Chalker

My family and I got to have an amazing private session with Rover, the Chief Dog Office on Icon of the Seas and thought we'd share a lot of the info we learned, since it seems lots of people love Rover and wonder about her. We got to have the private session by winning the Make a Wish Auction on the second day of the cruise. In case you aren't aware, Royal Caribbean has a partnership with Make a Wish and does special auctions on each cruise for a variety of experiences / perks. On Icon of the Seas, a private session with Rover is usually one of the items. We got into a small bidding war with another family, but stopped bidding at $300. The cruise director then offered both our families sessions with Rover if we both made a $300 donation. We quickly agreed. Once you win an auction. they bring a small receipt for you to sign / fill out your info and the charge shows up on our onboard account in the Royal Caribbean app. We also got a certificate with details of the meeting. They followed up the next day with a voicemail in our stateroom, and then on the 4th day with a personalize letter delivered to your stateroom. They worked around our schedule a bit to find a time that worked for us, which ended up being on day 6, the second sea day of our cruise. We had to meet a staff member outside of Spotlight Karaoke at our designated time. They brought us into the small private Karaoke room in the back, where Rover was already waiting for us, along with her “Chief of Staff” and “Chief of Staff in training”. Rover had a ton of energy and was sniffing all over the place and loved rolling around and being petted. We got to spend about 25 minutes total with them, asking lots of questions and getting pictures and videos taken with Rover. Some things we learned: As of now (April 2025) Rover is almost 2 years old. She is a golden retriever lab. She joined the ship when she was 6 months old, in Puerto Rico, after the Icon made its initial transatlantic crossing but before the first passenger cruise. She was part of the christening ceremonies in Jan 2024 in Miami. Royal Caribbean has a partnership with the American Humane Society, which does regular visits / inspections to ensure Rover’s health and well being. The RCL staff were very proud of the fact they are certified by AHS. As part of this, Rover is only allowed to ‘work’ for a max of 2 to 3 hours per day, and 20 minutes at a time. The rest of her day is doing normal ‘dog’ stuff. She doesn’t really like big crowds, so generally only makes unscheduled appearances in quieter places, in particular Central Park and the Overlook. She is officially a ‘3 stripe officer’ and has a small suite that corresponds to that rank. Her ‘Chief of Staff’ gets to live in the suite as well. The cabin is setup to provide her with lots of space to play / live / sleep. She has 3 different dog beds available in there for her and a variety of toys / activities. When not in her cabin and not visiting with passengers, she spends a lot of time in the crew areas. She regularly visits the bridge and the captain loves her. The crew in general love interacting with her through the day, such as in the crew café area. There are certain areas she can also run around, such as the helipad, where she regularly plays fetch. Her ‘Chief of Staff’ is the crew member that takes care of her day to day. When we met Rover, the primary crew member had been onboard since September and was getting ready to have a vacation. Another crew member was ‘in-training’ to take over and would be moving into the cabin in the near future. This position is highly competitive due to the perks that come with it (i.e. the cabin, the duties, and schedule). It only goes to staff that have spent a significant amount of time on Icon and already know and interact with Rover a lot (i.e. smart crew member go out of their way to interact regularly with Rover day to day when she is in the crew areas). They want to ensure Rover always has someone available she is familiar and comfortable with. When Icon is in Miami once a week for cruise turnover, Rover gets to go off the ship. She has a regular vet she visits there, along with a groomer she sees every week. She loves going to the beach and playing in the sand, as well as various outdoor parks and malls. She’s sometimes recognized as Rover by people walking around Miami. When we met Rover, she was wearing a cute little pink skirt that looked like a mermaid tail. She doesn’t dress up too often. She also has a captain’s hat, a pirate costume for Halloween, and a reindeer costume for Christmas. She also has a variety of bandanas she wears. One of the reasons she was so active when we met her was because she had recently found a duck in that room and was looking for another one (search up ‘cruise ship ducks’ if you aren’t aware of the practice of hiding / finding them). But she’s not allowed to have the ducks because they are choking hazards for her. Same for certain types of other toys (i.e. stuffed animals). Once she turns 2 years old, she’ll be allowed to have plush toys, which the crew said is going to really be amazing to her. Some of her favorite games are fetch and tug of war. The staff can’t say the words ‘ball’ or ‘tug’ in front of her (they spelled them out letter by letter in front of us) or else she’ll think she’s going to do that game right then and would have stood at the door because she knows that it’s only allowed in certain areas. She’s expected to stay on Icon until she’s about 5 or 6 years old and then will be adopted by someone to live out the rest of her life in a ‘normal home environment’. There is already a long list of people interested in taking her in at that point. Rover has a doggy life vest available for her (check out her Instagram page for a picture of her wearing it). Her muster station is by the giant dog statue on the Royal Promenade. She has great sea legs and hasn’t ever had any issues when there are rough seas. There is a dedicated pet relief area for Rover near the front of the ship on the walking track on deck 5 that you can see anytime. It’s got what looks like a raised bed garden planter in it with what looks like wood chips or similar that is a dirt simulant. Rover is not going to be the only Chief Dog Officer in the fleet for long. Star of the Seas is going to launch soon with ‘Sailor’ as the Chief Dog Officer. Rover is generally hand fed throughout the day. If you interact with her you’ll notice the Chief of Staff has a fanny pack and is constantly pulling somethings out of it for Rover to eat. This is generally her food. She does occasionally get other treats too. She loves carrots and bananas, in particular. One great story we heard was that one day Rover was in the crew areas and there was a small piece of carrot that had fallen on the floor. Some galley staff were cleaning up and her Chief of Staff ask if she could have the carrot piece to give to Rover. The galley staff shook their heads no.. disappeared into a walk in cooler, and came back out with a full sized carrot to give to Rover. Rover thought this was the most amazing thing and was strutting around with the carrot in her mouth like a stick or bone for a while (they clearly didn’t want Rover to have to settle for a ‘scrap of carrot’) – If anyone from Royal Caribbean management is reading this, please give Rover full carrots more often! I don’t think the crew feel empowered to ask for them. Rover responds to a variety of hand signals and verbal commands. For example, she knows how to look at a camera for a pose, and how to wave. We got a short video of us all waving to the camera at the same time. Royal Caribbean does allow service animals onboard. Whenever there are any onboard, the Chief of Staff are notified. Rover isn’t a big fan of small dogs in particular (they often are a bit aggressive around her). The main show on Icon is ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (which is absolutely amazing!) and has a small dog puppet that plays the role of Toto. They once introduced Rover to the Toto puppet and Rover was very confused, because it looks like a small dog, but didn’t smell or sound or move like a small dog. She got a special dog-friendly birthday cake and party for her 1 year birthday. She has a traditional collar with a dog tag with her name / phone number on it. She does not have any type of crew ID card or the typical RCI staff name tag. Her Chief of Staff said they are trying to get her one, but haven’t been able to yet (again, if anyone from RCI management is reading this, please give Rover a staff crew badge to wear!) Hope this is helpful and you all get a chance to meet Rover!

Just wanted to give some advice / a recommendation on post-cruise, Port Canaveral -> Kennedy Space Center -> Orlando Airport transportation with luggage storage. I was recently on Oasis of the Seas, which required us to be off the ship on Sunday by ~10AM. We had late flights out of Orlando Airport (MCO) and didn't qualify for the Royal Caribbean Luggage Valet program that will take your luggage straight from the ship to the airport. After looking online and calling around a bit, we settled on Cocoa Beach Shuttle to handle our transportation and luggage storage while at KSC. Below are some details about our experience, which I haven't seen posted elsewhere and hopefully will help answer other people's questions similar to the ones I had prior to visiting KSC: I was with a family group of 8 people in total, ranging from my son (8 years old) to my father-in-law (80 years old). Everyone is generally mobile and doesn't require anything like a stroller or walker, although I could see the shuttle easily accommodating those if we had needed them. I tried to made the reservation via their website about 3 weeks in advance. Unfortunately, they didn't respond after a few days and I ended up needing to call them directly. They did have a record of my request, but for some reason I hadn't gotten the email from them. Regardless, they were very helpful when talking on the phone. Total cost for all 8 of us was $370, which included taking all 8 of us from Port Canaveral to KSC, storing our luggage while at KSC, taking 2 of us to MCO ~2PM and the remaining 6 at ~6PM. We gave them an estimate on when we'd be off the ship, and decided to pick a later time as we were in no rush to get off the ship or to get to KSC. We didn't have to be there at a specific time, as long as we left the ship sometime between 7:30 and 10:30 AM. The contract indicated we'd have a max wait of 30 mins to get on a shuttle, but in reality we didn't wait at all. Cocoa Beach Shuttle has a small desk setup in the parking garage at the Royal Caribbean terminal. It was easy to find once we got through customs and the porter we were using took us straight there. We were already on the list they had and they were expecting us. We then were assigned a driver who took us to a large 10-12 passenger van towing an enclosed trailer for the luggage. The trip to KSC was about 20 minutes, and dropped us off right in front of the main gates. They indicated they'd pick us up at the exact same location. Cocoa Beach Shuttle had 3 set pickup times from KSC that day: 1:45, 3:45, and 5:45PM. As I indicated above, 2 of us went on the 1:45 shuttle and the rest on the 5:45 shuttle. They were able to get the correct luggage with each group. For the 1:45 group, the shuttle was about 5 minutes late showing up at KSC, but that didn't cause any issues overall. For the 5:45 group, the shuttle was already there by about 5:35. After picking us up they had to drive down to Cocoa Beach to pick up 2 other people, which added about 20 minutes to the total trip time. Altogether, all 8 of us were extremely happy with the experience. I'd highly recommend Cocoa Beach Shuttle to anyone going to KSC and needing their luggage stored.

I saw many other threads recommending Bernard's Tours (https://www.bernardstours.com/) for a day trip around St. Maarten, and thought I'd chime in that I highly recommend them. Below are some details about our experience, which I haven't seen posted elsewhere and hopefully well help answer other people's questions similar to the ones I had prior to visiting. I was with a family group of 8 people in total, ranging from my son (8 years old) to my father-in-law (80 years old). Everyone is generally mobile and doesn't require anything like a stroller or walker, although I could see the tour easily accommodating those if we had needed them. We were on Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas with a port call in St. Maarten on Thursday Jan 3rd, 2019. There were 2 other ships in port that day as well. We were there from 7AM until 5PM. I made the reservation via their website about 45 days in advance. We decided to do the private customized tour for 8 people, total cost $495, with a deposit of $100 required in advance. I paid the remaining $395 onsite as we were starting the tour via a credit card. We had decided not to rush off the boat, so asked for a 10AM - 4PM tour time. This worked well as it allowed us to eat breakfast and walk off the ship at a leisurely pace. I got a phone call directly from Bernard at about 9:30AM on my cell phone just to confirm we were still planning on coming. It was a little hard to find the tour lot. You have to walk past all the small vendor kiosks, through a chain link fence gate, and there are some white tent canopies setup in a gravel parking lot. It's to the left of the main taxi parking lot, just past the big sign that says welcome to St. Maarten. We asked a random vendor on the pier which way to go and they easily pointed it out to us. There isn't any clear signage at the tent that it's Bernard's Tours, but all the drivers had shirts with the logo on it. After paying, we were assigned a driver, David, and a 10-12 person passenger van (3-4 rows of seats in it). The van was very clean and modern and Brian had a small step stool to help my inlaws step into an out of the van. In between the front seats was a cooler with bottle of water, coke, diet coke, beer, and a bottle of rum. Brian regularly encouraged us to take whatever we wanted from the coolor over the course of the day. David had a headset microphone he wore the whole time that was hooked up to the speakers in the van. Whenever he spoke it was broadcast over the speakers and made it easy for anyone in the van to hear him without blasting us out in the front row. The first thing he asked us was what we wanted to do / see. We had some general desires, such as some beach time, the french-dutch border, and the airplanes at maho beach. He then provided us with some maps of the island and suggested we do a route around the whole island with certain specific stops detailed below. He suggested NOT going to Orient Beach due to us having kids and it being clothing optional. We readily agreed to his suggestions. We then set of, and were pleasantly surprised to find that he was able to narrate the whole time all about the island, the various major buildings, sites, history, and in particular the impact of the recent hurricanes. He quickly learned all our names and was quick to address us by them and try to gauge what each of us were interested in. The some of the stops we didn't get out of the van, and were for things like the oldest building on the island, the East Dutch/French border monument, and the big new flagpole on the mountainside. Other tops we generally got out for a while and included: An overlook of Oyster Bay, which gave a view of all the boats still sunk in the harbor due to the hurricane Rotary Lookout Point, an elevated platform with an amazing view of some undeveloped beaches and islands. Normally there is a guy there that brings in sea urchins for tourists to see, but he wasn't there that day. We were able to find one or two to pick up close to the shore. The Iguana 'farm', which is just a small roadside stall with 2 ladies near some iguana nesting sites. The ladies threw out some lettuce and gave the kids sticks with lettuce on them to attract the iguanas and feed them, which was pretty cool to see Lunch at Rainbow Cafe Beach bar (http://rainbowcafe.fr/) on Grand Case Beach. That area was hit hard by the hurricanes and there are only a few beach establishments open still. We had about 75 minutes here and it was exactly like something out of the movies, with a perfect beach and water (85 degree weather that day!). It cost $15 for 2 beach chairs with an umbrella and waiter service, only a few feet from the water. Altogether we spent about $120 for 8 people to have chairs, some drinks and food and just bask in the environment. A stop in 'downtown' at Marigot Market, to visit a bakery and various street market stalls for some shopping. We had about 30 minutes to walk around and see the sights and wares available. A stop at the West Dutch/French board monument while crossing over the border to find a geocache for my daughter (David mentioned that he once had somebody hire him to just drive around the island looking for geocaches) A stop at Maho Beach at the airport to see the planes land and take off. We had about 30 minutes here, and were there at the perfect time to see lots of big jets both coming in for a landing and taking off. Altogether, all 8 of us were extremely impressed and happy with the experience, ranging from the myrid of things David told us while driving around about the island and it's people, to the wide range of stops we made and time available to enjoy them. I'd highly recommend Bernard's tours to anyone going to Sint Maarten / Saint Martin