IRMO12HD

For Lanzarote, I would recommend looking for tours to Cueva de los Verdes (http://www.cactlanzarote.com/en/cact/cueva-de-los-verdes/) and/or Timanfaya National Park (https://turismolanzarote.com/en/visiting-the-timanfaya-national-park/)
And for Tenerife, something that lets you visit Teide National Park, where you can (weather permitting) take a cable car ride up to the top of Monte Teide, the highest peak in Spain (https://www.spain-tenerife.com/en/places/teide.html).

I bring my mask, snorkel and fins.  
When I cruise with my dive buddy, between the two of us that is a good part of a 3rd suitcase.  When I dive and cruise alone I scale back my formal wear to contain everything including my mask, fins and snorkel in one suitcase.  That doesn't include BC, regulator or anything else.
I'm okay renting BC and regulator.  Mask is personal in terms of fit.  Find a good one and bring it.  Same with fins IMO, I've seen meh fins when renting.
I've thought about stepping up and buying more gear.  I did so when I was young and diving in my teens.  Life and kids sidelined my sport for a while and when I got back into it all my gear was so out of date it wasn't worth trying to use it in modern times.  In that sense I wasted money on a BC although in the early days of BC's mine was a good one and a lot better than rentals 30 years ago.  Now in modern times lately, I've enjoyed better BC's in rental then I might buy and travel with.  Not always and it varies from island to island but generally speaking...
My advice - bring mask, fins and snorkel.  Great for snorkeling if some days allow it.  Go with rental BC and regulator for now.  If you really embrace it and dive often, buy your own gear.  If not, live with rental BC and regulator.  
Sometimes excursions are offered with gear and without.  You would have to book 6 or more dives per year to cover the cost of "with gear" versus "without gear" excursions for at least 3 or 4 years to break even.  

Menus:


Ignore the prices, not sure why they are on there.

LEAVING FROM:Barcelona, Spain onboard Allure of the Seas VISITING:| Palma de Mallorca | Provence (Marseilles) | Florence/Pisa (La Spezia) | Rome (Civitavecchia) | Naples (Capri) |

I think I’ve seen that on every military form I ever encountered! It’s pretty much the basis for my first reply to this topic! ?

What veteran has not seen this at the bottom of some paperwork: "Previous Editions Of This Form May Be Used". Same procedure going on here. 

Someone on one of my Facebook groups is on Empress and posted this letter about a Bahamas aid drop..thought it was prettt cool to get the passengers to write notes for the hurricane victims.

Holy smokes!!
 
Those pictures are worth the wait for us; fabulous!

Day Eight (Part I)
Disembarkation Day ???
Such a sad day! I kept waking up as we rolled into San Juan and even happened to see El Morro before the 180º spin! We did self-assist and skipped breakfast to finish packing the last of our items. We left our cabin at 7:10 and were in a cab by 7:20! Crazy! We were even stuck behind someone on the outside deck with no sea pass card and waiting for them to turn her away felt interminable. But wow, guess self assist is the way to do it! 
Today was also CBF's birthday and we got to spend another night on vacation in San Juan at the Caribe Hilton so I couldn't be too sad about disembarkation. We taxied to the airport to pick up our rental car (sweet electric blue Hyundai Elantra, haha) and got some breakfast before picking up his mom in Carolina who has been staying at her sister's since going down to help after Maria. They live in such a beautiful house up on a hill where you could see the clouds lingering over El Yunque! I met his uncle (his aunt and mom I had met previously on embarkation day) and we had some Medalla's on the porch. 
After that we headed for the rainforest! El Yunque was soooo lush and beautiful. Every picture I took in there came out so saturated with deep greens and blues! We stopped at La Coca Falls, Yokahu Tower and La Mina trail. A lot of the scenic spots are accessible by car with tiny parking lots and information booths which was nice. 
Map of the drivable section and trailheads:


La Coca Falls


Yokahu Tower + Views




Scenic Parking lot views

I'm going to have to see a picture of this tent when it's not compressed down to the size of a large coffee table book. I'm assuming you're buying not just for compactness but also ultra-lightweight. Otherwise hauling all of that to the beach every single time would be quite the workout!
I was always the one required to wheel the beach cart around through the sand on every family vacation, so I've come to appreciate going to a place with nothing more than my bathing suit, my towel, and a small backpack to hold the sunscreen and other essentials. I don't consider it being an amateur, more like valuing the convenience over the pay-it-there costs.
Kind of like Kathy Bates' character in that one scene from Fried Green Tomatoes, where the young girls cut her off and steal her space in the parking lot and comment, "Face it, lady, we are younger and faster." So she deliberately crashes her car into theirs several times and deadpans to them after they've run back out, "Face it, girls. I'm older, and I have more insurance." ?

I am going to take the class on the Oasis and then the Liberty to compare experiences to see if they are different on each ship or not.  Besides its sushi can't have too much of it :)

I did the class on Enchantment in February this year -- it was a BLAST!  There were about 10-12 people in the class; we all washed our hands first, and then had little "stations" set up on tables.  The Sensei showed us how to do it, and then talked us through it.  I think it would be ideal for anyone who's interested in sushi but is intimidated by it (that's me!).  After we were done, I couldn't eat all of mine, but they provided me one of the dish covers and I took it back to our cabin so my husband could try some of my "masterpieces!"
 
 

Can my teen take this class?  He is our wannabe chef and would probably want to do it with us.

We’ve done this class twice now (once on Grandeur and once on Anthem as a gift from our Genie).  Both classes were the same. They help you prepare a nigiri, a roll and one of those funnel-shaped things.
For the first class, I followed sensei and made the sushi as he instructed. I was pretty terrible. Stuff fell out the ends of the roll and my shrimp did not stay with the rice for the nigiri. I shudder at the thought of my funnel-thing. It was horrible.  It was at this point that I realized that I really just DO NOT like that nasty seaweed (forget the name of it) that they use in the rolls...and the funnel thing.
...so for my second class, I went rogue.  I shoved that seaweed right back at ‘em.  I made my roll without it !  Ha !  Of course, it was pitifully “flaccid” and you could only move it by pushing it along the plate, but by God I did not use that icky seaweed and it tasted GREAT !  The shrimp still did not stick to the rice like it’s supposed to. Haven't figured that one out yet.  I completely ignored the sensei when he started doing the funnel-thing and created another roll (I had to steal some rice from off the sensei’s table b/c I had used all of mine) so I had another limp roll to push around. 
So the moral of this incredibly long sushi-saga is....do what you want to and have fun with it.  If you don’t like the seaweed (and who would ?  Ick !) just tell them you have a seaweed allergy. 

What can I say... RCCL has very generous interns

@princevaliantus How rude!!! Where's our Mimosa's...?.@Jess If you haven't noticed, there are a few of us that have been known to be jokesters... i won't mention any names but their initials are Twanster, rjac, JLMoran and off in the distance is that scottish & aussi blokes. If you can't tell i'm more of the serious type.

Wrong Cruise Line .....

For FWIW, you can call the RC Visa Cruise Credit Department and ask for you onboard credit to be applied to your cruise account earlier than 14 days prior to departure.  It helps with making Cruise Planner purchases earlier during sales.  The reason they wait in posting is that if for some reason you had to cancel your cruise, you lose your Onboard Credit as BOA considers it a non-refundable gift certificate.  You have to work with RC to get it applied to another cruise.  In the old days you didn't get the credit until the second day of the cruise.

Hi Everyone!  
I have the Royal Caribbean Visa Card & cashed in my points (only $ 150.00) so far for my upcoming sailing on 9/7/19 to Bermuda on Anthem.
When you redeem these points for on board credit dollars, these "on board dollar" do NOT show up until 14 days prior to your sailing date.
I had pre-booked my drink package, internet package before then.
But, to my surprise, the prices decreased after I received my on board credit, so I cancelled my previous bookings & got the lower price ALONG with using my on board credit...
It was a nice win, win situation.
Hope things work out for you@Melbae9 ? 
 

+1 for this, especially if you're on a shorter cruise (<7 days) and you can afford to take the extra day or two to fill out the week off from work. I did that last October for our Bermuda sailing then, doing it again this year. Combined with the fact we're just driving home from the port, it makes for a nice relaxed disembarkation.
On these trips, we're that couple; the one who's hanging out in Two70 Lounge, enjoying the last beverage sold in the cafe and waiting until 9:30, when we hear that very final, "Please, if you're not doing a B2B then GTFO!" We've made sure to clear the room plenty early so housekeeping doesn't have turnaround impacted, but darned if we'll rush our breakfast or not enjoy the last bits of hospitality we can elsewhere.
I just read an article about how people in the US are reluctant or embarrassed to take their vacation time and it blew my mind. You've got it, for goodness sake use it!

Not to hijack your thread, Traveler but I have a disembarkation tale to pass on.
As most of you may recall, it was 1 year ago that LIB in Galveston lost our luggage at the terminal.  Since that time we no longer leave our bags outside the night before disembarkation; instead, we choose to keep our bags and walk them off when we disembark. Ok.  Nothing unusual about that BUT our car wasn’t coming to pick us up until 9:00 and the last thing we wanted was to leave the ship with the early birds and then be stuck out in the hot Texas sun for an hour or more.
I asked the Suites Concierge if she could help us but her time for walking off luggage was too early and walk-off scenario for later departures included stairs which was a no-go for us with all that luggage.  So, we were left to our own devices.  We decided to leave our suite at 7:30 and wait at Boleros on deck 4 until 8:30.  It was perfect. We found chairs next to power outlets and our hour passed quickly BUT we could see the departure line getting longer and longer and longer and longer.  We were suddenly not too happy with our plan.  They had security posted strategically to keep the line jumpers away.  
If things had been left to me, we would have just made the long and sad trek to the back of the line but Dan is smarter than me.  He went up to one of the security guys, told him we were in a suite (our luggage tags confirmed that as well),  and to my utter astonishment, he took us some circuitous route through closed doors, past barriers, past long lines of people all the way through to a special exit kiosk.  Even our Concierge never took us that far !  As a matter of fact, last year when we disembarked, our “expedited disembarkation” was a ticket to the back of that very long line.  We remarked at the time, “I could have done this myself.  What did I need the Concierge for ?”  I’m sure this saved us at least 40 minutes !  So the moral of this story is....don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.  Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t. Luckily for us, this time, we did.

Post our last cruise I thought of several ideas how to make the embarkation day more bearable , please feel free to add some more of your ideas :
Do not try to get even with the ultimate drinking package – try not to drink too much alcohol during the  last evening/night , it will make the morning easier. Try to go to sleep early so you will get several hours of sleep before leaving the ship. Avoid WJ at the disembarkation morning , try to go to another place for breakfast  , WJ is a mad house during disembarkation morning. The best time to fly back from the port will be 11:30 am – 1 PM (depends how far the port is from the airport) so you can leave the room around 8 am and go directly to the airport without the need to figure out what to do until your flight. If you have very late flight consider to take day stay in one of the hotels , nothing worse than walking  around with tired sad people around you trying to  pass time until your flight. Check your bill during the day before the last day so if you need to fix something with guest services you will not need to wait in long lines. If you have enough vacation time try to take few days to continue your ovation after the cruise , for example, you cruised from Orlando with the family ? why not to  add few days in the different parks. If you can , give yourself one day off at home before going back to work. If it is possible always try to do self disembarkation , it will allow you to control when to pack, when to go out from your room (up to 8:30 am) and you will not need to check if your numbers were called or not. User the Luggage Valet program if available . that way your suitcase will arrive directly to your home airport and you will not need to carry them before via custom.  Use the porters , some time they can save allot of time by using special queues. ·          

When I had a conversation with the Hotel Director on Mariner (Ron Ness), the 1st 2 questions I asked him about Coco Cay were "how did they fill the pool" and "can the slide towers handle a hurricane".  He said that had a desalination plant as @twangster mentioned and he said they designed Perfect Day to withstand a cat 5.

Maybe when they finish all the construction, they could offer a All Access Island Tour with behind the scene areas.

It's why we call them them the CC police. It's as if I committed a capital crime. Nasty comments. I'm sorry but I'm not buying a soda package for a 4 year old. Now he is 6 and we are on Anthem next month and I did get him a soda package which I'm still questioning. I got it for him and my wife. I am drinking free water this cruise. I have lost 73 pounds and have up all soda and only drink water. I'm gonna bring 10 bottles of water, carry them on and then drink ship water the rest of the way. 
It's gonna be nice to cruise and not be fat! Just as a side note. ?