Josh's Weblog

Not Everyone Likes Cruises, But We Do

A year ago around this time, Misty, the kids, and I recreated our wedding and honeymoon by cruising the Caribbean again on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas. One of the pictures from that journey, shown in the “We're Home!” entry, was sought by the Wall Street Journal this week for an article on cruising. I saw that article posted today. I'm a subscriber so I can read pretty much anything on the site, so I'm not sure if that article is visible to the general public.

I'm a little surprised that Stan Stesser didn't like cruising on Freedom as much as I did. For example,

I don't know about Stan, but we traveled with family. When you have kids with you, we don't focus on the emphasis on casinos, liquor, and vapid entertainment. The kids loved the ice shows, magic acts, and cruise activities. Heck, how much fun is it to do a Halloween Parade through the largest cruise ship in the world? As for being all dressed up with nowhere to go, I recall that I went to the midnight dessert buffet wearing a bathrobe still wet from the hot tubs under the stars on the upper deck. While they like you to dress up in the dining room it's not some oppressive disaster, it's a chance to get good pictures to remember the cruise by.

Stan did learn some things about cruise life on his tour though.

While it's entirely true that you can get a lot of of excursions, I don't see why he didn't see the tremendous variety of things to do that I did with my family. In his article he complains about not being able to go into Haiti when he visited Labadee (where we sat on the shore, played in the water, and jet-skiied our hearts out), but he did go to the same Tulum Ruins we did and seemed to enjoy it. Still, calling the excursions “liberation” makes the ship seem oppressive, which is outside of my experience.

Another surprise was that Stan didn't like the food! In the main dining hall I never had anything I didn't like. Sure, the Windjammer buffet was a buffet, but in general cruising is a delightful experience leading to significant weight gain.

Still, I can understand how Stan's experience was different than ours. It seemed he traveled alone, in an inside cabin, whereas we traveled with family and friends and made sure we had a balcony.

Beyond our cabin we also had a chance to use Adventure Ocean (a floating classroom for the kids), the Wave Rider, and hundreds of other things we generally enjoyed. If you find something you don't like there's a lot of other things you can try. Stan found something I didn't in the deck chairs with reading lights, so I guess I didn't explore enough!

Stan's article is a good read, and covers his excursions far more than his ship. Go ahead and read his perspective, but keep in mind that Freedom was a heck of a lot bigger and more interesting for my family than it was for him.

Update: I didn't realize it before, but this entry was my 1000^th blog posting.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Saturday, Nov 3 2007 09:33 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas, Montego Bay

When you peer out from the terminal building in Montego Bay, Jamaica, this is what Freedom of the Seas looks like, towering over your head:

It's more than a little imposing.

The massive ship still doesn't feel all that crowded, except when you are leaving on the last day and the US Customs computers are having a problem…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Thursday, Nov 16 2006 04:03 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Random Jamaican Rest Area

Our bus ride for “Best of Jamaica” included a brief stop at a random Jamaican rest area. It was beautiful.

Sometimes white, sandy beaches get boring. I really like this shore:

Now, this particular tour was supposed to be a short guided tour bus trip taking us to a yacht that sailed down this coast to the foot of Dunn's River Falls. We were supposed to walk up the falls, lunch in Dolphin cove, perhaps do some shopping, and come back. Instead it turned into 2 hours of riding a bus to Dunn's River Falls, only an hour to walk them (we got rushed out, and as a result one of our party twisted her ankle), a few minutes to shop, a lunch at a hotel (which was nice, but we wanted Dolphin Cove), a short ride on a boat for no particular reason other than to sell us hair braiding, and another 2 hours in a bus to come back (late).

Shorex (Royal Caribbean's excursion partner) did partially refund our money, but we still came away from it with no pictures on Dunn's River Falls except a DVD they rush-printed for us while we visited the nurse to make sure the ankle wasn't broken.

The tour guide was very helpful, as were the rest of the staff, but I'd have to say it was a disappointing day in Jamaica.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Thursday, Nov 16 2006 03:18 PM  |  Permalink  |  2 comments  |  No trackbacks

Montego Bay, Jamaica

In contrast to the previous entry, notice right away that Jamaica has mountains.

We didn't see much of Montego Bay, as we immediately boarded a bus to visit Dunn's River Falls and other items near Ocho Rios, where we had landed on our previous cruise.

Here's the terminal building which we whisked through in each direction. When we returned we had delayed the ship. Because we booked the tour through the ship they did not leave without us.

More on the particular tour, “Best of Jamaica,” later.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Thursday, Nov 16 2006 08:52 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Grand Cayman is Flat

Unlike many of the other exotic locations we visited on this cruise, Grand Cayman is a flat island:

You'll see with upcoming posts how much more mountainous Jamaica and Haiti are.

Update: I forgot to mention that the structure hanging over the top of the picture is the starboard cantilevered hot tub which hangs out over the sea. Those were the only hot tubs I used on the cruise and I loved them. In addition, Freedom filters its pool, flowrider, and hot tub water, making it the only cruise ship afloat without salt water in its features.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Thursday, Nov 16 2006 07:26 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Early November in Grand Cayman

Most of my pictures in Grand Cayman come from disposable underwater cameras, and my scanner software seems to be completely broken. I have no idea what broke it either, but it no longer works on any of my computers in the house.

So I offer you a picture of Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, with Navigator of the Seas peeking out from behind it, with unfortunately gray skies (click for the full size picture).

I took this shot from the “Seven Mile Beach” where we ate lunch and played in the sand after visiting Stingray City and did some snorkeling on the coral reef.

The kids did not visit the stingrays in our last trip through Grand Cayman but we brought them out to see them this time. Everyone was afraid of them at first, but Alana quickly grew to like them. Ryan stepped on one and cut his foot, so he ended up not liking the experience.

If I ever fix my HP scanner software, I'll post underwater pictures. (I have more costume pictures, too!)

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Thursday, Nov 16 2006 07:07 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Pirate Girls Too!

Ryan was only one of ten pirates in our crew (and we were hardly the only guests dressed as pirates). Here are the girls.

These shots are all from the parade of children in costume through the Royal Promenade on Freedom of the Seas.

As I said before, I'll work on getting group shots posted soon.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Friday, Nov 10 2006 07:55 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Pirates on Freedom of the Seas

I'm having scanner problems at the moment or I'd post more from Freedom of the Seas's first Halloween cruise. For now I offer Ryan the Pirate:

I have plenty more pix, but I need the scanner for the group photo!

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Friday, Nov 10 2006 07:10 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Tulum Mayan Ruins and Xel-Ha

We boarded Freedom of the Seas in Miami, Florida and our first stop was Cozumel, Mexico. We directly boarded a jetboat from the ship and zoomed over to Playa Del Carmen, and an hour later the bus dropped us off at the ruins of the Mayan temple at Tulum:

We got to wander around for a bit before a short trip to nearby Xel-Ha (pronounced “shell ha”) to play in the water:

Then we got back on the bus and zoomed back to the ship.

Of course, we were just getting started. He were on Freedom for its first Halloween. More on this later!

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Tuesday, Nov 7 2006 10:13 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

We're Home!

Royal Caribbean fixed things for us, we came home on Delta yesterday. Here's a taste of the upcoming review of the October 29, 2006 sailing of Freedom of the Seas:

It was the 22nd sailing of this latest largest cruise ship in the world…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Tuesday, Nov 7 2006 01:44 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

MIA

There's a reason Miami International Airport has the code “MIA” and we're sitting here waiting on standby for some way to come home. More later.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Sunday, Nov 5 2006 11:32 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Evacuating Lebanon by Cruise Ship

The United States has 25,000 citizens in war-torn Lebanon and plans to evacuate them by cruise ship (hat tip to The Washington Note):

Later in the article the Pentagon indicates the Orient Queen, which usually carries 750 passengers, will do the heavy lifting, directly protected by a destroyer and our nearby fleet.

Being protected by a destroyer and a aircraft carrier notwithstanding, isn't a cruise ship a big juicy target for terrorists? Not anymore than usual, perhaps, and Hezbollah probably doesn't want direct involvement of the United States in Lebanon, but it does give me a bad feeling. Al Quaeda thrives on destabilizing situations, committing acts of mass murder, and hoping any response from the U.S. will turn Islamic opinion against us.

However, one has to see the point. A cruise ship can carry a lot more people than planes and smaller craft can. 25,000 is a big number.

July 18 Update: The Pentagon has ordered five US warships into the area for escort duty, but the cruise ship itself was stopped at the Israeli blockade.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Politics, Terrorism” Monday, Jul 17 2006 10:07 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas has a Godmother

Looks like Royal Caribbean selected Katherine Louise Calder (of Portland, Oregon) as the Godmother of Freedom of the Seas. I voted for her, so I'm glad. I suspect a lot of people voted for her due to her intense activity as a foster mother (over 400 foster children in 27 years). Seems like a nice lady.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Thursday, Feb 23 2006 07:34 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Fox News While You Cruise

Today's “Political Diary” from OpinionJournal is particularly full of good tidbits. This one is for those who like to cruise and hear the news (I prefer to avoid the news when I cruise):

Liberal talk show hosts are gnashing their teeth over the latest evidence that the Fox News Channel is becoming ubiquitous. Cruise ships are finally crying uncle after years of listening to passengers complain about the unavailability of Fox News on shipboard TV. The Maritime Telecommunications Network plans to put Fox News on its global satellite system, where it will be available to 119 cruise ships.

I don't remember if they had Fox News one a half years ago when I last cruised, but I remember looking for the camera showing the prow of the ship when I used the TV.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Tuesday, Apr 5 2005 12:11 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons to Go Cruising Again, Number Eleven

(Photo by Josh Poulson)

John McEnroe searches for another photo opportunity in Labadee, Haiti.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Tuesday, Mar 15 2005 01:57 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons to Go Cruising Again, Number Ten With a Splash

(Photo by John McEnroe)

Belly flop contest on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Saturday, Mar 12 2005 09:12 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons to Go Cruising Again, Entry Nine for Jamaica

(Not sure who took this picture on an underwater film camera…)

Somewhere on Dunns River Falls, Ocho Rios, Jamaica. In this photo are Clarence, Katherine, Josh and Misty.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Friday, Mar 11 2005 11:49 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, Entry Eight

(Photo by Dan Sweet)

Another shot of the Voyager of the Seas, anchored at Labadee, Haiti.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Monday, Mar 7 2005 09:51 AM  |  Permalink  |  1 comment  |  No trackbacks

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, Entry Number Seven

(Photo by John McEnroe)

This is the swimming area reserved to adults on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas. We sat in the hot tubs in the shade (they would be off the left side of this photo) at least once.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Sunday, Mar 6 2005 02:52 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas Deck Plans

Destination Oceans has a lot more information on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas:

1. Introducing Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas
2. Freedom of the Seas Staterooms and Cabins
3. Freedom of the Seas Deck Plans

The introduction page has much of the same data we've seen everywhere else, although they should update the maiden voyage date. The first cruise with passengers is June 4th, 2006. That cruise is already sold out.

The cabin pictures and descriptions do look new (you can see the flat panel TV), although the virtual tour wasn't working when I tried it this morning. Of course, no cabins have been made yet so the pictures have to be a mock-up. The data on the other cabins appears to be pre-release quality as well, since the Royal Family Suite should certainly sleep more than 2–4.

The Deck Plans look like Voyager of the Seas. I'm not sure what to think of them.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Saturday, Mar 5 2005 08:25 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas Sells Out

The June 4th, 2006 maiden voyage of Freedom of the Seas sold out in five hours this morning. I'm booked for much later in 2006…

Operators on the phone did not have deck plans but were able to find rooms close to one another through the computer reservation system.

On the cruise I selected, I got the last balcony stateroom available on the ship and an interior stateroom across the hall.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Monday, Feb 28 2005 03:38 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas Update

This morning I got a email from Royal Caribbean about Freedom of the Seas reminding Crown & Anchor Society members that come February 28th they'll be able to book rooms on this ship before the rest of the general public. We didn't get any new pictures, but we got a few teasers.

That stuff we already knew. What we didn't know was the cruise route:

Freedom of the Seas will be sailing year-round, 7-night Western Caribbean itineraries from Miami. Ports of call will include Cozumel, Mexico; George Town, Grand Cayman; Montego Bay, Jamaica; and Labadee®, Hispaniola. So basically, we'll be ready to set sail to tropical paradise whenever you need a vacation.

This is almost the same cruise as when I got married, except in the opposite direction!

They remind us that more pictures and details are forthcoming, but that's all we get for now. Deck plans will be coming in March.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Thursday, Feb 24 2005 08:06 AM  |  Permalink  |  3 comments  |  1 trackback

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, Sixth Entry

(photo by John McEnroe or Dan Sweet, at this point all of their work has been mixed up in my storage)

Sometimes a reason to go on vacation again to inflame fond memories. I have no idea what the joke was that Dan made at this moment, but clearly we had different reactions to it. Obviously I liked this a great deal better than when we were doing portraits standing on a anthill.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Wednesday, Feb 9 2005 01:49 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Crown & Anchor Benefits Table

Some folks like my tables I've done (for example, on this blog I did a table on Washington gun bills, or the schedule at nwsafe.org). So, here's my attempt at a table that shows the Royal Caribbean Crown & Anchor Society benefits:

I won't be able to use my normal greenbar on this table, though, since the color of the rows corresponds to membership level.

This club is for Royal Caribbean cruisers, 18 years and older. The main things to remember is that you need 1 cruise credit to become a gold member, 5 to become platinum, 10 to become diamond, and 24 to become diamond plus. The benefits below are cumulative (which is what made their table hard to read, you couldn't tell what you would be getting at the next level).

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Sunday, Feb 6 2005 12:02 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Freedom of the Seas

Filling out my forms for this year's upcoming cruise I ran across a Crown & Anchor Society photo and essay contest where the prize was a cruise on the Freedom of the Seas, a ship that's not set to sail until April of 2006. It got me curious, I needed to go look this one up.

Turns out Freedom is the anticipated name of the “Ultra” version of the Voyager of the Seas that we cruised on in 2003. It's to be the largest cruise ship in the world, surpassing Queen Mary 2. Now, I selected Navigator of the Seas because of my experience on the gigantic Voyager so now I gotta get onto Freedom.

Some of the features I look forward to sampling some day are the shipwide cellular coverage and Wifi access. That's a dramatic improvement from the 56K dial-in offered to me onboard Voyager in 2003. Folks might have noticed I was hard to reach for that week, because I just didn't bother.

They also make a big deal about the global use of flat-screen TVs throughout the ship, included all 1800 staterooms. That will certainly reduce some of the bulk in the cabins. However, they also point out that they intend to increase cabin space in other ways as well.

cruises.about.com has the full press release and some more information.

2/10/05 Update: I found pictures of the keel being laid at Cruise News Daily

Also, it appears that Crown & Anchor Society members will be able to start booking on Freedom of the Seas starting February 28th, 2005.

Amazon.com links:

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Saturday, Jan 15 2005 03:30 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  1 trackback

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, A Fifth Entry

Well, I'm not getting married again, as much fun as Alana thought that was, but it was certainly the highlight of the last cruising. Misty's friend Katherine is performing crowd control in this scene.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Sunday, Jan 9 2005 12:20 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons To Cruising Again, Fourth Entry

On Voyager of the Seas this buffet is called the Windjammer. This was lunch on our first day at sea. (This is also the first time I've included pictures of Alana and Ryan on these pages. Hopefully it will be okay.)

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Friday, Jan 7 2005 09:44 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, Entry the Third

We saw this beautiful trimaran on our way out to see stingrays at Grand Cayman.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Tuesday, Jan 4 2005 08:58 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, A Second Entry

Yes, it's my wife Misty! She had a blast playing with dolphins and stingrays.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Sunday, Jan 2 2005 01:42 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Where the Cruise Is Going

(Map from Royal Caribbean's itinerary from my cruise reservation…)

Last time we did

• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
• Labadee, Haiti
• Ocho Rios, Jamaica
• Grand Cayman
• Cozumel, Mexico (where we got married)
• …and back to Florida.

This time we are doing

• Miami, Florida
• San Juan, Puerto Rico
• St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
• Philipsburg, St. Maarten
• Nassau, Bahamas
• …and back to Florida.

Maybe if we do another one some day we'll do the Southern Caribbean. However, even one cruise every other year looks like it will be a lot of work.

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising” Saturday, Jan 1 2005 12:10 AM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks

Reasons To Go Cruising Again, First of a Series

(Voyager of the Seas, shot by me from a tender as we stopped in Labadee, Haiti, November 2003.)

This Christmas I informed the family we were going to go cruising again. Not right away, but in November of 2005. It's always better with lots of warning. Already we've begun the budget, the weight loss program, and, of course, we have ammunition for New Years' Resolutions…

Josh Poulson

Posted in category “Cruising, Pictures” Friday, Dec 31 2004 08:50 PM  |  Permalink  |  No comments  |  No trackbacks