kwis29

Good morning! Before I return to the trip report, it appears we have a common Cruise Critic problem developing on this thread. You know when you are enjoying someone’s cruise report and then BHAM! You encounter a thread hijacker. It looks like I might have one of those on my thread, and he lives with me 🙂 Since Andy already covered a few of the topics that I was going to discuss, I will keep you entertained by showing our Wordle results from today. We use the same starter word to keep things competitive. (I won) Time for some pre-cruise info! Did I finish packing yesterday? No. Will I finish packing today? If I only could narrow down # of shoes and swimming suits. Maybe I can sneak a few into Andy’s suitcase while he is busy writing his next CC post! Pre-cruise travel: Alarm is set for our drive to Chicago tomorrow morning. We literally DRIVE PAST the Milwaukee airport, but we think it is worth it. I recently flew out of the MKE airport and forgot how small and stress-free it is compared to ORD. When flying out of Chicago, we park our car at Pre-Flight, always with an advanced reservation. This is particularly important when we fly during Spring Break. Pre-Flight parking has been good to us so far, so I would recommend them. Be sure to download the app, which includes a tracker for their shuttle buses. I am excited to try out the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort and explore that area. The plan is to keep things low-key when we arrive. Maybe just enjoy some drinks and dinner at the hotel or a near-by restaurant. Really looking forward to an early morning run along the beach before we head to the port. And there is a Starbucks in the hotel. What more could you want? As we said, DH and I long-time Cruise Critic lurkers, so we compiled a list of “pressing” questions that we are dying to learn the answers to once we get on board the ship. Besides the question about availability with wine and bourbon- is bar service so slow that we won’t get any use out of the premium package and will just be thirsty the entire time?! Luminae: are the entrees as weird as they sound in the descriptions? Can we order easily from the MDR? From the kids menu? (I keep reading that the kids filet is delicious!) What will our retreat host do? Nothing? Everything? What is the passenger count? Will the internet speed bring back painful memories of connecting to the dial-up internet on our landlines during high school? How many chair hogs will take over the chairs on the retreat deck? Will we run into the poles in our Sky Suite? What type of furniture will be on our balcony? Kids in the Solarium? Will I need to use my “teacher” voice? That rarely gets used during the summer. Now I really need to finish packing so I can spend as much quality time as I can with this guy before we leave:

I am sure my husband has thoughts on this that he would love to discuss!

Thanks for the reminder about access to Blu! That would be helpful when the Luminae menu isn't appealing to us

Welcome to another “live” cruise review! This is my first time, so go easy on me. Since I am a teacher, I have no pressing work to think about on this summer cruise. With all this extra free time on my hands, I thought I would try a live report. While I rarely post anything on CC, I have been an avid lurker for the past 10 years. I always appreciate the live cruise reports, and there have been some great reports over the past few months. Time to give back! Here goes nothing . . . My first cruises were as a teenager in the late 1990’s with my grandparents on Holland America. I fell in love with cruising because of those experiences and created wonderful memories with my grandparents. My husband (Andy) and I (Kelly) decided to cruise this summer to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary and our 40th birthdays. A lot to celebrate! Andy and I cruised together for the first time in 2010, early in our dating relationship. My husband tells me that he knew he wanted to marry me after this first cruise. How romantic! Since 2010, we have cruised almost every year, mostly with Celebrity, once each with Norwegian and HAL. We definitely think that Celebrity fits us best. When we aren’t on a cruise, we frequently travel to Key West and Maui, with some Disney World magic thrown in once in a while. Our last cruise was on the Equinox for Spring Break 2019. (with Captain Kate-love her! Follow her on Instagram if you don’t already) We had a big, once-in-a-lifetime family cruise scheduled for April 2020, and we all know what happened next! We contemplated returning to a cruise earlier, but could never commit. Now we are ready to get our sea legs again! Since we haven’t cruised in a few years, I feel a little like a newbie. I used to know exactly what to pack and now I am struggling. This likely means I will pack way too much, but we will have some extra space in our cabin this time . . . Because we will be staying in a corner-aft Sky Suite! Our first time in a suite! (Any tips to share for the suite experience?) We typically stay in a Concierge cabin due to location, price, extra points (not the "amenities"- those are mostly worthless to us), but we decided to splurge a bit due to our milestone celebrations this year. We have been on the Solstice (x2), Silhouette, Reflection, Summit, and Equinox. We are back on the Equinox for this 8-day eastern Caribbean cruise. The only thing we are worried about is the summer heat. We have been to Playa del Carmen, Orlando and Key West in the summer, and that heat was intense. (Will the eastern Caribbean be just as hot and humid?) Our summer weather this year in Wisconsin has been fabulous! We have been spoiled with mostly moderate temps and low humidity, nothing close to our normal hot and sticky summers. Our poor Midwestern skin will be highly protected with hats and sunscreen and swim shirts and portable fans and chilly towels. We will be fighting off the chair hogs for the limited spots in the shade. I think I have procrastinated long enough with this first post and better go back to staring at my closet. Wish me luck as I begin the packing process! I am going to attempt to include some images of the two of us from past cruises as practice for my future posts. Fingers crossed that they will work.

Can you provide a link to this announcement from HHS? I did a quick Google search and didn't find anything about this. Thank you

I did this excursion five years ago. We anchored in White Bay. You could either swim to shore or they had a small dinghy to take people to the beach (plus the bags from the people who swam to shore). Same options back to the boat. Based upon the current description on the celebrity website, it sounds like the same as when I experienced it. The description does indicate they will have bus transfers from a nearby dock if there are poor weather conditions.