sk8erguy1978

I'm on the same sailing (Anthem). Jerry is at least going to cause some fun sailing home from Bermuda. We shall see. I have a drink package and 13 friends onboard so, definitely worse places I could be :). Fingers crossed!

My first Royal Cruise was 11 years ago.
Three weeks before my x decided to become my x.
The cruise was awful. Why? Because all I remember from that cruise was him being drunk, a jerk, and not wanting to do anything at all. His drink of choice was "Grey Goose Martini with Six *&^%$ olives". Six. Never understood why SIX? To this day.... if I hear anyone say "Grey Goose Martini..." I cringe and hear in my head "with six olives".
This December marks 10 years free of my x. I wanted to celebrate with a "do over" and in 217 days, I board the Grandeur of the Seas (same ship) and I will indulge in all the cruise ship vacation fun and experiences that I wanted to do all those years ago but instead listened to a drunk jerk complain for seven days.
I am going to go do all the things and take excursions and dance and see the shows EVERY night! I am going to have so much fun and I am going to do it right this time!
?

The 7-nighter we did to Bermuda last October was fantastic .....
Left Baltimore on Grandeur at 4:00....
Day 2 was a Sea Day
Day 3, we Arrived around 4:30 (due to 2 other ships still in dock, we had to wait on Disney to leave) - so, it was like another Sea Day.
Day 4,5 -- Bermuda ---- left there around dusk on Day 5 ---- as it got darker, it was really something to watch the lights of the island slowly disappear on the horizon.
Days 6 & 7 were Sea Days (plus, Day 6 was the Halloween Party ..... epic
It was, by far, the best cruise we'd ever had ......

I agree about wanting to see more/new stuff. This year we added a land trip to London which neither had ever been. We do the Bermuda sailings with our friends now if it's not the only vacation we take as we have been there so many times - even got married there. It truly is a unique island and our favorite one. We will always want to see Bermuda but not as an only vacation. For a while with Explorer being in NJ for so long it felt like Groundhog's Day. 

That also could be fun, although I've already been to OSJ and St. Maarten and I'm trying to see more new ports than repeats right now. Definitely want to go back to both someday, but not until I've gotten more of my wanderlust burned out of my system. ? 
Bermuda is kind of an exception to that "rule", partly because we barely scratched the surface of the place last time, partly because it's so close and easy to get to without breaking the bank, and partly because it's just so amazing; got there the first time and we knew we just had to go back as fast as we could!

That sounds like a fun trip. We did a 9 night to Caribbean from NJ on Explorer, I'd love that and Bermuda mixed for B2B 5-night/9-night.

That's my guess which could make for a bit of a rocky sailing. I suppose anything is possible. Hey in about 24 hours I'll be arriving at Cape Liberty ... whatever, take me somewhere captain -- and where's my drink! LOL

One of these years, probably when the younger one is in college and we're an empty nest, I want to do a B2B 5-night Bermuda followed by a 9-night CA/NE; ideally in the fall so we can enjoy the foliage as we go north.

I would say if you sail tomorrow you are not being diverted to Canada.  However, that doesn't mean they will stop at Bermuda.  I don't know your itinerary.  Ours was suppose to be an overnight in Bermuda, and that was the only stop compared to when they sent us to Canada where we had 3 stops.  
They may say you are going to Coco Cay instead when they get underway.  When we did Adventure in July, Coco Cay was our last stop and than we has 2 sea days, so I can see that as a doable option.  The question/problem I could see with this is how many ships will they have at Coco Cay.  They only can take 2.  With Bahamas out of the question, they are now adding other ships into there for 2 days.  In for the day, out at sea for the day, back in for the day.  At least that is what is sticking in my feeble brain right now.

When we cruised to New England/Canada on Serenade, I wore both shorts and jeans during the trip. It was the first week in Oct and it was actually much warmer than we had expected. If you don't mind a slight chill, you should have the deck pools to yourself most of the time like we did.
Happy Cruising!

Power in Bermuda is back up & running.  The airport is open too.  

@sk8erguy1978  We will be doing Oasis next summer.  She is only going to be there for the summer season, so we can't pass this option up.  We are doing a family druise again with 12 people, and they all wanted to do Ovation out of AK, but since we lived there for 4 yrs (anchorage) we said, nope we are doing Oasis, and after that everybody was on board (no pun) just bc this is a rare event out of Bayonne, at least up to now.

@sk8erguy1978  My husband and I live in VA.  During Hurricane season we only sail out of NJ.  The reason is simple.  I can drive to Cape Liberty, no fear about flights being cancelled.  (yes, we always buy travel insurance).  We have done enough cruises that unless there is something really unique for an excursion, we prefer to just do it on our own. 
IE in Bermuda instead of doing their Horseshoe excursion, or taking the #7 bus, we get a taxi for a lot less than the RCL excursion price, and a few bucks more than the bus, but than we don't have to walk up  the hill for the bus.  We also have found that with a taxi we can get there before everyone else on the ship, so renting the loungers and umbrellas is a short line.
  I was just recently told that there is a better beach, the next stop on the pink bus.  So next yr I will try it. I will say at this time of year, Anthem is a much better ship to sail on than Adventure if they divert you North.  There are several reasons.  Please understand overall I like Adventure over Anthem.
 Anthem's Solarium is bigger,  better views, and has the Solarium restaurant attached.  No walking all the way to WJ.  Adventure has the open roof, so if it rains, life stinks.  Anthem Solarium is totally enclosed.  It can get steamy there, but their beach beds makes life good.  I also like their hot tubs more.    Anthem has a pool that is enclosed for all ages.  It is located between the outdoor and the Solarium.  Love this!  bc if it does rain, they do not have to open up the Solarium to everyone.  That happened on 1 of our cruises.    MUSTER on Anthem you have  a higher chance of doing it inside than on Adventure.  We did Adventure in July, it was 95 degrees.  Of course you heard names being called, and frequent cruisers knew the reason why they were being called.  You just got angrier with each second as you stood back to back shoulder to shoulder in heat.  On Anthem ours was in the 270.  Oh well, I am sitting in AC, not a biggie.  I can't imagine the anger I would have if I stood on deck and it was spitting rain at me.  We like Anthem more for sailing out than Adventure.  It is a taller ship, so you really feel like you could touch the bottom of the Verrazanno.   The location of the band/DJ is better located impo, since it is not in the middle, but the side.  You can even be on the pool deck, dancing and get this amazingly close feeling regarding going under the bridge. Weather wise, when it comes to sea days, I like Adventure more.  Adventure has a promenade and Anthem has a esplanade.  It really gets clogged by Sorrentos and the pub, especially with the tables out and the popcorn station.  Schooners lay out is the worst impo, way too small for the size of the ship, no window views, and located next to the photo station.  Northstar is great, but weather is an issue.  Anthem Northstar will not swing out over the ship.   
Fun thing on Anthem is their outdoor pool.  I would also say that for anybody with a handicap issue Anthem is great.  Their indoor pool (not Solarium) actually has the body lift to get passengers in and out of the pool.  Plus,  they have a kiddie pool located right next to the deeper pool.  This is great if you have a toddler and older children.  
OBTW,  if this is your 1st time on Anthem, make sure you do the look through floor.  I can't swear, but I believe it is on the WJ floor.  It is a 2x2, maybe 3x3 lucite square where you look straight down to the esplanade.  The WJ on Anthem is great.  They have outdoor seating.  
 

@sk8erguy1978  It has been 2 yrs and 3 cruises ago, so take my directions with a grain of salt.  
Exit the ship, follow the crowds.  On the right hand side you will come to multiple food trucks.  There will be some type of playground area for little kids.  There will also be a small dock area for people living in that area to dock their boats.  On the left hand side, you will see their main drag road.  It is 4 lanes (2 each way).  Go across the street  It is on the left hand side.  It is a whole in the wall.  No food, just their booze.  
 If my son still lived with us, I would go in his closet and see the name of the place since we also got him a t shirt.  My husband picked out what we purchased.  He is a bourbon guy.  Bulleit, Makers and Gentleman are his bottom level go to. I would also say that 48 hrs prior I dumped everything out of my suitcase and packed for cooler weather.  Weather Channel said we would be high 70s.  Remember we were 48 hrs out from sailing, but 96 hrs from our 1st port.  Due to the hurricane, the weather front stalled over NE and it was much hotter.  On the way back, it was sweater weather on the decks.  The outdoor pool was empty, but we were now heading into that front.
I would tell her to pack in a way she can take off layers or conversely add on layers. 

My wife said that today ... "I'll toss in jeans and sweatshirt just in case" ... the weather looks like high 60s and 70s up north so I'll still wear shorts, but a sweatshirt would be nice. ?

I am also on this cruise and I just added a pair of jeans some capris & long sleeve shirts to my suitcase (might throw in a sweatshirt too).  I'm ready wherever we go. 

FWIW, if they do divert you to Nova Scotia.  It is an amazing town.  One of our favorite ports.  We compare Halifax to Annapolis or Inner Harbor Baltimore MD.  It is a great walking town with some very interesting history.
 At the port that you come through there is a memorial.  I can't recall the name of the ship.  It was a history lesson I never knew.  A ship with Jews during WWII arrived and Canada did not allow them to immigrate.  They were sent back to Germany, and they have all the names of those that were sent back and died due to the Holocaust.  There is a great whiskey/scotch (not sure which) bar that is right across the street from where you will find the lobster roll trucks, and the docks for personal boats. For our DS that moves back home to baby sit the dogs, we always buy a bottle of specialty alcohol as a thank you gift to him.  The Titanic memorial is probably a 15 min walk from the ship.   Shopping wise
 As you walk from the ship to the Titanic and right in the thick of it,  close to the food trucks, there is an amazing silver store on the left side.  It is tiny.  We always give our kids a christmas ornament for the tree.  They had an amazing high quality unique ornaments at a good price.  I also got a unique necklace there that people always compliment me on.  It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't expensive either.  They have an indoor specialty food/soaps/etc market close to the port.  I picked up unique soaps there.  Memory is a little foggy, but across the street there is a micro brew that you can get a flight of beer at a good price, and great quality according to my hubby.  I don't drink beer which is why I only can kind of remember its location.  Every place we ate, drank or shopped at took US dollars, but gave back the change in Canadian $.  The indoor market was our last stop, so the change he got from buying his lobster roll from 1 truck and poutaine for me from another, plus the beer flight was where we paid in the Canadian $.  We still had some money left, and my husband wanted to get a polar fleece at the market attached to the port.  Probably paid too much, but oh well.  He paid with the left over CAD and the rest on our credit card.  Only saying this, so you can see that you don't need to convert money.

Normally I would be at the game (season tickets for 28 years), but I sold the tickets several months ago.  I'll be on that ship no matter where it's going.

2 yrs at this exact same time we were on Anthem that was suppose to go to Bermuda.   48 hrs prior they emailed us and said you are going to NE.  They gave us back 50% pp for the cruise plus 250 OBC if we still sailed. We did.
The funniest thing was there was aa group that had professional t-shirts.  they had it say sailing to Bermuda, and than a line through the word Bermuda replaced with Nova Scotia.  
The funny part for every one on the cruise, was the temps in Bermuda was high 70s, but every stop on our cruise was 90 degrees.  
The last night the storm was making it's way up to NE.  Although the captain did his best trying to skirt the storm,  it was very rocky.  Everybody was walking like they were drunk and the ship had placed the blue bags out at the bottom of every staircase.  We had dinner in the MDR (our table was by the windows).  The waves were so high that they came up 50% of the window and you could easily see the white caps in the dark of the night.  
None of us slept well that night, not because of the ocean being rough, but because at least every 30 mins you were hearing the horn blast.  I had known that going under bridges they would sound the horn, and knew we were skirting the storm.  I remember saying to my group that a.m. how many dang bridges did we go under last night.  Our wait staff said, oh no that wasn't because of bridges it was due to the weather.
OBTW we still say to this day it was probably our best cruise ever.  It sailed 100% occupancy.  Everyone was happy and nice, and so polite on the cruise.  I am talking passengers.  IE people at the pool bar weren't saying I was here 1st.  Going up or down stairs, they would move over to one side single file so people could pass them, would move down a seat in the shows so there were no empty spaces.  Pretty sure that the 50% refund and 250 OBC had a lot to do with people feeling like they won the lottery.  
 For us, we had a balcony.  I recall my husband saying that in the end the cruise cost us @750 in total for 6 nights when you add back in our OBC, how can you do any all inclusive vacay for 125 per night for 2?   My husband up to that point kept saying he wanted to do a land all inclusive.  I looked at him, and said, had we booked an all inclusive Bermuda, they may have refunded us the cost, but we would have not had a vacation.  Here we had a vacation at rock bottom barrel price with perfect weather.

I'm on the same sailing (Anthem). Jerry is at least going to cause some fun sailing home from Bermuda. We shall see. I have a drink package and 13 friends onboard so, definitely worse places I could be :). Fingers crossed!

We witnessed this happening on Oasis back in 2013.
We were on our way back to FLL, sailing between Florida and Cuba, when we heard "Oscar, Oscar, Oscar".  The ship came to a sudden halt and did a 180 and then stopped again.  When we went over to the rail to see what was happening, we saw the raft with about 12 people on board.  A dinghy was sent out and after about 20 minutes, came back.  As we got underway, the captain announced that they were offered help, but the crew was told that the people just wanted to be left alone.  The Captain notified the US Coast Guard and we asume they were met once they reached US waters.
My wife took quite a few pictures, a few of them attached here.
 

Fellow New Englander here.?
Sailing out of Boston this coming Sunday (9/22), first time out of Boston.  This is a great place to share information and ask questions.

Oh cool we are on the same cruise. Either way we get to enjoy the gorgeous Anthem of the seas. I do not want to be in hurricane waves that is for sure.

I'm on the same sailing (Anthem). Jerry is at least going to cause some fun sailing home from Bermuda. We shall see. I have a drink package and 13 friends onboard so, definitely worse places I could be :). Fingers crossed!

I'm on Serenade leaving Boston 9/22 and scheduled to get into Bermuda 9/25.  It certainly looks like a close call for me.
Latest track has Jerry going past Bermuda between 9/24-9/25 as a tropical storm.  I really don't want to be going to Canada, but not much anyone can do about the weather.  There's still a long time to go, so hopefully the storm changes track and allows us at least some time in Bermuda.  If it's any consolation, Sunday and Monday are supposed to be hot up here in the northeast, so if we head north, we'll get at least one hot at sea day.