sara mom

Up early….ugh dear children! Some time up on the pool deck this morning.

But the big thrill came from ice skating. We have taken the kids ice skating one time before, so they were so excited. We did have an enjoyable time, even with the cuts and scrapes.

No pics of the falls.....and there were a few.

You do have to wear helmets…and I am ok with that for the amount of falls that happen, it seems necessary and Royal does not want people blaming them for their falls. Both kids got scrapes of their hands from falls and this became a bit problematic at meal times. It was on this day we noticed the ‘greeters’ at WJ or other dining rooms were becoming as bit pushy when folks would walk in about using the hand sanitizer. Have you ever put alcohol based hand sanitizer on an open wound? ….so not good for kids. The morning show also was stressing the need to wash hands…something about singing the ‘Happy Birthday’ song 3 times. Little did we know about the norovirus outbreak on other ships.

Coming up...San Juan. We will be going here!

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Day 3

First off, taking this pic every morning helps to figure out what day we did things. (they change everyday in the elevators)

Up early again for breakfast of bacon, donuts, and sausage. We did put the kids in AO so we could get some quiet sun time by ourselves. What a relaxing time of 2 hours all by ourselves in the sun! Next to us were another couple that lived about 10 minutes away. I wonder how many other people were on the ship from the Rochester area? We sat on the riser area leading from deck 11 to 12, opposite of the suite passenger side. I loved listening to people walking up the stairs and complaining that at 11:30 there were no chairs available down near the pool for their group of 10. Really, there was not a problem of finding loungers in groups of 2 or 3 on either deck.

We got the kids out of AO and did the whole waterslide thing with them. Note- the kids waterslide in the back in mostly is the shade and the water is chilly! We did not spend a lot of time there, so back we went to the main pools. Later that afternoon, we would spend time of the sports deck- mini golf, ping pong, and DH and DS did the rock wall.

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The past guest party was held in the Palace Theatre. I heard that some sailings they do it all at once in the theatre and on some sailings they split up the parties to different night and have it in the Mahajares Lounge. There was one Pinnacle member on our sailing who was introduced on stage. It was a nice event…they had some of the performers singing on stage. The waiters were wonderful with the kids, always coming over and checking with them if they wanted anything else to drink. They had lots of fruit punch during the event!

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As for food, I usually try and eat healthy at meals, normally the fish dish. But this night I ordered the Steak Oscar. YUMMY! Steak and crab, how can you go wrong?

Day 2

The kids were up bright and early (before 7am) so off to the WJ for breakfast. On our Disney cruise 2 months before, they got used to having donuts and bacon for breakfast (They NEVER get that at home), so they kept up the morning breakfast tradition. Luckily, DD would grow tired of this (the donuts were a bit tasteless) and switched to omelets or Rice Krispies for breakfast. We dropped the kids off at Adventure Ocean. I am NOT a fan of how you must go through the arcade to get into AO. The noise coming from all those arcade games is very loud and DD has some sensory issues with noise, which led her to not want to go to AO often because of the noise level. Once inside AO, you can’t hear the noise any longer. After we got them settled in, we headed off to exercise. Well at 10am, every single piece of cardio equipment was being used. Many other people had the exact same idea. So, out we went, picked up the kids and walked around the ship more.

We ate lunch in the MDR and enjoyed the tutti salad (including the kiddos). The kiddos also got cheeseburgers and they were the best we had all trip! We ended up sitting with a couple from 1 town away from us. Small world!

After lunch, we let the kids go swimming and hang out in the hot tubs. It was mainly kids and some adults hanging out on deck 11. I headed down to the art auction that was to begin at 2. There were 2 pieces I might have been interested in, but after sitting there till 2:25 and no auction starting, I just left. Over 30 minutes and I scored 1 glass of champagne.

They were showing ‘African Cats’ as the movie that day…it’s a Disney movie I had wanted to see but never got around to it when it was in theaters. I guess I should also mention that when I watch nature shows at home and I know that someone/something is going to get eaten, I change the channel for a little bit. Well, I could not do that on the ship. So after 2 ‘kill’ scenes, I told the kids we were leaving. They were less than happy with that idea. Oh well. Apparently they love the ‘kill’ scenes.

This night was dress up night. I love to see the kiddos in their ‘itchy’ clothes as DS calls them. We did get some nice formal pics of the 5 of us. Both kids could have had their entire dinner on shrimp cocktails, but mean mom made them eat some veggies too.

DD watching the fish in aquarium

One of the aquariums sprung a leak

Everyone dressed up. Somewhere down there is Captain Henrick having his pic taken with guests.

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To start off…we were a group of 5…my DF, DH, DD (5), DS (7), and me.

Day 1

Our scheduled 10 night cruise to leave on Friday January 27th was adjusted to 9 nights, as the cruise prior to ours had some medical problems that made it turn around on its trip back north and return to the San Juan area so a Coast Guard helicopter could remove an ill passenger. While this led to some frustration on our part, I am glad that Royal Caribbean made the cruiser’s illness a priority. So we made some adjustments to our original plans and we were on our way. The phone calls (there were at least 4) and emails that I received about the 1 day delay told us to arrive at the port on Saturday between 2 and 6. A bit later than normal boarding times. I knew I did not want to be in the mad rush to be one of the first ones on (especially with many possibly cranky passengers about the delay), so we arrived around 3. To my surprise, there were hardly any lines! Wow, did this ever surprise me. When we were checking in, I asked about it. Apparently, they started to let passengers check in at 10:30…the normal time. OH well, at least I missed all the long lines! The check in agent also mentioned that about 30 people had shown up on Friday (our original departure day). Apparently RCCL put them up for a night at a nearby hotel, but did not provide meal vouchers. [so happy we buy trip insurance, as all of our extra expenses are covered…lodging and food..and misc]. We got onboard pretty quickly and started to give DF, DD, and DS a tour, as we had been on the ship the previous May. Our rooms were on deck 6…2 interior connecting rooms 6337 and 6339. We found our room steward quickly and asked her to unlock the connecting door to the cabins and she told us her supervisor would have to do that. The rooms were in a great location- not far from the stairs/elevators in the aft section…down 2 flights to dinner, and right up to the WJ and pool! One interesting note about the rooms…..1 had a flat screened TV that was ‘snowy’ all week, while the other was the older style that worked just fine. Then we heard the announcements for the muster drill that was to begin at 4:15. Hmmmm…but what about those passengers who thought they had more time to get on board (till 6pm) according to our phone calls. Not sure how they could do that without everyone on board, but that wasn’t my problem. We lucked out and had our station in the 4th floor dining room. First time ever being in an inside muster station!

On our tour of the ship, we checked out of dinner table in the MDR. It was a 10 top. I was a bit worried as we were a group with 2 kids and hopefully the others would not have a problem with the kids. We would learn at dinner that my worries were for nothing…we were seated with another 3 generation family with 2 kids. Yeah! This was one of the best dinner seating pairings for us yet!

We had early seating and we left port during dinner…so we went under the Verrazano Bridge in the dark during our meal.

various 1st day pics

Nope, no winter coat for me!

Very rarely could you not see many people on deck 5.

Empress(Denise),

Thank you are a great report so far! We will also be boarding the day you disembark. Can you tell me if in St Thomas did you have to change your clocks to port time (EST vs AST)? I'm trying to plan a dive for my husband and need to get the times figured out.

THANKS!

First order of business when my kids got their shiny new "charge cards" was to go to the general store and buy them a lanyard to keep the card around their necks (which would be promptly rung for losing the card)..... then I went up stairs (without using priority mode on the elevator, just to be clear), signed them into the kids program where they got FREE LANYARDS. Dang it.

 

Please feel free to improve your experience based on my $20 mistake :)

Thank you for that info!