OCSC Mike

Ovation is so well designed for Alaska cruises. Both the covered pool and Solarium are plenty warm enough to spend a sea day relaxing.
Today is another beautiful day. We arrive in Vancouver tonight and tomorrow will be turnaround day for me.
My live view from the Solarium.

I’m battling this too. I know, 1st world problems, I just had 7N… but between the regrets & long dry dock after…
Good, you should be, and I know I will be too when it gets closer. Like I posted before, my plan is to just go all out & maximize everything. Make the most of it, whatever that looks like for you guys!
4 more days!

EEK!!
🍪 nom nom!
So I saw posted today that the DBP+RBC price went down to $79.99 so I went to check and it's still $89.77 for me. Mike has me wondering if the $79.99 price is without gratuities though? It's still not cheaper for me. I figured if it was less than what we've paid for just the DBP then maybe we'd switch back to DPB+RBC. There was also a Royal Kickoff bracket thing (did any of you else get this?) and supposedly 40% off 2+ devices for the internet packages was the winner. There were no savings for us to be had there either. These are the extras we have booked and the prices for numbers nerds like me or those that are just curious:
Internet for 3 devices: $163.96. While I like to be unplugged, if everyone else is sleeping I like to have something to do other than read and to be able to contact my cat sitter back home. It's really an unnecessary expense, but then I can blog post too.
14 year old's refreshment package: $127.36
DBP for me and hubby: $679.52
OOOOOOFF. For a whopping total of $970.84.

I’m battling this too. I know, 1st world problems, I just had 7N… but between the regrets & long dry dock after…
Good, you should be, and I know I will be too when it gets closer. Like I posted before, my plan is to just go all out & maximize everything. Make the most of it, whatever that looks like for you guys!
4 more days!

I’m battling this too. I know, 1st world problems, I just had 7N… but between the regrets & long dry dock after…
Good, you should be, and I know I will be too when it gets closer. Like I posted before, my plan is to just go all out & maximize everything. Make the most of it, whatever that looks like for you guys!
4 more days!

I don't think you should do a Utopia or Wonder B2B for other reasons, but just an FYI, the deposit is actually lower. It's only $200 for shorties, not $500, so a 3/4 B2B has a $400 deposit per sea class cabin.
I'd be looking at Allure if I were flying into Florida and wanted a lot of Utopia's features for a longer cruise and a better fare now that it has Mason Jar, Pesky, Aqua80Too, etc. to go with all the standard O-class stuff. There are still differences but it's a great alternative, IMO.

I’m battling this too. I know, 1st world problems, I just had 7N… but between the regrets & long dry dock after…
Good, you should be, and I know I will be too when it gets closer. Like I posted before, my plan is to just go all out & maximize everything. Make the most of it, whatever that looks like for you guys!
4 more days!

This is our big issue, would LOVE to do Utopia (or even Wonder) but these shorties just aren't for us. I know we can do the B2B, but still a pain (and much more in deposits!) 
 
Thank you all for the food talk, I have only had the Burger (my favorite), the onion rings and a few PLAIN wings (wife and kid don't like em sauced). But  this time around I'm definitely trying the crunch wraps, and being a literal cookie monster, not sure how I bypassed the campfire cookie before.  

I think you already know I love the burger. I know it's just a bacon cheeseburger (of course wings are also just wings and onion rings are just onion rings) but it's made well, two small patties and comes with a healthy amount of bacon and cheese, an onion ring (I usually pull it off and just eat it alone), and I love the garlic parm they put on the fries. 
I do enjoy the crunch rolls as a snack. The rolls themselves aren't spicy, kind of like crispy chicken egg rolls, but they come with sides of buffalo sauce and ranch for dipping. The only negative is that one order has four rolls and they're pretty small, IMO. I know you said ignore frugality but for info's sake, I feel like the burger/fries for $12 is a lot of food, the onion ring tower is obviously huge, while the $8 crunch rolls are definitely not a lot of food  by comparison.
Those are my top two items if we're ignoring size/cost.
Picking a 3rd is tough. I liked the BBQ wings (I'm sure buffalo are good too since I've had the buffalo sauce with the crunch rolls, not sure what heat level it was). You've had the onion rings which I also like and the tower is huge. My SIL thought the poke nachos were amazing but I only had a bite and that's a fairly unique item that will either look good or you won't even consider them. Lastly, I thought the jalapeno poppers were terrible.
The cookie is good if you want a dessert. I've only tried it once or twice and that was when my wife got it without the marshmallow. I had planned to have my wife order the cookie to go with my snack since she isn't usually looking for a big 11pm snack, and I figured even if I'm stuffed I could have some of the cookie and she might have had some but that was part of the failure.
Hope that helps. As always, food is subjective.

As long as you bring your thirst & appetite you’re fine.

6 days. I got home from a cruise on 6/5/26. The points were added on 6/11/26.

The opportunity to watch @twangster at work taking pictures has definitely been a highlight of the trip. It was a memorable night leaving Skagway with the aft views from his balcony and I appreciate his hospitality. We have had once in a lifetime weather on this cruise/ land tour. Today wasn't as good but it was a sea day so it wasn't a big deal. This was a relaxing day after the land tour and ports to start the cruise.

#peonlife 🤪
 
I swear today was an insane day of one bad/weird/crazy thing after another and then at like 8pm a BLACK CAT walked across my deck next to my patio door 🤯 never seen this cat before and my cats didn’t even react. So weird 
im getting more excited for the cruise now. I’ll admit, I was excited and then kinda bummed that it’s only 4 nights, then excited, then scared/unprepared. But after this insane work week, I’m back to being excited. Can’t wait to set foot on that ship!

I will HAPPILY cook!!!

That was my guess. Remember you can use the app to grab an arrival time for all of you and do the rest later (and you don't have to check-in everyone at the same time, so if you know you're gonna see him sometime between check-in and the cruise you can wait to do his in person, snap a pic, scan his passport, etc. even if you and Batman are already all done).
Wallowing in my impending dry dock sadness, which is exacerbated by this last summer cruise only being 4N. I'm gonna stuff myself and use those vouchers no matter how I feel, lol. Only 4N and then way too many months to recover to care.

In Icy Strait Point we did a whale watching and zipline combo.  It was advertised by Royal as a small group "ultimate" version but on the pier they lined us up with the plain version of the whale watching and zip line combo and we shared the boat.  They did the zipline first, we did the zipline after the whale watching.  So much for the small group premiums they charged us.
Despite that we were able to see a lot of wildlife.










I've done the zipline before but now they have a gondola system that replaces the old school bus ride up the mountain.  You can do the gondola round trip for those that don't want to zip.



The views from the gondola and the zipline are amazing.

ISP Zip 2026.mp4

Got that right because I would've never figured it out if that was the case!  

I agree, that’s part of the fun for me!  Hopefully my IT department will figure out whatever it is that you all are finding GTY assignments on & let me know!

Thanks but I'm so used to checking prices in my favorites list on my own that I have no desire to automate it. It only takes logging in to the website and two clicks.

That was my guess. Remember you can use the app to grab an arrival time for all of you and do the rest later (and you don't have to check-in everyone at the same time, so if you know you're gonna see him sometime between check-in and the cruise you can wait to do his in person, snap a pic, scan his passport, etc. even if you and Batman are already all done).
Wallowing in my impending dry dock sadness, which is exacerbated by this last summer cruise only being 4N. I'm gonna stuff myself and use those vouchers no matter how I feel, lol. Only 4N and then way too many months to recover to care.

Thanks but I'm so used to checking prices in my favorites list on my own that I have no desire to automate it. It only takes logging in to the website and two clicks.

Nah, the only people who can get on a few minutes sooner than anyone else there before boarding begins are suites and Pinns and it really is minutes.

Ah...but there might be cross contamination cause then we head to Alaska the week after @OCSC Mike returns. All in good fun!

Sorry to interrupt the graduation tangents...
Very happy accident with that Next Cruise re-booking of Star. Aside from the significant base savings, NC giving me an extra $50 off the website price, $50 OBC, and the smaller deposit, that flash sale must have ended yesterday b/c the price went back up by about $200.
It could easily go back down during the next good sale of course but that's not a bad thing. I had fun checking and re-pricing cabins for the family cruise multiple times since they didn't have group rates so now I get to do that for next 9 months for myself while obsessively checking for our GTY assignment using @jdeath's program.

I should have asked what the earliest was! I didn't know if you were able to get on that early because you are special and not a peon. 10-10:15 sounds great to me! With a teenager in tow, it might be closer to 11:30 anyway...