Dan Curtis

There will be an announcement over the intercom when rooms are ready.  It’s typically 1 pm, but there may be times it’s a bit later. 
 
Luggage gets put in the hallway over the course of the afternoon.  You may see yours as you walk to your room after the announcement, but sometimes it takes a few hours before it gets out close to your door. 

Usually 1:00 PM.  You will know if you room is ready when they remove the nylon barricade to the passageway. The room key(s) will be in the message bin outside the door. Luggage is dropped off at various times...if you want to keep checking that's on you.

Usually 1, I have saw it later, if ship arrives port on time and everyone gets off promptly, I  have saw it as late as two, as for luggage, seems recently I get one, search for one. So if u get on early, you will be keeping your carry on with you. Good luck, enjoy cruise.

Usually 1, I have saw it later, if ship arrives port on time and everyone gets off promptly, I  have saw it as late as two, as for luggage, seems recently I get one, search for one. So if u get on early, you will be keeping your carry on with you. Good luck, enjoy cruise.

And I believe there is some as you enter the island on the right hand side by the sea-doos, I have used them before.

Pics that i thought i posted...
Lasagna 
Laser tag
towel animals 
the guys in ladies clothing for quest
A cool pic of ultimate abyss that makes it look much more exciting than it is. 
Some Nassau/blue lagoon pics and Mariner dwarfed by Oasis 

I finally got everyone to sit for a picture as we sat down to dinner at Coastal Kitchen.
Mom and Dad

Rick and Me

Update 5 Days to go
My living room looks like a bomb went off. Packing crazy has officially commenced. 
 

 
 

Skippy transportation is our go to, modern clean, safe vans or cars, friendly and either on time or early for pick up, they will call you when in route, there reviews are very very good.

Tell them you're doing research on American strip clubs? 🤣
Enjoy your cruise!

The hot tub was getting a bit too hot so as soon as we hit open waters we headed down for showers and rest a bit before dinner (late seating which is 7:45). It seems there might be a theme here with us taking cat naps 😂 Apparently without the kids we are quite the party animals. Honestly I think it just feels good to lay down for a moment without someone needing something lol
For the most part though Matt napped while I was able to take my time getting ready for dinner. 
We had about an hour until dinner so we walked around the shops, grabbed a pre-dinner drink (delicious Blueberry Nojito) and sat on the chairs on deck 5 aft until dinner. I had high hopes of grabbing an ornament since they had just opened. She said they sold out last sailing. Seems odd that they had just sold out on our last sailing too. I don't understand why they can't seem to have them always available. They always have those big ship models. And while we are at it, why not an online store so that when they ARE in stock we can order them??
Dinner was fine. We had a table for 2 which we had hoped for/requested. The pro is no one is on either side of us which takes away from the whole table for 2 aspect. But we are right where everyone has to walk by to get to their table lol so it was a steady stream of people at first.
Our server is Maria. It's funny because we had just talked about how we haven't really seen many females being head servers. She's sweet. Her assistant introduced himself but then we didn't see him again, but it didn't bother us.
We both started with a crab cake and split the spinach and artichoke dip. The crab cakes were delicious. In fact we both agreed they were the best part of the meal. I had seen pictures of the spinach dip being very soupy, but ours was thick. It was fine, not much flavor. 
Matt got the fried chicken and enjoyed it, especially the honey sauce. I got the portobello dish and it was tasty
I finished with the key lime pie but only had a few bites, it had a bit of an artificial taste to me. Matt had chocolate ice cream 😂
After dinner we walked around Central Park and the cadino until our 10:15 Blades show. 
We have almost no casino experience and so we are a bit clueless. Thankfully the host showed us how to use our accounts on the machine lol
We each had $4 free play. We laughed at Matt's 30 cent payout, and then at my 6 cent payout haha! 
The Blades show was fantastic in our opinion. It was much better that the show we saw on Independence. We felt the talent was better and enjoyed the story line. Blades has replaced the Ice Games show.
 

I normally use Royal excursions and yes, they bring you hack to the pick up spot area. 

I think you might encounter some resistance with security if you try and bring large bags into the terminal.  They make you drop your bags outside for a reason.   Most large bags would struggle to get through the security scanner.  Even if the bags would fit through (which they most likely would based on an experience we had in Bayonne), security might give you a hard time about putting them through the scanners.  Honestly, it’s probably not worth the hassle you would most likely encounter.  If you have only carry-on’s then you wouldn’t have a problem.

Yes!!! we have a collection of the glasses from our cruise 10 years ago!

We miss the ice sculptures...Use to love watching them and trying to figure what they were carving.

Re: Shot glasses...    We have a collection of all the different colors.  Willing to part with them as we are downsizing.
Send me a P Message if you would like to purchase them for your collection.  I'll post a photo if anyone is interested.
 

How much does a pirate pay for corn?
 
A Buccaneer.

We are only loyal to God, our family and country.  We like royal and enjoy sailing with them...We have sailed only with Royal for the last 21 cruises and fortunately haven't had a bad experience.  We have sailed Carnival and did have a few bad experiences...So no more Carnival.  We have talked about trying other cruise lines but haven't pulled the trigger yet...Keep going back to what we know will be a fantastic time and that's Royal.

What makes me loyal is this website. I like to be in the know when I travel. We enjoy the planning process and Matt and the crew around here give us great tips. This type of site doesn't exist for other lines and the general cruise sites are full of trolls. We will try another line though. Price increases are the main reason. Post Covid service and costs have drastically changed. Unfortunately this is a universal issue not just with Royal. I would encourage all of us to continue to be constructive critics and hope for change. Another reminder is that this site isn't run by RCCL and is full of good helpful people.  

I will not fly, I cannot fly. I've tried pyching myself up, watching thousands of YouTube videos. I get to the point I feel like I can do this and then I can't, I really can't. Thank goodness Royal sails right out of NJ. We are 30-40 minutes from Cape Liberty and they got the most part put very nice, very large new or newer ships here. 
We took an NCL cruise a few years back on a new new ship, The Breakaway out of NYC and do not even want to make that commute again. 🤣 Didn't like NCL overall, hated the old, too small cruise terminal. Back to Royal Caribbean and staying there. 

We have never tried another cruise line, 21 cruises all on Royal, I'm one of those that believe, if its not broke, don't fix it. I guess I like the routine and know what to expect, even though service and other things have changed, I still think its the best bang for the buck. So I guess we are considered loyal in the fact we never shop other cruise lines.

We have never tried another cruise line, 21 cruises all on Royal, I'm one of those that believe, if its not broke, don't fix it. I guess I like the routine and know what to expect, even though service and other things have changed, I still think its the best bang for the buck. So I guess we are considered loyal in the fact we never shop other cruise lines.

Day 1
Today is S8’s bday! Today was embarkation day. 
Yesterday the kids were very excited by their surprise first class tickets to fly. As a reminder they were a ridiculous $137 with air2sea. Basic tickets were $197, so weird. 
MIL and FIL flew in early this morning. Generally don’t recommend but there are lots of flights from SLC to Seattle plus they bought through air2sea and knew if something happened they’d at least be able to meet us in Sitka on day 3. We took a Lyft from our hotel and then were on the ship within 25 minutes of arrival. My parents took a shuttle and arrived just after us yet somehow took an entire hour to get on the ship. The people in the check in area said they went from things being quiet to being absolutely slammed. We grabbed pizza at Sorrento’s then we all found each other in Windjammer. I usually prefer to go to cafe270 but MIL and FIL were already in windjammer and the kids wanted to see them. (Side note we live 15 minutes away from each other and see them multiple times a week so it’s not like they haven’t seen their grandparents in years.)
While we waited for rooms to be ready we checked in at adventure ocean and teen club. At 1:30 we all found our rooms, tracked down our luggage and unpacked. D5 wanted to swim so she and S8 headed to the indoor pool with hubby while I unpacked for them and myself. Then I got more pizza and met them at the pool. We went for the late dinner seating this cruise so the kids got to play in the pool for a long while. Then they got ready for dinner and since they had time to spare D5 wanted to go play with the toys in the Adventure Ocean open play area.
In case you didn’t know, free reservations for iFly and North Star open at 8pm the day before the port day. I thought they used to all be open as soon as you boarded but I guess this way everyone has a fair chance to reserve rather than having a later boarding time and everything is gone. 
Birthday dinner with our group of 10 was fun. Of course D5 and S8 got their standard spaghetti with butter and Parmesan cheese “with nothing green.” S12 and D16 got regular spaghetti. The most popular appetizers were the crab cake and shrimp cocktail. My dad loves the escargot and was happy to see it on tonight’s menu. Most of us got fish except MIL who got steak and MM who got the fried chicken. MM really enjoyed the chicken and I thought the fish and au gratin potatoes were delicious. I got the sugar free chocolate custard which was pretty much chocolate pudding. The peanut butter bar thing wasn’t all that great, pretty much a very crumbly Rice Krispie treat.  All in all we were all pleased by our meals. S8 was sung to by the wait staff and had a candle in his dessert. Dinner took about 90 minutes. 
Afterward was the comedian Rocky Osborn. He was quite funny and I’m not really a LOL type of person but he made me laugh and was mostly family friendly. D5 fell asleep on my lap and was carried back to the room for bed. 
For this cruise we have a total of 4 rooms. My family is split between hubby and I in a balcony room and the 4 kids “across the hall” in an inside room with virtual balcony. I say “across the hall” because the silly thing is that they were required to be in a room consecutive in number to ours but the room itself is more like across the hall and two doors down. If they’d let me reserve the actual room I wanted for them they’d actually be across the hall! 
 
Tomorrow is a sea day. My dad loves pickleball but open play is at 7am! Yuck. There’s also an adult pickleball tourney at 9am so I’m hoping to at least be up to watch him play. Who am I kidding, I’ll be up by 6am. 

I’m afraid this kind of apathy and incivility are not confined to leisure activities.  I think that, in general, many people are no longer operating under the accepted norms of civil society.  I wish it weren’t the case, but I see it everywhere.  Common courtesy and manners are passé and no longer recognized, appreciated or practiced.  It’s sad to see.

This is the sad state of human interaction. There's been a lot written about how destructive this is to mankind's existence on the planet. Look around. No one is getting along and there are plenty of dangerous people who leverage discord and turn it into violent acts. An article appeared in the NYTs (and reprinted elsewhere) written by a flight attendant listing 12 rules for flying on an airplane. Here's a reprint that's not paywalled like the NYT is: https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/a-flight-attendants-12-etiquette-rules-for-making-flying-pleasant/cid/1939675
The list doesn't really apply to cruising but I'm sure this group could come with a good one that does and goes beyond the rules of behavior that the cruise lines feel comfortable delineating (and that few read, are scrupulously followed by passengers and enforced by crew) . Here are a few of my suggestions:
Smile; greet fellow passengers and crew even if you don't know them.
Cruise ship bars, lounges and dinning rooms are not your child's play area.
Lining up is a part of cruising. Respect that part where there is a need to do so (e.g. checking in, serve yourself, open dining areas).
Crew members assigned to serving you in your staterooms and within public areas are not your servants. Treat them with respect and common courtesy.
Your turn.