Auto

Just checked airlines, and that is a fact, plus non-stop flights

I am kinda leaning that way, mostly due to impatience.

The short Caribbean sailings have been released...Looks like Navigator out of Miami or Mariner out of Port Canaveral. Thoughts on either? Prices are within $10 of each other per person. Last night I did some mock bookings and refundable deposits were going to cost about $600/room. Today, since the "sale" is over, it is only $80/room. Overall price (NRD) is exactly the same with or with out the 60% BOGO NRD offer.

According to the website, Short Caribbean should be released on or about Dec 3 and other Caribbean sailings on or about Dec. 10.

I know Anthem is going to Europe in 2020, which is a bummer, because I really wanted to check her out.

Well, that would be a problem...

I beg to differ That didn't take long?

I may or may not have experimented with this a time or 20 as I developed my plan That is one that caught my eye

I've narrowly survived a few of these from our oldest ? We used post-its stuck to the door on our last cruise. It was imperfect, but at least it was something. One time I forgot to be very specific about where we were going to be, which led to a mini-meltdown from our teen when she couldn't find us (we were about 20 feet away from where she looked, but not exactly where I had written on the note)

It seems I have more money than sense and patience, and knowing that the summer 2020 schedule is coming soon, I am concocting a plan... I floated the idea of a cruise with my wife and I, and her two sisters and their husbands (sans all of our kids) in the not-too-distant future. My wife just rolled her eyes (but didn't say no) and at least one of her sisters is on board (pun intented). 2019 doesn't work, so it would have to be 2020. Also, this aligns with the 5th and 10th anniversaries of my two sisters in law. We're tied to the summer, and specifically late June/early July due to work and school schedules. So here's my plan: secretly book a cruise as soon as the announcements are made, and then present the plan as a fait accompli at an opportune time (did I just hear sleigh bells?). I have the cash flow to float the deposits for all three cabins, especially for a 4 or 5 night cruise, which would probably work best for all involved. Make refundable deposits, and no down side, right? I mean, other than my wife will probably kill me for not talking to her. Then she'll cool off, bring me back to life, and enjoy the cruise. My question is then, which ship/itinerary would you recommend, especially since neither of the sisters has cruised before? We'll be coming from the midwest, so no port is all that more easily reached than another. Being on these boards is such a bad influence...

I always say that any landing you walk away from is a good one. If you can use the plane again, it's a great one. Some of my best landings are the ones the people in the back probably think are the worst. Crosswinds, windshear, low visibility....some times it takes Herculean feats (pun intended) to get on the deck. I enjoyed your blog! Thanks for sharing.

Hi, my name is Auto...

Good work! My kiddos (7, 5, and 4) constantly ask me the same question. They even want me to open my cruise countdown for my wife and I's parents only cruise so they can see how long we have to wait. I must admit, listening to @Matt's podcast every morning driving into school may also have something to do with it, also.

Day 8: Boooooooo! We woke up early, and sadly packed our last things to carry off the ship. Leaving our bags in the room, we got breakfast at a semi-leisurely pace, and then went down to say goodbye to our cabins. We then did a lap around the pool deck, and started to head for the theater to wait for our disemarkation number to be called. A crew member saw us headed that way, and told us we could wait in the Centrum, and she would come find us when our number was called, which was nice. When our number was called, we walked off the ship for the last time, and into the terminal. We were able to quickly locate our bags and walked on out. A benefit of sailing through the European Union is there are no customs/passport checks while leaving the port (at least for US/EU citizens). Our car service met us right at the exit of the terminal, and whisked us to the airport. Unfortunately, we had to sit in the airport for about 4 hours waiting on our flight, but the girls barely noticed since they all had their iDevices and wifi. I dozed off a little on the short flight home, and before we knew it, we were in the van and driving home. Final Thoughts: - I really enjoyed our cruise, ship, crew, and port calls. I was concerned about being on one of the oldest ships in the fleet during an off-season cruise, but my fears were nowhere near founded. - We were keeping a running scorecard of the Disney Magic vs. Rhapsody of the Seas, and I must admit that Rhapsody stacked up favorably. Even in the areas where the Magic won, I kept telling my wife "if we were on a bigger and newer Royal ship...." - I cannot say enough about how much my girls enjoyed their time in Adventure Ocean. Even though there were not as many kids on this cruise, the staff kept up a high level of programming and gave my girls all kinds of personal attention. - With the exception of the tender debacle in Kotor, embarking and disembarking the ship was smooth and painless. - I can't wait to try the other ships and itineraries Royal Caribbean offers. I am fully a "cruise person" now and constantly schemeing for the next one. Thanks for following along!

Day 7: Sea Day Continuing our trend for the week, we lazily woke up and headed to breakfast today. After we ate, my wife took the younger girls to the pool and my oldest and I went to the Captain's Corner. I really enjoyed hearing the senior officers talk about the ship and our thoughts about Captain Tobias were confirmed- he looked really young, and indeed he was only 4 years older than I am (of course, I still think of myself as a recent college grad, even though I just turned 40). The best question was about where is the brig. Turns out there are 2 brigs on board, but as the captain said, they usually prefer to put unruly guests in "time out" in their cabins until the next port. Following that, we did some shopping at the 2/$20 t-shirt sale, and got the girls showered. The 5 year old and I went to Meet the Stars, a meet an greet with the singers and dancers. Most of them were on their first contract with Royal Caribbean, and all seemed to enjoy what they were doing. One of the singers was on her 6th contract. We then met up with my wife and the evens in the Centrum for a salsa lesson, which the girls enjoyed learning to dance, and that was followed by a Baggo contest. Much to my chagrin, I failed to advance past the first round, but my wife went 3 for 3 to advance. This consisted of trick shots from increasing difficulty, including trying to make a shot from the 6th deck balcony. Unfortunately, my wife did not make any more shots, but it was a lot of fun to watch and for her to have her 3 minutes of fame. After lunch, we went to the Schooner Bar to play Family Children's Character trivia, which our family won on a tie-breaker. Our girls thought that was just the coolest thing ever to play trivia, and win. A couple of counsellors from AO were the emcees, and they genuinely were excited to see our girls- have I mentioned how awesome the kids' staff was? After trivia, we took the girls to Adventure Ocean, the teen ran off to meet up with her friends from the teen club, my wife went to workout, and I went to the hot tub and listen to the live music on deck. It was a nice sunny day, if a little windy up on deck. We then all rallied to get ready for dinner and go play family bingo before we ate. Dinner was good, and we got our picture taken with our server, who also got a picture of us. We took the girls back to AO and went to the Centrum to watch Dancing with the Superstars. Some of the crew could legitimately dance! Then it was, sadly, time to pack our bags to get them out in the hallway. Packing at the end is so much easier that being neat and organized on the front end. Just dump everything in a suitcase and make sure it weighs less than 50 lbs. That done, we collected the girls from Adventure Ocean for the last time and got some photos with the girls and the counsellors, especially their favorite: "Tinkerbell" Tamara. Back in the room, we put the younger girls down to bed, and the teen stayed to watch them while my wife and I went to watch some karaoke. Someone sang "Friends in Low Places," which the Brit cruise staff member said she had never heard before...which I found hard to believe if she had hosted karaoke before tonight. Once that broke up, we headed back to the room, and turned in for the last night. Earlier, the captain had announced that we would arrive in Venice about 6 hours early, I think to beat the fog that was building up. So I was able to watch through the porthole of our cabin as we entered the lagoon and up the canal. We were on the port side, though, and the main sights were on starboard as we sailed into Venice. Also tonight, we found a letter saying that some guests had experienced gastrointestinal illness during this cruise and asked if anyone in our cabins has experienced any symptoms. It also explained that extra sanitation measures had been taken throughout the week, which accounted for all the crew members I saw wiping down everything for the last few days. And with that, I finally fell asleep well after midnight, knowing that all good things must come to an end.

I'll have to look them up...my wife and I are sailing out of Rome next May

Day 6: Argostoli Today was another late start day. We slept in again (which was so different from our Western Med cruise in May when we were up before 7 almost every day) and went to breakfast in Windjammer. It was actually more of a brunch, because we went so late, and were scheduled to take a 4 hour shore excursion starting at 11:45. This was our only excursion through Royal Caribbean, but I didn't know much about Argostoli, and a tour of caves sounded interesting. We made our way down to the theater to get herded out to the busses and on our way. The port is very close to the town (about 5 minutes walk), so the bus had to get through the traffic before we were out in the wilds of Kefalonia (or Cephalonia or Sefalonia, depending on who you ask). It was a beautiful drive up and over the mountains that run down the middle of the island, even though this was the only day of the cruise with clouds and a little bit of rain as we got off the ship. After about 45 minutes, we arrived at the first cave and were given about 45 minutes to explore. The girls counted, and there were 120 steps down into the cave, and then back up again. It was really quite impressive underground, with stalactites and stalagmites all around. We were told that they even hold concerts in the large chamber because the acoustics were so good. After we emerged from the cave, we grabbed some water from the nearby snack stand and boarded the bus for the short drive over to the "Cave of the Nymphs." This cave had an underground lake, and part of the roof had collapsed during an earthquake many years ago. There were boats that took you out on the lake and into the enclosed part of the cave. The water was amazingly clear and turquoise, and quite unlike anything I'd seen before. Our oarsman was very friendly, and let two of our girls take turns rowing the boat for a few seconds. It was a very enjoyable visit, and we all agreed one of the highlights of our cruise. From this cave, we drove around the island, stopping at a scenic overlook of the most famous beach on Cephalonia for a photo op. The bus then wound its way back down the mountains and back to port. We had a few hours until all aboard, and asked the girls if they wanted to walk around town with us or go to Adventure Ocean. Of course they chose to go to AO, so we dropped them off (they would eat dinner with the counsellors, which was an awesome option) and our oldest elected to stay on board, also. So my wife and I took a walk along the water front, did some window shopping, crossed a famous bridge in town, and had a snack before we came back to the ship. When we got back on board, we got ready for dinner, Chops Grill tonight, and went to the show. Tonight was Piano Man, a mixture of songs from Billy Joel, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and other "piano men." It was ok, but all I could think about was how every song it seemed that the singers and dancers came out in a different wig. My wife and I then went to Chops for dinner to celebrate my birthday. We really enjoyed the food, and the service was attentive if not great. We saw another waiter that was much more personable with his table, and felt like we missed out a little bit. For desert, they brought out a red velvet cake and sang happy birthday (which was the first time that has ever happened to me, mostly by choice). We even got a to-go plate with another slice of cake to take back to our room. After dinner, we picked the kids up from AO, dropped them in the room, and then went to the Centrum to listen to some music for a little bit. Tomorrow was a sea day and the impending sadness of having to end the cruise.

Day 5: Mykonos Today was another day without much of an agenda. Port time was 7-4, but we didn't have early plans, so we slept in a little bit and lazily got ourselves ready this morning. The 7 and 3 year olds (as we call them the evens) opted to stay on the ship while the odds (13 and 5 year olds) tendered into port with us. I had read that Mykonos was famously windy, and today was no exception. It was a bright and sunny day, but the wind was pretty brutal. We had been looking forward to this island for the postcard, whitewashed landscape. However, we were a little disappointed that the roofs were not all blue like Santorini. Expectation management, I guess. We did find a few blue roofs and got the obligatory pics near them. We wandered through the maze of streets (no street names here, just find your way around) and up to the windmills that overlook the town. From there, we did some shopping, and my wife bought a pair of sandals, which apparently is what you do in Greece. Since it was the very end of the season on the island, she got a good deal. Next was a great quest for gelato, which is a family tradition for wherever we travel. Again, being the end of the season, a lot of places were closed, so we had just about given up hope when we found a place as we re-entered the port area on the way back to the tender. The tender ride was a bit choppy headed back to the ship, and my wife got some sea spray through an open door on the boat, but we made it back to the ship in time to grab a quick, late lunch at Windjammer. Following lunch, we dropped our daughter off at Adventure Ocean, and the teen, my wife, and I went to watch the art auction for a little while (mainly for the free champaign). Then it was time to get ready for the second formal night of the cruise. Like I said, the girls love dressing up and we had a good time pretending to be fancy at dinner. The younger three went back to Adventure Ocean, and we went to the headliner show in the theater. This was American Dream, a Motown tribute band, and the show was really good, probably our favorite of the cruise. My oldest didn't know a lot of the songs (parenting fail on my part), but she enjoyed the high energy of it all. Last night the seas were a little rough, and the motion was more pronounced than we had experienced on this cruise or our one before it. I'm going to blame the motion of the ocean for what happened...my wife and I were walking down a corridor, when the ship rolled a bit, causing me to stagger just a little. As I did, I rammed my watch into the end of the railing on the wall- shattering the glass, making my watch unreadable. So anyway, we ended up in the shops tonight, looking at watches, which was funny because while we were at the airport on Friday, I asked my wife "who buys watches on a cruise ship? I guess enough to be profitable for the ship." Well played Royal Caribbean, well played. But I do have a nice watch now... Tonight was also the first night I became really aware of crew sanitizing all of the handrails and public spaces around the ship. Didn't think much of it at the time, but it all became clearer on the night before we disembarked (this is called foreshadowing). Unrelated- last night both my wife and I woke up with some stomach discomfort, but we wrote it off to the motion of the ship.

We did a DCL tour in Rome in May, which was...meh. Having the personal attention on both of the private tours we did this cruise was night and day, and totally converted me. I don't mind doing the research to find good ones that suit our family and fit the constraints of a port call.

We asked about this on our last cruise, if our 7 year old could be with our 3 and 5 year olds. The firm answer was no, they had to go to their age-divided clubs. Although a few days, they combined the Aquanauts (3-5) and Explorers (6-8) activities for a little bit.

Thank you for reading! It is fun to re-create our days. We loved Greece, too!

Day 4: Athens Overnight, the Rhapsody had made the long haul around the corner of Greece, and was headed towards Pireaus and Athens. I got up early to enjoy a cup of coffee up on deck and watch the sun rise. We weren't scheduled to make port until noon, so we decided to take the girls swimming as soon as the pool was open. My wife stayed in the hot tub, and I got in and out of it as the middle girls decided to move between the hot tub and pool. Too late, we decided that we should have taken a picture of my daughter in the pool and the lifeguard wearing a coat and beanie hat. We let them swim for about an hour, and they had a great time, and turns out the pool water wasn't as cold as I was expecting- not bath water by any means, but definitely not frigid. After the pool we went back to our cabin, got ready for the day, and headed up to Windjammer for lunch. While we were eating, we watched the ship dock and saw Athens in the distance. I could even see the Acropolis faintly. Later, while talking with our tour guide, she told us that the weather could not have been more perfect, and the visibility is just about as good as she'd ever seen in Athens...no smog or humidity, bright sun, and just enough breeze to blow anything out of the way. As we were leaving WJ, Captain Tobias informed us that we had been cleared to go ashore, so we quickly went to our cabin to grab our day bags and continued down to the gangway on deck 1. I had scheduled an independent, private tour of the Acropolis and Ancient Agora, including transfers for today, and we were met by our driver immediately upon leaving the terminal. It took about 30 minutes to drive from the port to the Acropolis, with our driver pointing out things of interest along the way, mostly sights from the 2000 Olympics. He even pulled over at an overlook to let us take a picture of the harbor. We were delivered right to the bus parking lot at the Acropolis and promptly met by our guide. After purchasing our tickets (half-price because it was off-season, and kids under 18 free, by the way), we started the hike up the hill. Our guide, Marialena from Greeking.me, was fantastic and great with the girls. She took us all around the Acropolis, and stopped at various places to tell us the myths about this most important of places in Athens. Another benefit of being off season was that the sight was not crowded at all and the weather was perfect: sunny but not hot. After we descended from the Acropolis, we walked past Mars Hill where the Apostle Paul gave his famous speech to the Athenians and on to the Agora. Our girls were enthralled by the stories of Greek myths and walking around the ancient marketplace, looking up at the Parthenon, I could put myself back in that time. All in all, it was a great tour and well worth booking a private tour (I feel like I may be becoming a private tour snob!). We then had some free time to wander for about an hour before our transfer back to the ship. Arriving back at port, we headed to WJ for dinner and watched as the Rhapsody pulled away and out of Piraeus. The girls went up on the pool deck to watch Incredibles 2, while my wife and I enjoyed some time alone and went to the Love and Marriage gameshow, which was hilarious. It was by then time to turn in and get some sleep, with a lazy morning ahead of us again the next day.

No offense taken ? My intent, and buried the lede, was to point out that my kids got great, personal attention by being among the few kids on board. I totally get the economics and bucket list-ness of Europe from the States.

For the record, I am 'Merican. I just happen to live in Europe for the time being and can cross of a bunch of bucket list trips while I am here. Like I said, ours is the extreme example.

Ours is probably an extreme case, but two weeks ago on a Greek cruise, there were 22 teens on the manifest (only 3, including my oldest, showed up to the teen club). For the younger set, the most I ever saw in Adventure Ocean was 8, divided among the various age levels. Also, my conservative estimate for the average age on this cruise was 102. On the plus side, our three youngest daughteres got so much personal attention, it was like have a private club just for them. They didn't seem to mind the small group size, but then again, since there are three of them they are their own roaming motorcycle gang.