Next month will be my third cruise, all with Royal. I have no desire to go on any other line.
To paraphrase Barry White - Royal's my first; my last; my everything!
When you have never cruised with anybody and your first cruise is with RCI in a little over 90 days but you feel part of the family already - and you are looking to book a short 3 day one in August just to jump up the C&A ladder to Platinum!
Day -3
To blog or not to blog this is the question.
On one hand it was a nice experience last time , on the other hand this following cruise was just got excellent live review from Matt , also blogging in parallel to such nice blog from Anthem with pictures I can only dream to take with my poor phone …
But hey there is not such a thing as too much live blogs right ?!
So once again (and not so far from last time) we are planning to be on cruise.
This time a quick 5 days on Indi.
So let’s start from the whys:
After the last cruise we got a voucher from the Casino for a free cruise, the voucher allow you a free (well they call it free, you still need to pay gratitude and taxes) to choose from a list that contains mainly Caribbean cruises.
If you choose not to use one of the cruises from the list you can use the voucher value for any other cruise you choose (only new cruises allowed and it should be no later than one year from the voucher date)
Why Indi – well I was looking for a bigger ship after our last cruise in the Voyager and a shorter one.
The main idea is for us to squeeze a cruise and some other activities in one week which will allow us to be back home/work at the next Sunday.
So the 5 days cruise was just perfect for that and I loved to find out short cruise on bigger ship (usually the shorter cruise are on the small ships for some reason).
Why now? , We both need to consume some vacation days as the end of the year around the corner and we both over the allowed accumulated quota.
The most important reason - its going to be my spouse birthday and I cannot think about a better place to celebrate such occasion …
Besides that, does anyone really need an excuse why to cruising RC ? J
As Usual (if I can call a second live blog usual) I am starting the blog few days earlier as the vacation starts now and I started my long journey to the US (currently waiting for my connection in a country which I will not disclose its name but its famous for its Swiss cheese , Swiss chocolates and Swiss clocks).
The plan was very simple, flying to Miami, take a car and drive to Orlando (I refuse to go to Florida and skip Orlando parks, sorry, if I am already there I will take advantage on it),
3.5 hours’ drive after a transatlantic flight is not something I am not familiar with and we planned to split the drive between us , its sounds like a good plan.
Plans are one thing and reality is another, my spouse was called few days ago, urgently to some business meetings in the US.
It was perfect on one hand as it save us one of the reward airline ticket (all I needed now is one domestic ticket from the city the meeting are taking place to Orlando) on the other hand it means I will do the Miami – Orlando drive alone, well not totally alone, although Matt still do not know it yet but he is going to make sure I will stay awake during driving by listen to a binge RC blog podcasting I calculate after 8 podcast I should arrive safely, you can say many thing about Matt (just good thing don’t worry) but no one can say his podcast can be used as lullaby, especially with his enthusiasm,
Before you all ask why I did not fly directly to Orlando ? well as I am using rewards miles I cannot be too picky , in other words , it’s much easier to find international flight to Miami than to Orlando.
So now the plan is even easier , land in Miami , run to immigration and custom , pray that the lines are short and I am not stuck behind people from a flight of certain countries in Europe which the immigration officer love to question them for long period of time.
I will pick the car set the BT and start my way to meet my spouse so tomorrow we can visit Universal.
Currently still waiting here , after leaving a teenager to watch the apartment (he rather be left alone almost for the first time than joining us).
I just hope it will be ok as all we ask him is (he is a teenager you know you cannot ask them much) :
We want still have the apartment when we are back.
No complaints from neighbors.
Alcohol bottles remain the same as they were , and no , to refill the Gray guess with water or the whiskies with teas does not count .
The cat should still be alive.
Not too complicated as I said, good we have insurance (and his grandmother to spy on him from a distance).
Here is the cat reaction after understanding we are again going to cruise without him .
I am very interested in this. I love they store inside each other. But mostly I love that they are pretty inexpensive. Now if only they were decorated with seashells, light houses, and flying fish....
I'm booked on Adventure 2/24 - probably a sailing or two before you. We're flying in to San Juan a couple days early, but haven't booked any hotels yet.
From what I understand, some hotels are up and running while others are still either renovating or housing people. A lot of Old San Juan is also back up and running from what I hear, whether that be from restored or generator power. It can only keep getting better from here.
I'm actually really excited to go there and spend time prior to the cruise - at this point, I'm really not deterred and I'm sure they could use the tourism dollars.
I'm considering trying to live blog here pre and during the cruise so that I can 1) offer info on San Juan and 2) share the improvements coming to Adventure post dry dock.
In my quest to capture the best Northstar image I could I've come to realize that my big DSLR with it's enormous bulbous ultra wide lens is more of a liability in Northstar. The curved glass of the gondola reflects so much that a small lens is actually better. A nice small lens such as the one on an iPhone 7 Plus is ideal because you can get it closer to the windows in Northstar and since it's tiny compared to my big UWA DSLR lens it doesn't capture so much reflection.
Promise - last Northstar photo. This one is a vertical panorama With the sun directly in front of the ship you see the shadow of Northstar on the pool deck.
betatke1480 reacted to Floski in Loyal to Royal