Allllllllll aboard!!! Vacay day 2

Wake up early. Yup. B-fast. Delish. Return rental car & grab free shuttle. Uh huh. Arrive at Port Canaveral promptly at 11a, only to find Freedom arrived late & now we wait. Ugh. Or maybe not? Nope. We (Read: I) are fortunate enough to be a part if Royal's loyalty program so we hop into the priority line, go through security, get waived over to station 39. A few pieces of paperwork in exchange for the key to the beginning of the best cruise

After a short hurried walk, cliche boarding picture & a squirt of hand sanitizer later & WE'RE ON BOARD! Even with the delay...30 minutes including waiting.

Up to the pool deck we go & head to the windjammer, and the Florida heavens opened up! Yikes. We'll just wait it out here looking out at the Disney Dream & a itty bitty carnival ship.

Compass in hand we're off to explore our home away from home for the next two weeks.

As it turns out it poured right up until sailaway. Which is annoying sure, but it Florida. The have us a reason to head to our cabin, deck 10 balcony. We arrived to find our door decorated in love! Open the door & the decor continued! Free champs & snacks too! How romantic! Our bags arrived soon after, and I'm a nut about unpacking so with football in the background we unpacked.

A couple of things I've done different takin into account of the length of this vacay. When I cruise, by day 3 my cabin can look like a clothing bomb went off. So I've brought a popup hamper this time! For all my toiletries we bought a over the door pocket organizer, that totally keeps everything in place and in WAY easier than trying to remember what cabinet it was in that in my case it rarely makes it back to. So far I'm really pumped about my 'innovations' we'll see how they work out in he long run.

Unpacked & it's time to muster. Then the Dreamworks sailaway party, a quick bite at Sorrento's & the welcome aboard show.

The CD is Richard Spacey. He is by far my favorite CD. Had him 4 years ago & that to this day has been my most favorite cruise vacation.

Next up second seating in the MDR. sooooooooooooooooooooo in all my sailings when I've selected a large table, I've struck gold with table mates. Similar interests & age groups. Great people who I've gone to have lasting friendships with. This cruise, Royal has failed me. We're at a table if B2B-ers. You know who does back to back cruises on a regular basis? Not youngish honeymooners! Sure they seem great, but , c'mon, they're children are our age! We've decided to stick it out, because now we can use this as encouragement to go to other dining venues. We will be speaking to the red jacket MDR guy to see what I can do about week two, there have got to be more people like us right? Right?

Since I rarely sleep before sailaway day, it's off to bed and a piece if Sunday night football for us.

Tomorrow, Monday , we're at sea.

My apologies for they delay in my post, Royal wifi has been down all day.

Royal Caribbean Vice President of Commercial and New Business Development John Tercek says the world wants to come to Australia when he spoke at the Cruise Down Under conference in Cairns last week.

Tercek said Australia has a great international reputation and image and is going to see a lot more cruise traffic.

Royal Caribbean already has five ships operating in Australia between sister company Celebrity Cruises and itself.  

Tercek says the big challenege for the Australian cruise market is the expensive air fare to Australia along with the long distances the ships must travel.  Because of these distances, Australian cruises are unique in that most cruises are longer than seven nights.

Other challenges Tercek idenitifed are the odd comibination of days due to the fact the Sydney only has one cruise terminal to handle the larger cruise ships due to the Harbour Bridge being too low for Royal Caribbean's ships.

"We are growing here, we"ve been growing here, we hope to go on growing here, but the issues are there," he said.
 
However, Tercek described on-going discussions about improved infrastructure are "promising."
 
He said Royal Caribbean has two Voyager-class ships sailing in China and hopes to add more ships as that market grows.
 
"As it does grow, it is not that far to come down here," Tercek told Cruise Down Under delegates.

Happy Sunday and I hope you had a great week (and weekend)!  This week's biggest news was centered around Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship that is still under construction, Quantum of the Seas.

Royal Caribbean announced a new program called, "Quantum Experience Advisors" that will bring industry professionals in to help design the ship and ensure "every aspect of the guest experience has been maximized to the fullest extent."

The first member of the Quantum Experince Advisors is HGTV star Genevieve Gorder. Gorder is being tasked with interior design, key amenities and activities on the Quantum-class.  Thus far, Gorder has reviewed plans, fabrics, carpets and furnishings for the ship’s luxurious accommodations.

Royal Caribbean has indicated we will meet more members of the Quantum Experience Advisors as time goes forward.

Royal Caribbean News

• Royal Caribbean announced Lisa Bauer is leaving the company along with 100 layoffs.
• Should you take a cruise close to home or fly to your cruise? We share the pros and cons of both.
• Royal Caribbean is investing in their onboard internet for guest satisfaction and for bigger profits.
• Royal Caribbean's board of directors named a new lead director.
• Royal Caribbean UK launched a new game for the iPad and promises an iPhone version is coming soon.
• Considering Royal Caribbean's wine package?  Here's everything you need to know.
• We launched a new live blog series on Freedom of the Seas.  Check out the first post.

Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast

The sixth episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is available that is all about booking shore excursions.

It seems like everyone books shore excursions on their cruise vacation, so this week Matt looks at the benefits and drawbacks of booking your shore excursions through Royal Caribbean or on your own.  There isn't a wrong answer, but Matt thinks depending on your comfort level, there's some good choices to consider.

Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.

Royal Caribbean Around the Internet

Royal Caribbean posted some design tips that Genevieve Gorder shared for the home.

Cruise Maven has her list of the best 5 specialty restaurants on Allure of the Seas.

Travel Weekly has a group of travel agents assess the pros and cons of Royal Caribbean's recent restructure in the UK.

Travel Weekly also has a report that Royal Caribbean is reporting some of the Australia itineraries are not ideal because of port issues.

We're continuing our guest live blog of Stephanie's back-to-back Freedom of the Seas honeymoon cruise.

Well it's official...we're on vacation.

We made it to the airport in record time, the new JetBlue terminal in Boston is nothing short of incredible.

Gate 34. Check. The Jets official JetBlue plane. I totes thought they were kidding. So did the other 235 Boston based passengers. Some even decided to not make the trip at all. Weird. Estimated flight time, 3hrs & 12 mins. We made it under 3!!! Arriving in Orlando 85 degrees at 10:45! Yikes.

We made a ressie in advance with Hertz & we're a part of their free loyalty program so we were able to walk right to our rental for $35 one way (returning early Sunday morning in port Canaveral area). Ginorm tip...incognito windows. They keep sites from knowing you're trying to find a bargain. Our rental went from $119 to $35.

Rental on the road, we google mapped a Target on Merritt Island, and headed due east. We made the decision not to pack toiletries & sun care products.Traveling for 2 weeks, we needed more clothes than we're used to & travel toiletries prices are fixed between MA & FL. It just made sense for us plus we got some snacks. Everybody wins. Supplies procured, we found a dunkin donuts & drove to our hotel. The Residence Inn by Marriott on Astronaut Blvd. we chose this hotel due to the proximity to the port, but mostly because it shares a parking lot with our Hertz retail return location that offers a free shuttle as early as 10am!

A short bit at the pool. See picture. A much needed nap & a happy honeymoon glass of wine & we are off to dinner. We are planning on heading to the Island Waterfront Bar & Grill. According to trip advisor, it's a top rated locale. Looking forward to it. It seems to have a great selection of seafood & other food. Hubbs, who hails from the Ocean State doesn't eat seafood so while I love it, a seafood only place wouldn't be ideal for us. Other than the food, the view sounds incredible!

Looking forward to seeing Freedom in the morning and getting the meat & potatoes part of this honeymoon started.

Later.
Stephanie & Sean

Peter Compton, who changed the face of entertainment on Royal Caribbean ships for 24 years, has retired from the cruise line.  Compton was responsible for bringing ice skating shows, Broadway shows and water shows to Royal Caribbean's fleet.

Compton, the Vice President of Entertainment and Guest Services, has opted to leave Royal Caribbean to spend more time with his family. 

Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein had glowing remarks for Compton's departure, "Peter is simply the best entertainment professional the cruise industry has ever known.  He is responsible for Royal Caribbean's reputation for top-notch entertainment over the last 24 years. From professional ice skating to Broadway musicals to the AquaTheater, he constantly blazed new trails for us and the industry."

Joining Royal Caribbean in 1989 when the Sovereign class of ships were coming online and introduced large theaters with good sight lines and better facilities.  In 1990, Compton helped form Royal Caribbean Productions to enable the cruise line to customize shows.

Over the years, larger generations of ships were built and Compton was responsible for the entertainment onboard, such as suggesting the idea of ice skating shows to Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain.

Other highlights include partnerships with DreamWorks Animation and with Broadway producers that brought hits like 'Chicago,' 'Hair Spray' and 'Saturday Night Fever' to the ships.

Compton will be succeeded by Nick Weir on October 14. 

Welcome back to this week's edition of Friday Photos, our weekly showcase of beautiful Royal Caribbean photos our readers have sent to us to be featured.  If you have photos that you would like included in an upcoming Friday Photos blog post, then please send us your best Royal Caribbean photos!

Let's check out this week's batch of photos!

Christopher Pescatore sent us this photo from Oasis of the Seas on the May 18th sailing in 2013.  The Boardwalk neighborhood is so beautiful, it's hard to ever find a bad photo here.  

Speaking of the Boardwalk on Oasis of the Seas, Judy sent us this photo of her and some of her "friends".  If my daughter were writing this blog post, she would spend the rest of the post gushing over Alex the lion and King Julien.  Love those Dreamworks characters!

In the "serenity" category of photos this week, how about this photo from Maureen of Milford Sound in New Zealand, as seen from her aft balcony on Voyager of the Seas.  If you're looking for a quick mental escape, this is the photo to zone out to!

Tom & Diane Trudnowski sent in this photo from Freedom of the Seas in August.  It looks like the most epic belly flop competition jump ever.  If this guy didn't win, then there is no justice in the world.

Next we have Matt, who sent us this photo of Allure of the Seas docked in Nassau, Bahamas.  I never cease to be amazed by the Oasis-class of ships and their immense scale.

Want more Oasis-class photos?  Here's one from Gabriella, who sent in this photo of Oasis of the Seas docked in St. Thomas.  Perfect!

Victor Sacal continues the Oasis-class love fest this week with another Oasis of the Seas photo.  This is inside the ship in the theater.  I love the neon lights.

Lastly, we have this photo from John Paul of Rhapsody of the Seas.  The photo was taken in Broome, Western Australia on a 36 days circumnavigation of Australia and New Zealand. WOW! Just found something new to add to my "Things to do when I win the lottery" list.

Thank you to everyone who sent in their photos this week. Have a great weekend and be sure to send us your photos so we can post them next week by using this form.

I want to welcome Stephanie as our guest live blogger, as she will be posting daily blog posts about her experience on back-to-back Freedom of the Seas cruises as part of her honeymoon.  I hope this will offer everyone a fun insight into what happens on a back-to-back cruise as well as a honeymoon cruise.  Enjoy!

Hi everyone! My name is Stephanie & I would love to invite you all along as my brandy new Hubbs & I fly to Orlando, drive to Cocoa Beach, dine at fish lips, stay overnight at the Residence Inn, return our rental car, take a shuttle to Port Canaveral pier 10 & board Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas for our back to back honeymoon trip.

We hail from Boston. (Go sox! Go Pats!!!) In the past week, we've gotten married, unpacked wedding gifts, banged out all our thank you's, and packed for the trip of our lives together. Sure we've both cruised, but not back to back and definitely not married.

Who are we? Sean & Stephanie Cullen. I've sailed with Royal Caribbean over a dozen times while Hubbs has sailed once on Allure of the Seas. Yeah, his first ship was the biggest & bestest Royal Caribbean had to offer.

Our combined travels don't make us experts on cruising by any means, but we do love cruising on Royal Caribbean. We originally booked way back in June 2012, as soon as Caribbean routes for 2013 & 2014 were released during a WOW sale.

I follow cruise boards pretty closely and after what happened in the Atlantic & Caribbean this time of year last year, I was encouraged by several passengers stories that maybe a travel agent isn't a terrible idea.

So this cruise is my very first not booked through Royal Caribbean directly. So far, so good. Not great just good. It's little things like waiting for your documents because they're supposed to send them to you, and the old style sticky luggage tags they they're supposed to send to you too. Royal Caribbean is so self service. Having to wait/follow up has been a bit annoying BUT if (knocking on wood) we need re-accommodation she'll be doing it for us & we can simply continue our vacay. So while its been a bit of a slow process, peace of mind comes fast and free.

This kind of is a cruise of firsts for us, besides the aforementioned firsts, this is the first cruise where I've booked a non Royal Caribbean excursion (!) & one some islands haven't booked a thing while on others I'm re-doing excursions done before.

So here we are Friday morning. We leave for Orlando in the morning and while I've had my suitcases collecting all the ideas of what I want to pack, I still have the actual packing to do... I'm really looking forward to sharing this trip with you all.

Please follow along post some comments or questions and I'll do my level best to get to them & get answers.

Later. Stephanie (And Sean too)

Royal Caribbean's global sales and marketing chief, Lisa Bauer, is leaving the cruise line.  Bauer has been one of Royal Caribbean's most publicly recognizable faces and has served in key roles in Royal Caribbean's senior management.

In addition, 100 lower level positions are being eliminated in an effort to reduce corporate bloat.  The number represents less than 2% of the cruise line's land-based employees.

Bauer has worked for Royal Caribbean for the past 11 years and she's been a major part of Royal Caribbean's sales, marketing, hotel operations and product development and execution.  She also played  a big role in the development and marketing of Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, as well as the fleet-wide revitalization that is currently ongoing.

With Bauer leaving, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein will be taking a more hands-on role in the international aspect of the business, and Bauer's former employees will now report directly to Goldstein. They include Dominic Paul, Vice President and group Managing Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa; Carol Schuster, Senior Vice President marketing; and company veteran Diana Block, Vice President revenue management.

At Royal Caribbean's board of directors meeting today, they named its first lead director, William L. Kimsey.  Kimsey is the former chief executive officer of Ernst & Young Global, Ltd., has served on the board since 2003 and is Chairman of the company's Audit Committee. 

As lead director, he will be the liaison between the board's non-management members and Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain. He will preside at meetings of the non-management directors, will advise and approve the content and scheduling of board meetings and discussions, and will be available for discussion with major shareholders.

The board of directors also adopted changes to its bylaws as a result of which candidates elected to the board will serve one-year terms, and will stand for re-election annually thereafter, effective with the slate of directors to be elected at the company's 2014 annual meeting. This implements a proposal adopted by shareholders at the company's May 2013 annual meeting. 

Hey all! Thanks again for your fantastic reviews and comments about our new Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast!

Just wanted to drop a line to let you know that the sixth episode of our Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is now posted and ready for downloading!

In this episode we look at booking shore excursions and the advantages and disadvantges of booking them through Royal Caribbean directly or on your own via a third party.  We also share some of our reader's favorite shore excursions and answer a few more listener emails!

Click here to go to the Podcast page for Episode 6. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS or on iTunes!