Live Cruise Reports

Hey kids. Long time no sea 😆😆 
 
No you are not seeing things. I am living the dream of two cruises a week apart from each other. My husband and I just got off Allure yesterday morning and landed back in VA last night. In fact, I have one full day off before we fly out on Sunday the 17th…that day being today.  I’m an FA so I’m home today but then on back to back work trips coming home the afternoon of the 16th. Thoughts and prayers appreciated. 🤦🏼‍♀️😆 

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Apologies in advance for typos. All I have for the newfangled interwebs is my tiny cellular device.
 
We are aboard the lovely Encore and it is Day 6, a day at sea. We are having an absolute blast!!
 
Thought I would provide a few musings.
 
We are Sapphire Latitudes members who used to cruise in the Haven until we made a late booking earlier this year on Bliss. We had a Club Balcony and now see no reason to return to the Haven. Our little cabin is clean and QUIET and has an amazing shower. 

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Welcome back to another LIVE cruise with us! Later this week my husband and I will be sailing on Allure OTS for a 3 night Bahamas cruise from Port Canaveral. We are celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary, we are a Covid wedding couple so yes we celebrate each year (we also love an excuse to cruise 😄). We will be flying to Orlando from DC on Thursday morning, renting a car from MCO to drive to Cape Canaveral for some sightseeing on the Cape and the pre-cruise overnight there. My husband and I are aviation and space geeks so be prepared for nerdy space things from this pre-cruise adventure.

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As we are ten days away from embarkation and exactly one week away from being ‘on vacation’ I wanted to start a live trip report with an introduction. To be honest, it’s also just to see if my iPad alone will work for posting and since it’s my first ‘live’ posting experience, make sure I have an idea of what I’m doing.  On previous cruises the internet was so slow I wouldn’t even think of trying to post throughout the cruise, but early indications are that Starlink really is the cat’s meow and hopefully that means I won’t encounter many problems.

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Day -1. Packing day
 
On Sunday, we board the Symphony of the Seas for our very first Royal Caribbean cruise.  I’m traveling with DH (aka Glen) and we’re combining it with a 7 day on the Celebrity Apex.
 
I’d booked the Apex cruise earlier this year, and then decided I wanted to try Royal, and specifically one of the Oasis class ships(if I’m gonna do, I’m gonna go big).  I found that the Symphony was leaving 6 days before on a 6 day cruise, so that was perfect.  We live in California and I’m getting over going to Florida for just a 7 day cruise.  

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Greetings from Hobart, Tasmania, where we’re boarding Ponant’s Le Lapérouse for a ten day trip around Tasmania. This was meant to be the third in a set of back-to-backs, but work got in the way, allowing for only this one.
 
We arrived in Hobart late last night and spend the day exploring Hobart’s inner harbor area. Le Lapérouse had arrived at 6am from New Zealand and settled in behind the mammoth Virgin Resolute Lady, doing a quick Melbourne - Hobart “MerMaiden Voyage”.

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Join The Bird on the inaugural voyage of NCL’s newest ship, the Norwegian Viva. The Norwegian Viva is the second of six Prima Class ships delivering from 2022 to 2027. This 4-day short break from Miami features port calls in Nassau and Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas. The Viva is the second NCL ship to be built at the Fincantieri shipyard near Venice, Italy. NCL took delivery of the Viva on August 9, 2023, and she was christened in Miami earlier this week on November 28, 2023 by Grammy nominated, and five-time Latin Grammy winning singer, songwriter, musician and producer, Luis Fonsi,

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I am back on silhouette, which has been my favorite ship but the vote isn’t out yet for this cruise.  
 
I just found out that decoy, a wine which has been on the premium package, is now a two dollar up charge. They have re-price mini mini wines. I don’t know all the details, but that one was a shocker.
 
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I mislabeled the last topic.
We are getting ready to sail from Miami, and I bought the Premium internet package, so we will be able to post regularly, I hope.  We were able to get on very early to do videos about the accessible cabins.  We got to tour an accessible balcony cabin, accessible ocean view cabin, and an accessible inside cabin..  We will publish videos from those tours in the next few days.  We had lunch in Hudson's, which was basically empty, and I am sure the buffet was swamped.  I will never understand why everyone runs to the buffet.  Lunch was very good, and pictures coming.

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Quick background on us - we’re Azamara long termers and long time cruisers of other lines. We are just going to be honest based on our views on what we’re experiencing onboard here and now. This is our 3rd cruise since lockdown, but first back in the USA. We were on one of the last flights back to the UK in March 2020 as lockdown was happening. 
 
Questions are welcome and we will give our options based on what we see.

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Few thoughts.
 
At first I wasn't a fan of the now-in-place digital Conpass. I'm all in now. We constantly check the app because we msy not think to carry paper around but I always have my phone.
 
I posted few days ago that we had a cabin issue night one.  I imagine no one cares about the actual issue, but we feel RCCL handled it very well....  better than I expected.  

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We are boarding our first cruise with MSC today on the Seashore for a 4-night Bahamas cruise out of Port Canaveral.  This is also our first cruise in an interior cabin.  We booked a guaranteed interior cabin with the bella experience back in April and were assigned an interior cabin about a month ago.  While we heard others got cabin upgrades, we are happy to stay in an interior to “test the waters” without a window.  We did add the drink package and WiFi on a promotion of $30 per person per day.

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Hi from aboard the Rotterdam! We boarded yesterday and are sailing for 19 days. 
Thought I would post a few things each day for those of you who might have a Rotterdam sailing on the horizon and need a "fix"!!
 
We have Club Orange for the cruise and embarkation was painless. The CO dining room was extremely slow last night. We arrived at the dining room about 6 pm and waited 45 minutes. Always slower on embarkation day but that is the longest we have ever waited. Will see what happens tonight!  Breakfast this morning was fine. We are in Half Moon Cay today though so pretty quiet. Staying on board. 

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We are excited to be in our sailing week for a B2B on the NCL Escape, December 9-16 & December 16-23 out of Port Canaveral.
 
Special thanks to @CAKEisgood for their live review from the Escape last week and posting of the dailys, which has been incredibly helpful in planning this B2B.  This week before boarding I'll post some background information, packages we have purchased, pre-cruise planning, and hopefully start collecting questions from people looking for information on board.  

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My wife and I leave soon for our cruise. I thought I would get the post started. I hope to add to it as the cruise progresses.
We are in our early 70s and have done many cruises, mainly Princess recently. We will fly to SFO on Thursday and fly to PPT on Friday, arriving early Saturday morning. We are flying Delta/Air France in Premium Economy. We have booked day passes at the InterContinental with the breakfast option. We will board Saturday pm. We are booked in Cabin 306, a porthole cabin. All of our excursions are booked through PG. When we debark, we have scheduled a day long tour of the island with Tahiti Eden Tours. We will spend Saturday night at the Tahiti Airport Motel and fly to SFO on Sunday. We will fly home to South Florida on Monday, 12/18.
This is our 1st trip to Tahiti and excited that it's finally here.

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Hello again everyone, and welcome to another of  my Live Froms. 
 
This year it’s a true 14 day circle Caribbean, with ports of St. Kitts, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Aruba. I’ll be looking forward to the sea days at the end to relax!
 
The port was a zoo this morning. The security checkpoint was only five minutes, but then it too 20 minutes in traffic to get to Terminal 21. Security inside wasn’t bad, and there was zero wait in the green lane. The blue lane, however, had quite a queue. 
 
In the elite lounge now waiting to board, at 10:30. 

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Jim_Iain -  2nd Half World Cruise -  B2B Singapore to Down Under 11/25 – 12/21
  
Welcome!    Come along and join us for another adventure.  
 
As an introduction we are Jim (who writes these Live Posts) and Iain, who ends up in most of the pictures.   We have been together 34 years -  or as Iain just said “34 long hard years”  LOL.
 
Are were  among of the first to be Gay Couples to be married in California.  We were legally married June 2008 days after the California Supreme Court ruled the restriction of Gay Marriage was illegal.   5 Months later California had a referendum to change the constitution and make it illegal again.   Luckily the State Supreme court ruled a small group of 4,000 marriage were grandfathered and would remain legal.  It was another 7 years before the Supreme Court Legalized Gay Marriage Nation Wide. 
We have 3 kids and 5 Grand Children.  

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Yes! She’s back! After a jaunt over to Royal Caribbean for Wonder of the Seas last month, I’m back on Carnival, this time taking the Celebration out of Miami!  This is my 7th LIVE! Blog here on Cruise Critic, and I just love taking y’all along with me.
 
For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Dee, traveling with my dear hubby Russ. I adore cruising, have done a ton of it.  I’m particularly excited about this cruise since I LOVE Carnival, and also the Mardi Gras—been on her twice!  This is my first time on her sister ship the Celebration, and my second time cruising out of Miami since the pandemic.

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Hello everyone!
 
I'm getting ready to sail out for another adventure on Sunday and I plan to do a live review of my time on board.
 
This time I will be sailing on the Carnival Magic for 26 days from November 26 until December 22. I am not sure where I am going, nowhere too terribly exciting just around the Caribbean but I am excited to be on a ship for the Holidays and seeing the wonderful decorations and being around the festive cheer. Magic is also one of my favorite ships in the Carnival fleet.
 
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Here we go again! Hop aboard and join me as I sail solo for the first time ever on the beautiful Valiant Lady!

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Hello from deck eleven on Symphony of the Seas!
 
We are about to sail away from Port Everglades, heading toward the Southern Caribbean.
 

TIP:  If I can help find any information for you while I am onboard, please post your request. I will do my best to follow through on requests.
 
I will likely fall a day or two behind, depending on Wi-Fi and our busy schedule. However, I will try to keep the report as “live“ as possible. 
 
Gratitude:
 
Since this is a Thanksgiving cruise, it will be great to hear what you are thankful for, if you would like to share.
 
We are extra thankful to be on this trip today, as we had to cancel Odyssey of the Seas in January due to illness.  At that time, we could not with good conscience say “no” to a couple of the health questions due to our son having a cough and sore throat.  

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It has been a year since sailing with Cunard, our last in November/December ‘22 to the same destination on this ship. Since then we have sailed with 2 other lines in the Pacific and Europe and enjoyed long distance travel. How pleasant to be back in familiar surroundings of QV.
From reading CC over the past few days, it appears that there are quite a few active members seeking some sun joining me on this voyage. 
I have written blogs before and always try to convey the atmosphere on the ship to anyone interested enough to read this.

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Hello. I’m fairly a newby to cruise critic, but not to cruising. I really enjoy the live posts from other cruise critics folks, so I’m going to give this a good ol’ fashion try. 

We (me and the husband) are embarking from Port Canaveral on Saturday, Nov 25th, on the NCL Escape. This is our 4th cruise on the Escape. We absolutely LOVE the Escape. The staff have been so attentive and they bend over backwards. It will be interesting to see if it is the same on this cruise (our last Escape cruise was in Feb 2023). 

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Most of the time, what the industry calls a "Cruise Vacation" is called for.  I did a search for long cruises, 11/23, and then by price.  In my experience, the lines are pretty similar.  The frequent guest programs are useless, so once you get invited to the basic loyalty party, the rest of the perks are pretty boring.  The Constellation is a lovely ship, and we had fond memories of an amazing trip to the Med years ago.  

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Greetings from the Ruby.
 
It was very busy day in port at Fort Lauderdale.  There were 6 ships leaving for the week.
We were blue lane because we had to pick up our Medallions.  Total time from drop off to onboard less than 20 minutes.  
Cabins were not ready until 1pm.  
There is a sanctuary onboard.  $40 a d

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