Denversail

We abruptly booked all the travel plans. Checking in on the same day I booked the cruise was a first for me. Mr. IT went into a short frenzy trying to locate his travel documents. I’m happy to report he located them and will still be traveling with us. 🥳🥳 We are obviously booking everything very last minute. As with all things our flights were outrageous. Just to fly the Walmart of the sky’s (Southwest) was $1460 for the times we needed. We decided that the $260 extra per person and the 3 hour later home arrival at the end of our trip was worth first class. I know it is just a 3 1/2 hour flight but you’ll notice we are steering towards comfort and convenience this trip. It is a pattern.

Dupable has recently taken to noting my neighbors addresses so she can do further research when she gets home. She has also started joining my cruise trip FB pages. She now updates me on peoples updates. She was very excited to let me know that folks on my Greek Isles cruise are talking about ducks.

Our cruise is out of Orlando for 3 nights stopping @ Nassau and Coco Cay. We will have no sea days this trip. Mr. IT hasn’t been on a vacation since our Hawaii trip in 2022. We did a weekend of Glamping last summer but I’m not sure that I would really count that as a vacation. He has been stuck at home with the dogs lately while I travel the world. At least that is how he describes it. 😂

I’ve started the other live. It won’t let me link. I’m not sure why. 🤷‍♀️

LIVE 🚢🎉🥳🍾⛵️Allure of the Seas - April 5, 2024

This trip was a super last minute decision. Mr. IT and I decided 15 nights from the cruise that we would book it. I called 14 days out and was luckily still able to get an ocean balcony. He said they only had two more available. My free casino offer was for a junior suite but those were sold out. 😞 Just to explain some of the alias’s… I posted a news alert on my last live which was this Feb. I used these aliases in that review. Dupable (my mother) called me first thing the morning after my announcement that I’d be doing another live. She was so excited. It was like she will be on the trip with me. We will discuss more of her stalking tendencies later. Let’s just say she is following us all very closely. 😳

Thank you for the recommendation! While I love seafood my traveling companion does not. I would like to find a place with a more steak seafood balanced menu.

Thank you! We are considering Gregory’s for dinner.

We will be landing at noon in Orlando on a Thursday. We will be picking up a rental car at the airport. We are driving to Cocoa Beach but I know we will be starving. Any suggestions on where to stop for lunch on the way? Preferably within a 10 mile radius of the airport. We will make dinner reservations in Cocoa Beach so don’t want to eat lunch late.

Love Margaritaville in Hollywood. We have stayed there multiple times.

We did Chukka in Jamaica in Feb and I loved it. I never felt unsafe. We booked it through Royal. I wouldn’t go walking around Jamaica alone but no reason not to book an excursion.

So (haha) Mr. IT and I decided to book a cruise last night. This morning we booked Allure of the Seas out of Orlando in two weeks! I asked Mr. IT if we was down for a little fun and he is in agreement. Be sure to look for a live post starting shortly. I will link here. You won’t be waiting long. Not 12 hours after booking and Mr. IT doesn’t know where any of his travel documentation is. He is currently tearing our home apart looking.

Thank you! My searches didn't bring anything back. I'll check this out. Appreciate it.

This creep was even hiding under people's beds to record them after they get out of the shower. Anyone have this room steward between Dec23 and Feb24? Creeps are everywhere.

Royal Caribbean cruise employee arrested after hidden camera found in guest bathroom on Symphony of the Seas (nbcnews.com)

At this point I’m actually feeling confident. I decide to call Dupable and let know her know I think we are going to make the flight. The lady in line in front of me hears my conversation. Her eyes went wide and she shook her head like no way you are making it. We got through security at about noon. Our plane has been boarding for about 20 minutes at this point. I was starving and knew I wouldn’t be able to get food once on the plane. We stopped at a self checkout place so I could get a sandwich and Wolf could grab a snack. We walked up to the gate just as they started boarding our group. I even had time to run to the restroom. Wolf declared my planning terrible and swore he was never traveling with me again. This is a statement usually saved for just Dupable and is the first time I’ve been honored. We made our flight and it took off on time. Things got worse for Wolf though. Remember we had the bag tag issue. That tag was the one that went on Wolf’s bag. We get to baggage claim and my bags immediately come out. Wolf’s bag never makes an appearance. I finally get my phone out and open the app to find out where his bag is. Turns out the bag didn’t want to travel with me either. It was on a different flight. This is all happening while Dupable is calling my phone every 30 seconds. We got the delivery set up and finally got out of there. We are now home and the trip is officially over. Wolf is already back at work this morning. I’m spending my day with the dogs. Wolf had similar feedback regarding the second ship. He declared the food was horrible on Harmony. I honestly didn’t notice a difference. I doubt that him being sick the second half of that cruise helped his taste buds. Wolf also complained about the volume of people in the ports. It was a bit much in my opinion. It was just wall to wall people. You couldn’t even walk without being bumped into. I thought the trivia events weren’t good on this ship. They had them in strange places like Boleros and the promenade. Boleros didn’t have the speaker system for it. The Promenade is just an uncomfortable location for this. We gave up going to them by day 3. The pool deck was just pure loungers. I think that was 99% of the seating was shoved together pool loungers. The rest of the seating was hard and uncomfortable. We also had trouble with our room ac on Harmony. I think it only worked one day. This was a real problem when we were in Costa Maya and Cozumel. I also didn’t think Harmony was as clean as Odyssey. Odyssey won the award this trip by a landslide! I did enjoy all the weather on this trip except Galveston.

Well I managed to do it again and this time Dupable was no where in sight. I guess I’ve never really taken a shuttle. We have done them from airport parking lots but that is about it. I had booked a 9 am shuttle from the cruise port. I assumed at the worst we would be at the airport by 10:30. I didn’t expect them to show up at 9 am and make us walk to the other side of a mobbed cruiseport to get on a 55 passenger bus. I also didn’t realize that we would be stopping at Hobby. I only realized this when they were pulling into Hobby at 10:30. It was at this point that I made the call to Dupable that I didn’t expect us to make our flight. We ended up getting off the bus at Bush @ 11:20. This was 20 minutes before our flight was scheduled to start boarding and our flight was on time. We did get lucky that they dropped us right in terminal c which is where united is. We ran inside with our bags. Wolf grabbed the two big ones probably about 45 lbs each and ran up two flights of stairs. Did I mention that boy can move? We got to the area to print our tags and luckily they had available kiosk. We hit a snag here when one of our luggage tags came out blank. We then had to wait for assistance in printing the last tag. While we were working on that a party of ten ended up in front of us. Again lucky, another agent opened a window. We were able to quickly hand over our bags and head to security. It is now 11:35 when we get in the security line. I would say it was about 150 people deep. I get a text at 11:40 that boarding has begun.

We are back in Galveston. I’m having my final breakfast on the ship. Obviously the last few days have been uneventful. Wolf has been sick the last few days. He has only left his room for feedings. I’ve rotated between reading my book, laying in the solarium, and the casino. They started letting self assist off about 7:35. The dining room is packed this morning. Not looking forward to fighting the crowds trying to find our shuttle. Then the long ride to the airport. Our flight is a little early at 12:30 so fingers crossed. I don’t have much to add that I haven’t already mentioned. I obviously enjoyed Odyssey more than Harmony. I liked the crew more, the food, and the ship.

Mr. High maintenance paid me another visit this evening. It didn’t go well. I tried to take the high road but some people think things should be how they want them to be. Well I’m not a crew member and I can do as I wish. I just pulled my money back when he sat down. No problem I’ll just let him do his thing. I’m in no hurry. He didn’t like that. He declared he didn’t want to play the table if I wasn’t playing with him. I’m not one to mince words. I informed him I wouldn’t ever be playing with him. I felt bad for the dealer. I realize they’d prefer everyone get along. He then proceeded to tell me I needed to let him know why. Well I don’t need to explain myself to anybody. I’m on vacation. He unfortunately didn’t stop there. He tried to ask me after that about strategy. Well I wasn’t having it. If you can’t be nice to the crew I ain’t gonna be nice to you. I informed him I have zero interest in speaking to him. He didn’t like that. He gambled most of his remaining funds then stormed off saying he’d keep playing if I wasn’t sitting there. Again, I wasn’t playing at the table while he was there. I simply sat and let him do his thing.

Sometime prior to boarding Odyssey Wolf broke his sunglasses. Last week I saw some that he would like and suggested he go buy them. He couldn’t be bothered at that time. He now wants to exit his blacked out room so guess who gets sent into port to secure him some glasses? I step off the ship into some mist and someone comments it’s raining. I take two more steps and get dumped on. That wasn’t no rain. It was filthy water from them cleaning the balconies above. Lovely.

We are now 0 for 2 on excursions. Wolf has the room blacked out and is trying to fight off a migraine. He also says his throat hurts. Hopefully it is a migraine that will pass and not Covid. Looks like I’ll be enjoying another day on the ship. I’ll probably go out and walk around the port a little bit later.

We have made it to Cozumel. We have the helmet dive excursion booked for today. Wolf text me last night saying he was sick. He was asleep by the time I got to the room and he didn’t get up again. Hopefully he is okay and we will proceed. I don’t know what my deal is with times this week. I thought our excursion was at 7:30. I was up early for this only to realize when I went to wake Wolf that it was really a 9:30 excursion.

We decided we wanted something different for dinner last night. We skipped our chops reservation and headed to Vintages. This was another Harmony disappointment. Our prior experiences they had different small plate offerings (Tapa’s). On Harmony it is just the Jaimie’s appetizers. The only difference was we had to pay for them.

I don’t usually call folks out but some people just push the limits. We have a guy on this cruise that is just well let’s say high maintenance. His discretions? Let me list them for you. 1. He answers his phone at the tables. Even when repeatedly being told not to. 2. He constantly changes in his chips. Like every single hand. 3. He convinced someone to use their drink package to try to buy him a drink. Failed. 4. He harassed the bartender at a closed bar to give him water until the guy gave in. 5. He repeatedly tried and had issues withdrawing cash in the casino from his onboard cash account. 6. He told a dealer he really wanted to tip him but would probably default to filling out a comment card. I doubt he actually will. 7. Went on and on about how his dark sunglasses are prescription so he gets to wear them in the casino. 8. After all these indiscretions he attempted to sit next to me in an empty bar. Failed.