WAAAYTOOO

My phone and iPad finally synched, so I have some photos from Antigua and Grenada. Let’s see how this goes. I’ve had some trouble spacing them and inserting text. I’m terrible at this stuff. This is the floating platform in Antigua for the stingray swim. It made the entire experience so much better than in Grand Cayman. It was much easier to get into and out of the water These mysterious blobs are obviously stingrays. They are so docile and sweet. You can almost see the tail ! This is St George, Grenada with Explorer in the background. I really liked Grenada. Nice people, beautiful island, shitty roads. Obviously, I’m having a bad hair day. The town of St George really reminds me of Curaçao, which is one of my very favorite places. This town just looks so quaint. Shamefully, I got very few photos of Ft Frederick. These monkeys are native to the island and I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know their proper species name. We caught a fleeting glance at one in the rain forest. …and finally, the waterfall at Annandale. Very beautiful place. Kinda like a cenote in Mexico.

Yep, on leg 3 we have to move up to deck 14 forward to a pano OV room. It’s one of our new fave cheapo cabin types. I’ve actually grown quite fond of our little Promenade view room, which is fortunate since we will be here another 5 days ! Truly, my only complaint about the Promenade view room is the fact that there are no drawers in the vanity except for one tiny drawer right in front. Otherwise, the room is fine. I love the little window love seat. That’s MY space. I sit here and do my blogging and it’s very comfy. I was able to watch the Promenade parade this afternoon -at least, one “end” of it. I expected the noise to finally reach us but nope. It was still very quiet here.

This is so cheezy and cheap. I hope they change this policy. Very low rent.

Lost $45 today but I won’t cry too much as I’m still “up” slightly for the first leg. I just have keep this momentum going for 2 more weeks ! I earned enough points for a comp cert myself although it’s the lowest level comp cert so the pickin’s are pretty slim. Most likely I will still use the cash value to upgrade Dans comp but I purchased a Next Cruise future cert so I will have the choice to book from the very short list of offered cruises if we choose to do that. We picked a 10 night EX in March 25 for Dans comp. I won’t be able to book it until tomorrow so I hope there are still some of the pano ocean views left by the time I get around to booking. I’ll take care of that while we’re in port on TAD. Dan enjoyed his lamb shank and I had the spaghetti in the MDR. I love that they put the Pinns at window tables (at least, whenever they can). It’s a nice perk. Also, on EX, Pinns have priority seating for MTD so the waiting is minimal. They told us to just go straight to the podium and that’s what we did. I will say, the MTD lines have been longer on EX than they had been on some of the other cruises we’ve taken recently. The priority seating was particularly nice on this cruise. We have the same room for leg #2 so we don’t have to pack - thank goodness ! So nice to be staying on when you see everyone else’s luggage outside and you are still snuggled in your stateroom ! It’s a great feeling. Stand by for Part II !

Soooo looking forward to meeting you both !

Pretty lazy day today. Sea day. Spent a fair amount of time in the casino and happy to say that my upward trend ($$) is continuing. Nothing to crow about, just slightly “up” each time I go in there. Up is better than down ! Dan hit his goal of 3000 points so he made Prime and will get an instant comp reward. Whatever points I have (currently at a little over 1000), I will use to upgrade his comp offer with my otherwise useless $$ off reward. It was Royal night in the MDR. We both ordered the lobster as an appetizer since that portion is pretty small. I ordered the chicken Marsala as my main course and Dan ordered some curry shrimp dish (can’t remember the name). Both were very good. I will give my little Promenade view room some kudos (8311, 2T). I truly believe that this room is the quietest room we’ve ever had. It’s far enough aft to avoid the Promenade noise and there is absolutely no noise at all associated with the elevators. It’s very, very quiet and I love being so close to the aft elevators. We’ve been very comfortable in this room, which is a good thing since we will be here again on the next leg (5 nights, 4-14). For leg #3 (4-19), we have to move.

We are currently on Explorer. On boarding day the Cap included, in his welcoming chat, that chair hogs would not be tolerated. He said, "These chairs do not belong to you. They ALL belong to me !". I thought it was awesome. We do not use outdoor loungers (well, Dan will on occasion, but not routinely) so it's not an issue that we deal with but I am totally on the Cap's side on this one.

Recently, the 3 night package is only available on 7 night sailings or longer.

UGH. I had this witty and VERY lengthy post ALL done and was about to hit "submit" and LUCKILY I checked to be sure I was in the right thread and lo and behold I was NOT, so I lost the entire thing ! I blame @OCSC Mike. He told me to shut up with the negativity and get on with my blog for Grenada and SO I DID....but in the wrong thread. (Mike, you know I'm just teasing you. This was TOTALLY my fault). Anyway, I am in no mood to recreate that masterpiece so I will summarize Day 7/Grenada. Island - awesome. Tour (Grand Etang, Annandale falls and Fort Frederick....or some name similar to that) - excellent coverage of the island. WAAAYTOOO long. The roads are treacherous - narrow and bumpy. We hit every f'n bump on Grenada. Both Dan and I were never happier to get to the end of a tour. Enjoyed seeing the island though. I do have some photos but as with Antigua, they are on my phone and I have to get it to synch with my ipad (which may or may not happen)....so will post later. Dinner last night at Chops. Excellent as always. Casino - More good luck. Keep up the prayers - they are working ! We hit a "Major" (second to the highest) jackpot in Dancing Drums (close to, but not quite, $1000). Dan is still in the "hole" but I am now out of that damned hole ! YIPPEE ! Today - St Kitts but we are staying on the ship. Dinner tonite at Giovannis, which is our last specialty meal on this leg. We will be dining in the MDR on lobster and lamb shank nights. Thank goodness I finally remembered to verify that the ship knows that we are going to be staying on for 2 more sailings. Vanessa, the CL Concierge checked for us. They already knew we were staying on for next leg but they did not know that we were staying on for #3 (4-19). Now they do. WHEW. A new personal best for laundry-cramming. I got 29 pieces in this morning ! ECLIPSED (see what I did there ?) my previous best of 24. I am really getting good at this !

Looks like a bunch of pool noodles laying there !

This would be me if I were doing that HOHO tour !

This has been my experience, too, Wayne. I read a comment from @smokeybandit that he had some experiences with clothes that smelled odd...probably from the laundry detergent ? ....so I was extra interested in checking to see if my laundry also had a icky smell. I had a couple of bags come back yesterday (EX) and I smelled nothing at all. Now....I will admit that I do NOT have a particularly acute sense of smell (probably from being a former smoker) but honestly, they had no scent at all to ME.

I concur. There have been small “hints” that Royal will eventually make Cruise Planner purchases, nonrefundable and I think this is their “system” getting ready to implement that policy. Total speculation, but based on some unfortunate “hints”.

You all know how I feel about the app anyway….but I do have to say that it seems to be working ok (ok as it ever is…) onboard. Rezzies seem to be correct but I haven’t tried to use it for anything like checking in or health questionnaire, etc. I will be checking in for an upcoming cruise in a few days and I will have to do the health questionnaire for party II of the B3B in a couple of days. Hopefully everything will be fixed by then…

We’re just gonna miss you ! We’re on Utopia on 9-16.

Actually, I give the credit for my good-ish casino luck to my red underwear. I have a friend who told me that if you wear red underwear you will win. Go figure…but the chants and prayers are appreciated ! They can’t hurt, right ?

We had a super awesome day with the rays. They are really so sweet. They had a much nicer setup for the ray encounter in Antigua than they have at Cayman. In Antigua they have some floating platforms that really make getting into and out of the water much easier. Aside from that, the encounters with the rays were the same. We had such a nice time. We snorkeled with them, fed them, held them, petted them. Of course, they were there for the free meal. That was plain, but we didn’t care. We had a great time with them. We were in the “hot rod” of boats that were shuttling folks out to the platforms. All of the other boats had 115 hp outboards on them but our boat had twin 250’s. Woot ! We kicked a$$. We had the cutest bus driver -Romeo. When we first got onto the bus Dan asked Romeo if they drive on the left side of the road in Antigua (since the steering wheel was on the right side of the bus). Romeo said - “Yes. The left side is the right side and the right side is suicide”. We got a good laugh out of that. I got a little sun but nothing extreme. It was overcast and actually rained a little bit while we were getting ready to board the shuttle boats. But when we got out in the water, it was perfect. Not hot, not cold, not windy. I took some photos but they are on my phone so I will post them once (if ?) my devices synch. Dinner tonite was in the MDR - a taste of Asia. It was really quite good. They should put this one in the regular menu lineup, IMO. They could definitely replace French night. Ugh. Good luck tonite in the casino. We had abysmal luck at the slots/video poker but I got lucky and hit a straight flush playing Ultimate Texas Hold’Em so I actually won a little bit in the end. Still a little down, overall, but very little. I think I read somewhere that the casino had FINALLY managed to synch the table games with the slots so now, the points that you see on the screen (slots) reflect a total of table plus slot points. Dan confirmed that, tonite….so it will make it much easier to know where you stand -points-wise, if you play both tables and machines, like us. Tomorrow is Grenada. It’s our first time to call at this port and we’re looking forward to it. We have an island bus tour scheduled. Should be fun.

We love swimming with turtles. We would have chosen that one over the rays (if they had offered that….which they didn’t) but I have to say -we swam with the rays in The Caymans a number of years ago and really enjoyed it. I hope the Antigua rays are as docile as the Cayman rays ! I sometimes have a struggle getting back onto the boat, especially if the seas are rough-ish so I hope that’s not the case today. Fingers crossed. Being waaaytooo fat and having 2 questionable knees doesn’t help !

Wow, Teddy…what an awesome opportunity. Sounds like you guys are really in the boonies. Will be a good place to hide out from the demons who came/come through the vortex.

We’ve been browsing the 2,000-3,000 lists and it’s very clear that they are holding all of the big ships for 3,000+…at least, for FL departures. It’s not clear to us quite yet whether or not Dan will push through to the 3,000 level or not. The offers are definitely much better at 3,000.

She giveth and she taketh away. It’s been a mixed bag but at least she gave a little back….which rarely happens.

How would they even know ? I’m not disputing you, I just don’t know how they could differentiate suite levels since the Set Sail Pass just says “Suite” on it (or Star Class).

Sushi at Izumi tonite. For some reason, they brought Dan 2 full portions (8 pieces X 2 = 16 pieces !) of sushi when they normally only bring half that amount….OMG we are stuffed ! …and we are both dying of thirst now after all that soy sauce ! I got 2 rolls that were the normal size but I still had too much. I don’t know how he ate everything he did…God bless ‘im. We hit another $1000 jackpot on video poker….this time we hit 4 deuces on Deuces wild but luckily this time we were playing for $1 so it paid $1000. I totally forgot to take a picture this time. We were both so stunned ! Believe it or not, we are both still slightly “down” since we both had abysmal casino sessions on day 2….but it’s not horrible now with the 2 big (for us) wins last night and tonite. Tomorrow is Antigua. We’re swimming with the stingrays somewhere. We don’t have to meet our excursion until noon so we don’t have to worry about an early wake-up. Good !

Happy birthday, @AshleyDillo ! Also very happy to hear that they have finally figured out how to combine the points. That’s always been a drag to have to cipher that mess.