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Please join me in congratulating  @Matt on this 25th day of July 2019 as the Royal Caribbean Blog message boards have reached 10,000 members. Woot!  Woot!

Fair winds, following seas and may the Kraken always be full in your cup! 
Happy cruising everyone!

You know what they say...
What happens at The Quest stays on the internet.

Those Centrum photos!

The pool is smack in the middle of the port and free to use..chairs are free as  well!

Day 4 Afternoon
Back on board it was time.  It was also Diamond Happy Hour so the regulars were checking in.

Back on board was 5:30pm.  By 6pm the ship's whistle had been used several times and a party of 5 was requested to contact guest services several times.   There was pier runner potential but...

I had a reservation in Chops so I didn't hang around to learn of their outcome.  I was seated in Chops just before we pulled away from the pier.
Caesar Salad:

New Zealand Rack of Lamb.  Yum.

New York Cheesecake

I swung by my cabin to change but my cabin attendant was servicing it so I headed up to the WJ to see what tonight's offerings included.  English Night with many of the regular English theme night items as seen on other ships.

Windjammer has it's own bar so while I waited...

I thought I'd swing by the deck 6 aft public deck behind Boleros.  Half smoking, half not.

Empress is definitely a ship where you can connect with the sea.

Back to my cabin I thought Kenneth had forgotten to leave a Cruise Compass but then I discovered the towel animal had taken in.

I don't always blog from day 4 on Empress after stopping in Costa Maya in July, but when I do...

Day Two - Key West, continued...
We arrived as the first ship into port and we hit the jackpot with the primary Mallory Square berth.  A Carnival ship would arrive later and end up behind us.



It grew hot pretty quickly so I ventured off to grab a few pictures in between work activities.  I am working a bit on this cruise so I took advantage of the strong cellular connection towards that goal.



Back on board we sailed away at 5:30pm and I made my way to the Windjammer for dinner.  Jerk night.  Yum.  
The WJ is forward facing on this ship.



The band Mass Effect was playing in Boleros.  Pretty good and one Mojito turned into another. 

A sunset was looking promising but some clouds on the horizon stole the show away from me.  From the pool deck;

The Viking Crown Lounge is different on Empress.  It is aft facing, not forward facing like the VCL is on most other current ships.




Empress does have a rock climbing wall.


Movie night.  Tonight's movie was Captain Marvel.

This picture doesn't do golden hour justice.  Sunsets at sea are often some of the best.

Kim Kincade was on the piano and singing in the Schooner Bar.  Ballroom dancing display in the Main Theater didn't grab my attention so I hung out in the Schooner Bar for an hour, or two, or three.  Kim is from Nova Scotia and he is pretty good.  
Late night adult comedy hour was good and the theater was packed.  A couple had their 5 or 6 year old daughter with them.  This show was not appropriate for that age and the comedian didn't hold back.   She doesn't speak english was the couples response.  I don't buy that.  Some people.  

The points are icing on the cake.   I'm on a cruise on a ship I enjoy.  It may not be the newest or biggest ship, but I'm on a cruise while @Matt is sitting at home thinking and talking about being on a cruise.  That itself proves I am winning.  The points are just icing at this point.   

Someone's hacked @twangster account. Where's all the drool-worthy photos? #NotMyTwangster

All I know is that this is now on my list for drinks to try next week. 

Haha....Tell them to just lean with the Captain like you do on a motocylcle.

I’m still leaning towards the idea that he was holding her up so she could see out and she just wiggled loose and fell.  The whole “I didn’t know it was an open window” just isn’t believable.   It’s just a terrible, horrible, sickening accident. They happen every day.  But there is no way that this is the fault of the cruise line.  I hope they fight it.

So, I was googling and couldn't find any evidence of similar incidents on cruise ships. I did find several similar incidents in zoos. Parents picked up a child to give them a better view of the animals and the child slipped, squirmed or otherwise fell into the enclosure and was injured or killed. In most cases, the zoo was not held liable since the adult in the situation was deemed equally or largely at fault by circumventing the safety precautions.
There are two circumstances I found that increased the zoos liability. 1) the incident occurred under supervision of zoo employees. 2) The zoo was aware of parents "dangling" their children, had discussed it and failed to act on that information.
While not a perfect example, the zoo incidents are close enough to extrapolate probable arguments. The cruise line will argue that having windows that open are standard on most cruise ships and the grandfather acted in a negligent manner by lifting the child up to rest on the railing. The grandfather's actions were a more significant factor to the accident than the design of the window.
The parent's case will likely hinge on whether there was significant discussion by RCCL of the possibility of this type of incident happening and whether the cruise line had previous reports of similar behavior. If this could be proven through discovery, then the parents stand a chance of prevailing in their action.
Regardless, I think the overall outcome will be for signs on railing and windows indicating the danger will be added, but the functionality of the windows will remain. This is how the zoos have handled this in the past.

I would imagine that if you can describe it, the bartenders can build it!  It sounds really good!

We were on an impacted Cuba cruise and were very happy with the way it was handled. Between that and the $18 beverage snafu (on a 2020 Perfect Day holiday cruise with my kids that had already been booked), Royal has created a customer who will turn to them first for cruising.
Oh, and I spent a whopping $10 on board my Majesty cruise and was incredibly impressed that my refund was posted to my CC within 36 hours of debarkation. 

I think that the smartest decision they made regarding Coco Cay was the Daredevil slide and to build over the water cabanas.  We had a cabana and my SIL until this cruise was NCL, NCL, NCL.  She grudgingly went on Royal with us.  Got to the cabana and her view changed.  No NCL ship insight for their private island yet at that point. 9 a.m. one pulls up and she starts laughing about how they were stuck at NCLs private island and had to tender in.  30 mins later another pulls up, and now she was like OMG 2 ships, and here we are with just ours.  We laughed and said what do you think those passengers are saying as their kids see this giant water slide as they pull into their private island?  Mommy  are we going there, No, honey, sorry we are going over there, but don't worry next cruise we will go there!
Between Coco Cay and the Chefs table she has now become loyal to Royal

I totally agree that Grandpa used poor judgement resulting in a tragic mistake. But I don't think the family is necessarily trying to "strike it rich" - because I remember how I felt when tragedy struck my family, albeit under different circumstances. One of the early symptoms of grief is anger, and certainly this family has a lot to be angry about (Mom is angry at Dad for letting Grandpa take the baby over to the window, Dad is angry at Grandpa for lifting the baby up to the window, Grandpa is angry at himself for being responsible for the tragedy, Grandma is angry at Grandpa for causing the death of the baby, etc.) and when people are angry, they flail around looking for someone to blame. When my daughter was killed, I was angry at EVERYONE with whom I could find anything to be angry about, and her father was so angry he drove people away (a phenomenon you may have observed in other bereaved parents), but that was just a normal grief reaction that gave way, eventually, to the deep grief that comes when the energy provided by anger is spent.
The only person I blame is the lawyer, who I think is the one trying to get rich by inventing this cockamamie story of it being a "kids area" and parading this family in front of the media. I don't hate lawyers, by any means. My dad was a lawyer, but he never chased an ambulance or a cruise ship or dragged his clients into the limelight. He honored the confidentiality of the lawyer/client relationship, that this lawyer apparently never heard of.

Thanks all for the very kind words and compliments. 
Thanks to you for all of your helpful and insightful advice, commentary and humor on these boards. I'm really glad we have this wonderful place to talk about the most important thing in the whole wide world.

Congrats to Matt! 
RC Blog & podcast have been so instrumental on keeping me entertained and informed! 
I'm a speed listener so I appreciate the fast speak ?

Omg. I have mental meltdowns when the speed is changed by accident. Not sure why I can’t handle it but I feel like I’m going nuts when it’s not on regular speed 

Hi LarryR - post on all the boards that you want but Royal is your best shot. They know who the customer was that was in the room the cruise before yours. Assuming it's of value, like jewelery, I would reach out to customer service and see if someone has been looking for it. If it's a $20 item the owner probably has written it off and you will.... throw it out. 

For CP balcony rooms..look for the ones that end in 629 or 229..they have larger balconies and are priced the same!  Also you don't want to be higher as that will be closer to the pool deck above.  I've got CP balcony rooms booked on Allure and Oasis on 10 and 11 right now.

Lanyard for my new sea pass and my "Black Jack for dummies" paper back in case I feel lucky.....

It's called YOLO...book another cruise asap...closes to August..then the wait isn't as bad! ?