ThyriC

Now .... cruise early check in means fruity drinks by the pool sooner..  ?

I would highly recommend going to a currency exchange in the US (possibly your bank knows of a good one) prior to sailing for cash.  Check with your credit card company (or debit card if you choose to debit card) to see what their overseas transaction fees are.  If no fees, great!  If the fees are crazy, you may want/need more cash or travelers cheques.  
You can also withdraw cash onboard in usually USD, Euros, or Pounds but that's normally about it.  
What I would recommend is if your credit card has no international transaction fees, to keep small amounts of cash, and use the card for everything else.  If your card does have fees then its time to run a budget for what you'd like to spend money on, and bring that in the local currency.  If you need more you can always withdraw onboard, and then pay the fee.  

Thanks for the advice we will do exactly that.??

I would highly recommend going to a currency exchange in the US (possibly your bank knows of a good one) prior to sailing for cash.  Check with your credit card company (or debit card if you choose to debit card) to see what their overseas transaction fees are.  If no fees, great!  If the fees are crazy, you may want/need more cash or travelers cheques.  
You can also withdraw cash onboard in usually USD, Euros, or Pounds but that's normally about it.  
What I would recommend is if your credit card has no international transaction fees, to keep small amounts of cash, and use the card for everything else.  If your card does have fees then its time to run a budget for what you'd like to spend money on, and bring that in the local currency.  If you need more you can always withdraw onboard, and then pay the fee.  

It is a nice town ,but one I'm already familiar with.  It's less than a 3 hour drive for me and I have friends that live there.  Maybe I'll have to call them to see if they're available for lunch.
Not at all disappointed with the change, there's still lots of fun to be had.  In fact, we're getting an early start sitting by a fire in our backyard with cocktail in hand.  We head to the port tomorrow morning.
Happy cruising everyone.

We board Anthem in a few hours to Bermuda and haven't heard a thing. No idea but it doesn't seem like we can go to Bermuda. 

One of these years, probably when the younger one is in college and we're an empty nest, I want to do a B2B 5-night Bermuda followed by a 9-night CA/NE; ideally in the fall so we can enjoy the foliage as we go north.

Went on the all access tour today. Propulsion is still the same with the starboard azipod at reduced speed. As we head to Nassau the waves are at 1 to 2 meters according to the quarter master. While touring the engine control the guy working there said all 4 engines were online but one was overheating so speed may be reduced. We were at 17.9 kts. Definitely interesting walking around and standing today. 

@guittech  you might want to also check out the Cruising with Wheels guys, Frank and Kevin...Frank is in a wheelchair and they have a youtube channel that has a slant particularly about mobility issues.... they are really funny too...    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPdJZcTwRNLXmZKY-nc98rg   

I think the more people who call to complain about this.  Post on social media about this.  Raise a stink!  At least give 100 OBC in exchange for the loss of the perks.  Or honor the perks for those already booked.

I think the more people who call to complain about this.  Post on social media about this.  Raise a stink!  At least give 100 OBC in exchange for the loss of the perks.  Or honor the perks for those already booked.

Absolutely not. Drink packages are not to be shared with others.
 

I think the more people who call to complain about this.  Post on social media about this.  Raise a stink!  At least give 100 OBC in exchange for the loss of the perks.  Or honor the perks for those already booked.

Ditto. We're on the Oct 19 sailing to Bermuda, so I'm hoping both that all the storming will be done and that this current storm either cleanly misses Bermuda, or at least that if it hits it's a weak storm and doesn't do any significant damage.

Maybe it was his "best" AC/DC shirt though, and he left his Ratt t-shirt at home.

If you dont have one of those beverage packages, I highly recommend either getting this bottled water or bringing on your own small quantity of bottled water in your carryon luggage.  Not saying that the complimentary water is bad by any means.  Its rather good actually (especially the flavored waters, so good!) but sometimes you want a bottle of water in your stateroom or on a shore excursion.  At I believe 3 dollars a bottle onboard, or possibly even more from your minibar or as you leave for a shore excursion they usually have some bottled water available at a premium, its kind of a no brainer to have an alternate for bottled water.  

I have my travel medicine kit, it includes anti diarrhea, anti nausea, a laxative, cold and flu meds, allergy meds, tylenol, alleve, heartburn (both of the pepsid variety and Tums variety) and dramamine.  Then I have the first aid kit which has bandaids, neosporin, bug bite ointment, blister pads, an ace bandage, nu skin (this also works in place of the old nail polish for a run in the pantyhose trick), visine, alcohol wipes, and a small tooth repair kit (temporary filling, crown repair, oral lidocane etc)  Yes my portable pharmacy goes with me wherever I travel on land or on sea.  Also I bring a little thing of nicorette mints.  This keeps the temptation at bay when you cant smoke anywhere (mostly for my train travels when there arent long stops for smokers, but they work on cruises too to kick the habit)
Then I have the electronics kit.  This has chargers in an elastic case with color coded labels for my cable checkin/checkout system.  These are all spare chargers in case any did get left behind or lost, the originals are all at home.  I also include what I call my squid, which is a USB splitter of sorts.  5 standard USB plugs for one port.  And then 2 USB adapters (trade shows are wonderful places for giving these things away and if you're an IT company giving these away at trade shows, I love you for this).  A european to US adapter because you can never have too many electrical outlets.  Then the USB hub with 8 USB ports for one US outlet spot.  Also included are 2 micro SD cards (and adapter) a flash drive and spare batteries for all of my camera stuff. Depending on my mood I'll also bring one or two power banks.
Then the makeup kit.  Its essentially duplicates of everything I use at home, and so I dont have to worry about losing my favourite foundation when travelling and then not having it back at home.  Then the hair kit.  Mini versions of my favourite hair brushes, travel hair dryer, flat iron, curling iron, I refill my travel bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash between trips, 4 hair scrunchies (I always lose these so my luggage accumulates these)
Just for cruising I have a little travel alarm clock, travel fan, popup hamper, towel clips, magnetic hooks, highliters, sharpies, spare lanyards with leash (I love these leash lanyards) and an easily foldable tote bag.  I usually dont pack so heavily that I need the tote but its there should the luggage ever get overly full.  
Also a throwback to the 80s, I bring business cards with hub and my names and our email address/social media stuff.  Nice to give to new friends.  

I have Pam Richter out of Pennsylvania.  She has been nothing short of an angel for me.  In just a few email conversations, she already knows my cruising preferences, how I like to travel, I swear the woman is a mind reader.  She even extended a reservation hold for me when it benefitted my credit card miles to wait an extra few days only to have my plans completely change due to a move down south.  After all I put her through, only to cancel, I felt so bad, but she was very reassuring and hasnt stopped her top notch service.  
Its very comforting for me to use a travel agent, to know that in 67 days I have nothing to do but relax.  

Totally off topic, but we love Frog's Leap! We visited their winery on our honeymoon. 

You can board as early as about 10am.  The time on your boarding pass is usually just a suggestion.   
I'd recommend putting the kids swimwear in their carryon bags for embarkation day to hang by the pool, do the slides.  That way you get out of the madhouse that is the Windjammer (the buffet).  
Make sure you have your luggage tags attached and use the porters at the terminal.  Tip them for their assistance but that should free up some time as well.
I like keeping a binder of all my travel documents.  Passports go into a sleeve in the binder just for embarkation day so nothing gets missed.  Set sail pass from your pre checkin, into the binder.  Know what credit card you're going to use for your onboard account and have that with the passports for easy handing to checkin and no fumbling through wallets/purses/man bags/etc.  I'm a big advocate of the binder of organization and copies of documents.  
On your way to the pool, stop by Adventure Ocean for the kids to be registered with the kids activity place.    
Take a leisurely stroll along the boardwalk/central park area.  Sit, relax.  You're on your VACATION now!  You've just gotten through the excitement of checking in and walking onboard, take a step back and just enjoy!
I'd recommend getting close to your deck prior to the rooms opening up.  So around about 1230 start thinking about getting to that deck.  This is so when the rooms DO open and the mad dash to the rooms happen, you're just a stairway or just a small walk away from your opened up room.    Do the same with muster, get at least close to where your muster station is ahead of the crowd.  Symphony does really well with keeping the crowds spread out, but at times you can get a little bottlenecked.  So avoid the bottleneck and be in at least the zone prior to these events.
After muster, take in sailaway.  The ship is moving!  You're on your way!  YAY!  

Arrrgh you're such a bad influence on me!  But in interest of preserving the peace of the house prior to our Oct cruise, at least then I can get him in the yolo spirit rather than the spirit of "we have to save, we have to save, we have to do the responsible thing"
Insert my whine of "I wanna go to the bahaaaaaaaaamas"

Arrrgh you're such a bad influence on me!  But in interest of preserving the peace of the house prior to our Oct cruise, at least then I can get him in the yolo spirit rather than the spirit of "we have to save, we have to save, we have to do the responsible thing"
Insert my whine of "I wanna go to the bahaaaaaaaaamas"

To be honest, its unpleasant as a smoker to smell stale smoke in a room.  I'm more than content to go to a designated smoking area.  All I ask is for some shade, that its not in a dark dangerous alley, and that there's somewhere to sit.  I'm rather easy to make happy with smoking.  I'm not going to smoke on my balcony, I'm not going to smoke anywhere other designated areas, because we all have to exist in the same space.  Smokers and nonsmokere, vegans and carnivores, rock and roll, etc.  

True, but it is serviceable.  If you're a wine snob though, bring your own.  Hope the corkage fee doesnt appear.  If it does, that bottle is still WAY cheaper than the wines they sell by the bottle.  

Yes.  Any OBC that you get from NextCruise should remain when you move the booking to a travel agent. 
Sometimes NextCruise bookings come with a reduced deposit such as $100.  In some cases when a travel agent is moving you into a group cruise that can require a certain level of deposit so you sometimes have to pay an additional deposit with group cruises when you transfer.  This doesn't apply with non-group cruises.