GregD

What are you looking to plug in? The staterooms have both US and European outlets. Pretty much all charging blocks etc are dual voltage, so all you would need is an outlet adapter and can plug in as normal, you shouldn't need anything to convert voltage.

I meant shorty before the cruise starts, so will the blog. I certainly don't want jinx this one! We will be exhausted too. Our flights changed, so we now arrive in England on Thursday, and it will be 2am our time, 8am London time. Should be fun with the two kids.

This will be another one of those blogs for the ages. @Lovetocruise2002 will be our neighbor on deck 10, so we will definitely be up to some shenanigans and will probably give the genies plenty to work with..only 89 days to go!! The joint blog will be started shortly before then, so keep an eye out!

There is no delivery fee, but I believe you are still charged if the item has a cost

@DJH_89 Welcome to the blogs, and congratulations! I would use this resource to determine the test. All of the tests allowed by the CDC for entry to the US should be allowed by RC. I looks like based on your travel dates, that the test you take to board your flight will be within the window for your cruise as well. Click the link, scroll down and expand the "what types of tests are acceptable" https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/testing-international-air-travelers.html#general I would print out that information, and find a location that provides a "rapid test" and ask them if the test meets these requirements. Many US based pharmacies etc offer rapid based tests with results in as soon as 15 minutes that meet the requirements. I wouldn't be surprised that you can find a similar test in the UK prior to departure.

I am so excited about that upcoming cruise. I was so sad that I could not make this takeover cruise work. Spending time on these blogs you get to "know" people so to speak, and you can't help but get a vested interest. I am looking forward to that great conversation, quite mornings in the suite lounge, late nights on the balcony, and wonderful memories!

I can't wait!!

Man.....here I thought we were being spoiled when we got 3......Oh well, I'll still take it.

My son got a grilled cheese and steamed broccoli delivered to him at chops. Just ask. They will help you

Just call them and ask to prepay

We saw this as well on our cruise. The second showing of Aqua80 for the week had the whole aqua theater full of spectators, and the cast absolutely tried their hardest to soak everyone in the first few rows!

I was standing in CVS yesterday, and Power of Love came on over their speakers and I immediately had Aqua80 and back to the future FOMO!!

Preemptive apology here...I'm pretty sure that my kids will want to compete with yours in the who can be louder game in July.....

Just read this to Heather, and she is amazed! She said she would have had to go to target and spend a few hundred dollars just for herself on supplies.

This is exactly what we thought too!

Sabrina, just got caught up on everything. I am so glad you made the ship!!! I can only imagine the stress of getting down there. I feel bad for you guys that your luggage didn't make it. At least you have laundry included!! Have a great time, hopefully the rest of the cruise is smooth sailing....

@CravingaCruiseThank you so much for your kind words. I hated experiencing and having to write about those people, and I certainly hope that I don't have to see or experience that again. I agree that it seems to be a new norm, that I hope fades into obscurity soon! We absolutely had some star class withdrawal. We still comment on how we wish we had our coffee delivery, or that we could call Derick to fix something for us. Currently all of our future cruises are in star class rooms so clearly I am not willing to accept that I have a problem, and I am refusing to go to rehab!

@Neesa, you are in good hands with Derick! He was very good to us a few weeks ago. My son Johnny would love it if you could say hi for him, and that he has been eating more chicken for even more powerful high fives!

I’m so sad we couldn’t make this one work, but I’m so excited for everyone and can’t wait to follow along. Say hi to Derick for us!!

Final thoughts. This probably will be a rambling post as I try to sum up everything about this cruise. We went into this cruise with our eyes open, and zero expectations. This was our first cruise back, first star class, first oasis class. I've read many star class blogs heading into this, thank you @Lovetocruise2002, @WAAAYTOOO, @Jax and I'm sure many more for sharing your advice, and experiences, and ultimately had a great time. We all said that this was the best cruise we had been on to date. Star class experience. We are pretty low key people so we probably were some of the easiest guests that Derick had to manage. We never had any spur of the moment requests asking for drinks, pizza, parties etc. Derick was receptive to anything that we asked of him, but didn't go beyond that, which has been discussed before about other genies. I agree/feel that with COVID, they have been hamstrung a bit here. Don't get me wrong, because I am not complaining at all. Though I am looking forward to next year when COVID is no longer a thing and a star class sail away party on the helipad can return etc. He did try to fish things out pre-cruise, asking if we had anything to celebrate, but sadly we didn't at the time. We are sailing on Anthem this July in a star class room, so we shall see how things are different. That will be during our 16th wedding anniversary, so something to celebrate there! Get ready for a party @Lovetocruise2002 I completely forgot to take advantage of the laundry service...oh well...... I think one big take away is that being in star class for this cruise was that there was no stress for us. With reservations required for things etc, it was nice to know that it was just done and taken care of for us. We saw many people show up to shows etc that we were going to and turned away because they did not have a reservation. For that star class made it worth it even more. The crew was fantastic. Everyone was very friendly and glad to be back at work. I don't think that other than the extra food in chops were we ever treated any differently than other passengers due to our star class status, and I'm perfect okay with that too. The crew were also excited that shore leave was being approved again. Capacity is being ramped up quickly. Our cruise had 3000 passengers. This week they were expecting 3800, and they were expecting increases each following week. We have all said we are interested to see the differences in the experiences when the ship is full, both with crowds and how star class will play a role in that. Like I said earlier, I didn't feel the need to jump lines for things, but with the ship so empty, there really weren't any lines to jump. My biggest gripe was the internet. It was almost non-existent in our stateroom, and then out on the ship, I would constantly loose connection and would have to turn the wifi on and off and reconnect multiple times. I wasn't the only one with this issue too. Thank you to everyone who followed along, this one was hard to do with my internet woes, and generally being busy with other activities. I really appreciate that you all took the time to read along and for all the reactions and comments! I'll be blogging again in July as we head to Norway on Anthem. This should be interesting because @Lovetocruise2002 is in the cabin next to us. We are all in deck 10 GLS. So say we are excited is an understatement!!

Sadly the Aqua80 show ended, and it was time to focus and get back to reality. Derick had previously asked us what we wanted to do for departure and what time we wanted to get off the ship. Sadly we packed up our bags, and prepared for our long journey home. Derick had left us gifts in the stateroom. We had a nice letter from him, a collection of Oasis water bottles, and a ship model. Soon enough though, the bags were packed, and placed outside our door. We kept one with us for all the things that we would need in morning. Sadly we were informed that there would be no room service breakfast, no Starbucks...Sobs..... On a fun note, we decided to try our luck in the casino. Now we aren't gamblers at all, but we thought hey let's go lose some money, maybe we will get lucky. We have a little bit of an idea of what to do from watching other people etc. So we put some money into the machine....and soon we had turned our $200 to $462 at which point we panicked and cashed out! Its officially the worst day ever.... Since we had a two day drive home, we wanted to get off the ship relatively early, 8am. We had plans to meet Heathers parents in Daytona for lunch. They are snow birds and were down for the winter. Disembarkation was a breeze. Derick met us at guest services and escorted us off the ship. He walked with us in the terminal to the elevator where we had to say our goodbyes. Hugs were exchanged all around. In his letter to us he said that this is not a good bye...its until we meet again. We let him know that we will be on Oasis the same week next year and that we hoped to see him then. He turned us over to one of the port workers in blue who guided us the rest of the way through the terminal. All the bags for star class were right in front of the elevators, and there were porters waiting. We are pretty self sufficient, so we grabbed them ourselves and didn't use a porter. Surprisingly the entire terminal was empty, so we walked to the customs area. Since we all have passports, we were able to use the facial scanners and were through in 15 seconds. We took the elevator to the floor in the parking garage, played our game of Tetris with the luggage, and were on the road. It was probably 15 minutes from when we left the suite to when we were on the road.

With our tour, you aren't forced to interact with anything you don't want to, so if you only wanted to hold a sloth, you can do that, and just watch the monkeys do their monkey thing on other people from the outside you can.

Saturday was a sea day, and our last full day on the ship. The cruise has been so much fun, we were sad to see it coming to an end. Like I had said before that with the reduced numbers, the ship felt empty. There were hardly any lines for anything that we wanted to do. I only used the Star Class band once to jump a line, and it was to get down to the boardwalk faster on the abyss slide because I was grabbing a hot dog for lunch. It was tasty. The rest of the times that we went down the slide, the line was short, and not worth jumping. We started the morning with some Ice skating. Lydia has been on skates since she could walk so she thought it was neat that she could skate on the ship. She was arguably the best skater out there. She even started helping one of the younger kids....proud dad moment there... We then did some rock climbing. Johnny and Heather played some bingo Much too quickly it was dinner time and off to port side BBQ we went. We have some really good BBQ places here in NY (shocking, I know) and I have to say I was impressed with what they accomplished here. Some people may not like it as much because everything is sauced, where some prefer dry, but I'm not that picky. It was here that I hit the wall for star class food coma. I was able to have just a couple of the burnt ends, and only 1/2 the ribs, and I physically couldn't eat another bite. On a side note, order the Portside Spiked Palmer often. It is delicious!! It has Buffalo trace Bourbon, iced tea, lemonade, and hints of peach and mint. I normally don't like peach drinks, but this was one of the best things I drank on the cruise. I was mad that I had not discovered it sooner. After dinner we headed to the theater to see the comedians again, this time for the family friendly show. We also realized that we had not gotten a picture with Derick, so we made sure to do so! The comedians were the same from the adult show earlier. Our assessment was the same. The first guy was okay, but the second was really good. After the comedy show, we got to watch Aqua80 again, this time from our balcony. The show was cancelled a few times during the week, so we were glad to see it back on. One of the high divers was not 100% so there were a few adjustments. Because they had cancelled a few shows, and I think because of the changing protocols for the upcoming weeks, they packed as many people as they could into the aqua theater, which I think was great. The performers were splashing everyone the could in the front rows, and I think you could tell the energy in the theater was just that much higher. Only the very front row was kept empty. We also returned to a room full of more towel animals. Here are the kids with the entire zoo.

The lobster was sooooooo goooood!!!

I hate people, part 2 and 3. Derick reserved us front row seats in Studio B for the ice skating show Frozen in Time. I got there a little late because I was waiting in chops because I ordered a Haute & Steamy coffee to take with me. If you have not had one of these, you are missing out. Anyway, I arrived to Studio B, just in time to see an older man berating one of the crew members. This man was shoving his pinnacle name tag in the crew members face yelling at him how he has spent $100,000 over the years and the least they could do was reserve him a seat. The crew member at least kept his cool, and said sir, there are plenty of seats over on the one side of the rink and he could sit there. I chatted with the crew member for a bit afterwards and told him that I wish people weren't such A-holes, and that they didn't deserve to have to deal with such behavior. He told me sadly they are seeing it more and more.....I hate people This leads me to part 3 of why I hate people. earlier in the day, the cruise director said that they were bringing back the love and marriage show, and that this was the first sailing to have it, and that it would be held in the royal theater right after the ice show. I quickly messaged Derick to see if he could reserve seats for us. We were told that he couldn't and that he was instructed from the cruise department. He said they have been having multiple issues due to seat reservations. He said other guests were sitting in these seats and refusing to get up. These same guests are then going to guest services afterwards and making complaints that the genies are being rude to them. So they have been instructed not to reserve seats in shows that do not require reservations. Thankfully, the guests that Derick and the other Genie were seating backed them up in guest services, but the damage was done. What made it worse, was that the guest who refused to leave was a woman with her young daughter with her. So the daughter was a witness to this behavior and has now learned that this behavior is okay. These same guests also fell asleep during the show......I hate people Anyway, the ice show was really good. The skating was great, the costumes were incredible, and the skater from France who played the emperor was outstanding. He really played up his character and had the crowd rolling in their seats. If you are on Oasis, you really need to see this show!!