USCG Teacher

Fun fact: my wife helped design that game. She does design for NJ Lottery. Now back to your regularly scheduled live blog hilarity. Have a great cruise!

Both can and will happen. Royal's package prices usually hover in a fairly consistent space with some occasional fluctuations. Sometimes it's because of a sale, sometimes it's just random. Your best bet in buying anything off of the Cruise Planner is to just buy what you're interested in whenever it is at a price you're comfortable with, but then keep monitoring the price! If it goes down after you buy it, you can always cancel and rebook at the lower rate. The only caveat is to be sure to call in to rebook on items that may sell out. There have been tales of people who cancelled online to rebook the lower price, and by the time they rebooked, the excursion or package had sold out. Doing the exchange live with an agent is far less convenient, but it eliminates that possibility.

This is 100% the move. After sunset. No scenery to distract them, nothing to do, and too late to get off. May the Gods be in your favor.

Rates are better, too, although every cruise is an interior GTY.

No worries at all, you've got enough on your plate! And it's a standing offer.

+1 for Victor Bodden. Used them last month and were quite happy. Have also heard several good things about Rony's as @OCSC Mike suggested.

Huge congrats, man. That is no small feat. Glad you're able to celebrate, and happy to be following along! To most central FL restaurants' credit, I've always seen them listed as "Philly-style Cheesesteaks," and not Philly Cheesesteaks. I view this as an explicit admission that they won't be anything remotely close to the real deal, it's just the best they can do. Fair play. All that said: Yup.

Are you doing coach, or do you have roomettes/bedrooms? On Texas Eagle, from Chicago to San Antonio has "Flexible Dining" in the dining car, which is a generous term for microwaved meals. That said, even those microwaved meals are a step up from what's in the cafe car. The cafe car is fine for a short commuter trip where you just forgot to eat and need a quick snack, but fr real sustenance it gets old real quick. Texas Eagle Flexible Dining Menu Generic Amtrak Cafe Car menu Also to note: I have been on trips where no cash was accepted and it was card only, and I've been on trips where the CC reader was broken and the cafe was cash only.

I was on two weeks ago and had the same experience. Filet and tenderloin were fairly early on, we absolutely had the red/green disc, and the servers had no issue at all if any of us wanted to skip a particular meat. Our experience was somewhere between 90 mins. to 2 hours, but that was definitely more of an us issue than a them one. It was only about 60% full and still a long ways to closing, so we didn't feel rude lingering and enjoying a few glasses of wine...

This is exactly what we did. We had 7:00 dinner reservations each night, then the later reservations for the 3 shows we saw (Blades, AquaAria & Blue Planet). Gave us plenty of time for a leisurely dinner and to relax a little bit before the show.

Check your DMs.

Two things about the shows. If you've already made show reservations on CP, that's great. Makes your concierge's job one step easier. Letting them know what time your shows are booked for will help them to pan your dinner reservations around your entertainment schedule to make sure there are no conflicts. If you have been unable to make your reservations on your CP, particularly if the show you want to see is showing sold out, your concierge can help you secure a reservation.

I have to agree with @asquared17, this feels like a camera crew should be following you! As an aside, I'm not sure if you've done long-haul Amtrak before or not, but if you have any questions/want suggestions, etc., please feel free to message me. Otherwise, looking forward to see how this journey unfolds!

Keep moving those goal posts, champ. Sooner or later you're sure hit a point that people agree with you about!

That would make sense, sadly. Hopefully someone with more recent intel can chime in!

Het @ScottD! Not sure what ship you're on, but when we went to Blue Lagoon last summer on Oasis, the return ferry dropped us off really close to the ship, a few hundred yards at most. This is the link to a post I made with an overhead of the pier (the red star was both where we met in the morning and approximately where we were dropped off).

When you go at 1 it's basically an open house. Lots of staff to show you around, answer questions and get your kid registered. Taking time to look around, it took 15 minutes tops. Very easy process!

The OBC will be placed back into your account immediately, any remaining amount that was on your credit/debit card will take a few days to weeks to make it back to you.

"Welcome aboard folks. The gangway's up and we'll be preparing to set sail from Kahului momentarily..."

If only there was some way to contribute to the people of Maui!

Yep. This is the one.

"Like" is the wrong reaction to this statement, but there's no other way to show my agreement!

If I were a gambling man, it's where I'd put my money, too.

Three words and a conjunction: Garden Martini and bread. Team 150 all the way.

Interesting data point for you, @WAAAYTOOO. This past week were in CK on Allure during MDR lobster night (poached lobster night in CK). Our server told us that there was "an off menu option" that night that was the traditional lobster tail, and that he could also do it as a surf and turf. He also told us that as a suite perk, CK diners do not have to pay extra for additional tails. He even brought a few out just for my boys to try them. Not sure if this is official policy, unofficial policy, or a ship by ship case.