Mike n Ky

My solution? I try and be consistent with exercise and lose 5lbs before I sail.

My wife likes the HEB sweet and sassy trail mix, she claims it was named after her, so we had several large bags of it in our luggage when we got on the ship. No issues. FWIW, we wouldn't have time to stop on the way to the airport since we had a 10am flight.

When I got the email today announcing the new Star of the Seas and that it begins sailing in June 2025 I had to wonder how in the world can they continue to put out so many huge ships and where are they going.

Back in April, for the first time we booked, on Next, an OVBalcony guarantee on Symphony for Jan 2024. I thought, why not grab that cheap rate, watch for something close to it and grab a cabin of our choice. Today the same deal, OVBG is only $200 less PER person that our total cost for the 2 person booking. JIC that's confusing, it's almost double the price when we booked it 6 months ago. So we are sticking with the guaranteed and seeing what happens.

The best thing in the WJ on Wonder is the kids desert section...they had chocolate covered chocolate chip cookies that were awesome. You either have to be limber to get down low or wait for a kid to help you.

We were on the Allure a few weeks ago when that happened.

As I have stated before, the new menu in the MDR is not a hit with us. Our last cruise consisted of specialty and the CK with a night in the WJ. Italian night in the WJ advertised in our app a pasta station where we could create our own dishes. Got suckered on that one as it didn't exist. We have seen that in the WJ before but not on this one. Very limited choices and very disappointing.

After those two sentences there wasn't any desire to read the rest.

Same here and I do believe the longest we have had to wait was about a week.

Allure last week and we had the disc and it was about 90 minutes for us. However, it was a bit more difficult to get the sequence changed but I believe I was in part just a language barrier thing and frankly since you can refuse a serving I should not have tried to change the order. lol Food was great and we dined there because it was a specialty restaurant we hadn't tried before even though we had been on the Allure 4 times before this sailing.

On the Allure last week every CK, as well as our specialty reservations, was on our daily planner.

i appreciate all the feedback. I may have been mistaken about the D but the info was given as to why the bookings were so difficult since so many had taken advantage of the BOGO on our cruise last week. I thought he said D but may have missed that it was a D+ bene. That said we have one more sailing and then we step off D+ so I will be looking into the added benefits in the future.

I recently became aware of this for diamond and above and that it is only available once you get on board. I was told that each of us can book it that way for up to 2 people on each booking. Has anyone done this and how does it match up for cost rather than online booking? FWIW, we already had a Chops+1 paid for when I heard of this on the ship.

We will be on this cruise and looking forward to it. Have only been on Symphony once and enjoyed the ship. Looking forward to black Friday so I can book that zip line again on Labadee! AND...when we step off on 2/4/24 we will be D+.

We were also on this sailing and since we have cruised this itinerary before we knew it would be HOT and humid. However, it seemed like we never had a nice breeze while in the ports. All in all it was a great cruise, lots of good interactions with the crew, the shows were excellent and my wife came home with 2 ducks!

From what we were told on Nav last year, they run 3 and 4 day cruises then a full week (which is what we were on) and back to the 3 and 4 day...the crew does not like the shorter cruises because of the behavior and work load. I asked some of the crew on Allure what they thought of going to the shorter cruises when it moves to Florida and none of them were looking forward to it.

We have done 3 of the Oasis class, Allure, Symphony and Wonder. For me the best overall is Symphony because it has some of the upgrades, I like the slides etc, and we are going back on her for a 2nd time in January. That said, having sailed on Allure 5 times there is a lot I do like about the ship and my wife is a huge fan of Mama Mia. As for the shows overall, I think the shows on Allure have been some of better ones. Our most recent cruise on Allure was our first on her as Diamond and that lounge was awesome compared to some of the others. She is showing her age but mainly in areas that cannot be addressed during continuous sailing. We were on one of the last sailings before her scheduled amp but Covid canceled that so all they did was basically maintenance and cosmetic. Some of what they were going to do will be good like changing Sabor to Playmakers. But I will be sad that I can't pop in and get my Cherry Garcia when they take out that shop.

Just got off Allure, our cabin was on 10, the walk to the stairs wasn't very far and I had to only go up one to get to the DL. This was our fifth cruise on Allure but the first as Diamond...I thought the lounge was on deck 4 on previous cruises so I am wondering if they moved it recently.

Not sure why I put JS...the guarantee was for an ocean view balcony...and the Next cruise person is who let me know I could specify ocean rather than Boardwalk or Central Park.

I agree with the others on selecting your boarding time. Which frankly doesn't seem to be as strict as it was coming back post covid. A little about GoPort...it's convenient at the airport but it is first come first serve. If you use the service you can book your seats online then send someone from the baggage area who is swift afoot to let them sign y'all in.

Leaving AOS yesterday I have concluded that the percentage of self assist in Galveston is well above average. Much smoother however than leaving Liberty last September but wow, the crowd in line at 7:40am was LARGE. Kudos to the crew as they had a lot of people working the process and it was pretty smooth and we were in our ride leaving port at 8:01. Very impressed with the new terminal both inside and out.

We have had Birthday and Anniversary decorations ordered prior to the cruise along with chocolate covered strawberries for one occasion and the decorations were up in the room when we entered on embarkation day.

Yep...that's exactly what we are doing today...cruising. So far it's been smooth sailing and we have an awesome steward Igede taking care of us.

Port Canaveral end of April....In Orlando and the Uber driver showed up way early...we were ready and rather than have him wait on our end we decided to go and just wait till our time at the terminal. Told the people working there we were early, we had the 2nd earliest checkin time, but they told us to go ahead and go now.