June May

Are you sure you’re ok? Did you fall and bump your head or something? Slip on the ice during open skate?
Wait a minute... HE’S A POD PERSON!! RUN!!!!! AND DON’T FALL ASLEEP!!!

F.Y.I.  I read and notified RCCL of CPAP requirement, received acknowledgement that they will have a gallon of distilled water, and extension cord in the Jr. Suite when we arrive.  I don't have to pack a cord.  :)  I found RCCL to be very helpful but I'm one of those people that always sees or looks for, a silver lining.
 

Never been to that room....do i need to bring my own whips and fur lined cuffs....asking for a friend??

I don't envy you the driving part - Montrealers are some of the craziest people I've ever encountered on the roads! And I come from Australia! ?

Just when you thought strange creatures are the figments of imagination of the mad, I've been saved!  There is a child on board!  I'm guessing 10ish.  I'm not the youngest!  Woo-Hoo!  It was a M&Ms moment... "He does exist!"
Although this does mean I won't have the water slides to myself...
 

Out into the city I walked along the waterfront in the direction of the Chateaux Frontenac.  There I came across some inviting shops and restaurants set into old stone buildings.  




Fall decorations in place.  Note you can see the bow of the ship between the buildings for reference to location.


The crowds began to thicken.  I must be on the right path.


I was trying to find the Funicular and it looks like I succeeded.

The funicular is $3.50 CAD.  They don't accept credit cards and U.S. cash is taken at par without any exchange rate provided.





The Funicular station at the top.

With that I was at the base of Chateaux Frontenac, a luxury hotel.


Samuel De Champlain who discovered the area for France in the late 1500s.


Wonderful views of the St. Lawrence River.










The Consulate General of the United States:



There is a paved path up the hill or these stairs

The Plains of Abraham where the British defeated the French in 1759 that led to this becoming a British territory.

The paved path up to this area.


The imposing cannon of the Citadell de Quebec.  More on this in the next post.

From my commanding hotel view of the area (which the picture don't do justice) I had observed a fountain lit up at night and several gates to the old city.  I din't have a specific route in mind, I just headed in the direction of the fountain.

They are placed directly in front of the Parliament buildings.

One of many gates to the fort and old Quebec City. 










That street I saw looked really inviting so I headed that way.  They have heaters setup along the sidewalk to warm folks as they walk along.

Time to contribute to the local economy.  I always like to try to a local beer.

St Ambroise IPA.  Perfect.

It was getting late to time to find my way back to my hotel.

Hope you know French or better , Quebecois  , the guys there pretend they do not speak English ? 
Have a wonderful cruise. 

This made one of the "current affairs" programs in Australia. https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/10/01/15/49/royal-caribbean-cruise-nightmare-families-horror-playboy-bunnies-wild-bender
Included passenger video of the shenanigans, and the catchy phrase "Pirates of the Royal Caribbean".
I daresay this could have been handled a little better by RCI, but this TV version of the Sun hyped the hell out of the situation. Not to mention using stock footage that implied this cruise originated from Sydney to put the frighteners on Aussie cruisers. It actually sailed out of Singapore, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?

Stay safe and follow recommendations from authorities. Things can be replaced. You are irreplaceable. Sending prayers. 

Thanks Samantha. Been through this many times before, but, not with a hurricane of this magnitude. Will spend today moving all the deck furniture, outdoor container plants, etc into the garage and tying down anything else that can become a wind blown projectile. Loaded up on bottled water, food and d size batteries yesterday. You should have seen the lines at the gas stations yesterday, holy cow! Will let you know how it goes. 

Hi, @Gochie , I suggest filing out the Customer Special Needs form online. Check in the area about bringing medical equipment on board(or possibly the "other" section) and RCCL will provide you with the extension cord your need.
Don't bring your own or you could end up with it being confiscated as an "not allowed" item. (or possibly the "other" section) 
https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/allaboutcruising/guestSpecialNeeds.do
(I fill out this form to get distilled water and an extension cord for my CPAP)

Solution: Bring RED food coloring with you. Order a chocolate cake and pour the RED coloring over it. Voila! Instant RVC!! ??

My Wellbeing has just been fine with Royal......until the announcement that there will be no more red velvet cake!?

Added! Enjoy your cruises.
Added.
I should have known better since the Legend was retired. There's only one LOS now, so that was my fault.
Posted.
Enjoy your first Diamond cruise.
Done!
Added. Enjoy!
Posted.
Enjoy. I use MEI travel myself, which is a sponsor of this site, for both Royal and non-Royal cruises. Just booked another cruise with Michelle at MEI and have cruises booked with her through 2020 and just returned from one to the Arctic Circle with Holland America that Michelle booked for us.
Enjoy. I love those little last minute fun cruises. I used to do them all the time when Royal still had a ship in California.
Added. Great ship!
Have fun!
Enjoy!
Enjoy your first cruise. The Brilliance is a great ship.
Have a great trip. I love the southern itinerary.
Have fun. I love Barcelona and have two cruises from there over the next year.
Enjoy! There are other posters on this sailing with you, too!

Day 7 and 8 (Sea day and disembarkation) 
So every good thing must end I guess, Day 7 came quite fast , I love sea days , no need to plan anything beside , well to leave some time to pack. Lucky for us we were told we need to leave the suitcase no later than 11 (its usually 10). As we did not had special plans we did a last tour at the ship , spend some time on the sundecks (which was quite pack but still we could find places , and yes many chair were empty for hours with books and towels). It was a perfect sea day from weather perspective, during most of out port days we had some rain for 30 minutes +/- but during the sea day the sun was out all the time. Dinner was again in the MDR , it was the last day to see our wonderful table companion , I feel lucky we got this table as we really enjoy the conversions. During this meal we took some pictures, shared emails. We said goodbye to the Casino and the Casino bar (who provide us with few drinks during this cruise) and went to sleep around 11 PM , I found out that one of the key making the disembarkation easier is to : try to sleep early, avoid to many drinks before going to sleep and pack early so it will not bother us. Before going to sleep I found our cabin attended and gave him extra cash gratitude as I think he did the extra mile.

Our disembarkation was schedule to 9 AM ad included airport transfer so we had time to eat quick breakfast, get out from the room around 8:20 and waiting for our number to be called. It was a rainy morning but not that bad. As our flight was schedule for 6 PM we considered two options for the day , the first was to use RC program “stay a while” which allows you, for a payment to stay on the ship until 1 or 3 PM , use the different facilities and eat lunch at the WJ. We thought about it and we were not sure we really want to stay and watch all the happy people that just got boarded the ship and have full 7 day to enjoy it. The second option (and the one we choose) was to get to the airport, rent a car and drive to the nearest city mail for few hours of shopping with lunch break at a local restaurant. So, we went down to the port, collect our luggage  and catch the transfer, we did not have to wait too long and the bus left to the airport with 10 people, it was about 15 minutes ride. At the airport the bus leaves you at a parking lot which you need to walk around 10 -15 minutes to get to the gates (take it into consideration if you consider this) . we dropped our suitcases at the luggage storage service (7 Euros per suitcase as I booked a small car and did not know if it will have enough space for the luggage) and collect our car. All in all, it cost us the same as if we used the stay awhile program but allow us more flexibility to do whatever we wanted. Flight back went without any major issues and we arrived back at home safely ,  starting another week and to countdown our days before our next cruise.

So what I think about the Rhapsody?:
It was our first cruise on a Vision class ship and we had some doubts  (small ship , older ship etc) , the ship itself looks good, It is well maintained although you can find here and there some places which might need to be refreshed.
Service – Service on the ship is very good and maybe even better than other ships we sailed at the past. Facilities dose not feel crowd, we always found place to seat at the WJ and the Centrum during major events was not crowded more than the promenaded during same events. MDR services was very good and quite fast.
Ports - The ability to get to ports which bigger ships can not attend is a major plus for sure, I loved Mykonos, Kotor and Athens will try to visit them again.
Food – food quality in the MDR was usually good , some of the dishes were better than I was eaten on other ships, Chef table was amazing , we did not tried other special restaurant.
Off hours food – Here I Think RC could have done much better, the only facility offers food after 9 PM is the park cafe were you can get small salads, Pizza and hot dogs , some cookies were also offered. Most of the days it was open only until 12 AM and on some days until 2 AM , offering mainly Pizza.  I think RC  should offer bigger variety  and leave it open longer. The area near the cafe was packed with people that were looking for something to eat. In one or two of the nights the place around the cafe was quite a mess with allot of used cups and dirty plates.
Entertainment – Although they do not have Broadway shows on board they offered something almost every day, we saw one headliner show and one home production , it was nice. Live music was easy to find, and the Centrum was always offered something.
Casino – Small comparing to the other ships but not very small, it has some new  slot machines installed , six to eight gaming tables (4 BJ ,1 3 card poker, 1 roulette   and 1 Caribbean Poker. Most of the times it was not too busy, 3 $ games were offered many times.
Cruise Director / Events manager – The CD is Elvis from Chile and EM is Paulo from Italy (who looks to me exactly like the Austin powers character) , it was their first cruise together but they had good chemistry. I think both did good job , Elvis could been seen everywhere and they both organized nice events. The fact they added the Quest plus the love and marriage game show to  a European cruise   was a big plus.
So, Based on our experience would we try another cruise with a vision class?  I will say yes, if it is an interesting route or we can get a good deal on it.  I think RC doing good job maintaining Rhapsody and if you are not comparing it all the time to the bigger classes she is doing not bad at all.
Let me know if you have any questions.
 
That’s it for this blog, as always II enjoyed sharing the experience. I would like to thank my spouse for her patient ,  for all the times I took the internet to update the blog, asking her to wait with the food before I am taking the pictures and leaving the lights on late at night to finish sending the updates ?
 
Thank you , until next time.

 
 

Isn't memory a funny subjective thing? I could have sworn the drink staff on my first (and only) cruise in 2015 wore white uniforms.
Cue me scrolling back through my FB posts to find a photo of one of the drink staff in the solarium on Independence of the Seas and ... blue print shirt.
I'm putting this unfortunate lapse down to extreme cruise withdrawal!

Isn't memory a funny subjective thing? I could have sworn the drink staff on my first (and only) cruise in 2015 wore white uniforms.
Cue me scrolling back through my FB posts to find a photo of one of the drink staff in the solarium on Independence of the Seas and ... blue print shirt.
I'm putting this unfortunate lapse down to extreme cruise withdrawal!

Isn't memory a funny subjective thing? I could have sworn the drink staff on my first (and only) cruise in 2015 wore white uniforms.
Cue me scrolling back through my FB posts to find a photo of one of the drink staff in the solarium on Independence of the Seas and ... blue print shirt.
I'm putting this unfortunate lapse down to extreme cruise withdrawal!

Fluffy? I would love to bring Gabriel Iglesias on a cruise anytime. Martine? Not so much.
(crowd chants) Fluff-y. Fluff-y. Fluff-y.

Nothing to be worried about after all that...he is not associated with Mariner of the Seas...he is simply a  "Mariner" of the seas...hence why his pics and hashtags showed up under searches for Royal's Mariner of the seas......
 
Good to know that Royal looked into this so quickly and followed up with me and good to knows he's not working on a Royal ship..whoever he is!
 
 

Thanks everyone..I have been in touch with the Global security and Investigations Operations for Royal......they had asked me not to say anything further at this point as they look into this.
 
I certainly don't want to get any one in trouble but at the very least, even if this is all innocent speak on social media, it certainly doesn't make Royal look good...and it could be potentially much worse. 

Here's the direct quote from the ADA website:
  The ADA recognizes psychiatric service animals, but that does not include nebulous "emotional support" animals. 

My embarkation day routine is pretty much as follows:
1. Board the ship while taking eight billion photos on the way LOL. 
2. Try not to look like a dork squeeing in delight as I step aboard. 
3. Try to patiently wait for elevator for that sweet, sweet buffet Jammer food.
4. Try to patiently wait in Jammer line and resist temptation to feel like Veruca Salt ?
5. Continue to take eight billion photos.
6. Try to behave like an adult and not eat everything in sight.
7. Locate prison cell studio stateroom when rooms become available and praise the cruising gods that you don't have to share it with anyone else this week ? 
8. Find prison warden stateroom attendant to say hi. 
9. Continue to explore ship and take eight billion photos.
10. Post photos online with the explicit purpose of making people at home jealous. 
11. Attend muster drill and resist temptation not to sing along loudly and take eight billion photos. 
12. Celebrate, WE ARE ON VACATION! 
 

My next cruise (6 and a half months to go, but who's counting, amirite?) will be my first cruise solo and only my second cruise ever. (Explorer, South Pacific, March 2019)
This thread has been hugely informative for planning purposes! I hadn't got much past the "drink package, here I come - cue the party goblin!" ?
So, here's the plan:
1. Arrive early!
2. Drink - and toast to the beginning of the rest of my new life sans overgrown man-child
3. Find a spot to sit and people watch
4. Spa open day - forgot totally about that! 
5. More drink! More people watching.
6. Check out cabin when ready
7. Food at some point, depending on hunger
8. MDR visit to secure two person table for solo dining
9. Muster drill
10. Sailaway party
And, like @KWofPerth, I'll be happy to achieve any part of this, so long as the first two items are done.
Oh, and I will be photographing my drinks, my stateroom, my view when people watching and everything else, and then posting it to social media. I want people to know just what a great time I'm having!