ScottD

Phew, you guys are making my head spin! This is a lot of info... but now I wanna know what ship goes to Baltimore, I'd love to try a cruise out of there, even if it is an old ship...that's almost as convenient as Bayonne

I was loving all these pics, we saw this ship every single day sitting in the river here in Philly for almost 30 years, I work on the waterfront so it's been so strange looking across and not seeing those smoke stacks.

Up to this summer, we had only done Royal, but the wife and I tried Enchanted Princess and we loved it, great ship, a more relaxing cruise, we have a 12 (crap, he's 13 now!) year old and he probably wouldn't have loved it like we did- we are mid 40's and definitely on the lower end of the age group on that ship. We also tried MSC Seascape, and it blew us away. We weren't expecting much, you hear so many mixed reviews about MSC, but you'll notice most reviews of this ship are positive, and for a reason. It was beautiful, spotless, fun, crew was amazing, food was fine (we are easy when it comes to food), and they went out of their way to make sure you had a good time. We had an issue with our balcony door knob...it fell off... so I went to GS and just let them know and asked whenever they had a chance to swing by would be fine...no big deal. They sent guys up like an hour later, called us the next morning to make sure it was still working, and sent us fresh chocolate samplers from the chocolate shop on board TWO days in a row, AND sent a note to our room asking us to call if we needed anything else. The bartenders were all great, the shows are good... a little different because they don't really do actual shows, its mostly musicals with very loose story lines, but enjoyable for sure. By day 4 we were so sure we would do MSC again, we booked a next cruise out of NYC on Meraviglia for this summer, which a few weeks later we called and added a 2nd week to make it a B2B. This caused us to push our deposit for a Symphony cruise for this summer to next year since we were able to get the 14 night B2B, with drink packages for all 3 of us, and Wifi included for the same price as the 7 nighter with no packages on Symphony. We love Royal, but the price and what we got for it was just hard to resist for a second try.

I assume Wonder is set up the same, but our favorite part about that deck and location was the entrance to the 2nd floor of Music hall, we'd end our nights watching the band in there, if the kid got bored or tired he just walked down the hall, if we turned in early and I was still itching to hang out, I could walk right over there, and when we had enough Journey (back in the tribute band era, lol) we could just walk a few doors down and be back.

I just read on here that they are going to start docking in Ponce this summer

We loved our boardwalk balcony...we were in 9705. The only issue we had was the bell from the carousel, but even that we ended up not noticing after a few days

And then the room attendant comes in 2 minutes later and you're like, ALL YOURS...I'm heading out!

I got lucky a few times on DD, we used it for a Slot pull and we all won about 60 bucks, then I sat at the same machine later that night and hit about $350. I THEN saw a post on our FB group for that sailing and someone else hit a major jackpot on the same machine.

My kids school JUST got central air... they can't even put window unit AC's in a lot of the schools because they are so old they need to rewire them which would cost a ton. Jalen Hurts paid for 10 schools to get window units last year, so they picked schools that could actually handle the load.

They claim enough schools now have AC, so that's why they are going through with the pre-labor day opening. Yes, that crazy long Christmas holiday was very nice! The school district actually emailed me the next two years worth of calendars so at least I have something to work with now. They aren't "official" but they are supposedly voting to approve them this week.

Yeah, lesson learned for sure. Here I am trying to save money by booking at the very end of the summer, and it ended up costing me more in the long run

We have the 14th-18th,so just the week, and weekends so a total of 9 days. no Friday before or Monday after. The following two years it looks like its the same, just the one week, but apparently if they started after Labor day, it would cut them back to just 3 days for Spring break (5 with the weekend)

They claim the teachers voted for this (parents voted for post-labor day starts) because it gives an extra few days of Spring break, and they'd rather have the longer mid-year break than start a week later. I'm fine with it, I just wish the new superintendent didn't go out of his way two years ago to say we'd always start after labor day due to heat and lack of AC in a lot of schools.

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll just cancel and worry about it later at this point. And even if I decide to reschedule again, I have plenty of time to make that decision and just let the current reservation linger until I figure out what we want and can definitely do.

Thanks, yeah we originally moved from an OV balcony on Symphony to a surfside view room on Icon, at this rate to keep me from bleeding out anymore money we will end up in an interior room on a smaller ship!

Ya know, I was thinking the same thing, and usually do take him out for a week of school for vacation, anyway. BUT it's the first week of High school, and I feel like that's a bit more important so he can get to know his way around and meet people. Otherwise, I'd say oh well, we're going! lol

Having some bad luck with our next cruise with RC. First we had Symphony booked for this summer, but decided it was too close to our other cruises we already had booked with another line. Luckily we only paid a Next cruise deposit on that, so we paid a change fee to get it moved to NEXT August on Icon instead for almost the exact price as the SY cruise. So $300 Next cruise deposit, plus $300 in change fees... still $150 less than a regular deposit would have been. NOW the school district has announced they will not only be starting before Labor day this upcoming year (causing me to move the second week of our B2B on MSC to the week before, which now gives us two weeks of PC\Nassau\Private island instead of a week of Bermuda thrown in..damn it) but for 2026 they decided to go back almost two full weeks before Labor day, which is, of course when we have the Icon cruise booked. So... do I find ANOTHER cruise and pay ANOTHER 300 bucks to move it again? I'm thinking of scaling it back to something out of NJ or a smaller ship out of FL to ease the pain of losing the $600 bucks (at least the initial 300 still goes toward the cruise).

We still have some out dated laws .. like you can't buy liquor and beer at the same store, liquor is controlled by the state and sold only in "state stores" then you go right next door to the beer distributor for a case of beer. But, as long as a i can remember, at least had take out beer at the bars. They have allowed supermarkets to start selling beer and wine... but the state continues the stranglehold on actual liquor.

Retirement list=growing Retirement funds=Dwindling

I never even though that was a thing, Even as archaic as the laws in PA are, pretty sure you could always buy a 6 pack of beer to go from a bar.

But I REALLLLLY need you to put in my window seat request for Nov 2027!

I always use it for a quick $100 OBC

I never asked for it as "the special sandwich" I just get a chicken sandwich and an order of Mozz sticks...

Ha ha, I totally picked up on that and thought of all of you guys! But more importantly... WOOOOOOOO!!!! I'm at work on 2 hours of sleep after running up to Broad street with my kid and a few of his friends. Walked up to a few blocks south of City hall then it was just a wall of people and had to call it quits there... only saw two pole climbers !

Great blog, definitely have me looking at X for a future kidless cruise. But I would also have to pull out some non cargo shorts and I don't even know where they are I also got a terrible visual of a hairy man washing his pits off with a wet towel, thanks. Before my little dissertation... it's ICY in the Ny\NJ area, so be careful when you get back!! I think you'll really like the Seacape ship, it's really nice and shiny like this one. I have noticed between our Princess cruise, our MSC cruise and now your X cruise, Royal really slacks in having the upper crew involved with stuff. On Princess we had a passenger vs officers "beer" pong game ( I dusted off my former skills and got almost all of the cups for the passenger team, lol) and on MSC they have multiple games and even an officer dance party. It's not a big thing, but I found it neat to know WHO the captain was and see him all over the ship, and have the head food and beverage officer come by and check up on you at random bars and always be visible at the main piazza areas.