LIVE from Oasis of the Seas Transatlantic (with bonus Disney World) April 2024

[Luckynana]

7 minutes ago, Coralc said:

Virgin Voyages board. Scarlet Lady. 

Ah!  Thank you!

[laurieal]

8 hours ago, jmh2006 said:

@laurieal So glad to hear you made it home safe and sound.  I was wondering if you could tell me where you stayed when you were at Disney?  Thanks ever so much!

I stayed at the Pop Century resort. 

[laurieal]

8 hours ago, little britain said:

Thank you again for your comments -

 

to those who we will never know who helped, the ladies at the airport to called the police, the Swiss police who restrained the guy until the Spanish police turned up, the lady in the hotel who gave us an upgrade when she heard our story, the waiter in the restaurant who gave us free shots… the kindness of strangers. God bless you. 

 

The Consulate have processed our Emergency Travel docs (£100pp if you ever need one!) and we can collect at 11am tomorrow. Booked on the first possible flight after that outta here! 

This little shindig will cost close to £2000 once we have added up hotel/ flight/ emergency travel docs/ new passports/ new glasses for me/ new sunglasses for DH/ meals/ excess parking fines… 🤞insurance pays up.

And to the Albanian low life scum thieves. 
Karma bites back

Oh no, what a horrible way to end your trip. I’m so sorry you have to go through that. It must be so stressful and disheartening. 
 

I’m glad there were nice humans on your path to bring some light to the whole situation with their kindness (and some wrestling). 
 

Hoping everything works out as planned tomorrow and that you be home as soon as possible. Keeping my fingers crossed for the insurance. 

[laurieal]

4 hours ago, dpostman said:

Glad to hear you had an uneventful trip back.  I was mostly offline this weekend and missed the opportunity to wish you a safe flight back.  I'm looking forward to your next Live in October.  By then, it's looking like I might be able to post our own kitty pics.  My daughter has moved back in after being away at university for the past 2 years since her next 2 years have many internships and most of her remaining university classes will be online.  She has somehow been able to successfully negotiate that we let her bring in a cat. She is just waiting for the right one to show up for rescue at the SPCA.  Anyway, we'll see how that pans out.

 

Once again, Merci Beaucoup for the great live review.  I've taken several notes for our future cruises.

 

d (Dennis) p

And a pic of our late Dexter

 

Kudos to your daughter for rescuing a cat (and to you for welcoming it into your home 😊). I hope the perfect match shows up soon. 
 

Pictures of dogs are also enthusiastically accepted. Dexter was beautifully floofy. I’m sorry for your loss 😔 

[dbancroft]

@lauriealMy wife and I usually only have 1 drink a day. So we hardly ever use our 10 drinks a day I am going to try a papjac on my Freedom cruise in August.

[Sunshine3601]

11 hours ago, laurieal said:

Hello, everyone!

 

Just wanted to let you know that I made it home safely to the softest, purriest cat in the entire world. I'm back at work this morning, but I'll get caught up on comments later in the day.

Happy to read you made it home safe and sound.

 

I'm sure your orange fur baby is thrilled your home.

 

We either get the cold shoulder or lots of love from our kitties when we return home.  

[Missusdubbya]

@laurieal wonderful review thank you so much.
 

@little britain so sorry about your rough trip end.

[little britain]

Happiness is…

[Sunshine3601]

7 minutes ago, little britain said:

Happiness is…

Yay!   Safe travels home😊

[sddsddean]

 

8 minutes ago, little britain said:

Happiness is…

 

Just out of interest LB, how long does it last?

 

Simon

 

[sddsddean]

9 minutes ago, little britain said:

Happiness is…

Lets try that again!

 

Just out of interest LB, how long is it valid for?

 

Simon

[little britain]

4 minutes ago, sddsddean said:

Lets try that again!

 

Just out of interest LB, how long is it valid for?

 

Simon

Just for one trip. We have to surrender it on arrival. 
it’s very cute! 

 

[gavvy]

1 minute ago, little britain said:

Just for one trip. We have to surrender it on arrival. 
it’s very cute! 

 

Yikes £100 for one trip. Thrn you have to pay for a new passport too.

 

What would happen if you had no cash to pay for it? Wonder how you get home.

[little britain]

25 minutes ago, gavvy said:

Yikes £100 for one trip. Thrn you have to pay for a new passport too.

 

What would happen if you had no cash to pay for it? Wonder how you get home.

Yes it’s £88pp for a new full passport. 
As I said this “interlude” has cost us about £2000! The one way flights today were over €500. Then hotel/food/taxis/ my needing new prescription glasses 🤓… it adds up.

Thank goodness we were able to pay but I guess if you didn’t have anything or if they had got DHs credit cards 💳 too then we would have been totally stuck and would have thrown ourselves in the mercy of the British Consulate 

 

There were several other people in the consulate who had also had their passports stolen at the airport.

It’s sad: this beautiful city will start to lose visitors if they don’t stamp down on this. 20 minutes for the police to arrive in a major international airport is disgusting response time!!! 

 

 

[clochette]

2 hours ago, little britain said:

Yes it’s £88pp for a new full passport. 
As I said this “interlude” has cost us about £2000! The one way flights today were over €500. Then hotel/food/taxis/ my needing new prescription glasses 🤓… it adds up.

Thank goodness we were able to pay but I guess if you didn’t have anything or if they had got DHs credit cards 💳 too then we would have been totally stuck and would have thrown ourselves in the mercy of the British Consulate 

 

There were several other people in the consulate who had also had their passports stolen at the airport.

It’s sad: this beautiful city will start to lose visitors if they don’t stamp down on this. 20 minutes for the police to arrive in a major international airport is disgusting response time!!! 

 

 

unfortunately this is not new in Barcelona, I used to do quite a few trips with groups, I was the one in charge of the group and hyper vigilant of pickpockets, the only time we had a theft was in Barcelona in the hotel as we were checking in and we had at least 20 people together watching, they did get someone backpack with all passports, credit cards, etc..... and as you did I had the pleasure of visiting the Embassy to help the person apply for a new short term passport.  I am so sorry this happened to you.

[OddJob]

Great review.  Really enjoyed reading it.

Off to read your previous reviews

[Max and Ruby]

On 5/2/2024 at 12:42 PM, laurieal said:

Back on the ship, I returned to my stateroom for my usual refresh, but unfortunately it took a bit longer than I expected and I missed sailaway. 
 

Bye bye, Scarlet Lady! You look beautiful!

 

 

I found myself in what I can only describe as a reenactment of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. 
 

 

I ordered a Papa Jac, my first of the trip. The bartender (Ade from Indonesia, who is really nice) asked whether I was sure. 
 

👀

 

Yes? Apparently people don’t like it. They find it too strong. He says he only makes one per cruise!  
 

 

Now I need to order 15 of them in the next days so RCI don’t decide to remove it from the menu. 
 

It should be a quiet evening today. I’m planning to have dinner in the Windjammer and then I have a reservation for One Sky at 20:00.
 

After that, who knows! There a Finish the Lyrics game show that I don’t think I’ve ever seen. Can anyone comment on it?

My 16 yo enjoyed a virgin version on our Spring Break cruise on Wonder.

[Luckynana]

9 hours ago, little britain said:

Just for one trip. We have to surrender it on arrival. 
it’s very cute! 

 

It really is a pretty color blue!  With that said, I originally was going to say that it would've been a cute, but expensive souvenir.  Bummer that you don't get to actually keep it, after all that you and DH had been put through.🌹

[laurieal]

20 hours ago, dbancroft said:

@lauriealMy wife and I usually only have 1 drink a day. So we hardly ever use our 10 drinks a day I am going to try a papjac on my Freedom cruise in August.

Excellent. If you like it, share the info with all your friends. Let's save the Papa Jac! 💪 Have a great cruise on the Freedom!

[laurieal]

10 hours ago, little britain said:

Happiness is…

So happy you can finally make it home! What an ordeal... 😔

[Jaynay]

Thank you Laurie for a wonderful review. I just finished it, checking in every few days. I'll be on the westbound TA Voyager out of Barcelona in November so will be watching for your westbound TA in October for sure!

[perfect match]

Laurie, glad that you were able to get home safely. We got home from Allure yesterday and I am very happy to be retired so I didn’t have to go back to work today! 
 

I wish I could find another pink octopus cat toy so I could send you the real thing but I’m afraid this picture of my cat’s slightly used and well loved one will have to do.

[perfect match]

@little britain, I’ sorry to hear that your vacation had to end on such a bad note. It really is an awful that security isn’t a whole lot better as it seems obvious that the person/people who took your belongings were not first time thieves. It probably won’t be their last time either. I am glad to hear that you were able to get replacement documents so that you were able to get replacement travel documents and flights to enable you to get home.  Hopefully you have all of the necessary documentation to satisfy your insurance provider and are able to get quick reimbursement  for your losses  

 

On a positive note I’d like to thank you for all of your input into Laurie’s review. I enjoy hearing about the same cruise through several different people’s eyes and this review was no exception.

 

 

@Rogueperson I have enjoyed your input here, too. I think that once I’m rested up from my own post cruise tiredness I’m going to have to head over to the Virgin Voyages board and check out

your review.

 

I hope my sleepy brain hasn’t forgotten any other cruisers who contributed in some way to this review. If so, I apologize to you for my poor memory. I have really enjoyed following along here. This is the only review I’ve managed to keep up with over the past week so thank you again, @laurieal, for another informative and entertaining review!

Edited May 8 by perfect match

[SquishTheWhale]

23 hours ago, little britain said:

Yes it’s £88pp for a new full passport. 
As I said this “interlude” has cost us about £2000! The one way flights today were over €500. Then hotel/food/taxis/ my needing new prescription glasses 🤓… it adds up.

Thank goodness we were able to pay but I guess if you didn’t have anything or if they had got DHs credit cards 💳 too then we would have been totally stuck and would have thrown ourselves in the mercy of the British Consulate 

 

There were several other people in the consulate who had also had their passports stolen at the airport.

It’s sad: this beautiful city will start to lose visitors if they don’t stamp down on this. 20 minutes for the police to arrive in a major international airport is disgusting response time!!! 

 

 

 

First of all I'm so sorry this happened to you, what an awful way to end the trip. But also a thank you and that at least with your story comes a warning, and I will be super vigilant with our bags in Barcelona airport next week. I guess I sometimes feel a false sense of security in airports as you think everyone is there to fly, and there is lots of security. It's just not somewhere I'd expect to be robbed. My backpack will not leave my hands!

[Rogueperson]

6 hours ago, perfect match said:

 

 

 

@Rogueperson I have enjoyed your input here, too. I think that once I’m rested up from my own post cruise tiredness I’m going to have to head over to the Virgin Voyages board and check out

your review.

 

 

I’ll give you a short run down.  I LOVE Royal Caribbean.  She reigned as favorite cruise line for years, especially coming from behind as worst cruise i ever had.  But Virgin just knocked it out of the park.  I’ve been on NCL, Royal, Celebrity, Princess and Carnival.  Loved them all but yeah, Virgin just killed.