Dan Curtis

The temperature check was done as soon as you walk into the cruise terminal and go up the first escalators.  They don’t touch you or your kids foreheads. There were at least 10+people checking at 11am. Very quick. 
 
Before getting on board there were at three if not more times it was requested to apply hand sanitizer (For those not going Diamond+).   Check in easy. About 20-30 minutes from when we arrived at 11 with 9 people and three families. 
 
it’s 1pm so you know what that means. Go check into your room. 
 
FYI, wifey and I split up and she went to get WOW bands while I went to set up speciality dining (14 people) and MTD (9 people).  Kids went with other family to grab an area in Windjammer until rooms were ready.  Highly advise setting up dining times ASAP. There were at three separate lines to do so.  We have the three night package and chose Chops, Wonderland and Park 150. Kids will only do Chops and Wonderland. Don’t think they are interested in Park 150. They are 11 and 13.   
 
in Windjammer they had a person Requesting you wash your hands as soon as you go in  

Ok. What's next stop all flights. This is ridiculous in my opinion. As if all cruises are at risk. So am I supposed to think that cruising from Puerto Rico is at risk?  Paranoia is winning and facts are not. Hey let's shut down also disney world because there is been cases in Florida... Like come on 

Because toilet paper is the cure for Covid-19. No, wait, it prevents coughing.  No, wait.....

Snapchat-170659331.mp4

I always pick up,a cigar for a co worker, I actually buy one on the ship, they have a nice variety and can assist in your choice and the prices are decent. One hint, buy a cigar with a tin cover so,it,will be protected during travel. 

Thanks everyone!

When we went for our "my time dining" at around 8:00, we discovered we actually had assigned seating at 5:30, which we never requested. They did accommodate us and although MTD was full, they agreed to split the difference and seat us at 6:30. 
Today has been punctuated by between meals with a view, bars with a view, and spa treatments,  with a view. I'd love to go to the silent disco tonight, if only it started at 8 instead of 10.
Three old gals walk into a bar ...

Speaking of said playlist - I think this will get me all the way to Galveston:
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow All Night Long - Lionel Richie Beyond the Sea - Bobby Darin Boat Drinks - Jimmy Buffett Break for the Border - Acoustic Alchemy Cake By the Ocean - DNCE Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) Caribbean Blue - Enya Cheers - Rihanna City of Dreams - Talking Heads Come Sail Away - Styx Conga - Miami Sound Machine Dance with Me - Orleans Deck 9 - Funkagenda Drift Away - Dobie Gray Escapade - Janet Jackson Freedom - Pitbull Good Times - Chic Haitian Divorce - Steely Dan Heaven - Los Lonely Boys Hey Now Now - Michael Franti Holiday - Madonna Island Girl - Elton John Island in the Sun - Weezer Knee Deep - Zac Brown Band Kokomo - Beach Boys La Isla Bonita - Madonna Let’s Groove - Earth, Wind, & Fire Livin La Vida Loca - Ricky Martin Mambo No. 5 - Lou Bega Mas Que Nada - Sergio Mendes Yeke Yeke - Mory Kante Orinoco Flow - Enya Oye Como Va - Santana Runaway - Janet Jackson Sail On - Commodores Sail on Sailor - Beach Boys Sailing - Christopher Cross Sea Cruise - Frankie Ford Seagull - Bad Company Shake Shake Senora - Harry Belefonte Sinner in the Sea - Calexico Smooth - Santana Smooth Operator - Sade Soak up the Sun - Sheryl Crow Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills, & Nash Steal Away - Robbie Dupree Steal My Sunshine - Len Summer Breeze - Seals and Croft Tik Tok - Kesha Totally Nude - Talking Heads Un poco de amor - Shakira Uptight - Stevie Wonder Walking on Sunshine - Katrina & the Waves Where the Boat Leaves From - Zac Brown Band  

Great blog, enjoyed reading it , thank you.

Final thoughts and things I learned:
Mr. SpeedNoodles has declared Symphony of the Seas as his favorite ship, and wants to book more Oasis-class cruises.  We don't have one booked until Allure in Jan 2022 and I don't know where we'll fit one in between now and then.  But I've been informed.  Also he wants an AquaTheatre suite.  So if anyone runs across a fantastic deal, please clue me in. While we were able to do a lot on the ship, there was so much more that we weren't able to do.  We never even stepped into Jazz on 4 or The Attic. I had reservations for the comedy shows, but something always interfered. There's just SO much to do! We made it to a hot tub once - we really never got to spend any time on the pool deck.   As usual with me, no matter what I was doing I felt like I was missing out on something else. The staff was exceptional.  There wasn't one place on the ship where we didn't encounter helpful, friendly crew members.  If we dined in a specialty restaurant once, and ran into our waiter somewhere else a day or two later somewhere else on the ship, they remembered our names (WHAT WITCHERY IS THIS?????). I figured out a handy packing tip on this trip.  While I use packing cubes, and typically try to pack things together so they are easy to unpack on the ship (like items together that will be placed into the same drawer or closet), when I packed to come home I packed things in the cubes that would be washed together.  All I had to do was open up cubes that contained things washed together and dump them in the wash instead of sorting them at home.  It really didn't take much extra time at all but made laundry much easier. 30 SPF sunscreen doesn't do a damn thing to protect skin that hasn't seen the sun for 5 years. We got really good at using Lyft.  From the time we left the house to the time we returned home we used Lyft 11 times. I learned at the Quest that I cannot twerk, but the 70+ year old woman in front of me could. I saw my very first Booby.  As in Brown Booby - the bird.  A flock of them followed alongside the ship as we left St. Maarten, constantly diving after fish that must have been disturbed in our wake.  I took photos.  Not a Booby can be seen in any of them. You'll simply have to take my word. #birdlifelist We're pretty bummed that we have to wait until October for our next cruise!!! (But it's going to be a SUPER FUN cruise!) 
Thanks for following along. (Now I need to go catch up on all of YOUR blogs that I've fallen behind on!)

Day 5 - Puerto Rico
Despite the advice that I've heard forever, near and far, aIbout not booking an excursion in PR and just enjoying the fort and Old San Juan, I bucked the system.  Mr. SpeedNoodles wasn't particularly interested in even getting off the ship when we first started planning, UNTIL....
One day while while going through the excursions in the cruise planner for the 100th time I ran across an ATV tour. I know, I know, we did one in St. Maarten.  But this one....this one was a little more special.  Why was it special?  Well, let me tell you.
The ATV tour was at a place called Campo Rico.  At Campo Rico they do ATV tours, zip lining, archery lessons (huh?) and horseback riding. The camp is a small part of a very large ranch that has belonged to one family for at least 3 generations.  And they breed a very special type of horse.  The Paso Fino horse.  The Paso Fino is a very beautiful, sweet-tempered, gaited horse (meaning that they have a very comfortable way of moving - no jarring movements or trotting).  Some consider (including yours truly) consider them the Cadillac of horses. I bought my Paso Fino mare in 2004, when she was 3 years old.  For those who are too lazy to do the math, she will be 29 years old this May, and she's still going strong.  Her dam and maternal grandmother thrived to over 40 years old.  And I had an opportunity to go to "the homeland"!  My mare's maternal great grand dam and grand sire were directly imported from Puerto Rico in the 1970s. (Enough boring horse trivia for ya yet?  Zzzzzzzzz #notcruiserelated).
So, why not go there and ride Paso Finos, you may ask (and I have been asked).  Well, while Mr. SpeedNoodles would have done that with me to make me happy, he doesn't like riding horses (basically he can't turn it off with a key, and that doesn't please him). This seemed like an awesome compromise.  ATVs for him, and horses for me.  Win win.
They'd had a lot of rain that week and it was quite a mudding event.  I'll share some pics with captions below, but there's not a whole lot to say about it, really.  The weather was great (high 70s, overcast so not sweaty hot, and just windy enough to keep away bugs without being annoying).  I got it at a great deal of $104pp - one of those deals that I snagged totally randomly in between Cruise Planner sales and a price that never went below $140 after (I checked. Daily.).
I couldn't really take pics while driving the ATV - the mud in some places was at least a foot deep and stopping meant getting stuck #embarrassing 






Visiting the horse barn:


Mare with foal in the pasture:

They had a small aviary and I made an absolute fool of myself dancing with this gorgeous Salmon Crested Cockatoo.  

We were almost ready to get on the bus when I spotted this adorable Puerto Rican Crested Anole

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Obligatory pretty pigeon pic from Old San Juan:

After we got back to the ship and washed a metric ton of mud off of us we headed down to Playmakers for some snacks. Holy crap, those nachos are big! We really liked the wings, too.  Oh, and Newcastle on tap is a win.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Malcom at the Copper and Kettle made a beautiful Chocolate Martini for me:


Various desserts from the Windjammer (none of which we ate - for your entertainment only):

We have a new pilot....they let anyone pilot a cruise ship, plane, you name it these days!

Having not edited any of these photos, here we go.  
Dinner was in Izumi on the Sushi side.  There was only one other couple in the entire Sushi side.  Both hibachi tables were full.  Easy to tell that few people know about specialty dining on the first night.  
Smitha came by while we were at dinner and asked what we wanted for snacks to eat during the Aqua80s show.  We finished dinner early and made it back to the room to watch the 8:30 show.  When we came in off of the balcony we had our snacks of chips and nachos, plus more chocolate covered strawberries (up to 12 so far), and our drinks.  Even though we asked for hard liquor, Smitha had our drinks delivered for the show.  One let down was not getting soft pretzels.  Shane, our genie on Anthem, had them pulled from the pub.  We asked Smitha for them since Virginia is a huge fan, and she wasn't able to get any to our room.  We'd even asked about them pre-cruise, so that was kind of a bummer.  As soon as Virginia came back to the room from Adventure Ocean, she was immediately asking for soft pretzels, so it's a big time bummer around here on that front.  
The 8:30 show was very good.  They took a couple of elements out due to the wind.  Oasis is a ship that you can rarely feel any movement.  Not sure if it's because we are all the way aft, but the seas are definitely rocking tonight.  It's cold and windy on the balcony, and the ship is moving enough to rattle the hangers in the closet, which is quite a bit for Oasis.  
Random thoughts from the day:
AO check-in is super easy now, and Virginia loved the new set-up.
Izumi was fantastic, as usual.  
While we love the room, it is disappointing they didn't update the SC rooms during the dry dock.  After having been in SC on Anthem, Oasis just feels dated in styling.  Also, we loved the loft for the large amount of space it gave us, and miss having the two stories, but the private bedrooms and a true "living room" are really nice.  
The Aqua Theater show is amazing.  Having not seen Aqua80s before, it is a big upgrade from Oasis of Dreams.  Also, watching from our balcony gives you a completely different perspective of the talent and "guts" required to do some of the things they do.  Also known as a "big box of NOPE" from me on some of these things.  
I will say the noise is a little loud in the living room, but in the bedrooms it isn't too bad.
I did a room tour, but the file is too big to upload.  Perhaps I'll upload it on dry land.  

Update from the field: Mr SpeedNoodles has already declared the Oasis Class his "favorite class of ships". We've only seen the pool deck and Deck 4 so far. 

Have a awesome trip, thanks for sharing.

Friday - Miami Day!!!
Today was a long day.  We booked a full 3-part tour that included a double-deck bus tour of Miami, a boat tour of the Miami harbor (with an emphasis on the islands between Miami and Miami Beach, where many celebrities live), and a short air-boat ride in the Everglades.  We booked it through Trip Advisor, and figured it'd be a convenient way to see a variety of things with little effort.  One of our traditions is to take some sort of harbor tour in each port we sail from at least once. It was touristy to a cliche, but we were ok with that. (https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g34439-d11451472-Miami_Combo_Tour_City_Sightseeing_Biscayne_Bay_Cruise_and_Everglades_Airboat_Ride-M.html)
We caught a Lyft around 7:50 am, as there was a lot of traffic/construction/road closures around the Kimpton and ride shares were taking a little longer to find us.  We arrived VERY early to the Miami Beach area from where the tour departed, and did a little walking and people watching.  We went to CVS (since I lost my hair tie in the hotel in a matter of about an hour, and I forgot to bring makeup remover wipes.  There was a pigeon in CVS. I seriously just wanted to catch it and rehome it outside with its pigeon friends, but I managed to quell the desire.

I'll be frank here. I didn't take a lot of photos.  While we sat on the top level of the bus, and we could see a lot of things, to get good photos I would have had to stand up, which would have put me at risk of (quite literally) losing my head to low branches.
We were taken through the lovely Art Deco regions of South Beach, then headed over to Little Havana, were we debussed and were told we could get some "free Cuban Coffee" at store right where the bus was parked.  I don't drink coffee, but Mr. SpeedNoodles does, and he was told by his Cuban coworker that he MUST get some Cuban Coffee.  We peeked into the store where people were getting their free coffee, and it was a paper cup about the size of a ketchup container at McDonalds, so we wandered across the street in search of a shop that he'd see on one of his many, obsessive, Google Street View "walks".  We just couldn't find it.  Until...... some very kind local recognized what we were looking for and pointed us to a coffee shop that opened at 10am (it was 10:15, and he simply shrugged and said "Island Time").  He wasn't wrong.  Within minutes they opened the door. And Mr SpeedNoodles was in heaven.  Communication was somewhat tricky since we don't speak Spanish, but with some pointing and back and forth he managed to get two very strong coffees before we had to get back on the bus.  It was a beautiful little shop and almost made me wish I drank coffee.



After only 35 minutes (too short!) in Little Havana, we headed back to the Biscayne Marketplace for lunch.  While they led us into a specific restaurant (with a promise of free appetizers), we chose to go a more economical route and we just hit Five Guys. The menu at the other place was not only overpriced, but the just didn't have any items on the menu that interested us.
After lunch we boarded the harbor tour boat, and had a lovely 90 minute tour into the "islands" area.  On the way we slipped right past Explorer of the Seas, who was in port exchanging passengers.  We had a fantastic, high-energy, tour guide for this part, and we really enjoyed him (great job, Ricky!). I've never heard anyone so seamlessly go back and forth from English to Spanish.  His jokes worked in both languages, judging by the laughter on the boat.  I got several pics, but really nothing worth sharing.  Little islands  hosting extremely expensive houses owned by people I'll never meet.  I'm not much of a celebrity person.  Frankly I was just as thrilled sailing past the big MSC cargo ship while it was offloading containers - I thought that was pretty cool.  PLUS we saw an actual, live, swimming, wild sea turtle come up twice on that side of the bay.  I'm all about the wildlife.  As anyone who's followed any of my previous blogs knows, I will be just as thrilled sitting around talking to local pigeons and sky rats (i.e. seagulls, for those not previously indoctrinated), as anything else that I do. #formerzookeeper #completenerd
We were told to meet a "double-decker, non-open-top bus" at 2:15 to go to the Everglades right there at the Biscayne Marketplace.  We did so.  We got on the bus, with about 15 other people (not many, but who are we to judge?).  Off we went!  We were really looking forward to this part, having never been there.  The bus took off....east ... across the bridge (full view of Navigator, Explorer, MSC Divina, Carnival Legend, Regent Seven Seas, and a Viking ship) .... but ....
Ok, I'm no geography genius.  But aren't the Everglades BACK THATA WAY???????  We're on the top deck, so we have no communication with the driver.  The driver isn't communicating with us. Other passengers are looking likewise baffled.  Others, not so much. We are all wearing the green "I'm on the 2:15 Everglades tour" sticker.
Traffic was nothing less than awful.  An hour after boarding, we arrive back at the tour company main office, where we are asked to debus and get on yet another bus.  Ummmm, sure! It seems it would have been more efficient to  bring THEM to US since we were already farther west, but again, I'm no geography/traffic genius. We get everyone on the bus. It's the first non-bilingual driver/guide we've had (it didn't bother US, but we the English speakers were definitely a minority on this one).  Harry was our driver and guide.  Harry was different.  Harry made up a lot of ecological "facts" (Harry, they are Turkey Vultures, not "American Vultures", and they didn't come to the Miami area to breed in the winter. I've raised TV babies in Minnesota in June.  They're just here to stay warm and eat.  And don't even get me started on his opinions on the South Florida "Indian Tribes" -lawd man, you don't know who your audience might be).  
We arrived at the Sawgrass Recreation Area shortly after 4pm.. The cold front had moved in, and it was 65 degrees and windy. Most people were not dressed for the weather. This was very good news for the gift shop, as probably half of the bus passengers went in and purchased sweatshirts. or jackets. I had brought a zip up hoodie with me (#becauseMinnesota), and MrSpeednoodles will go out and grill at 11pm in January at 10 degrees in shorts and flip flops, so he didn't care.  The problem?  Gators don't like wind. The crawl back up into the grass and hide so that they don't drift all over the place.  Frankly, I didn't care.  I'm all for Gators.  They're super tasty.  And fascinating, ancient, creatures.  And I would have been trilled to see one.  But I was happy to see the Cormorants drying their feathers as well. I would have loved to see some egrets, or otters, but the weather just wasn't right.  That's ok.  The airboat was pretty hecking cool, and I know I want to come back during warmer weather and maybe book a smaller, more private boat and ask to focus on birds and mammals.  Someday.

I had some time to have a short conversation with this female Boat-tailed Grackle (we have regular Grackles in Minnesota.  The females aren't nearly this pretty).  Unfortunately the camera didn't really correctly portray her beautiful brown color.  (I know - average birds.  I appreciate sh** like that).

The tour people seemed really super disorganized.  It was easily an hour between when we got to the Sawgrass Visitor's Center and when we actually got onto an airboat.  The airboat tour was 30 minutes, and we didn't see any alligators (and not much of anything else).  Nobody can control the weather, or the animals' behaviour in the weather, so we really didn't care.  The trip back took another 90 minutes in awful traffic.  The driver ended up just going back on city roads, through Hialeah (Big Havana).  Nothing he could do about the traffic either.
We'd been planning to go to Ceviche 105 for dinner, but by the time we got back to the Miami Tour Bus Company in Miami Beach and hailed another Lyft it was after 8pm. We'd been going all day, and hadn't had any food since 1pm.  We were tired and blood sugars were low.  By the time we'd get back to our hotel, shower, change, and get to the restaurant it would have been at least 9:30. Which is apparently when people in Miami leave their hotels and head out on the town.  But be real here. We're middle-aged-plus Minnesotans.  We arranged for the Lyft driver (a fascinating man from Nigeria! Thanks, Daniel!) to drop us off a block away from the Kimpton at Whole Foods.  We picked up some pizza and sushi (not to be mixed, we each wanted different things), and a bottle of wine (O. M G.  Wine at a grocery store??? This is UNHEARD OF in the land of 10,000 lakes! How incredibly convenient!).  We ate, drank some wine, and watched half of "Guardians of the Galaxy" (I challenge anyone to guess who my favorite character is.) and Mr Speednoodles is already asleep.  I'll be there right after I fix all of the typos in this blog (no guarantees, I will offer no compensation for emotional trauma caused by grammatical/typographical errors).  
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOMORROW IS CRUISE DAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're here in Miami!!!!
We've been having a fabulous time in Miami. It's my third time here, and Mr Speednoodles' first time.  While I'm in charge of cruise planning, he's always in charge of pre-cruise planning (hotels, food, activities).  He did a fabulous job.
Our Sun Country flight left Mpls/St Paul  International an hour late (we really don't know why - they told us that we'd be leaving early and then sat at the gate for an extra hour with no explanation).  It was fine. Other than being wedged into a middle seat, it wasn't a big deal.  Mr SpeedNoodles was appropriately dosed with Xanex and deeply buried in a movie that he'd downloaded on Netflix.
We still hit Miami by about 11:30, and by some stroke of luck our luggage was the first onto the belt, so we hauled butt out to the rideshare area to secure our Lyft before the crowds descended.  Within 10 minutes we were off to the Kimpton Epic. (For pics of the Kimpton, refer to my Navigator blog - I was able to get many photos on that trip: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/16871-navigator-911-hits-the-high-seas-dec-2-dec-6-2019/).
We arrived at the Kimpton by 12:30.  Our room wasn't ready, so we stowed our luggage, made a quick change from Minnesota layers to Miami shorts, and hailed another Lyft to make our first culinary visit -  We. Were. Hungry. !!!!!
Mr. SpeedNoodles had been drooling over this place for about 3 months now, so we Lyfted ourselves over to Little Havana to have lunch at La Camarona Seafood Market.  Recently it was just that, a seafood market, but not too long ago they'd taken a sledgehammer to a wall (that's literally how it still looks) and expanded into a dining section.
      
We were jonesing to get a fried snapper sandwich and we were NOT disappointed.  The service was speedy and friendly - the food was awesome.  It will now be a regular stop for us when in Miami.  We started with a shrimp empananda (which we ate so quickly that I neglected to get a photo #badblogger), followed with some A-MAZE-ING fried shrimp and we both had the snapper sandwich.
     
After lunch we hailed another Lyft and weaved our way over to the Wynwood area to grab a beer, some alligator bites at Kush, and wander around looking at the urban graffiti.  My photography devotion was seriously lacking (beyond food and drink), so I didn't get a lot of photos of the artwork.  Some of it was absolutely spectacular.   More than once I tripped over one of the thousands of rental scooter parked absolutely everywhere while ogling the beautiful walls.
Being absolutely overstuffed, and deciding that one, or both, of us would surely kill or maim ourselves by trying to ride a scooter back to the hotel (and believe me, we seriously considered it after a few fairly strong beers at Kush) we called another Lyft to haul us back to the Kimpton to get ready for.....dinner.  (Is there a theme here? I'm sensing one.)





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Kimpton Epic has a small wine bar available from 5pm-6pm, so we grabbed a glass and headed up for a much-needed shower.   Our plan was to go to Joe's Stone Crab on South Beach for dinner.  We decided on Thursday because we read (on their website) that it's very crowded on Friday and Saturday, and get there before 7pm or there will be quite a wait.  Well, our plan was to be there at 6pm.  Guess when we arrived?
At 7pm sharp we put my name on the waiting list - they do not take reservations or bribes (as if we could out-bribe anyone on South Beach!! BWWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!). The promised to seat us within (ready????) 2 hours.  Well, we came all this way, we've been planning on it for months, and we had plenty of lunch and snacks to tide us over.  We found a spot at a drink rail and prepared to wait "within 2 hours".  After 45 minutes I wandered off to the ladies room and came back to find Mr SpeedNoodles had given my chair to some woman!! THE NERVE!  I walk up and he says "hey, these folks are from Northfield, MN!" (guys, literally not 20 minutes from our house).  So 1700 miles away from home and we end up chatting with what are, for more or less, neighbors!  It was a mom and her two college-aged daughters spending some time in Miami together.  We had a lovely time, and wished they'd been booked on Symphony as well.

After 1:40 minutes my name was called (cheers all around - literally, the entire bar cheered every time someone's name was called) and we were seated.  I don't know how many people they put through there every night, but the dining room is enormous and they were still rotating people in regularly at 10pm.  It is an absolute machine.  Every single person, from host, to waiters, to bus folks, were working their a**es off.  They never rushed anyone through a meal, but the millisecond they vacated a table, it was cleaned to perfection and reset in less than a minute. It was amazing to watch.  Mr SpeedNoodles got the Joe's Classic Meal (Stone Crabs, sides, and Key Lime Pie) and I got the Cold Trio (Stone crabs, 1/2 lobster and King Crab).  This was the night that I learned that I wasn't a fan of cold seafood.  An expensive lesson, to be sure.  I found it annoyingly cold, without drawn butter, and without the flavor I'm used to on each species.  That being said, I simply didn't know that I didn't like cold seafood before this, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.  Mr SpeedNoodles loved his (and the Key Lime Pie and unique cole slaw was pretty amazing) and I found the entire spectacle worth trying once.  I'd even go back again, arriving closer to the 6pm hour, and just ordering something else.  They have a great business philosophy.
             
We caught or 5th (that's right, FIFTH) Lyft of the day to get back across to the Kimpton and passed out (neither of us were able to get any sleep the night before, so it'd been quite a while since either of us had slept).
 
 
 

Pre-cruise Day:  We flew from Dulles International Airport to Orlando on a morning flight on Southwest Airlines leaving the cold freezing weather behind.
Arriving in Orlando it was a long trek from the Southwest gate to baggage claim.  Played the baggage claim musical chairs, first bags are coming out at one carousel the no it’s over here, no we were just kidding back to the original location.
Collected our rental from Alamo it was quick and painless and we were off to Disney Springs for lunch.  Walked around Disney Springs a bit then headed to the hotel.  A couple of days earlier, I realized I scored a rental car bonus by renting from Alamo.  I’m not loyal to one brand over the other usually going with the best rate, but I was happy that the return location is like a 10 minute walk to the ship.
 

On a more serious note, even the cats take this virus seriously!
 

I should be packing, but somebody has other ideas.

And we’re back
Suitcases lined up in our suite for pick up at 7:00
As soon as daughter gets around we will head to Coastal Kitchen for breakfast and Allan will pick us up and whisk us off the ship and back to reality.
The Explorer went cruising by this morning.  Cannot remember if I mentioned we had Next Cruise come to our suite on the 2nd day and we booked the ABC islands for January 2021 on Explorer ?

I tend to,agree with you, we just got back from the Vision out,of San Juan  and the D+ and Diamond lounge was so small, we only tried one night to get in. We just used our drinks at dinner.

I tend to,agree with you, we just got back from the Vision out,of San Juan  and the D+ and Diamond lounge was so small, we only tried one night to get in. We just used our drinks at dinner.

The Anthem GC to Norway will be our first D+ cruise.  It took us 25 years to get to this level and now we don't have the CL to look forward to.  Bummer! ?

We are back on the ship after a nice day in Labadee!  We loved beach lounger for 2 and would highly recommend one!

This was our view from the chairs!  Outstanding!

It was a very windy day and got worse as it went on.  We only saw the parasails for a short time in the morning and then it must have been too windy.  Lots of whitecaps!

We took a little walk around and got this shot back towards the main area

All good things must come to an end...unfortunately!  So walked back to the ship and now hanging out in the solarium for a bit and then dinner!

We just love these days at the private stops!  So relaxing and low key!  Especially when home just got about 6” of snow!  Haha!