Btank

DAY 1 DINING Dinner for us was in the MDR. We had the early seating - our waiter was Eduardo (The Philippines), and our assistant waiter was Gede (I believe he was from Maylasia). I started with the Fench onion soup, which is almost always a religious experience for me - and Mark had the crab cakes. We both had the Chops filet (really good), and I went for the key lime pie for desert while Mark had both creme brulee and an apple blossom. To drink, he had two virgin pina coladas and I had a glass of Kendall Jackson cabernet. All in all, Day 1 was a success!

DAY 1 ACTIVITIES AND ENTERTAINMENT The first day and night were dedicated to eating, exploring, unpacking, and more eating. 🙃 I did go by the spa for the 4:15 raffle... and for the first time ever, I won something! It was a beautiful thing - a $75 spa credit. I'm not expecting to win another raffle for 8 more years and/or 6 more cruises. 😁 After Mark settled in for the night (it was an early wake-up for him), I went down to the ice show in Studio B. The story premise was a little hard to follow, but the performers more than made up for it.

CABIN ATTENDANT I wanted to take a moment to call this guy out separately. A. Joseph (he goes by his last name) was simply outstanding. For those of you that sail with special needs family members, you know how important a good cabin attendant is. Joseph was the perfect mix of helpfulness, friendliness, and reassurance for my brother. Our rooms were made up twice a day; I know Royal is experimenting with once a day on some ships, and I hope that doesn't become the new standard. And yes, I tipped Joseph well - maybe a little too well by some standards - but I can assure you that my brother's room was "maintenance intensive". I split his tip across the beginning and end of the cruise (another standards violation for some). I also brought several bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Christmas Trees aboard and made sure he had a couple each morning.

CABINS We had 8581 and 8583 - port side Interior Promenade View cabins. We had Interior Promenade View on Freedom, and we had no issues with 'em - and the price was much better than Balconies or Ocean View. In these pictures, you can see 8581. The cabin door is port side, the bed & bathroom are on the aft wall, and the vanity & closet are on the fore wall: Note that the thermostat is the traditional Royal Caribbean Random Temperature Generator. 🤨 The window is starboard: What was interesting to me is that the window seems to be cantilevered out a bit more than I remember from Freedom. This is a nice effect - the bay window at the end really feels like a large amount of space. The view from the window wasn't bad at all: You're looking at (L to R) seating for the pub, the stairway to the casino, and Izumi. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Folks, those windows have curtains for a reason. They figured it out at some point, but... damn. My Brother's cabin was 8583 - just aft of me, it was the mirror-image of mine. Just aft of him was the cabin steward galley area. Why did I book that room for him? Consider: He snores. LOUD. I mean, we're talking some serious chainsaw action here. He can sleep through a hurricane (and has done so in the past). Noise from the galley wouldn't be an issue, and I wouldn't want to inflict his snoring on anyone but me. 😐

No, but it was so smooth it didn't warrant any mention. You can see the magnetometer and x-ray stations way in the back of the lobby picture (it's a wide-angle lens so it looks further away than it was). Interestingly, my brother always sets the scanner off at airports - it didn't happen here. thx... --bruce T.

EMBARKATION AND LUNCH Content warning: The Key will be discussed here. It works well for us as far as logistics with my brother - for example, getting him on early and out of the embarkation crush of people. Your mileage may vary; strong opinions telling us what a waste of money the key is will be cheerfully scrolled past. We walked onto the ship - still in a daze - and as Key purchasers, headed off to drop our carry-on bags. We were a little early for our "Exclusive welcome lunch in the Main Dining Room featuring the Chops Grille® menu", so we wandered around until heading for the MDR for an 11:30 seating. It was here that the wheels became a little loose on the bus (albeit they didn't fall off). We were seated almost 20 minutes late; I could see many looks of consternation among the restaurant managers, with a bunch of servers standing there waiting. Eventually, we were let in and taken to a nice table. Well, sort of nice: What could it be? A wayward cigar ash from the previous diner? Grease from the engineering spaces? Damfino, but I wasn't gonna do a scratch and sniff to find out. It was pretty minor in the scheme of things, so I ordered - a Caesar's salad for me with mac & cheese, and a dry-aged burger with mac & cheese for my brother. The drink order was a virgin pina colada for him and a Diet Coke for me. After about 20 minutes, the appetizers came out. He had the soup (very good), and I had my salad. The dressing was so watery that I could swirl it around the bottom of the salad bow; no exaggeration, drops of it it actually splattered while I was eating. We still had no drinks - only water, and we were out of that - so I asked the next server (our waiter had disappeared) for our drink order. I received this: Yep, that's an honest-to-God can of Diet Coke - delivered to me with a glass of ice. To be clear: I had never seen cans of Diet Coke on a ship before, and I certainly wouldn't have expected one at an "Exclusive welcome lunch in the Main Dining Room featuring the Chops Grille® menu". But, I was not gonna let this get in the way of enjoying my cruise! Clearly, they were having some service issues... but it was gonna get better. After finishing our appetizers and another 20 minutes of waiting, no main course had arrived. I grabbed another server and asked them for a bread bowl. I mean, Chops has freaking great bread... that should hold us, right? The family at the next table agreed, and we both awaited our freshly-baked goodness: The bread came with a side order of apology. "I'm sorry, we have no butter... it is still being loaded." And thus started another 15 minute wait. The family at the next table gave up - I think they felt bad about seeing their child gnaw on a dry roll, and I think they headed to the Windjammer. Us? We're hard core... and now it was the principle of the thing! So after our main courses arrived - another watery salad arrived with a small portion of cold mac & cheese, we decided to cut our losses and skip desert. By this time the cabins had been announced as available - yes, that's how long it took! A side note: I was so amused by this that I posted it on the Facebook group for Royal Caribbean Galveston. And thus, the krakken were released: "Not uncommon on ships Minimal butter at breakfast this morning. Stuff happens." Uh yeah, but this is branded as Chops? "OMG Life threatening issue Better ask for a refund" Ummmm, no. "have you never run out of something? Between product limitations, delivery, etc. no business plans to disappoint customers. Things happen. Where has patience and understanding gone? This is not a life threatening issue." Ummmmm, it wasn't. "I hear Carnival is nice this time of year. Perhaps they’ll take your key? And not only do they have butter, but they serve real butter croissants not the margarine ones that Royal serves. And they serve real crab meat in the crab cakes in the main dining room. Royal has begun serving imitation crab in Chops...(many more words followed)" This person seamed tense. "It figures the most cruisers like you don’t understand that the Cruise Line has to restock its entire inventory of food and supplies after every trip! This is when they Off Load the Cruise Passengers and On Load the Next Cruise Passengers in a 8-10 Hour period! If you wanted bread and butter you should have ate before you got on board the cruise ship! Now I see the uppity side of the privileged cruisers on RC!" When others pointed out to this gentleman that he was being a bit rude, he responded with "Then get the F off the ship and don’t take the Cruise." Children, children... The moral of the story? Some will go with brand loyalty over questioning service quality. As for me, I had 3.9 days of cruising left - nothing was gonna keep me from enjoying it.

CHECK-IN I had already checked in and uploaded copies of our documents and pictures online, so I expected that things would be like they were last December - we'd have a quick stop at the desk to show our passports and paperwork, let 'em swipe my CC, etc. So, you can imagine my amazement when we were met at the top of the elevator with a friendly port rep who took a picture of our passport pages and scanned our (printed) sea passes... then told us that we could board immediately, and have a great vacation. Total time spent: less than 5 minutes. No bovine excrement - I was waiting for something to go wrong. I mean, it can't be this easy, right? Well, it was... and we found ourselves taking a short walk through the waiting area. Total time from walking in the terminal to boarding the ship: 15 minutes (including the stop top take a few pictures and put paperwork & passports away).

THE PORT We arrived about 10:15 am for a 10:30 - 11 boarding slot. After dropping off our bags in front of the terminal, we headed for the parking lot. We had paid for port parking - North Premium Lot, Covered Parking. Yeah, it was a little more expensive than our past port parking - $88 with our coupon. But, when you can step out of your car and see this from your front bumper... well, life is good: A short walk from the car and we were inside!

INTRODUCTION Hello, folks! I wanted to throw a few quick impressions of this Adventure sailing down for people to consume & regurgitate as needed. I booked this cruise back in September. We did a 7-day last December on Liberty; when I saw the very attractive price on this 4-day sailing, I knew I couldn't pass it up. I cruise with my older mentally-disabled brother; as his caregiver, taking breaks like this is important for my well-being. 😁 So, off we go! PRE-DEPARTURE LOGISTICS Our first stop in the morning was the Mart of Pets to drop the girls off in their hotel and spa. The PetSmart staff was very good at sending me pictures every day about how much they were enjoying life without us: While we did miss them, I wasn't all that bothered by a vacation from them. 😀 So, knowing they were safe and spending Daddy's money... we headed down to Galveston. THE DRIVE So, we're pretty lucky - we live about 80 miles away from the port. Even so, the drive took a good two hours. People driving in on the morning of the cruise - or flying in to George Bush Intercontinental Airport - need to keep traffic in mind with regard to travel times. Hobby Airport is a little better, since it's on the south side - but you will still run into the (endless) construction on I-45 between Houston and Galveston. That was a little better this time, but you have been warned! For anyone traveling in from out of state and not taking the RCL transfer, I'd really recommend flying in the day before and staying in one of the hotels just outside of Galveston. If you're flying in, you can stay & turn in an Avis or Enterprise car in La Marque / Texas City. There are numerous options for transportation from there to Galveston the next day. --bruce T.

We had a table for 2 on Liberty last year. --bruce T.

They'll be happy to help him carry his food to the table. If you're unsure or don't know who to ask, look for someone wearing epaulets... they'll have a couple of them roaming the Windjammer at any given time. --bruce T.

Yeah, this right here! Not only will they approve the device, but they may even provide an extension cord so you can use it in bed or on the couch. --bruce T.

That's high on my list, but that's not it. The one I'm thinking of is kind of a techno-beat with an autotuned female singing "Merry Christmas" and random forgettable lyrics. It may be from one of the holiday movies that I try to avoid at all costs - everyone knows that the only REAL holiday movie other than "It's A Wonderful Life" is "Die Hard".😅 --bruce T.

Welcome to Cruise Critic! 🤣 --bruce T.

Hence my original post. 🤣 There is one song in particular that is particularly grating... --bruce T.

Ok, a fun and pointless question: where could I find the playlist for the background music on RCL's US-based Christmas sailings? Particularly last year. This is necessary for an argument with my friends about what the most annoying Christmas song in the world is. I intend to win. 🤣 thx... --bruce T.

I'd recommend Royal's cruise transfer from IAH. Not knowing more details, it's hard to say. On a weekday, the travel time can be up to 2 hours with traffic; on the weekend up to about an hour 15. ALL of that is before any construction delays - both en route and at the airport. We don't know whether your flight is international (2 hr checkin) or not. If it were me, I'd want to be on the road by 8:30 or 9 to be safe. Again, your best bet is the RCL transfer. Not really; you're gonna see very little of Texas. If they a Shipley's Do-Nut in your terminal, get a couple of kolaches and/or chewy donuts for the drive. Or, maybe everyone on the bus can mutiny and get the driver to stop at Buc-ee's. 🤣 Good luck! --bruce T.

On Liberty, it was in the main dining room - I believe it was deck 5, but I might be wrong on that. --bruce T.

Unpopular opinion here: if they were really serious about the muster drill, they would not sell alcohol until after muster was completed. I will now duck & cover! --bruce T.

You've already seen some of the comments about radio functionality (or lack thereof) on cruise ships. There are additional considerations in some countries if you use them in port. For example: Mexico: allows unlicensed use of US FRS radios (they're low-power with 2 watts output or less output), but US GMRS radios and/or radios >2 watts are not permitted without licensing. Canada: US FRS can be used, but GMRS can only be low-power and in half-duplex mode. Bermuda: US FRS and GMRS both not legal to use (same in the UK and Europe). Too technical? If you want to go ahead with this, stick with FRS - read the packaging carefully to make sure it if FRS only, and look for the power output (see below for an example). Good luck! --bruce T.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this! 🤣 --bruce T.

33 years of such vacations allowed me to take & enjoy those vacations - as well as support my "permanent" vacation in retirement. --bruce T.

I've sailed on: Celebrity: Summit, Eclipse Royal: Anthem, Freedom, Liberty I'd go with Freedom OTS. Similar in physical size to Eclipse, just more pax. Anthem had a lot to offer, but it just felt more crowded at times. --bruce T.

Or lean back against the wall (if you're in the bathroom) and slide down it. Don't worry about raking pictures off the wall or knocking the towel rail off, they can be fixed later. --bruce T.

Now you have to come back... the trifecta of cruising out of Galveston, stopping at Buc-ee's, and drinking Ozarka makes you an honorary Texan! --bruce T.