dr martini

On fairly short notice couple weeks ago took a casino offer and YOLO booked freedom for next weekend. just noticed this quirk in her schedule....I realize this is a third party site (cruisemapper) technically but it's usually accurate with tracking - tomorrow May 2 is freedom going to do FLL and MIA in the same day? It's techinically possible I guess, but I just found it interesting.

So the full (delayed) live blog will take a minute because of two main reasons - 1-chasing three little babies and 2- Indy’s internet being so completely slow and unreliable to the point of unusable. I couldn’t get laptop or iPad to connect and upload anything Arrival last Saturday into port of Miami was a disaster due to the tunnel being closed last minute with no communication from any official channels and most people in the fb group didn’t get on until after 2pm because (Miami) and the huge 395 bridge project that will be at least another two years and coming home port arrival yesterday was delayed with no explanation until after 8 am although if East coast homeland security was skittish or placed holds because of the terrible incident with the helicopter/airline crash in DC I wouldn’t judge or blame them at all, truly once in 25 year type stuff very sad so I will not complain. Flying home tomorrow early will keep sorting photos and give a delayed breakdown soon. Love Indy and the cruise overall was great, as i say the internet was terrible and a few other small issues but nothing insurmountable.

49 degrees with rain and fog in Naples yesterday and doesn’t look much better in Miami. Can honestly say in all my life of visiting south florida this is the worst weather I have ever seen. It is better than still below zero at home and it’s gonna get better soon! Gonna head to a couple local seafood stores and find some shrimp and fish to grill later today with the fam all together. There might be relaxing days ahead but today will not be one of them haha taking peace in at least my own bag being organized thank you packing cubes, highly recommend! Especially when you have a trip with different segments like this, using just one packing cube for the first couple nights so i don’t have to rip through everything

haha @Ampurp85 if they want to watch the kids or change a couple diapers they're more than welcome....should be deterrent enough right there

the sea day casitas are listed on the cruise planner today for $450!! man that seems crazy, but it's like the cabanas on pdcc or anywhere else. royal keeps going up and people keep paying it. my thinking at the time was a place to set up as home base without fighting chair hogs and also help add to my folks diamond drinks to keep them hydrated on the sea day. pricing wasn't bad for the deluxebev with wifi (a package i have only ever seen on black friday and not the rest of the year) for me and the wife, $92 pp/pd vs $86 pp/pd for the same pkg on Freedom 4 day two years ago.

appreciate the feedback, the original price didn't feel so bad because i had some onboard credit from our travel agent plus my Royal credit card bonus points so was feeling flush with them and splurged on a few different things, the casita being one of them. idk, in the interest of research and a place to park the baby support equipment i might keep it. decisions decisions. dusting of snow here today, doesn't look like weather in florida is much better! crazy new orleans and houston got more snow yesterday than we've had all season up north.

i do also have a casita for our final sea day that i bought like a year ago, man now i'm having second thoughts it's $350 and i keep reading blah reviews about them. i might go on and cancel that, keep the $ for babysitting fees....

flying out of eastern IA actually as it's closer to the grams and will gladly take their help for the flight! one day closer brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

yes thank you @OCSC Mike i was trying to find that in my bookmarks but couldn't dig it up in time. thanks for that review and will definitely let you know how it goes, we are more beach people than pool people so chose a cabana in the front row but all seems close enough and easy to navigate.

It's cruise week! Nothing like -40 wind chills to make you want to get away to the Caribbean! I was going back and forth on doing a live blog or just commenting on @Ampurp85 always entertaining account of things I think we'll be on Indy the same time later this week. Anyway obviously here now decided to throw a quick bit of info together. It's been two years since my last cruise which is way too long!!! Will not let that happen again, didn't have a great time with some covid era cruises and since just been busy chasing our babies around, last cruise we left two at home but now bringing all three along (4,2,10mo) with my folks in connecting junior suites. the wife and I had a great time on Freedom a couple years ago, I did a lot of voyager class cruising as a kid and I just love this size of ship, still huge by any comparison but a nice medium sized for us now. Looking forward to being on an upper deck near WJ, day care/kids' club and splashaway bay. my folks are diamond, wife and i are not yet so we have the deluxe bev pkg and my time dining, if we go as a group will be WJ, best case scenario is one night or two we'll sneak out late just us as a couple to a specialty dinner so just a few things planned but not every hour of every day by any means - will mostly go with the kids' flow and thank God for a great grandma who doesn't mind hanging on the balcony while they nap and/or watch them in the evening for us. Casino comps have still been coming to me but they're mostly the 4 day Nassau PDCC route and we've learned from past experience in Jan/Feb that can still be not the greatest weather and the Atlantic is cold up there! Getting further south for this one and the high in South Florida on Friday is still only 59!! yikes. Either way we're obviously excited to get out of here, flying into southwest florida Thursday morning to hang with my sister and her kiddos for a couple days, ship leaves Miami Saturday. They have a huge pool house with guestroom space that we'll be taking over, it's a lot to be there all week together and gets a little cramped (as we've found in the past haha) but will be just fine for a couple days. If we weren't spoiled with that hookup we would definitely be on south beach in Miami for a night or two. Day 1 - Miami, we'll drive in just two hours across alligator alley as we've done in the past and get boarded ASAP my folks like to show up at 10am honestly expedited boarding is one of the best parts of the JR suite life. I see that sentiment around these boards from most of you pros, hey we paid for the first day, go enjoy and use it! Day 2 - At Sea, will be lots of pool time and i'm sure a lot of fries and chicken strips from fish & chips, maybe try the escape room while kids nap? always love trivia and name that tune type events later in the day. Day 3 - Grand Cayman, Wife and I have booked a stingray city and snorkel type excursion leaving kids with Grandparents and then will find a cocktail and some lunch along 7 mile beach. Our only scheduled adult time, fingers crossed that happens haha we shall see..... Day 4 Cozumel, doing Paradise Beach as a group together, got a cabana by the beach. Have seen a lot of great reviews here, will be our first time trying it (but by no means our first time in cozumel) Day 5 At Sea, more pool time, chill and enjoy. Day 6 back in Miami and then ultimately to my sister's again to hang in Florida another night before heading back to this frozen tundra up here, i'm already sad just thinking about it.

love that 'dreams keep me awake' in the stairway, i took a big version pic of that had it as my desktop for a longtime. i think symphony has the best variety and quality of art i have seen on any royal ship but i've not been on a few of the newer ones. hooked is puzzling to me because it's seafood on a cruise ship, how can it not work? but i've also been on symphony a couple times and hooked is just weird placement too, like is this the spa or where are we? we went lunch on a sea day and it's like all the way up, all the way forward, really quiet and dead no vibes and rocked like crazy because of that location which didn't help my wife's appetite either and probably cut our stay short. the food was fine but not special at all, ice bar is a nice idea but ends up being a slightly nicer than WJ presentation for a slower smaller place. disappointing for sure.

two weeks from today! found a better port miami webcam with some chill beats kind of like the current location channel on royal ships.

that code did not work for me when I booked paradise beach back in August of 24 for our cruise end of this month (Jan 25), I also emailed them separately to confirm and received this, but I know these things change all the time

very cool @Ampurp85 always love your blogs and our crew will be with you on indy the 25th sailing.

the burger i had at johnny rockets on symphony was my best meal of the cruise outside of 150 central park

well they don't have you captive so you're wrong about that, but you're certainly feel free to price out other options or vacations. these complaints are kind of silly once compared to the world at large. yes things have changed, no we're not all supposed to be happy about it, you're free to feel your feelings but maybe do your homework on the world at large before just singling out one item from one cruise line. airfare, car prices, repairs, insurance, groceries - yes prices are all way up and yes we've all noticed. as it stands today airfare to get my whole family to florida in january costs more than our entire cruise so i'm holding off on that purchase and looking at all my options, definitely not just sticking with the one airline that i prefer and usually take and i'm certainly not crying to a forum dedicated for that airline about it.

they're erring on the side of caution and just made a wildly expensive decision to get to the bottom of the issue and get it resolved. in my job working around a variety of restaurants and grocery stores i see equipment breakdowns and computer issues all the time, it never ends and it has nothing to do with the age or size of the equipment. i've seen brand new stuff out of the box have issues and have seen compressors still running refrigeration on electric motors that are older than me. same can be said for the delivery companies we rely on, they all have trucking or IT issues from time to time. this is just what modern life is like and we never close a store to repair one cooler or cash register. you do everything possible to find a workaround, do the work at odd hours etc. to close business for day or a week is a huge loss. when you consider the scale, the number of things it takes to keep your average grocery store stocked with the variety of food we have today, to get anything in the world delivered to you in two days, to run the Navy that we have or the fleet that Royal has considering the number of things that can go wrong it's amazing we don't see this happen more. the baseline operative state for a piece of steel in saltwater is drifting along with the current while sinking - the level of work and discipline to keep this from happening is truly not imaginable by most of us average people.

the tulum ruins are beautiful, but it's not a very big area and gets crowded in the middle of the day. the ruins themselves are uneven ground with a lot of stones and obstructions for walking surrounding by a lot of tourist trap vendors and stands. it's also a long day of standing around and waiting - first to get off the ship, then in line for the ferry, then the always bumpy ferry ride, then stand around and wait before taking your 45 min or longer bus ride, then standing in line to get into the tulum preserved area, then do it all over again to head back. playa del carmen is also not nearly as nice or as safe as cozumel, it's like a smaller more cramped nassau. you'll generally see these kind of trips not be recommended here, one of those classic cases where the juice is not worth the squeeze. we did Tulum while in the area on a weeklong rental house on the beach, went early in the morning in our own taxi before crowds and it was a much better experience.

january independence cruise just dropped to lowest price in over a year $79 pp/pd dead net

Key west is famous and has plenty of tourist traps spots along the south and west edges so if you're going you should see the shops and live music in the bars on Duval street, sunset on Mallory Square (if you're willing to stay in town that late ) get recommended a lot as well as Hemingway's house which is great if you like him, not as valuable if you're not a fan, but the lighthouse nearby is cool and gives you a great view. These and 20 other things will get recommended in all the online blogs and videos etc, I actually love dining in the marinas on stock island, the last island before Key west, also love Bud/Mary's on Islamorada. It's a fun drive but don't be in a hurry. Nothing in the keys moves fast and it's not all super tourist friendly, some spots clearly are, others not so much.

@Ampurp85 we did freedom and navigator both on the 4 night pdcc, love that ship size and were so excited to see freedom class get off this marry go round and very happy to be booked on a 5 night western with Indy.

doing this itinerary in January - great live blog so far, thanks for all the updates!

hat tip to @jaygee2729 here's that story. https://www.ft.com/content/02adf521-06c4-4555-b87d-8e0d5c2f22b7 sounds similar to the GM/Ford tough economy worldwide right now for any large government or business locked into fuel or commodity price contracts from a few years ago no politics just facts, inflation is making life tough all over, John Deere and other manufacturer's have a very down year in the states here as well.

i don't have a problem with royal upcharging for things, they've always done that. I just really dislike the wide variation of rules and policies. this patchwork mismatch of this package gets this, these suite levels get that, this restaurant on this ship and that one here or there.....i'm a big royal fan, seasoned cruiser and i can't keep it straight, must be absolutely maddening for first timers et al

selfishly want navigator back in the Caribbean somehow but with all the new ships the last couple years that's not in the works. maybe something stationed outside of FL like in the bahamas or on another island (like they did with Grandeur out of Barbados? never heard much about how that went but obviously not ideal timing) do we see that happening again anytime? the big FL ports have room for 4-6 RC ships each?