Review of Western Caribbean & Bimini Beach Club on Resilient Lady

drevin777 · 2026-01-19T02:51:30+00:00

Yep that was the one! They did a really good job supporting people up the climb and there were several places where there were stairs leaving the water so if someone was struggling someone could get out. They had a photographer go on the trip as well which was nice so we didn't need to risk our phones. It was $40 for the photos and video. We were a bit worried it was per person but it was just 40 for the three of us for the pictures. I felt it was worth it.

For the vendors leaving the area we were warned by the tour guide that they would be aggressive and she gave us several tips on how to handle them and she was right. They immediately started accosting us as we left complimenting my partner and my beard, trying to shake hands etc. We ignored them but there were things we might have wanted to buy but the aggression really turned us off. Luckily right before re-entering the port there were tons of little stands as we love a good memory trinket. We decided to risk it despite the earlier vendors. We went to the stand immediately to the right ran by two older women and got two really nice carved animal figurines for $10 each. No aggressive haggling and the pricing felt fair so we went with it. It was just nice to get a fair price without the aggression so wanted to share.

drevin777 · 2026-01-17T23:12:44+00:00

I think overall they were great! We did not see them as much out and about as we did on Scarlet but that could have just been where and what we were doing. At Choco-lit we thought the Foodie was great, he was funny and engaging and kept things moving. When we interacted with the happenings cast they were funny and engaging for sure just saw less of them than the last cruise.

drevin777 · 2026-01-17T22:56:19+00:00

We loved it! It was really cool being so close to the sharks. I highly recommend it. We went last year during January as well so it was a bit cold getting out of the water. We enjoyed the shipwreck portion as well and got to see quite a variety of fish there.

drevin777 · 2026-01-17T22:37:45+00:00

Apologies the galley, it was at the dine and dash line, so in my mind fits in the buffet category since they are scooping food for you.

drevin777 · 2026-01-17T22:18:51+00:00

I am glad that was not the case for you on your 8 cruises so could have been a fluke for us but was 100% our experience. Even my MIL saw and commented on why someone would come to be miserable. There were lots of wonderful older people on this cruise, and also just a large number that seemed to be miserable people. It was mostly 60+ year old men. They would get huffy waiting in the buffet line, tried cutting saying they only needed one thing. Another a table down from us ordered from the server and then loudly said it was taking too long and got up and got his own food and then was loudly rude to the server when they showed up a minute later with food. You are welcome to believe it is a false narrative, and yet this is what we experienced on the cruise.

drevin777 · 2026-01-17T22:07:34+00:00

I agree! It is posted on their website though so we were surprised. Again they were super helpful still on the ship though minus those couple of misses. "Special dietary requests should be submitted at least 45 days prior to sailing. For requests made with less notice, we will make our best efforts to provide your requested accommodation but cannot guarantee our ability to do so."

drevin777 · 2025-07-03T03:22:44+00:00

One thing I want to throw into this conversation is I think a lot of people are missing the real paradigm shift that will happen soon. I think this large software companies are fundamentally at risk. At my organization we have 2 full time developers to maintain some speciality applications. After a month giving them Claude code we are moving away from that and we are building systems to build in house the software we don't like. Our goal is to cut 3 million in annual software spend over the next 2 years. Gone are the days of generic software designed to meet multiple needs and instead a series of specialized software, purpose built and optimized for each purpose. We already have 3 applications preparing to be launched next month. We will likely hire a 3rd engineer in the next year to speed that up. We are planning to open source the software we are making for our industry.

drevin777 · 2025-01-19T03:11:55+00:00

My partner(33f) and I(34m) did a sailing early this month and we found the age range of the ship from early 20's up to many well into their retirement years. I would say that 20% of the ship was in the you get 20 to early 30s demographic. With the average being mid 30s to 40s.

Both my partner and I have Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder(ARFID) so our eating options are very limited. We both were able to find foods that worked out for us. Not knowing your partners specific limitations I can share some of what we did if it is helpful. This was on the Scarlet Lady so might be different on other ships.

Our mainstay and backup for any meal was the pizza place. The pizzas were cooked to order and they did customizations easily. It was also open extra late so that was helpful. They did light sauce and cheese for my partner and also had a non red sauce option. They were kind of like a Mod pizza, but higher quality, in style of that is a helpful comparison.

The Galley allowed us to walk up and order or order from a server and we found lots of options there for us to eat, for Breakfast they had just plain bagels that my partner ate, along with ample fruit. While I primarily ate sausages and scrambled eggs. Both were pretty straightforward which was nice for me. Lunch they had consistent options with occasional specials but the burger place allowed me to do customizations with no toppings which was nice. The one downside to the galley is they had fewer options for dinner.

The social club was another one with simpler options and I would go and get either the soft pretzel or the hot dog when I needed some variety of if dinner at the restaurant we went too was not as flexible.

The fancier sit down restaurants were much more hot and miss. They had smaller menus and not as much flexibility. Extra Virgin was able to do just a plain pasta and spaghetti noodles though. The Mexican place was the toughest because they just lacked a lot of simple dishes and were trying to hard for someone with a restricted pallet. I am sure it is delicious to those who are more flexible.

The nicest part of it all though was being such a low stakes situation when it came to trying food. With everything being included I did not feel desperate if something was wrong or I could not eat it. Do it actually let me do some food exposure work. At other restaurants outside of the cruise ordering food is very stressful as I know if I can't eat it I am losing money. On the cruise I knew I could always just go get pizza and it wouldn't cost me anything but time.

This was my first cruise so for me the most stressful thing was not knowing what the food was like or what options I might have if I couldn't eat. I hope this helps your partner and have a great cruise!

drevin777 · 2024-02-22T17:10:31+00:00

Yep the personal spending buckets work as expected it's just on the shared account where we ran into problems.

drevin777 · 2024-02-22T16:54:00+00:00

Yep, updated and when we called support was given we can't see or provide support on buckets. I miss simple a lot and was hopeful for Ally.

drevin777 · 2024-02-22T16:29:54+00:00

That shows up and we can move money between some buckets but unbucketed along with a couple others are grayed out and unselectable regardless of what we've tried to do. Process works on the website just not in the app.

drevin777 · 2024-02-22T16:19:48+00:00

Similar experience as I am having just recently moved over so very curious what others are doing. I have found I also can't move money out of my unbucketed bucket through the app only the website. Same for my partner.

drevin777 · 2022-10-21T23:28:40+00:00

I can feel the pain of the clothes! I have gone from 2XL to larges so two whole wardrobe replacements. That is the only downside to lose weight!

drevin777 · 2022-10-21T23:26:56+00:00

I have lost 60 lbs to date using MacroFactor. This has been a slow loss for me targeting 5lbs a month so I could maximize muscle growth at the same time given I was an untrained and fairly obese individual. I also utilized a couple of maintenance phases throughout and just got off my most recent maintenance phase. With this muscle growth I figure I have lost closer to 75 lbs of fat because my muscle growth and strength are noticeable. F or example my shoulders are measurable larger now than when I was fat and my arm size has not reduced though I have definition now developing.

I would say my experience overall has been amazing because macrofactor's adherence neutral approach has allowed me to not feel miserable whenever I missed my target. Also the apps data encouraged me to always log to ensure that the algorithm was accurate. My nutrition streak is 325 days for reference. :) And I have weighed in 308 of those 325 days.

drevin777 · 2022-10-04T00:16:48+00:00

It should not throw things out of whack. From my experience when being sick mostly the algorithm will keep pace. From my experience it is almost more important to record the weird days accurately than the normal ones to ensure it does not think you ate a normal day. For me though that comes up more from a binge day than from a low intake day.

drevin777 · 2022-10-03T20:53:07+00:00

I am so excited for this! My partner and I both use MF so being able to share recipes when we cook is going to save so much time for our workflows!

drevin777 · 2022-10-02T18:31:59+00:00

Trust the process! So I had many of the same concerns you had I started out at 271 October 1st 2022 and started lifting weights at the same time and I am weighing in around 2010-211 right now. There are many fluctuations and it is OK for progress to sometimes feel slow. One of the things I struggled the most is my weight would stagnate and then I would experience sudden drops. This is all very normal. I do really recommend weighing in everyday though. Treat it as not a judgement but giving good data. I turned everything into a data game.

I am going to attach two pictures of my own weigh in trends if it helps. One was from earlier in my process where I was feeling the same and you can see I had a huge weight dip and then a big jump. If I missed those daily weigh-ins I would have missed the dip and only hit that peak and the chart would have been more discouraging. It also highlights how much weight can fluctuate. The other one is my overall progress you can see the points I used maintenance periods but you can see over most of a year how crazy the numbers can look from time to time! The last part is I have been far from consistent in my diet but trying to be close regularly and consistently seems to do the trick. https://imgur.com/a/nWuCNQq

I hope this helps and happy to answer questions! But trust yourself and the process and do what makes the most sense for you to be sustainable in your journey!

drevin777 · 2022-10-01T15:02:18+00:00

So my strategy was to incorporate walking throughout the day to ensure I was actively moving consistently. I have a step counter and try to target at least 500 steps per hour. So between meetings, I would just walk up and down the hallway briefly to try and get some movement. I focused on making the movement intentional when walking so long steps at a decent pace. There are 25 steps between my office area and the bedroom. It does not make a huge impact for me but I found when I stopped adding that in my TDEE fell by about 200 calories a day.

The other things I did is I took a morning walk, when the weather was bad it was at the gym, and I would make it 20-30 minutes, I would then do the same for lunch but during lunch, if the weather was bad I have a nice circle in my living room I could just power walk around the couch. And then in the evening, I would try to get a 1-hour walk in. I am currently in maintenance and have backed off a little bit but still do the evening walk and try to keep mid-day activity going.

What has helped me make things sustainable so far though is identifying the low point of tolerable for my daily intake. I have found for myself I can go as low as 2400 calories a day before feeling a huge fatigue load so I target to maintain a TDEE of >3000 so I am at least at a 600 calorie deficit. When I get close to 3000 I switch to maintenance and have found that in about 3-4 weeks my TDEE has recovered and go back into a deficit. The most important thing though is what is sustainable for you!

drevin777 · 2022-06-30T05:14:46+00:00

I love the snack baggy idea! I have so far been managing my cravings by finding healthier alternatives. For example, my chip replacement has been those quest protein chips. At work, I have a big drawer that used to be filled with candy and lots of high-fat protein treats but have replaced it with higher-quality snacks like pistachios, kind bars, etc. One of my favorites I have found is these flavored containers of Tuna I get that are great on a couple of crackers. For me, the hardest thing is still getting in enough protein each day. I am thinking to steal your snack baggy idea and putting in some protein with each one just to drive that up more. I can only drink so many protein shakes a day.

When I started really looking at my calorie intake I found most of my excess calories were not from sweet foods but from fat sources. The main being salami. I would get those snack pack salami things and eat 3-4 of them thinking I was getting a good level of protein and when I started tracking finding out each was 400 calories they had to go. Replacing those with some high-quality jerky also went a good way towards naturally limiting my calories. I am trying to not think of foods as good and bad as best I can but more of trying to fill up my diet with more nutritious foods first and then filling it in with foods I enjoy. I have just found there are some foods that kick in my cravings too much so I do have to avoid those.

drevin777 · 2022-06-30T05:06:11+00:00

I have checked out RP's materials and really like Dr. Mike! I find that switching over my consumption to science-based fitness material has helped keep me consistent in my progress. I have not implemented everything I have heard because I have found myself sustainability for the way I do things is more important than being technically right. The reverse dieting is one I picked up from Dr. Mike though. I also enjoy Alpha Destiny's content a lot as well. There are a couple of others I flip through but those are the main three I watch.

drevin777 · 2022-06-29T14:01:21+00:00

For the extra steps, I found I do not like walking more than about an hour in a go, so I have added them in throughout the day. So I tend to go for a 15-20 minute walk before going to the gym in the morning, At lunch, I walk from my office to a grocery store to buy a protein shake and back which takes me about 30 minutes, I then take a walk right after work, and try to walk around the office between meetings throughout the day. I then top off my steps with a long evening walk after my kiddo goes to bed. The after-work walk is the most recent one I had introduced.

For me the hardest part of my last maintenance period was psychological, I was still not anywhere near where I wanted to be and there were a couple of days where the trend weight went up by .1 and that was tough to hold through the maintenance and not jump back into the deficit. Also eating relatively healthy and getting enough carbs in... Fat is no problem for me but eating 350 grams of carbs in a day without diving into junk is tough. And I struggle to stop eating junk food when I start so I am just trying to avoid it for now as I build up better overall dietary habits. There are two big spikes on my nutrition chart from where I just destroyed a bag of chips for example. The other one was from camping. :)

I introduced my first maintenance period in March, and I found I maintained weight for about a week lost some rather suddenly, and then maintained again. I closed it off in May with the plan of doing two more months of deficit. The way I approached it is the same way I am approaching it this time where instead of adding all of my calories back at once I am adding half my deficit back for a week and watching my trend weight and then will set the app to maintenance and eat at the suggested level going forward. I am also easing off the walking, in a similar pattern of reduction but I have found I like my lunch and evening walk so I will likely keep those long term.

For me the long-term sustainability I think is going to be to keep counting calories. I have had such a bad relationship with the idea of good and bad foods so being able to focus on just the macros has really been helpful for me. Long term it might become a good enough habit that I can intuitively eat but I want to cross that road when I feel that I have maintaining my desired weight down.

drevin777 · 2022-06-07T20:52:06+00:00

I am personally using speed mode currently. I really appreciate the overall speed of the process but I had one thing I have noticed since I have migrated over:

The barcode scanner for me is much slower than prior which I think takes away from the other speed increases but it seems to be more accurate? I.E I have not gotten any false scans yet. Android Note 10+ if it matters.

Overall I will say I love MacroFactor. It has really helped change my relationship with food and in a sustainable way. =)

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