TheHobbys

@WAAAYTOOO, we are getting used to Yen. Think we made her laugh a few times yesterday. Very sweet and to the point. Might tease her about doing the iFly with us today. Heh.

@Lovetocruise2002, Yeah, it's Mitch. He seems cool and energized but haven't been to an event with him yet. Thanks for taking on the Land Genie. Lol. So glad the scopes are working out. I have to admit they are kinda fun. Even my better half laughs at me when I do them saying I'm having to (or too) much fun.

I'm only about 15 minutes from downtown. Nashville is a very popular place to visit but we only go down every now and then to eat. To many tourists. Lol

Chocolate thing was good. The other thing was a pear dish, yeah didn't like it. The raisins and grapes were cooked in white wine. Yup, not a fan. Lol

Dessert menu

Yeah that's a cauliflower steak .. not mine lol. Im working the filet

Dinner at CK. Well, these are appetizers

Yeah so what time is there now. Its 623pm now

@Lovetocruise2002 thanks for linking those. More to come

Went very smooth. We got dropped off little before 1030 and waited maybe 10 minutes for someone to show up. Went through security easy but noticed the big sign that said key folks ... guess they were already there because there were quite a few folks in our area. Only about 8 seats designated for SC. Key folks were drinking our coffee. Yen is very cool. Told her howdy for you. She is very matter of fact. heh. Think this cruise she had about 12 guests in 3 rooms. We won't harass her to much.

Yeah. Its cheesecake

Maybe someone can post a link to the periscope I did of our room earlier. ?

I tried lol. Will have to try again

These are included with star class

Beverage package price on board

@tiny260 ley me go check Ok so just checked and the music hall stuff is just in the compass. It's a huge space though. Might have to scope it early one morning. It's two stories with a small dance floor

Here's a guide that @Lovetocruise2002 had asked for.

Son is 12 and daughter is 14 (going on 20 something) yup cruise day. Should be at the port in just over an hour.

@karl_nj I think it might have been greene hook. Well at least that is how it billed on my credit card. It was a sports bar with some game tables like ping pong, foosball, and another table game inside. There was a grocery store in the same building, but towards the water front.

New York is such a cool place, especially when you've never been and have only seen pictures in movies. Most of the morning was uneventful. We were up just over two hours before we were planning on leaving. This gave us plenty of time to drink our coffee and do some last minute straightening up around the house. Got the kids up, yeah, they were excited but didn't show it #teenagers. Our flight was at 10:15, so we left the house just after 7:30. It's only about a 30 minute drive, but that early in the morning, I was expecting a little extra traffic. This give us plenty of time to drop the car off, get a ride to the airport, get through security, coffee, bathroom, and relax at the gate. There was just over an hour that we got to enjoy our little breakfast and coffee before boarding. The plane ride was 'fun'. Of course, I treat it like a roller coaster, while my better half gets all kinds of nervous and stuff. The girls were sitting in front of us and at one point, I reached up and tapped her to tell her something and got a really mean face. Yeah, I forgot we were in the middle of take-off and my son and I are holding our hands up like a roller coaster. #DontMessWithMomDuringTakeoff The boys got to watch almost off of Robin Hood, but the flight was over before the movie #dangit. We picked up a Lyft XL, which was a really great ride. However, when the guy showed up we realized he wasn't 'technical' an XL. Luckily, we had to large suitecases and 2 medium ones. After a quick adjustment of his seats, we were all packed and on the way to the hotel. The total for Lyft was only about $26 from the airport. Not bad, considering some of the shuttle services want to charge close to $100. The hotel is nice, the rooms are just meh, but we got a killer view. If ya want to see what I mean, go check out the periscope I did earlier today from our balcony. The link is posted above. We walked right out the front and next door was the train for the PATH. Very interesting, as it was my first time on a subway #cough I'm old #cough. We got some $22 pass for the 4 of us which let us ride over to the 911 memorial and back. Seeing the 911 memorial was an amazing site. I could have stood there for a little longer, but the kids just weren't in to it. Well, they weren't around then - so I can't blame them, sorta. Anyways, I took quite a few pictures. From there, we meandered down towards the Statton Island Ferry but got derailed by finding a place that served pizza by the slice, oh and sushi and burgers and salad … uh, yeah. The pizza was actually really good - I had the eggplant version. After consuming the pizza-sushi-burger-salad- thing, we continued down to the ferry where we jumped on board, scrambled up to the 4th floor I think, on the outside where there wasn't anyone. Score … oh wait, what the hell - the damn boat is going backwards! Yeah, didn't realize that. No worries, some locals told us we had a great spot. Turned out to be a really cool spot and took another ton of pictures. It was really cool to finally see the Statue of Liberty. More pictures … We rode all the way to, I guess Statton Island, had to get off the boat but turned around and got right back on and rode it all the way back. Maybe a total of an hour for the round trip … After making our way back, we stopped by a little smoothie shake (mainly because my son wanted a picture of a smoothie call the 'Diabetis Helper') heh. Saw a Starbucks and got the momma a coffee and continued our journey to nowhere. Started walking up one street and found the big bull statue with a bunch of people taking pictures. So, I took a selfie from the side #NoWaiting Walked further up and saw a really cool old church and a few other buildings. Took a detour and headed back towards the Hudson river. We ended up at some mall or something. It's the one between the WTC and the Hudson, with a big metal dome. We were looking for something else to snack on and the kids were starting to complain a little more than usual. Ok, now, where the hell are we? We did make it back to the WTC memorial and stood there for about 10 minutes trying to find the entrance to the PATH station (sshh, it's the gnarly white building thingy). We kept looking at moms phone, but Siri was playing around with the stupid little positioning icon on the map. You are here … no here, no wait, here. Yup, you are here … no, seriously, you're over there … WTH. Fine, so I 'manned' up and went and asked someone. She looked at me and pointed to the white building we were standing in front of … sigh #Tourists I guess I should have taken my Nashville hat off. Oh well, I wasn't the one wearing the Fanny Pack. Oh snap, did I say that out loud?? Crap, she better not read this … moving on …. (yes, she had to go get a fanny pack, but I think they are called something different now - it's still a fanny pack. It goes near your fanny and you pack your crap in it. Sorry, got derailed - ok, found the PATH train and took us a minute to figure out which one to get on to go back to Exchange Place. Yeah, there's none with that in the big title on the boards … finally, we figured out to jump on the Hoboken train. Back to the hotel, but still needed to grab a snack. Walking around, finally found a little sports bar thing just up the street from the hotel. Food was pretty good - don't ask me the name, but it was just up the street from Green Hooke on the corner. Had a couple of game tables setup. It was kinda interesting since we got to talking to the waiter and he used to work on Explorer of the Seas back around 2006. Small world - he had asked if we worked on their … I almost said, no, I own it - buuuttt ….. #BadDad So, back at the hotel and we took a swim down at the pool for about 20 minutes just to wear off some extra energy. Wait, extra energy?? Yeah, cause the kids spent their last bit of energy in the pool. Son was snorkeling with his new flippers with daughter was acting like she was doing a sales commercial using my flippers. #crazykids Back in the room and it's now pushing 10pm and I'm trying to type all the stuff. You never know once you start typing how much you'll actually have to share or if it'll make for good reading, but, honestly the best part will be reading this in the future and remembering the cruise. My son is passed out on his make-shift bed (he pushed two chairs together) and the girls are currently glued to their phones. Time to call it a night and get some sleep before the big day tomorrow. Watch for a couple of periscopes tomorrow. The main one will be of our room!

We are at the Hyatt Regency on the Hudson

Touchdown in Newark. It's nice being able to have free wifi and some decent movies to pass the time. Flight was a little bumpy getting out of Nashville but smoothed out soon. Off to grab luggage then to hotel

Yes, you get double points going through the TA if you use the RCL card. That's how I spread out my payments for our cruises. I'll email my TA and have them toss another payment on that card, then I bill pay it monthly.

We are on Anthem starting this Thursday, and they'll have a 70's night and a Caribbean night.

When we did star class last time, was in Ft. Lauderdale and seemed to go sorta smooth. However, like @JLMoran mentioned, there was someone there we had to tell we were star class in order to get directed to the correct drop off point. Once we got dropped off, it was pretty easy from there. I'll post more later Thursday after we get through that process. We are now all checked in for our flight - got high B section. So, may 60-75 people in front of us - which isn't bad. @Andrew72681, if I'm traveling for work - i'll make them pay the extra for me to board priority, but saving my $$ when traveling with the fam ?