Dan Curtis

That's good news, I think we are on the same cruise, we fly out of cvg, that's the Cincinnati airport that's in Ky, to Atl to San Juan also arriving on the 24 th. Hope to see you on the Vision.

I decided to get some t-shirts made a few weeks ago and they just arrived today! I'm not sure we'll end up doing the group t-shirt thing but they'll be funny to wear on certain days. (And, in order to understand the joke on one of them, it's important to know our last name is Daigle.) ? Please excuse all the drink package humor... it's more that we can no longer party like we used to but like to pretend we can when we cruise. ?
 

Pretty normal day here in OSJ today.









 

The flight we are taking on the 24th runs Detroit>Orlando>San Juan daily. Out of curiosity, I checked yesterday's flight on flight tracker. It was running about 6 minutes late, but, in route to PR as usual.

Saw a cpl pics from Royal cruisers there today...looks like San Juan is business as usual...good news!

We are cruising out of,San Juan the end of January , I called our motel yesterday, which is in the the lagoon area, about two blocks from the ocean, they said everything around them is fine. You have to feel for,the folks in San Juan with all the major weather issues the last few years. 
 
 
 
 

Hey everyone! I've loved reading the blog over the last year since I took my first cruise with my younger brother at his request. Now, I'm hooked and excited to share with you our next (now annual) cruise coming up on January 13th on the Navigator of the Seas. Our last trip was on the Mariner of the Seas and we're both very excited about going on its sister ship.
Who
The party will be the two of us (older brother and younger brother). My brother is turning 30 on this cruise and on embarkation day! When our Dad heard about our cruise plans, he decided he had to attend as well. We haven't done a vacation together as a group since we were 12 years old. ? 
Where
We're headed to Miami to board Navigator of the Seas! After Navigator, we're taking a quite jaunt up to Orlando to spend a few days at Universal Studios (another of my brother's favorite places). My wife and boys are more of the Disney type so it's a fun change of pace to head over to Universal for a few days.
How
Well, I love to vacation. After reading all the live blogs, I'm realizing I need to book Star Class at some point to REALLY get the "extra" experience. Instead, I decided to bring a little bit of star power to the rest of our vacation by (secretly) getting us a limo to bring us to the airport, upgrading our tickets to first class, and then upgrading what my Dad thinks is an inside stateroom to a suite (we have two rooms, two grand suites). Yes, I'm being "extra" as the kids say (do they still say that?) but I don't care! I'm on vacation! I'm excited to capture their reactions.
We're staying at the Hyatt Regency in Miami, flying down with Delta, and using my bevy of points, miles, and rewards to get us there. One small benefit of traveling a ton for work is making a major part of your vacation cash free. (Don't worry, this boys trip was already offset by a couples trip to keep the Mrs. happy. ?)
Then, We are starting with 3 days at Royal Pacific and then 1 day at Aventura (which none of us have stayed at yet). We wanted to add an extra day because I unfortunately need to fly from vacation to a work trip directly and instead of coming home for a day I’m going to stay an extra day. But it turns out Universal was almost all sold out... so doing a little split stay out of necessity (but still using our extra day or Express Pass). ?
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We're a mere 6 days away from starting the journey down! I'm hoping Voom holds up and I can share photos and such from the travels as we go! If it ends up being of interest, I'm also happy to share about our time at Universal Studios though I know that's a bit of an extra excursion. ?
This is only my third cruise though by brother and Dad have done a bunch more than I have. Either way, I'm excited to dive in, get to Coco Cay, and get into the "warm" water since we'll be flying down from New England. Almost there!

We are cruising out of,San Juan the end of January , I called our motel yesterday, which is in the the lagoon area, about two blocks from the ocean, they said everything around them is fine. You have to feel for,the folks in San Juan with all the major weather issues the last few years. 
 
 
 
 

Day 6: San Juan
This morning I woke up late and skipped exercise because I was still wiped out from St Maarten. We just took breakfast from WJ and ate at the balcony. Btw, I was not able to get any sunrise picture on this cruise due to a combination of waking up too late, clouds, and the orientation of the ship. Some days I would wake up early enough, and the sky was clear, but we were totally facing the wrong way, and I didn't feel like going all the way to the top deck in my PJs just to chase the sunrise. 
In San Juan, once again we were docked next to Allure, which I thought was pretty cool. Because we docked very early, a lot of shops were still closed when we first explored San Juan, although after lunch things were a lot more lively.

We did not book any excursions because many friends and relatives told us that San Juan is small enough that you can do a self-guided walking tour. If anyone is interested, we used the app called GPSmyCity. I would rate it pretty high, but it's a bit annoying with the constant push to sell you the upgraded version. We just chose the itinerary that looks interesting, get the list of places and eyeball the map, and plug in the location to google maps ourselves. Plus it was raining so we had to modify it a little bit depending on when the rain was supposed to hit (for example, we skipped Casa Rosa and Casa Blanca, but added the fort. We did the gate first and walked around the trail to the fort).
Warning: it is definitely a lot of walking and stairs. No problem if you are fit, but in laws had to walk slowly especially when climbing stairs.


DW loves cats so we also enjoyed looking at a colony (is that the right word?) of cats along the trail

The fort is amazing both when viewed from the fort itself, or from the city. We would definitely recommend this stop if you go to San Juan.

Afterwards we had lunch at a restaurant called Rincon Iberico, located in the museum by the entrance of the fort. It has authentic Spanish cuisine. The paella was amazing, but the food did take a long time to come out. Perhaps related to the fact that we were there early (around 11).
After lunch, we took a taxi back to the pier, but we asked to be dropped off a few blocks away to continue shopping, now that the stores were open. In San Juan, it was very easy to find taxis near tourist areas. Supposedly there is uber service, but although I had internet connectivity, the app didn't really load for me. 
Anyways, is it just me or Adventure and Allure looked to be about the same height? Is it a trick of the cameras?

We went back to the ship around 1:30 pm, and we spent the afternoon in the Solarium again. National Treasure was playing by the main pool, that's why we retreated to the Solarium. I did slides once again, and because of the cloudy weather, it was empty. Thing is, it's just not as fun riding the slides when the ship is docked because you miss the rocking of the boat, so it became just like a regular waterpark slide. Nevertheless, I went like 5 times in a row. The in laws ate some afternoon snacks in the WJ during this time. 
On the way back to our room I passed by the Solarium pool, and I realized that it was closed. However, there were people in the pool. Upon closer inspection, they were the crew, being trained on their lifeguard duties. The instructor said something about "grab them not here but here...." I thought that was really cool.
Right before dinner we did a bit more shopping. Remember the $10 flat sales that I mentioned earlier and wished I had bought more of? It's back! I'm so glad it's back, although the selection was a lot fewer this time, but at least they still had the main items. 
Tonight was both the second formal night at the MDR and the British-themed dinner at the WJ, coupled with chocolate buffet. This was an agonizing decision to make, but in the end we decided to eat in the WJ (mainly because under no circumstances did I want to miss the chocolate buffet). Now recall that we had tickets for the 9pm showing of the ice show, which would mean we would have rushed through the MDR dinner anyways. So now everything worked out perfectly. We had an early-ish dinner (around 6:30) at the WJ.
The dinner was delicious. My favorite was battered fish (as in fish and chips, but I skipped the chips), and seafood pot pie. But the part where I did the most damage was the chocolate buffet. They had a line set up about an arm's length from the buffet, and there were crew members getting the items to us (so we were not allowed to get the items ourselves). If it was a cake, then they sliced the cake for us. I guess this is to keep the chocolate items looking pretty throughout the buffet.





 
My favorite here was the tiramisu, because I finished two whole cups of tiramisu all by myself. Oh and all of those plates above? Those were mine (not shared with DW). I finished them all! ? Apologies that I did not take the picture of the buffet line (or the buffet spread) because both my hands were occupied holding two plates AND a glass of chocolate mousse.
Random comment about chocolate buffet: I live in Boston, and one day while taking the commuter ferry (in September 2019), I passed by a cruise ship that looked to be Voyager-class. Out of curiosity I peeked at the name, and golly it was Adventure of the Seas!! This was about a couple weeks after we booked our cruise, so of course I got excited and posted this on the facebook group. That same night, somebody posted on the Royal Caribbean Dining that they were having chocolate buffet right that very moment. So I promised myself that if there was a chocolate buffet on our cruise, I would not miss it for the world.
After dinner we went to the ice show. Because we got there early, we got really good seats; center section, second row from the front. Ok I wished it had been front row because the performers gave high fives to that row from time to time, but oh well.

After the ice show, we went back to the room. My in laws got peacocks with googly eyes, whereas we got elephants without googly eyes ?


 
Comments about the ice show:
This is by far my favorite performance during the whole cruise. Some of you may disagree and that's fine. I do think that the singers and dancers are very talented, but I'm just a sucker for figure skating performance in general, so I'm definitely biased. The captain of the team was on the male national team for... Slovenia, I think? So you're getting close to olympic-level performance whenever he does a solo.The rest of the team were maybe a bit less than national team level performers but still very good. 
What I liked the most was just how well-choreographed the moves were. This is something that you miss from olympic performances, because at most you're getting two (pairs or ice dance) or solo, but you never see 5 people doing double loops together. Ok I have to admit the timing is not as clean as it could be, but give them a break.... they're skating... on a rocking ship. 
The main soloist (the captain) was definitely good. I think he did a triple jump once, but the rest of the jumps were doubles and singles, but considering that the whole show was 50 minutes long and he was in most of the scenes, you'd have to admire his stamina. The rest of the skaters were also very entertaining. They were not just executing the moves, but you can see the spirit and enjoyment in what they did, which is eventually what dance performance should be about.

We are also due to be travelling out Dubai on the 12th for our cruise on the 13th. I called Royal Caribbean today and they said no change and they wouldn’t sail if it wasn’t safe. She said nothing has happened yet .....REALLY! Ok so let’s wait until they retaliate and cause loss of life before we cancel ? They have a lot of money to refund if the cruise is cancelled so unfortunately I don’t think they will despite the warnings. Personally I’m going to take the loss my life is worth more. 

Update on sofa bed: We all know how awful sofa beds can be so this was a big factor when settling on a hotel. At the time of booking at the Conrad, the housekeeping manager assured me that the sofa bed was recently upgraded and was very comfy. She tried to get me to book the king room with sofa bed for a view of the Hudson River but I wasn’t convinced.  Well, this was the most comfortable hotel sofa bed. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ to The Conrad hotel downtown NYC. 

We are sitting in room waiting on bell hop. When we get to lobby we will call Uber. Not going to make it by 10:30. We are on vacation. As little M says “It will be fine”

Cool! I can see our balcony in this photo! 

In return, here's a photo of Adventure heading into the setting sun at the same time: 

Day 3: At Sea
Today we were supposed to be in St. Thomas but because of the changed itinerary, it was spent at sea. It is definitely very sunny by now, so later on everyone was out on the deck sunbathing. 
As usual, I ran again in the morning (still tried the jogging track, but slowly losing interest). It's not as windy, but still windy. Afterwards I reserved some lounge chairs. I got breakfast from WJ and came back with plates full of food, and DW and I had breakfast in the balcony. After breakfast, I continued reading in the balcony, while enjoying the ocean breeze and sounds. The powerade there was from the cafe promenade, which is included in our drink package. The barista there (Nyoman) was really friendly. Almost every night I got powerade and bottled water from him, so after 2 days, he started giving me 2 bottles instead of 1, and didn't even have to swipe cards anymore.

Around 10 or so, I went down to the pool side and did the same thing: reading, whirlpool / slides, listening and people watching, sometimes falling asleep. We went through like 20 glasses of mocktails in the past 3 days, definitely getting our money's worth. Because it was sunny, the line for the slides was longer. The flow rider was well attended as well. Some people were really good, and some other were.... more like me.


We went to lunch in WJ, where we scored the back seat by the window, overlooking the wake. 



After lunch, DW tried rock climbing. She did well, although the last couple feet were hard. There's also a 3 on 3 competition going on in the court right next to the rock climbing, so I sort of watched that as well. After rock climbing, we tried to join an adult volleyball competition, but turns out that you need to come up with your own team. As there were only 3 of us, (MIL did not want to play), we would be considered as subs in one of the other teams. It won't be as fun and we might not get to play together. So we decided to bail.
After that, we went to the Viking Crown Lounge on the 14th floor (really close to the rock climbing area) and just people watched from the top, while enjoying the quiet (and more drinks)


Near sunset, we went down to hunt some nice sunset pictures, and then tried for the ice show.

The thing about the ice show is: there were 4 showings: Day 3 and 6, at 7 pm and 9 pm each. The show lasts about 50 minutes. The tickets were free but you had to pick it up on the 2nd day, which I totally forgot about. I guess this is their way of ensuring that there is enough seats for everyone. By the time I realized about tickets, I could only pick it up in the guest services, and only Day 6 at 9pm showing was available (not ideal, as our dinner reservation was at 8pm). If you don't have tickets, you can still come and line up, but you will be seated about 5 minutes before the show starts. So did that for day 3 at 7 pm, and did not get any seat. So we just watched the first 10 minutes of the show and then left. From what we saw, it was amazing though. Seeing as we had tickets for the later showing, we didn't feel too bad. So we just wasted time by listening to music at the Boleros and Champagne Bar, as we made our way towards MDR.
For appetizer, we had crab cake and caprese, which were ok (crab cake was kinda dense, but the flavor was great). For entrees, I did double entree again: ahi tuna and NY strip. The ahi tuna was amazing. For dessert, we had strawberry trifle and souffle. The trifle was really good too. Generally I like their "no sugar added" dessert, even though I have major sweet tooth. They just tasted lighter and made me less bloated at the end of the day.






Then we watched the show, which was a solo singer named Darryl Jovan. The show was called Mind of a Tenor. His voice is really good, but I don't know many of the songs. He announced that he's leaving Royal Caribbean soon and got a permanent gig with an orchestra (I forgot which one). Good for him! Best of luck to you!

? Only 10 More Days Until I Go On Mariner!!
Only 10 Short Days Until We Cruise!!! ?

Wait, you married him without a trial run to make sure he loves cruising?? You're a brave woman! ? 

We arrived last night at Embassy suites. This hotel is good for us. The made to order breakfast is delicious.
The arrival last night with Lyft was not great. After waiting 40 minutes The 1st driver was a no show. The 2nd driver was very good. This was my 1st trip with Lyft. Now I know to make sure driver is rated 5 star.
We we’re exhausted after finally checking in. We ordered food to go at on-site restaurant. The food was mediocre at best and was expensive for what we received.
We will get last minute shopping done today. We want to get egg crate for bed. We will probably take Little M to beach today.
One more sleep until we board. We will try Uber tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Final Photos
We’re home now and I see I have some photos languishing in my blog file. Here are some odds and ends!
Art — there’s a ton of art on this ship. I had grand plans to get in each elevator to check out the unique art in each one, but it didn’t happen. The styles are fun and different, too. Here’s a tiny example:




MDR (since I somehow failed to post any photos of it):


Jaime’s:

Izumi:

Bean & Leaf:

The Esplanade:



Next Cruise:

Shore Excursion desk:

La Patisserie:

Photos area:

There were several unique shops as well. Like the Overseas Pharmacy (huge!):

And the JClinic (DNA test, anyone??):

 

Hello, I hope it's okay to do a live-blog style recap (instead of it being live). I also took pictures of all the cruise compass pages and MDR menu. Please let me know how to best upload these, or whom I should contact to get them added to the cruise compass section.
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This is my first cruise, with DW and in laws, for 8 nights from FLL to Eastern Caribbean, on Adventure of the Seas, 12/21/2019 sailing. The ports visited: St Thomas, St Marteen, San Juan, and Labadee.
We originally considered booking on Allure, but finally we decided on Adventure. This fact will become important later. We did a GTY balcony room, and scored a spacious balcony on deck 6 fore.
We bought the refreshment drink package (non-alcoholic) and the surf voom package. No specialty dining option because we figured we’d have enough to eat. Our dining time was traditional seating at 8:30.
We booked our travel through MEI travel, and had Michelle as our contact person. She is extremely helpful and friendly, and really responsive with our questions.
Due to inclement weather, the day before our departure the captain sent a note that they’re rearranging our ports of visit, but generally still keeping the same ports and same time-ish for each port. I did book excursions with a 3rd party, so I called them and let them know of the change. He was very accommodating (partly due to the fact that the whole ship is on the same boat as us, literally), so he has to work around the change.
I wanted to do a live blog but I figured I’d rather write a review afterwards so that I can enjoy my vacation. That’s why I didn’t create a thread beforehand. I just jot down the basics of what we did each day.
Day 1
We drove for 1 hr from Palm Beach to FLL, and parked our car at Discount Parking. Definitely would not recommend this vendor. It seemed like they only had 1 shuttle dedicated to cruise passengers, so we had to wait a long time to get taken to the pier (and also at the end, we had to wait almost 1 hour at the pier to be picked up). I did see a lot of Park N Go shuttles, so next time we will try that one.

Due to inclement weather (again), the terminal was moved from pier 29 to pier 18. There was no communication about this from Royal Caribbean. I only found out from the facebook group. I don’t know how people would have found out otherwise. The check-in was quick. There is a short line for the security, then the ipad person took our pictures, and quick picture in front of a backdrop, but other than that off we go to the second floor, which connects to a gangway going to deck 4.



 
We arrived at the terminal around 12:30, and stepped to the ship around 12:45. Although it’s almost one (and therefore our room should be ready soon), since we didn’t really have carry on, we went straight to WJ for lunch. There was a special gingerbread town decoration at the entrance of WJ

Of course we started utilizing our drink package. We ordered pina colada and mango daiquiri. On the first day, they let you use your set sail pass instead of your seapass card to order drinks.
After lunch, we went to our rooms to find out it’s all ready. The seapass cards were waiting in front of the room. Inside the room, all the excursions that we have bough with Royal Caribbean (including explanations about drink package and internet package) are waiting on our bed. I thought the whole thing was extremely well-organized.
 
The room is very spacious for just the 2 of us. There is plenty of storage. The only negative thing is that the balcony still feels a bit closed in, and basically feels like a glorified port hole. I guess this is what you get for doing a GTY. But a balcony is still a balcony, so no complaint here. The closets and drawers offer plenty of storage space.
Within 10 minutes, the stateroom attendant knocked on our door, introduced himself, and informed us about the muster drill. Collin, he is very nice and attentive, and we were very pleased with his service throughout the cruise. There were several times when I came back to the room carrying plates of food from WJ, and he saw me, and he opened the door for me. This happened as early as day 1 btw, so he was definitely quick in memorizing our faces lol.
After the drill, we went exploring around the ship, with drinks in hand of course. The ship is fairly nice-sized, but not too big that I feel like it’s a floating city. I know this used to be considered “top of the line” when it was first launched, but now that there are much larger ships around, Adventure of the Seas is considered medium-large.





There were Christmas decorations around the ship, so it felt really festive. However, they’re also “blocking” some access areas especially on deck 4 and 5, at both ends of the ship (so near Centrum staircases). Not a big deal because most of the time it was never that crowded, except during special occasions where you feel like the added stairway would have alleviated the crowd jam a little bit. Also, there were ship photographers in front of the Christmas tree, preventing you to take your own pictures. You can have your pictures taken, but then you’d have to pay to get them.

During the sail away, we went to deck 12 aft to watch. It was windy and slightly raining.
After the sail away, I tried a the flow rider for a little bit. Bad idea. It was hard, and I think my neck got whiplashed when I fell? I only noticed the soreness the day after. I saw some other people having fun on it, so good for them. Also the flow rider area is VERY windy throughout the cruise, because it’s at the top deck, aft. When the ship was docked it was okay, but whenever ship was on sea, it gets very windy.
I also tried the slides. There are two slides: yellow and blue. The yellow one is supposed to be faster, but it also has a slight “bump” in it, meaning you cannot rest your head completely but you had to hold it up a little bit. This became a problem due to my sore neck, but was a lot of fun otherwise. I have been to a lot of water parks in Orlando, and I can say that these two slides were definitely top notch in terms of speed, thrill, and drops. Also because the ship was rocking, no two “sessions” were the same. It keeps you guessing and anticipating with every turn. I must have done each slide at least 10 times throughout the cruise.
I also talked to one of the lifeguards (Matthew) which was very friendly. He said that one passenger hurt his head on the yellow slide because he laid down his head completely during the bump, so he cautioned me not to do that. He also mentioned that he used to work on Allure, and this was his second week on Adventure. He also didn’t know how to do flowrider in the beginning, but they have crew-only hours to train them, and after several times, now he can at least stand comfortably on it. I guess it made me feel better for not getting the hang of flow rider right away?
Then we wasted some time at the solarium reading / enjoying the hot tub. There was a 5pm raffle for $500 voucher at the spa, although we didn’t win ☹
By this time, it’s already 6 pm ish, so we checked out WJ, which was American-themed. They had a welcome onboard cake, and beautiful dessert spread. I took 2 platefuls of food (one for savory things, one for sweet things) to our room, where the cruise compasses for day 1 and 2 were already waiting. I took pictures of them all so that we can plan out the night and the next day over dinner.


Before dinner, they had a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. It was just a countdown to light the Christmas tree. I expected some singing at the bridge but there was none. This was where the promenade was full of people, standing by and getting around, and the added access (blocked by decorations) would have been helpful.

At dinner, our table was right by the entrance. Because we emailed Royal Caribbean ahead of time, 4 of us were seated together. Our waiters were Franco and Antonio, and they were both very attentive. They even remembered our preferences (my steak rare). On the first two nights, we ordered hot tea, so by the third night, when we sat down, there were already tea bags prepared, and he brought out mugs of hot water without being asked. It’s the little touches like these that make long lasting impression.


I went for double entrees right away: NY Strip and Salmon, while DW went for prime rib. The NY Strip was great, but I feel like the cook is one “over.” I usually order medium-rare at most restaurants on land, but this time I had to order rare in order to get the same cook. Just FYI. For appetizers we did calamari and shrimp cocktail, and for dessert we did chocolate cake, creme brulee, and blueberry cobbler. The appetizers tasted good but the portion was kinda small. Well I guess you could always order double appetizers, and that's what we ended up doing for the rest of the cruise. The desserts were good but not amazing.







After dinner, we went to a comedy show. But shortly into it, we realized that it’s not our style (it was an adult show) so we just left and went back to our room and slept early. The nice thing about Lyric Theater is that, you can sit in the balcony on 4th floor (and it has a separate entrance that goes to deck 4 instead of deck 3). So that if you decide that the show is not your thing, you can leave without disturbing too many people. We ended up watching shows this way for most of the cruise. There is also a bar by the entrance on deck 4 (INSIDE the theater) so you can keep going back to order drinks, again without disturbing people.

We had it at Cape Liberty and in Miami.  In Cape Liberty, we had a dedicated person to scan our passes, then we went through a dedicated security line.  From there we walked right into the boarding area and onto the ship.  We arrived around 10:30am.  In Miami, similar process but when we got upstairs to the waiting area, we had a wait as they were not boarding yet.  When they did call for boarding, they called suites/pinnacles first, then EA, D+, D all at the same time.  So no time savings for us, as we are D.

Yes, both times.  They said as long as one of us had it.  Both passes were on my phone, so there was proof we were together. 

Oops i forgot to answer the part about "what is it".
I can only talk to the experience at Port Canaveral but imagine its similar elsewhere.
At Canaveral there is a seperate line when you arrive at the terminal doors (look to the left).
You walk way down to the back of the terminal, as you walk you will see facial recognition scanners and TV monitors. Assuming they match you to your photo succesfully they hand you an "expedite boarding" card and wave you over to the security scanners, if they dont match cleanly they pull you aside to retake your picture, etc. and then wave you over to the security scanners.
When you go through security and head upstairs you dont have to check-in with anyone, just wait for them to call expedited boarding and you are on-board and good to go.
1st time we went they called expedited before all the status groups, which made it seem awesome.
2nd-4th time they called it after the suites and the C&A groups so we were already onboard and it didnt make a difference other than having a "dedicated" security scanner which had a very short line.
 
 
 

After multiple sailings on Navigator, I am 99% certain that it is triggered by 1)using the app to check-in AND 2)scanning your passport to fill in the check-in information rather than handkeying into the app.
On our 4th trip we had a group of 20 ... every person that did both of the above was marked for expedited check-in, every person that did not do both was not.
Not conclusive but that did match what i was told by Royal rep on our 2nd and 3rd trips and also matches the text i found buried on a Royal web-page after the 3rd trip when i got frustrated and spent a day digging.
Impact of getting expedited is pretty minimal but darn it, if it's offered i want it !

It's completely random.  I really believe that.  My husband and I sailed on Summit in October - I got it but he didn't.  Both of us were checked in using the app and at the same time, both by me.  No reason why one would have it and the other not.
Flash forward to our Oasis sailing in December.  Same thing.  I used the app for check-in, I did them both, and once again I got it but he did not. 
I gotta say it was so easy having it - special line and walked through right away.