SheSellsSeashells

(Im an idiot am originally photographed the wrong side.)
Are these the ones you mean? If so, I don’t think you’d be able to see much because of all the structures in the way at that angle. 
 

Cruise Director Mike just announced that there’s going to be an Aqua 80 showcase at 7pm! I’m SO excited. 

I feel like I’ve really had a Perfect Day—I had firstlunch at the Boardwalk Dog House; watched Aqua 80 rehearsals with a couple of beers, had secondlunch at El Loco Fresh; and then napped in the Solarium until 3:15, at which point I came onto the island as the vast majority of people were walking back onto the ship. I feel sorry for the guitarist scheduled for the 4:15 show, because the audience couldn’t possibly be good and wasn’t.

I'm just so happy to be here! I can’t stop walking around grinning like an idiot.

Cruise Director Mike just announced that there’s going to be an Aqua 80 showcase at 7pm! I’m SO excited. 

Cruise Director Mike just announced that there’s going to be an Aqua 80 showcase at 7pm! I’m SO excited. 

I feel like I’ve really had a Perfect Day—I had firstlunch at the Boardwalk Dog House; watched Aqua 80 rehearsals with a couple of beers, had secondlunch at El Loco Fresh; and then napped in the Solarium until 3:15, at which point I came onto the island as the vast majority of people were walking back onto the ship. I feel sorry for the guitarist scheduled for the 4:15 show, because the audience couldn’t possibly be good and wasn’t.

I'm just so happy to be here! I can’t stop walking around grinning like an idiot.

Cruise Director Mike just announced that there’s going to be an Aqua 80 showcase at 7pm! I’m SO excited. 

I feel like I’ve really had a Perfect Day—I had firstlunch at the Boardwalk Dog House; watched Aqua 80 rehearsals with a couple of beers, had secondlunch at El Loco Fresh; and then napped in the Solarium until 3:15, at which point I came onto the island as the vast majority of people were walking back onto the ship. I feel sorry for the guitarist scheduled for the 4:15 show, because the audience couldn’t possibly be good and wasn’t.

I'm just so happy to be here! I can’t stop walking around grinning like an idiot.

My day started with many rainbows, which was delightful. 

I grabbed a smoothie from the Vitality Café and brought it to the chairs on the aft of the jogging track so I could watch us back into Coco Cay. I love having my own verandah, but I’m also deeply enjoying my time out there. The only issue is that I always decide I want to be there when I’m all the way forward on the ship, and then I proceed to come out  on exactly the wrong side such that I’m ¾ of the length of the ship away facing the wrong direction…I will not get the hang of this, I just know it. 
 
I’m still feeling ambivalent about getting off the ship. Apologies to the Perfect Day aficionados, but if you don’t have an excursion or extra amenity booked it’s just a day on a beach or in a pool, and hilariously I love Caribbean cruising but neither of those things excites me. I think I will read on a daybed in the Solarium during the day, finally check out El Loco Fresh when it opens at 1 since there won’t be a crowd, and then maybe go walk around the island in the midafternoon after people start returning to the ship to get ready for the first dinner seating. 

My day started with many rainbows, which was delightful. 

I grabbed a smoothie from the Vitality Café and brought it to the chairs on the aft of the jogging track so I could watch us back into Coco Cay. I love having my own verandah, but I’m also deeply enjoying my time out there. The only issue is that I always decide I want to be there when I’m all the way forward on the ship, and then I proceed to come out  on exactly the wrong side such that I’m ¾ of the length of the ship away facing the wrong direction…I will not get the hang of this, I just know it. 
 
I’m still feeling ambivalent about getting off the ship. Apologies to the Perfect Day aficionados, but if you don’t have an excursion or extra amenity booked it’s just a day on a beach or in a pool, and hilariously I love Caribbean cruising but neither of those things excites me. I think I will read on a daybed in the Solarium during the day, finally check out El Loco Fresh when it opens at 1 since there won’t be a crowd, and then maybe go walk around the island in the midafternoon after people start returning to the ship to get ready for the first dinner seating. 

My day started with many rainbows, which was delightful. 

I grabbed a smoothie from the Vitality Café and brought it to the chairs on the aft of the jogging track so I could watch us back into Coco Cay. I love having my own verandah, but I’m also deeply enjoying my time out there. The only issue is that I always decide I want to be there when I’m all the way forward on the ship, and then I proceed to come out  on exactly the wrong side such that I’m ¾ of the length of the ship away facing the wrong direction…I will not get the hang of this, I just know it. 
 
I’m still feeling ambivalent about getting off the ship. Apologies to the Perfect Day aficionados, but if you don’t have an excursion or extra amenity booked it’s just a day on a beach or in a pool, and hilariously I love Caribbean cruising but neither of those things excites me. I think I will read on a daybed in the Solarium during the day, finally check out El Loco Fresh when it opens at 1 since there won’t be a crowd, and then maybe go walk around the island in the midafternoon after people start returning to the ship to get ready for the first dinner seating. 

My day started with many rainbows, which was delightful. 

I grabbed a smoothie from the Vitality Café and brought it to the chairs on the aft of the jogging track so I could watch us back into Coco Cay. I love having my own verandah, but I’m also deeply enjoying my time out there. The only issue is that I always decide I want to be there when I’m all the way forward on the ship, and then I proceed to come out  on exactly the wrong side such that I’m ¾ of the length of the ship away facing the wrong direction…I will not get the hang of this, I just know it. 
 
I’m still feeling ambivalent about getting off the ship. Apologies to the Perfect Day aficionados, but if you don’t have an excursion or extra amenity booked it’s just a day on a beach or in a pool, and hilariously I love Caribbean cruising but neither of those things excites me. I think I will read on a daybed in the Solarium during the day, finally check out El Loco Fresh when it opens at 1 since there won’t be a crowd, and then maybe go walk around the island in the midafternoon after people start returning to the ship to get ready for the first dinner seating. 

At this point I’m convinced that every single person who’s ever said, “you can never even feel the motion of the ship” was sailing on an Oasis-class ship out of FL…in terms of what it feels like to be standing on an arbitrary spot on the ship, the difference between tonight and yesterday morning motion-wise  is literally like night and day. Based on the previous cruise compasses I’ve seen for this itinerary post-shutdown, they weren’t even bothering to schedule Aqua80 pre-FL when embarking in Cape Liberty, so I’m assuming that my experience is standard. 
 
The question of the night is, will I make it to Adult Karaoke? I love karaoke but I’m a VERY early riser*, so all adults-only cruise ship activities happen too late for me. 

*No matter what I’m up before 6 a.m., even on vacation; it’s not a choice I’m making, I just have insomnia. 

Today, Thursday, and Friday afternoon I’m (kind of, sort of) working, and it’s been funny wandering around looking for good places to do it. At first I assumed I’d just stay in my cabin, but I decided that felt like a waste so I headed to Central Park. I was going to duck into the Library for my Zoom meetings, but people kept coming in and I didn’t want to disturb them by talking/hang out with them in a closed room unmasked unnecessarily so I’ve been mostly outside. My 9:30 meeting was before the pool deck music started, which was pretty perfect, and the Internet has been cooperating for the most part. (Weirdly, my Zooms have been flawless but loading webpages is hit or miss.)

I had a late lunch at Portside BBQ, which was very satisfying despite them having run out of brookies, and I got to enjoy first the country guitarist/singer and then some dolphins swimming alongside us. (The “hint of mint” in the Spiked Palmer has the subtlety of a stage whisper, though.)

This presumably varies by state; in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts you can access a website called My Vax Records that will generate a Covid vaccination card you can add to the wallet of your iPhone. (Underneath the “Issued By” section is a QR code I cropped out for obvious reasons.)

That was my favorite place to park myself and work on Oasis!
 
Same. I really only participate (and enjoy) those things when I'm with a group. I usually try to talk myself into popping off at CocoCay to visit the snack shack at least, but often laziness trumps that walk.

My day started with many rainbows, which was delightful. 

I grabbed a smoothie from the Vitality Café and brought it to the chairs on the aft of the jogging track so I could watch us back into Coco Cay. I love having my own verandah, but I’m also deeply enjoying my time out there. The only issue is that I always decide I want to be there when I’m all the way forward on the ship, and then I proceed to come out  on exactly the wrong side such that I’m ¾ of the length of the ship away facing the wrong direction…I will not get the hang of this, I just know it. 
 
I’m still feeling ambivalent about getting off the ship. Apologies to the Perfect Day aficionados, but if you don’t have an excursion or extra amenity booked it’s just a day on a beach or in a pool, and hilariously I love Caribbean cruising but neither of those things excites me. I think I will read on a daybed in the Solarium during the day, finally check out El Loco Fresh when it opens at 1 since there won’t be a crowd, and then maybe go walk around the island in the midafternoon after people start returning to the ship to get ready for the first dinner seating. 

My day started with many rainbows, which was delightful. 

I grabbed a smoothie from the Vitality Café and brought it to the chairs on the aft of the jogging track so I could watch us back into Coco Cay. I love having my own verandah, but I’m also deeply enjoying my time out there. The only issue is that I always decide I want to be there when I’m all the way forward on the ship, and then I proceed to come out  on exactly the wrong side such that I’m ¾ of the length of the ship away facing the wrong direction…I will not get the hang of this, I just know it. 
 
I’m still feeling ambivalent about getting off the ship. Apologies to the Perfect Day aficionados, but if you don’t have an excursion or extra amenity booked it’s just a day on a beach or in a pool, and hilariously I love Caribbean cruising but neither of those things excites me. I think I will read on a daybed in the Solarium during the day, finally check out El Loco Fresh when it opens at 1 since there won’t be a crowd, and then maybe go walk around the island in the midafternoon after people start returning to the ship to get ready for the first dinner seating. 

At this point I’m convinced that every single person who’s ever said, “you can never even feel the motion of the ship” was sailing on an Oasis-class ship out of FL…in terms of what it feels like to be standing on an arbitrary spot on the ship, the difference between tonight and yesterday morning motion-wise  is literally like night and day. Based on the previous cruise compasses I’ve seen for this itinerary post-shutdown, they weren’t even bothering to schedule Aqua80 pre-FL when embarking in Cape Liberty, so I’m assuming that my experience is standard. 
 
The question of the night is, will I make it to Adult Karaoke? I love karaoke but I’m a VERY early riser*, so all adults-only cruise ship activities happen too late for me. 

*No matter what I’m up before 6 a.m., even on vacation; it’s not a choice I’m making, I just have insomnia. 

Today, Thursday, and Friday afternoon I’m (kind of, sort of) working, and it’s been funny wandering around looking for good places to do it. At first I assumed I’d just stay in my cabin, but I decided that felt like a waste so I headed to Central Park. I was going to duck into the Library for my Zoom meetings, but people kept coming in and I didn’t want to disturb them by talking/hang out with them in a closed room unmasked unnecessarily so I’ve been mostly outside. My 9:30 meeting was before the pool deck music started, which was pretty perfect, and the Internet has been cooperating for the most part. (Weirdly, my Zooms have been flawless but loading webpages is hit or miss.)

I had a late lunch at Portside BBQ, which was very satisfying despite them having run out of brookies, and I got to enjoy first the country guitarist/singer and then some dolphins swimming alongside us. (The “hint of mint” in the Spiked Palmer has the subtlety of a stage whisper, though.)

At this point I’m convinced that every single person who’s ever said, “you can never even feel the motion of the ship” was sailing on an Oasis-class ship out of FL…in terms of what it feels like to be standing on an arbitrary spot on the ship, the difference between tonight and yesterday morning motion-wise  is literally like night and day. Based on the previous cruise compasses I’ve seen for this itinerary post-shutdown, they weren’t even bothering to schedule Aqua80 pre-FL when embarking in Cape Liberty, so I’m assuming that my experience is standard. 
 
The question of the night is, will I make it to Adult Karaoke? I love karaoke but I’m a VERY early riser*, so all adults-only cruise ship activities happen too late for me. 

*No matter what I’m up before 6 a.m., even on vacation; it’s not a choice I’m making, I just have insomnia. 

I am really enjoying reading about your experience so far! We will be on Oasis next month and we can't wait!!!

I had dinner at Izumi,* and I did something I’ve literally never done before in a restaurant: I got something I didn’t like (the truffled creamy lobster tempura roll), and said as much instead of just eating it anyway or asking to get it To Go. Wasting food and disappointing people are two of my least favorite things, so my newfound ability to set that aside and be honest about what I want feels like real personal growth. 🤪 I did feel very worried about making my server hate me, but what matters most is that a) they still got a $10 tip on top of the UDP 18% and b) I took one more step into adulthood at the age of 37 🤣
*Sushi, not hibachi—I’m sure most people don’t have much hibachi experience, but it happens that my extended family loves it more than most things, so the majority of the time I eat at a restaurant with them we’re going for hibachi…so it’s both in no way a novelty to me and also seems like a weird experience for an introverted solo traveler. 

Today, Thursday, and Friday afternoon I’m (kind of, sort of) working, and it’s been funny wandering around looking for good places to do it. At first I assumed I’d just stay in my cabin, but I decided that felt like a waste so I headed to Central Park. I was going to duck into the Library for my Zoom meetings, but people kept coming in and I didn’t want to disturb them by talking/hang out with them in a closed room unmasked unnecessarily so I’ve been mostly outside. My 9:30 meeting was before the pool deck music started, which was pretty perfect, and the Internet has been cooperating for the most part. (Weirdly, my Zooms have been flawless but loading webpages is hit or miss.)

I had a late lunch at Portside BBQ, which was very satisfying despite them having run out of brookies, and I got to enjoy first the country guitarist/singer and then some dolphins swimming alongside us. (The “hint of mint” in the Spiked Palmer has the subtlety of a stage whisper, though.)

I used to frequent a forum similar to this one that is dedicated to DCL cruising, as my three previous cruises were all on their ships. There are a lot of people who are deeply comforted by the Disney Bubble and intimidated by the idea of venturing outside it, and one reason that’s frequently cited is the lack of casinos—people say they don’t want to be on a ship with one, period, partially because of the cigarette smoke. My thought was, how could I possibly be affected by the existence of the casino if I don’t go in? And even DCL ships have a smoking section, so how could this be different? 
I was a daily smoker for a decade, so I’m not just being a scold when I say it turns out that on this ship I have found all the cigarette smoke to be unpleasant and, to a certain extent, ubiquitous: the whole area of the Royal Promenade around the staircase to the casino reeks of stale smoke. Every time I go up to the pool deck, I accidentally emerge right in the middle of the smoking section, which feels larger than I expected. This morning before 6 a.m. I went out to my verandah to enjoy the last glimpses of the planets before sunrise and someone very nearby was smoking. (I know that last one is just a rule breaker, which can happen anywhere, and after I loudly stated, “I can smell your smoke,” they either stopped or reoriented in a way that eliminated the impact on my area…it was just a moment of, “Ugh, again?!”) 
So, there are definitely differences in the experience beyond the lack of split bathrooms and the pornography on the PPV—which was itself a record scratch moment for me. (I was scrolling through the options and the porn is literally right below Sing 2. It’s good to know that when I’m sailing with family I’ll need to activate parental controls before my kid gets the remote.)


Am I crazy, or does this cloud look like a cruise ship? It has smokestacks and everything. 🤪
(I promise I’ll start to include pictures of something other than sky and water soon...)