JLMoran

Read your description of dinner at Jamie's and all the photos. The garlic bread starter looks amazing! I was only planning to do Wonderland with my wife for dinner the day of our overnight in Bermuda, but I may have to see if she wants to try Jamie's for lunch on one of our sea days as well. I love your live blogs, @twangster, but between add-on camera lenses, specialty dining reconsiderations, new itineraries to check out... you're gonna bankrupt me, man!

This is an amazing shot! Were you using an ND filter to get the sky so uniformly gray, or is this just a crop of the photo before it with some Gaussian blur applied to the sky?

My experience with my last several hotel bookings has been that, at worst, the hotels offer the same rate you'll find on Expedia / Orbitz / Travelocity / etc; often, booking directly has gotten me a better rate, or given me options that I wasn't offered on the big sites. And here's a key thing to consider: Even if the rates listed on the hotel chains' sites are the same as those big online travel sites, the other big difference I've found is that booking directly with the hotel means my card isn't charged until I actually stay there, and I retain the option to cancel as late as 3 PM the day of arrival with no penalty. With the big travel sites, a lot of their posted rates are immediately billed to your credit card and carry a note in micro-print that this is a "specially negotiated rate" (which is total BS) that does not allow for any cancellation for any reason whatsoever. This is a deliberate effort on the part of the hotel chains. The Expedias of the web are becoming a bit of a racket and keeping more of the money for themselves than before, and the hotels want that money back. Definitely look up each hotel you're interested in online, and when you find one you want I'd say personally call the hotel's actual reservation desk or chain's booking number. You may even find they'll tell you about some unadvertised options that could save you a little more (this happened to me twice) or get you in a slightly better room for the same rate.

Reaction 1: YAY! A new live blog from @twangster! More awesome pictures! More balm for my "wanna cruise NOW" problem. Reaction 2: DAMMIT! There goes my work productivity, I'll be looking for new posts every 5 minutes! Seriously, have a great trip! Fingers crossed for glass-smooth seas that will let you tender into Coco Cay.

Even with non-refundable, you are still allowed to get your price adjusted if there is an actual drop in your favor. As long as you stay on the same ship and the same sailing date, there's no problem with "rebooking" a non-refundable room to the lower rate.

Your math looks good to me, Matt. You even showed your work! ?

@WAAAYTOOO, those can be had for a serious discount if you catch them as soon as they're offered (and maybe with a little bit of luck). I reserved one for our upcoming trip back in February of last year, not long after they first showed up in the Cruise Planner along with all the other excursions. That was over a year before sail date. I think when they had just come out the price was $395. But this particular time when I checked, the price had dropped to $255.75. I was stunned when I saw it that low after reading Matt's article about the Labadee cabanas and how much the over-the-water units cost. I had already decided to make a cabana my personal "splurge" for this trip, but i figured it would be a regular beach cabana. When I saw that price, I went to my wife, showed the price versus what it normally costs, she agreed I should snag it right away, and the rest is history. Every "sale" since then has seen their price steadily increase. First back to the initial $395 I'd seen, but then even higher. Current rate when I just checked today is $470! No way I'd get one at that rate, but the initial price was far too good to resist. I'm wondering if the cabanas are priced much like cruise cabins -- lowest on first offer when the full inventory is available, then steadily higher as the inventory dries up.

Downy Wrinkle Release is the one my wife always buys.

@mguag, sorry to hear your first cruise couldn't be called fantastic overall. It does sound like, apart from the crowd control and the sales pitches, you were pretty satisfied with the ship at least. Which ship did you sail on? What kind of cabin did you stay in? Besides St. Thomas and San Juan, what other port(s) did you visit? San Juan is generally considered a "do your own thing and explore" kind of port, so no worries there about not taking formal excursions. I will be taking my first cruise in 72 days on Freedom of the Seas, doing an Eastern Caribbean trip to St. Kitts, St. Maarten, San Juan, and Labadee. I'll be happy to reply with details about my experience on this thread, although I'm likely to either live(ish) blog the trip or else do a summary report after I'm back. Regarding your pet peeve about communication, I believe the updated Royal Caribbean app that has been released is slated to include the free messaging feature you desire. Right now the app is only usable on a few of Royal's ships, but they plan to expand it to work on all ships in the fleet by the end of the year. I know that doesn't help what you experienced before, but I hope it demonstrates that Royal is seeing the need and working to remedy it. Also, a less expensive option if you don't expect to be sending a TON of messages is to use regular cell phone texting. Many here have noted that most US cell plans are pretty reasonable when outside the US, charging $0.50 or so for an outgoing text and often charging nothing for an incoming one. Not knowing who your carrier is, this may not have been an option, but wanted to be sure you knew about it for future cruises.

Per this article @Matt wrote about a year ago, the cabanas can have up to 6 people total. I don't believe there is any option to pay for additional people, as the 6-person limit is purely a function of the physical space you have available. I think Matt or someone else said that you could probably fit 8 in a cabana as long as they don't mind it being a little tight in there, but two people will likely have to be standing the whole time. As long as you just plan to use the cabana as a "home base" for sub-groups of people to meet up or regroup before going to another activity or lunch or whatever, it should be OK. If the whole gang of 11 needs to get together, you may have to do that at the entrance walkway rather than in the cabana itself. Not sure how the cabana attendants will feel if you want to have 11 people's personal belongings all dropped there, but talk with them and see what they say. And be prepared to tip the attendant generously.

Current itineraries only go until October, 2019, so don't read anything into that. If we don't see new sailings for Grandeur when the 2019-2020 season's itineraries come out (probably in the third quarter of this year, if it lines up with the 2018-19 itineraries release), then we can start wondering.

Thanks for that link! 50F average is definitely chilly, but not far off from what we're used to here in NJ at that time of year. I didn't realize that even in July it only got to the mid-60s, though it certainly makes sense. But all those pics I've seen of people at the beaches there in swimsuits threw me off. I guess it's like when my BIL lived in Minnesota in his youth -- the thermometer hit 40, and everyone who'd been living there for their whole lives got their shorts out of storage.

OK, thanks for the clarifications! I have a Nellie's Beach cabana since I didn't splurge for a suite on Freedom. So I guess I will just show up at the dock and will see what is waiting for me. I think there are only a handful of over-the-water units anyway, and I'm guessing none of them will have significantly different views or access to the water since they're all on the same beach. And at least as of the last cruise planner sale the other week, those cabanas are still available to book. So it may be that some of them will be sitting empty when we get there. Either that, or I have to start watching for super-deep discounts while Royal tries to fill them up at the last minute!

Wait, does this apply to Labadee as well? I thought the cabana would just be assigned once purchased, based on when it was purchased relative to available inventory.

Well, if we're going to give the countdown for all of our upcoming cruises, I have to add 270 days until Anthem. And now it's 73 days until Freedom! Only 70 if you count it from when we fly to Ft. Lauderdale!!

See my other thread on this itinerary, @Boston Babe. My wife was looking at the May departure for this itinerary, that leaves over Memorial Day weekend. Even less expensive, I'm just wondering about the weather in Saint Johns and Halifax that early in the season, and whether we should book a little later to get better conditions for touring and sightseeing.

Heh. Native New Jerseyan and four years living in Maine while in college. Had to drive to a job interview up in Bar Harbor one time in what was rapidly becoming a blizzard. I still shake my head at people here in NJ who can't seem to grasp that snow requires a different driving style than mid-summer. So I guess I can see how a place like SC that gets snow really infrequently might freak out a little over what to do with a major storm.

Welcome aboard, Tbear! Ask away with whatever you want to know, there are a ton of people here with all kinds of experience to share!

As alluded to in my last post, my wife said she'd like to do this itinerary in 2019, on Adventure of the Seas, as her belated 50th birthday trip. I was trying to gently persuade her towards the longer 10-night open jaw option in the fall, but she's concerned about total cost with the need for a flight home on top of the cruise fare, so for now this is it. She's looking to go at the end of May. For those here who live in or near either Saint John, NB or Halifax (I'm especially looking at you, @Jerel!), is late May still fairly cold? Are there any "must see" places that are harder to get to or closed at that time versus later in the season? Any chance of seeing the Northern Lights in late May, or still too far south? The itinerary also runs in June, July, and August; so if there's a better time of year to do this trip, please let me know so I can relay. Looking to make this booking fairly soon so we can get a good pair of cabins; I actually found a connecting JS and balcony room on the hump, I think it was on deck 9, and would like to snag that if possible so at least she gets to travel in a little style. For the May sailing, the cost difference right now between that and two connecting balcony rooms was about $400 when I checked just now, which seems pretty reasonable for the JS upgrade (+$66/night). I had also checked a late June (over July 4) sailing, and there the difference was closer to $900, so depending on what I hear as far as whether May is a workable date, I'll adjust the room selection as needed. Thanks, all!

If you haven't seen, @Matt posted a blog article about a survey that Royal put together with Meyers-Briggs to work out what kind of cruiser you are and what your ideal adventure location is. I took the quiz at http://www.myadventurepersonality.com/ and here's my result: http://www.myadventurepersonality.com/relaxation-artist/?id=68&q11=116&q12=125&q13=127 I particularly found this part both amusing and ironic: Guess what itinerary I've been looking at for the last six months, and where my wife wants to go for 2019? So how about everyone else? Come one, take the quiz and share with us your results! Since this was done with help from Meyers-Briggs, might as well also share that I'm an INTJ; if you've taken the Meyers-Briggs test, you'll know what that means. And if you've read my posts, you'll know it fits me to a T!

Wow, sorry you had such a bad experience this time around. Talk about a perfect storm of bad luck! Why was the whole city of Charleston, SC closed, and the captain giving warnings about people who left the ship risking injury? I hadn't heard anything about that on the nightly news, you'd think a city closing would have made headlines.

Nice video! Can't wait to see the rest!

74! Feels like those days are starting to go by faster, too, compared to when it was over 450!

@Matt has made a valid case on a similar post here that first-time visits to Labadee are good to hold as a "beach day". Just enjoy the beaches (I've heard repeatedly that Columbus Cove at the furthest end of the island from the dock is the least crowded and also the prettiest), take advantage of the bar if you have a drink package, and enjoy the barbecue or feel free to go back to the ship for lunch if BBQ isn't your thing. After you've had a chance to just relax and see what the place has to offer, then you can always book one of the excursions when you come back; and if you're on just about any Western Caribbean sailing, or some of the Eastern ones, you will be back eventually. The one thing you may want to splurge on is a cabana rental; Matt goes on about them all the time and based on his frequent raves, it's something I decided was going to be "my" splurge gift to myself for my upcoming cruise in March/April. Just one of you has to purchase it, and then that person can bring up to 5 other guests to share the cabana. You get some nice perks -- a private golf cart to take you to the cabana and back to the ship, and I think anywhere else on the island you'd like to go (one of the other beaches, the market, zip line entrance, etc.); a bucket of bottled water; floaty mats for the ocean; snorkeling gear; and towels. They're pricey, but if you catch them really early or find a rare sale, you can get them for a big discount; the over-the-water cabana I reserved normally goes for $495, but I snagged ours for a little over half that when they first showed up in the cruise planner. You can find out more about the cabanas at this link: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2014/07/24/what-you-need-know-about-labadee-cabanas For some reason I thought the cabanas also included a personal attendant who could get you drinks at the bar or food from the lunch buffet, but the article doesn't show that and I'll assume it's either unique to the suites-only cabanas or something that was just in my imagination... wait... I don't have an imagination...

Nope, old rate is still honored as long as you booked before Jan 2 and pre-paid before sail date. Just did this on Thursday for my Freedom sailing in 75 days.