AshleyDillo

Congrats !  I have sucked the past few nights in the casino.  Back to my old ways 🥲

I skipped MDR on the last night..Caribbean night is not my fave and I had ruined my dinner with a late snack from Fish & Ships.
Did some damage in the casino and ended up with an instant certificate...it was all 10-hand video poker.  I am definitely qualified for Prime now despite my prior 2 sailings this month not showing points on the Club Royale site. I decided to hit up 3-card poker on the way out and hit a 4 of a kind so that was a nice little payout.
Packed up for turnaround day...and set an early alarm and woke up before the sun had burned off the yuck. 

I was able to stay in my cabin and work until 9:30 and then I met up in the Star Lounge with about 50 others.  They will have a lunch for us in the dining room at 11:30.
Now we are waiting to be called to get our new SeaPass cards.

I skipped MDR on the last night..Caribbean night is not my fave and I had ruined my dinner with a late snack from Fish & Ships.
Did some damage in the casino and ended up with an instant certificate...it was all 10-hand video poker.  I am definitely qualified for Prime now despite my prior 2 sailings this month not showing points on the Club Royale site. I decided to hit up 3-card poker on the way out and hit a 4 of a kind so that was a nice little payout.
Packed up for turnaround day...and set an early alarm and woke up before the sun had burned off the yuck. 

I was able to stay in my cabin and work until 9:30 and then I met up in the Star Lounge with about 50 others.  They will have a lunch for us in the dining room at 11:30.
Now we are waiting to be called to get our new SeaPass cards.

I skipped MDR on the last night..Caribbean night is not my fave and I had ruined my dinner with a late snack from Fish & Ships.
Did some damage in the casino and ended up with an instant certificate...it was all 10-hand video poker.  I am definitely qualified for Prime now despite my prior 2 sailings this month not showing points on the Club Royale site. I decided to hit up 3-card poker on the way out and hit a 4 of a kind so that was a nice little payout.
Packed up for turnaround day...and set an early alarm and woke up before the sun had burned off the yuck. 

I was able to stay in my cabin and work until 9:30 and then I met up in the Star Lounge with about 50 others.  They will have a lunch for us in the dining room at 11:30.
Now we are waiting to be called to get our new SeaPass cards.

I skipped MDR on the last night..Caribbean night is not my fave and I had ruined my dinner with a late snack from Fish & Ships.
Did some damage in the casino and ended up with an instant certificate...it was all 10-hand video poker.  I am definitely qualified for Prime now despite my prior 2 sailings this month not showing points on the Club Royale site. I decided to hit up 3-card poker on the way out and hit a 4 of a kind so that was a nice little payout.
Packed up for turnaround day...and set an early alarm and woke up before the sun had burned off the yuck. 

I was able to stay in my cabin and work until 9:30 and then I met up in the Star Lounge with about 50 others.  They will have a lunch for us in the dining room at 11:30.
Now we are waiting to be called to get our new SeaPass cards.

Halifax is extremely walkable right out of the port area. I would suggest walking around until you see something interesting. If you're looking for "local" maybe check out Smokes for poutine. Also check if the BeaverTails is open at the waterfront..I think their summer season ends October so you may be in luck. It's effectively Canada's answer to the funnel cake.

Oscar has been killing it with the mini menagerie..

Matches the theme of the little choking hazard I found yesterday..remote for scale.

And got my B2B letter!
 

Today was Puerto Plata and we did the Ocean World Sea Lion Encounter & Snorkeling with sharks and Lunch.  This is one of the best excursions we have ever taken.  I have lots of pix but of course, they are not yet on my iPad so I will have to post them later.
We had soooo much fun and saw so many awesome critters.
Ocean World is a Dominican Sea World -an Aqua park with shows and exhibitions.  I was very surprised to find it was very well maintained and well organized.  I have been to aqua parks before in other countries that were…well….sad.  But this one is not.  It was thoroughly enjoyable.
There were dolphin and sea lion shows as well as the shark encounter and multiple snorkeling/swimming aquariums.  There were aviary enclosures (small but fun).  There was a beachfront swimming area as well as fresh water pools.  Some of the interactions were additional $$ (dolphins, in our case since we paid for the sea lions and shark interactions) but we did not pay for anything more than our original excursion included and we had a blast !   Lunch was a pretty typical Caribbean buffet….nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t bad….but was very busy !
Transportation from the port was in a big, comfortable, air conditioned bus….may 15 minutes from the port,  fast, efficient and well organized.  I will definitely recommend this excursion or the one like it that included the dolphin interaction.
This excursion wasn’t cheap.  It was nearly $200 PP but you got a lot for your money and I think it was worth the cost.  We go on VERY few excursions.
We were exhausted by the time we got back to the ship.  The bus left the port area at 8:30 and we got back at 2:00 so it’s a very full day and there’s lots to do.

This is the case for every customer service situation...shoreside customer service is terrible compared to your experience on board. I see this time and time again with all kinds of situations people post about. It's a shame that excellent customer service doesn't continue off the ship  😐
One could hope bringing this up to anyone high up in the company will actually make a difference, but it hasn't made much change in the past.
Your ask is a huge one, especially considering how terrible Royal's IT is. But if no one asks, it's nearly a guarantee nothing will ever change 

The Pan American pier doesn't have a lot nearby. If you take a taxi/Uber down to Old San Juan, Barrachina Restaurant (claims the Pina colada) stores luggage. 

Oscar has been killing it with the mini menagerie..

Matches the theme of the little choking hazard I found yesterday..remote for scale.

And got my B2B letter!
 

Proof I got off the ship today!

Then got right back on😂

My first visit to Grand Turk... I guess it's convenient to have the beach *right* there at the pier, but you have to want to do the beach. There's also a pool at Margaritaville.  They offered some tour the island and snorkel trips and rum tasting excursions but I didn't venture out of the port area so I couldn't tell you what the rest of the place is like.
The water was very pretty and you could see lots of colorful fish by the pier and an occasional ray swim by. I'd imagine snorkeling here would be decent.
This was a replacement stop for Labadee which does not have Effy, Harley Davidson, Ron Jon, or Pirhana Joe's so it's up to you to decide if it's a worthy substitution.

Any other Prime or above casino folks just order a drink from every roaming waiter that walks by to up the chances of actually receiving said drink and then ends up accidentally double fisting or is it just me?

There were these two ladies a couple tables down from me who were alllllll about it. Everyone else scurried away.

It was the Macarena. Didn't want to leave you hanging.

Despite dining solo..I can't manage to make it out of the MDR before they start the singing and dancing. Coming 15 mins early doesn't help anything..ughhhh.  I didn't even order an entree this time!

I used the Facebook group's slot pull as an excuse to take a break from my work and leave my room. But I got there too late and they had already started so I played a little video poker instead and I'm up $25 for the cruise and have 28 casino points despite not wearing red undergarments 😂
Since it was 2:30 and I have 5:30 early seating in MDR, of course I went to the WJ before it closes at 3:00. 
They had shrimp pad thai...burger bun for reference.

They are selling the Make A Wish shirts down in the Promenade. $19.50 of the $25 price is donated.

At 11:15am each Sea Day they're doing a walk up the track.

I did meet my room steward yesterday. He is a talker. His name is Oscar..he is from Belize and he has done the drive from the US border to Belize and it is beautiful. Oh, and Quiet Riot is his favorite band.
He asked me when I get up in the morning which is new to me. Usually they just tell me they clean once a day and give me their AM and PM hour range.  This time he didn't even mention PM. So now I've committed to relocating from my cabin at 9am daily.  I have to work today, so I will just spend a few hours working with a better view.

I had to check out Fish & Ships again for quality control. This room is handy for running up/down one flight and grabbing some..or some soft serve..or hitting up WJ for a to-go plate.
The chicken fingers were different this time. The fish they were frying fresh in small batches. It tasted less bland this time too..maybe because it was fresh.

Of course I had dinner 3 hours later. I'm at a 2-top in a row of other 2-tops so I have neighbors to pretend to ignore.  No great people watching to share. 
Now I'm in WJ for second dinner 😂 I needed vegetables because the MDR doesn't know what those are.
They are frying donuts up fresh tonight...

Those mugs are labeled as sugar donut with chocolate milk..because everyone likes their milk to sit under a heat lamp.
 

To the room...


There are so few rooms in this little loop and it's behind a door so likely to be pretty quiet. The wifi is fast in the room too 👍

From the decor it appears this is a bunch of newer rooms perhaps? It definitely looks different from my last room here:

Got my C&A amenity..

Even the bathroom is a different tone from the last one..

No SeaPass = no Crown Lounge so I just hung out in the public area up on 14 until the room announcements were ready.

I like the location of my room other than it throws me at the aft elevators. Those are always the busier elevators since it's the side of the ship with all the food. Lots of people riding up to go down and filling up the elevators before it gets to deck 10. Fortunately I tend to spend a lot of my time on this ship on decks 11 and 14 which are close enough to be stair friendly. 
 

I tried to pull a @WAAAYTOOO and grab my SeaPass card from my stateroom door, but it wasn't there. I didn't break any rules or go behind any signs that said rooms wouldn't be open until 1pm.  But my room this time is tucked in a little hallway next to the stairs.

I was onboard by 11:05..very little waiting.  You MUST spread yourself at least 3 escalator steps apart from the person ahead of you at Terminal G. They scream and berate people who do not follow this rule.

The trolley stop is right there at the Metrorail station and it's only a couple steps..but the app said it's 20 mins til the right trolley shows and Miami is not air conditioned while my Lyft is..so Lyft it is.

Good to know for the future, though.