perfect match

Harry, I know you’ve done your research so you must have learned that New York is the city that never sleeps! At any hour of the day or night there will be people out there doing whatever it is that they do. The nonstop activity level in the city is part of my love/hate relationship with that nonstop city. I find it an exciting, wonderful place to be, but it also exhausts and overwhelms me. It’s a place I’ve enjoyed visiting but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Your pictures and descriptions are, as usual, spectacular! 

On 7/22/2024 at 9:20 AM, little britain said:

Just watched the blog lengthy utube video - it certainly is a lot more 'colourful' than your average RCI ship - but wow, that outside seating on Giovannis looks incredible.  Not sure if I would like to be in those first BW balconies though!  I guess they could always throw you a bread stick! 

We almost booked a Boardwalk Balcony on Utopia. However, my DH has very much turned into an early to bed kind of gut as he’s gotten older, so our daily time schedule has had to change to meet his needs. We were going to be all the way aft on the Boardwalk and I was afraid the noise would be too much for him especially with the late start time of the AquaTheater shows. I’m a night owl so I would have been out on our balcony watching the but DH would not enjoy the cruise if he couldn’t sleep. I looked around and found an OV balcony that I liked for as decent a price as I could find and booked that instead. We’ll be a lot happier there. If I really want to go to the late show in the AquaTheater I’ll just go there and see it.

6 hours ago, Hooked.on.Royal said:

Effectors homecoming parade up next 🤷‍♂️. My little guy is upset it’s not the normal pirates parade. 

How did your little one like the superheroes on parade? I wouldn’t be surprised if he got over the lack of parading pirates really quickly once he saw them.At least I hope he did! 

Thank you to everyone for sharing their experience on Utopia. We will be on in January, a weekday 4 nighter in attempt to enjoy the ship without the full on weekend party crowd. Nothing wrong with it if that’s your thing but DH and I were done with that scene many years ago. Maybe it will bring back some memories from those days ….. that is, if I can remember them! 😂😱😜

Great report, Harry! I’m enjoying seeing New York through your eyes. 
 

Life has been busy around here lately so I haven’t gotten here every day but I catch up when I can. You can count on me following along until you’re done showing us the sights of New York.

Bill, if you’re watching the PC webcam this coming Sunday morning when Wonder comes in be sure you wave to @OCSC Mike! He and his wife have been onboard Wonder again this week and will be disembarking on Sunday. 

14 hours ago, BillOh said:

Nancy,  remind me of your sail date again, I'll watch it on the webcam.  I kind of miss not checking that cam every Sunday since we got back. 

We board Wonder on September 8. At some point I’ll wave to you on the webcam. We have friends, former neighbors actually who will be sailing with us on Wonder. I don’t know what they will want to do yet for sailaway. I’ll let you know when I know.
 

We’re definitely looking forward to sailing on Wonder, but I’m not happy with a lot of what I’ve been hearing about the entertainment. The word “disappointing” comes up far too often for my liking.

On 7/16/2024 at 9:32 PM, harryfat1 said:

 

 

The first item on the agenda is a big one as we hit the ground running in booking the observation deck at Summit One.  NYC has like 5 observation decks and this is the newest one.  It’s easily an Instammger’s dream spot as you can fill your Instagram pages (or a CC trip report) just with one visit.

I loved all of your pictures from Summit One! Never been there. Can you tell me when the building was first opened?

DH and I REALLY miss NY pizza 🍕! Here in Florida we have so called NY pizza, but there’s no comparison to the real thing. We’ve found a few places here that come close enough that we’ll eat them when we need a pizza fix but spend the whole time thinking about the pizza we wish we were eating.

It does not surprise me at all what a great job you’ve done in researching your NY trip and how well you’ve planned out your days. As a bit of a planner myself, I appreciate your skills. 

Love the balcony pictures! It’s been a while since we cruised Princess, but since they will be home porting a ship in our home port, Canaveral, we’re thinking that another Princess cruise may appear on our cruise calendar soon.

On 7/16/2024 at 10:30 AM, BillOh said:

Nancy,  enjoy your cruise!  Now that I am officially retired I got busy and forgot to come back to this review! I'll get back on it soon!

Isn’t it ironic how much busier life seems to get once you’re retired? 😂 I don’t have any idea how we ever managed to fit work into our days before we were retired 🤷‍♀️!

Hi Norris, Carol, and cats! 
 

I knew you had Germany planned for this summer but I wasn’t sure what else you had planned. I have now taken a screenshot of your screenshot so I’ll know when and where to find you. Hope you have a great time in Germany as you always seem to do. I’ll be looking for you in early November on Enchanted. 😀

I hadn’t seen you around in a while so I wasn’t sure what cruise line you were cruising these days. Tonight I happened to wander over here to the Princess board and what a nice surprise not only to find you posting here, but that it was one of your My View reviews as well! I’m here for the rest of it! Your review and pictures are great, as always! 

Your trip through Grand Central Station brought back a lot of memories. DH is originally from Brooklyn and spent a lot of time in Manhattan so he knows the city well.

We were living in CT and used to take the New Haven rail line into the city to see his mom. That ended 20 years ago when we moved to Florida. Things have certainly changed since then! For most of our trips we used paper tickets for the NHRR into the city and tokens for the subway ride out to Brooklyn. We finally started to use Metro Cards about a year or so before we moved to Florida. I think he may still have a token or two that were left over when we switched to the Metro cards. Fortunately for me DH knew his way around so all I had to do was follow him around. Grand Central looks very familiar in some ways, but very different in others. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the city through your eyes. 

I’m here, Harry! Definitely interested in hearing about your trip to NY! 

200 days for us. Seems like forever but hopefully it will go by fast. Our Wonder cruise in September should help the time go by. 🛳️🛳️

That truly was a special breakfast. Kudos to the Food & Beverage Director. With all of the cuts being made it is wonderful to see that some staff members are still going above and beyond the call of duty.

Thank you, @Norwich Cruiser, for your reports on this President’s Cruise! I have enjoyed following along with you. While you have really tempted me to sign up for next year’s President’s Cruise, I have not done so - yet! Cruises do seem to book themselves in our house, and it seemed to me that your experience was a very special cruise.
 

Regardless of what we end up doing, thank you vert much for taking the time to share your experience with us! 

3 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

 

I can still see them in my website cruise planner and could reserve them if I wanted. They're missing from the app, however.

Way too soon to see anything for our September cruise on Wonder. We’re still 73 😱 days out. Barry and I are much more show fans than you seem to be, Mike. I mean, we’re even fans of CATS so far more interested in the shows than you but I’m hoping you’ll report on what shows will be offered on your cruise in July. 🙏

I’m really hoping that entertainment on Royal ships doesn’t go downhill as fast as I’m afraid it might. 

@jean87510, apparently there are now some underwater pirate sculptures new to Sun Cay as shown in this Trip Advisor listing. The price on the Royal. website was originally $159, now down to $125. I like the Victor price of $79 a lot better than Royal’ price. However, I’m not very impressed with the pirates or the experience you described on the island so, although I’m curious I don’t think I’m curious enough to book the excursion. Those pirates and the sunken plane are definitely not Jason deCaires sculptures! 
 

https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g147415-d25332201-SunCay_Sunken_Sculpture_Snorkel_Iguana_Encounter_with_Lunch-New_Providence_Island_.html

They looked like the sculptures in Grenada to me, but that excursion listing screenshot is from the cruise planner for my Utopia Jan 27 that only goes to Nassau and Coco Cay. 🤷‍♀️

I wasn’t aware of any sculpture installation like the Grenada one in Nassau, but I did get to snorkel on the Ocean Atlas sculpture in Nassau on my Allure cruise so I know that’s really there. Stingrays plus Ocean Atlas made that a fun snorkel. Here’s a link to Ocean Atlas.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ocean-atlas

The sculptor who created Ocean Atlas is the same sculptor who created the sculptures in Grenade, Jason deCaires Taylor. I thought I had found that he was working on a second project in Nassau but I can’t find it now.

I guess I was hoping that there was another sculpture installation added in Nassau. Perhaps the listing of the sculpture garden in Nassau is yet another Royal website glitch. Imagine that! 😂

The photos I’ve added are the Ocean Atlas sculpture taken May 1 this year. She’s definitely not at Sun Cay, or Pearl island, or whatever they’re calling the place now. Wish I was on scuba when I took those pictures.

@jean87510, did you book Sun Cay specifically or Pearl Island? 

We just booked Utopia in January and I spotted an excursion to Sun Cay featuring an underwater sculpture garden that looked interesting. I checked Google maps and it appeared that Sun Cay and Pearl island and Sun Cay were exactly the same place. 
 

I’m wondering what’s going on there. We have not been to Pearl Island but friends with similar taste to ours have and loved it. However, the Pearl Island that they visited did not bear any resemblance at all to the island you recently visited! 😱 Sounds like they may have made some major changes on the island beyond the island’s name, changes I know we would not enjoy any more than you did. Your description may have just saved me from a pricy excursion DH and both would have totally hated! 
 

It kind of sounds to me they’re now marketing to the short cruise, weekend party crowd. We’re booked on Utopia 
 

Here’s a screenshot of the sculpture garden excursion that caught my attention. Did you see or hear of anything like the sculptures picture in this excursion description?

I currently have 2 cruises booked. Both were booked for early dining.

In the app:

Wonder - September ‘24 not in app

Utopia - January ‘25 - shows in app early dining

On our Allure B2B in April/May we had confirmed bookings for early dining on the first leg and late dining on the second. On our cruise cards they were reversed. We did get them fixed but shouldn’t have had to. I even had email confirmations for our booked dining times. The MDR staff were all very helpful.

Interesting link @h20skibum! Thanks for sharing.

12 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

$65.99 for Wonder next month, lowest I've ever seen for my Wonder cruises.

 

Good prices on refreshment ($23.99) and Soda ($8.99) as well. Refreshment isn't D and above, just says C&A, and soda is a standard sale.

$62.99 on our September 8 Wonder cruise. We’re not drinkers so we’re not buying. Refreshment and soda the same as yours. We already have soda at $8.99 from Black Friday.

16 hours ago, BillOh said:

I'm not stuff, but perhaps a bit boring, especially as I enter my GET OFF MY LAWN years.

Bill, you’re not boring! We sailed with you and Gina and very much enjoyed your company! 
 

I love that you’re saying that you’re entering your GET OFF MY LAWN years! We already there although I’ve never thought of it that way! 😂 Can I please borrow that expression? 

On 6/3/2024 at 9:16 AM, BillOh said:

Got back from Wonder late last night, good trip more detail soon, I usually do BLUE COLLAR DIAMOND reviews, will work on that today

We don’t sail Wonder until September so I’ve got time.  I’ll be here when you’re ready.