CruisingKat(Kathy)

I'm on Indy this Thanksgiving as well.  I've cruised over x-mas on NCL, I don't recall doing any other major holiday sailings.
 
To us it was an easy decision, we're taking a 4 night cruise at a great rate without using any vacation.

First up thoughts on Galveston and cruising from there:
 
Galveston is a great city to spend a few days in. Many thanks to Galveston Steve for his informative All Things Galveston thread. It is was because of this thread that I changed the pre cruise dinner location from Bubba Gump Shrimp Company to the Ocean Grille and Beach Bar. The restaurant was great and dining outdoors by the Gulf was a plus. My pre cruise hotel was the Doubletree, also right across from the Gulf with fantastic views from the balconies.
 
I also had the honor of meeting Steve and his wife along with another Facebook friend Friday night for dinner and drinks right at the Hotel's pool bar and grill, Longboard. Steve and his wife are class acts and wonderful people.
 
The Galveston Pleasure Pier was nice to see for the first time ever but it definitely is overrated. Next time I am there I will head for The Strand Downtown. One thing for certain is there is definitely a very friendly vibe in Galveston.
 
Cruising from the port can be a real pain. I do not fault Royal Caribbean for this but I will fault the Port of Galveston. Security was a nightmare. When they let people start going through the scanners before heading up to check in, they closed off 4 lanes and pushed everyone into 2. It was chaos. At 3:30 pm people were still boarding the ship. It also didn't help that at check in they could not take your picture due to their camera system being down but RCL handled that rather well.
 
Coming back today was a madhouse with Liberty and Carnival Breeze both in port plus the annual bike week in Galveston taking place. The Port definitely needs more porters, but at least there seemed to be plenty of customs agents. I think the port employees seem hard pressed to handle two big ships at one time. Again, this is just my opinion.

Hello everyone!
 
I am currently 40 minutes from landing at Chicago Midway so I thought I would start my review of my Liberty cruise! I will break this down into sections as to not try and cram everything in one post, and I will even include my thoughts on being Galveston and sailing from there for the first time ever.
 
Overall I enjoyed Liberty very much. There are a few minor complaints that I will get to but they didn't even come close to impacting my enjoyment of the cruise. The voom issue is a very sore subject with me.... more on that later.
 
And before anyone asks, I ate at Sabor four times. That pretty much says it all, but I will include a full review of the restaurant :)
 
I will try to start up the first part of the review later this evening or tomorrow for sure. The first part will be Galveston and sailing from there.
 
Stay tuned.... :D

Both of our granddaughters requested and quickly received extra pillows this past August on Grandeur. Just ask the cabin attendant

It's been our experience that there are four pillows on our bed when we arrive (2 per person) and your request is reasonable...J

My first experience with RC was in a suite and the pillows were amazing. When we cruised a few weeks ago in a regular room, the pillows were my biggest complaint. One was not enough and two was too many. I'll be bringing my own from here on out.

Hey Kat, I've seen people recommend the vacuum bags that you roll up to take the air out for packing the memory foam pillow. It will still weigh the same obviously but will take up a lot less space.

We also were on the Sept 26 majesty cruise.....really got lucky with the weather this time of year, it was perfect.  I also find the pillows to be kinda lacking and my wife likes to hold one against her as she sleeps so we had no problem requesting some extras.

Tyvm Doc. 😉ðŸ‘

Your room attendant shoulder be able to accommodate your request. Also there may be extras in the closet port in the bag under the bed.

Kat, I feel certain that they will get extra pillows for you. It is a very reasonable request. I would not lug my own unless you absolutely HAVE to have your own pillow (I have a girlfriend who always takes her own....but she's weird like that !).
 
Enjoy your cruise !

I don't have them on display at the moment (doing some renovations), but this is the last pic I took...

Hi Kathy, I'll look into this, thank you.

Hello Mason 
I actually post a Monthly list of Cruisers here in the "Periscope Peeps" Forum, and between this month, and Oct, I have Cruisers on all those ships. A very nice Gentleman named Dirk, is on Navigator Presently.
 
If you have a smart phone, you could install the Periscope App. Here is the Link for that.
 
https://www.periscope.tv/#share
 
I also have a Periscope Facebook Group, with over 500 members. I am sure would not be too hard to find Cruisers, going on those ships in there as well. I post the monthly List there too, here in the link for the Facebook Group.
 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rcperiscopers/
 
Hope that helps, good Luck. 😊

Wow Jeff,
 
Glad to hear you're coming out of that dark tunnel on the other side .... been there, done that myself ..... after a while, you look back and ask your self, "what was I thinking"
 
As for me, I've never done Disney, not that I wouldn't, I love Disney World, my sister works there, I go there every chance I get ..... but the two reasons I have no desire to go on a Disney Cruise is ....
 
1) - The cost .... pound for pound, there is no comparison between DCL and RCCL for what you get for your money
 
2) - No Casino on Disney ships ..... what can I say, I love the slots..

Thanks, Matt.  Going to do my best.  25 ships and only 4 more on order...should be cake. 

Elvis Pinto was (I think) Activities Director on my Vision cruise this past spring.  He was a blast!  Very entertaining, and I saw him everywhere on the ship.  I'm not surprised he's now a Cruise Director! 

Awesome.....lets hope we can keep this current!....great idea!

This is FABULOUS!!!! Thank You very Much Rick, for taking this on!!! This is very good Contribution, and Bentifical to the RC Blog Family!!!!!!

Hello All,
 
I wanted to see if we could commence a running Cruise Director and Activities Manager list here on the Royal Caribbean Blog Boards.   As many of you know, the Cruise Director can be very influential in providing a fun and interactive experience while on a cruise and for this reason the question is often asked "who will be the cruise director on my sailing?" However, as with any position of importance, the Cruise Director also enlists the assistance of his or her Activities Manager to host a number of events throughout a sailing (e.g. trivia, bingo, karaoke, etc...).  Therefore, I would also like to keep the list updated with the current Activities Managers whom many of us develop strong relationships with based on our varying degrees of participation in ship events. 
 
While I know there are similar lists maintained elsewhere on the internet, my desire is to provide an easily accessed (thanks in part to the long-term edit function of these boards) and more user friendly document than what currently exists.  In addition to receiving regular updates from the fantastic blog community that fill these boards with Royal Caribbean knowledge everyday, I also hope to leverage Kat's evergrowing Periscope community to obtain real time and accurate updates as to who holds these very important positions throughout the Royal Caribbean fleet.   Below is my first stab at a draft of the list based on information I was able to retrieve from various social media and online content.  As you can see, there are some blanks, which I am sure many of you will be able to assist with filling in.  Please feel free to respond here with any list updates or any comments as to the format or layout of the document.
 
I would like to thank all of you in advance for any assistance you can provide with making this list a useful resource for Royal Caribbean cruisers.
 

You are a brave soul for taking this on.  Thank you!!

We had a group of 9 go to Mr Sanchos this past January.  We had a wonderful time and our waiter Santo was great.  We never waited for more than 2-3 minutes for drinks and food only took 10-15 minutes after ordering.  If you like margaritas try the Mr sancho special.  I must've had at least 5 or 6, never mind the others i tried.
 
We booked through Shore Excursioneers online and saved $5.  Brought the printed confirmation with us and all went smooth.  You can also upgrade to a cabana location if they are not booked for $30 on site. We did this and it was great to have shade for the 2 kids(kids under 4 free by the way).

I agree 100 %, this is a Wonderful Site!!! I think if there is anything you want to know about Royal Caribbean Ships, and what to expect when you are on them, this is the Best place to come. Matt does a wonderful Job, to try and cover all Basis, with his Posts here, podcasts, live Blog's, Periscope, Facebook live, and Facebook Blog Page.We have the Most helpful, Friendly, members here as well. Many people, help make this the Great site that it is, with helping answer Questions, and making you feel like you are Family!!!
I think your Wife will Love Cruising, and you both will have the Time of your Lives!!!
You will do Great with Periscope!!! You will see that it is so much FUN to share your Cruising Experience with Others!!!
I look forward to your Scopes, and happy to have you here with our Wonderful, Royal Caribbean Blog Family!!!!!

I agree 100 %, this is a Wonderful Site!!! I think if there is anything you want to know about Royal Caribbean Ships, and what to expect when you are on them, this is the Best place to come. Matt does a wonderful Job, to try and cover all Basis, with his Posts here, podcasts, live Blog's, Periscope, Facebook live, and Facebook Blog Page.We have the Most helpful, Friendly, members here as well. Many people, help make this the Great site that it is, with helping answer Questions, and making you feel like you are Family!!!
I think your Wife will Love Cruising, and you both will have the Time of your Lives!!!
You will do Great with Periscope!!! You will see that it is so much FUN to share your Cruising Experience with Others!!!
I look forward to your Scopes, and happy to have you here with our Wonderful, Royal Caribbean Blog Family!!!!!

Good Morning,
 
I wanted to share with everyone an email that I sent to Matt last night ...... the more I thought about it, the more I felt this should be shared with everyone.... I owe all of you soooo much as my cruise is fast approaching ......
 
I mentioned a few people in the email to him, but it really belongs to ALL of you, oh, and klaconqueso, I just went with kla, it's all I could remember....lol
 
Thank You ALL so very much,
 
Mark
 
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Matt,

As I just made my payment for our drink packages for my wife and I, I sat back and thought how amazing it is that I "feel" like a seasoned cruiser, even though I only have my third one booked (first one since 2009).  

And the reason for that is YOU.  I started to learn about the do's and don'ts from your podcasts (I still say #71 is your best ever, at least it's the one I learned the most from).  Then came the message board on the blog and Periscope.  Thanks to you, I've made many connections (Rich Triplitt, Tim (Yorkvillain), CruisingKat, Kla, and the ever entertaining, Michael Poole -- oh, and let's not forget Billy scoping the ships leaving Lauderdale.  

You, and the rest of the crew, have taught me and given me the knowledge & confidence to be able to book my upcoming cruise and avoid any unnecessary surprises.  

This will be my wife's first cruise, and being able to avoid any headaches has been paramount.  I want her to fall in love with cruising the way we all have.  We're already looking to book another one while on board for Spring 2018 (of course, if a certain someone announces a group cruise during that time, that may help in the decision as to what cruise we choose)

Again, thank You, and thank you to all the others for making me feel like a member of the RCLblog family.   

Mark Greenwald (aka Coneyraven)
Lonaconing, Allegany Co, Maryland

p.s. I think I'm going to try my hand at Scoping while on Grandeur in September.  I'll try to be as entertaining as Tim (Yorkvillain) was and as informative as Rich was.  That is, unless the Mrs says otherwise... Lol, we'll see, I'll keep you posted.