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We have about 4 hours left of our flight. We all passed out for a bit but now awake and probably not going back to sleep because I don’t want to throw off my schedule too much tonight. Now seems like a good time to sum of some of my final thoughts. To echo what many of you have already said, from beginning to end, this trip has been nothing short of amazing. It is hard to put into words how incredibly grateful we are to have had this opportunity with the girls. Something we will all cherish for the rest of our lives. I was just going through all our photos earlier and Barcelona was only two weeks ago, but yet seems like ages ago. So this trip has felt long, but yet also whizzed by if that makes sense. We thoroughly enjoyed our time here, despite the heat, and the messed up shore excursion, it’s just all part of the memories now. And we cherish them all. As a family, we have come to several conclusions. We will be very careful when picking where to go in the future during the summer months. The last few days in Rome were pretty rough with the heat and I think if we were going to head to the hotter ports of Europe, we would wait a few years and do it in the cooler months. The heat and the massive crowds do make it less enjoyable. If we were to head back to Europe in the next few years before I retire, then we would do Northern Europe itineraries instead. We loved our experiences with LivTours. I am now convinced that for “must see” destinations, private tours is the way to go. The flexibility and the speed at which you can move is worth it. And it really is like having your own local person taking you around, they know all the tricks and things to avoid, right down to which water fountains to avoid (because of lines) and how to move through the crowds, and which restaurants have AC lol. And LivTours is a fantastic company to work with in pre-planning as well. I think that is all for now. Thank you all for coming along with us. The more the merrier. I am sorry that in the last few days I was only able to update at the end of the day. It was just the nature of the day long tours and the exhaustion that followed. I am happy though that I managed to keep this blog “Live” and not fall off. I have never done that before and wasn’t about to start now I will admit it was challenging though this time. We are exhausted, but we are so thankful, and Hubby and I are off again in one week from today!

Pretty gross menus for a new ship.. JK..my espresso laced drink got a bit fiesty..I am responsible for this art project.

I am on my way to the port. I see why you shouldn’t fly in the day if your cruise. There was an IT glitch all flights were grounded. We only had to wait 30 minutes. I was praying hard for a miracle.

Well the mall trip was perfectly timed because somehow i busted the zipper on my favorite shorts...so a trip to Gap and nice new pair of khaki shorts later,I'm back in business. We ended up just doing Ruby Tuesday across the street from the mall... we sit down, and someone walks up to our table and says "is your name Scott?" My wife is like umm...who the hell do you know in Elizabeth NJ,lol. Turns out it was a couple from the FB group of our sailing and her wife recognized me from my profile pic. My son now thinks I'm Facebook famous and my wife just thinks I'm crazy. Watched a great lightning show from our room over the city to end the night-bed time! I'll probably check back in from Sorrentos after we board tomorrow!

Final thoughts: The ship was nicer than I expected, I see a lot of "it's run down and outdated" comments, but I honestly didn't notice. There were a few things that could be updated-the public bathrooms were just odd, a lot of the men's rooms had one urinal and one stall, but the doors to the bathroom opened up to the hallway, so when the door was opened, it was a clear shot of the guys at the urinal. My Wife said some of the women's rooms only had a single stall,- so you had to go through the main door, then lock that unless you wanted someone trying to open the stall door while you were in there. A few of the auto sliding doors to get to the outside deck on four were a little slow or delayed and our bathroom light took a little trickery to open, but other than that- I thought the ship looked great, It's a really beautiful ship. The promenade is nice, the casino is a bit tight- especially since you have to cut through there to get to the other side of deck 4 unless you go along the outside. Oh yeah, we were on deck two forward. You can only access the FWD cabins of Deck 2 and 3 via the forward elevators, so that was a little hassle, nothing major, but kind of a pain to get to the room from places like Windjammer or the dining room, where we'd have to go down to 4 or 5, walk across then take the other elevator the rest of the way down. We found that out the hard way on day 1 when we wandered around deck two trying to figure out where the hell our room was, lol. The shows were all good, Saturday night fever was really fun, the juggler was way better than I expected and the comedian was hilarious once he was doing the 18+ show, he struggled during the PG show. The ice show started slow, but it started rocking at the end and turned out to be a fun show. Food was good, like really good. We enjoyed every meal this time around, and tried Giovannis lunch for the first time- which was an amazing meal. The Filet was perfect, the service was great. We will definitely do Lunch there again next time. The service in MDR was just ok, they took our order, dropped our food then that was it. Never really had any kind of conversation with them or any real connection. Our kid was a little let down, but that's because our last cruise MDR server was AMAZING, he still talks about Edgard and compares any server at any restaurant we eat at to him, ha. The only time we talked to the server more than a few words was, of course the last night when he reminded us FOUR times during the meal to make sure we give them good reviews. Service on the ship - it was good and most of them were friendly, we just weren't blown away. There was one bartender who we really liked, he remembered everything we drank even when we saw him at his secondary bar in the theater, and actually talked and conversated a bit. Most of the staff just seemed to be there to do the job, usually with a smile, so no real complaint-just not overwhelmed by it. I think if it was someone's first cruise or we did this ship before the Oasis cruises, we'd be blown away- but that last cruise on Oasis was just so good and everyone was so insanely friendly and went above and beyond, we just got spoiled. Bermuda was AMAZING and we already plan on going back- especially since they announced cruises would be sailing from Philly to Bermuda starting in just over a year... that's a $15 uber ride from my house, so we will definitely be trying that at least once!! We would absolutely do Liberty again (or try one of the other Freedom class ships). It had everything we needed and enjoyed the pools and bars. I liked the slightly smaller feel, but we all missed having the boardwalk area- that seemed to be the only thing all three of us mentioned at least once "this would be a great time to be hanging at Playmakers on the boardwalk". So our next two cruises will be our first Non- Royal cruises, Princess from NYC without the kid, then the MSC from Miami with him. This is the first time we left a cruise without laying a deposit down at NextCruise.... we are still trying to figure out whether we want to do Symphony from NJ, splurge a little and do a B2B on Utopia or go all in on MSC and try the ship they have out of NY. Thanks for coming along, logging in and out of wifi all week made it a little more of a job than I wanted it to be, but I think I hit on most of the important stuff.

In honour of bringing it back to where it all began, photo drop circa 2002, pardon the early 2000s fashion San Juan boarding, and proof that I was not always a suite snob

And this is exactly what we did! It was a pretty great day, got a lot squeezed in. We took the ferry to Hamilton, walked around a few shops on front st then walked over the the bus depot like 2 blocks off of the main stretch. We thought for sure we'd have to wait for a 2nd bus, it was jammed but right as she was about to close the doors, she said she rad room for three...and even though we were still about 20 deep in line, we were the only party of three...having just one kid comes in handy sometimes! So after a tight, windy ride..got off across the street from a gas station, walked a little through some paths and boom...there was the blue hole, beatiful blue water with a little viewing platform. Lots of people cliff diving off the side, we chose to climb down the pretty rough rocks and slide it...no one wants to see pasty old Scott diving. After all three of us waded around,and the boy snorkeled a bit, we walked around Tom Moores jungle a bit. My kid Found the cool little cave that I've seen on many YouTube vids, so that was pretty awesome. Definitely glad we decided to make this little trek. Got some ice cream at Bailey's right up the street, hit the Swizzle inn right across the street so wife could try the rum swizzle while me and the boy changed out of our wet shorts in the bathroom. We bought an all day pass for bus/ferry transport so we jumped another bus right across from the Swizzle back to Hamilton. Did some shops, grabbed a pretty expensive lunch at the Irish pub (Flanagans)..then decided to ferry back to the dock yard. We missed the ferry by minutes, so we could wait another 1.5 or grab the bus...so we took the hour long bus ride back. At least we got to see some more of the island that way. The locals on the bus have all been super friendly..definitely not like riding the bus back home,lol. Did Italian night dinner...never realized how many people participate in White night, the dining room looked like an asylum with all those white shirts and jackets! Wife and I ended the night with the adult comedy show, and like expecting..he was MUCH funnier without the censor. Heading out this morning for a glass bottom boat ride, the I guess we'll finally check out Horseshoe bay since that seems to be the "must check out" thing here. Assuming it will be a mad house since a second ship docked this morning,we were alone yesterday. I'll do a big photo dump when I log into wifi...I'm up on the top deck using regular cell service and the pics are taking forevvvver to load. For now, heres one of blue hole

The Pesky Parrot is getting WAAAY more business than that stupid robo thing. GOOD decision to get rid of it.

So remember that Plan B refundable flight that I grabbed this morning? Well it went down $500. So I just cancelled and re-booked it. Hubby said, "Wait a second, so now you are price adjusting a back up flight?" old habits die hard lol

Did you try 1234 ?

Just I was leaving I ran into someone doing "research". Couldn't even figure it out using Wikihow

Forgot to mention last night in Mason Jar my server was from Trinidad. I mentioned my Uncle (Jamaican) married his wife(from Trinidad). We talked a little more. I said my auntie name. My Aunt is his cousin. I am going back to exchange information. How small is this world? I called my Uncle and confirmed the family last name.

Tied for 1st in TV Show Name That Tune & I got the tiebreaker (King of the Hill).

Room photo dump..Owners Suite 18612. There are plenty of photos out there better than mine and not moved into..but at least I tried.

She was still here when we got back from CVS. Soooo many coupons! CVS was an ordeal because I can't leave money on the table My mother wanted round Band-Aids because apparently they only make square ones now and those aren't the right kind. We found CVS had round CVS brand bandages so we went there and after 10 minutes of deliberation she decided the round ones weren't big enough and she didn't need that many and she would just use the regular bandages she has and cut them. She also needed mouthwash. It was $4.99. My AmEx card has a spend $5 at CVS get $5 back offer right now. Of course there's no taxes on mouthwash in Florida but... I checked the red CVS ExtraCare coupon machine and it spit out a trail of coupons longer than I am tall with a $2 off any $6 oral care coupon! So then we had to find something to get the total over $7 for that coupon plus my $5 kickback effectively making it all free. My mother refused to pick something she wouldn't use even though it was free and would result in her mouthwash being free. So minutes later she finally found the perfect toothbrush and the total after coupons ended up at $5.28..so net $0.28 and I got points for the purchase. Of course the CVS receipt came with a $3 off $3 purchase coupon I HAD to use (expired before we'd be back from the cruise). I went back in and worked some magic and ended up with 2 deodorants (with aluminum IYKYK) and 2 travel toothpastes that was $19 before coupons and I paid $5.36 and will get another $5 AmEx credit. Also got a $3 ExtraCare bucks that I have until August to use.

It’s the continuation of our “small ship summer” and time for just Hubby and I. We have successfully taken our kids for their Euro summer, and now it’s time to ditch them for some real relaxation time lol. As many of you know, our first cruise was our honeymoon cruise, and since then, we have always tried to sail for our anniversary. It’s just what we do. This sailing not only are we celebrating our 22nd anniversary, but it’s a bit more special in the sense that we are returning to where it all began, on Adventure of the Seas! We have not been back on Adventure since the summer of 2002. At the time, she was Royal’s newest and brightest, and I remember we were in such awe upon boarding. Adventure is where we fell in love with cruising. While I may not be a small ship gal anymore, she will always have special place in my heart, and we are looking forward to Saturday. How did Reflection fall into the mix of this? Over the last two years, I have been getting more and more curious about X. I know that @Millenialcruiser and her Hubby sail X a lot and it always looks like my vibe on her IG stories. Modern luxury, right? Then, over Thanksgiving (2023), @AshleyDillo @CGTLH and their Mom sailed on Apex. That was what finally did it for me. I wanted to check it out for myself. However, by this point, I already had Adventure booked and we got a great price, so I was not going to pass it up. A 7-night sailing on Beyond was out, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might be better to start with a small X ship. Why? Because if we start sailing X more regularly in the future, I would likely be disappointed to go from something newer and shinier like Beyond back to Reflection. In my mind, it would be like starting off on Wonder and then trying out Mariner. Better to start small, then go bigger. So, I started looking at dates for Reflection that I might be able to match up with the AD sailing. Lucky for us, RF is doing 3/4-night sailings for the summer and the dates match up perfectly that we can swing a S2S. I watched prices for a while and the booked the 3-night while sailing on Icon inaugural.

Someone requested a live blog...you know who you are. Someone requested a joint blog with promises of contributing....you know who you are. ... current situation ... Wouldn't be my first choice for a nap..but at least it's shady.

4 days before cruise day…time to flashback to a day when the MDR was amazing, and quality and flavour were a true 10! Oh, and at the time, the WJ was not too bad either. Look at the flowers they used to have on the tables!

So while the wife was napping and the boy wasn't up for doing much, I ended up checking out the ice show on my own. Not gonna lie,it started out slow..I was pretty close to sneaking out,but then it switched "eras" and the last 20 minutes was all Stones,The Who, a little Elvis, Joplin...so it actually turned out to be a fun show once they eased their way into it. So I'm glad I got it in, saw a lot more shows this time around. Pretty laid back day overall. Finally got everyone moving by dinnet...Caribbean Night. Not a favorite, but I really enjoyed the pork bao tacos and roasted chicken. Both of my adventurous others got NY strip,lol. I totally forgot pics but this was the only night that the steaks came out kind of dry and over cooked. After being stuck through the THREE song staff dance and announcement, we blew outta there. Did our packing, got the bags in the hall and then me and wife went to her first Crazy quest. Our Cruise director,Danny Turner was really good all week...swear he was at every single show and activity we attended. He was really good, but just slightly more subdued than Elvis was during the Quest. Made a few raunchy comments but NOTHING like the last one I did. I also didn't participate in this one,where the last one I was definitely more involved. Capped our night off at Schooner bar, which turned Into our spot most of the week. Definitely the best of the bartenders, the one guy always worked the theater bar then made his way down to schooner,so he got to know my order by day 2 and always had a white wine and sugar free red bull waiting..had to tell him to chill on the red bull at a certain point each night if I wanted to sleep and not have my heart explode,lol. Right now it's 640am, literally crossing back under the Verazanno bridge so we are just about back to Bayonne. Thanks for coming along, I wish I spent a little more time in details with the various pics and what not, but i will do a little recap/review of the ship and port when I'm on my real computer tomorrow. The Scott special, a really cool looking storm behind us, ice show, sad library and belly flop contest

So far the food had all been really good this trip. Desserts have been great, that warm chocolate cake and cream puffs have been my favorite. Yesterday was a little more relaxed, we had the glass bottom boat ride which was fun. The captain was hilarious, and it was a small group of maybe 10 people so we had plenty of room to gather around the windows below deck. Got a nice history lesson, got shown the official corner of the Bermuda triangle and went right over a ship wreck which was full of fish and coral. After that we planned on doing Horseshoe beach, but it looked a little overcast plus with the NCL ship in port, we knew it would be absolutely packed so we decided that's our excuse to come back again (especially since we'll be able to sail here from right down the street from our house soon!) So we did a little souvenir shopping at the port mall and some of the stands. Then we walked back to the ship...dropped the wife off because she wanted to relax at the pool, and me and the boy went back out to the big mini golf course on the other side of the port. It was fun, beatiful views, but SOOO HOT. I was dripping by the time we even started. Got my butt whooped, then we headed back with about 2 hours until all aboard. Decided that no one wanted anything on Mexican night, so we did our first WJ dinner. The boy was happy because they still had grilled steak..then he had about 6 jello cups... wife had salad, grilled chicken that she thought was great and some mashed potatoes, I grabbed a fajita which was just ok, little light on the filling...a few slices of strip steak, a burger, a dog, some fries and a few ranger cookies. Don't judge..I had no real food up until now, we didn't do breakfast and I think I had a slice of pizza in between boar ride and mini golf, so I was ready to eat! Wrapped up the night at Saturday night fever at 945. Glad we went, that was a really fun show. Great production and the dancing was amazing in some parts. Realized we went to the theater every night this cruise, but I think we saw it once total in the past two cruises on OA. Definitely made it a point to do some more shows and live acts this time. Oh..I did hit the casino one more time once they both called it a night, lost a few bucks hut played for a bit so I always consider that an ok night. Going up to do some family mini gold competition with the boy soon then Quest tonight! Here's a few boat ride and mini golf pics... We've gotten two towel animals and not sure what either one is... so I posted them both for your opinion

Almost 500 B2B

Now that I had three plates and took some to the room.

We shall adventure that way shortly..had to make sure the Suite Lounge is the typical 11-11 beer/wine rules..for research. And there are snacks..my mother has to ruin her lunch first. My pretty...

Who else can say they (crew) dropped an entire tray of full champagne glasses upon his entrance to the Promenade other than @Matt Hochberg?

This mug is making everyone lose their minds..Pesky Parrot is shoulder to shoulder waiting for them to restock. They were asking if anyone actually wanted a drink..I felt bad so when in a tiki bar...

We are on the plane. All set for an on time take off! See you all back in North America. I am going back to bed. Probably need to sleep for days to catch up

Who passed out hard after Izumi last night The late nights and early mornings finally caught up with me. At least I was up early enough for Coastal Kitchen breakfast this morning. I always get the Baja Eggs. They are always different on each ship/sailing. It's a surprise what comes every time

So many questions... This has been floating around the face books but I have yet to luck into this elevator.

Okay..Horrible at adding anything live or remotely specific to Utopia…Had much better luck in the casino yesterday. Dancing Drums trio in the smoke free casino was recycling pretty well. Lots of fu baby attempts. Dinner at Gio’s was good. Filet was perfect. Had a pizza there day one lunch that was a bit limp but good and saw quite a few last night that appeared the same. Note to ask for extra crispy. Totally random stuff Breakfast in MDR not bad and we found our old friend working there. Not many people there early. Peanut butter pina from the parrot did not fail to impress. No mugs available… The railway station sign is pretty interesting just to watch the old school mechanical signage change.. Day one the line for reservation went to the opposite side of the corridor. We had no plans to even try. Maybe December… Casino bar ran out of olives and couldn’t make martinis in the afternoon until dining room staff arrived. Had to have Kraken instead… The misery of it all. Allure was with us in coco cay today. We seldom go ashore here but decided to go on a walk about.. ran into some bar staff friends on the island from both ships that we hadn’t seen in a while. Ship is great with the new ship smell and all. Casino ventilation is great. Fire boat escort into Nassau this am. Heard mention of fireworks on our departure.. Construction continues for the beach club… a few pics

Just back from Mason Jar. The food and country band were awesome. I had to tell people yes West Indies people like country.

Pesky Parrot mug insanity brought to you by eBay... https://www.ebay.com/itm/256578063515

Brian has arrived. He is Marty from Icon's cousin.

Current situation...on a ferry from the Bermuda dock yard to Hamilton. We have no concrete plans...might just walk around Hamilton, might hop a bus to the blue hole/Tom Moores jungle or might go right to Horseshoe. Bought us all day passes for the ferry and busses, so we can jump on and off all we want. I love having no all aboard time, so we are just going with the flow today. Probably try lunch and some ice cream in Hamilton. Tomorrow we have the glass bottom boat early, so today is "free choice " day. View of Liberty from the ferry....

Then there was the frat party. Kids these days

No midnight balloon drops. We get 99 Red Balloons. (99 is a rough estimate.) The inaugural crowd is leaning little more nursing home than South Beach. I'm not sure this is how the typical World's Biggest Weekend was imagined.

We met the family in the Ultimate Family Suite. Their youngest is a teenager. It's their first Royal cruise and first cruise since their teen was little (Disney). They've been properly WOWed and are drinking the Royal Kool-Aid.

Second lunch... Thanks Jason Liberty!

Home for the next 7 nights... Day 1 swag. Ship was empty last night so rooms were ready on boarding...always a nice bonus for the inaugurals.

Playmakers was good as always. There was almost too much bacon on my burger (if that was a thing). Not too much else to share. Like most recent cruises, we almost went to The Quest then decided to be pre-vintage and skip it. Today should be fairly similar to yesterday as far as (lack of) plans go except it’s tiny lobster night.

The burgers in the Windjamer taste like they contain about 20% beef, the other 80% may never be known.

Your hubby will love what my hubby and best friend did when they walked out onto the main floor of the Colosseum, they yelled "Are you not entertained?" The rest of us made sure we were quite a distance away as to not be associated with them. We could hear our guide say "Stupid Americans." over our headsets.

A few WJ items from Mexican night… Butter chicken (my favorite Indian item), just happens to be on the Mexican menu. Chimichanga Mexican street corn Iced mudslide cookies from the kids section. Never saw those before. They had iced chocolate chip a couple times on past cruises.

It's powered by the tears of Crown and Anchor members who wanted Utopia on longer itineraries.

It went great! We had 9am...met up in the theater and snuck right out with the 830 folk. My car was like a mile away,so the porter brought our luggage to the corner of the parking garage, then I hiked the mile (ok not quite that much..) to my car and looped back around to pick everyone and everything up. A lot of people on the FB group complaining about disembarking, but we were off the ship and on the NJTP in maybe 30 minutes.

Tonight ended at the craps table where I won everyone else money and had no clue what I was doing...World's Best Weekend!

That means a lot coming from my mentor-bot Some credit has to go to Hubby. Each day, he had to filter through pics to send to me. That was a lot of work too! It was a lot of work this time! But I enjoy it, and I do it for our little community here, but also for myself. I think I have mentioned it before, D15 and I like to go back and re-read these to remember what we did. It also might be a good time to put in a little disclaimer, pardon any typos up until to this point. Mostly all was done on my phone, and I am getting old, so my eyes are starting to struggle with small print, and I feel like I was half asleep (from sheer exhaustion) while typing some of these entries

Kind of a boring day...did lunch at Giovannis then just kind of relaxed for a bit, hit the hot tub for a few then dinner. We just came back from a juggling show which was actually really good, guy was funny and has performed at all kinds of big events and TV shows. Definitely better than we expected. Took it easy today and probably an early night before a full day in Bermuda. I'll dump some lunch pics for ya...it was amazing, the filet was perfect..thr chicken was good and desserts were awesome

This is how you party in the Windjammer.

Solarium Bistro breakfast… Wife had oatmeal and we found almond croissants (2nd choice to non-existent chocolate) to take back to our loungers with some toasted streitzel/cranberry/raisin/whatever bread. I’m a big fan of that bread but I’ve seen so many names for it on the little sign on different cruises I never know what to call it.