Yesiamthere6

I’ll find out his contract.

You seriously need to request him. He makes you feel like he is working with just your room.

Quick update, hopefully more later today. New rule on ship: You have to cancel your dinner reservations by the evening (can get stretch it to the morning of) dinner reservations, or be charged $15 a person, even for star class. We are fine with that, but gone for dinners is the “flying by your pants”. We are now stopped in the middle of the ocean, waiting for rescuers for a disabled boat. Perfect location to see all the action from our balcony. We can’t leave until someone comes to pick them up. More later.

Sitting in CK for their steak night! Stay tune!

We got to port at 9:55, and a lady outside at suite/star class called for a porter, and a terminal person to escort us in the terminal. Two porters handled our 14 pieces of luggage. They just opened the terminal, and only allowed star class to enter. Went thru a quick security then to suite lounge. Two ladies quickly checked us all. MJ was there (gave me a hug) then took us immediately to our room. In the room he explained all the benefits and answered all our questions. We soon went to our muster station then MJ met us at Jamie’s and had a nice table waiting. Lunch was really good. I’ll end here but soon tell you a couple of things that MJ too care of for us. He is amazing.

Just have a few minutes. MJ as a genie is the best we have ever had. Seriously, request him! I’ll post later.

We made it to Atlanta, where our plane to Houston has been delayed 30 minutes. Indiana son’s flight was delayed but now back to original time. SC family is in the air to Dallas, TX. By gosh, it’s looking like we are all gonna make it. Sitting in capital lounge where hubby is watching basketball, and I’m pretty much talking to myself!

The bathrooms are horrible. My 6 ft 2 son couldn’t, height wise, fit in the master bathroom tub/shower. The furniture is outdated. That all said, we love the 8th floor two bedroom aqua suite. Plenty of room, and the balcony makes up for the silly bathrooms. We would have breakfast out there each morning. Love it so much, we are booked on Harmony next January.

Yo turn to have the fun! Hope you win at the casino. Speaking of the casino, is it on the smaller side?

It’s gonna be fun, hopefully in the sun!

@WAAAYTOOO You are right, treat star class as a special treat! It is and can be special. I’m with you regarding the food. After a few days of star class eating, I’m sick of food, that’s why I think a three night speciality package would be perfect!

As you know, hubby and I just got off star class on Anthem. Best room ever, and genie was awesome. He did make the trip extra special, but do I really need “extra” in front of the special? The cost has gone beyond the reach for many, and services offered are declining. I’ll admit it was pretty neat to be made “more special than I really am” for a week. Flip that coin, then it’s kind of silly that I’m paying thousands extra for someone to make me feel special. I’m afraid there are many people spending their yearly savings on that one week. I know that all that extra monies spent is giving you more than feeling special. It’s neat NOT to have to worry about shows or dining, but I felt I did have to worry about a genie. We decide not to go to the show, we gotta tell the genie. And, it can be a bit odd to know that someone on that ship is kind of following you by you using your room key. We do have our kiddos for a star class on Harmony next January. After that, if it is just hubby and myself then we are going to “sky class” it, unless we get a really good deal. (Our first star class was in the 8th floor two bedroom aqua suite on Allure, five of us for just over seven thousand). I’ll buy a three night specialty restaurant and use our four free drinks per day for being diamond. I’ll sit in the reserved suite area for shows, and eat at Coastal for their steak night. I’ll check in at their suite entrance and make my specialty dining as soon as I board. Sounds very doable! The main (ick) about not being star class is the laundry service, which we used every single day.

I was pleasantly surprised how “good” star class was on our recent cruise on Anthem, maybe it was because there were just the two of us! I do worry that there will be eight of us next January, and it will be too much for our Genie. I just didn’t get the star class “wow” factor from your blog this time. Would your dad want to star class it again? Did he see the advantages?

On our recent star class on Anthem, we were surprised that we had to pay for Captain Jack’s food too!

A family group of us will be star class on Harmony this coming January. There will be eight of us. Where did the genie sit your group for the ice show? Is it crowded seating for you all to eat in a speciality restaurant together? Have you all split up for dinner? You da bomb!

Beautiful pictures. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much. At the age of 66, you need to hear that!

@Ampurp85 Did you mean beautifully “old”?

Our FREE diamond pictures! Keep in mind, I’m over the hump of 65

My hubby is like your father. Hubby believes all you need is a bed and bathroom, and believes “a grown ass man” certainly doesn’t need another grown ass man following him around, or pulling his chair out at dinner.

Excited to hear what your parents think of star class. Star class, or not, having your kids and grandkids around you is the best gift of all! We will be sailing star class with our adult kids next January, and I’m so excited. I love to sit back and watch them all interact!

This was my first time in a grand Loft suite. Are the same title room on other ships as nice as Anthem? That room is now my favorite room!

The Captain is rather good looking!

We came home with mostly clean clothes, thanks to Star Class, and I’m ready to give an overview of our trip. We got to the pier around 10:04 and entered at the suite entrance. There was no star banner. Check in took about two minutes. It was freezing where we all had to sit to wait for boarding. I found that odd! Our genie arrived within the first five minutes and boarding started just before 10:30. Our genie, Gandhi, dropped us of at 270 to eat a salad. He returned at 11:10 to escort us to our room 8324. The room is really pretty! Loved the location on deck eight vs deck ten. The bed was really comfortable. There was a shower downstairs and one upstairs. We never used the one downstairs to help out our room stewards. We did ask for a fan, and it was delivered within a couple of hours. We had a cheese plate and sushi waiting for us. All our requested drinks were in place. The view from the room is just unbeatable with total privacy. I would book the room just for that view! The room temperature always seem to be ideal, but you could easily change it. There’s plenty of closets for your stuff. Hair dryer was a cheaper model, so you may want to bring your own. Shampoo, body wash, and crème rinse were all in the shower and were very doable. The negatives of the room: Hubby could hear music from the music hall, during the day and at early evening. He said it wasn’t loud, did not bother him, but it might you. The second night at sea was rough. Everything was banging and the vibration felt under our bed kept sleep was happening. It lasted most of the night. The rest of the nights it was peaceful and quiet. The lights from the stairs could be a game changer for you if you like to sleep in total darkness. Hubby thought since no heat comes from the lights that you could put electrical tape over them. The lights did bother me, but soon adjusted to them. The room is all the way back at the end and some may find it too many steps to take to get there. You have to go around a lot of curves. We found the step just perfect as we are walkers, and loved getting those extra steps! Our room stewards, Dmitry and his assistant, Sujit were awesome. Dmitry is Ukrainian and his demeanor made me think of Russia at first. By day three he was all smiles and truly delightful. He made us 19 towel animals throughout the trip and has unbelievable artistic talent. He was always friendly! He told me, after the first day, that we kept the room so clean that he felt he was doing very little for us, so I think he upped the towel animals. He was the best room steward, ever! Sujit was truly a delight, always smiling, always willing to help. He is ready to be a head steward. Hubby and I everyday, did a special treat for them. They enjoyed it so much that they requested we stay for another month! We also gave them a whole day off, and a half a day. We gave our genie off from dinner one night to dinner the next night. I know money is king, we still tipped, but thought not having to worry about a room would be a nice break. Our genie, Gandhi, was our best genie ever too! He started the morning telling us our schedule for the day. He would meet us for our dinner reservation making sure we bypassed lines and was seated at the best table. One line at Jamie’s was really long, and we might of gotten a few stares as we jumped the line. Gandhi, also had wonderful seats at all shows. I changed a few things last minute and there was never a problem doing that. We rode the northstar twice, once in port and once on a sea day. Never charged. Hubby did Ifly with another star passenger and they both got to do it two times. We were offered the flow rider but said no. We didn’t do the bumper cars either due to a neck problem. We could of just shown up, once a session, and skipped the whole line. I’m sure our genie could of gotten more rides than just one. Hubby did puzzle break with the other Star passengers. He said you have to complete 12 puzzles. He used his math skills to do a few. They were able to escape. Genie said the puzzles were really hard, harder than most escape rooms. We did the galley, theater and bridge tour with the others star families. It was fine. They now have the main area of the bridge roped off, so you cannot get close to any of the officers. Still a neat thing to see! We saw spectra and we will rock you. Spectra was o.k., and we will rock you was way too long. I actually left hubby there and played in the casino for over 30 minutes. Came back to see the last twenty minutes, which I really enjoyed. The show should be a 30 minute show! We saw the farewell show and left before it ended. Yawn. Food was really good, overall. I never did eat in our room. Service was excellent, especially in Coastal. Hubby and I were surprised that we liked the food in Wonderland. He brought us everything, even all the desserts. Once again, the service was so good that I was amazed. I’m not sure if service was awesome because we were star class, or we had the reputation of tipping well. Bionic bar worked the whole cruise. We got couple of drinks there and were well made. The wrist bans are back and our’s identified us as star class. I noticed ALL the star class passengers were wearing them. We wore ours for the first couple of days then got tired of it, and off it went! But I always keep my room card on a lanyard around my neck. Easy access. There were a lot of Canadians on this cruise. Lots of French being spoken. A family said school was off that week in Canada, so they decided to do a cruise. Our weather was really cold boarding. Chilly the next day but people still got in the pools. By the second night it was getting nice. The third day we were in Florida and went to the Kennedy Space Center. The weather was awesome. Next day in Nassau we walked just a little around the port enjoying the warm weather. Cocoa Bay had nice weather too. The second sea day was warm. The last sea day was back to chilly. Definitely bring a sweater! The casino is small, to me. Non smoking had more machines than the smoking section. Overall, I thought the machines were tight even though I did win $1200 on the oriental game. That same type game, a few cruises ago, paid someone $22,000 on an .88 bet. That had to be a shocker We decided to leave our luggage out the night before, so we wouldn’t have to carry it all to Coastal the next morning. We left the room at 8:00, had breakfast then met our genie in the diamond lounge at 8:40. He escorted us to our luggage area. Easy find, then facial recognition machine. Our ride arrived shortly after we got outside to chilly, but doable weather. Would I do star class again? Yes. The whole experience was amazing! That said, I would do sky class too, where it’s a lot cheaper but you still get a lot of benefits. If it just hubby and I, I would most likely sky class it, add our kids then it’s definitely star class….then again, no promises that hubby and I would not do star class again next time. It was a wonderful week, but keep in mind, it’s an expensive week. The game is not over after you pay your final bill for the cruise. There’s a heck of lot of tipping. You eat - you tip. You drink - you feel the need to tip, mainly because you are star class! Room service brings your star bucks - you tip. They take your luggage- you tip. Keep that in mind and plan accordingly. Thanks for following! See you next year on the Harmony, with our kids in star class!

Here’s most (repeat of some) of the 19 towel animals our room steward did. Love the alligator!