For this cruise aboard
Royal’s “Odyssey of the Seas”, we straight up
booked a “Balcony GTY”. GTY stands
for “Guaranteed Type” meaning the cruise line
will give you a lower price but they will decide which
cabin you will be placed in. We’ve done this
several times over the years and have been satisfied
with where we’re placed on the ship. In the
past, we booked "Inside GTY" and hoped for success in
the RoyalUP Bidding process. We typically get
assigned a Deck 6 Obstructed Balcony cabin but, this
time, much to our surprise we ended up on deck
8. Still couldn't see straight down to the water
BUT we were able to see straight out to sea.
We've cruised out of Cape
Liberty and always try to find a new place to
view the sail away from. This time, we
just stayed on our balcony and recorded it from
there...
Getting to the Caribbean
from NJ involves spending 3 days at sea on each end
of the schedule. Needless to say, one ends up
living on the ship...
As
mentioned above, these 11 and 12 day cruises out of
Cape Liberty can get to some ports further south
into the Caribbean. In this case, we hit four
ports. We've been to all of them before but
always find something to do in each. In the
past, we would venture out on non-ship excursions
but we're simply not as adventurous these
days. We prefer to book ship sponsored
excursions. So, we had one booked for each
port...
While in St. Kitts, we toured the island on a
narrow gauge railroad formally used to service
the sugar plantations. Of course, it's
now a tourist attraction. We did this
tour a bunch of years ago and decided it was
time go again. I was looking forward to
this since I'm now outfitted with a 360
camera.
I've been up in North Star a
bunch of times when it used to be
free. Now days, the free trips
happen on port days. The free trips
are short where they take you up, wiggle
sided to side, then come back down.
Riding North Star on sea days isn't free
but it's referred to as an "extended
experience". The extended trip is
longer because they take you up, then move
out over both sides of the ship, then
return. They went W-A-A-Y out over
the side! Glad I forked over a few
bucks for the extended experience....
North Star Short
These videos and more can be found on our YouTube
Channel. Take a look...
