h20skibum

Just watched some live weather reporting from Hamburg, which isn’t far from the stadium. It looks pretty nasty there. My son lived a few blocks from the stadium in Orchard Park for a while, before he moved to Williamsville, not far from the Buffalo airport. After living in three areas of New York that are always competing for the worst winter weather, it is no wonder he prefers California now.

And a spreadsheet would only be good to track items for your specific sailing. Prices for the exact same thing on different sailings can be wildly different. One thing we bought on our sailing this month was in the $100 pp range, yet it is in the $300 pp range for another of our sailings. That is one of the things that annoys me about Royal with their constantly changing prices.

Allure did not receive the updates, so no slides on that one. It would probably have less appeal than Oasis, Symphony, Wonder which have the longer itineraries, or Utopia which is doing shorter ones from Florida.

If you have only the bar code, without the numbers below it, take a screenshot of the barcode. Then upload it to an online bar code reader (there are several free ones). It will return the numbers for the bar code. As @SteelCityCruiser10 said, room number is the last 4 digits. If you have a muster station assigned, it is a good chance your cabin has as well.

I think I would put both of us in the net zero category, or that is what it was on our last trip. That trip was different, because we would be gone for 30 days. Packing consisted of three days pre-cruise travel by car, with things we needed in a carry on bag. Next was the 8 day cruise, so those items were in larger suitcases. So we needed to pack for 12 days, since we knew we would be doing laundry once we got in the beach house after the cruise. We also had to factor in the post beach house cruise plus travel days home to come up with the longest stretch between seeing a washer and dryer. Since we were driving 1,200+ miles, we didn’t have to be concerned with the weight of the suitcases, but they still came in at under 50 pounds each. Yes, I am anal enough to have a list of the specific items that can go into our “formal” suitcase to have it weigh in at 49 pounds. One thing we do is pack things on their hangers. It makes it so much easier to put things away in the cabin. Next time I may have to ask Royal if I qualify for one of their “shortest time to unpack” awards.

When we were at Coco Beach Club this month in Coco Cay, all but two of the over water cabanas were empty, and others in the Beach Club were empty. I guess they figured if they could sell those two at $4,000, they would make more than selling 10 at a more reasonable price. All I have seen is an increase in price. I keep watching prices for my August cruise, and everything is ridiculous.

cruise mapper has it listed at 34, not 44

What is more surprising is that it has the lowest passenger to space ratio of any Royal Caribbean ship, meaning it will feel more crowded. You would have 34% more space per passenger on Explorer than on here.

Is it just me, or does anyone else wonder why Regent Seven Seas chose a couple that resembles Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for their marketing?

We were on Symphony for the 8 night sailing before Christmas. Had early traditional, and no problem with it interfering with any of the shows. Huge lines for MTD when we left the dining room, both for those with and without reservations, so no, they haven’t fixed the problems with MTD.

CFKACD! I have to carefully type that, and make sure that autocorrect didn’t change it into a banned word. Good to see you posting your trip report. I need a good read, while I am shivering here in the cold and windy conditions in Pennsylvania. I am already questioning my decision to come home from cruising, and I am already looking to get away again. Carry on, and get to work on this, I mean it is already 5 am on the west coast, and it is a weekend.

Those should be interesting. They are forecasting 1-3 feet of snow and 65 mph wind gusts for the Bills Steelers game

Glad to hear that surgery went well. Wishing her the best in her recovery.

I stopped to see Ricky today. I think he was still mad that Daryl got to go on vacation, and he didn’t.

Boardwalk is on deck 6, so that is where restaurants are. Boardwalk view balconies do not start until deck 8 and above.

It would have to figure out how much space is occupied, to know if there was room for you and your bags. If we are on deck 8, doing a walk off with luggage, the elevator is always filled with people from decks above 8 by the time it gets there, if you press the down button now. We typically press the up button and get on, then press the down.

That sounds like new elevators that were put in at a hotel I use to stay at. They had no buttons inside the elevator. You pressed your floor outside the elevator. I found out, after I dashed into an open elevator after check in, only to find you could not choose your floor from inside. Ended up going for a ride, then got off and chose my floor. Wonder how that would affect my “go up to go down” with suitcases on disembark day?

Do not encourage her to move to Princess. I have a cruise booked on a new Princess ship next January.

One of two deaths (that I know of) from our sailing in December. Royal would have provided assistance, but they would not have footed the bill to fly them home. You can be sure that would have been done with insurance. Otherwise, why would people bother with insurance. A very sad situation for the families.

Thank you Evidently, mine worked out better

Thank you Somehow, Daryl had to appear in our family photo we took in the tiki hut of our house rental. The grandkids were also making a “Daryl” movie. My one grandson is taking a film making class. Thank you Thank you Thank you.

Yeah, he was stuck there. Wheels were spinning, and traffic was backing up toward the tunnel.

44 years ago today, I met my wife on a blind date. 204 days later, we were married. Maybe we will go celebrate tonight.

All I can say is it is cold here. We made it home yesterday. The drive was a mix of snow and rain for half the drive. Pretty uneventful, but we did see this guy who effectively blocked the SB lanes of I-77 Laundry done, and everything is put away. Still lots of things on our agenda today.

No set date, which is kind of annoying. Could be anywhere from 30 to 60 days before sailing. We are just off Symphony, and show reservations opened 56 days before sailing.