Dan Curtis

Yes we are on board Odyssey right now. We have been denied entry into Curacao because of 54 positive cases on board. Captain announcement came up 20 minutes ago. They will keep us informed when they hear from RCI headquarters what’s going to happen next. In the meantime we are docked at Curacao and awaiting further instruction. We will not be going ashore

I agree that the protocols work. Along with the fact that the vast majority of vaccinated guests who get the virus seem primarily asymptomatic and discovered during contact tracing. The medical facilities are not stressed and the following cruises still sail. The major distinction (on land and onboard) is between the number of positives vs the number of people requiring medical intervention. In my opinion, that distinction seems to be purposely obscured so as to increase the perception of danger in the effort to get more people vaccinated. I still think cruising is safe and will continue to sail...with whatever healthy sail protocols are in place now or in the future. It's my choice.

Lunch didn’t disappoint. We sampled most of the menu. We have the best cabana attendants. This is shaping up to be one of our best days at sea. #bestdayever

We just rode in an elevator with 2 remaining guests who have still not completed the muster station.  🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️ They didn’t have a clue. They must have made it because we are cleared to sail! 
 

IT’S CRUISE DAY!!!!

We are about to touchdown in Miami! 😎😎😎

I’m sorry that some of you have had your travel plans disrupted because of CDC demands and the cruise lines having to jump thru hoops to please this bloated government bureaucracy.  I’m also sorry that you voice your disappointment only to be judged by a few for sharing.
I hope things work out for those of you who don’t want to sail under the current conditions. You, and RCI, have been put in a tough spot.  I wish you all the best.

Part 5 - day 4 continued...
We went to dinner to find out that the assigned kitchen door table to us permanently.  After my wife and I being bumped and jostled repeatedly the night before by the wait staff my wife said nope, not doing it.  Our original table of course was full again so after being walked around the dining room on a race loop they put us at yet another  table, hope they keep it that way.  Kind of odd being paraded around the other tables each night.  The staff at the new table back to awesome level,  food was excellent again.  We decided to do the aqua show afterwards.  Show started, not long into it the ship started rocking enough that the water was sloshing back and forth and they cancelled the show.  Unknown to us the Captain pulled the ship out of port for some reason.   Personally based on what I've experienced so far, I'm guessing Corporate said "what are you doing? It costs extra to dock overnight....get moving."  but that's ust my opinion because I can't think of another reason to move a ship that big out of port only to return the next morning.  
Had to return to, you guessed it, guest services because they only refunded one of the original ruin tour tickets and STILL hadn't cancelled the next days beach day tickets so we could do the ruins in Cozumel.
So far my overall impression has been of just a company being cheap.  That the customer experience isn't as important as squeezing every last penny from everyone. Which coming from being on a huge ship that has an almost luxury feel is an odd juxtaposition. 
To be cont.......

I was curious how it would go with under 12 vaccinated since this was the first weekend that people could be on ships with vaccinated under 12.  Seems they are not prepared at all.  That sucks as I was hoping for some rules changes in AO and stuff like that in prep for this.

Part 2-Onboarding
We flew into Orlando 3 days early.  Definitely worth it in my opinion especially flying from the west coast.  It allowed us to shed the jet lag and relax in a Florida resort for a few days before sailing.  I can't recommend it enough.  Do it, you'll thank me.  We arrived in Port Canaveral an hour ahead of time, had a quick light lunch and then headed to our check-in. We arrived in line 15 mins before our scheduled check in time (attendant said close enough to time and go ahead) and went through with just a few hiccups.   It seems that even though they've known this has been coming for well over a month, having an under 12 year old that IS fully vaccinated seems to throw them in disarray.  His proof had to be scanned in 3 separate times at different points and he was stopped by over a dozen different employees asking where his "non vaccinated" sticker was.  Suffice it to say we kept his vaccination card out the whole process.   Overall, checkin process pretty smooth if not slightly annoying.  We were on-board by 1pm, in our stateroom by 2pm, luggage arrived by 3pm.  Not bad at all.   To be cont......

Agree, seems like a big miss on revenue by not giving people time to research excursion offers.

Day 4 part 2.
For St Maarten we booked a two hours sunset catamarans sail. The sail started at 3:30 pm and was supposed to end at 17:3o which was also the all aboard time. No way I would book such a excursion. Not from RCL and be on a YouTube video as 10 most funniest pier runners 2021. The boat ride was awesome. We went to a ride around the Island while heaving open bar and some local Caribbean snacks (like Hummus and cheese 🙂).



 
Going back the ride was bumpy  , we stood in front of the ship in a " I am the king of world" position and enjoyed every jump like the pirate ship ride in a theme park. We got back to the ship exactly at 5:30 PM to sea Symphony after dark.


 

Day 4 St Maarten.
Today was our first port day.  The day before we got a message in the room about balcony maintenance , guess who forgot about it , guess who in is underwater suddenly notice people working there. Sorry you had to witness that guys , but I am not going to pay for any required psychological  therapy, professional risks , 🙂 .
Since as part of the process they also removed the binder it was a good time to check the other cabin balconies.

The family suite

View from the balcony


 
 

Day number three the second sea day.
Not going to get  you bored again with what we eat in the morning or what we did every minute but few observations from this day.
Dining room service is excellent just to give you one example,  comparing to all the other places when we drink our coffee they already remember the kind of sweet and low that we are using  (and the sugar I use ) and bring it already to the table without asking and that's only after one day, those small things that do the change. 
CK lunch contains many of the evening menu from other days but services much more rapid and in general better than the evening service at least this is what we feel. 
Everybody show - so by mistake I reserve the ice show time that was for everyone. Even for the everyone show they still separated the crowd and on one section only adults on the other sections adults with children. Although it was already the same crew from the last 3 months there were many many incidence during the ice cream almost every session somebody felt, one time it was so bad that I told that we are going to hear alpha alpha alpha , gladly no one being hurt and all the performer continue as nothing happened. I admire their ability to continue without any fear since such incidents  might impact dramatically the  self-confidence any veteran performance. Maybe there were some issue with the ice  surface. Anyway the show was fun as always. 
Weather was strange yesterday, mostly sunny but every 30 minutes or so there was one minute of heavy rain. It was fun to watch people behavior once it happened. Some just didn't mind, some just started to run for cover, most funny where people that running from the pool , you already in the pool do you think you are going to get more wet due to the rain ?  
Due to the high winds the 16 deck was closed during all the day, let's created some chair availability on Deck 15 but still do some free chairs just not on hotspot.
Water and juice are now back to sled service in most of the places , this is a blessing change.
Tomorrow out first port - St Maarten.

Let’s hope it’s someplace else, we did enjoy the segways the last time we was there, I’m still holding out a little hope for Lapadee.

The rumor is that Labadee has typically been replaced with Nassau on this itinerary. 

Day 1 - boarding.
So the jet lag keeps up during strange hours, that time it was a bless since I could watch all the ships entertaining the harbor. I was also busy in trying to handle the big security issue that started in the weekend (Log4J vulnerability if anyone really interested) that's after I had to handle another issue while flying. I wonder how it's always happens when I try to take  vacation.  Our check-in time was 11:30 and with the flexible 1 hour you get when you are in sky class it mean 10:30) quick repacking , cofee from the hotel Starbucks and we started our long 5 minutes journey to the port. This time we were staying at the Intercontinental Miami which I booked as found many recommendations for it  in this blog. I must join the recommendations , it's a very nice hotel , located near many restaurants and supermarket and a good choice if you do not have a car. I ordered the regular room but we were upgraded to an harbor view room
We got to the port fast although the u turn the Uber had to take , the cost was 9$ plus tip. I suggested to to swim to the ship but it was overruled , something about the luggage will get wet or another excuse. Immediately after boarding we have been directed to our muster station which we planned to do anyway. Apparently many people didn't do it and around 5 PM there were still 300 people that the crew chased to complete the very complicate process... I do hope Royal will not consider to go back to the old way but if it will happen I will ask RCL for the address of all the people that failed the process and send them a sack of onions so they can cry as we will cry going back to the old horrible muster drill. We grabbed some food at the WJ as CK was still closed and I completed all the show booking. Fly is back !

 
Next we went to the CK to confirm our must day one CK reservation and to drink coffee. The cabin was ready at 1 pm , the luggage already arrived so we could unpack. This time we got one of the crown loft suites which facing the mini golf. I thought I might not like it but the view is nice and the balcony is bigger from the previous CLS we had, anyway as the old phrase says " you do not check the teeth of an horse you got using Royal up". We love the cabin , two bathrooms  much like two internet packages helps allot to any couple relationships 🙂 

We enjoyed the balcony for a while before we went to check if anything is  new on the ship , I can tell you one very important change was replacing the tune of the piano stairs! Beside that more and less the same. I went to check for the disembarkation PCR test but there were always lines to the concierge , apparently this  cruise we have only one concierge comparing to the regular two that you have in Oasis class. Finally when I go to speak to him the first thing he  asked me if I'm Canadian, I guess he hears this question a lot from the people of the north. Told him that we are not but we still need to schedule a PCR testing to get back to our country. He told me that on  day 3 we will see the QR code on the cruise compass that we will need to scan  and schedule a PCR test,  no issues at all , he also offered he can guide me to the process. Of course I needed to try and book it earlier so I went to The Cruise compass of one of the previous Symphony of The seas cruise , scan the code and try to see what happens, apparently they were already ready for such attempts  so it was not working even when I tried to play with the dates in the URL. Oh well I tried. We went to catch some nap  and get ready for the evening . First dinner was in CK , we cannot miss the first night filet mignon ,as always it was perfect especially when you remember to order medium if you want to get medium well and medium medium rare if you want medium. Not sure if we are going to eat in CK every night something is weird in the atmosphere of the CK at Symphony I cannot pinpoint what exactly it is but maybe lack of waiters comparing to the number of tables or something else in  the ambience. We'll try to do a few dinner at the main dining room. Yes I know the subject will start a riots , I guess every person see it differently. I proudly say we skiped  the dessert. Apparently we were The last ship to leave the harbor today that means we had ability to take very nice pictures of Miami Port during the dark. That was first time for us as usually the ship is leaving around 5:00 p.m. this time we left only around 7:30 p.m. quite late.




That's also mean that they could open some of the venues only after 8:00 p.m,  like the casinos and the shops. We enjoyed some live music at Park Cafe and  the promenade before closing the night trying to recover from the long day. Tomorrow a sea day .

 
 
 
 
 

We had lunch today at Giovanni‘s. It was an excellent experience. It would’ve been really nice if our server would’ve piggybacked to me back to the cabin, because I was in a food coma. But I hated to ask him to do the extra work. 😂
My happy place:


Minestrone:

Ken’s salad:

 
Calamari (made my tummy very happy!):

 
Seafood pasta:

 
Branzino:

 
Tiramisu:
Torta di Cioccolato e Nicciola (One of the top desserts I’ve had on this cruise):

Had dinner last night in CK. Excellent as always. We both had salmon (Siri transcribed that we had snowman😂), and I had to have the apple pie again. Ken got the apple pie as well when I told him he wasn’t getting half of mine again.  It is stellar. The braised beef gnocchi was over the top. Ken also had the curry coconut soup. He said it was very good.

I had about 50% capacity on my 11/15 cruise. 

MID-CRUSE RANDOM THOUGHTS: 
Adventure Ocean is the real star of this 3-kid cruise. They truly give the adults time to relax, the kids go in eager to play, and come out exhausted but excited by the activities they’ve done. Any parent knows that if your kid is exhausted by lunch time, they had a good morning. Because we still have one (occasionally two) that nap, we haven’t done the afternoon sessions, and the evening sessions are too late for our kids (usually in bed at home by 7:30, or with us on the cruise seeing a show).  One of my concerns about Anthem was the lack of young kid (6 and under) activities, and it’s ringing true. North Star has a height restriction, as does FlowRider and bumper cars. Climbing has an age limit. The inside pool has a wading pool, and the outside pool has the “tornado” and a small zero entry pool, but that’s it. We’re really itching for a Splashaway Bay, here.  The housekeeping and MDR staff are absolutely fantastic. Very personable, very attentive, but not in-your-face or overbearing. Two reasons we wanted a cruise vacations as 1) we don’t have to worry about our room, and 2) we don’t have to worry about food. In both of those cases, the staff has stepped up and taken the burden off of us parents for a week, and it’s appreciated (and tip appropriately!) A mid-ship cabin makes it real easy to get anywhere on the ship (and back) in minutes. The only place that really feels out of the way is Two70 - cabin to elevator to floor 5, then through the Via, then past Vintages, past the cafe, THEN you’re in Two70.  The Main Dining menu has been more hits than misses. The kids have no complaints, the adults have had some great meals, and some so-so meals. Nothing has ever been so bad as to send back, though the wife got the NY strip on night 1 that was over-done, but it seemed like a fluke.  Magnetic walls in the stateroom are a godsend! Combined with a shoe organizer, it’s keeping everything off the floor.  The wife got a 6-pack of different color drawstring bags, and everyone puts their own items in it. Super smart, very helpful! Special on laundry service today, $24.99 per bag (normally $34.99). We passed.  Two connecting cabins opens up the space so much. Highly recommended! Also means you don’t force everyone to get a drink package 😄 

DAY 4 (NASSAU) - PART ONE
We’re getting into a good rhythm now - breakfast in Windjammer, drop off at AO. The wife did a little bit of work this morning, posting up between the Via and Two70 (next to Vintages) before a massage this morning. I got her connected to the internet, then went off to the gym, and finally got on the rock wall and did two climbs before coming back to write yesterday’s live blog. Then it was off to AO for pickup. 
When we left New Jersey, it was 29 degrees. What a shock to walk outside to the hot, humid, Caribbean air! Our whole family is fair-skinned, and the sun just feels closer to us when we’re in Florida/Caribbean. 
Lunch at Windjammer again, and then we took everyone back to the cabin to reset and figure out the afternoon. The nanny wanted to take a quick stroll around the port, and our oldest wanted to go back to the pools. I took up nap duty (AO really wipes out our youngest and middle). I took another crack at iFly and North Star signups (no bueno), and decided to sign up the kids for their disembarkation COVID tests. 
Guys, there has to be an easier way to do this. The signups are through TrustOne, and you have to register and create an account for *each child*. Username AND password. Then once you have the account, you pick a test time. The only ones open were Day 7 (last day), from 8am to 10:30am. We picked 8:30am, squeezing it right between breakfast and AO. I completely respect the need to test unvaccinated kids, but the signup process has GOT to be easier. Why can’t I call a number, give them my stateroom number and number of kids, and lock it in? It took me probably 5-10 minutes per kid. Also factor in the WiFi was really slow, so that contributed a lot of the time. It was just so many steps. 
During nap time were the crew emergency drills. They’re interesting to listen to, except the emergency tones. Luckily (or unluckily?) our kids slept through both the emergency and embarkation tones. I’m glad our kids are heavy sleepers, but I think I’m the only one in our group that would wake up at the tones!
After nap time, we’re off for trivia and a pre-dinner cocktail before MDR, then Spectra’s Cabaret in Two70. Tomorrow is Coco Cay!

Last night we went to see Phoenix in the Music Hall, after going to Cats. We both enjoyed Cats, but it is probably a one and done for us.  The dancers are all very good, we just aren’t cat people.  😋 Phoenix, on the other hand, is an excellent tribute band.  I highly recommend them if you’re ever on board and they are playing.  
When they played Hotel California, A couple of highly (Siri translated highway) inebriated attendees got out on the dance floor and danced. If you know Hotel California you’ll understand how entertaining that was. 👀😉 Afterwards the lead singer asked for a hand for the guys playing the guitars…and a hand for the Hotel California dancers. 🤣😂 It was great.  By the time it was over, there was a mosh pit on the dance floor. We were sitting on the second level at the rail, and were almost as entertained by them as we were by the band. Great way to end a great day.
We grew up with the Eagles, the Doobies, Led Zeppelin, etc., the generation with the greatest rock and roll ever (IMHO), and it is always entertaining to see old guys out on the floor enjoying our music…until I remember I’m their age. 😳🤔🤫 At least I am in human years. I have embraced the whole ‘dog years’ measurement of age, which means I’m about six years old now. 🤓

Unless things have changed, the windjammer will be open, as sorentos pizza, but since covid I have not cruised, but have one booked.

Recap-
Some quick disclaimers influencing recap: first sailing post Covid, first time Star Class, many times in suites, third time on Oasis class, first time on Oasis
Overall this was the best sailing I have been on. Once the stress of getting to ship and passing testing was complete, everything was amazing.  We loved Star class and recommend to anyone willing to pay for it. The genie concept is awesome. The have authority to do lots of things which make the trip more enjoyable. Oasis sailed at 65% capacity and so the value of a genie will be even higher when capacities increase. We had about 5 hours of direct interaction with genie during sailing, very little correspondence prior and genie spent an unknown amount of time behind the scenes putting everything together for us. We really loved the deck 8 two bedroom aquatheater room. It allowed my three kids to have their own room and provide a spacious home base for our group. We didn’t mind the walk to midship and being on Central Park deck is convenient for restaurants. Only complaint was noise the one night aqua show was done at 10:30pm. All other showing were loud but we were awake. Didn’t go to Cats, too long for kids.
Having drinks and snacks delivered to room daily was very enjoyable. As was escort off ship on port days. 
Overwater cabana was awesome and made for an perfect day.
My wife and I will be on Symphony in 6 weeks with three other couples enjoying the 4 bedroom Villa. I will likely share some details on this blog. 

I will effort to answer question folks may have.
Thank you for following along.
P.S. I gained 13 pounds despite 500 burpees and pull-ups spread out over the week. Luckily I have already lost 9 of these pounds in 3 days. I think the change of salt and alcohol intake caused water retention.