cruiselover2890

Thanks for replying with your experience much appreciated!! One other thing what did you have to do to be able to get off the ship first and carry off your own bags? Sorry never cruised before!

No problem! To get off the ship first, instead of putting your bags outside of your door the night before with the tags that are provided in your stateroom, you just keep them in your room. Then the morning of departure, you just walk off the ship with your bags before they call the first group of numbers which I believe is before 7:45-8:00. As long as you are able to carry your bags off yourself without any assistance from RC, then you're good!

My husband rolled off 1 carry on, 1 regular sized bag and had the garment bag over his shoulder. I rolled off 1 carry on, 1 regular sized bag and had a backpack on my back and we were perfectly fine! I definitely saw some people struggling to get off and none of the staff helped, as they tell you before hand, they just said to "keep moving". So keep that in mind!

Thank you for posting the "as you depart" paperwork. I was wondering how your getting off the ship went. We are going on our first cruise in March on the Harmony and still trying to decide if a 9:45 boarding with Southwest is possible with this ship. Even as I am typing I'm saying its a no go and I will have to leave on Sunday morning.

I was just on this sailing of HOTS with the OP and my family and I did the carry off your own bags as we had flights on JetBlue and Southwest that departed at 10:20am. We were told that we would dock and to be in line by 6:30 as thats when the doors would open for departure. I was the first one out of my group downstairs with our bags and waiting for the rest of my family to come down. It was about 6:15 and people were already walking off!

If we knew they were letting people off early, we definitely would've been downstairs sooner. We were all finally downstairs at about 6:35, through customs and in a taxi by 6:55 and sitting at our airport gate by 7:28! We asked if the flight before was full, and it was so we just sat around and waited for our flight and began boarding at 9:50am.

1 week from today on Harmony of the Seas! :)

Awesome video! Looks like you guys had so much fun!! :)

Excited to be following along with you. I will be sailing on Harmony in 21 days and cant wait. Have an awesome time!

Just yesterday I had the same issue. Everyone else in my group had gotten their e docs except for me and my husband and our Crown and Anchor status was also wrong on our printed set sail passes. I contacted my TA who then contacted RC and they said that for some reason, they never released our luggage tags and also had someone elses Crown and Anchor numbers under our names. They advised us to wait 24 hours for them to show up and for our status to change. I woke up this morning and sure enough, they were available and our status was fixed!

Harmony has all new menus (not the Pimiento, Basil, Pomodoro...). Except for day 1 you can see them in my review each day (start here with day 2).

 

steamboats

Thank you! :)

Has the Main Dining Room menu changed at all or is it still the same? I am trying to decide if I want to skip the MDR all together or try some of the speciality restaurants. Thank you! :)

You should be okay! In Georgia, they are so behind at the DMV that they just give out the paper license and send you on your way. It took a month to get my actual license and I went on a cruise and took a flight and had no problems. Just don't laminate it or else they won't consider it to be valid!

I absolutely love the Allure although I've only sailed on her once. I would definitely sail on the Allure (or Oasis) again though. I am booked to sail on the Harmony in Nov 2016 which is basically the same thing. I have also done both Eastern and Western routes many times but I just love St. Thomas and St. Maarten so I guess it's really up to which destinations you prefer!

I am getting married in June 2016 and I have a cruise booked on Harmony of the Seas in November 2016 with my new husband to celebrate my college graduation (finally - years later), celebrate our union with our families, and to celebrate my parents as they renew their vows for their 26th wedding anniversary. As of right now, the cruise booking has my current last name because I just got my passport renewed in 2014 and it took a few months before I got it back. I’m not sure if when I get married I should take on my husband’s name and get a new passport and such or just wait until after we go on vacation to change it.

So, I guess I want to know:

If I were to change my name, should I get my passport back in time and up to what time frame can you change your name on the cruise booking?

I enjoy San Juan a lot! I have a lot of family who live in Puerto Rico and it is apart of my heritage so I enjoy going for that reason alone. I've only been three times and I wish I could go more often! My aunt and uncle usually pick us up from the port and they are our "tour guides" and we often do different excursions for free because my uncle is a police officer over there and gets us all in. Last time we did the fort and it was amazing! There are some really awesome views from up there and great history about the place. If you don't really want to do the fort maybe just have a beach day and go out to eat! Everyone enjoys eating!!! :D

We also had to rush over to see the parade from the return cruisers event in the aquatheater. We had to stand up top at focus just as you did! There were so many things going on at the same time during multiple days of the trip which bummed me out.

Really enjoying the review so far!

Few more pics of the ship

 

 

So funny! I see some of my family members and my back in this picture on the lower right hand side haha! Im sure I will see us in a few more of your pictures. :cool:

I too was on this sailing. It's great to be reliving it all over again! Wish I could go back in time and do it again though. A great time was had by all!

On the 12/14 sailing, we arrived to the port by 10:00, were in line to check in by 10:30 and were on the ship by 11:20! Very fast process. We weren't supposed to arrive, according to the text, until 1:00. Also, we had some diamond members and suites in our group and others were gold but they let us all check in together in the suites check in! You have nothing to worry about.

I'm typically showered, dressed and ready to take my bags downstairs before the ship even docks because on a previous cruise I thought doing breakfast was a good idea and I was doing self disembarkation and all of the elevators were full when I got back from the windjammer.

I had to carry all of my bags downstairs and make multiple trips up and down the stairs from one of the highest decks, it was horrible. So from them on, I have just skipped breakfast and made sure I'm one of the first ones downstairs lol!!!

Here is a better version of what was previously posted. I also love this song, I think its so cute and catchy!

I was on the Allure 12/14 sailing and we had to return to port before we even turned all the way around for a medical emergency and the ambulance, police, and stretcher were all sitting at port waiting. It was announced that the person was okay and would be sailing with us. It had just happened the week before on Oasis too. This is becoming all too common these days. I hope everyone involved is okay.

WOW

What kind of cabin did they have on the ship and where did they put all those bags?

 

I thought I was bad for the 3 of us, 3 checked bags and 3 carryons.

 

Sea Ya

They had a JS both times. On the Explorer, they actually had to put some of their bags out on the balcony because they all wouldn't fit inside! It was just too much for me to even take in lol. This go around on the Allure, they somehow fit everything in the closets and under the beds.

I had a 9:20 flight to make last Sunday out of FLL leaving the Allure of the Seas and we had no issue at all. We were up by 4:30, downstairs on the promenade by 5:30 and waiting in line with plenty of other people who were taking their luggage off themselves. They started letting us off by 6:30 and I was outside waiting for my shuttle by 6:45. We arrived to the airport by 7:10 and I made it through check in and security and was sitting at my gate by 7:28.

There were so many people at check in that were right off the boat and trying to switch their flights to get an earlier flight out actually.

Yes it is and I found it to be quite delicious considering all of the reviews I previously read before going saying that it wasn't that great!

Just off the Allure last week and we traveled with my Aunt, Uncle and their son. They had 13 bags between the 3 of them because they spent the previous weeks in Disney. They didn't have an issue at all. Last year on the Explorer, they had 15. I'm not sure why one would need so many bags but to each their own I guess!

My mom is freaking out after reading about the issues and we leave next Friday for Florida. I'm trying to tell her it's okay but now she wants to have a backup plan if things don't go as planned. :rolleyes:

There is actually a website that someone posted on here before where you can search the cruise and dates you will be onboard and what groups will be onboard with you. I can't remember the site for the life of me but if I remember before someone else comes back and beats me to it, I will let you know.

Edit:

Nevermind, I see cello56 posted the site I was talking about. But also try http://groupsahoy.com/search/royalcaribbean.php You can enter the specific month and day!