sammy79

We are sailing Liberty, Freedom and Independence in the upcoming months due to the limited casino offers we received in the past few months.  Not expecting much….but a comp cruise (even a short one on an old ship) is better than no cruise, so here we go….

This has been discussed here many times and not once has anybody self identified themselves as a Hog and attempted to justify their porkyness. We must be very special people.

I can’t think of any instance where moving (or touching) someone else’s belongings would result in a positive encounter, whether they were a “chair hog” or not. 

Off an on.  They put slips with times on some gear and then sometimes remove it.
Here's the thing, it's their ship and their rule and their decision to enforce or not enforce.  I of course wish they would enforce it, but if they choose to have a rule that through lack of enforcement is just a suggestion, then it is allowed behavior.  If it's allowed behavior a good part of any gripe we have is with RCI.  
As individuals, we don't get to enforce RCI rules on RCI ships when they choose not to.  If they want to allow chair hogging, then they will.  An individual is unlikely to have favorable results trying to manage another person's property anymore than they would have favorable results trying to enforce RCI's dress code in the MDR.
The cruise line decides through its own actions what behavior is prohibited and what behavior they simply prefer.

I have worked a waitress on and off for years. I too agree that if you a good one, minimum wage would not be worth it. It the potential to make money, but there are horrible tradeoffs as well.  You have to put up with a LOT. I have worked a corporate job and waited tables at the same time due to budget cuts. On salary, with the demands and such you often make minimum wage. But you could put in 5/6 hours of physical work and make your paycheck, serving. For every wonderful guest there are three who come in to do the most. The part that sucks is nothing is standardized, so a server in NY is probably making $1k a week while one in AL is making $200. Minimum wage is not enough to put up with the demands, disrespect, etc. you have to deal with, especially when you factor in how much these restaurants make. 
The crew on ships are making a living wage, probably more than double, based on their home country. But they are giving of themselves for more than the standard workday as their shifts are often 12hrs. Whether you chose to tip or not is up to each individual. I know most are happy with even a $1 or $2.........or even just a friendly conversation and respect.

Yeah I never worked for tips either but I guess it works for those that do like the waiter you know. 
It's never going to change here because it's just how it works. If there suddenly is no tipping or much, much less but we go to IHOP and the pancakes are double what they were no one will be happy. People, most people will not understand. 
It's a very interesting conversation though. 
To get back on cruising. The people on the ship that do receive tips, they do get a base salary right like a waiter/waitress? They get a small salary/hourly rate and then tips make majority of their pay. 

To stir the pot a teeny bit…. 😈
The people I personally know who are waiters/waitresses would absolutely rather not be subject to minimum wage and just keep their lower wages and tips. 
A long time friend of ours has been waiting tables for decades.  The cash tips she gets just during hunting season pays for their vacation in St. Maarten every year. 
 
To be upfront, I’ve never worked for tips, so I have no dog in this fight.  

I agree with all this. We do things ass backwards here. It's not just to supplement salary, tipping is the salary. 
Also we in the Northeast it's more than anywhere in the country too. It's a way of life here in the NY/NJ area. We tip like it's going out of style. It's always been kinda endearing, kinda like our thing but it's even out of control here. 

Be careful @kay L.  You are better to involve the crew.  People do not like to see other people touch their things and it escalates quickly.  You aren't the authority and your handling of other's items is a transgression at least equal to chair hogging and worse in the eyes of many.
Even though your imposed rule of 25 minutes is beyond the rule of the cruise line (30), you had me until the notion that a person is out of luck if they are in the water.  These chairs are after all by the pool.  

NYPL

After dropping off our stuff, we headed out to do something totally free, but something the kids have always wanted to do. Don’t laugh. If you watched the IG stories, you already know, our “loose plans” today was the New York Public Library. 
On our way to the library, we stopped by Times Square. 

We are so tired! Going to try and backtrack the day from when we checked into the hotel and then head to bed. 
Staying at the Intercontinental Times Square. We like this property. It’s close to Times Square and once here, we can easily walk to pretty much wherever in midtown/Manhattan. This Intercontinental is not quite up to par with the Intercontinental Miami, also no club lounge, but for the prime location, it works well for us. 
Today we have a King Corner Suite. Kids are sharing the sofa bed tonight.




Because it’s a corner room, views from 3 windows.

Not worth it for us. DTW is 45 mins door to terminal. YYZ is 4 hours. Flying out of Detroit also makes it a domestic flight. Way cheaper. Flying out of YYZ would be international. I am not a fan of Delta right now, but AC is even worse. And YYZ is a disaster zone. Those are all the reasons. 
I might very well have to fly AC out of YYZ next July when we go to Europe. It's looking more and more like that is the cheaper option.

Hello!  I failed miserably at my last blog, but why not try again?
My family (me, my husband, and our sons M (7) and A (2)) are already on board Symphony for a week in adjoining ocean view balcony cabins on deck 6 midship. Later this week we will be moving into the Ultimate Family Suite, which my kids have no idea about.  I think they are the perfect ages to take advantage of the suite and can’t wait to surprise them on Sunday!
Last August we did a week on Wonder from Barcelona on the same Western Mediterranean itinerary in adjoining balcony staterooms. We learned a lot from that trip — the heat in August is miserable and will tear down our will to live, and it is so hard for me to extract myself from my job such that a 1-week vacation is more trouble than it is worth. Because we are limited to school vacation times and working around colleagues’ vacation schedules, August was unavoidable, but I thought a back to back would give us the flexibility to go at a slower pace and build in a lot of days where we’ll stay on the ship to break up the long, hot port days. The UFS was a dream of mine and it opened up for a relatively reasonable price for our dates. To balance out the still-absurd cost of the UFS, we saved money the first week by booking balcony cabins. We like connecting cabins for the extra space, bathroom, and privacy which is all at a premium on a week-long sailing. We also actually like Windjammer and the MDR, so the first week we are more or less eating there exclusively, whereas the second week will be all Coastal Kitchen and specialty dining. 
 
I am late starting the blog because I’ve been finishing up some urgent work matters, but I’ve kept notes and will try to catch up on the first few days of the first sailing tomorrow (we are currently finishing up day 3). Posting this now to force myself to commit! 
 
The goal of my blog is to be informative as possible about details specific to our itinerary, excursions, the UFS, and practical details related to sailing with young kids. I don’t plan to go into too much detail on the minutia of our day, but might for example give detailed recaps of our excursions, as it is hard to find reviews for a lot of the Western Mediterranean excursions.

At this point, everything is done.
✔️ Flights checked in
✔️ Hotel checked in
✔️ Health questionnaire completed
✔️ Everything that can be packed at this point, is packed
I've been tracking our flight on Flight Aware since we came back last month. This flight is for the most part, consistently on time, and does not get cancelled. If something unfortunate happens tomorrow, the travel gods are definitely against me lol

I found these 😋 

Add us to the "no thanks" for PDCC.  I am not a beach or pool person.  I see no value in getting off the ship at all unless I can go to the Beach Club and with prices at the current levels, -0- chance I will go. Dan enjoys snorkeling but there really isn't anywhere on PDCC worth the effort.
We have been staying on the ship at PDCC and I don't see that changing.

Who’s Going?
Me, Hubby, D17, D15
Flight
Delta from DTW-EWR; booked through Air2Sea again. We really could have gone to EWR or LGA, the schedule was similar, but flying to EWR was a bit cheaper so we went with that. In addition, I already have our driving route mapped out should we need to drive ourselves to Cape Liberty. 😬
Pre-Cruise Stay
For the longest time, I had two hotels booked for this trip. Because we are only flying in one day prior to the cruise, we were not sure if it was worth it to do our usual stay in Manhattan or try out Jersey City instead. The girls and I tossed around both ideas for quite some time and in the end, because D17 loves NYC so much, even half a day there is better than no days there. So, we are back at our usual place in NYC, the Intercontinental Times Square.
Itinerary
24 AUG CAPE LIBERTY, NJ
25 AUG CRUISING
26 AUG BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
27 AUG PORTLAND, MAINE
28 AUG BAR HARBOR, MAINE 
29 AUG SAINT JOHN, NB
30 AUG CRUISING
31 AUG HALIFAX, NS
01 SEP CRUISING
02 SEP CAPE LIBERTY, NJ
Cabin
Getting ready to check out the aft views on a Freedom class ship. Without a doubt, it will be very different than the aft views on Oasis class. And just for fun, I could not help myself, I did put in some minimum bids for Royal Up but I am not going to hold my breath. We are already happy with our cabin, there are no extra perks on Freedom class ships even if we did win the RU.
Pre-Cruise thoughts
-        Hubby and the girls are super excited. We are for the most part, going back to the basics on this one. No drink packages, no dining packages, no CK on Liberty. It’s going to be MDR and WJ all the way. Because we plan to spend most of the port days on land, it might even be WJ most of the way. Hubby is super excited!
-        It is somewhat amusing because Hubby and both girls are hoping that I go back to the basics and end up liking it. On the other hand, I am most looking forward to how the three of them do without what they have gotten used to. If the last few days have been any indication, it’s going be amusing for me. They have already had endless arguments about how they will share a VOOM package lol. One kid just asked me yesterday how she can do laundry on the ship. At least I can admit that I have fallen into the deep, dark, suite hole, unlike some others lol
-        One thing I did purchase was the Evian water package. We need our water in the cabin. Let’s hope it’s Evian that shows up.
-        Once again, in the spirit of a live blog, please do not hesitate to ask any questions.  I will do my best to find out whatever I can for you.
-        When responding to a post with a series of pictures, please do not include the pictures in your reply.  It just makes for easier scrolling.
-        Lastly, I will try to post videos and stories on Instagram.  You can follow me @lovetocruise2002

From Canada…to Canada: Discovering Liberty, Eh? – LB 08/24/23 – 09/02/23

Here we go! The @Lovetocruise2002 family is off on another adventure, starting from our home in Canada, to Canada.
The family is really look forward to this cruise for different reasons. For Hubby, it’s a chance to sail to destinations that we have never been, and on a ship that is new for us. For the kids, they are just excited because they get another free vacation lol. They are also excited to head out to see Eastern Canada. We have lived in Canada all our lives and have yet to ever see the East Coast provinces. For myself, I just love to cruise, so I’ll go just about anywhere, but this was an itinerary that Hubby and I booked for July 2020, and we lost it, so I am extremely happy that I was able to replace it and bring the kids this time.
The highlight of this sailing is of course, the itinerary. We have never visited any of these ports and cannot wait to explore them. I feel that it is a good mix of city vs. nature in these ports, something that both girls will be happy with.

Bingo !

Priority Gangway Service or PGS.  Split the gangway with a rope barrier.  Regular pre-existing access on the right, premium boarding on the left.  Just $19.95 plus 18% gratuity.  
Priority Bar Service or PBS. A separate station/queue at every bar reserved for guests who purchased PBS.  $13.95 per person per day, plus 18% gratuity.
Priority Elevator Service.  One elevator with an operator who checks for the PES sticker on guest sea pass cards with priority direct floor service.  $7.95 per person per day, plus 18% gratuity.
Entertainment:
Aqua show, $9.95 per person, plus 18% gratuity.   Ice Skating shows, $12.95 per person, plus 18% gratuity. Broadways shows, $15.95 per person, plus 18% gratuity. Royal Caribbean original production shows $13.95 per person, plus 18% gratuity. Two70 production shows $11.95 per person, plus 18% gratuity. Priority Promenade Viewing areas.  Used for parades and promenade entertainment.  Dedicated standing areas in premium locations.  $8.95 per person per day, plus 18% gratuity.
Shall I continue?

Can't wait for those ship names though.
 
Fallout of the Seas
Radiation of the Seas
 

I'm open to it but I can see the same groups that protest and picket cruise ports now licking their chops to protest nuclear cruise ships coming into port.

We got off Allure on July 23rd and tested positive 4 days later. It could have come from the ship, but it also could have been from air travel, the airport, or any bus-like transportation we used. If you want to be careful, vaccinate, wear a mask, etc. to lower your chances of getting it. Otherwise, have a terrific cruise!

The possibility of Covid being on a ship is pretty high. If you join a Facebook group for a cruise that has already sailed, you’ll probably see a whole bunch of posts about people testing positive post-trip.
I don’t know if there are any official instances of “outbreaks”. It seems to me that norovirus outbreaks is more of a concern than Covid.