AshleyDillo

Then we had dinner from Chops wheeled into the room...sooooo many plates. Eleanor the loft attendant my mom and brother know from prior sailings also popped in to wish my brother a happy birthday. We invited Alan to sit and eat with us and he did. We had even ordered him his own crab cakes. It was nice for him to sit for a bit and chat..again that personal touch that makes Star Class so special.

Alan and my mother orchestrated a surprise cake for my brother who also has a birthday this month.

Tonight was dinner on the balcony. We didn't really leave the room during prime room cleaning hours and we knew we had the show after dinner, so we let the room steward pop in to clean the room whenever he wanted. He was in and out super fast but still managed to stack and straighten everything in sight like a ninja. And he left us a buddy.

My recommendation for St. Maarten is do Maho Beach. You can easily grab a taxi at the port and they also have them at Maho Beach to get a ride back. There's a little beach bar right next to the beach. This beach is the beach right at the end of the airport runway so you can watch planes takeoff and land and it's scarily close to the folks at the beach. It's probably a 20-30 minute ride each way to Maho and you can stay as long or little as you want and catch a cab back for around $10 each way. There's also the water taxi that takes you to the walkable shopping area if you don't want to venture that far from the port.

You can call to see if they can do a push to refresh the luggage tags (also check the last page of your eDocs). They will have blank tags at the port too. I absolutely would NOT use the old ones.

Hmmm..they will find a way I'm sure to make the telehealth portion cost more then.

Useless facts: It takes me 39 steps to walk from the balcony divider of the neighboring room to the end of our balcony. Time for a nap.

Today's port stop was 7a-3p so now we are sailing off back to our sea day. I finally see the port!

I'm on Allure right now and it's a more subdued environment, mostly because of the reduced capacity. It doesn't bother me and I will gladly deal with the annoyance of masks to sail without the crowds and lines. It's really what you make of it and your attitude going into it. The gratitude that the crew has towards you supporting the industry and helping keep them employed goes a long way. No one on board seems to be having a bad time at all.

My apologies for not labeling the above food photo with what the items are.

Snacky time. Alan sent a message asking what we wanted for snack today and we requested fruit and cheese and some bacon wrapped jalapeno stuffed chicken from Sabor. 20-30 minutes after it was confirmed the doorbell rang.

Yes. The BOGO is still loaded for D+.

Room service is only free at breakfast. The rest of the day it would be a charge (11am and later). There's also a charge for the hot breakfast option room service. The complimentary options are the cold offerings and the carbs.

The acceptable tests for the cruises are NOT sold in stores. You can only order them online.

Fleetwide! If they have them, you can use the vouchers. The vouchers can be used for mocktails, fancypants coffees, soda, etc. It does not have to be alcohol.

Likely cheaper and easier logistically for Royal to arrange a private jet home from St. Thomas.

Apparently Equinox was originally supposed to be in Antigua today and St. Thomas was a medical diversion. Hoping the best.

Apparently you don't know me or my family

Celebrity Equinox is blocking our view of the port. Rude.

Today is another port day where we likely will not get off the ship. Welcome to St. Thomas.

It's different everywhere. The Walgreens stores in my area only open scheduling 2-3 days prior. If you go and look online as if you are going to need to test soon you will be able to get an idea of the window where appointments open up. CVS near me will schedule the PCR 2 weeks out but the antigen looks like it's not available to schedule or already booked up 2 weeks out, but if you look at closer-in dates there are appointments for antigen.

Free to anyone. They bill insurance if you have it.

You can click on my name and should be able to message me!

The Genies reserved seating in the comedy club. You can be the unlucky folks front and center to get picked on or opt to sneak in a back of the room seat like us.

Another dinner, another tableside chat sesh with Alan. He was able to reserve us a meeting tomorrow morning in the Suite Lounge with a NextCruise representative, cuz YOLO Book It! We are going to schedule breakfast delivery to wake us up in time for this. We got our requested table at our requested time with our requested waitress at Giovannis this time and I breathed a sigh of relief. There was no meltdown when my mother's filet came out too rare twice when she ordered it medium rare. She was finally satisfied when it came back medium. But ordering it as medium would mean it might come out overdone . My filet was a perfect medium rare (still too rare for her as I did originally offer to trade). The filet is as good as Coastal Kitchen's. I still have to try the one at Chops and the one at Coco Beach Club to complete Le Tour de Boeuf for this cruise. Later on this evening is some late night comedy for my brother and I and I'm guessing people watching or sleeping on the room balcony for my mother.