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Posts tagged ‘cruising’

Florida 2026, Day 07

Day 7, Porto Plata, Dominican Republic

At breakfast in the main restaurant this morning, we meet Amanda and Chelsea and have fun travel conversations. Amanda is a Consultant and Chelsea is an RN. Walking back to our stateroom, I come across the marker in Central Park that marks the center of the ship!

The gangplank opens at 10 AM. We get off and walk the mile of docks and shops to get into the city of Porto Plata, Dominican Republic. Walking around the city reveals interesting sights and streets. It doesn’t appear safe to wander far from the tourist attractions. We have been told the same from people who know this area.

About a mile of walking brings us to the “Umbrella Street”, with a canopy of colorful umbrellas.

Next we find the “Pink Street”, ‘Paseo de Dona Blanca’ where every wall and doorway is pink.

We walk around a large plaza, inquiring about restaurants that serve Conch, having never tried this. All kinds of tourist activities are happening. A ‘cool’ ice cream store grabs my camera’s eye! Caribbean music plays from a small band in the square.

We come across a Cathedral and my camera drags me over for a couple shots. There is no tourist fee to enter this one.

We are told of a restaurant that serves Conch. After much searching, we find it and get seated. Then we are informed that they don’t have conch today. Bummer. So we search some more to no avail.

Back to the ship it is, but not before stopping for a couple of rum drinks to cool the body and soul! A fun pair of bartenders helps keep us entertained! We even find a shuttle that takes us the last mile of docks to our ship!

Back on the ship, we don swim suits and relax in a hot tub. With muscles relaxed, I dry off and walk to the back of the ship to watch us leave port. I find some empty chairs at the back of the ship and sit back. Not knowing what time we will depart, I actually fall asleep for an hour or so. The ship horns wake me as they announce our departure. I wait for the ship to turn around but it never does. The ship is too big to turn around in the harbor! This is the first time I have witnessed a ship back all the way out the channel into the open ocean before it turns around and gets underway.

Back in our cabin, we prepare for dinner in the main dining room.

Florida 2026, Day 05

At Sea

Day 5 (day 3 on ship) Today we have breakfast in the Buffet where I promptly find the Omelette Bar! Here, you don’t wait at the bar, but I am given a restaurant ‘beeper’ that sounds a signal when your omelette is ready. Tummy satiated, it’s off to explore this humongous ship.

What do you do when you come across a Merry-Go-Round on a cruise ship? Well, you ride on it, of course! Then a kid on a Zip Line flies overhead! We find the Aqua Theater in the back of the ship that we will attend later tonight. And a display showing how a Hobby Horse is made!

We find the “Ultimate Abyss” slide on the 16th floor near the back of the ship. It is a 10 story dry slide that drops you to the 6th floor in 30 seconds. So of course we have to ride it! It is a double slide so Elee and I race to the bottom. I barely eek out the win amid complaints that, “Mine wouldn’t start”, and “I got stuck at the beginning”, yadda, yadda, yadda, LOL. But it was nothing less than thrilling!

We find our way to the “Royal Promenade”, a shopping and entertainment ‘street’ that runs most of the length of the ship on Deck 5. It is impossible to even tell you are on a ship! We find a bar on Deck 6 that overlooks the Promenade and order a couple of drinks while we sit and people watch. Before we know it, a Pirate Show begins among the people milling about and approximately 30-40 entertainment crew put on a show that takes up 100 yards of the Promenade, full with pirate ship props and shark fins floating along the floor. Costumed swashbucklers of all kinds perform to the crowds delight and it seems that by random luck, we have positioned ourselves perfectly to observe the festivities!

We are overlooking a set of fountains that sprays water through colored lights while the pirate show takes place all around it. Elee steps away for a few minutes to use the facilities and when she returns, she exclaims, “When did the Fountain turn into a Bar?” I had been so busy focusing on the show that I never noticed a full on bar, the “Rising Tide Bar”, had dropped down upon the fountain from Deck 8! It turns out that it drops and rises several times per day and you can go in the bar while it is in motion!

The show concludes and a couple arrives with a travel version of the game, “Rummy Cub”. They invite us to join them and we play a round of the game. Our latest new friends, Donna and Randy, from Fort Lauderdale and Philadelphia and quite congenial and friendly.

We wander around more of the ship, even the elevator wells are something to look at! We end up in our cabin where we don our swim gear and kick back in a hot tub on Deck 15. After which we find a bar in the Promenade hosting a Travel Trivia game. We join in the game and don’t do as well as we thought we would but it is fun anyway. The bar is offering Happy Hour Margaritas and we imbibe some more!

We have already made dinner reservations in the Solarium Bistro where, true to their word, Maitre de Salem and Chef Alicia make and serve us complimentary Filet Mignon. Waiter Adhi from Bali takes great care of us and the meal is fabulous! Tonight, Elee joins me and we go back to the Globe & Atlas to listen to the guitar player, Ana. We take up residence at a table for 4 and before long, a brother and sister, Chris and Angie from Minnesota join us and we have another fun evening making more new friends!

At 10:30 PM, we attend the “Aqua 80” show in the water theater at the back of the ship. We made reservations for this show at home before we even left. This show is comprised of high flying aerial acrobatics and high diving from 6 stories up, all while the ship is in motion! Spectacular athletes perform all kinds of aquatic stunts and a few of them even fly over and behind the audience on aerial trapezes!

It is now midnight and tomorrow is a Port Day, so back to our stateroom we go!

Florida 2026, Day 03

A really big boat!

Day 3: We wake and walk to breakfast at the same breakfast food truck of yesterday. Here we order ham and cheese croissants, mine with scrambled eggs. We now meet Debbie and Jeff from Minnesota and have a fun chat. We order an Uber and it arrives at 12:30. It’s less than 5 miles to the ship but it takes almost an hour. Sure enough, as we were warned last night, there is a marathon in the area today and traffic is snarled. We had heard about it from Stefan from Quebec who also dined with us last night.

Our Uber driver, Tomas, is pleasant and gets us to the ship around 1:30 PM. We have an easy time boarding and we are on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas in no time. Now to get to know one of the largest cruise ships in the world. Passenger capacity is about 6400. We’ll definitely be getting our steps in! We have a Stateroom with a balcony overlooking “Central Park” in the interior of the ship!

The ship is enormous! Somewhere along the lines of 12 swimming pools, water slides, 2 surfing pools, countless restaurants and bars, theaters galore including the 3 story theater in the front. Shops and stores.

I get some photos on deck of parts of the ship and the harbor as we depart Fort Lauderdale. I must point out that this is my first trip without a camera. I am only using my new iPhone 17. It will be interesting to see the caliber of images I capture.

We choose to have dinner in the main restaurant. We wait in line and are soon escorted up two levels to our table. Dinner consists of crab cakes, escargot, prime rib, and cheesecake for dessert. Decadence! We book a comedy club for later and continue to tour the ship. There are countless activities to do on the ship, but reservations are needed for most of them, even the free ones.

Tomorrow will be the first Port Day. We will add the Bahamas to our growing list of places visited. Got to get up early so I’ll bid you good night! Enjoy some photos of the ship with the surfing pools, a miniature golf area, an outdoor BBQ/Smoked Meat Restaurant, antique car, swimming pools and even the, “Bionic Bar” where robots will mix you a drink!