harryfat1

Anyway, here are pictures from tonight’s dinner

20231229_204832.mp4 For me, this is what makes cruise vacation special as you don't get this from a normal land-based restaurant. I know some party poopers on CC dislikes this but I enjoy it

As it’s 8 PM, time for dinner at the MDR. Typically I associate the lobster night with the second formal night but for this sailing, they had the formal night on day 6 and the lobster night is on day 7. Since this Loabter night, EVERYONE from our section showed up. On some nights, these are empty tables but not tonight as they have the cooking staff do their one circle around the dining area. As I mentioned previously, I missed the traditional MDR from Voyager/Freedom/Oasis class ships where they would just have everyone by the staircase. In the Odyssey, it's hard to figure out where everyone is - finally found them at the front entrance on the lower deck 20231229_204051.mp4

As we are close to wrapping up the cruise, people have also decided on whatever souvenir they wanted to buy as many waited until the last port to see what that port had to offer before making the final decision on what to buy from the ship. Today must be “family day” as many people were visiting the uncle in prison upstairs as well as visiting crazy aunt (aka shopping) with long lines downstairs.

While the fam looks over the photo selection, I meander over to the Schooner Bar next door I have never had a picture taken next to the wheel. Need to remedy that on the next cruise

More trip reporting: ++++++++++ OK, returned the towels. Back to the cabin for a shower and back to the Royal Esplanade at 7 PM to see a big group of people visiting the uncle in prison. This is typical of Holiday season travels with large groups. Speaking of visiting uncle in prison, that was where we went as we needed to select all our pictures by the next day as the cruise was coming to an end. Looking at the crowd at the photo gallery, you can see a lot of people have the same thought as this was the biggest crowd I have seen in the area since the cruise started. By the next day, there will be even more people visiting their uncle in prison

In my haste to upload the Labadee pictures last night, I forgot to give my impressions of Labadee. We are slightly jaded in this being our third visit to the place. If it’s your first time visiting, be sure to check out the other parts of the port that we didn’t cover here. I like Labadee in that you can spend nothing and still have a great day. Unlike a typical Caribbean island stop where you have to pay for a taxi to take you to/from a beach, pay for the beach loungers/umbrellas, and then drinks and a meal. The entire day could have cost us $200 when adding up the various items I listed but for Labadee, it cost us nothing. Besides, you have the convenience of getting off the ship whenever and coming back to the ship on our schedule (as long as it's before the All Aboard deadline). So even though you don’t see any Mayan ruins (Costa Maya) or historical forts (San Juan) at Labadee, you will still have a fun time and not have to pay additional money for the experience. We have never been to CocoCay so the next RCI Caribbean cruise, I hope that future sailing is on the itinerary for a new beach day experience.

I think you just need to find the first opening on the left after you walk off the pier and into the plaza area of Labadee. If all else fails, ask one of the workers nearby at the entrance to the trail. Just walk up and take a picture and walk back down the same way and it will save you a little time if you don't want to walk the entire loop

Thanks for posting this. NYC has a unique photo opt that very few ports can compete with. We live near SF where we could take a Princess cruise and sail under the Golden Gate Bridge to get that perspective but NYC with its high rises is special.

Wow. Very nice. Thanks for sharing. I think you have better photo opt by sailing in the Fall/Winter timeframe when they change out of daylight savings and the sun sets early by 5 PM. The nighttime photo of the Statue of Liberty looks better than in bright sunlight during the daytime. I need to do a nighttime harbor cruise around NYC when we visit in August to see the skyline. Hopefully, the water isn’t too rough as I’m pretty sensitive to ship movements.

Quiet pool area at 5:25 as people are either already at the early seating dinner or showering for the late seating dinner. Especially after a beach day, the pool area isn’t very popular Here’s the other pool with slightly more people.

After a beach day, the hardest working staff is Little Henry from the clean-up crew as everyone inevitably drags back some sort of sand from the beach. Speaking of the beach, time to go up to the pool deck upstairs to return the beach towels as I didn’t see any return tent walking up the pier similar to the two previous ports. RCI will charge you like $20/towel if you don’t return the beach towels

OK. A few more pictures of the Promenade walkway and we are done here

After a while, the fam went back up but I stayed so I could show where our balcony is relative to the lower deck There are our cabins A different perspective from the balcony. There's hardly anyone walking this far Aft. I think I saw less than 10 passengers walking the entire cruise. More workers walking than guests down on deck 5 near the Aft section

We weren’t the only people who appreciated the Deck 5 scenery area. I like it since it’s wide open with no dang glass to get in the way of taking pictures. I definitely would recommend this deck for all the Alaska cruisers sailing on the other Q-class ships 20231229_165710.mp4

By the time we made it down to deck 5 at 4:55, the ship had already cast off and we pulled away from the pier earlier than the official 5 PM as everyone must have come back onboard on time. No straggler pier runners for people to hackle The other beach that we didn't see this time

Few more pictures of the Solarium before leaving as we went down to deck 5 promenade outside deck instead as that area is closer to the water I like that perspective more for sail away

Looks like no pier runners today as Labadee pretty much **** down before the All Aboard time so there's no reason you would be late coming back unless you got lost on the trail

Not much privacy in these balconies if that’s important to you as you have people looking down into your area regularly from the side Looking back at the Labadee cruise port area. Since it’s 4:42, past the all-board time, there shouldn’t be anyone still there other than the local workers.

Sure. Since it's my type of price - nada. Just need to string a hammock there and you will have a great spot and hardly anyone near you

Thanks for the shout-out. I don't consider myself to be a king of spreadsheets. Just someone who's 9.2 on the anal scale that needs a visual aid to help organize things. Here's my Odyssey of the Seas planner from last December. Off the top, I can't find the Excel version only the PDF version but you get the idea. Color-coded by similar types of activities. If you are high on the anal scale, you can even track the color of your clothes/socks/underwear colors in your spreadsheet...🤪 Odyssey Planner.pdf

We were here an hour ago

The reason we were up at the Solarium area was there's supposed to be a "not so secret" balcony overhang for sailaways.

I think if you walk the trail earlier in the morning, you get a better sunlight angle to take a picture of the ship. The sun was over on the port side of the ship when we took the pictures at 3:30 so it was darker than I would have liked. How much is the zip line? Like $130?