melmar02

Here we are, almost 3 weeks later, and I don't really have anything new to report. The PM stopped by Sunday morning, and the stone company is still telling him they'll be back out to fix the firepit and finish up our project "any day now". They still need to finish the back feature wall and build the kitchen in addition to the firepit repair. Gotta love construction timelines! I'm annoyed, but not too mad about it - the center water feature for the wall has been on backorder, and won't be in until next week sometime. It's also supposed to rain the rest of the week. So it's not like they would have been able to finish the work anyway. The PM however is really not happy. He wants to get the deck going, but the kitchen has to be completed first.

Thanks for coming back to finish! We're in a 2BR ATS in 750 days or so. I can't wait to read the rest of your blog!

I just got mine too... Take action today Browser View Dear Valued Crown & Anchor Society members, Royal Caribbean has deeply missed doing what we do best — delivering great vacations for our guests. Unfortunately, just yesterday, we had to cancel more cruises through June 2021, which marks 15 months since we have sailed from a U.S. homeport. But we haven’t been standing still. In recent months, Royal Caribbean and other cruise lines have shown the effectiveness of health protocols while sailing other parts of the world. The data speaks for itself — more than 400,000 healthy guests have sailed on cruise ships outside the U.S., all made possible by protocols developed over months of collaboration with top experts including our Healthy Sail Panel. This demonstrated success, along with the rollout of the vaccine in many countries, means cruising will be back this summer for vacationers departing from the U.K., Israel, Cyprus, Bermuda, The Bahamas and more homeports. We’re grateful for our international partners who have invited us back to their shores. The fact remains, however, that a U.S. return to cruising is essential to our economy, travel agent partners, the destinations we sail to, and the overall future vitality of this industry. The cruise community is a vital driver of our country’s travel economy — and our job market. In fact, the cruise industry supports nearly 500,000 U.S. jobs — and around 350,000 of these Americans continue to financially suffer due to the suspension of cruising. That’s why we’re calling on you, our valued Crown & Anchor Society members, to make your voices heard. If you’re ready to see cruising return, we urge you to call, email and tweet your Senators and U.S. Representatives in support of lifting the CDC’s Conditional Sail Order (CSO) and allowing healthy cruising to resume from the U.S. by the beginning of July 2021. Our friends at Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) have designed an Action Center that will make it easy for you to craft and send your message in just a couple clicks. If anyone understands the important role that these vacations play in our lives, it’s you. And we believe with your help, we can bring our ships back to U.S. homeports. We appreciate your unwavering support. Royal Caribbean International

It's combined with a land package, southbound on Radiance - I think the cruise embarks on the 10th.

October 2021 from Galveston February 2022 from Galveston June 2022 Alaska April 2023 on Allure from Galveston Right now, I think all but the October '21 will sail. We're considering going ahead and canceling that one, moving the deposit FCC to the Alaska cruise. We have a crazy good deal on the February '22 sailing and a ton of OBC too, so that's the one I'm really crossing my fingers for. There might be tears in our house if cancelations go into next year.

We took the bridge tour on Liberty, and this sounds like what they told us. Their contract is longer than 20 weeks (don't remember how long the actual contract lasts), but they follow this pattern getting 50% time off.

There's been some progress in the last couple days. They finished the coping around the spa and added the lights that hide just under the edge. They also added the water features, lights, and coping to the columns. Today, the guys built the fire pit, added the same stone veneer, topped it with coping, and added the lights there too. They added grout to it all, then they packed up their toys and left. It's exciting to see, but they're not finished. They still need to add the center wall water feature and coping, and those edges on the fire pit are going to have to be ground down so it's more circular. As much as I love irregularly shaped octagons, that's not quite what was in the plans. ?

The guys came out for a few hours today to work on the coping. They got both short, side parts of the wall and the spa spillway complete before the rain hit. It's a time consuming process to cut the slabs to fit the curves, so it doesn't look like a lot of change from yesterday. I'm glad they're taking their time to do it right, measuring for each stone and making sure it's level before moving on to the next. I bet they would have been done in one day if we went with a rectangular shape, but I'm not known for making things easy.

@StillC Thanks. It's really starting to come together. The tile/stonework team came back out on Saturday. They built most of the wall along the back of the pool which will have water spilling out of the columns and in the center over the bench. They built it up with cinder blocks and covered them with the stone veneer we selected back in November. The back side of the wall will just get a skim coat to cover the cinder blocks - we didn't see a point in paying for stone that only the dogs will see. They also veneered most of the spa in the same stone, and moved quite a few cinder blocks to that part of the yard to build up the fire pit. I'm not sure when they will be back out - we're supposed to get quite a bit of rain later today, Wednesday, and Thursday. On a side note, I just about busted my a$$ (twice) jumping the trenches trying to get around to the back side of the pool. They're quite a bit wider than they look from the inside the house. ? I'm amazed that this crew has been doing it while carrying boxes of tile, cinder blocks, and slabs of travertine. DH has forbidden me from trying to get around the right side of the pool where most of the plumbing runs are located. (It's out of love - he's picturing another ACL surgery in my future) There's only one chasm I have to clear on the left side though. ?

The project manager stopped by this morning. He said the guys completing the tile and coping would also be doing the stonework - the back wall of the pool, stone surrounding the spa and fire pit, and the kitchen. He said they would probably be done in a week (we've got a couple days of rain at the beginning of week). Then decking may be started the end of next week or more likely the following week. Once the deck is done, we're ready for plaster. He's estimating about 3-4 more weeks to completion.

@JLMoran No, there is tile only at the water line. The gunite is just shell though. A coat of plaster mixed with color and mini pebbles gets sprayed over the gunite. This is the finish we selected.

They got about half way done today. The tile in pool is complete; nothing in the spa yet. About half the coping is cemented in place. Not sure if they're coming back tomorrow or Monday.

Woohoo! Progress! Today we're getting our tile and coping. They are in the process of tacking up a guide line for the tile. I'm sure this helps support the weight of the tile as it dries too.

+1 for Michelle! She always gets back to me so quickly!

And on the opposite side of the spectrum from @teddy, I was getting woozy just reading your explanation.

I'm not sure this is it - our city outsources inspections to a 3rd party company, and they have been able to come out next day so far for previous inspections. However, with a lot of people potentially needing replacement plumbing from burst pipes inspected, I can't say that's not it. The PM called back. He said the tile crew was finishing a job and we are next on the list, so it should be "any day now". He did tell us at the beginning that tile and stone work were the hardest to schedule, so overall I'm not really surprised. Just ready to see some more work getting done.

So I have absolutely nothing to report. No one came out last week. DH texted the Project Manager yesterday morning with no response. He texted again this morning, and nothing yet. Hope he's ok, but I would think the office would call us if something serious was going on. Tile and stonework are showing as scheduled in the builder's website, but, of course, there are no dates listed. If nothing else, this experience has taught me that I'm really not as patient as I thought I was.

White, coconut, and dark rums with pineapple and orange juice.

I go up the gangway that same speed! ? Thanks for sharing!

What's the website, or where can I find a link on RC's site? I don't think I have ever seen a link on RC's site, but I haven't really looked for it before.

I told my TA which one I wanted to apply it to. This was one of those first round of cancellations, and back then it was tied to the FCC for the cruise fare - they both had to go to the same sailing. I'm not sure if that is still the case or if you can apply a fare credit to one cruise and a cruise planner OBC to a different sailing.

I took the 125% on a cruise that was supposed to sail in May of 2020. The credit is applied to a specific sailing and is used like any other on board credit. You can purchase anything in the cruise planner with it.

I love how this contradicts itself by saying you can meet indoors without wearing a mask and that you should continue to wear a mask. I'm not sure it can really be considered guidance if they're still on the fence.

Ugh! So sorry Joe! I hope it's not as angry, and that it at least feels better without the built up scar tissue.

We have new electric panels by the pool equipment. They grounded the heck out of everything, and the backyard is torn up still showing the exposed conduit and copper grounding wire. I think an inspection happens before it all gets covered up. Not a fun picture necessarily, but here it is.