DragonOfTheSeas

A little after noon there was a downpour. It got all of the deck chairs wet and made it hard for passengers to find seats before the cabins were ready. But cabins opened at 1pm and all was well. It has turned into a sunny, hot day. 😎 The bars and the pools are the places to be. Here are a few pictures of the main pool deck: The solarium is usually my favorite place on the ship for two reasons--it is an indoor pool and it is adults only. I often get up early with a cup of coffee and hang out there. I can usually find a shady spot. However, Royal Caribbean decided to make the solariums on Voyager class and Freedom class ships outdoor. 🙄 What were they thinking? [luckily, they learned their lesson for the newer classes of ships] Here is the solarium on Liberty. I look forward to the nice indoor solarium on the Vision of the Seas. JMHO

There are lots of children on this cruise. I would expect that since it is a 3-day weekend cruise. I will try get to a couple of the cruise compasses for children to post. This is a deck plan for deck 12. That is where the Adventure Ocean rooms for the children's program are located. This is the family pool area. This is the Splash Away Bay. This area will keep any little one busy.

I looked at those stairs. There is no way I am trying to go down those.😲 I am more cautious on stairs than I used to be.

We sailed on Vison once for a reposition from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa. We know it is a smaller ship. However, DH and I both like sea days and this cruise had 6 sea days. . . . but, your TA sounds like fun, too. 😃

Also, on deck four is Sabor, a Mexican specialty restaurant. DH is not a fan of Mexican cuisine. So, I’ve never eaten in one. But I hear their guacamole is terrific.

I have taken a few pictures as I got on the ship. We entered at the front of the ship. On deck 4 near the Schooner bar. The theatre is nearby. Here is a view of what we would call a centrum on the vision class ship. The ship has a little promenade in the center of the ship.

We are on the ship. Yay! we got here at 10: 55 with an 11:30 check in time. We had left ourselves a little more time to board the shuttle with a lot of people, a lot of luggage and getting off with a lot of luggage. The only thing was we were the only two people on the shuttle.🤣 So, we were in the terminal and checked in without any line at all. They motioned us to the elevators and we were on the ship and sitting in the Schooner bar by 11:05. Easy peasy! The only fly in the ointment is that the woman at check-in told us that the ship is not leaving port until 10 PM. It seems that there is either a propulsion issue, or the ship needs to have things scraped off the bottom of the ship. She described both in the same sentence in what I would call a word salad. I will try to find out.

We could not resist getting our picture taken below the Bon Voyage sign in the hotel lobby. Yesterday there was a large group of cruisers leaving on a Princess cruise through the Panama Canal. The "Bon Voyage Bench," as they referred to it, was a popular spot for a photo.

It is cruise day 🛳️ Hooray!! We have reserved the Hampton Inn shuttle for 10:30 this morning for our 11:30 check-in time. The Liberty of the Seas holds 3643 passengers and was built in 2007. It was refurbished in 2016 when many new activities were added [waterslides, restaurants, and Splash Away Bay, etc] and in 2021. This cruise only has two ports. Our first port is Coco Cay. It is Royal Caribbean’s private island. We visited here several times before it was renovated, and a pier was built. It used to be a quiet beach day and you had to tender to the island. I do not like tenders. It is not a very efficient way to move many passengers ashore and it is very weather dependent. I read on Cruise Critic that passengers missed Coco Cay about 1/3 of the time before the pier was built. We were lucky and never had that happen to us. Our second and final port is Nassau. Nassau is not my favorite port. We have visited so many times we have a “been there—done that” attitude. If it is your first time do not let me discourage you. There are several fun things to do. We have visited the aquarium at Atlantis, taken the water taxi, visited the casino, gone on the Blue Lagoon excursion, visited the straw market, had drinks at Senior Frogs and last time we got a day pass to the Margaritaville Resort. What we have not done is sail this class of ship. So, we plan to stay onboard in Nassau and see what the ship has to offer us.

Oh, so sorry. I hope you get well soon and can rebook.

I have seen several questions about Royal Up. Yes, we bid on better cabins on both cruises. I just got an email regarding the Liberty cruise that said: OFFER UNSUCCESSFUL Agnes XXXX, Thanks for submitting your RoyalUp bid for a stateroom upgrade on your upcoming adventure. Unfortunately, we were not able to accept your bid and your original stateroom remains as is. So, I guess at least some of the time they let you know if your bid is not accepted. 😲 We still have hopes for the Vision cruise. 🤞

The good news is that it is still partly sunny here. So, if you get to leave BWI you should be fine. The crazy Florida weather today is inland and in the panhandle. Good Luck.

We have visited all the ports on both cruises before. But we feel the two itineraries complement each other. The first is a short fun-filled cruise on a ship with lots of bows and whistles. We are looking forward to seeing the ice show, eating at Johnny Rockets watching people surf on the flow rider. [never tried it] and enjoying Coco Cay. We will likely stay onboard during our Nassau stop. There should be a party vibe on this weekend cruise. There has been lots of talk on FB about drink packages. It could be entertaining. 😊 Our only regret is that it is a 3-day cruise. Liberty of the Seas Itinerary: Bahamas Friday, April 28 Fort Lauderdale, FL 4:30pm Saturday, April 29 CocoCay, Bahamas 7:00am-5:00pm Sunday, April 30 Nassau, Bahamas 8:00am-5:00pm Monday, May 1 Fort Lauderdale, FL The second cruise will be our relaxing trip. The Vision of the Seas is a smaller and older ship with few bells and whistles. It is cruising for the enjoyment of an ocean voyage. There are only 3 ports on our 10-night cruise. I love sea days. You get into a rhythm and time just slows down. I hope I get to post lots of sunset pictures. On this trip I am looking forward to my snorkel trip with Woodwind Bonaire the most. I participated in an open-ocean snorkel with them about 6 years ago. It was one of the best excursions I have ever taken. Wait until you see the pictures! They send a professional photographer on each trip. Vision of the Seas Itinerary: Southern Caribbean Monday, May 1 Fort Lauderdale, FL 4:00pm Tuesday, May 2 At Sea Wednesday, May 3 At Sea Thursday, May 4 Curacao 8:00am 8:00pm Friday, May 5 Bonaire 8:00am 6:00pm Saturday, May 6 Aruba 8:00am 8:00pm Sunday, May 7 At Sea Monday, May 8 At Sea Tuesday, May 9 At Sea Wednesday, May 10 At Sea Thursday, May 11 Baltimore, MD 7:00am The ABC islands are very close to the mainland of South America. Bonaire is only 50 miles away. They seldom are impacted by hurricanes and have a strong Dutch influence.

We have never been on any ship in this class. We look forward to exploring the ship on the day we are in Nassau. We will likely not get off the ship there. We have done many of the excursion there.

It is a beautiful partly sunny day with only a small chance of severe weather today. A few of our roll call members have issues with today's flights. One person had their flight cancelled and rebooked for 9pm tomorrow. The ship leave at 4pm. 😮 Good luck to everyone. We had planned to take an Uber to Las Olas Blvd in Fort Lauderdale. However, we noticed a large shopping center across the street and plenty of restaurants. We are both tired from yesterday, so we had a chill pool day. We are Alan and Agnes from central Virginia, and we cruise out of Baltimore about half the time. Our DD lives about 40 minutes south of Baltimore. We can leave our car and get a ride to the pier. So, it is very convenient. [PS--We plan to take her on a cruise with us next year] We have cruised Carnival, Celebrity, and Royal Caribbean. However, most of our cruises lately have been on Royal Caribbean and we are Diamond+ in their Crown and Anchor loyalty program. While there are not that many perks at the entry levels of the program, by the time you get to Diamond level there are several things that enhance your cruise. We booked the reposition cruise on the Vision of the Seas about a year ago. I have found reposition cruises are often a better value since cruisers do not like the inconvenience of starting in one port and ending in another. They are usually longer and if they begin and end in the US, they have to visit a far-off port. That is usually one of the ABC islands. On this cruise we visit all three. It was just luck that we noticed the Liberty cruise aligned perfectly with this cruise. When we booked this side to side, I did the usual research to see how it would work. There was very little information out there. Would we take a taxi between the two terminals? Would they be close enough together to walk? Would the ship transport us? [this has sometimes been the case] Would the first ship let us stay on until the end of disembarkation, so we did not have to wait outside the other terminal for a long period of time before boarding? Etc. I will let you know how it works. I was able to get an 11:30 am check-in time for both cruises. One positive is that we have a junior suite on the Vision of the Seas which is supposed to come with priority embarkation. Another plus is that there are a few other couples making the same side-to-side change and we agreed to go to guest services together to ask for transportation. We will see what happens. Just to add a little drama I got an email today regarding the Vision of the Seas. That may be fine for most passengers, but those of us moving over from the Liberty of the Seas will have to see how the works with us. Time to be flexible. 🤣

DH and I are off on another cruise adventure. This time we are sailing a back-to-back cruise on two different ships. I am told this is called a side-to-side. [13 nights total] We board the Liberty of the Seas in Fort Lauderdale on April 28, 2023 for 3 nights. We arrive back on May 1, 2023 and move to the Vision of the Seas for 10 nights at the same port and a different terminal. Just to make it a little more exciting the second cruise is a reposition cruise from FLL to Baltimore. We flew into Fort Lauderdale on Southwest last night. We always fly in at least one day before a cruise. This time we are staying 2 nights at a Hampton Inn with a free airport shuttle and a paid shuttle to the port on Friday. Flying has had so many issues lately we decided we wanted to get to Fort Lauderdale early and rest for a day before we boarded the ship. . . We are glad we did. The skies have not been too friendly for us—or others on our roll call lately. Yesterday there was a short rain shower earlier in the afternoon at BWI and then the sun came back out. Then our luck ran out. The flight to FLL was a little sketchy. We knew there was a weather issue at FLL before we left BWI. Our flight was delayed due to a weather ground stop at FLL. The ride was bumpy, and they sent us out over the Atlantic to avoid most of it which further delayed the landing. Once we got below the clouds we could see the city lights. I tried to get a picture of the big guitar hotel. It was impressive from the air. However, the wings were going up and down a bit and I just could not time it right. After we landed, we sat on the tarmac for a while because the rain and wind were too much for the ground crew to be out. Also, the luggage ramp was closed for a short time and that delayed luggage delivery. We were lucky that most of the storm had passed by the time we arrived. But all is well! We made it to our hotel! I mentioned our flying issues on our Facebook roll call. A women mentioned they had severe weather and golf ball size hail yesterday. She was glad we managed to land safely. [So am I] It was almost eleven pm when we got to the hotel last night. So, I decided to wait until today to begin this live thread. That was a poor decision. The internet has been down at the hotel all day. The front desk claims that Star Link is down in the whole area. But it is back--yeah!!

I saw a live picture of the airport this morning. It looked like a lake. They will likely need to pump some of that water to speed the process.

Does anyone know if the Johnny Rockets is part of the BOGO D+ benefit? TIA

For a unique excursion I suggest the Mailboat run. It visits several islands in the bay. We really enjoyed it. It takes about 2.5 to 3 hours. The prices is $14.50 for seniors and leaves from a pier near where the ship docks. I heard about it on CC--I think from chengkp75. This is the description from the site:: Mailboat Tour - Casco Bay Mail Run from Portland Maine (cascobaylines.com)- Hop on the Mailboat Run! The locals’ favorite way to experience Casco Bay – this true working boat carries passengers, mail and freight to Little Diamond, Great Diamond, Long, Cliff and Chebeague Islands. Year-round availability

Delta-- thank you for keeping this going. Hope the bug passes soon.🙂

Thanks for posting. I like it. We get one on our Vision cruise in May. I hope they have used all of the old ones and we get the new one. My fleet is much smaller. 🤣

I agree. This would save the waiters time by not having to carry around dressing when a salad is served. But this is a poor way to dress a salad. . . . and what about the passenger that wants more dressing? I can just see a large group of people at corporate sitting in a room brainstorming all of the ways they can cut costs and save time for kitchen staff/waiters. [which saves money] They put most of these into practice with the new menu. As criticism gets too much regarding something, they pull back on those. It will be a few months before the dust settles. JMHO

Really glad to hear that. I like usually ask for a baked potato a few times each cruise.

They do not want you to plan outside DIY things. They want you to purchase the add-ons from them. That is why I suggested the OP research on that forum. For example. Rather than the more expensive sled dog tour [which I have heard is excellent] I went to the National Park Service sled dog demonstration for free. We saw the demo and we were able to pet the dogs. It was very good and it was all I needed. YMMV With kids you may want to ride a sled. We also followed the Denali puppy cam during the year.

I highly suggest you spend a fair amount of time reading the Alaska port of call forum. I began reading it AFTER I booked. If I had read it before I would have done a few things differently. The people who post there have so much knowledge and are not afraid to share an opinion. For example, my tour was going to include the Denali Natural History tour which I found out only goes 25 miles into the park. I exchanged this for the Tundra Wilderness tour which goes much farther. People on that forum told me I would not see many animals on the history tour. The train cars are very nice. It was an 8 hr trip from Denali to anchorage--but, we enjoyed it. The windows are huge and everyone can see well. The day was cloudy as we left the park, but we soon had sunshine. The scenery is amazing. I noted another person said it was a dud. We had a clear day and beautiful sights. JMHO Only about a third of visitors get to see a full view of Denali. We were so lucky. There was a photographer near us. We heard he fist bump and say that this was the money shot. LOL Denali from the train. They slowed the train down so we could all get views and pictures. I enlarged this--but such a great sight! YMMV