Andrew72681

59 minutes ago, CrimsonCruiser said:

ooh! a live vlog I'm not too late for! an on Sweet Odyssey, our first mega ship

And hopefully when we get to Aruba on Wednesday I’ll have fast enough Wi-Fi to put up the day 2 and day 3 blogs with all the pictures. It keeps Toni g out because of the slow upload speed. 

Word of warning on the Renaissance. If you are a light sleeper, be sure to get a room as far away from the road as you can. People racing up and down 17th street till about 2am wasn’t much fun. 

8 hours ago, SweetPea said:

My SIL and BIL live in FLL and have taken us to Labamba. They also really, really like Carlos & Pepe's on 17th for Mexican. 

And of course I'm following.  Just took advantage of Odyssey moving to NJ so following along with great interest.

We’ll have to try Carlos and Pepe’s, we’re back down this way Memorial Day weekend for another 8 nighter to the ABC Islands on Celebrity Equinox. 

After dinner it was off to our hotel. When we were down in December we stayed at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina. This time as I had some expiring Marriott certificates, we used one for a night at the Renaissance Fort Lauderdale Marina as it’s hard to beat the price of FREE

https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/fllbr-renaissance-fort-lauderdale-marina-hotel/overview/

The hotel is in need of a refurbishment which has started, but wasn’t mentioned during booking. Not a big deal as we’re just here to sleep for the night. The room overall is alright, could definitely use some aftermarket USB plugs (the CUBI devices are super easy now) as the only plug on the nightstand was one on the lamp which is unusable because it’s so far down.

Hopefully the bathroom gets an upgrade during the renovation as it’s showing its age. 

As has become a Port Everglades departure tradition, we decided when we got into town to head to @Lovetocruise2002’s recommendation, Labamba over on Cordova. Didn’t need it this time but there’s a very convenient Publix next door for last minute needs. 
The food and the service was very good and my loved her coconut mojito. 

Day -1. 
After completing everyone’s health questions we just got on the road to our hotel for the night. Traffic is not being cooperative so far and it’s showing almost three hours and 45 minutes from our house in winter garden. Will still be there in plenty of time to meet up with family for dinner. 

On 2/14/2023 at 6:21 PM, jbrinkm said:

About that... the arcade may be able to override any limits you set, or pre-purchased credits, and it is hard to keep track of how many credits you have left (reports that people have to go to the casino to get a print out), so maybe just keep a very close eye on what she has spent at any given time? 

If your daughter has a C&A number, the youth offers for the last year or so have included a $25 credit back to the account when $50 is spent in the arcade. If you were planning on spending at least $50, thought I would make you aware of it in case it is a more appealing option!

I’ll have to check out the offers when we get onboard. Luckily less than 8 days from now. 

Probably the last of the cruise planner purchases today. A few weeks ago I promised my daughter we could go to an arcade, but then we had to leave early, so prepurchased some arcade credits for her. It’s a 20 percent savings versus buying onboard, and gives a definitive stopping point. 

Two more weeks left. Now to get through work trips to LA and Seattle, then the packing can begin. 

3 weeks left. Picked up the Sushi Making class for my wife and daughter today. 

19 minutes ago, JohnK6404 said:

Welcome back! Envious of your move to Florida!

We loved Odyssey and will definitely be following along… have an awesome time!

Thanks. This time I’ll actually have someone along to take pictures of me looking ridiculous in the IFly. Last time I was solo wasting time and spending severance between roles so couldn’t capture anything. 

The casino program has smiled upon us again (Which considering I came out ahead on Apex in December is extra nice) and we now have an 8 night southern Caribbean leaving May 27th, 2023 on Celebrity Equinox. 
We were supposed to originally supposed to sail Equinox back in May of 2020. Funny thing is that I booked that sailing late March 2020 thinking “there’s no way cruising isn’t back by Memorial Day” and we all now how that ended up. 

So things have been so crazy the past year and a half since moving to Florida, I’ve been lax in doing liveblogs. I’m hoping I can use this cruise as the way to get back leading to being probably one of fifty liveblogs on next year’s icon inaugural. 
 

Some background- this will be my second time on Odyssey. Was able to sail her during the “dark times” of October 2021 when the ship was mostly empty and you couldn’t even sit at bar stools. I still loved the ship so when the opportunity came up we jumped at it. 
 

The Specifics

Guests-It’ll be me, my wife, and my 12 year old daughter on this sailing (who the other day informed us that she had counted and this will be her 17th cruise), My mom and aunt will be on as well in their own room  

Room- we’ve booked a junior suite on Deck 11 pending some unforeseen RoyalUp magic. After having one in  2021, I’m a big fan of the split bathroom over the walk in closet. There’s still lots of room for clothes and having more space to get ready is better.

DX- can’t do that one anymore. Stress related epilepsy and a neurologist who says no drinking. Luckily she didn’t say no gambling, so you’ll still find me at the blackjack table, just with a “plain” Coke in hand instead of a Captain and Coke.

Dining-not long after we book onboard Harmony this past April, the dining package went on sale for 235, which giving the selection of specialty restaurants seemed like an OK deal, it’s also the last time we’ll be able to get children’s pricing as our daughter turns 13 in June  

itinerary- as with most southern Caribbean this is a sea day heavy sailing. Our only stops are Labadee, Aruba, and Curacao. Luckily that leads to pretty long times in port with time to explore. We’ve been to Labadee several times, and have flown to Aruba for weeklong vacations. So Curaçao will be the first time for us.

On 9/24/2022 at 4:17 PM, AspiringCruisePlanner said:

Correction. We're now sailing on the Apex 6 night instead.  Same departure date out of Fort Lauderdale so we didn't have to change our departure flight. Got an offer from the Blue Chip Club for a free balcony stateroom. They had a sunset veranda available so we jumped on it. Super excited to try the new edge class!

Are you on the 12/17 sailing? We’ll be on that one as well and loved our time on Apex last year. 

hey guys. This trip has been a mess and with service lapses, cold food, things never arriving, and today a room that smells like sewage, I’m dumping this liveblog now. Spending the energy to chronicle it all just adds to the thought that I wasted a ton of money. 

Pre-embarkation 

After picking up all 7 family members from the airport on two separate trips we  brought everyone back to our home. Having moved to Florida just last year this is the first time we’ve had multiple family members in the house. It really makes you appreciate how quiet it is normally. 

After getting everyone settled and fed, we decided to start our At-home Covid tests. We purchased the 6 pack of tests directly from E-med for 150$, which worked out to 30$ per test and we have to extra for our Alaska cruise in June. After trying to start two tests at the same time first, it became abundantly clear that because of the noise level, we should just do one at a time. With the interaction and questions from the offshore call center agent be sure to pay close attention. They asks some convoluted questions that if you aren’t paying full attention you’ll end up giving the wrong answer and starting all over. 

Luckily for us about two hours later everyone was done and results in hand. While Royal will accept electronic versions, just to be safe we printed out the negative test confirmations. 

For dinner we took the group to Piesano’s on Windermere. If you’re staying on the west side of Disney Piesano’s is a great option and we’ve always had great service. This time we lucked out with our server. He’s normally a server at Be Our Guest in the Magic Kingdom so was phenomenal at handling my niece’s allergies. 

After dinner we headed over to a little secret spot to watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks. If you type in Stuff-A-Bagel on reams road it’ll take you to a little spot right near Disney University with a closer view of the fireworks than if you’re actually in the magic kingdom. 

https://imgur.com/a/vaHY1O0

On 4/21/2022 at 7:38 PM, fa-li said:

oooo can you share the schedule for us lowly sky class cruisers?  Wondering if there will be a few more shows than it seems have been running lately

Sure. It’s 

4 more days. Got some more genie communication today with the preliminary show schedule for next week. He also mentioned it’s a little bit less busy than this current week with right about 5000 guests on next week. 

Only 7 days left to go. Time to start packing as work is shaping up to be a pain in the butt this week. Trying to decide if I can do 7 nights in a carry on bag. Being “local” makes life so much easier when it comes to preparing. 

2 hours ago, CGTLH said:

FYI, an ice cooler can be provided onboard. Might want to ask the Genie and decide based on answer. Also, the wet bar outside has a mini fridge/cooler as well.

Yeah, in the new Harr travel video taken two weeks ago, we noticed a cooler. Berty said yesterday he could bring one in. Had typed this up days ago. 

Now that we’re officially under ten days, now we can get down to the brass tacks of a real countdown. 
 

There’s a few things in life you know you’ll probably only be able to do once if you’re lucky. Finding one of the two Oasis Class four bedroom suites in Royal Caribbean’s fleet with availability on a week that worked, was like finding a needle in a haystack. 

Back until about 2017 it was referred to as the presidential suite. If you’ve seen the deck 12 hot tub 2 bedroom grand suites, those are the divided up former presidential suites. 

The suite itself is setup to be 1142 square feet with 472 square feet of balcony space. It is setup with two master bedrooms, and two standard bedrooms. If you wanted to max out the room you can sleep 14, which would put four people each in the standard bedrooms utilizing the pullmans as well as the sofa bed. We aren’t planning on using the sofa bed in our case as it’ll allow for people to be in the living room both early in the morning and late at night. Both Leon and Jason are early risers due to working in DC and northern Virginia whereas I’m more likely to have closed down the casino bar than to be waking up when the sun rises. 

My favorite feature of the room prior to stepping foot in it is that gigantic outdoor dining table. Having a table that seats 14 is awesome, I kind of just want to ask someone to pass the salt allllllllll the way down just for fun. If the weather isn’t cooperating there’s also a dining table indoors, but it only seats six. I’m also very excited about having a private hot tub in the room as there’s not much more uncomfortable than when that creepy old guy becomes the one too many in a hot tub. It was really a problem back on Odyssey in November when they were limiting hot tubs to one party and creepy old guy couldn’t read or just wanted to make others uncomfortable. 

I’ve been lucky enough to learn lots of tips and tricks about this room and since we’ve moved to Florida (we relocated last summer from DC down to Winter Garden Florida, partially to be closer to cruising), which wasn’t even a plan when we booked this sailing in 2019, we can bring stuff we wouldn’t normally bring. One of those things is a cooler, that @ashleydillo mentioned bringing. In a room where they’ll keep things stocked, the room needs a bigger fridge so we’ll have a cooler with us to keep things ice cold. 

In location, the room is just forward of the aft elevators on the starboard side with rooms both above and below. It should make for a smooth and quiet ride, which is very helpful for my stepfather as he’d get seasick playing with a toy boat in a bath. 

Luckily, his doctor prescribed him the patch which should help. I’m the exact opposite, if I can’t see the ship moving and see the water, I can’t tell you which direction we’re heading. I’m completely directional stupid, which I think is tied to many years of ear issues. I really miss the carpet on NCL as it fish and they always swim towards the forward section of the ship. 

So a bit of a bummer. Even though the website says otherwise, and they’ve removed all protocols and even allowing self serve buffets, the luggage valet service that is still up on the Royal website is not being offered. 

One of the fun parts of star class is having your favorite beverages in the room ready to go and consistently restocked. During the initial genie communication Berty asked us which of the following we’d like in the room. We also learned from @AshleyDillothat for a room that big refrigerator space is at a premium so we’re going to bring a cooler or cooler bag as we need to keep drinks for 10 people cold. 
 

From Berty:
On a separate note, as a part of the Star Class amenities your minibar beverage selection is included. Kindly let me know what you would prefer in your Suite from the below options.  

Evian Water | Still Water | Tonic Water | San Pellegrino sparkling water | Club Soda | Coca-Cola | Diet Coke | Coke Zero | Sprite | Sprite Zero | Fanta | Ginger Ale | Beer: Amstel Light, Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors Light, Corona, Guinness, Heineken, Miller Lite, Stella Artois, Peroni, Michelob Ultra, Grolsch.  
 

May I also ask if you prefer to be greeted with One of the following: Champagne Moet Chandon | Sparkling wine St Michelle or Duc De Valmer | Kendall Jackson Cabernet Sauvignon | Estancia Pinot Noir | Koonunga Hill Chardonnay |Jean-Luc Colombo Les Abeilles | Los Vascos Sauvignon Blanc | Beringer Zinfandel. 

12 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

This does sound smarmy.  If you knew, at the beginning of the cruise that your play would yield you nothing, why would you even bother to play ?  That makes no sense.  No incentive to even try.

It’s one of the reasons I’m kind of glad we are trying a different line for Alaska this summer, have no plans to try that line again, and don’t have any attachment to their casino program. So will spend more time looking at glaciers and less time looking blackjack hands. 

Another great liveblog @Lovetocruise2002 love having the other guests chime in as well, I’ll have to try and make message board regulars out of the other SC guest on Harmony later this month. Two are in the SC FB group so halfway there.