joberry57

Embarkation Day Since this was a last minute and comp solo cruise I made the decision not to fly in a day early. Figure worst case is I lose a small amount of money and a wonderful vacation but a night hotel is money better spent in the casino. Even after reading other peoples issues with CVS I still reserved my covid test with them. I have a 9 am appointment on Thursday for my test and of course on Wednesday I get an email saying my appointment was canceled. It was the same store that canceled my flu shot the week before. I was going to move the test but the pharmacy assured me it wouldn't be a problem. Luckily I was able to find another store in the middle of nowhere to schedule for me and they were nice enough not to cancel and I was negative so my first hurdle was cleared. I felt confident in my flight since Dallas is the headquarters of Southwest and it was the first flight of the day. I got up at 4 am and headed to the airport. Got checked in and they boarded the flight on time. I'm thinking this is looking good. I was on the first row aisle and had a full view of the cockpit. I noticed something weird going on but wasn't too concerned until they announced over the speaker that the co-pilot was in an accident on the way to the airport that morning. Luckily there was a backup that was actually at the airport that morning and he headed straight over. He received a nice ovation when he came on board. After that it was an uneventful flight and we almost even made it on time. I had a 1 pm check-in so I had a couple of hours to kill at the airport. I was luckily able to find an outlet where I could charge my phone and met some people who were on my flight headed to the Odyssey also. Turned out they were friends of one of my cousins. Chatted a little before they got to leave for their earlier check-in. Finally it came time for me to head to the ship. Went to the Taxi stand and they put me in one. Unfortunately I think I had the only taxi driver who had no idea how to get to the port. I told him Port Everglades and he handed me his phone to type in the address. Then he missed his turn at least twice and then we went around a few times before he got me to the drop off. He was a nice guy but it would have been nice to not stress about getting lost going 5 miles. Once I got there I was on the ship in 30 minutes and the entire staff at the port were friendly and helpful. Went straight to Wonderland and booked all my dining for the week and got great times for everything I wanted. Headed to Giovanni's for lunch and ordered the giant meatball and lasagna for lunch. They brought me some amazing garlic balls first and they were very good. Shortly after came the meatball.. It was very impressive but after eating that I barely touched the lasagna. After lunch headed to my muster station which was right next to Giovanni's and then headed to my cabin. The cabin was quite spacious and I liked the balcony even though it is right under the overhand from 14. The bathroom is tiny but the shower is bigger than any I've had on previous cruises so to be honest was a great tradeoff. Had our groups meet & greet at Lime & the Coconut. Was nice to meet a bunch of new people. Having almost all of cruises out of Galveston I'm used to everyone being from Texas. It was nice meeting people from all over. Afterwards headed to MDR for prime rib, which was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed on my first Royal cruise. Was not as good as I remembered but was at least edible. I went to check out the 270 venue and it is very impressive. Looking forward to the 2 shows I have reserved for there. I then had time to kill and headed to the casino before going to the first comedy show. After that I was pretty much dead and headed to bed around 11. My first impressions of the ship are almost all positive. I wonder if some of it is the fact we only have 1500 people on board and nothing is crowded. The ship seems smaller to me than I expected The new esplanade feels a little cramped and I wonder if it get overcrowded when the ship is full. The 270 experience and the Royal theater are both impressive. I plan on checking out the music hall soon and heading to Playmakers after Coco Cay to check out the sports bar. The staff is extremely nice and wanting to help wherever they can. The covid protocols aren't that bad. Royal does a great job keeping Vax only areas so you don't always have to have your mask on. Looking forward to the rest of the week.

One more week of work until vacation. I had hoped it would be a stress free week but it doesn't look like it. I did buy the drink package after it went up while waiting for my credit card to close for the month. I felt like an idiot when I didn't realize it went up just so they could lower it back to the previous price and call it a sale. So I had to cancel and rebuy. The menus are now available on the app so I have now started planning out what I hope I am able to get with specialty restaurants. I'm actually a little nervous about this so I will probably rush to make my reservations as soon as I board. I have my covid test appointment made at CVS and I have my luggage tags printed and together with my passport and other travel docs. I will begin packing this weekend as I need to figure out how to get everything in 2 suitcases. First time flying with my scuba gear in a while so it may be a challenge. Things are getting real for me as we are now in the single digits. Been so long since I've been on a vacation. Also been stashing away cash for the casino. Last cruise was a nightmare in the casino, this time has to be better.

Those are literally my 2 favorite places on the island. Casa Denis and Ernestos.

Hoonga is correct. Researching and finding a local dive operator is the way to go. I just booked two local companies on my upcoming cruise. I just posted a question on a couple of message boards then looked up the suggestions. I had decided against diving at Coco Cay and you just made me thankful I decided to skip it.

Going solo Oct 23 on the Odyssey. First time.

Well a lot of my questions have been decided for this trip. I am just going to tour Coco Cay and not book anything for that day. I thought about the balloon but then remembered I am deathly afraid of heights and passed. I've booked diving in Curacao and put in an inquiry to dive in Aruba. The only issue is now I'm going to have to spend another $1000 to get some new equipment that I had planned to buy early next year after Christmas. My comp cruise is getting expensive but I'm not about to do the southern islands and not dive. I also redid the math and have decided to buy the drink package. There are 4 sea days and 1 day at Coco Cay so effectively 5 sea days. It isn't going to take much to make this the obvious choice. My old boss had offered to buy my internet last time but I already had it comped and I'm hoping the new boss will make the same offer. My biggest question has to do with Playmakers. It looks awesome and I know that on the Carnival ships with a sports bar they always had a great assortment of sports showing and Sunday it was near impossible to get a seat for the NFL games. Does Royal have the same type of setup with what they show? Still too excited about this trip. My family is tired of hearing about it.

I had planned on doing my first live blog on my first Star Class cruise next September but this cruise fell in my lap at the last minute. A lot of firsts for me on the trip. I'm going solo. Being from Texas I've only gone out of Galveston and New Orleans so I'm flying to Florida. I chose this cruise for 2 reasons, I wanted to do a Quantum class ship and I wanted to go to Aruba and Curacao. It is my second Royal cruise and I have two more scheduled next year. First cruise was in the Villa suite on the Liberty and the next 2 are Star class on the Harmony and Allure. I expected to be in an interior but I was assigned a balcony room. I am on lucky deck 13 on a Halloween cruise. It was too much to ask for room 666 but I did get 676, so close. My first Royal cruise was a minor disaster. Everything that went wrong had nothing to do with Royal except for one thing. The food was not very good. So needless to say I bought the UDP for this trip. I'm not a heavy enough drinker so I can't justify the drink package. I have a feeling Playmakers will be my second home as it looks like a great place to relax and has a pretty good food menu, I'm a huge fan of Impossible burger so I was excited to see that on the menu I was disappointed to not see a Broadway play on the ship. I would have even gone to see Cats but hopefully the other entertainment makes up for it. Coco Cay is perplexing to me for this trip. On my trip next year I plan on getting a floating cabana for our group but I know that isn't an option. One thing to know about me is a have a small disability that affects my walking a little bit but makes me tire out very quickly and if I overexert I am pretty much useless the next day. My first thought was I would just tour the island try out a little bit of everything except for the water park since I can't really do anything there. However the more I think about it the more I think maybe a day pass at the beach club would be more relaxing. Gonna have to make a decision soon. The other two ports don't seem to have any excursion I like so I will probably find something to do on my own. Need to start researching that. I'm hoping to update this blog regularly on the trip. I'm not good about taking pictures but I am going to try and do that on this trip. Any advice for me will be appreciated and I will answer any questions. Thanks for reading. John

Liberty villa has one also.

I've always missed out on the free cruises. I did get a $100 OBC on my last cruise. Unfortunately they now require the sailing to be within 12 months and both of my upcoming cruises are too far out.

I am a glutton for punishment. I didn't enjoy Cats when I saw it at the theater but I still went to see the movie. Granted the movie was free but I still felt ripped off. I would still probably go see it on the Oasis. I don't know what is wrong with me.

Loving this so far. I am interested in how you are handling everything being a planner. I'm that way and we have our first SC cruise next year and I look forward to hearing how you handle that. Thanks for the live blog.

My September 2022 Harmony cruise is $67 before gratuity right now.

We are treating our daughter and son-in-law on our first Star Class next year. I like it because while the ladies are in the spa the gentleman will be at the craps table. Still 15 months away but I'm already planning everything. Driving my wife crazy. Which is weird because she normally does the planning but I do it for our vacations.

I didn't enjoy most of the MDR on my first Royal cruise but the lobster and prime rib were fabulous. Really looking forward to lobster night on my next cruise. Will definitely get multiple tails.

I have been primarily a Carnival cruiser with 1 Royal cruise. My next 2 booked are Royal though I may sneak a Carnival in there somewhere. As several people have said it is very subjective. But I think my experiences on my last 2 family cruises is a perfect example. We did a family cruise on Carnival with my son-in-laws family and had an amazing time. My wife and I both agreed it was a great vacation. We then did a friends cruise on Royal and it was a horrible vacation. But when I went back and wrote reviews for the trips I realized that on the Carnival cruise pretty much everything that was great was the family and shore excursions and the cruise itself kinda sucked. On the Royal cruise while the vacation was bad because of circumstances that had nothing to do with Royal, the cruise part itself beat Carnival on everything but the food. Which is why when I booked my next trip it was a Royal cruise. The point I'm making is there are so many variables to a vacation that I believe you should try all the lines and don't limit yourself based on what other people say about the lines themselves. That being said I believe the entertainment on Royal is far superior to Carnival and I believe the included food on Carnival is far superior to Royal.

Not really relevant to the thread but a bit of trivia. Right before he became an original member of the Broadway cast of Hamilton, Anthony Ramos performed on the Liberty of the Seas in Saturday Night Fever.

I love musicals and am a season ticket holder here in Dallas but you couldn't pay me to sit thru Cats. It is not enough to make me not book Oasis but it did make a difference when I decided on the Harmony for my first post covid cruise.

I tend to think along these same lines regarding the mask. The vaccine isn't an issue as I get my 2nd dose Thursday. I have one cruise on the books September 2022 assuming things will be close to normal and I'm looking at booking for October 2022 also. Thinking of maybe December this year knowing there might still be a mask mandate at that time. I get going back and forth on that one though.