kadmgs

Even though Galveston may not end up as the final home of the Battleship Texas she will be in Galveston this summer. 
Gulf Copper across the channel from the current cruise pier is going to be doing the hull repairs on her. The large dry dock should be coming up from Grand Bahama in April and USS Texas arriving in June. Hope I get to see her lifted and the work starting when I go on Grandeur the first week of June.
 

Either the walls are really soundproof or you are being too kind! Kids were bickering last night and I had to remind them to keep it down. Then today they thought it would be amusing to fully blast the “wash your hands” song. 🙄

@Lovetocruise2002I Actually wouldn’t mind adopting Allan, but then I think I wanna adopt you too, and we’ve never met😂. I’ve notified Allan that two things are very important to you so he will be prepared. First, that you must be addressed at all times as “Her Majesty, Sabrina, Princess of the North.”  And secondly that you absolutely love to take selfie’s and post your likeness on social media!  
   Please give my very best to my favorite genie. And tell him I said he better live up to my hype!  I look forward to following this adventure and really wish we were sailing with you. 

We have Maya Chan in Costa Maya booked for November. They were sold out for our July stop when we tried to book last week. We bought the port pass the last time we were in Costa Maya and it was fun. The aviary is really cool.
We are going to Paradise Beach in July. We are looking at this Cozumel Jeep Tour for November. We've been to Playa Mia in Cozumel for a cooking class that we booked through RC pre-COVID, but it is still available if you book directly through the resort. The food was excellent, but their drinks were awful unless you drank beer. Had a blast anyway. Definitely recommend if you like to cook. 
We've only been to Belize City once and it wasn't good. Our original excursion (Rum factory tour & tasting) was cancelled due to lack of interest. The excursion desk suggested the city tour on the open air trolley, so we did it. We should have just stayed in the port to shop and eat and then gone back to the ship. 

That's awesome! I bet the boys loved that Santa found their balcony.

For our holiday cruise my 15 minute test showed Negative no problem, the wife's, no problem, the fully vaccinated 9YO ... wasn't changing.
 
It was a nail biting 10 minutes. The in the final few minutes of the timer the single pink line for a negative result showed clear.  

We had a great Christmas and some how Santa dropped of the boys presents on the balcony out in the middle of the Gulf!

Just took my test and anxiously awaiting the results. See you on board!
 
Update: negative. Let's roll!!!

It's up there with passing your driver's test! How crazy is that?

Currently, the pre-cruise covid test is the most stressful part of cruise travel.  Back then, it was going through airport security and the flight itself...
 

🙄

Songs?

I'm sure you are right about that but you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm going in that Diamond Lounge too just because I can!! Does that make me a bad person??

Final thoughts. 
This probably will be a rambling post as I try to sum up everything about this cruise.
We went into this cruise with our eyes open, and zero expectations. This was our first cruise back, first star class, first oasis class. I've read many star class blogs heading into this, thank you @Lovetocruise2002, @WAAAYTOOO, @Jax and I'm sure many more for sharing your advice, and experiences, and ultimately had a great time. We all said that this was the best cruise we had been on to date. 
Star class experience. We are pretty low key people so we probably were some of the easiest guests that Derick had to manage. We never had any spur of the moment requests asking for drinks, pizza, parties etc. Derick was receptive to anything that we asked of him, but didn't go beyond that, which has been discussed before about other genies. I agree/feel that with COVID, they have been hamstrung a bit here. Don't get me wrong, because I am not complaining at all. Though I am looking forward to next year when COVID is no longer a thing and a star class sail away party on the helipad can return etc. He did try to fish things out pre-cruise, asking if we had anything to celebrate, but sadly we didn't at the time. We are sailing on Anthem this July in a star class room, so we shall see how things are different. That will be during our 16th wedding anniversary, so something to celebrate there! Get ready for a party @Lovetocruise2002
I completely forgot to take advantage of the laundry service...oh well......
I think one big take away is that being in star class for this cruise was that there was no stress for us. With reservations required for things etc, it was nice to know that it was just done and taken care of for us. We saw many people show up to shows etc that we were going to and turned away because they did not have a reservation. For that star class made it worth it even more. 
The crew was fantastic. Everyone was very friendly and glad to be back at work. I don't think that other than the extra food in chops were we ever treated any differently than other passengers due to our star class status, and I'm perfect okay with that too.
The crew were also excited that shore leave was being approved again. Capacity is being ramped up quickly. Our cruise had 3000 passengers. This week they were expecting 3800, and they were expecting increases each following week. 
We have all said we are interested to see the differences in the experiences when the ship is full, both with crowds and how star class will play a role in that. Like I said earlier, I didn't feel the need to jump lines for things, but with the ship so empty, there really weren't any lines to jump. 
My biggest gripe was the internet. It was almost non-existent in our stateroom, and then out on the ship, I would constantly loose connection and would have to turn the wifi on and off and reconnect multiple times. I wasn't the only one with this issue too. 
Thank you to everyone who followed along, this one was hard to do with my internet woes, and generally being busy with other activities. I really appreciate that you all took the time to read along and for all the reactions and comments!
I'll be blogging again in July as we head to Norway on Anthem. This should be interesting because @Lovetocruise2002 is in the cabin next to us. We are all in deck 10 GLS. So say we are excited is an understatement!!

I agree, not a fan of Chops filet either for the same reason.  But the Chops lobster...LOVE IT!!!

And, “sh*t fire”…..I used a “then” instead of a “than”. 

Four hours was painful.  The seafood dish was really good but that steak, even if it was cooked perfectly, it was still a “cheap” piece of meat!  
My hubby did feel a bit uncomfortable when the lady made the remark and showed him her penis necklace.  Two days later she stopped me at the elevator and said “Have you seen my necklace?”  I videotaped her showing me.  So, she really wasn’t making a pass at my hubby but just loves to show that necklace.  She must be in her early 70’s or maybe late 60’s.  We saw her one day in the elevator, in a small two piece bathing suit, with a see through coverup.  That woman has a knock out figure - better than most 30 year old women.  My daughters were amazed at just how “good” she looked.  I’m thinking hubby might be reconsidering the “whole” affair thing! Lol

Here’s my overview
We arrived at the terminal around 10:30 and a Star porter immediately grabbed us!  We went thru the Star line and was on the second floor within a few minutes.  No line at all.  Our genie, Nicoli, met us and escorted us into the suite section to wait for boarding to begin.  About 15 minutes later when boarding began we had to wait in line with all of the other suite people.  I did find that a bit surprising that we were not ahead of that crowd to board.  Since it was so early our Mexican restaurant was not ready so we headed to our room.  Luggage was not there.  After doing some hooting and hollering it was time to eat.  Our food at the Mexican restaurant was o.k.  
Headed back to room to unpack then headed for ice cream and milkshakes at the ice cream place.  The milkshakes there were better than Johnny Rockets.  We did eat at Johnny Rockets for lunch one day and had a “new” employee.  She was completely at lost on how to take an order for five people.  Our French fries came out way before our hamburgers, which were totally all wrong.  Hubby stayed to eat his while the rest of us got out of there.  Hubby had a nice chat with the manager and explained the employee was not ready to be on her own.  She needed to still follow someone.  
We did hit the casino each night only to be disappointed each night.  I don’t expect to overall win each night but I do expect some give, instead of all take!  It was the worse loosing casino I had ever been to.  Maybe, the machines are tight due to covid.
We ate at most of the speciality restaurants and all were good, except Chef’s table, which was a disappointment. Everyone at the table got their steaks cooked way wrong and didn’t eat them. Even if the steaks were cooked correctly the meat was a cheap piece of meat.  I felt for the people that had actually paid for that privilege.  Service was good!  
150 had the best service and really good food.  The server there was top notch!!  Kids had steaks at all places we ate at dinner and each voted the “suite lounge” as having the best steak….ever.  
The Garden Martini at 150 was awesome.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed a vegetable martini!  On the other hand, I did not like the lavender martini at chops.  Odd taste  
One thing you need to take into account is the amount of “tips” you will need to give.  From our first porter, guy who sat up our breakfast each morning on the balcony (he was awesome), lunch in speciality restaurants or suite lounge, dinner in speciality restaurants, bartenders, cabin steward, Genie, and two porter guys to get to our cab.  Since there were five of us we tipped $10.00 for breakfast, $20 for lunch and $50.00 for dinner.  Porter guys got $10.00 each.  It added up fast.  
We saw shows:  Comedy and the Ice show.  Comedy was fine.  We had seats reserved on the front side. Ice show was good and was made even better due to our middle front row seats.  Loved it there! Also, we watched the aqua show from our balcony which was fun.  We did not go to the headliner show because the singer was not our type.  Our Genie would meet us at each show and make sure we had our preferred drink.  Nicoli also met us each night at dinner.  He would then get our nightly snacks order and breakfast order for the next morning.
Our Genie showed up for our first balcony breakfast and sat a few moments with us on our balcony.  We would then see him again at dinner.  Most days it was just at dinner unless we went to a show after dinner, but we texted several times a day.  I think Nicoli figured out fast that we preferred our space and did not need constant cuddling.  I liked using the what’s up app for contact with him.  It was easy just to text him, instead of having to call him.   He always responded immediately and completed what I wanted.  One night I decided during the dinner that I wanted my daughter’s birthday cake to be delivered there. Nicoli made it happen. Both cakes were unbelievable. The taste was really good but the art work was the best I had ever seen!!  
Our Genie was a good fit for us.  He is personal, easy going and professional, when needed.  He had “four” rooms our week….five in our room, four in another, two in the other two bedroom aqua suite and I think three in the last room.  Because of lack of replacement, he was on his second tour and due to go home in April for a break.  On some ships, due to lack of Genies, some genies have had to service more than seven rooms.
Our room steward had 15 rooms to clean, one two bedroom aqua suite and the rest were a mixture of inside and balcony rooms.  Our suite was like cleaning three rooms, so he had 18 rooms to clean.  The cruise after us were increasing their passenger count but not staff.  He will have to clean three to five rooms more starting after our cruise.  Every day we would leave two bags full of stuff to be cleaned and pressed.  Two dry cleaning bags are in your room.  You fill out a paper on what you have in the bag.  I have heard horrible dry cleaning stories but all of our stuff came back better than what we get from our dry cleaners at home.  
Our passenger account was just over 50 percent.  Definitely didn’t feel as crowed as pre covid.  The casino was crowded.  There’s a good distance between the smoking and non smoking sections.  Non smoking section is bigger too.  
We only did one tour and that was in Honduras - Sloth and Monkey tour.  It was so much fun!  If you do this tour  hang back from the crowd.  Let them all run into the monkey cage.  By doing so you will get more personal attention at the end.  In Costa Maya, we walked into town.  The walk there and back was around 4.4 miles.  When you get to the end of the street there’s no signage of which way to go to town.  Go left!  In Cozumel we just walked straight out of port for a bit and walked back.  The weather was perfect in all the places for walking.  We did have rain a couple of times but we were already back on the ship.  
The last sea day our Genie had us and two other ladies for a personal hour on the flow rider.  Hubby and son took advantage of that hour.  It was fun watching them!  Son did the rock climbing and climbed right past our room.   Almost close enough for us to reach out and knock him down!
This was our first “diamond” cruise.  We already had unlimited drinks and the suite lounge so really didn’t need the use of the diamond lounge.  We did each get a “free” picture so that was a nice bonus.  
A repeat:  I hosted our slot pull on the first sea day at 11 am.  It took about an hour with 79 people participating.  We each put in 15 dollars.  At the end we had each lost $5.00.  People thanked us the whole cruise for hosting!  Our Genie gave us shirts, hats, water bottle and two sets of towel clips that said VIP and reserved to give as gifts for those who won the most money on their pulls.  
Our cruise was the first cruise having masks as optional.  Around ten percent (maybe even lower) chose to wear them.  I don’t think we had many cases, if any.  Except for staff wearing a mask the cruise was just like the old days……well, less crowded.  
Maybe because we were away from the suite floor….we just never got any unannounced visitors.  Guy came with our preplanned breakfast order, afternoon snacks then nightly snacks.  The Aqua suites are a good distance from any civilization but we ended up loving that.  We are walkers and always enjoyed the long walk down the hallway to our room.  
Nicoli left us each a royal hat as a gift.  We gave him cash as we were leaving the ship.  We gave the room steward cash the last night, incase we didn’t see him the next morning.  
Our Genie met us the last morning at seven with a porter.  He was thankful that we were leaving that early.  Most star class passengers try to stay until the last moment leaving genies trying to get them “all” off and rooms set up for the next passengers.  Our luggage was put on the cart and we all entered an elevator that was going “up” and Nicoli with a special card made the elevator go down.  He walked us to just before customs and handed us over to another porter.  Customs was just a facial recognition moment then off the ship we were.  The porter was awesome.  He brought us over to the taxi service on the side and had someone take us to the airport.  I’m thinking going to the side for a cab is normally not allowed.  I think you have to wait until they line up at the front entrance.  
I started this cruise at 137 pounds. First day off the ship I weighed 140.  Three days later I’m at 138.  Thinking tomorrow I’ll be back to the 137.  At this point, I’m sick of food.  Nothing sounds good.  I’m still stuffed.  By the last night on the cruise I just couldn’t eat, even the fish I was so looking forward to having.  
Hubby and I started the cruise thinking “star class” wouldn’t be a good fit for us.  I still tried to keep the rooms clean, but it was hard to keep up with our kids (grown-ass adults), so we did get our monies worth from the cabin steward!  Everything was done so smoothly.  First class service and attention.  I know some of you “hate” to show your special card but I recommend you keep that sucker around your neck to be seen.  You are paying for first class service!  
The vacation was one of the best ever, and I attribute that to being star class.  It’s expensive and I would not recommend using monies that should be going to your retirement account to take a star class cruise. You could do several  cruises instead of one star cruise for the same price.  Think hard before you spend that much for one week.  
That said, I’m older. More life is behind me than ahead of me.  I’ve spent my time in an interior/balcony room.   I’m getting close to the time that it’s good to spend some of my kid’s inheritance money, so I booked another two bedroom aqua suite - January 2024 on the Harmony.  
Thanks for following!
 
 

Passing time waiting to find out who our Genie will be, so thought I would share a “funny” moment that happened, this time to me!
BFF and I meet a couple times a year to gossip, play cards and hit a few slot machines.  The latest time checking in to the hotel was down right painful.  Then we got to the room only to find that our room key does not work, so back down to get a replacement. Back up to our room.  We opened to the door to find “outdated”  furniture and a few spots on the floor.  Too frustrated to go all the way to the front desk again to get a new room, we decided to just wear socks….at all times.
BFF unpacks our snacks.  My job is to get ice from the ice machine.
I left  the room door AJAR, and headed down a LONG hallway to get ice, only to find a broken ice machine.  Walked back down the long hallway to my room to tell my BFF the latest.  Actually, I’m so upset,  I’m pretty much running back to the room.
I run into the room - got to the bed area - and said, “You ready for this?”  
Not our room.

Before I share about hubby’s next trip to Royal’s medical, I’m going to share a funny story, that happened between hubby’s accidents.  
Hubby and I shared a table with two single women for dinner in the dining room.  They were a bit older than “Old White Woman.”  Our table was a nice four topper right by a window looking out at the ocean.  It was nice, but not really a great deal, because once it gets dark you are looking out into darkness.  But that’s a story for another time.  
The two women sharing our table were the type that waited for the dining doors to open  because they had a “thing” about being the first people seated.  So, hubby and I, did find it a bit “odd” that they were not already seated when we arrived to our table for dinner.  We were also stunned that the bread from the basket was warm.  Previous nights, the bread basket contained bread that was the temperature of its last home.  Hubby and I quickly ate our piece of warm bread and grabbed another. By this time, our waiter showed up to get our drink orders.  He looked a bit confused as we answered.  Hubby and I figured he must be filling in for our normal waiter and having a hard time adjusting to a new table in the middle of the cruise.  
Just when I finished buttering another piece of warm bread, my hubby out of nowhere said:  Old White Woman we are at the wrong table.  I told him he must of had too much bourbon because here’s the wall we sit against and there’s the ocean to our side.  
Hubby said we were at the right table but at the right table on the “wrong” floor.  
After a quick discussion about whether I should leave the buttered warm bread and whether we should attempt to “clean up” the table we decided to leave the “crime” scene fast - with the bread.  

This is going to be a GREAT blog !  WOOHOOO !!!

I told my mother in law she would need to get a round trip flight for the cruise. Ummm she flew in Sunday. 😩 The cruise is not till April 🤦‍♀️Her return flight is in May I believe…… My lord!!!  
    Today the poor woman went outside to the pool to snoop on the pavers finishing up so our heater can be installed tomorrow. She unknowingly sets off our home alarm and scares the pavers away. ☠️ My house alarm was going off full blast sooo loud that the whole neighborhood heard and told me about. I literally have video of this! The alarm company was asking “Mrs Leopold is everything ok!?” meanwhile my mother in law is laid back on the pool chair reading her kindle with no clue or care in the world. She never once answered the alarm company calling out to her. My house is literally screaming at her and she has no idea. I know she is hard of hearing but good gawdddd!
    My phone was off at the time during my eye lash extension appointment. The moment I turn my phone on I have a million missed calls and the alarm company is trying to reach me. I had to give them my “safe word” which was soo safe I forgot. 🤷‍♀️They emailed me the word and I had to read it back to them for the police to be able to leave/call off. My gawwd Is it April yet? Good times over here Oy Vey!  I need a strong drink STAT 🤣

You are correct. A jr. suite does not get access to the suite lounge. However, a grand suite or above does get you access. The price difference between a jr. suite and a grand suite for this particular sailing was less than the cost of the beverage package, so it was a no brainer for us. 

"After you return home from a cruise, it’s normal to feel like you’re still at sea for a short time. You may lay down to sleep or stand in the shower and feel like the floor is moving and your body is swaying, rocking and bobbing. Within a day or so, your land legs likely will return and the symptoms will disappear.
However, for a rare few returning vacationers, this persistent sensation of motion or dizziness can continue for weeks or even longer. The disorder is called mal de debarquement syndrome."
"Can You Prevent It?
There's no sure way.  If you've  had mal de barquement syndrome before, it's probably best to stay away from the type of motion that brought it on."
 
Ummmmmm, wouldn't it be best to just do the type of creates the type of motion that brought it on ALL OF THE TIME????
#notgonnastopcruising
#askingforafriend
 
 
 

You are correct. A jr. suite does not get access to the suite lounge. However, a grand suite or above does get you access. The price difference between a jr. suite and a grand suite for this particular sailing was less than the cost of the beverage package, so it was a no brainer for us. 

Thanks @kadmgs for the clarification.  My next cruise is a Junior Suite level - which does not get me access to the suite lounge I don't think.  But if I were to Royal Up to an official suite, do I get access to the suite lounge even if I got there via RoyalUp?