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So far I am the oldest Flowrider. Not a good thing

I know that the captain’s name is Carl. When he speaks over the speakers, I can’t understand his full name. I only know it is Carl because it was an answer to who wants to be a millionaire as we were in the star lounge because there was no seating in the crown lounge. Dinner again at Giovannis good but the service was slow a lot more people in there last night. Funny thing yesterday, previously, I have participated in my roll call. Someone from Texas asked if there was a place to do bible studies. I am not a particularly religious person, but I mentioned that there is a chapel above the VCL and that I am sure if you asked permission they would let you use it for your group. So, I get back to the room and my wife asked what is this about a bible study, this is when I am soaking wet returning from the advanced FlowRider session just before dressing for dinner around 5PM. I gave her a look, like, Huh???? She said someone from cruise critic had tracked me down because they knew I wanted to attend with them. She assured them that I didn’t. How the heck, did they track me down? Now I am extra paranoid. They obviously did it thru guest services. O well. Just remember when you help people they may try to save you! 🤣 Speaking of the FlowRider, I am a bit worried to share this information because this cruise while not quite a unicorn might be the closest I have seen in a long time. There are 8 blue bands on the ship at this point. Which means we usually have 5 or 6 in line. There are a full boogie boards during mixed wave, but the line has never gotten to double digits, and many of those are one and done kids. As almost always there is someone you have liked and sailed with before in that small number of 8. In this case Gabby and Daniel from Switzerland, we sailed together on the Navigator in 2016 to Norway. So nationalities of the 8 are 4 from USA, 2 Switzerland, 1 Germany, 1 Canada. If there is a best of the best it will be a competition between Switzerland and Canada. Yesterday the wind was mid 20knots with the ship doing 19 plus directly into the wind. Since, I am goofy I was surfing into a rain storm everytime I was turning from the port side. People getting wet on the starboard side, we have reversed the line due to this. (Don’t worry this bit is only for Flow Nuts). The wind was so strong the top of the wave is way difficult, as it a lot like a formula one car going into the corner and not having the same wind everytime. Pretty easy to lose control. I am boring so I rarely fall, but I rarely can do the entire ride at the top as I always prefer to do. I will try to find out about a future dry dock, but I have yet to have a conversation with an officer ranking high enough to have a clue. I don’t think the sports desk manager, Roo or the diamond concierge will have a clue! JC

Did the BOGO at Giovanni’s had booked pre cruise. There was nobody there, they tried to charge me again, even though I told the maitre’d what we were doing the first two nights. Finally got it sort of straight. They had a welcome aboard music dance, food and champagne/mimosa for the diamonds and above. We arrived as the band was finishing up. Not a bad event. The Crown Lounge is weird on deck 5 outside the star lounge. The typical VCL and diamond lounge combo that I am used to, like on Adventure in 2022 out of Galveston, I much prefer. O, well. Being a very lowly D+ will be almost halfway after this cruise I am not very much aware of the Pin world. However, a new Pin that we knew from previous cruises, and a couple that we met last night seem to think that the old Pins resent what they call baby Pins. They don’t seem to want to hang out with the “real” Pins in the SL/VCL. All seems a bit weird to me. I tried to explain we made diamond back when they had the nightly diamond event. Then we did our first sailing in 2013 with a real diamond lounge. There were 3 Pins on the sailing, everyone wanted to meet them, and they made a show every time we saw them. In 2024 with well over 100 Pins on this sailing and over a thousand D or higher. The days of being super unique are gone. I am guessing some of that clouds this experience for both the real and baby Pins. JMHO and YMMV jc

Ha! sitting solarium watching dolphins. had to watch 2 videos to sign waiver. Had to take my board out to show it to the man. He kept calling the groves on my outlaw strips. I finally gave up on correcting him🤪 jc

Much better than old terminal in WJ jc

Scared me! Thought you were going to say the wave sucked jc

Our first cruise, and first RCI cruise was the Majesty of the Seas. Is she still in service as something? The largest cruise ship in the world in 1996 when we sailed her. Smaller than anything in the fleet now.

Trying to post fish tacos from iPhone. I had to convert it to most compatible.

I am not sure any more of which ones constitute this class, I have done Navigator, Adventure, and Mariner in the past, some of them multiple times. I have not done the Explorer nor the Voyager. Did I get them all? Here are the pictures of dinner at Jimmy’s. Sorry, I didn’t snap them with my phone until we had at least eaten a bit. 😂 I just can’t control myself. I am not disciplined enough to do this properly!

Jimmy’s was as expected, a restaurant on the pier. Grackles (Texas blackbirds) stealing French fries from my plate. It was neither good nor bad, just as you would expect. We got happy hour pricing on the wine aka $1.50 off. It was about a 5 minute walk, I suspect Gaido’s where we ate 2 years ago would have been 45+ minutes on the same Seawall Blvd. Watching the happenings at Columbia U on TV. Have I mentioned we are screwed recently? There is no shuttle offered by the TownePlace Suites or the sister Courtyard property. I will be using Uber again in the morning. this trip is perfect used my Amex platinum $15 today and since tomorrow is a new month will have another $15 credit to use tomorrow. (Sorry, I need to quit with the accounting stuff🤣) I was a bit surprised by the people surfing and swimming. I didn’t think the water would be that inviting. The surfers didn’t have wet suits on. I never saw one of them actually catch a wave. Watched for an hour. Reminds me of me. 🤣 jc I took a couple of pics of the pier and our food, will try to remember to attach them tomorrow since they are on my iPhone and not my iPad which I am using now.

Eating at Jimmy’s on the Pier because it is about only thing near our hotel jc

In Uber flight from Dallas delayed over an hour meaning rush hour traffic. First thing driver said he doesn’t like to go to Galveston. $92 before tip. Would have been less than 70 an hour earlier. O well. Wolfie our friend just left our house to feed Rodrhi. I hope they got along it has been a year since he had duty. jc

Thanks OB. I was sleeping great, and then about 4:30AM I couldn’t get comfortable in any position and I tried a lot. Finally gave up. We leave the house at 8:30AM for a 10:40 departure, which gives us plenty of time to remember something we wanted to bring and not quite enough time to come back and get it. When we get to Houston, I am praying to the Uber gods that we can find a reasonable fare. Since we are going to IAH (Bush) it is a pretty long drive to Galveston. I have been checking occasionally pricing and it ranges from mid 60s to over 100. Hoping to get less than $75. Time will tell. JC😉

Thank you

The Airstream experience of 3 months, in the truck and the Airstream, very tight quarters took him from a complete mess to a semi mature dog who got the small spaces. the dining table was his bed, He visited us in the sleeping area, and liked to look out our windows which were the same as his at the dinette. Silly dog. He has become a pretty good boy after the trip.