movistar

I'm moving this to the Live Blog section, since that's basically what it is. 🙂

Once again my wife is telling me something she is reading from her May 13th roll call on the Ovation (Facebook).  People are saying that when you are filling out the ArriveCan form on-line, the Port of Entry must be "Ogden Point, Pier A & B, Victoria, B.C. Canada.  I'm wondering if that's part of the issue why there have been long lines and waits to process at the Terminal in Seattle. And if you make a mistake while filling out the form, you can't correct it, you have to delete and start over.  I'll be filling mine out tonight at about 10:00 PM and will find out for sure as I do make a lot of typos.  I guess I'm going to have to slow down and check my work 😄. 
If anybody has any further information, I/we would appreciate an update.  Just one more little stress factor.
A quick look at Google Earth and the pier does say "Ogden Point":

From my aft balcony I spotted an Eagle in the trees.

So for those of us on a Settle closed-loop cruise who don't visit Victoria until the last day, we'd have to fill this out while on the ship (since it has to be no more than 72 hours prior).

HI All,  We are in Vancouver getting ready to board Ovation of the seas on an 8 night Alaska cruise today.  We are so excited and have been waiting almost 2 years for a trip on ovation. back to Alaska.  This is our 6th alaska cruse as we are big fans of the pacific northwest and the beauty of Alaska!!  The cruise starts in Vancouver and ends in Seattle. Our flights to vancouver were pretty easy yesterday with a layover in Seattle.  We already did our Covid antigen testing via emed to board the cruise prior to leaving home, but my husband did get randomized to a PCR at YVR as we walked through customs so he had to go through a testing process that was part of the exit of the customs and international flight area. Overall the test was fairly quick and not too bad for a PCR.  He already has results this am, but has been having a hard time accessing the link to view them.  We have a 10 am boarding time this am and are in a hotel right at the port.  I am hoping we can check into our staterooms early today since this is the first passenger sailing on Ovation in a while.  Chris Wong is reporting on you tube around 4000 passengers are expected today!  We have a balcony cabin on deck 9 on the hump!  Seems perfect for an alaska sailing!!  More to come later in the week.  As of right now, I won't likely have wifi onboard until later in the week, but will post some updates!!!
 
Tata for now! 
Cyndi and Greg
 

I’m sad to say I’ve decided to end this blog now, even though we haven’t cruised yet and it was just getting close to the good stuff.  Without going into details, the universe just keeps throwing curveball after curveball.
While we are still planning on cruising, I need to disconnect and decompress so I can come back ready to deal with the impacts of all those curveballs😡.  I will take some pictures and post them at some point once things settle down.  
 
Thanks to all for following along until now. And all the great tips that helped me plan what will be an amazing cruise!  
 

Disembarkation day. 
Oh gawd the dreaded disembarkation day. I woke up and tried to cram stuff in my back pack. I ran out of room and resorted to throwing away hair products to make room. Don’t worry I have like 20 bottles of hair gel at home. Enough to last me a week 🤣 There was champagne left over from last night. I did the honors. I also made sure there was no alcohol abuse. I drank the left over shots as well. I was really wanting to get breakfast in coastal kitchen but I was told that Jordan wanted to buy us breakfast to return the favor so no coastal kitchen 😕 
 
While we waited for the rest of the family to show up I went outside to get a last peaceful moment on our balcony. I snapped some photos outside to get a shot of our wonderful view we had had. 
I came inside and within seconds the door bell rang and the entire family gathered in. Nityam would be here in a couple minutes. (genies have impeccable time.They are there on the dot at the stroke. It’s pure magic! ) I think hector the magician is behind this some how 🪄! Just then at the perfect time the door bell rings. 
I masked up for our walk to the port. Secretly hand nityam the other half of his tip. Not sure if he realized it. I tipped him full for my immediate family and tipped him more for working with my extended family for some things. I told him on day one that I wanted to give him a tip up front and said I would tip the rest after the trip. I basically tipped him $400 up front and then tipped him $400 again at end of the trip. I don’t think he realized I was going to tip him wayy more. 🙃 That is one thing I do not skimp on. I tip hospitality workers well no matter what. I noticed My brother in law give nityam a hug and hand him a tip as well. I’m glad he did that.
I’m telling you disembarkation is amazing. You truly do get ushered. One thing that was kind of off putting was He was already on his phone with his new clients. ( i get it it’s a busy day) He was ushering us through the halls and even in the elevator he was on his phone. I was kind of bummed about that part. It made me feel a little insignificant like “ok thanks bye and next”  kind of feeling. Nityam was nice to us don’t get me wrong, but I felt the trip was too short. 4 days is not enough as you don’t really feel a connection with them. By the time that you get on they are already planning with the next family . 
I noticed his collar had a genie lamp. Soo cool. Nityam swiped his magic card and the elevator opened instantly and it was empty. Someone else tried to board but they were stopped. Genies are gentle but firm when needed. We went straight to our floor! He walked us to our last spot.  Before he could leave I asked the porter at the elevator to take our pic, 
Here you have it. The GOAT vacation. We missed uncle Tony but still had a good time. My backpack was heavy in this pic. I felt like i was lugging an aligator and couldn’t wait to drop this off with a porter. We said our goodbye and gave hugs and left. The scene at the terminal was chaos. Our genie powers were gone. Terminal people treated us as normal people 
David went and grabbed the jag while we waited. We all got settled in the jag and headed to breakfast. 
We went toNew York bagel. I had eggs bacon and sausage and cheese asiago bagel. The bagel and coffee were good. I was bummed for missing coastal kitchen but was not going to complain. This was an attempt to thank us. We ate and hugged and said good bye. They were headed north and we were headed west.  We raced back home as another big storm line was coming. We made it home safe but many people who had miraculously made their flights for this cruise now had their return flights canceled. Yikes!  We made it home and within seconds it poured rain. Perfect nap weather. I unpacked and napped and dreamed about our next cruise. Till next post. Final thoughts coming on next update 👍🏻😎
 

Day 3 Labadee, Haiti
I know, I missed Day 2. Since it was a sea day, I booked my daughter and son-in-law's next cruise for them and we basically vegged all day at the pool. Staff is very attentive, coming by several times to ensure drinks are replenished. I've seen previous posts that the Jewel is showing her age, but I see none of that in our room. Our attendant is wonderful! 
Day 3 started cloudy but cleared up quickly. We haven't been to Labadee in 8 years. It reminds us of pre-amusement park days of CocoCay: trams, a few local shops, beach chairs and umbrellas, hammocks... for us, just lovely! 8 years ago, we met up with pushy vendors we never wanted to see again. It was much nicer this time around. There's a nice little luncheon like old CocoCay days. We returned to the ship before noon and shared the pool with about a dozen others. Our Pool Bar tenders ROCK! Mom and I both have allergies and they shared several suggestions for drinks. They were tipped well 😁
The first night in main dining was a culinary disappointment. Normally, we order escargot nightly. It was, well, meh. The duck, stuffed mushroom, desserts all were good. Seafood linguine? The Alfredo was quite bland. Tonight is Chef's Table, so we're hoping for a truly wonderful experience! 
Mom's ready for a nap in our room, so we're off for a rest before dinner. Forgive my typos, please. I'm on vacation and currently have little interest in proofreading 😘

IMHO, what needs to stop is worrying about what someone else is wearing.   The guy in board shorts 2 tables away has ZERO impact on my dining experience.  Don’t like what another diner is wearing? Don’t look at them!  Concentrate on your group and your food.  BTW I am a card carrying member of Judgers Anonymous and this is part of my 12 step program 😁

Day 4 last day!  AKA “do everything you didn’t do yet today.” 🤣
 I finally got David to have a meal in coastal kitchen. We had breakfast which was amazing and fast! Sasha had pancakes with chocolate chips. I had an over easy egg with corned beef hash. Super healthy not!! 😋 David had a smoked salmon omelette. 🤮  Sasha ate her pancakes before the server got back. He was impressed and brought her more.
So here is what I think about coastal kitchen…. I love it!! The views are beautiful. The kids that are in there are well behaved. The servers are the best of the best! Our server flipping cut Sashas pancakes for her. The guy would have spoon fed my child had I let him. I love that kind of service. Im a starbratt what do you expect! 🤷‍♀️😎 I would rather say “no thanks” or “we are good, but thank you” then “can I get a manger” (I swear I am not a Karen)  🤣 
My hubby loved the peaceful breakfast and wished we had had more time to experience coastal kitchen. After breakfast David headed to the zip line. It’s the last day of the cruise and he had not yet zip lined. He got it in and can rightfully say he did it and his brother didn’t. 🤣😎 We had a big blow out this day with the family. His brother and kids were being ungrateful brats. That’s putting it lightly. Just complaining about the lines, stuff not being open, no grape jelly, not the correct sugar, the flo rider instructor lady was mean, whatever they ate there was an issue by one of them…. Every time you saw them it was a complaint and never a positive word. I finally had had it. They were wanting to go in the ultimate abyss line and I said David was about to zip line if they wanted to watch. They complained that it was taking to long and said “what your genie couldn’t get him to the very front there are 3 people in front of him?!” They legit were crying about waiting for 3 people to go bc they needed to get to the ultimate abyss STAT! I said the zip line had just opened up and the ultimate abyss  wouldn’t nearly be as long as a line bc there were 2 slides. well I was wrong. 😇🙃 A line had formed. They let me have it when I saw them. They legit pushed their 10 year old daughter towards me to let her talk down to me. “oh no line Alisha really! what do you call this!?” Then Jordan started to talk down to me. At that moment I really felt disrespected and was shocked. The last day and they still were a bunch of Debbie downers. ✌️ I grabbed Sasha and said not to stand in line with them as they were being ungrateful and rude and I didn’t want her to act like that to her elders or people in general. I had dropped close to 5 k for them to be here and they had not said one positive thing. When someone gifts your family with a cruise. The least you can do is refrain from complaining about how bad it is every time they are around. I wasn’t looking for them to thank me. I was just hoping that if they were not happy to not complain to me about it and save it for when I wasn’t there. It’s one thing to be unhappy about something but then there is a line that gets crossed and it turns into being ungrateful which I do not tolerate. I grew up in foster care and never heard a 10th as much complaints from my foster brother and sisters as I heard in one day from this family. I was homeless and on the streets and never heard as many complaints. Here I am on a freaking cruise in the ocean with fresh salty air. The weather is warm and breezy. Drinks are all over the place and steel drums playing in the back ground. Drowning it out was all their complaints. No one wants to hear everything negative about a vacation that is happening. If you don’t like it move on and focus on the positive. I learned real quick that they are the glass is half empty family. I think it’s all they know how to do is complain when they talk to each other. I’m not sure if they even realized it half the time. 😔 I told them that if a freaking royal genie couldn’t make them happy then to god bless them bc aint no body going to make them happy! Life is too short to hang out with negative nancy’s and debbie downers. ✌️ I took Sasha and said “we are star class let’s have fun there is no reason for us to subject ourselves to that crap.”  Sasha and I rode the slide twice. We went and bought a cute cover up top. Rode the carousel and grabbed some ice cream. I talked to Cynthia and David. David was at his limit with their behavior as well. Cynthia told me to not let that change my vacation and to still have fun. On that note Sasha and I went and had more fun therapy shopping. The debbie downers finally arrived with more complaining so I walked away as I was at my limit and needed space and air. David and Cynthia had a major talk with them. I was frustrated because we had the owners box at playmakers slotted for in like 20 minutes which was going to be $300 and another gift to the ungrateful family. I was not about to have them sit in there and complain the entire time. Ty and Ronny decided to go to Loco Fresh and eat tacos. Because getting the tacos delivered to the owners box was not what they wanted. There is no pleasing them lol! 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️
Rayne followed Sasha and photo bombed as I was taking this pic. It actually came out cute though. 👍🏻
Playmakers it was time and Nityam showed us to the owners box. I really should have planned it better, There was only golf and soccer on. oops lol! I still had fun as I am a soccer fan woot woo! We ordered wings, kids tenders, onion ring tower, burger, tuna poke nachos (those are AMAZING!) beers and more beers. Dessert was the camp fire cookie HOLY HELL! yes it comes with milk shooters it’s soooooooo damn good! We ordered like 4 of them and the ice cream. 
campfire cookies for days!  Our server was amazing! This was his last week before he goes home to his family. He has a 1 year old who he has not seen for 6 months. I gave him a huge hug! As a parent my heart was aching for him. It’s tough for some of these crew members. I tipped him well and named him in the post cruise survey 😎💪🏻 

Once dessert came word got out and Ronny and Ty came over in time to enjoy it. You pretty much had to roll me out of the place and this was just lunch! 🤣
Next up was Next Cruise. I went there and saw a huge line of appointments and stand by. I felt a sudden sense of “oh crap!” OopsI didn’t know know your had to make an appointment for this. Well hell! OOPS! I stood there with my drama skills on full display. (Honor Thespian here troup 4224💪🏻) The glossy eyes desperate batting eyes of “excuse me i’m lost”  and twirling this purple star class card around. I laid my card down and started to text nityam. “hey i’m at the next cruise thing…. do I walk in or make an appointment how does this thing work?” 🤣 Then Anthony noticed me. He starts talking to me. Told him It was my first royal and star class cruise and was wanting to book star class again. As I said this his deck phone was going off with Nityam on the other end. I instantly had an appointment  🧞  I booked our next cruise. May 27th 2023 star class 2 bedroom ATS. He said 9th floor but it looks like the 8th floor when I checked. Who cares it’s star class and it’s not to costa maya 🤣!  I ran and told the hubby he asked how much and I lied and said 15 k vs the 21k it really was 🙃 shh! what he doesn’t know won’t kill him.  He still about choked. Should I now get a TA? How does this work? This is only my third cruise so I am still a newb 🤪
All of a sudden the twin brother who had been complaining wants to book a star class with us. HELL TO THE NO!!! I told him it would probably be like 30-40k for them in an atempt to steer them away from the idea. God bless the genie that gets stuck with them. OY Vey! womp womp womp!  I told David I would switch cruises last minute if they tried to go on ours. I just want it david sasha and I next cruise. Our next cruise is all going to be about saying yes and enjoying our time debbie downer free. 😁 
We got ready for chops. We were sat pretty close to the kitchen which was a bit odd to me. I felt like we couldn’t get to enjoy the ambiance bc we could see servers in and out. My husband loved it as that is his thing.  At one time Shane went back there. I’m guessing he was lashing a cook…. who knows but it didn’t sound good. Someone had royally screwed up someone’s order. Shane’s bag was swinging with a mission when he briskly walked past our table to get to the kitchen. Sasha posing. 

Where have these been all my life!  WEELL HELLO LAVENDER MARTINI MY NEW BEST FRIEND! I had like 4 of them 🤣 They are soo good. I’m trying to figure out where they had to go to get them. 🤷‍♀️ A lady would come in the doors with everyone’s orders and look just famished.  It took a while to get drinks bc of that. I’m guessing they had to catch the fairies in central park and collect their tears to make them. Who knows?!🤷‍♀️ The lavender martinis are damn magical! 🧚🏻‍♀️ 
Oh hello mushroom 🍄 soup. I was soo happy to eat this 🤣 yummy!!! 
Sasha’s face after eating onion bread. She loved her caesar salad. 
I ordered surf and turf. I gave one of my lobsters to the hubby who had ordered a steak.  I remembered to take a pic here after I had ate some. The plate originally looked great just trust me on that. 🤣😋 we didn’t have time for dessert as we had to be at the royal theater for family comedy night. 
So the genie asks us if we want drinks. At this point I would just stop asking and summon to get our order. Lol! He claps his hand in the air and waves down someone. The guy runs for his life as usual lol. He gets our order. Everyone gets their drink and my pinicolada is no where to be found. I did have two glasses of ice. I text nityam and sent him a picture of my “pinicolada”. He says he will get right on it. The lights go down and “enjoy the show!” the show begins. A minute later my phone lights up. it’s Nityam. “look behind you”  I turn around as if someone is about to abduct me. 😳There i see the poor drink guy with 2 pinicoladas in his hands desperately looking for who they go to. I wave my hand and he finds me. 🙂  Gosh I love genies!  So the comedian is joking about how kids are not beat now days. He says “who here gets beat by their parents?” A kid raises their hand 🤣🤣 I legit spit my drink out laughing! If you were sitting in the row below. I am terribly sorry! I was rolling. Sasha and the kids were rolling. This was perfect. It cut the tension and all was good.  The parents were all “no no no we don’t beat our kids.” The kids had stories to tell and told them. The audience was dying at this point. FYI The kids are not beat but what they thought was beating was pretty funny.
After the show was over we raced to the other end of the ship for Aqua!!!
Sasha found one of the hot wheels on the ship. This was in memory of a boy who had been swimming. A freak accident happend. A piece of gravel got kicked up and lodged itself in the kid’s throat and killed the boy. The boy loved hot wheels and all over the world people hide hotwheels in his memory. 
Sasha also had time to ride the last carrousel ride of the cruise. It was shutting down after this ride.  Nityam met us and sat us. Boy was Aqua amazing!  Seriously the highlight of the cruise. 🥰 Here are a few pics with our giving it away. 
More pinicoladas for me. I was feeling good! 💃 We danced our way through the 80’s. One guy said that he had just gotten off of Wonder and this was better then Wonder! We all hugged and went to pack and set our luggage out. Tomorrow was the dreaded disembarkation day. Off to bed! 

 
 

thanks for keeping it real - your blog is not only funny it's setting real expectations!

thanks for keeping it real - your blog is not only funny it's setting real expectations!

Side not if you zoom in on the picture with the “big yellow drinks”
The kids got virgin strawberry drinks. If you take the green palm tree tops off they look like they are holding bachelorette party cups ☠️🙀🤣

I booked our next sailing!!!! STAR CLASSS! We booked Harmony a deck 9 2 bedroom ATS. ohhh my god it’s happening again lol! 7 day may 27th 2023 let’s goo! 

Day 2 (I think you lose track of time on boats 🤣) 
I Had forgot to share these pics. After the magic show we came back to the suite and the kids passed out on the bed watching ghost busters.  The towel animal zoo has just begun and we loved it! ok now where were we??? oh yes check this out! 

I woke up to gentle rocking and swaying. I peeked out the window and saw thid! I woke everyone up and we ran outside bed head and ruffled pajamas to watch the sunrise. I felt like princess anna on frozen when she wakes up for her sisters coranation day hair everywhere 🤣🤣 People we’re out all dressed up and taking family pics and we were just waking up morning breath and all out on the balcony watching the sunrise 🤣 who cares it’s vacation day. 
So today was a day to celebrate David and I’s 9 year anniversary. we skipped breakfast and met Nityam at vitality spa for a thermal suite day. Sasha hung out with her cousins at the pool. As soon as I got into the locker room I heard “alpha alpha deck 10 starboard…. alpha alpha alpha deck 10” I immediately text our family to make sure Sasha was ok.. I could not relax w a visual of her injured or overboard in my head. She was fine and I was told i’m crazy 😝. A lady came to the dressing room and said it was a test. wohoo yay for tests and not real emergencies! 
(oh yes this was  a great picture from our room of the sunrise. 🥰oops lol) 
the thermal suite was amazing. Nityam asked for a salt scrub and the lady at the front desk said “they did not purchase this! “ he looked her dead in the eye and said this is star class mam the salt scrub mam.” oh snap she still was not wanting to give it. I don’t think she knew what star class was. he asked me to go change and he would get our stuff. He threw his genie card on the table I am assuming and she immediately said she would see what she could do. I walked out in my robe and met david in the suite and we had our salt scrub. I’m assuming the front desk lady was able to make a salt scrub from her tears real quick. 🤷‍♀️ We used the salt scrub. I used the shower to the left and had no idea what was about to hit me. It was like I was in a car wash and tornado all at once 🤣 I went back to detox more. The dry heat room was nice. My gosh the hot thermal chairs are wonderful for sore backs. We went to change. I quickly realized I was not prepared and as david had my shirt to change into and I had no bra or undies with me 🤣 oh this was going to be fun. Just then david texts me on what’s soo to meet him at the door as he had my shirt. I decided to get dressed and go comando. eventually we would get to my room. YOLO baby! 🤣🤣🤣 

I snapped a quick photo before I ran to get my clothes. Look this is a preface of what I would look like after a port day 🤣🤣
I got ready and we headed to the pool deck to meet sasha and the gang, the stairs were very neat. I live the vitality area. I want to book again and just zen out for a week!  

 
We had soo much fun at the pool. I ran to the room to change into my wet suit to hang out. I ran into our amazing room attendent. 
What a wonderful woman! she truly cares. She said that this cruise was all about mrs sasha 🥰 
Got back to the pool and headed to the hot tub. I ran to get a fruity drink. Huge line at the bar. ai flashed my purple card and gosh service instantly with apologizes for waiting. God i love star class!  Hot tub pool hot tub pool you know how it goes. After a while we left to go wash and change lunch at giovanies was next! 

Sasha spotted another one of these and used the floor drying machine as a prop to stand on to see through. lol!
We we’re the first ones there I think lol! The genie asked if anything was wrong bc we were up soo early. I said we were late owls and late risers but we were up early. That was sort of my fault 🤦‍♀️ Susrise baby. 🤣 in case you forgot!  
it was worth it lol! 

appetizers were yummy don’t ask me to pronounce the names lol! Kids focaccia pizza style. amazing calamari!! the meat board w pickled veggies yum! 

my food was a linguini seafood pasta. They asked if it was ok since I had so much left over. It was amazing just a tad heavy for lunch is all. 

dessert was canoli for sasha and a yummy spiked coffee drink for me yum!  Get my irish on even though i’m not irish just look it a bit lol! 
We sent the kids to adventure ocean. Byeeeeeee We got to skip the line and drop off. god i love genies! We did the very hard escape room. I was there to write down codes and moral support! I clapped really loud every time we had a table cleared 🤣 our rocker scientist nephew joana did 90 % of this escape room. That is no lie! we would constantly say “jonah jonah over here! “ he would look at the clue flip some switches and turn the table on in seconds. 
We beat it with 9:02 seconds left to spare. I feel soo smart!! 🤣💪🏻😎

Can you find the rocket scientist in the group who really is in a NASA school?! look to the right. the family with us was star class. we got along really quick and Nityam thought I knew them. No i’m just a people person. It’s my personality Hence why I am good at my job in real life. Gasp oh crap i just said the word job. Nooo! 
ok so we got to the room and Nityam had found a razor and baby powder. No we were not stepping on drugs here. I needed a razor bc i had for got mine. aghh! David couldn’t find his baby powder. he slaps baby powered on his thighs after a shower. why he does this is beyond me. I know i’m going to catch hell for saying this but whatever 🤣 
David and I picked the girls up and strawberries showed up for sasha along with virgin strawberry drinks. Sasha was happy! We got ready and headed out for a private photo shoot! 
ok internet issues here to be continued. my photos are failing. noo. I’ll leave you on a cliff hanger and unlike a previous blogger I will come back to finish it. Need to get the genie for fix the internet as it’s been whacky! 🙃

Hi everyone. Sometimes it feels like things will never get here. I booked this sailing an entire different world ago. It’s crazy to think that back in November 2019 (18th to be exact) we were fun and fancy free. Running around without masks, no vaccines and a stable supply of light sweet crude oil. 
It was 867 days ago and when I put down the deposit for this sailing after having had FOMO from one too many of Sabrina’s live blogs. 
We’re now three weeks away which means from booking to sailing it’ll be 888 days (which definitely means I should head to the craps table or roulette wheel.) I’ll be sharing a bit about the voyage every day or so leading up to departure and will keep up onboard as much as my blood alcohol level let’s me. 

It’s official!!! We all tested NEGATIVE!! Mimosa’s here I come! Can’t wait to share our star class experience with you all ❤️

Oh I LOVED reading through this! We were on the week prior in the suite next to you! We had Simona and felt the same way - how could she POSSIBLY have other families; she's always around for us! There was one night in CK when she was seating and chatting with a couple she had and Jolie (my 7yo) goes "Oh, there's Simona!" and proceeded to STAND UP AND WAVE HER ARMS and say really loudly, "SIMONA! OVER HERE!" it was mortifiying, lol. 
I'm so glad you enjoyed your trip - it wasn't our first cruise but it was our first Star Class and hoo boy there's no going back, haha. 

Well, today starts once again with tears but, alas, not over bridgerton. I am officially back in reality, left an aimless shell of a person wandering around my house trying to swipe my sea pass and looking for my genie. As they said in the movie space jam, which I napped through in the royal theater yesterday while my kids watched, “that’s all folks.”
As we effortlessly debarked this morning after a final coastal kitchen breakfast, we reached a point in the terminal where Leroy informed us that he had to leave us. My daughter sobbed and hugged him, and I’m proud to say I managed not to do the same. Barely. It’s amazing how in seven days you can get to attached to someone. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself and dwelling on the sadness of today like a moody viscount torn between love and family duty… oh wait, that’s bridgerton again. Sorry. Let’s go back to the fun - the last day of the cruise!
We basically tried to do everything in that last day to make the most of it - everything indoors, that is, since the one problem with our super convenient, close to home port is the cold weather that shocks you back to reality before they even kick you off the ship. I think I left off in my last entry right before Jamie’s lunch. It was yummy, as usual, though my son scarfed down some pasta and then ran to hang out with his cruise buddies. This was the most pleasant surprise for me on this trip - I didn’t expect him to find such a nice group of kids to hang out with. Leroy stopped by to give my daughter a duck he found, which made her day of course. 
 
We went and got our photos - I pre purchased a 100 photo package with a Black Friday deal, and in retrospect I don’t think we needed it. It was annoying how many photos weren’t included in the package - ifly, other activities. And one of my kids managed to look confused or miserable in pretty much every pic we took that was included. 
 
We then waited to watch the aforementioned space jam (I drew the short straw so I got to go to the movie while my husband went back to the suite to nap). My daughter was standing on the steps and dropped the duck Leroy had just gifted her. It went through the open stairs and disappeared. I searched desperately, even ending up in a crew only area at the bottom of the staircase. Oops. A crew member saw my despairing child and went and got her one of her own collection of ducks, which was so sweet. Just as we were about to move on, we found the original duck on top of a hand sanitizing station, so this ended up being a two for one duck special for my kid. She recounted this dramatic tale to anyone within earshot for quite a while. We settled in for the movie and who should walk in but my son and his cruise buddies. How embarrassing for him. And then who should walk in a minute later? Leroy, summoned by my son for virgin pina coladas. Note to self: if I’m ever lucky enough to have a genie again, do NOT give my kid the genie’s number. 
 
After I slept through the movie (though since Leroy was there anyway I did ask him for an iced coffee), we went to meet my husband to try the royal mystery game. We found out we’re not that good at solving puzzles. Oh well. 
 
My kids wanted wonderland again for dinner, but they were booked, so Leroy brought wonderland to us in the suite. That made things easier anyway since we had to pack up as well. I wrote thank you notes to Leroy, Raj, and Agnel (room attendants) and gave them out, which felt like the beginning of the long goodbye. We got everything packed and put our luggage out in the hall before heading to the 9:15 goodbye variety show. Raj caught us on our way out and gave my daughter a little towel bunny to take home, which she has treated as her most prized possession and hasn’t put down since. 

the show was fun - Joff is a funny cruise director. Frankie and the dreamers were back, this time with an extra dreamer - I guess the third one was quarantined with the other entertainment folks for their first show? Who knows. My son was off living it up with his buds, including coming in second in the ship air hockey competition. My husband had some drinks and kept a watchful eye on the kids as they hung out until midnight (!) while my daughter and I went to bed. When we got back to the room, we discovered presents from Leroy to us - it was overwhelming, really. My daughter got a t shirt featuring her favorite Disney movie, and also one more duck - a green one, since Leroy knows that’s her favorite color. My Lego and video game loving son got Minecraft legos, my husband got a lovely watch and I got a really pretty necklace. It was just too much and that’s when the sadness really hit that this fantasy was coming to an end.

That brings us back to where I started, with sad goodbyes and post-vacation blues. At least we were reunited with our lovable mutt, Bowie  

I don’t know when or if we will find ourselves able to do star class again, but if we can we certainly will, and if you are on the fence about it I’d say it’s really quite special. Thanks for reading my ramblings this week!

I ordered a classic relief band https://www.reliefband.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzf2Z4sz49gIVDgiICR1NJgVFEAAYASAAEgIj6vD_BwE
I got it on sale but still pricey. I get really sea sick though so I wanted to try something. I was shocked at how well it worked. I did start the week wearing a scopolamine patch but it made my vision completely blur so I didn’t put on a new one. 
 
hiding ducks is a cute thing where people put tags on rubber ducks and hide them around the ships. It’s not just a RC thing. This was our first exposure to it and it was fun -the crew is very aware and seem into it. These were the ducks we brought:

Oh My god where do I even start?!!!  Ok first and foremost Tony did not make it to the cruise. We were given a phone number to call to get refunded…. yaa we sat on hold for 30 minutes yesterday and we sat on hold for an hour today. I told David to screen shot his hold time so that we can prove we tried. I sure hope they don’t expect us to sit on hold our entire cruise. We totally are not. I will let Nityam know again tomorrow that we could not get through. Ok enough of bad on to good stuff. 
Ao we left the hotel and drove to the port. 
My god Miami is soo pretty! I love the little people mover! We got to the port and we TOTALLY WERE FLOGGED FOR OUR LUGGAE! As we practiced we did not give them. I kept saying “everyone go left left left. get to the purple banner! They porters started yelling louder and running after us 🤣🥰🤣 Savid yelled at them “star class back off!” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 They slowed their roll about as fast as when you hit the red button on peleton. Total defeat in their eyes. I almost ran to give them money bc I felt bad. We had 11:30 to meet Nityam and lunch was set for coastal kitchen at 12 yaaa we totally didn’t come close to making it. no worries though. 
This was the suite waiting room. When we entered I saw nityam and shane. I ran to shane and said hi. I said I followed  the whole star class takeover and it was amazing! Shane in his usual self got excited and started jumping up and down and gave me a hug. I seriously felt like I was hugging a celebrity hahaha! Nityam our genie was right there and i gave him a hug and told him it has been so long of a wait to do this.  They did all the scanning and pics. we had to wait for a second because nityam had another family he was escorting he came and we went on the ship FINALLY WE WERE ON THE OASIS AGHHH. I got emotional. I was trying to not cry. If you get lash extensions you try not to cry lol. we walked to our room. I had the honor of opening the door. I’m telling you what, I watched all these videos of this room from the thorne family to the wedding earlier this year. There is something about coming into the room and seeing the bright loft and the windows. I started crying like sobbing lol. God i’m such a softy. My whole family was behind me with their jaw hanging out! I went from a foster kid with no future for my self to this and my family was here to be a part of it. you guys I was in tears. Nityam saw me crying and said “ oh now why are you crying no no” I pulled it toegerher and said they were happy tears. David and his brother saw the pictures “happy birthday” Jordan was taken back and so was david. Jordan had no clue that we were celebrating him today. 🥰 we had chocolate peanut butter cake to s of finger food and drinks galore. Nityam presented david and jordan with gifts. engraved glasses “the best gift ever is having you as my brother” Now that i stopped crying david and Jordan were crying. We are a bunch of softies lol! 
Nityam went over our schedule for the week and left us to go play. 
First thing we did was ride the ultimate abyss. Sasha loves it! We are going tomorrow for as many times as she wants! We rode the carousel and the girls went on it till they could t go any more.  
After playing around we got ready for dinner. Tonight David Sasha and I ate with everyone in the main dining room. I’m not a fan of it but wanted to eat with everyone at least once. It was funny to have the entire staff basically come out to see us and make sure we were ok. The table next to us was obnoxious the kids were at least. We were leaving port and the kids came and stood up at the window blocking our view. Super rude. They even moved our container of chilled water a drinks so that they could take over our view. I moved our container back and said to the mom. How rude can you guys be. we paid for this spot and these drinks. You just don’t touch peoples things like that. They didn’t seem to care and let their kids act fools the entire time. I’m soo glad Indont have to sit in their again. I leaned over and said this is why star class never eats here bc of this crap right here.  I ordered escargot (the kids though i was crazy. Jonah actually tried one and likeed it. I was impressed. I also ordered a crab cake. for dinner I ordered the whole main lobster and dessert was chocolate cake 
Sasha sat at the window and watched the sunset. After dinner we headed to the royal theater for the magic show. It wasn’t the best but it was still cool. Sasha and rayne kept on screaming “ how did he do that?” “shut the front door! no way!” they loved the show and totally think hector has magic powers and want to meet him lol! 
this right here is amazing. The genie escort and the private seats. The room was a packed one so this was awesome! 
We were waiti g for the show to start and Nityam asked if we wanted a drink. Umm yesss (i’m soo bummed that they don’t serve crown?! that is my go to drink! crown and coke) Nityam waved down a drink attendant. I leaned over and whispered to david. “watch this dude run like his life depends on it he has been summoned by the genie!” We laughed bc he totally ran. People tried to stop him and he avoided them to get to us. I love the railing too. you can put your drinks on it. We also had bags with us from shopping. Nityam said “you already went shopping?!” heck ya i did! I still need to find sunglasses. (i have some but they are not what I like) After the show we walked around and came back to the suite. We watched ghostbuster and I ordered wings and pizza. Amazing!!! Everyone just left I am about to crash, Tomorrow is formal day and we celebrate our anniversary tomorrow. 9 years on 4/20 🥰 Till next update. ✌️

Im here for this blog!

Lots of final preparations happening today. Many emails were exchanged with Derick and our dining schedule has been all finalized. We are still waiting on our show/activities schedule because that has not been finalized on the ship yet. He did let me know that Oasis will probably be having a Coast Guard inspection on Sunday, which means boarding times will get pushed back boo......
We are pretty much all packed, I'll be picking up the rental vehicle tonight in a little while. I'm going to try to get on the insiders zoom call and try to relax the rest of the evening. 
Tomorrow, we drop this guy off at the boarder, take our COVID tests, pack up the car and then hit the road!!

I would redact that picture or remove the QR code unless you want lots of towels. I just tested it and the code works from anywhere in the world not only from the ship. So  unless cabin 8052 would like a lot of towels don't post that QR code.

Cabin 8052, 2 bedroom GS on the port side. It is well laid out. I would definitely stay in this type of cabin again.
Entry, looking back at the door from the main room:

Master bedroom:

Master bath:

Second bedroom:

Second bath:

Walk in closet next to second bedroom:

Vanity for second bedroom (in entry hall):

Main room:

Balcony: