CruisinUngs

What she said! Looks awesome. Great pics. 

Updates, updates, updates!
Calling American at the last minute while enroute to the airport to make a flight to Miami, an absolute miracle worker was able to get my whole trip rerouted so I could actually make to Barcelona on time! I will now go though Heathrow instead of Miami, for no extra charge! Everything seems to be going well....
Except my Macbook Pro has decided to make my "B" key to be very temperamental and only work when it wants to. If you see a lot of missing B's, then you know why. Will try to get this fixed, lol.
Well, Yay for making flights!
 

Some of the chef's table photos failed to upload - Ill try them again

Sounds like a possible new port in the DR.   per the article, several cruise lines have shown interest ;  RCCL, NCL, MSC and Virgin.   Article states,  once complete, will be able to handle the "largest cruise ships in the world".   Hey i love the Caribbean so i'm all for a potential new port!
http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/costa-maya-s-parent-to-develop-new-puerto-plata-cruise-port.html
 
@Matt  if this violates any policy of the site, please feel free to remove this.    
 
 
 

That guilt will disappear after that first drink on board!

When mine were little we took them on a Disney cruise but we also had our parents watch them and did a cruise on our own.  
IMO it's healthy to have kids learn the world doesn't end if you leave for a few days, provided you have taken the appropriate measures to have someone look after them.  

Haha!!! On a cruise right now without ours! It's great. I highly recommend it! We've been leaving ours once a year since they were little. We are blessed that my parents have the patience to watch them. 
The guilt? I just tell myself I deserve it for all the time I do put in with them at home. And our deal is that we FaceTime with them...so the wifi package is non-negotiable.
Hubby said it just takes practice, you'll get use to it ?

Thanks Matt! My husband has been binging your videos, so think he’s impressed now that I got a message back from THE Matt! She doesn’t yet have the rewards program, just wants to use the gift cards she got for her birthday, so hopefully we’ll be good to go. Even if they don’t have her type of frap, they may have one of the drinks she likes. 

Day 8 - Livorno/Florence
We had an early start this morning with a 7:45 meeting time for our trip to Florence. As Florence is about 1.5hrs drive from the port and often has bad traffic, we'd again booked a transfer with RC. I booked it a while ago so can't remember the exact price but it was in the region of £45-£50pp. This included a tour guide on the coach (Trudy who was extremely informative and good fun), a stop at a leather factory enroute to Florence and a guided walk from the coach drop-off point into the centre of Florence and then 4hrs free time for sightseeing. 
Florence is a beautiful old town with some incredible architecture. Well worth a look if you're ever in the area. We saw the tomb of Michelangelo, the Ponte Veccio and several other historic sites. We got quite lucky with the weather as it was hot but with partial cloud cover so it made the temperature bearable. 
In the afternoon we returned to the ship and had a turkey kummelweck sandwuch from Sorrento's which was delicious. Then we played some shuffleboard (the less said about that the better), before going for a dip in the Solarium pool to cool off. The bars were pretty busy before dinner so we got drinks from Bolero's and took them out on to the Promenade Deck to watch the sun beginning to set. Dinner was in the main dining room where we were treated to a rendition of 'O Sole Mio' by the waiters. 
As we came out of the dining room,  I heard someone saying something about lightning so we went out on deck and sure enough were treated to a natural light show out at sea. We then headed to the Schooner bar where Piano-oke continued - it appears the piano player has some kind of throat problem and has been told to avoid singing. 
Tomorrow we have another port day in Toulon in the south of France. 
 

I bought a Rolex a couple of years ago.  They are quite affordable but I hardly wear it and it's a bit bulky. 
It was $36 on the streets of San Juan.  
Still not sure what all the fuss is about.

Great pics!! My husband as the same Rolex dream. One day one day...

Day 7 - Civitivechia 
Today we were in Civitivechia which is the port for Rome. We've heard that to do Rome in a day is pretty frantic as it's at least a 1hr 15min drive from the port, extremely hot, and very crowded in summer. As we're from England it's relatively easy for us to visit for a weekend so we plan to do that at some point. So we decided not to do an excursion this time around and instead enjoy the ship. 
We had a lie-in until 8 before going for breakfast in the WJ. It was pretty quiet and I enjoyed some nice pancakes. 
We have explored Civitivechia a bit on our previous visit prior to doing a wine tasting excursion and it's a nice little town with a fort, a small beach area and some quaint streets and buildings. 
We had 5 other cruise ships in port with us today: Disney Magic, Celebrity Reflection, TUI Mein Schieff 6, MSC Fantasia and Costa Didema. So we decided to get off and go for a stroll through the port to stretch our legs and look at the ships and super-yachts. 
We were off the ship for about 1.5hrs between 9:45 and it was already very hot. Once back on board, we grabbed an iced latte and a snack from Cafe Promenade then went up to the back of the ship to try the water slides. They were really good fun although I preferred the yellow one as the blue one had lines on sections of the tubes that made my eyes go funny. Top tip for a fast slide: arch your back and dig your heals and shoulders into the slide. 
We then went to the Solarium to relax before lunch in the WJ. More relaxtion followed before the day's shuffleboard match- I'm disappointed to report that I'm now trailing by 3 games! I need to have a word with myself!
As we've got an early start tomorrow for our trip to Florence, we decided we didn't want to do late dining in the MDR so we took advantage of an offer we spotted in the cruise compass for 30% off at Giovanni's Table. It was fantastic! I had the octopus to start while my husband had the belly pork then we both had the fillet mignon - the barolo sauce was to die for! The desserts came on a trolley and the waiter, having picked up in the fact that I love food, let me sampleall of them ?
After dinner, we did some window shopping on the Royal Promenade and tried on some Rolexs - it's my husband's dream to own one but I don't think we'll be buying one on this cruise! 
Then it was off to bed ready for Florence in the morning. 
 

I was able to take $258 dollars off of our Grand Suite booking on the Radiance for July 19, 2019 Alaska Southbound. Also added an additional $100 OBC (we already had $100 with previous booking). Our 2019 Dec Holiday Cruise to Eastern Caribbean did not get any less expensive. Actually, it went up by $700 for our Junior Suite. Thank you @Boston Babe for the heads-up on this!

Love this forum!  I have one cruise under my belt now, yeah!  We booked one for next year on Adventure of the Seas.  We reserved My Time Dining for our family of three.  If my teen son meets a friend that week, can he spontaneously ask his friend to join our table in the MDR?  Is that allowed?  Also,  part two of my question:  since we are a party of three, will they add people that we do not know to our table to “round it out”?  (I was kind of hoping not to have to socialize with people we do not know, call me crazy....LOL).  P.S.  the people on this forum are so much nicer than other forums..the others get a bit snippy with each other!

No early booking discount but they did get $100 obc ( On Board Coke ) 

Just an update to this string....
If you look you will see there was a new string created with an update
We were able to jump in and work with Royal to get a satisfying resolution for alamode123.
Sometimes these situations take a little longer  - but we always strive to help take some of the stress out of planning a vacation - even if it was caused by the cruise line!
 

As I've thought about this and in particular your last sentence in reference to your daughters accepting this:
I can safely predict that won't be an issue.  
You have displayed great patience and resolve as this has played out.  Sure at moments it has gotten to you, and how couldn't it?  In the end you let it play out, maintained faith in Sharla and MEI Travel and worked towards a resolution.  That is commendable.
Our children watch and learn from us in subtle ways none of us appreciate from their early years to later in life.  My kids have endured flat tires, locked up brake calipers, hotels that didn't come close to the brochure, flights delays, lost luggage, pets pass and so on.  It didn't take me long to learn that their reaction mirrored my own during life's challenging moments.
This is a process for them too but I'm confident you will find they handle it with as much grace as you have despite how frustrating it has been.    After all, they learned that from you.  
 

Sharla and Annette at MEI have gone above and beyond and have gotten a vacation that at least I am happy with and at no extra cost to me. My daughters need some convincing, but I have 8 months to do so.

Every time we've given our cabin number to a crew member, they've laughed at it. We actually won the raffle at the Suite Life presentation and then heard other passengers discussing our room number ??

I wanted to pass on a tip to try and reduce your cruise fare.  We are booked on Freedom for ABC Islands in Oct. for my wife & I.  Sunday is our final payment deadline.  Today before I called the travel agent to make our last payment, I checked the pricing on our Stateroom.  2B Spacious View Balcony on the hump deck 10.  3 days before final payment deadline it was $468 cheaper than when I booked it 18 months ago during a BOGO 60 sale.  One thing that Royal allowed was for us to change our deposit from refundable to non-refundable (don't need it for final payment) at the lower cruise fare rate.  We booked today under the standard BOGO 50 offering, no onboard credit.  Not only did Royal give us the lower fare they allowed us to keep the onboard credit from when we booked originally.
Cruise Hack #1 always check the available fare before making your final payment and if you booked your cruise with a refundable deposit change it to non-refundable.  This hack just paid for one of our airfares to San Juan.
 

Following! Great pics! 

As expected, Sharla and her supervisor did their magic since my cruise cancellation, and put on hold the exact same room on Mariner. Same week, same port, just one day fewer. They are now talking with Royal to see about price matching back to when i booked my original cruise, as I shouldn't be paying more for one less day through no fault of my own.

Best case scenario it all works out, and we end up with an extra day before our cruise. Hopefully my girls will be as accepting of this result as I will be.

Because they know your're lurking about and want to mess with you....

I'm just SOOOO pissed right now. We had the PERFECT room, one of the corner Large Panorama rooms that are extra large. Already paid for the labadee beach bungalow and Ultimate dining package. This make me SOOO mad.

That sounds OK... just seems a bit silly if there's only myself and my partner. Could go the entire cruise and not actually see each other.