joost

hope they dont mind my meds not being in original bottles,  mine are delivered in small bags per day and time to take them, i do have a letter from my nurologist and docter why i need to take them so i guess that is enough

It would be nice if RCI would pick this guy up for the ships... he's a riot!
 

Am I the only one that sees the humor in the fact that the Skylight Chapel is now the Escape Room ..... A location where people said their vows is now an Escape Room......Related?????  You be the judge.

Woohoo!!! More pictures.

Liberty 2-25-18

would this be formal enough?  im wairing the one from my own country  offcourse :)
 

would this be formal enough?  im wairing the one from my own country  offcourse :)
 

would this be formal enough?  im wairing the one from my own country  offcourse :)
 

good news, good luck i hope  you will  be hopping around in no time :)

So an update on the situation. I saw the general surgeon today, and I got the best possible outcome in my book.
First off, he said he's comfortable with having me get my planned knee surgery tomorrow. Since the other issue isn't causing any major pain or giving other signs that the timing is more critical, we're doing that second surgery on Monday, Feb 12. Basically giving my knee the time to heal and get the sutures out, as well as give me a little extra time to be ready for a second round of general anesthesia.
Second, recovery time with laparoscopic version of this procedure is definitely on the shorter end of that range I'd seen, and he said 4 weeks should actually be plenty good to be well enough to navigate a cruise ship, go swimming, etc.. There's some small chance that he'll find after starting the laparoscopic work that he can't do it that way and will have to switch to regular open incision surgery, but even if it came to that he said it shouldn't add more than a week to the recovery time. With this second surgery on the 12th, I'll have just over six weeks until our flight to FLL. That'll be enough time to heal up rock solidly and board that plane with no worries about comfort, and board the ship three days later without worries about getting around.
So I am definitely feeling very relieved right now. I have to be at the surgical center for the knee arthroscopy tomorrow morning at 8:30, and I'll probably be zonked out the rest of the day. But soon as I'm feeling up to sitting at a computer again (or at least using my phone for prolonged periods without wondering the meds will make me do ), I'll let everyone know how it all went.

its crazy close 

its from march 3 to march 11 im on the list for 11 march now
just 34 days left 

Since this was Anthem's first visit to Miami I went overboard taking pictures.  Go figure, me taking pictures.  Here are some of them:
























And with that it was time to leave...

you could teach a class or 2 of your own i guess,

- how to make people want to cruise more
- best way to cruise
- how to make the best fotos during a cruise
- etc 

you could teach a class or 2 of your own i guess,

- how to make people want to cruise more
- best way to cruise
- how to make the best fotos during a cruise
- etc 

After school activities include the RCLblog?

me too  but I will still give my <3 still lol
 
We will need to meet up then. Was hoping someone from here would be onboard lol.

Well as someone who doesn't have kids yet but plan to soon it would be nice to see what they are like from a parents perspective to be honest. 
 
 
We are on the 8 day Freedom on March 3rd from Fort Lauderdale. (just over a month so freaking excited to be back on a boat)

From time to time I see people asking about what drinks are included in the Coca-Cola Freestyle drink dispensers. 
@Matt has written blogs on the Freestyle machines.  Here is one from 2015:
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2015/07/20/coca-cola-freestyle-machines-royal-caribbean
While I am on Anthem I have some free time so I grabbed some pictures of all the Freestyle drink menus.  
Let's start with the main menu:
 
From here you can see the types of drinks available in each category.  First are two pages for the "All Drinks" category:
 
 
Here are the types of drinks available within each option:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And of course plain water:
 
The same drinks are sorted by "Low/No Calories" options:
 
The same drinks sorted by "Caffeine Free" options:
 
Finally the same drinks are sorted by flavor:
 
Here are the Cherry drinks:
 
 
Orange drinks:
 
 
Raspberry drinks:
 
 
Grape drinks:
 
Lemon drinks:
 
 
Peach drinks:
 
 
Strawberry drinks:
 
 
Lime drinks:
 
 
Fruit Punch drinks:
 
Vanilla drinks:
 
Cherry Vanilla drinks:
 
Mixed Berry drinks:
 
For those that are asking what is a Freestyle drink dispenser?  
Certain Royal Caribbean ships have these Freestyle drink dispensers.  See the blog above for a list of ships that have them.
 
Freestyle dispensers work only with special cups provided with beverage packages.  The souvenir cups have a chip embedded in the base that is read by the machine when you place the cup into the machine.  There are various designs that are provided.
 
When a cup is first used it is registered in the system and an expiry date is assigned.  The expiry date is usually a few days longer than your cruise.
 
The machines also function as ice dispensers.
Lastly, these menus were captured in January 2018.   It's possible that menus will vary over time and by ship.   
 

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!!
Departing Cape Liberty (Bayonne, NJ) I have two sea days, Port Canaveral, Miami, Nassau, CocoCay then two sea days back to Cape Liberty.
I haven't booked excursions and plan to work some days.  Some of these ports are places I've visited many times.  As always I'm hoping we make CocoCay but since it's currently a tender port that is always a game day decision for the Captain. Finger's crossed.
I flew in last night and stayed at a hotel near the Newark airport.  On the plane I checked Anthem's position on a ship tracking site and was surprised to see she was beating me into NJ.  Apparently there was a medical incident that precluded helicopter evacuation so they sped up to make port.  
This is my 3rd cruise on Anthem after a back to back in December.  That seems so long ago but then again it was last year.
I'm in a balcony cabin on deck 6 forward this time.  Most deck 6 balconies are obstructed view due to the position of the life boats however I'm far forward enough to be away from them.  
I'm planning to purchase Voom on board as it never went on sale in the cruise planner.  Since we are in port much of today I'll wait until day 2 to buy Voom to save some money since the on board plans are pro-rated based on how many days are remaining.
Yesterday I changed planes in Atlanta.  It was very odd looking out the window of the plane and seeing some snow on the ground.  My favorite airline lounge has an outside deck which was closed yesterday because of the snow.  Where I come from this isn't considered a lot of snow but for this part of the country the recent storm was snowmageddon. 
 
Here in Newark it is 28° F this morning.  There is something about boarding a ship when it's below freezing that just seems weird.  I think I'll skip the sail away and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge event on deck 15 this time.
With that it's time to finish re-packing my bags and hail a Lyft.

I am creating videos of this cruise and I will post them in this thread. Here is the first of three or four short videos. I hope you enjoy them!
 

My brother wrote a song about cruising that I consider to be mandatory pre-cruise music. Give it a listen, and give my brother some love on Youtube. 
 

All the gratitude issue is much more complicated than just what happens in RCL or even in all the cruise industry,
I think we all (as society) created a monster which is very hard to handle.
Before I am being attacked on being cheap and not want to give my money for people that work hard and not paid as much I will say that I give gratitude , many time very happy to give but many other times it is all because this is what I am being expected.
Don’t get me wrong, people should get money for good services they provide , but is it really should be to us to choose  ? How many people will not leave tips in a restaurant if they got a mediocre/bad service ? I guess not many as most likely you will get the shaming treatment  like the waiter saying something like “hey , did not you forgot something” or other action which will make you feel very unconfutable.
When I am saying we create a monster I am talking exactly about those thinks, sometime I am feeling in certain ports or even on the ship as if I am consider to be walking wallet.
On last excursions at Jamaica I was asked for tips from the one who escort us on the buss , the buss driver , the one who lead the trip with the horses , his assistance  , the one who brought us the box of  food  and even the one that stand near the place we changed our cloth. And it is not only there. Again , I would gladly give tips for good service and I understand they are not earning much , I just do not like to be under pressure  to give them.
You can even see in convenient stores tips jars and many other places.
Once I went with my coworkers  to a restaurant at Manhattan, at the end of the meal when we asked for the check  (so we can pay including adding extra tip as  we got good service) the waiter came to me before he gave me the check  and told me that he do not know if I know but in NYC it is common to leave at least 20% as tip , I guess he heard us talking in foreign language and wanted to secure his tips , what a wonderful ending for that meal.
Regarding all the people that give service over the ship, I am asking where it should end?  are we expecting to give tips to the cleaner in our local mall  ? , what about the people that sweep the street? , people that fix the electric lines in the middle of a storm ?  And many other examples.
Hey , if I am fixing a customer crises should I get a tip? ,  I worked very hard on it , did not sleeps for 48 hours and eat cold pizza instead of a normal meals.  What about if I give a very good training to people, should they tip me?
You can say, you probably get a good compensation  for what you are doing therefore you are not in the category of getting a tip , ok , maybe you are right but what about let say , nurses at hospital that gave me a good service or the once which are moving the sick people from place to place , they are both not getting much  , should we tip them ?  What about teachers  which to my opinion are not paid enough for what they are doing and what they need to handle (especially if they need to handle students as I used to be), maybe each semester the kids will get envelope to leave for their teachers (a good time for that will be before final tests J )
As Matt said, we do not have a better system for now, but I think we must have.
I agree that services should be paid out of the regular cruise fees and as suggested here extra tip for good service above what the job requirements   can be added as cache to the people or even better with the application from the sea pass.
Sorry for the long replay, but this subject really making me very unconfutable and annoyed