SteelCityCruiser10

I expect Ft. lauderdale will be better than this

Getting closer…

Welcome!! Very good to hear positive feedback! Glad you enjoyed & thanks for following. Cheers 🍻

Sounds fantastic! 🐾🐾

Yep that’s classic. Trust me I’m fully aware how Philly fans react to anything from Pittsburgh 😂 I was center ice about 10 rows back for this fight when Arron Asham knocked out Jay Beagle cold. It was controversial because of his gestures after the fight.

Thanks for following! know the feeling well… You, @MeganGC1983 and @Steelers0854 helped get me here!

BTW I think I’ve said this before but your screen name is phenomenal

One difference I immediately noticed was that I was able to complete checkin immediately and choose our arrival time (1:45). I completed this the day after booking. I am used to doing that opening around 45 days prior to sailing with RC.

Here’s all our LOOT. Some was booking promo, some from TA and some from DBE status match. From what i’ve seen on other Live reports this actually isn’t all that much sailor loot/bar tab. We’ll see how far it goes.

Here’s the email I received after status match

I’m interested to see how far the bar tab goes. I am used to having a full beverage package. Our last sailing in Jewel OTS was my first ever soirée (might as well us that word again, right!) into non-bevvie pkg land and it wasn’t too bad. I had 5 free drinks per day and free drinks during suites HH plus a port every day except 1 so that helped a ton. We status matched for this cruise. We are D+ with Royal which matched to Deep Blue Extras with VV. More on that to come. The status match was easy through the VV website. Just some simple info and sent a screen shot of my Royal page showing D+ points and CAS number and voila… DBE appeared. Thanks to someone in the VV boards who gave that link!! I couldn’t find the submission link on the website for some reason. Once approved, it’s good for all of 2024.

I was able to get into Razzle Dazzle about a week ago. It’s a later time though. The group had Test Kitchen booked originally but collectively decided we aren’t into it. Kinda “Wonderland - ish” it sounded like and Wonderland was a one and done for us. Other 2 couples booked Gunbae but we opted for RD instead.

I am fully prepared for PJ party and Scarlet Night & DW as well. Not so much on the 70s retro workout attire that was suggested in their pre cruise email.

We booked most of our dining as soon as it was open in the app. I think it was 30 days out (?) We are hoping we can amend some of the dining when we get onboard because all 6 of us didn’t get all the exact same times. Some wanted to do Gunbae but we didn’t so we are going to Razzle Dazzle instead that night - unless they try to tag along if possible. We did figure out that you can make/add others you are sailing with your “contacts” in the app and once they sign in you can include everyone when you book things or just add things to your “love list” which basically just flags it on your calendar as something you would like to attend from what I can tell so far.

I’m mostly packed and ready to roll besides a few last minute adds from laundry and toiletries. DW is actually like 75% packed and it’s only 8:30 pm! That’s a small miracle. Usually she is up half the night packing while me and the dogs are sawing logs 💤 It is only 4 nights after all - better than NO nights though!

Fur babies don’t know they’re going on Puppy-cation yet.

This one was hard to get my hands on. Focal Banger by Alchemist Brewery in Vermont. Not easy to get here. Very much enjoyed but not sure it as good as hyped.

Pre Cruise shenanigans 🍻

Just started it. Here’s the link…

We fly out tomorrow around 3 to FLL and will Uber to Miami on Wednesday. For Key West we don’t have an excursion booked but there is talk of doing our own bar crawl/walking restaurants tour. For Bimini Beach Club we have a cabana booked.

Here’s the intinerary

how long is it there? Maybe after we’re back from the VV cruise I’d like to check it out.

Verdict in in… decided to go live over on the VV board for our sailing on Scarlet Lady. We fly to FLL tomorrow. Feel free to come over to the dark side, i’m mean red side i guess & tag along!

Might have to check this out

Alright ladies and gents let’s get another party started! Following the awesome 3 live threads that went on last week will be a tough act to follow without a doubt. This is our first VV cruise but we are not new to cruising. I think this will be our 20th-ish cruise overall ( something like that) and the last 13 or so have all been with Royal Caribbean so I will mostly be comparing to that. This particular adventure was somewhat last minute and by that I mean booked with under a year before sail date. In fact it was about 5 months ago we booked. For us, that’s last minute LOL Why last minute? Well glad you asked … DW gets a text from her friend and former college roommate that they were going to book a VV cruise and so were another couple. We had cruised to Alaska on RC Explorer with them and their kids 5 yrs ago. (also was live on that one) And had a tremendously awesome time I might add. So we are way overdue to get on another ship together and they are able to leave the kids AT HOME this time. 😱 OMG Contacted “my usual” TA 🧐 and the rest is history. I wish DW would get more texts like that!! The 2 other couples that we will be with are HUGE disney fans and will have great insight vs DCL I’m sure. We are all 40 something’s from Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area if you could not deduce that from my handle) We all wanted to give VV a try since we all LOVE cruising and it’s adult only. What could go wrong ?? 🤔🍻 I’m going in with an open mind knowing that this won’t be Royal and likely will be the complete opposite of Royal on purpose which i’m mostly OK with - at least I think so. We shall see. Other than this intro, I’ll try to be heavy on pictures and light on words but I’ll definitely answer any questions I possibly can. I’ll recap at the end with some final thoughts and do some comparisons to Royal. Cheers 🍻 Mark