Rewind

Escape room was open end of May / first of June this year. There is an extra charge, something like $10-$20 per person. You can book through the App once you get onboard. Johnny Rockets is an upcharge (haven't eaten here personally). I am pretty sure it's a set fee upcharge and then all you can eat. Drinks should be included with a refreshment package but that won't cover Milkshakes. Schooner Bar is the piano bar, always filled every night. OH - look for the stowaway Piano player. He is on the move and won't be in any bar. I think I've got some pics of him in my recent live Mariner review.

Yep - got Gold on MSC for being Diamond on Royal. We are taking our first MSC cruise in October so thought I would apply; only took 20 minutes to get a response.

But...... it was a Transatlantic. 🙂 I'm trying to remember where they were from. I know it was somewhere in the US and if they drove to Barcelona... well I have some other questions for them.

Oh - I found the picture:

According to MSC, my request was submitted at 7:38am and I received the approval of my status match at 8:06am. I am now Gold status with MSC.

Just submitted my match request for Royal Caribbean Diamond. I'll see how long it takes.

We did a TA back in 2015 on Allure that was over Halloween. There was a costume parade / competition down the Promenade and voting on the best costume. I don't remember much but there was one lady who brought a full victorian hoop dress. It looked great but my second thought was "how in the heck did she pack that in her luggage"? Seriously, the bottom hoop was about three feet in diameter.

Was on Mariner at the beginning of June in an interior. Easy access to the HDMI port and we had the official Samsung remote provided to us... But I didn't try plugging anything in. I did hit the source button and got that menu but without something plugged in, it was grayed out.

This one?

Was also on Mariner just a few weeks ago (Bahamas then Bermuda cruise). We had to leave Bermuda early to avoid the tropical storm... The App was updated decently when our itinerary had to change. As we were sailing into bad weather, the CD staff had to plan new events as the outdoor decks where closed. It was then that it clicked (that I should have known earlier) - the events on the app are controlled by the on-board staff. They are the ones that need to update it. Also, knowing Royal's IT department to take an educated guess - I think that the printed Compass and the Royal App are not populated by the same database. My guess is that someone on board has to manually enter the events into two locations to print the compass / update the app. Our cruise had a pretty well updated schedule in the App, but it is true that you need to hit the update button inside the app to get the most current activities.

Was just at CocoCay and when we got onto the dock saw a thin cable running down from deck 4 to a small little telephone box on the pier. Made sense later while sitting on the beach that both ships extend their network to CocoCay and CocoCay doesn't need it's own.

Couple years old, but quick gross tonnage comparison:

Back home and have a few videos to share:

(and I'm purposely putting this in a new post) Debarkation was a cluster this morning. As we had plans we were self carrying out luggage. We waited in our stateroom so we don't congregate, and when it was announced the ship was cleared, we headed down to deck 4... where there was already a line from the ramp onto deck 4's track, into the ship, into the dining room, around the back past the galley, back through a side door to the track on the other side of the ship. We were tag #1 but I swear everyone just decided all at once to exit. And to make matters worse they were only running one ramp to the port at the time (20 minutes later they opened the second ramp). They should have called numbers but they did not. Although they did hold up the line of people who had already been scanned off the ship to let The Key persons off. On the plus side, here is a quick peak of the galley on deck 4 where the line snaked past:

We did a full day at Kennedy Space Center, went to the Apollo building first thing which avoided crowds. Came back from that "tour" and walked through the Atlantis exhibit and then through a few more exhibits. After KSC, we drove to Playalinda Brewpub for dinner, had a good burger and flatbread, then off to MCO to turn in the rental car and camp at our gate for our flight.

It's a combo Hampton Inn / Home2 Suites. It's one building but has two wings. There are two breakfast areas and the doors outside have two card readers (one for each brand) but it's all accessable between each other. It was a very nice place to stay.

Last time I saw Atlantis was June 28, 2011 sitting on the launch pad fueled for the final space shuttle launch. It was amazing to see it up close.

There was a peek-a-boo bridge window on Explorer when we sailed on her in Jan 2020. But they are always changing things.

We have a late flight tonight, going over to Kennedy Space Center for the day.

Arriving in Port Canaveral!

An additional crew member and 6 more passengers have tested positive for Covid 19.

We received a refundable credit for $5.33 each because we had to leave Bermuda a day early.

We went to see The Alley Cats do-wop Acapella group. Very entertaining and funny. I do need to preface the accompanying picture. The cruise director came out to do the introduction and informed us that two of the group JUST made it yesterday (all aboard was 5:30 and they made it to the ship at 5:25) but their luggage did not... same as another who joined a couple days ago. So the outfits are a bit varied: And yes, while we were waiting for runners yesterday, we saw two of them in what they are wearing in the pic (except for the gold jacket).

Noon announcement - a few crew and 4 passengers have tested positive for Covid. We left Bermuda early and are sailing south back through the Bahamas so that we can go around Tropical Storm Alex.