cruiselvr04

This is my pretty girl.

We booked this through shore trips, includes transportation to and from.

We’ll be away for 8 weeks coming up. I think I’m packing for about 2-3 weeks of clothes but it’s a firm no to buying toiletries wherever I am as a previous poster suggested. Many of us have some very specific things we use for hair, face etc and I’m not about to change on the fly. Also I’d like to buy my OTC meds where I can read the label. We plan on 4 checked bags, 2 roller carryon and 2 under the seat carry on. I need my stuff. We take organizational things for the cabin too as one of the blogs talks about. We went for 16 days in October and decided that pretty much what we took then will also do us with hand washing for 4 times that long. And really it all fits in the cabin. I use a hanging shoe rack in the closet even on 7 night cruises because I take too many shoes! And thank you for the idea of the collapsible basin. I’m ordering one to use instead of using a dry bag.

Just a week to go! You all must be really excited! And how is the packing going?

The Book is beautiful in a visual kind of way. There is no continuous story line. I think there’s enough going on that school age could sit through it. It’s about 45 minutes long. There is nothing inappropriate for kids in it but it’s more appreciated by adults. Think of it as a book with different stories in it. We really enjoyed it.

I certainly didn’t mean to offend you. I will clarify and say while I may someday cruise on Icon and Star, they won’t be my first choice to be on the ocean. When we go on the big girls we make sure we’re in a balcony or above. Otherwise we can lose sight of the fact that we are even on the ocean. Perhaps with the new Pearl area this will help bring the ocean in.

Those who cruise to see the ocean and be on the ocean will not be flocking to this ship. It won’t be those who want interesting itineraries either. But if you want a floating resort that you can take your family on then this will be your ship.

We are considering booking this same ship for a TA and British Isles cruise. We are Royal Caribbean cruisers (100 days booked in 2024) but in 2025 their itineraries are less than desirable. Can anyone comment on this ship? Will we like HA? We are just retired, still active, like live entertainment, and a solarium or similar on sea days to read. We are not foodies, don’t gamble but like to dress a little for dinner and enjoy good drinks and conversation. Does the ship shut down at 10 p.m. or will there still be some live music somewhere? What do you like the most and what is your least favorite thing about HA? Just tagging on to the previous poster questions trying to get more answers.

Frequent Royal cruisers know what they’re getting into but those who aren’t may be disappointed with the ship. Serenade has great storage in the cabins compared to the new ships and of course her size is what makes it a good world cruise ship. I love the enclosed solariums on this class. It is sad that they didn’t take her out of service a few days before to spruce her.

Our tour of Cartagena was similar in October and what I remember most was it was HOT! Even on the boat in the water it was hot. And yes we spent time in the Emerald shop/museum but we stayed longer just to cool down. I wanted to buy special chocolates, we found the shop but then realized they’d never make it back to the ship without melting so we gave up. We ended up in gelato store getting very cheap gelato which finally cooled us down a bit. The old town is very pretty.

An unfortunate situation. I suppose it would have been too hard to have the crew leave the ship, isolate in a hotel and pick them up when the cruise returned. Maybe has something to do with visas etc.

Thank you for starting this thread. I can’t wait to read about these adventures and ship board life on such a long cruise.

If this is really what happened shame on Royal. To get to the pier and then find out is not the way to treat anyone. They need to be making calls days prior to try to work this out. I’d be furious even if I lived in the port city. You make plans, pack, take the dog to the kennel, waste vacation time, pay to park your car, etc. At the least, they deserve their money back and a free future cruise of equal value. It’s not like an airline who can put you on the next flight or a hotel who can send you to another down the street. Those are bad but this is unacceptable. If it’s sick crew then that needs to be planned for period.

We cut the cord as they say a few months ago. So far it’s going well. We can’t watch much live TV but didn’t anyway. Somehow we have a news channel or 2. Our bill was getting crazy. The buffering at times is annoying. I’m a little anxious about storm season here and how we’ll know how storms are moving which is important in our area. In the past few years we’ve had at least 2 property damaging tornados within 2-4 miles of us. But we are saving a good chuck of money over dropping cable.

DH was looking at pricing for Australia. $15.99 so pretty good but 7 weeks is over $700. I said no. We can live on 4 days per cruise and if we really NEED another day or 2 we can buy it. We will pay an extra $100 per month to our cell carrier while we are gone so on port days and days in Sydney we will have access as we’re doing a lot of things on our own and will need it. He will have internet withdrawal. I do just fine as long as my kindle works.

I spoke with someone going on the world cruise in October on Radiance. Lovely couple by the way. They admitted they weren’t that close to their kids and saw them once a year anyway so for them it’s fine. Many, many people are like that. Others live next door or down the street and couldn’t fathom being away for more than a week or two. The 3 year cruise sounded a little fishy from the start. I do feel for those who sold everything to go. What a huge disappointment.

I hate those shower curtains. Going for 6 weeks on Brilliance coming up. I bring a dollar tree plastic shower curtain to put inside the cloth one that’s rarely changed. At least I have new plastic stuck to me.

They sent the new one. I’d have preferred the old style. We were on the Panama Canal cruise in October. I can’t explain it. We weren’t offered to take it with us. I didn’t turn the paper into the LA or I guess I could have asked. I turned it into guest services. Royal is consistently inconsistent.

Just received our Radiance block today. Cruise ended about a month ago. They didn’t have them on board and if you didn’t fill out the form and turn it in they would not mail it.

Last year we were cruising most of the month of December. I put up the tree but otherwise didn’t decorate. This year all the kids are coming so I have a lot of work to do over the weekend. It’s lovely when it’s all done.

Happy news. My MRI has not changed, no new lesions 2 years now post treatment. Sad news. I have another Mohs surgery mid December very close to the previous incision line on the right side of my face but I have an excellent plastic surgeon to do the repair and am hopeful after recovery I’ll look okay. Only 6 weeks to heal and then we’re off to Australia.

Ugh. I gained 5 lbs on our last cruise and it won’t come off. I need to lose at least 20. Men seem to lose easier, just saying. I honestly don’t eat much but my activity isn’t what it should be I’m sure. I could get ozempic or similar if I’m willing to pay for it but I have digestive issues that would make me hesitate. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’ll eat enough for a couple of days. Then it’s trying to lose a few pounds. I’d be really happy with 10 off. It sure doesn’t come naturally for us.

Another thing we won’t do. I fly and North Star were free on port days and that’s when we did them. I wouldn’t have done it anyway but DH might have if it was free on a port day.

It was that way in Latitudes too. We like non fat milk in our hot cocoa. We were six days at sea. They ran out. Then two days later they had it and we had not been to a port. So it was on board, just not right there. It seems like poor planning or they could call someone to get it but it doesn’t to work that way.

I hadn’t thought of the inability to push the elevator buttons….