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GregD

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Posts posted by GregD

  1. 9 hours ago, asquared17 said:

    i think the best part about your live-blogging is the commentary. sometimes i even wish it wasn’t so painfully accurate/disturbing 💀😆😅😂🤣

    18 hours ago, Cactus527 said:

    Thank you! I’m really having fun with this one so far, and I’m glad you are too. I also really appreciate everyone for taking time out of their day to read along and comment

  2. And like clockwork, I’m on vacation, overindulging, yet I still woke up at 6am. I’m off to the suite lounge to enjoy in the word of Danny Harr my nice Italian coffee. (Everyone else is still unconscious, I can also say I did not need the liquid IV this morning.

    We have a standing Starbucks delivery order with Berty set up for second coffee. I don’t think we have too many daytime activities planned yet. I do know Berty has is scheduled for lunch at Sabor and CP150 for dinner. Johnny is a big fan of “looking all fancy” so @asquared17 stay tuned for some nicer family photos. 
     

    My favorite morning view

    IMG_6262.thumb.jpeg.d55a4d2cee107c81e4ee5dd3fcc109e3.jpeg
     

    They are just now putting the food out in the lounge so I will have first breakfast soon!

  3. Tonight we saw grease. Heather and I both thought that the cast was really good. It was very entertaining. We have officially crossed the line where our daughter is now old enough that she understood all the innuendo and raunchy jokes. I’m not sure who was more mortified, us or her. 
     

    Pre show, I really liked how they had screens that showed the cast with a bio, like a playbook you would get at a broadway show. It really highlighted that the cast members aren’t just “cruise performers.”  All of them are quite accomplished and I kinda wish this was done on other ships.

    IMG_6260.thumb.jpeg.ec99bf597a2235ed06a74c6511753314.jpeg

    The real star of the show was this guy though. Sitting behind the sound booth we could see this monitor with what I can assume is the musical director. He was singing and bopping along to everything while playing the keyboards. He was almost as entertaining as the cast!

    IMG_6261.thumb.jpeg.694d5d1e32233278e8a611cc2695b012.jpeg

    It’s been quite the day….it is now bedtime! There is a strong possibility I might need that liquid IV in the AM..

  4. Other stray observations. So far everyone seems to be respectful of each other and friendly. Not a lot of pushing and shoving while leaving the theater tonight. People were actually curious and letting rows empty before coming up the aisles themselves.

    @TheBoss518 did witness some vintage shenanigans as a well lubricated one was dancing her heart out while someone else was trying to hold her up so she wouldn’t fall and break a hip. So far no ALPHA ALPHA ALPHA’s were called so she must have been successful and kept the vintage in her feet.

  5. After dinner, we wandered a bit.. @TheBoss518 found the Luis Vuitton shop.....this will probably not end well for my bank account....

    We were able to get her away empty handed.....for now.....

    We came back to the suite to change and get ready for Grease. The star class food coma is already setting in, because we had second dessert waiting for us. I'm gonna gain a million pounds this week.....

    IMG_6259.thumb.jpeg.5768d4ea94443968e9c387d30af492f6.jpeg

  6. 51 minutes ago, Va4fam said:

    Never sailed Star Class, but curious if they make you stop and take a family picture with the big ship background thingy

    They asked if we wanted to, we said no, it's not really our thing. We have had pictures done before and weren't happy with them.

    52 minutes ago, Va4fam said:

    Any Lone Star beer sightings on the ship?

    Not yet, but I have not been looking. I'll do some research and let you know.

  7. After sail away, we all had dinner at Coastal Kitchen together. We got to experience the first crack in the genie magic. As we walked in, Berty was there to meet us and brought us to a table for 4. We had made plans with him to have a table for 8 for all of us. He quickly admitted that he completely forgot🤣 Thankfully there was a table for 8 all ready to go, so it was no big deal.  Amazingly, we have discovered that the genies are human too!

    We all tucked in for a very nice and enjoyable meal. 

    Appetizers consisted of the Buratta Salad, shrimp cocktail, escargot, caesar salads. I failed as a blogger since I didn't manage to get pictures of everything, but I assume everyone knows what a caesar salad, shrimp cocktail and escargot look like🤣 As you can see in the picture below, I somehow managed to get the smallest fillet at the table....Lydia filled up on bread, so I ate the rest of hers. 

    coastalnight1.thumb.jpg.10078373bda80bcae71cb24bc1297520.jpg

    I also discovered during desert that the espresso martinis are very good! 10 out of 10 highly recommend. I did try to give the creme brûlée the benefit of the doubt.....0 out of 0, would not recommend......again, I make that myself at home, and if I do say so myself, its damn good. 

    For main courses, it was Filet all around. Johnny chose to get the grilled chicken because he is picky about his steak....again my fault.....

    All in, today was a great start to the cruise. It's nice to sail with friends and share our love of cruising with them. Dan and his wife were happy to find out that all the wine and drinks they had at dinner were covered in the suite lounge happy hour. They typically don't drink too much each day, so this benefit really works out well for them being in a suite.

     

  8. 2 hours ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

    are those bows or shower thingees?

    Those are loofas!!! Never thought I would want to use things that I would wash my bits and pieces to identify my luggage....hopefully they are new and not....contaminated......

    2 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

    Curious minds want to know…What’s that? 

    Pasta Carbonara🤣 pasta made with eggs....Breakfast Pasta!!!

     

    33 minutes ago, Va4fam said:

    Congrats making it to Cruise Day and welcome @TheBoss518.

    How did you get from the hotel to cruise port.........how far was it?

    Thank you.

    We have a rental car. It was 3.5 miles from our hotel to the port. About 12 minutes to drive there. 

  9. General boarding day observations. I’m sure the ship is full. I’ll get some numbers as soon as I can.

    Crowds don’t seem too bad. The face jammer line was long as to be expected at lunch time. 

    Plenty of tiny humans on board as well. It’s a vacation week for us in the frozen north east so that’s also to be expected. So far everyone seems to be happy and behaving. Every now and then I see a happy camper who found a duck.

    We rode the rising tide bar for grins and giggles. Slowest elevator ever. 

    @TheBoss518 has assumed her position for sail away.

    IMG_6249.thumb.jpeg.2aee28b8383aaf0d02404932d18b6627.jpeg

    The binoculars on the balcony make a great spot to set a drink….(add a couple of bourbons to the tally)

    IMG_6250.thumb.jpeg.a71e14d7e73f635bb649ce9247956cb9.jpeg
     

     

  10. Embarkation day lunch:

    Dan and his family quickly discovered the benefits of coastal kitchen. They were originally were going to go to the face jammer, because their daughter is a fan and wanted to show her friend the buffet....Then they saw the line. They quickly abandoned those plans and went to CK🤣

    We, courtesy of Berty, had reservations at Jamies. Now I'm sure people have seen my reservations about the food there, and it's not our favorite. Today, I would like to amend my statement and say lunch was delicious. Our waiter was very friendly and started us on our star class food coma quickly and added extra appetizers to our order. 

    We initially just wanted the meat plank and the burrata. The waiter added the arancini and the bruschetta......okay fine, if you insist🤣

    Our starters were very tasty. The honey and truffles on the burrata worked better than I thought, though I still prefer GT with the pesto.Untitled.thumb.jpg.c9a519130ea34b9a0449dafb984829cd.jpg

    For entrees, Truffle lovers @Ampurp85 and @asquared17 will rejoice. @TheBoss518 got the truffle tagliatelle. Johnny got the cheeseburger, Lydia got breakfast pasta, and I had the chicken burger with truffle fries. 

    Everything was very good, also add two glasses of wine to the drink count. I think I will need that liquid IV later tonight.

    Untitled2.thumb.jpg.55e081407b9746d200a4ebcc67cc0abb.jpg

     

     

  11. I'm sure everyone is wondering how the pineapple shirt went.......

    So it actually didn't work out the way we thought.....

    I never got a chance to put it on, but I casually mentioned pineapples while we were all relaxing in the suite lounge. Dan immediately said, "did Adam put you up to that?"

    No Adam is the guy that works on my shift and encouraged me to get a pineapple shirt and wear it and get a video. He is the ultimate in playing the long game......because, he worked with Dan one day recently....and told Dan to do the same thing!!!

    Dan and I had a good laugh at this....now we are thinking how he can get a shirt, and the two of us can make it weird for the rest of the guys at work...

    I told you....we play the long game...

    Also, for those keeping track...We are now one Guiness and two very strong mojitos in at this point (before noon)

  12. As you can see from the earlier post. We all met up on the boardwalk while we finished our portion of the muster drill. We all headed to our stateroom to let our friends drop their bags etc and to let them see the room. They were quite impressed. The boarding process for them has “ruined” gen pop sailing for them. Their part cruise was a boardwalk balcony on Wonder. They aren’t sure if they can go back.

    We then headed off to explore the ship together. The kids were registered for adventure ocean, and we showed them the other suites areas. 

    We also started to make use of our beverage package and treated our friends to some drinks courtesy of our diamond vouchers. 
     

    While relaxing in the suite lounge, Dan remarked that he was really impressed by the response from the concierges. When he got the email, he responded with their dinner reservation and show requests which were all immediately taken care of. I think we have officially inducted new members into the suite snob club🤣

  13. Arriving to the port, we got our first glimpse of our home for the week! We pulled in at about 10am.

    IMG_6227.thumb.jpeg.0bcdb3ae166b575b7b308587cbb2e3e3.jpeg

    As you come into the port, we kept right and the entrance to the parking lot is there right on the left. We got a spot about 100 feet from the terminal.

    As has been reported, the suites/pinnacle area is well marked and easy to see. The star class greeter was right there. She called a porter who took our bags and we were escorted inside. We had to wait a few minutes at the bottom of the escalator because they weren’t quite ready for everyone.

    About 5 minutes later we were allowed upstairs and through security. All of the genies were already there in the lounge waiting so we met Berty right away. Shortly after, checkin was completed and we were on ship!

    IMG_5522.thumb.jpeg.31c17411127bc5763fe867b214f4959e.jpeg

    I took the picture of the ship while in the car at 9:59. The Boss took this photo at 10:30.

    While we were going through our boarding process, I kept in touch with our friends. Their boarding process was also smooth. They arrived at 10:28 and were on the ship at 10:48. We had the following conversation 🤣

    IMG_6247.thumb.png.a3da960b9c884bd58fa6d6d49f4481db.png

     

  14. 4 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

    Oops, final posting for now, I promise - what hotel did you stay in, @GregD and @TheBoss518? I love that view!

    We stayed at a Tru by Hilton. It’s right on the sea wall. It’s nothing fancy and good for one night. It’s also one of the combo places that also has a home2suites attached. 
     

     

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