GregD

So now that the room shenanigans are out of the way, lets get into the fun stuff! Whos Going: Just @TheBoss518 and I. We are leaving the freeloaders home with the grandparents. Suffice it to say....they are not happy about it. They protest loudly any time we bring this trip up. We have not done a cruise by ourselves since our very first one. This should be interesting because this meme describes our relationship perfectly.... I am the early riser, and usually one of the freeloaders will keep me entertained....now I'm not sure what I will do. I'm sure I will come up with something. I'll have to, because otherwise The Boss may toss me overboard. What: So, Independence of the seas in a GS. We have not sailed on her, but we have been on her sister Liberty, and had a good time. The ship has been amped, so there is that. Itinerary: 5 nights with stops at Coco Cay and Cozumel. There are two sea days We really liked the Coco Beach club, so we got passes for there. The price wasn't horrible when we booked. OTW Cabanas have been holding at $3200 which was a hard pass. Cozumel, I followed the advice of @Jax and @OCSC Mike and got passes to Paradise Beach. We got beach bed #14 as well. Other pre-cruise purchases We opted to get the dining package. The price wasn't bad, and when we booked it "The plan" was still in place. Voom internet......I hated paying for this but whatever Water package - We got the 12 bottle water package on a sale which was less than what we could get them for from Target etc so that's a win We tossed around the idea of the DX package, but decided not to. We have our 4 vouchers, a bunch of H2O and suite lounge access for evening cocktails. Plus with a full day off the ship in Cozumel with included drinks, we decided to pass. Pre-Cruise Travel: Here, we are saving a bunch of $$ We are flying southwest ALB to FLL. These we paid for with points. Hotel: We are staying on Miami Beach. We booked The Gale South Beach in the Art Deco district. This hotel is in the Hilton Family, and courtesy of all the work travel that The Boss has done, this too was paid for with points. We even booked their top room! Now you can see where all the savings talk has come from. We are flying down two days early so we have time to enjoy Miami for a bit. We have a rental car for the two days so we will do a bit of exploring.

After a few days of waiting to see if anything changed. I log into the cruise planner and the royal up link is still taking me to bids for balcony rooms, we bite the bullet and decide to upgrade directly to a GS. It was more than we wanted to spend with our bid, but still less than what it was when the cruise was originally booked. I #^%# you not.....Three hours after upgrading I get this email.... So much for the RoyalUp being based on the original casino offer. Part of me wonders what would have happened if I had waited a bit longer before going into the GS. Oh well. I made modest bids on the three suites, not expecting to win anything. As of today, they still just say submitted. We will be just fine in our GS.

So, I call back on Monday and speak to the revenue department, and true to their word, they correct everything, and I am able to pick one of the JS, we grab a midship one. While on the phone I ask the rep about Royal Up again and get the wind completely taken out of my sails....This person says that because the casino offer was for an OV room, any royal up offers would be based on that and not what we had upgraded to. That didn't seem right to me, but with the error on the reservation and me being a noob with the casino comp thing I took them at face value. Meanwhile, @TheBoss518 had been watching room videos etc, and we had been discussing the benefits of going into a full suite ie, lounge access with drinks, concierge etc, so we had a decision to make.

ANNNND, the plan goes off the rails.... So as we got closer, plenty of GS and 1 OS were still available, and we get our email from royal up..... what in the actual..... We are in a suite.....why are we getting offers for these rooms??!! I call the Casino to find out what happened.. After sitting on hold for a bit...It turns out that one of the times I called to see what the upgrade cost to just go into a GS or OS, the rep changed something on the back end. Even though we upgraded to a suite, and all our documentation, and cruise planner etc said suite, their end showed that we downgraded back to the OV room. The very nice guy on the phone said not to worry, he added a note to the file, and said to call back on Monday because the revenue department would have to fix it, and I would get to pick what JS to go in. I asked about the ability for the royal up bid and was told that would get fixed as well. Perfect I thought.....The plan is back......

The Plan So when we were looking to book, the ship was still very empty, and we got this comp not very long ago. Sadly the RS was gone, but there were tons of suites left. When I called to book, we immediately upgraded the suite guarantee rate, which was only $250 each. It was just the two of us, and we would play the royal up game. The prices to just move into a GS or OS were really high at the time, another 1k per person. Worst case, we would still be in a suite, get double points. We are now diamond and have vouchers, so we were going to skip the DX and be aggressive with our bids because we were saving a bunch of money in other places too. (more on that later) We felt we had a good shot. This cruise, while not chartered, there is a gaming and anime convention happening, so we figured many people would stay away. I had been watching the cruise like a creepy stalker and it seemed that our plan had a good shot at working out......or so I thought......

Let me start with saying sorry for this long and rambling first few posts, but there is a lot to unpack here... I've been struggling on how to start this one, because it's been a rough month here at home. Our beloved pooch Rusty had been having some health issues, so that was taking most of our focus. I couldn't keep up with my usual pre-cruise routine of reading and being very active in the blogs as much as I wanted, which usually gets my excitement up. I even had the thought that we might have to cancel, so that kept the usual build up at bay too. Sadly we had to say goodby to him on Tuesday. Today I am turning my focus forward. I am ready to shed the responsibilities of adulting, hence the title. It will be good to get away, and reset.... More on that later. For now, rest easy my friend, until we meet again... So now that the sad part is taken care of, how did we get here. For that we have to go back to our February of 2023, Oasis of the Seas cruise. I had created the Facebook group for that cruise, and it was a lively and active group. With that I ran a couple slot pulls. We didn't win anything, but there was quite a bit of money fed into a machine. Ever since, I've been getting mailings from the Casino. This was one of the offerings. It was for a free outside view room for me, and reduced 2nd passenger rate. I talked it over with @TheBoss518 and we said let's do it. We are going without the freeloaders, so that's another responsibility shed too. We had been looking for an opportunity for just the two of us to sail too. We were supposed to sail a B2B on Freedom in the RS earlier this year in April, but that got cancelled because one of the legs got chartered, and with The Boss getting a promotion it just wasn't the right time. Our amazing TA, IYKYK, was able to get us out of the other leg with no penalty. While and OV view room isn't anywhere close to the RS, we had a plan......

Do It!! We are planning two weeks in Scotland next summer too

Getting around Europe by train is really nice and easy.

Good to know. I've started to peruse the menu to make a food/beverage strategy. Any must do's?

So when I go in two weeks I should try this rotation? 1)Food 2)boozy drink 3)dip in the ocean/pool, 4) Repeat steps 1-3 frequently

It sometimes crosses into ridiculous amounts. Have a great cruise!

via Schitt's Creek on GIPHY

This sounds like a great trip. The tapestry is really cool, the beaches and cemeteries are also something everyone should see in their lifetimes.

Normandy is amazing, I'm a bit of a history buff, and since I had a relative who was part of the D-day invasion, visiting there added additional meaning for me. Are you going to make the trip to Mont Saint-Michel? If you do, I have a very funny story about when I was there if you are willing to entertain a slight hijack when you post about it.

Welcome, I can't wait to read your blog! This is such a great community where online acquaintances quickly become great friends, then neighbors, neighbours?, and I am truly humbled that my ramblings and goofball blogs have proven helpful to someone enough to be included in a list of people who I look up to and consider to be superstars here in the blogs, so thank you for that shoutout. Like @Lovetocruise2002 said, star class is a slippery slope that I gladly slid down, and its very hard to go back.....we will see how I do in two weeks......so hopefully you can do more! the ATS is a favorite of ours. We love watching Aqua80 from there, and the balcony cant be beat. Leroy is amazing, Portside is fantastic.....well, for the omnivores in the group at least, and as you have probably read, Oasis is one of my favorites, even though others seem to be cursed...you know who you are.... Tell your daughter not to worry about the teen meet and greet, my daughter never goes to those, but manages to meet other kids on the pool deck and quickly make friends. She still keeps in touch with kids she has met on the ships in the past.

They are surprisingly good. At home @TheBoss518 will mix PB whiskey and cranberry juice. It tastes like peanut butter and jelly. As you can see, she likes it a lot. This is a 1 liter size. It's not super strong, and is good for sipping on its own too, in fact, I think I will go pour myself one!

This sounds like a great trip! If I tried this, it would also be my last.......

That's the plan

Thank you for sharing your trip. I'm glad everyone had a good time. I think your girls will really enjoy a Quantum Class ship. I know mine love Anthem. I also added to your stream count...Good song. My daughter says "It's a bop!"

Well, you won @TheBoss518 over with this one! Ive been absent from the blogs for the past few days, and just got caught up. Thank you for your perspective. Thank you for all the ship and food pictures. Hubby did well, as usual. I know that well will sail X sooner than later. We are foodies, so I think we will appreciate the elevated type and quality. We cant wait!!

I could work with this.. It really good, my sister and I call it breakfast pasta

When we went overseas, I just added an international plan from my carrier. It wasn't horribly expensive and was one less headache.

I'm glad you guys had a great time on this one, and that it doesn't have to end just yet. Have a hopefully uneventful trip to the next ship......knowing you guys, I'm sure there will be a story here shortly. Looking forward to the next part. Our favorite TA keeps trying to get The Boss and I on X.

Be careful, this sounds like one of those "asking for a friend" situations

Sounds like you had a great day!