abbydancer2003

Hello. A little over a week ago, I pointed you to my Royal Liver from. Yesterday, we moved over to the Apex, and here's the live. I'm posting all of yesterday, including the early morning on the Symphony. So today we move from our first Royal Caribbean and Symphony of the Seas cruises to our first cruise on the Celebrity Apex. We woke up around 7. Breakfast closed at 8 and that would give us enough time to get ready to go, and do one last check of the room. Last night I had a bit of a worry as it said my air tag was in Fort Lauderdale. I don’t see how I could have left it in the hotel though, so we’ll see. After double-checking everything, we headed to breakfast. The restaurant was busy and the lounge was packed. I wasn’t quite sure how we’d know when to leave, but soon we heard an announcement for self assist and early luggage tags. I had Rice Krispies and bacon. I asked for banana with my cereal, and Rowella (the server) wasn’t sure they still had any. When it arrived, she said I did get the last one. After we were done, we stayed at the table drinking coffee, since there was nowhere in the lounge area to sit and breakfast was over. At one point, Glen went to the restroom, and I went to say goodbye to some people we’d met, and when we got back to the table, the coffee was gone. At about 9:10, our late luggage tag group was called. We headed down and joined the line to leave. It moved fast and we were soon in the terminal collecting our luggage and heading through customs. It was facial recognition, so very fast. Next stop, the transfer area. There were two.lines, one for Fort Lauderdale and one for Miami. I asked someone official and they had no idea what I was talking about. They couldn’t find our names, partly because I think they were looking at the end of the alphabet. No matter, they said they’d take us last, and told us to wait with the Miami people. (Note: When we used a transfer on Celebrity to get from Miami to Fort Lauderdale airport, we had the same issue that all buses went to the local airport). Eventually, I asked someone else, and he told me to wait by the buses. Then he asked a driver if they’d take us, and he said yes, so he had us drop our bags in front of the bus (to make sure they were at the front when we got dropped), He told us to board the bus in the front seat. So we waited. After about 20 minutes, the driver came on and said we were waiting for 10 people, two groups of 5. One had cleared customs and the other was still in. After another 10 minutes or so six people got on. Then the other guy said that we were waiting for 19 people. One of the official people said that the terminal was cleared, yet we still waited. One guy got off and talked to them, apparently we were waiting for the rest of their group. A few minutes later the driver asked him to call the other people. The person did, and reported the rest would take an Uber, so we were able to leave. I think all told it was 30-40 minutes. A Lfyt, if we were willing to wait 15 minutes, would have been around $8.00. If we ever do this again, we’ll get ourselves there. Fortunately terminal 25 was our first stop. We did notice a walkway along the route but it would have been a very uncomfortable walk. At the terminal, they directed the bus to the end of the drive, and they dropped us, and our luggage with a porter. Things went very smoothly from there, we entered the terminal, turned left for retreat, our boarding passes were checked, and we were escorted to an elevator. In the checkin area, we were checked in and boarded right away. First stop was our room, to drop our backpacks. Our “off the ship” overnight bag was checked). Before we got out of the room to go to the lounge, the head butler, Dharma came and introduced himself. We talked about what the service would be and he said we could always call him. I told him I wanted the minibar emptied (turned out all that was there was one coke) and we wanted to put water, coke and ginger ale in it. He said that the host would provide and refresh the water. Next stop was up to deck 15 for the retreat lounge. I wanted to try to get a reservation for Rooftop Garden Grill on San Juan night, and had been completely unsuccessful with the shoreside concierge. I had to wait a few minutes as the person there was helping three people ahead of me with the internet, but once I got there she was able to get us 8:00pm. Perfect, and no big deal. At 12:20, the moderator of the Facebook group, and my new friend texted about the Facebook lunch meet up. We headed down and joined 4 other people. I started with the kale salad with romaine instead of kale. IT was good. For my main, I had the steak frites, and it didn’t disappoint. There are new desserts. Glen had the Dark Chocolate and Dulce de leche mousse-like thing. I had the new Apple Berry cobbler. It was good and better than the thing they used to have. After lunch there was supposed to be 2:30 Facebook meetup, but by then, it had started raining, Cindy and I went there to see if it would be feasible (it wasn’t). We then wandered around the upper deck trying to figure out if we could do it. We couldn’t. The next challenge was to figure out how to get back in. Fortunately, Glen came out from the retreat area, and we could get back in that way. We agreed to meet for dinner at 8:30, and headed back to the room. I took my phone down to deck 4 (I think) and spoke to my sister for a while. On the way there, I met Shaun or room steward. I guess, since all the rooms in this area are sky suites, he’s actually a retreat host. When I got back, our luggage had arrived. By the way, my air tag was there. Soon after we started our grand ship tour. First some room pictures of the room. The bed. The balcony. Notice the lack of Kelly Hoppen tchacis. (There’s one. It’s an odd shaped vase like thing. I’m using it to store things. The really nice bathtub. Not too high to climb into. Here’s the entrance to some of the dining rooms. Ramdom hallway art. I think this piece is backwards. The funhouse mirrors leading to Blue and Eden. After our tour, we headed back to the lounge. They had their evening bites, which are exactly the same as on the S and M class - basically charcuterie plus glasses of nuts and potato chips. I decided to show them what Royal offers, and when I went to the desk, I realized that concierge Yulia was in fact the same Yulia who was there on the Equinox with us in 2021. We chatted for a bit about things. It was nice to see her. Next up getting ready for the evening. We decided to go to the 7:00 pm show. We got there around 15 minutes early per head butler recommendation. There were lots of seats so, since the stage is round, we went to the second row on the side. We moved in a couple of seats, because there was a family with.a small child behind us. However just before showtime, a couple sat down. I mentioned that there was a tiny little girl behind them (still lots of seats) and all they said was “OK”, and stayed. Then a group sat right in front of me, block my view, so I went the first row. The show was called “Tree of life, and it was a standard production show with a theme of seasons around a tree (only stage prop). The screens behind it displayed the changing seasons. Kind of cool, but no story. Some pictures. After that we went back to the lounge to wait for our 8:30 dinner. At 8:20 Cindy texted they were at the table. We headed down and joined them at a table in an alcove behind the entry. Our waiter came and told us the main dining every day was available. I started with main dining onion soup. For may main I had the New York steak with Cabernet sauce: Doesn’t exactly look like a NY steak. For dessert, I tried the citrus orange sponge. The picture didn’t come out, but it was a spongy bit of orange and some citrus slices. Not bad, actually. We enjoyed some talk after dinner and then back to the room for the night. The ship was rocking a lot, so taking a shower was fun. Glen took the first one and explained how all the pieces worked. He did say to wait for it to get warm. Once I did it was nice. I finished the night with a Facebook chat with someone down the hall. We’ll have drinks tomorrow night.

I haven't abandoned this. I tried to post last night, but something went wrong, so I'll try again in a day or two. Thanks

We boarded the Apex yesterday, and so far, it's good. The head butler came in and introduced himself as we were dropping our bags off. I mentioned that I wanted the minibar emptied, because I wanted to put bottled water (not Evian, I don't like it, coke and ginger ale in it. He said he'd have the room guy make sure we had water, and a couple hours later, he delivered two cans of coke and two of ginger ale. Turns out all that was in the refrig was a can of coke, but that was gone and there were 3 bottles of water in the room. Two more bottles were added this morning. Today, we had some issues attaching our Roku ie we couldn't get our remote to work, so I called him. While I was still trying to explain it, he was at the door and told us how to use the supplied remote. I have not yet tried any food delivery. And a friend had the pigs feet thing and thought it was delicious. I think I'm going to get a little tired of onion soup and NY steak by the end. I'm thinking maybe for future cruises we'll sometimes go to dinner elsewhere, and use Luminae for breakfast and lunch.

Good plan. BTW, there was a sign in the shuttle about charges, but they don't apply to airport pickup. We were there after a cruise ending in Miami, and decided to spend the night (sometimes when it's either a very late flight, or too early, we'll do that. We used a Celebrity transfer to FLL, and then grabbed the shuttle from there. Enjoy!

For that hotel, you probably need a car, since it's about 20 minutes from the airport. We did once stay at the Airport Marriott after a cruise. It's nice. It has an M club on the lobby level, and it's also across the street from an outdoor mall with lots of food choices, and (if memory serves) an ice cream kiosk. I'd stay there again.

Symphony/Apex Day 4 - Falmouth Jamaica We decided today to wake up in time for breakfast with time added to put out the laundry. We fill the 34.99 bag (I forgot to take a picture, but from memory it’s socks, pajamas, underwear, tee shirts and swimwear). We put everything but 3 polo shirts and two long sleeve shirts in. We put those in a separate bag, since we had some OBC we’re not using. We enjoyed breakfast - Glen tried the Eggs Baja and reported they were good, and I had French toast and bacon. They did serve a hash brown with it, which is a little strange, although their hash brown is very good. After breakfast we went to our room and got our stuff, backpack, wallet, photo id and sunscreen. Going back to the elevator bank Jennie was running an express elevator, and we disembarked quickly. Boom, I realized I left my phone in the room, so back I went. They didn’t make me go through security and I found it and went back down. We walked through the port area, and on the way stopped at a gift shop to buy a small bag of JBM coffee. Someone in the store said it was cheaper outside the port, but Glen was already paying for it. If we love it, we’ll start buying online from home. Walking towards the Port exit, there were various signs explaining Jamaica history. The last one was about their most famous person - Usain Bolt. Apparently he’s from nearby and shows up to visit occasionally. Once outside, I navigated us to something google maps said was a clothing store. It was about a 6 block walk from the port exit, but there was nothing there. Along the way, we’d noticed what appeared to to be a clothing store, so we went there, Nope, very small and current stuff. Oh well. I did ask about coffee and she pointed us to a supermarket down the street. Turned out no coffee there except instant. I’d noticed a store called Englishmans and navigation said it was just down the street. We went in and there were a bunch of ties behind the counter. Glen picked out a blue one, we paid the very nice owner 10.00 and tie problem solved! I asked him where to get JBM at a decent price, and he said just at the port exit, so we waked back. Right by the exit there was a little market area with little gift stalls. A woman who had one asked us to come in, and we did, but asked for coffee. She took us to a friend’s stall and we got another small bag, this one for less. Again, we’ll see when we get home if we like it enough to order it. (We do get 2 pounds every other month from Kona). We also went to the stall of our "guide" and bought a magnet, a shirt and a dress for Caribbean night tonight. She was very helpful and we were happy to help her out. Did we overpay? Maybe, but it wasn't a lot for what we got. After that we headed back to the ship, put our purchases in the room and headed to lunch. It wasn’t very busy so we sat in a different part of the restaurant. We both started with snap pea salad. Notice what’s not there? Looks like an arugula salad to us. We asked our server and she took them back. What came back was pretty much the same, but with julienned strips of peas, some with very tiny peas, in them, but still mostly arugula. The lemon dressing was good though. For my main, I ordered steak frites, which was steak with bearnaisse sauce and truffled fries. The fries had a lot of cheese on them, and there was roasted garlic on the steak. It was decent. For dessert, I ordered floating island, which is meringue served floating on a light custard sauce. I’m used to it on Princess, where it’s several little cookie size meringue pieces in a very flight sauce, and they do float. Here, it’s not that. Glen’s comment was it’s the Island of Montserrat. It was meringue and it was pretty good though. From lunch we headed to the aft on deck 15 and actually rode the Ultimate Abyss down to deck 6. There were only about 6 people ahead of us, and it was quick and fun. (It’s the 10 story slide - not a water slide, but a covered slide).. OK it was a lot of fun. After lunch we went back to the room, and I decided to try to find some real coffee, not the espresso machine at the lounge. I first went to the buffet, but it turns out they are completely closed, except for extended meal times (both X and Princess have some food offering all day). So I looked at my app and found that Park Cafe on deck 8 might be likely, so I went there. I found a line of people getting food, so I asked a worker about coffee, she pointed it out and told me that yes, it’s included. So I got a cup but couldn’t find to go cups. Another worker told me to just take the cup back with me. Yay. By this time it was getting on time to leave, so I went to the balcony and watched the Holland America ship (Koningsdam I think) head out. Then I met Deanna, our next door neighbor and we chatted as we watched a few people running right around all aboard, but they didn’t need to do that, as it turned out, as there were several buses caught behind a major accident on the main road back (we could see backed traffic and emergency lights from our balcony), so the ship waited. I figured at least 50 people. While watching, I noticed a stilt walker going by. Kind of cool. Once we departed, we got dressed for dinner, and headed to the lounge for a quick snack, and then to Hiro, the water show. It’s probably the most amazing show I’ve ever seen on a ship. Acrobats, dancers, divers, rope walkers. hHere are some pictures: preshow Aerialist - slightly. Blurry no flash Slightly less blurry aerialist It ended just before 8, so we wandered to the forward elevators, and then to Central Park for a bit. We headed to the room before dinner, and found a companion towel animal. We left for dinner around 8:20 and were seated quickly. Silvu, our Romanian waiter took care of us. We both started with a caprese salad, which they called Tomato Mozzarella. I asked Silvu if they had a thing for arugula. Without missing a beat he said “yes”. For my main, I had beef short ribs. Another thing they seem to like at this restaurant. It was good, and presented sort of like a bourguignon, but with polenta instead of potatoes. It was pretty good. For dessert, we both had ricotta cheesecake, which was also good. It was a slice of very light cheesecake. Tonight was supposed to be the best night of the current meteor shower. We went on the balcony after dinner to see it, but it wasn’t great so we walked to the suite sundeck but no good views their either. By this time, clouds were coming in, so we gave up. Back at the room, we opened the curtains, as it was getting late. I went onto the balcony and watched the sky for a while, and then went in and to bed when it started raining. Sea day tomorrow.

Symphony/Apex Day 3. - Labadee We weren’t in any hurry to get to shore, so we decided not to set an alarm. We woke up around 8:30, and Glen decided to take a shower, so we missed breakfast. View of Labadee Our concierges said that up until 10:00 they would escort us to the gangway, and once on shore someone would be there to take us on a tram to the Suite area of the island. So at about 9:40 we went to the lounge for coffee and pastries. At about 9:55, Jennie took us down in a dedicated elevator, and we headed to the aft gangway. This ship is very long, so our walk off the pier was surprisingly long. Once on shore, we asked where we could get the tram to Barefoot Beach, the suite area. They directed us to further along the main area, and we found people we recognized from our tour yesterday who were also in a suite, so we hopped on the tram. After a short drive we were directed off. At the entrance to the beach there was a checking kiosk, and we got wristbands. We wandered in and found a couple of shaded beach chairs, and sat for a while. About 10:40 we decided to walk around the Island. We saw the coaster, the water park, and the zip lines. Apparently on the zip lines there’s a short “training line”, and then you get on a truck to take you to the top of the regular zip line. We opted not to do any of it. If you look, you can see people on the zip line. We then headed back to the suite area, where they had their own (unadvertised on the map) buffet line. We sat for a few and then got lunch. It was OK. I had a burger, a single shrimp with cocktail sauce (my mini shrimp cocktail) Following lunch, we headed back to the ship. I got a coke, and a couple of bottles of water for the room, and then settled down to study for my test. This involved reading a bunch of lectures, and accessing several short online lectures by various history professors. I’ve discovered that reviewing everything just before a test is the best way to do well. And on the multiple choice I got 24/25 so clearly it works. There are also two essays that will be graded later. This all took until roughly 5:15. The last view of Haiti. I actually took this to send to my professor, to show him where we were. In my last class from him, I took the final in Tierra del Fuego. So we dressed for white night dinner (I happened to have a white skirt that I take with me, so it worked, out, and Glen had a white shirt. We headed to the lounge for a snack, since lunch had been very early. On this one, I have to give a big edge (pardon the pun) to Royal. Here’s what their spread looks like. On every X ship I've been on there's the same stuff every night, cheese, meat and crackers and some nuts. At around 6:10 we left for for our next show, Hairspray. I’ve seen the musical professionally, so I thought it would be interesting on a ship. It was possibly the most well done show I’ve seen on a ship. The presentation wasn’t much different than what we saw, and the cast was great. (Maybe not quite as good as professionally, but still great. I only have two minor quibbles with it. First, it is cut a little bit from the stage play, but it’s still 90 minutes without an intermission, which is longish. Of course I’ve seen Six, which is also 90 minutes with no intermission, and that bothered me less. Maybe it’s because I liked Six more, and I’ve already seen this. That brings up the second quibble. I’m not sure this is entirely appropriate for small children, because 90 is a lot, and there are some inappropriate jokes. (Although most likely, the inappropriate ones will go right over their little heads). But overall we enjoyed it a lot, and were very impressed. After the show, we walked through the Royal Promenade to the forward elevators. There was a great band playing on the stage there, and that leads me to what I think for us is the biggest issue with booking Royal again, or at least the Oasis ships. Great dance band, no dance floor. On Celebrity, on the M class, Ensemble has a good floor, and on S class, you can dance in the Atrium. As far as I can tell, the only place to dance is Boleros, and their floor is a bit slippery for dancing. We have yet to make the occasional Recorded Ballroom music there. So we eventually made it upstairs, and to dinner. And I completely forgot to take pictures. But Glen started with what they called Beef Gnocchi. It was a slab of short rib with 4 little gnocchis on the side. I had a spinach salad, which had three large pieces of unadvertised roasted garlic on the side. (Glen put one on his bread). For entrees he tried fried tofu (good for him) and I had veal cannelloni. Dessert for both of us was what they called an ivory mousse with peppermint ice cream. Our waiter suggested that we switch the ice cream for raspberry sorbet. I did but Glen decided to brave the ice cream. Turns out waiter was spot on with this, as it did taste like toothpaste. Glen then got some raspberry sorbet. Tomorrow is Falmouth, and for us, a chance to pick up some stuff. We called it a night at that point. Tomorrow's cruise compass:

Oh yeah, it's been so long that I'd forgotten that the lounge was closed on weekends. (When my sister and I cruised in 17,18 and 19 I got a free night each year that was good at a Marriott in North Fort Lauderdale, so we'd stay there.

Osteria Acqua e Ferina. There used to be Goergios (something like that) in the shopping center across the street, but that closed )during the pandemic I think).

Symphony/Apex Day 2 - Sea Day We had an early start today, so we had an alarm set for 7:45. We had the backstage ship tour at 9:00 and we wanted breakfast. It’s convenient having two bathrooms, although today is really the only day on this cruise where we need to get up early. By 8:15 we were ready to go. We went to Coastal Kitchen and were seated quickly. We both had eggs, bacon and hash browns. At about 8:50 we took the elevator down to main dining on floor 5, and found the shore Excursion people. We got checked in and waiting until 9:15. I found our assigned table, and was relieved that it was a table for 2, so by not being there, we inconvenienced nobody. At about 9:15, Mu, our guide introduced herself. She told us the tour would take about 2 hours, with several flights of stairs, but not from deck 3 to the bridge. Our first stop was the dining room on deck 4. A head waiter gave us an introduction to dining operations, and how to work your way up from entry level (dining attendant) to Head of food and beverage. He then introduced one of the chefs who took us to the galley. We saw dishwashing stations, the cooking area and the baking area. Of course this tour is when the bakers are working, but only a little prep going on. Here’s the line where the waiters collect the different courses. And the bakery is in full swing. Next stop was provisioning, where they store and distribute food and drink. We went in to the chilly fruit room, where there were actually grocery store size boxes of berries. Next we went into the chicken freezer, which was very cold. Apparently for a one week cruise they will load 12,000 pounds of chicken. And, yes, they occasionally run out of things.. They order a few months in advance, based on the make up of the guests and crew. (Apparently the percent of some nationalities will slightly change the order. Following the visit to provisioning we headed to the engine control room, which they called the brains of the operation. One of the officers there gave a fairly detailed talk on how it works - fortunately today there wasn’t a retired engineer who wanted to dig very deep (that seems to happen every time I do one of these). It was interesting and we learned there are 6 engines and 3 azipods. The gentleman in the picture below pretty much ignored us the whole time, doing his job. The provisioning and engine room were along the major crew corridor of I 95. She didn’t point out a whole lot except the corner of the crew Buffet. Apparently if, when the passenger one closes, unused (ie, still in tray) food is brought down there. Then it was down the stairs, below the water line, to the laundry. We saw the folding machines and the washing machines. They do crew laundry and guest laundry there as well as towels, sheets, tablecloths, etc. Apparently towels have to be hand folded, but the rest can be machine folded. Following that, we walked back up to the passenger elevators and headed to the bridge. Random art picture from the elevator. They decided to not do another security screening before the bridge, since they’d done one less than an hour before, and we headed to the bridge. Mu took us to one of the wing control areas, and in this case the bridge was mostly roped off (we do have a picture of Glen in the Captain’s chair, wearing his hat, from Princess), and she gave the informattion. On X and Princess, an officer does come over to explain it. The captain did stop by to talk to us and answer a few questions on rotations. Random bridge picture. After we left the bridge, we ended the tour in the elevator lobby. We did get two souvenirs of our visit. First a fact sheet about the ship (2759 staterooms, max 6,680 guests - I think she said we have about 6400). She also gave us: Inside is the little rope in the picture and instructions for knots, as well instructions to set a table. Not close to what Princess gives you, but Celebrity gives you nothing, except the lanyard. Celebrity takes the “All Acmes” badge back, but here we got to keep it as a luggage tag. We headed back to the room for a bit, and ran into our stateroom attendant and asked for a feather pillow for me, as the two they have are too bouncy for me. He deliver it soon after. After that, we headed to lunch in Coastal Kitchen. I started with tomato soup, which may have been the same soup as last night. It was served with two small Crouque Monsieur sandwiches, I removed the ham and they were yummy cheese sandwiches. I also had a penne pasta with mushroom sauce. For dessert I had a favorite, key lime pie. After lunch we hung in the room for a while, and I worked on the blog, and read cruise critic. Our first pre-reserved show as at 4:00pm, the ice show. We got there just after 3:30, which was a little earlier than we needed to. It was fun, and the skating was pretty good, but not a lot of content (the rink is pretty small though) and I’d say there were falls on about 1/2 of the double jump attempts. (On the other hand, I’ve never landed a double except on a harness). There was a story but it was hard to follow. My view is that if your show needs a narrative intro, it’s too complicated. All that said, we did enjoy it. There were a lot of people trying to get into the elevators, so we headed up to the boardwalk and rode the carousel. On the way to the elevators there’s the piece of art that looks like a wig. Apparently if you stand in it, you hear music. Glen tried it. We went back to the room after that to get ready for formal night. Glen then realized that he didn’t pack his ties. He went to the lounge to ask the concierges if there was somewhere he could buy one. Apparently not, so Jennie, went to find one for him to borrow (apparently one of the staff in the lounge offered to give him hers to use, but he didn’t want her to be out of uniform. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Jennie had come through! We will try to buy one in either Falmouth or Nassau. Once ready, we headed down to Central Park and the Royal Promenade to see if there was anywhere that might have a tie. There wasn’t. We did notice the Rising Tide Bar, that apparently movies between those two. It claims to be the moving bar at sea. I believe that the Symphony and X Edge came out the same year, and Edge had the Magic Carpet, but that’s only a bar on one deck, so I guess Royal is right. We went to the lounge for a drink and light snack before dinner. Tomorrow, I’ll take pictures of the spread, but it’s a lot more complete than the retreat lounge on X (at least on M & S class). It’s more like a hotel spread. For dinner I started with beef tartare, a little better than X, and RC’s version of a ribeye. As some know, the ribeye on Celebrity is a center eye cut (something like that) and not a ribeye as we know it. As you can see, this is a ribeye, and a good one. For dessert, I had rosewater panna cotta. It was pretty good. It’s advertised with an almond tulle, No sign of the almond. That was a piece of chocolate. Glen had the mascarpone cheesecake. It had ice cream with it. He liked it. In general, the food has been good. After dinner, I worked on the blog for a bit, and we called it a night. Nothing early tomorrow, so we can sleep in. However when we got back to the room, we had this: Towel animals are rare for me, but I’ve had a few on Princess. First time we did the room steward offered to let us take them home, but they’d eventually fall apart and we’d just have some extra towels that matched nothing. Finally, here’s the Cruise Compass daily planner. I can barely read it, but here you go:

So far, no charges against our whopping 150.00 OBC. We're doing laundry tomorrow, partly because we need enough clothing to get our first of 4 free loads on Celebrity back, and partly because we're mostly hanging out in the suite lounge and drinking wine and beer, so not racking up drink charges yet. And my final is finished! I spent most of the afternoon studying and it paid off. There are 2 essay questions and 25 multiple choice. The MC are instantly graded, and I got 24/25. The class by the way, is junior college American History 19th century. Anything you want to know about the civil war, reconstruction, the railroad barons, or our bad behavior towards Native Americans I can tell you. (I took the final for the 16-18 century class in Tierra del Fuego - I love starlink.) Updates will resume tomorrow.

35.00 or so and whatever you can fit, but it's a limited set of things. When I get ready to fill it out, I'll post a picture. And FYI - I'm exhausted, and hoped to finish todays tonight, but that's not gonna happen. I may not post tomorrow (Tuesday) because I have a final to take tomorrow night, but I'll be back after that! Thanks

Back after a few days of crazy. Saturday we flew to Ft. Lauderdale, and Sunday we boarded the Symphony OTS. So far it's nice, but we're in a suite (lower of the suite classes but a suite) and it's nice. It's busy and huge, with a lot of kids, but there's a lot of venues for everyone. On Saturday we get off and go to the Apex. Originally, we had the Edge booked for the New Zealand cruise followed by the Great Barrier reef cruise next moth. We moved it to March of 2025, which I'm now relieved about, since a lot can happen in a year. Looking forward to hearing about New Zealand.

Finishing boarding day ... On our way to our room after lunch, we met our two room stewards, both from Indonesia. They were very friendly and helpful. I also asked about doing some laundry, since we don’t have quite enough to get us onto the Apex and get a first load back. They’ll bring me a “load of laundry” bag. Next, Glen finished his unpacking, and suitcases are now under the bed. Of course once I put mine there, I realized I forgot to do one thing. I wanted to get the luggage tag switch done at the start of the cruise, so I don’t forget. My plan is to carry the tags in my purse or backpack on Saturday, and remove the RCI disembarkation tags once we’re waiting for the ride (I will of course detail that on Saturday), and put these on. I had to dig out the ones I didn’t use, because we’ll have an extra small bag for our overnight stuff. After I got that set, and Glen finished packing, we decided it was time to tour the ship. Since we were on Deck 17, we started with 16 and worked our way down. This took a good two hours, as compared to anything we’ve been on, this ship is huge. Along the way we decided we’d do the rock wall, the big slide, maybe the water slides, definitely not the flow riders, the carousel, and maybe mini golf. I think that’s it, but maybe I’ll remember something else. We did see a lot of people on pool decks, and a lot in the spa for a raffle, but here and there I we were in lobbies or venues alone or with few others. For example, walking through Dazzles, there were a couple of people reading or on electronics in there. Here are a few highlights, in no particular order: Ship view from Boardwalk View from an elevator lobby View of X Ascent from outside promenade. This is better than on X, as it goes all the way around outside. It is behind the lifeboats, but I could still get pictures. This is a view of the Royal Promenade. Balloons positioned for the balloon drop later on. More Art in lobbies. After the walking tour we went back to the room for a while. Glen napped, and I did some things on my laptop, including this. At about 7 we got dressed for dinner and headed to the lounge for a drink. It wasn’t terribly busy, I’ve seen nothing official about 60 drinks we get without a drink package. My understand is from 11-11 we get water, soda, beer and wine at no charge in the lounge (and espresso drinks from the machine), and from 5-8 a limited set of happy hour drinks. We also have 4 drinks a day from our status match. We’re not heavy drinkers, so I guess we’ll see what happens. At a little after 8 we decided to head to Bolero’s and see if there’s dance music. On the way, we stopped at one of the main dining rooms, since apparently we have late seating there at 8, but we’re eating in Coastal Kitchen. They told us everyone gets a dining room assignment, and the table was ours if we ever wanted it. Good to know I guess. After that we did check out Bolero’s but the band was finishing. They have an area for dancing, but not a dance floor. We did do a cha cha to some recorded music. Then we wandered for a bit and headed to dinner. We first were seated by the bar, but at our request they moved us to a window table. Our waiter is from Romania, and was very nice. At the beginning they bring out a plate with a small scoop of hummus, olive tapenade and butter, and a basket of various breads. We’ll see if they vary by day. I started with smoked tomato soup with focaccia croutons and Parmesan. It was good. Glen started with cured salmon, after asking the waiter what it was cured of. Waiter got the joke and came back and said loneliness, because there were two pieces. I also had burrata, but the picture was too blurry. Glen shared it with me. This medium blurry picture is my grilled filet mignon. You can also see the spread plate in the back. This was actually very good. Glen had the duck breast, and liked it. I had the warm honey pear with mascarpone and Glen had the chocolate Praline Tart. Service is good, but assistant waiter almost nonexistent. After dinner, we decided to go find the suite sun deck, which is forward on 17. To do that, we had to cross at 16, So we got our raincoats, changed our shoes to sneakers (it was raining) and visited. It looks nice, but it was windy, so of course we didn’t stay. After that we called it a night, because we have an early start tomorrow. One thing I noticed is that on both Celebrity and Prices, the bathrooms are a small step up. Here, they’re flush with the floor. I almost tripped twice. I guess I’ll get used to it.

Thanks, BTW, I've always wondered why you say "Cruise Compass" when showing the daily. Now I know where it comes from. Carry on.

We stayed at the Renaissance on Saturday night. It's always been my go to hotel here, but this was a less than stellar experience. I'll talk about it again in my Apex Live on Saturday, but there are two issues. First, the lounge is still not open, over two years after the post Covid reopening. The very (plus for hotel) friendly clerk who checked us in had no idea when and if it would. She did give us water and chips though. And I get free breakfast buffet, so that was Ok. The bigger issue is that they are replacing the elevators and only one was working. Sunday is a very busy ship day (ships I saw: Symphony OTS (us), Caribbean Princess, Ruby Princess, Celebrity Ascent, Celebrity Equinox, and a Holland America - Niew Statendam I think. So elevator waits were over 5 minutes. We were on floor 10 of 12. When it came time to take our shuttle, we waited 6 minutes, and the elevator opened, no room for us, so we ended up taking the service elevator. My view was that with only one elevator, they should have only filled the hotel to no more than 2/3 capacity. We have it again in February, but I'll be calling in a month to see if elevator construction is done. It will be in my 2/9 Beyond blog. I can live with the lounge, but not the elevator.

Posting the first half of boarding day ... rest tomorrow, but we have an early start. Symphony/Apex Day 1 We’d set an alarm for 9:00. Our plan was to have breakfast, and then pack up and head to the 11:00 am shuttle. We had plenty of wiggle room, or so we thought …. We headed to breakfast around 10:00. Since we. Were last there, they’ve reopened the buffet, so we were given that (no more menu ordering for the freebie). It was fine and I had a very light bacon, eggs, one pancake and some fruit. At about 10:30 we went back to the room, packed up, and headed to the elevator at 10:44 for 11:00. Why so early? There’s one elevator out of service. We waited about 6 minutes, and the elevator came, but it was full of people and bags. At that point, I called the front desk and asked for someone to come up to get us from the service elevator. I waited by the regular elevator, and Glen by the service one, which came first. There were two people in it, and we stopped at a couple more floors and it was full with people going to ships. I guess this is high season. We went to the front of the hotel, and one of the valet people called the shuttle and told us it was on the way. What they didn’t tell us was that it doesn’t pull up to the front of the hotel (we’ve never taken it before). At 11:01, a different valet person asked us what we were doing there. When we said we were waiting for the shuttle, that’s when they told us we missed it. He did find another one and said it would be 5-7 minutes. The shuttle arrived, and several of us piled in. We left about 11:15. In the meantime, people in the Facebook group were reporting being onboard. First stop was the Caribbean Princess. There was a ton of traffic and it took about 10-15 to drop them off. Then our driver took a bunch of shortcuts through parking lots, and about 5 minutes later we were pulling up to the RC pier. Our luggage was quickly picked up, and we headed into the building. Our security took a few minutes, because the people in front took forever to get the carryons up, etc. Once past security it went well. We found the suite area, and got checked in with no wait, then headed towards the ship. There are escalators up to boarding level, and everyone going through went to the right, so we went to the left. We had a scan of our boarding passes, and then were cleared to board. I think we were the only people in the very long switchback gangway. We entered the ship just at a very crowded guest services area. A crew member looked at our passes and told us how to get to our muster station. Here’s Glen on the way: Our muster is at the Aqua theater. From there, we were told we could go up the nearby (aft) elevators to the suite area. So we did. The elevators were full, but there were a lot of them. We found the hallways to the rooms closed, (it was about 12:10, so we made good time after the shuttle) so we found the lounge. We parked there and got lattes from the machine and hung out. I met one of the concierges and took care of moving our Wonderland reservation, and letting her know about our special circumstances of debarkation. About 12:50, when finding the restroom I noticed the door to the rooms was open, so we grabbed our packs, and head out. At the elevator bank, we had a discussion about which way to go, and our room number was even so we thought we’d head right. And there were even numbers starting with room 2. Ours was 54. We went 3 quarters of the way around the suite area, and found our room because they are all even. Now we know. We opened the door, and wow! A crown loft suite is a two story suite, with a living room downstairs and bed in a loft upstairs. And there’s a bathroom on each level (when I looked at the deck plans it wasn’t clear to me there was one upstairs). Also, our luggage was in the room. Here are some pictures. The balcony from the bedroom area The entrance from the living room. The bathroom is on the right next to the door. The room from the entrance. I unpacked, and Glen started, but at about 1:15 we decided to go have lunch. We went over to the suite restaurant, Coastal Kitchen, which is co-located with the lounge. We waited a couple of minutes and then were seated at a window table with a nice view forward of one of the the kids pool area. We both started with a Caesar salad. I had short ribs, Glen had spicy spaghetti. I finished with creme brûlée, and Glen did fruit. (Good for him). Service was good, although the assistant waiter seemed less involved than I’m used to on Celebrity.

We were able to board the plane quickly and settled into our seats. Because we were in row 1, we had to put everything up. We’ll see how many times I have to get up to get stuff (turns out twice). The plane left on time, and we had a good tail wind, so the flight went quickly. Since we were in first, three days before we left, we got a notice that we could preorder breakfast. There were 5 choices. I selected a frittata and Glen a shatsuka. The flight attendant confirmed it and we got exactly what we ordered. Yes, that is actually a frittata. The egg itself was good, but the rest was meh. Spinach tasted like frozen spinach (I’ve had better on dinner plates) and the potatoes were OK if after scraping the cheese sauce off. Next time I’ll go with a waffle or French toast. We arrived at Fort Lauderdale and pulled up to the gate about 20 minutes early. Luggage was reasonably quick, and once we found the cab line, a cab was readily available. We arrived at the hotel roughly 45 minutes after landing, and 15 after the official arrival time. Yay! We’re here! I asked them about their shuttle to the ships (did we look like we were cruising? I don’t know. Luggage tags just went on), and the price is 8.00 per person. We decided a cab would be about the same, and probably, once you add tip, Uber or Lyft similar, so I went downstairs and signed us up at 11. Next week we’ll be very early for X, so no need to do that twice. We hung out in the room until about 6:45 when our friends from our Caribbean Princess cruise in September came and collected us to go to dinner. On that September cruise we’d hung out, toured and ate together a couple of times, so we’d agreed to have dinner. They’d made a reservation at an Italian restaurant that was about 5 minutes away, and we had a very nice dinner. I had a traditional entree (Chicken Piccata) but my friend and I shared a corn salad. Everyone else had pasta. Our friends have been on Harmony of the Seas and gave us some suggestions on what to do, and where to eat outside of dining rooms. After dinner, we took a walk through the shopping center across the street. There are a couple of restaurants, nail salons, and a lot of yacht sellers, all with very similar title models. I guess yachts are a big business here. Since it was night, I have no idea how much business they get. Maybe I’ll look around again when I have a day here in February. After that it was back to the room, I took care of some odds and ends, and now at 11:30 pm I’m going to bed, because it’s been a very long day.

Labadee - probably will go off, maybe have lunch and wander around. Falmouth Jamaica - get off the ship and by some JBM coffee. Nassau - just see the new terminal. See you in a week!

Symphony/Apex - Day 0 Good morning from the United Club at SFO. Unfortunately (or fortunately on the return) the time difference between the coasts means that to get to Florida in time to have a true dinner, and not something from a convenience store, you have to fly early in the day. Of course the flip is that you can get on a plane home at noon, and be home well before dinner. We have a private driver who is willing to pick us up at ridiculous hours, and he came through this time. We were up at 5 and at 5:50 he texted that he’d arrived. We finished closing up the house, and drove the 30 minutes to the airport. Check in was easy, and not too long a line, although they first put us in the premier line for service, but then, after waiting a whopping 5 minutes, they told us to go to the bag check line, and that was quick. Security was easy. We were in the recheck line and as we were going through, they opened up a new station, so almost no waiting there. The United Club was also surprisingly empty, although, now as I start to wrap up to go to the plane, it’s a lot more crowded. I’m sure someone will appreciate our soon to be empty seats.

I think side. Looking at the layout of the ship has been a bit overwhelming.

Those match my pictures (we had the fruit thing on the bottom)

Tomorrow we leave for our Side by Side on the Symphony of the Seas/Apex cruises. I decided that I'll start this over on the RC board, and then move over here next Saturday. I will probably reply here tomorrow, because people have asked about the current state of the Renaissance on 17th in Fort Lauderdale. Here's the link for anyone who is interested.

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. So here we are, two grown ups with no kids or grandkids. We did book a Crown Loft Suite, which apparently is a Sky class suite. We’ve had a very small roll call on this cruise, but others on the Royal Caribbean board (and FB) who have helped me understand things like reserving shows, etc. We are Diamond because of our Celebrity status, and light drinkers, so the included drinks and lounges should be enough that we would not need a drink package. We leave tomorrow on an 8:00 am flight, and will stay at our go to hotel, the Cruise Port Renaissance on 17th street. Very convent to the port. On Sunday, we start cruising. This is my first ever RC live thread. I hope you all will enjoy it, and I’ll try to give you my perspective as a regular Princess/Celebrity cruiser. Back to packing.

We did this version in the Infinity in March, and it was a different menu. All I remember is our entree was short ribs, and they were the best part. In fact, I just went through my pictures (drat no menu pictures) and the food looks nothing like what you had.