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Pilots and flight attendants have gone down the jet bridge onto the plane. All good signs

We are on the plane! Taking off shortly!

Very calm and easy drive across the border this morning. Zero wait at the Ambassador Bridge. From driveway to through security at DTW was only 1h 10mins. Having a coffee now and checking the app like a crazy person to make sure the flight is still on time.

I was a lucky one who got a reservation, day 1, of the Inaugural sailing. I was surprised I even had my own table as a solo. the food was good. I ate vegetarian and i enjoyed my choices. the entertainment was better and the innovation of the train car and the window screens were very cool. I had the UDP and only paid $17 for the upcharge. I would do it again with a new theme. there were 2 cars that held 24 each, 2 showings. This is the sore point because now you're fighting with thousands of people to get a reservation.

I am on Utopia of the Seas now in a Sky Junior. We do have all the perks of Sky Class, can confirm! I believe this is an excellent price point to get Sky Class without the "fancy" suites.

Have a safe and uneventful flight

Can I vote for 30% off my cruise fare?

3 nights before cruise day…blast from the past time. IFKYK

We only sail from Cape Liberty because I have a serious flying phobia and we are 35 minutes away. We are limited but like you its about getting away. We LOVE the ships and we love the cruises from here too. Can't get enough of Coco Cay. Mix it up between Coco Cay, Bermuda and Canada and we love it. We do Canada just about every year now which was a goal of mine.

I see the same. About $100 higher cruise fare, but $200 more OBC

By popular demand (I am looking at you @PPPJJ-GCVAB ) I will try to blog about our first ever cruise! First of all sorry for any typos/autocorrects from Norwegian As I am writing this we are 12 hours away from departure from Kristiansand towards Barcelona About me: For those of you who havent "met" me yet: Nice to meet you! I am Chris 39 from Kristiansand,Norway (half British as well!). I usually work with marketing and I write song lyrics. I am going on a first ever cruise together with my mom (age 63) and my 2 daughters age 9 and 10. (I am a single parent) The cruise: Oasis of the seas (WHAT a ship for our virgin cruise!) Western Meditteranean. Itinerary: Day 1 (28 of July): Barcelona Day 2 (29 of July): Mallorca Day 3 (30 of july): Marseille (they alternate between sea day and port day on day 3, our cruise has port day) Day 4 (31 of July): La Spezia (with connection to Florence/Piza) Day 5 (1 of august): Civitavecchia (Rome)- this cruise is made up of cruises from Barcelona-Barcelona and Rome-Rome, so "half" the passengers will swap on this day, so many new people to meet! Day 6 (2 of August): Naples Day 7 (3 of august): Sea day (our only sea day of the whole cruise!) Day 8 (4 of august): Barcelona Our travel plans (we are spending 3 days in Barcelona precruise, since my daughtwrs have never been there, it will be my third Time there and my moms 7th or something) : July 25th: departure 04:30 Kristiansand-Amsterdam-Barcelona. Arrival 10:25 July 26: Barcelona July 27: Barcelona July 28/day 1: Barcelona (embark ship, early, we have the key) July 29/day 2: Mallorca - Beach July 30/day 3: stay on ship, maybe a quick outing in Marseille July 31/day 4: we were supposed to do Florence but due to my daughter having motion sickness (2 hours bus each way) and the foretatt saying 39 degrees celsius, we are just going for a stroll in La Spezia instead August 1/day5: Rome like in a movie with lunch (full day excursion) August 2/day 6: Capri/Casita - my mom want to go to Capri so she is taking the ferry there, whilst me and the girls have reserved a Casita for the day August 3/day 7: Everyone is on the ship, wonder how full ut will feel.. August 4/day 8. Fly home at 11.30 from Barcelona, arrive home in Kristiansand at 17.30. I will try to make one post with some pictures from each day, starting with Barcelona tomorrow. Hope you guys want to follow me/us, and feel free to ask questions. -C-

According to the statement Delta put out earlier this afternoon, and the Points Guy (who I follow on IG), Delta only cancelled 1% of flights today and by tomorrow, they said they should be back to normal operations. Fingers crossed that by this time tomorrow, I’ll be having a margarita at Margaritaville. I am still keeping my backup flight just in case.

Right now, we prefer to cruise from Bayonne since we can drive there. So we have done Anthem multiple times going to PC, Nassau and CocoCay. For us, it's less about ports and more about just getting away. We like to "disconnect and reconnect", meaning we don't do anything related to work, don't check email etc, and just enjoy each other's company. We may nap, swim, go in the hot tub, sit and read or watch movies etc. We just enjoy being on a ship and not at work.

Thank you- I swear every room I have peered in has the beds away from the balcony!

OG delta flight checked in and on time so far

Translation: They never got the reservation from shoreside until it was too late to seat you all together. Enjoy your meal in the corner - alone.

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.

Oh yikes.... Hopefully you take off soon..

Just seen the latest results, beat the markets expectations and reinstating the dividend https://www.rclinvestor.com/press-releases/release/?id=1715

Remember to cancel the backup flight!!

There is nothing on the ballet I would vote for.

Cheers! We will be there too! We will be coming from Northern California, near the Golden Gate. We also reserved a Casita, not sure yet if we will keep the reservations. This will be the first cruise for our two kids, ages 13 and 16. They now say they want to see it all, every port, very town, every pizza and gelato there is to me had along with the culture and history. BUT the heat might have something to say about it! Anyway, we will be on the look out. We have the Key as well and Anytime dining.

Just going to round this off with the conclusion if anyone in the future has the same question and uses search. check in was midnight- U.K. time as the ship departs Southampton U.K. It was at 45 days. APP for us in the U.K. showed the incorrect date, ie 24th not 25th. As APP shows USA time, so check in opened there 5pm ( Eastern) which was 24th, and equals U.K. Midnight. Check in popped up a few minutes after midnight.

If they are staying in FLL I am sure La Bamba is on the menu

hooray!! what a fantastic trip this will be for you and your girls!! (and your mom )

@WAAAYTOOO What you say is accurate. I spoke today with a RC customer service representative and they confirmed that for the current OBC offer you cannot also leverage the Balc/Suite NRD Crown and Anchor offer. From my experience, the total cruise pricing with the promotional credit is generally more ~$100 more pp but offers significantly more OBC than the amount the C&A benefit offers. Below I pictured an example of the difference in an upcoming sailing. Also, you seem to be a very seasoned cruiser. I hope to one day have cruised as much as you.

Did I actually vote or.... is this just a ploy to get me to purchase now?

High demand means higher prices are coming.

Same here. This thread has me motivated to try one on our next Windjammer visit!

Yeah..like I said, i actually enjoyed the ship and would definitely do it again. We talked to a few of the crew and they seem to be winding down in the contract so maybe some of them are just worn out. No one was mean, angry or whatever. Some of them just seemed tired. We had a great time, I guess now that I re-read my post it sounds a little negative but it certainly wasn't. I actually enjoyed the slightly smaller ship...even on that, we still didn't do or see everything since it was a 5 day. Speaking of humans treating humans badly... We did have to go to guest services twice...once to have a drink removed from the boys account, he had a soda package and ordered a Shirley ginger thinking it was a ginger ale and grenadine but they gave him a mocktail version then charged him like 9 bucks for it. Then had to go again on the last night because we didn't get the towels back in time and got hit with the charge, I waited 30 minutes because the same two people were arguing with the two reps about charges or services and just kept getting louder and louder until a 3rd rep finally came out to help me. I told him I hope they get paid well because that's probably the worst job on the ship..no one is coming to Guest services to praise them. So he took care of me quickly, I hope. The charges already went through so he said he put in a credit card reversal/refund request for the 50 bucks. So I won't know if it actually went through for a few days.

To be fair they tried them on a small ship in the 90's but didn't adopt them for Conquest class which are the Voyager and Freedom class era of ships. They used them on their Spirit class but refrained from using them on the Dream class relegating azipods to smaller ships only until Vista in 2016.

Carnival must be absolutely kicking themselves. It's only taken ~20 years for them to acknowledge their mistake. Back around the turn of the century they decided mega ships would never work. Around the same time Royal created the concept of Project Genesis now known as Oasis class and then Royal actually built it. Meanwhile Carnival kept on building medium sized ships and avoided azipods for decades more. Carnival had a mega ship concept, then cancelled it. Cute name don't you think?

WOW ! White jacket for dinner. It's been a LONG time since I've seen that. Truthfully, I didn't even remember this until I looked at your picture. ....and that lobstah is UUUUUGE. ...and he cut it out for you. AHHHHH... ...and look at that mound of rice ! You don't get it like that anymore !! These are incredible photos, Sabrina. What a beautiful family you have.

It is always better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. Printing out a copy of the form and getting it signed/notarized then not needing it is a much better alternative than potentially being denied boarding because you didn't make that effort.

It was fun the first time I experienced it, so the new cruiser experience is a valid concept. It should stay just that - a one-time per voyage experience and the last evening in the MDR is the right time to do so. If there were a consistency to ONLY doing it that night, those of us who want to skip the spectacle could simply cut out early or skip the MDR entirely on that evening. Sadly, the unpredictability is an issue.

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!

you’re welcome

Onto happier things…FOOD! Here are the specialty restaurant menus sent to me from shoreside. We are planning to try all of them once, except Lawn Club Grill. That place seems like it would be heavy with a lot of meat, and because it’s a 3-night sailing, we would have to drop one anyway, so that one is it. One thing I already like about Celebrity is that, according to the app, specialty restaurants open on port days as well. There’s also a place called The Porch. They never sent the pdf for that, but I saw in the app that they have a lobster roll so we will be doing that for lunch too one day. Lawn Club Grill Le Petit Chef Murano Sushi on 5 Tuscan Grill

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

Jumping in to say it was great meeting Mike and his wife! I’ve been following his blogs and knew I wanted to meet him from the time I realized we were going to be on the same sailing. Felt I had 2 options to find him, TopTierEvent (not as many people) or just walk around looking for cup clips. Top Tier worked! Mike, as always, great blog and recap! I was also looking for chocolate croissants all week! Greetings to your wife!

I was actually thinking of you when I wrote that haha

I'm quite familiar with the "wife is napping, time for a stroll" myself. The only question for me is what food venue to hit and what to use a voucher on to go with said food. ELF and the attached tequila bar has been my recent go-to but it would likely be Cafe Promenade or Sorrento's on Liberty (drink along the way from who knows where). *On Oasis class those are designated as night time snacks for me since the other places are closed. Yes, my eating plans have no bounds. Obviously this, lol.

That duck was in a great spot! We were walking along the outside deck where the shuffleboards are, so I wanted to show the kid where they keep the equipment, we popped the little box open on the wall and there he was.

If you enjoy both the itinerary and the ship, there's no reason to NOT repeat the cruise.

Those pictures are beautiful. I am glad you had a wonderful day with some luck. I am always like "you brave, brave people" when it comes to white night being on Italian night in MDR.

I’ve never experienced any issues in ports regarding not being wanted. Usually I’m on an excursion-those companies sign up to have us, or I’m touring around the port-the shopkeepers and restaurants I’m sure welcome the business. If you read the article regarding the water guns in Barcelona its seems those people are blaming tourism for their high rents. I won’t pretend to understand their economy-because even where I am -without tourism-rents have become super high….but I guess that’s their way of expressing themselves? My first thought was when I go back to Barcelona I’ll just stay in the ship. However thinking about it-I’ll just do whatever I feel like when the time comes.

Not bookable yet that I can see.

If you take the bus to Blue Hole you can have lunch at Swizzle Inn and ice cream at Bailey's Ice cream shop (just an fyi cash only for the ice cream shop). Both are just down the road from Blue Hole. You can take the 10 or 11 bus out of the bus station in Hamilton.

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....

Quantum wasn't scheduled to start up until October, so Ovation will pass the baton then.