Wilson

We were at Megan's Bay earlier this month. $5 cash to get in, but beach vendor accepted credit and debit cards for booze, food, loungers and umbrellas. Waitress walking up and down the beach kept great care of us. 

Sorry, I have had too many deluxe beverages tonight. Dec 2018

Went down in my case. Just paid $50 a day for the deluxe package AND Voom for our upcoming Freedom sailing.  

Tagging @Wilson since he is Mr. MyVegas

Has the El Yunque access been restored ?  I know that it was closed for a long time after the hurricane damage.
We did a rainforest tour but it was while we were staying in PR on a land cruise so we had lots of time.  I do recall that it took all day.  Not sure it would be a great one (assuming it's even open) for a half day layover.  We also did the Bacardi rum tour when we were there on our land cruise and we thought it was ok.  I agree with Matt that it is not that big on process but we had a good time.

Wilson, it cost me almost $1300 for us to go to San Juan out of DFW. Never again. 

Bacardi tour was a big disappointment.  Lackluster and more of a commercial than a behind the scenes look at how rum is made.
El Yunque is lovely, but you gotta be the type of person that enjoys hiking in warm and humid conditions.

Who's ready for the premier of "Like Father?" If you have Netflix, you may spot a familiar face or three!  Friday August 3rd, the movie that was filmed during the Royal Caribbean Blog Harmony of the Seas Group Cruise last September is finally here!  A few of us from the group volunteered as extras, so keep your eyes out and you may see some of us! 

Thanks to @Wilson for tipping me off to this!  Today's Galveston Daily News is reporting that the Port is near a deal with Royal Caribbean to bring an Oasis Class ship to Galveston in late 2020.  The Port says Royal Caribbean would build the terminal on land leased from the Port of Galveston. 
The full article from the Galveston Daily News requires a subscription, but here is the full text:
GALVESTON - July 15, 2018
Port of Galveston officials are nearing an agreement with Royal Caribbean to build a third cruise terminal at the Port of Galveston that could cost $85 million and bring the world’s largest passenger ship to the island in 2020.
“We’re working toward a really good agreement,” said Ted O’Rourke, chairman of the port’s governing board. “It’s a great opportunity if we are able to put it together.”
  Port Director Rodger Rees in March announced that Royal Caribbean wanted to bring an Oasis-class ship to the island, but that doing so would require a new cruise terminal.
The port already is home to two cruise terminals at piers 25 and 27, but the size of the Oasis-class ships requires additional support, officials said.
Royal Caribbean’s Oasis-class ships, of which there are four with more planned, are more than 1,180 feet long and capable of carrying more than 6,200 passengers.
Officials are discussing putting the third cruise terminal at Pier 10, next to the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics and BMW vehicle processing plant, Rees said.
“Right now, the talk is about having Royal Caribbean come in and build the terminal themselves, then we’d have them lease the land from the port, sharing in revenues with them. We’d control the parking aspect of it,” Rees said.
Royal Caribbean officials did not respond to a request for comment by deadline Friday.
The proposed facility would have to be about 155,000 square feet, port officials said.
The BMW facility would not have to move under current plans, Rees said.
The benefit of having Royal Caribbean build the cruise terminal would be that the port wouldn’t have to take on substantial debt and would, instead, be able to focus on its substantial infrastructure needs, Rees said.
Ever since the Carnival Celebration made its first voyage from the island in September 2000, the port has come to depend more and more on the cruise business for revenues.
The port depends heavily on revenues from cruise ships. Port officials anticipate about 55 percent of revenue budgeted for 2018 will be cruise related.
Port officials are projecting operating revenues of about $37.4 million in 2018 against operating expenditures of $37.2 million, according to documents.
“This doesn’t use up our borrowing power to build a new terminal,” Rees said.
  Addressing dilapidated facilities at the island’s public docks could cost as much as $250 million, a problem exacerbated by the fact the port is projected to bring in only about $250,000 in net income in 2018, port officials said.
For a third cruise terminal to be ready to host an Oasis-class ship in the fall of 2020, officials will need a project planned and designed by about November, Rees said in a previous interview with The Daily News.
There is not yet a final agreement with Royal Caribbean, and all details of the proposed third cruise terminal could still change, Rees said.
The Wharves Board of Trustees must approve whatever agreement is eventually reached with the cruise line, Trustee Elizabeth Beeton said.
The Port of Galveston is a landlord port, which generates much of its income from lease agreements with maritime tenants and fees related to ship calls.
The port is home to three year-round Carnival Cruise Line ships, one year-round Royal Caribbean ship, one seasonal Royal Caribbean ship and a seasonal Disney Cruise Lines ship.
The Carnival Vista, the cruise line’s newest and biggest ship, will arrive at Galveston’s docks Sept. 23.

In am returning right now from Harmony of the Seas.  It was our first cruise ever!  My hubby and I took our14 year old son, and I just wanted to share his first time with the teen club, which was VERY important to us on our vacation.  The first night, there was a meet and greet in the club, and he said that it was PACKED!  The kids seemed to exchange Instagram addresses, phone numbers etc. the first night and then arrange to meet up throughout the week in groups of 5-30 kids.  He had a blast!   The kids met for lunches, dinners, Flowrider sessions, and the late night dance parties were amazing he said.  The Hush silent dance party with the headphones was the best party of his life he said.   They had games like Battle of the Sexes, which was a boys vs girls very competitive game, karaoke, and many other events.  They had an ice skating party, which required long pants, so pack those too!  My son is pretty outgoing and had no problem making lots of friends and tearfully told us this morning that he had the best week of his life........  my hubby and I felt like we had a “date” with it being just the two of us for the majority of the week, so keep that in mind parents!  To sum it up, have no fears about your teen making friends and finding lots of kids to do fun things with all week!  Have a great trip!  

Yesterday, around noon outside the MDR, I was washing my hands in the ladies bathroom.  Someone had left a pretty gold ring with a few diamonds and colored stones on the sink.  I turned it in to guest services.  Hey, maybe the person who lost it reads this!  I guess just call the cruise line to claim it?

When you handed the bananas over, did you tell the guard you were just holding them for a friend?

So.. story time. 
I went on my first ever cruise with my then-boyfriend-now-husband's family. The second stop of the cruise was Cozumel. In our first stop (Belize), I came back to the ship starving because the only lunch options available were basically burgers or hot dogs and I'm a vegetarian, so I wanted to bring a snack off of the ship with me for our second stop so that if I encountered this situation again, I'd have something to eat. 
So, we're walking off the ship in Cozumel as a group and passing the dogs, and suddenly one of the dogs who had been sniffing my bag sits down and his officer turns to look at me. DH's entire family turns to stare at me pretty alarmed, and I'm sitting there mentally screaming 'I SWEAR I DON'T HAVE DRUGS'. Then the guard just says nicely and plainly, "do you have any produce in your bag?" and I quickly hand him my bananas. 
We still laugh about it today, and if I decide to bring a snack it's pre-packaged. 😂

The website has had issues for...well too long. I have had several different problems. I emailed and it took three weeks for them to respond. In the mean time the issues worked themselves out before they got back to me. 
Most recently I was unable to access my online check-in. Took several days but it finally let me in. 
With this my only suggestion is to keep checking back and it will probably be updated eventually. 

Thank you all so very much.  This is the beauty of this blog site.  

They'll get it all back with the increase in price to Johnny Rockets.

Exactly.  It wasn’t being promoted, but we were able to snag it for our October cruise on Grandeur.  It never hurts to ask.  

Just got an email that a new cruise planner sale for 30% off on-board prices has started. I'm seeing the following for my Anthem cruise in October:
$42/night for the deluxe package (same as when I bought it last month) $18/night for refreshment package (ditto) $14.99/night for VOOM 1-device $28.48/night for VOOM 2-devices (last I saw was $30.38 pre-sale) Might grab the VOOM while it's on sale and I have the chance, since my new billing cycle starts on Sunday. On the other hand, I may wait. I'm sure there will be at least a July 4 and Labor Day sale between now and sail-away. VOOM is less critical to me this trip since it's so short; if needs be, will post-cruise blog instead of live blogging, and I didn't have any real intention of Periscoping this time around.

This is way off topic but I'm going to share this anyway....while tossing summer vacation ideas around lately we asked the kids what they wanted to do.  We've done Disney the last two summers so that was off the table (waiting for Star Wars land to open before returning).  Thought about going to New York or Chicago for a land vacation 😣.  We basically asked the kids what they wanted.  First question, "Is there going to be a lot of walking in NYC and Chicago?".  Yes.  Next comment from the kids, "Ummm....Why can't we just go on another cruise?" 😆Wonder where they get these ideas from??
I have always said and still believe (so far) that cruising is the best value vacation.  Especially for a family.

You'll have a blast in San Juan - we stayed two nights pre-cruise in an AirBnB and had an amazing time. We're planning a trip back for our second anniversary on Freedom of the Seas to the ABC islands and we're already planning on flying in a day early to spend an evening in Old San Juan.

Going with a less stressful Plan B. 
Got a great rate of $119 at the Embassy Suites for a post cruise overnight stay. We can take our time getting off the ship, drop our luggage at Embassy, relax at the pool and/or spend the day enjoying San Juan. 
They switched our flights to 10:22 the following morning at no charge. 
Problem solved. 

Like our cruises, I book early and reprice often. Yesterday the rate at the Embassy Suites dropped to $79!!

Ditto! Getting myself to Signature would also get me straight into divorce court! 😅

Has been one point for $5 coin in on slots and $10 for video poker. Table games, who knows how it ends up being calculated.

Its roughly 1 point per $5 gambled in slots. Table games are anyones guess.