KenCP

thanks @Matt,  @mom2mybugs, and @WAAAYTOOO you guys are the best.
 

I tried just folding and was hard to do...I just cut and it worked great!!  Jane

You can cut them if you want. We just fold them but either way works fine with the plastic sleeves. 

Yes, you can.

If you are planning on drinking bottled water, a few cocktails, a couple wines with dinner and a drink or two during a show etc it may be worth it. Here is a great calculator that was developed and posted by @Grenadyr this may help you out.  Also look for packages when they go on sale.  They are always specials posted in your cruise planner.  You can always purchase a package them when it goes on sale cancel and rebook it.
https://connect.calcapp.net/?app=9tts3#/

No trouble Jane using 100's in Europe.  You can always visit a bank and they would be more than happy to change it up for you as well if you want to have smaller bills to use.  I had to show my passport the last time but they had no problem changing my 100 bills. 

When I took my first cruise on Vision in March 2015, I could not have predicted that I would be sailing her again so quickly as my 7th cruise and my 3rd one this year!!!  While I think this is the last hurrah for a while (we have rhapsody scheduled for next spring break, but the family wants some land trips to disney and london and my credit cards are screaming in agony lol), it is going to be an amazing trip.
The set-up:  2 years ago ish, we started looking at Europe Itineraries.  We were getting ready to turn 50 and had wanted to do Europe forever, but Disney kept getting in the way ? As soon as the itineraries came out, we saw the 12 day on Vision.  I truly wish that we were on a different ship in that I really wanted to try radiance class, but I enjoyed Vision as my first ship.  We wanted to do something different though, and we looked at the ultra spacious family room.  We only had 3 people traveling...more on that in a sec...and Sharla at MEI was able to grab 4032 for us.  It has a separate little bunk room for our 16 year old and a large couch/seating area.  There will be tons of storage and room to move around.  I don't usually care about our space much, but this will be nice since the whole trip will be 16 days with our pre-cruise stay in barcelona.  Those of you with teenagers know that some space will definitely be needed!   We thought about a balcony, but because Vision is so small and older, the balcony rooms are a lot pricier than on some of the newer ships.  In some ways I wish we'd tried jr suite...we'd have gotten 24 points!...but this trip is already a huge reach for us, so we will enjoy our different room with a big window and enjoy the ocean breezes on the outside decks!  
The travelers:  Jane (mom2mybugs), Jeff (the husband who doesn't love cruising as much as I do but is really looking forward to the ports) and Madison (16, who is very much excited for Europe).  In retrospect, we should have also booked our 22 year old and 20 year old on the cruise as well.  2 years ago, we figured they'd both be working, but Morgan is still finding her perfect post-college job and John just got back from a study abroad in Germany and can't find a 6 week job.  I'm not sure we could have afforded to bring them with air-fare, excursions, etc, but booking them at the beginning would have given us the flexibility if it wanted them to come.  I looked at adding them a few months ago, and the muster stations were full and the cost to put them in another room (even interior) was insane.  So they will be staying with the 2 members of the family that I will be missing dreadfully (the 2 schnauzer puppies!) and basically keeping the house hopefully standing!  Madison is usually a huge teen center kid...we hardly see her at all on the cruises because she meets people and ditches us immediately. We aren't expecting nearly as many teens on this trip as we see in the Caribbean on spring break cruises.  However, she is not as stressed because the port days are so long and she is planning on lots of family time.  I am hopeful that she will find a couple girls to hang with in the evenings and on the sea days, because Jeff and I are pretty boring and we'd also like a little us time!
The itinerary:  Amazing!  
July 24--Fly out of Chicago O'Hare at 630pm, arrive Barcelona at 9:50
July 25-28  Barcelona.  We have a barcelona city card, a barcelona day tours 1/2 day tour (they will pick us up from the airport) and a segrada familia ticket.  We will just roam around and eat/drink!  We are staying at an airbnb very close to the segrada familia.  It has a tiny balcony, 2 bathrooms and bedrooms and is out of the tourist area.  We thought about staying near the ramblas, but really wanted to not exhaust ourselves before the trip.  We can easily metro it looks like and we should be able to see a fair amount.  We are still trying to decide if we will go to Tarragona (Roman Ruins), Sitges (beach town) or both on a day trip (train out by ourselves, or do a 100 euro tour)...I still can't decide.  I don't want to race around, but i will regret not seeing the aquaduct and other ruins.  I'm very worried about the heat in europe though...my daughter tends to drag/mope/get herself sick in heat and my husband isn't in great shape.  We may just do the tour because it is easy and the van will be air conditioned.  Oh yeah, and Jeff and I will celebrate our 29th anniversary on the 28th!
July 29  Board Vision of the Seas early....yep...I'm one of the those people who are there before security opens!  I am so excited!
July 30 Cannes  No tour scheduled.  Either we will do the public crowded beach or take a taxi out to a more quiet location.  Didn't want to spend a ton here since the other excursions are crazy expensive.
July 31  Florence (well La Spezia).  I know someday I will get back to Italy.  After Paris it is a true bucket list trip.  However, i am trying to tell myself that I will go back over and over.  It is going to be hot, crowded and we are cruising into a port a fair distance from Florence, Rome and Athens.  So we did all tours with Royal.  We are skipping Pisa since time is limited, and just doing Florence.  I really really wanted to buy an Uffizi ticket on my own but I can't quite figure out how much free time we have and I know that I wouldn't have more than a couple hours.  I think we are better off just finding one of @Traveler's gelato places and relaxing.  It will kill me...I'm a go/go/go hit every museum person but I'm trying to make my mantra "Pace/pace/pace!"
Aug 1  Rome (again...not actually rome but far out).  We did a tour that will get us into the vatican museum and st. peters and I will see the Sistine chapel along with a gazillion of my close personal friends.  It will be packed.  I will be heartbroken if things are too crowded or the pope closes something, but again, I'm telling myself nothing is a have to...I will be back!!!  We will drive past the coliseum, but i traded that entry for the religious art!
Aug 2 & 3   Sea days!  Much needed relaxation in my happy place on my sky deck chair near the bar!  I have my paperback books, my sunscreen and my chair clips!  I am tempted to do the thriller dance class which i think would be fun, but might involve me getting off my deck chair or not getting one in time, so maybe not!
Aug 4  Athens!  I heard they closed the acropolis for 6 hours because of the extreme heat.  I am hoping this doesn't happen while we are there, but they will find something for us to do.  This is the port I'm the most worried about heat and water consumption.  Hoping nobody gets heatstroke.
Aug 5  Mykenos   Jeff will celebrate his 51st birthday in Greece!  Because he is a high school social studies teacher, one of my majors was history and Madison is looking at anthropology/archaeology as a potential college major, we are going to the ancient ruins in Delos.  This will also be hot.  Really Really hot.  Hoping the fact that we are done by noon will help.  This will be a very cool port stop though!
Aug 6  Santorini   This is the stop that originally i was really pumped about, and now I'm hoping we survive.  There are 4 or 5 ships in port that day, so it will be crazy crazy crowded and hot.  We are simply going to do a tour of Oia, walk around a bit, and then hit a cafe for some wine.  I think this stop will be a take pictures and soak up atmosphere because I feel like it will be over-tourists.  I don't think we will get back to Greece, and so I hope we can see what we want and enjoy whatever we are able to do.
Aug 7   Sea day!  I loved this itinerary because it gave me sea days to relax on a port intensive cruise.  Again, Vision is a bitty ship, so I think we will enjoy some trivia, my deck chair will call my name and I will spend my $20 on the quarter game in the casino.
Aug 8  Valetta, Malta  We are doing the blue grotto and fishing village tour.  It will be relaxing, we will see the beautiful caves and water, and I'm actually looking very forward to not having a lot of ships here.  Apparently they filmed some of Game of Thrones here?  Means nothing to me but since Jeff and my son have been binge watching the first few seasons this summer, he might recognize something!  
Aug 9   Last Sea Day.  And that dreaded day of having to get packing!  Ugh.  I have never done a cruise over 7 days and I think it will be amazing.  However, I will not be looking forward to going back to work (in education, August is gear up for the year time lol!).   
Aug 10  Back in Barcelona.  We have a 355 flight so we had some options.  We didn't want to hang at the airport all day so we considered the option to stay on the boat.  I thought that would be pretty depressing...all these excited people just starting their trip and we would have to be going home.  So we decided to do the montserrat trip and airport transfer.  We had been trying to figure out montserrat earlier and decided it would be a fun last day activity and we wouldn't have to worry about the airport transfer or catching a cab.  It says it is good for any flight after 3 and will get us to the airport by 1215.  I will be stressed about getting through security but i know really we have plenty of time.  
 
Dining and Extras:  We bought a 4 day dining pkg.  I would have considered the udp, but there are only 3 specialty restaurants on vision, and we don't want to do them that much.  We will go to giovannis on Jeff's bday, chops, izumi and I think chops a 2nd time.  I've never gotten fish at chops, so i'm tempted to try it one time.  Chops is a trickier restaurant for my vegetarian girl, but she can live on the sides!!!  And the dessert!!!   Jeff and I also are doing Chef's table  again.  We have done it twice before, and I know this is a repeat menu but I enjoy it a lot, and I'm hoping I get the world again for dessert!  We are going my time dining this time, and expect that we will hit the windjammer a couple nights (esp. Rome and Athens) because we will be tired.  We booked middlish times...630ish...because if madison does want to meet people, she can, but we didn't want to do too early.  We are kinda getting tired of the scheduling specialty at 530 or 6 for her, so we might schedule stuff a bit later and tell them she is leaving.  Then we can have dessert and coffee together.  I haven't really checked out show times, etc., since the compasses out there have been pretty old.  However, again, we can either try to get an earlier table at my time, or skip the dining room if there is something we really want to see.  We are going team drink pkg as usual...it is close for jeff in terms of price, and i totally benefit.  I also think we will be drinking a ton of water, so that will totally make up the difference, plus sending jeff for my morning latte!  We snagged it on a sale for $48 and then upgraded to $57 for the voom.  Voom will be spotty...vision is not known for its good internet...but i want to be able to check email and facebook message the kids back home.  Plus, if we get signal, I will try and periscope for sure (I think I'm mom2mybugs there).  I will also try to blog.  I have to try and find the email that had the info on the picture compresser thing.
 
So that is it....I'm doing a week long babysitting live-in job that pays for a lot of our plane tickets so i'm crazy busy until Sunday.  Then its drs appointments, last minute pedicures and on our way wednesday!!!!!   So can't wait to share my first experiences in these amazing ports.  Jane
 
 
 

Yeah...since I dry everything on low at home, I’m figuring we won’t send much out.  My xs daughters clothes would disappear!  Jane 

That was the case on Symphony in May. The best part of that was when coming back to the ship from an excursion and you could avoid the long lines and just drop the towels in the bin.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/03/26/royal-caribbeans-the-key-worth-it
Also I have heard from a few people you do not have to wait around to have your pass scanned for pool towels.

You can always call customer service and let them know your situation.  If 3 people in your group have purchased they may release one more.  I had seen in a previous thread this happened to a family and they were able to purchase one more.  It is also likely that someone will cancel the key before your cruise if they are not able to help you out.

You can always call customer service and let them know your situation.  If 3 people in your group have purchased they may release one more.  I had seen in a previous thread this happened to a family and they were able to purchase one more.  It is also likely that someone will cancel the key before your cruise if they are not able to help you out.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/03/26/royal-caribbeans-the-key-worth-it
There is signage for you to follow in the terminal.

Royal uses an open source database behind the front end that we see.  While they migrated the front end public website, the monster database is another matter.  Lipstick on a pig.
I've mentioned it before but I suspect Royal's IT organization is underfunded.  Their executives talk up technology on ships yet don't want to spend any money on their IT organization or IT infrastructure.  
I imagine a weekly meeting with an executive goes like this:
Executive - I've got this great idea where our website will let our guests do all these wonderful things
IT - Given the state of our archaic systems we'll need to upgrade the 10 disparate platforms that should've been upgraded 15 years ago and consolidate them into a single modern platform.   It will cost $1M and we'll need to hire 5 developers.
CFO - We can't afford that.  Go ahead and do it but don't spend any money.

Jane I am a over packer but getting better. I am down to traveling with just one suitcase now and a carry on. On this trip to Europe I am even going to go with a smaller checked bag.  
I have done many trips overseas and always packed way to much. I am a “what if” person too!  It is not fun traveling around Europe with two suitcases and a carryon even if you are gone for a month. Especially in the summer months. I think in my former life I traveled with large trunks and had a small staff that traveled with me. 
I have realized that if I do not have something I can always buy it. Also rather than bringing lots of different coloured outfits for the evening, I have brought items that I can mix and match but still feel that I am wearing something different. 
I have been know to buy to much when away, but I have made use of the postal service and had things sent back rather than buying another suitcase. 
Packing cubes have been treating me well.
Good luck with packing.

So I just got done reading @Whizbank live blog and she stated that she would pack lighter next time.  I'm now sitting and looking at the suitcase I'm going to have trouble closing today.  Ugh!  So thought I'd share some things I'm going to do for the European cruise this summer (16 days in Barcelona and on the ship) as an accountability post lol.  Please chime in with suggestions and encouragement lol.  I know like the drink pkg we have beaten this to death, but hey, it's fun! 
1.  Royal has amazing storage in their rooms, both interior and outside.I have sailed 5 classes now and fit everything every time.  Majesty had a dinky closet but a great big side table and window ledge.  Others have hidden shelves, ottomans, other closets.   Obviously the longer cruises are a bit more challenging which leads to....
2.  Rewear!  I have favorites that I take on every cruise that I could totally wear over.  Some things I will wash when I get home that I only wore once (or not at all) and they aren't even really dirty.  I get if it's super hot you might have to selectively rewear, but I don't pack that way.  7 days, pack for 9 lol.  Ugh!   Do I need 2 formal dresses? Heck no. Is it ok if people are me in the same outfit twice... Absolutely.    Do I need extra clothes not at all... That's where #3 comes in...
3. Laundry!  I will freely admit I haven't used it in the ship and I won't risk any favorite clothes (I worry about too hot dryers).  But I spend everywhere else...Porters, drink pkg, extra 2 dollars for my favorite ? etc....   A bag of laundry will not kill me to pay for!   And my bathing suits, etc, are wet when I came back...I can hand wash them in the shower.  Now again, with how long everything takes to dry I am not bringing detergent and hanging everything... But a small stain is solvable by a  quick rinse.
4.  Packing cubes....   That was a long thread earlier.  I personally love them but didn't use them correctly.  I was in 3 different places pre-cruise, cruise and post-cruise.  I should have packed the cubes that way rather than every time I wanted an outfit having to go through different ones.  I could have put my pre-cruise two outfits in a bag with a bathing suit and pair of jammies and never opened the rest!
5. Shoes....  Sigh.  I did do better this time.  I wore my tennis shoes on the plane and once again, it wasn't necessary for me personally to have them.  I will just wear my walking sandals on the plane too.  I took my lighter weight sandals this time and didn't fuss with the 3 inch heals I would wear once or twice. I actually packed 2 pairs of flip flops in case one pair broke....omg WHY?  Which leads to...
6.  This next cruise no matter what I'm going with the Rick Steve's packing rule which I never do but am going to start!  I love his travel blogs and YouTube videos and he says "always pack for the expected, not the unexpected".  Ok...I'm a pack for the unexpected....my shoe might break, my phone cord might break, I might spill coffee on my 4 sweaters... All 4!  All the unexpected back-ups come home unused and talking up space.  I'm not traveling to the middle of Africa where I might have trouble getting something!!!! (If you are, you are probably better at packing than I am anyway and not reading this!).  Next time I will truly try and follow this.  Heck I will pack a $100 extra dollars just for things I might need to get and when I don't, take myself out to a nice Cafe somewhere!  
7.  Go with your history and your gut.  Every trip I pack shorts "just in case I feel like wearing them" and workout clothes "just in case I want to work out".  Ok...I've now been on 6 cruises.  Not once have I put on shorts or tshirts (Im a sundress girl) and the only time I've set for in the fitness center is to take pics on day one.  If I haven't used something at home (do I really want that dress) or on a ship, it is just not gonna get used here!  
8.  Compare with the other lovely people in your family.  In March my family brilliantly brought 3 tubes of toothpaste.  Seriously.  We all packed our regular travel kits and we all have toothpaste.  Oh well.  Next time I'm going back to the family ziplocks...1 toothpaste and common shampoo, soap, etc.  And I'm getting slightly better at judging amount we use.  For example, I love using the bath & body works squirt soap better than the bars.  They smell nice and I just like them.  We don't need a whole bottle...I can bring a half-used one and then I have 2 more oz and space at the end of the trip!  Same goes for shampoo, lotion, etc!  
9.  Suitcase stuffing.  I'm a stuffer.  If the suitcase is at 40 lbs and not full, I can stuff just one more extra dress or pair of shoes just in case.  Nope.  The problem is that it takes me forever to fit everything in at home.  I don't have that time on the trip and what happens is I frantically stuff everything in and one day I'm gonna break the zipper.  I have had to buy and check an extra suitcase at Disney before (ok...I could get into souvenir shopping here.  I didn't buy the rum in Nassau because I knew I wouldn't have the space or weight lol).  So next time, things will fit better at the start.  I will do what you are supposed to... Pack and then unpack and take out a bunch you don't need!  Because I don't need the stress at the end of the trip!
So I've now spent time I should have been packing avoiding it but when I get home, this is what's I'm going to re-read before I pack!!!!!! Jane

When it comes to photography @JLMoran and @twangster are in a league of their own and I am not that talented but for what it is worth I used an android app called Photo and Picture Resizer. It was pretty user friendly and effective. The ads were not too bothersome.

Absolutely!!!!!!!!! Jane

@mom2mybugs lets make Vision trend this summer!!

Customer service emailed me back stating that I checked in using the app instead of my computer which is why the symbol is not showing up but they confirmed my purchase of The Key. I will print out that email and use it if problems arise when I go through priority boarding.

@KenCP, the mobile app @twangster recommended is simply called "Image Size". Not sure if there's something newer / better out there now, but it gets the job done and lets you add simple watermarks and other things to the image while editing. In my experience, it doesn't like adding watermarks to extremely large panoramic images; probably an issue with the max original image size it can handle and insert the text into on my older iPhone 6s Plus that doesn't have as much app memory available as the newer models have.
When I ran into the problem with the watermark, I would create that using Snapseed; save the edit as a new image in the camera roll, then you can have Image Size do the resizing with no problem.

Definitely ask about it. C'mon, $90 is... like... 7 Kraken Lava Flows!!!

I still just throw them on and how.  However, I still can't get a profile pic to work instead of the circle M.  I can't wait for your blog!!!   And I will blog/scope too!  Jane

I didn't get it when we were on 4 years ago.  I have heard it isn't so great but I know I also will have cell service/slow data so I will see!!!   Jane

@Skid just posted this so it may help with what options are available on what ship with the Royal App.  If your key is not showing up and it is suppose to, just call RCI and have them check it out for you.
I hate taking papers as a back up that is the whole point of the digital age.  I will be traveling in Europe for a month, I will need and extra bag just for confirmations, and that is not going to happen.  LOL