WAAAYTOOO

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.  

JS do not get complimentary internet so if the cost of the Key is pretty close to the cost of internet, then Key might be cost effective.  If the cost of the Key is more than a few dollars more then it probably isn’t worth the extra cost.

56 minutes ago, TXCoastPatriot said:

In addition to what @Ampurp85 stated, you also get double C&A points in a JS.  However, you are not allowed to use the Suite check-in line, Suites lounge, or Suite pool deck.

I have always used the Suites check-in line when I had a JS.  If the Set Sail pass says “Suite” (which it always has) then you can use the suites line.  Nothing else though….

No Coastal Kitchen rezzies available in the Cruise Planner.  The Concierge/Genie will book them for you once he/she contacts you before you sail or you can book them once you’re onboard.

Dan just downloaded the comp sheets from the casino (EX 4-5-24). Surprisingly, the 2500 level list has disappeared.  It jumps from 2000 to 3000 points.  Seems a bit shady since the 2500 point threshold for making Prime was previously a logical goal. The lower-level comps have always been weak but they’re really bad now.  Nothing much at all until 2-3000.

If anybody wants to see them let me know and I will try and upload them. I’m terrible at this stuff but I’ll give it a go…

Congratulations !  Yes, your tag should say Diamond but it truly has no impact if it doesn’t. 

We’re pulling into St Thomas 2.5 hours early (Crown Bay).  It’s 9:30 and we aren’t scheduled to arrive until noon.  The Cap made an announcement that we pushed to get here early due to a medical emergency so I’m assuming it’s related to the AAA we heard last night, but that’s pure speculation. We are scheduled to leave at 8 PM.  Strange schedule.

We’re not getting off today in St Thomas but this remains one of my favorite ports as far as the view is concerned.  It’s truly lovely here.  Now that my expensive jewelry-buying days are behind me (thank goodness) I have little reason to disembark.  …but for those of you who are still IN their expensive jewelry-buying days, St Thomas is an excellent choice.

Today is my first W&F laundry day for this cruise.  You’ll all be happy to hear that I have achieved a new “personal best” by stuffing 24 pieces into that W&F bag.  I just keep getting better and better !  . I have begun using the “rolling” technique and it’s proving to be a game-changer !

So, today is doomsday for those who care.  Apparently we will be treated to the partial solar eclipse at approximately 2:44 PM.  Since NASA will be firing 2 rockets into the atmosphere, willy nilly and CERN has decided that it would be a great time to push the world’s most powerful particle accelerator to its maximum power for the first time in history, it should be interesting.  I’m fully expecting the black hole to materialize whereupon the demons of hell will be transiting to our dimension.  That should be fun. Put on the Armor of God and all should be fine. (I’m only partially kidding)

Sitting in the CL as we dock in St Thomas.  I’m very surprised at how few people are here in the mornings.  We avoid all lounges in the evenings so I have no idea how things are in them during the happy hours.  I guess I should pop in an evening or 2 just to report out.  

Dan and I hit a Royal Flush on video poker tonite !  Woohoo.  Too bad we were only playing a quarter.

…but it made us much healthier than we were !  He will definitely make Prime on this cruise as he’s more than halfway there and this is only night 3 of 9.

Yikes.  Sorry this picture is so big !

About 5 minutes ago we had an Alpha, Alpha, Alpha call come over the stateroom speakers.  I don’t recall them usually making that announce inside the rooms.  It is for a passenger cabin on deck 12.  I hope whoever it is will be ok.

3 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

He was quite savvy!  I had told him he keeps what he doesn’t spend.  I knew I gave him a challenge!

Well done, Mom !

4 hours ago, Sweety said:

I like dancing drums. I like the banging of the drums. Must be the steel drums in me.

I know, right ?  As soon as you hear that first drum you’re looking for the other 2.  I’m usually disappointed…

27 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

Be careful adding cash.  I did this for my son on our last family cruise.  He didn’t use it all and cash does not go to your card on file. (Who knew?!) He was flagged getting off the ship to go to guest services where he had to wait on a line to find out the issue and was quite relieved it was a cash refund and not anything else.  Thankfully we were not rushing to the airport as this was an unexpected blip.

The most miraculous part of this story is that he didn’t use all of the money you put on the account !  

Pulling away from Puerto Plata, DR currently.  At least, I think we are.  I can feel some movement and all aboard was supposed to be at 3:00 (it’s now 4:17).  Those 2 pieces of evidence together tell me we’re on the move since I can see NOTHing of the outside world from my little Promenade view interior. 

We did not leave the ship today as we have called here twice in the past couple of months and we will be back here during Part III on 4-22 (I think).  On that visit, we will be swimming with sea lions and sharks.  Yikes !

Dan is napping (again) so I’m sitting in the dark tapping away on my iPad.  Dinner tonite is in the MDR.  It will be our first visit to the MDR this cruise.  Mexican night, as I recall.  It’s not a fab menu but I can tolerate the controversially-named pork enchilada/burrito/chimichunga.  Dan likes the carne asada (I think that’s what it’s called).  We have MTD.  Hopefully EX has “caught on” to the way other ships are handling MTD and there won’t be any lengthy lines.  My recent experiences have been that they are simply seating MTD folks amidst the traditional folks at vacant tables as they become available.  It seems to be working fine but I think it’s very labor-intensive and stressful for the dining staff as they are turning tables over (figuratively, of course) many multiples of times per meal. They’re damned good at it, too.  I’m amazed at how quickly they can re-set a table and have new folks seated.  Impressive.

Then it will be off to the casiner (sic) to try and put ourselves back on our earlier “winning” track.  We were derailed last night…we both had miserable gambling experiences.  We actually ended up playing a little Dancing Drums (actually, a LOT of Dancing Drums), which is extremely unusual for us but as I’ve mentioned previously, this is Dan’s push for Prime so points are important and the tables just don’t cut it for us as we aren’t big wager-ers.  Slot machines are mindlessly boring to me but we played together on 1 machine and it was kinda fun. I was THAT person last night.  I was sitting next to Dan, playing with him (no smart-ass remarks) so obviously I was sitting on a stool, in front of another Dancing Drums machine.  I heard someone make a loud [intentional, I’m sure] remark about all of the machines being “taken” so I was guilted into putting $20 into the machine in front of which I was sitting, and pressing the button every minute or 2 just for the pretense of playing.  Since I was paying absolutely NO attention to what was going on, on that machine, I actually ended up breaking even !  Too funny. Of course we lost, eventually, on the machine we were jointly playing, but Dan got a good number of points, which was the goal.

TL;DR - I’m fairly confident that I will be able to use a BOGO on a night other than nights 1 and/or 2 on Explorer

Man, that was waaay more complicated than it should have been….

I stopped by Chops this afternoon and asked the simple question - can I use my BOGO on a night other than nights 1 or 2 ?  I got the deer-in-the-headlight look from the Junior-est-looking officer I have ever seen.  He had a bare epaulet with no stripe or insignia of any kind.  I’m betting he hadn’t had it a day !  He was clueless.  Had to make a phone call…to someone similarly clueless.  After an unbelievable long wait, I began hearing Junior saying, “Yes….ok…only nights 1 or 2…ok…thank you”.  So I was prepared for a “no” answer to my question.  No worries. I knew I had a 50-50 chance.   Then, the Boss walked up to Junior and asked if he could help.  I asked the Boss the same simple question I had asked Junior and got an immediate, no-hesitation response - “Of course !”  
 

So, I think the answer is - yes, you can use your BOGO on a different night, but I will suggest that (as is the case with most everything at Royal Caribbean) it may well depend on who you ask. I plan on asking the Suites Concierge to make my BOGO reservations for me on the last day of this sailing and see how it goes.  This, in itself, might present a new problem, as I have heard from other Pinns that some of the Suites Concierges are hesitant to assist non-suite Pinns with such tasks, although this has not been my experience so far in my very young Pinn-life. I will report back on how all of that goes !

FYI, Chops, which is located adjacent to the WJ, is used as secret overflow seating for the WJ for both breakfast and lunch (on port days).  I knew they used to do this in the “olden” times but I thought it had been completely discontinued.  Apparently not.  There were a few secret squirrels sitting in there munching on their WJ grub when we stumbled in.  It is definitely NOT publicized. The Suites/Pinns breakfast location on this ship is Giovanni’s, which is located forward, port side, between the casino and the theater.  I have seen Chops, Giovanni’s and Izumi located in this area on different ships.  This space used to be a 2-story disco which they removed quite a few years ago and replaced with this specialty dining venue and, I think, some new cabins on the once-upper section of the old disco.

1 minute ago, Peter D said:

Do the Genies cover all potential concierge/guest services needs or do the suite concierges do certain things a Genie does not, hence tipping warranted? 

Yes, Genies can handle anything (and more) that a GS or Concierge can do.  I was once scolded (nicely, of course ) by my Genie after being “caught” standing in the GS line for something I didn’t want to bother the Genie with.  The only thing I can think of that the Genie wouldn’t be able to that you would go to GS for, is getting change $$. There’s nothing that I can think of that a Concierge can do that a Genie could not.

Just now, JustMeJoe said:

Casino Royale Annual Comp cruises come out around Apr 17th give or take.  Will they let us make and place those comp cruise choices while sailing onboard?

No, at least, not at Next Cruise - they don’t do any casino bookings anymore BUT I’m confident that they would allow you to call Club Royale on the ships phone and book that way if you wanted to.  I guess that’s a good thing for me to ask about some time this cruise.  I hadn’t even thought about that.  Let me see what I can find out.  I suspect that hold times in those first few days will be ungodly long.  Not sure I want to spend my day on hold.  Since I have -0- confidence that either us us would be able to snag an Icon casino comp, I’m not all that worried about booking our comps.  We haven’t even started looking at possible ships/dates yet !  

10 minutes ago, JustMeJoe said:

Are they allowing BOGO dinners on other than nights 1 or 2?

We didn’t even ask and I cannot remember whether we tried to use a BOGO on any night other than nights 1 or 2 the last time we sailed on EX.  I will check it out next cruise (4-14) as we will be wanting to do a different night on that cruise.  Since it’s only a 5-nighter, there is no 3 night package and we will only be using our BOGO’s.

Continuing day 2.

Today is the first full sea day and is traditionally the day that they have the Top Tier Event and the Cheer With an Officer luncheon.  Typically, they have the Top Tier event at 10:30 followed by the Cheers luncheon at 11:45/12:00.  For some reason, today, the TTE was held at 5:00PM.  The Cheers luncheon went as expected at 11:45.  There must have been some kind of scheduling conflict for the morning TTE but if there was, we never heard what it was.

The Cheers luncheon was typical; the food was surprisingly good.  The event was held in the MDR, deck 4.  The Pinns were on the port side of the dining room and the D+ were on the starboard side.  Dan and I both had the clam chowder and filet.  Lots of wine was poured.  We skipped dessert as we usually do.  We did manage to nap past the beginning of the TTE (most likely due to the wine consumption !) so we skipped it.  

Since our lunch was so filling, we decided to change our second BOGO reservation (Chops) from 6:00 until 8:15 which is very late for us, but we both knew we would not be ready to eat another big meal so soon. Looking forward to that, but no way will I eat another steak as I had a half of a filet yesterday for lunch and a filet today.  I am actually not much of a steak eater so I’m “steak-out” right now.  Probably get the shrimp. Tonite is formal night but we left the tux at home (intentionally) so we will relax the formal attire this time.

Things have been pretty positive so far in the casino, which has been surprisingly slow.  I expected lots of gamblers to be on this cruise and so far, there hasn’t been much evidence of that.  Since we have now started a new casino year, I thought everyone would be scrambling to make Prime right away.  That has been Dan’s plan and he’s succeeding nicely.  I have decided to wait and make my “push” on our Wonder cruise in May.  We are both pretty much dead even (money-wise) but of course, he has accumulated far more points than I have, which is by design.

I may have spoken too quickly about the internet performance.  Suddenly it is sluggish and has kicked me out twice today.  Probably a gap in the Starlink coverage or some such thing.  Hoping for a return to the robust service we had yesterday.

14 - Waaaytooo (Explorer)

19  - Waaaytooo (Explorer)

29 - Waaaytooo (Freedom)

1 minute ago, JustMeJoe said:

Thanks.  I thought Gigi and Vanessa were trading places; maybe soon.  See you shortly .

As a general rule, the SL and the CL do switch periodically.  Chances are that they have now switched BACK to the way they were when you were on !

17 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

My concern is if they are removing hashbrowns in general or just replacing the shape .

Today at breakfast, our server made a point of asking us how  much of EVERYTHING we wanted  - how many eggs, how many pieces of toast, sausage links, etc....this included hash browns.  To be completely honest, this is the first time any server has EVER asked us  about quantity.  I was impressed.  Then, when our food came,  Dan received 2 sausage links and 2 hash browns, even though  he had answered "1" of each  when the  question had been asked.  ????      So it seems that, at least on EX,  the hash brown reserve is safe.                

Back to the Crown Lounge discussion…

Some photos below (with permission from the folks in the room).  Yes, the CL Concierge is Vanessa.  Lovely lady.

Like @JustMeJoe, I am tiring of the CL/CL confusion and writing out “Concierge” every time is tedious, so, heretoforth, I will refer to the Concierge Lounge as the Suites Lounge (SL).  When you see CL, I am talking about the Crown Lounge.  Ugh

It seems that most of the Pinns are doing the same thing we are - going to the CL vs the SL.  I guess the only unfortunates that are doomed to the SL dungeon are the Suites who are not yet Diamond or above.

They have removed the once-present computers from the CL.  To make more seating available ?  Who knows.  I am using the computer area on deck 8, which is a mere few steps from our room and it’s very convenient.  I guess now is the time to mention that the Internet has been awesome so far.

14 hours ago, JustMeJoe said:

Less (or no) fruit for @OCSC Mike.  Where is the bartender? 

Is Gigi or Vanessa the CL (Concierge Lounge) or CL (Crown Lounge) concierge?  I hate this CL CL CL crap - Going to start calling it the Suite Lounge Concierge (simple things for a simple mind).  Anyway, hope you're having a fantastic time!

 

Yes, Gigi is the Suites Concierge.  I feel bad for her.  Everyone is going to the Crown Lounge and the Concierge Lounge is a ghost town.  I don’t know the name of the lovely lady in the Crown Lounge but I will find out.  

16 minutes ago, GatorCruiser said:

We loved the suite lounge on jewel. Up there in the crown with outdoor seating. What sucks is that we aren’t diamond plus yet and so prob can’t get in most crown lounges when it’s a busy higher tier sailing even though we stay in suites. Ironic indeed. Not a problem on any class other than voyager class it would seem as the suite lounge is better placed in other classes. 

Yeah, but with double points you

l be there in no time.

From the Concierge Lounge.  As you can see, much less of a selection.  

Also,  much less busy in here.  I guess I can understand why !  No view and crappy treats.

Dan’s card opened the door this time so I guess we are legit !