perfect match

5 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Imagine your house with this artwork

 

I don’t even want to think about the reaction of our HOA if we had that artwork, or for that matter ANY artwork on our house! 😱 Wouldn’t matter what the artwork looked like or who painted it. 

14 hours ago, DandDM said:

Sorry for going dark, feel like I have some explaining to do!  Will call this post: “What not to do on a cruise if you’re over 50 and not in drinking shape

So, you’re starting to understand what happens to one’s body as one gets older! 😂 I’m well past 50 and let’s just say that with every year that goes by I find more and more things that I’m way better off not trying to do any more. 😱 On the other hand I’m always pleased when I find things I still can do, and even new things that I’ve never tried before. Happens to all of us, each at our own schedule. Life is way better when I listen to what my body warns me not to do and enjoy the things I still can do. You’ll figure it out. 😀

6 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Thanks for the Chinese New Year wishes.  For those not familiar, Chinese New Year is this Saturday.  We will be having lunch with my wife’s side of the family.  I will see if I can throw in a few pictures from that event to show a more authentic Chinese food not available in many parts of the country

I hope you have a wonderful Chinese New Year celebration with your wife’s family. I’ll be interested to see the food pictures you share.

I loved Curaçao! Can’t wait to see your pictures of the town. We saw some spectacular scenery, met some awesome sea turtles, but did not get to see much of the town. I need to go back there!

On 2/5/2024 at 3:32 PM, LittleMissMagic said:

Amazing, so excited for this review! I'll be sailing Star Class for the first time on Allure in just a few weeks, so I appreciate the information!

 When will you be on Allure? We will be on at the end of April, beginning of May. I’m thinking we will be after you.

18 hours ago, Denversail said:

I’m currently Diamond with 131 cruise points. This trip will get me to 144 points. I should end the year at 160 points. It is a slow climb. 

We’re right in the same place C&A points as you. It certainly is a slow climb, even with the bonus points we got on some of our post pandemic sailings.

I have to tell you that I had to scroll very quickly past the dead animal “presents”. That was hard to see. We have cats who do not go outdoors because they would be gator 🐊 bait or bobcat bait if they did. The cats do bring us presents, but their presents are cat toys. Much better than dead animals.

I hope that you will be able to brave the weather and get everyone in your travel party safely aboard the ship!

4 hours ago, DandDM said:

Wow!  I need to check that out. A marathon wouldn’t work, buts it’s bucket list to run a race at a port!

When we first started cruising we were cruising on Disney. While it’s not a marathon, they used to do a Castaway Cay 5K when they stopped at their private island. I think they used to hand out some sort of medal to those who did it. That was about 12 years or so ago so I have no idea if they’re still doing it. I never tried it myself because I spent my time at Castaway Cay in the water. I’m way more a swimmer than a runner. 

After a couple of internet blips, videos are playing! All I could hear at Hideaway beach was the wind and the waves! Yikes! No wonder you’re stuck at the pier! Hope you have smooth sailing once the ship is able to get away from the dock. 

Was Hideaway Beach a loud party place while you were there? I bought it at cheap BF price but am seriously considering canceling it.
 

I couldn’t get your videos to play on my iPad tonight. We’ve been having internet problems in the neighborhood lately so that’s probably why. Land line phones for those who still have them aren’t working either. The problems all started with the most recent Xfinity upgrade! Can’t wait to see what happens in two days when they come to fix it! 😂

If it makes you feel any better about being stuck at the Coco Cay pier the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch 🚀 that was supposed to go up from KSC was scrapped tonight, postponed until 1:33 Thursday AM.

On 1/4/2024 at 11:24 AM, twangster said:

Photo statistics:

 

14,235 pictures and/or video clips captured

 

781.21 GB on disk

 

1,960 images processed for posting.

 

Photos have been reduced to 1,200 maximum pixel width to make them easier to upload over ship internet.

I’m going to have to show your photography stats to my DH. Maybe then he will realize that I truly don’t take that many photos! 😂 I don’t even come close!
 

I’m very grateful that you do take that many photos since I enjoyed every single one of them! 

I’ve finally made it to the end of Antarctica and I’m so very glad I found my way here! Your photography, as usual, was breathtaking. Your descriptions of your cruise were very informative. I hope that at some point I’ll be able to do my own Antarctica cruise, preferably before I get too old to enjoy it! 😱 For now I can’t recall a cruise trip report I’ve enjoyed more than this one. 
 

I will be moving on to your Galapagos review soon but I’m going to take a little bit of time first to let my memories of this one settle in. I’ll see you on your Galapagos thread soon. Thank you very much for sharing with us. 

5 hours ago, DandDM said:

and a milestone block I was not expecting nor know the reason for, but it is lovely!  

 

The crystal block is a loyalty recognition from C&A. We get our first one on our next cruise. Below copied from RC website.
 

How do you get crystal blocks on Royal Caribbean?

You will earn your first block on the sailing you reach 140 Crown & Anchor points. You will receive the block for the ship on which you reach the milestone. You You will receive additional blocks for every 70 Crown & Anchor points you earn after that.

Great pictures! Thank you. 
Now take care of that not too happy looking foot or you won’t be wanting to walk on it, never mind run!

I’ve been here and definitely enjoying the journey. I appreciate the time you have taken to share your cruise with us. You have been to a lot of my bucket list destinations. Hopefully I will be able to make it there at some point but for now I’m enjoying virtual cruises with people like you. Thanks foe taking me along! 

Harry, glad you and your wife were able to get your awning down before if caused any serious damage and didn’t get hurt doing it. Here in Florida we always go out and secure or move indoors any loose items that might get blown away or cause damage. I did learn not to bring in any of my outdoor plants that are in pots though since they frequently come with little stowaways 🦎 🐸 that keep our cats 🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛ amused until I come to their rescue. 
 

I hope that the worst of the weather is over in your area and that life will be back to normal soon. 

5 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

I just checked the compass I uploaded for day 3.  Brunch is 8:30 to 12:30 that day.

To me 8:30 AM is NOT brunch. The whole point of brunch in the world of this night owl is that I don’t have to get up that early to get breakfast food! As for the 12:30 ending time, well that’s about the time I’d be wanting to show up for brunch! 
 

4 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Nobody was in front of the Christmas tree anymore as it was Christmas afternoon already.  If the tree has feelings, I wonder if it feels sad/unwanted in everyone who loves you up to Christmas morning and then blah, nothing after the presents are opened

Looks to me like that would be a great time to go and take pictures by the Christmas tree 🎄. That way you wouldn’t have strangers  crashing your pictures and the Christmas tree 🎄 wouldn’t be left feeling sad, lonely and unloved. That sounds like a win-win situation to me. 😁

4 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Oh, yeah, for those who like to sleep in the nude, close the curtains...

A friend of ours once chose to disregard that advice on one of his cruises. It was a decision he came to regret! 🤣

We booked Hideaway Beach during the BF sale. We were hoping for a quiet adults only beach. Sounds like we’ll end up canceling since it seems like it’s going to be more of a party area. Nothing wrong with a party area for those who enjoy that. It’s just not what we’re looking for so we’ll leave it for those who are. 

Good for you that you got out for your run. You got some training in and also got to see a lot of South Beach! That’s a double win in my book! 
 

Loved the Icon picture!

We really enjoyed brunch on our last couple of cruises. However, brunch ran until 1:30 PM and they had options for both breakfast and lunch foods, so you could have whatever meal you wanted. I always chose breakfast while DH frequently chose lunch. We were both happy. I hope it is the same way when we board Allure in a couple of months. Actually, since we’re doing two short sailings I don’t think they will be doing brunch on the second leg of our B2B, the three day sailing but there are two sea days on the 4 day leg so I’m hopeful for brunch on the sea days that runs until 1:30. 

4 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

To my fellow Calfirnia cruisers, hope y’all stay dry and safe on Sunday as another big storm is going to wallop the state

 

https://news.yahoo.com/prepare-now-historic-rains-californias-195233586.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=0_00

 

I have been watching the weather that’s heading your way. Hope you and your family stay safe through the storm. 

Thank you @cruisinghawg and everyone else who has contributed to this wonderful and very informative thread! I have really enjoyed cruising along with you! Congratulations to Toby for winning Best of the Best on the Icon Flowrider! 
 

I was not particularly interested in sailing on Icon before reading this thread along with a couple of others from both this sailing and the non revenue sailings that preceded it. You have won me over. I am now trying to figure out when I can fit an Icon or more likely a Star sailing out of Port Canaveral into our schedule. 🤩

I’ll be following! Oasis should be fun. 🤩 

3 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

It might be if I have multiple videos in the same post, it could impact the download from the server to your iPad.  Going forward, I will try to have just 1 video upload per post to see if that works better.

I got some of the Effectors videos to play just now, but after the first two or 3 it didn’t work any more. Perhaps my so called high speed internet isn’t up to the task. 
 

I probably should do a speed test, but I have absolutely no idea what the numbers they give me mean….

20 hours ago, h20skibum said:

That’s odd, because they show fine on my iPad.  I am watching them on an iPad Air 4.

My iPad is getting old, 6th generation (I just had to go look for that)  but it has had all of the latest updates. I don’t know if it’s age would make any difference.

I have a pet peeve with the roving piano player. For the most part, I think having him or her on the ship can be a fun encounter.  However, when that piano player moves into an elevator or into an already busy, congested hallway I’m not so amused! Elevators are always a wait at best. Adding a piano into that elevator takes it away from its intended purpose which is to transport guests from one floor to another. There are many cruisers who are in wheelchairs or scooters or on walkers for whom taking the stairs is not an option. There are others, myself included who can manage the stairs just fine some of the time, just not all of the time. Falling down the stairs is not something I want to do, but has been a risk I have had to take  so someone can play a piano in the elevator.

Crowded hallways, like right after a show lets out and people are all pushing and shoving to get to their next activity = not a good location for a piano player either.

The acoustics in a cruise ship elevator are, let’s just say, less than ideal for listening to piano music! I wish that better, safer places could be found for the piano player.

Ok, rant Thanks for listening. Let’s get back to Harry’s excellent review! 
 

By the way, Harry, I couldn’t view your Effectors videos on my iPad. I could see your other videos, but for some reason not these. I have no idea why. 🤔

Edit: Harry, I forgot to say that I’m glad that you, your family, and your home did not suffer any damages from all of the rain. 

4 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

People are probably booking the paid version now under the FOMO syndrome and if somehow they can’t get any free reservation time slots after boarding, at least they have something booked, even though it’s going to be pretty expensive.

 

You have up to 12 hours before the paid appointment time to cancel without a penalty so if anyone wants to play it safe, book a paid appointment for the end of the cruise.  Board the ship and see if you can ride it as early as possible (day 1) to see if you think the experience is worth it. 

 

If so, maybe keep the paid one and you get the extended experience as round 2.   If not, cancel the day 7 appointment after the initial day 1 ride.

 

For those curious, it's $40 to $50/pp for the extended experience for the 2 events

 

 

 

 

What are your tentative plans while at the ports in Alaska?

We sailed on Odyssey in April, 2020. On our sailing the price for the paid version of iFly was $29/pp and for North Star was $19/pp. What a difference a year makes!

I loved the sunrise shot of the Opera House! The view of it from North Star wasn’t bad either. 😎