a result of all of the standing water from the storms there was a horrific mosquito problem on board. We could not even go out on our balcony without being attacked. It was really bad.  Of course, we called our Genie (Reyno) and he had the pest control guy come up to help us out.
We laughed when he showed up at the door with a spray can. There were literally millions of mosquitoes everywhere.  To paraphrase the famous line from Jaws “Dude, you’re going to need a bigger can”.  He immediately saw that his can was not up to the task and later we got a technician with a pump sprayer which took care of the problem easily. 
 
Well, it turned out that the guy who had shown up with the spray can in the beginning was Laszlo ( I used to remember his last name but it has escaped me for the moment), the head Botanist for Royal Caribbean and the creator and godfather of the Central Park gardens. He has personally designed and implemented every Central Park garden since Oasis.  It seems that the “side job” of the ship’s botanist is that of pest control which is how we got him up at our suite in the first place !   
 
Later in the day, Reyno asked us if we would like to have a personal tour of the CP garden with Laszlo.  To be completely honest, at first I thought that might be a little lame but boy was I wrong. It was one of the most enjoyable tours I’ve ever taken. Laszlo LOVES his job and he loves to share his passion. He spent a very long time with us and told us so many little secrets about the plants, the challenges of having a live garden on board a cruise ship, how the plants are watered, why certain plants are chosen, etc. It was fascinating.  
 
So, the point of this whole story is to let you know that with Star Class, such personalized tours are extremely possible. I’m sure Laszlo is probably on Symphony since that’s the latest O class deployment but there is certainly someone of Laszlo’s equivalent on every O class ship.  I know that they offer garden tours from time-to-time on the different O class ships but they generally will not be to the level that you will get with a private tour and your Genie can make that happen 

Night one consisted of dinner at the Coastal Kitchen.  @Lovetocruise2002 so far that filet was amazing.  But we have dinner at Chops the last night, so verdict is still out to whether I am team CK or Team Chops.  I have pictures of the filet somewhere but what is below is the Fennel Soup that they serve night 7 that I had special ordered.  Lisa made it happen!!  Escargot, then the pork belly, chocolate cake and creme brûlée’.  I found the creme brûlée just okay, but I am particular since I make them at home.  This is when I made a mistake.  Hubby and I decided we needed a night cap and since Wonderland is right there, we stopped for a drink.  Justin had the smoke rings and I had the one with cotton candy.  I think it was called the Chesire Cat.  Justin’s drink was very strong and it was upsetting to his stomach.  I also got a chocolate martini which was my downfall.  I proceeded to have about 6 more.  So I was officially Chocolately-wasted!  But I did catch the balloon drop!  

2 weeks and we are ? to NYC! Lots of last minute stuff to do. I have piles everywhere ... It seems I have begun staging. This morning was spent wrapping ?. We often travel over a Christmas and each year I challenge myself to get the smallest most travel friendly gifts for Reyd that he will ❤️ and be able to use on our trip.  I did not disappoint again this year! I always wrap the gifts and put them in our checked luggage to avoid possible hassles at security if in my carry-on.  
Meet Reyd our only child who recently turned 14 ? Here he is getting his suit altered this past weekend. You will be seeing more of Reyd I hope  (as he usually lifts the no picture embargo on trips). Plus he is going to help with the trip videos. We bought him the Osmo handheld as an early Christmas present so he could familiarize himself with it.  I can’t wait to see what he does! So far he isn’t telling me much! 
Haven't heard from our Genie Andres in a few days but I have no doubt he is using this time to plan dining, activities and any requests we had. From what I hear we will for sure hear from him again 7 days out.  
Be sure to pass along your questions and once we are on-board I will do my best to get answers. 
 

 

This was essentially a typical sea day.
It started bright and (way too) early with the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle at the ungodly hour of 9 am!  Come on, guys! We're supposed to be on holiday here! Anyway despite the early start it was reasonably well attended. There were 3 or 4 pretty boring raffle prizes (we didn't win) but the Activities Manager, Kelly from Alabama, came across as very personable and bubbly and she did a good of job of getting people to interact.
The M&M was followed by a cabin crawl that was organised by one of the people on our CC roll call. I had never done one and thought it was a lot of fun. We got to see about 10 different types of cabin, ranging from a tiny "real" interior to a grand suite and a panoramic ocean view suite. Would that I could, sigh...
The rest of the day was spent doing (or, in our case, mostly watching) typical sea day activities such as pool games, flow rider and mini-golf (we did actually play the mini-golf; we are both completely rubbish at it so there was a fair bit of cheating going on ).
Some random pics from around the ship:
Lively pool deck:



Quieter spots:


Sporty activities:





A model of Vision of the Seas (I don't know why that's here on the Adventure):

The promenade by night:

And our first towel animal of the cruise:

We had dinner tonight in the MDR. We were at an 8-top on deck five. The other six people had all eaten there on the first night, but one young couple from somewhere in South America never showed again, which is hardly surprising given that they were on their honeymoon and had been seated with a bunch of old fogeys. 
I once again failed miserably in my duty to photograph my food. However, I can tell you that I had the seafood vol-au-vent for starters (underwhelming), the roasted beef tenderloin for mains (delicious and very tender but you need to ask for it to be medium rare; if you ask for medium well it comes out overdone and dry, as someone else at our table discovered), and the Royal chocolate cake for dessert. To me, a dessert is not dessert if it doesn't have chocolate in it and this classic has never let me down. One of my favourites.
I need to wrap this up now for today. I will post more tomorrow. Many, many thanks again for bearing with me. 
 

It seems we are having maintenance issues AGAIN.  When we returned after b’fast at JR we found our suite attendant (Cami (Camelia)) overseeing a delicate plumbing procedure in the “guest” bathroom.  I haven’t yet expounded on the virtues of our excellent cabin attendant. She is, hands down, the best we’ve ever had. But this topic deserves its own post, so I will get back to the issue-at-hand. 
It seems the toilet(s) is clogged again. <hands up and backpedaling> I DIDN’T DO IT !  I have been red-faced guilty of said crime many, many times (Dan claims I am a world class toilet paper abuser and I admit that I am) but not this time !  Whatever happened, it is serious. They had the whole freakin’ toilet bowl removed and untold lengths of plumbing snakes deployed.  I’m sure they think I’m guilty of some unspeakable toilet violation.  I could tell by the look on their face when we walked in. How do you defend yourself against this kind of bias ?  Perhaps it’s just deflection on my part b/c I know I have been guilty of similar sins in the past.  Oh well....Best to just let them work their magic and carry on as if nothing happened.  If I get a scolding from Cami I will know that we were unmasked by the workers.  Such an injustice !
Dan has gone to investigate.  I’m waiting out on the balcony to minimize the chance of being confronted directly.  He’s braver than I am. 

22 November - Fort Lauderdale - Water taxi day
The last time we were in Fort Lauderdale we spent the day on the water taxi and enjoyed it so much we decided to do it again.
The Bahia Mar water taxi stop (no. 5) is just a five-minute walk from the BW. 
As we left the hotel we met a local lounging on the path.

We thought it was cute but apparently they are an invasive species and a real pest, causing considerable destruction to people's gardens.
We caught the first northbound water taxi of the day (10.40 am at that stop) and rode the whole northbound loop before getting off at the Hilton Marina stop to change to the Hollywood route.
That took us past Port Everglades, where there were two ships, a Silversea one that I can't remember the name of and the Celebrity Silhouette, which we got a good close-up view of.

On arrival in Hollywood we had some lunch at an instantly forgettable pizza place on the Broadwalk and then enjoyed wandering up and down along the beach, before catching the 5 pm water taxi back. It was actually late as it had to stop for the Celebrity Silhouette in the turning basin.
We hopped off at the Riverside Hotel stop, wandered up and down Las Olas and then went for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (again, I know that's not very exciting, but this is another chain we don't have in Portugal, so it's a novelty for us) before catching what was probably the next-to-last water taxi back to the Bahia Mar. The crew on the one that had dropped us at the Riverside said the last one from that stop would be around 9 pm.
What a great day! I didn't really take any pics worth posting this time round, but here a few I took when we did the water taxi in December 2017. On that occasion we were lucky enough to be in the turning basin when Harmony and Indy sailed.
 

You're looking way outside of my / my daughter's league. This two lens kit T7i package is the one I got for her and would consider upgrading to for myself. The price yesterday morning was $699, a full $100 less than the current pricing; that put it only $50 more than the kit that included onlyt the 18-55mm lens, without the carry bag or memory card.
That was a genuine bargain in my book, basically getting that second Canon lens for free after estimated retail cost of 32GB card and bag, but I was very lucky to have caught it -- I saw it at 7:30 AM Sunday morning, ordered it at 8 AM after checking the pricing on the other online retailers, and by 5 PM the price went back up to what you see today. But B&H and Adorama didn't offer that bundle for that good a price, so Best Buy won out this time.
Can't wait to see Kara's face when she unwraps it. The extended family was able to contribute enough that I could get her this one, and I'm really happy about it. It's literally going to be her only gift under the tree, and that's from the entire family, but it's also all that she wanted this year. Her photography class is all Canon-based, so she'll be set for the rest of high school and most likely all of college where she plans on being a photography major, with a minor or maybe double major in digital illustration.

However, on a positive note, we just got back from seeing Phoenix, and I cannot say enough GOOD things about that show. They were really good.  I would go back and see them again in a minute.  I am not as impressed with the Music Hall on Oasis as I was with the one on Anthem, but they did the best they could with the space they had.  It’s a sight more useful now than it was as Dazzles.
Also, a huge bit of news, Dan and I finally met the Twangbot.  He seemed very real.  Almost human-like.  A very advanced bot, indeed.  He sat with us at the concert.  It was quite an honor for us.??

Dinner tonite at 150 Central Park. Joyce took a pic for us 

Today was another non-stop barrage of loud live band music.  Now....that did not stop Dan and I from taking a heavenly long nap but it never stopped all afternoon.  In fact, the music is still going strong but it’s piped music and not a live band.  Maybe they’re just on break.
Who says only Twangbot can take a great sunset shot !  Happy Dan got this one out our window.

We had a full first day, with my traveling companions being quite impressed with the ship. We managed to hit one trip down the Blaster slide - tons of fun, only a 15-minute wait, and probably only the second water slide I've ever been on in my life #lame. After Muster, we headed straight to the helipad, and waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently one of the ships that was supposed to leave before us had been delayed, and we were 5th in line to go. After watching a few bypass us, it just became too chilly and windy to wait it out (not to mention it was getting dark.  We grabbed a snack from Cafe Promenade, a drink from the pub, and headed up to watch sail away from the protection of our balcony. 

We had reservations in the MDR for 9:15, so we went down to see if we could get into the ice show. 
When I mentioned going to the ice show I received a positive, yet lukewarm, response. We sat in The Key section (really nice seats). I'd seen the ice show on Mariner, which I liked, but this one was so much better. Color my friends impressed - they were amazed (and I was so happy that they were having so much fun). 
Dinner in the MDR was very good. It's fun when you tell a new cruiser that they can have anything they want, and much as they want. While I'm having fun, most of my fun is coming from watching my friends become hooked on cruising. 
They were beat after dinner, but far be it from me to miss the 70s Disco Inferno Party on the Promenade (really the only time I like that space).  While I'm typically a pretty shy person, all bets are off on a cruise and I have no problems dancing with other passengers and crew, so I had an absolute blast. I had to be obnoxious and had to get my photo taken with the "cop" from the "Village People" for my cohorts. 

Day 1 - Embarkation (cont,
 
Enjoyed a sailaway party zs we pulled out of Port Tampa with a beautiful sunset just beginning to show a hint of its colors.
Ate in the MDR with friends, two of whom are HSR 'Virgins;' -- it's their first High Seas Rally, so they get to wear orange wristbands. Although it may sound like a stigma, it's really not -- it's kind of a license to make mistakes;-)
We had the first HSR Giveaway show of the cruise. Remember that fundraising aspect?  The first 50/50 drawing was worth $10,420.00!!  Between that and the other raffles going on that first Day, over $16,000.00 was raised for dialysis -- in just ONE day!
 

Royal nailed everything here.  The sets and costumes were great.  All of the actors and actresses did a good job.  Singing and dancing was excellent.  It appears to be updated and modern. 

As for condensing from the original, I know musicals are supposed to be about music and have songs but this entire show was song after song. There really was no in between the songs points which could have helped someone unfamiliar with the musical figure out what is going on.  (Spoiler alert: a cat dies.)
I had to Google it to make sure I wasn't missing something.

I followed The Gift on Anthem better than this.  I'd like to think that's on Andrew Lloyd Webber and not Royal though.

And we are in luck..it was a no hassle YES and I got my Funky Buddha Floridian Hefeweizen.
Hooray for beer!

The selection at Playmakers is much better than the typical draft offerings elsewhere.

 

And just like that Thanksgiving was made great again.

Our view with breakfast. 

It's baaaaack...

Good..cause momma needs to rack up those airline points for the Royal Caribbean Blog Fjords Group Cruise.

Lies, pure lies.  All that is around the bend is an awesome place to watch the wake.

For the record, at no point will I be using this jogging track for its intended purpose.

I really had no plans to venture out into San Juan during this port visit. I will be back in San Juan at the end of December for the Royal Caribbean Blog Freedom Group Cruise over New Year's. That cruise actually leaves from San Juan and I will be flying in the day before, so I will have some time to explore San Juan before getting on the cruise.

I did, however, want to get off and snap some shots of the ship in the dark all lit up and amplified.


She's so impressive she makes amateur cell phone shots look awesome

Does anyone else still squeal like a kid when they walk into the room and see a new towel animal or is it just me?

Now it's time for the latest round of photographic evidence of my gluttony!
Chops bread in special exclusive Thanksgiving turkey leg shapes for our holiday sailing

Tuna tartare artisically turned as to not see the bite I took before I remembered my faithful followers

Shrimp cocktail -1..dang my mother is quick.

Meat party!!!
Bone in ribeye

Filet with meat tartar sauce, photobombed by asparagus..dry, no salt, no butter, no fun. Thanks mom ?

They haven't started decorating for the holidays yet.  I helped.

Also, found the butter for my aspargus.
My steak tasted faintly like a Christmas tree.  Otherwise it was decent; more impressive than my prior Chops experiences.  Not saying much as we got the special @WAAAYTOOO treatment with barely lukewarm food.  Still on #teamGiovannis when it comes to the best filet.  Coastal Kitchen didn't get a fair shake as we are in genpop this sailing.  
No dessert for me as I couldn't finish my steak and thus I don't deserve dessert.
My mother didn't finish either as she didn't gnaw off all the meat from the bone.  But she doesn't play by the rules.
Warm chocolate cake

She forced me to order a dessert so she could try two..but buttered asparagus is bad for you ?‍♀️
Key lime pie

All this washed down with the swill I affectionately ordered as the free Diamond red stuff.  Merlot, Cabernet they asked...I just nodded and said the stuff that you eat with steak.  It tasted like wine that people who know nothing about wine would drink.  It swirled around the glass just like the expensive stuff the table next to us ordered.
This is night 3 in a row that I ordered red wine but then realized the entree I really wanted was fish.  I had no choice but to order red meat as to not upset any nearby Pinnacles for wining wrong.  We all know they are the experts at wining. ?
 

They found us a plane! We will be boarding soon. Not really too bad of a wait. It took me less than 5 minutes from curb to the end of security, and the TSA agent was keen on my shirt. 

OK, I just went out to shovel the deck, but the ice pellets hurt my head. I seriously need to get out of here. 
We are all checked in for our flights, but only two of us received seat assignments, so I don't know if that means they overbooked the flight and the other will be on standby or not. I don't fly frequently, and rarely on Delta. We're crossing our fingers. 
(wow, clearly I haven't learned the art of posting smaller videos and photos - sorry, gang!)

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