Live! Jewel of the Seas B2B October 20, 2023 to November 9, 2023: A Canada & New England Adventure with Dragon of the Seas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Internet has been a little iffy. I’ve gotten knocked off two or three times when I’m just posting to Facebook or cruise critic. I haven’t tried to watch a Videos of any kind. 
 

I would think the signal will be fairly strong in our cabin. We are on deck, three directly below the Voom Internet center.

 

I tried to edit the posting just above because the emoji’s messed up the line spacing. But it kicked me out every time I tried. But it is a sea day and I imagine lots of people are on their phones and laptops.

[hopefulcruiser11]

I’m here for your journey! We are jumping on in Quebec for the second half of your cruise

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Here is our position. You can see all of the ports in the first map and our route better in the second one. 
 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

There was a lot of discussion on the FB group for this cruise about hiding ducks and hoping to find ducks. There must be a couple hundred ducks 🦆 being hidden.

 

I am terrible at finding them. I have only ever found one. 🥲 On one cruise a friend gave me a pity duck. 
 

From my gift exchange I got three of them.  The large crochet duck took lots of work. I brought the skeleton duck to put on our cabin door on Halloween 🎃. 
 

yep, it is silly—but I will be on the lookout just the same. 
 

[BND]

37 minutes ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

There was a lot of discussion on the FB group for this cruise about hiding ducks and hoping to find ducks. There must be a couple hundred ducks 🦆 being hidden.

 

I am terrible at finding them. I have only ever found one. 🥲 On one cruise a friend gave me a pity duck. 
 

From my gift exchange I got three of them.  The large crochet duck took lots of work. I brought the skeleton duck to put on our cabin door on Halloween 🎃. 
 

yep, it is silly—but I will be on the lookout just the same. 
 

Haven't seen any ducks but don't really look. As for internet, it varies. We're going so slow right now. I think the Captain is trying to stay behind the storm which is moving out plus Boston isn't that far from NJ 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

13 minutes ago, BND said:

Haven't seen any ducks but don't really look. As for internet, it varies. We're going so slow right now. I think the Captain is trying to stay behind the storm which is moving out plus Boston isn't that far from NJ 

Yes, I noticed earlier we were only going 10.7 kts and thought that was very unusual. 

[Biker19]

Just now, DragonOfTheSeas said:

I noticed earlier we were only going 10.7 kts and thought that was very unusual. 

Nope, normal speed on that route.

[BND]

At least the seas are calm. I overheard someone talking about how rocky it is lol. It's not. Maybe 4-5 ft seas and not rocking.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

54 minutes ago, BND said:

At least the seas are calm. I overheard someone talking about how rocky it is lol. It's not. Maybe 4-5 ft seas and not rocking.

I was delivering some gifts from a gift exchange this morning on the forward cabins, and I was surprised how much rockier it was there than our cabin, which is very near the centrum. And last night shortly before we went to bed, there were two or three, rogue waves, because all of a sudden a closet doors started opening and closing. But then that was it. I thought that was kind of unusual.
 

 

but I agree this has been a very calm ocean so far. The people are complaining about the motion of the ocean on this cruise. They should be in a storm. Ha ha ha.

Edited October 21, 2023 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

One interesting bar is the pitstop. It is just outside the cinema location. It has lots of TV screens and around bar. I would think this is going to be really popular come World Series games. it seems a little empty right now.

 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

DH and I decided we were going to make a donation to the cruise ship. So we headed down to the casino.

 

The interesting thing is they made the announcement yesterday, that none of the outside decks will be smoking decks with the only place to smoke on the ship is in the casino. It’s not very busy right now and it’s not very smoky but I’m not sure what it’ll be like later in the cruise when people decide they want to play.

 

 

 

 

[Coralc]

I would much rather smoke outside, than inside. That doesn't make any sense? 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I wasn’t listening carefully to the announcement when he made it, but he made some reference to this was a trial. So it may be just for this particular cruise or it may be that they’re trying and in general for Royal Caribbean I don’t know, but I agree with you outside is better than inside. 
 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Welcome to Boston. Here are just a couple of shots that I can take from the ship. We are docked at what used to be known as the black falcon cruise terminal now it’s the Flynn terminal.  We are right across from Logan airport.

 

 

there are two other ships with us here on this dock. We have the serenade of the sea and then this small ship that I can’t read the name.

 

 

and here are two city views. You can see that there’s still a lot of green in the leaves so maybe will be able to see some color. We were worried that it was gonna be past colorful leaves on our stops.

 

 

 

[BND]

13 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

DH and I decided we were going to make a donation to the cruise ship. So we headed down to the casino.

 

The interesting thing is they made the announcement yesterday, that none of the outside decks will be smoking decks with the only place to smoke on the ship is in the casino. It’s not very busy right now and it’s not very smoky but I’m not sure what it’ll be like later in the cruise when people decide they want to play.

 

 

 

 

That announcement was only for when we were taking on fuel (bunkering). Otherwise the outside smoking locations are available.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

15 minutes ago, BND said:

That announcement was only for when we were taking on fuel (bunkering). Otherwise the outside smoking locations are available.

Thanks for the clarification. I don’t want to provide that information as I said, I just heard some of it. I was not in a place where it was easy to hear.

[Thesandman12]

11 minutes ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

Thanks for the clarification. I don’t want to provide that information as I said, I just heard some of it. I was not in a place where it was easy to hear.

Since you are on the ship, out of curiosity, how is the Crown lounge working out, not that it makes a difference. Looks like some changes have been made, appreciate the pictures. We board next Monday. We like the ship and it looks good from your shots.. Take care have a good first part of the cruise.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

8 minutes ago, Thesandman12 said:

Since you are on the ship, out of curiosity, how is the Crown lounge working out, not that it makes a difference. Looks like some changes have been made, appreciate the pictures. We board next Monday. We like the ship and it looks good from your shots.. Take care have a good first part of the cruise.

We didn’t go up to the Crown lounge on our first night. But we did go last night. They had a nice snacks out. Shrimp, meatballs, hors d’oeuvres, etc. Several waiters took drink orders. You had to use your card to count against your drinks that are complementary.  they had opened up the partition to the Viking Crown lounge. Which is called the vortex on this ship. 
 

 

we did not go until after 6 o’clock. We specifically picked that time so early dining passengers would have left. That usually makes the lounge less crowded. And there were more than enough seats for everyone.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I took a taxi with another couple to the Quincy market. I like that star because you can see the national park service, Faneuil Hall, the Quincy market, and the ships at Long wharf. 
 

DH and I have been to Boston many times. You can believe that since we’re both history people. So there’s really nothing that we NEEDED to see today but it’s such a beautiful day. I had to be out and look at the water.

 

 

 

you can see that some of the trees here are green, but others are pretty colorful. 

 

Quincy market is a good place to go if you’re hungry or if you want to buy some souvenirs. On the outside of the building are lots of little kiosks but they’re still in closed. So even if it’s a rainy day this is a good place to visit you. Inside you’ll find some fast food type restaurants just about anything you could possibly want to eat. 
 

 

 

[BND]

2 hours ago, Thesandman12 said:

Since you are on the ship, out of curiosity, how is the Crown lounge working out, not that it makes a difference. Looks like some changes have been made, appreciate the pictures. We board next Monday. We like the ship and it looks good from your shots.. Take care have a good first part of the cruise.

Heavy pinn and d+ onboard. 88 pinns and 270 or so d+ so they had to limit. We've been in both nights. We come around 6 so some have already left. We're with friends so we end up in Vortex section. Seems the entire VCL is the lounge. They check cards. Service is very good.  Lounge is still labelled diamond. Sign hasn't changed. Top 20 pinns have SL/CL access with suite guests. We know someone who does.

 

Also food is much improved over our cruises since restart 

Edited October 22, 2023 by BND

[DragonOfTheSeas]

46 minutes ago, BND said:

Top 20 pinns have SL/CL access with suite guests. We know someone who does.

 

Also food is much improved over our cruises since restart 

I read on another thread that the top 20 pinnacles have access to the suite lounge. I just think that’s curious. It’s certainly a way to reward those pinnacles who have earned pinnacle two or three times over. 
 

I do feel that the food is generally good on the ship so far. But there have  been a couple things that were not. The chicken sandwich on yesterday’s lunch menu was very dry and the tables near us all left it totally on their plate. One table even called over the maître d’. to show him.

 

DH planned to order that, but after he heard them talking, he picked another entrée. My pulled pork barbecue was good.
 

 

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Here are a few areas for activities around the ship. The first one is the sport court that is used for basketball and pickle ball. This morning at 9 o’clock when I was getting ready to leave the ship there was a couple out there playing pickle ball. I was impressed. 😊

 

 

thr rock climbing wall

 

 

they are changing the Astroturf on the putt putt golf course. So it’s closed right now.

 

 

This is the children’s water feature and play area
 

Edited October 22, 2023 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

The history teacher in me couldn't help myself.  HaHaHa

 

Here is a map that shows the area of Boston in 1630. [dark green] You can see it was a much smaller land mass. You can see how small the neck of land that led to Boston was and why they needed to be warned that the British were coming.  All of the light green has been filled in since then to enlarge the city.

 

 

This is Boston now.  The red line is the Freedom trail.  It is very walkable as long as you can handle brick sidewalks. There are red bricks embedded in the sidewalk so you can follow along.  It is a 2.5 mile route if you want to do the entire trail.

 

I got this map from a sign near Faneuil Hall. From there to Boston Commons is a very doable walk.  We take an Uber/taxi up to the USS Constitution.

 

I saved my pics of Faneuil Hall for this history posting.  Peter Faneuil was a very rich Boston merchant that made much of his wealth on the slave trade. [here is sidewalk marker]

 

 

He built Faneuil Hall and gave it to the city.  It was the site of many important historical meetings, especially during the times leading to the Revolution.

 

[Not my picture] It is a National Park Service site. [no fee] It has a nice gift shop [covers the entire first floor] and public restrooms. 

 

OK--I'm done. 😁

Edited October 22, 2023 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

My last stop was long wharf. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to Uber back to the ship.  The taxi out was $20 + tip. [which I shared with another couple] and the Uber back was $15 including tip.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by DragonOfTheSeas

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I am a big fan of sunset pictures. But I don’t seem to be able to get any on this cruise. It was a beautiful sunny day but now the clouds are rolled in. This is as close to a sunset picture I guess I’m gonna get.