GregD

Happy cruise day!!! There is a gym on the ships!!?? Who knew!!

I have not seen pricing like that for a while. They were over 3k (sale price) this august when I was on Indy. Only 1 was occupied. As a joke, sorta, I offered the shore excursions guy at the entrance to the beach club that day 1k for one. He didn't bite. I should also mention that the 3k now is also a "sale price" base price is 4600.

They are $3200 USD for NYE, no thanks. I have some disposable income, but not that much

Welcome @Jade!! Apparently @Jax is RC's favorite and @Lovetocruise2002 and I are chopped liver since they give her the beach club on Christmas Day for $79 and charge us more for NYE! @asquared17 I'm glad I'm a few days behind and missed all the lead up to the luggage reveal They look great BTW!

I used to work, I didn't like it. That's why I became a firefighter. Seriously though, opening new stuff is the best!

I almost went with a trunk style case from Solgaard, but ended up with Beis. I figured the inevitable game of luggage Tetris, when packing the car, will be easier if all the cases are similar dimensions.

You can call the main number and request it that way, or you can try emailing [email protected].

You will have a good time, Some points to consider, springing for the "top shelf" liquor package probably isn't needed, especially if you do mostly mixed drinks because with some of them, they will not use the top shelf liquors. If you are considering a cabana, I would lean to a pool side one, especially if you want to spend lots of time in the water. We had a beach one when we went, but didn't really spend any time in the ocean, because the sea floor is very rocky there, and not very nice, so we were in the pool for quite a bit of time. We had to go find our cabana attendant each time we wanted order something, whereas the pool side attendants were always there.

On my last visit to Cozumel, I went to Paradise Beach. I can fully recommend going here. The food and drinks are good, prices are reasonable. There are plenty of activities for older kids etc. Easy taxi ride to get to as well

I've been here before. I've booked directly with Royal, and separately through their own site. To see the dolphins and manatees up close, you would have to book one of their specific encounters, because they are in a separate area. IIRC the sea lion show is included in the regular pass. I never saw the archeological site so I cant comment on that, but their website says is a replica soooo. I think it is listed as "strenuous" because you have the option of swimming, nature walks etc, so does require some stamina. Overall thoughts, it's an okay place to go if you keep your expectations low. The food and drinks are mediocre at best. If you walk around, there is a straw market with pushy vendors, the lockers need some maintenance. The two times that we went were because my kids wanted to swim with the dolphins. That portion was fun, but if you want pictures they charge you an arm and a leg for those packages. We probably won't go there again in the future.

@TheBoss518 approves. She is traveling to California for work this week and actually had to leave hers home this time. It made her bag too heavy. She was quite disappointed.

I got to this party late. You know how it goes. Congrats on getting to a CLS! Random musings, Awesome price for the CCBC! For my NYE sailing, all the BF sale prices are the same or worse than what they had before, so I have not saved anything. @TheBoss518 and I are team Beis now. I actually just added a few accessories from them as well, and have a few more things that I may grab with some rewards points from them. Cup clip - is it even a cruise if you don't bring that? Sailing Celebrity - I need to try them soon. I have 1907 days until I can retire and open up my schedule. Weighted blanket, only 12lbs? We all want to be @WAAAYTOOO when we grow up.

While I don't know the original deck plans on Harmony, I would think windjammer would have ice cream. There is also Johnny Rockets where you can get a sundae.

You can add someone up to about 3 (I forget the exact number) days prior to departure when the ship manifest is finalized. You are correct, it would be a separate reservation number for that guest. There shouldn't be any issue adding them later as far as life boat capacity etc. but I wouldn't wait too long.

I too just got caught up here. Sounds like a nice relaxing time after your conference. @TheBoss518 would never let me cruise solo(trust me, I've tried), so I'm so jealous. This made me really look forward to sailing in a few short months with @Lovetocruise2002 for NYE. FYI, the above machine is a fancy pants prosciutto slicer, not a noodle maker.

As seen on Facebook today..... Don't do this unless you want to make good friends with the medical staff.

Was just in a GS (1278) on Indy a few weeks ago. Didn't hear a thing from the pool deck.

I got on here very late. It seems like everyone had a great time. Someday I'll sail on her, I just don't know when. The pictures you took, do make the ship look really nice, even though I cant get over the exterior of the Aquadome... Sorry that your trip is coming to a close. Safe travels back home....Make sure to yell at your sister for taking off across the pond on you.

Thank you. Welcome to the blogs!!! We are a fun group of people here so make sure to stick around.

Well, back to the grind, here are my rambling thoughts and lessons learned on this cruise. It was a great trip with @TheBoss518. It was nice to get away without the freeloaders. She and I discussed trying to do this together more often. This ship seemed to be in great shape, and the crew were very friendly and fantastic. You could feel the vibe the ship was mostly new cruisers. There was a lot of "I didn't realize you could do that" when having some casual conversations with people. For what I saw, the tiny humans were pretty well behaved. There was one post in the Facebook group about a group of them not behaving on the last night. The demographics also seemed younger. I was surprised at how empty the specialty restaurants were (this could also go back to the mostly new cruisers). Each night we had dinner there were many empty tables. I must have worn the wrong underwear, the casino was not friendly to me..... The solarium was party central all week. There was a large amount of Spaniards on the cruise and a big group of them monopolized the pool there, and the amount of tequila they put away was impressive. They were having a great time, but their shenanigans were slightly disruptive. The lifeguards, were not amused and threatened to evict them a few times for breaking some of the rules. At least for this cruise, we were fine with vouchers and suite lounge drinks. We did not need to bring our 2 bottles of wine on board. I did drink mine, but only because I didn't want to waste it. Had it not been there, I would not have missed it. Heather had a few glasses from hers, and the rest went down the drain (Thankfully she drinks the cheap stuff). We did not need the water package, most of those got donated back to the ship. So far, no email with all our charges, but I did get the guest survey email about 5 minutes after getting off the ship. People in the Facebook group are grumbling about the disembarkation process. It seemed like people probably weren't paying attention to the process, and tried to do a mass exodus. There apparently was a fight in the casino. My streak of not visiting the windjammer since 2020 continues. I will let some people down here......I did not have one single slice of midnight pizza this cruise....I did though, have one of the tuna sandwiches from cafe promenade and I can agree with @asquared17 those hit the spot when needed. Thank you everyone for reading along and all of your comments. We will be in dry dock until @TheBoss518 is reunited with her suite snob mentor @Lovetocruise2002 for some New Years shenanigans!

Yep, all good things must end eventually

We have made it home. Unfortunately, @TheBoss518 is making me retrieve the freeloaders.

Shenanigans report. Part way into the cruise, a post popped up in the Facebook group. The person was asking why a security guard would be posted outside someone’s room. I postulated that they must have worn shorts in the MDR. This morning though, while waiting to disembark, we watched someone escorted off the ship wearing some new bracelets and also got a special ride in a car with flashy lights.

Random post of suite lounge offerings. Most of the trip we didn’t make it up there till after 6, so the trays were picked over. Each night they had different pre dinner snacks. Favorites of mine were the garlic wings, Swedish Meatballs, Feta and watermelon skewers, corn fritters.

Thank you! We are 1/2 way home, sitting at BWI waiting for our next flight. We were lucky we flew out when we did. Some people we met on the ship weren’t so lucky. There were storms rolling in just after we took off, they were delayed 2 hours. Willy said the late arrival was due to that. We lost quite a bit of time just sitting by key west. When we got moving, I did some napkin math and figured we wouldn’t be arriving at 6. Ughhhhh, why did you have to remind me of that