FlowBro Ty

OK, I'll have a go...
Freedom of the Seas Best: Helipad for enjoying sailaway and (when open at night) stargazing Worst: Revue-style shows felt tired, even without having seen any other shows on any other ships Anthem of the Seas Best: Two70 -- great place for breakfast and enjoying the wake view in the morning, incredible shows and entertainment there at night Worst: The main dining rooms; way too crowded the one time we went (breakfast), some of our food was served cold, would actually have had a better experience in the Windjammer

As promised,  here are the photos that I took today of construction progress. I don't have a fancy camera and I didn't edit at all (sorry, guys) but you'll get the gist. 

One trick I recently heard as a good way to deal with jet lag (actually reported on the nightly news) is to not eat for several hours before your flight or on your flight, basically fast, and only eat next when you've arrived at your destination and it's the dinner hour there. Something about having dinner at the new locale's regular time and following it up with sleep adjusts your body clock much more quickly.
Haven't had the chance to try this myself yet, so can't speak to its accuracy, and I certainly wouldn't give it any extra weight over other popular tricks just because it was discussed on the news. But, it's something to consider.

Practice what you preach is what they say (whoever "they" are), so I'm dipping my toes into the fabulous Live Blogs forum of the Royal Caribbean Blog message boards!
We're headed on Brilliance of the Seas for a 4-night weekend getaway cruise and I usually post my live blogs on the blog portion of this site, but, I decided to do things a little differently this time because I've blogged this particular ship and sailing a few times already.  Instead, I'm taking my talents to the message boards to show some love for what I believe is a vastly underrated and extremely entertaining feature of this blog!

Our cruise departs the fabulous port of Tampa on February 14 and on this sailing, it will be just me and my wife.....and @ShakeDownCruise's family.  We originally booked our kids on this sailing with us.  Kids Sail Free was in full effect, so we put a deposit down. As it turns out, I convinced my parents to fly down and watch the kids so it will be just me and my wife enjoying this quick sailing. 
Fun fact, my kids are still technically booked on this sailing because we got kids sail free, so removing them from the reservation seemed pointless.  Plus, gives me a safety net if my parents reneged on the plan.

We booked a category 1B Spacious Balcony stateroom on deck 9.  We picked this room primarily under the guise of my kids sailing with us, but now we will enjoy some extra space and the ocean views my wife enjoys. In my experience, I barely spend time on the balcony on most cruises.  If I am going to lay out, I prefer the pool deck for the music and people watching.
Our 4-night itinerary takes us to one port, Cozumel.  While I went to Cozumel six times in 2018, this will be one and only stop in Cozumel in 2019. ? I will be sure to eat as much chips, salsa and guacamole as humanly possible. Nothing booked yet on what we will do, but we have some time to figure it out.

In the weeks left until this cruise, I will take some cues from some of the awesome live bloggers here, such as @ellcee, @melski94, @JLMoran, @Lovetocruise2002 & @twangster.

Ice Cream before boarding

Antigua Rainforest Zipline Tour

Here are pictures I got of these venues:
CROWN & CASTLE PUB

CINEMA

 

Definitely 

Today and every day ?

Yes it was!  I’ve had several days of feeding the body, it was so great to also feed the soul and spirit today.

Church time in Grenada

“Dancing Under the Stars” by the Pool

I’m pretending this is MY party

I’m here with my rum group, and since the Don Q rum distillery is closed for the weekend to give the workers some time off, they graciously flew in someone from their European operations to give us a seminar and some tastings.  It’s great that a big company would do that for a small tour group.
Being the holiday, Ponce was dead, but we managed to see the sights and have a good time nonetheless.
Tomorrow we dock in St. Kitts and take a ferry to Nevis for another tour of a spiced rum place run by a friend of many of us.
I’m loving the ship and crew.  Literally my only complaint is that the Diamond Lounge is way too small for the number of people on this particular cruise.  Other than that, this is a great cruise and great crew. Hope your vacation is going as good as mine!

Shoutout to @Matt and @CruisingKat(Kathy) on our pre-cruise survey that we submitted.

Always loyal and devoted ?

What? And here all along you had us thinking you were Canadian...."Stubborn Canadian". 

Pan Seared Halibut

Our day so far...
After leaving the Diamond lounge we took a walk up on the sports deck. Did a couple of scopes of the area. 
https://www.pscp.tv/w/bvjynDF4TlFhYVJPT2V3UWJ8MXpxSlZPellqVkF4Qh4wLFQ7wq87p6FDDhDEfBJBVXXAqWkRKz8nMsItUqcv?t=1s
https://www.pscp.tv/w/bvjywTF4TlFhYVJPT2V3UWJ8MXlOR2FPZUxvWWd4ahlO1jMvOVpdxk1u8VfHudGR16CS2dI1HrrNzTY-z6m7
Johnny Rockets and Flowrider:



 

Now I'm hungry for some Mexican food ?

Poutine, of course. 

No clue. Depends on if there is a shortage of hamsters. ?

@Auto...do you work for Royal IT? Sure looks like it! ?

No concrete information.  Royal has not offered any firms dates or specific ship.
The good news is that by 2021 all Oasis class will be great!  It really won't matter which one.  

I receive comp cruise offers once a month from the casino revenue/marketing folks and I have been noticing that Liberty seems to be very prominent in the comp cruise category.  Matter of fact, we have a comp cruise coming up on Liberty in August.  Additionally, the OS on Liberty are significantly cheaper than any of the other OS that I have priced lately including an OS on Freedom out of San Juan (traditionally, cruises out of SJ are cheaper b/c the airfare is so expensive to get there).
All of these bread crumbs have me wondering if Galveston can really support an O class ship.  It seem (to me, at least) that they are heavily discounting the rooms out of Galveston now.  What would happen if they increase capacity even more.  Just an observation...

Who’s Going?
The usual crew:  Hubby, our 2 girls, D10, D12, and myself.
 
Flight
Our plan is to fly from DTW to FLL the day before.  I knew I was taking this cruise long before flight prices were released.  I tracked air from the start.  Regretfully, I did not pull the trigger 11 months out.  The price of air did not follow the traditional up/down until the 90-day mark on this one.  At around 90 days, when I did purchase, it was still about $20pp higher than at 11 months out.  Lesson here?  If we are sure of the cruise, I will purchase it at release for Spring Break.
 
Pre-Cruise Stay
By now you likely know that we are creatures of habit.  Not much new to report here.  Valuetrips blacked out Hyatt Place for March 9th (and I was not about to pay $325/night for that property), so we are back at the Holiday Inn Express on 17th Street.  This time their suites are ready, and we got a good deal on one over Black Friday.  Pre-cruise dinner?  You already know it!
 
Itinerary
This 7-night sailing brings us to Labadee, Falmouth, and Cozumel.  No set plans for Falmouth and Cozumel.  May very well stay on the ship again.  The exciting thing is that we are renting a cabana for the first time in Labadee!
 
Cabin
Star Loft suite!!!  That’s all!
 
Pre-Cruise thoughts

-    This cruise marks the first time our girls are sailing OA class.  I am so thrilled to introduce them to my favourite class of ship!

-    It’s Star Class…No pre-cruise purchases, no reservations, no planning!  It was odd not having to check my cruise planner on this one.  I barely looked at it.

-    It’s mainly specialty dining for us this time.  Although it pains me to leave CK, we figured we must do specialty to make it worth our while.  In addition, although @Matt cannot wrap his head around this, we (Hubby) are frugal and we cannot usually bring ourselves to spend the extra money when there are so many complimentary options available.  In the past, we have only ever tried Jamie’s, Wonderland, and Giovanni’s.

-    The suite snob is at peace on this one.

-    Once again, in the spirit of a live blog, please do not hesitate to ask any questions.  I will do my best to find out whatever I can for you.

-    When responding to a post with a series of pictures, please do not include the pictures in your reply.  It just makes for easier scrolling.

-    Lastly, I will do my best to bring the cruise to you LIVE through Periscope – you can follow me @LoveToCruise2002.
 

“I Dream of Genie” – Star Class - Harmony of the Seas – 03/10/19-03/17/19

Dreams…that is how many things begin; that is how this adventure began.  But with every dream that comes true, there is always a journey. 
Here is our journey, almost 3 years in the making.  Note: Pulling a @JLMoran here, it’s long winded lol.
Back in May 2016, I read with keen interest, a blog post by @Matt that Royal was rolling out a new suite class program.  The concept of Star Class intrigued me, but at the time, I knew that it was beyond our reach.  However, dreams have no limits, and one can look but not touch.  You all know that I am a shopaholic right? ?

As the program rolled out, I read reviews, followed blogs, looked on in wonder and envy as I watched the Genies do their thing on Allure in 2016 and later on Harmony in 2017.  This was pretty much me on those sailings...

In February 2017, I came across a blog by @WAAAYTOOO.  I believe it was her first time in Star Class and she had Reyno as her Genie.  After that, I knew, without a doubt that this was something that I needed to try.  The big question was how?
The answer is that I really don’t know how I would have this opportunity without the help of some dear friends along the way, right here in the message boards.  Somewhere between February 2017 and January 2018, I read a post by @tiny260 that really was the first glimmer of hope that Star Class could be a reality for us.  @tiny260 basically posted that he had recently booked a good deal in Star Class by scouring the calendar week by week.  There were only two problems with that idea:  I did not have much time to go through each sailing, week by week and ship by ship, and there are only several times in the year that I can sail due to work.  So, I set aside Tiny’s idea but made a point to remember his tip.
In January 2018, call it God’s will, or good things come to those who wait, or fate, @WAAAYTOOO started a thread in the “Rumours and News” section here about a special STAR savings discount of $1000.  I was also off work last year which meant I had all day to look.  So, taking @tiny260's tip I went about an all-day effort to find something that would fit our schedule.  Trouble was that my schedule was only flexible until September 2018 and I already had bookings for 2018 that I did not want to cancel.
This is the point in the journey where sometimes intercession occurs, and you cannot logically explain what follows.  During my search that day, I stumbled upon a sailing on Harmony (which I expected to be the highest price second to Symphony) for March 10, 2019.  This worked out perfectly since this would be our March break, I would be off work, and Harmony is my favourite ship.  For reasons that I cannot explain, this was also one of the lower priced sailings for a Star class cabin (compared to OA/AL/SY).  How did I know that?  Because up until this point, I had been tracking the prices on Star Class cabins and reading posts on the price that others were paying.  Another example of how it pays to do your research.  This low price, combined with the additional $1000 STAR discount, made it a no-brainer.  I put a hold on it even before I had a chance to run it by Hubby.
There are many that I have heard say, “Why would someone want to spend so much on a cabin?” or, “I would take more cruises over such an expensive one any day.”  Here are my thoughts on that.  We have taken enough cruises to know what we like.  We are cabin and balcony people.  We do spend time in our cabin, so to us, a nice cabin is important and worth it.  My work schedule limits us to certain times of the year that we can cruise.  Instead of taking our money and spreading it over a bunch of cruises (which we can’t do any way), we are putting it all into one.  It all works out the same.
Our original booking was for a Guarantee Star Class cabin.  The code on the booking was A2-GTY.  This was new to me and I did not even know such a category existed.  I ran it by @WAAAYTOOO and a few others and figured that we had nothing to lose as the bare minimum would be an A2 on Deck 10.  Hubby got home that evening and, after some persuasion and promises to curb the Lulu shopping, he suggested that if we were going to splurge on Star Class then we might as well go big and go to Deck 17, the “gated community” as some call it, and really live out that “WOW factor”.  Ever since our inaugural sailing on Oasis, Deck 17 was always a wish of ours.  I warned him that Star Class on Deck 17 could be quite a jump in price.  Still curious, we called late that evening and inquired about what it would cost to upgrade.  It was $100 extra (total).  Done.  No brainer.  Again, an anomaly that I cannot explain.
Since our original booking in January, I have re-priced our sold-out cabin 3 times for a total savings of almost $3000 less than what we originally booked for.  The cost was many hours of tracking, but it paid off.  We already had a great deal to begin with and it just got sweeter along the way.
As we get ready for this grand adventure into Star Class, I must take the time to thank @WAAAYTOOO, @Mindybrite, @tiny260, @CGTLH, and @constable145.  Your insight, advice, and blogs have been more valuable than you know.  Words cannot express my appreciation.  Finally, @Matt, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, thank you for creating this amazing community of people (enablers) who helped in making this a true possibility. 
I often say to my own girls, and my students, that we should never be afraid or give up in the pursuit of our dreams.  Dreams can come true, this being the perfect example. 
So, without further delay, come take this journey with us, I would want it no other way.