Dan83

1 hour ago, h20skibum said:

Daryl :  Take my picture over there!  @Ocean Boy will be so jealous.  
 

Dang it!  Just missed him 

Our first block delivered today. Another attempt at Hiro in 20 minutes, then I’ll try to upload some pics from Aruba. 

6 hours ago, topanga49er said:

Wow, I would have lost that bet.  Which airlines do you fly?  I am local to PBI and always thought that FLL was much cheaper.  Will have to check more at PBI in future...

thx

We flew Delta. I’m a little biased toward them. For these particular dates, PBI was the cheapest by far. Although last cruise FLL had the best deal. 

I told my wife that we shouldn’t do the usual balcony clothesline since we had a Central Park balcony this time. She immediately pointed out that everyone else is doing it. I don’t have a counterpoint, so I guess it’s happening. 

She also twists balloons. She stood in line for ballon animals and asked for an untwisted balloon. 

stowaway piano is very good 

Kids found a “duck”. This is a good find. 

1 minute ago, SteelCityCruiser10 said:

was there and announcement with a reason?  Seems odd to me they would not cancel ahead of time rather than start and quickly cancel.  Weather related or equipment malfunction maybe?

Weather was the reason. There was rain and some pool sloshing. Rescheduled for night 4. We may have to use our cruise superpowers and sneak into another showing. 

Where is Daryl?  I’ve been searching this ship high and low. No sightings to report. 

we made it through about 3 minutes of Hiro before they stopped the show and canceled. Seeing this show at least once is a bucket list item for this cruise. It hasn’t happened yet but we won’t stop trying.  

So my 9 year old. She picks up the chopsticks and uses them for the entire meal at hibachi. No practice. She’s just a natural. She did this for the first time last year when she was 8. Even the rice. She eats rice with chopsticks while her drunken dad is using a spoon. 

I always like to bring a bottle of wine to Hibachi. The problem is my wife doesn’t drink wine. So I take it upon myself to drink the entire bottle myself. Apparently, I embarrassed my family tonight. Usually it is the other way around. At least I didn’t drunk email my travel agent. I know it’s weird but I’ve done it the last two cruises. He even responds to drunk emails in like 90 seconds. That’s how awesome he is. Must be a Canada thing. 

We had hibachi tonight. This was the last of my January 2023 cruise planner pricing mistake. Hibachi dinner for lunch prices. This dinner did not disappoint. 

8 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

Looks like we were in the same place.

I’ve been looking for Daryl. I’ll let you know when I spot him. 

6 hours ago, h20skibum said:

 

He has natural abilities in the water. 
 

 

And, do you suppose we could just leave him, instead of a towel?

 

lol , we were in the hot tub other side all afternoon.  Just missed you. 

This was the first time flying in to PBI for a Port Everglades cruise. It went very smoothly and I won’t hesitate to do it again in the future. Overnighted at a Boynton Beach hotel. I saved enough on a one way ticket alone to more than compensate for the $80 Uber cost. Round trip for a family of 4 equals huge savings over FLL. 

11 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

I am quite sure Symphony has enough alcohol aboard to take care of any issues with calcium that decide to act up this coming week.

Yes they do. Onboard at 11:30. Went straight to the hot tub and burned through all 4 Diamond drinks by 2 pm. The doctor did say to keep drinking liquids. 

On 12/14/2023 at 5:29 AM, h20skibum said:

By all means, feel free to post.  It may take some pressure off me.  Safe travels to you. 

I just wanted to share some of our excitement about tomorrow’s cruise. I’ve had a bad round of kidney stones these past few weeks that has threatened to put this trip in jeopardy. The doctor went in and got the stone Tuesday. And this morning I had the stent removed. Three hours later we boarded our flight to West Palm Beach. I’m not going to let a little 5mm chunk of calcium get in the way of this vacation. To say the last few days have been uncomfortable is a bit of an understatement. But when we board the Symphony in 12 hours, all will be forgotten. 

We plan to be on this cruise. Flying to PBI on Friday afternoon. With your permission, I’ll add some photos if I see something noteworthy. 

Thank you for posting this. It is helpful to read about a very close call. I’m glad you made it. I always plan port days on our own because I don’t like larger tour groups. I also enjoy the freedom to use our time how we want. However that does carry a risk like you just described. I always try to have a backup plan and also I’m thinking about what resources are available if we get in a bind. If we cruise long enough there will eventually be a time when a flat tire or blocked road will get the best of us. 

I agree with OP. Some notification in advance is more respectful. It’s not a big enough deal that I would fuss though. If I get woke up from a nap I might fuss. But not if they do it while I’m gone. 

We were on the Odyssey TA as well. As a family with young kids we didn’t fit into the main demographic of this particular sailing. For the first week, I felt like we were on a half empty ship. But it was port days for the first 4 days in a row. And we were doing lots of the kids and family activities. I felt way more crowded in Cinque Terre than I did on the ship. Even the windjammer at peak times you could easily find a table. I’ve been able to navigate the crowds on a ship fairly well on previous Royal sailings. But half of the ship was diamond or above. Everyone was using the same tricks and they just didn’t work. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a pinnacle name tag. I gave up on solarium bistro the first day. I’m not lining up 15 minutes prior to opening for that breakfast. Lines to get in the theater started at least a full hour before showtime. We can easily deal with all that. I adjusted my strategies accordingly, and we continued to have a good time. I’m the type that absolutely hates being in crowds. Really I shouldn’t even like cruising because of this but I still do. Towards the end of the cruise I really started feeling the pinch. And the day of the Bermuda stop was the day I was ready to be off that ship. The one thing that really gets me is not being able to find a place to sit at the windjammer. Up until that day, we could walk in at peak hours grab a plate and have a seat. Now we have to spilt up to go table hunting. And take turns getting up to get a plate for us and the kids. Many other venues seemed more crowded those last few days as well. Surprisingly there were many more families with kids. There were just enough that my kids easily made friends but adventure ocean never came anywhere near capacity. On a typical 7 night Caribbean, getting the kids into the evening session means lining up 20 minutes prior to opening.
 

We still have next year’s Odyssey TA booked so it wasn’t all that bad. However, I won’t book a 7 day holiday sailing on Odyssey.  I feel like Oasis class handles crowds for that demographic much better. 

We were also on the Odyssey TA. I found your 10 pounds. I should have turned them into guest services but I decided to take them home. I was just going to post here on cruise critic and offer to mail them to the rightful owner. 
 

In all seriousness though. We had a good time and opted to switch next Fall’s Oasis TA to the Odyssey TA. I still like the Oasis class ships a little better but the Odyssey is a nice ship. I don’t think it disperses the crowds as well as an Oasis ship does. I don’t think I would sail Odyssey on a holiday sailing at max capacity. 

I did this once for my kids and don’t recommend it. There will just be a credit on their seapass and it’s difficult to know the balance. You can have guest services set it up to have the seapass stop working when out of credit but again, it’s a pain to check the balance. Then there’s the issue of machines not working. But not coincidentally, the card readers on the machines will still work and the kids will swipe it five times or more trying to make it work and each time the balance is ticking down. $100 in credit per kid will be gone very very fast leaving the kids unsatisfied and the parents frustrated. Royal provides many opportunities for people to waste money, but the arcade in my opinion is the most egregious.