JLMoran

There's that "kid jail" thing again. I wanted our first cruise to be 14 nights, but thanks to Spring Break being only a week, I had to "settle" for an 8-night run on Freedom as our first. The 5-night I've booked on Anthem for next October was intentional, since I wanted to just "try out" Anthem and see how I'll like her. If we're a good match, I'll see about one of those 12-night trips that @twangster took, even if the kids can't come along. The older one will be 18 by that October sailing, and quite capable of running the house without burning it down. She'll grouse about missing out on travel, but she'll live.

As a parent of two teens, both of them artistic and thus having even higher expenses than normal for their extracurriculars, I can definitely say that kids impact the "splurge level" of vacations. I wouldn't say that they particularly reduce the ability to simply take a vacation, as we've been going on vacations every summer since the kids were born. But the schedules do hammer you once they're in school; you end up only being able to travel at peak times and paying more for what you do take, so you need to plan even more carefully than you already do. And of course, kids are the embodiment of the phrase, "People make plans, and the devil laughs"; unexpected illnesses, tired earlier than you'd like, not interesting in things you'd swear they were going to love, all teach you to be patient and flexible and do your best to roll with the changes. But the vacations still come, so take comfort in that. ?

I bought it directly through Apple, but that shouldn't make any difference. Their hardware and software are the same regardless of seller, as they're like Sony in insistence on quality control and vigilance against knock-offs. As others here said, using Incognito / Private browser tabs can often clear out issues with things like login or seeing the latest updates to the pages. If you got yours for a few hundred off, it may be that it was the previous-generation model that needs inventory cleared out; also like Sony, Apple never allows their stuff to be sold at any kind of big discount unless it's older models that the seller needs to move to make room for the newest model. The most I've ever seen current-model gear discounted, even at typically major sale days like Black Friday, is a paltry $50 (and then only if they're not doing something like giving gift cards or a free set of Beats wireless headphones).

Ed, I have a brand new iMac myself and was logged in to the cruise planner yesterday, using Safari, with no issues. Have also logged in with Chrome a couple of times when the site was giving me trouble in Safari, or I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting stale info from stuck cache data.

Ahhh, gotcha. Well, if the dolphin excursion is the bigger discount then I'd say book that one now, save the KSC booking for the next billing cycle on your credit card since the discount was "only" about 10%.

Book it now. I've canceled and rebooked some of my purchases 2 or even 3 times now as the sales have come and gone and prices improved, and it's really easy to do. Only issue I've had has been with the web site refusing my card for unknown reasons a few times, and I've had to fall back to calling Royal to do the re-purchase.

So I saw Matt's post about the latest Cruise Planner sale. Of course, I logged in and re-checked all the rates against my notes for the best prices I'd gotten so far. Most of the excursions and other items I'd bought were the same price, but a couple have gone up rather significantly: Deluxe Beverage Package is up to $48 per night from best of $43 All VOOM packages are up by at least $5 per night; my 4-device purchase is up to $48 and change a night!

OK, I think now that we have both Serenade of the Seas and Symphony of the Seas, using the shorthand SOTS isn't going to work any more. Kind of like Mariner and Monarch, or Vision and Voyager. Maybe first two letters of the ship name, followed by "otS"? SYotS / SEotS; MAotS / MOotS; VIotS / VOotS? Just a thought, feel free to ignore. ?

For some who are on a really tight budget, and already keeping themselves to the cheapest cabin possible, the idea of spending another $80-100+ on a passport (card or book) could look exorbitant. Assuming they booked an inside cabin to really keep it cheap, that could be 20-25% of the per-person rate. If they already used up whatever vacation money they saved up to pay for the cruise, they may well just not have the funds. And if that cruise is the only one they'll take in the next 5+ years, the idea of spending the money on the passport may seem even more ludicrous.

Oh, the LIITs I had on my 21st birthday all tasted fine when I had them. All three of them. In about an hour. Problem was the next day when I woke up still drunk and tasting gin residue. And then a few hours later when I was getting another variety of gin flavor, if you catch my drift.

On Oasis? Definitely! That ship and all of her sisters, plus the Quantum ships, have some of the best internet at-sea that I've heard of.

Sorry your day in Labadee got rained out, what a bummer. But you definitely made lemonade out of those lemons; good on you! Aardvark? Anteater?

::shudder:: Haven't been able to drink one of those (or anything with gin in it) since my 21st birthday (and the awful, terrible, no-good day after). Count me down for a margarita as my first beverage of choice! But top-shelf tequila, please; I'll happily pay whatever overage above the package limit it costs me.

Thanks for another great live blog, @twangster! Really sad this journey has come to an end; I'm going to be counting down with you until January!

The Voom package allows full internet usage -- email, Snapchat, Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, etc. You can download and also upload without extra charge (although upload speed will be a lot slower than download), so you can live blog from the ship and send images and such, post to Facebook or Instagram, or connect to your office over their VPN. You can send messages through apps like Messages (iPhone only), Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, etc. -- all of these use internet data for sending and receiving. To my knowledge, you can not get SMS or MMS messages with VOOM, those only work over cellular networks. For phone calls, you actually can get those as well, but only if your phone is a smartphone on a network provider that allows WiFi calling. Easiest way to determine that is to go your phone's Settings app and (at least on an iPhone, not sure about Android) tap "Cellular". From there, you should have an option labeled "WiFi Calling" in the section for your carrier, assuming your carrier allows it. If you tap on that, you can set up WiFi calling so that you'll get cellular calls over the internet. Do note you need to do that setup step at home before you board the ship. I believe the reasoning is to make sure the phone is the same approximate geographic area the carrier has on record for your billing address, and also possibly for things like 911 calling so they know where to route that call.

LOL. That's fair enough, but my reason for water resistance / proof-ness is the electronics I expect to be carrying in it. Those don't like the water, and aren't afraid to tell me!

Thanks for the Coastal Kitchen pic! Will be dining there on my October Bermuda cruise most nights, apart from whatever night we pick to try one specialty restaurant.

My understanding of it is that it's a rule, but I think it's more strongly enforced with overseas trips than something like this where we'll be embarking and disembarking from the US. I'm hoping it doesn't bite my spouse, she still has to get her passport for our cruise in March. Kept trying over the last two months and kept hitting roadblocks on the required documents.

Lance, welcome to you too!

Welcome aboard, Madelyn!

Bummer! I was looking forward to meeting you and the missus!

I might argue this particular example with Princess and HAL. As those are considered "premium" category (near-luxury for HAL?), I would expect the higher up-front fares to be covering all the things that make just the "included with cruise fare" items a notch above a booking on a more mass-market line. Things like the expected higher level of service, higher quality of food in the MDR and buffet areas (at least with HAL, where I see they are consistently ranked as having the best quality food of any line), overall nicer ship/room decor, etc. Possibly even covers the costs of running generally smaller ships that go to more exotic itineraries for longer times. I mean, HAL's biggest ship (the Koenigsdam, and soon Nieuw Statendam) holds only 2,650 passengers, compared to over 6,000 on an Oasis class! That's not say those higher booking rates can't still translate into lower costs to buy upgrades like specialty dining. If they're already stocking the ship with higher quality ingredients for all of the main kitchens, presumably the cost to add the extra for the specialty restaurants is just part of the overall wholesale rate. On a mass-market line, I'd assume the main kitchens have slightly lower quality ingredients stocked, and the specialty restaurants now need to make a separate order for their higher quality ingredients; since it's a totally separate order for those kitchens, it costs more (especially since it's a much lower quantity compared to the rest of the ship's foodstuffs; no "volume discount" applied).

Wow, it takes three laps to do 1 mile? I would have thought only two would be needed with such a massive ship! Gorgeous sunrise photos you there that day, too!

Great live blog you've got going so far! I definitely enjoy those "T minus" recaps, it's interesting to see what you can do with the time when you make a point of arriving a day or two early. Can't wait to see how the rest of the trip goes. And wish your partner an early Happy Birthday for me!

That's applicable to anyone who deserves it, whether on a cruise ship or not. But now that you've learned that, you need to join the debate over which is worse -- the asshat, or the assclown?