WAAAYTOOO

I have not forgotten about the photos from Ocean World.  For cosmic reasons that I simply do not understand, the photos never synched with my iPad so I have to figure out how to upload them.  I will try that later today.  Wish me luck
 

Last night dinner was in Chops and we were extremely fortunate to have @JustMeJoe and Mrs JustMe join us.  Our favorite waiter, Andriy was his usual enchanting self and we had a great time.  Consumed 2 bottles of "champagne" and a bottle of red wine.  Fun, fun
Then we were off to the casino where I first lost and then ended up walking away a bit ahead.  I have all but given up on the slots so I'm spending most of my casino time at UTH which is where I usually was before I tried slots.  The machines just do not like me.  I will be sitting at a machine and all of the ones around me are ding, ding, ding-ing away and mine just sits there and frowns. 😪
Today we are in Antigua with the Emerald Princess.  Since we did the stingray excursion here 2 weeks ago, we are staying on the ship today.  It looks like a beautiful day so I'm hoping that those who are going out will have a great time.

Last night dinner was in Chops and we were extremely fortunate to have @JustMeJoe and Mrs JustMe join us.  Our favorite waiter, Andriy was his usual enchanting self and we had a great time.  Consumed 2 bottles of "champagne" and a bottle of red wine.  Fun, fun
Then we were off to the casino where I first lost and then ended up walking away a bit ahead.  I have all but given up on the slots so I'm spending most of my casino time at UTH which is where I usually was before I tried slots.  The machines just do not like me.  I will be sitting at a machine and all of the ones around me are ding, ding, ding-ing away and mine just sits there and frowns. 😪
Today we are in Antigua with the Emerald Princess.  Since we did the stingray excursion here 2 weeks ago, we are staying on the ship today.  It looks like a beautiful day so I'm hoping that those who are going out will have a great time.

I have not forgotten about the photos from Ocean World.  For cosmic reasons that I simply do not understand, the photos never synched with my iPad so I have to figure out how to upload them.  I will try that later today.  Wish me luck
 

Last night dinner was in Chops and we were extremely fortunate to have @JustMeJoe and Mrs JustMe join us.  Our favorite waiter, Andriy was his usual enchanting self and we had a great time.  Consumed 2 bottles of "champagne" and a bottle of red wine.  Fun, fun
Then we were off to the casino where I first lost and then ended up walking away a bit ahead.  I have all but given up on the slots so I'm spending most of my casino time at UTH which is where I usually was before I tried slots.  The machines just do not like me.  I will be sitting at a machine and all of the ones around me are ding, ding, ding-ing away and mine just sits there and frowns. 😪
Today we are in Antigua with the Emerald Princess.  Since we did the stingray excursion here 2 weeks ago, we are staying on the ship today.  It looks like a beautiful day so I'm hoping that those who are going out will have a great time.

Last night dinner was in Chops and we were extremely fortunate to have @JustMeJoe and Mrs JustMe join us.  Our favorite waiter, Andriy was his usual enchanting self and we had a great time.  Consumed 2 bottles of "champagne" and a bottle of red wine.  Fun, fun
Then we were off to the casino where I first lost and then ended up walking away a bit ahead.  I have all but given up on the slots so I'm spending most of my casino time at UTH which is where I usually was before I tried slots.  The machines just do not like me.  I will be sitting at a machine and all of the ones around me are ding, ding, ding-ing away and mine just sits there and frowns. 😪
Today we are in Antigua with the Emerald Princess.  Since we did the stingray excursion here 2 weeks ago, we are staying on the ship today.  It looks like a beautiful day so I'm hoping that those who are going out will have a great time.

I have not forgotten about the photos from Ocean World.  For cosmic reasons that I simply do not understand, the photos never synched with my iPad so I have to figure out how to upload them.  I will try that later today.  Wish me luck
 

I have not forgotten about the photos from Ocean World.  For cosmic reasons that I simply do not understand, the photos never synched with my iPad so I have to figure out how to upload them.  I will try that later today.  Wish me luck
 

Last night dinner was in Chops and we were extremely fortunate to have @JustMeJoe and Mrs JustMe join us.  Our favorite waiter, Andriy was his usual enchanting self and we had a great time.  Consumed 2 bottles of "champagne" and a bottle of red wine.  Fun, fun
Then we were off to the casino where I first lost and then ended up walking away a bit ahead.  I have all but given up on the slots so I'm spending most of my casino time at UTH which is where I usually was before I tried slots.  The machines just do not like me.  I will be sitting at a machine and all of the ones around me are ding, ding, ding-ing away and mine just sits there and frowns. 😪
Today we are in Antigua with the Emerald Princess.  Since we did the stingray excursion here 2 weeks ago, we are staying on the ship today.  It looks like a beautiful day so I'm hoping that those who are going out will have a great time.

No, that's the original one. Facebook mysteriously re-instated it today

Absolutely!!

A bit - but you need to live near a port that does short cruises as well.
Hubby retires at end of June (officially mid August when the Scottish schools go back) - we have 5 cruises between start July and end October.
But that has a B2B2B to minimise flights and we have long cruises there.
Currently on 82 nights - so just made Diamond. By beginning of May next year we will be 7 nights off Diamond plus (JS on a TA of 14 nights helps 🙂 )
we would love to do more cruising but living in Central Scotland means that we need to fly to the US to be able to cruise between October and April so that adds rather a lot to the cost of the trip

I realize that this topic is about the Game Show but I just can not resist saying:
"When did Love & Marriage become so unpopular?"
For some it was right after they said "I do" 🙂 

We just got off a very short cruise and wanted to share our experiences with both the ship and the port.
 
We flew Southwest the night before (Thursday) and stayed at the Best Western about 10ish minutes from the airport (FLL). The room was about $120 after taxes and fees with an additional $25 deposit. The hotel offered a free shuttle from the airport and a shuttle to the cruise port for $15 per person. We opted for rideshares instead of the shuttle because reviews had said that they waited a while for the airport shuttle at night. The rideshare was around $15.
 
The room was pretty much what I expected for $120. It was clean. The decor is a little outdated and the lobby could use a bit of a makeover but that’s me being nitpicky. If you are sensitive to noise or light, this hotel would probably not be good for you. We could hear and feel every door open and close all night. The doors slam close every time. Our room faced the shopping center right next to the hotel which had a McDonalds in it. It would have been fine if the thick curtains closed all the way but they didn’t. Only the thin curtains closed all the way and they let a lot of light in. The hotel has a pool and a complimentary breakfast. We did not use the pool but my travel companion said it looked nice. We did eat the breakfast which was your standard hotel breakfast. A small selection of hot items, juices, coffee, pastries and bagels. It was good and kept us full until lunch.
 
We took another rideshare around 10am to get to the port. We had an 11:30am check in time because that was the earliest I saw after checking the app a few times after the initial check in period. I was fine waiting in the port until 11:30 but I wanted to get there and be ready to board.
 
A first for us was having to show our passports to simply get into the port area. At other ports, we’ve just driven right to the terminal. The signs for the ships were a bit confusing. Liberty was listed at both terminals 18 & 19 but was actually docked at 18. The porter at terminal 18 was very rude to the Lyft driver, yelling at him to pull all the way up and how they wished rideshares would be illegal. It was around 10:15am and there was only one other car in the area for drop offs. I’m not sure if this is normal or this porter was simply having a bad morning. We checked our bags and proceeded inside the terminal. No one asked us for a check in time. We breezed through check in and when we went upstairs, they were seating you in order of when you came in not by your check in time. Boarding started around 11am and was very orderly. They came to your row and told you when they were ready for you to go. They weren’t allowing anyone to skip ahead or go before their row. The terminal wasn’t very full when they started boarding. Maybe 10 rows of seating were full. We were on ship with drinks in hand by 11:15am.
 
Our staterooms were ready by 1pm. We had an interior. We checked 3 bags. 1 showed up around 1pm but the other two didn’t show up til closer til 4pm. We did not see or interact with our stateroom attendant the entire time on ship. That was another first and very odd to me. We had requested one bed instead of separate beds. They did not put a single big mattress pad over the bed but instead used the twin ones so the bed had a big split in it where the two bed were pushed together. I was worried that the beds would be pushed apart or the seam would be a divot that would make sleeping uncomfortable. It did not so we chose not to say anything about it. The last night, instead of a fitted sheet over the mattress, there was only a flat sheet. So every time we moved, we pulled the sheet and mattress pads. I move a lot in my sleep so when I woke up, I was laying on the bare mattress pad tangled in the flat sheet that was acting as a fitted one. If it hadn’t have been the morning we disembarked, I would have said something to guest services about it.
 
For meals, we ate breakfast and lunch in the Windjammer and dinner in the Main Dining Room. The Windjammer food was good for buffet food. And while it was crowded, it didn’t feel overcrowded. We always found seats. In the MDR we had My Time Dining with a 7pm reservation each night. On boarding day, I went and requested a table next to a window if possible. We ended up loving our table and were told if we wanted the same table to show up at 6:45pm each night instead of 7. We had Frank as our head waiter and Kudakwaishe as the assistant waiter. They were amazing. The first night, Frank heard us talking about how we wished we would have ordered the fried chicken to split and he brought us a plate with our meal. Whenever we ordered multiple of anything, they were always brought at the same time. Frank would also bring us something extra at each course.
 
Our ports of call were Nassau and Perfect Day. We did the base dolphin encounter at Blue Lagoon at Nassau. Before you board the ferry, which looked much newer than the last one we were on, you have to sign a sheet with your name and stateroom number in case anything happens. Once on board, the rows have numbers and someone comes around and notes which seat you’re in and you have to show your excursion ticket again. They do give the same talk about which celebrities are in each house. Upon arrival, they tell you what time your ferry is going to leave. I do wish that you were able to catch any ferry back instead of having to wait for your specific one. With the animal encounters booked through Royal Caribbean, lunch is not included. It’s $35 per person for the buffet lunch. Our ferry left around 9am and we boarded the return ferry at 1:30pm. We opted not to pay for anything extra and brought water and snacks for the lagoon.
 
This was our first trip to Perfect Day and we had reserved Hideaway Bay because the tickets went down to $20/person which we thought was reasonable. Both Allure of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas were docked that day. Allure was there first and while we weren’t in a hurry to get off the ship, we did get off around 8:45ish to get good chairs at Hideaway. It was maybe about a 5 minute walk to Hideaway from the ship but we’re fast walkers. They did have trams running every 2-3 minutes. We did get front row chairs close to the bathrooms, bar and food and far enough away from the DJ to still hear the music but not be overwhelmed by it. The ocean water was a little cold. I think someone said around 60 degrees. The pool was heated and it felt like lukewarm bathwater to me so I did not spend a lot of time in it. Even in the pool, the music  wasn’t super loud. The bars get overwhelmed very fast, especially the swim up bar, so be prepared to wait. The pizza looked similar to Sorrentos so we opted for a fish sandwich and chicken sandwich to split. Overall, I was happy we only paid $20/person and wouldn’t pay more than $25.
Disembarking was easy. We did self-assist and were off in under 10 minutes around 8am. We were in line for airport security by 8:30am. I would definitely sail out of Fort Lauderdale again.
TL;DR- Food was good. Ports were good. Stateroom was okay. Hideaway was okay. Disembarking was fast and smooth.

All checked in.

Don't forget to add purple. I will be doing the same three cruises next June. Have fun. Can't wait to hear all about your cruises.

Yesterday we had a mysterious bottle of “champagne” show up in our room.  It had an apology note with it from C&A so we assumed it was due to the fact that they royally screwed up our loyalty gifts twice on both of our turnarounds.
I bumped into @JustMeJoe this morning and he asked me if we had received our bottle and then explained that (apparently) everyone that was B2B on that last leg got a bottle.  You may recall that our TAD was something of a Charlie Foxtrot due to the number of Guest Services “issues” on the 4-14 leg (those that were disembarking) and that disembarking and reboarding were delayed for over 2 hours that day.
One thing that I failed to mention in that discussion was the weirdo fact that we actually checked in for our new muster station BEFORE we even left the ship on our turnaround !  First time that’s ever happened.  It just so happened that our new muster station was in the Star Lounge which is also where we were assembled for rurnaround…so we scanned our new Seapass cards and completed the muster station requirement before we even departed the ship to go through CBP !

If I'm being honest, I will say that the shark encounter was the least interesting of everything we did yesterday.  They are nurse sharks, and they are quite boring, TBH.  Big ?  Yes.  ....but they run and hide in the rocks whenever people are in the water.  This is maybe one of the only species of sharks that doesn't have to continuously swim to keep oxygen in their system, so they go to the bottom, sit and hide.  I totally understand the concern for SHARKS !  ....but these are wimpy, totally benign sharks. They look more like big catfish !  🤣

Today was Puerto Plata and we did the Ocean World Sea Lion Encounter & Snorkeling with sharks and Lunch.  This is one of the best excursions we have ever taken.  I have lots of pix but of course, they are not yet on my iPad so I will have to post them later.
We had soooo much fun and saw so many awesome critters.
Ocean World is a Dominican Sea World -an Aqua park with shows and exhibitions.  I was very surprised to find it was very well maintained and well organized.  I have been to aqua parks before in other countries that were…well….sad.  But this one is not.  It was thoroughly enjoyable.
There were dolphin and sea lion shows as well as the shark encounter and multiple snorkeling/swimming aquariums.  There were aviary enclosures (small but fun).  There was a beachfront swimming area as well as fresh water pools.  Some of the interactions were additional $$ (dolphins, in our case since we paid for the sea lions and shark interactions) but we did not pay for anything more than our original excursion included and we had a blast !   Lunch was a pretty typical Caribbean buffet….nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t bad….but was very busy !
Transportation from the port was in a big, comfortable, air conditioned bus….may 15 minutes from the port,  fast, efficient and well organized.  I will definitely recommend this excursion or the one like it that included the dolphin interaction.
This excursion wasn’t cheap.  It was nearly $200 PP but you got a lot for your money and I think it was worth the cost.  We go on VERY few excursions.
We were exhausted by the time we got back to the ship.  The bus left the port area at 8:30 and we got back at 2:00 so it’s a very full day and there’s lots to do.

Boy, what a difference in this cruise and the last 2.  Waaay more folks in the Crown Lounge on this leg.  Dan and I had to sit out in the VC area while I drink my coffee.  It’s a zoo inside.  Same thing with breakfast this morning in Giovanni’s.  Waaay more people in there and the service was very slow.  On the past 2 cruises we were in and out in no time.
The TTE will be this morning at 10:00 (which is typical rather than the 5PM nonsense of the past 2 cruises) and then the Cheers lunch at noon.
Our Loyalty gifts are still dicked up.  They brought our water but we’re still missing my Cokes and our Chandon.  What a PITA.  The LA doesn’t go to her desk until 4:00 today so I guess it’ll have to wait until then.  I’m sure she’s tied up with the TTE and Cheers stuff this morning.
Seas are nice and smooth, thank goodness.  Our new dwelling location can suffer greatly with ocean motion so I’m grateful that it’s calm.

Dinner was very good.  I had the garlicky shrimp and Dan had the seafood linguine.  I was surprised that he chose the pasta dish as we had both eaten pasta for lunch at the B2B luncheon and Dan is not much of a pasta guy.  But he did, and he said it was very good. I absolutely love their olive bread and you could tell that it had just come out of the oven.  Oh, Lordy !
We both won a bit in the casino.  We broke even on Dancing Drums and then played a bit of UTH and both cashed out ahead.  I suppose my purple drawers we “red enough” to bring me a little luck !  😂😜😂
Sea day tomorrow.  We’re on our way to Puerto Plata, DR where we will be snorkeling with the sea lions and the sharks !

Your gratuities will be switched from the MDR to the specialty restaurants.  You don’t have to do anything.

My dad probably felt the same way about my college graduation cruise in 2016 (for some reason we didn't do anything special for my high school graduation, I think we just did Caribbean that summer... checked the spreadsheet, yes we were on Allure in the Caribbean)... Anyways back to college graduation... It was on the Navigator of the Seas to the Baltic and he said the 8 days we spent in London before it were the national debt 🙃 I am sure she will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed mine!

It was actually three carrot slices, thank you very much! I felt like I won the lottery.

I love how it is always one broccoli and one carrot.