JLMoran

@toodle68, did you give me a blood transfusion when I wasn’t looking? Seems I may have picked up some of your “wolverine” powers. Haven’t had a pain pill since 10 PM yesterday, doing totally fine and walking around the house without issues. Just stood for about 10 minutes straight while brewing some coffee, no problemo. Not exactly feeling like I could hop on the exercise bike yet, but that might not be far off! ?

I would say that if a port-light trip is a priority, go with Oasis. It has a much larger variety of specialty dining options that will let you and your husband indulge in the good dining (especially if you book a suite, as you’ll also gain access to the much-raved-about Coastal Kitchen), and you’ll definitely have lots of places to do people watching (particularly Central Park area at night). Your sons should also find lots to enjoy on the activities front, as @arebee noted. Not sure how much luck you’ll have with this, even in a suite. The best I think you can hope for is a 2-bedroom suite, and then one of your boys takes the second bedroom while the other uses the sleeper sofa. Those rooms tend to be very expensive on Oasis class ships, and are also in very limited supply. A 2BR Aqua Theater Suite is probably your best bet there, but you may find some other options that can work. Hope this helps!

IIRCc there are currently just two ships with studio rooms: Harmony and Anthem. Harmony only has 3 of them as I recall, while Anthem has closer to a dozen.

Umm, did I mention I’m on pain meds? I blame them! ?

I’m on my phone right now (iPhone 6s Plus), and in landscape mode the 700px image is the first one that fills the screen and has what I’d consider acceptable detail and color balance. Out of the later pictures, the first 800px one looks better than the second. I could tell even before reading the file sizes that the second was more heavily compressed, as it lacked the color saturation and depth of the first one and had less fine detail. No difference I can easily see on the phone between the 800px and 1000px images, at least not without zooming in (which I’m not trusting myself to judge correctly when on pain meds ?).

@rjac, thanks for the recommendation! Since I got the knee done today, I’m pretty sure I’ll be totally fine by sail away. I had actually looked at this service when we originally booked a year and a half ago, thinking I’d need it to get around. Since then, I had managed to stop needing my walking cane and do enough daily walking that I felt confident I wouldn’t actually need them. Going to keep that optimism now, after my earlier worry and pessimism. Need to turn the frowns upside down!

Already home from the same-day surgical center. Was told by my orthopedist when I woke up that I not only had a tear in the rear part of the medial meniscus, I also had a tear in the front as well as some torn cartilage. All has been repaired, and I walked from my gurney bed to the bathroom before leaving. On orders to walk a little every hour; given how much water I’m drinking right now to help clear the anesthesia and also soothe my throat (little sore after intubation), that won’t be a problem! ??

Thanks, @tiny260! A couple others I've spoken to elsewhere said pretty much the same thing -- pain is generally done and gone by day 3 post-op. So that means I'll be in perfect shape to take a lap around the local mall by Saturday. ? I've actually had it indicated to me by my surgeon that I won't even have a brace, just a thick bandage, and at least theoretically won't need crutches (but I'm bringing the ones from my last major surgery anyway). Her exact words were, "You can walk on it with full weight as you're able to tolerate it." And it does seem the surgical center is expecting me to get up and move around a bit before discharge. So fingers crossed!

So an update on the situation. I saw the general surgeon today, and I got the best possible outcome in my book. First off, he said he's comfortable with having me get my planned knee surgery tomorrow. Since the other issue isn't causing any major pain or giving other signs that the timing is more critical, we're doing that second surgery on Monday, Feb 12. Basically giving my knee the time to heal and get the sutures out, as well as give me a little extra time to be ready for a second round of general anesthesia. Second, recovery time with laparoscopic version of this procedure is definitely on the shorter end of that range I'd seen, and he said 4 weeks should actually be plenty good to be well enough to navigate a cruise ship, go swimming, etc.. There's some small chance that he'll find after starting the laparoscopic work that he can't do it that way and will have to switch to regular open incision surgery, but even if it came to that he said it shouldn't add more than a week to the recovery time. With this second surgery on the 12th, I'll have just over six weeks until our flight to FLL. That'll be enough time to heal up rock solidly and board that plane with no worries about comfort, and board the ship three days later without worries about getting around. So I am definitely feeling very relieved right now. I have to be at the surgical center for the knee arthroscopy tomorrow morning at 8:30, and I'll probably be zonked out the rest of the day. But soon as I'm feeling up to sitting at a computer again (or at least using my phone for prolonged periods without wondering the meds will make me do ), I'll let everyone know how it all went.

It's from Copenhagen, Denmark. I was also looking at that itinerary, as it has two stops in Iceland with an overnight in Reykjavik. Depending on the year / ship, it will end in either Boston or Cape Liberty. Only offered once a year and sells out super-fast. For a while there I was thinking that would be the cruise for me in 2020, but after looking at the offerings from HAL I'm seriously reconsidering.

No change in price on United over the last two days. JetBlue is down $200, but that's still a huge premium. The flight from EWR to FLL is back around the same price as my earliest quotes, but it's the return flight that's the killer -- originally $218, now $468!!

And here I've been looking at the offerings from HAL for a Norwegian fjords or Iceland cruise in 2020 (using the current 2019 offerings as a reference point). Funny how a company named Holland America Line would have all the really good northern European routes locked up! It is kind of nuts -- HAL's offerings for Norway and Iceland are typically 14 nights minimum (with 21 night sailings offered that are really just a B2B on a 14 and 7 night itinerary), have at least three or four sailings for any given itinerary over the late spring to early fall months, and visit a ton of ports and scenic locations, usually with at least one overnight. Meanwhile, RCI has virtually bupkis to either Norway or Iceland, and most of those are short 7-night sailings that don't in my mind justify the expense of either the cruise or the flight across the ocean. Even weirder is that X has even less on offer than Royal, and X is supposed to be the premium line with more exotic offerings!

For (2), the lowest price I’ve seen is $18 pp/pd. If you find it for that price at any point in time, snag it!

I won't be on Anthem until October, so can't give direct feedback. But I'd be surprised if it weren't true, as most modern glass blocks UV light. This is why when you're sitting indoors next to a brightly lit window at home, or sitting in your car, eyeglasses with Transitions™ lenses don't darken; they require UV light to trigger the color shift. So if you go into the indoor pool and find your glasses darkening unexpectedly, throw on some sunscreen!

I looked at RSW as an option from EWR, but there were no non-stop options and my older daughter has a large enough fear of flying that I didn't want to subject her to a multi-leg flight. I agree the prices are bananas, but the weekend of March 30 is both Easter weekend and the start of Spring Break week for many schools and colleges, so the airlines are taking advantage of the massively higher demand to jack up the prices. I count myself lucky that we were able to book our flight for the price we got at the time. It's the curse of being tied to school schedules.

@DunkelBierJay, the trip insurance for the cruise was RC's, automatically added by my TA after I said I wanted to have the insurance when we booked. I was kind of surprised, honestly; I would have thought as a travel agency they would have done research on other options and either purchased something from Allianz, or at the least asked me about what kind of needs or concerns I had around getting the insurance so that I had some choices presented. That said, I read the terms of the insurance offered by Royal and also saw the cost and it was comparable to what I was seeing on tripinsurance.com. For the flight, I purchased the separate travel insurance option offered by United (and provided by Travel Guard Group) since I booked the flight directly with United and not through Royal's Air2Sea program. If I was flying in the day before or day of the trip, I might have done Air2Sea, but I'm actually flying in three days early to take advantage of the lower rate around that Easter weekend / spring break week price hike.

Quote might not be 100% right, but: "Good friends in many a bottle of wine are found." There will be plenty of sunsets for you to capture for us, but the new friends you made and the memories made with them, even if only for the evening, are worth a heck of a lot more. Safe travels home! Thanks again for another fantastic live blog!

OK, today marks 60 days until our flight down. So here's the latest pricing update: JetBlue currently $3,010.40, using the exact same departure times for both legs of the trip; that's over $1,100 more than the best price I found slightly before the 90-day mark! Even if I use a time slot with a lower price that is still a reasonable (non-redeye) hour to fly, it's still $2,338.40, about $350 more than that earlier best price United The exact flight times I've booked with United are no longer available, so I have to go with the best / closest options Using those times, I'm seeing a price of $2,642.40, almost $1,000 more than my original booking price 90 days out It's possible that these prices will drop tomorrow or Tuesday morning. I'll see what it's like tomorrow; but if my originally scheduled knee surgery holds and I don't have to push it out for this second surgery that's become necessary, then I'll be in the hospital Tuesday morning and then out of it the rest of the day.

Well now we know why you have no problem eating your fill every day: All those miles walked getting every shot, from every angle, of every station and bar and stage and nook and cranny. And that’s just on the ship! The sheer effort you put into this amazes and leaves me awestruck every time. And you’re on vacation! Clearly this is no chore or job for you, it’s simple enjoyment and fun. Mille grazie!!

Oh, and both Tiff's and Tiffany's have a regularly rotating menu of microbrews on offer. All on tap, generally 30 different brews at any given time; IPAs, stouts, porters, brown ales, pilsners, witbiers, strong ales, and more. Whatever is in season and on offer from the local breweries in NY / NJ / PA

Heh, it would be about an hour's drive from NYC for either of the places I'm referring to: Tiff's, 23 Route 23 South, Pequannock, NJ (tiffs23.com) or the sister (and original) restaurant: Tiffany's, 73 Route 46 West, Pine Brook, NJ (tiffs46.com) If you just venture across the Hudson river into Hoboken and go down the main road, you'll find at least a few craft beer pubs. Can't speak to the quality of their burgers, though.

Come to NJ some time, Raye. You'll get an eye-opener for sure. Granted, the burger joint I'm thinking of has the best damn burgers and home made potato chips I've ever had, and that $20+ also includes a pint of some seriously awesome local-area brewed trippel or porter.

OK, your nickname is officially "Wolverine" in my book!

I think their mistake was when they decided to swap out the highly reliable Syrian hamsters for the more finicky Roborovski variety. The wheels just haven't spun the same since!

Nope, tried that and still no dice. Will try again when we get closer to sailing date and the IT department has gotten fresh hamsters running the server wheels.