Celebrity Equinox Jazz Fest cruise 4/24-5/5 Photo Review

[shipshape sam]

Thanks for posting! Looking forward to doing a Jazz cruise myself one day!

[RRFPresident]

Once at the cabin, Arsim followed us inside to give us atour of the cabin.

 

 

The view standing on our balcony looking aft:

 

Balcony itself (I do miss how Princess has doors to the balcony both from the living room and the bedroom space. This is impossible on Celebrity because the "hot tub" buts up against the bedroom wall. It did take me about half the trip to realize the little design additions in the table were actually the X symbol for Celebrity.

 

You can see the footstool for the lounger in below pic in the pic above. The lounger was long enough for me sitting up so I pulled the footstool over to the side and used it as a drink table.

 

This balcony was completely covered:

 

Moving inside - the dining table and bar area:

 

The entryway - to the right is the bar and that weird post at the end of the dining table. The door to the left is the powder room style secondary bathroom. One thing I missed given that we were treating this like we had our own bedrooms and bathrooms, there is no mirror in the living room area to check myself before walking out the door. Each bathroom has above sink mirrors, the desk space in the bedroom has a mirror above it, the bathroom and the bedroom each have full length mirrors.

[RRFPresident]

The living room space - the couch against the wall is the one to fold out into a bed

 

The other half of the living room space held a chair

 

Our room service breakfast menu:

 

We had champagne chilling courtesy of the Hotel Director (as I'm sure every suite did) We aren't champagne drinkers and we noticed after a day or so, the whole setup disappeared.

 

This cute little tray of single fruits got swapped out for the same two apples and a pear, then an orange when the pear went bad, and then two oranges when I tried to eat one and took 10 minutes just to peel.

[RRFPresident]

The bed folding out couch faced a large entertainment center of sorts with storage above and shelved storage below. The top left cabinet with the lock on it was never actually locked and it held the extra speakers and keyboard for the TV) The closet next to it on the right also had hanging space and included a light that would come on when opened.

 

Side note about the cabin TV system: Repeatedly we would have trouble getting the system to respond. Each time you turn the TV on, you get a menu of rotating choices with things like Watch TV, View your Account, Room Service/Menus, etc. At times we'd turn on the TV and find that while we could scroll through the choices, nothing would let us select a choice. Sometimes turning the TV off and back on got it to work again and one time doing so even prompted some sort of computer message about rebooting before the TV menu loaded. After a while, I figured out that if you went to the menu choice labeled "Celebrity Gifts" it was the only thing that would work when you chose it. And then, it would suddenly work to go back to the menu choices and choose whatever you really wanted. Just like websites make you look at an ad before loading, the TV systems seemed to want to direct you to view the gift items for purchase before letting anything else work. Also oddly enough, the bedroom TV would make a chirping music sound whenever turned on and off but the living room TV didn't.

 

Inside the living room closet - note the optional pull down bar halfway for extra hanging space. Those two circles on the front of the shelf are the sensors for the light.

 

Our initial 2 liquor bottle setup and water bottle choices:

 

We probably drank our weight in the little water bottles, especially since they were so convenient to take to activities:

 

 

 

He confirmed that the bedroom's bed could not beseparated and that we'd then requested an egg crate topper for thesofa bed. He showed us our 2 bottles of liquor confirming that it waswhat we ordered and showed off the supply of Pellogrino, Evian, smallbottles of generic water, and Coke brand sodas. The wine fridge wasfilled with what seemed to be the generic lineup as Dad had a hardtime finding the lite versions of the beers he requested. We also had1 or 2 bottles of random things like champagne and Gatorade in thewine fridge. Our specific requests for root beer, Fanta, orangejuice, and milk weren't there but soon rectified. Later during thecruise, I drank a vitamin water I'd found in the wine fridge and bythe next day, 3 new bottles of vitamin water were left on our barcounter. Each time we got a refill of single serve drinks, they'dleave it on the counter so we took to following the “take one out,stick a new one from the counter in the fridge” rule so thatthere'd be a cold can/bottle as desired.

 

 

Our wine fridge filled with the generic set up :

 

 

 

Arsim knew about our request for a nightly delivery ofcookies even though Jamie had left that off the confirmation emailand he promised a daily delivery of canapes. Arsim said he'd bringthe cookies when he came by at 8PM for an evening ice refill. Hehowever didn't know about our specialty dinner reservations but tookthe time to note them from our printed list. I think that one wasmore just that no one passed the info along to him because there wereno issues on the scheduled days when we reported to our chosenrestaurant. We always also got a reminder card left in our cabinnumber slot on the wall each morning that we were scheduled. We hadrequested a small supply of extra plates, silverware, and straws tobe left in the cabin for when we'd bring back snacks to relax in thecabin. What we found however was one shelf of one cabinet full of avariety of glasses, most with at least 2 of each kind except for thesimple cylinder shaped tall glass one would normally drink soda outof when served in the dining room. Next to the glasses was a smallsaucer to hold the bottle openers, a couple paper napkins like you'dget with bar service, and the straws I requested. A lower cabinet hadat least 15 of the large plastic Evian water bottles. Besides thelittle plate on our coffee table that held a cloth napkin and 2knives meant for the triad of fruit left on our coffee table, we hadno other dishes. It took a few days just to get one single dinnersize plate that they'd used to present the extra silverware.

 

 

Meet what was fulfilled of our dish request:

[RRFPresident]

The contents of our mini fridge on the first day plus about 4 beer bottles in the door:

 

The powder room (that sideways toilet paper roll was wobbly and maybe 3 out of 6 bathroom visits had me knocking the roll off the holder which of course would roll back behind the toilet. Good thing I'm double jointed! I admit, I may have used the spare roll on the bottom a time or two and then retrieved the miscreant roll)

 

Mounted to the wall above the sink was these cup holders with the barely smaller than the holder white cups inside. To get them out you had to stick your fingers in the cup and slide them up out of the holder. There were a few days when I'd leave the used cup sitting on the sink and Jose would just leave it there. Another day he didn't even touch this bathroom at all during the room cleaning. On two separate occasions, parts of the towel set would be missing from either bathroom.

 

 

Thought you'd seen the whole cabin? But wait, there's more!

 

Entrance from the living room to the bedroom (our first with a real closeable and lockable door, not just the dividing curtain that Princess has)

 

Just to the right essentially catty corner when you walked into the bedroom was the main bathroom. We used about a handful of those little shampoo/body wash gel bottles and they were always replenished):

[RRFPresident]

Shower stall (small corner shelves for our products plus a separate soap dish. No wall mounted dispensers here) Plenty of room to move around even for the fluffy population however anyone taller than 5'9" might have to duck. No safety stripping on the bottom but Jose always made sure a small towel was in front of the shower stall so we could step out safely.

 

Tub and toilet:

 

We had a phone by the bed, by the couch in the living room, and one by the toilet in the main bathroom. I liked how it actually had our own cabin in the pre-programmed speed dial options. Must be for those people who text each other from the next room.

 

 

View from the proverbial throne (the two silver light switches by the door - one turned on the overhead lights and the other turned on the light bars built into the mirrors. Trash can is attached to the cabinet door in the middle. On the left is a full length mirror and under it on the floor sat a digital scale. Classy Celebrity - offer a cabin with unlimited drinks and specialty dining and then entice passengers to weigh themselves. In order to even use that scale you had to hug the wall to keep your balance with the ship movement and it would flop back and forth between several numbers before shutting itself off):

 

Looking back into the bedroom (second full length mirror on the left, second flat screen TV (that open space above is where Jose would 8 times out of 10 put the extra bedding at turn down), and desk/vanity space with chair and similar lighted mirror. Inside the desk drawer was a small lighted vanity mirror.

[RRFPresident]

The full size bed flanked by two nightstands each with two drawers and a lamp. A few days into the trip, we discovered that Jose had tucked our two suitcases under the bed by the window side of the bedroom. Only drawback to this was that you kind of had to parallel park your suitcase as the space between the bed and window were too tight to pull it straight out:

 

 

Just off the innermost nightstand and basically backing up against the shower stall on the other side is our walk in closet. We had space for hanging clothes on this side, a full dresser, the safe which is a touchpad code controlled safe, the hairdryer, and 2 umbrellas. That blue thing on the other side of the safe is the handle of the travel size umbrella that we did use. We also used the space on the floor under the hanging portion as a place to stow dirty laundry. The closet had its own light switches and closing door.

 

If you turned your back to the safe, the whole other side of the closet was hanging space. Never did try on the robes or slippers so can't say whether they truly found fluffy size ones.

 

Arsim showed us where to find the laundry bags here in the closet and told usit was okay to send out as much laundry as we wanted (even though thewebsite lists just 2 times per cruise were free) but to just give ita day before expecting it back.

 

In case anyone is interested in what it normally would have cost:

[RRFPresident]

One of the other things I missed about Princess is thattheir “do not disturb” door tag is a little card that sticks intothe slot where you put your sea pass card to unlock your door. Oneside says do not disturb, the other says please service the cabin.Celebrity just had the do not disturb on both sides and we had thehardest time trying to put it back around the peephole on the insideof the door like Jose would put it when we left the cabin. Severaldays in, we noticed other cabins putting the tag tucked into theircabin number signs and that was so much easier!

 

 

Some randomness - you could view a little bio about each restaurant on board, find out its location, and cost. I know I had questions pre-cruise about CC posters being able to get Sushi on Five in your cabin (an idea since Dad had no interest in sushi) and here's proof that you can. It gets delivered just like room service (or carryout if you really want to drag it back to your cabin) but still costs extra as if you were to dine in the restaurant. I noticed on the TV and in the daily newsletter ads later during the cruise that they offered 20% off any item via Sushi To Go.

 

 

Murano costs $50 pp - good gravy do they fly you to Paris to eat dinner while they're at it? I know some questioned whether the specialty restaurants are open for lunch so here's the TV showing that Murano is indeed also a lunch choice:

 

 

Silk Harvest will set you back $35, the cheapest of the group unless you count the main dining room:

 

And lastly Tuscan Grille at $45 open for lunch and dinner

 

 

We could access the bridge cam and the where are we map (two of my favorite cabin TV viewing pleasures) as two of the TV channels along with the cruise director's channel. If you ever get the chance to catch the outtakes reel from Richard Spacey's morning show filmings, it's hilarious! Especially the parade of people that walk in front of the camera or interrupt them. For regular TV channels we got TNT though it was almost always a movie, truTV, and some news channels.

 

For our itinerary list however, it seems Celebrity has figured out how to have their individual ships in two places at once:

 

 

Note that this interactive TV system is powered by Apple technology - Dad's iPad had trouble connecting enough to download the next e-books in the cabin and he eventually started going to use the computers in the iLounge to check his mail. My handy Amazon Kindle Fire tablet worked like a charm in the cabin however a post I tried to make while in New Orleans via my iPhone didn't post until we were waiting for our flight home in the Miami airport. I did however about 2/3rds into the cruise start getting a connection message that said "another device is using this account, do you wish to disconnect them and log on here?" I'd click yes and it would connect fine so I don't know if that really was somebody else, or a glitch. It never kicked Dad off his iPad when I'd click yes so it wasn't picking up his device.

 

On Princess, they offer MUTS or Movies Under the Stars and routinely whatever movie was shown that evening, you could find it replaying on your cabin TV by the next day. Here, the movies they showed at select times in the theater or Celebrity Central, would only show up on the pay per view movie menu. A little disappointing because we'd skipped watching a few new releases on demand because we expected to have some down time in the cabin watching them for free. Here's the choice of free movies we could have watched:

 

After showing us the cabin, Arsim asked if we now wantedlunch or just to relax. I chose lunch and we were escorted down toLuminae. We were one of the first passengers to be seated and thestaff in every restaurant always tried to seat you by the windows,even if that meant seating you at the next row of two top tablesright in front of the people dining at their table by the window. Gota few dirty looks during this cruise by people already at thosewindow tables not liking that I took food pics. Suck it up fellowpassengers, my Cruise Critic public wants their food porn!

 

 

 

 

For our first meal onboard, our lovely view was of theport staff loading supplies. Reminded me of the old joke where awoman complained before sailaway because her room came with a view ofthe parking lot. It was interesting to see the dynamic of the crewworking in Luminae. Once seated, the maitre'd came over to introducehimself and asked for our first names. We found out later that he'salso the floor manager for the buffet during port days. Once hestepped away, the next crew member we encountered addressed us by ournames as he offered drinks. A side note on the drinks for those withthe premium package, they offered us sparkling or still water andwhenever we chose still, they'd automatically pour room temperatureEvian. After a while we started requesting regular water because weknew it came with ice! Dad did fall in love with the sparkling waterbut here and there in many venues the crew would forget and bringsparkling for both or I'd get my ice water topped off with Evian andvice versa. Our second crew member came by offering choices forbread. One of the things I loved about my last Princess cruise isthat once I asked our dining room waiter for softer rolls as I don'tlike the hard and crumbly bread, he had a bowl of the soft biscuitstyle rolls from the buffet ready for me each night. I asked hereabout the soft rolls and later in the cruise for just a couplenights, there was similar soft rolls on the tray to choose from.

 

 

 

 

Finally we met our waiter, IV, pronounced like theletters not the roman numeral. He explained that those were the firsttwo letters of his name and it was easier to ask everyone to call himIV. He explained that they have a small series of rotating menusoffered for lunchtime and took our order. I started with the tomatoand goat cheese salad which turned out to be about 30 sliced grapetomatoes with about 3 goat cheese crumbles at decorative pointsaround the pile. A few tomatoes are tasty, not a whole plate full. Igot the infamous Luminae burger as my entree and asked about gettingit well done as I'm super sketchy of any pinkness left in my cookedmeat. IV explained that the burger is so thick, it would be better togo for medium well or else it'll be burnt on the outside. I agreed totry that and while it was a little crispy on the outside still, themeat was perfect. With all of the fixings and the bun though, I hadto cut it up with knife and fork to eat it. Dad went with the smokedsausage wrapped in bacon and Gouda on a pretzel roll and loved it. Ihad hoped to order it a future day but that menu never came backaround in the rotation. Luminae is unfortunately closed for lunchduring port days which meant it was closed 7 of the 11 days thisvoyage. The breakfast hours for Luminae also differ based on whetherit is a port or sea day with the port day hours starting and endingearlier so factor that in if you plan to stay on board during a portday.

[RRFPresident]

After lunch we returned to the cabin and got our firstmini heart attack as we turned the corner and first met our cabinsteward Jose. Jose assured us that he'd have the mattress topper onthe sofa bed and handed out our excursion tickets and Cruise CriticMeet & Greet invitation. Shortly after he left we had to call himback because I tried to go out on the balcony and couldn't get oursliding door to go past the halfway point. Turns out in my pullingthe handle to push it open, I'd turned the handle into the lockedposition. Once Jose showed us the difference, it worked perfectly.

 

 

With time to kill we wandered the ship. People were still trying to embark. I understand the feeling of this guy who had two drinks in hand by the time he'd finally got through that messy check in process:

 

 

Tons of books available to read and no having to wait for locked cases of books to be open for checking out like other ships.

 

 

Our first visit to Michaels Club found a few guys already enjoying their pre-dinner drinks:

 

 

We routinely visited Michaels Club to view their stock of restaurant menus (from front to back its Silk Harvest, Luminae, main dining room, Sushi on Five, Tuscan and buried underneath matching the same color of the wood table confusing us until we realized it wasn't actually part of the table, Murano):

 

While the Michaels Club bartenders would be happy to get whatever you wanted to drink, there were some suggestions on their own menu:

[RRFPresident]

Checked out the main Equinox theater. I liked how they not only had space for wheelchair seating but they also had a spot reserved for the person traveling with them to sit together. This was also the first I've seen on a ship where they have marked spots on the floor itself in place of a chair in that row. I've seen everything from having wheelchair passengers just pull up at the end of the row in the back to having a small tabletop for those passengers to pull up and sit at in the middle of the theater but no space for their companions to sit with them.

 

This is also the only ship that I've seen wheelchair spots reserved on the bottom level at all:

 

The theater stage had a collapsible circle at the front where many times during shows they'd have one of the performers drop down underneath or rise up. It's also the most efficient way to bring large instruments like a piano up onto the stage.

 

Can you guess what was everyone's favorite bar on the ship this voyage? This was the least busy it ever was while open.

 

The Gastrobar only had a handful of people hanging out anytime we walked past this venue.

 

The casino, there are also rows of slot machines to the left of these pictured tables and about 3 different stations devoted to those quarter pushing machines:

[RRFPresident]

For those wondering about using your on board credits as casino play. We found out 2 flaws in Celebrity's option for this. 1) If they advertise getting I think it's up to 20% extra when doing this in the daily newsletter, it's only valid if you do the transaction that day. We allocated $100 of OBC the first chance we could for my slot play. Noticed later the ad in a previous day's newsletter and took it to the casino cashier. They refused to honor it because the day we'd done the transaction wasn't one of those "extra" days. I did wait to start using the $100 until an evening that advertised a "mystery gift" for all players during certain hours. That mystery gift was $5 loaded onto my casino bank. 2) Since the day we asked about the 20% was one of those extra days, Dad decided to cash in his $100 allotment for chips to use at table games. They gave him the extra in little paper tickets which were to be used as chips for "free play." He played with chips and the tickets on a bet and won but the dealer took his tickets and only paid what he won from the chips. According to them, if you lose while playing the tickets, you get nothing. If you win while playing the tickets, you still get nothing. Dad spoke to a casino manager and they gave him the ticket win in cash.

 

I guess it's a good thing our Cruise Director's last name wasn't Wasnewski or something because he sure played to the "space" theme:

 

 

 

Our muster drill time was now upon us and our stationwas in the Silhouette dining room. While Princess also does theirdrills inside, they still make you bring your life jacket. We arrivedat the dining room and discovered that while the tables had been setfor dinner with fresh butter etc as it was now almost time for earlydining, they had moved all the chairs into rows facing screens oneach side of the room. One of the crew members kept yelling ateveryone for trying to sit at the tables across from where the chairswere lined up citing the excuse that everyone needs to sit in therows to see the screen. Most all passengers complied, even whenyelled at again because they didn't want to have to move all the waydown inside the row. That is, except for one of 2 ladies who came inat the last minute and she yelled back at the crew member demandingto be guaranteed a chair at the open end of a row before agreeing tomove. The muster drill film was a little above and beyond given thatany written message was repeated and shown in more languages than Iknew existed. This was roughly followed by the sample playing of thewarning sound for reporting to ones muster station. Nothing followedfor several minutes so after a while most passengers got up thinkingit was over. Our original rude crew member came rushing back over totell everyone to sit down as now we had to be greeted by our crewsafety rep to “hear a roll call of the people who didn't show up.”Our safety rep was a young lady who was charming, funny, gave herspeech, and bid us goodbye. Guess our class had perfect attendance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Returned to our cabin and got our next mini heart attackwhen we turned the corner to find Arsim waiting at the door with ourluggage. Arsim insisted on being the one to roll our luggage in forus and offered to unpack. We turned down the request and he left. Dadwanted to unpack right away and we filled about 2/3rd ofthe walk in closet (which had two umbrellas, one purse size and onelong pointy version for our use in port), all the drawers in thedresser inside the closet, all the drawers in the 2 nightstands inthe bedroom, and used the hanging closet in the living room area tostow our carry on bags. It also became a sort of catch all to tossstuff we got during the cruise. I used the shelves inside the cabinetunder the living room TV to stow my shoes. Since our cabin had thebig bathroom off the bedroom with the shower, tub, and two sinks aswell as a small powder room style bathroom off the bar area, Dad andI split our toiletries between them and I used the powder room foreverything but showering. There's a small but deep drawer under thesink where I stowed away my travel kit when not using it. A smallshelf under the drawer worked out great for stowing regularly useditems. I stowed our meds and sunscreen etc on the open shelf abovethe sink since it would be frequently used items and serve as areminder being right next to water and the door to leave.

 

 

 

 

We unfortunately missed out on the planned CC roll callSunset Bar sailaway meet up because muster drill ran right up untilwe needed to get our stuff organized and get dressed for our firstspecialty night dinner at the Tuscan Grill.

[RRFPresident]

Dad chose to start us off at the Tuscan Grill (we madereservations for 6:30PM each time we booked a specialty restaurant,leaving New Orleans evenings and a late excursion filled day in CostaMaya open) thanks to the tip on CC that said it would be the bestspot for dining while we sailed away since the location of therestaurant was against this large panel of aft windows.

 

 

Bon Voyage Oceania!

 

 

Since thiswas our first night, we wanted to use this beverage package to try abunch of drinks we'd never tried before as we're not big drinkers. Wealso wouldn't know a rose'from a Cabernet.

[RRFPresident]

Service tonight was pretty good as the Tuscan Grilleappointed sommelier greeted us right away and offered suggestionsbased on what we planned to order. Dad, hating seafood with apassion, had long since planned to order steak so he was given apinot grigio to try. He ended up not liking the red wine by mid mealso the sommelier brought him a Chianti classic instead which he foundto be better because it was sweeter. I wanted the lobster pasta formy entree so I was brought a pinot noir. Surprisingly not as strongsmelling and tasting as the wines I'd tried on RCL but I stillpreferred to wash my food down with tons of ice water.

 

 

Customary Antipasti board:

 

Dad started with the House Meatballs San Marzano Mariana:

 

And I with perhaps the worst looking and tasting Crispy Calamari Lemon Caper Dipping Sauce I've ever had on a cruise. The breading fell apart, some of the pieces sans breading were discolored, and it looked more like an unwrapped fast food meal:

 

This night we each tried the Pizzetta Caprese Classic Tomato, Mozzarella, Basil. The food was good but the weird shaped knives Tuscan Grille uses didn't cut very well on this newspaper covered wood board. We transferred each piece we were eating onto our bread plates for cutting:

 

I ordered the Creamy Burrata Marinated Tomato, Pistachio Pesto, Shallots, Toasted Torn Bread sans Pistachio. I cut into the mozzarella ball just to try it but otherwise it wasn't appetizing:

 

My entrée of Lobster Rigatoni Alfredo:

[TLCOhio]

Appreciate ALL of these great pictures, details, etc. Wonderful sharing!! Looks like excellent fun and very exciting.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

Enjoyed a 14-day, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure, getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for more info and many pictures of these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 179,676 views for this posting.

[RRFPresident]

Dad's steak with a side of Polenta Fries (dad thought this would be like French fries so he didn't eat much when it arrived):

 

and a side of Garlic Mashed Potatoes:

 

 

As we ate we got a good chuckle out of the window shadesconstantly rising and lowering as the sun set and the amount of lightshining in those windows changed. For a bit we thought it might be ona sensor constantly changing because of the moving ship but when thehostess saw me trying to crane my neck to still see through thewindow, she rushed over and explained that she had the remote controland was trying to satisfy the people at the tables that faced thewindows who were getting blinded by the low sun and us sittingsideways along the window wanting the shades up to enjoy the sunset.We turned down dessert as we were too full having really only hadlunch a few hours prior.

 

Decided to go check out Michaels Club. A littlesurprised to find nothing that stopped any non suite passenger fromcoming in whereas on RCL and the newer Princess ships, you have toscan your sea pass to get the door to open. I think we asked Manuelaabout it once but all she would say is that there is a scanner. I wassurprised to find that there was no cases of soda, beer, etc for thepassengers to just help themselves. We opened one sliding set ofdoors at the inner most end of the club thinking there was a separatecubby of sorts but were met by a closed door just behind the slidingdoors that said crew only. The bartender would have been happy toserve us anything but we weren't thirsty. Took the opportunity offinding Manuela sans passenger and took the time to introduceourselves and formally request an invite to any ship tours like thebridge or helipad sailaway. Can't hurt to ask right? We'd done thebehind the scenes tour on Carnival and a galley tour on RCL that waspart of a pasta cooking class and lunch so things like the backstagetheater and galley tours weren't as interesting to us. We'd asked forsuch tour invites while sailing in a suite on the Grandeur of theSeas but the concierge there told us they were really only fordiamond members and suggested he could get me in to the theaterbackstage tour if I just lied about leaving my diamond memberinvitation in the cabin. Manuela noted our request but explained thatthe bridge tour itself hadn't been decided yet and the helipad waitsto be scheduled dependent on the weather.

 

 

Returned to the cabin for a pit stop and found the sofabed had been set up. Looks more like an inversion table with theupward tilt of the bottom of the mattress. Jose left me two regularpillows and two similar sized pillows with fancier pillowcases. Itook to laying all 4 across the top of the bed to balance out theheight and used the firm cushion from the living room chair on top ofthe center pillow so there was something between my head and thespace between the flatter pillows and back of the couch. While it didseem that there was some sort of top layer on this mattress, if itwas an egg crate topper, then the egg crate needed an egg crate as Isank into the bed and if I tried to lay on my stomach, all my joints felt every spring.

 

 

That coffee table never seemed to be put back the same way twice in the mornings leaving divots in the carpet that weren't there on the first day. Also, when the bed was set up, that coffee table blocked the bottom cabinet doors from opening all the way so the before bed and getting ready to leave the cabin first thing in the morning prime times for needing to put away and retrieve my shoes was always a challenge. A couple times I'd be too tired to care and just stow my shoes on the bottom shelf of the coffee table.

 

The smaller couch always had tons of throw pillows and Jose would leave the sofa bed's throw pillows either on top of the smaller couch or on the dining room chairs. A few nights he'd even left the bedroom's extra pillows and blanket on the chair in the corner so when the sofa bed was out, there is no place to sit in the cabin except for the remaining dining chairs. A few mornings we'd come back after the cabin had been serviced and find that while the sofa bed was put away, Jose left the pillows piled up elsewhere around the cabin. Obviously not the end of the world as we could have piled the pillows onto the bed (or couch in the mornings) to use the other couch or chairs but all the little things for a cabin that was supposed to have cream of the crop service added up.

 

 

 

We headed back out wanting to see the embarkation nightshow in the theater, especially since it included the comedy of SteveBruner. The various embarkation night theater shows we've been to runthe range of the cruise director (in this case Richard Spacey)greeting the audience, mostly introducing the key passengerinteracting crew members, and depending how long the cruise directortalked, one of the more popular acts like the comic performing. Onceor twice they've included a number done by the singers and dancersbefore bringing out the comic. Tonight featured Richard and his socksdoing a bit about funny kid test answers and then Steve Bruner cameon and did a full set for the rest of the show. While he was funnyand did slip in several cruise ship related jokes as most on boardcomics do, he was the best theater entertainment offered this cruise.Other nights, I literally fell asleep in my theater seat on and off.I apologize if anyone here was seated nearby and heard my snoring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stopped at Cafe Al Bacio on the way back to the cabinand tried to order an eclair for Dad and a slice of cheesecake for menow that we'd made a little room in our bellies post dinner. Theplace was so loud that the waitress kept thinking we asked for twolattes and it took us a while to figure out why she wanted our cardsfor just desserts. We finally got that straightened out but since weasked to take the treats back to our cabin, they put both items inthe little paper envelopes. Fine for giving someone a cookie or two,not so much for a gooey slice of cheesecake! Back to the cabin anddiscovered that while our ice bucket had been refilled as promised,there was no cookies or other snacks as requested, no silverware, andno plates to eat our desserts on. Nothing says luxury like sitting inyour Royal Suite improvising by peeling off and eating cheesecake outof a paper baggie with your fingers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My late night finger licking good snack disposed of, Dadheaded into the bedroom to settle into bed preferring a space that'scompletely dark and quiet. I used the quiet time to set up my tabletat the dining table and add my notes from today for this review. Soonmy quiet was interrupted by our upstairs neighbor in the penthousesuite who decided that he or she needed to learn the fine art ofplaying Mary Had A Little Lamb on their cabin piano over and over andover until after midnight. A few other times during the cruise wecould hear furniture being moved around up there but thankfully theygot the perhaps drunken piano fascination out of their system afterthe first night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took a bit of trial and error figuring out what eachof the multiple light switches and built in dimmers controlled as Itried to figure out how to turn off the bar and living room lightsbefore crawling into bed. I say that the next dry dock, they installthe clapper system! Although it did take me about half of our lastPrincess cruise to realize they had a secondary set of cabin lightswitches just above the headboard so you could wait until you were inbed to turn the lights off. Granted this time I was sleeping in theliving room so no one would normally expect couch side lightswitches. I thought I had gotten it all figured out and climbed intobed only to realize the set of lights right over the couch were stillon. Focused on having to climb back out of bed to the switch setacross the room, I instinctively threw my legs over the side to getup. Fine if your bed is a poofy mattress on the sides, not so muchwhen it's all exposed metal mechanisms along the sides. Scraped openthe top of my foot and bruised up the ankle bone. Thankfully only aminor abrasion and honestly, it isn't a trip for me unless I'mplaying “where did that bruise come from?” by the end of it.Limped my way to the light switch and figured out the couch lights.Returned to bed thankfully further injury free and tried to watch TVto drown out Mary from above. Eventually fell asleep but woke an hourlater really feeling the boat rocking. Woke up every couple hoursafter that during the night from the rough motion. I liked to leavethe balcony curtains open just a bit so I could watch where we are inthe ocean as I lay in bed and even in the dark you could see the fogand white caps on the large ocean swells.

[RRFPresident]

Tuesday, April 25th

 

 

 

 

Today is the port day you've all been waiting for, theone that every cruiser dreams of visiting, Freeport! No, that's notright. It's the port every seasoned cruiser dreams of staying on theship, that's it!

 

 

 

 

The only time I've bothered to get off a ship inFreeport (we're not beach people) is when I stepped out of my comfortzone and did a dolphin encounter excursion. It was delightful,especially since I was on my own and got tons of solo dolphin timebecause no one wanted to break up their family groups of 4-6 people.We've since been to Freeport about 3 times with another planned fornext spring's cruise so it was a no brainer for us to just enjoy theday on board.

 

 

 

 

Unable to sleep much I gave up around 5:30AM and sat upchecking in online while Dad slept. As Elite on Princess, we each get250 free internet minutes and as Dad put it, “this unlimitedinternet perk Celebrity gave us isn't all that great because you'vealways made do with the minutes we've been given on Princess.”Yeah, but that's like saying I didn't buy $20 worth of stuff becauseI only had $19 on me at the time. Didn't mean I wouldn't have ratherbought $20 worth. I knew with Celebrity there'd be a lot more downtime so I expected to need more personal entertainment.

 

 

 

 

Our Cruise Critic Meet & Greet was scheduled fortoday at 8:45AM and we both found it so odd that Celebrity wouldschedule these events on a port day and so super early.

Woke Dad at7:30AM so we would have the time to go down to Luminae for breakfast.We told the host that we had a meeting and needed to be out by 8:40AMand we heard him instruct a waiter to make our service as quickly aspossible. We've told waiters about needing to be through our mealquickly when we first sit down to a meal before in order to make anevent but never seem them take it so seriously.

 

 

Check out the crowd enjoying breakfast this morning:

 

Dad's favorite suite breakfast item to order on Princess is the bagel with lox. On this cruise, to get relatively the same thing, he had to order the Smoked Salmon appetizer and also a bagel on the side:

 

I went with the Crepe with carmelized apples and cinnamon:

 

 

 

Headed up to the Sky Lounge for the M&G where wefound a nice set up of coffee and pastries.

 

 

Richard Spacey stopped into say hello, show off his socks, and explain that they purposelyschedule these M&G super early in the cruise so that roll callmembers can have the whole rest of the cruise to spend time togetherand get to know each other. He also semi jokingly added that hewishes this site would change its name because “critic” has sucha bad connotation. Richard followed that up with a claim that he didcheck out this site and found a loving helpful environment and nowencourages all his staff to check the site out as well. So hello Mr.Spacey, hope you really are reading this!

[RRFPresident]

Richard pointed out the line of officers who werestanding to the side to show off how much Celebrity supports thesite. I'm not sure if he intended for any of the officers to speak tothe group or mingle like they did on RCL but by the time our fellowroll call members finished making their announcements about plannedgroup activities, all the officers filed out without any furthercontact.

 

 

Several of us took the time to mingle and meet each otherbut the bulk of those gathered filed out right after theannouncements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided to try and redeem our bad luck in cruise pingpong tournaments. By bad luck I refer to the large amount of peoplewho take the game way too seriously, bring their own paddles, andchew out the crew member hosting because the host wants to make itfair in having everyone use the ship's equipment and give everyoneregardless of skill level a chance to play. We actually ran into thecrew member hosting today's tournament, DJ Sasha, as we wandered thedeck trying to find where the ping pong tables were. He led the wayinside where there is a table on each side of the deck next to theelevators. The first table he led us to already had a couple playinga casual game together. DJ Sasha explained to the couple that a pingpong tournament was going to be held and asked if they'd like toparticipate. They turned down the offer despite us trying to talkthem into it. Felt a little bad that they walked away feeling likethey got kicked out and surprised that DJ Sasha never consideredtaking our two person tournament group to the other ping pong table.Since no one else showed up (hopefully there wasn't some big groupstanding around the other ping pong table wondering why no one wasshowing up to host), Dad and I played each other for a winner takeall single game. I won and DJ Sasha gave me a medal joking that I hadto wear it all day. He also gave us both several participationtickets starting off our pile toward cashing in on the last day.

 

 

 

 

We wandered around outside checking out the view andspotted Norwegian Sky sharing port with us and the Carnival Breezegetting the drydock treatment.

 

 

[RRFPresident]

For those of us who have always wanted to "look under the hood":

 

Sat for a breather at the Sunset Bar and got chastised by the bartender, who was serving people when we walked up, because I asked about an alcoholic based drink and it "wasn't even 10AM!" Mental note: check the clock before asking a bartender about the contents of a drink you'd read about and wanted to try. At least ordering two diet cokes was appeasing to him and I took the opportunity to get pics of the menu of said "Sunrise Cocktails." Guess sunrise occurs at 10AM for this bartender.

 

 

And since lots of people ask about types of sweetener and such on board:

[RRFPresident]

Stopped off in an empty Michaels Club to check out thedinner menus and ended up confusing the poor bartender by Dadordering a Brandy Alexander, one of his favorite cocktails. Thebartender rushed around for a bit before asking if the brandy theyhad on hand would be okay. Dad said it was fine and a few momentslater, the bartender brought over a glass with just straight brandy.Turns out he thought the Alexander part was the brand of brandy. Dadtried to explain what a Brandy Alexander mixed cocktail actually wasand the bartender rushed off to seek assistance. We checked out themenus and sat for what felt like ages until finally we decided tojust leave. As we turned the corner to go, the bartender comesrushing back in with two glasses of Brandy Alexander apologizing forthe wait. It turns out that this particular cocktail was onlyavailable via the pool bar so this bartender had actually run all theway up there to retrieve it for Dad.

 

 

 

A ship in drydock looks even cooler once you switch to the zoom lens and the morning clouds started to burn off:

 

 

We went to our first of many trivia games and found newfriends in Claire, Barbara, Ron, and his wife Sue. I know Ron and Sueare CC members and we did our best to talk Barbara into joining soHey! If any of you are reading this. This trivia game started outokay but then turned to some really esoteric questions halfwaythrough. Returned to the cabin for some much needed respite. I curledup on the lounger on our balcony and let myself nod off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around 1PM without much other lunch dining options sinceit was a port day, we headed up to fight the crowds at the buffet.Let's just say, despite the convention of walkers, canes,wheelchairs, and scooter users that we got mixed in with at boarding,these people might as well have been trying out for the NFL draft theway they were blocking everyone else left and right. I don't meanthat in a too impatient to wait for someone who takes a little longerto walk across the room way, I mean it as I got pinned between thecounter and a pole because a lady in a scooter drove right up by thecounter and was too busy yelling food requests to her husband as hestood in line for her to care one bit that I was trying to get pasther to leave the line after getting my food.

 

 

 

 

After pushing back down a mental image of grabbing somerolls and bowling for rude buffet goers, I settled for the nearestitem of pizza slices and made a beeline for the nearest availabletable, one that had two curved bench seats and could easily have sat8 people. Stopped a bar waiter as he was walking by in hopes ofgetting drinks but he was obviously having a bad day. His attitudebecame more evident when the drinks we ordered were both nonalcoholic, a Sprite and a Strawberry Banana Soda, like we weremajorly inconveniencing him. He took so long to return, we werealmost done eating our food.

 

These potato chips were in a communal bowl with meat tongs to retrieve them. I understand the sanitary issue but definitely not the most efficient way to select such a fragile item for your lunch. Plus the first couple I ate were stale so I left the rest.

 

The Strawberry Banana Soda I finally got:

[RRFPresident]

Dad got what else from the dessert section - chocolate!

 

Appreciated the regular ice cream in the buffet but I always forget that candy toppings turn into frozen rock hard candies when put on top of ice cream. Later I figured out about asking for just a bowl of the sour gummy candies.

 

 

 

Like the many good natured cruisers here, we are morethan happy to share a table in the buffet, especially one that couldfit a small regiment like the one we'd snagged today. Each personthat we saw walking by looking for a place to sit we tried to invitethem to share our table. All but one set of couples literally rolledtheir eyes, stuck their noses in the air, and humphed off. I can onlyhope that they mistook our efforts to be that we were hoarding thelarge table for ourselves, or perhaps they thought we smelled andwere searching for relief in the upper atmosphere. The couple thataccepted our offer were traveling with their friends to celebrate thecouple's 60th wedding anniversary. After a nice chat andwaiting on their friends to find food, we bid them goodbye and letthem have the full table.

 

 

Ahh, Arsim and Jose have finally delivered our requested orange juice and milk! Disappointed though that I finished off that carafe of juice about 3 days before the end of our cruise and it was taken but never refilled.

 

 

 

Dad wanted to try the gelato and test whether it wascovered by our all specialty dining perk. He also had a coupon on hiscard for one free scoop as a select member so we headed off to scanboth our cards and test the theory. Happy to say that no charge evershowed up (nor do the drinks when you have the package), and theyoung lady manning the counter was a cheerful delight whosubsequently asked “where's the lady?” whenever Dad would pop into feed his ice cream addiction. I was also impressed that she tookthe time to ask what flavor between our two choices did we want onthe bottom of the cup or cone. A couple times we'd even just bewalking through on the way to something else and hear this cheeryvoice yelling out hello and waving. The next time both Dad and I gotgelato, she scanned each card and said “Oh you guys are in theRoyal Suite?” Every other time after that, she didn't even ask forour cards.

 

 

 

 

 

On the note of specialty dining perks, I took note ofwhether each of these extra fee places bothered to ask for either oneof our cards or both at the end of our transactions. Forgot toinclude in the embarkation day posts that the Tuscan Grille did notask for the card at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wandered back to the Sky Lounge for the afternoon triviawhich was comedy movie quotes themed and Dad wanted to stop at theMast Bar to get two water bottles so we could wet our throats as weplayed. Good venue in the Sky Lounge for multiple groups huddledaround little tables, not so great for a bar that wasn't open untillate evening. We found that our easiest path from cabin to Sky Loungewas to take the elevator nearest our cabin up to the Lido deck, headout the doors before you'd go into the buffet and walk along theoutside past the Mast Bar to get a cold drink on the way. This stophowever was the first drink order that got us asked for both cards.No problem, happily dug mine out to show and away we went. At trivia,we did better especially with our new core group of players than Iexpected us to but still lost. Our trivia host, Ashley from Mexico,was one of the best entertainment staff I encountered this trip. Sheran about 70% of the trivia games and almost all the Celebrity Lifeactivities in the entertainment court. None of the trivia hostsrequired us to swap papers to check like most every other line doesthat we've experienced and let's just say it, sometimes the winningteam during these trivias was just a little too conveniently good.Saw several times when just after the team with the highest score gotnarrowed down, another team would suddenly speak up to say they hadjust one more point than them. As Justin said while running almostthe rest of our trivia games, “if you are cheating at trivia whileon vacation, you've got bigger problems.” Stuck around for UltimateMind Games themed trivia and got our then best score of 16 out of 21but of course someone got 18.

[RRFPresident]

For tonight's formal night dinner, we moved up ourreservation at Murano's to 6PM so that we could be done in time forthe evening activities. I wonder if there was some legal issue alongthe way because this was the first time I've seen so many waitersgreet you when dining on a cruise by asking if you have any foodallergies or restrictions before offering to take your order. Wechuckled to ourselves when the waiter lit the candle at our tablecommenting that it made things more romantic.

 

Butternut Squash soup as a little amouse bouche. I loved the little suspension glasses they served these little bites in:

 

 

Dad, remember Mr. Seafood hater, got the salmon and crabparfait and liked it! He was a little apprehensive about the salmoncaviar on top but I channeled Mikey from the old Life cerealcommercial, try it, you'll like it!

 

 

After trying goat cheese spread on crusty toast duringthe last Princess cruise, I discovered that I actually like goatcheese and enjoyed tonight's appetizer of goat cheese souffle.

 

 

Knowing that we had planned for multiple stops toMurano's, I agreed to devote tonight to Dad's choice of entree, theChateaubriand for two. The tableside prep featured our waiterwheeling over a cart with the small roast on a cutting board flankedby two large plates. He cut the meat into slices and dished half ofthe meat onto each plate that already had some potatoes andvegetable medley.

 

 

[RRFPresident]

One of the big ambiance things Murano does is even ifyou've seen your finished plate already, they'll still with the helpof at least one other waiter, bring your plates to the table withsilver domes. Then they countdown and pull the domes off toeveryone's plate at once for a big reveal. We watched some of thewaiters get creative with their reveals dinging the domes togetherlike moves in a dance.

 

I got both types of sauce on the side:

While Dad went with just the Bernaise sauce on top of the meat:

 

 

Dad loved it but even with a Bearnaise and/or creamyhorseradish sauce I thought the meat was too dry.

 

 

 

 

As the evening wore on and the restaurant got busier,our service started to lack. We had been served our entrees by 6:30PMbut dessert didn't find us until 7:20PM. I ordered the crepes for thetableside prep show (always thinking pictures for my passenger publicright?!)

[RRFPresident]

Dad settled for the mocha chocolate soufflé. I saysettled because I heard “But I don't want mocha!” What was myresponse? “Try it, you might like it!” And he did.

 

 

We were given this cute bowl shaped like an array offlower petals holding various petit fours. Some looked like Reesesminiatures, others like sour jelly candies. I made the mistake ofopening one of the chocolate cups to see what was inside. It turnedout to be caramel and spread like a sticky glue all over my hands.

 

 

I stepped away to wash my hands in the ladies room whileDad inquired about needing to scan his card. This time Dad had tohave his card scanned and sign a receipt that showed a zero balance.

 

 

 

 

Quick pit stop back to the cabin before heading down tothe so called Entertainment Court for the Celebrity Life Activitygame of guess that movie/TV theme. It started out with only a couplepeople because once the crowd gathered realized it wasn't the placefor the Key West port shopping talk, several of them left. The crowdgrew again though once more people passed by and saw the first couplepeople play. This “venue” which is really just the open spacebetween the Equinox Theater, Celebrity Central, and Quasar was one ofthe worst places to host activities like this as there usually wasonly about 5 chairs. When the theater shows let out, the passengerswould just walk right through whatever game we were trying to play.The bulk of the games played here required the person who wanted toanswer to be the first to run up and get to a chair in the middle.Not the easiest task when the bulk of the participants have no choicebut to stand around the perimeter and the theater crowd acts likeyou're inconveniencing them as they push past you. Severalcontestants took their life in their hands trying to weave throughthe madness to get to that chair. At one point there was a nearcollision between two people once they reached the chair and Justinruled that the winner was the one with the most “cheek” on thechair. These Celebrity Life themed activities usually aimed to befocused more on whether your cabin number put you on the starboardteam or the port team rather than individual or small groupcompetition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight, if you got to the chair first and were correct,you won a deck of Celebrity branded playing cards and one of thoseLiveStrong style stretch bracelets, the color of which depended onwhether you were port or starboard. While I recognized a good portionof the theme clips played, you'd think they were giving away freecruises the way some people bolted for that chair. I hung back bidingmy time until they played the one clip from a show that was laterthan 1970. It was like everyone else was frozen in place becausesuddenly no one was rushing. I seized the opportunity to rush up andearned my own deck of cards and pretty green starboard bracelet bycorrectly identifying the theme song to “Friends.” Justin let theclip play long enough to get to the clapping part before bothering toask for my answer and everyone laughed when I clapped along with thesong. Felt a little cliché though that as most likely the youngestperson participating, the one I finally managed to beat everyone tothe chair for was a show from my high school years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next few clips didn't really have anyone running upto guess so Ashley, who had been standing behind Justin in order toplay the clips, kept trying to gesture for me to come up. We wentback and forth across the room in this conversation of gestures for abit as I tried to relay that I can't run up there if I don't know theanswer. Ashley started mouthing to me that she'd give me the answerif I just ran up there but finally Justin gave enough clues to getsomeone to guess. Eventually, Justin jokingly decided that the lastcouple rounds be given super high point values and suggested thatthey add the game again to the schedule for later in the cruise.

 

Beautiful sunset tonight:

 

 

[RRFPresident]

Without much of anything else we found interesting onthe schedule for tonight, we decided to see what the experience ofthe “chic night” saved theater seat with butler escort was like.Went to the wrong level of the theater at first as the saved seatsare marked off on the upper level in the center. Our experiencewasn't being greeted by our cabin butler Arsim but one of the otherbutlers who undid the rope when we walked up and showed our card. Nomeeting at the door and leading you in kind of experience like an oldtimey movie theater usher that I was imagining. The seats were allthe usual individual theater seats, whereas the suite seating on RCLwas more like love-seat couches. The production show scheduled fortonight was called “Life” and if it weren't for the fact that theseats we were directed to were sandwiched in the middle of the row, Idoubt we would have stuck around for the entire performance. Itfeatured singing and dancing with the cast and the stage moving upand down to fit the choreography of the song. There was also a coupledancers who used those long ribbon/sheet things to do acrobatic andbalancing movements that included descending down that center pit inthe stage and climbing to the rafters.

 

 

 

 

If seeing production shows are your thing, you wouldhave enjoyed “Life” but we're more into seeing the comics andmagicians style of cruise entertainment. There was a single seat leftnext to me so shortly before the show started a 20 something youngman who seemed to either know the blonde female singer or wasobsessed with her, rushed in and took the seat only to inch forwardon the edge of his seat bouncing and clapping along wildly whenevershe had a solo part. I eventually had to resort to leaning into theother side of the seat to dodge his flailing arms. His enthusiasmmust have been contagious because the faster the beat of the music,the more the guy in the row behind me decided that the back of myseat was his own personal drum kit proceeding to keep in tune withthe beat by kicking my seat. As the show ended and my seat neighborjumped to his feet loudly giving a one person standing ovation, Dadand I made a quick exit.

 

 

 

 

We stopped on the way past the stores to check out theCelebrity logo hats in the customary cruise souvenir shop. First timeI'd seen so many specific logos for the ship itself. In the end, wedecided to wait until the end of the cruise to buy a hat for my“lines I've sailed on” collection just in case we would be ableto use our activity tickets towards a hat.

 

 

 

 

With the crowds swarming the elevator banks, we decidedto head upstairs to the now mostly closed down buffet to seek asnack. Rode the elevator back down to our cabin with a woman who hadtaken a whole silver carafe of hot water from the beverage station sothat she could make tea back in her cabin.

 

 

 

 

Once back at our cabin for the night, we spotted a slipof paper tucked into our little cabin number slot announcing thatwe'd been invited to the Helipad sailaway from Key West tomorrow. AsI was sharing the note with Dad, an older woman hovered behind us andfinally asked “Oh is 1118 YOUR cabin?” I almost bit my tongue tokeep from replying “No, we just thought their mail was better thanours.” We replied yes and she walked off without any furtherexplanation. Cue the twilight zone music.

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the afternoon, our first plate of eveningsnacks had arrived as a plate of around five shrimp, some cocktailsauce, and half the ship's worth of salad fixings serving as adisplay bed for the shrimp. I ate the shrimp then and there knowingit wouldn't fit in the fridge but didn't find the cocktail sauce veryappetizing. Always makes me wonder when they deliver these littleplates of perishable things like shrimp to the cabins and then leavethem sitting out on the counter so by the time you get back to thecabin, you have no clue how long they've been there. When we returnedto the cabin to get ready for bed now, we discovered that we now alsohad a plate of chocolate covered strawberries left on our diningtable. The classic formal night offering that Princess does as well.I'd much rather have the plain strawberries, not a fan of thechocolate covered ones so we never ate any of these either. We'd alsobeen given a new Celebrity Cruises logo tote bag left on our bed.

 

 

 

 

In addition to being given our immigration procedureinformation for tomorrow morning prior to getting off the ship in KeyWest, we had already gotten forms advertising the luggage valetprogram for disembarkation. Congratulations Celebrity, I think youjust earned the record for earliest delivery of disembarkationinformation on any of our cruises! Why not save time and just tie itto the bottom of those champagne glasses you offered at embarkation?Welcome aboard! Now think about your trip being over and getting off!Dad did want to consider trying the luggage valet program as usuallywe just each handle our respective one suitcase and carry on bag.However, the form we'd been given said that if you were flying out ofFort Lauderdale, you had this long range of flight times that wouldbe allowed to participate in the program. If you planned to fly outof Miami like we did, the flight times didn't start until 2PM and wemissed the cut off by 20 minutes. Not wanting to give up, Dad came upwith the explanation that this form was never changed to reflect thatstarting with this sailing, Miami would be the closer airport and theflight time schedules would actually be the other way around. Wedecided to double check that with our concierge Manuela as the formitself didn't need to be turned in until May 2nd andheaded to our respective beds.

[shipshape sam]

Enjoying your pictures and descriptions. Personally, I love the food service you received in Muranos, that should be the MDR level of service maybe without the domes. :) We love the desert souffles too.