As I think almost everybody listening this podcast is well aware, Star of the Seas is here, and I was on board last week, and the first revenue cruises begin, well, this week as well. So basically, Real Creams and New Ship is here, and the question that everybody's asking is, what is it like? How is it? How does it compare to ICON? And every other superlative you can use to try to compare and contrast, ICON versus Star, versus Grandma's grandma's pizza versus I don't know what else

who could think of as a comparison but a new ship always conjures up these sorts of questions

and when I went on board for just three nights and keep in mind I'm going back again for another

week I'm doing the first two of the showcase sailing so this is a, it's not funny, but it's amusing to me,

because the official inaugural is August 31st, but Royal Court being added a series up to four now

of what they're calling showcase sailings, which are effectively, you know, inaugural

sailings made in voyages, but they don't want to call it that because they want to respect people that booked the August 31st sailing, so they're calling it showcase sailings. To me, it's, you know, tomato, tomato kind of situation. But nonetheless, I'll be on one of the early sailings, and then, of course, the inaugural coming from the 31st, I will not be on. But I figure between the three-night preview sailing that RealCham invited me to go on and the two short

cruises that I paid to go on, that'll give me a pretty good indication of what Star is all about.

But since we need to do this podcast, and since we're two weeks out as our last podcast, I apologize

about that. I wanted to bring to you my early thoughts about Star of the Seas. He's keeping in

mind, by the way, that I'm going back on board and things could change, obviously.

But really, the name of the game, when you talk about Star of the Seas, is it's very similar to

icon.

I mean, very similar.

I knew that the two ships were not going to be that different, but I'm not sure I was

that prepared or that aware that it would be so identical.

I mean, in many situations, it really boils down to simply the artwork on board as being the

primary difference.

I mean, obviously, the shows are all different, right?

You've got Back to the Future in the main theater, and you've got shows in the absolute

zero, and the Aqua Theater being different. But But you know, you can't notice that unless you actually sit down for one of the shows. And when I was on board, I saw the ice show and I saw a 20 minute preview back to the future, which by the way, if that 20 minute preview back to the future is any indication, that alone is worth going on the cruise. And if you think, well, isn't that a lot of money to go see one show? Have you seen how much back to the future's any indication, that alone is worth going on the cruise. And if you think,

well, isn't that a lot of money to go see one show? Have you seen how much back to the future

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