KmomChicago

Carnival Sensation January 2018. Thanks to @harryfat1, by this second Carnival cruise I learned to take the picture and had hundreds from just a four night voyage. My only Fantasy class ship, RIP sweet vessel. You served long, hard, and well. I reviewed this cruise after the fact here on the CC boards. Greedy, and not yet accustomed to photographing everything I had a nice big bite of my Guy’s burger before getting back to business. I was laser focused on documenting the infamous heavily purple color scheme of Joe Farcus’s exuberant signature.

A few photos from cruises past: Carnival Triumph, a ship that doesn’t exactly exist anymore. The first cruise of Kmom’s cruise renaissance, March 2017, at request of my kiddo. I hadn’t sailed since October 2001, but my companions were hooked and here we are. Kiddo was 11 and we made good use of Seuss, though I have never quite resolved why we didn’t do the character breakfast. Random stairwell art. Some badly underused lounge. This was about 4am, last morning of the cruise, and I remember wondering why they didn’t use this space for trivia instead of the noisy and crowded atrium bar. These next pics, we were very quietly cruising along the Mississippi delta (I don’t know if it’s a delta but if not it should be) en route back to port in New Orleans. I started a personal tradition of dark and mostly deserted walkabouts above and below deck in the wee hours. Whoopsie! This was my first Carnival Cruise and I remember thinking, somebody had a little too much fun 🤩 on this Fun Ship! (This panel was not broken the whole cruise). I could have chosen to be outraged about the general poor condition of the infamous poop cruise vessel, their clearly subpar maintenance, and the caliber of my fellow travelers who would commit this heinous atrocity. Instead I laughed and assumed they had already ordered a replacement pane to be addressed during turnaround in a few hours.

@Saint Greg how did I miss this? Some travel poll came out a week or two ago and somehow it’s still the US top rated airline.

Definitely!!

Since this may be my last cruise for a while, and therefore my last review, a word on my little logo over there. I made it a while back because it just seemed like more fun than a photo of myself. I prefer to be mostly incognito onboard ship. Mysterious Kmom, skulking around anonymously, capturing some random cruise sailing for all posterity. I decided to use the semaphore flag for K. Considering visual arts and crafts are NOT MY THING (I have hardly anything on my walls and I hate hassling around with seasonal decorating), it's a pretty solid effort by my mediocre standards. If I have any talent whatsoever, it's my words. That's all. I have one of those internal dialogues, and a very active one. I would assume if the activity level could be tested, that mine is in like, the top 1/10th of a percent of humanity. This is not a good thing. The voices almost NEVER stop.

He just finished one up. He started posting in January and was active on the thread until mid-April. I appreciated this review as it was on Odyssey of the Seas, a Quantum class ship like Ovation, so he not only entertained me with his usual brand of himselfness but also gave me a fair amount of usable Quantum details. I think it's interesting you are an accountant. All those numbers would eventually make my head spin but I am grateful you do what you do. I can handle like, minor bookkeeping and my taxes as long as nothing weird is going on with them.

In something like the same vein as Willdra and yet occupying her own stylish niche is @MeganGC1983. Lotsa cruises, lots of cruise lines, lots of fun. I like @Saint Greg, @WhaleTailFlCruiser, @Jamman54 and of course @sid_9169. These and many other zany characters can be found on the thread

I also really like @willdra. Dang, that girl has got it goin' on. Willdra is the girl I would like to believe I am somewhere in an alternate universe. She's the kind of girl I need to hang around with IRL so she can handle the room and charm the crap out of everyone around her, and I can sit quietly off to the side being a wallflower and just being absolutely delighted to watch her in action. I would also be willing to run minor errands on her behalf. Because she is busy doing the things. I also wish I could nap like her and her husband. I barely sleep at night, much less in between meals and workouts.

So it occurs to me I should mention some of my mentors and idols here in CC board reviewland. My very favorite reviewer is @harryfat1 who does not live review and in his own words, was formerly known as CheapoDad (he gets solid value for his dollar which is what I like to do as well). I think he's hilarious. He's an accountant so my guess is he's pretty Spock-like as I am. He taught me the single most important lesson about cruising (and vacations in general). Take the picture. When in doubt, take more pictures. Data is cheap, and you will never have the same chance to take the picture again. Even if you return to the same place someday (doubtful) things will be different and you will have lost the moment. Like myself, Harry doesn't always spend a lot of time on Cruise Critic in between his cruises, so if you want to actually get some back and forth conversation going, right after one of his sailings is the time to do it. The bonus is, since he takes 80 bajillion photos and since he is very busy back at his accounting job after the vacation, it takes him weeks to post a single review so you will have lots of chances to send him an encouraging word.

@CurtandLeslie that worked, thank you so much! May I offer you Diamond status at this review as a token of my appreciation? It carries about the value you would probably expect.

@ReneeFLL thank you Renee! I think we will enjoy it very much! @Biker19 thank you, did not know that, just did it, that is the bomb.com! The current cruise is 8 night because they are moving from Vancouver to Seattle so they have a 3rd headliner show and an extra MDR menu, which is also all cool to see. @ski_mom thank you and welcome aboard! I have always wanted to try Princess, because, of course, years and years of The Love Boat and listening to Julie say "we are now arriving in Pwayrrrtoh Vie-arr-tah." I watched a special episode this week where they went to Alaska, visited some of my same ports, and actually shot quite a few of the scenes onboard a real ship.

Hi, @KBRADFORD79 and welcome aboard! Yes this is the current website for the service. https://www.portseattle.org/page/port-valet-enjoy-seattle-luggage-free

Great info all around! I have never really brought photo IDs for everyone when getting off the ship so we will add this. I do have reservations for Spectra's Cabaret already. Can you let me know which nights of the cruise the two theater shows are available so I can make sure it doesn't conflict with Spectra? Thank you so much @bonsai3s.

Link to new review: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/3008119-live-ovation-of-the-seas-alaska-may-17-24-2024-with-kmom/

Link to new review: