On the 23rd we headed down to Baltimore for another trip out on a beautiful lady.  Beff and I picked up my niece and sister from the metro station, where they headed after their arrival at Reagan, and headed to our hotel.  This time I went with a park and cruise package from the Wingate.  I need to make a note for next time as this was a great stay, nice big clean room and no extra charges for all 4 of us to have the included breakfast or shuttle to/from the pier.

Bright and shiny on the 24th we prepped to head to the ship and get Danielle and I our honey stung chicken!  This was my first time with a junior suite and I was impressed.  All four of us put our things away and we had some storage space to spare.  The fold out sofa bed was quite comfortable, and even when it was opened we still had plenty of room to get around without needing to squeeze past.  It was also nice to have a full sized tub onboard, but we were back to fighting with the clingy shower curtains.

As to Grandeur of the Seas, she had some improvements recently, and she was beautifully appointed.  I did note some loose railings and other little odd things (like the numbers worn off of some elevators) but that is normal wear and tear I guess.  I do not like the bathroom sinks.  They are the bowl type that you end up slamming your fingers into when you try to get your hands under the water.  The pillows were pretty flattened out, so I had to sleep with 4, but we got them quickly as our stateroom attendant Tobian was fantastic.  Dani and I shared the fold out couch which was comfortable, no worries there.  We had lots of vibration to give us that rocking feeling I so adore.  I guess some ppl complain about that, which is fine, they can leave the aft balconies for others - while it's a bit of a hoof if you have to run back and forth it was still a great place to be on ship.

We started out with my time dining, this was a first for me, but since we booked so late it was all that was available.  I had booked times, the first night for 6:15.  They called and asked us to come at 5:30 since it was so busy.  Ok, fine, it was a bit of a challenge once we got our luggage to be ready in time, but we made it... to find a line we stood in for a half an hour.  Then we were sat by ourselves, which is not my preferred for dinner.  Shockingly, it took 2 hours to eat.  Yea, no.  The next morning at breakfast I talked to folks and got us moved to the late seating where we had a short period of time to get to know our waiter and assistant waiter, Ali and Alexander.  The new menus we saw were okay.  I don't think the food we tried was as good as it had been in the past and I think it's ridiculous to see burgers/sliders on the dinner menu each night.  The food didn't suck, but it was a noted tick downward with the new menu items.

We really wanted this trip to be low key and relaxing, and that is just what we got (for the first couple of days).  After a day at sea, we then stopped at Port Canaveral.  I wasn't sure what to do here.  To heck w/ a long drive for part of a day at Disney.  I wasn't sure about Cape Canaveral, if it was moreso for kids (I heard from fellow passengers it was quite nice, so maybe a stop some other time).  Instead we took a shuttle to the Cocoa Beach area where we did some shopping and walked up along the beach and pier.  Then we headed to a putt-putt that also did alligator rescue before heading back to the ship.

Dani and I sat out on the balcony that evening around midnight, it was just lovely.  We even said "we could sleep out here".  Fortunately, we did not... and instead headed in to get some rest for our next morning's stop at the private island, Cococay.

Well, we didn't get to Cococay.  A few minutes before 3am we heard a loud booooong noise.  It was enough for my eyes to open in time to see the nightlight snap off as the power went out.  Within a second there was a voice, the Captain, Espen Been, calmly telling us we had a fire and were to report to our muster stations.  It took a while to process what he said, it felt slower than I guess we were moving.  Some folks by us claim they heard an explosion, we did not, I thought the noise before the power snapping off was the bell/horn system long noise, but it could have been metal boinging, which some theories mentioned.  We were out the door pretty quickly, seeing our stateroom attendant already there making sure everyone was moving in the right direction, and headed towards our station, but we were re-routed to the casino as our stations were inaccessible because they were too near the fire.

I don't know why I didn't pull back the balcony curtains to get us some light, maybe because Beth had her phone flashlight on so quickly.  It's probably a good thing I didn't.  The neighboring cabins DID pull their curtains back and saw fire licking up over the edge from the lower area.  Shortly after checking in at the muster stations the Captain announced before doing so that they were going to sound the general emergency alarm.  Just hearing the 7 short and 1 long blast sends a shiver up my spine during muster practice, it was surreal to hear it mid-sailing.  A while later they announced they were going to prepare life boats as a precaution.  I guess the lifeboat preparation scared a few people who were at the normal muster stations.  I guess seeing/hearing them move into place would be pretty chilling, another thing we didn't experience, fortunately.

During the next hours we received frequent updates, always reiterating that they were continuing to advance on the fire and then that they were doing inspections to verify everything was out and had no chance of reigniting.  We were allowed to leave the stations 8am-ish?  But our area was still closed off while they continued inspections.  They eventually cleared us to return to the back of the ship on deck 7.  As you went back the hall and pulled open the fire doors (they close when you have no power) to enter the dark hallway you could definitely smell that there was a fire.

Our power was out for a while longer, longer still our air conditioning, but they got everything back up for us.  With the balcony we simply propped the main door and opened the balcony giving some light and air movement to the whole hallway, I'm sure helping to clear the smell, which was no longer noticeable within 24 hours.  Now, stepping out on to the balcony we had lots of soot and we could see the smoke blackened metal and areas out over the balcony.

We, at no time, were afraid.  The staff was amazing.  Everyone worked like a well oiled machine and they did everything right.  95% of our fellow passengers were also wonderful... but I guess you'll always have one or two over the top hysterical women and drama queens screaming lawsuit.  After working ALL NIGHT this staff still made sure we stayed fed and clean, granted the food wasn't as expansive the first morning, but it picked back up quickly.

The ship headed to Freeport Bahamas where we were allowed to get off and see the damage from the outside.  Those photos were all over the news, just let me state clearly we were right above all of that... sleeping.  It gave us a moment of reality, but I still remain confident of my safety, thanks to the Royal Caribbean crew reaction.  There were definitely windows gone in the lounge below us, some people speculated they heard these blowing out, others said they removed them in the course of fighting the fire.  I suspect the lounge on the floor below us was drenched in addition to missing a few window, as the next day I used the restroom near the Schooner bar and the carpet was soaked.  I was really surprised the dining room reopened, which means there was no damage there or in the galley.  My guess is repairs done by my Birthday, and I see that they've now cancelled sailings until early July.

The President of RC flew in with a rather large staff to assist with operations.  They quickly began working out transportation for all including both charter flights and a ferry/train for those that do not fly.  In the mean time the show went on.  There were performances, food, activities.  They treated us like gold, even though you could see the exhaustion on some faces.  Our flight was to be late on Tuesday, but we ended up volunteering to come back after getting to the airport and fly out the next day since we'd arrive to BWI in the middle of the night.  At that point we had an open bar and a heck of a late night with some fellow passengers.

In addition to the accommodations to get us home, we were fully reimbursed for this trip, given all of our photos from onboard, they opened up the telephone and internet connections for free, and they will be giving us credits (100% of what we paid for this trip) towards another sailing.  Will I sail again?  You better believe I will.  After this experience, I am so proud to say I am Loyal to Royal.  I cannot speak highly enough of everyone working onboard.  They were heroes in the face of danger.

Our flight home was uneventful, as was our drive back to the Jtown/Altoona area.  After dropping Beth off we headed to Altoona where I spent the night before coming back to Jtown to get the dogs from camp this morning.  Home.  Not back at work... a few days to catch up on sleep will be good.  I'll get Dani and Jackie back for their flight home as well.  I'll attach a few photos shortly, after they finish uploading to shutterfly.