mil76

Bags are packed, and these guys didn't make the cut. 1 50 pound checked bag for a 19 day cruise with that variation in climate is tough. I appreciate Southwest Airlines right now.

We're staying at the Hilton Bankside. It's near Waterloo for the train.

Gotta love Royal IT. This is what the cruise excursions page looks like.

As we were finalizing our packing this week, we checked the Royal app to see if activities are loaded yet and noticed that the itinerary was out of whack. It seems the ports were all reversed, No notification as to what is going on from Royal, so speculation was running rampant here and on that other site. DW called the casino line and the rep checked with a higher up and they assured us it was just a glitch with the website. Then a day later we got this email: So now we are scrambling to contact our private tour operators in Lisbon and Lanzarote to see if we can change the dates. No word yet from them. Stay tuned. If this is the worst thing that happens on this cruise, I will be elated. Our last European cruise was a Baltic cruise 2 years ago on Voyager. That one started off with St. Petersburg being dropped. Then we got to Copenhagen and tested positive for Covid. Coming down with Covid in one of the world's most expensive cities with nowhere to stay is not my idea of vacation.

I've always wanted to do a live report, so here goes. Cruising with the DW, aka the OG Flow Widow. We like cruising because we love to travel and cruising includes two of our favorite past-times: me flowriding, and her playing the slots. We were talking about doing the fjords this summer and wanted to use her annual casino Prime cruise for that, but then this 12-day Discover the Canaries popped up on the casino list during our Navigator cruise in February so we booked it, with the expectation we would do a B2B. We patiently watched as the 7 day fjords cruise available staterooms dwindled down to nothing while waiting for the yearly Prime cruises to be awarded in April. We got about half way through April with no luck from Prime, and the cruise showed as sold out online for about a week, so we wrote off the fjords cruise. Then some staterooms popped up so we pounced on it and the B2B was back in business. Oh well, I guess the Prime cruise will have to wait! My grandmother was a WWII war bride and moved back to England when I was 11, so I have spent a lot of time in the UK over the years, but this is my first time cruising out of Southampton.

Have a great cruise. Nav is our go-to ship now when we need a quick get away. Easy flight from DEN (even easier when you fly Southwest to Long Beach), and the ship punches above its weight for a Voyager class. Make sure you check the traffic if you are leaving that early. They are doing major overnight work on Pena this week so you could get stuck if they close lanes.

Mixed wave is pure evil.

Really looking forward to Lisbon. Our son was there last summer and said it was his favorite city he has ever visited.

I was expecting that part of the world to be a bit warmer by now, but it sounds like it's still a bit chilly for riding. I'm already bringing my neoprene for the fjords, but it may come in handy for the Canaries part as well. Checked the 10-day forecast and it's not getting out of the 60s.

Odyssey would be a step up for me just because of Playmakers. I have cruised on Ovation, Anthem and Spectrum, and these are the only ships we don't get the unlimited dining package due to the specialties and not having a good lunch/casual UDP option (Johnny Rockets is NOT a good option). We still like Quantum class and are doing 19 days on Anthem in a week, but it gets more and more disappointing with the cut-backs. The Quantum class Music Hall is one of my favorite venues on all ships, and they have gone from having a tribute band AND a cover band to now having the pool band headlining. Spectrum is a whole other story, but that is mainly due to the market it serves. I was glad it was a port-intensive cruise so I didn't get upset about the lack of on-board venues I am used to.

Usually my phone will think I'm in Wichita, Kansas when I am in airplane mode using Voom and try to see my location in Google maps, including the past 2 years on Ovation in Alaska. Royal used to have a call center in Wichita, so maybe there's still a server there or something. They probably are still linked to a server in Sydney since the reposition.

Valletta is one of my favorite ports to sail in-out as well. Instead of passing one old fort you are immersed in a medieval-looking environment. Unfortunately for me I was on Celebrity when we cruised there so I couldn't watch it from the wave.

Activities for our June 2nd Anthem cruise started showing up today. I was a bit worried when I saw that there were no Flowrider sessions from day 3-11. Then I saw they had an entry for those days at 6am that says "We're Finalizing Schedule Activities".

Thanks for the updates jc. Always great to read reviews from someone who has their cruising priorities straight!

The difference between booking VOOM before you board and after with Prime is that you do not get any credit for your free days if you are Diamond or D+ when pre-booking. If you are Prime you can use your free days first and then book a package using the Prime discount. We're D+, so we can each use 2 days and then buy a Prime discounted 2 device package for the rest of the trip, or share the free days for 4 days and then share a discounted one-device package for the rest of the trip, which offers substantial savings over pre-booking. If you are D or D+ it should be cheaper to wait until you board, but if you are not it just depends on if the pre-book sale is more than 30% off. Since moving to Starlink and the single speed option I have found that the onboard VOOM prices have seemed to remain pretty consistent from what they quote in the prebook base price for the sales and the actual onboard price.

Two weeks ago on Harmony: Here's what he thought of the staff's attempts to get him to move along:

Hopefully this guy doesn't show up today. He came by when we were in Galveston last week on Harmony. Didn't even sign the waiver or do the boogie board test! Left a deposit on the wave so they had to shut down the rest of the day to sanitize.

Hey JC, following along. Doing 19 days on Anthem in June so this will bridge the time nicely. Still trying to convince the DW that taking a flowboard (or two) to Europe is worth the excess luggage fees. Voyager and I have an issue. Still haven't cruised her, but had one cruise cancelled by the shutdown and on the 2nd try I tested positive before boarding her in Copenhagen.

They prioritize filling all the staterooms, not just taking the highest bid on a specific category. A few years ago we did a minimum bid on a JS, and another bid much higher than minimum for a GS. We figured the higher bid would get us prioritized for the GS and the JS would be a fallback. Another poster on here only did a minimum bid on a GS. He ended up with the GS, and we got the JS. 😡

Don't count on them having a clue what kosher for Passover is. I'll never forget the "Happy Passover" sheet cake at the on-board seder a few years back.

Some other onboard activities which have costs depending on ship and timing: NorthStar observation arm (free sessions are hard to come by) Indoor skydiving (same as above) escape rooms Flowrider lessons (open sessions are free)

Been taking at least 1 RCL cruise a year since the return to Galveston, and cruising logistics have improved immensely over the years from transport options, to the terminal, to the ships. It's definitely not the best, but it has gotten better. We usually fly into Hobby since that is half the transportation battle compared to IAH (plus I have free companion status in Southwest). Originally we would fly in the night before and stay by the Airport and take Uber/Taxi/private car service/Shuttle to the port. But the area around Hobby is seedy, so we started booking a hotel on the way to Galveston and just do 2 Uber trips. To make things even easier for us, we have gotten my relatives in Texas into cruising, so we take the first Southwest flight the morning of and they pick us up on the way to Galveston. I assumed if there is bad weather we will change the flight and fly in the previous day and that should cover us as what else could go wrong. Then last Sunday the same DEN-HOU Southwest flight we're taking next Sunday is the one where the engine cover blew off... 😵

It's the last voucher of the night go-to beer!

Most of the Foster's onboard is brewed in Texas. So it looks like you already have. I had one on Spectrum and even that was from Texas.

Couple of lessons learned from doing this a few years now: I try to do all my meetings from the stateroom. You usually can find a nice quiet spot somewhere in a public area on port days, until they start the "Alpha, Alpha, Alpha" announcements for crew drills. Those announcements usually don't go into the stateroom. Don't expect other guests to accommodate that you are working (nor should they). I use the library/card room a lot, especially Navigator cruises when I want to let my wife sleep while I work early in the morning. 95% of the time it is quiet in the morning, but you can't predict the early riser family who wants to play a board game at 7:00am. If you are doing a Zoom or need quiet, don't assume any public area will be quiet. I once was allowed to use the conference center for a Zoom meeting since it wasn't in use. The problem with that is the conference center has a door to the crew area, so you get a ton of walk-through traffic since they know the room isn't being used. You also get all the ship announcements at full blast. Being close to land does not guarantee good Starlink internet. My worst experience was doing a Zoom presentation just off Cozumel on the way to Roatan. The connection was crappy and I got knocked off the meeting for a few minutes. I'm usually amazed at how well Zoom works with low bandwidth, but drops are going to happen. Bring an HDMI cable which works with your laptop. The stateroom TVs on many ships have the HDMI ports accessible, and you can use the buttons on the bottom of the TV to switch the input. I bring a USB-C to HDMI cable and have used the TV as a big monitor.