Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[Arzeena]

54 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Congratulations! I don't think I've ever had two on the same day.

You have to be more naughty!

[Arzeena]

Last sea day. Luggage tags arrived yesterday. Almost packed. 

Someone on our roll call became Zenith and some of us were invited to a party that Celebrity throws for them, yesterday. Small gathering with cake and champagne. Our Canadian friends are in a pent house suite. We were invited to tour and for couple sailaways. It was beautiful. We are having dinner at Luminae tonight with them and other friends. It will be exciting since we never book a suite and have never been to Luminae.

[A&L_Ont]

9 hours ago, taznremmy said:

It looks to me like she is asking to come inside where it is warm.  🔥

 

She is just looking for more snacks I think.

 

5 hours ago, brillohead said:

 

I used to take a stool sample in to the vet's office every spring, and the dogs always came back positive for worms, just from hanging out in our yard (we get deer, bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks, and even the occasional skunk).  

So now I don't even bother with the stool sample -- why pay for a test when I know it's going to be positive?  Now I just get them dewormed every spring, with a second dose to take home to give 2-3 weeks later.  

 

Oh how I remember those days of the dog poo to the vet.  We too paid for the test, and it was always positive.

 

With every farm cat we have had it is always a PS understood they were positive and no testing happened. Also with farm cats it is hard to find a stool sample. 

 

 

[Keksie]

For dogs, products like Simparica trio not only take care of fleas, ticks and heart worms but round worms as well.  Tape worms come from fleas.  Here in the south all dogs need to be on some kind of heartworm protection.  If you have chickens pumpkin seeds are a natural dewormer.

 

[Momof3gurlz]

1 hour ago, Arzeena said:

Last sea day. Luggage tags arrived yesterday. Almost packed. 

Someone on our roll call became Zenith and some of us were invited to a party that Celebrity throws for them, yesterday. Small gathering with cake and champagne. Our Canadian friends are in a pent house suite. We were invited to tour and for couple sailaways. It was beautiful. We are having dinner at Luminae tonight with them and other friends. It will be exciting since we never book a suite and have never been to Luminae.

I can’t believe it’s almost over already!  Your photos were great, really enjoyed them. 

[Momof3gurlz]

@Ocean Boy FYI - Andy’s initial comparison of YouTube TV vs Cox shows we will save about 

$ 80-90 per month.  We currently have the internet-cable-house phone pkg including HBO/Max.  The cost is going up to $240 per month. We don’t even have a house phone but Cox insists it is ‘saving us money’ due to bundle discounts 😏.  
If we switch to internet only with Cox, a two year plan will be $70 per month plus taxes, so closer to $80-85.  Then in 2 years the internet cost increases to $135 - at that point we’ll look for a new internet provider.  The only PITA with changing internet providers is that we have a cox.net email so we’d have to change that over.  
I think we’re going to start with a free one week trial of it as mentioned by Harryfat.  

[mo&fran]

9 minutes ago, Momof3gurlz said:

@Ocean Boy FYI - Andy’s initial comparison of YouTube TV vs Cox shows we will save about 

$ 80-90 per month.  We currently have the internet-cable-house phone pkg including HBO/Max.  The cost is going up to $240 per month. We don’t even have a house phone but Cox insists it is ‘saving us money’ due to bundle discounts 😏.  
If we switch to internet only with Cox, a two year plan will be $70 per month plus taxes, so closer to $80-85.  Then in 2 years the internet cost increases to $135 - at that point we’ll look for a new internet provider.  The only PITA with changing internet providers is that we have a cox.net email so we’d have to change that over.  
I think we’re going to start with a free one week trial of it as mentioned by Harryfat.  

We set up a .gmail account so we are disconnected from our ISP for an email address.

 We have comcast with the whole package, and DW would kill me if I changed anything. Besides, i can get connected from my computer, and most tv can be watched from there, including the DVR, although some channels will only work on my home network.  

[ATG]

About 2 years ago our local cooperative that provides phone, internet and cable sent us a letter explaining that the various tv providers were increasing their prices and so our cable would be going way up.  They then explained streaming options and offered to help anyone who wanted to pick the best match for them.  We started using sling and added Paramount and Peacock to get the soccer Dave wanted.  I often watch Pluto - a free service that has Antiques Roadshow, both the UK and US versions.  

[bobmacliberty]

15 minutes ago, Momof3gurlz said:

The only PITA with changing internet providers is that we have a cox.net email so we’d have to change that over.

 

I used to have a Roadrunner email address when they were our ISP.  10+ years ago, I created 2 new email addresses...one with Outlook and one with Gmail.  Both have the same name, just a different ending.  That way, I can switch providers and not worry about losing my email address.  I use the Outlook address for more personal things and the Gmail address for business things (like the address that everyone wants when you sign up for something online).  This helps keep my Outlook address "clean".  I still technically had the Roadrunner address (until we moved), just never used it.  

 

It's painful switching email addresses but worth it going through the pain one time and then hopefully never needing to do it again, so long as both Outlook mail and Gmail are still around. You will though probably run into situations like I just had.  I created an online account a LONG time ago using my cinci.rr.com email address.  I haven't accessed the account in more than a decade. When I tried to log in recently, I couldn't remember the password.  I clicked the link to reset the password and they sent an email to my Roadrunner address, which no longer exists.  I had no other backup email address.  That meant that I needed to call someone to get my password changed, which was an extremely painful process.

[Jimbo]

For those with YouTube Tv.....I guess you change all channels  from the app? No  remote clicker from Youtube?

 

Just use original remote that  came with each TV?

Edited November 29, 2023 by Jimbo

[George C]

1 hour ago, Arzeena said:

Last sea day. Luggage tags arrived yesterday. Almost packed. 

Someone on our roll call became Zenith and some of us were invited to a party that Celebrity throws for them, yesterday. Small gathering with cake and champagne. Our Canadian friends are in a pent house suite. We were invited to tour and for couple sailaways. It was beautiful. We are having dinner at Luminae tonight with them and other friends. It will be exciting since we never book a suite and have never been to Luminae.

Penthouse is amazing we did a move up to one a couple of years ago on Edge , you get treated like royalty, perks also are really good in upper suite .  Lets us know what you think of Luminae, definitely better than suite restaurant on rccl costal kitchen. But I thought it was way better pre Covid .

       We are now docked in Roatan, been there several times and we stay on the ship , wife will get off for a little bit . Ice show was a little disappointing compared to previous shows we have seen and was only 35 minutes, now suites , key and diamond plus seating is all together for ice show , had front row seats for first time, time for shower than breakfast at CK.

[bobmacliberty]

7 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

For those with YouTube Tv.....I guess you change all channels  from the app? No  remote clicker from Youtube?

 

You use a remote, but it's a different experience.  YouTube TV has 3 different main "pages".  Live gives you a typical channel grid, Home gives you suggestions based on what you've watched in the past (which works well...it usually has what I'm looking for at the top of the page).  Library lists everything in your DVR.  You use the up/down/left/right, enter, and back buttons on the remote to navigate.  For our Samsung remote, you can also use channel up and down, but we don't ever navigate that way anymore.

 

Edit: The remote isn't from YouTube TV, it's from your smart TV, Roku, Apple TV, etc...whatever device you're using to get the YouTube TV app.

Edited November 29, 2023 by bobmacliberty

[bobmacliberty]

2 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

Thanks, I was wondering if it had an Aqua Theater.

 

It's called AquaDome on Icon and is a little different.  I think it might be better, but time will tell.  It's all indoors so no weather concerns and it has other nice features. It's sort of a combination of the Aquatheater and Solarium on Oasis class, and the Two70 Lounge on Quantum class.

 

 

[bobmacliberty]

12 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Add me to the list of people who like YouTube TV.  I used to have Cable TV, then moved to Dish and the ATT Uverse, and now YouTube TV for the past 2 years.

 

You can go to their website and drop in your zip code and it will list all the channels you are eligible to receive for your area.  They typically have all the major networks like ABC/CBS/FOX/NBC/PBS as well as a few other local channels.

 

YouTube TV gives you around a  week of free trial period to try it out for free.  So if the channel list is acceptable, you can sign up for a one-week trial period to see if you like it.

 

 

Besides the advantages others have listed, I also want to point few more in case others are interested:

 

1 – It’s $73/month out the door.  No taxes or no additional DVR fee or regional sports add-on fee or the “we are greedy and want to charge you more just because we don't like you” fee.  So if you have multiple TVs and want to watch TV at various places, no additional charges setup box in each room.  $73 out the door

 

2 – My son is in college a few hundred miles away but he can access the same account as ours remotely and he can watch TV there without having to pay for his TV fee.  Especially if he wants to watch the local sports team on TV.  He can’t get that from another region even if he gets TV services down there.  He just needs to come “home” every 3 months to re-set his account to prevent people from sharing the accounts with their brother-in-law living out of state

 

3 – If you are late for a sports event that you are mildly interested in and don’t want to start from the beginning, there’s a feature that will show you the highlight plays of the game up to where you are so you don’t need to miss anything

 

4 - If you watch any old series in syndication, YouTube automatically records and sorts them by season by episode so you can watch them in order.  For example, I’m a big Law and Order fan and it’s annoying to watch them live in syndication as they mix up the years but YouTube TV automatically records all the episodes (even from different stations) and drops them in the season order so I can just follow the story season by season similar to Netflix format

 

 

And no, I don’t work for Google and don’t get any sales commissions…🤪

 

I'll add to Harry's great summary that basic YouTube TV limits you to a max number of 3 simultaneous streams.  That's probably plenty for most people but if your kid in college is watching something, your wife is watching something, your other kid is watching something in her bedroom, and you sit down to watch that baseball game that you've been waiting for, you're out of luck.  We upgraded to the 4K Plus YouTube TV tier which adds 4K content (where it exists...not everything is broadcast in 4K) and unlimited streams.  I think 4K Plus costs an additional $15 per month for a year, then jumps to $20 per month.

[Sea Dog]

51 minutes ago, Momof3gurlz said:

@Ocean Boy FYI - Andy’s initial comparison of YouTube TV vs Cox shows we will save about 

$ 80-90 per month.  We currently have the internet-cable-house phone pkg including HBO/Max.  The cost is going up to $240 per month. We don’t even have a house phone but Cox insists it is ‘saving us money’ due to bundle discounts 😏.  
If we switch to internet only with Cox, a two year plan will be $70 per month plus taxes, so closer to $80-85.  Then in 2 years the internet cost increases to $135 - at that point we’ll look for a new internet provider.  The only PITA with changing internet providers is that we have a cox.net email so we’d have to change that over.  
I think we’re going to start with a free one week trial of it as mentioned by Harryfat.  

 

We use Gmail and like it a lot.

 

 

30 minutes ago, mo&fran said:

We set up a .gmail account so we are disconnected from our ISP for an email address.

 We have comcast with the whole package, and DW would kill me if I changed anything. Besides, i can get connected from my computer, and most tv can be watched from there, including the DVR, although some channels will only work on my home network.  

 

 

We love Gmail.

 

 

27 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

For those with YouTube Tv.....I guess you change all channels  from the app? No  remote clicker from Youtube?

 

Just use original remote that  came with each TV?

 

With YouTube TV on our Apple TV we just use the Apple TV remote. All of our other TV’s have a Google supplied remote.

[Sea Dog]

3 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

We upgraded to the 4K Plus YouTube TV tier which adds 4K content (where it exists...not everything is broadcast in 4K) and unlimited streams.  I think 4K Plus costs an additional $15 per month for a year, then jumps to $20 per month.

I know most television broadcasts are not in 4K but do you see a quality increase? I’m sure 4K material looks awesome.

[mo&fran]

51 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

I know most television broadcasts are not in 4K but do you see a quality increase? I’m sure 4K material looks awesome.

Our main TV is 4K capable, but I was told our cable provider cannot provide a 4k signal.

[Sea Dog]

Just now, mo&fran said:

Our main TV is 4K capable, but I was told our cable provider cannot provide a 4k signal.

Very true. Most if not all television broadcasting is 720p or 1080p which is high definition. 

[ReneeFLL]

I'm about 30 pages behind, but will catch up. In Aruba today and just walked around.

 

In the cruise terminal.

 

 

 

I don't remember the flamingos so I think they're new. 

 

 

 

[Jimbo]

All my Tv's are either Samsung or LG smart tv's but we do have one older Panasonic which is not a Smart Tv, does that mean I may not be able to get YouTubeTV on that set?

 

Another issue I like to watch MLB.TV so I can get Philadelphia Phillies games broadcasted here in Virginia. Seems we can do that through Amazon Prime. So that issue seems to be resolved.

 

Does anyone know anything about the Panasonic Tv Issue?

 

Other then that it would just be cost comparison  between Xfinity  and YoutubeTv

[ReneeFLL]

Not many pinnacles so we have access to the suite lounge. Went a couple of evenings and the most people we saw was about 8 people. Diamond lounge has more people so we will be going there.

 

 

 

 

 

[Arzeena]

2 hours ago, Momof3gurlz said:

I can’t believe it’s almost over already!  Your photos were great, really enjoyed them. 

Thanks! I am happy people enjoy phots and I like to share. It is over. Last sea day. As much as I love to cruise I am ready to go home and sleep in my own bed!😊

[TravelGirlinDallas]

On 11/28/2023 at 8:34 AM, George C said:

Several of my poker buddies have gone to YouTube tv

We switched to YouTube TV at the beginning of the year. It's so much cheaper than cable. We love it, especially the unlimited cloud storage for recordings. We never have to worry about the DVR being too full and deleting shows anymore.

The only channel we really miss is History. 

[George C]

2 minutes ago, TravelGirlinDallas said:

We switched to YouTube TV at the beginning of the year. It's so much cheaper than cable. We love it, especially the unlimited cloud storage for recordings. We never have to worry about the DVR being too full and deleting shows anymore.

The only channel we really miss is History. 

I have an issue with my google logon that I am not sure how to fix , I wanted YouTube tv for the nfl ticket if nothing else , I believe my two year commitment to direct tv is over , will attempt to get this fixed sooner or later.

[TravelGirlinDallas]

My guys really like the feature where you can have 4 channels on split screen at once, so they can watch 4 football games at the same time.