perfect match

Thank you for taking us along on your anniversary cruise. I appreciate your feedback on the 3/4 B2B. Ours will be on Allure in April and I’m expecting the 3 day weekend sailing will be a party cruise just like yours was. Our 4 day goes to Cozumel with two sea days. I’m sure that leg will be much more relaxed. Like you I wish we could have worked out a 7 day that met our needs, but we got a good deal that we couldn’t pass up on our B2B, and the fact that we got Cozumel and 2 sea days instead of 2 more days in the Bahamas was a bonus for us. We can’t wait until it’s our turn to sail!

Great review! Thank you! I’ll be tagging along for the rest of your trip. Alaska is definitely on my cruise wish list. Like you, I would want to do the land tour, too. Note to self - do the land portion of the cruise tour first!

That grandsons calendar sounds like a lot of very special memories, too! Glad you can find space for another special calendar. Thanks for a great review! I’ve really enjoyed sailing along with you and your family. Thank you very much for taking us along with you!

Life has kind of gotten in the way of me having fun here on Cruise Critic. I’m so glad I made it back here! I’m really enjoying following along with you and your family on the Summit! You have totally convinced me that we need to book a cruise to Bermuda. I had it at the top of my list for a while, but I wasn’t seeing any Bermuda cruises out of our home port, Canaveral, for a while. As a result Bermuda slid down my priority list and we haven’t gotten there yet. That needs to change. Your pictures are absolutely beautiful! I like to make a calendar with pictures from our trips each year so I’ll have a fresh memory to look at every month for the next year. The hardest part of that fun project is always narrowing down the pictures to 13 - one for each month and one for the cover. All I have to do when I need to get back to my own happy place is to take a look at my picture of the month and it brings me right back there.

Thank you very much Andrew. Definitely very helpful. I appreciate you taking the time out of your trip to write this reply out for me.

Andrew, I hope you and Lisa had a wonderful anniversary. We’re doing a 3/4 B2B in April on Allure. It won’t be our first B2B, but it will be our first on Royal. I was surprised to see that you already had your consecutive cruiser materials. Is that part of their normal procedure for B2B cruisers? Any other information you can provide about turnaround day would also be much appreciated. Thanks.

Thank you for that info, Ken.It’s not a whole lot of money for us so I’m not going to drive myself crazy looking but I will check periodically. The new rate already shows up when doing a dummy booking.

My email for our Allure cruise in April going to Coco Cay and Nassau shows the taxes and fees going down by a total of $16.96. However, when I look at my current balance due on the website there is no drop showing in the price there.🤷‍♀️🫤 Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

I’ve seen the balloon in the air on Coco Cay every time we’ve been there since it was installed. Try as I might, I’ve never managed to see a shark 🦈 at South Beach. Rays, yes. Barracuda at Chill Island, yes. Not one single shark! 🦈 Maybe next cruise I’ll get lucky. Of course if I do see one I probably won’t have my camera with me.

We get that too. It’s absolutely adorable on one hand but makes me sad on the other. Definitely getting the stink eye in this one!

I really want to do a land and sea tour to Alaska some day so I’ll be following along with you throughout your journey.

I hope you have an amazing cruise. I sure hope that your favorite beach is still as beautiful and peaceful as your pictures show. Oh, and I hope you get that upgrade! That would be a wonderful last minute surprise!

Happy Anniversary 🥂 Andrew & Lisa! Hope you have a wonderful cruise! I will be happily following along with you! 🛳

We will miss traditional dining too. We’ve tried anytime dining on a couple of other cruise lines and have found that we greatly prefer traditional. I’m disappointed that it won’t be available on Beyond.

While I’m looking forward to cruising on Ruby Princess, which was our first Princess cruise and most likely where I discovered you, Carol, and your wonderful GSJ writings, I think I’m even more excited to follow the two of you on this Azamara cruise you’ve just booked!

Norris and Carol your cats 😻😻 are beautiful! I’m sure they were glad to see both of you when you finally got home. I’m glad to see that you got home before the worst of your pneumonia symptoms hit. Still, I’m sure it was not at all fun hauling your heavy camera gear and carry on through the airport, on the bus and up those stairs finally board the plane!

Norris, I’m so glad to hear that your health is continuing to improve. I love the hospital food porn and city views! I’m sure you’re much happier now at home with Carol and your cats 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛.

Norris, I’m so very glad to hear that you’re back home and feeling better. Remember though, that this is just the next stage of recovery. No relapsing please! Carol, thank you very much for all of your updates on Norris. Please be sure that you’re taking care of yourself as well. It’s so easy when you’re in a caretaker role, even temporarily, for someone you love to neglect your own needs because you’re so busy taking care of them. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way for sure and yet still catch myself and needing to regroup.

@Barwick Cruiser, hope you’re better soon too!

Thank you very much for the update, Carol. I’m glad to hear that Norris is on the path out of the woods and to recovery. Now I’m hoping his doctors can just keep him moving along that path in the right direction. I’ll keep checking back to see how it’s going. Just came on now to check in today. Wrote the post last night but apparently didn’t hit send! Still, I’ve been thinking of both of you and hoping that Norris is continuing to recover.

Carol, @Deck Chair Queen, thank you very much for letting us know about Norris being ill. Pneumonia needs to be taken seriously so although I’m sure he would much prefer to be home with you and the 🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛, I’m glad to hear that he’s where he can get the medical treatment he needs to get well. You and Norris have a lot of friends you’ve never met yet, me among them, woh are wishing you both the very best along with a speedy and full recovery for Norris. @Bimmer09, I hope you’re fully recovered and back to your usual energetic self soon. We’ll be here waiting until you’re healthy and ready to come back. Meanwhile, follow your doctor’s orders and I’m sure you will be back soon.

I don’t like hearing that you weren’t feeling quite up to par on the day you got off a cruise ship! Sure hope you were just really tired after a wonderful but very busy cruise! Amsterdam really does sound like a delightful city. One of these days it will find it’s way to the top of my very long list of places I want to visit……

Thanks, Norris, for yet another great cruise review. I will most definitely be sticking around to see what you and Carol are up to during your final two days in Amsterdam. 😎

We just booked our first Celebrity cruise. We are Diamond on Royal Caribbean so have Elite status on Celebrity. I called a while back before booking and got our Captain’s Club status sorted out before I booked, so our Elite status is already on our booking. I’m now learning the differences in terminology between Celebrity and RCCL. I feel a bit like I’m learning to speak a new language! 😂 That said, how can I tell the difference between internet being “on sale” and it being a “flash sale”? Has the 30% off been known to work with Black Friday sale prices on Celebrity? Thanks! 🙏

We just booked our first Celebrity cruise thanks in part to the Beyond moving back to the Caribbean next year. I know that move was bad news for you since you were looking to book a Med cruise, but good for us because it allowed us to book an 8 day cruise to the ABC islands. I’ve been wanting to get back there, so we’re booked in a Sunset Verandah on deck 10, 10297 to be exact. I went back and looked at your post because even though you were on Apex and we’re on Beyond the main difference I found with regard to our respective rooms was the way the cabins were numbered. Barry and I love aft cabins so I’m sure we’re going to love this one. I was originally looking to book deck 8, but when looking at cabin videos saw some where the poster, who was on deck 7 said there was enough noise from the entertainment space below them on deck 6 to keep them awake at night. I decided to book a few decks higher than my usual choices just in case deck 8 might be noisy too. I know you said you could hear people in the cabin next door to you so I’m wondering if you could hear the noise from deck 6 as well. My mother went on a land trip to Iceland back in 1975 or so. At the time I had no idea why she came home all excited and saying what a wonderful trip it was. I don’t know if she took any pictures because I really don’t ever remember seeing them if she did. She was definitely not the photographer in the family so it’s quite possible that there were no pictures, and even if there were, I’m sure that they’re long gone by now. Anyway, after visiting Iceland virtually with you I finally get it! I now have Iceland, Norway, and Amsterdam on my bucket list. I don’t know when or if I’ll get there, but I’m definitely motivated! My favorite ❤️ part of this GSJ so far though is your stop in Ireland 🇮🇪 and your visit with friends and family there! It sounds to me like you had a perfect day! Thank you very much for sharing it with us!