twangster

The Music Hall has permanent sound and lighting equipment.

Will try. I've yet to see a DJ on the pool deck, no outdoor parties.

I use cameras that capture in the RAW format. This allows for a lot of options to "fix" pictures later in software. For indoor or dark shows I tend to use around 1/80th or for skating shows 1/250th shutter speed to avoid motion blur and I let the auto-ISO of the camera go crazy high, then I apply noise reduction later in software to remove the noise that is typical with high ISO photos. The Pixel shots were captured with a Sony RX100M6. It's not inexpensive but small, discrete and it shoots in RAW just like my bigger mirrorless camera does. It's a very capable little camera.

After the show there was an Elvis impersonator in the main theater but that isn't my genre so I skipped it. The cloud cover remained but i saw a sliver of a sunset on the horizon forward. I left my cabin to see what I could capture of this so called "sunset" from the Solarium. The bridge wings were closed so I had to settle for a shot through the glass with a reflection in it. Out of the Solarium and back into the indoor pool area where there are windows that slide open. By this time most guests had settled in for the night so I used the opportunity to take some pictures around the ship. Here are some: The VIA: The lobby art is in motion. It's a series of paddle like blades that swing back in forth. Finally the Esplanade without hordes of people. This next piece of art is from artist Celilia Lueza called "Epiphany II": Izumi: Wonderland: Some folks may not have sailed this class or a ship with similar decor so here is a typical elevator lobby : With that it was bed time.

After Pixels I headed out past Vintages but it was barely still Diamond happy hour so I had time for one more drink. I noticed they have a cigar humidor which people sometimes inquire about. Here it is with pricing:

Day Two Evening - Pixels Pixels is the only show that uses reservations on Ovation. It's sort of a techno show at times that also features some strong vocal parts and the solitary call of a saxophone with an aerial artist at other times. It starts with some background images projected onto the Vistarama screen that lowered soon after guests started entering to find a seat. The backgrounds had a distinct Asia-Pacific theme to them. The backgrounds change with a ripple effect Our main character and leader of the Pixels gets the show off to a start. Love the sound of the sax. One of the harmony sisters. Shout out to the bots out there. These same robo singers "perform" on Anthem. Girl in a drum. She's very athletic, moving and holding different positions to the rhythm of the music. The grand finale. All in all a great show that I enjoyed more than Spectra's Cabaret on Anthem.

Whales spotted off the port side! The distinctive sprout of water appeared in the distance too far off to get a picture. They are out there, heading North to their summer feeding grounds.

Day two afternoon included an enrichment lecture in Two70° featuring a guest speaker focused on Alaska. I caught the tail end and it was informative. I noticed another event in the cruise compass shortly after the enrichment lecture. "The Royal Caribbean Story, Part 1". This was the name of the documentary I watched on the Symphony Transatlantic so I was hoping it was related. It was! Instead of just playing the video they took the narration from the video that the Cruise Director and Activities Director took turns reading in between interviews and clips that played from the original video. It provides great insight into the history of Royal Caribbean. Part 1 covers 1968 - 1999. Part 2 coming later in the cruise covers the second video presumably which covers 2000 - somewhere around when Oasis class was announced and being built if I recall correctly from watching it on Symphony. This is the stuff that @Matt trivia is made of. Don't miss it.

In theory she could also use the new Celebrity terminal if T18 is busy that day. However I could see them using the other weekend day opposite from an Oasis class ship at T18.

Liberty. Newer ship, larger ship, more activities and better entertainment. Promenade, Ice Skating shows, water slides, more balcony cabins mean they may be cheaper if booked far enough in advance. Enchantment is an older, smaller ship. It's okay if the price is right and you will have a great cruise on her but she is nothing like Liberty.

Welcome to the message boards! Zero chance of it airing on the ship. You only option is a paid Voom Surf and Stream plan and an HBO Go or HBO Now subscription. Even then it may not work well, or may be blocked based on your location. I'm on a ship right now. I tried watching the trailer to the The Last Watch. It took a while to buffer but I could watch it at play,hbogo.com. I was in a hotel for episode 5 and it was terrible trying to watch it. Hotel internet was bad. It would pause every 5-10 seconds and buffer for 5-10 seconds. It took me over two hours to watch it.

In the RoyalIQ app used on Ovation (until it is converted to the new app) they have listed some Shore Excursions with pricing. Pricing in the cruise planner before sailing was better and in some cases sales were offered prior to sailing. I booked this one for $318.99: I booked this one in advance in the cruise planner for $100: I didn't book this one but I'll post it here for a point of reference: As you see you can save some money when you purchase in advance and you can save even more if you watch for sales in the cruise planner in the months before cruising.

When ever I sail on Quantum class I drop by the SeaPlex and take a picture of the activity times. While they may be listed in the cruise compass, you only learn those the day the cruise compass is left in your cabin. Sometimes it's good to know days ahead when each activity will be so you can leave time for them as the cruise progresses. While these times are unique to this 11 night cruise, this should give you an idea of when these activities are planned.

A new restaurant is being installed during this sailing. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/05/13/fish-and-ships-specialty-restaurant-coming-ovation-of-the-seas Looking back at embarkation in the waiting area across from me was a contractor. Given his bag of tools and dress he was boarding to work. He had a large bag of tools so it was sort of logical he wasn't a guest bringing a large number of tools with them to go on a cruise :). My guess is he is working on the Fish & Ships on the pool deck.

I think MN has a better chance :) At the moment cloud cover is our enemy. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast

We’ve crossed 50 degrees North and switched to Speedcast Voom. No more O3b. Ping 635ms 1.7Mb down 0.9 Mb up

Something else I forgot to mention... Normally the SeaPass cards on ships that use RFID can't be punched because you could cut the antenna embedded into the card. Here on Ovation the RFID cards come pre-punched in the lower left corner. This means traditional lanyards are back in play. This is the first I've seen this, granted my last RFID ship was back in November.

Day Two - Sea Day I woke to the phone call from room service letting me know that breakfast was on the way. Time to get up! I worked for a while which I had planned to do since it was sea day. Voom has been pretty sketchy disappearing entirely for periods of time. I worked around that by showering and doing other things when Voom went on vacation. It's definitely not like O3b Voom in the Caribbean. Our progress so far... North Star has a camera on it that is rotated into the itinerary channel 17 map display. Weather is overcast with drizzle and periods of rain. That may be contributing to the poor Voom service.

After sail away I went back to my cabin to upload some pictures and worked on the blog. This included grabbing my GoPro off the balcony to see how my sail away time lapse came out. I was pretty tired after a couple of late nights and long days so I headed to bed early after setting out my room service door tag for my morning breakfast.

I recently updated my bot firmware to allow multitasking.

One thing I noted during sail away was the lack of a sail away party. Instead they had the BumbleBee movie playing on the pool deck. Our CD is from Australia so perhaps he isn't climatized to cooler weather and chose not to host a sail away party which seemed like a lost opportunity to hype up the event and passing under the bridge. On Anthem they made a party out of it and counted down as we approached the bridge. Deck 15 was packed so the only people who missed the event were the CD staff.

After a bite to eat and a drop by the Music Hall for Diamond Happy Hour it was getting closer to sail away so I went to deck 15. The iFly instructors were playing around. North Star was going. Then they put North Star in its parked position and secured it in place. A puff of dark smoke indicated they were cranking up another engine. More and more guests were making their way top side in anticipation of sail away. We must be getting close... We backed out and away from the terminal, did a partial turn and began our departure towards the Lions Gate Bridge. Soon after we approached the bridge. No stopping now, here we go... The moment of truth... North Star clearing with ample space. And now for the funnel. Note the metal stacks that normally stick up above the funnel have been retracted. With that we were through and into Burrard Inlet to make our way to the Pacific. Looking forward the sun had set and it was beginning to grow darker. Back to the North Star bar for another Diamond Happy Hour drink.

Prince and Greene is being converted to a shop dedicated to Alaska merchandise.

Luggage delivered by 2pm. I quickly unpacked and went to explore some more. I'll find a less busy time to take some pictures around the ship. I dropped by guest services to see if I could swap an old Wow! band I brought with me. They took my old E1 Muster band from Anthem and gave me a new A4 Muster band without any fees. Muster at 4pm. Muster stations here on Ovation, like Anthem and other Quantum class are all indoors. They didn't use the Oasis class spy safety video like they did on Anthem. This video was more focused just on the safety aspects without trying to turn it into a mini-series. At the assembly drill the Captain announced our 8pm departure with a bridge time around 8:20 - 8:30pm depending on traffic. It was kind of nice having 4 hours to do stuff before sail away.

I was wearing my invisibility cloak that day. Several bikers nearly ran me over.