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Sitting on our balcony after lunch is quite pleasant. Slight breeze, full sun. Contemplating putting my full wet suit on, knowing the wave is going to make me crash and I will be wet and cold. The suit has been drying in the sun, but it is still going to be damp and cold to put on. Glad I have it. There are huge rollers going by at about a 45 degree angle to the ships waves, I imagine this is the figure 8 rolling the ship is doing. There are no white caps so the seas are not being churned, just this big rolling waves. On the upside, unlike this morning, the sky is clear with no clouds. That always helps. Watched the Miami Grand Prix on my IPad, and I was happy to see someone other than Max winning and Max still running. The photo girl from Chile gave me her favorite Pastel de Choclo recipe, she is going to tell me the next time she is taking pictures of the FlowRider what type of corn to use in the recipe. She is from Puerto Mont. Which is a lovely place if you ever get the chance. It is a quarter to 2, and boogie board ending in 15 and mixed starting. Should I wait a bit? Rodrhi got back to our house yesterday, and my niece-in-law said he was happy to be in his own backyard. This weekend, Nurse Sally, who went on the RV adventure in her own trailer, is going to pick him up for 10 days and take him to her house. He will love that and she will hate him! 🤣 JC

Yesterday was a good day despite it being cooler hardly fell at all. Unlike this morning, the ship is rolling and falling is a regular thing. That sucks. Last night we went to the Michelle Murlin show, I thought of Ocean Boy when she finished her set and did her song from Cats when she was in the show. Memories. I know how much he loves that show. After on our balcony aft, we were wrapped in the extra blanket comforter, and a line of star link satellites went by on the western horizon, very cool. We normally see satellites, but not like that. Today at lunch they had a Greek Salad, so for the first time in the MDR for us there was a green salad that was not the Caesar on the menu. Yesterday the lunch menu was Brunch, so I had an omelet and the strangest French toast. JC

I waved at about 8 people on the Allure Helipad from my balcony, but none waved back, 😂 Another hour forward on Bermuda time now. It is markedly colder outside. Weather looks lovely though. Hopefully the wind will shift so we are not head on into it. Makes the FlowRider much nicer that way. jc

Temps cooling as we are heading east by north east now. Winds were calm this morning, but are picking up now. High was about 71F today or about 22C. Had two excellent FlowRider sessions from 9-11:30AM and from 2:45-5PM. I think I fell once in each session, because I had my wet suit on, and like carrying an umbrella it stops the rain/falling. I think it is 80s night. Off to the Crown lounge for snacks. ciao

it was a nice can. I like it better than the flip top bottles they give you for you diamond drinks.

Tasted like water.

So, last night at dinner the maitre d visited with us, realized we were on the ship for 33 nights, and since our last night is in Split, Croatia (where he is from) decided to tell his underling to set up a table for us each night on cruises 2 and 3 so we wouldn’t have to do the line thing. Not sure why he felt the need, and I am not even sure I am happy with the arrangement, but apparently, it is our future. Another issue with the food or two that I find annoying, was in the past you could always get a sherbert instead of ice cream, I have tried twice, no such option, apparently. Another thing we miss are the pumpkin seed rolls, but like all of my other issues the bread in the basket while it never changes has been very good. It is hard to be unhappy, but I endeavor to find flaws, but can’t quite turn them into tragedies. The last issue with food, is the starters. I have had more Caesar salads on this sailing than I have had on my last 5 total. It is often the only option on the menu. That seems insane to me. Baha Mar, is nice at least the water park is. The slides all were good, worked well and felt very safe and well maintained. The FlowRider is huge, but completely stupid. We arrived before the park was open and had to wait a bit to get in. When we got there we put a few things in a locker $15. We went to the wave pool (not FlowRider) and found a couple of chairs on the sand with an umbrella had our pick of a couple of hundred, I went and did the two slides that don’t require a tube or a raft. They were fast and good. So, about 10:30 now, I check in on the DW and she would like a cocktail and a bottle of water. So, off to the burger joint/bar next to the FlowRider, there is staff there, so I go to place an order one Bahama Mama and a water. I am told they are not open until 11. So, off I go to the FlowRider. Got in line there were 3 or four kids doing boogie board on the left side of the wave that looked like a regular ship wave, maybe a little steeper but very similar. The right side with the rubber air filled divider looked much steeper and it had a crash area that dropped off to the right, very strange looking. You entered either by holding a rope or the staffs hand from the board at the bottom. Their boards are very much damaged and battered, but it hardly matters. The people in line in front of me were able to stand on the wave until the rope was released and all crashed immediately. My first try was the best and it was horrible. I used the rope, made a couple of small turns let go, made two turns pretty good and then up the wave, weight immediately on the front foot, and wipe out. People in the line, were saying how good I was, and I am like OMG, I am freaking horrible. The next three rides were without rope, and I never got close to being able to ride the wave. Off to the bar for that cocktail. Bahama Mama $15 and the 10 ounce can of Italian water $12. Dutifully off to the DW where I got the where have you been drill. Lunch was included, as the cruise menu. Choice of chicken sandwich, fries and a fountain soda, or a burger or a Caesar Salad. DW had the chicken, I had the burger. Burger was ok, the ketchup was weird, the fries were hot, but not awesome and the coke was fine. The DW’s chicken was pretty much over cooked and almost inedible. After lunch we did the lazy river about 3 laps 10-15 minutes a lap, after first lap, we stopped at a bar on the river and got another Bahama mama that we shared. Then we went to the raft slides. First one was a really good ride a lot like the power plant ride at Atlantis for two. Downside to it was there are two lift sections and at those you get totally soaked with not hot water. Then the 5 person raft, which can be done with two, which we did was a bit less exciting, but still good. After the rides we hung out at a beach chair again at the wave pool where I did those slides again, and I played in the wave pool for about 10 minutes, then rinse the sand off, and we wandered thru the limited shops and around the whole park, then another sit for 20 minutes waiting for 3:15 to catch the bus back to the ship. That is pretty much our whole day. jc

Back on ship. Some unartistic pics

The wave here is crazy steep. I am like a noob.

I try to be positive because nobody likes a whiner, but the adjustment to the new and improved menus started last night. First 2 nights we did Giovannis BOGO. Last night had a 7PM MTD reservation. We decided after uncomfortable seats in the Crown Lounge we needed to leave so we wandered into the Crown Lounge, and the nice Pins we had just left followed us a few minutes later which was awkward so we snuck out and decided to go to dinner early. So, about 6:15 we showed up got into the unlabeled have reservation line, promptly seated and we were out at 7:05PM. I call that a win! The food was very good. The menu sucked. It is sort of like the menu (it was Italian night) had removed all of the good stuff and left you with the things nobody ever ordered. Again, my dinner was good, but there was no shrimp cocktail, no snails, one salad, the same Caesar salad I had at lunch. Again, the food was good, but the menu sucks. Krystal had the chicken breasts and hers was not as tasty as my short ribs. I have avoided the MDR since they changed, and since this is 33 days, and the price of unlimited dining has more than doubled since last year on the Anthem, I am being forced to adjust. Again, I think the food is good, but I am not happy about it. 😂 We are in Nassau. My body already aches from the FlowRider and we are off to the Baha Mer resort to ride the FlowRider. I am stupid. jc

So far I am the oldest Flowrider. Not a good thing

I know that the captain’s name is Carl. When he speaks over the speakers, I can’t understand his full name. I only know it is Carl because it was an answer to who wants to be a millionaire as we were in the star lounge because there was no seating in the crown lounge. Dinner again at Giovannis good but the service was slow a lot more people in there last night. Funny thing yesterday, previously, I have participated in my roll call. Someone from Texas asked if there was a place to do bible studies. I am not a particularly religious person, but I mentioned that there is a chapel above the VCL and that I am sure if you asked permission they would let you use it for your group. So, I get back to the room and my wife asked what is this about a bible study, this is when I am soaking wet returning from the advanced FlowRider session just before dressing for dinner around 5PM. I gave her a look, like, Huh???? She said someone from cruise critic had tracked me down because they knew I wanted to attend with them. She assured them that I didn’t. How the heck, did they track me down? Now I am extra paranoid. They obviously did it thru guest services. O well. Just remember when you help people they may try to save you! 🤣 Speaking of the FlowRider, I am a bit worried to share this information because this cruise while not quite a unicorn might be the closest I have seen in a long time. There are 8 blue bands on the ship at this point. Which means we usually have 5 or 6 in line. There are a full boogie boards during mixed wave, but the line has never gotten to double digits, and many of those are one and done kids. As almost always there is someone you have liked and sailed with before in that small number of 8. In this case Gabby and Daniel from Switzerland, we sailed together on the Navigator in 2016 to Norway. So nationalities of the 8 are 4 from USA, 2 Switzerland, 1 Germany, 1 Canada. If there is a best of the best it will be a competition between Switzerland and Canada. Yesterday the wind was mid 20knots with the ship doing 19 plus directly into the wind. Since, I am goofy I was surfing into a rain storm everytime I was turning from the port side. People getting wet on the starboard side, we have reversed the line due to this. (Don’t worry this bit is only for Flow Nuts). The wind was so strong the top of the wave is way difficult, as it a lot like a formula one car going into the corner and not having the same wind everytime. Pretty easy to lose control. I am boring so I rarely fall, but I rarely can do the entire ride at the top as I always prefer to do. I will try to find out about a future dry dock, but I have yet to have a conversation with an officer ranking high enough to have a clue. I don’t think the sports desk manager, Roo or the diamond concierge will have a clue! JC

Did the BOGO at Giovanni’s had booked pre cruise. There was nobody there, they tried to charge me again, even though I told the maitre’d what we were doing the first two nights. Finally got it sort of straight. They had a welcome aboard music dance, food and champagne/mimosa for the diamonds and above. We arrived as the band was finishing up. Not a bad event. The Crown Lounge is weird on deck 5 outside the star lounge. The typical VCL and diamond lounge combo that I am used to, like on Adventure in 2022 out of Galveston, I much prefer. O, well. Being a very lowly D+ will be almost halfway after this cruise I am not very much aware of the Pin world. However, a new Pin that we knew from previous cruises, and a couple that we met last night seem to think that the old Pins resent what they call baby Pins. They don’t seem to want to hang out with the “real” Pins in the SL/VCL. All seems a bit weird to me. I tried to explain we made diamond back when they had the nightly diamond event. Then we did our first sailing in 2013 with a real diamond lounge. There were 3 Pins on the sailing, everyone wanted to meet them, and they made a show every time we saw them. In 2024 with well over 100 Pins on this sailing and over a thousand D or higher. The days of being super unique are gone. I am guessing some of that clouds this experience for both the real and baby Pins. JMHO and YMMV jc

Ha! sitting solarium watching dolphins. had to watch 2 videos to sign waiver. Had to take my board out to show it to the man. He kept calling the groves on my outlaw strips. I finally gave up on correcting him🤪 jc

Much better than old terminal in WJ jc