AshleyDillo

@Ampurp85 curious if you're seeing the really low price for the OTW Beach Club cabana on your May 20 sailing. 

Well, that's weird.... these are my prices. The pass for Hideaway beach club was $17.99 yesterday and its $22.99 today. 

@Ampurp85 curious if you're seeing the really low price for the OTW Beach Club cabana on your May 20 sailing. 

@Ampurp85 curious if you're seeing the really low price for the OTW Beach Club cabana on your May 20 sailing. 

@Ampurp85 curious if you're seeing the really low price for the OTW Beach Club cabana on your May 20 sailing. 

It's a Lavazza BLUE on all the ships I've been on.

27 days to go.......
Since I made my brother prime, he gets a nice number of monthlies. Usually, they match with mine but of lesser value. Most of my offers are OVs and my brothers are interiors or "1 complimentary guest." It works out the same for us moneywise, but gets us double point, so we booked 2 sperate rooms for the first two sailings as the upgrade option is just OV when you combine. I hate OV so I will often just take the interiors, in this case the first two sailings are GTY. I normally prefer an aft cabin and to pick my own, but I also like a cheap sailing. I really spend minimal time in my room, so location takes a backseat to savings. My brother was excited about his first B2B and then he decided it would be nice to bring our mother along. She of course is sharing a room with him 🤣😂. But she didn't have enough vacation time to do all three, so she will just join us for the first two. We are gifting this as her Mother's Day present.
For the first cruise, check-in opened on the 28th of March I believe. The earliest slot was 11am, which wasn't a big deal because we are flying in the day of......first flight out as usual. I never recommend this, but I have insurance and live in hub city, meaning there are usually 3-4 flights after mine that will get me there. Which brings me to a side rant: there used to be more flights. I remember when there were flights between 8pm-10pm that went to Mia, MCO and FLL. Now the last flight is often around 6:45 to 7pm, which is not ideal when flying with my mother who has church until at least 3pm and requires another couple of hours to be ready. So 5am flights are what I have to deal with, and the sucky part is my preferred airline makes those the most expensive flights. So even though I complain and say I hope to never fly them again, I am often stuck with SWA...... and their crappy boarding procedure 🤣. 
I don't know if 10/10:30 opened up, I didn't bother to check. We will be on the ship for 11 days so I can care less about getting an earlier time. Plus, there are no reservations required for Freedom class entertainment.  My brother brought his own snorkeling gear, the price for snorkeling all day at PDCC is like $50 on sale now 😱. No ecursions are planned.
I used the barcode trick as soon as I checked in and I was able to see our room assignments. For the first leg we are on deck 3 in rooms #3253 and 3251. On the second leg we are on Deck 2 in rooms #2567 and 2569. I chose my own room for the last leg with deck 9 and room #9391. I was happy that the rooms were assigned so close to each other. We have traditional dining for all three legs at 8:30.........which will probably be 8 in most cases. Since the reservations are linked, they should sit us together at a smaller table, if we are assigned to an 8-top I will request a different table. My brother doesn't want people judging him as he eats all his meals. 
I will not be pre-purchasing anything. I get 2 free days as D+ and then can use my prime discount on the remainder. I will also be using my BOGO. There will be the B2B'rs lunch so I will take advantage of that to avoid the WJ. Plus, we will do embarkation day lunch at Playmakers. 
I plan to prepack each leg in its own packing cube. I am also bringing a ton of casino-friendly snacks as I have a 2025 S2S2S or B2B2B to plan. I am following @AshleyDillo advice and bring specific clothes for the casino, so the rest don't get smoky. 

I'm sure glad I'm flying for my next B2B out of Miami..nope nope nope to offsite parking downtown. I did it once and never again. 
I'm not sure what the one-way car rental cost is (I get a special state employee leisure rate) but that could be an option in the future. I use Avis and there's a location downtown with a shuttle to the port. It ends up cheaper than parking at Terminal A, though I usually skip the shuttle and take Uber for $10 to/from. Always beat the shuttle back to pick up my car and beat the counter rush that way too 😍

If you are trying to effect change for future builds, all you can really do is log the suggestion/complaint. There really are no next steps there.  If you want to switch to a room that's guaranteed to have the bed setup you desire on your future sailing, you need to pay for the upgraded room.

Does not have to but it can be.

I actually find the seas rougher during the winter than hurricane season.

I have never seen them.

That’s exactly where I am right now !  I have to stay out of the sun and the loungers are not for me so I am in a nice comfy couch with cushions next to the bar.  I actually loathe toes in the sand so I’m happy to be missing out on that.   Agree that I’m not pleased with the loud music but my butt and back are thanking me for choosing this spot !  😂😂🤭   Dan abandoned me and found a lounger in the sun.
This place is much bigger than it looks from the ship.  The bar is huge !  So far the only disappointment (for Dan, not me) is that it doesn’t appear that there’s any real ocean access for snorkeling.  Maybe there is and we just haven’t found it yet.
We are here with Wonder and nowhere near capacity.  Maybe that will change later.  It’s a bit breezy but that will probably turn into a blessing as the day goes on.

Woke up to this...

And this...

Then debarkation was a cluster. Only one gangway was open and they had two places for self-assist to congregate at 7:30 the MDR and the theater. My room was more forward so I went down around 7am and they had the doors from the elevator to the theater closed so everyone was piled into the Schooner. They had the casino doors closed as well.  Elevator after elevator of people and luggage were coming down and trying to exit to the closed off lobby. They made an announcement for no one else to go down and finally at 7:30 they opened the casino doors and made us drag our luggage through the casino and Playmakers all the way to the dining room where they sent us out the port side of the ship and back to the forward entrance 🙄 We were then fed through the theater and out the starboard side of the ship to the aft gangway where we merged in with the MDR folks getting off the ship.
They didn't use facial recognition at this terminal and the passport guy was having a full on conversation with every party.
I was finally off the ship and on the road by 8am. Parking at the garage across from terminal G was $88 for the 4 nights.

I napped a lot this cruise. It was glorious. Last night in the MDR was Caribbean night which is my least favorite menu, so I had the French onion soup and strip steak, my usual standby order.
Then I went and casinoed. 
I finally got up the nerve to play 3-card poker after I had decent success with the slots. I bought in for $200 and played for nearly 4 hours and left with $665 😱
My points total jumped up over 400 points from the last time I was at the slots. This was the first time it automatically showed in my points total without having to ask the casino host to convert my table points for slot freeplay.
Of course I had to play up to an even amount 😇

I did well on my Radiance cruise too..earned about the same number of points..so I'm 80% of the way to prime for the new casino year. I wasn't trying for any instant certs. I checked the 1200pt list on Radiance but didn't look on Independence.  I didn't expect to point churn so much on either sailing.
I didn't keep track...but I only brought a handful of singles onboard and left with almost enough cash to cover my onboard account on both sailings. This includes daily service charges too.

Yesterday's MDR was Italian night which has my favorite dish on all the menus.
I call it the Indian meatballs dish.
It comes with papadum and roti, too.

Bonus is that they usually have it in the WJ..so I can always get a second helping.  They also have traditional eggplant parmesan in the WJ, which they don't have on the MDR menus.

I did try it..it's actual white meat chicken in a panko coating..definitely not hand-breaded. They weren't bad but they're also available in the WJ.
The fish is hand battered..I saw the flour dredge bowl and the batter bowls back in the kitchen.
They need a dessert though... funnel cakes or churros would be easy. 

Well fish and chips is always blah tasting..even in the UK. I wasn't expecting much. I may go back and try the fish sandwich and chicken fingers later. 

This is probably as close to Grand Turk I will get.

It is sunny and the outside does not have A/C 😆
Maybe when I come back in less than 2 weeks...I'm just a creature of habit when I'm solo.  If I ever came back and wasn't alone I would probably rent a golf cart and explore.

Fish n Ships as requested.

Everything just tastes beige 😂
It's dead out on the pool deck and everything was sitting there pre-plated already under a warmer..probably would be better if it was busy and things were being freshly made.

When this was a pay venue the shrimp were Chops sized, hand breaded and fried and not these popcorn shrimp they have now.

A save for later feature in the cart would be nice.
I always make my purchases separate though just for the ease of tracking refunds later. 

A good travel agent would be aware of the room configurations and find you a room that's available with the sofa bed accommodations you are seeking or suggest other ships that might have those options.
Most inside cabins are smaller and would not have the space for a sofa bed, which is why they tend to have pullmans.  A solution if you really need the cheaper in price accommodations and are concerned with safety would be to sleep the children on the beds and put the adults in the pullmans.  It's not ideal, but it would give you back the floor space.

A good travel agent would be aware of the room configurations and find you a room that's available with the sofa bed accommodations you are seeking or suggest other ships that might have those options.
Most inside cabins are smaller and would not have the space for a sofa bed, which is why they tend to have pullmans.  A solution if you really need the cheaper in price accommodations and are concerned with safety would be to sleep the children on the beds and put the adults in the pullmans.  It's not ideal, but it would give you back the floor space.

I started cruising in 2007 when my mom got the cruise bug.  We started with Carnival.  After almost 10 cruises going to the same places over and over again I wanted a break from it and to get to use my time off for other things and other types of vacations.  I did another cruise with a friend in 2011 on NCL through a casino offer.
My mother and brother kept going after their Carnival stint and they tried other cruise lines and eventually ended up loyal to Royal.  They lured me back to cruising in 2014 with an Alaska cruisetour which was on Radiance.  From there they kept enticing me with itineraries that went to different places and then my mother decided to start spending my inheritance and sailing in the fancy cabins, so came along for the ride.  My brother was involved with the Royal Caribbean Blog community and one of those next sailings happened to be on a RoyalCaribbeanBlog Group Cruise in 2018.  I joined the message boards and had a good time on the cruise with the group and have only missed one group cruise since then.  I also started taking up my mother's offer to sail with them as much as possible and I became loyal to Royal, with a couple of NCL diversions for music charters here and there.  My mother and brother hit Pinnacle and "graduated" to trying out Celebrity, so I've taken one of those as well.
I'm now at 37 sailings with Royal alone with most of those after the pandemic restart.  I have 13 more scheduled through 2025.  I do live in Florida, so a lot of those are short sailings since they work with my schedule better (less time off).  I also have two NCL music charters coming up and another Celebrity sailing.  I've now occupied myself with cruising as the only form of vacation. I end up traveling solo a lot and I'm super comfortable going alone on cruises so I stick with it.

A save for later feature in the cart would be nice.
I always make my purchases separate though just for the ease of tracking refunds later.