HappyTexan44

This thread has inspired me. We live in DFW and were just planning on staying in Galveston the night before. I know that it is an interesting place to visit, but I've been several times, and DH lived there for many years, so we have a 'been there, done that' attitude. But, DD has never been and our cruise leaves on a Monday. I love traveling with DD and seeing things through her eyes. The history of Galveston is very interesting. In its early years it was an anomaly because it wasn't really controlled by anyone. If you are driving up I-35, you will go through West. You need to stop for a Kolache. Get at least a fruit and a sausage one.

This is horrible at Disney World. It didn't happen to us, but I saw many kids walking next to their parents in a straight line get rammed from behind by a speeding scooter. In fact, we switched to walking single-file with daughter in the middle. She is small enough that she could have been seriously injured.

I like that those are idiot-proof. I know how to use any wine opener with finesse since I waited tables in nice restaurants as a young-in. But I still love those. I learned the hard way that you can open wine with anything that has a side that will fit into a wine bottle (say a toothbrush) and something to hammer it with. When I bought my first house (HUD) my parents came over to help me fix it up. I had wine for us to drink when done. I'd always had roommates and they'd always had a wine opener and I didn't. So we found ourselves exhausted and unable to get to the good wine. Knocking on the neighbor's doors, none drank wine or had an opener. We ended up using a hammer and big nail to push the cork through.

That was also a total and complete fail on Royal that they let that guy sit there being belligerent.

I use the Tile, but I haven't used the Apple, so I can't compare. But I am pleased with the tile. It doesn't give you an arrow but it does tell you a signal strength. The alarm is fairly loud on it, and could probably be heard outside the luggage.

Can even the interior cabins get robes?

We do usually take a small bluetooth speaker on car trips. I would have left it in the car while cruising since it is just a back-up to the car's bluetooth connection, which can be flaky. The speaker isn't particularly loud. Now I think I need to bring it onboard and have loaded onto my phone: Bagpipe music, thinking Danny Boy - something I wouldn't mind hearing. Religious chants Opera, preferably of the earworm variety like La Donna Mobile.

I have them on our cats. At the moment the cats are indoors only but plan is to get a dog and reinstall the doggie door. The latest iTile has a replaceable battery and an expanded range. I also find one essential on My Precious, aka my Kindle. It was lost once for a month (pre-Tile) when DH found it and handed it to me I literally clutched it my chest in joy.

As a battling sound, I wonder if an audiobook would work? Or maybe one of those religious chant CD's? I think the chants sound pretty neat, but I can't see them blending with music.

I can see this being a huge problem when they switch to once-a-day service. The before you moved in clean would count as the clean for that day, so they wouldn't be back that day.

I am used to hotels swapping out the beverage cooler for a genuine small fridge. I think I like this better. Daughter's medicine is $X,XXX for each vial (which is good for two weeks). I like the idea of a dedicated fridge that we aren't opening all the time.

For those that got the med. fridge, did they remove the beverage cooler?

I used to work with a guy that was stuck in Alaska for an extra week while doing a primitive survival camping thing. The plane was supposed to get him on the afternoon of 9/11. His backpack was smaller than ours when we spend the day at Six Flags. Things like a knife and a fish hook. The worst part was that he couldn't roam far because he had no idea when a plane might come to get him.

I think what makes this article OK to me, is that Royal reached out and offered the cruise. If it was an assignment I would be more inclined to say it was a bit of a hit piece sending someone that prefers tent camping and whose favorite part of the ship was the running track.

I used in a tech manufacturing building built during the cold war. Neither the offices nor the elevator floors had numbers. Presumably a spy could be spotted because they would wander around lost. So, you learned to navigate by art. For example, for the cafeteria you got off the elevator the Grand Canyon picture. Spotting spies would never have worked. Any construction that blocked off a hallway led to many employees wandering around lost. One day they moved the art around and all hell broke loose.

There was actually an encouraging bit in it for me. Of course, I'd already booked our starter cruise. I've gone live-aboard scuba diving. Of course I was in the room alone, but the room size was fine. Knowing that the cruise cabin is much bigger is comforting.

As a Texan, I'm pleased.

Also, at home I have multiple towel racks. Each towel is by itself and the room has good ventilation. Cruise bathrooms aren't big enough to keep multiple towels drying. Then you add that standard cruise advice is to bring Poo Pourri because 'there really isn't any ventilation' in the bathrooms.

I wonder if you can get some of your money back?

I so wish our ship had the freestyle machines! Voyager doesn't have them. We are very familiar with them from visiting Six Flags and Universal Orlando.

Not about the savings. They don't have Diet DP on board. DH vastly prefers DP. I am particular about my wine. They are likely to have the same quality of wine that I'd bring onboard, but not the precise thing I want. For example, I'm likely to bring a Natural Rose Champagne, they won't have that and they'd try to talk me into a big name Champagne that was neither Natural or Rose.

I've been giving some thought to logistics of our carry-on. We will have 4 bottles of wine (two rooms) and a 12-pack of Diet DP. That will get pretty heavy. I was originally thinking of dragging out one of those wheeled fold-up luggage things from before luggage had wheels. But, now I am thinking it will be more secure to use a wheeled luggage as carry-on that I normally use as checked luggage, and carefully packing everything in there. Putting in the wine, sodas, daughter's medicine, swimsuits, and enough extra clothes for padding. Could even add bubble-wrap. This dropping all the checked luggage off with a porter is a game-changer from flying since we don't need to worry about restrictions or the luggage being abused.

Correct. It isn't that I'm scared of flying, never have been. Former job took 30-ish RT flights a year, mostly in the US but some to Europe and Taiwan. The problem is the service-decline creep. It hit me in the stark contrast between my first flight and my daughter's first flight. We were both 8.5 years old. I was average sized, and she is very small for her age. Comparable flights, mine was MSP-DFW on Braniff, hers was DFW to Vegas on American. 40 years apart. I remember enjoying the flight and it was a grand adventure. I remember the seats wide enough that I could turn a bit sideways in the seat and nap with my head on the back of the seat. Security was not a concern. This would have been '79 so I think they were just x-raying bags? Checked luggage was free, so I think all I took on was some things to keep me occupied. I remember nice flight attendants and being offered a wings pin that I cherished. I think we got food, I wasn't impressed with that but that was OK. My grandparents met me at the gate with big hugs. We live in an exurb outside the area that airport shuttles will service. Drive is two hours to the airport. There is one woman in town who does Uber/Lyft. I didn't know then if she was reliable so we had to leave extra time to change gears in case she didn't show up. So, we left at noon, 5 hours before the flight. Then there was security who was being particularly anal that day. At one point much of our stuff was 20' away beyond the rape-scan (really rapiscan, but the name is horrible because the change is so obvious, so I always think of it as the rape scan). Our electronics were just sitting over there waiting for any random person to grab. While they were fussing because we had too much in one bin. For example, a laptop power cord and a cell phone were too much. So, the number of bins we were using kept growing, along with my stress levels. Once we finally got past the rape-scan, we then had to try to put all our stuff back together while security is fussing at us that they want their bins back. And getting our shoes back on. My stress level was through the roof and that effected daughter. She'd really really wanted to fly, and the landscape would be boring so we had decided it would be a good time. Then we get on the plane which is completely packed. I don't have flight status anymore, so we were near the end to board. There was the stress of finding space for our carry-ons and I think we got the last spaces. The three of us were together and even daughter was cramped. Remember she was a small 8.5 year-old. The flight itself was very cattle-air. The flight was packed and it took forever to get off, then we had to get the rental car I reserved through Sixt, horrible people. By the time we got to the hotel it was almost 1am after leaving at noon. We checked into the hotel room and crashed glad that we'd planned a rest day at the Golden Nugget pool for the next day. We all agreed that we wished we had drove. If we'd driven and left at the same time, we would have arrived at about the same time we woke up in the hotel. And if we'd driven, we'd have our car which is the touring Cadillac. I am convinced that any other vehicle without a bed in it, is a torture device in comparison. We like to drive straight through and driving at night is the best. It helps that my husband is a former long-haul truck driver. For example, to Orlando is 18.5 hours. Two times ago he drove all but the last 1.5 hours. Last long drive was to Carlsbad, CA a little over 20 hours. I thought that might be too much and we'd want to crash in a motel. But, nope we arrived at noon the day before we planned. Our niece used to live in Hawaii and we'd discussed visiting her. We agreed that Hawaii might be interesting enough to suffer the flight. Then she moved back. But our rule now is flights only when an ocean is involved.

Agreed. Flying is a fairly short experience. Awhile back I remember reading an article about first-class vs. economy-class. They interviewed a woman that was a CEO of a big company and was flying in the ordinary seats. She said, "If someone offered me 10K to sit in uncomfortable chair for 5 hours, I'd do it. This is the same thing." Although many people have talked about a line beyond which they'll change lines or stop cruising. We've reached that point in flights and we don't fly cattle-air (which is all of them).

I had thought that I wouldn't mind the change in hotels to a clean every few days. I'm one that would rather no one enter my hotel room after I check-in. But it ended up with disgusting hallways. They became an obstacle course with dirty towels and bags of trash outside nearly every door. Plus, a hotel room bathroom is bigger than a cruise bathroom. So, on a cruise there is less places to stash the wet towels. I could totally see people dumping the wet towels outside the room. Is there enough room in the bathrooms to store twice the normal number of towels? Hopefully they will have someplace that always has the next day's cruise compass. I am not using my phone for that.