perfect match

Well, now I’m disappointed! I loved that show. Do you know if it was a casualty of the pandemic, or just Vegas constantly feeling the need to reinvent itself? I do agree with you about O, Ka, and Mystere. If we decide to head back to Vegas, I’d see any of them again.

No hurricane here yet even though the current TV reports show one of the outer bands directly over us. We did get some wind this afternoon so we had to move from the lakefront edge of the outdoor patio where we were having dinner with friends to the back of the patio so our food wouldn’t blow away. We did get some very light rain 🌧️ on our way home for about 5 minutes but it barely got the windshield clean! Seems like Idalia will stay to the west until she passes us by and then will make her turn to the east. That’s fine with me but I feel for the people in the Big Bend area who hay get hit with a cat 3 or 4 storm 🌀. Since we like the Oasis class ships so much, and there’s so much to see and do on them we’re going back on Allure for a second time in April. We wanted to try Wonder but couldn’t justify paying almost double for what our 3/4 day B2B on Allure will cost us. Besides, I like the fact that Allure hasn’t been amped yet. Our first leg is the 3 day to Coco Cay and Nassau, then back to PC for turnaround. Our second leg is Cozumel with two sea days to play on Allure. Our first cruise on Allure was shortly after cruising resumes post shutdown and there were just over 2,200 pax on board. We felt like we were sailing on our own private yacht. 😎 I’m well aware that this sailing will be totally different! We’re still looking forward to it. Our last cruise was on Odyssey. Lots of fun things to do on that ship too. We loved the views and the photo ops from the North Star, and I liked iFly so much I’ll be visiting the one in the FLL area when we’re in that area next month. There’s one in Orlando, too, and I may find my way to that one as well. Since your taste in shows seems to be similar to ours,be sure you see the shows on Odyssey, too.

So sorry for your loss. 💐

Congratulations on your winnings, Sue! Your luck in the casino is exactly opposite of mine. That’s why I stay out of the casino! 🎰 Is the Canadian customs declaration form everyone has to fill out a new thing? I’ve never seen it mentioned in any of the reviews I’ve read.

If O is dark when you’re in Vegas, go see Le Reve at the Winn. We have seen both shows twice an while we love both, Le Reve is in my top 5 live shows ever. What sets it apart is the water theater in the round with numerous access points for the actors to enter and exit the theater ranging from 90 feet above the water in the top of the dome to below the water to various points all around the theater. Now, let’s talk about your Mexico cruise. It will take my mind off of our 🌀 Idalia watch. Hopefully her path will stay west and north of us. Might catch @bobmacliberty more than us. My DH would definitely love people watching from the sofa in your room. My surgically repaired knees would need a lot of well placed pillows for me to have any chance of being comfortable there. I’d rather have chairs. I’m trying to remember if we’ve ever sailed on a ship with a Viking Crown Lounge? We’re not drinkers so not surprising that we haven’t been there, but I see that the views would be awesome! I know they’re not on Oasis class but how about Freedom or Quantum class? That water slide in your pictures looks and sounds a lot like the Aqua Duck on the Disney ships. We enjoyed the Aqua Duck slides on Disney Dream and Fantasy so I’d try the one on Navigator.

I’m somewhat surprised at how much I liked your promenade view room. It looked spacious and well laid out. I also liked the two sofas. Some friends of ours were upgraded to a promenade view room once but nobody warned them about keeping the blackout drapes closed. They were on whatever the lowest level is and some stiltwalkers came walking by and got quite the view! 😱 I don’t think they opened those drapes for the rest of their cruise! 😂 I doubt we’ll ever book a Promenade view because I love and use our balcony so much I wouldn’t want to give it up. It’s my happy place. I miss the days of active roll calls and the cabin crawls that went along with them. I enjoyed getting to see all the different cabin types in person and getting to meet the people I’d talked to on roll calls. As a quick follow up, yes, I’ve booked out tickets to see Cirque dunSoleil Drawn to Life! We’re going 2 days before our anniversary because the show is dark that week, but the show times on the day we going work better for us than the show times on our actual anniversary. Thank you @harryfat1 for reminding me how king it’s been since DH and I have been to a Cirque show!

We are big fans of Cirque du Soleil and have seen quite a few of their shows. Haven’t been to one in quite a while though. Before the pandemic, I think. We haven’t seen Drawn To Life at Disney Springs yet. Since we haven’t made any plans for our anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks, that sounds like a plan to me! 😀 Going to check for tickets now, and to see if any of the traveling Cirque shows will be in the area soon. UPDATE - Bazaar will be in St Petersburg in Feb-March. That’s workable as a day trip for us. Corteo will be in Jacksonville later in the spring. That’s a bit farther than we want to go for a day trip, so while it is possible it would take a bit more planning. We may have already seen Corteo, but if we did it was quite a while ago. I’m pretty sure I remember some of the scenes that were in your first video.

At this point for me it’s all about the donuts 🍩! I may have to head down to Universal Studios to pay a visit to VooDoo Donuts! 😋 🍩 It’s amazing how a picture of a giant donut sign can trigger such a craving. I guess the signs are doing their job. 😂

I couldn’t resist opening your Allure trip report. I’m happy to tell you that at least on page one the pictures still show up! I’ll go back and read later.

I haven’t started reading your Allure 2014 report yet. I’m too busy enjoying this one! 😃 We don’t sail until April so I should have time to read it after this one is done. I’ll let you know about the pictures. One of the reasons I’m excited about sailing Allure again is the fact that there’s still no big purple slide blocking the view. While I enjoyed riding the slide on the other Oasis class ships that do have it I didn’t think it was good enough to warrant the space it takes up. Our first cruise post pandemic was on Allure with 2,200 pax on board. We felt like we were sailing on our own private mega yacht. The upcoming one in April is a B2B, a three day going to Coco Cay and Nassau followed by a four day going to Cozumel. I’m sure this will be a totally different experience than the nearly empty post pandemic sailing and even different in our other seven and eight day cruises on the other Oasis class ships to say the least. It will work for us because it is out of Port Canaveral which is only 90 minutes from our house and we’ll essentially have three sea days if you count turn around day, and I’ll get to go diving in Cozumel.

I’ve had those luggage tags for years now and they have held up very well. We have sailed on Princess and HAL in addition to RCI brands so we have the ones that fit the Carnival group brands as well. We’ll be back on Allure for next cruise so I’ve pulled up your 2014 Allure report to see what you’ve discovered on her that I haven’t found yet. It should be a fun read.😎

Joining the group who prints out their set sail pass. I have enough else in my hands on boarding day to want to be juggling (more likely dropping) my cell phone during the boarding process, putting the phone down somewhere and ending up losing it or having some other phone related disaster take place during boarding. I’ve also had several cruises where internet was not working and was able to board a lot easier with my paper copy. Once we’re on board all of the paper and everything else I’m carrying goes away and the phone comes out so I can book anything I wasn’t able to book prior to boarding.

I like your pictures, your storytelling and your cruise philosophy in general. Plus, IIRC you’re known for mooring line pictures and I’ve already seen one of those. I’ll be sticking around to read the rest! 😁

I’m enjoying the continued review! Thank you for keeping it going! At my age 😱 and considering the order of my bucket list priorities, I seriously doubt I’ll get to most of the places you’ve been visiting so I’m very much enjoying my virtual visits.

Thank you for taking us along @mac_tlc! I’ve enjoyed cruising along with you. We’re looking forward to sailing on sister ship Allure in the spring and getting our first crystal block while we’re aboard. I’m hoping for the old style as they are more my personal taste, but I’m expecting that we’ll end up with the new style which my DH will prefer. Either way we’ll be happy with what we get, especially since it will be our first. 😀

Following along. Love your pictures from Mandarin Oriental!

I’m enjoying your review. Thank you for sharing your birthday cruise with us! Congratulations on celebrating 🥳 your 50th!

We have been watching the construction around the port in Nassau for a while now from the ship, but plan to get off when we stop there in April. We’ll get our steps in that day by walking around and checking out all of the changes. I love ❤️ the first picture of the AquaTheater in post #74! Beautiful!

Beautiful pictures! Thank you very much for sharing them.

We sailed Allure during the restart with a grand total of 2200 on board. It felt like we were sailing on our own private super yacht. You’re right, it was a totally awesome experience!

I love brunch! I hope they offer it on the 4 day leg of our Allure B2B during our sea days going to and coming back from Cozumel! I think I need to change my usual brunch order to include carrot 🥕 cake with my eggs though! 😋

Happy 40th anniversary to you and your DW! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than on a cruise with your family. I’m happy to be following along with you. 😎🛳️

Best price we’ve gotten on the classic soda package was $5.99/day for our Sept 2022 Harmony cruise, purchased during Black Friday sale in 2021, so that’s going back quite a way. I don’t think that price lasted through the whole Black Friday sale before going back up. Lately the best I’ve seen is $9.99. Funny, no matter what % off they’re advertising they always seem to end up with the same bottom line price of $9.99/day. Creative math 🤣! I’ll be interested to see what price they come up with for this year’s Black Friday sale.

Our cats prefer the bathroom sinks. When we built our current house we put two sinks in our master bath, figuring we’d each have our own sink. It didn’t quite work out that way. Each of the two cats we had at the time claimed a sink as their own so when one of us would go it, both sinks were already in use! 😹😻😹 We decided that we should have had three sinks installed, one for each cat and one for the two humans to share! 😂 Only one of our current cats drinks from the sinks and fortunately she doesn’t sleep there! I loved seeing your pictures from the X Meridian. I was never fortunate enough to cruise in those days so it was interesting to see your pictures showing the differences and similarities in cruising between then and now. Hope the problem with your husband’s car has been solved and is starting when you need it to. Glad you made it home safely. Thank you very much for your wonderful review and pictures!

What a crazy start to your cruise! I’m glad it wasn’t me trying to make that run! 😱 Glad you made your flight to Singapore, and that your bags managed to catch up to you there. I’m looking forward to following you and your daughter on Spectrum. 🛳️😎