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Anthem of the Seas, June 6, 9-night Bermuda (OL-8720 SC)


TheHobbys

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4:45 am alarm goes off.  5:00, maybe 5:20, stumble to coffee.  5:30 am blink and look at computer to figure out where I left off the prior day with work.  Oh, that alarm – yeah, that’s my damn body alarm.

When you wake up early (way early) and do a ton of reading about cruise stuff, you realize that writing up your own personal experience from start to finish is a cool way to document your vacation.  Reading all the blogs tends to get you excited.  You start thinking, yeah, cool, I can do this.  No problem.  Oh yeah, it was my sister that was the English major (#InsertExplicit).  That just means I hope she never finds this thing.  My grammar probably isn’t that good, but it’s communicable.

Countdown started a long time ago, but now we are exactly 2-weeks from boarding.  Let’s push the rewind button and see how we got here.

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April 2016, after taking a financial break from cruising (our last cruise was 2012 #ugh) to ‘fund’ our home renovations and finish our Master’s degree, we realized it was time to take a real vacation and celebrate a few things.  One of our big celebrations was wanted to take the kids, my mother-in-law (MiL) and sister-in-law (SiL) on their first ever cruise.  My SiL turned 50 and my MiL turned 70 – sshhh – ok, so those are big milestones, #meh, they won’t care.  We needed a cruise that would accommodate all of us for a reasonable price.  Many spreadsheets later and seeing as how we would ‘split’ the MiL’s cruise fare with my SiL, we landed on the Oasis of the Seas, A1-8330 Aquatheater Suite w/ Balcony.  It was the 7-night Eastern Caribbean on May 28, 2017.  Oh yeah, and it was our first time to experience Star Class (SC).  #Ruined   While on the 2017 cruise, there was a lot of discussion about when / where / how / etc would we do the next cruise.  Well, we didn’t sign up on Oasis in 2017 for the next one because we just hadn’t figured out all the logistics.  Maybe I’ll try and remember to write up something about that cruise later, but for now … need to fast forward a few months to the current cruise.    

 

There were months of research, discussion, pricing and justification before we finally landed on something.  Let’s play from here. 

In January 2018 we confirmed the cruise ship, route and room.  #MonthlyPaymentsStarted  During all of our researching and planning, we laid out plans for the next 6 years of cruising vacations.  This includes starting plans for the kid’s graduation cruises, one in 2023 to Italy and one in 2025 to Ireland.  Plus, SC cruises in 2020 and 2021.  We'll probably have to skip 2022 and 2024 to accommodate a 2-week vacation / cruise in 2023 and the other in 2025.  More on those later.

One of our cruise goals is to try all the new ships coming out for RCL.  We prefer the larger ships with all the cool activities and shows.  Finding the 9-night Bermuda cruise on Anthem was an awesome find.  While we are still working for #TheMan, our vacation and cruise budget limits us to about one cruise a year.  We booked the Owner’s Loft Suite 8720, which falls into the Star Class.  I can blame the kids for wanting to only cruise in SC now.  #Damnit #BadDad  Oh, and since we found the Coastal Kitchen, we are now ‘required’ to book something that gives us access.  #Spoiled

Planning for this cruise is pretty much a weekly discussion over the weekend mornings while drinking coffee and scanning cruise ‘stuff’. 

Travel arrangements

We booked our flight on 12/12/18 (about 25 weeks out) on Southwest.  Flight on 5/5/19 and returning on 5/15/19.  Since we are in Nashville, Southwest is our preferred carrier.  Over the past few years, I’ve flown for work and we have taken a couple of Vegas trips, all on Southwest.  So, those points FINALLY paid off.  Rather than paying close to $1200+ to fly all four of us up to Newark, NJ, we paid about $50.  I cashed in all my points for me and kids.  There was almost enough left to pickup my DW’s ticket  (I’m guessing this acronym means Dear Wife  ? ) so, we paid the transfer fee to have her points transferred to my account to give me enough to get her ‘freeish’ ticket.  Thus the $50ish buck was for the transfer and taxes.  Not bad, fly all four of us roundtrip for $50ish  ?  #KeepCasinoBudget

When cruising, we always fly in the night before just to make sure if there are any travel issues there is time to deal with it before getting on the cruise.  I give credit to my dad for teaching me this.  I’ve been cruising since early 2000’s and have always made sure to fly in the day before.  Plus, we can start our vacation a day early.  My better half did a lot of research on hotels around the port Bayonne in NY.  She found a nice hotel, forget what it was, but really wanted to stay in something a little nicer.  We talked about the Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson, but it was about $300 more for the night than what she originally booked.  She really wanted to stay there because it looked really cool and is right across from the NY skyline.  I felt bad because that really wasn’t in our budget.  But wait, lookie what I found.  We have some ‘cash-back’ rewards on one of our credit cards.  Let’s us that to upgrade to the Hyatt and use our rewards to pay the difference.  Done. Booked. Confirmed on March 5th.

We’ll get to the hotel earlier enough that we are planning to go see the 911 Memorial and take the ferry over to the statue.  Was hoping to be able to see the statue from the North Star as we left, but after a few postings and great information, that doesn’t seem to be an option.

The only other pre-cruise travel stuff we did was book a spot to drop the car off.  More than likely, we’ll grab us an Uber to get around everywhere else and to take us to the port on the morning of our cruise.  Right now, we are planning to leave the hotel about 9:30 to give us an hour or so to make sure we are at the port and in the right spot by the Star Class to meet Yen.  I’m the type of person that wants to be early to almost everything – I would rather wait than to have someone waiting for us to show up.  #IsThatOCD

We got our first RoyalUp email on April 26, about 6 weeks before our cruise date.  This was the first time we ever received one of these.  We talked about attempting to upgrade, but couldn’t justify an additional $2400 IF we sent in the lowest bid of $1200 pp.  I mean, we ‘could’ have swung it but that would have taken away from our casino budget – yeah, we quickly shot it down.  Now, if we could have bid maybe $500-$750/pp – that we would have considered a little more.

Just to note, they would only charge us for the first two guests – so, technically, it was like upgrading with the kids sail free.  Yeah, only way kids sail free is if we put them to work on the ship cleaning dishes or something.  They are 12 and 14 now, so I’m SURE that would go over just peachy.  Anyway, I guess we didn’t pay enough for this SC cruise so RCL was trying to get us to pay a little more.  I’m not going to post what we paid but let’s just say I booked this thing about 16 months prior so I could make monthly budgeted payments.  Yes – we actually have a cruise budget ?.  We did reprice a few times over the course of time that saved us a little extra.  A second email to upgrade came in about 2 weeks later on 5/7/19.  I guess the second one was meant for @Lovetocruise2002, since she’s never gotten one.  Lol   

Evidently, they wanted us to upgrade to the Royal Loft Suite which looks amazing, but, hey, we are happy to stay where we are at.  There weren’t any other suites included with this email.   

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Side note.  We got the RCL credit card a long time ago on one of our past cruises.  Yeah, the perks aren’t as good as other cards, but we designate this card for pretty much cruise only related stuff.  Over the years, we obtained some of those MyCruise Points that we were able to use for some nice OBC.  #BonusCasinoFunds  We get double points by putting the cruise payments on this card, which can add up to some decent OBC.  Plus, it keeps our cruise finances separate from our normal daily financials.

Star Class Notes

Our first welcome aboard email from the SC came in on 4/13/19.  What’s this, about 8ish weeks or so before our cruise.  It was just a generic welcome to the royal genie program where you can fill out a questionnaire. 

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On 5/8/19 we got our first email from Yen Lee, our genie for this cruise.  We are excited to have her and have heard great things, especially from @WAAAYTOOO. 

Here’s a snippet from her initial email:

Once I hear back from you, I’ll reach out again to confirm all the exciting details. From this point on, any questions or requests can be sent my way. I’m looking forward to seeing you onboard soon 

Please allow me to provide you with directions to the STAR Class arrival area and guarantee a VIP boarding. Kindly be advised that your drop-off point at Cape Liberty Cruise Terminal will be Zone 6. There is a large purple banner, which says Star Class, at the location. Please do not get off at any other zone. Once at Zone 6, kindly identify yourself as a Star Class guest and the assigned pier staff will ensure that your luggage is loaded onto a cart and will be sent directly to the suite while you go through the check-in and security screening process. 
Due to the nature of the Star Class program, you would understand the services and amenities listed in this email are exclusive and limited to guests residing in these suites. We appreciate your understanding when it comes to the exclusivity of these privileges. I would like to offer you Expedited Boarding services and I would also like to give you my undivided attention.  May I suggest arriving at the terminal at 10:30 AM? I have 3 Star Class Families in total and I want to personally escort you inside the Ship.
 

We are not the type of family to require a ton of assistance or demands on things, as we want to do all of our own planning and organization.  But when cruising SC we allow some of our obsessive planning nature to be done by our genie.  After coming up with a list of ‘must-do’ activities on the boat, we sent that over to Yen to allow her to plan the best times.  Being in SC does have its perks – two of the main ones we enjoy is the ability to have someone help make sure we can enjoy ALL/ANY activity on board.  This is really something that the kids enjoy.  The second is the up-front reserved seating for all the shows.  Of course, there a lot more benefits, but we can elaborate on those later.

Over the past few weeks, we have been communicating with Yen to have her send us the dinner menus for the Coastal Kitchen #teamCK and the other specialty restaurants.   I have 11 PDF files of these, so might load those in a follow-up to this opening blog.  These will include Izumie, Jamie’s, Chops and Wonderland.  We asked for the cruise planner, but haven’t gotten it at this time.

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Now being two weeks out, this weekend is dedicated to cruise shopping.  We all need a few new things for the cruise like some new clothing, shoes and other misc. items.  Our new suitcases came in last week, so those are setup in the living room to get ready to start packing.  My DW wouldn’t really allow us to start packing any earlier.  We don’t have a spare bedroom for a staging area, so have to use the living room.  Oh well.

Cruise Planner

Being in SC, we pretty much get most everything available in the CP, with the exception of the excursions and a few other items (the photo package comes to mind).  We did a lot of discussion around the excursions and talked with the kids to see what they wanted to do.  For the most part, they just want to swim / snorkel the entire time.  Paying some of the prices for the excursions was something we had a hard time justifying.  On a prior cruise, my DW and I did a kayak, hike and snorkel excursion in St. Maarten but was pretty disappointed.  Paying a few hundred for that excursion didn’t help us want to pay for another one, when we could potentially just walk somewhere and snorkel or walk and tour on our own. 

However, in 2017, we (all 6 of us, including my 70 yr old mother in law) did the Loterie Farm Zipline.  Now, that was well worth the cost.  So much so, that we booked it again for this cruise.  This is our only purchased excursion in the CP.  They did get hit really hard by the hurricane later in 2017, but from their recent pictures looks like they have rebuilt.  We are happy to support them by taking this tour again.

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I’m going to pause for now but will pick up later as we get a little closer.  I will also be attempting to do a few live periscopes as @CruisingHobby with #rcperiscopers and will also post more here during the cruise.

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I'm looking forward to following along for this! SC liveblogs are always so much fun to live vicariously through and I'm especially interested in your CK experience on Anthem since we just upgraded to a JS for our Jan 2021 sailing. Also I see from your signature that you will be on Harmony in May 2020. Which sailing? 

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YIPPEE !!!!  So glad that you decided to blog this one.  I was going to beg you to do it but now I don't have to !

You are in the best possible position.  You have already done SC before so you know what to ask for and what to just do yourself.  I completely agree with you about excursions.  We have long since given up doing many of them.  SC is so completely encompassing that we love to just enjoy the ship and all that there is to do.  Quite honestly, we found that Anthem was a superior SC experience to even Harmony.  Maybe we are just getting better at it but we really really enjoyed being SC on Anthem.  I think this will be especially true for you with the teens.  There is SO much for them on Anthem.

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56 minutes ago, TheHobbys said:

I guess the second one was meant for @Lovetocruise2002, since she’s never gotten one.  Lol   

Still waiting.  I am beginning to feel offended lol. I just take matters into my own hands now and upgrade myself.

Following along on this one for sure!

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7 minutes ago, TheHobbys said:

@spiralqueen we are in 10730 which is the A2-Aqua Theater Suite with Lg. Balcony 2 Bedroom May 30, 2020 Eastern Perfect day cruise

Oh drat! I'm on the May 10th one. I thought it would be too good to be true if we were on the same sailing. And while I'm looking forward to trying out our room category (Ultra Spacious OV balcony with only 3 people) your room you have will be STUNNING. 

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49 minutes ago, TheHobbys said:

Yeah, the room should be almost identical to the one we stayed in on or oasis cruise. You could always reschedule your cruise to our date. Lol

Lol besides the point of it being much more expensive due to being post-Memorial Day, we specifically booked a Western Caribbean because I couldn't go any longer without trying out Maya Chan for myself. I was the crazy person emailing them close to 500 days in advance to reserve our spot. 

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2 hours ago, TheHobbys said:

I’m the type of person that wants to be early to almost everything – I would rather wait than to have someone waiting for us to show up.  #IsThatOCD

Nope, totally 100% normal. Nothing odd about it at all.

Says the guy who was always heckled by his dad with, "Hurry up! You're going to be late for being early!!!" ?

2 hours ago, spiralqueen said:

I'm especially interested in your CK experience on Anthem since we just upgraded to a JS for our Jan 2021 sailing.

Spiralqueen, spoiler alert -- CK on Anthem is absolutely awesome! We had a JS on her last October and loved every meal there. The staff are fantastic as well.

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57 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Spiralqueen, spoiler alert -- CK on Anthem is absolutely awesome! We had a JS on her last October and loved every meal there. The staff are fantastic as well.

I think our first CK experience was back in 2016 on Oasis.  We were in 12730 Grand Suite 1BR w/ Balcony that gave us access to the CK.  That's what hooked us into making sure all future cruises would have the CK available.  #AddictedToCK   For us, not only were the meals all extremely good, but the staff was just the icing on top.  We even had one waiter who became our 'personal' waiter every time we showed up.  His catch phrase was 'Ta Da!'

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Ok, so I mentioned something about getting menus from our genie.  I have started a thread over in the dining section here that i'm hoping will be just menus.  Over there, are all the primary dinner menus from the specialty restaurants and from the CK.

 

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4 hours ago, TheHobbys said:

Yeah, the room should be almost identical to the one we stayed in on or oasis cruise. You could always reschedule your cruise to our date. Lol

Were you in an A1 or A2 on Oasis ?  I seem to recall that you were in an A1.  I was shocked how much smaller the A2 (I was in 10720 as well) is than the A1.  Still PLENTY big of course, but considerably smaller than the ones on deck 8.

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38 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Were you in an A1 or A2 on Oasis ?  I seem to recall that you were in an A1.  I was shocked how much smaller the A2 (I was in 10720 as well) is than the A1.  Still PLENTY big of course, but considerably smaller than the ones on deck 8.

It said A2 on my reservation.  It was a extremely nice room for all 6 of us. 

Here's just part of the deck

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And here's one of the living room

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7 hours ago, spiralqueen said:

I'm especially interested in your CK experience on Anthem since we just upgraded to a JS for our Jan 2021 sailing.

 

4 hours ago, JLMoran said:

Spiralqueen, spoiler alert -- CK on Anthem is absolutely awesome!

While you all know that I am #TeamCK all the way, the CK experience on Anthem is quite different from OA class.  It's missing the stunning views and the floor to ceiling windows.  It makes a difference in the dining experience.  Still amazing but...you know...I am an OA class girl. ?

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9 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

 

While you all know that I am #TeamCK all the way, the CK experience on Anthem is quite different from OA class.  It's missing the stunning views and the floor to ceiling windows.  It makes a difference in the dining experience.  Still amazing but...you know...I am an OA class girl. 

This is actually why I am interested in gathering experiences from others. When I was looking at the pictures of the venue online I was shocked at how seemingly dark and enclosed it is compared to OA class. I'm sure the food will be the same great quality with fantastic service but my goodness those windows. So airy! I'm cheered by you mentioning that it's generally easier to get reservations on Quantum class ships due to the placement of the SL. 

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11 days to go and finished up most all our pre-cruise shopping yesterday.  All new snorkel gear/fins, shorts, shirts, bathing suits, new shoes ... damn near feels like we had a good reason to just restock all our crap.  Oh well, most of us needed some new digs.  Since we don't have a real good place to hold all our packing, some of it just sits out in the living room. 

And before ya'll say anything - this is only our son's ?  packed for 12 nights - but knowing we get laundry service that we'll make sure to use.  That'll allow us to not have to pack as much.

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Since we still have time and if I get bored, I may lay out all our non-essential type stuff just to give people a picture reference of packing stuff.

There have been a couple of emails between us and Yen (our genie).  She's been extremely responsive, I think she's answered all of our emails the same day.  We have scheduled our boarding for 10:30/45, but will be there a little early since this is our first time and not sure of the 7 miles worth of 'stuff' between our hotel and the port.  May not be any traffic, but still will make sure we give extra travel time.

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@TheHobbys  LMAO....guessing you do not have any pets, or an insanely great pet.  If I left stuff on my floor in any bedroom, or family room I can guarantee you that no sooner would I finish the piles and turn my back, our 110 lb Black Lab/Great Dane would say....OH look Mommy made a bed for me and left out some new toys for me to play with and hide around the house!

Have a great time.

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On 5/26/2019 at 5:49 PM, Pima1988 said:

@TheHobbys  LMAO....guessing you do not have any pets, or an insanely great pet.  If I left stuff on my floor in any bedroom, or family room I can guarantee you that no sooner would I finish the piles and turn my back, our 110 lb Black Lab/Great Dane would say....OH look Mommy made a bed for me and left out some new toys for me to play with and hide around the house!

Have a great time.

We do, but he prefer's bbq sauce - lol

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Countdown days - 7  (or maybe I can say 6, since 'technically' we leave next Wednesday)  With all the excitement building about the cruise, it's hard to try and not get started packing.  Yeah, that mean we wouldn't have much to wear until next week.  #DirtyClothes   

Well, the house has been cleaned - a few times - since we can't do our packing, might as well clean, huh.   I think I've picked up / moved / rearranged the empty suitcases a few times now.

We decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency on the Hudson thanks to some of that cash back stuff on one of our credit cards.  It is a little further from the port than I like, but we plan to do some walking around NY.  When we cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale, the only walking we do is to the Starbucks and back  ?  Only downside to this place is that there isn't a SB within walking distance.

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Hey @Andrew72681 - here's some of our requests to our genie  ?  Our requests to the genie are probably minimal compared to others.  We tend to be easy going but enjoy having our genie make sure that we can experience all the activities that could be challenging to get to.  I'm sure there will be other requests once we get on board that we might have, but for now this is all we have communicated with Yen - our genie.  We did mention what drinks / snacks each of us prefer and to have those stocked in our room.

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Activities

If possible, we would like to schedule a behind-the-scenes of some of the shows for our daughter.  Since she’s been in theater all during middle school and will be working on theater in high school, it would be really cool for her to see some of what the professionals go through before performing.  We tried a tour of one on the Allure a few years ago, but didn’t get to talk to any of the entertainers – so it was just a plain tour.

Our son may be interested in something that would show how the mechanical stuff works for some of the venues.  Such as, how the Two-70’s work or how the robot drink maker works.

Other activities we want to make sure to do:  Flying trapeze, bumper cars, iFly during the first at sea day, escape room, Northstar on embarkation day, we'll defer to your recommendation for the shows, roller skating, Carrie/John for adult comedy, sushi class (all of us)

Dining

John and Carrie want to do the Chef’s table and Wonderland.  Early dining time for these two would be ok.

·       Monday – plan for a reservation at Jamie’s (we have an excursion but then want to hit a few shops in St. Maarten before getting back on board)

·       Tuesday - It appears that lobster night is in the Coastal Kitchen

Our daughter is a vegetarian, so need to make sure there’s always a non-meat option for her.

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We did ask if there was a way to be able to do the escape room with another star class family, but this may be something we'll have to arrange once we get on board.  I'm hoping the kids will meet some cool other kids that maybe we could hook up with their family to do the escape room.  I read in a post somewhere (might have been on FB) that another SC cruiser would 'pay-it-forward' to another family they met on their cruise.  Basically, they would meet another nice family and then treat them to something special that only the genie would be able to pull off.  Something like dinner from a specialty restaurant in our suite so they wouldn't have to pay for it.

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1 hour ago, TheHobbys said:

We did ask if there was a way to be able to do the escape room with another star class family, but this may be something we'll have to arrange once we get on board.  I'm hoping the kids will meet some cool other kids that maybe we could hook up with their family to do the escape room.

This is one of the things we’ll be hoping for as well. Our 8 year old has wanted to do the one on Harmony and on Navigator but can’t because of the age limit. An age limit doesn’t seem to make much sense as I’m sure she could outperform some of the adults we saw go in who already looked half in the bag from a day of drinking.

By our time on Oasis we’ll have a 8,10, and 12 year old in the room. 

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Have you considered where you want to eat lunch on embarkation day ?  I only mention this b/c now with the Key, lunch reservations are much more "complicated" than they used to be.  I recommend that you let Yen know what you want to do for embarkation lunch so that she can make sure you get your preference.

I will offer one more observation.  You mentioned something about perhaps having a dinner party in your suite.  We had a party in our suite on our Anthem B2B and I will offer a rare criticism of Yen.  It is really the only area where I found she fell short, compared to other Genies we have had.  Her party-organizing skills are rudimentary.  For example.  We have held the same exact party on 3 different ships with 3 different Genies - a Cruise Critic Cabin Crawl.  For the one that Reyno organized for us (Harmony), the party was a smashing success.  He ordered the meat planks from Jamie's and they came beautifully assembled on the planks with bread, condiments, peppers, olives, a beautiful selection of sweets, treats and desserts...the whole 9 yards.  The same for the party that Sebastian did for us on Harmony.  When the meat planks came for our Anthem party, it was pitiful.  The meat was on plates, not planks, no condiments, no BREAD for God's sake, no peppers or olives, no desserts or anything else.  Now perhaps my criticism is improperly placed...it may not have been Yen's fault HOWEVER, she did not even bother to come by and see if everything was ok.  IMO, it was NOT ok.  As I said in an earlier post, Yen is very, very literal.  She will do exactly what you ask, nothing more, nothing less.  Just be SURE that you think ahead and make sure that you ask for exactly what you want and make sure she understands.  I loved her as a Genie.  She was energetic, personal and professional...but a party planner, she is not.

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@WAAAYTOOO, we really enjoy the CK for breakfast and lunches, so that'll be our first stop for lunch on embarkation day.  I remember you mentioning that she is very literal, so may have to spell out exactly what we want.  The party in our suite is a possibility only if we find another family that we hit it off with and decide to host them.  But will keep your thoughts in mind  ? 

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On 5/29/2019 at 2:42 PM, Andrew72681 said:

This is one of the things we’ll be hoping for as well. Our 8 year old has wanted to do the one on Harmony and on Navigator but can’t because of the age limit. An age limit doesn’t seem to make much sense as I’m sure she could outperform some of the adults we saw go in who already looked half in the bag from a day of drinking.

By our time on Oasis we’ll have a 8,10, and 12 year old in the room. 

Hey Andrew.  Our oldest two will be 10 and 8 for the November 8, 2020 sailing.  Message me about it on our roll call group and maybe we can get our genies to coordinate something for all of us.

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You ever wake up way to early in the morning?  Brain kicking in before coffee?  I mean, geez.  oh well, so fine - I had to turn the coffee on at 5am on a flipping Saturday.  After grabbing my coffee, I sit down at the computer and work on bills.  Since it's the first of the month, everyone needed to get paid.  Basically, I was just making sure all payments went out on time and the monthly bills were covered.  Oh, and since we won't be back till the middle of the month, I had to go ahead schedule the middle of the month bills also.  Yeah, don't forget to do that.  

Anyways, let's catch you up.  We are just around 3 days to go before heading out to the cruise.  A month or so ago we ordered new luggage (Sears had a sale).  It's been sitting in the living room ever since taunting us to pack.  I'm not like #CoughCough @Lovetocruise2002 or @Matt who probably leave their suitcases packed year-round  ?   but hey, at least we actually have been putting stuff next to the suitcases over the past month.  Ok, ok - back to my story ...

After multiple times of counting clothes and items  (um, how many underwear do we need) I was finally able to actually pack the 'guys' suitcase.  Yeah, girls pack their own - ha.  This cruise is a little different for us, as we are coming in the day before into a new city, staying at a hotel that is a little further away from the port than normal, navigating a new terminal and on top of all that - we are cruising for 9 nights instead of our normal 7.  All of this means a few more clothes, well maybe.  Actually not really, since, as us guys can wear the same thing multiple times.  Wait, don't think that - shame on ya'll.  We have access to the laundry on board  ?  woot  #StarClass    Yeah, not sure the girls will do the same.

See - our luggage isn't that bad.  And yes, all those clothes I fit into that suitcase  #GoArmyRolls  oh - suitcase and all those clothes weigh only 38 lbs.  I had to borrow the neighbors scale to weigh it.  Traveling Southwest, each bag can't weigh more that 50 lbs.  On a prior cruise, we had to 'rearrange' some clothes from our big suitcase because it was like 60 lbs and transfer some to another suitcase.  Was a little awkward sitting on the curb opening and moving stuff around in front of everyone.  #ShameOnUs  But we needed to do that to avoid getting hit with an extra charge.  Yup, won't let that happen again.

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It's just the clothes that went into that big case, I'll pack the medium case with all the other 'stuff'.  Toiletries, shoes, snorkel gear, etc.  Here's just a quick shot of the 'guys' version of toiletries #Simple #Minimal.  Those are portable battery charges in the top left next to the underwater camera.  Most of our stuff is meant to just be for travel, meaning, I don't really want to bring it home - if there's just a little left, it gets tossed.  Under the camera are some magnet clips for the walls.  Oh, and can't forget extra zip top bags.  All the toiletry stuff goes into zip top bags, just in case one decides to leak.  Found the cool snorkel gear at Costco, so we picked up one for each of us.

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Oh, and the girls stuff you ask?  I'm guessing this is all they are packing??  How is it that the guys stuff looks like a lot more crap?  Meh

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For now, we are sorta 'pre-packed'.  Hoping I don't have to dig anything out because now I have nothing left to wear.  It's amazing when you actually pack for a long trip you realize just how many underwear you truly have.

 

Anyways, tomorrow will be another day of fiddling around with checking stuff for the um-tenth time to make sure I don't forget anything.  Which, in all honesty, I'll end up with stuff that we won't even touch - but hey, at least we have it just in case.

 

As I've mentioned before, we are rolling in Star Class.  After pouring over multiple threads about other cruisers adventures with their genies, we wanted to pickup something neat for our genie.  My better half found this cute diddy bag (ok, so it's a makeup bag, but it's still technically a diddy bag).  She also found some little pampering type things we hope she'll like.  If not, she can regift it to her next cruisers - lol.  Hey - it's the thought, right?  So - those of you looking to see what others do for their genie, here's our version.

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Ok, it's late and my blogging brain is running dry.  I forgot to take a picture of my planning folder, so I'll try and remember to do that tomorrow and toss it out here.  When traveling, I have to have my folder with all the registration printouts.  Helps me make sure I'm not missing anything.  But - more on that soon.

 

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Yawn - blink, blink.  Another early morning.  You would think my body would be used to this by now.  The early waking up.  I would blame it on my 'age' ... ha

With coffee slowly kicking in this morning and bills handled yesterday, I got a little time to toss out some more random thoughts.  With 'technically' 4 days to go before getting on the cruise, seems like RCL is struggling to get some of their top rooms filled.  I mean, sure, I wouldn't mind the RLS - but when you only give me $1200 as a starting bid pp, yeah, I'll pass.  I think this is the third email about this I've gotten over the past month.  If we bid, it would only be at the $1200 - which IF we got it would cost us an extra $2400 for the cruise.  Probably not that bad since this is a 9-night cruise.  I just don't think we would do the RLS justice  ?  We'll let another family enjoy it.  

 

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Oh yeah, I said I was going to take some pictures of my travel folder.  Now granted, it may not be as fancy as some of ya'lls but it keeps me a little more organized.  After 12 yrs in the Army NG, I've had a hard time NOT wanting to be somewhere early - especially, when traveling.  I've even got my better half now used to showing up to movies early - lol.  Though my 14 yr daughter is now starting to #DragA**  o_0   Sorry, side-tracked.  Hang on - let me go take a picture and get more coffee ......

Miss me?  probably not, but oh well.

 Without getting too close to my secret paperwork ?  I have two folders.  The one on the left has:

* Parking confirmation (place for the car while we are gone)

* Southwest confirmation (yup, this would be the flight)

* Hotel confirmation (imagine that)

* Cruise - set sail passes (see a pattern here?)

The one on the right has all the 'other' stuff.  This includes a map of San Juan, dinner menus, TA information for next cruise booking and more notes about islands.  I usually don't keep all the stuff in the second folder, but I do keep everything from the first folder.  

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Well, second round of coffee is almost gone, and it's late ( 7am ) guess I need to get motivated to do something around the house.  Maybe I'll unpack the guys suitcase and repack it - ha.

 

 

 

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Just now, WannaCruise said:

Wow...and I thought I was organized.  Love your packing prep!

Only a few days and you'll be on Anthem!

I consider it something to do to take the anticipation off just waiting around for the cruise - lol.  But, for me, it's also a really good way to reference what we did in the past.

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On 5/29/2019 at 7:20 AM, TheHobbys said:

We decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency on the Hudson thanks to some of that cash back stuff on one of our credit cards.  It is a little further from the port than I like, but we plan to do some walking around NY.  When we cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale, the only walking we do is to the Starbucks and back  ?  Only downside to this place is that there isn't a SB within walking distance.

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I work in one of the buildings to the left in this photo -- there is certainly a Starbucks within walking distance of the hotel.  It's across the street from the Gregory's Coffee, just walk a little south past the PATH station to Exchange Place.

Let me know if you need any other Jersey City advice!  Enjoy your cruise, looking forward to reading about it!

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