GenerationX

Thank you! It’s one of my Amazon bargain buys. Less than $40, comfortable and forgiving and packs and travels very well. Floerns Women's Summer Floral Print Sleeveless Halter Neck Beach Party Dress https://a.co/d/3bbtpvz

So glad you’re enjoying Jim! If you find those self-packing suitcases for sale somewhere PLEASE let me know ASAP. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if after a few months of me owning them mine decided to go on strike for inhumane working conditions!

Good Evening from Eden! I’m all dressed for dinner and enjoying a music set from our acoustic duo. While I sip my pre-dinner beverage, a report on my day onboard so far. When I got to lunch at Luminae a little after 1pm the restaurant was still pretty busy, but I was seated quickly and got great service. I was happy to see the manager Petre who was our awesome Eden manager when we were on the ship in November. He remembered me and asked about Red and told me that this fall he’ll be transitioning to Ascent. As I was waiting for my food I connected my phone to ship wifi and saw that in addition to my 2 devices of free premium wifi for suites, there was also an option of 4 hours of free internet for elite plus loyalty. For lunch I had the chicken consumme to start followed by the herb crusted chicken and mushroom and potato ravioli then the coffee panna cotta for dessert. Nothing I ate was bad, but none of it really impressed me either. Not a big deal though as I was saving my real calories for Eden tonight anyway. First night dinner in Eden is an E class sailing tradition for me. I always book it online in advance right after I book the cruise. Which reminds me, if you’re interested in specialty dining on this ship, don’t delay on booking. I’ve heard people in the retreat lounge who waited till they got onboard today and were only offered 5:30 or 9pm dinner times (and that’s with a 1/3 empty ship). For Jeremy and I’s October Beyond cruise, I went online last week to book our Eden and Le Voyage dinners and for Le Voyage on both sea days only 8:45 and 9pm were left as pre-booking options. And that cruise is still 6 months out! After dinner I met up in the Retreat with some of the CC crew who had also jumped on the sweet suite pricing for this cruise. Our “quick meet up” ended up lasting over 2 hours including sail away and a front row seat for the local pilot stunt show and it was all time well spent. Seriously these folks are all awesome and so much fun. Beyond is not ready for us this week. (tagging some of the cool kids here: @mac_tlc @Silkroad @KKB @Mrs_Tiki ). When I finally pulled myself away from all the laughter and peaches and bourbon cocktails, I went back to my room and found all my luggage delivered. I’d been inside for about 5 minutes when my butler Elaine arrived to introduce herself and made an excellent first impression. She looked at my 3 massive suitcases (no judgment please) and asked if I needed any assistance unpacking. That offer was a first for me in any suite of any class, but I declined. I got myself into this overpacking mess, I’ll get myself out. She then asked if there were any different beverages I’d like for my complimentary mini bar. I told her I was fine with Heineken and corona for beer but asked to have the Diet Coke switched to Sprite. I also asked her about pressing for my evening chic night dress and she said if I left it on the bed she’d grab it at turndown and have it back to me tomorrow. She also asked if I’d like any snacks delivered to the room in the afternoon (in addition to the tea service canapés offered in the Retreat lounge). I shared my love of cured meat and cheese with her and she said she’d make sure I had something to munch on every evening around 5 while I dress for dinner. As I finished unpacking I felt the bourbon and champagne day drinking start to catch up to me so I put out my deep sleep sign and took a late afternoon nap. More to come after my first night dinner tradition!

My solution to the whole convincing the better half to let me sail thing has kind of been “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission”. But that’s probably why I’m a lawyer not a marriage counselor. 😂

Hello from Beyond! I’ve only been onboard for two and a half hours and this cruise is already such a vastly different vibe from last November. A big part of that is likely due to ship capacity. The guest count I’ve heard is approximately 2500 which I believe would make the ship about 2/3 full. Much different from my previous sold out sailing. The crew seems relaxed and well into their groove and I’m seeing sooo much less of the deer in the headlights looks on their faces. Of course thanks to move up bids aqua and suites are sold out. This is my first time in the upgraded Beyond retreat and my first impression is that after 2 ships Celebrity finally got the pool deck space right. There’s so much more seating and shady spots. I love these cute social lounge spaces with their own umbrella facing towards the sea. I’m already picturing myself a few days in sitting there chatting and laughing with new cruise friends. I got to the port at 10:45 and looked at my phone when I stepped onboard and it was 10:57. Less than 15 minutes from curb to deck! For those boarding from T25, there are signs to help as well but just remember stay to the left for retreat boarding. There’s a separate retreat entrance to the left as you enter the terminal where an attendant will check your name and stateroom number, then retreat guests take an elevator on the left to get to the Retreat security check and check in area. If you find yourself about to get on an escalator, you’ve missed your entrance. Back track and head towards the left. I just met a couple on who missed the retreat check in and, get this, when they got to the general boarding area and got through security there, the port employees told them they had to go all the way back downstairs to go through the retreat area (so they basically went through security and check in twice). 🤦🏾‍♀️ As I was exploring the retreat pool deck I was greeted at least 5 times by friendly, smiling faces in grey polos introducing themselves, welcoming me onboard, offering me a beverage and letting me know that if I’m ever having trouble finding a place to sit on the deck to seek them out and they’ll help me right away. It may be the embarkation kir royale setting in, but I’m already ruminating on upgrading Jeremy and I’s October cruise to the Retreat. When I texted him to float the idea, he threatened to ban me from sailing E class by myself going forward because “every time you get on THOSE ships you end up texting me about wanting to do something that’s going to cost thousands of dollars”. I was preparing to vehemently object when I scrolled back through our text history and realized that the man is not wrong [d’oh]. I’ve just sat down for a late lunch at Luminae. It looks like on this cruise the Luminae lunch hours were expanded to run from 11:30-1:30 instead of starting at noon. Perhaps to accommodate the sold out suites? The restaurant looks like it’s almost twice the size of Luminae on Edge and Apex and there seem to be many more areas conducive to seating larger groups. Sharing some first pics of Beyond and the Captains Club event schedule below. Not sure if it’s because I leveled up to Elite Plus or Celebrity is just upping their loyalty event game, but this is the most activities I’ve seen on a Captain’s Club schedule. Welcome aboard my virtual cruise companions!

Oh I wish I’d had the foresight to go to law school in south Florida. That would’ve made the whole experience slightly less unpleasant!

Today’s the day!!!! One of the (many) things I love about cruising is that you can sail on a ship you’ve been on before, sailing to ports you’ve visited many times, but each cruise can still be a very different vibe/experience based upon who your fellow cruisers are. Last night, I think I got a glimpse of just how much energetic fun the next week is going to be, as @KKB and I shut down the lobby bar at the Hyatt Centric after dinner. Kris please give my sincerest apologies to your poor tolerant husband who gave up on trying to keep up with us and headed to bed when we ordered the second round of cosmos. Speaking of dinner, in addition to the delicious stone crab, I also had the conch chowder which had a nice sweet spicy kick and a massive Caribbean lobster tail that was served with so so mashed potatoes and really delicious maple bacon Brussel sprouts. I was too full of shellfish after that to even attempt dessert which was a shame because the bread pudding sounded like heaven on a plate. I’m currently having a little breakfast and coffee at the hotel restaurant to tame the remnants of last night’s vodka then will head back to the room to handle one last work project. I’m already pretty much packed so after that all I have to do is put on my luggage tags and head to port for my 11am check in time. I can’t wait to meet some of you at our 2pm Retreat Lounge meet up! Next post will be from the Beyond. Strap yourselves in, guys. I think this week is going to be really something!

Marian is one of my all time favorite women of the big screen. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve modeled my life attitude after hers in many ways: -Love and travel hard -Never turn down a potentially lucrative adventure -Take no [bleep] from nobody, especially ex-boyfriends and bigots -When you find yourself in a sticky spot and have to hustle to survive, a rock solid alcohol tolerance is worth its weight in gold

So not to be a bad influence BUT they also make a mean espresso at that bar if you guys feel like rallying for another hour or 2. Ubers willing I can be back at the hotel in about a half hour. I will cheerfully ditch lurking on other people’s yachts to hang out with you!

I know, it’s bad. When I jumped on the crazy good price for this cruise it wasn’t till after the charge hit my credit card that I realized I’d be cruising 3 months in a row. 🤦🏾‍♀️ Oh well, YOLO and regrets are best saved for my death bed. After this though I’ll be keeping my cute little aft on land till July, I promise!

I’m in Fort Lauderdale! MIA baggage claim was already crazy at 9am when we landed. It took a while for luggage for our flight to hit the belt but when it finally did my bags were some of the first off. I had a less than 10 minute wait for a $55 Uber (after 20% tip) from MIA over to Fort Lauderdale to one of my go to pre-cruise hotels, the Hyatt Centric Las Olas . I think this is the first time in all my stays at this hotel that I wasn’t able to get a super early check in, but it’s understandable with the holiday weekend and spring break travel still going on. Plus there are a very limited number of the pool walkout cabana rooms that I book. The nice thing was that they gave me a key card so that I could come and go from the pool as I pleased while I waited and I was also able to just give my last name at the pool bar and the restaurant and have any food or beverage I purchased charged to the room once I checked in (so that I can still get my Hyatt bonus points). After giving the front desk my cell number to text once my room was ready, I went up to the pool and had a margarita from the outdoor bar, returned a couple of work calls, and then headed down to the lobby bar for a little lunch to soak up my morning cocktail intake (after my less than filling breakfast which consisted of the fruit on the side of my weak omelette). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I know hotel bar food is usually pretty underwhelming, but the grilled mahi mahi tacos and housemade French fries at this Hyatt are so good. As I was signing my lunch check around 1pm, I got the text that my room was ready and headed up to do some reading on my patio then take a much needed nap. I’ve just settled in at my table for dinner at 15th street Fisheries. This restaurant has a more casual dining lower level restaurant and bar with live music and waterside patio dining and a quieter, more formal upstairs dining room with a little more upscale menu. Gen Z and I dined here pre cruise last year in the casual dining room and the food was so good, I put a meal in the upstairs dining room on my FLL to dine list. There are so many great restaurant options on Las Olas near my hotel and I originally planned to take advantage of them. Then I remembered that this will be my last cruise out of Fort Lauderdale for a good long while, so I figured I should seize the day. I completely forgot that stone crabs are in season down here right now. There goes my budget for this solo meal. After dinner I think I may go for a little walk down the pier to do some yacht day dreaming. Then when I get back to the hotel cash in my free vodka cocktail voucher that come with my room for a nightcap before heading up to chromecast some Netflix in bed, fill out my health questionnaire in the Celebrity app and rest up for embarkation day. Cheers from the intercostal!

Thank you! You had me at cheeses and the premium wine just sweetened the deal. I’ll be sure to ask about it!

Hi!!! Forgive me if my memory is failing me, but I think we came very close to sailing together at one point but then were thwarted by the COVID monster. I’m so glad to hear you had such a good cruise on Beyond even outside the Retreat. I hope we do get a chance to sail together in the future! Any chance I could convince you guys to Beyond in back to back months and also sail with us on a 10 night Mediterranean out of Rome in October? 😁

Thank you! If you’re interested in trying solo cruising but nervous about it, a good first test/step may be to do a semi-solo. Where you’re in your own cabin but you know someone else sailing who can be your company for meals, activities, etc. when you feel like you need it. Even better if said semi-solo companion is a bit of an expert on Celebrity solo cruising… This suggestion is absolutely NOT an attempt by me to have an excuse to go on another solo cruise [cough].

Riddle me this, American Airlines… How is it that we can put a man on the moon, my car can send me a text message when it senses it’s due for an oil change and I can buy a 4 figure handbag using only my thumb print, but you’re still struggling to find a method to prepare and serve a decent egg dish above the earth’s surface? I mean c’mon now. I follow the luxury travel influencers on Insta. I KNOW what kind of first class meals Emirates is putting out. I get that that’s a whole different ticket price point, but still, I know you can do better. Oh well, at the end of the day, what I’m really concerned about is that our flight left STL as scheduled (woohoo!), I got to see a gorgeous sunrise over the southeast, and I’m only an hour and a half away from landing by the ocean with temperatures 40 degrees higher than what I left in STL. We also have a very upbeat and attentive flight crew. Like 10 seconds after I put the second mini bottle of Tito’s into my breakfast screwdriver, there was our flight attendant putting two more chilled mini bottles on my tray table and adding a little ice to my glass with a big smile on his face. I think this man may be trying to kill me. Or maybe just get me tipsy enough not to complain about that tragic omelette. I don’t know. Either way, it’s Saturday and I’m going on a cruise and I’ve decided to just let it all go and sip my cocktail. Once I land in Miami I’ll grab my bags and an Uber over to FLL to my pre-cruise hotel. Final countdown to Beyond is on!!!

Enjoy the last couple of days of your cruise! Thank you for the heads up on the Veuve dinner. That’s disappointing to hear. Seems like a real miss not to have it on the newest E class ship. I guess I’ll just have to think of another way to spend that OBC.

Happy to help! My kiddo is 10 now but we traveled quite a bit with her when she was small and I remember those days of trying to efficiently pack 45 million toys! I’m actually going to be sailing on the Beyond next week (same ship class as Apex so amenities should be the same if not very similar) and will try to stop by the kids club and ask about toddler time and toys available for check out and will report back here. From my own experience, you may also want to plan to bring extra tipping cash if giving additional cash gratuities at the end of the cruise is something that you typically do. When I sail with my daughter so many crew members bend over backwards to go above and beyond for her and often share with me about their own kids back home. We had an excellent server in the coffee shop on one cruise who over the course of the week told us all about her adorable 4 year old back in the Philippines living with her grandparents while she worked on the ship. She said it’s really hard when she comes home between contracts because sometimes her daughter doesn’t recognize her right away and doesn’t want to call her Mama because she’s not there much. 😭. I was at the ATM on night 6 getting more cash to put in that hard working mama’s envelope!

It’s officially my last day in reality for a whole week! Last night I overheard Jeremy on the phone with his mother in the kitchen and telling her that I’m going away again and saying “yep, my wife has escalated from impulse buying designer shoes and purses to impulse buying whole [expletive] cruises. I should have kept my mouth shut about the shoes and purses.“ 😂 As promised, a little about my plans for this cruise: Our cruise is a 7 night with port stops in Nassau, costa maya, Cozumel and Grand Cayman. This was one of those bookings that came with generous onboard credit from my TA and Celebrity, which I’ll be spending on some specialty dinners at Eden, Fine Cut, Le Voyage (my favorite dinner last time on Beyond and I cannot WAIT to go back) and Rooftop Grill. I may also cave to the temptation of the veuve clicqot dinner if it is offered on this cruise. I also booked excursions for while the ship is in Cozumel and Grand Cayman. Normally in Cozumel my time in port is limited to a quick tequila run since I’ve been there so many times. But on my November beyond cruise a fellow solo cruiser, I believe it may actually have been @Buckeye94 told me about how much fun she had on an excursion to playa mia called salsa y salsa where you attend a Mexican cooking class followed by a salsa dance class all fueled by a margarita open bar. Since I had some credits to spend I’ve decided to give it a try this time. I also still plan to go on a short hunt for a decent price on some Clase Azul. On my last trip to Grand Cayman I did a beach day so this time I decided to mix it up and check out the sea turtle sanctuary instead. Hopefully there is a gift shop (What am I talking about? There is ALWAYS a gift shop!) where I can bring Gen Z back a cute souvenir. I’ll likely also spend some time in the spa and the casino and maybe take in a wine tasting or two. I’ve just checked in for my flight and am off to make an ATM run and shop at the farm & home to make sure all the animals are well stocked on food while I’m away. These little ladies are flying through the chick feed bags lately. I think by the time I get back they’ll have their full feathers in! 20 hours till wheels up for Miami!

FYI I think you may have been given some incorrect information in a couple of the posts above. I’m just off of the Solstice and they did actually have a play room for smaller kids/toddlers with lots of toys where parents could take them to play, it was just during limited hours. Solstice is an older ship with a smaller kids club so I think they operated toddler time in the 3-5 year old camp area during hours when the 3-5 camp wasn’t in session. I’d be shocked if Apex doesn’t have the same if not a bigger/better toddler play area/times, because the newer ships are really designed to cater to a younger demographic (who are more likely to be traveling with small kids) and have much bigger and better Camp at Sea facilities generally. Here’s a pic of the toddler time hours sign. It wasn’t a ton of time (about 3 hours each day) but I think the hours can vary based on the sailing and ship. If you haven’t already, you might also want to check out this Celebrity blog post on cruising Celebrity with a toddler. It’s a couple of years old but most of the info still looks pretty accurate to what I’ve experienced onboard recently. It also mentions that there are toddler time play hours in camp every day and that there are toys and books available to check out. Have a great family cruise! https://www.celebritycruises.com/blog/cruise-with-a-toddler

Hello Again CC! Ok I promise, this is the last time you’ll have to hear me go on about my cruises for half a year…on the Celebrity board at least… Anyway, would anyone like to come along with me on my last solo cruising adventure for the year? A little about me and why this cruise: I’m Charla, a married corporate lawyer from outside St. Louis, MO. By the skin of my teeth (as in points for my last cruise posted and status changed literally yesterday) Elite Plus level Celebrity cruiser. When I’m not sailing solo, my cruising companion is usually either my good girlfriend and fellow Celebrity cruise addict, Red, my husband Jeremy or my 10 year old mini me daughter Gen Z. This will be my second cruise on Beyond. Courtesy of Red’s cruise deal sleuthing I sailed on Beyond with her in aqua class last November for Beyond’s first revenue Caribbean sailing. I very quickly fell in love with the ship, but the crowds and crew stress that come with a nearly sold out vessel with lots of VIPs onboard, as well as lots of new crew members starting their first contracts, made it hard to give the service experience a very fair shake. I believe what I said at the end of that live review was that I was going to wait and save some money and try Beyond again in a year once the service kinks worked out, hopefully with the means to check out the Retreat experience while I was at it. Well, thanks to a fare deal alert oh so kindly posted on the board by @NorthStarStateCruiser (thank you again!!!), I didn’t have to wait quite that long! Gen Z has her school commitments and Red was already booked to sail on Summit on 4/22 (and despite my best efforts couldn’t be convinced to try and get away with doing 2 cruises less than a week apart while remaining gainfully employed). Jeremy is saving vacation days for a 10 night Europe cruise we’re planning at the end of the year, so here I am getting a bonus solo cruise! I’m just wrapping up my last half day at the office then will pick Gen Z up from school for a little shopping and pre-trip dinner date. She’s had a Lego store gift card burning a hole in her purse and a 2,000 piece build set she’s had her eye on that I think will keep her from missing me too much. Then I’ll spend tomorrow packing and getting ready for my very early, 5am flight to Miami on Saturday. I’ll also do a post this evening about some of my plans in port and onboard. As always if anyone has specific questions or things they’d like me to check out, don’t be shy to jump in and ask. Looking forward to taking everyone along on another sweet, suite cruise!

Will do! I also ordered a new budget buy evening chic dress for this cruise that is scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Fingers crossed it fits well and if so, with my gloves, I’m planning on doing a whole Breakfast at Tiffany’s inspired look for one formal night.

Signs of a cruising addiction… When you get an unexpected afternoon off due to a canceled meeting and your life productivity agenda consists of: -CC Wrap up Post from Solstice Cruise -Call MSC TA re: Final Payment for July Cruise -Email Celebrity TA re: flights and specialty dining for October Med Cruise -Draft Packing List and CC Intro Post for 4/9 Beyond Solo Cruise Well, I suppose that’s a slight spoiler on future cruise plans, but taking a step back on final thoughts on our Solstice cruise. I think it says something that 10 days after stepping off the ship, Gen Z is still talking about this cruise nonstop. Sunday morning she ambushed Jeremy on his way in from morning chores and informed him that “mama I will be wanting our hot chocolate and mimosa soon. Mr. Budi brings them at breakfast without us even asking”. I rolled over in bed shortly thereafter to be greeted by a less than enthusiastic butler service (pic for evidence). 🤣 I was a bit nervous about sailing on a non-refurbished ship during spring break, especially after experiencing the different atmosphere on my similarly bargain priced equinox cruise last summer. However I found very few if any college/wild party folks and while there were a number of children onboard, and they seemed far better behaved than many of the kids on my summer cruise (who I probably wouldn’t even have felt as comfortable allowing Gen Z to associate with in kids club). The crew have clearly worked very hard to keep solstice up as best they can. However, there were definitely little maintenance issues that could do with a dry dock ASAP. For example, some of the elevators made rattling and creaking noises while in operation (unnerving but I’m sure perfectly safe) and every now and then for an hour or two sewage smells would waft through certain parts of the ship. Also, some of the motion operated doors in and out of the pool deck and solarium occasionally required you to dance half a verse of the cha-cha slide (“slide to the left, slide to the right, take it back now y’all, one hop!”) for them to actually detect your presence and finally open. Nothing that would come close to ruining a cruise for me though, especially at the price I paid for the sailing. Gen Z and I made so many amazing memories on our trip and made some great new friends of all ages and we are both eagerly counting down to our next mommy daughter adventure in July. Which brings me to future cruise plans. For those who aren’t already sick of my voice, in the next 24 to 48 hours I’ll be posting my intro for my live review of my solo cruise on Beyond sailing in just five days! After that, I will be on land and spending a hectic early summer at the office then Gen Z and I will sail again on July 9th for a week on MSC Seascape. Then it’ll be time to save some cash and learn some Italian in preparation for Jeremy and I’s October 10 Night Italy and Greece cruise back on Beyond! Thank you as always to everyone who came along and shared their suggestions and feedback. If anyone had questions that I’ve missed that you’re still interested in, please feel free to re-post and I will be sure to get to them. Thanks again and I look forward to meeting some of you in person on Beyond this weekend!

Thank you! Gen Z’s school doesn’t focus as much on handwriting as I’d like (I guess such is modern education when they know most of the writing the kids will do in their adult life will be typed) so we try to encourage her to make pen pals when she finds friends from other parts of the country/world when we travel. It gives her a fun way to practice writing and stay connected without introducing social media just yet. Plus it’s nice for me to occasionally get a piece of mail in the box that isn’t junk or a bill!

The tracker bracelet seems very cool. They sell them in the shop onboard where you can buy Celebrity t-shirts, cups, etc. The beaded bracelets come in various colors and on the package once you buy it there’s a place to pull it open and there’s a photo and name of the shark you’re tracking and a QR code you scan that takes you to the location tracking site. Gen Z has been begging to go to NYC for some time now. She wants to see a show on Broadway, stay at the Plaza like Eloise (she loved those books when she was little), shop on 5th avenue and visit the Statue of Liberty. In other words, it won’t be a cheap trip, so I’ve been holding off on it for a big occasion. I’m thinking maybe summer after she finishes elementary school. Maybe throw a Bermuda cruise in with it for mom 😁

I’m finally back after a busy few days back at home to finish up my review! Our flight back to STL did actually leave at it’s delayed time, so fortunately we didn’t have to spend an unexpected night in LA (as Jeremy and I did in Miami on our last cruise). Our pilot was able to make some time up in the air, but baggage took forever and we didn’t manage to get home and into bed until about 2am. As you can imagine the next morning when Gen Z and I did awake it was almost lunchtime and we were both somewhat depressed to be back in reality. Jeremy, bless him, did his best all that day to keep us in the lifestyles to which we had become accustomed. In regards to said lifestyle, shall we wind the clock back and talk about our last day on Solstice? After my solarium morning Gen Z and I went to lunch in Luminae. It was a Luminae lunch menu I don’t recall ever having before and I’m a little sad that thus far from the app it doesn’t look like we’ll have it on Beyond in a couple of weeks. The coconut chicken soup was light and refreshing and the lamb chops were perfectly cooked to my requested medium rare with a duo of Moroccan flavored sauces (one spicy and one mild) on the side. Gen Z ordered the grilled shrimp from the MDR menu with a side of fries and was very happy with it. We planned to skip dessert but then we saw the words “chocolate lava cake” on the Luminae dessert menu. We had to order 2 because Gen Z made it clear she had no intention of sharing. How can you go wrong with a nice warm chocolate cake with a molten chocolate center with some well softened vanilla ice cream on the side? After lunch we did a little more packing and then headed up to the Lawn Club for our hot glass class. I booked the class online pre-cruise but the actual day/time of your class has to be scheduled once onboard. After lunch on the first day, I asked Mar the retreat concierge to schedule ours and even only a few hours into the cruise, they were already all booked up until the last sea day, so I wouldn’t recommend dawdling on scheduling if you need a specific day/time. You get to choose which pieces you’d like to make and some are included in the $120 base price of the booking while others carry an up charge. We decided to make a fish for our living room bookshelf ($70 up charge) and a jellyfish paperweight (included in base price) for my office. Well, “we” didn’t end up making anything actually. Gen Z had so much fun making her fish that she also begged to be allowed to take my turn and make my jellyfish for me. Artwork is more special when it’s made by your kid anyway, right? The glass class staff were very nice and great with kids and it was still very entertaining to just sip a glass of champagne and watch Gen Z work. The experience was all she talked about on the flight home. I think she’s discovered a new interest. I’ve already started looking into glass art studios in STL that have a kids program. The glass pieces had to cool slowly in an oven overnight so since we made ours the last full day, they were available for us to pick up at guest services the next day rather than back at the studio. A tip for those flying for the cruise and doing the glass class: I recommend packing them for the return trip in a personal item carry on where they can be easily accessed and put back. I was very glad I was carrying ours in my shoulder tote bag. The x-ray scanner read them oddly and the TSA had to pull them out and fully unwrap and inspect/test them. The hot glass folks wrapped them very well, but I also wrapped each in one of my light sweaters for extra padding in my bag. After our art time at sea we dressed and headed to the rock n roll production show. For the sensory folks following, this was the only show where the sound volume and lights kind of bothered Gen Z. I guess a quiet rock n roll show doesn’t make much sense though. Once we put her headphones on and moved to seats more over a little to the side of the theater where the flashing lights weren’t as directly in her face, Gen Z was much better and really enjoyed the music and dancers. After the show we headed to our second dinner in Tuscan Grille. This time the food was somewhat improved, but still not the best Tuscan dinner I’ve ever had. I was determined not to leave the ship without having some decent calamari so I ordered it for the starter again and this time it was much better prepared. Gen Z once again devoured every spec of her bronzino. For my main course, I decided to splurge a little bit and have the dry aged porterhouse with the $22 up charge. When it came I saw the size and said to myself “so THIS is where they’re hiding the REAL steaks”. It was nice and thick, tender, juicy and oh so flavorful. It was a huge steak and I only got through half of it, and my server offered to wrap it up for me to take back to the room fridge. I had him cut it up for me before wrapping in foil and it made an excellent post-martini bar late night canapé later. This time I went for one of my other favorites, the lobster rigatoni, for my side. The good news is this time the pasta was cooked through (a little bit past al dente though) and the sauce was nice. The bad news is that there were maybe 4 tiny pieces of lobster in the whole thing. Our service was once again prompt and very friendly. In fact I think that a common theme throughout the cruise was that service was really great. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Sharing some pics from our last day of fun and in the next day or so I’ll do a final post on overall thoughts on the cruise and future cruise plans.