LadyZolt

Yes, Ishigaki was humid. Taipei was actually quite nice -- not too warm and not humid.

We are in Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan today -- and we took the glass bottom boat and saw some coral and sea turtles. The island was beautiful! Here are a few photos....

Internet has been slow and sketchy the past few days. Hong Kong was amazing, but uploading photos isn't quick. Here are some photos I took at sail away last night. This was my favorite sail away out of all the ports we've seen so far. It was beautiful!

We were in Bali, Indonesia today. We saw many amazing statues, plants, carvings -- incredible sensory overload! Here are a few photos, but they don't really do the place justice. The monkeys are in the Ubud Monkey Forest -- they are Balinese Long Tail Monkeys.

Lombok, Indonesia today -- here's the spectacular sunset from the ship:

We're in Airlie Beach today and I took a plane out over the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing! Here are some photos we took from the plane. There's a reef that's kind of "heart shaped" -- in the pic, you'll see the shadow of the plane near the bottom of the frame.

Here's a few photos I took of Tahiti, including the Point Venus lighthouse and a black sand beach. It was beautiful! I would absolutely visit Moorea and Tahiti again! 🙂

They have not yet said which ports (if any) on either Option 1 or Option 2 will be ports possible for anyone to either join or leave the cruise. We're waiting for Royal Caribbean to say -- I imagine Capetown would be approved and it is on both options, but we don't know for sure yet.

Recent science indicates that a single vaccination turns out to be good for life! I've had it at least twice (probably three times, but can only prove two), so I feel pretty confident I'm covered. 🙂

They answered some questions for us -- as John said, they will provide YF vaccines for any who need it (for free) and will also compensate those not on the ship yet but scheduled to join Segment 3 in Dubai for the YF shot they would need to get a few weeks before they join. I understand, too, that they will provide malaria tablets should we need those for destinations. They indicated that visas for most of the nationalities onboard shouldn't be a problem and they will deal individually with people from nations that might need help getting visas for places. They will not be opening any legs for sale to the public -- but if those onboard have friends for family who want to join, that will be possible. Voting for the two options will occur between now and February 26. I think they will announce the winning itinerary on the 27th. They discussed the math that will be used for calculating whatever the OBC or refunds would be and it's basically "actual fare you paid divided by 274" to figure your "price per day" and then it depends on how many days you end up deviating what amount you will get. If you opt to leave the ship in Dubai and then re-join at another point rather than do either Option 1 or Option 2, you can leave your stuff aboard and just take your medications, valuables, documents and things you'll need as they won't be re-selling any of the cabins. They said that once the new itinerary is selected, that will be what it is even if the world situation changes because there is too much involved with the logistics and planning, which makes sense. They will work on getting shore excursions available after the itinerary is selected and we should see those in April. Also, they said that things will be done by individuals -- so if, for example, a husband and wife on the full cruise decide that the husband doesn't want to do either of the new itineraries, but the wife does, he can opt to leave and she can opt to stay and the amount of money each gets depends on what they choose to do. I think Royal Caribbean is trying their best to make the most out of a difficult world situation and to give people enough options to feel like we can still salvage some aspect of what our hopes were when we booked this cruise.

You have to pay for the entire cruise with your American Express Platinum card. Your TA has to be able to get American Express to apply the benefit. Mine says she does it using some online area and doesn't have to talk to anyone at American Express. Once you've paid for the cruise in full and your TA has gotten the benefit from American Express, you will see the OBC when you look at the reservation online. That said -- for Royal Caribbean, we should get OBC and a bottle of champagne. On the Radiance cruise we took last March, we got the OBC, but Guest Services acted like they never heard about getting champagne. But I'm currently on the world cruise and we did get the bottle of champagne. Because we booked this as "one cruise," and now it's actually 17 legs, we only got OBC for "one cruise." LOL! Oh well -- it's better than nothing, but I truly believe AmEx should have given us OBC for each of the 17 legs as I do have 17 reservation numbers. The shortest leg is 9 nights and the longest is 28 nights (the one we're on now -- Los Angeles to Brisbane).

Flag Parade today to celebrate all the nationalities who work aboard the ship. Lots of good stuff in the parade! Here is our new captain representing Norway -- Captain Kjell Nordmo (first name is pronounced "Shell."). A warm "welcome aboard" to Captain Kjell! 🙂

At the Captain's Corner talk this morning, Captain Stig said we've traveled 16,800 nautical miles as of yesterday. He also said he's leaving tomorrow at Cabo San Lucas and our new captain will be boarding. I didn't know until today that Captain Stig wasn't going to be going all the way to Los Angeles, but I guess that does make sense as lots will be happening in Los Angeles since it's the end of Segment 1 (and mini-leg #3), and the start of Segment 2 (and mini-leg #4). I think Captain Stig did a wonderful job getting us through difficult seas in several places, and I'm looking forward to learning about the new captain. Captain Stig said he will re-join us on June 21st in Trieste, and he will continue from then and take us back to Miami. 😀

Except this one didn't stop to see crocodiles, but they may offer a version that does. And you got a better photo than I did of a butterfly! They just don't like to hold still. LOL! I did get some video, but no still shots.

And since we're discussing crocodiles -- do you know how to tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? (pause for effect) One will see you later, and the other will see you after a while. 😉

By the way -- many of the offered tours included seeing crocodiles. It would be pretty hard to miss seeing a crocodile in my opinion. When we visited Costa Rica before (around 2011, I think), we did a tour that included crocodiles, so this time, I chose one that didn't as a lot of the tour guides on the crocodile ones actually hold out stuff for the crocs to leap up and eat so the tourists can see that, and I just do not want to be there when one of those poor guides loses a hand (or worse!)

Like Dragon Of The Seas posted, we did a tour yesterday that included the aerial trams. We did have an air conditioned bus and the only slowdown was a traffic jam as we had to cross a bridge over the Tarcoles River and everyone was stopping to look at the crocodiles that were sitting there. I was glad that we weren't slowed down on the way back at the same spot -- and actually surprised we weren't as there were still crocodiles there. LOL! But we enjoyed seeing the plants at the "Rainforest Adventure" area, and the butterfly garden (many blue morpho butterflies that did not stop long enough for me to get a good photo of them), and we saw several iguanas (and even some bats!), and there were "leaf cutter ants" that we also saw many of. They even had a "leaf cutter ant crossing" sign at one point in the bath which I found pretty funny. While on the aerial tram, we saw several capuchin monkeys and also a pair of toucans, and lots of other kinds of birds, too. We enjoyed a pretty good lunch at the restaurant there at Rainforest Adventures as well. Even though it was hot, we enjoyed our day and I think the rest of our tour group did as well.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the places in Chile so far is the art you can see on the streets just walking around. This "stair art" is my favorite for Coquimbo...

Yes, that's another good point -- the wait staff aren't all staying on for the entire cruise, either. Our main waiter for Leg 2 ended his contract and left the ship yesterday in Valparaiso. Another person said that their cabin attendant left yesterday and they will have a new one now.

On the dining -- yes, the MDR is changing the wait staff every mini leg for reasons unknown to me. So, for the full world cruisers, we were asked if we wanted to keep the table we are at (main dining) and we decided we would keep it, so we got new wait staff, but not a new table. But I know others who (as has been mentioned), like their specific wait staff members, so they have moved to the location where the wait staff is now working. We were only asked if we wanted to change our table location near the end of the first leg; nobody mentioned it near the end of the second (although I will admit to missing some of the last few nights as we went to Giovanni's and Izumi). We'll see if they ask near the end of this one.

You may be right. My husband was using an app that tells locations of ships and it seemed to think the World had been there, but had left before us and that the ship in my photo was the Celebrity Eclipse. The Seabourn Pursuit was also there and I got pics of it. Someone on the Eclipse got a good photo of the Serenade and posted it on Reddit and I think that was in or near Paradise Bay, but I didn't happen to see the Eclipse passing us. As you said, crowded day in Paradise Bay. 🙂

Here's a photo I took with my iPhone 12 mini in Paradise Bay today. For perspective, in the distance if you squint you can see the Celebrity Eclipse (looks like a dark gray rectangle).

Hi! I'm on the Serenade of the Seas (Royal Caribbean's "Ultimate World Cruise") and got these photos of the Pursuit in Paradise Bay, Antarctica, today...

We were always going to go through the Drake Passage twice -- originally, once from the Falklands and then to our Antarctic destinations and then back north to Ushuaia. Now, we're going to the Antarctic first and then back north to the Falklands and then to Ushuaia. Most itineraries like this one do go through the Drake Passage twice. It's not unusual.

Egg drop was from Deck 9 (not a huge difference from 10, but just for the sake of accuracy. Deck 9 sticks out so you can drop things from it without them landing on decks 8, 7, 6, or 5 before getting to 4), and they did put down something -- I was on Deck 6 watching, so it looked like paper to me. I didn't stay for the whole thing, but they did draw on the paper on the floor to mark where different contraptions landed as there was a "bulls eye" to aim for and I think whoever got closest to the bulls eye without a cracked or broken egg would score higher than others who weren't as close.