Adventure 5 Nights 5/5/18 Repositioning San Juan to Bayonne

[mpoole3 92]

Outstanding review!!  You sure did get a lot more ship pictures than I did this cruise.  It's funny, in all the cruises I've never had "people" in my shots.  But this cruise I have more of those than the ship!  Special thanks to taking all the quest shots on my camera too.  And no, I didn't know I had the bra upside down! hahahah!!  It was so great meeting you, until next time! 

[PrincipalTinker 110]

Thank you for this blog and answering my questions. I learn so much from your posts!

[J_Keeble 276]

On ‎5‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 5:15 PM, twangster said:

You can see where they placed the new deck 12 cabins in the panoramic ocean view cabins.  The jogging track was re-routed around the solarium open ceiling and you can see the color difference where the new jogging track meets the old jogging track.

 

The view of the solarium from St Tropez.

personally I think the st tropez is a waste of space, I'm very surprised they haven't put another speciality restaurant on the front like a hooked maybe????

 

lots of chairs for sunbathing though

[twangster 21,872]

3 minutes ago, J_Keeble said:

personally I think the st tropez is a waste of space, I'm very surprised they haven't put another speciality restaurant on the front like a hooked maybe????

lots of chairs for sunbathing though

It's a nice quiet place to get sun.  Around the pool area you had better like what ever music they are playing, or the belly flop contest, etc.  St. Tropez is a great place to take a nap in the sun if that's your thing or just enjoy the sun absent of thump thump thump music.  

Each specialty restaurant needs its own support kitchen so it's a fair amount of work to  place a restaurant anywhere on the ship.  

[tiny260 1,603]

1 hour ago, J_Keeble said:

personally I think the st tropez is a waste of space, I'm very surprised they haven't put another speciality restaurant on the front like a hooked maybe????

 

lots of chairs for sunbathing though

 

1 hour ago, twangster said:

It's a nice quiet place to get sun.  Around the pool area you had better like what ever music they are playing, or the belly flop contest, etc.  St. Tropez is a great place to take a nap in the sun if that's your thing or just enjoy the sun absent of thump thump thump music.  

Each specialty restaurant needs its own support kitchen so it's a fair amount of work to  place a restaurant anywhere on the ship.  

This is my wife's and my favorite spot if the Solarium is completely booked solid. My wife can get shade and I can lay in the sun and read my book. I agree with @twangster, just a nice quite area to escape to. On Liberty they moved the miniature golf course up to this level so there is a little bit more activity.

[Boston Babe 833]

On 5/9/2018 at 2:31 PM, Lovetocruise2002 said:

That "thing" is even more disturbing up close!

It reminds me of Chucky! and Chucky is not a nice doll! Where's the knife?? 

[Lovetocruise2002 9,339]

Just now, Boston Babe said:

It reminds me of Chucky! and Chucky is not a nice doll! Where's the knife?? 

I know right?!  Did you see the Chucky pic I posted after? lol

Dolls give me the creeps.  Thank goodness my kids were never into them.  I think Chucky scarred me for life.

[Boston Babe 833]

1 hour ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I think Chucky scarred me for life.

I know!! Me too! and for @twangster to wake up to that every morning would creep me out!  I hate clowns too! 

[JLMoran 5,857]

@twangster, meant to ask once this was over -- How did you find the experience of using just your iPhone and the Moment lenses for all your photography? I know you like to take a lot of night shots and photos in more dimly lit areas, but the ones you posted here still seemed pretty good for being on the phone. Do you think that going forward you'll just stick with the phone and leave the big camera behind, or is there still too much of a gap with the kind of photos you like to take for that to be reasonable?

Lord knows phone cameras have come a long way in the last 10 years. But I can totally see where having the larger camera bodies with much bigger sensors and support for a variety of lenses is still going to be a necessity for quite some time, especially for those gorgeous night shots and photos of performers on stage.

[twangster 21,872]

2 hours ago, JLMoran said:

@twangster, meant to ask once this was over -- How did you find the experience of using just your iPhone and the Moment lenses for all your photography? I know you like to take a lot of night shots and photos in more dimly lit areas, but the ones you posted here still seemed pretty good for being on the phone. Do you think that going forward you'll just stick with the phone and leave the big camera behind, or is there still too much of a gap with the kind of photos you like to take for that to be reasonable?

Lord knows phone cameras have come a long way in the last 10 years. But I can totally see where having the larger camera bodies with much bigger sensors and support for a variety of lenses is still going to be a necessity for quite some time, especially for those gorgeous night shots and photos of performers on stage.

While I enjoyed traveling light I missed the quality that comes with a better camera.  I felt very limited and "threw away" a lot of pictures I wouldn't post on the blog.  Even some that I did post were marginally acceptable and as i look at them I find myself saying "that would be such a better photo with my real camera".  

I'm keeping the Moment lenses and I'll take them on excursions or to places I can't or won't bring my Nikon but I won't cruise again without it.

[JLMoran 5,857]

Just now, twangster said:

While I enjoyed traveling light I missed the quality that comes with a better camera.  I felt very limited and "threw away" a lot of pictures I wouldn't post on the blog.  Even some that I did post were marginally acceptable and as i look at them I find myself saying "that would be such a better photo with my real camera".  

I'm keeping the Moment lenses and I'll take them on excursions or to places I can't or won't bring my Nikon but I won't cruise again without it.

Totally understand. I have the luxury of "not knowing what I'm missing" and only knowing my phone's level of quality. Which is probably a good thing, or I'd be going into debt buying at least a micro four thirds body if not a full-blown DSLR, plus however many lenses, plus carrying bag, plus... 😅

I do have to say that I'm a little less satisfied with the Moment Tele lens after using it last weekend to photograph / take video of my older daughter's final performance with the youth chorus she's been in the last 9 years. The edge distortion in many of those photos and video clips is a lot more noticeable than the pics I took on my cruise, with people on the edges of the pictures horribly blurred or distorted (maybe the lens needs a cleaning?); creative cropping was necessary (where possible) to clean up most of the pics.

[twangster 21,872]

50 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Totally understand. I have the luxury of "not knowing what I'm missing" and only knowing my phone's level of quality. Which is probably a good thing, or I'd be going into debt buying at least a micro four thirds body if not a full-blown DSLR, plus however many lenses, plus carrying bag, plus... 😅

I do have to say that I'm a little less satisfied with the Moment Tele lens after using it last weekend to photograph / take video of my older daughter's final performance with the youth chorus she's been in the last 9 years. The edge distortion in many of those photos and video clips is a lot more noticeable than the pics I took on my cruise, with people on the edges of the pictures horribly blurred or distorted (maybe the lens needs a cleaning?); creative cropping was necessary (where possible) to clean up most of the pics.

The Moment tele is my least favorite lens.  They claim it's a "bokeh" effect.  I think that is clever marketing to justify the edge distortion.  

[Larry Muster 83]

On 5/8/2018 at 1:28 PM, twangster said:

Speaking of which...  here is the RavPower travel router I am trying on this cruise pictured beside an iPhone for scale.  I first mentioned this in the first post.

It has come in very handy.  The latest update to 11.3.1 on iPhone continues to have wifi issues.  When I'm on 'royal-wifi' my phones don't roam around the ship very well without disconnecting from the the wifi.  I first noted this on Serenade when I upgraded to 11.3 during the cruise.  After the upgrade I experienced more wifi issues.  I blame Apple for this, not Royal. 

With the above travel router and it's internal battery I can slip it into my pocket and wander around the ship.  My phones stay connected to it and I don't have to re-connect every time I wake up my phone. 

I've placed several wifi phone calls through it and I've scoped through it.  It seems to work well.

I’ve got the same device and love it.  I use it constantly but I have one issue that I’m wondering if you know the fix @twangster.  How do I forget a network without resetting the device to factory settings?  I had it connected to the hotel Wi-Fi but it remembered a previous connection to my hotspot and switched there chewing up all my data.  I can’t seem to find a forget network function.  I know there are obvious workarounds like changing the hotspot password but would like to try to find a primary fix.

[twangster 21,872]

4 hours ago, Larry Muster said:

I’ve got the same device and love it.  I use it constantly but I have one issue that I’m wondering if you know the fix @twangster.  How do I forget a network without resetting the device to factory settings?  I had it connected to the hotel Wi-Fi but it remembered a previous connection to my hotspot and switched there chewing up all my data.  I can’t seem to find a forget network function.  I know there are obvious workarounds like changing the hotspot password but would like to try to find a primary fix.

Log in and step through the wizard is the easiest that I have found.