Give me liberty or give me...a review of her!

[wolfganghowell]

Paul, now you are mocking me. :D But because you have a Mitch Hedberg quote in your signature, I'm willing to forgive you. Plus your gushing compliments, while insincere, made me snort.

[Paul65]

Paul, now you are mocking me. :D But because you have a Mitch Hedberg quote in your signature, I'm willing to forgive you. Plus your gushing compliments, while insincere, made me snort.

 

Totally sincere. We Sagittarii have to stick together.

[JaniceB]

Thank you for all the Galveston bar/restaurant names. Traveling there for the first time and needed some places to visit for drinks and dinner

 

Very nice review, really enjoying it.

[maryjaden]

If you weren't doing such an excellent review you would probably have more feedback:)! As it is you are answering the questions as you go! Great review! I too am anxiously awaiting your thoughts on the casino and if there is anything new on the new program!

[Yorkvillain]

Love the review Wolfgang. Great job.

[39august]

I assume that Pinnacles also may go to the front of the lines at the terminal by showing our Set Sail pass? We have never done that, but there has never been a big line outside when we have arrived. I do appreciate that P's and suites have the same waiting area in the terminal. Last time there in May, although suites and P's were announced first, we were held up by a little old man guarding the doors. Diamond + actually got to board before us. Oh, well, the food was still there in the WJ. Next time, I think we will go into Chops for first day lunch. Haven't done that yet as the "Gold cards only" sign is not usually up yet. Back in two weeks for a b2b. Sounds like our server in the SL, Jason, is still there. Hope to see him then. He is so personable.

[Canadian Tyler]

Following along and enjoying your review.

 

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

[wolfganghowell]

CASINO AND CLUB ROYALE

 

We are fairly new to Club Royale – this is our 3rd cruise in the program. Although the program is changing, there’s no intel on it yet. All I can tell you for future is that around Day 5, we got our vouchers to be applied to our next cruise. We booked onboard through NextCruise and I need to call Club Royale to transfer the booking to them to get the new rate and vouchers applied.

 

We met the host shortly after the casino opened. I am drawing a blank – I believe his name is Felipe. He was a great guy – very friendly, always smiling. When he would walk around, if he saw me sitting at a one armed bandit, he would back up, wave, say hello. I very much appreciated his friendliness. We had no issues with drink service – I totally blanked and forgot to have dollars for tip money the first night but after that, we took care of our servers and bartenders. We didn’t have to sign slips ever. They were good at recognizing us quickly and the first time a new bartender saw the card, they would look at a list behind the bar to check the names. I don’t believe there were very many CR’s on this sailing.

 

I rotate between evil slot machines and tables. Mainly I play $1 slots with some penny slots with max bets around $3. Tables I play roulette and Ult Tx Hold Em. Mr Wolf plays UTH almost exclusively. These were definitely the tightest slots I’ve been up against on 24 cruises. I can usually hit something but not really this time. As a result, I played more UTH. The dealers were a friendly and fun group. One of them said they average one royal flush per cruise. We did hear of one - Mr Wolf had just walked away.

 

As alluded to above, one night (I’m thinking Night 3 or 4 – they run together in my head) I am playing close to the cashier area and they are having their Wipeout drawing. I never win drawings so I don’t pay attention. But when you hear your name on the intercom, it does indeed penetrate your subconscious. People were entered based on every 25 points they had played – I think I was hovering around 1200 points at that point. HEY DON’T JUDGE – we don’t have kids to put through college and this is our stress relief. We budget ahead so it’s monopoly money when we walk in. So needless to say, I guess I had a lot of entries. Felipe seemed especially delighted that a CR member won – or maybe it was just me. :D :D. When he asked if our onboard account was more than $1000, I laughed and said yes. (Did I mention that since we are CR and don’t have to pay the 5% convenience fee, we get our gambling funds off our seapass so we don’t have to carry too much cash and also we can just get what we please based on our win/loss status? ;)) So that $1000 took the sting out of the evil machines beating me. UTH started out pretty empty the first 2 nights with a $10 minimum. Day 3, they lowered it to $5 minimum and their strategy worked – they did attract more players.

 

We enjoyed our casino time – generally playing after dinner for a few hours then heading up to the pub to see Derek, then back to the casino around 11 ish for a bit more time. I often crashed around 12:30 while Mr Wolf closed it down most nights. We both closed it down the last night. They usually rolled up the place around 1:30 am.

 

Very nice crew in there and my points managed to get me 3 t shirts and 2 meals at johnny rockets. It’s possible I could have requested a specialty restaurant from them but since we had already eaten in them, we didn’t. Our vouchers will save us $800 on our next cruise.

[wolfganghowell]

39 - yes the sign at the terminal did say Suites/Pinnacles. That same little old man is still there guarding the door. :D He started to board, then he stopped everyone to tell them how to use their seapass cards and how to get to WJ. Mr Wolf was about to pee himself like a 3 year old until he finally made an end run around him.

 

Jason is the best. I agree!

[wolfganghowell]

Janice B - lots of great choices in Galveston. The Original Mexican is a good choice for Tex Mex. The Spot - same venue as Rum Shack has great burgers. Olympia Grill at Harbor House - wonderful Greek and Med choices.

[SthrnCruiser]

I think that's frowned upon, but it would make an good response in the newlywed and not-so-newlywed game show...

 

On our sailing on Freedom last week, the newlywed couple was asked where was the strangest place they had had whoopie. She said the deck on the cruise! Of course the first thought by the CD was the pool deck, but she meant the balcony of their stateroom. The last night I realized they were just a few rooms down from us :eek::D:p

[wolfganghowell]

PORTS – COZUMEL, GRAND CAYMAN, FALMOUTH

 

We have been to all these ports. So we already had ourselves planned out.

 

Cozumel – we rotate between Paradise Beach and Nachi Cocom. This time we did Paradise because we wanted to experience their fabulous pool. Had we known how many ships were in port, we might have gone back to Nachi. Paradise was just a little too crowded – you had to dodge bodies, Frisbees, balls, hack sacks and more bodies just to walk around the pool. Beach was good but again more people than usual. It seemed rockier than normal – and it’s always rocky. I had water shoes and it was still a rough entry. We enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong. But in the future, I will be checking the passenger load for Cozumel before deciding which resort to pick. Senor Frogs at the port was dead. Come on people – have some fun. This place is where you cut loose. I miss the old days when this was your raucous pit stop before getting back on board.

 

Cayman – we rented a cabana at Royal Palms. Excellent call, my arm is still a little sore from patting myself on the back on this one. $100 well spent to have a beach cabana with a decent table to eat lunch on, some shade, 2 loungers to either sun in or pull under the shade, dedicated server and a beach view. The beach cabanas are a nicer structure than the ocean cabanas. Oceans are closer to the water but there will still be loungers in front of you – and if they put up an umbrella, your view is partially blocked. They don’t do umbrellas in front of the beach cabanas but they are set a little farther back. But still a great view. $4 each cab ride to get there and $4 each cab ride to get back. Conch fritters were yummy, jerk pizza was good. Mudslide was filling. Caybrew is heavy, if you want the local beer, go for Caybrew Light. We should have brought our snorkeling gear – the water was crystal clear and fish were right up off the beach.

 

Falmouth – our least favorite port. Neither of us want to get in a van to get somewhere. We commute almost 90 minutes round trip every single day – we don’t want to do it on vacations. So we popped over to Margaritaville around noon, hung at the swim up bar and stayed in the pool drinking boat drinks (Like that Parrothead reference, folks?) for a few hours, then got back onboard. Nice day.

[Texasopa]

We probably passed you, we were coming back to Arlington on Friday, while you were headed down to Galveston. And it was FLOODING. We went down there for a couple of days before Memorial Day, due to our grand-kids getting out of school earlier then most.

We stayed at the Harbor House, and DID use the nice pool at the Galvez.

[JimAOk1945]

Reminded me of a story from our recent cruise on Liberty. We opened the door to the bathroom one evening after dinner and found a curious towel-animal there, that looked like an alligator or crocodile greeting us. Luckily, before, asking our attendant about it, we realized it was just the shape the towel crumpled into, when it fell off the hook on back of the door.

 

Thanks for posting this story. It gave me a lot of laughs! :D

[wolfganghowell]

CROWN & ANCHOR STUFF

 

Coupons are loaded on your account. I think we forgot about them most of the time – never asked about our BOGO drinks. But then, I don’t think I had one beer onboard. Weird. I had a mani repolish only and a blow out in the spa. I asked them to not use the discount on the repolish since that was cheap, that I wanted to use it on the blow out. Worked out well since it cost about $50 – the same as it does at home at The Dry Bar.

 

As mentioned, for D+ we did the BOGO the first 2 nights. They were definitely the best meals we had. We did use our D+ drinks a few times, stopping at Schooner. We stopped once at Boleros and because I had VANILLA vodka and Mr Wolf requested Grey Goose, we were charged instead of using the D+. As many of you know, some people would have had a meltdown over this and asked to speak to the bar manager. We just paid the bill and said to ourselves, next time we will ask if what we are about to order is covered. It’s really petty to sweat the drink when we’re swilling liquid courage for a buck a pop every night. We had a few drinkies in the pub as well but our drink bill was far below the norm. Thank you SL, D+ and CR.

 

We attended the top tier event. If we had a notice about it, I never saw it and I’m pretty good about opening the 17,583 envelopes that appear on a daily basis. But the Loyalty Ambassador called our room and left a voice mail asking if we were attending. I called her back and got the deets. Apparently, since we were hitting 280 points on this cruise, she wanted to recognize us and give us our crystal block. OK – we’ll be a celebrity for approximately 2 minutes. It was a nice event. Very sparse attendance, I don’t believe there were many top tiers on this sailing. I think she said 78 D, 40 something D+ and 8 P’s. I had forgotten one of my fave foo foo’s was Yellow Birds and they were serving those so it was nice to have. This event was on Thursday.

 

We were offered a galley or behind the scenes tour (can’t recall which) or bridge tour. We’ve seen the bridge – seen one bridge, seen them all. Galley – not much of a cook myself so this would be excruciating for me. Behind the scenes – I grew up in the “theatah” so once again, reminds me of work. Ugh.

 

The D Lounge is very nice and hopefully the outside area will open up soon.

[PompeySailor]

CASINO AND CLUB ROYALE

 

We are fairly new to Club Royale – this is our 3rd cruise in the program. Although the program is changing, there’s no intel on it yet. All I can tell you for future is that around Day 5, we got our vouchers to be applied to our next cruise. We booked onboard through NextCruise and I need to call Club Royale to transfer the booking to them to get the new rate and vouchers applied.

 

 

Very nice crew in there and my points managed to get me 3 t shirts and 2 meals at johnny rockets. It’s possible I could have requested a specialty restaurant from them but since we had already eaten in them, we didn’t. Our vouchers will save us $800 on our next cruise.

 

Congrats on the $800, did they combine your slot "real points" and Mr Wolfs UTH play for your voucher?

When you apply to your next cruise, have a look on your invoice and see the amount for YP5-slots and YP6-tables, in the OBC section

It's nice to see which one of you earnt:) the biggest rebate (voucher)

 

Nice to see someone who actually understands the Mickey Mouse points and the real points;)

 

I look forward to 1st night, last night loose slots:D in November.

 

Thanks again for all the great info:D

[wolfganghowell]

Oh yea, my favorite Villain made a fly by. Glad you are enjoying. I know I'm no John Galt. Who IS John Galt by the way? And any lover of reviews knows that SailorJack is the MASTER.

 

I know I have a few more sections to cover - activities, a few ship areas. Those will have to wait until manana. Please holler with any questions or challenges.

[widallas]

LOVE the review -- great info, and your writing style is so fun to read. (Normally I never read the reviews without lots of pictures! :D) We were supposed to be going on LOTS this weekend :(:(:( but had to cancel and re-book for November. Appreciate hearing the details on the recent upgrades and what you liked about the ship.

 

Since you asked for questions....

 

1.I keep hearing about the rock-hard mattresses...any issues for you?

 

2. Thanks for the drink package feedback -- I think we are going to hold off and hope for the coupons mid-week, or maybe purchasing a package then. I'd love to think we can drink like we used to...but yeah, nooooooo.

 

3. Final one...Chops for breakfast but no dinner? We did no specialty restaurants last time. Sabor is a must-try, but trying to decide between Chops and Giovanni's.

 

Looking forward to following along more tonight!

[wolfganghowell]

Pompey - this was the very first time the "loose slots" theory on the last night did not pay off for me. Not just for myself but I didn't hear ANYTHING hitting. Even the Wheel of Fortune was ominously silent. I did see a few examples of the loose slot theory on night 2 but also the first night was not the standard cacophony of noise. Very few whooping on this sailing.

 

Thanks for the tip on the vouchers and invoice. Both of us have vouchers for $400 each. Which is interesting since I usually get more than him because of my slot play.

 

And yeah, the Mickey Mouse points actually came in handy once we decided to do JR's. I just got the t shirts the last night for the hell of it. But hey - I need something to sleep in. :)

[PompeySailor]

Pompey - this was the very first time the "loose slots" theory on the last night did not pay off for me. Not just for myself but I didn't hear ANYTHING hitting. Even the Wheel of Fortune was ominously silent. I did see a few examples of the loose slot theory on night 2 but also the first night was not the standard cacophony of noise. Very few whooping on this sailing.

 

Thanks for the tip on the vouchers and invoice. Both of us have vouchers for $400 each. Which is interesting since I usually get more than him because of my slot play.

 

And yeah, the Mickey Mouse points actually came in handy once we decided to do JR's. I just got the t shirts the last night for the hell of it. But hey - I need something to sleep in. :)

 

 

We give the T-shirts to daughter to clean the cars:D

I'll stick to the 1st 2nd and last night theory then, see how it goes.

We are the minority of believers on this;)

 

Hopefully CR would of made their money for the year and decide to give more away in the winter.

We can only wish:D

 

Last question, did you prefer Sabor, Oasis style or Liberty style, Cantina vs Restaurant style?

TIA.

[wolfganghowell]

I keep hearing about the rock-hard mattresses...any issues for you?

 

There's a reason my nickname in college was Slumber Queen. OK, one of many nicknames. Yes, the bed was dang hard. Never been an issue before and I still slept just fine. But I will be requesting a topper in the future. I did notice a big difference.

 

I enjoy pictures too but I swear go look at Cuizer2's pictures and pretend they're mine.

 

Chops for breakfast but no dinner? We did no specialty restaurants last time. Sabor is a must-try, but trying to decide between Chops and Giovanni's.

Chops for breakfast is a suite perk. Although they do offer it for $15 per person and they throw a mimosa in there. So not worth $30 - don't do that. My vote is Giovanni's. We have done Chops several times and for $39 per person, no way. Giovanni's filet was amazing. The maitre'd came over and said his filet was better than Chops. I have to agree. widallas - if you live in Dallas, you have plenty of great steak options here and for a lot less $$.

 

Sorry you had to postpone your trip but I think you will enjoy it even more. We usually cruise in November and the weather is so much nicer. The sea days were blazing gates of hell hot and the pool was like bathwater. At least I hope the weather was responsible for the pool temp - there were a lot of kids on board.....:eek:

[JimAOk1945]

CROWN & ANCHOR STUFF The D Lounge is very nice and hopefully the outside area will open up soon.

 

Any idea about what's going on out there on the D Lounge outside area? Just wondering since we will be enjoying our D status for the first time on our December cruise.

 

Thanks

Edited June 7, 2016 by JimAOk1945

[wolfganghowell]

I'm sticking with you on the 1,2 and 7 theory. It's worked for me all but this time. On Oasis, I hit $800 the first night and played on it all week long. So I guess they were due to get some of that back.

 

I prefer the Sabor restaurant style. The ambiance is nicer and it feels more special. No real difference in food quality - although you can scarf more Mexican down in the cool temps of Restaurant style than the open air cantina style. :)

 

Jim - you should be fine. I think it was a storage area for the Tidal Wave fix.

Edited June 7, 2016 by wolfganghowell

[PompeySailor]

I'm sticking with you on the 1,2 and 7 theory. It's worked for me all but this time. On Oasis, I hit $800 the first night and played on it all week long. So I guess they were due to get some of that back.

 

I prefer the Sabor restaurant style. The ambiance is nicer and it feels more special. No real difference in food quality - although you can scarf more Mexican down in the cool temps of Restaurant style than the open air cantina style. :)

 

Jim - you should be fine. I think it was a storage area for the Tidal Wave fix.

 

Thanks again Wolfgang, Mr & Mrs, appreciated taking the time to answer all my questions.

See you on a November sailing out of Galveston sometime in the future:)

[wolfganghowell]

That would be lovely Pompey - I just noticed you are from Dallas. Do you visit Winstar or Choctaw? Be funny if we have seen each other at one of them.