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Is it crazy that I check the cruise planner daily?

Got the email 90 minutes ago. 08/29 sailing on Independence routed to Coco Cay... 
Really disappointed it wasn't a more interesting alternative, but I guess swapping one RCL private stop for another makes sense. 

Done. 

It’s perfect time to send that email to the dining room!  Be sure to include ship name, date of cruise, and reservation number on the subject line.
Email [email protected] 

Oh my gosh awesome pictures Raye!  Gave me the best chuckle 🤭 especially the pics of you and Dan hosting the “birdies”! Oh and that scuba reflective one is 👍🏻!

Oh my gosh awesome pictures Raye!  Gave me the best chuckle 🤭 especially the pics of you and Dan hosting the “birdies”! Oh and that scuba reflective one is 👍🏻!

I wasn't quite as done with pre-cruise purchases as I thought. I bought two new formal night shirts and a polo for DS. One day, he'll stop growing, right? DD got a new pair of athletic shorts that she will use as a swim suit cover up. She's been using a pair of shorts from a soccer team she was on when she was 10 for almost 5 years... it was time for an upgrade.
My trusty black Travelon mini travel purse has been used everyday for the last 6 years, and the strap finally came unstitched from the body of the purse. I'm not sure how to fix it and it look right because of the anti-theft cable that runs through the strap. So I bought a new, slightly bigger version and deviated from my usual black with a paisley pattern. I really hope the pattern placement is the same at the picture - I see a dragon looking back at me. Amazon should deliver it today. I've been silently stalking the current live blogs, and thanks to the tip from @WAAAYTOOO I guess I need to run out an grab some red undies as well.🤑 
I'm also contemplating purchasing some new dance shoes, but I'm on the fence. I don't know if I mentioned in previous blogs that DH and I met 20 years ago as competitive dancers. 🥰 We competed pro/am, both being the am (amateur) with our respective instructors. When we got married and had kids, we stopped dancing. Last year for Christmas we started dancing again. We decided to start competing again, and our first competition actually dancing together is next month. After buying practice shoes, ballroom shoes, latin shoes, plus costumes...do I really need another pair of dance shoes? Um, probably!🤣 I'll make that decision later today, but the little devil on my shoulder is pretty loud on this one. We're also going to have to find a space to run through our routines on the ship - I'm thinking Dazzles early in the mornings or maybe the gym has an open aerobics floor? We'll scope that out day one.
DH is checking his clothes tonight, but is pretty sure he won't need anything. 

 
 
Paradise Beach sent me a confirmation email this morning. I don't remember getting one in the past, but we haven't been there in a couple years. I haven't heard anything from Roatan Getaway Tours beyond our initial communications, but I did not expect to. No headliners have been posted in app yet, and night 5 MDR is still not showing. 
Pre-pack is in full force now. All the miscellaneous cruise essential type stuff (towel clips, hooks, etc.) gets unpacked from the cruise box and packed today along with our travel pharmacy. Pre-cruise laundry has started, and the ironing board is about to make it's semi annual appearance in my living room. 5 days to go!
 

chefs table last night

 Scallops

tomato soup
 

lobster
filet

the world 
 
 

Amazing pictures! Looks like you had a great time! I love the "I'll ignore the rules but then make sure I don't goto jail" photo op moment 😆 I feel like I would have done the same thing. You needed that picture!! Thanks for sharing.

Ok.  I’m gonna try and upload these Ocean World photos.  Wish me luck.
I know this is hard to read but it will give you an idea of the content of the Park. It’s much bigger than I would have thought before I saw it for myself.

Again, maybe not so easy to read, but some idea of the show schedules
 

This is the only photo I got of an actual dolphin since the dolphin encounter wasn’t included in our excursion.  I will say though, they make it very easy for you to watch all of the interactions/encounters, even if you haven’t paid to participate.  The shows are all readily visible from a distance.  You just don’t get to interact with the animals if you haven’t paid for the excursion.  Lots of opportunities to observe.


 
We (at least, I did not.  Dan watched a bit) did not watch the dolphin show but this is a photo of the dolphin show area.  As you can see, it’s pretty easy to watch a show from this vantage point even if you’re not directly involved.


Fresh water pool

 

Dan actin’ the fool.  This is by the kiddie area of the fresh water pool.  OBTW, the fresh water pool was COLD
 

They have 2 bird houses.  This is the macaw area.  Beautiful birds.

The second bird house was for the smaller birds, primarily love birds.  
 

No explanation needed for this one…

…or this one…

The snorkeling area had a couple of plexiglass viewing areas.  Lots of fish and coral to see.  I really enjoyed snorkeling in this area but we were fortunate enough to have done this early.  Later in the day it was crowded and chaotic as there were kids in there who had no idea how to snorkel and were thrashing about maniacally.  I’m sure it was very disruptive to the fish.  Glad I missed that…
 

Bizarre photo of Dan in the snorkeling area.  Actual arms and reflections of arms.  Yikes !
 

This is a rather crappy photo of the shark encounter area.  It’s actually quite large.

The sharks in this interaction are nurse sharks and the are extremely wimpy as sharks go.  They ran and hid in the rocks once the snorkelers entered the water. When this photo was taken (before the snorkelers got in) the sharks were just looking for a free meal.  They know when the chow is coming out !

 

Moving on to the sea lions.  Here is Dan about to get a kiss.  While I was taking this picture, I had an employee telling me, “Sorry, no photographs allowed”.  I just ignored him and took this one but put my phone away after that.  I had no interest in seeing the inside of a Dominican jail.  😵‍💫

After the encounter was over, photography wasn’t a problem.  This was during an actual sea lions show which was open to the public

Obligatory balancing-the-ball-on-the-snout photo.

Heres the sea lion (I can’t remember his name) giving mouth-to-mouth (or boca-a-boca, depending upon which narration you were listening to) to an unfortunate member of the staff who nearly drowned when this SAME sea lion pushed him off the rocks, moments earlier !

Scene of the crime…
Welp, that’s all of the exciting things we saw and experienced at Ocean World.  If you get the chance to go when in Puerto Plata, I do recommend it.  
 

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.

@Ampurp85 curious if you're seeing the really low price for the OTW Beach Club cabana on your May 20 sailing. 

Not very unfrugal or YOLO of you! 🤣

We looked up a tour by them. It was the Key Master tour, the one where you open the Sistine Chapel. It was almost $4K for all 4 of us! I closed that browser pretty quickly lol

I snuck off to my room after lunch...

And Oscar made it happen..my luggage was waiting in my room.

Other than a quick run to my muster station to check in, I just stayed holed up working in the cabin.
I have the same dinner time and table as last week but it isn't the same waitstaff. I saw on the app I had been assigned the same table and just assumed they would be here and I could tip for both cruises at the end...oops.

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 !

Absolutely TWO bathrooms is key.  Connecting OV Balcony rooms are perfect although not sure any of them are for 3 people.  But you should be able to find two rooms next to each other…one for two people and one for 3.  Sometimes a room for 3 is very difficult to find.  In that case you can book a room for 4 and a room for 1.  Once onboard the adult you put in the room with the 3 children can move into the room with the other adult 😉 and the 3 children will have their own room.  Perk for doing it this way is the room with just one adult will earn double points.  If this way of booking is still cheaper than booking a 2 bedroom suite with 2 bathrooms (I definitely believe it would be!)…it’s a win-win.

For me…once you’ve been to a few of them…you feel as though you’ve seen them all!  Almost always same or very similar questions.  Just not entertaining enough to sit through.

I didn't see if @WAAAYTOOO mentioned it; but to give you an idea of what a cluster TAD was; yesterday they delivered an apology note along with a bottle of champagne to all of the B2Ber's.  🙂

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.

For me…once you’ve been to a few of them…you feel as though you’ve seen them all!  Almost always same or very similar questions.  Just not entertaining enough to sit through.

For me…once you’ve been to a few of them…you feel as though you’ve seen them all!  Almost always same or very similar questions.  Just not entertaining enough to sit through.

Absolutely TWO bathrooms is key.  Connecting OV Balcony rooms are perfect although not sure any of them are for 3 people.  But you should be able to find two rooms next to each other…one for two people and one for 3.  Sometimes a room for 3 is very difficult to find.  In that case you can book a room for 4 and a room for 1.  Once onboard the adult you put in the room with the 3 children can move into the room with the other adult 😉 and the 3 children will have their own room.  Perk for doing it this way is the room with just one adult will earn double points.  If this way of booking is still cheaper than booking a 2 bedroom suite with 2 bathrooms (I definitely believe it would be!)…it’s a win-win.