The specifics

Sailing with- This sailing will just be me, my wife, and daughter (12)

Ship- Discovery Princess. The newest ship in the fleet and the last ship in the Royal Class from Princess. It looks like a ship made for big ship Alaska cruises. So while we don't get to visit the small places, I'm firmly in camp Big Ships are Best. 

Room- we booked a mini suite on the Riviera Deck, Deck 14 roughly midship. One other great feature is that it's on the hump which means a slightly larger balcony. The mini suites also have a full size shower/tub and some separation between the sofa bed where my daughter will sleep and the main sleeping area. Also, not that it matters with limited content, but there's also two TV's in the room. One thing we made sure of is to only have rooms above and below, meaning no public decks above nor below your room. It dramatically cuts down on noise. 

Itinerary-

We'll be flying from Orlando up to Seattle on 6/10, luckily there's a non-stop out so it should be fairly painless for a six hour flight

Hotel- I'm a Hyatt loyalist, and had some expiring certificates, so we'll be staying at the Hyatt Regency Seattle. I was able to apply a suite upgrade certificate which gives us a bit more room to spread out. It's also right down the street from one of my favorite Dumpling spots,  Ding Tai Fung.

6/12- Depart Seattle

6/13- Sea Day

6/14- Ketchikan 6:30am-3pm

6/15- Endicott Arm and Dawes Glacier 5am-9am

6/16 Skagway 6am-5pm

6/17 Sea Day

6/18 The obligatory Canada Stop in Victoria 7pm-Midnight

6/19 Debark Seattle, and noon flight back to Orlando with a stop in Atlanta.

Some background:

-This was my first Celebrity sailing, should have had two before but those got cancelled last year. 
- We depart the Saturday before thanksgiving, 11/20/21 out of Port Everglades
-Sailing with me will be my Wife and Daughter (11)

- We’re booked into an Infinite Verandah room on Deck 9

- This will be the family’s first sailing since moving to Florida, so first time we didn’t have to hassle with flights. 
 

This is may be my most anticipated venture away from my primary cruise line - Royal Caribbean.   I've sailed Carnival before and I'm just three cruises away from Platinum in their loyalty program but it's been several years since I've sailed with them.  

This will be the fourth revenue cruise for Mardi Gras.   I'm hoping any initial wrinkles have been ironed out and everything on board is starting to settle into a routine.

Itinerary:

I don't have any plans for any port of call.  Since I've been to them all I'll make a game day determination what to do at each port depending on the weather.  I may stay on board at some port and explore everything this new class of ship has to offer. 

Cabin for this cruise will be a forward extended balcony overlooking the bow.  

I'm generally careful about booking forward balcony cabins due to the potential for wind while at sea but I'm also a big fan of forwards views and this type of cabin is nearly nonexistent on Royal Caribbean so I decided to give it try.  I had plans to try a forward balcony on a Royal ship but those cruises were lost due to the pandemic and now that ship has left for the West coast.  I like trying new and different experiences so what could go wrong?

My appointment time for terminal check-in is 11:30am.  Terminal 3 at Port Canaveral is a brand new terminal so I'm looking forward to experiencing that as well.

Since booking this cruise Carnival has introduced a COVID-19 test requirement that must be taken within 72 hours of the cruise so I have that test booked for tomorrow with a backup rapid test booked for Thursday just in case my testing vendor has an issue tomorrow.

Up to this point I've been following along on social media with other cruisers for this sailing.  Carnival has an exemption application process for unvaccinated cruisers including children and sadly some folks have just found out in the last day or two they will not receive an exemption for this cruise.  I can only imagine how disappointing it was to receive this news so close to the cruise but Carnival must maintain at least 95% vaccinated guests on board based on CDC requirements.

I've been eagerly watching Mardi Gras since she arrived in the United States and I was there to capture that moment so before I get into this cruise I'll post some of the pictures I've captured up to this point. 

Embarkation was a bit of a mess -- my fully vaccinated 12 year old daughter somehow ended up on a (very short) list of passengers that indicated the need for a COVID-19 PCR test at the terminal.  We tried to explain to the employees at the terminal that she was fully vaccinated (while showing her CDC Vaccine card), but all of our questions were ignored.  She was on “the list” and the only explanation we could get was that it was “the Captain's” decision.

My wife and daughter were whisked away to go on a long walk to another building.  I was not permitted to go with them, as my son, mother, and I had already “passed through” the first checkpoint.  I was told I had to head up the escalators and keep moving along.  I decided to stop arguing, because I assumed that if I asked why, they would just tell me that separating families was also Captain McCue’s decision.

My wife did have the presence of mind to ask me to give her my daughter's vaccine card.  When she finally got to the testing area she once again asked why my daughter needed to be tested at the terminal and showed the card.  They told her that this was obviously some mistake, and then was sent back to the terminal for embarkation without any additional testing.

We then made it to the next checkpoint where, once again, everything went smoothly until they tried to check in my wife and daughter.  So after trying a few times, we were sent along to the check in counter for further processing.  The check in desk apparently had some sort of “override” capability, so they were able to get them checked in.  

Then it was time to board the ship!  Well, not so fast -- my daughter's boarding pass still didn’t work.  And, once again, my mother, son and I had passed through the last checkpoint, but my wife and daughter were on the other side.  In hindsight, I should have had them try to board first.

They went back to the check in desk, and the rest of us just waited and watched.

After more typing at the check in desk, a 3rd set of boarding passes were printed, but, alas, these didn’t work either.

Eventually additional officers from the ship, with an escalating number of stripes on their uniforms, showed up and managed to convince the computer to permit my daughter to get onboard.

• New user on the CruiseHabit message board. 
• New to MSC. 
• First revenue cruise of my new cruise restart.

For those that haven't heard MSC has some really attractive rates at the moment so with exactly 14 days until the sail date I decided to jump on board.  

MSC has a status match program that I exercised a few years ago.  My status match was expiring so this opportunity will also keep my MSC status alive and well.

It's always good to try new things and I'm looking forward to trying not only a new cruise lines but also a new class of ship, for me at least.  With many cruise lines operating at reduced capacity as they restart operations I see this as a great time to try new cruise experiences.

For this cruise I've booked a Fantastica balcony on deck 9.  I haven't fully discovered what Fantasica means but it was a small per cruise upgrade over the base rate so why not?  I've heard great things about Yacht Club but I'm going to save that for another occasion.  It's just 3 nights and I look forward to more of an apples to apples comparison with the balcony cruises I've done on other cruise lines.  

I've added a wifi streaming package and an excursion climbing the Ocean Cay lighthouse.  Other than that my plan is just to explore Ocean Cay, MSC's private destination and enjoy the salt air of a sea day on our way back to Miami.

Here is the cruise itinerary:

With that it's time to let the countdown commence...

We booked this cruise over one year ago.  The motivation was a few factors.  It was originally scheduled to be on my kids Spring Break which has since been pushed back a week from the prior school year so they will miss a week of school and after returning have another week off school for their actual Spring Break.  Another reason for picking this was it included a themed sea day with Star Wars activities.  Additionally we had a desire to try out a Disney Cruise since we live in the Orlando area and are Disney World passholders, despite the cost of the cruise.   My son's Birthday, February 29 was a great excuse to select this cruise since this will be his second legitimate birthday even though he will be eight years old.

Since all of this is new I will take lots of pictures and do a recap after I return.  There is not an onboard internet plan that is unlimited unless you stay in a suite (concierge class) room.  You must purchase a plan with different amounts of data  with larger packages being cheaper by the MB but it's a use it or lose it plan and the prices are not good and there are rumors of poor internet speeds.

My Equinox blog was all done via my iPhone 7 so hopefully I will do as good or better since I recently upgraded to the iPhone 11.  I look forward to sharing it with all of you.

The itinerary is a Western Caribbean cruise out of Port Canaveral.  It visits Cozumel, Mexico, George Town, Grand Cayman, Falmouth, Jamaica and Castaway Cay which is Disney's private island in the Bahamas with the ports in that order. We have plans to go to El Cozumeleno resort for the day in Cozumel.  In George Town we are going to the Turtle Farm.  In Jamaica we have an excursion to take a raft down the Martha Brae River.  No plans at Castaway Cay other than the 5K race and enjoying the island.  We booked a verandah room.  My Niece who is in her mid 20s and didn't pay for the cruise is with my kids ages 8 on cruise day and 10 for my daughter  in a large interior room with a virtual porthole.  Her parents (my brother in law and sister in law) are in a verandah that adjoins to our room.  We originally booked specific rooms but a month before the final payment deadline a verandah guarantee with restrictions became available that saved almost $1000 for each of the verandah rooms.  We got our room assignments about 10 days before the cruise and we got rooms comparable to what we originally booked.  Originally we did not have adjoining rooms but we were assigned a room on the same deck as the inside room with my niece and kids that was not too far away.

If you have any questions before I go I can try to find out onboard and report back.  The only day I expect to have internet is the Cozumel day but I probably won't post much until I get back.

Celebrity Millennium Daily Live Blog and More: https://www.cruisehabit.com/tags/celebrity-millennium-live-blog