TheHobbys

Filet count ... 7 for 9 nights Coastal kitchen ... before and after lol

Day 9 - at sea Well the cruise is coming to and end has been a great cruise. Give me a couple of days to get home and I'll type up a summary of our trip. Thanks for everyone who was following along. It's been great to be your host on this cruise. We did hit prime status with the casino and think we get a free cruise or money off another one, but will have to figure all that out soon. I'll do another post here once we get all the details.

I think there was but was just waking up and no coffee yet so didn't pay attention

Coast guard helicopter and plane circling showed up and we're showing down. Not sure what's going on ... will post update if I learn something

WOW. Just WOW. If you can go see We Will Rock You twice .... do it .... it was by far the best show we have ever seen on a RCL cruise. #period

People getting pissed cause seats are reserved for key holders ... pay for the damn program or go sit elsewhere

Oh just a quick note. .. if I missed your response, I'll do my best to reply to everyone once I get back

Fixing to start We will rock you ... first the front rows reserved for key folks Packed house... show last night canceled due to technical stuff

Day 7 - Labadee I think this has been our most enjoyable day. This is the first time we actually used the suite area on the Labadee beach. I think it was about 9:45ish or so when we finally got everyone ready to get off the ship and go to the beach. It was very nice and not crowded. The main side was a little more crowded, but it didn't seem unbearable. Just first come first server on different spots with chairs and stuff. If you are able to access the suite area, you'll exit the ship and go to the end of the pier. From there, you'll meander a little towards the left. On the right side will be a loading area with someone there coordinating getting people on a golf cart to take you down to the suite area, or you could walk it. It's really not that far. Once there, you'll get a wrist band to show that you have access. You'll go inside the area and grab some chairs or if you reserved a cabana, you'll get one of those. There are people there to escort you to a place. I highly, highly recommend getting a few chairs in the SHADE - it's really hot and being able to cool or sorta cool off under some type of shade is a good thing. Oh, and drink a crap ton of water. You don't realize how much floating in salt water and being in the sun - while extremely nice, is very draining of the water outa your body. The beach on that side is really nice and calm for snorkeling, so we pretty much stayed in the water. The girls floated on little rafts that they'll bring you - no charge, unless you want to tip the guy that drags it 25' to you o_0 No, I don't mind tipping for most things, but there are a few things where it seems a little ... um ... not-tip-worthy. But, to each his own. Little man and I snorkel'd around a lot. He was collecting all kinds of shells and coral and stuff and making a big pile. My underwater camera died shortly after we got started but I got a few pictures. It showed like 75% charged but you know batteries these days, they suck. And to top it off, it's one of those funky batteries you have to take out and put in this box thing and plug it into the wall. So, i resorted to trying to figure out how to use my phone camera to take water pictures. Now, I have the Galaxy S9+ which is supposed to be water proof ... bbbuuttt .... yeah, not going to take to many chances to see if that's really true. Well, what I would do is start a video and then sorta flip the phone upside down and stick it underwater to record some cool underwater videos. Once I clean up the pictures, I'll toss quite a few out here. Around 11:30, i guess it was, lunch was served. The suite area has it's own section where the staff from the Coastal Kitchen show up and serve lunch. Pictures of the lunch will be posted soon, along with more pictures of the suite beach, so be patient ? Lunch consisted of burgers, hot dogs, salad stuff, mac/cheese, ribs, lamb chops, sirloin steak and lobster. Yes, all of that was served. Do me a favor, just think about where you are when you go grab something to eat. It's like 90 HOT degrees out there, you probably haven't drunk enough water and you want to gorge yourself on .... uh ... lobster and lamb chops. Ok, so I didn't do that - I had 2 burgers and only 1 lamb chop (does that count towards my filet count). IMPORTANT! This is for those of ya'll who like to consume a little alcohol on the beach. Be mindful that some of the staff there sometimes don't get in a hurry. They also don't seem to care who or what people order. Our 14 yr old daughter ordered a cranberry red bull and the lady behind the bar gave her a cranberry and vodka - like wtf. She knew that wasn't right, so dumped it out - glad we don't have to pay, otherwise i would be pissed they charged some weird amount for that drink that was never asked for. Also, they have these really cool looking drinks you can get inside a real pineapple. Don't waste your money, if you have to pay for one. I think they are like $12 or something like that. My wife got one and most of the drink started leaking out some crack in the pineapple - yeah, there goes your alcohol. I got one for my son, virgin daiquiri thing that we were going to share. Well, we couldn't get it through the straw because the ice chunks were too big, so we had to use a spoon. Ok, no problem, right? well, the freaking middle of the pineapple was still there. #fail yeah, you would get more drink just ordering from a glass. Consider yourself warned ? Moving on now, we swam / snorkeled for quite a few hours - forcing the kids to drink water and take breaks to reapply sunscreen a couple of times. I walked down the way to the shops and was pretty much bombarded with calls from the guys there trying to get me to talk / buy something with them. It way to aggressive for my tastes. I mean, I understand trying to pawn your wears and stuff - but some of these dudes were just standing under a tree hollaring. Glad I didn't take the family with me. Nothing at the shops that wanted me to take the family back, so that was good. I did pickup a couple of cheap flippy floppers for the kids, since those ding-dongs didn't bring their sandals and only had socks / t-shoes. Back on board around 2:30, as we had our trapeze session at 4. We wanted to get cleaned up a little before doing that. Well, some of us did - others, lucked out. Dang kids called both the showers first - I got one that i have to tell him to wash twice and i have another who tries to drain the freaking hot water tank. (oh, yeah - we renovated our house and installed a separate hot water tank so she would stop draining ours. we now have our own dedicated hot water tank for the master bath) After they cleaned up, they were gone like a freaking rocket. Uh, bye - be at the trapeze by 350 dad-gummit. Trapeze. Let me just tell you a little bit about this. it only lasts like 15 minutes and most of that is waiting for a few others to swing. You climb up this tall ladder in the SeaPlex (where the bumper cars are), and stand on a little platform at the ceiling with two staff members. The pull the handle thing over, you grab it, step off and swing. If you can, you put your feet between your legs and hang upside down while swinging (harder than you think), then back to swinging for a second while someone on the ground is asking if you want to do a flipping dismount. Again, more intimidating than you think. You dismount or just drop on this big air-bag, rolloff and your done. Now, the reason i said all this was for two things. The first being - if you are not confident in your ability to hold onto the bar during the first swing, you might want to skip this. We saw a few people step off and pretty much get half a swing in before they lost their grip and fell on the air bags. Good thing it's free huh? The second, it's not as exciting as spending a little extra time trying to swing around and grab another bar or something else. it's pretty short and sweet. Each person's swing only lasts between 5 seconds (those who can't hold on) to may 90 seconds (those who can flip over with their knees and then do a flip for a dismount) 4:45 we got a private tour of the behind the scenes for We Will Rock You. Yen was able to get a couple of the performers to walk us through the different areas behind the scenes, performer dressing rooms and how they move under the stage to get into different areas. Our daughter has been in multiple drama performances over the past ... uh, 4-5 years, i think, so this was something we thought we be cool for her to see. They gave us the tour and we got to see the performers setting up for a practice run. One of the performers took the time to talk to our daughter about her experience in how to she became a performer on the ship and where she went to school and things she studied. it was truly a great thing for her to spend a few minutes with us answering some questions. #GoYen 6:30 was dinner at Wonderland with reservations to see Spectra at 9. Plenty of time, right? Well, for just two of us we finished with about 30 minutes to spare. For a larger group, add another hour between events. So, in some prior posts here i tossed out a ton of pictures as we were going through our courses. We tried the Wonderland thing - no desire to do it again. The concept is pretty cool, but there just wasn't anything that makes you go 'oh snap we gotta do that again', type feeling. Our waiter was nice, but seemed sorta like he was new. All the food we had was just ok ... the only good thing we liked was the shrimp in a cup thing. Don't ask me what all the different 'elements' were because, even though they explained the idea - once you eat it, it just doesn't really stand out to let you know you consumed some element. it's hard to explain, i guess. I mean, there was this earth dish - and it sorta looked like it had dirt, which is the idea - but when you tasted it, it just tasted like some veggies with grounded up pumpernickel bread. the atmosphere was kinda cool, the chairs were comfortable - but like i said, for us, it's not something we would do again. I will say, however, the concept is interesting and if you have the time and money and are board, then consider it just for the experience ... don't do it for the food. 9pm - Spectra ... Ok, first off let me say GO SEE THIS TWICE! Now, let me follow that up by saying, I'm a really big movie fan (though, I suck at movie trivia). With watching movies, i really enjoy the music, sound, lights, motion and all the 'stuff' that goes on to make the movies. We did a private tour a few days ago and our son was invited to hang out with one of the tech guys during the show. Seeing all the behind the scenes and the workings is just cool to me. I am a big science channel nerd and love watching how stuff gets made. Seeing all the robot arms for the tvs, each worth a few million each (they are actually the same type of robot arms that build cars), also seeing the trap doors of how the performers move around for different scenes was just amazing. With all that, watching the show - we were just mesmerized by the music, the dances and the effects on the big window wall and the choreography of the robot arms with their tvs. Honestly, I have no idea what the show was about - lol - I just enjoyed listening and watching the performers. Sure which i could dance like that #IWouldBreakSomething This show only lasts for about 45-50 minutes, We Will Rock You - I hear is right at 2 hours #BigBladder After the show, our son was super happy he got to watch how they ran the technical aspect of the show. He was so glad he did that and was able to have that experience. #GoYenAgain I would talk about the casino, but not happy with it right now - ha. Now, we do enjoy playing around the slots in the casino but we have a strict budget. If we run outa money for the night, it's an early night ... if we win a little extra, we can stay out a little later or have some extra play money for the next day. We don't spend outside of our budget - that's a very strict rule we both agree on. So, like i said - not happy with the casino right now, so you guess'd it ... it was an early night - lol The next two days are at sea, so we are drawing close to the end - which is very sad. I think i've scoped most everything on the ship - well, things that i thought people would be interested in. I did manage to find the concierge club - which is sorta stupid where it's at. It's on the back of the ship on deck 12, by itself. I mean, i don't even think there are any suites back there by it ... maybe a grand suite. I'll toss up some pictures in a little bit, but doesn't appear to be used much. Few people were there grabbing some breakfast items. It was extremely quiet in there. You feel as if you are in the library and have to be quiet - not cool. the same sorta space is apart of the coastal kitchen on the oasis classes, which, for us is the best way to combine those areas. I also went and found the work-out area, at the front on deck 16. Yeah, it's pretty much just a big area gym with lots of machines, free weights and some other workout type stuff. not for me - i hate working out, i need to actually do something productive - lol. Ok, off again - finished my burger / fries / sparking water and cranberry here in the coastal kitchen. I got about an hour or so to kill now before the We Will Rock You 2-hour show starts. I'll be tossing Labadee pictures and some other pictures up later today. Oh yeah, we have Chef's table tonight. That should be interesting ... as we don't drink we'll have to order white and red grape juice - hahah.

Go see it twice! Holy cow it was cool. Don't pay at attention to a story or anything. Just watch the performance and the moving TVs and the music. Sit about 6 rows back from middle section, we were in the second row and needed to be back a couple. But, for us, was fantastic ... tonight is We Will Rock You

Up next ...

It's a cool experience but probably won't do it again. The shrimp was the best so we ordered another round of it. The World chocolate thing was super rich ...

Round 4 dessert

Round 3 main course

Round 2 more appetizers

Round 1 ... appetizers

Dinner at Wonderland

Don't know the beach name but it's on the main drag and walkable from the ship. The ferry does leave from the port and takes you to that beach where all the shops are. There isn't an excursion to this beach, those diamond international shops will take plenty. lol I did a periscope of us in st maarten showing the beach and the ferry. If my land genie, @Lovetocruise2002, could probably find the link for. Ha

We asked Yen about a tour and she was able to get us a private tour.

Day 6 - San Juan It's been a slow day. Nothing much happening at port. Quick breakfast at coastal then packed up for a walk around. Took the kids up to the old fort then found a popsicle store with fruit pops. Then meandered around into some gift shops for some trinkets. Couple hours walking and we were back on board. The kids ran off to play with friends while the adults went back to coastal for lunch. Wanted a burger from JR, but they didn't open till 2. After lunch it was nap time, of course. Then back to eat... go figure. There was a magic comedy show that was really good. We got reserved seats up front and I'll be dammed if I didn't get pulled on stage. It was a lot of fun and the magician was great. Hung out at the casino for a little bit too donate to the ship's gas money, but still had fun. Tomorrow is Labadee, so planning to snorkel and play around. Amazing how tired you get vacationing. Tomorrow is also Wonderland and trapeze class.... yeah that'll be interesting. Still have two shows coming up, Spectra and We Will Rock You. Should have done those sooner in case we wanted to see then again. Our son has been invited to sit with the director of Spectra to watch how he runs the show and robots. That should be cool. Our daughter gets to meet the cast of We Will Rock You and see how they get ready behind the scenes, so that'll be cool for her. Anyways ... of to catch a few hours of sleep before another day playing. Trying to get time to slow down but it's not working. So far, a great cruise. I will say I think we prefer the oasis class ships better, especially the coastal kitchen environment. More on why later ?

Oops took a bite before y'alls picture

Glad you are enjoying following along. Honestly, we haven't been in the MDR since our cruise on Independence back in 09. Since we found the coastal we haven't wanted to go back. Lol. Do you want pictures or menu?

And for dessert .... hmm

Guess what's for dinner .... Coastal Kitchen Filet #4

I would recommend doing the any time dining. We have tried to have a set time for dinner, but after the first couple of nights the kids really wanted to be out on their own. They decided not to join us for Wonderland or Chef's table since they met friends they would rather hang out with. Our kids are 12 (son) and 14 (daughter). Or son is more into the different activities, while our daughter just wants to hang out with new friends and be on her phone #DontGetMeStarted. So, we have just told them to check in every now and then and their curfew is midnight. Also, they are not allowed to go to anyone's room or have anyone in our suite unless we are there. I will say, there are some activites they thought were lame and hardly anyone showed up. .. so they activities may be limited with participation. I think it may depend also on how outgoing your kids are .... But, you may want to go with the idea of dinner being the parents and maybe the kids will join .. heh