Dogmom

OMG!!! It happened!

Wednesday morning came way too quickly. Based on news reports and advice from @Lovetocruise2002 we chose to get to Heathrow 4hrs early for our flights.
We left the hotel at 5 to give us plenty of time to make the short walk to Paddington and get to the airport in case there were issues. This proved to be fortuitous because all of the elevators were not operating, so I got to play Sherpa at the two stair cases to lug the have suitcases down. (It really wasn’t that bad)
This is the walk we did. With everything new, the sidewalks are nice and smooth, and it takes you right to where you need to be.

The first trains 5:15 and 5:30 to Heathrow ended up being canceled, so we ended up on the 5:45 and we’re off. So far, stress level low…
We stepped off the train a few minutes after 6 and headed to terminal 2 to get fully checked in and turn over the luggage. 
 When we got there, there were lines out the door. That was for check in area B, we needed C which thankfully was still inside. Here is what it looked like inside….stress level rising, but not much we knew we still had time, and the line seemed to me moving okay…

What must have been a Heathrow record, we made it all the way through check in and security to the departure lounge by 7:20!! So 1hr 20min from stepping off the train to sitting on my butt sipping coffee, stress level waaaaay down!
While waiting for our gate announcement, I wandered a bit and looked at some really fancy watches. The guy at the counter barely acknowledged my presence because me in my jeans and t-shirt definitely didn’t look the type🤣🤣🤣

The second one from the left, bottom row was 30000£!!!
I almost had to buy this scotch. I live in the village of Scotia, which was founded by Alexander Glen, who was from Scotland, but at 400£ I thought I better not….

Throughout the day, all of our flights were fine, no big delays or issues.
We flew back via Dublin, so we got to do US Customs there which was pretty easy, and made our arrival at Philadelphia as if we were domestic travelers.
By the time we departed for Albany we had been up for many….many…….. hours. This one fell asleep while waiting to taxi, and didn’t wake up until after we landed.

With weary bodies, but heads and hearts full of wonderful memories we arrived home and crashed in our beds….
It was a wonderful trip that I will look back at so fondly. It was an absolute pleasure sailing with @Lovetocruise2002 and her family, they are some of the nicest people out there….except for that one kid while driving bumper cars🤣
Thank you everyone for reading and following along to our adventures! Now I wish I had a genie to take care of the mountain of laundry I have to do…..
Oh….I almost forgot….this happened too!!

We had Marijana as our suite attendant last December. She was amazing!

Situated in the room for sail away after exploring the ship. We did have our sea pass cards waiting for us after we left Coastal Kitchen for lunch, and it’s a ridiculously easy walk from our loft suite to the coastal kitchen and suite lounge. Thanks to the good info on these blog forums, I am definitely glad we went with the deck 17 room, and did not entertain a Royal up that was offered on an Aquatheater suite. For this sailing the choices upgrading from a crown loft were the 2bd Aquatheater, the 4 bd villa suite, or the Royal loft with a grand piano — the latter two just way way too lavish for me and the teens!
Oasis class general impressions :
I can tell as echoed in previous reviews of Oasis class ships THE ELEVATORS ARE A PROBLEM. I can’t even imagine not being an able bodied person to take the stairs if needed - absolutely packed up and down all ways so far, it seems they are short by about half the elevators in both banks. 
Central Park is ah-mazing. What an awesome concept and kudos to the design team for the idea of live plants and the gardeners who tend the area. The whole ship is enormous and beautiful but the whole Central Park area is a wonderful standout, the kids and I agree hands down if you went with one of the interior balconies - definitely the Central Park vs. Boardwalk. 
 
The Casino reeks of stale smoke, we had to pass through there empty to find fhe hibachi place we are eating at tonight and our muster station, and it’s nauseatingly smoky…completely empty with machines off. I don’t want to think how gross it is when it’s open. I’ll be avoiding this area in passing if I can. 
 
Suite Class impressions : 
Wonderful.
 
Mario helped me with the UDP thing for a minute on a busy day around 1:30 when the desk was stacked with confused arriving passengers, and when I popped in again to ask about Waterpark passes since I didn’t see anything in the shore excursions stuff in the room as we returned this afternoon for sail away, he greeted me with a hello by name. 
 
Maria in the suite lounge bar,  who brought me a glass of chilled wine with lunch approached me immediately upon my return with a sweating glass of beer from exploring the ship waiting to ask Mario about the Waterpark and said “let me get you a fresh glass” 
Maria ( housekeeper) was in the hall when I was returning to the suite and went over everything about the room and our dining times and the sofa bed before I could even get the sea pass card from my pocket. 
Wonderful service so far. 
 
the Suite : there’s plenty of videos and pictures online of the crown lofts and it’s more spacious in person. Side note we are port side and do face Cape Canaveral for sail away. I was also pleased the depth of the upstairs bed to the railing is more than it seems online, I think I was picturing dropping something off the the side of the bed and bumping my head on the rail, but it is spacious. 
 
Here are some pics from wandering around today more later! We had masks waiting for us, different for adult, teen and 12 Also make Note of the super weird artwork piece of the half man half sea creature with a mustache being coddled by a man - my kids noted on the way to the casino, I’m not an HGTV designer but what exactly would be the appropriate room to display this ?? Feel free to tell me in replies 🤣

We’ll it’s past 11:30 and they only just called a number 100 people before us when means we probably aren’t getting a bust out of here until 12 or 12:15. I would be stressing if we didn’t already have all our dinner times booked through the Suite concierge, or needed to take care of something that was a first come first serve thing onboard. I just hope Coastal Kitchen is still open for lunch when we get there, I wanted to try that today since we are already in dry clothes 😂. It’s a struggle to get out of swimsuits once we are covered in sunscreen and enjoying the poolside. I doubt RC has much control over how quickly the buses arrive that they load and send back to the port, there could be incoming traffic, slow customs, etc. Mariner is also boarding today so that’s two ships needing transportation l. It does seem like Mariner may sail first / they were calling a lot of Mariner ticket numbers earlier for the available buses to get those people out to PC. Next update will hopefully include a pic of the Harmony of the seas as we approach the terminal! At least a later time gives us a chance that the room will be ready when we get on board so that’s good. 

Tomorrow we are going to push disembarkation as late as we can (eye roll here, yes, we are going to be “those people” this one time) because we are spending one extra day in the UK before flying home on Saturday. The rationale here was that we did not want to face a long flight home on debarkation day. Staying an extra day gives us a chance to rest and reset before flying home. 
 
As we were packing up today, Hubby said to me, “We aren’t staying in some fancy hotel tomorrow, are we?” Well, I wonder if after almost 20 years of marriage he really knows me lol. I am also willing to bet he doesn’t know we had 5 Accor Suite Night upgrades and not 4. 😉
 

10724
Lower level







Downstairs Bathroom



Upstairs










Upstairs Bath

 


Balcony

We are on board!!! Our van picked us up promptly at 10:15, and we were at the port by 10:20. We were dropped off in the general cab area, and the porters were ready to grab our bags. The Boss channeled her inner @WAAAYTOOO and had a vice like grip on her bags and exclaimed “WE ARE STAR CLASS” at which point the kids said wait what??!!
A few of the porters looked at us confused, but one knew what we meant and pointed us in the right direction. 
The star class check in area is in the middle of the building. At that point we were on a mission, so I didn’t get a chance to snap a picture. The regular and star class people did have a list of the star class rooms, so they do verify. 
 
Once at the correct area, we turned our bags into the right people and at that point we were assigned to port personnel who guided us through the rest of the check in.
He first verified our test results, then brought us to security.
Security was a quick walk through the metal detectors where Leroy was waiting for us. 
We met the next crew member who completed the check in process. He verified our passports, vaccine stuff, health questions. 
 
Shortly after Leroy escorted us onto the ship. Meanwhile, I was sending messages to @Lovetocruise2002 about what to expect, and she “yelled” at me that I was teasing her.
From arrival to on the ship was about 10 minutes.

 
 

@GregDwe are on our way!
 
The disadvantage of maximizing your time in Central London and staying there until Cruise morning 😕
 

Inquiring minds want to know. Any physicists out there? Why is that when you are on the ship, time moves at a breakneck speed, but when you are sitting in your hotel waiting for your cab ride time moves backwards? 

Our “ride” is here

Day one cruise outfit is on point. Gotta represent right?

Norwegian Blue nails are done too

Why is it only 8:56??!!???
 

While it’s no afternoon tea at the savoy, having an Uber Eats delivery of pizza to the hotel last night at 11pm as we fought off jet lag and worked on changing our internal clocks surely hit the spot. We are all awake (it’s currently 5:26 local time) and ready to go!

Praise God! We are all negative! This was the most nervous that I have ever been for a sailing! 

Great news! We, and the bags have landed! Lol

April 10 -17 2022
Who is on this trip: 7 of us !
It will be my hubby and I and the crew of 5. It was suppose to be 8 but my sister went with us in February because she couldn’t make this one.
Itinerary:stops will be St Maarten , St Thomas and perfect day. When we booked it was suppose to be Antigua but it was later changed to St Maarten.
We had our covid test today (Friday). Now we are waiting for all results so far 5/7 are back and negative. 

Travel 
We are driving to Port Canaveral. Plans for tomorrow night staying 6 miles from port. We will leave early Saturday morning from Birmingham Al. We have plans to stop in Port Orange to eat at Aunt Catfish’s.
Our genie for this trip is Alexa. We have received our schedule of shows and restaurants. I’m sooo excited for Grease. It just has to be so much better than Cats.

This cruise will be a bit different than most. Ever since my mother in law passed away from lunch cancer in 2008 we’ve been looking for a way to get my wife’s family with us on a cruise or flight to a tropical island. My mother in law, Cathy, always wanted her ashes to be spread in Jamaica or in the Caribbean. I’d love to be able to say it was because of the weather, but we think it’s just because she had a thing for Jamaican guys. 
One of the potential stumbling blocks was going to be having to travel with ashes. However, since we moved to Florida in between booking and now it makes the transportation much easier. Also, being in star class it meant I could communicate with Berty, our genie and have assistance planning a ceremony onboard. I sent Berty a note late last week and he got right back to me with the needs;
-Biodegrable Urn-she had picked out a beachy themed “package” prior to her death so that one was set
-Death Certificate-original or certified copy
-Cremation certificate
Luckily we had all of those handy and sent Berty copies, he also requested we bring them with us just in case. He also is in the process of setting a meeting for embarkation day with the Environmental Officer and/or the Ship’s First officer who will go over scheduling and procedure. Knowing some countries have different laws that can complicate things, I always assumed it would be a sea day. 
As we get more details I’ll be sure to share as I know this often something people think of as they’re planning their wishes. Cathy would be really proud of what her children have become and even though it took way longer than expected, it should be a celebration not a melancholy event. 
 
 
Royal also has a FAQ on the subject for anyone who needs it.
https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-is-royal-caribbeans-burial-at-sea-policy

Lori and Steve on Symphony, last month, with Hossain.

I booked our next sailing!!!! STAR CLASSS! We booked Harmony a deck 9 2 bedroom ATS. ohhh my god it’s happening again lol! 7 day may 27th 2023 let’s goo! 

Lori and Steve on Symphony, last month, with Hossain.

Lori and Steve on Symphony, last month, with Hossain.

We usually tip the attendants the last day/night sometime....whenever you happen to see them.  If you wait until the morning for them, chances are you won't see them.  We always tip the Genie the very last thing.

people are always posting once they get back home “where is my genie” I feel that I will be posting where is my Cami? I truly will miss her! 

We love Cami too and have requested her a few times. When we cruised on Harmony in December our suite attendant was Marijanna and she reminded us so much of Cami. I mentioned it and she told me that they had worked together and were best friends!

LOVE Cami.  She IS the best room attendant of all.

Ask your Genie for an ice cream bar, popcorn, cupcake decorating  in suite or whatever else Sasha wants, order a great movie and maybe a sleepover with Rayne.

Ask your Genie for an ice cream bar, popcorn, cupcake decorating  in suite or whatever else Sasha wants, order a great movie and maybe a sleepover with Rayne.