GenerationX

Yes, as much as I love the martini bar, for me it’s been a rare occurrence that they make a really good cosmo or even just a dry gin martini with a twist. I think they train really hard on the martinis that are on the bar’s menu and while they’re certainly competent at others, it’s not where they shine. Ensemble on the other hand, I usually find can deliver very well on most of the good staple lounge cocktails (cosmo, manhattan, old fashioned, gimlets, etc.). It seems like the strongest bartenders from the sunset and pool bar staff get assigned there for their evening shifts.

A very good evening from the Ensemble Lounge! Since this is now a solo cruise, I’m on my solo cruise routines. Starting with a nice tart cosmo and live music before dinner. After a nice Sushi on 5 embarkation lunch this afternoon I celebrated sailaway with some time lounging on my mega veranda with a glass of veuve then unpacked my suitcases and took a little nap. When I dozed off I was feeling a little sad about not having my BFF with me. Then when I woke up I looked out the window and saw a beautiful double rainbow! It was a great reminder to me to find the bright side and beautiful even when it’s not exactly smooth sailing like I planned. The ship atmosphere for this 4 night cruise already seems more chill than the last one. The music on the ship is closer to normal Celebrity volume level and there’s more chill playlists vs. the floating night club I boarded last cruise. At lunch there was a live piano and vocalist in the grand foyer doing Carole King, and Elton John instead of the DJ blasting a Pitbull and Daddy Yankee mega mix. If this does turn out to be more of a typical Celebrity vibe, it’s going to be tough to go back to that 3 night atmosphere for my last leg. I’m thinking it’s also going to be tough to take the step down to a celebrity suite. I have an aggressive move up bid in to move up to signature again for cruise 3, but I think the cruise is sold out so I’m not expecting it to go through. Shortly after I came back to my stateroom after lunch, my butler Vishal arrived to introduce himself and ask about any initial requests I may have. This room comes with complimentary laundry so I let him know I’ll be setting a bag out this evening. He said he’d make sure they get it back to me by end of day tomorrow. He also took down my specialty lunch reservation request for the porch tomorrow after I finish shopping and sightseeing in Key West. Just after Vishal left, my stateroom attendant arrived and I was so happy to see that it was Darwin, Gen Z and I’s wonderful stateroom attendant from our Solstice spring break pacific coast cruise last year! I think he was a little disappointed when he found out Mini Me isn’t with me this cruise…I’m constantly upstaged. 😂 After I finish listening to Sam and Meg’s acoustic duo set (they’re great btw, if you’ll be onboard soon check them out), I’ll head to my traditional first night of S class cruise dinner at Murano (yes I’m aware this is night 4 at sea for me but I have a new seapass card so still counts).

Well, long story short, in the end I didn’t, and they made it to my room hanging just fine. I asked the retreat concierge about whether I needed to pack hanging clothes and he said “your butler will let you know how to handle everything”. I hope it doesn’t make me elitist, but I made the executive decision that since I’d spent a not small amount purchasing 3 suite cruises in a row and was moving to an upper suite, it would be absurd for me to be expected to fold all those clothes and then hang them again myself. The least Celebrity could do would be take 10 seconds to put them on a rack that’s already on the cart moving my suitcases. So I just left a note on my suitcases in the stateroom (right behind the table with our thank you notes and extra cash tips for our butler and stateroom attendants) noting that there were hanging items in the closet to be moved as well. Fortunately no one came on the ship PA and told me I needed to go back to my suite and finish packing. 😂

I know the only thing consistent with Celebrity is inconsistency, but for what it’s worth, I’ve just checked into my upper level suite for cruise #2 and can report that my veranda has 2 loungers (albeit the newer kind from E class where the chair and footstool portion are separate). Please come back to the board and share what you think of Regent as a regular top suite celebrity cruiser. Some Retreat regular friends of ours are currently on day 1 or 2 I think of their first Regent cruise. I’m very interested to see if I’ll ever see them on Celebrity again afterwards.

Well friends, the back to back process is complete! Start to finish it took about 40 minutes. It probably would have been 20 minutes shorter, but two guests realized after we already got back into the terminal that they’d left their passports in their safe and we had to wait for security to go retrieve them and bring them to the terminal. On the way off the ship, I saw a guy in full scuba gear getting in the water to go do some inspections of Reflection’s hull. What a way to make a living! You could not pay me enough. As we went through facial recognition, there was a line of crew members in street clothes with their luggage and passports waiting to be processed after us. They all had big exhausted smiles on their faces. The looks of finishing 9 long months of nonstop hard work and finally getting to go home and see family. When I got back onboard, Luigi was on the PA system talking to the crew and thanking them for all their hard work and positive attitudes for the “absolutely wild” guests the past 3 nights. It sounds like this next cruise starting is sold out, so it’ll be another crowded ship. When I got back on it was only about 9:30, but I figured I’d go check and see if maybe my new suite would at least be in a state where I could go put my passport and valuables in the safe. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised to find it completely ready with a bottle of welcome veuve chilling and all of my things from our previous suite already delivered. My complimentary liquor bottle and mini fridge stocking requests submitted with the shoreside concierge a couple of weeks ago were also ready and waiting. When poor Kati sees this suite she missed staying in, she is going to cry. This place makes our sky suite look like staying in the cupboard under the stairs. The signatures are on a private hallway with the reflection suite that is only accessible via key card. I think there’s enough closet and drawer space for like 6 people. I can’t wait to soak in my first bubble bath on my veranda with a glass of wine. I’m hanging out with Ryan as his only customer at the sunset bar at 10:50 (wild!) enjoying a summer thyme sangria. I think once I finish I’ll figure out what I’ll be doing for lunch. The Luminae lunch menu is the same as first day of last cruise and since I have free specialty dining, I may see if the porch or sushi on 5 are open instead. Later today I’ll report back on the last night of cruise #1. Looking forward to taking everyone on cruise #2!

Checking in from Michael’s Club sipping my tea while luggage tag numbers are being called. Unfortunately, it turns out I’m sitting here solo. Kati found out yesterday afternoon that she had a work emergency come up, so she had to change her flight and will be heading back home to Missouri tonight with Tesla and Liz. 😭 I just finished giving them all hugs and waving goodbye as our concierge Sini escorted them all out past the general disembarkation line. The retreat disembark instructions in our stateroom (pic for anyone interested) said that consecutive cruises should meet here at 9:30 to go through the b2b customs process. So while I’ve got about an hour to kill, let me continue with catching up on posts. Let’s go back to our post-Coco Cay exploits on Saturday. After everyone got cleaned up for dinner, we all met at Cellar Masters for happy hour. Kati and Tesla were running behind getting ready, so Liz and I took the liberty of going ahead and ordering a bottle for us all to share. Our sommelier then introduced us to a very nice Cellar Masters wine hack: The bottle that we wanted was listed on the menu as $125 a bottle (which would have been a $100 price after premium beverage package bottle discount). However, it was also sold by the glass for $25 a glass. With the premium beverage package, it would be $8 a glass (the upcharge above the $17 a glass included in the package). Since all 4 of us had the premium package, the somm said he could just charge us for 5 glasses of the wine and give us the bottle. This made the price we paid for the bottle only $40 (5 glasses x $8 each)! Liz and I did our first toast to the $60 savings. My friends all loved the ambiance and were a little sad when I told them that I think Reflection is the last ship in the Celebrity fleet that still has this venue. For dinner, Tesla and Liz decided to go to the buffet and I introduced Kati to my favorite post-beach day cruise dining: Lawn Club Grill. We brought along the rest of our bottle from Cellar Masters to go along with our steaks, sausage and pepper pizza, shrimp and scallop skewer and lamb chops. We both agreed that the only disappointments in the meal were the sides. My lobster mac n cheese was pretty light on the lobster meat and the sauce was runny. Kati said her creamed corn was ok but nothing special. For dessert we split the warm chocolate chip cookie and the cheesecake with raspberry sauce. Both plates were completely emptied! After dinner, we reconvened with Tesla and Liz and headed to the casino. Zoe the casino bartender remembered us from our brief stop there on night one and made us some fun cocktails. I was going simple so she turned my vodka tonic into a palm tree. My luck continued from lunch and I hit another minor bonus for $200 on a 75 cent double link rainforest game and another machine, that was also kind to me on this ship in February, kept making it rain free spins and bonus awards. By midnight, I was up another $800! Tesla also had luck and made about $700 on a Buffalo machine. About midnight, I cashed out my voucher and took the money down to guest services and put it on our room account to take care of gratuities and the bottles of wine and champagne we’d been indulging in at Murano the night before. Our concierges just came through and said we’ll be ready to start the b2b process in just a few minutes. So more to come soon from what turns out to be a solo cruise #2 of 3.

Yes! I’ll start taking pics this next cruise but the Michael’s club snacks even outside of tea time have been on point. Every time I go in, different tasty looking towers of sandwiches and pastries. The notable exception is this morning. Today there’s only one little tray of basic croissants and one of danish. But maybe they don’t want to encourage people to linger and stuff themselves on turnover day? I seem to remember having the full yummy spread on disembark day on Summit though too.

Quick early morning update from the sail into Port Everglades. For the folks joining me to sail on Reflection today, your ship is comin in! Can’t wait to meet you!

Quick question for those following who have ever done back to back cruises, especially in suites, where you changed cabins between cruises. Did you have to pack your clothes that were hanging in the closet? From what I’d read pre-cruise, I thought that I’d only need to pack my things that were in the drawers and bathroom, but the butler would handle moving hanging clothes in the closet. Our butler has asked that we re-pack hanging clothes to move. I guess if we have to not the biggest thing in the world, but I have a few nice dresses that I had pressed that are hanging and if I don’t have to, I’d rather not risk them getting all wrinkled again. Just figured it was worth checking in case maybe our butler is mistaken (or, if this is a new change in process for b2b, I can report accurately).

I agree! I just realized it’s also visible in my message history in the screenshot I posted 🤦🏾‍♀️ but our favorite land resort chain has been using WhatsApp for years for butler suite level guests so that we could communicate request with the butler without having to find a phone or go in search of him/her.

Taking a step back in time to report on our day yesterday… As Kati and I were having our breakfast in Luminae, I did a quick scan of my work inbox and saw that there was an urgent project that I would have to attend to before I could go to Coco Cay. (Stinks, but I always try to remember, the job is funding my cruises.) The project ended up taking so long, I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to join the ladies at Hideaway Beach. The good part about being with 3 other people was that I can still report on their experience! Hideaway beach is an adults only area of the island that had a $59 charge when prepurchased through the cruise planner. We were a little worried because we didn’t get excursion tickets in our stateroom like we usually do for booked excursions, but when the ladies got to the entrance, the attendant just scanned their seapass cards and it showed that they had already paid for passes. Apparently, the pool and swim up bar area was packed madness, with people standing almost shoulder to shoulder in the water and the music was extremely loud and base heavy. They compared it to an episode of MTV spring break circa 1996. The swimming beach area, on the other hand, they said was not crowded at all and much more peaceful, other than the occasional shrill sound of a lifeguard’s whistle blowing at people trying to climb on the sea wall. Speaking of which, if you’re a true ocean swimming person, fyi, the beach swimming area at hideaway beach is more of a cove/inlet, blocked off from the rest of the Caribbean by said rock wall in order to keep sargassum flows, sharks, etc. out. Kati still enjoyed the calm water, but Tesla was a little disappointed that it was more like lake than real ocean swimming. They said it wasn’t hard to get drinks (premium beverage package works on coco cay as well btw) and the included food options weren’t bad, but it was an adjustment going back to lunching on basic pizza, burgers and carnivalesque snacks from what they’d been eating on the ship. (Oh how quickly they’ve become accustomed to the culinary good life.) While the ladies were coco caying, after I finished work, I decided to spend a little time in the casino (which stayed open in port) with a cocktail then take myself to lunch at sushi on 5. Finding said cocktail proved harder than I thought. The only bar on the whole ship that was open was the pool bar. I guess they REALLY wanted us off the ship drinking on coco cay. Luckily I had the 24 hour grab and go beer cases in Michael’s Club and stopped by and got myself a corona to sip while I played. I found myself a hot machine and managed to get myself up about $300 in an hour playing thanks to hitting a minor jackpot. I took the money and ran to some sake, seeweed salad, shrimp tempura roll and my favorite dish in all of Celebrity Cruises: the pork tonkatsu ramen. Kati and I are currently chilling on an extremely crowded pool deck sipping on delicious Frose’ frozen cocktails (rose wine, Tito’s and peach purée). Another new to me thing I’ve never seen on Celebrity: instead of towels being well stocked in the bins around the pool, you have to go to a little stand and ask for one. They don’t scan your seapass card or anything, just hand it to you. I REALLY hope this is just a short summer cruise thing and not a way to start socially acclimating us to move to having to check out pool towels like I hear is a thing on some other lines. I don’t know why but something about that just strikes me as nickel and dime and kinda tacky. More to come later after our next round of Frose’ all day!

Good morning from a cool, windy, grey day in Bimini. It honestly feels more like I’m in Seattle. I know, I know I have ghosted you guys for an entire day. The good news is with the temperature barely at 77 degrees, rain and no sun to be found, this is a perfect day to skip the beach resort and stay onboard. So I’ll have plenty of time for catch up writing. Despite the weather, Liz and Tesla’s stingray swim excursion is still going forward (just pushed back 2 hours). The storm and rain sounds, plus a late night in the casino made it very easy for Kati and I to stay in bed till 9:30 this morning, so we had a very light late breakfast at Al Bacio. Because of the weather, cruise director Luigi came on the PA and told everyone to refresh the app schedule as several additional activities are being added for the large number of guests staying onboard (btw, when I realized that’s who our CD was, it made total sense why the full moon party was so lit. He and cruise director Dave consistently manage to throw the BEST parties). When we went to Michael’s Club to talk to the concierge, he told us they’ve also decided to open Luminae for lunch even though it’s a port day. Kati and I are adding our own sunshine to the grey day with Kadek’s excellent mango daiquiris at the sunset bar then we’re going to head down there to have our first real meal of the day. From what I can see up here, we aren’t missing a ton by not going onto the island. I’m not exaggerating when I say that in the landscape pic below I’ve captured pretty much the entire island of Bimini. It looks like it’s literally just the mega resort, a desalinization plant and several mansions. With maybe a couple of small shopping and restaurant strips. Agenda for the rest of the day: -Lunch in Luminae -Swimming and catch up post writing in the solarium -A wine and snacks sailaway party with Tesla and Liz (BTW I was able to arrange with our butler Gene via WhatsApp message, nice new perk, there was a QR code on his card to scan that took me right to his account! If you’re sailing in retreat soon be sure to download WhatsApp and set up an account for yourself.) -7pm Broadway production show in the theater -Dinner in Tuscan Grill -Packing to prep to change rooms for cruise 2 -Late night adults only comedian show

Oops forgot to share stateroom (featuring review guest stars) pics! Kati is suggesting that I don my bikini and a shower cap and make an instructional video about how all the various knobs and levers work to operate our shower/bath so she can post it on YouTube…I would NEVER hear the end of that from Jeremy. But if any future reflection sky suite cruisers are actually interested in that info, I’m happy to do a photo (sans me in bikini) instructional post.

Good morning from hydrating and docking for our Perfect Day at CoCo Cay. It will likely come as a surprise to no one who’s familiar with my Celebrity Cruises lifestyle that our night last night didn’t end until about 2am. I have about 20 minutes before I have to wake Kati and we need to pull it together for breakfast in Luminae, so while I’ve got the time I’ll fill everyone in on our stateroom and the rest of our day yesterday. Cruise #1 is in sky suite 2139 on deck 12 about midship. I’d forgotten what the non refurbished sky suites look like and the decor is definitely a little dated, but the room is very clean and everything seems to be in good condition. The bathroom definitely feels much smaller than an E class sky suite, but the balcony feels much bigger. Speaking of which, to report on Balcony Furniture-gate, our veranda has a full size table and chairs and one of the new style loungers but with no footstool. I think we’ll make do without it though. My only real complaint about the balcony is that it seems to be a wifi dead zone, so I won’t be able to handle any work emergencies with the sea breezes in my hair. Relatedly, I’ve noticed that while the wifi this cruise seems speedy (I was able to stream some Netflix and get my Bridgerton fix in bed this morning), it kicks you off after a few minutes if you aren’t actively using it. We were happy to find our luggage waiting for us when we came back to the room after lunch and Liz and Tesla (who were still waiting for bags) came up to hang out in our living room while Kati and I unpacked. While we were waiting, a very nice stateroom attendant named Kommang came by to introduce himself. Seeing our room filled with women he said “oh oh! Here’s the party!” He asked if we needed anything and we requested ice for our ice bucket so that we could fill our Stanley tumblers (hey, this ain’t no 20 something girls cruise, we are of an age where constant hydration is a necessity of endocrine survival) and he came back with it in a flash. He mentioned that sadly he may not be our attendant for the full cruise as he was briefly promoted to fill in for another crew member who would be coming back on duty sometime today. Such a bummer, the guy was so nice. I promised him I’d mention in my post-cruise survey that I think he deserves a permanent promotion. Shortly after Kommang left, our butler Gene stopped by. (WOOHOO, sky suites have butlers again!!!!). He asked about any special requests for our mini fridge or afternoon canapés and reminded us of tea service in the retreat lounge every afternoon and the butler escort and reserved seating in the theater tonight for chic night. After unpacking and hitting sail away, we all went down to the casino where we each found a machine we liked and put in $60 and agreed we’d all play until either it was gone or until it was time to get ready for dinner, whichever came first. We all ended up skulking off to shower and dress empty handed. I’m hoping that by the end of this cruise, my friends will love Celebrity as much as I do and that first night dinner in Murano REALLY helped me towards that goal! I discovered a perk of sailing with 4 people: between all the orders you end up getting to try pretty much everything on the menu. We each had 2 appetizer courses, an entree and a cheese course (where for the first time since Covid I saw the cart service back vs having it delivered plated). We all agreed rock star dishes were the mushroom risotto, scallop Wellington, lobster bisque, lamb and of course the Murano lobster. My friends were so impressed with the food and service, but also so full that no one had room for dessert. Oh well, there’s 2 more cruises to get in some gran marnier soufflé. After dinner we had another round of espresso martinis then headed up to the extremely lit full moon dance party followed by the equally jumpin late night in the sky lounge. I assume because there are so many kids onboard, security was hardcore about the curfew to the point of having the entrance roped off and scanning seapass cards to get in the lounge. I think that’s a first for me in all my cruises! Ok, I’m gonna go get my cabin mate up so I can introduce her to the delights of starting the day with coffee, mimosas and almond croissants. I’ll check back in after Coco Cay day #1. Have a great Saturday FB!

Good evening from the Caribbean Sea! My girl group has already had such a great day on Reflection, but while Kati is taking her turn to shower for dinner, let me share a little about embarkation experience and lunch in Luminae. We got to Terminal 25 a little after 10:30 and went through the Retreat entrance and up the elevator to the lounge. We only had about 15 minutes of sitting with some snacks and finishing our check in before we were invited to board the ship. First stop was Michael’s Club where I introduced Kati to my favorite retreat beverage: the peaches and bourbon. After giving Kati a tour of the ship while sipping, we met up with Tesla and Liz who ended up being able to board a little earlier than their 11:30 time slot and we all hit the martini bar for a a round before lunch. Tesla and Liz went to the concierge class embarkation welcome lunch and reported that their food and service were both very good. Apparently some others in a social media group for our sailing had much more disappointing experiences, so perhaps being on the earlier end of the sitting made a difference? I was a little nervous about Luminae lunch on a sold out 3 night cruise on Reflection which has more suites to serve, but there ended up being nothing at all to worry about. Our service was prompt (we were in and out in an hour with 3 courses served) and attentive. After kale salad and a warm short rib borscht to start, I had the New York strip and Kati had the Luminae burger. Both were prepared just to the temperature we ordered and my steak came with my requested truffle fries (the side for the Luminae burger) instead of potato wedges. The Luminae sommelier Fermin poured us a Willamette Valley Pinot noir to wash it all down with, then we had double espressos while we split the apple crumble (ok) and chocolate Dulce de leche (yum) desserts. After lunch we met back up with Tesla and Liz at the slammed sunset bar for sailaway where the fabulous Sergia remembered me from my February cruise and welcomed me back. My first impression of the demographic onboard is that it is DEFINITELY different from what you’d see on a 10 night winter southern Caribbean sailing. Lots of younger people. Lots of matching cruise t-shirts with witty plays on either (a) using the word “ship” in place of a common American expletive or (b) making good use of the beverage package. Also ample (so far as I’ve seen thus far, well behaved) children. It seems like Celebrity has also tweaked the entertainment atmosphere to meet what was the expected audience. Lots more louder, bumping, party music being played in venues than I’m used to. Regular followers know I don’t mind a good party, even in the middle of the day. But I’m glad I also have my nice big veranda to retreat to for some stimulus down time (full stateroom report to come). Well, it’s about time for me to get ready for our ladies first night dinner at Milano. More to come later from Reflection!

It’s a GORGEOUS morning to sail away here in Fort Lauderdale! In fact, first words out of Kati’s mouth this morning were “the ocean looks nice to sail on today!” Kati and I are currently in our Uber on our way to port Everglades. We’re running about 15 minutes behind schedule due to the first service hiccup of the trip. As we were putting our luggage tags on and got the alert that our pre-scheduled Uber was 5 minutes away, I called down to the front desk to asked for a bellman to help with bags. After 20 minutes waiting, there was still no sign of said bellman, so we lugged all our bags down ourselves. Hopefully that’s the biggest glitch the next 10 days! We had a fantastic group dinner last night at Boatyard. The ceviche was excellent (we ordered more plantain chips to enjoy it all) so were the grouper piccata and Parmesan crusted cod. Kati and Liz who aren’t huge seafood people (crazy, right? Oh well, it takes all kinds) really liked their Wagyu bolognese and roasted chicken. The s’more dessert was great but so rich we could only manage a few bites each. The key lime creme brûlée, however, was demolished. After dinner we thought about hanging around for ladies night in the restaurant bar (with free house wine and $2 well drinks for ladies) but we wanted to get sleep and be fresh for today. Tesla and Liz have a later embarkation time and are sleeping in a little so they’ll meet us on the ship a little later. Next post will be from onboard Reflection!

We made it to Fort Lauderdale and are getting settled into our poolside suite at the Conrad beach resort. This hotel is not a budget pre-cruise accommodation, but it’s worth every penny. Normally when I’ve splurged for suites for the cruise, I scale back a little on the pre-cruise hotel and stay at the Hyatt Centric Las Olas but since Kati had never seen the ocean before, I wanted to book us somewhere that she could see a lot of it. Unfortunately, we won’t be swimming in said ocean due to both red flag waves AND a shark sighting. We just connected up with Tesla and Liz who told us about a rough start to their time in FLL. A quick warning for anyone flying in to FLL soon, apparently there is a scammer working the airport. When they landed last night around 10:30, they went outside to wait for the Uber driver Liz had ordered. Then a woman approached them carrying an Uber sign and asked if they’d ordered an Uber and then asked to look at Liz’s phone. The woman told them that the app was malfunctioning and that their $22 ride wasn’t still 10 minutes away. That she was their Uber driver. It was late at night and the ladies were tired and ready to get to a warm bed to collapse, so they went with this woman. When they got to the hotel, the woman disclosed that she didn’t really work for Uber started screaming and demanded $50 in cash for the ride. She had put the child locks on the back doors and refused to let them out of the car until she had been paid. If it had been me, I would’ve dialed 911 right then and there, but I think the ladies were so tired and shocked, and scared of what this woman might do if she thought she was going to get in trouble, they just paid to get out of the situation. Luckily it didn’t end worse! A scary reminder to ALWAYS check the plate number on your Uber and don’t get into any car claiming to be yours if the plates don’t match up. We’re currently relaxing poolside with cocktails and a light snack of chips and guacamole so that we don’t ruin our appetite for dinner. Tonight I’m taking everyone to dinner at one of my Fort Lauderdale favorites: Boatyard. Talk to y’all later tonight!

A very good early morning to everyone from STL! Can you tell we just rolled out of bed at 2am? Our flight is boarding and it looks like we’re on track for an on time departure. Next stop: Miami!

Looking forward to sailing with you! I hope your niece has a great time. My Mini Me is about the same age and LOVES Celebrity. If you see us around the ship please come say hi!

Thank you! Looking forward to sailing with you guys! Hopefully we get to meet!

In case anyone is wondering how all our pre-cruise diets have been going, I made my grandmother’s fried chicken and mac n cheese for our cruise planning dinner at my house earlier this week. And this is what Kati and I had for our post-spa lunch today…

Oh my goodness! Congratulations on your grandchild! Personally, I think new babies are one of the few things in life even more exciting than a cruise. Sending prayers for comfort for your mom.

Hello from the Four Seasons St. Louis! Kati and I have a very early, 5am wheels up, flight to Miami tomorrow and we knew we wanted to get pedicures at the spa here before we left anyway, so we decided to add an extra day to our vacay and check into the hotel for tonight. In addition to allowing us to work on our base tans by the pool this afternoon, and try out Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant, it’s also giving us an extra hour and a half of sleep since we’ll only be about 20 minutes from the airport. Since we have early appointments at the spa, I leveraged my first name basis status with the concierge here to get us an early morning check in. When we got to our room, the cover of this month’s Four Seasons magazine quickly caught my attention. It looks like in 2026 Four Seasons will be following Ritz Carlton into the cruise business! Now THIS I am very interested I ! Who am I kidding though, it will probably be 2036 before I could even begin to afford what they’re probably going to charge for fares. But hey, that gives them plenty of time to work out the kinks! While we’re relaxing in our room pre-spa, here’s a bit about our plans for the cruise… Long gone are the days of Celebrity making it rain onboard credit with retreat bookings, but fortunately I started working with a new TA for my Celebrity bookings earlier this year (I use a different TA for MSC, I like to work with specific line specialists) and for the three cruise bookings she was able to offer a total of almost $1000 in OBC. So we had plenty of fun money to use in making plans (especially since specialty dining is complimentary for cruise #2 with the signature suite). Here’s a quick run down of our shore plans: Cruise #1 Port 1: Coco Cay For this stop, all 4 of us got passes to Hideaway Beach, the adults-only pool and beach area. We briefly discussed all going in to book a cabana, but even with a 30% discount sale going, the price was over $1000! From reviews I read, they sound very nice, but $250 per person was a bit rich for everyone to invest 24 hours into the cruise. Especially for Kati and I who’ll be staying on another full week. Port 2: Bimini Tesla and Liz are doing an excursion in the morning to go snorkeling with stingrays, while Kati and I have passes to Resort World. When Tesla and Liz to get back to the ship, the plan is for them to pick up a golf cart rental, pick Kati and I up from the resort and then for all of us to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon exploring the island. Cruise #2 Port 1: Key West This is such an easy nice walkable port to explore, so we plan to go independent and check out my favorite artisan shops and bars. No trip to Key West would be complete for me without a stop at Sloppy Joe’s and then some live music and conch fritters at Willie T’s. Kati and I are both big country music fans (no judgement, people!) and I know she’ll get a kick out of hanging at the actual bar that inspired Kenny Chesney’s “Bar at the End of the World”. Stop 2: Nassau This is one of those ports I always take as a “bonus sea day” unless I’m sailing with Gen Z and she wants to go to the water park at Bahia Mar. This cruise will be no different. We’ll hangout by the pool and enjoy a quiter ship and enjoy a nice specialty lunch at The Porch. Cruise #3 Port 1: Coco Cay (again!) This time we are trying a different area of the island, Coco Beach Club. It’s interesting, from what I’ve read, this area sounds a lot like the Ocean House area for Yacht Club on MSC’s Ocean Cay private island. Except Ocean House was free for Yacht Club level guests, whereas even as Retreat guests this one cost about $130 per person. We paid with OBC so no skin off our backs, but will be interesting to see if it’s worth the price they charge. Port 2: Bimini (again!) We’re fairly confident that we’ll have gotten plenty of Bimini on the first stop, so this will also be a bonus sea day where we stay onboard. Over the course of the cruise we’ll also be dining at some point at every specialty restaurant other than La petit chef. Fair warning, my favorite, Murano will make an appearance at least 3 times. Tesla and Liz (who since they are only doing the 3 day cruise decided to spend an extra day in Florida) are currently on their way to the airport to fly to FLL and have been carefully watching the flood water situation (another reason I prefer to fly into MIA even when sailing out of Port Everglades). Currently their flight is showing no delays. In less than 24 hours, we’ll all be on Fort Lauderdale beach!

Nope I’ve not given up on MSC at all! It’s just been the case that the past few cruises the dates and rates ended up working out better on Celebrity. Yacht club prices have jumped quite a bit in the past year too. I’m looking at Seascape vs. Ascent for booking my winter 2025 solo cruise and will probably be making a decision in the next few weeks. Funny you mention that horse. Are you familiar with the Clydesdale breed? I’ve wanted one ever since I was a kid. They’re massive and very expensive around here to get and keep up and they really aren’t bred for any of the riding disciplines that I do. But I don’t care. When I retire I shall be the crazy grey haired lady showing in the hunter/jumper ring on a big ole tank of a Clydesdale!

O…M…G…I have no words. This may be a VERY interesting 10 days indeed. On the plus side, this makes me hopeful that at least the pool deck pride party during cruise #2 will be LIT. I definitely plan to take advantage of a couple of port days onboard. I’m not going to show Jeremy that pic of Captain Kirk until I get home, lest he hop a ferry to Bimini to sneak onboard and keep me honest. 😂