Pookie

Add me to the list of people spending money after a Twangster live blog. The canal is now at the top of my future-cruise-scheduling list! Watching the locks looks so fun and interesting. Thank you! 

I have been forcing myself to not lurk...in lurking at the number of views vs the number of replies, lurkers seem to be the majority...?

I wouldn't count on it. Cruise planner sale maybe. Cruise fare, doubtful. I personally think the best sales are KSF (if you have kids under 12) followed by BOGO60 or 30% off WOW sale. Those usually net the biggest savings (for me anyway).

I fell in love with this "addiction" in 2016 after raising our son an paying off his student loans and a work accident that left me with a synthetic neck..  My wife is 48 and I'm 47.. Every extra dime that comes into our household goes to feed this cruising addiction we have.. While raising our son We couldn't afford to take a cruise.. and honestly I didn't have the desire.. 
This is the only vacation that you cannot do wrong.. Ill bust my ass 60-70 hours a week to pay for Jean and I to take a break and let us be ourselves..  We've seen Alaska, Cuba, and the western and eastern Caribbean itineraries. We're looking forward to the Southern Caribbean next year..
 
Ill bust my ass to make it work for us, I don't care if I have to work 70 hours a week to let my wife have one week of pleasure to be herself.. ?
 

Like @Lovetocruise2002, my wife is also a school teacher and I'm a CPA, so we are entirely restricted to cruising in the high premium summer season between late June and early August. We had a 9 year gap between our first cruise on Freedom of the Seas in 2007 and our second on Anthem of the Seas in 2016.  However, since then, we have gotten hooked (the wife says I'm addicted) and have been on 3 cruises, including a B2B on Harmony of the Seas in 2018, in the last 3 years and have two scheduled for 2020.  We are fortunate that we are now empty nesters and also have the means to afford going on cruises, but as a CPA, I'm still very conscious of how much we spend on vacations and am always trying to make sure we don't overspend. We try to book as early as possible and scour the website regularly for any deals. Also, we both feel like the ship is our vacation destination, so we are able to keep our costs down by not doing a lot of excursions.  When we do decide to try an excursion, we search the cruise planner for sales/deals on extras that we would like and we only buy them when we feel they are at a price-point we feel is worth it to us. On our last cruise on Navigator of the Seas, we won our royal-up bid for a JS and got the drink package for the first time ever, and we loved it.  Now, i'm fighting an internal battle between my inner cost-conscious CPA and my new found desire to just say YOLO when it comes to cruising.
maybe the wife is right - i need help.....

As many people here know, I am a teacher and my cruising schedule is pretty much dictated by the school calendar.  My contract with board does not allow time off for vacations other than those designated times over the holidays.  Hubby's schedule is 100% flexible but that doesn't help as I am the planner and mine is not.  Because of this, we unfortunately fall into the category that @twangster mentioned, we pay a premium to cruise because we can only go during the high season.  
My strategy is to book early.  We take at least two cruises each year.  One over the summer, and one over March Break.  I book these two as soon as itineraries get released (often that is almost two years out).  From that point, I watch prices and often re-price multiple times before we pay final payment at 90 days out.  We have saved thousands this way.  I usually book direct with Royal (because I know exactly what I am looking for) and then I transfer to an agent for further savings.  
Because we can only take a limited amount of cruises each year, we do splurge a bit when we cruise.  We like our suites and the benefits that come with it.  The mentality that, "We can take this money and take more cruises," does not apply too much to us because we cannot take more even if we tried.  So that makes us unapologetic suite snobs.  Last but not least, this is the home of "YOLO Book It!" so we have totally run with that motto over the last few years! ?

Not 100% accurate, but pretty close...
 

Tons and tons of forced OT (which pays for the cruise) on top of about 320 hours of PTO a year (which buys me the time off, hopefully), allows me to plan for 3-4 sailings a year now.

Here is a timelapse up to this point:
 
 

I have been forcing myself to not lurk...in lurking at the number of views vs the number of replies, lurkers seem to be the majority...?

Lurkers unite!
Dyslexics untie!

I was a lurker here for years before I signed up for an account. ?

Hi everyone! I pride myself on being very social when I meet people in person, but online, I’m a certified lurker ?. I read the message boards, take notes ?, and have learned so much from everyone on this blog (thanks @Matt for this awesome platform) but I rarely make a post or comment.

Maybe it’s because everyone has already said what I was thinking (and y’all don’t need to see my “ditto” response ?)... Maybe it’s because I can’t come up with any interesting new questions or topics that are worth posting ?... Maybe it’s because I’m afraid that my post will be the equivalent of the kid sitting alone at the lunch table in a crowded middle school cafeteria ??...

Soooooooo... This post is dedicated to all of the lurkers out there just like me! Say hi, hit like, or drop a comment of your choosing below! Or don’t. ? You are still loved and welcomed here!
 

I'm scheduled to join on the 20th. Hopefully I'll have time to do tour of the ship before the first cruise starts.

@CHRIS WONG So it looks like Oasis dry dock is done. Will u be able to get on the ship before the 24th? We are all want to see the changes and updates,  

A little late, but agree, LIKE A BOSS!!

@Lovetocruise2002 I was reading this thread and questioned how people could justify Star Class, but as @SuperNinjaconcluded, I started justifying upgrading to the better seats on my flights.  So now it all makes sense.

Embarkation Day 1
EMBARKATION PROCESS
We’re told to arrive at 130pm, we showed up at about 10:15. I took a picture and set a timer when we walked through the port terminal doors. From door to door it was LESS THAN 20 minutes. 
It might have been even sooo we if we didn’t let one of the staff convince us we didn’t belong I. The suite class line. 
 
Drink Count with UBP
7
 
 
THE KEY
lunch was meh. Filet mignon Steak dry. Burger ok
Had dedicated check in during embarkation but only once past security. 
As of today, seems like moot point to book if you booked a suite or above. The Chops Key lunch served in the MDR was a miss for both my Colombian and me. Maybe not a bad idea if you wanted to try Chops. But those with the UDP... I personally think you’re better off just eating at Chops with their full menu
One major plus was the fact you could leave your carry-on at the MDR entrance, and they would deliver it do your door/room!’
 
UDP RESERVATIONS
CK Reservation went smoothly. Maître d’ promised to be at dining room waiting for us to let us in. We booked both formal nights even though only Junior Suite. 
Other reservations went really smoothly, plenty available, double booked just in case. Easy to cancel
 
RCI APP
Difficulty with app adding reservations for dinner and activities. Some reservations were wrong. Made it difficult to get an idea of what we were doing and when
Seemed almost more challenging to schedule and book through there since there were app bugs
If your plans don’t revolve around frantically trying to finish your scuba course that you weren’t able to finish before sailing... it seems like it would be pretty easy to make plans. 
 
PADI OPEN WATER DIVER CERTIFICATION
This literally consumed our whole day. Not because of the staff, but because we decided to book it relatively last minute and didn’t have a chance to complete ALL of the eLearning modules. 
Spent hours rushing trying to finish. In the end, they checked to see if we completed the training, but didn’t seem too bothered when they initially though we hadn’t. Just seemed like the general guidance was: just make sure you finish ASAP. 
I will make a separate post about this and link it here later. 
 
ENTERTAINMENT
Grease was good. Enjoyed the show. I’d say a solid 8/10 for what it was.

Well... today is the day! We were prepared in the usual fashion of pre-cruise excitement. For us, that means I obsess over the minutia, while typically missing the bigger picture of intentionally needing to relax ?? Our nails freshly manicured, our tans freshly sprayed, and our nose hairs freshly waxed, I was starting to feel better prepared! (Too TMI with the nose hairs? ... I’ll rein in the descriptors... But man... getting old sucks sometimes). 
 
We are sailing out of Orlando today on Harmony of the Seas. Of COURSE I’m up at 5am eagerly anticipating embarkation on one of our favorite ways to vacation. 
 
I’ll try to keep this as ‘live’ as possible! (Hence the Ron Burgundy question mark at the end of the title). I just wanted to post some tidbits that we are learning along the way. We are doing a lot of firsts on this cruise! This is our first junior suite, our first time purchasing The Key, our first time booking UDP, first cruise ship escape room, first time maybe eating in CK, first sailing out of Port Canaveral, and first time in Harmony OTS. We originally booked a New Zealand cruise during our Cuban cruise on Empress last year. We saved and saved, but ended up canceling around June due to scheduling conflicts. This cruise was a spur of the moment purchase in our desperation to take a reprieve from work... so we just said “the heck with it” and went all in with the bells and whistles (well... all the bells and whistles as far as we can afford...I’m the cheap one in the marriage by the way). 
 
Thanks for joining!

We continue upstream.

The sightings continue.  A crocodile on the right bank...

A large crocodile on the left sunning itself...


We turn to head back and in a place where we were just a few minutes ago a crocodile has appeared.



Continuing back a herd of cattle appear.

Seeing this I suddenly feel like I am in one of those nature shows where a crocodile bursts out of the water and the cattle run for their lives.  That didn't happen but it sure felt like it could.

A Willet...

Great Blue Heron...

The notes for the excursion stated "Wildlife sightings not guaranteed".  That wasn't an issue today.

The Crocodile Tour base area has several restrooms for the hundreds of guests coming and going on motorcoaches just like ours.  
The grounds are nicely kept and the path to the boats is quite nice.


An Iguana sunning nearly oblivious to the dozens of guests walking past. 

Our boat tour will take place on the Tárcoles River.  There are different types of boats used by different tour operators in this section of the river, this was the type of boats we'll use today.

With three boats loading we are directed as groups based on the motorcoach we arrived on.

It doesn't take long to spot our first Croc.


The view upstream.

Local operators offer birding tours as well as crocodile tours.  There are dozens of species we'll see today and I could easily turn this from a crocodile tour into a birding tour.

Thank you for sharing all of your awesome pictures!  I vacationed in Cabo San Lucas twice back in the late 80's and stayed there almost 2 weeks. It was still somewhat of a sleepy little fishing town at that time...The only thing recognizable is the arch!  One of the activities I did while there was to catch a 95 lb sailfish. It took over 2 hours and I thought my arms were going to fall off! 

Super Mario probably has enough to build a house out of them by now!

Forgot to mention this the other day...
One of the side effects of cruising often close together is that the Crystal Block providers don't always keep up with you.  Even though I technically earned a block on a recent cruise on another ship because the points take so long to post, sometimes that can work in your favor.  And so it is that I found this in my cabin:

Love the early morning pictures. One of my favorite times on board. Walking around with a cup of coffee, enjoying the quiet beauty of the morning. The best!