JLMoran

Reducing those Black Friday opportunities for long term planners. 😕

It has been averaging around 8ish months based on my experiences. 

I have noticed a similar trend. But 7 months out we were hounded for CP purchases for Sep 24 Baltimore. No let up now...

On my Odyssey TA there’s currently a “Intimate Cinque Terre - Small Group” tour on sale for $819.99 😮 

Depends on where you are (and assuming you're not counting the infamous cabanas on Coco Cay). Excursions in Europe are typically more expensive than in the Caribbean, for example.
This is the most expensive one on the Anthem cruise I have booked for later this year:

Count me on this sailing. Gonna be my first time on Royal in a good six years! Haven't sailed with them since before the pandemic hit. And this sailing will mark a few moments for me:
I turn 55 four days before sail-away I finally hit Platinum status (for all that means these days 😏) First sailing on Odyssey First time in Antigua and Barbados (too bad no Curacao, but 2 outta 3 ain't bad) And yeah, it's been a minute since I posted to these boards. 😉 

You are looking for the famous Leo Brown.  You won't be disappointed.  Makes each visit more rewarding every time go there booking him for the day.

Just saying a quick hello here, first time in about four years. I just booked the 12-night Odyssey sailing in Jan 2025, which is an itinerary I've been wanting to do kind of since I first started sailing with Royal in 2018 and learned about it. Seemed like a nice way to celebrate turning 55. 🙂
To everyone I haven't spoken with in all these years, hope you've been well!

A reason I can think of to wear longer / dressier shorts is if you don't like the cold. I find the MDR to be chilly most nights, so I'm always wearing a pair of chinos (my daily casual pant) and a button-down shirt or polo. I think if I wore shorts of any kind, the waiters would be bringing me blankets from the all-over goose bumps and chattering teeth! 😄

Thanks for this blog, @LandstromCruise! I'm sailing on Odyssey from NJ in January of next year, was good to see some of the venues and food from a live passenger experience. The carefully crafted / timed pictures and video done for ship tours are helpful, for sure, but it's always good seeing what it's like when people are there.

@Matt, is "Bernard's Tours" who you have mentioned in the past? My memory is saying it's someone named Leroy rather than Bernard, but my memory is a bit like a fine steel sieve sometimes.

Bumper cars was so much fun. Some of the group thought I was nuts for wanting to stand in line to do bumper cars. Yes we had to get there early, but we were the second group to go and everyone had a blast. You’re never to old to crash a car into somebody you know 😂

Well I was able to get up on my own this afternoon on the flow rider. Wasn’t stable enough for them to give me the blue band, but hopefully tomorrow. Next cruise I will start day 1 trying to get it. After that since they wouldn’t let me try again I decided to go to the casino. Let’s just say that was a good decision. 
 
now waiting in line for some bumper cars. Yes I’m over 40 and I don’t care that I am in line before children 😂

After dinner tonight we went to see Showgirls. All I can say is this show should be on more than just 1 night. On an 8 night cruise I definitely would have gone and seen this a second time. The singing was great, and I won’t spoil the ending, but WOW. You would catch me every trying what those ladies did. 

Dinner was in Chops. Food porn pics coming.  I didn’t get pictures of the side dishes, but that is the only thing I would say was disappointing. The say the sides are shareable. Not sure if they think 5 year olds are eating or what, but those portions were not shareable. I had the ribeye and some of my wife’s filet and they were both great. Mushroom soup was really good. Cheesecake for dessert was awesome. I used to love having the Royal cheesecake every night for dessert before the new menus. I would say that is the worst part of the new menu. MIL had the red velvet cake for dessert and didn’t want all of it so I gladly finished that off as well. 

I was really bad with pictures in Aruba. Probably good since I was a driver of one of the UTV’s. I will try and get some pictures from my wife and post later. Here are a couple. 

Here are some random photos from curaçao. Sorry don’t think I got any at the aloe Vera farm. My wife probably did so I will try and get some later. 

Last night after dinner went and saw Effectors. Special effects were pretty cool. After that it was to the 80’s party. Cruise director Ricky and his team did an awesome job. Energy was great. It was in music hall which I would say just makes it so not as many people can participate as can when it’s on the promenade on oasis class ships. 

Got all dressed up nice and fancy tonight for formal night. Dinner was in MDR. I had the French onion soup, my favorite. Still mad it isn’t available every night. Also tried the calamari. For Entree I had the beef tenderloin and the seafood linguini. And dessert had the apple cobbler.  The soup and dessert were really good. The beef was decent. Didn’t care for the linguini. Service was good and we were out of there in about 90 mins. Here are some food pictures. 

White night at an Italian restaurant..whew you guys live on the wild side 😂
My clothes get stained just thinking about tomato sauce.

Breakfast this morning in the MDR. 

After dinner went to karaoke. Boy was that a mistake. I by know means even begin to claim that I can sing, but somehow on this cruise we got all the people who flunked 5th grade music class up here singing 🤣

Service and food was great!  I think I got pictures of everything we had. Sorry @OCSC Mike, I thought with 8 people we would have more variety. Ended up 4 people ordered the lasagna 😂🤦‍♂️

So small gripe. The picture guy came and took our pictures at the table before food came which was great.  However, then he comes back trying to sell the pictures while we have only gotten our appetizers. I asked if the pictures were available at the photo desk and part of the photo package as I bought a 100 package, and he said those photos weren’t part of the package. Seems dumb that they wouldn’t be. However, the pictures were really good and we had all dressed up for white night so we wanted the pictures. It was $35 for to get both the couple picture and then the group picture. So now we are sitting with photos while having to finish our meal. Seems like that part should have been done at the end. 🤷‍♂️

Since we had a large group the server said he would just bring out all the appetizers. The rest of the people in my party didn’t quite understand what was happening. It was quite funny watching the confused look on their faces. Here’s the appetizer picks.