New month, new bandwidth limit.
Let me know if you can see the pictures; I can, but let me know if you can.
Thanks much for your informative and descriptive TR! We have our first RCCL cruise booked for late this year and it's helpful to have your recommendations.
In light of avoiding more photos posts, do you have an all-around impression of your cruise?
Did your son prefer it to DCL or is it apples & oranges?
Was the smoking in areas easy enough to avoid? I, too, have trouble and am like a canary in a coal mine for the presence of smoke except I start bark-coughing instead of singing...
Thanks again!
As DS got rested up, he saw that RCCL was just as fun. It was the 4th night when he got to the kid's club, and he went each day after and had a great time. No there's no dance floor that lights up, he didn't make flubber, etc etc. But they had a great staff who kept all the kids entertained and active the whole time they were there. And they made pillowcases and pirate bandanas (which, besides the flubber, is 2 more crafts than he's ever made on DCL!).
Smoking...as long as you pay attention to where you are (don't accidentally wander into the smoking section) it's easy enough to avoid. Neither cruiseline allows smoking on verandahs, so that's good. RCCL does have a lounge or two that allows cigars. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the lounge on Freedom, but it's to the right of the lounge with the Egyptian theme. Connoisseur, maybe?
At this point, my family thinks that nearly any cruiseline that gets us out on a ship and on the seas is a fave cruiseline. Now, that's not to say I'm going to start jumping onto Carnival ships...I have to admit to a totally irrational (yet maybe not *totally*) wish to avoid that line.
I mean, we've been on Royal and DCL and like them, so why not just stick with them, right? We would go on either.
Spoiler alert. Because my son isn't ready to go back to Disneyworld (we do have a
DisneyLAND trip over Labor Day while otherwise visiting my brother in southern California, but that is rundisney-based), and because we had book a
Disney cruise quite awhile ago for October, we knew we didn't have to worry about throwing WDW into the trip. But...4 nights on DCL just didn't seem quite enough. And one day after this trip I got a bit silly and found a cruise on Royal that got into port the same day the Disney ship leaves. And it's 5 nights. So we booked it.
The kicker? That one leaves from and gets back to Fort Lauderdale. So we'll be getting off that ship, getting to a rental car agency and just bookin' it up to Port Canaveral. Let us start putting out good, no accidents, no roadworks projects, no nothing standing in our way at all, for that day.
I'll get back to pictures and the story. I don't dislike the concept of paying for photo storage. It just kept messing with me. Confusing mix of emotions.
It says that you need to upgrade your account because you are over your bandwidth allotment or something along those lines. We have been on two DCL cruises but are now my wife and I are going to take an anniversary cruise by ourselves on RCCL on a Voyager class ship (Navigator of the Seas). We hope to scope out the differences between RCCL and DCL while onboard but you might already do that for me.
I too am beginning to wonder.... 
Glad you and your family are ok.
Thanks for checking in! I could see pictures.
