warmwinds

thank you - i was just feeling sorry for myself.

i dont find anything wrong with the cruise insurance.  i have used it several times on different lines.  first when our parents were old and now were old.

sorry cact shift with one hand

thanks for your sympsathy  if anyone thinks it cant happen to them think again   i know im not dead or seriosly injurd but the expression like losing your right hand is oh so true

broke my upper arm in 2 places  long bone and ball

waiting for swlling to go down before castbt should be on for 10-12 weeks

no pool 

cant get up and dow n from low beds

cant brace myself if seas are rough

i cant evev cut mwn ffood must eat leftie not easy  of course it was my righ t humerus  nothing humorous here

worst part besides the pain  is that i had all my restaurant res perfect

feeling really bummed ruight now

so happy we got the insurance

Sounds good.  We both got the lamb chops last time.

Speaking of Extra Virgin, I got fish there twice - the branzino with the braised fennel, so good.  My husband got the steak there once and said it was very good, too. 

We have a lot of loot to use up and were thinking of getting the Tomahawk in the Wake - ribeye is our favorite.  Any comments?

1 hour ago, cantgetin said:

For my last 14 night cruise, I got 4 nights booked, then a zillion crashes.  Turned the project over to my TA who got everything.

That's the part that confuses me - do they have access to all the time slots, even the next day?  Or do you call your TA in the middle of the night?

In my case, now, the actual day is right now, Thanksgiving, so I would not bother anyone today.  Would you call your TA on Thanksgiving and say "I couldn't book these last night"?

Well it is 1:03 Miami time (10:03 my time) and I guess I'm lucky it only took ONE HOUR to book all my dinner (and brunch) reservations.  Cannot tell you how many times it crashed, had to start over, but got everything I wanted within 15 minutes.  Whew.

Now just have to figure out the shows (which we didn't do last cruise) - they are not til you board, right?

My cruise/category in January has almost tripled.  They should be able to keep the same quality with the increase in prices.  It's going to be a tough pill to pay that much more in the future, however.  I like my bargain luxuries!

Does the cost of Afternoon Tea come out of Loot or the Bar Tab?

We had a Tarot Reader for one of our daughter's birthday parties when she was a teen, the girls loved it.

This music issue is so true.  We literally took our books and walked around the whole ship, sitting for a minute and getting up and then moving to find a quieter spot.  WHY????  Why does every inch of the ship have to have music?  And not that all of it was loud, but it was omnipresent.  Sometimes even your own balcony is facing the wrong way and the beating sun keeps you off so that is not always your sanctuary.  And I even had my balcony neighbors playing their own music outside one day!!!  A few well placed coughs and they got the hint, but c'mon.

Funny you should mention the pool music - we went first thing in the morning, were the ONLY people each day in the water, a handful lounging about, and music was quite nice - I can recall "oldies" stuff like Carol King, the Eagles, etc., at a decent volume.  Until at 10 am - UP it cranked to unbearable both in volume and style and off we went.

Glad you reminded me to bring noise cancelling headphones this time.

Love your pictures, what a great itinerary.

But to the fried chicken in Razzle Dazzle - from the 4 pictures you posted, I could tell the lamb shank, but nothing looked like fried chicken!  (to me! 😋) and love chicken.  Which picture was it?  Will definitely try it next time!

Well, I'm certainly going to book The Wake and R-D for breakfast during our cruise...on our last day, the Galley will do just fine.

The bathrooms are soooo tiny you are going to be soooo happy you each have your own.

I can't recall soap at all, just the 3 usual dispensers in the shower.

I found the temps inside the ship perfect, never needed a sweater of any kind.  We were on a hot itinerary and it was hot outside, perfect inside.  And the thermostat in the cabin works very well, we were always comfortable.

There was no connecting door to our balcony.

Mine was so awful but I didn't care.  No one said "you can't board, you're too ugly" 🤪

This next cruise they asked if I wanted to change my picture but I said no.

We spaced out and thought the $10 specialty coffee per day was per person, not per cabin.  Luckily we had way more bar tab than we could possibly use so it wasn't an issue.

To answer your questions, Tarwood3, I think mainly we had become bored with Celebrity, and had seen the quality (especially the food quality) deteriorate from the highs of Michel Roux (yes, that long ago) to what it has devolved into today.  I don't even recall the era of Boulud being that much of a bump.

On Celebrity we had mostly stayed in Aqua and eaten in Blu.  We did a suite one time, a nice suite, the "secret" 6134/6135's and while we liked the extra space, we did not feel the food in Luminae was any better than in Blu.  And our butler really had very little to do (he kept bringing us stuff so he felt that he was doing his job!)

We were stuck in a rut with Celebrity, and decided to do something completely different.

At the risk of repeating myself either on this thread or elsewhere, we made a conscious decision not to go "too" upscale - no Silversea or Crystal, etc.

Why?  Honestly I couldn't tell you (outside of knowing people who liked those lines whose personalities were not aligned with ours).  Not to say there aren't great people you can meet on any line.  

I wanted to rock the boat, so chose VV.  Sounds crazy, but was expecting not to like it.  But...4 nights out of our lives wasn't going to kill us.

We are also early to bed so didn't get to see any shows or do anything except, literally, eat/drink/sleep/swim/repeat.  This was fine with us.  Next time we'll participate more.  But it was such a beautiful ship, kind and friendly workers, nice  people to talk to next to us at almost every restaurant...and that was fun, not Blu or Luminae every night, a different experience every night.

As the cruise got nearer, I got more and more nervous...so much so that I just shut down and didn't read one more word about VV until we sailed.

I don't want to wax poetic anymore, and as you can see from my original review on this thread, there were things we weren't crazy about (music not our style), but the ship, the people, the food were all a very pleasant surprise to us.

I hope you enjoy it as much.

They looked much larger than we were expecting.  In all cases (since we eat early, 6 pm) we walked past a vast area of empty tables before being seated in various rooms.

We wanted to return to the Wake (cancelling a different restaurant) and was told No.  When I pointed out all the empty tables early, he said "it's not that we don't have the space, we don't have the servers to give you the best service and experience".

Returning to Extra Virgin instead was not a problem.

I have no idea how full the ship was for our sailing.

I'm on the West Coast so I called at 9:00 pm (midnight Miami time) and almost didn't get some of my choices, had to choose different days.  It's crazy. 

3 hours ago, AlyssaJames said:

I have to say, as a "what if they lose my luggage*" worrier (not saying it's rational), having your room ready when you board and then having your big luggage show up not long after that makes embark day so much less stressful. 

(*and no I can't carry it on, I have never mastered the art of packing ultralight and I don't plan to. I do carry on all my 'important' stuff like meds and at least one change of clothes.)

We "carried off" but it wasn't "carry-on" luggage - we had 2 big rolling suitcases (both of which so big we have to check on the plane), PLUS our "carry on" purse and backpack.  It was nice to have the bags delivered on the front end but very easy to carry off on the back end (if you're in a hurry).

I liked our cabin so called to get the same "location/last number/whatever you want to call it" - I had to go through every deck, both sides of the ship, before finding the only one available.  He kept saying "the one next to it is available" - um NO!

3 hours ago, greenenvy said:

For Miami - it’s the most organized cruise departure I’ve ever had. They are sorted neatly arranged by floor and will be waiting for you (or at least should be) when you come down off the escalator in the terminal before you go through customs. 

It won't be Miami, it will be San Juan.  Our flight is not until 1 pm so we won't be in any real hurry.

In Miami, when you say "arranged by floor" do you mean all Deck 10 are in this group, all Deck 11 are in this group, etc?

1 hour ago, greenenvy said:

A few things to note - make sure the writing of the porter is legible. I bring my own Sharpie and rewrite neatly if necessary. Make sure the A or Z is included. And do not remove your tags for the duration of the cruise because they are used when you disembark as well (assuming you don’t plan to carry off your luggage). 

That's good to know....we carried off this time (our first VV cruise) but might not next time.  If you don't carry off, how soon are the bags in the terminal?

41 minutes ago, MarkWiltonM said:

How about if you're a non-drinker and a vegetarian? 

Looks like there are several vegetarian options:

43 minutes ago, Surfguyxxx said:

Now this I gotta see.  Last RC cruise, I didn't get luggage till after dinner.  Jezzzzzzzzzzz. 🤔

We dropped our carry ons, met our room steward, checked out the cabin, read all the literature on the desk, then said "let's go explore the ship" - opened the door and there they were.  YMMV

I agree, we only got to fly on them once in F and the white leather seats, spotlights, mood lighting were all so unique.  Too bad Alaska didn't hang on to them.