twangster

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!!!! I've arrived in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale using the 'FLL' airport. This was several hundred cheaper than the Miami airport for my days of travel. Our approach to the airport was from the West and took us over the Everglades with I-75 in the distance, also known as The Everglades Parkway, also known as Alligator Alley. The Everglades don't look like much in this picture but that's because the whole area is shallow water with I-75 marking a distinct line across the Everglades. It's very swampy but a very unique eco-system that is part of the larger Florida water system that starts much farther North in the state. I didn't check any bags so upon deplaning I made my way to the baggage claim area where I knew the Royal Caribbean ship transfer kiosk would be found. Carnival had their kiosk setup near one exit at one end of the baggage claim area and RCCL had their joint Royal/Celebrity kiosk at the other end. In Terminal two that Delta uses this was directly across from baggage carousel three. First bus to Miami is around 10:45am. Having landed at 8:46am I've got some time to kill. Fortunately the FLL airport has free wifi. Since I'm here at the tail of morning rush hour I thought I'd look to see what prices are like for two popular ride sharing services, Uber and Lyft: It looks like Uber has a slight edge today. It's always best to check both because often this is reversed with Lyft being slightly cheaper. It's morning rush hour so I'd expect these to be lower at other times of the day. Since I'm solo a regular Lyft or UberX would suffice. The Royal transfer at $60 round trip is still the best deal for me as a solo but it does mean waiting here in the airport and likely not being at the port when boarding (hopefully) begins. For larger groups with more luggage an UberXL or LyftXL would be a better choice. For two people the Royal transfer still looks like it's the cheapest way to go but if there are more people in your party this quickly changes. For example, with a party of four, Royal would cost 4 x $60 or $240 round trip. The ride sharing services above are one way but even with 2 x $72 that's $144, nearly $100 less. Squeezing 4 people with baggage into a standard Uber/Lyft can be a challenge so I used the XL version for this price comparison. Traveling solo I'm saving around $14 by using the Royal transfer at the expense of convenience and just being able to jump into the next available car. This has killed the first hour, only 60 minutes to go until my bus should depart.

I've made it into the Delta Sky Club waiting for my 1am red eye. They hold the club open here in Denver until the last flight has boarded. On nights like this that works out well. A few extra drinks will ensure I sleep like a baby (or as well as can be expected on a plane). I couldn't find my phone headset with caterpillar wind screen. So I grabbed the headset from my business phone and one of the spare wind screen covers I bought from Amazon in a 5 pack and made myself another 'caterpillar wind screen ready for periscope wired Apple headset' as I sat here waiting. MacGyver would approve. Checking my 'Hurricane Tracker' app and there are still no active systems. My inbound plane is ahead of schedule. I don't recommend flying the day of the cruise but since I booked with Air2Sea and my the next port is Key West that risk was acceptable. With only carry on bags and traveling solo I can deal with last minute changes. So far so good.

It depends. I have a couple and a new back pack that I like. On this 5 night cruise I'm not checking bags so I needed a bigger pack for all my lens and a few things that overflowed from my bag went into my backpack. Full mirrorless camera kit including 5 lens. I missed my 'real' camera on Adventure. A phone camera is fine outdoors in the day, but not so much in low light. I had too many "if I had my real camera that would be a really great shot" on Adventure. I won't make that mistake again. New lens for this cruise, a 500mm f6.3 mirror lens (1000mm with a 2x teleconverter). I'm not expecting great things from this lens, it was $99 new including the 2x converter, but a short and light 500mm lens for a full frame camera may be fun to play around with. The Sony A7 III has good low light performance so I can push the ISO and use dark glass more. With the in-body sensor stabilization a lens like this can be used handheld under the right conditions.

You can also get great cruise fares end of season. I just went on Explorer then I saw Radiance for $499 pp, Southbound. It went as low as $449 pp. If you can be flexible and travel on a few weeks notice there are some great fares.

Billy Ocean is alive? Awesome news! I heard a rumor somewhere...

Two weeks already? Where has the time gone. Thanks for sharing your experience with us and great job blogging!

Any MEI travel agent can book a Royal Caribbean Blog group cruise. Annette may do all the work on an actual GC (in case you thought Matt did anything), but she doesn't have to manage your booking to qualify.

I'll be there next week, assuming tenders can operate, so I'll update my Empress blog in the live blog section if we make it.

The Royal ship transfer was $60 round trip, per person. That's from FLL. MIA (Miami) airport was slightly cheaper for the ship transfer but I almost always find FLL cheaper for airfare so overall it was cheaper flying into FLL. Half packed, still have 8 hours. No problem mon!

With Cuba on my mind and with a goal of sailing some of the older and smaller ships in the fleet I booked Empress. With the current fleet it's hard to get any smaller. I'm supposed to get a glass block based on my current Crown and Anchor points accumulation so as I thought which ship to 'block' on, getting a glass block from Empress seemed like a really cool idea so I booked this cruise with that other goal in mind. It's a 5 night cruise: Day 1 - Embark Miami Day 2 - Key West Day 3 - Havana Day 4 - Sea Day Day 5 - CocoCay Day 6 - Debark Miami It's been a few years since I've visited Key West but I need to get some work done so I'm not sure how far I'll venture off the ship. For Havana I've a booked a full day excursion through Royal. I have an overnight cruise to Havana booked in September so I'm using this trip and excursion to discover and plan my next visit there for maximum cultural enrichment. I have many Canadian friends who have visited Cuba. They've been able to fly direct since, well forever. They've given me some ideas so this full day excursion should check all the boxes for an initial Cuba experience and allow me to better plan my next visit. I've missed a few calls on CocoCay this year so fingers crossed. Flights were booked through Air2Sea and I'm taking a dreaded red eye flight with airport transfers to the ship by Royal. I usually just take a ride-share but as a solo traveler the transfer isn't that bad from a cost perspective and it's for research so I know how well it works getting from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) airport to the Port of Miami and back. I had to work this weekend so the all night flight is an "efficient" use of my time, or so I keep telling myself to justify it. Not sure when I might sail Empress again especially since she does mostly Cuba runs at the moment so I've splurged and booked a junior suite. My first solo JS experience. At the time I booked it was a reasonable price difference. My red-eye departs at 1am local time and I haven't started packing yet. It's only 5 nights so not a hard cruise to pack for. However I better step away from the keyboard and get started.

Having lived in the Arctic in my youth, I lived in their space. I snowmobiled in their space. I went hiking in their space. It's easy to say "cruiselines see a chance to make a few bucks" but I guarantee you people want this kind of experience. It's offered because there is demand. It's a small ship that specializes in high adventure exotic cruising. The ship has 80 cabins. This sort of excursion has been running for decades. Sooner or later something was bound to occur. That doesn't mean that any excursion with any risk should be banned. Seems to me its journalism trying to sensationalize anything they can to make headlines.

Note the flying position on the stomach rather than a seat sling. Looks different but sounds sort of the same.

Have fun with it. "I'm a really mean person and no one likes me" "They went overboard at the first opportunity" "It was a last minute deal and the cruise only cost me $60. How much did you pay?" "I'm doing research for a blog" - then turn the table and ask them all sorts of questions. Seriously though, I just explain I have a flexible travel schedule and my friends and family do not, which is the truth.

Then try lobster in both and let us which is better!

Oh come on now, we all now @Matt has ALL the answers! I cruise solo often. I am also a frequent solo business traveler. When you travel for business sooner or later you have to eat. I'm not going to eat fast food so you reach a point as a business traveler that you get over any hang ups or issues about eating alone in something other fast food restaurants. Sometimes this means eating at the bar within a restaurant but sometimes I just want a table. In fact, if someone else is paying the bill, why not try a reasonable sit down restaurant? Cruising solo and eating dinner alone come naturally because I have traveled solo for business. We all have to eat sometime and in the case of a cruise, we all paid for our included meals. Since I paid for it, why not try a reasonable sit down experience? For solo dining I choose My Time Dining. I am always seated at a table for two by myself. Service is typically fast and the wait staff always treat me well. I have never noticed if any one is looking at me because quite honesty I don't care if they are, much like when I travel for business. I wear a sports coat on formal night. It's easy to do and it respects the dining room process. i don't pay a lot of attention to what other people are wearing and it doesn't bother me if others don't dress up. I wouldn't even notice if someone wore white after Labor day, I've probably done it myself. I tend not to do specialty dining very often. I do sometimes, but rarely. The MDR for me is generally ideal . I take pictures of menus for the blog (flash off) and if I remember pictures of my meals. I often think what I might blog about or reflect on the day and before I know it my meal has arrived. I paid for the MDR, so I have no qualms about using something I paid for.

I was able to get Symphony transatlantic Voom S&S for $11.99 a long time ago. Great deal! For a while they were offering Surf only at that price and now with this weekend's sale, S&S is $13.99. As far as Voom goes, the start of day 2 varies in my experience. On Anthem one time it started at 10pm on boarding day. I happened to check and to my surprise there it was. On another ship Voom day 2 rates didn't start until 8am on day 2. I don't know if the IT staff have to manually advance it or if different ships just do it differently.

Typically the stated port time is the desired time passengers can walk off the ship. However that isn't a "guaranteed" time. Stuff happens. One time another ship had difficulty docking and we had to hang back waiting for them to get it done. We couldn't approach until we were given the green light to proceed. Not our Captain's fault but we were 'late' arriving because of another cruise line. Their old ship didn't have azipods so they struggled in the moderate wind. Most reputable excursion companies understand that ship port time isn't absolute but it would be wise to ask them this question and make sure you understand their policies.

Izumi Express is sometimes found on ships that don't have an Izumi specialty restaurant. Harmony has an Izumi restaurant.

Based on that photo you must have great weather!

Absolutely. Check often. Typically you are safe to purchase now and if a future sale does apply to your sailing, refund your purchase and buy it at the lower price.

Enchantment seems to win the conflict when they have had two Vision class ships both booked at Cococay. It's interesting they dropped a day on Mariner 2/22. Makes me wonder if they charted her and needed an extra day for the charter. Mariner has two known charters right now: Sun 10, Mariner Of The Seas, 5 Night On The Blue Cruise, Miami / Miami Sun 24, Mariner Of The Seas, 5 Night Monsters Of Rock Cruise, Miami / Miami Given the charter on 2/24 I'm guessing it got an extra day by changing the 2/22 sailing down to 2 nights. http://monstersofrockcruise.com/ It's going to Labadee and Ocho Rios which isn't a common port for Royal to use in Jamaica.

The sale doesn't apply to all sailings. You will see if before placing it in your cart.

Voom on-board versus cruise planner at $13.99 for various C&A levels: Voom Comparison 1399.pdf For D/D+ the day 2 strategy remains cheapest for 7 nights or less. Day 2 strategy involves buying it on board but waiting until day 2 to do so since prices drop for the full voyage plans on board as each day passes. For Emerald and Platinum on 7 night or longer you are better to buy it ahead of time @ $13.99 For Gold on 5 night or longer you are better to buy it ahead of time @ $13.99

I'll be keenly watching Voom prices in 2019. Now that I'm D+ it's usually cheaper to buy it on board. When the cruise planner price is $13.99 or lower for sailings of 11 nights or longer I'm better to buy it ahead of time. Here is the cruise planner price trend with the current 'sale': July 2019 $15.99 August 2018 $13.99 September 2018 $13.99 October 2018 $13.99 November 2018 $14.99 December 2018 $14.99 January 2019 $14.99 February 2019 $19.99 April 2019 $19.99 May 2019 $17.99 June 2019 $17.99 July 2019 $19.99 (July 4th GC) September 2019 $17.99 November 2019 $17.99 December 2019 $19.99 (Holiday GC)

I have three mid-September cruises. My 'eDocs' are ready for 9/12 including luggage tags - 47 days. For my other cruises at 52 and 56 days, no eDocs yet, no luggage tags. Luggage tags are usually found within your eDoc near the end. This isn't the same as a SetSail pass. A quick way to look for eDocs is in your dashboard once logged in. Click the "View more details" link and the section will expand. If you're eDocs are ready a link will appear for them. Otherwise it will state "You have no cruise documents available at this time".