Cruiser Formerly Known As Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on Odyssey of the Seas Sailing to A Minus B Plus C Plus H Islands

[crzndeb]

1 hour ago, harryfat1 said:

BTW: as Patti at @Coralc can tell you, the people here in California don't call the state "Cali". That is what outsiders call us.  When I was at Hollywood Beach renting the bike, I had to give them my ID and the guy saw it and say "Oh, CALI".  You know he's not from here...

I spent the first 34 years of my life in California, and it’s funny how a lot of us are very picky about how or what you say about the places we live. And don’t ever say Frisco if talking about San Francisco…LOL 

Now, living in the Seattle area, it’s Pike Place Market or The Market….I have seen and heard all sorts of variations. 

Thanks for the fun thread!

[harryfat1]

This being SF and West Coast “green” state, they have 6 dedicated water refill machine dispensers at the airport terminal right after the TSA checkpoint so people can fill up their water bottles. FLL airport only had one small one by the bathroom area.

 

 

A touchless sensor will dispense water if you put your hand near it.

 

 

There was only one red-eye flight to FLL that night.  The Alaska Airlines flying the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane.  Yes, the same type of 737 plane from the same airline that lost its door less than 2 weeks after we were on one and has been grounded by the FAA pending further investigation…😨

 

 

One thing you won’t find at this terminal at SFO which you can find at almost every other airport – Starbucks.  Since this is Peet’s Coffee Country in SF, if you want coffee, it’s Peet’s to the right or to the left.  I think there’s a Starbucks over at the International terminal but it’s a pretty good walk to get your Starbucks.

 

 

 

 

Solid wifi speed at the terminal as we wait for the flight to board at 10:30PM

 

 

 

Got my neck pillow.  Thinking I will get maybe 3 hours of sleep on a 5.5-hour red-eye flight. Ha.  Wishful thinking...

 

Edited January 14 by harryfat1
Does anyone really explain why they edited their own posts?

[harryfat1]

Of course back then we didn’t know anything about the issues of 737 Max 9 doors could fly off any given minute. 

 

Actually, I received an email from Alaska Airlines the morning of the flight telling me that the airplane we would be on was very spanking new – do new planes have a smell similar to new cars?

 

 

 

 

Everything looks very new.  I liked the USB chargers at the top of the headrest for charging the phones  - if I were to charge my phone but I was planning on sleeping instead or so I had hoped…

 

 

As the seats are 3 and 3 configuration, with the 4 of us, the wife and the boys sat together and I saw across the aisle on the aisle seat so we could be close to each other. 

 

As (bad) luck had it, I sat next to a couple that didn’t want to sleep on the red eye.  The dude next to me had his reading light on most of the flight and his wife by the window seat had her phone on with a bright display watching movies during the flight and talking with their friends in the row behind us.  Lovely…

 

On top of that, they got up twice to go to the bathroom during the night and I had to get up out of my seat to let them out.

 

My watch is at 1:46 AM PST/4:46 AM EST and I’m still not sleeping halfway into the flight…

 

 

 

A wise man once said, "It's not the Destination but the Journey".  However, that wise man probably never flew on a red eye with seats that is in theory ergonomically designed to fit someone's back and butt (certainly not your back or butt as you squirm in trying to sleep with your 2 neighbors watching videos at 2 AM and chatting with their friends...) 

 

Yeah, it's about the destination for me at that point. The heck with the journey.  Get me to FLL ASAP...

 

+++++++++++

This concludes day minus 2 of the trip report.  Thanks to all for being part of the trip report.  Hope we will have lots of fun sharing posts next several weeks...

[crzndeb]

17 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Of course back then we didn’t know anything about the issues of 737 Max 9 doors could fly off any given minute. 

My daughter and grandson have a scheduled flight to MCO on the 31st on a Max 9. He’s playing in the Flag Football Championship and was invited to ProBowl. I know they substituted another plane on certain days, but others they have cancelled flights. So fingers crossed he’s on the different plane. UGH!

[rncruiser]

2 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Many thanks to all the provided feedback on your packing preferences.  Looks like we have a fairly cautious group here with many people packing just in case.

 

Always appreciate the discussions throughout the trip report as I always learn something from each report via people's comments. More fun to have discussions than people just reading my diary/journal on what we did for 10 days in December...

 

Anyway, onward with the trip report

 

+++++++++++++

 

I typically start/end my trip reports from SFO airport as the first and last picture of the vacation.  This trip will have a slight twist on the backend but no need to get ahead of ourselves at this point.

 

The first picture of the cruise is SFO at 9 PM as we get ready to self-tag our luggage.

 

 

 

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man – I miss the old days when they had airline workers who would tag and do all the stuff for you instead of you standing in front of the kiosk trying to type in the necessary info to get 4 luggage tags to print out.  Another sign of being old is now my kids are the ones handling the kiosk interaction instead of the old man getting frustrated with the screen. Another sign of getting old…

 

In one of my previous trip reports, fellow cruisers convinced me to get the TSA Precheck as a real convenience.  So I opted for a new credit card that gave me TSA Precheck expense as part of the perk and signed up for that.  The family gave me all their electronic stuff for me to carry so they don’t have to deal with it in the regular line.

 

 

After having done it on the return trip, I must say I like the TSA pre-check.  No need to have the hassle of taking off shoes and putting the hands up at the screening machine.

 

After coming back, I signed up my younger son for the TSA pre-check as he attends college in Southern California and flies back and forth to the Bay Area, and having a TSA pre-check will be easier on his flying experience.  Will also get the wife and my other son the TSA precheck ahead of our next cruise in December.

I also caved on TSA-pre check. For this cruise we knew we would be cutting things tight at the airport since we couldn’t leave home until our son got home from work. We had an 8 pm flight and he usually arrives home about 5 or 5:15 pm. Since it was holiday time I knew the airport would be busier than usual. Luckily we only live about 15 mins from the airport, but with all of our luggage we needed 2 Ubers to get us there. TSA pre-check was a definite help. Since our daughter also flies back and forth to school she is very appreciative of it as well. 

[Coralc]

We just went with Global Entry, which includes TSA Pre-check. It doesn't cost much more than just pre-check. We had planned more out of the country travel, but that hasn't quite worked out yet. ☺️

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, crzndeb said:

I spent the first 34 years of my life in California, and it’s funny how a lot of us are very picky about how or what you say about the places we live. And don’t ever say Frisco if talking about San Francisco…LOL 

Now, living in the Seattle area, it’s Pike Place Market or The Market….I have seen and heard all sorts of variations. 

Thanks for the fun thread!

 

2 hours ago, crzndeb said:

My daughter and grandson have a scheduled flight to MCO on the 31st on a Max 9. He’s playing in the Flag Football Championship and was invited to ProBowl. I know they substituted another plane on certain days, but others they have cancelled flights. So fingers crossed he’s on the different plane. UGH!

Yes, the word "Frisco" is deeply frowned upon in these parts of the world.

 

I always tended to say "Pike's Place Market" in wanting to put an apostrophe there when it doesn't belong.

 

Yikes on the upcoming flight on the Max 9.  Hopefully, they will wrap up the investigation soon and come up with a fix to ensure the doors are securely in place. 
 

[harryfat1]

45 minutes ago, rncruiser said:

I also caved on TSA-pre check. For this cruise we knew we would be cutting things tight at the airport since we couldn’t leave home until our son got home from work. We had an 8 pm flight and he usually arrives home about 5 or 5:15 pm. Since it was holiday time I knew the airport would be busier than usual. Luckily we only live about 15 mins from the airport, but with all of our luggage we needed 2 Ubers to get us there. TSA pre-check was a definite help. Since our daughter also flies back and forth to school she is very appreciative of it as well. 

Yeah, especially if people can find credit cards that will reimburse you for the TSA pre-check fee as part of the perk, then it's a very easy decision to get the TSA pre-check.

 

My credit card has the $100 allowance for TSA precheck or Global entry.  Since TSA precheck was only $78 for the application, the remaining $22 credit was used to offset some of my son's $78 fee.

 

Sometimes people report that the regular lines are shorter than the TSA precheck lines but the convenience of not having to take off shoes and sweatshirt and the hand-raising scanner for the next several years is worth it to me.

[harryfat1]

40 minutes ago, Coralc said:

We just went with Global Entry, which includes TSA Pre-check. It doesn't cost much more than just pre-check. We had planned more out of the country travel, but that hasn't quite worked out yet. ☺️

Yeah, I looked into Global Entry as my credit card covers either one of them but Global Entry required me to drive to SFO on a weekday to complete the process.  Not possible on a typical working day.

 

Whereas TSA Pre-Check was done inside a Staples store in a mall so it was easier to do TSA Pre-Check instead.  Not looking to travel overseas until at least 2025/2026 to go to Europe.

[harryfat1]

(Continuing with the trip report.  However, keep in mind that the first day of the trip report is pretty blah after we landed as we were dead tired.  Things will pick up after the first day)

 

++++++++++

 

Day Minus 1:

 

Welcome to the East Coast/Florida at 4 AM PST/7 AM EST as the plane has started the landing approach.

 

 

 

FLL airport at 8 AM.  Got our luggage from the carousel. My brain not exactly functioning after not having slept on the plane and our body clock says its 5 AM.  I called the hotel to arrange for a free hotel shuttle to pick us up from the airport.

 

 

We were instructed to go a station where all the hotel shuttles pick up their arriving guests:

 

 

For this cruise, we stayed at the Home2 Suites in Dania Beach.  The same hotel we stayed at back in 2017.  We had stayed a couple of times in the past at Gallery One in Fort Lauderdale.  While that hotel is nice, there’s not much “to do” in the area if you don’t do the water taxi as we did that back in 2016. 

 

Downtown Fort Lauderdale is nice but it’s a bit too hoity toity for my liking.  We are more suburban folks and Dania Beach with the mall area is more our speed.

 

Being CFKACD, I prefer hotels with two embedded perks: Free airport shuttle upon arrival and free breakfast to feed the family.  Home2 Suites check both boxes.

 

It’s located near a cluster of other hotels as you can see from Google Maps: 

 

 

 

As you can see, there are 6 hotels within walking distance as well as 2 neighborhood malls.  That means you know there will be food places around the area to feed all the hungry tourists in town with most of them here for a night or two before their cruises.

 

[harryfat1]

This being the “high season” of Christmas week, the hotel was packed with cruisers/families.  Just par for the course as these hotels represent good value for families in having free shuttles and free breakfast to feed the clan.

 

Here is a picture of the front of the hotel:

 

 

Anyway, we arrived at the hotel around 8:45 and stood in line waiting to be checked in. You know the hotel caters to cruisers when you see a big old display at the front lobby advertising for cruise port shuttle service:

 

 

If we were cruising with the inlaws and at 6 people, I would opt for shuttle service so we could all be together as a family as no Uber/Lyft can fit 6 people with all the luggage we had.  But with 4 people, I opted to try the rideshare service to Port Everglades for the first time instead of using a professional shuttle service 

[harryfat1]

I know the official check-in time for most hotels is either 3 or 4 PM.  But this being an airport hotel, they should be used to people arriving early especially with all the West Coast people coming in on the dreaded red-eye flights early to Florida.

 

The best hope I had was that they would have an unused bedroom from the previous night so we could just check in early and crash as we didn’t sleep well on the plane. 

 

Of course, they didn’t have that when we got there so the best they could do was store our luggage and invite us to eat at the breakfast area and wait for the next available room after the house cleaning person finished cleaning a room.

 

As we were eating breakfast, I debated whether to drink coffee or not.  Do I want to try to stimulate my already frazzled brain in trying to be more awake or try something more relaxing like tea with the hope I can take a nap after we get a room?

 

After breakfast, we just sat in the lobby area and waited for the room to be available.  As we waited, a few more families also came in as their flights landed and they also sat in the lobby waiting for their rooms to be available.  At least we were first on the list as I saw her write down our number on a new page.

 

 

10 AM and still waiting.  The breakfast area (to the left) is all empty.  The only people in the lobby were the few other families like us waiting for a room. The rest of my family fell asleep on the sofa in the lobby.  I took a picture of them but don’t think they want that to be posted…

 

At this point, you wonder to yourself on why you are doing this.  Kinda like the "meaning of life" question.  You spent thousands of hard-earned dollars to be stuck in an uncomfortable airplane seat and can't go to sleep for the entire night.  Arrive at a hotel where you are like a refugee and sleeping on the sofa with nowhere to go.  This is the "fun" and glamorous part of vacation nobody ever talks about...

 

Yeah, vacations are overrated but yet we all still go on them...

 

After waiting for about 2.5 hours, at 11:30, the hotel finally called my cell phone to say the room was ready.  So after getting the key, we staggered up to the room used the restroom, and then closed the curtain.  Then set a timer for a 90-minute nap so we could go to lunch later on and then we were all out like the light...

 

 

The room comes with a mini kitchen set up with plates/cups/utensils/a sink/a refrigerator and a coffee maker

 

[harryfat1]

After waking up at 1:45 PM, we felt more human again.  Amazing how the brain doesn’t function properly without much sleep.

 

Here’s the view of Fort Lauderdale looking north.  That’s the Hard Rock casino hotel in the distance.  The hotel tower is in the shape of a guitar.  More pictures later.

 

 

So, for lunch today, we wanted to try some Cuban food as that’s the more local cuisine and we certainly don’t get much of that in the Bay Area,

 

There’s one place within walking distance from the hotel so we went there to try it out:

 

 

 

 

And y’all get to meet the fam for the first time on this trip.  Others that have read my trip reports in the past know who we are

 

[harryfat1]

This is the first time we tried Cuban food.  Don't know how authentic it might be but it was tasty and the place had good reviews:

 

 

 

 

 

[JamesEM]

Hello Harry, happy to see your posts, looking forward to more of your postings. As for myself, doing well and looking to book my next cruise, but with the higher prices, cut back on food and services I'm holding off at this time, maybe an all inclusive.  I sailed on the Harmony doing a b-3-b sailing to the ABC island and several other ports a little awhile ago, good cruise but with the with the cut backs it seams like RCL is trying to make up all the money they lost ASAP.

[h20skibum]

7 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

It’s located near a cluster of other hotels as you can see from Google Maps: 

 

 

 

As you can see, there are 6 hotels within walking distance as well as 2 neighborhood malls.  That means you know there will be food places around the area to feed all the hungry tourists in town with most of them here for a night or two before their cruises.

You will usually find us at the Springhill Suites before our cruises.   I think this is a nice area to stay.  Dania Point was nicely decorated for Christmas.

 

A couple of our “go to” places to eat are within walking distance from here.  Rustic Inn Crabhouse is a couple of long blocks to the north, and Jaxson’s Ice Cream is to the east.  They are both about a mile away.   Although, do not follow Google’s walking directions to Rustic Inn, unless you want to add a couple miles to your trip.  Instead, walk west to Anglers Avenue, then north.  Maybe google doesn’t want people crossing that railroad track. 

[loug1601]

Hi Harry,

 

You have such a lovely family!

I just love your trip reports…you are such a talented writer.

Your humor is always right on point. 
 

Keep it coming! 😃

 

Pat

[nonnie&dgd]

What a nice looking family! Can’t wait to read more.

[zaylyn2590]

10 hours ago, JamesEM said:

Hello Harry, happy to see your posts, looking forward to more of your postings. As for myself, doing well and looking to book my next cruise, but with the higher prices, cut back on food and services I'm holding off at this time, maybe an all inclusive.  I sailed on the Harmony doing a b-3-b sailing to the ABC island and several other ports a little awhile ago, good cruise but with the with the cut backs it seams like RCL is trying to make up all the money they lost ASAP.

Jmo.... The all inclusives are even higher than the cruises 😱

[harryfat1]

19 hours ago, JamesEM said:

Hello Harry, happy to see your posts, looking forward to more of your postings. As for myself, doing well and looking to book my next cruise, but with the higher prices, cut back on food and services I'm holding off at this time, maybe an all inclusive.  I sailed on the Harmony doing a b-3-b sailing to the ABC island and several other ports a little awhile ago, good cruise but with the with the cut backs it seams like RCL is trying to make up all the money they lost ASAP.

Hi Jim,

 

Good to hear from you again.  I see you are still keeping these late East Coast hours. Thanks again for reading another segment.

 

Yeah, these cruise prices are crazy high, and yet, the ships are still sailing at a very high capacity.  For our sailing, it was 125% of double occupancy with many families squeezing their kids in the trip and quad cabins.

 

On the Odyssey, the “Next Cruise” area is near 270 Café where I walk by daily and I always see the desks full of people booking future cruises while on board so I can tell the demand is still very strong – even at these inflated prices.

 

As we are both finance people, I pulled up the RCCL’s latest 10Q info, and under footnote 6, I see in the first 9 months of 2023, they paid down $3B of debt.  So they are trying to deleverage their balance sheet from the recent profits they made.  This is a prudent financial decision for them but not as well for us customers as they are not increasing their cost (our benefit) in light of the higher revenue.

 

[harryfat1]

15 hours ago, h20skibum said:

You will usually find us at the Springhill Suites before our cruises.   I think this is a nice area to stay.  Dania Point was nicely decorated for Christmas.

 

A couple of our “go to” places to eat are within walking distance from here.  Rustic Inn Crabhouse is a couple of long blocks to the north, and Jaxson’s Ice Cream is to the east.  They are both about a mile away.   Although, do not follow Google’s walking directions to Rustic Inn, unless you want to add a couple miles to your trip.  Instead, walk west to Anglers Avenue, then north.  Maybe google doesn’t want people crossing that railroad track. 

Yeah, Google Maps in Dania Beach is a little out of whack.  I wonder if it has to do with the area built up by the cruise industry over the past 10-plus years that they built roads/walkways that Google Maps didn’t know about.

 

Case in point.  If I had listened to Google Maps to go to the Cuban restaurant for lunch, it’d be a 1-hour walk to go ALL THE WAY AROUND.  The short (logical) way is as I highlighted in red and it was a 10-minute walk, even accounting for extra wait due to very aggressive Florida drivers that do not yield to pedestrians.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

12 hours ago, loug1601 said:

Hi Harry,

 

You have such a lovely family!

I just love your trip reports…you are such a talented writer.

Your humor is always right on point. 
 

Keep it coming! 😃

 

Pat

Hi Pat,

 

Thank you for the compliment and continued support in reading these trip reports. 

 

The boys have grown a lot since I started writing these reports back in 2014.  As my wife tells me regularly, I now have less hair compared to the old days.

 

Somewhere down the road, I’ll be upgraded to Cheapo Grandpa and be even more grumpy in complaining how cruising “used to be so great when we had our cabins cleaned twice a day…”

[harryfat1]

9 hours ago, nonnie&dgd said:

What a nice looking family! Can’t wait to read more.

Thanks.  As I said previously, the beginning is a bit “blah” as we arrived in Florida.  Day minus 1 coming up hopefully will be more exciting as we visit Hollywood Beach with more scenic pictures.

 

The first travel day is never exciting as we all have to spend time and effort to get to the town on top of time zone differences.

[harryfat1]

9 hours ago, zaylyn2590 said:

Jmo.... The all inclusives are even higher than the cruises 😱

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if the land-based all-inclusive vacation costs are higher than cruise prices as cruise lines have lower labor and tax advantages not available to land-based operations.

 

Cruise lines have the tax advantage of registering their ships overseas and hiring International workers to work on the ships.

 

Here’s a screenshot of the RCCL’s Form 10K from 2022 describing their employees.  Comes as no surprise for anyone who has cruised before that the majority of the cruiser workers are non-US based.

 

 

 

 

If the cost is similar/close between cruises or land-based vacations, my personal bias would still be a cruise as I would be able to see 3+ ports on a typical 7-night cruise and higher entertainment value on many of the sailings than an average land-based vacation. 

[harryfat1]

Onward with the trip report for the rest of the day minus 1

+++++++++

After lunch, we meandered to the other mall walked around a few stores, and went to the theater at later in the afternoon to check out the new movie, Aquaman. 

 

Typically I’m not the type to watch movies during vacation (not watching any movies on the pool deck) but since we are coming off a red eye, I didn’t want to schedule anything aggressive as I know we would be tired.  The worst case scenario was that if we couldn’t check in until the official 3 PM time, then we would take a nap inside an air-conditioned theater with a very comfy chair lounger…

 

Being cheap, I bought the tickets online during the Black Friday sale at less than $10/pp for the tickets. I could do my old man speech of "when I was younger, the cost of a movie was..."

 

This is just odd to me – the Florida Mall area would have these sidewalks that just end with a grass area after that.  Do they expect people to be picked up/dropped off by a car in the middle of the sidewalk and thus not needing the sidewalk anymore to reach the crosswalk?

 

 

Anyway, very quiet theater on a Thursday afternoon.  Less than 15 people for the movie.

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure I could stay awake the entire movie and at the beginning, I almost did fall asleep but there’s enough action and explosions in these movies to keep most of the people awake.