binro01

It’s fun to see how the fancy people roll. Well hello there from sunny Galveston. Last night was a wild thunder bumper night. Started around 10:30 PM and ended around 3:00 AM, but it was all blown out by time we woke up. It was a real fireworks show. In the morning the son and I went to the near by Kroger to get my wine for the cruise. One red and one white will do me fine. I’m the only wine drinker so it will give me a glass a night that I will either bring with or have them deal with it for the corkage fee. Kinda funny that the corkage fee is about the same cost of the bottle. But they are a pretty decent Cab and Chardonnay. I do wish Royal has the same policy as NCL with beer and wine. My son who is a foodie and thinking about culinary school (works at a restaurant in the kitchen and handles all stations) likes to share a glass with me over dinner. Being Italian this is very normal in our family. Wine is life. Don’t understand the taboo with it. But I never had a problem with alcohol or alcoholism in my family. It’s a social / meal thing. A glass to enjoy and done. Later in the day we did a nice walk on the beach. It was a little chilly with the very stiff wind. But very enjoyable. I do have to say the beach in Galveston is well. Kinda cruddy. Hard flat sand. And looks to be eroding quickly. not my type of beach. But it’s still better than land locked Utah! Mountain are pretty. Oceans are prettier. Lol. Plus warmth has it over on cold every day of the year. I guess the wind did chase the local beach bums away. The beach was very sparse. After our stroll on the beach we chilled for an hour or so and decided to do one last fried seafood dinner. When the amp up Allure, I hope they add a Hooked seafood. We hit “The Spot” for dinner and got a the huge sampler app, me and the boys did the fisherman’s platter and the wife did fish and chips. All pretty good but it is a little pricy for what it is. If it was 100.00 I would be fine. 145.00 is a little nutty for what it is. But I’ll pay the tourist tax to eat some fresh fish battered and fried. The servings were huge! The original plan was to go to Grotto Restaurante in the San Luis Resort. But they were booked. Man is that place really nice!!! Next time we come to Galveston I will have to budget this place. It looks so nice. This way we can rub shoulders with the fancy people. here is a quick little video of the Spot. It’s a nice location. Great views. IMG_2503.MOV Tomorrow we have a local taxi scheduled to bring us to port. They were very easy to deal with and I would recommend them to anyone coming to Galveston for a cruise. Uber and Lyft is very hard to grab a ride peak times. Do yourself a favor and book before getting here for your transfer from your hotel to port. Tomorrow is cruise day folks! Let’s have a great time!

Finally! Some real seafood!!! Dinner was absolutely fabulous tonight. We went to Jimmy’s by the Pier. What a good choice this was. The grilled fish was so good, the bacon wrapped shrimp was out of this world, and my fried oysters were buttery smooth! And the views were amazing! Definitely a place to check out if you come out to Galveston for a cruise! IMG_2457.MOV We then went to Rita’s Italian Ice and Custard for some desert. We had a very chill day in the hotel mostly since we had a very early day and after a lunch at a near by Chinese restaurant we all took a nap. Tomorrow we will head out to the beach if the weather allows and take a look at historic Galveston. Should be a fun day. We do have a nice view from the hotel and we are right by the beach so that’s good! The fun for the evening was getting the wife some chocolate and the gas station was VERY sketch according to my son. He got to see his very first woman of the night. And he said. Dad is that a…. I just quickly answered. Yep. Yes it is. Growing up in NYC I seen so much more than these boys that grew up sheltered in the suburbs. It’s kind of fun to see their innocence. Even at the age of 19. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But at least I’m there for them as they see this whole world. Utah is very much a bubble. Bring them out in the world via travel is very beneficial. It was good for the family to make the move, but I do wish for more reality smacking young adults faces. Much of the pain people suffer my boys have seen is from very filtered movies that can glamorize or minimize the darker things in life. Well. We are hanging out in the room watching A Knights Tale. I miss Heath Ledger. A talent lost. What a fun movie.

Right now we have blue skies in Galveston. They are expecting some thunder bumpers tonight.

How little padding can they put in seats… I think that was the fun game the people at the corporate offices at Allegiant Airlines played when designing the seats they would place in their aircraft. Some one yelled out half the ever used. And they went with it. That was followed by someone jumping in with a bonus suggestion… let’s make the tray table half the size too!!! we’ll budget air does what budget air does. It got us here in very cheap fashion sage and sound. So I will consider that a win. But I will probably by everyone neck pillows that will act as seat cushions for our flight home. Someone turned up the heat… and humidifier Its been some years Ike since we have felt warmth in Utah. I thin over the pass 5 months it broke 50 maybe 3 times. We had more snow than Santa sees in the North Pole so it’s nice to feel warm again. But the wife likes it cool as a cucumber so I think she is trying out for the Wizard if Oz at our local theater by her insistence on repeating the refrain “I’m melting!” I’m also a big humidity fan. Living in a high desert for the past 8 years really dries your skin out. My beard/goatee is always itching and so are my shins. Dry fry skin. I have been known to soak in the tub to rehydrate the skin. Yea. I’m basically a pamper me kinda guy. I do baths, manicures and pedicures to relax. I also love a good straight edge head shave and beard trim. If it relaxes me. I’m all in. I will report a bit more with some photos after we settle in at the hotel and had a day. Vacation is here folks!

I married a Texan. DFW area. This the first time for us down in H Town.

It’s TODAY! After countless hours of research, planning and waiting the vacation officially begins. I never really settle down till I’m fully checked into the hotel and the wife lover to see my New Yorker take over. Ummm NOT. She is not happy when I revert to that stance. I’m a man on a mission when at the airport. Trying to run the gauntlet without slowing down a line and I get very myopic. Ooooo look at that. One of my SAT words snuck out! the new Provo airport is looking nice. It’s a small municipal airport and it sure was nice to not deal with the crowds or the drive time to SLC. One of the boys found a small little bag at the airport with some little matchbox cars and he was enthralled by the SpongeBob bus in the bag. He said this kid just lost a limited edition! 1 of 1! He has such a dead pan humor that I love. Looks like an on time departure out of Utah on Budget Allegiant airlines. This is starting to look like good choice and a heck of a bargain. I only paid 711.00 for 4 round trip tickets with 4 checked in bags. Direct flights too! I don’t mind at all flying out 2 days before and one day after the cruise for that price and to have a stress free travel day. we are boarding now. So I’m going incognito for a few. See ya in Texas.

If I can’t be entertaining why even attempt to do this. People’s time is valuable. Information is great. Entertaining information is better! Thanks for the complement!

Thanks for coming along! I love our Bostons so much! They are a little over a year old and are the best dogs we have ever owned. They have such personality and very loving.

I live in one of those Utensils Cities. Go Don's!

We are not in a suite so no Coastal Kitchen for us. We are in 2 side by side Central Park Balconies, right next to the living wall so one of the rooms have the extended double balcony. When we open up the divider we will have a nice triple balcony for the 4 of us. Our plans for eating are as follows: Day 1: Solarium Bistro for lunch, with dinner at the Icon Grill Day 2: Breakfast at the MDR, Lunch at Izumi Hibachi, with dinner at the Icon Grill Day 3: Breakfast at the MDR, Lunch at Giovanni's Table, with dinner at the Icon Grill Day 4: Breakfast at Windjammers, Lunch in Port, Dinner at Samba Grill Day 5: Breakfast at Solarium Bistro, Lunch in Port, Dinner at 150 CP Day 6: Breakfast at Johnny Rockets, Lunch in Port, Dinner at Icon Grill Day 7: Breakfast in MDR, Lunch at Windjammers, Dinner at Icon Grill Day 8: Breakfast in MDR before disembarking.

Just a day and a wake up away! Well today is the last day at the office before I get on a jet plane to fly off to Houston Hobby Airport. Our fly out time is at 8:00 AM Mountain Daylight time and we should be landing near noon in Houston. From there we will collect our luggage and grab a Uber/Lyft XL to head down to Galveston. I'm kind of an organization freak, so today is probably my most stressful day. I will be heading off to the bank this afternoon during my lunch break to grab some small bills for tipping while on the ship and then when I get home I will arrange my paperwork in neat grouped and color coded packets incase I need the hard copies. Everything is on the phone too. This is just my backup. My wife thinks I'm crazy as she is the "let's wing it" type. I do like spontaneity but I also like an ounce of precaution. I guess that's why we will be celebrating our 27th Anniversary on this cruise (a little early but within a couple of weeks LOL) Packing is pretty much all done and now it's just a slog through this last day at work before I can start to settle into full blown vacation mode. Nineteen Year Olds... (OMG) Though the wife and I are pretty much all packed up, the twin 19 year old boys just keep procrastinating and procrastinating. I tried folks. Really I tried to get them out of this. I just its just not in their personality genome, but it gets me anxious for them. I guess I need to let it go. One of them said a very funny thing yesterday. He said it was his goal to find a sugar momma on this cruise so he will not have to work a day in his life. I said to him, "Good luck with that..." But it did give me a good chuckle. The really funny thing is this is our "quiet/shy" one until he gets to know you. I was going to try and help him get out of his comfort zone and gain more confidence with the opposite sex on this cruise. Maybe he is almost in the right headspace, but his target is WAY WAY off. LOL The other one is more outgoing and he keeps asking me to reserve Chops or Central Park 150 for dinner. I keep saying, you and your brother reserve it and make sure to bring and pay for me and Mom. Upon which I get a "Brah.. Brah.. Come On Pops!", to which I say.. "Who's paying for your cruise, flights and excursions?" I'm still wondering if I will see a steak dinner. I'm not going to hold my breath, but one can dream. Galveston Thoughts I'm planning on giving the hotel a call in a few to see if we can secure an early check in. We should be arriving at the hotel at around 2PM so it's not like we are asking to get into the room 5 hours ahead of schedule. Fingers crossed that they will be able to accommodate. Since our original hotel was struck by lightning and I could not get a hold of them to see the potential jeopardy my original reservation could be in, I did cancel with them and moved our accommodations to the Quality Inn and Suites, Beachfront. I do love Priceline, even with this last minute situation I took advantage of an express deal and I'm only paying about 30 bucks more a night for a decent hotel. Trying to figure out places for dinner for the 2 pre cruise days on the island. One will be basic and one will be nice. Hoping to maybe hook up with some FB group friends for drinks the night before the cruise. We love making cruise buddies on our vacations. The next time I will post is when we are at the Airport tomorrow morning! It's almost vacation time!

Just as a side note, Celebrity's military discount is combinable with most discounts including Travel Agent group rates, so if you work with a TA and they are getting you into a group never forget to mention you are a vet. We have taken advantage of the 200.00 off multiple times in this manner.

There should be a confirmation number on that email. Give a call to RC to make sure everything is good to go since you don't see it in your order history

When ever you make a purchase an email should go to you. I keep an email folder for each of my cruises to place these "receipts" in as a backup. If you don't have access to the purchase confirmation email, check you CC statements during that time to look for any Royal charges. Note the dates and then check after that to make sure you do not see a refund. That's what I would do at least...

I prefer smoke signals and war drums. But they really disapprove of open flames while on board, and the war drums take up to much space in my luggage, so we use sticky notes in the cabin and/or direct face to face communication with a planned meetup location and time.

Since this is an obvious exploit, the first line of defense is to shut down the service. The next trick is to place up a patch in chat service that the app communicates with that allows the app to connect people to a chat group. This is the preferred process since you can't control everyone to update the app on their phones to fix the exploit. Once the service is patched and its placed on all servers on each ship they can reinstate the chat service. My guess it can take up to 2-3 business days to fix and test the patch and then it needs to roll out to each ship. If someone on the ship has the ability to update software, that's good, if the operations team has a way to push code to their distributed and floating server cluster that's better. But my guess is don't hold your breath, because more than likely RCI outsourced the development of this code and no one on staff has the expertise or knowledge how to find and fix the exploit in the code base an expedient manner.

Wife and I like snorkeling and beach days so CoCoCay is a great day for us.

Personally, I would rather them change out Mama Mia to something like The Greatest Showman. That would be awesome. There is a limit to ABBA music.

When on land, I'm a craps player. I usually play a $10.00 Pass Line on Come out then once a point is established I place 2 numbers ($10.00/$12.00) insides first, then work outwards five being priority, I also make a $10.00 field bet to cover more numbers after the point. So I'm risking on average $42.00-$44.00 once a point is established. If the field hits, I move that $10.00 and it's winning to cover 2 more numbers. (if double 2 / 12 I cover all the numbers). I finally cover the last number if a double field does not happen, with my first place hit after the field covers. I then operate a collect and press on each number individually. The press is a $10/$12 press. And that number is now considered not paid for in my collect and press model. Basically a hybrid Iron Cross collect and press. I do buy the outside 4/10 at multiples of 20 and the 5/9 at 40.00 if I ever get there. A Craps pit boss I know said this betting style usually rates me at a C player with a house advantage of 5%. The theoretical loss on this play over an hour is around $190.00 according to him. In general, I can counter this loss level with one good roll in 10 shooters. So I usually limit myself to those 10 shooters per session and re-evaluate to continue. Sometimes my bank roll of $500.00 can be gone in 3 hours with a string of very bad luck, but If I capture luck, I can easily play for 2 hours a night for 5-7 nights and still walk out a winner. In general, on average I can play around 7-8 hours before blowing the whole bankroll. Craps is a negative expectation game, but I love playing it for those hot streaks that do come. If I get on a semi-lucky streak where I can play on the 500.00 over say 2 hours a night for 7 nights, Im calculating my theoretical loss to be a little over $2,500.00 but in order to play my 500.00 for that long I would have to hit a few good rolls and just cycle the money back to the casino over time. Im hoping the average case scenario I can accrue 1300 - 1500 points, but If I do get lucky I might be able to hit the 2500.00 prime level. Any craps players out there that might be able to tell me if I'm being reasonable or way way off base.

Hmmm I love both Cajun and Greek food so this sounds like a real winner to me!

That was an amazing deal!

The fur baby pitty party has party has begun The the arrival of the suitcases in the home signified to the pups that something is going down and they do not like it. If anyone of us takes a break on the couch, one of them WILL come and sit on the lap and give "those eyes:" basically imploring "Daddy/Mommy... please don't go" Oh man.. Looking at this photo, really lets me know I need to lose weight AGAIN. Over the pandemic I dropped 85 pounds, but I put them all back on again once restaurants and cruising opened up again. I need more self control. Because not visiting restaurants or not going on cruises, well that's just out of the question. Packing the a small version of our "Stuff" Like I said, the suitcases are making their appearance so I figured I might as well join in on the suitcase brigade. I grabbed mine out of the garage storage and brought it to the wife's staging room, also known as out guest bedroom. BTW I really love this suitcase. The dimensions are like the old trunks I brought to college. It still fits below the bed on the ship, the color stands out so I see it very easily on the luggage carousel at the airport, and the wheels on this thing is like butter. The cliff notes version. Spend some money on decent luggage. It's worth the money. And when I took a look at staging area number 2 also know as our kitchen table, I realized that my wife is once again overpacking. I pretty much have my packing down to a science. I rarely miss a thing now and I usually never have more than I need. But I believe my wife is going a little overboard for the boys stuff... Still dreary and too COLD for my liking here in Utah. Weather is once again very drabby here in Utah. It's going to be in the mid 50s here in the valley. The higher elevations will not be getting snow, but rain... That might signify the beginning of the floods we are expecting. We had some locations with almost 300% snowfall this season. Yea.. It's be a nightmare for me, but the skiers loved it. I really need to get to the warmth again. Trying to make it through the week at the office will be... Difficult. And now I'm in the office, trying to not get distracted, I have a pretty full day with meets and what not. So that's kinda good. No real opportunity for me to really break things today. I love when my tail end of the calendar is blocked off because I will be out of the office. Makes me smile! So, once I get home I will do my survey and then do some last minute Amazon shopping for any gaps in what I need to bring. Ohh packing.. It always reminds me of George Carlin's routine on "Stuff" Google it and watch it on YouTube if you want a good laugh.. I can make it through this Monday.. I just know it.

This is not always true. Most cases yes, but there are cruises where the solo supplement does not follow this pattern. The above is what's known in the travel business as 100% solo supplement or full double occupancy rate. There are some cruises that the line discounts the solo supplement to as low as 0% (extremely rare) 25% (very rare), 50% (rare but not a unicorn), and 75% (more common as you get closer to sail date and sailing not sold out)

OK. So here is my pre cruise week in a nutshell. So I'm a principal software engineer by day. My work week will basically entail me trying to keep focus and not break things. The worst thing I can possible do is release some code that will cause people angst while I'm gone. I'm planning to get some research done for my upcoming optimizations that I'm tasked to do when I come back. Other than that, I will be mentoring, and helping others on the teams I support throughout the week. It should be a quiet and laid back week at the office. By night, I focus on my YouTube channel. I have a new video that's in final edit. Hopefully I will publish this week before we head out. It's an interview with a first time cruiser. The goal is to get this all wrapped up by my Thursday publish date. I do have an appointment with the wife to get my nails (my feet and hands) done with her. DON'T JUDGE! Men, if you have not done this, its SOOO relaxing, and since I will be running around in flip flops, I like to make sure my toes are presentable and well trimmed. A also have an appointment to straight razor shave the head of mine and get a straight edge beard shave and trim. Yea.. It's pampering myself before going on vacation. It puts me in that mode so hey.. .Why break with tradition. Monday is laundry day for all the things I want to bring and need a washing, and then I bring it up to my wife's staging area. I then survey and see if I need to purchase anything new. By Tuesday evening I will be mostly packed and ready to go. If I purchased anything on Monday, it will get added to the luggage usually by Wednesday evening. I then get my camera and sound equipment together and packed up for the trip. I have a list of 15 videos all planned out with shot cards for footage I will require for the production of those videos, which will keep me busy for about 16 weeks. I produce one cruise tip / review / informative video a week and one video on a cruise deal I promote for the travel business. This is about right for me. With a full time job, producing 2 videos a week usually means about 10-12 hours of work. Add in the work I do to help with the wife on the travel business and I'm lucky to catch a TV show here and there during the week. The night before heading to the airport, I print up all my travel docs, hotel conformations, pre-purchase receipts, etc. I keep everything on my phone, but I like to have the paper backup, just in case Mr. Murphy and his silly laws decide to pay me a visit. I will then have the passports placed in my personal item for the airport and just chill. We usually eat out the night before as to not make a mess of the kitchen. We will also be stocking the fridge for our oldest son who will be watching the fur babies when we are away. One of our twins work at Texas Roadhouse so most likely we will go there for dinner to utilize that sweet 50% off discount. When we do this, it usually works out to about 50 bucks for steak dinners for the 4 of us. I do leave a very generous tip though for the server. But now a days, you can easily spend 50.00 bucks at Wendy's for dinner, so I consider this a huge win. By 2 nights before we head out the dogs KNOW something is up and they will NOT be happy. One will even start hiding stuff on us, but he is not to smart and usually hides his contraband in places we already know about. He then gives us that look of utter defeat. This is the first time we will be taking a "Budget" airline to a cruise. I'm still a little apprehensive about this, especially since Allegiant only flies out to Huston a couple times a week out of the airport we are flying out of, but I'm prepared for any contingency needed. I have my travel insurance provider's number on quick dial as well as alternate flight options at the ready. I did make sure we flew out to the port 2 nights ahead of time to give me that needed leeway. Heck. I can even drive to Houston from Utah and still make it on time if needs be. I'm still in shock about the whole lightning strike thing with our pre-cruise hotel in Galveston. (Pun intended) But we are all set with our new hotel arrangements. Lets keep the fingers crossed that this one will not be hit by a tornado and sent to Oz. Thanks @jbrinkm for the taxi service info. I'm now all set with our hotel to port ride for cruise day. No need to deal with surge pricing or the reported Uber difficulties in Galveston for us. One less stressor addressed. I am looking for some suggestions for dinner on Friday and Saturday, and if anyone is going to be sailing with us, please feel free to chime in if you want to grab a bite to eat and do some pre-cruise drinks with us! Might as well get this party started early! We are officially 5 days and a wake up away from jetting out to Texas!

Hope they keep the lights on for us! Next week that's us!