OCSC Mike

No worries, I've seen pictures, I just wanted to see another one. 🤣 Any other food-related highlights from Indy?

Personal preference. I can make an appointment for any day of the week for a free test at one of several Walgreens within 10 mins of me. Of course home testing seems very convenient as well.

My wife doesn't really drink so the prospect of turning any frozen drink into even more of a smoothy with a tiny bit of alcohol (or not) got her excited. Would be good for virgin drinks for kids too.

I hadn't used one in a very long time but a recent acquaintance of my wife's is one so we had her check some prices for the heck of it. Some were only a tiny bit lower than what I found myself but others were significantly cheaper so we used her for our B2B on Independence in July. I'd say get a quote from a TA then decide. Nothing to lose.

NAAT is a Rapid PCR test. Results in under 2 hours. I know one Walgreens near me doesn't have weekend testing but several do.

Someone who was on Harmony recently said the suite deck bartender suggested that she bring him fresh fruit (like a banana) from WJ and he'll toss that into the blender.

Curious why you left out Walgreens, especially near us. Still tons of appointments by me, even same day or next day.

Lava flow! 😋

Calling the Crown & Anchor # as soon as they opened here in the US worked for me recently. Not sure if that's helpful to UK residents but figured I'd share.

We do early MDR on family cruises (wife's parents like to eat early and have 2 young nieces) and it works for us b/c it leaves plenty of time to go to WJ after for more dinner/dessert. 😋

Love seeing WJ Dinner fans. Glad you enjoyed it! I feel we're in the minority. Looking forward to the cook to order stations on my 5/29 cruise.

Enjoy dinner (and tell us about it)!

Most people doing it at a facility (as opposed to at home) use the Rapid NAAT at Walgreens. Results e-mailed to you in 2 hours or less. Perfectly acceptable to RC.

No worries whatsoever.

I didn't mean to suggest that yours or anyone else's opinion wasn't valid, but this isn't like looking up something on Amazon and seeing it has 4.8/5.0 stars after 10,000 reviews. I have read and learned a ton from reading these forums but I would never avoid the WJ or MDR without trying them b/c there will always be varying opinions. That's all I meant.

Opinions are like... everyone has one. For every person that complains about something there's someone perfectly happy with it. Form your own opinions.

Independence is not a smaller ship, it's just smaller than Oasis class, and I have rarely felt the ship move on even smaller ships. It was rough seas.

Call and ask for it to be added. Our Harmony cruise at the end of this month is to celebrate my in-laws' 50th anniversary, our 20th, and my SIL's 15th. My in-laws booked it over the phone and one random night when we're doing specialty dining it says "Anniversary" or something on our booking/receipt. No one knows what, if anything, they'll do for us (sing happy anniversary?) but it's listed, lol.

We booked that Indy B2B I mentioned in your live thread b/c we enjoy Cococay and didn't care for most of the prices and itineraries out of PC this summer so we manufactured a cheap way to stop there twice. No interest in Nassau here either so we'll be stay onboard as well.

That's pretty much what we do. Walk around the stores, look for free samples of booze or food, hope my wife doesn't actually want to buy anything, get back on the ship while it's empty.

Agree with everything in the above post. The prices of Wonder next summer are inflated right now b/c it's a new ship so I would only personally choose Wonder if some factor like the port or itinerary made up for the price difference. The ships are similar enough that you will almost certainly have a great time on either one.

Not sure how banks work with various countries but my wife went to Hong Kong and Japan a long time ago and was able to order some foreign currency in advance to our local bank.

What are the rest of your dinner plans, Ron? We're big fans of Giovanni's and hate that Jamie's has replaced it on so many ships. Looking forward to eating there in July.

Make that coffee a double cappuccino from the suite/diamond lounge machine and agree. I usually grab a danish or something to go with it as my morning routine onboard while my (far healthier) wife goes for an early morning run.

Can’t help with the room size Q but we enjoyed Pike’s on our 2018 DIY land portion. Long review with pics in my signature if you’re interested. We did 10-days on land then Radiance southbound to Vancouver but some stuff will match up.