h20skibum

You can make Royal all inclusive. You just have to add about $150 a day per person to do it at their current prices.

This one will be more to explore the new ship, rather than the itinerary. I have heard that Princess has better Alaska itineraries, so I will look long and hard at doing one of those with them. I did look at a couple Celebrity sailings for the same time period, and it became a toss up between Sun Princess and Celebrity Apex. Apex had ports we like and a couple we hadn’t been to before.

They had an Oasis sailing, departing the same date, and the same number of days for a western sailing. The Oasis sailing for an OVB at midship was within $20. The difference was, for essentially the same price as the Oasis sailing, I booked the top category of the OVB with the Princess Plus package that included drinks up to $15, WiFi for both of us, and tips included. It also came with $200 OBC. I know I will be following some of the early reviews when it starts sailing. Given this is a brand new ship, it wasn’t a difficult choice, although I did feel like I was cheating on Royal. I looked at a Wonder sailing the same time, and it was $1,000 more, and you still wouldn’t have any extras. Princess doesn’t have a status match with Royal or Celebrity, but it doesn’t take long to move up their tiers.

We booked 7 nights. Sun Princess is still being built, and sails in 89 days. We booked the Princess Plus option that includes drinks, WiFi, and tips. We got an OV cabin on the midship bubble. It looks like it will be about the size of Odyssey or slightly larger. This ship does look like they may be trying to capture more families with a few of the kid related things. And the dome looks like an interesting venue. From our prior Princess sailings, we both thought their food was better than Royal. Definitely, their pizza was. We will have to see if they are doing any cutbacks like Royal. We were on longer, smaller ship sailings, and their entertainment was similar to Royal, or Celebrity smaller ships. I guess I would expect their entertainment to be similar to Odyssey. I may have to do a comparison review, since we will just be off three Oasis class sailings before this one.

I read that same article. It did have a breakdown My question is, how is homeowner’s insurance so much lower?

It has been a couple busy days for me, interacting with the medical community.. Yesterday was my annual wellness check up, and I still know how to put numbers on a clock and show the hands properly. Today, I had a stress test that was scheduled by my cardiologist. I never had one before, and was shocked when the hospital called and said to plan on being there for 4 or 5 hours. I found out there was a lot more involved than just hopping on the treadmill. When the nurse had me take my shirt off so she could hook up all the wires, she said I looked really fit and should have no problem with the treadmill. Made my heart feel good, because I have been working at it since my grandson went home. Now the wait till next week for the results, but they say I did good. So after all this, what to do? I came home and booked that Princess cruise I was looking at. The new Sun Princess in January, 2025. I may actually get some of my cruise excitement back. We have sailed Crown, Coral, and Grand before, and it will be interesting to be on their newest ship.

That would have been nice. We booked three OV balconies beside each other, and we are taking our three grandkids along, as well as our daughter and her husband. It will be the first time cruising for all of them, except for my daughter. We took her on a cruise when she was 10 or 11, and she got really sea sick. We finally convinced her to take one of these short cruises on a big ship, with a port every day. I hope it works out well. Everyone else has been begging to go on a cruise, and I think the grandkids will have a blast. Our plan will be to take our California grandson to Disney for a few days, either before or after the cruise. Since our daughter and her family were there last year, and plan to stop this Christmas to see the lights before joining us at the house, they will be off to do something else. I hope the water park prices go down before the cruise. Everything for those early Utopia sailings is high.

We have Utopia on August 2.

And here I was hoping to see some sale prices for our August cruise, when we are taking the grandkids along. Somehow, I don’t think those are good sale prices.

I guess August cruises are not really on sale. Yikes.

Check your cruise planners. The Black Friday sales are live now.

That is a good price for beach club. The sale is live for some of our cruises. Just booked beach club for $113. It was at $216 for a long time.

We have sailed Princess a few times before, but our last time was five or six years ago. The new ship looks to be just slightly larger than Odyssey, and some of the venues look interesting.

Our Thanksgiving plans are already set. In fact, yesterday I was building a new, light weight tabletop for our Thanksgiving dinner. We are having 14, so that means I will be cooking two turkeys. Menu is already set.

Before this year is an 8 night on Symphony, sailing to Aruba, Curacao, and Labadee. Our after is a short 3 night on Allure, going to Coco Cay.

Our trip to Florida for the holidays hasn’t even started, and our daughter wanted us to book one of the houses we had a couple years ago for 2024/2025 Christmas / New year. So now, next year is booked, and we got it for the same price as the last time we stayed there. I think they like repeat guests that don’t cause any problems. Once the dates were booked, I started looking at cruises. We like to cruise either before or after a stay, or both. Of course last year we had only the stay, and canceled the cruise because of what was going on. This year, we have a cruise both before and after. Looking at cruises December 2024 and January 2025, and the offerings are not too appealing. Royal’s prices are still crazy high, IMO, and that had me looking elsewhere. I am intrigued by the new Sun Princess that starts sailing in February. An OV balcony on. 6 night Western sailing on Oasis, with no perks, is the same price as an OV balcony 7 night Western sailing on the new Sun Princess, and it comes with drinks, tips, and WiFi. I think I know which way I am leaning.

In case anyone forgot, go out and vote today. I was #16 at the polls this morning, and Susan was #17.

When I go to that on my iPhone, it is working fine.

I am logged in all the time as well. I received this email from CC last Thursday. I am just thinking they are working on that portion so that they do not inadvertently expose everyone’s email addresses when they make the switch. Mine shows the same message as you and OB see.

Maybe it is related to their change to require use of email address to log in, instead of user name.

Now this really makes me feel old. I just got this email notice today, that this was the date of my grandfather’s birthday. He was born 138 years ago. I remember, when I was a teenager, I recorded him reciting some poems he had written. I recorded it on a reel to reel tape deck. At some point, I transferred it to a cassette. Now I just realized I should probably transfer it to digital format while I still have a working cassette deck.

We have walked the glass floor in the CN tower in Toronto, and the glass floor in the Tower bridge in London. I don’t think Susan has put both feet on at the same time. It is interesting that one of the restaurants in our area has a glass floor over vats for craft beer. They went a little further and added a cracked glass effect on a couple of the panels. You should see the people avoid walking on those. I know I have a photo somewhere, so I will have to look for it.

We sail on Symphony about a month after you make port in Port Everglades. It will be our first time on Symphony, but we have sailed all the other Oasis class ships. I have a feeling it will be packed for that sailing right before Christmas. We were spoiled by those reduced capacity sailings coming out of the pandemic.

After eight years of using a Fitbit fitness tracker, I finally moved to an Apple Watch. I got the new series 9, because I didn’t think the new release would be on Black Friday sales, and I got this one, almost free. Susan and I had participated in a two year heart study. As part of the study, she was in an Apple Watch group, and got her Apple Watch for $50. I was in an iPhone only control group, so no cheap watch for me. However, we earned points that let us convert them to a Best Buy gift card. So the gift cards essentially paid for this watch. Only used it for a day so far, but I like the features it has. I had to modify the watch face to show steps and distance, as well as other things I am interested in.

We were out to dinner last night, after doing yard work. Saw this in the parking lot. I always wondered how how obstructed your view would be, driving this. Since it is seasonal cocktail time, I tried the honey apple crisp. A drink and desert all in one. Main course was mini filets and shrimp in Cajun sauce seasoning.