The Big Booper

Have fun on the Explorer.

Love those Boca clips. When we were at Orient Beach a month ago, all the "professional" beach goers at Club O were using them but back on the ship, hardly any people were using them.

One more- how was the weather in FLL and how is the weather in your ports? Are you doing eastern or western?

 

South Florida is in mid 80's Wed.

Two reasons: 1) Disney serves the most bland and uninspired food I've ever had the misfortune to suffer through, and 2) Other than Lumiere's, the remaining venues had all the ambiance of a cafeteria. So on one night, you get unpalatable food in a halfway decent restaurant (unless you're fortunate enough to be there the night they serve the mixed grill - which seems to be the only thing they know how to cook), and the other two in the rotation, you get unpalatable food in a cafeteria. The only restaurants on board that actually know how to prepare food properly are Palo (which we do 2- 3 nights on a cruise), and Topsider's, which we do the other nights.

 

The Artist's Palette is hardly a cafeteria and the changing of the screens on the wall from black-and-white to color as the meal progresses is pure Disney Magic.

 

...>>>SNIP<<<...

 

The Quantum came in at about 11:00 and docked right beside us. Wow!! What a ship! I was surprised that the hull was painted Carolina Blue!

 

...>>>SNIP<<<...

 

 

 

 

...>>>SNIP<<<...

 

 

 

 

The Allure and Oasis hulls are painted the same color. I haven't seen the Q yet' date=' in person.

 

Hope you finish this Jewel writeup before they frog march you onto the Explorer.;)

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We were on the Enchantment right after the stretch, on the special 7 night run out of Boston up thru New England including Martha's Vineyard. Standing on the pier you could see where the new section was carefully inserted.

 

The Vision class is actually three sets of twins. The Enchantment was chosen because it's sections don't overlap like lego bricks so only one cut top to bottom is needed. The costs were prohibitive and that was the simplest ship to extend; that explains why the sister ship, Grandeur, was not stretched. On the other 4 ships the sections overlap so it would have necessitated cutting thru cabins on certain decks, crazy expensive.

 

I had all my pictures from that trip on only one computer and that hard drive crashed so I can't post any pics. Lesson learned - you can't have too many copies of trip pictures stored.

[quote name='micmacmissy']I just can't with that solarium! I think this style of solarium is SO ugly. Fake plants, weird theme (I guess they're going for thai/asian but it winds up looking tired 80's Vegas).

Renovation in there desperately needed!!![/quote]

I can appreciate your point. From the pictures the Jewel design does seem a little bit over the top. But this design does date from the mid to late 90's. The Solariums on the Q ships and the Celebrity S ships seem to have a cleaner, more modern design.

In any event, the Jewel is the only Radiance ship we haven't been on yet, which be rectified next September. I'm looking forward to seeing the phony green grass that has faded to blue.;)

Any idea why the Jewel is 700 under DO capacity this week? post Thanksgiving sailing?

The solarium looks as wild as the other 3 Radiance ships, can't wait.

Good tip about the baby powder for the beach.

Just back from a 4 day quickie to St Pete Beach, staying with friends at their timeshare. Price was right - $-0-> and we drove up in our car. Glad to see I got back while your latest opus was current.

 

Is that king size balcony an end-hump balcony? Looks bigger then the usual center humps.

 

We're doing the 8 night California coastal from Vancouver to LA Sept 2015 on the Jewel.

It looks like you shot the walking scenes with your GoPro strapped to your chest. Your shadow was walking in front of you:cool:. Very creative.

 

I'm still trying to figure out a way to rationalize buying one of these babies w/o DW blowing her stack.

Bayley was brought in a couple of years ago to run Celebrity. He now moves over to the top brand to replace Goldstein who was promoted to head honcho of all the brands. As a s/h I appreciate how well the company is now running.

As long as the cup is not moved you can mix and match multiple flavors. You can also stick any old cup in the well to get ice from the machine.

Loved this review and that picture was the money shot!!!!;)

Thanks for taking me along on your cruise!!!

 

100% coincidence:D. I never went looking for them, they just were on the same schedule as us. Always gracious when I asked if I could take their picture.

The Couple and their luggage. Safe travels home.

 

 

The cruise was a fun trip even with the early problems with the weather and the lifeboat issues. Now the Explorer says goodbye to NY.

I busied myself taking pictures of the lifeboat removals and replacement.

 

I started to walk back to where DW was waiting (and hyperventilating) when I spotted The Couple with their luggage. They had too much stuff to fly so they had arranged to rent a minivan and drive themselves back up North. I hope they had a good trip, this port was very stressful to passengers arriving and departing.

 

 

The lifeboats come down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empty davits

 

 

 

 

 

Replacement lifeboat for 22

 

 

 

The two Carnival ships, Liberty and Sunshine.

 

 

 

We had tag 1 and we thought that we could get off fast. From what I could see, almost half of the pax were self assist so once off we were in the middle of the pack. The real scramble happened in the luggage area. PC uses conveyor belts where luggage is broken up by first even and odd and then by sub categories (1,5,9) and (3,7,11). The luggage was supposed to be loaded on the conveyors by number but we could see that 9s were coming thru while some of our 1s still had not shown up. Stressful times, especially for DW who is a professional worrier. We eventually retrieved our 2 missing bags, located a porter, and were wheeled off to the area where the rental car shuttles would pick up their passengers. There were 4 slots where a rental car shuttle could come in and eventually we figured out where Avis would come in. We couldn’t get on the first but parked ourselves where we would be close to the front of the line for the next.

 

 

 

 

The two crains setup to remove the damaged lifeboats.

 

 

 

 

Day 15

 

 

Port Canaveral, Florida. At the first sighting of land I went out on the balcony to see what would be happening since we would be coming in at almost a civilized time, not 5 AM as frequently happens. I saw the big Disney ship ahead and then the Explorer stopped dead in the water. There was a small boat a few hundred feet off the port side with several men standing up and looking at our ship. They appeared to be studying the two damaged lifeboats and mapping out a plan. Lifeboat 22, which was partially damaged, was then moved in and out on its davits as if to check the operating mechanism. # 20 obviously could not be moved for checking since it was still resting on deck 4. During the storm it had hit the ship right below us, two decks down. The cabin to our left had sustained some kind of damage as others saw maintenance replacing carpeting and other pieces of furniture. We didn’t see this.

 

We eventually pulled into our slip where we joined the Disney ship and two Carnival ships, Liberty and Sunshine (Destiny).

 

Our assigned waiting area was deck four, the theater balcony. After a wait, we were called and we load our carryons up and went out to get on the exit line. I saw The Couple and they waved to us so naturally I took another picture, saying good bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One more time

 

 

The last night is always bittersweet as everybody says farewell, especially on a long 2 week cruise like this. I did spot Billy the Erky teeshirt guy along with his wife Philomena; we had also seen them at Karaoke several times.

 

 

 

 

We got all the luggage out and settled in for the last night. Since this was the first time Explorer was coming to Port Canaveral as a final destination, we hoped all would be smooth. Per the guides we would not be in until after 9 AM.

More parade

 

 

 

 

After the parade we rushed up on deck to admire the last sunset of the cruise and it was a good one. We then hit the concierge lounge where we ran into our Progressive Trivia buddies Jim and Janet.

 

 

 

More on the Parade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a barbecue luncheon held on the pool deck today. Looked good.

 

 

 

 

Our trivia buddies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second parade, Royalpallooza, went off at 5:15 PM today. It was new and was different from the second parades we had seen in the past on Explorer. There was a colorful circus theme that really brightened things up. Plus the stilt walker was alive and well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Sea. The last day AKA day to pack. Boo. The highlight of the morning was a special trivia run by EFT with his very own customized answer sheets.

 

Shortly before 1 PM we had a cake decorating demonstration with X Chef Delroy, a passenger and CD Leigh. They actually opened up the performance bridge for passengers to watch the event and we were one of the lucky ones who were allowed up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marc and Chantal from our table. Plus our entire table. I forgot to take the PL filter off the camera so the picture came out too dark. Still new to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Centrum still is impressive.

 

 

The towel surprise was A Valentine Day Arrangement.

 

The doorway to port side deck four is still barricaded since the lifeboat issue will not be fixed until we get off at Port Canaveral. More on that later.

 

 

 

 

 

The production show tonight is “Invitation to Dance” choreographed by Louis van Amstel (ABC’s DWTS). We’ve seen this on two other ships and have always been impressed by the high-speed spins that the dancers do in these routines.

 

 

 

 

 

The Couple looked extremely elegant tonight in a sea of dazzling white. Wow!