HLFam2022

Thank you for reading! I hope for sooner than 2049 too... Thank you for reading!

Totally understand your thoughts (and nice job on the win!). The tournaments were all $200+ if I remember correctly, or you had to pre-qualify at a land tournament for the big ones. Cash games were $1/$3 NL Hold Em with a min buy in of $100 and max $300, and $2/$5 NL Hold Em (don't remember the buy ins). Several of the other players were interested in starting an Omaha table and the staff said they would open one up if they got five players, but I don't know if they ever did. No draw, stud, etc. games that I saw.

You are truly wise 😄 I'm excited to see it!

Yep, you're correct (my wife informed me I was wrong about this earlier today :))

Thank you, and happy New Year! If we go on a cruise before '49 I'll be sure to post about it here 🙂

Thank YOU for reading through 🙂 Thank you for the compliment (and for the info about the Solarium Bistro! My wife pointed out I got this wrong after she read my review :))

Last Day- Disembarkation, Flying Home, Royal v. Carnival The last day comes too soon. We grab a quick bite to eat on the WJ and leave rolling our own luggage sadly across to the terminal. Customs and Immigration is stupidly short coming off a ship, and an SAS Transportation van driver shows up to pack away our bags. We end up waiting for around 30 minutes for other passengers from Royal and Carnival before heading to the Fort Lauderdale airport. The flight home, thankfully, is uneventful, and I spend most of it alternately napping and dreading the cold, gray reality that awaits, with no expert professionals preparing meals and entertainment for me and only some nostalgia-tinged memories to tide me over until our next vacation. Is post-cruise funk real? Maybe, maybe not, but it definitely feels real. Debriefing later with my wife, I am asked how our time on Oasis compares to my last cruise on Carnival. My immediate instinct is to say, "It's like the difference between shopping at Walmart (Carnival) and shopping at Target (Royal)"- they both offer mostly the same stuff (though the things you really want will be out of stock at Walmart), but Target/Royal just feel a lot cleaner and nicer all around. But if I'm being really honest, there's a few important things to consider when comparing the cruise lines and Royal doesn't win on all of them: 1) Lifestage and vibe. This is the biggest one for me- the two times I was on Carnival, I was a tiny child traveling with parents, and a slovenly young man living wild and carefree, respectively. Royal felt like the passengers were all Midwest polite (minding their own business), while Carnival felt like the passengers were all Southern polite (all up in your business). Being younger, I appreciated the drinking and chatting with strangers more on Carnival; now, I can appreciate the gentle relaxation of being left alone with my family. Advantage: depends on what you're looking for. 2) Microtransactions! This became one of my brother's favorite expressions during the cruise, but the amount of upselling on Royal felt significantly lower than on Carnival. I recall being peeved that Carnival was charging for different types of tea in the afternoon, and while an extra buck to get real Earl Grey v. generic is probably not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, it made me mad, and if Joe Biden had been President at that time it would have completely been his fault. Advantage: Royal by a long shot. 3) Food. I'm really into food, and Royal's was generally better. That tuna steak haunts my dreams. Advantage: Royal. 4) Service. Service on Carnival wasn't bad at all, but the competency and focus on what I wanted v. what procedure dictated puts Royal firmly ahead. 'Thank you' to our room steward for showing how it's done in an incredibly kind and classy way. Advantage: Royal. 5) Casino. This one was hard for me, as Royal's craps tables were a complete ghost town all the times I tried to play, whereas Carnival's were rocking and I ended up teaching some other passengers how to play, earning myself the nickname "The Professor" from the staff (though no comps or onboard credit). I didn't play poker on Carnival so can't compare there. Advantage: Carnival. 6) Stuff to Do. There was significantly more stuff to do on Oasis than on either of the Carnival ships I was on; my wife and I probably only took advantage of about 30% of what was available aboard. We did not: go to the rock and roll shows, ride the water slides, go to Playmakers sports bar, check out any of the comedians, watch a movie in the theater, go ice skating, play laser tag (and I love laser tag), go rock climbing, ride the carousel, go shopping at any of the onboard stores, ride the FlowRider, or sing karaoke. Yet I still feel like I had a fun and activity-filled vacation. Advantage: Royal. 7) Live Music. This is one area where Carnival did better. Live music on Oasis felt like going to a bunch of mini-concerts and following a schedule. On the other hand, Carnival had many more artists that I liked just hanging out and playing all over the ship at all hours of the evening, which gave me much more of the "drifting in New Orleans/Nashville" casual vibe. Advantage: Carnival. 8 ) Price. The elephant in the room. Eyeballing some quick search results shows Royal to be 20% + more expensive than Carnival for similar length Caribbean cruises, and I suspect that the price difference rises depending on what class cabin you book. Even with more included/less nickle and diming, I think from a budget perspective Carnival will be very hard to beat. Advantage: Carnival But when all is said and done, I would pick Royal over Carnival in almost any circumstance for a future cruise with my family. Now, since it's been 27 years between this cruise and our last one as a big group, I will need to start looking at bookings in 2049...

I hope you have a delightful time on Oasis! I am almost certain the Solarium Bistro was adults only- you can't get there without walking through the "Age 16 and over only" type doors that lead to the Solarium, and I don't think I ever saw kids there. That said, we only did lunch and breakfast there, so it may be different for dinner.

You are brilliant, and I support this approach! LOL! The best part is, I actually went to Manhattan last year for vacation and tried to enforce a no-work-email rule 😄

Day 7- Sea Day, Johnny Rocket's, Casino, Cats, Poker Sea day 2 is packed. My plan of trying the water slides, etc. goes down the drain due to the lines for everything, so I spend more time taking walks and trying to enjoy the sea breeze and warm weather before heading back to winter storms and gray skies. I overslept the ship's crew Q&A, but my parents went and reported that the highlight was a 6-year-old boy, clearly very nervous, asking the captain, "If you're down here answering our questions, then who's driving the ship?" The captain (who I'm assuming was trying to avoid chuckling at this) explained that there is a team of officers who take turns at the wheel, including one up there at that very minute, which seemed to assuage him. Apparently, ship captains don't spend a lot of time actually driving the ship, which makes no sense to me; isn't the whole point of becoming a captain that you get to steer the giant boat? My wife and I go to the "Friends" trivia, which is packed with people. The host starts trivia with a hearty "Hey everyone, how YOU doin'" which gets a hearty laugh from the crowd, before sheepishly admitting he's actually never seen the show before and is just reading things his boss wrote for him. Friends trivia is fiendishly hard, even for my wife and I who have watched the show end to end approximately two million times (each)- how much do you know about Rachel's ex-fiancee's new wife's profession, for example? At the end, the host calls up the winner: Host: What's your name? Winner: [Something I can't remember, let's call her Jan] Host: Everyone, give it up for Jan! [awkward, desultory applause] Jan has just WON A FREE CRUISE- Everyone else, including me: [Shocked gasps] Host: -BROCHURE! That's right, she gets a free cruise brochure, and a highlighter pen! People grumble about this, but the joke delivery is absolutely top-notch. (Also, I'm pretty sure she didn't get an actual paper brochure.) We go to lunch at Johnny Rocket's, which has some nice outdoor seating and basically the same menu as Johnny Rocket's on land. It is, however, a Continental-style prix-fixe deal, meaning you pay one price for everything (I believe it was $16/per person on our cruise). With this in mind, we decide to get our money's worth and order salad, regular French Fries, chili fries, and cheese + bacon fries as appetizers, before getting into burgers, and then ice cream for desert. Johnny Rocket's carries a great deal of nostalgia for me as we used to go there for a special treat as children. The fries are as good as I remember, but the burgers are extremely greasy and overly sweet- much more so than I'd like. Still, the service is good and we get to eat in the sun, so it's not a total waste. All week, I've been planning on taking my mother down to the ship's casino so I can teach her to play Craps, perhaps the most fun game involving dice and bad decisions ever created. Craps, unfortunately, isn't really fun unless you have at least 4-5 other people playing and cheering you on (and one grouch on the other side chain-smoking and betting the Don't Pass Line out of spite). Every single day I've been down to the casino, the Craps table has been empty (and $10 minimum bets). Do better, Oasis of the Seas passengers! (I find out later that there's a second Craps table on the other side of the casino that sometimes has players) So that afternoon, I take my mother down to the casino with a couple of $20s and we play the slots instead, which is...a choice, but we have a half-hour of fun looking for slot machines with real arms that you can pull (there are precious few, as most of the machines are digital/button press machines). It takes a moment to figure out how to get loyalty points for playing the machines- tap your SeaPass against the glowing rectangle to log in, and then prepare for a very long wait, as it takes forever to earn points. My mother wins $15 on her first slot machine bet and gets excited, which unfortunately gives her a thoroughly unrealistic idea of how casinos work. She ends up walking out "only" up $10, whereas I have lost $20. It's OK, I'll make it up playing poker. For dinner that evening, we take the waiters' suggestion of surf and turf (beef tenderloin with lobster tail). Given all the discussions about Royal Caribbean changing the MDR menus in Jan 2023, it's interesting that the menu we're given does not have surf and turf listed as an option (beef and lobster are separate entrees) but that the waiters recommend it. It's a good meal; the lobster tail is large and meaty and the beef tenderloin comes out cooked at the temperature I requested, as it did the other time I ordered it (I think one of the earlier days). Then we go to see Cats (or the Royal abridged version, which runs about 90 minutes with no intermission). I am what you would consider a casual musical theater fan; my wife is a much more hardcore one (she asked to go see Six on Broadway, which is a show that is entertaining and also short enough that you can see it and then go to dinner afterwards- a win on both counts!) I have never seen Cats before and only know snippets of "Memories" by pop-culture osmosis. I'm not sure I can summarize what the play's about, other than it involves cats, and it's based vaguely on a T.S. Elliot poem (no wonder I didn't enjoy the show; I hated that guy when I had to read him in college). The acting, singing, dancing, stage decoration, lighting etc. are all top notch, but the show itself was confusing and weird. Multiple people walked out of the show midway through; I feel terrible for the performers (that's awful etiquette) but at the same time, I recommend you skip "Cats" unless you REALLY like Broadway and/or Andrew Lloyd Webber. Finally, that evening I take a much larger sized bankroll to the poker tables to try to redeem myself and keep the "quit my job to be a pro" dream alive. Surely I can't play so poorly that I lose a bunch of money again, right? On my first hand, I play so poorly I lose $150. Now I have to spend the rest of the evening just trying to win my money back (note: this is an exceptionally stupid mentality to have when playing poker). This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. I am seated at a $1/$3 NL cash table next to a guy I'll refer to as Groucho Marx, who apparently knows the ships' officers pretty well ("The Captain should have listened to me and pulled the ship in closer to shore, that way the ship wouldn't be rolling so much"). Groucho and I have similar lucky/unlucky streaks, and both of us enjoy complaining about things that we have no control over whatsoever, so I feel a certain sense of kinship with him. For those of you who speak poker: as the evening gets late, I get dealt A5o and call pre-flop. Everyone folds except two players: Groucho Marx, who calls, and another player I'll refer to as Spanish Dennis Quaid, who raises about $50. It's way past my bedtime, and I've made nothing but good choices this whole trip, so I trust my instincts and call to limp into the flop, as does Groucho. The dealer flips A34 with three suits; Mr. Quaid goes all in. Groucho calls, which means he probably has a straight draw. The smart thing to do here would be to do the math in my head to count my outs, figure out pot odds, and then make a reasoned judgment of whether to call or not, so instead I immediately shove all my chips into the center. Mr. Quaid flips AKs, which has me beat; Groucho flips Q5o. If I had a case of cigars, and was a smoker, and if Royal's poker room wasn't smoke-free, I would offer each of them a cigar and a hearty handshake (and probably a "gentlemen, it has been an honor" in the style of a Rebel Alliance Y-wing pilot making a bombing run on the Death Star). The dealer flips a J, which doesn't help anyone, and then the magical 2 which completes a straight for both me and Mr. Marx. Spanish Dennis Quaid is crushed (as he should be- he played brilliantly and lost because of dumb luck), but I'm ecstatic, as there's just enough chips split between me and Groucho that over the course of the cruise, I have officially made a total of $36 for six hours of hard work at the poker table. I may yet be able to quit my day job! Next up- Disembarkation, flying home, Royal v. Carnival

Day 6- Puerto Costa Maya, Watching FlowRider, Zipline, Internet/Drink Packages [Note: I forgot the other Sea Day! I have adjusted the story accordingly] We didn't book any excursions for Puerto Costa Maya. I suspected that we would be too exhausted to go on a Mayan tour or to the beach, after a difficult week of sleeping in, taking naps, eating outdoors, and midnight pizza. This turned out to be correct; we slept through most of it and didn't even leave the ship. I was too tuckered out from standing in all the buffet lines to be able to suit up for the FlowRider while we were in port (port days are by far the least crowded on the boat; my brother and SIL end up going down every single water slide about 200 times during one of the port days). But I did end up watching a number of people display their competence (and lack thereof) on boogieboards and surfboards, usually coached by the staff, who would enthusiastically try to communicate tips over the roar of the water through a mix of top-of-the-lungs shouting and charades. There is an activity to get a private FlowRider lesson, but it costs money, and even worse, starts at 8am. This is clearly all Joe Biden's fault. I do end up deciding to try the zipline, which runs on Deck 15 over the cavernous Boardwalk neighborhood. Watching people go over the zipline reminds me of the bank robbers ziplining between buildings in The Dark Knight, except with less murder. The zipline is free and you have to be dressed sensibly (no flip flops) to ride it, as well as meet some height and weight restrictions, and wear a helmet. In line with me are an older Asian grandmotherly-looking lady and a couple of teenageish kids. It takes a while because four or five different crew members have to check each cable, cord, and strap that connect you to the zipline. Riding the zipline runs your emotions through stages, similar to the cycle of grief: 1) Nervousness: "Oh wow, I didn't realize how high up we are. And they're just letting me zip over it? What if the cable falls? What if I slip?" 2) Terror: "You know, it actually doesn't seem so b-[crew member pushes you off the dock] AAAAAAAAAAAAA-" 3) Fun: "Oh, this isn't so bad. I can see people on the ground from here." 4) Surprise: "Wait, it's over already?" As I get off the zipline, I see the Asian grandmother booking it back to the entrance to go on the zipline again. What I would give to be that energetic when I reach that age. I return to the room to find my wife post-nap watching Netflix. We paid for a 1 device Internet package, and it apparently works well enough that she is able to stream video with no issues. Although I think there's a discount if you buy multi-device packages, I refused to so I could tell my boss with a straight face that nobody from work would be able to contact me while at sea (one of the best but often under-utilized perks of going on a cruise). This also works in my favor unexpectedly; because I don't have Internet access, I was unable to send my letter of resignation to go play professional poker earlier in the week, which means I still have employment options when I return to land. We also paid for a soda pop package, which grants unlimited access to the Freestyle Coca-Cola machines onboard. For those of you who have not spent hours in a Wendy's lobby giggling like a small child and making random, foul-smelling bubbly concoctions (i.e. "normal people"), the Freestyle machines use technology originally designed to mix prescription drugs to allow you to create your own combinations of fountain drinks: Seagram's Ginger Ale with cherry flavoring, for example. [Wikipedia tells me that Pepsi has their own version, called the Pepsi Spire, which sounds considerably less cool] The soda pop package comes with a commemorative cup with a microchip/QR code in the base that scans in one of the machines to activate it. While my wife doesn't drink enough pop in a day to really get our money's worth, it was helpful to feel like she could get sparkling water or ginger ale any time she felt seasick, since we had already paid for it, and the peace of mind was worth the price IMO. Also, apparently if you have the soda package you can get fountain soda from any bar onboard, something I only discover after spending 30 minutes wandering around the ship trying to find a working and line-less Freestyle machine (the one closest to our room was malfunctioning). Next up- Sea Day, Casino, Johnny Rocket's, Cats, Poker

Thank you! (and I agree, what a cute pic!) That's awesome- thanks for the anecdote! I wonder how many points you need to get your own "office" on Royal 😄

Congratulations on your first anniversary!!! I hope your first year was wonderful and full of joy. (also, how cool to get married by a ship captain!) Thanks! If I recall correctly the WJ usually had a meat Indian dish (e.g. chicken curry) and a veggie Indian dish (e.g. channa masala) each day + naan. I added some Indian to my buffet plate in lieu of soups or chili 🙂 That is adorable! Going to show the pic to my wife tonight (although she may be a little jealous of how you got to meet the little guy :))

Me too! And Royal keeps sending me emails with sales... Thank you! And we were definitely disappointed, but compared to some other passengers who actually missed their excursions because the ship was late, we counted our blessings 🙂

Day 5- Roatan, A Lack of Sloths, Chops, Aqua 80 The seas are rough going to Roatan, Honduras, with the boat's motion finally coming through the deck. My wife and I discover that unfortunately, keeping the curtains open so we can see the sea moving by outside actually exacerbates the feeling, so we keep them closed to avoid seasickness. A few things I noted while waiting in the room: 1) The TV includes ESPN, which I'm deliberately avoiding to try to deal with my horrific college-sports-related anxiety, but also a map channel that lets you see Oasis' course, speed, and position on a map. It's pretty neat, and gives grouchy passengers something to nitpick (this will come up later when playing poker). 2) My wife and I ordered a case of 24 bottles of water, because she believes in bizarre, Communist ideas like "drinking water on a regular basis" and "putting our valuables in the in-room safe". 24 bottles was enough that each of us could drink regularly, take a few with us on excursions, and still have a couple left at the end of seven days. You can also fill a water bottle at the Freestyle Coke machines, and I'm sure any of the bartenders would be happy to do so for you as well. 3) Room service is available for $7.95 + service charge + a tip (though continental breakfast is free). You can either use the in-room phone to order, or for breakfast, leave out a little doorknob hanger menu with your requested items and time for delivery out before 10pm the night before (several of these menus are provided for you on the first day). We only indulge in room service once, ordering late-night quesadillas if I remember correctly. I was assured that our order would be delivered in 20-25 minutes, so I planned on eating in an hour's time. To my surprise, 22 minutes later there was a knock at our door. Our order was reasonably hot, which is basically all you can ask for from room service. 4) It's a good idea to be checking your SeaPass spending account on the app or on the TV's included channel to see what charges you have racked up from ordering drinks at the bar, merchandise, etc. About 3-4 days in, my wife and I discovered that we were being billed the daily service charges for my parents' rooms. Guest Services went in and added a credit to cancel out the charges after we informed them. We arrive at Roatan late, so there was a surge in passengers waiting to get off the ship to hit their excursions. My wife and I have booked some kind of eco-tour; the main attraction was that we would be able to meet and hang out with some sloths, as well as experience local culture, see exotic birds and animals, etc. But the main attraction was the sloths, as evidenced by a boy who came on the minibus with us who had brought his stuffed sloth with him. Unfortunately, we are informed by our bilingual tour guide A that the due to the rain, the sloths have withdrawn to a higher area that is not accessible for tourists, but there will still be lots of animals around. Womp womp. The minibus is packed to the gills, and then drives out of the cruise port parking lot and into Roatan proper. Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras proper, whose economy is largely based around tourism and construction. This is all related by A, who rattles off facts and figures so quickly and easily he must have a second job editing Wikipedia, or possibly writing trivia questions for Jeopardy. On our way there, I notice that there are not one, but TWO different Bojangles fried chicken places, complete with the familiar red logo. I don't understand how Bojangles hasn't gotten to New Jersey yet but they already have two locations in Roatan. At the eco-park, we see monkeys (some caged, some allowed to roam free), snakes, Fruit-Loop-type toucans, butterflies, free-roaming cats (apparently local pets), and other animals, but, to the disappointment of us and the little boy with the stuffed animal, no sloths whatsoever. Upon our return to the ship, we have lunch at El Loco Fresh, and then join the rest of my family for James Bond trivia. The host keeps referring to "Trivia with Mario" and I can't help but wonder whether the legendary lives-on-cruise-ships Super Mario is walking among us, like a superhero without his mask. This would be the closest I've been to a celebrity, other than the time I was told Randy Jackson was at the lobby bar I was staying at, rushed down to the bar, and found nobody there. We then head to Chops, the onboard steakhouse, to celebrate my SIL's birthday. Chops is modeled after any old-school steakhouse: dark wood interior, white tablecloths, servers dressed up in black and white (think a Morton's or Ruth Chris', rather than a more eclectic local place). Chops is a fixed-price menu including appetizer, soup or salad, main, and dessert, and for us was about $68/person + 18% service charge + tip, and reservations are strongly recommended. (our friends who had recommended we eat at Chops were shocked when we told them the price later; apparently on their half-full cruise Chops was down to $20/person) Our server, a young lady named A, is very good at her job. When we mention my wife's allergy info, A offers some excellent recommendations, including a number of things that are not actually on Chops' menu but arrive at the same time as the rest of our food. I'm pretty sure she physically carried plates back and forth from other specialty restaurants to make sure my wife had a decent meal, and for that I'm quite grateful. I myself have colossal shrimp cocktail as an appetizers (good, but hard to mess up), a Caesar salad (good, but the same quality as the one I would get at the WJ or MDR), and a 16 oz bone-in ribeye. Let's talk about the steak for a moment: when you go down to TGI Fridays and order a 16 oz bone-in ribeye, what they really mean is a 14 oz bone and 2 ounces of *sad trombone noise quality* ribeye. Not so here at Chops; the steak is enormous and marbled well enough to provide flavor but not enough that it becomes chewy and unmanageable, with a light seasoning that enhances rather than overpowers the steak. What a delight. A, rather than letting us order side dishes, simply brings out eight cups, one for each of the sides on the menu, and asks us to sample them and let her know which ones we'd like more of. I'm an enormous sucker for French fries, of course, but the cheesy tater tots are also excellent. There's enough food that we don't bother ordering a second round of sides. Dessert includes a slice of pretty good cheesecake brought out for my SIL's birthday, but I can't recall what else we ordered and shared at the table. Then it's time for the Aqua 80 show. This is a must-see, and reservations are recommended. Don't sit too close to the front or you will get splashed multiple times with water. The show takes place at night in the open-air amphitheater in the rear of the ship, and includes top-shelf acrobatics and high-wire work, dancing, gymnastics, high dives, trampolines, and synchronized swimming, all set to 1980s music (Royal must have spent a bundle just on rights to the music samples). It is easily the best show we see on the ship. Afterwards, we go to the jazz lounge and elbow our way into a standing-room only crowd to watch an informal concert where the stars of the Broadway show onboard sing covers of other musical theater songs. I particularly enjoy one gentleman's interpretation of "You'll be Back" from Hamilton, but all the theater people are very good and clearly having a ball. Then I go and lose another $100 at poker, my stupidity finally catching up to me. I resolve to delete the letter I had addressed to my boss telling her I was quitting work forever to go be a professional cardsharp on the World Poker Tour. Next up: Puerto Costa Maya, Casino, Johnny Rocket's, Cats