Yesiamthere6

Oh my, I really really think they were originally the chips I hid, and forgot about them!  The plan was to split between the kids for their airport wait, but more chips appeared later that day, that I ended up using.   But that was way back to January 19th, certainly they can’t be the same ones!  

Oh my, I really really think they were originally the chips I hid, and forgot about them!  The plan was to split between the kids for their airport wait, but more chips appeared later that day, that I ended up using.   But that was way back to January 19th, certainly they can’t be the same ones!  

Oh my, I really really think they were originally the chips I hid, and forgot about them!  The plan was to split between the kids for their airport wait, but more chips appeared later that day, that I ended up using.   But that was way back to January 19th, certainly they can’t be the same ones!  

When I had soft-sided luggage, I would actually sew the most atrocious looking fabric I could find to it for 1) easy identification at the baggage carousel, and 2) no one with two brain cells would want to steal something so ugly. We're talking ugly fabric covering 75% of the side. One time it was dinosaurs wearing sombreros, another time it was orange/purple chevron zigzags, etc. It's the only thing I miss about having hard sided luggage now - maybe I should apply stickers? 

Great idea to treat your friends using your diamond vouchers.  I would of done that, but Old White Woman doesn’t have any friends. 

Great idea to treat your friends using your diamond vouchers.  I would of done that, but Old White Woman doesn’t have any friends. 

Great idea to treat your friends using your diamond vouchers.  I would of done that, but Old White Woman doesn’t have any friends. 

Great idea to treat your friends using your diamond vouchers.  I would of done that, but Old White Woman doesn’t have any friends. 

Embarkation day lunch:
Dan and his family quickly discovered the benefits of coastal kitchen. They were originally were going to go to the face jammer, because their daughter is a fan and wanted to show her friend the buffet....Then they saw the line. They quickly abandoned those plans and went to CK🤣
We, courtesy of Berty, had reservations at Jamies. Now I'm sure people have seen my reservations about the food there, and it's not our favorite. Today, I would like to amend my statement and say lunch was delicious. Our waiter was very friendly and started us on our star class food coma quickly and added extra appetizers to our order. 
We initially just wanted the meat plank and the burrata. The waiter added the arancini and the bruschetta......okay fine, if you insist🤣
Our starters were very tasty. The honey and truffles on the burrata worked better than I thought, though I still prefer GT with the pesto.
For entrees, Truffle lovers @Ampurp85 and @asquared17 will rejoice. @TheBoss518 got the truffle tagliatelle. Johnny got the cheeseburger, Lydia got breakfast pasta, and I had the chicken burger with truffle fries. 
Everything was very good, also add two glasses of wine to the drink count. I think I will need that liquid IV later tonight.

 
 

As you can see from the earlier post. We all met up on the boardwalk while we finished our portion of the muster drill. We all headed to our stateroom to let our friends drop their bags etc and to let them see the room. They were quite impressed. The boarding process for them has “ruined” gen pop sailing for them. Their part cruise was a boardwalk balcony on Wonder. They aren’t sure if they can go back.
We then headed off to explore the ship together. The kids were registered for adventure ocean, and we showed them the other suites areas. 
We also started to make use of our beverage package and treated our friends to some drinks courtesy of our diamond vouchers. 
 
While relaxing in the suite lounge, Dan remarked that he was really impressed by the response from the concierges. When he got the email, he responded with their dinner reservation and show requests which were all immediately taken care of. I think we have officially inducted new members into the suite snob club🤣

I’ll skip the stateroom photos since there have already been a bunch recently. I can confirm that nothing has changed since @Jax and @Yesiamthere6 sailed🤣

So, we are on the ship!!
this morning was a whirlwind of activity. After I returned from our target/starbucks run we loaded up the car. @TheBoss518 wanted a picture on the beach, so we made that happen.



 
Once that was completed we headed off to the port. 

It snowed the night before we left. We were more than ready to get out of there!

Cruise day, and I’m so jealous as I head out to snow, ice, and freezing weather!  Have fun!  

Or the person who stole his shoes.

So our first flight made it to BWI easily. Now we have a bunch of time to kill because our next flight is delayed an hour.
We found a place to get lunch. For the beer folks, there is a Flying Dog taproom here are the airport. The food is decent and the beer is cold. 
Fittingly, they had a burger called The Boss, so of course I had to order that.
 

Coastal Kitchen
As you may recall from my earlier posts, they would not permit us to use our BOGO coupons except for the first night and since we wanted to enjoy the filet on night #1, there were no other chances to do any specialty dining unless we wanted to pay full onboard prices.  Uh...no.  So we decided that we would eat in the CK every night since the Maitre'd said that we would have no problem making reservations for all 4 nights.
We had 4 dinners, 3 breakfasts and 1 lunch in the CK.  Believe it or not, that one lunch that we ate there is the one and only time we have EVER had a lunch in a CK on any ship !  We have always either been Star Class or GenPop on an Oasis class ship and before becoming Pinnacle, we had no access to the CK unless we were in a suite and the only suites we've ever had on an O class ship, were SC suites and we were eating our lunches in specialty restaurants for the most part.
The service in the CK was amazing.  The Maitre'd, restaurant manager and our own personal server (Anelyne) were just spectacular.  I could not have asked for better service.  Period.  
The food was hit-or-miss for me.  Dan was a cappy hamper the whole time.  He loved everything that he got and so he was in heaven.  I did not care at ALL for 2 out of the 4 menus that we had. I've already discussed the night that they gave me the wonderful a la carte options from the kids' menu.  That was really a good recovery for that night and I thoroughly enjoyed my low budget chicken parm.  But the last night.  Ugh,  Dan had his beloved lamb shank but there was absolutely nothing on that menu that even sounded remotely good to me.  I finally opted for the cauliflower fried rice and it was....not good.
The breakfasts were very good but it'd kinda hard to screw up breakfast.  Standard stuff.  Nothing amazing.  The lunch was fine.  Nothing spectacular.  Dan and I split a chicken sandwich and fries.
I guess this immersive CK experience reminded me that I am not, and have never been, a huge fan of the CK.  It's not awful but it's nothing special EXCEPT for the views and the extraordinary service, both of which we have always appreciated.

You are right @Sweety, normally I cannot because I am stuck teaching during those times, and my own kids have school during those times. However, every few years, I take a year off teaching, and Icon inaugural happened to fall into this year that I am off teaching. I started doing this when I went back to work and the kids were little. It gave me a chance every few years to slow down and spend more time with them. Those who teach know that your days are a blur and sadly, you sometimes spend more time with the kids in your classroom, more than your own. Anyway, with the freeloaders now almost 16/18, this is my last "year off". The next time I am off, I will be sailing my "hell to the bell" cruise! Looking like 2030 at this point. Cannot wait. No more sailing during high season at that point.
@WAAAYTOOO apologies for the hijack

We had quite a shipwide quest for lunch munch.  As I’ve said before, we rarely eat lunch at all….especially since we eat an early dinner, but b/c we CAN, I guess, we HAVE been eating lunch on this cruise.
Dan wanted to go to the Suites sun deck for a bit - but failed to find it so ended up lounging with the poors somewhere.  Who knows where.  When he came back to the room I told him that I would go with him to FIND the SSD since I haven’t been on one in a very long time.  So we trekked to the front of the ship, entered the forbidden zone, did a perimeter check and realized that the bar up there isn’t open (in port today) so decided that since we are on a ship we MUST eat ( @OCSC Mike Must be subliminally messaging me) so we began plotting where this meal would transpire.  I am one of a handful of adults in the world who really enjoys the dogs at the Doghouse so my vote was for a dog.  Dan is shunning nitrite-infused junk food so he turned up his nose at the notion of a dog.  He wanted ELF (as if that is any healthier ??) (I await @asquared17 reaction) but I vetoed that one.  We were at an impasse.  He finally blinked and said he would go with me for a dog, a miscommunication b/c I thought he had changed his mind about eating there…but instead, he meant that he would go with me but NOT eat so I ended up eating a dog (sans the bun).  That left him hangry.  Hmmm.  I decided to return his generosity by going with him to ELF. BUT the line at ELF was endless and it wasn’t moving.  Ok. Plan C.  We decided to see if the CK was open for lunch on port days.  We didn’t know.  Up to 17 we went.  By now it’s 1:15.  They were open but closing at 1:30.  Dan finally got a Caesar salad and I looked on with love and support.  Waaay more work for lunch than was necessary.  Somewhere in this long tale Dan acquired a margarita which was pretty tasty. Now it’s nap time.

Yep, when you sail out of Texas….you do Texas things

I feel the weighted blanket things puts a whole new spin on my 5 checked bags and 3 carryons weighing in at 268 pounds. 😆 Just saying….

My boarding day JOY !!!
 
YIPPEE !!!!  I scored a Royal Flush on Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em on the first night !  This is only the second time I have ever had one.  Dan has NEVER had one.   According to the internet (must be true, then) the odds of getting a RF on UTH is 649,739-to-1.  Here's the truly interesting part.  The LAST time I had a RF in UTH was ALSO on LIB a few years back !  I guess this must be my lucky ship !
The payout on this baby was ~$5500.  I was playing minimum bets.
I have a photo which I will try and upload.  I am having trouble toggling between browser windows so I will try later.  Yippee !!  Here it is.  

So far, so good.  We had mimosas with breakfast !  BIG splurge for me.  I almost never drink alcohol and certainly NEVER in the morning...but it seemed appropriate.
We're in Nassau today (blah) so we will not be getting off the ship.  Kinda coolish and windy here anyway.
Dinner tonite in the CK.  Dan will be happy.  I think tonite is lamb shank.  I'll find something.  Which brings up an interesting thing from last night's dinner.  Last night's menu was really bad (for me).  There wasn't a darn thing I wanted.  Dan got braised veal which he thoroughly enjoyed.  So I asked for the children's menu.  LOL.  I got plain spaghetti with marinara and chicken fingers.  I also asked if they had a small tossed salad.  I didn't want anything fancy...just some lettuce, tomatoes and olives with some ranch dressing.  Anelyn, our server (AWESOME lady) asked the chef to prepare me a special salad, which came out exactly as I had asked for it.  SOOO nice.  I chopped up the chicken tenders and mixed them in with the spaghetti for a kinda low-budget chicken parm (without the parm 😜).  It was a thoroughly delicious meal, and all a la carte.  Could I have gotten this in the MDR ?  I don't know.  Maybe.  ...but I was impressed that both Anelyn and the chef were so quick to make a special meal for me.  I wanted to tip the chef and I asked Anelyn to please give the money to him.  She said "no" that she would bring the chef out to meet me.  He was such a sweet, young and gracious guy.  It was an honor to meet him and give him his tip in person.  IMO, THIS is what tipping is all about.  Both of them had gone waaay out of their way to make my evening memorable and I appreciated it.
An interesting side note regarding the picky eater story above....both @OCSC Mike (wife) and @Ampurp85 kept passing across my mind...with the tales of their pickiness.  I knew they would be proud !

This isn’t going to be a comprehensive live blog (just a shorty 4-nighter) but I wanted to pass on a few tidbits.
Super quick and easy boarding.  On board and sneaking through the hallway to snatch our Sea Pass cards by 10:15.
Our normal process was slightly different today since we needed to (1) see if we were going to be able to get into the SL/CK and (2) Make dining rezzies in the CK if the answer to #1 was “yes”.  So I went and snagged our Sea Passes and then went directly to the SL.  I tried mine first.  Nope.  Nada.  <sad trombone>.  Dan said, “Let me try”.  It worked !  <huge sigh of relief>. I guess I had allowed my Sea Pass to linger too long in the sensor or something similarly mundane.  
So the first time for us on an Oasis class ship since turning Pinnacle we have scored !  There are only 25 Pinns on this sailing (per the CK maitre’d) so we have full access and have already made dinner rezzies for all 4 nights.  
Now for the bad news.  They are only honoring BOGO on night #1.  Not sure if that’s due to Valentines Day or what….but since we intend to enjoy filet night in the CK tonite, we will not be having any specialty dining this trip (except for Giovanni’s for lunch).  Their loss.  We’ll just save our money and eat in the CK every night !
Enjoying a wonderfully sedate boarding morning in the SL and will be heading to GT for lunch shortly.

If we don’t have to worry about weight, she will bring her weighted blanket, and her own pillow