SweetPea

Yeah! You're finally on the ship! Happy cruising!

I am in the ship. We are starving so we are at Playmakers. I will post a longer reply after I get some food in me.

Well, welcome home (For now!)
Thanks for taking us along, pics or not, who cares?!

Well, welcome home (For now!)
Thanks for taking us along, pics or not, who cares?!

We are home.  Earliest disembark ever and earliest we have ever gotten home.  Off the ship at 6:30, pulled into the driveway at 8:00.  Unpacked and laundry under way.
We enjoyed watching Effectors II again even though we had already seen it.  Not sure I would see it a third time, but it was fun.  I had forgotten about all the tech - the lighting and drone are incredible.
So the 5 week saga is finally over.  I'm super glad to be home.  I guess there is a wildfire blazing somewhere near us.  We came home to a hazy, stinky place.  Hopefully it will burn out quickly.  We have a FEMA "mulch pile" (I don't really know what it is, TBH) not too far from us and it mysteriously catches fire from time-to-time.  I don't know if that's the source of the fire of it it's an actual fire.  Hopefully it will just go away, soon.
Thanks for continuing to read this rather lengthy missive.  I know blogs are boring without pictures.  I still have some pix of the Suites Sun Deck to share if I can ever get them in the same place at the same time.  The photo debacle is totally my fault as I refuse to pay for the Cloud.  I'm sure this is their way of getting back at me.  That's ok.  

TBH, I am skeptical of Dans claim that the voucher can’t be used at PM.  I need to ask for myself and see what answer I get.  I had always heard you couldn’t use them at Izumi, either and it looks like that was inaccurate.  Truly, at this point, I just don’t know the truth.  Maybe I will get by PM before we disembark.

So, we ended up eating a very light lunch at Izumi (sushi) and using Dans $25 Pinn voucher.  The bill should have been slightly more than $25 but again, there was a $-0- bill presented to us.
I guess the lesson learned here was….always ask whether the [Oasis class] ship is offering a $25 PP specialty dining voucher b/c you just never know !  ….and nobody (crew) is going to tell you !

That is super funny about the Ramona. I guess I never realized that I have never met another Ramona......unless you count the real housewife one🤔
There are so many Alicia's, which is why my friends call me Ali......which there are also a lot of. But I have yet to meet one on a cruise, so many elsewhere but not yet on a cruise. 

I wonder how Dan would feel about "Beezus" as a nickname. 🤔

Ok, first of all, the horror 😱 at those of you who struggle to use your drink vouchers! I will never understand this! 🤣 Ever!!!
And i had no idea your given name is Ramona! OMG did i love the Ramona and Beezus books growing up! 🥰😍 But you may be the first "official" Ramona i "know!" 🙂

Good morning!
Day 1: Miami, FL (Embarkation Day) 😎 🚢
I got up early to see if I could catch Icon coming in, but missed her as she had already slipped by my defenses and docked at Terminal A! 🤣
Pretty sneaky for a 250K ton ship! They do come in with minimal lights…. I did catch a Carnival ship coming in around 6:00 AM or so.
We headed for breakfast at Olé which was included in our room charge. Very nice breakfast buffet with all the usual hot buffet offerings and an omelette station.
Our friends at home were asking about the pool, so I headed back down to the 5th floor pool area to take a few more pics of the area.





These cabanas are available for rental… $350-$450 per day based on capacity… the other side of the cabana opens up to the bay view and not accessible to the general public. If we were staying more than one day and were traveling with friends, we would definitely book one of these! There us a full bar to the left of the cabanas as well servicing the pool area.



OK, back to the room to finish packing!
We have a scheduled Uber pick up in a little over an hour from now to take us to the port. As many of you have mentioned, this hotel does not offer shuttle service to the port. They recommend just using a taxi or ride share.
In summary, we second @Lovetocruise2002’s recommendation of this hotel! 👍
So conveniently located near the port with bay views and walking distance to Bayside Market on the water where so many restaurants and bars are located. Christine said we’re spoiled now and will have to splurge and book this hotel the next time we’re in Miami!
Almost boarding time! 

Time for me to wrap the day up. I may get up early tomorrow to watch Icon come into port… exhausted now so we’ll see!
We did go down to Bayside Market… some random shots along the way…

Sky Views Miami wheel…

Christine wanted to go to Margaritaville for dinner. Literally the first restaurant we passed entering the market from the hotel side!
I know it’s not RC food 🤣, but she had the Teriyaki Chicken & Shrimp and I had the Jimmy’s Jammin’ Jamablaya. Have to practice the food porn pics, LOL!



We sat outside… the restaurant is at the base of the Sky Views wheel… pic from our table… we both enjoyed our meals.

We took a walk through the market for a bit… more big names and chains…

Wow! What a variety of restaurants! Argentinian, Cuban, Italian… tons of bars all along the shoreline.
We also stopped by a gelato place near Pier 5 (outdoor area with dancing)… delicious! 
Headed back to the hotel and took in the skyline before heading up to our room for the night.


I think that’s it!
Have a good night everyone!

Just a few more pics around the hotel before we head down to explore Bayside for dinner in a bit!
It was a beautiful day and the temp hit 90! 🌞



The space shuttle Challenger Memorial…

Some pics of the inside of the hotel… 








… of course there is a Starbucks!

 
OK, I have to confess. I’m sorry Sabrina (@Lovetocruise2002)!!! 😔 
We arrived later than expected and Christine wanted to go somewhere super casual and close to the hotel for lunch. We were starving! We did not go to La Bamba this trip…  It will be top of the list the next time we come to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami!
We asked the front desk and they recommended Julia & Henry’s. Just think specialized food court on three floors. No chains you see in mall food courts or airports. Nothing crazy, but seemed fresh and tasty. We of course gravitated to Mexican at “Tacotomia”… 





We both had Baja Fish Tacos and Guacamole and Chips. Very tasty!

Now for a few pics of the room. We splurged a little with the InterContinental…
After all, this is our 20th anniversary cruise and only our second visit to Miami, LOL! 🤣
We booked a Bay View room and we were assigned one on the 12th floor… awesome view of the bay and port!!!
Looking toward door and bathroom…


Bathroom… very nice! Has both a tub and a shower enclosure. Closet and safe in the entrance to the bathroom.








Enough of the bathroom… the room and panoramic view from Bayside past all of the cruise terminals!
Tinted windows, so I apologize in advance!



We can stalk RC’s headquarters from our room…






Freedom currently at Terminal A…




I might have to wake up a little early tomorrow to see Icon come into port… hmmm… 

Sabrina the Influencer !  ❤️❤️

We're also flying into FLL and taking the shuttle to the hotel in Miami. Current plan is to also go to La Bamba (also at @Lovetocruise2002's recommendation 😃) for lunch!

I have two coworkers that will be on your cruise. They have family in FLL, so that's where they are flying into, and left today as they are like @Lovetocruise2002 with their La Bamba love. They don't follow the blog, though they are followers of the Facebook group. I usually have to wait until they return to hear anything, so this will be great source. 

It's crunch time! 😎
2 more days until we board! 🚢 


Our flight departs 6:00AM tomorrow morning 😳 !
We're only 5-10 minutes from the airport, but we have an early boarding position (Southwest) and the plane starts boarding at 5:30AM!
Christine had to work today (never again!) so I'm trying to tie things up around the house and finish my packing. She is mostly packed and will finish up when she gets home before we drop the "pups" off at my sister's house tonight!
Those that know me knew it was coming... some recent pics of our Goldens! They always know that something is up!
Bella is the smaller female on the left (12 years old, about 60 lbs) and Jake is the big boy on the right (6 years old, about 86 lbs)!
They wanted to come and meet Rover, but we had to explain that's not possible... 😔

Jake resting on Bella 😆...

Bella once again...

Jake...

 
Gotta get productive again! Still a lot to do before tonight!

Thank you so much! 😀 We prefer a sea day, but PDCC is at least a relaxing day for us!
Thank you!!!

Ok, first of all, the horror 😱 at those of you who struggle to use your drink vouchers! I will never understand this! 🤣 Ever!!!
And i had no idea your given name is Ramona! OMG did i love the Ramona and Beezus books growing up! 🥰😍 But you may be the first "official" Ramona i "know!" 🙂

Very strange. Sounds a bit like how beer, wine, soda, bottled water, etc. is complementary from 11-11 in the SL on Oasis class ships for Sky/Star class but it wasn't listed in the welcome letter the concierges e-mail you (I believe someone posted their e-mail in the past few months and they finally added it).
When we were in Sky Class for the first time in 2022, if I hadn't read about it in the forums, I never would have known about it.

Update on the $25 dining voucher.
As I noted above, we decided to use our $25 specialty dining vouchers at Johnny Rockets yesterday for lunch.  Even though the JR meal is only $14.95, we still decided to use them both as we most likely won’t have any further opportunity to use them, and would thus, lose them.
We did go to JR for lunch (which was good and fun) but to our surprise, they only used one of our $25 vouchers even though the 2 meals exceeded $25 in value !  I was very surprised when the server told us that he was only using 1 voucher to cover both meals. So now one of us (can’t recall whose voucher he actually redeemed 🥴🥴) still has a $25 voucher to use !  It’s the last day so likely it will be going unused.
BTW, this is a Pinn perk that is very hush-hush.  It isn’t written anywhere in the paperwork we received onboard (not that I saw, anyway) and none of the Concierges mentioned a word about it.  If Dan hadn’t asked the SL Concierge about it, we would never have known that Wonder was still issuing them. Not one of the Pinns that we befriended on this sailing knew that they each had a $25 specialty dining voucher !  I’ll bet most of them go completely unredeemed.

Ok.  So Dan reports that Playmakers is off limits for the $25 Pinn voucher.  I didn’t realize that….so PM isn’t an option for us, I guess.  😪

Forgot to mention this before, but I wanted to pass along that the Pinns do get the $25 specialty dining voucher on Wonder- or should I say, we are getting it on this sailing.  I know that some of the O class ships have ceased providing this perk but it’s still working on Wonder, for the moment, at any rate.
We are going to Johnny Rockets for lunch today and will use ours there.  It’s a bit of a waste to use it at JR since the cover charge for JR is only $14.95, but if we don’t use it there, we will most likely not use it at all.  I know people like to use theirs at Playmakers but we aren’t particular fans of Playmakers - blasphemy, I know….