sk8erguy1978

One strategy is to book one of Serenade's 10 night round trip cruises from Tampa that stop in Colon.  There you can book an excursion boat that goes into the canal.  Cheaper cruise fare and you get a closer look at the canal in a smaller tour boat.  Best of both worlds.
Jan. 18, 2023
Feb. 22, 2023
10 night cruise means less days of PTO consumed.  

It's tough for us, mere mortals, to compete with THE BOT

Ugh, just catching up. I'm sorry. Glad to see you have a positive attitude and trusting the doctors advice, judgement, etc. It's really important to have that. Fingers crossed for you!

Bad news. Remember how I mentioned getting "random big zings in the middle of watching my bajillionth hour of TV"? Turns out that was the entire thing tearing apart and failing. Sutures came out today, and doc and nurse agreed with my at-home assessment that the whole thing just failed. Too much strain for the incisions to stay closed and heal.
So now I'm back to Square negative 1 -- this wound is now about double the size it was when I started, because of course the doc excised all the originally bad tissue to resolve the source problem. ? 
Good news is that I was mentally prepared for this, since the doc did tell me up front I only had a 50-70% percent chance of it working. And it's sore, but not killing me like the sutures were. We're already planning on a full-thickness skin graft procedure, which he is much more confident will work since he can take enough donor tissue to relieve the problems around strain. But the site is looking angry right now; I have to take a week or two to treat it and get rid of the redness and irritation, let it heal a bit so it's ready for taking a graft.
So that means I'm back at work for that time, then will be back on short-term disability for about 3 weeks. Thankfully, my employer's short-term disability claims allow for a relapse; long as I go back on leave within 60 days for the same reason as before, they'll just reopen the existing claim and get updated info from the surgeon; no need for me to start a whole new claim or redo paperwork.
And to the doctor's credit -- he said that if he had discussed the possibility of falling back on a graft before this surgery started, he would have done it then and there. But he felt it wasn't ethically responsible to go in saying he'd do "X", and then tell me after I woke up that he decided to do "Y" without reviewing it and getting consent from me first. Especially since the original surgery had some chance of working and I should have a chance to beat the odds.
Which honestly, I'm kicking myself over because I had thought about bringing it up with the doctor when I saw him right before surgery to sign everything and go over my questions, but then forgot to do it!! If I had just said, "Hey, if you start this and find it's looking iffy, feel free to switch over to Plan B"... well, this story might have taken a very different course.
Live and learn, I guess. He might still have said, "Well, let's just get through this and see." But then again...

Well only a bot would know how to do that !  I have cruised umpteen dozen times and I never knew you could book all of your MTD at once.  Of course, I don't claim to be all that bright, either.  Thanks @twangster

There is a trick to planning all dining including My Time for the duration of the cruise.
Click on the Dining button, choose All Dining

 
Next click Plan All Cruise Dining at the bottom
 
 
 
This will open a screen where you can plan every night and checkout only once.
 

 
With the new My Royal Cruise planner coming this will likely change but I suspect there will be something similar.  

Just Remember:
If you wear your mask at work, your coworkers can't smell the Alcohol on your breath. ?

I've always been a pretty simply guy with pizza. Cheese or Pepperoni as a go to but do enjoy a "meat lovers" as well. With that said, more variety could be fun and a "free" way for me to try what I normally wouldn't. 

Walking around, maybe / sure. Sitting at lounger, no.

There are a lot of variables at play. I recall seeing something about drinking at bars only, that's a deal breaker.
Masks: if it is 24/7 outside cabin maybe, but if that's including a pool lounger, sorry, I'm out. If I cannot enjoy a drink on my lounger, I'm out. What's the point of taking in vitamin D with the mask on. For us, the pool deck, including hanging on the loungers, is a big way we spend a day at sea.
Vaccine: take it or leave it. I'm not anti-vax and will probably get it when it's my turn (last). Mainly to put my in-laws minds at ease and of course the suspicion places will ask for a "vax pass." As others my wife gave it to me after treating a C+ patient volunteering as an EMT. We had symptoms but nothing major, just felt like crap, fever, aches, etc.
Edit: I don't see my September Oasis out of NJ sailing anyway.

YES....Ready for the Pool Deck.. ?  SAFETY FIRST 
I assume this is what were talking about ?  Just a bit difficult with my drinks ?

If vaccines are required, it will limit the pool of eligible guests at least for 2021.   A majority of US guests won't even have the opportunity to be vaccinated until mid-late summer.    I believe Israel leads the world in percentage of population inoculated (but a small market).   I read that based upon their stats, the vaccine they use is 92% effective.    Less developed countries with limited medical logistics systems will take even longer to get their populations inoculated. 
But if we're only going to see 1 or 2 ships sale (per cruise line) from a US port this year, a vaccine requirement would probably fit that limited back to sail strategy.

There are a lot of variables at play. I recall seeing something about drinking at bars only, that's a deal breaker.
Masks: if it is 24/7 outside cabin maybe, but if that's including a pool lounger, sorry, I'm out. If I cannot enjoy a drink on my lounger, I'm out. What's the point of taking in vitamin D with the mask on. For us, the pool deck, including hanging on the loungers, is a big way we spend a day at sea.
Vaccine: take it or leave it. I'm not anti-vax and will probably get it when it's my turn (last). Mainly to put my in-laws minds at ease and of course the suspicion places will ask for a "vax pass." As others my wife gave it to me after treating a C+ patient volunteering as an EMT. We had symptoms but nothing major, just felt like crap, fever, aches, etc.
Edit: I don't see my September Oasis out of NJ sailing anyway.

We have a November cruise booked for Oasis -  fingers crossed the world is healthy by then.
 

I believe it is going to start being a rolling cancellation on a ship by ship basis.  As they are able to get ships sailing those will go forward (i.e. April will be Odyssey from Israel and Quantum for Singapore) and all ships that are not yet sailing will all get canceled. I think it's going to get a LOT more messy simply because it won't be a blanket statement.  Everyone will have to be very alert to specific ship's news as they sail/don't sail depending on countries and ports.

From reading the "other" thread, the biggest thing coming out of this change is that fact that you will no longer be able to price compare items that you have purchased in the Cruise Planner.  It will just show that you have already purchased this item and there will be no current price available.  According to "authorities" on the other site, even CSR will not be able to look up current prices for you as they [apparently] can only see the same thing that you can see.  This totally sucks !

I am cautiously optimistic about late Q3 early Q4 (September / October). If things get moving soon it's possible. We know another round of cancellations are coming with Carnival and NCL announcements. I am not optimistic about my September cruise on Oasis.

I am cautiously optimistic about late Q3 early Q4 (September / October). If things get moving soon it's possible. We know another round of cancellations are coming with Carnival and NCL announcements. I am not optimistic about my September cruise on Oasis.

There are still a lot of issues to resolve so way i see it, it will happen when it happens. 
yes the sooner the better but no one wants short cuts to be taken when peoples safety is the priorty

Definitely.  Back up to 20+ cruises booked. 

Let's all chip in and buy everyone at the CDC some of these shirts...
https://shop.cruisehabit.com/products/its-not-a-boat-cruise-ship-style-mens-t-shirt?variant=16248888983654

Last night was my first without any pain meds, and my second sleeping in my own bed instead of our recliner. Woke up at 5 AM, but given I got 9-1/2 hours of sleep the night before and have a ton of extra sleep I'm not particularly bothered by it. Feels good to be off those meds and have a fully clear head again.
And the tape fell off this morning, so I got my first good look at the whole site. It looks to my eye like it's healing well, so I'm hopeful that I'm beating my surgeon's odds and powered up enough "Wolverine factor" to make this work. I get the sutures out this coming Tuesday, so that'll be the acid test.
Oh, and I'm sitting at my computer while I type this. Last couple of mornings I've been managing about 1-1/2 to 2 hours of combined sitting and standing, including making omelettes for my younger daughter and myself yesterday morning. Gradually adding more "normal" sitting time to the day; I definitely overdid it a bit yesterday with all the paperwork I had to fill out for the Japan trip, but Advil and elevation settled it down again.