mandyleighflies

Off to IAD! ✈️🎉

When I said bright and early…I meant it lol. It’s honestly not hard to be up this early to leave for vacation, besides, I set my alarm for 6am most days to maximize my mornings. Getting some stuff done before getting ready for the day. Check in from the car in awhile!!

Our exciting evening before vacation lifestyle. Pete found out our original plane for the morning has broken down in LAX, however, it’s been replaced so all is well. With that, off to bed! See yall early in the morning to fly out to MCO. ❤️✈️

We leave tomorrow!!! I know I promised cookie content…but there happened to be a nail salon next to our hotel. I chose a pre-vacation mani/pedi instead. I’ll make up for the lost calories this week no worries. Woke up with a sore upper back so I chose to change my packing style slightly. I know from experience that back pain and a weighty tote bag don’t exactly go together hand in hand. I cleaned out my work suitcase and moved everything into it. There are also two types of vacationers…one who is packed and ready the day before/days before and the one who will “pack before bed”. Spoiler alert, they marry each other. I’m 98% packed and he has an empty suitcase.

Today is my FRIYAY before VACATION FINALLY. We had a very long, long day at work yesterday. Today I am working one leg home and once I am in my car in the employee lot I am officially on vacation! Spending the day in Miami today until our flight home this evening. I am going to hit the streets for a little morning run, coffee and pastries (because why not I worked out lol) with my crew later on and then some light shopping. There are these amazing cookies at Publix and I get them every time I am down here. They are a tropical cluster type cookie, I will buy them and share, no gatekeeping here. 🙈 I always bring little gifts for our flight attendants and for our cabin steward when we cruise. Today and tomorrow will be shopping for these items. These items are never, ever expected, honestly even simple acknowledgement goes a long way. It makes our day when people show their love and appreciation, we as cabin crew often feel invisible unless there is a problem or someone needs a beverage. It can be a lonely job and simply being seen as fellow human being can make someone's day and I like to make people's day's so that is why I try to do it whenever I can. I personally bring the crew small lotions, chapstick, a bag of wrapped candy to share and a card. If I do not have time for those things, I grab Starbucks gift cards at the airport. Anyway, off to run and get those cookies...maybe a light jog to the grocery store counts? 😆 OOH and I am putting together a Christmas stocking for our Cabin Steward. We are obviously going to tip additional gratuities but I wanted to leave a small stocking with little things like candy but does anyone else have ideas on what else to add? I'm never sure what they need/want and this sailing is too short to get to know them and buy something in port. Idea's here are greatly appreciated as I need to do this twice this month!

How exciting!! Have a great trip and maybe see y'all onboard! 3 DAYS!!

Not me seeing the name of the post and thinking "The Big Book" from AA 😆😄

Here we are at a recent wedding. We will not be participating in this type of formal wear this sailing however. We will most likely look like this most days. This is our Christmas card photo for this year. My kids (his step kids) and I are sailing on Freedom OTS on Dec 18 (yes another live, popcorn ready) with my mom (the infamous manic nurse) for the holidays. Oh and the adorable rodents are our spoiled and bratty guinea pigs, Clover and Roswell (yes like New Mexico, yes for aliens).

Did I mention my mom was a nurse? 😆😆 Another packing “habit“ from my mother, the nurse, a traveling medical kit and sanitation. Fun fact, we have been carrying some form of Lysol in our bags since the early 90s. Since our cruising began in the mid 90s, I have been in the habit of wiping down and spraying down our cabin not only the first day, but every day. This was not a Covid thing, this was a “trauma of living with someone who works in a trauma department“ behavior. we also have antihistamine, DayQuil/NyQuil, two types of pain, relievers, of course, seasick meds, and stomach issue medication’s. Ahh yes the things we don’t wanna think about however, we’re glad we planned for because on board they are four times the cost. This bag goes in my backpack, so I have it immediately when we get to our cabin.

We do love our nights in Chops! It’s going to be our anniversary dinner. We just sailed on Lady G in April so I’m hoping they have added at least a new dish or two since then. Once again, stay tuned lol

My early holiday present to myself on sale from Etsy. It is currently filled with simply ice water however, on board, it might be filled with something else. 😆 Peter (my husband) and I are both airline crew members (different airlines) so our work schedules can make vacation prep interesting. I find myself packing this morning as I am off to work from today to Tuesday evening (11pm). That would leave a single day to pack and prep…insert mental chaos here…hence one massive job done. Since it is a short cruise, I will be using my Beis Weekender tote and a backpack. The tote will hold cruise only things while the backpack will hold pre-cruise things. I have miniatures of my skin care line and basic personal needs. I am a light packer in general but I always have extra drawers…my mother was a nurse, I will give her all the credit for this fear for packing.

Welcome back to another LIVE cruise with us! Later this week my husband and I will be sailing on Allure OTS for a 3 night Bahamas cruise from Port Canaveral. We are celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary, we are a Covid wedding couple so yes we celebrate each year (we also love an excuse to cruise 😄). We will be flying to Orlando from DC on Thursday morning, renting a car from MCO to drive to Cape Canaveral for some sightseeing on the Cape and the pre-cruise overnight there. My husband and I are aviation and space geeks so be prepared for nerdy space things from this pre-cruise adventure. We have the deluxe beverage package, reservations at Sabor and Chops and admission to CocoCay Water park as our planned "extra spending" activities. We are sailing in a JS and will attempt a dinner reservation at CK if we can manage one, our sailing is sold out so I have doubts but we shall see!

I was just talking to my mom about this and she was an ER nurse for many years, her response? "There could have also been drugs involved" We will never know and can only make our own assumptions. I discussed this with my kids before school this morning (14 and 16, just a couple months from 15 and 17) and they both immediately said "no way" when I asked if they would ever climb the balcony. Once again, my kids...not someone else's. We talked about what to do if they were hanging out with kids who did these things and they both said they would leave immediately and come back to our cabin. They have an 11pm family set "cabin curfew" anyway but that was their responses. Interestingly enough, my daughter said she she see's kids her age (14) vaping in the bathroom at school and also said alcohol would be easy enough to get if she had interest in it. Once again, where there is a will there is a way.

There are literally hundreds of videos of "how to sneak booze onto a cruise" and if there is a will there is a way. They could easily have made friends with someone older or was traveling with an older close in age relative who was buying and handing it to them. I will just say I grew up cruising and I saw it...all the time. I have never stayed in an interior balcony room but I can attest to how LOUD and DIFFICULT the outside balcony doors are to open. Sure, they might have slept through it.

I'm not blaming Royal, I am blaming the parents or guardians who were supposed to be the responsible party for this child.

We sailed on Adventure in June 2022 and I agree with PP's that she is in fine shape for her age and constant use. If you are LOOKING for wear and tear you will find it, but that's also the same in anything, if you want to see it then you will. A ship that age will show some signs of love but she's lovely and I would sail her again in a heartbeat.

My question as a parent of teenage children is simply where were his parents? The timing...it was late at night, past the ship set curfew for kids. I'm assuming alcohol was involved, we all knew how to get a drink or two at that age on vacation. However, at that time of night, you would think the parents would have been "home" also? I know I am lucky that my kids are not daring children, they tend to be mature and know right from wrong in situations such as these. I am guessing the parents were either still out, intoxicated and passed out, or staying in a separate part of the ship to not know what was happening. Each cabin is required to have someone 21+ staying in each cabin, where was the adult? Poor kid was basically left to their own devices and not equipped maturity wise to handle them.

If you're not a big drinker the refreshment beverage package has historically been our go-to for cruises, keeping in mind port day's (outside of cococay/labadee) you will still have the "break even" drinks to keep in mind. You already purchased the package anyway, try it out and see if it works for y'all. I would say most of the mixed drinks are $14-18 depending on size and type. Wine I saw starting at $9 a glass (think Yellowtail quality) and beers around $7 (Bud Light, etc). Even the NA mocktails are $7 and keep in mind none of the listed prices include the 18% gratuity. I am not a drinker anymore (my drinking persona would wind up in the brig as she was wild and the list goes on and on why I'm sober fabulous now) and I having the Mocktails options and bringing on my allotted cabin bottles of NA Sparkling wine. Happy Sailing!!

We found a Holiday Inn with a cruise shuttle for just under $300 a night per room (we needed two) for our cruise in mid-December. Keep in mind when looking for Miami hotel's near the port and downtown they are going to be more expensive than hotel's by the airport. The prices will also fluctuate with the time of year, ours is near a holiday so I knew it would get pricey. As A&L pointed out and I agree, what is a "reasonable" price for you and your group? Do your research and be open minded to Uber also, if you can find a budget hotel by the airport, you might be able to Uber to the port for less than a night downtown also. Good luck on your research!

Icon is already expensive enough, the nickel and diming is insane. I have to wonder what other attractions will come with an additional price tag. Celebrity and Virgin are looking better and better, if Royal starts nickel and diming any more across the fleet we may "jump ship" to one of those two.

Does Freedom have a suite lounge and and a Diamond lounge or are they combined? We were on Lady G in April and the suite lounge was on space but Diamond lounge was in a temporary space in one of the lounges.

I agree with Biker, the online orders can be hit or miss sometimes. When you are able to do so, book a nice dinner in one of specialty restaurant's they will only see bookings in the cruise planner if they go in a book something themselves. You could also book a fun surprise excursion, we are going on a holiday cruise as a family next month and I booked a couple things to do in Coco Cay and Nassau as a surprise holiday gift.

We will be sailing on Freedom in exactly one month!! It's our holiday cruise with my mom and my kids (my husband and I are sailing 10 days prior for our anniversary and my dad just doesn't like holiday travel 😄) It's fun to see the ship we will be on in about a month!! The OV room looks great for a family, we booked the 2 bedroom suite to stay in one room and not kill each other lol. My kids are teens so it's basically 4 adults in one room, enjoy the smaller sized humans in one cabin while you can. Happy sailing and will be following along!

I went ahead and rented one for our port day. I will let y'all know how it goes! They have a BF sale right now and it was only $100 for the day rental. It includes our own server, the casita and two beach chairs, water bottles, towels, etc. I figured at the least, we will have a dedicated "home port" for the kids to find my mom and myself and we won't have to worry about fighting for deck space by the pool.

Hi everyone!! We are a month out from our family holiday cruise on Freedom OTS and have a quick question. We are booked in a 2 bedroom family suite on Freedom and curious if there are already pre-reserved suite casita's around the pool for suite guests or if it would be worth booking one (they are on "sale" right now) or if there are complimentary ones already dedicated to suite guests. We are not planning on leaving the ship during our Nassau stop over and was going to sort of treat this day like a "day at sea" so we would be spending quite a bit of time in the casita.