SweetPea

Ok, sorry, not sorry but i miss your mom. Purely for entertainment value.

No, not just you. We have never made the elevator with the piano player. And it bothers me when people stay on the elevator and there isn't room for anyone else. One time we were waiting at the elevator and saw the piano player. There was no room for us as there was a family singing along. NBD. The elevator went down, then eventually up to us again (still waiting) and the same family still didn't get off (and still no room for us).

I was wondering the same! I went the French vanilla pudding route though but i like your guess better.

As ive said before, you are a Saint. Do not pass Go, do not collect your $200, free pass out of jail. My vintages would offer similar tribulations. This is why we lie where we are going on vacation so no one comes with us! And they would even pay for themselves to be in their own room.

Why does the pasta in the MDR look better than the Bolognese at Jamie's? Remind me, was the Italian restaurant in Mariner previously called Portofino's? If it was, that was the sole redeeming part of our Mariner cruise back in 2008 Remember that show $#%! My Dad Says with William Shatner? I think you need an X (Twitter) Deep Thoughts account for your mom . Sounds like your mom lives by the "Fake It Till You Make It Creed."

I missed the context of all the car and luggage at first and i thought, what, did you take like a 48-hour cruise?! It can't be over already! Your slot pull looks successful! Lots of happy faces. Well done! But seriously, are we not talking about the $15 charge for canceling a dinner without 24-hour notice? Isn't that what the Genie is all about, giving flexibility? Ask within reason and you shall receive? We have never (nor would we ever) not show up for a scheduled dinner, last minute, without notifying our Genie. That said, this change sux. NCL is happy to cancel you last minute, and they do if you're not there to check in 15 minutes past your reservation time. I guess i would feel better if they had the fee for "no shows" only. I would support that because that's just rude unless someone is dead or dying. But this doesn't seem very star classy to me. Royal was smart to go the nonrefundable deposit route because otherwise I'd cancel Symphony in a heartbeat with the continued deterioration of SC perks while concurrently escalating price points (exponentially so).

Now that I've read the rest of your post ... 1) I'm glad you put on pants for dinner. I mean, going pantless to dinner would be like Batman going shirtless ... or someone assuming you're a throuple. It's very early for me. I'll read this later and call myself an idiot. 2) I hope your room steward has the sense to pull out the couch tonight for you. 3) Pretty soon i see butter on Royal becoming like prison barter. Yeah you can get in the elevator first, but it will cost you 3 pats of butter ...

On what planet does asking 3 people sitting together innocently if they are a 'throuple' come anywhere near the vicinity of proper etiquette? Planet Watermelon, i guess. Who goes there first?! I mean, unless you were wearing the throuple equivalent of swingers pineapple attire? Great, now i have to google secret throuple signs. I can't wait to see what rabbit hole this takes me down. On the positive, maybe my ads will change when i come back to this site .....

Hey, function over style!

Did you ask her if she's Freegan? Safe trip!!

Bon voyage!

It was going to rain on our embarkation day so Batman waterproofed our luggage with a garbage bag, which i made fun of by referring to us as "Star Trash." He saw my point and decided to waterproof from the inside with a painter's tarp. The underwear was missed in that repacking effort ..... He blamed all black underwear inside a black suitcase. Where it all started:

I'm telling you, Batman has come around to having "cruise underwear" that he now keeps in a packing cube! And @Yesiamthere, you're handling it all wrong! Batman packs because i do everything else trip-related and he once made an empty offer, asking if he can help with anything. I called his bluff and now the rule is that i get to throw whatever i want to take on the guest bed and he packs it like a game of Jenga. My only job during this time is to keep him plied with cold beers. Glorious.

Mythos is in IOA, not the Studios. You'll want to do Escape from Gringotts if you're a Harry Potter fan and Definitely the Minions. I'm old school and love MIB. When you go on MIB with your family, spoil them all by hitting the red button at the end when he says "there's only one thing left to do" hit the button then, quickly. Don't let him finish and say "there's only one thing left to do, hit the red button." This gives you a 100k bonus. Transformers is the same ride as Spiderman in IOA, just rethemed. As far as lunch, I'm not thrilled with the options at UO (we just typically do Louie's), but you could do the Leaky Cauldron for theming. You might want to go to City Walk instead. Lots of options there.

Aw, our four-legged peeps always know what's up. That or they just love suitcases. Either way!

We have the Chase Sapphire visa which has trip insurance for 10k pp included if you use that card to pay for a portion of your trip. Lately, I've just been adding a cheap medical plan only to cover evacuations and hospital stays outside the country. This is around $65-75 for the 2 of us per trip and worth it. But to your point, i have no idea how quickly they pay out because we've never needed to make a claim. Side note, i did use my Sapphire card to rent a car once and banged up the rear bumper (long story). Bottom line, Chase was great to work with when i submitted my claim for that.

Sadly, we've never done Universal Hollywood. Do they even have onsite hotels there? If they do, i would have the same advice!

Ok, IDK how much parking is at UO now. I was going to suggest uber or lyft and get dropped off at the Hard Rock Hotel and walk over from there to avoid the long lines from the general parking garage. If they ask if you're checking in, just tell them you're grabbing breakfast at The Kitchen. The Kitchen opens at 7am. It's on the first level of the Hard Rock (main lobby is 3rd level). If you take the elevator or grand stairs, fake right to go to The Kitchen, left to cut through the pool and the walking path to the parks. The onsite hotels have their own security line to enter City Walk and the theme parks, and the one on that side is for guests at the Hard Rock and Portofino so always shorter. The walk from the HRH to the security checkpoint is like 5 minutes. I'm guessing you have park-to-park tickets? If you do and plan on touring both parks, be sure to take the Hogwarts Express to go between parks. You can only ride that train if you have a park-to-park pass. Also, download their app (Universal FL). It has a lot of cool features like listing wait times, park hours, a place to enter parking reminders if you wind up parking in the general garage, dining info, mobile food and drink ordering, you can also link your tickets to the app, etc. If you're looking for a really nice lunch, Mythos is cool. They used to offer a AAA discount, not sure if they still do. Of all the Harry Potter rides, Hagrids (in IOA) usually has the longest wait so try to do that one as early as possible and expect to wait a bit, even with FPs. Check the app to see which park offers early admission and plan accordingly. Not sure if your hotel offers early admission, but def take advantage if it does!

I may have missed it, but where are you staying? Off site? And how are getting there, uber or driving yourself?

You all get on a scale and know?! No thank you. Ignorance is Bliss until i split my fat pants....

I'm with @FionaMG. They are probably thinking they would have 3 23-hour days. I'm also with you, @Daniel5390. I want the long haul flight over at the beginning of the cruise, so we too have an Eastbound Panama Canal booked from LA to Miami. The loss of 3 hours is washed out by having a 2.5/3 hour flight home v. 5.5/6 hour flight home. You have a wonderful 16 night cruise; losing 3 hours is nothing for a more convenient return flight. Plus, with Radiance, you might get to go through the old locks? Now, if you're talking about Transatlantics, we will only do Westbounds because 6 25-hour days is awesome but 6 23-hour days is a bit too much.

Haha! We have a count to 10 rule. If you can't get your photo done in a full 10 seconds, we're going where we want to go, and you can wait on us. I do hate the late comers to the theater also. We always choose aisle seats and it drives me nuts when a large group arrives late, congregates on the stairs and holds a family meeting on where to sit. And really, is it so hard to teach your kids or understand yourself that people should be allowed off the elevators before you push your way in? It's not rocket science.

Welcome home!

Keeping the same room for your B2B is the only way to go! And that's great logistically. I too would rather have my family-filled, busy cruise first and then relax on the 2nd. Have fun at Universal! We were Annual passholders for ages, until the pandemic. It'll be awesome!

Breakaway Plus class, staying in Haven proper. Always my first choice. Note we have not done Prima or Viva yet. Doing Aqua in 2025 though. When you get Free at Sea, add the upgrade offer for Dining. Wait to get onboard to upgrade your WIFI package after midnight on embarkation day for savings. We do the premium plus beverage package as well for a better wine selection and cordials, Starbucks and bottled water, but you don't need to. They have a package that gets you unlimited wifi, premium drinks, 2nd guest shorex credit, and 2 extra dining credits (49$ pp/pd, valid for first 2 pax). If you don't need all that, that's why i recommended the dining and upgrading wifi onboard. The Haven restaurant is very good and can accommodate some requests, but the menu is stagnant so i always recommend specialty dining to break up the monotony. NCL's drink package is average at best and doesn't include bottled water, but your butler can bring you pitchers of ice water. If we don't have the premium plus package, we bring Yetis for water and just deal. There is also an upcharge for pedestrian drinks like Bailey's. The 2BRs in Haven proper are smaller than Royal's 2BRs, but are our favorite if we're not springing for an OS or DOS, both of which will get you unlimited bottled water and soda cans in the suite as well as 3 bottles of liquor of your choice in your stateroom and a bottle of Moet. We just did the DOS on Getaway and we had bottles of Aqua Panna for the water, and we selected Kettle One, Kahlua, and Bailey's. You can get whatever mixers you want from the Haven bartender. Speaking of which, there is no better bartender anywhere, on any ship, than your Haven bartender. He will get to know your tastes, have recommendations, and make you special drinks. They are all mixologists, and a real step above. My BFF Rodrigo (Getaway Haven bartender) made Wasabi infused vodka just for me and my morning Bloody Marys. Take that, Royal who actually uses Mrs Ts and tries to season it with pepper and Tabasco, even in the suite lounge. Room service drinks aren't free in the Haven, which is why i recommend staying in Haven proper for convenience. NCL allows 2 drinks at a time so it's easy to accumulate drinks to stock your own bar with beers and sodas and/or filling an extra large Yeti with a mixed drink. Haven bathrooms are very nice and include a shower pouf, shower cap, q-tips, and cotton balls among your usual bath products. Towels are nice and you'll also get slippers and the robes are nicer than Royal's. You can buy Haven branded robes. They're awesome. Most Haven rooms will have a water closet with a door you can close, which is nice. One thing that wins by a mile is that you do not have to stalk the cruise planner for pricing deals/sales. The price is the price, with only rare exceptions. Stalking Royal's cruise planner is exhausting. To me, it's no big deal to make my own dinner reservations (Haven gets to book earlier than anyone else), but if you're not finding what you need, simply email shoreside concierge and ask them to forward your requests directly to the ship concierge. We had to do this once when our itinerary changed from Eastern to Western Caribbean and sea days and port days all changed. When we got onboard, the ship concierge had left our updated dining schedule in our suite. I've prattled on with more than you wanted to know, so ask away or DM if you have specific questions! I'll just leave you with one last thing. If you see a Cruise First offered at $250 for a $500 cert, buy it. And one more thing better than Royal, NCL deposits are still fully refundable. https://www.ncl.com/cruisefirst-program