Day 2: Boarding Day
Friday, March 7, 2025 

Cruise Compass
MDR Menu: Welcome Aboard
Today’s Weather: A nice clear day today, with temps in the upper 50s.  Should be about 60 for sail away.

I had a TERRIBLE night.  Did not get a wink of sleep, so dragging a bit.  Also worried a bit that this could become a flop-sweat day as a result, so packing a spare shirt (and a tee shirt to use as a sweat rag) if needed.  Finger crossed I won’t need them!  (Thankfully, did not!)  What I WILL need, unfortunately, is new deodorant.  My travel stick was on its last legs and I didn’t notice it until today.  The hotel doesn’t have any, so I’ll likely have to buy overpriced stuff onboard – although I MIGHT be able to survive by careful application of what’s still left.  We’ll see.

I had chosen Homewood over Hampton mostly for the breakfast, but I believe we accidentally used the Hampton breakfast section because it was pretty pathetic.  We had noticed a breakfast room with a keycard entry, but assumed that it was eating space that was accessible from the section we went to – but now we think that might have been the “good” breakfast.  Sigh.

Anyway, after choking down a bagel around 830A we came back to the room and repacked.  We hadn’t unpacked at all upon arrival, saving that for the ship, so we were mostly pulling stuff out of packing cubes last night and then stuff things back into the bag this morning.  Did conclude that, as part of our UK trip dry run, we’ve already recognized the need to pack the cubes more strategically.  We both packed each cube with similar stuff (i.e. this is the “shirts cube” and that is the “underwear cube”).  What we really would have benefited from was “this is the 1^st night cube” or similar.

After packing up everything, we sat around my phone and watched the safety videos, which is supposed to streamline our muster drill process.  At the end of the main video, which is about how to put on your life jacket, we had an opportunity to check off who had watched the video, so both E and I got credit for our shared viewing. 

Just after we completed, I also got a text from Royal, reminding us NOT to show up prior to our scheduled boarding time due to limited terminal space.  This is the first time we’ve gotten something like this and I guess is indicative of the state of affairs at the LGB cruise terminal.  Our scheduled time is 1130A, but I still plan to call Lyft right around 1030A, figuring that should get us there right around 1105A or so – which should be fine.  Our plan is to board, go to the muster station, then to a specialty restaurant to see if we can book our three specialty dinners.  If there’s still time before lunch we’ll check out the MDR – but if our MDR 2-top request wasn’t honored and we don’t find out until dinner time we’re OK letting it ride for opening night.  We can always go to Windjammer if we don’t want to share our table.

Around 1030A we got a Lyft to the cruise terminal.  The driver arrived at the hotel in about 4 minutes, and we got to the terminal right around 11:05A.  We walked about 10’ to drop our pre-tagged bags with the porter, then walked another 50’ to the pre-security checkin, where they checked our boarding docs and passport before we went through the security scanner.  No one cared about our boarding time.  From there, we walked to someone who confirmed we’d completed the health questionnaire and then took Eileen’s photo (deeming my selfie to be already valid), and from there we were up the escalator and boarding the ship.  We were onboard before 11:15A!

We immediately went to our muster station and got checked in there (5 minutes, tops), then went to Hooked – the nearest specialty restaurant – where we made reservations for Hooked, Jamie’s and Izumi.  Again, couldn’t have taken more than five minutes.  Finally, we went down to the MDR intending to find our dinner table for early seating.  We first stood in a line that was actually seating folks for lunch – I believe it was folks with The Key along with consecutive cruisers – before being directed to another podium a bit farther in.  And here we discovered that they had us assigned to MTD, which was an unexpected shock.  The podium guy suggested it was likely because they couldn’t find a 2-top during earlier dining.  Not exactly what we wanted, but we rolled with the punches and setup a standing 6:45P MTD 2-top.  The actual table will vary each night, depending on what’s available when we show up.

With all our administrative tasks complete, we went up to WJ for lunch.  Without question, the variety of food is significantly pared down from prior years.  In past cruises, the 6 main stations in the back of the room were generally the grill, desserts + 4 different islands of stuff, but the 4 islands are now basically just 2 islands, duplicated port and starboard  Among things I didn’t see that were previously always there: fried chicken, fried fish, more than one carved meat, and several other things.  We both ended up getting DIY salad and burger/fries (me), hot dog (E).  E also tried a lemon cookie at the end that was awful.  At the entrance to the WJ they'd setup a table where you could buy spun-on-demand pink or blue cotton candy on your way out.  I was really tempted, but the size was HUGE - like basketball sized - so I kept walking.  (I think it was $3.25 for each one.)

Lunch completed, we took the stairs down, figuring we’d try to find a likely bar for our sailaway drink order.  We meandered through the Library/Card Room, Next Cruise, the Star Lounge, and Theater before emerging finally on Deck 5/Royal Prom and eventually making our way forward to Schooner 12:30P and parking there for an Ultimate Mai Tai for each of us plus a nice chat with a woman named Coleen, for very pleasant D+ cruising solo (on a cruise comp’ed casino point) from Wisconsin. 

Finally, right at 1:00P the staterooms opened and we made our way to Deck 9 and our very spacious room.  I was hoping to snag our suitcases, some of which had already been set out in the hallway, but despite checking again at 1:30P and 2:00P ours hadn’t yet shown up in the halls, so had to wait until they officially got delivered by our stateroom attendant. I instead wrestled with the mechanics of getting internet connected.  The secret was: 1) connect to the ship’s guest Wifi.  2) On the connection page, create a new login that we’d both share.  3) On the device to be used, connect to the ship’s guest Wifi.  4) Go to login.com and use the just-created login.  If/when all purchased connections are in use the next device that logs in will kick out the oldest connected device.

Our stateroom attendant, Elizabeth from Brazil stopped by around 330P and introduced herself.  I requested a mattress pad (for which she will return later with a 2^nd person to help her) and another set of towels for the shower.  She seems very pleasant.  Surprisingly, she says that she’ll be in our room twice per day, just like old times.  I think perhaps the once per day service must apply to cabins below Junior Suite.  About 10 minutes later, Elizabeth was back with our two suitcases.  Yaay!

With the time now about 3:45P we decided to hold off on unpacking and instead went down to Deck 5 to grab some snacks at Café Prom – we got a selection of small sandwiches which were mostly MEH, plus E got a couple of coconut cookies.  Again, variety was very limited compared to prior experiences.  We then asked one of the staff standing outside the English Pub where we could get E’s drink cup.  Turns out that any bar can hand them out, and he still had some available, so we followed him into the almost empty pub and got a cup.  Since we were there we decided that we’d get the Drink of the Day (Bahama Mama) right there since there was no waiting.  We got chatted up by an older couple – probably late 70s? – who were on their first cruise and trying to figure out what was included and what wasn’t, so ended up pointing out Café Prom to them (since we had the plate of food with us).  They were very endearing.

Returned to the cabin just in time to sit on the balcony for sail away.  It was a pretty straight shot down the channel and through the breakwater.  Once out on open ocean the pilot boat came up and kissed the side of the ship DIRECTLY underneath our balcony, and we watched as the pilot stepped off Navigator and onto the pilot boat before it turned back around and went back to wherever it lives.  Having sat outside for about 30 minutes we were ready to come back inside and unpack all our stuff, settling in nicely.  The captain had mentioned something about 1-2’ waves tonight (and MAYBE 3-4’ tomorrow?), and we definitely could feel the rolling of the ship as we relaxed in our cabin pre-dinner.

For dinner we had our first My Time Dining experience.  We went downstairs around 6:20P and there was a minor madhouse – we were instructed that, since we had reservatiions already (having made them earlier in the afternoon), we should stand in the line to the right of the entry.  At that time, we were third in line.  Around 640P they began processing the line, and we were seated at a table for two very quickly.  We had a nice window seat in a corner, so pretty private (although the neighboring table of two was only about 18” away from us.  In the window seat our server team (Renee and Joseph) always came to us first, which was nice. 

Lots of “first time” dishes for us.  E had vegan roasted tomato soup (mostly just “red soup”), pan roasted fish filet, which she enjoyed, and vegan peanut-caramel bar (which she liked, I did not).  I had dual starters of escargot and the crispy crab cake (which was not at ALL crispy and was dull w/o being bad),  southern fried chicken (which I liked and is by far the biggest entrée I’ve had on Royal), and the royal cheesecake.  We decided to stay at that table for future nights we’re in MDR.

If tonight’s schedule is any indication, we may find that the 6:45P dining time is all wrong for entertainment.  There wasn’t any or post-dinner music playing anywhere in the hour pre- and post-dinner, and we got out of the MDR around 7:50PM, too late to take in any of the 7:30P shows.  We’ll have to see how the next several days go.

We did end the evening with the 9:30-10:15P Headliner show featuring a comedian name Mike Pace in the Royal Theater.  Hard to tell what he’s like, as there was a 20-year female snowflake in the front row who was determined to be the center of attention and Mike basically hated her, so things were a bit uncomfortable.