Traveler

Day 2 , First sea day ! we are in Nassau :-) , regular breakfast at the WJ (7 AM at the morning) it was amazing to see how many people were in the WJ so early, I even found some vegetables to eat. Although we had no special plans we went down to walk around and increase our step counts. We even bought some gift to bring home..The water color and the view was very nice , the weather was changing every 5 minutes between sun and clouds with light rain from time to time, it was not too warm to walk and browse the city. Although we heard many bad things about pushy sell people we did not felt it too much, yes , many offer you few hours trips but once you say no thank you they leave you alone. After few hours we went back to the ship , I called CK to reserve dinner and catch lunch at Solarium bistro, it was not bad , I preferred on the WJ lunch, less option = less temptations to resist ? . Post lunch we tour the boat and I must say it was quite empty for Nassau port , many disembark from the ship , no issue to find prime location near the pool. I went to rest for few hours , much needed to gain back some of the missing sleeping hours .., that was good, finally it felt like vacation ? . We went up to the CK , as it was official nigh I wear some dress shirt and my spouse went with a dress, we felt over dressed in the CK ? I counted 10 man (And some woman) with shorts , many with polo shirts and T-shirts ... For us service was very fast , we both took the lobster salad for starter , for main I took the veal tenderloin and my partner, the prime rib ,the portion of the veal was quite small but it was enough for me , both were good but not something special. For desert I took the Velarhona bar and we also tried the cheese cake. We brought wine with us but since they wanted a 15 $ corkage fee so we decide to skip it and just use our BOGO offer for two glass of wine (total 11 $) , it strange for me to pay 15$ to open my 14 $ bottle ?. On day one we were very tired , so although we went to see MamaMia and enjoyed it my souse went back to the room after the break. Today we waited for the brake, entered in the theater, waiting until the show will start again and found empty chair to enjoy the second half.

Some Casino news (for me anyway) they added another level to the reward program- for 8000 points you get certificate for a free junior suite offer

I tried the Valarhona bar, it was ok but not what I expected

Was saving for the day recap ?

CK menu

Quick CK update , we brought wine with us and it's the first time ever we were asked for corkage fee . I know it's not a new fee .

You are right , but I was busy trying to fix several things before ? , anyway the good news is that I called them today and reserved a table without any issue

Day 1 : Yesterday was all about contribution to the US economy, which was OK for me for the first two hours ? but since there is huge price difference between the US and home we to advantage of it. Anyway its just to explain why although originally we came with two suitcase now we had three , good that I printed enough luggage tags. Finally it was the cruise day, we woke up around 5 am (Jet Lag) and started to get organized while I had to take some working calls. The plan was to start and drive around 6:30 AM so we will drop the luggage at the port and I will continue and drop the car at the airport. We checked out from our hotel, Holiday inn suites across Universal , its perfect hotel if you visit Universal , the room are big and comes with kitchen and allot of space. The hotel is quite old and need some ramp up but its clean and its the second time we stayed there. As we start our way to the port , my spouse ask if we can go for few minutes to Walmart to complete some last minute shopping , I knew Walmart is never few minutes (because of me most of the times, I always need to check the outdoor section and electronics) but I said why not , although we planned to be at port around 10:30 ... but its not a deal breaker. Around 7:45 we started our way on the turnpike. the drive was OK most of the time , not much traffic on Sunday morning. when we were getting close to Miami three things happened , one , the traffic started to be slow , second , the car complained about the gas level (I was prepaying for gas) and it started to rain heavily. Quick assessment of the situation and we decided to go first to the airport to drop the car and catch a taxi/Uber to the port. That came to be a very good decision as the port was very busy. We arrived to the car rental center around 11:15 , dropped the car and took a taxi (flat rate of 27 $). At port we were around 10 minutes in traffic but once we arrived all the check inn process was very quick. We dropped the suitcases , gave some tip to the porter and went enter terminal A. We went to the second floor to a very quick check in and went to the ship , all in all I estimate it around 7 minutes (including security). First stop was the WJ , nothing much to say as not really existing food. During the lunch time a lady approached us to offer dining packages , I have asked her about chef table , she went to check for us for any promotion but came back with zero of them , oh well we will try next time. the rooms were opened at 1 PM , I looked at the key room and saw that again they did not linked my account with the my club royal status , I was annoyed as I called them before to cruise to make sure there are no issues and they promised me everything going to be OK. I called club royal , waited on line for 15 minutes to get one person who did not helped much, the call was cut at the middle so I had to dial again , waited another 15 minutes until got another person who after another 15-20 figure out what happened and how she can fix it. She told me they are going to send an email to the ship and I should go to guest services to re print my key (which as you know on day 1 of the cruise the lines are crazy). I wanted the status associate mainly because the internet (and yes also the free alcohol). It was not such a good start and it also made me to be late in reserving CK , but hey I am on vacation and not going to let things like that to ruined it. Another thing that was missing was the C&A free water, but since I am already used to it I just notify the cabin attended and he fixed it for us. We went to explorer the ship for a while , for some reason we did not find the water slides and the dry slides , but what do you know we found Sabor ? We took our first drink and went to the muster drill. After the drill ended we went back to the cabin for sell away from our balcony . Since we did not had reservations to CK we went up to try our luck , as I wrote before no much luck (at least for the time we wanted) so we went to the MDR which was not bad and took only one hour. Post the MDR we went to the casino to talk to the casino host about the status , he said he got the email and added a sticker to my card , he also made a call to IT and they add the internet to our account, so issue were fixed just on time before we had to go to see Mama Mia, we both thought the show is one of the best RCL production so far , not so for the set but more about the performance, or maybe we just liked the fact we know most of the songs :-). Mind the show is 2.5 hours ! (with 15 minutes break) and for sure is not suitable for kids. That was a long day (including 3.5 hours driving) , well tomorrow its a sea day , we are arriving Nassau

JS Costal kitchen update. I tried to call them to reserve a table for tonight but no answer. On 5:45 e we went up and being told we can have a table at 7:30 which was not a good time for us as we have a show at 8 . The host gave us her phone for reservation on other days so we will try again tomorrow. For tonight it will be the MDR

Hi , Embarcation was very fast , we arrived around 11:45 am , stuck on traffic for around 10 minutes ,once we arrived to the terminal it took us 7 minutes and we were on board

Another way to cruise. Oh well maybe next time, I wonder if they have a buffet there, if not I think we will skip it

Interesting thing For the prepaid internet now you are not getting a code but you need to create account which automatically get you the voucher.

So we maid it on board after a long drive , room is very nice , balcony is huge . Enjoying first lava flow

When you find the recipe please share ?

Day -2 4:30 AM I was up , Jet Lag you know (anyway that was my excuse , actually had to follow some working issues but do no tell my spouse, the good thing the JS has a big balcony , I think if I will continue like that this is were I will sleep at the next 7 days) . I still had to buy tickets to the park so I was waiting to 7 AM when the hotel ticket counter will be opened. on 7 AM I Went down to see that a small line already formed but no issues since two people were handling requests. when I finally got to one of the representative he gave me the detailed, took our names and told me that I am lucky has they still have place on the 8:30 shuttle , then he told me he needs to go and the other person will take care of me. on the same time another lady just arrived to the other representative asking for the shuttle and secured 4 places , when he started to handle my request he told me no more room on the shuttle. That really annoyed me as if the other guy would continue with my booking it would not happen. I told him if this is the case I would go and by my tickets (same price) online. So I went back to the room to book online . It was fast and also allowed me to save the tickets on there application so I do not need to print any paper. Since we did not had the shuttle we decided to walk to the park which was perfect , its only 15 minutes walk (our hotel is just across from the park), I did not want to take the car as the parking place locate not that far from the hotel so it might even take more time to enter the park , park the car and walk to the entrance . We arrived to the park at 8:50, happy to see it was already opened, was also very happy I booked my ticket online so I can skip some of the queues , or that's what I thought anyway. We went to the entrance, present our app just to get red light from the gate . They told us we need to go to the guest services to check it out .... Well here goes the "book online and skip the lines" ... after 15 minutes wait at the guest services (while I mumbling R rated words) we have been told we need to upgrade the tickets and it will cost 9 $ each. I asked how come I am required to pay more and have been told that recently they raised the park tickets fee and maybe they did not updated the web site , whatttttttt ???? , I explain her I bought the tickets one hour ago and ask if they raised the price during the last hour ? she said she can not do anything and maybe it is a glitch on the site. I claimed its a scam , and if they can not maintain the site they should blame there IT people (really wanted to ask her if by any chance they are getting IT services from the same company as Royal Caribbean). I really do not mind the extra money , I did mind our time that was wasted instead of enjoying the rides. I guess she saw that the "trying system" will not work here and hey what do you know she found a way to fix our tickets without extra cost. So we finally could get in. I thought to buy the express tickets , but it cost around 90 $ each (for one time per attraction) , well 90 $ is actually 3 night dining package , 6-8 drinks or Chef table ? so we decide to take the chance. Happy we did it , lines were no more than 15 minutes (many even 5 minutes) and it was like that until almost 1 PM. We done all the attractions we wanted and even got the hot butter beer (yes very sweet , but much better than the regular butter beer). We had something to eat at the city walk and went back to the hotel ,took the car and went to buy some food (so we will have better breakfast than what we had at the hotel ) and some very important things for the cruise (two bottle of wines ...) after all that we still had time to walk back to the park to enjoy the night show (very nice). All in all it was very nice efficient day. Oh , step count 32400 . On the way to the park Someone that was trying to use RC website : The harry potter castle during the night show Lots of walking today

Another cruise is soon to start and after few discussions with myself I decided to write something . not promising tons of updates (need to work also ?) but will try. This cruise was booked around two month ago when we just came back from our Symphony cruise , I was looking for a cruise for my spouse birthday and the dates/price worked. When I booked the cruise I had the option of balcony or Junior suite , the difference was 600$ , we booked the balcony. For many days I was sorry for not booking the JS as we both have 71 C&A points , JS would brought us to Diamond ... so I kept browsing everyday just to see that all the JS gone. Few weeks after I saw one JS coming up and the price different was 200 $ ! , I called as fast as I could and successfully re booked and got the JS (that was a good answer to the question - can you change your cabin after final payment) . sometime YOLO cost more ? The plan : Flying to Miami , take a car , drive to Orlando for three nights, Enjoy Universal park + some shopping and on Sunday drive to Miami to catch allure. crazy I know but I could find only flight to Miami using miles and my spouse really had the craving for hot butter beer. I kept browsing United site everyday hoping to find a flight that will take us to Orlando ans save me the 3.5 hour drive after a long flight , what do you know , two days before our scheduled departure I found one , so I quickly changed our flight to Miami (via Swiss) to a direct Newark flight with a connection to Orlando , the bonus was that the Miami flight started at 5 am while the Orlando one 12 PM . Where we go and what we are planning : Day -3 Flying to Orlando , connect during the flight to work to cover my vacation (somehow not all my clients been told I am out for this week) . Day -2 Universal/adventure island - We both love this park and feel it has just the right attraction combination. Day -1 Shopping , working (again) and resting. Day 1 - Miami Terminal A Day 2 - Nassau , no plans currently , maybe to stay on the ship ,maybe to walk around for a while. Day 3 - Sea day - sushi class Day 4 - Cuzumel - Going to the downtown and maybe some other activities Day 5 - Roatan - ATV rides and a beach brake Day 6 - Costa Maya - We booked the Maya Chan per the recommendations from this site. Day 7 - Sea day. Day 8 - Flying back home Day - 3 It was as stormy day back home so we decide to take a taxi and not just walk to the train, arriving to the airport was quick (20 minutes) and check in was very fast. soon we found our self in the launch were I had to lead a working call (good the launch was empty) while sharing a presentation, surprisingly it went very well. I even found sometime to buy myself a book. Flight was on time , during the first minutes of the flights before we got over the storm clouds we heard twice a loud noise and very bright light , nothing that force the plane to turn around but still alarming. 15 minutes later the captain called it "our exiting take off". rest of the flight went Ok , saw some movies and eat a good lunch. 11 hours later we landed at Newark , immigration was quick and we could wait for our Orlando flight at the new United Launch (yes working again) , it was a good place to eat dinner. The Orlando flight was delayed for about one hour but it was not too bad. I slept most of the internal flight , landing around 10:30 PM , we quickly collected our suitcases and pickup the rental car from Avis. 20 minutes after we were at the hotel , just about time for me to take another working call with a south eastern client (and for my spouse complaining that this is not vacation if I am taking calls all the time) . Only one picture for today.

Following , have a wonderful cruise

Oh wow , if IT were managing the ships - here are some of the things that might happened : You will wake up at the morning and see that half of the ship is missing , they might return after few days Every day you will arrive to a random port. Your room will move every hour to another deck. The ship will look as if someone forgot to send the plan to a designer and it went directly to the shipyard for construct Every now and then you will not be able to get into your cabin and the cabin attended will advise you to go around the running track 4 times, try another shirt and clean you pockets before trying again , it might work , if not try tomorrow. Many venues that everyone liked will not be there anymore and the crew will try to convince you its better . I

I also not getting emails from RC which are not invoice or approval for cruise planner beside emails like : 1. Join to C&A - while I am already Emerald. 2. Last chance to do online check in - while I did it already two month ago . And more stuff like that. I suspect the email server which RC are using for promotions is being in some black list of spam senders and therefore many are not getting the promotions emails.

Its quite simple, the cost for for the UDP for Symphony and Harmony was 29 $ per day ,I guess RC decided that all OASIS ships will be the same so 29*7 is 203 ,but 200 dose not looks good therefore 199 ... Only one hundred and not two ? Now , while its very easy to change the price in the system - change is being made in the product catalog or some pricing reference tables and just waiting for the next automatic update, the picture change (where you see the 24 $) is much more complicate : First the marketing need to approach the IT to change it , IT will tell marketing its a design change so it should go to another division, the other division will send it to the graphic department which will reject the request since they just had a downsizing and the person who was in charge on pricing pictures was fired a week before. After some discussion they will decide to take a contractor for this work , it will be the same person that was just fired but now he will be hire as contractor paying him 200% of his previous salary. He will do his job and change the picture pricing to 29 PP. The picture will be sent to marketing branding group for approval , the person that need to approve it will reject it saying the price Icon is too red which contradict the new brand color pallet which changed few days ago (actually, no much changed done but its a good for job security for such divisions). The graphic department will get back the picture, they will hold it for three days and send back the same exact picture , this time the brand group will approve it. Next marketing will send it to IT to upload to the site , IT will try to upload it on the next maintenance window just to see they do not have enough disk space as someone forgot to compress the picture , as the maintenance window will already pass it will wait for the next one. On the next window it will be uploaded and everyone will be happy , the only problem will be once when people go to the site they will still see the 24 $ picture , yes , someone forgot to refresh the cache , oh well it can wait for another window. when it finally it will be fixed , RC will find out a drop in UDP purchasing and ask to rollback the change. So now you see , why its 199 in the price and still 24 in the picture ?

For my travel in 12 days Izumi vanished , I believed they got many complains and decided to hold it for a while , I will not be surprised if we will see it back soon around 35-40 $ fix price or

Make sense , the question will it continue to be like that , until now a couple could order two special roes (28 for the most expensive one $) two starter (15$) , soup (4$), 5 pieces sashimi (19) , edamame for free , dessert (8) total - 74 $ +/- ... Now , I took the most expensive choices , if someone will take the salad and the 11 $ role it will be much less .

We went to Wonderland twice (Harmony and Symphony) at Symphony we used the BOGO for it. Both times we enjoyed it very much although on the second time we already knew what we are going to get and all the "surprises" like the dessert were less wow. For sure I would recommend it at least one time as an experience, the short rib is very good , some of the starters are enjoyable and interesting some less but the overall is good. Will we go again , well not in the near future as we have more restaurants to experience first (like 150 C which we did not tried yet).

Not sure how come Izumi becomes the most expensive restaurant after Chef table (which there at least you get wine with the meal). Do not remember any time we went eat at Izumi and spent so much (100 $ for two). I hope they will still have the la carte option, anyway the 35 $ deal you got with the different packages made much more sense .

I think you should be OK with the NYE. Thanksgiving dinner can always be problematic when you need to serve many people at once, turkey mostly will be dry.