ABM

Hope She Get Homeported In Port Canaveral 

Do you want to start a fight on the RC Blog forums? Because this is how you start a fight on the RC Blog forums. 

WOW! thank you! what an amazing blog! wonderful pictures and you look so happy ?
thank you for the adventure from my office ? 

Awesome live blog! I give it a 10/10.  Thanks for doing it!

 
 

Because I'm lazy and cheap.

Given that it's a sea day I worked much of the day.  A periscope notification told me some of the RCPeriscopers and Royal Caribbean Blog readers were starting their Yeti Pub Crawl.  Then they were sliding down the Ultimate Abyss.  Not long after they were below my cabin in Playmakers.  Soon enough they did the Carousel.  All in their bathrobes.
@Big Dawg Ron

@cookingyo and Mrs. Cookingyo







What happens on Symphony of the Seas stays on the internet.

It looks like we are headed to the new world.  
What have you guys done to Miami while we've been gone?

I found myself in a position to miss a cruise a few months ago.  I was also in the 100% penalty phase and decided to leave the booking alone and just not show up.  Two reasons:
There was a chance that a hurricane or other event could cause the cruise to cancel.  If I cancelled before such an event, I'd lose out.  If Royal had to cancel, I might get something back.   Royal gave me no incentive to cancel so they could resell the room to another guest.  If I'm getting zero back, I might as well not cancel and just do a no-show so that they couldn't sell the cabin twice but give me nothing back.   I did not get any points, I just walked away from that money but in my case the family event was worth it.
 

I don't deny kids can behave badly.  But I also have seen far more annoying drunk adults on cruises than loud children.

Please please don't beat me with a wet noodle for posting this. We usually go to Chops if we are celebrating a special occasion onboard. We enjoy the food and the ambiance-usually.The last time we were seated in the back of the restaurant near a large table of a family celebrating a birthday-which is fine! However, an hour or so into the service the small children were getting restless and tired. This particular night the kids began crying, sleeping at the table and even running around the restaurant like Chuck E Cheese's. The adults were drinking, toasting, and ignoring the behavior. Our quiet dinner was very unpleasant and I stopped by the desk on the way out to mention it. The hostess apologized and said they were busy and had no where else to seat us .I also gave it a poor rating on the post cruise survey. Somewhere I read to plan 2-21/2 hours for a meal in the specialty restaurants so please don't subject your little ones to hours of boredom and waiting for service, especially if you plan on a late dining time. SORRY SORRY SORRY DON'T KILL THE MESSENGER!
 

According to the port daily schedule, as soon as Oct 5.
https://seaport2.miamidade.gov/dailydock/Default.aspx
I noted when Symphony arrives she will be berthed at an unlisted terminal letter, but location 55-E and she will continue to use location 55-E on all subsequent sailings.
On November 4th, Allure will use location 55-E and for all subsequent sailings.
Looking at all of October 2018 in the PDF below, on October 5th Mariner is supposed to begin using position 55-E.
No ships use it in September.
Having said that, if construction slips or they can't get it ready by Oct. 5th, a different terminal will be used.  On certain days through the end of year, PoM is full and Mariner must use the new terminal because there are no other terminals available.  
Press is never allowed in customs area and the arrival is very early.  Besides, all ships have to be processed by customs, hardly a bad press moment.  I suspect Canaveral was added for other reasons, including having a non-European port of call on the itinerary for other tax related purposes.  Possibly as vain as to pick up some RCI executives. 
Media can't join in Canaveral, that violates the PVSA and Jones Act.  Only cruise line employees that are working on the ship related to the maritime operation of the vessel escape the PVSA and Jones Act (ship photographers have been ruled to be subject to the Jones Act just like passengers because they don't work towards the operations of the ship like bridge officers or other marine department employees do).  For a handful of executives they might just pay the penalty for violating the Jones and PVSA and bring them on in Canaveral for the night.
The media cruise following Symphony's arrival will likely be the big press event to officially open the Crown of Miami but that is several days after we arrive - Nov. 13 is the media cruise.
If our arrival in Miami was supposed to be some big event, they would not schedule it for 5am in the dark.
Manifest_Print Oct 18 PoM.pdf

Update with pictures here.

Send selfie to friends and family.  Wait for the bird-flipping emojis to come in.

Windjammer is always our first stop

arrive early,  grab a cold adult beverage and find a seat in the promenade for some class-A touristy people watching and some food.   after a bit of that, relocate up to the pool deck, grab another cold drink and more people watching.     Once room opens up,   drop off carry on's,  back to the pool deck for another....     it's a vicious cycle but someone has to do it!  ?

Every question I had in my mind before reading vanished when I read it was  British reality tv show.
It also mentions a show called Geordie shore! I would replace the S with a W 
A show where parents can sit and proudly watch their children having sex on tv.
Nowadays people have very little respect for themselves never mind anyone else 

i guess you guys are right...but i'm a programmer, and i welcome the chance to unplug ?

while live blogs are cool, you can always post when you get home.  imho.

I work in the offshore construction industry, and we have several large vessels (saturation diving boats, utility boats, and pipe-lay barges).  In today's world, we need to maintain internet access for email, business programs and phones.  So, for us to have approximately 1.5MB - not gigs, but megs, costs us around 15,000 per month.  Each additional megabyte is around another 5k on top of that per month.  Now, our boats will have about 300 personnel for a job (sometimes more).   Half are on duty at any one time, working 12 hour shifts.  that means we may have, say, 75 people trying to use up that 1.5 megs using facebook, emailing, streaming, etc.  It just doesn't work.  When you add the phones and critical business systems on that 1.5 megs, the usable internet for the off-duty personnel has about 300K to play with, which means that each person is getting basically no connection. 
Now, scale this up for a cruise ship.  You will have hundreds of people trying to play candy crush, social media, or stream music.  In order to allow for this many people to have decent access over a sat connection, it would cost hundreds of thousands per month.
The lesson i suppose, is that we should just unplug from the outside world for a week...isn't that what vacation is for?

If you have to pick one to stay onboard, Nassau.  

Bonus post 
So during the flight back yesterday I had few hours (its a short flight) to review some old pictures.
During this semi live blog I described many  other tour options  that can be done from the  ports , so here are pictures from tours we done while we were on the Harmony of the seas during October 16 sell at the same itinerary.
 
Marseille - The tour was to Cassis , a small city with wonderful view , the pictures are from the near by cliffs :
 



 
In La Speza we rented a car a drove first to a viewpoint over the port and later to one of the old towns near by.



Here some picture from the area :








In Napoli we to ok a tour to Sorento (with making pizza) and in the way to the city we stop near Amalfi coast :

Way i see it, it's RC who make the rules not the guests, so if RC dont want shorts in MDR on formal or any other night ban them!!! TOTAL BAN 
No one should judge or look down on anyone due to what they are wearing if RC says it's ok. In my opinon a nice pair of shorts with the right shirt or polo shirt can in fact look way better than a pair of trousers, it's not what you wear but how you wear it  

I kinda understand the shorts thing but to judge someone for what they are wearing I don't understand.  Maybe that couple you see in the main dining room has save all their life to go on this once in a lifetime vacation and can't afford a suit that they might not ever use again.  So if you think they should go to the Windjammer and eat with the "little people" maybe your the one that needs to go to the Windjammer and eat so you don't have to be around them.  I am not pointing a finger at anyone in particular just making a statement in general.

Does it still have that new ship smell? ?