PlanetX

22 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

They replaced the parades with their own characters.  The Dream works ice show and aqua show were not replaced 

They also replaced the Dreamworks-themed TV channel(s) with channels themed to toddlers, middle kids and teens, with programming from random networks for each.

The experience for families has definitely suffered since the Dreamworks theming was removed.  Without the characters, the experience is extremely generic and boring, especially for younger kids like my 6yo daughter.  Not that we didn't have a great time on our last cruise, but we did miss the character meet and greets, the parades and DW channel. Kinda surprised they haven't teamed up with Nickelodeon to get their characters on board (ie, Spongebob, Dora, Ninja Turtles etc.) as a replacement...seems like both companies would benefit if they did.

9 minutes ago, PaulS said:

We just booked a September cruise on the Symphony in a GS suite. I don’t have the booking number from our travel agent so I can’t look in the cruise planner yet. When do you make reservations for dinner in the Coastal Kitchen? Is it done in the planner or when you get on the ship?

Thanks

The week before your sailing, you should receive an email from the suite concierge. Just reply and request your preferred dining times, and they will confirm prior to the sailing.  Probably best to make plans for whichever shows you want to attend prior to requesting CK reservations, though.

I did not see any opportunity to make CK reservations via the Cruise Planner on our recent Harmony sailing, fwiw.

Harmony's rooms have fridges.  Ours kept things very cold and we stored milk in there all week.  It was fine the entire time.  See the video below @ 2:57 for a typical fridge onboard:

Following!  We just got off Harmony this morning, saw all the lines of people waiting to get in the terminal.  Hope you have a great cruise and have a ton of fun!  It's an amazing ship and we had an absolute blast. 😀

12 hours ago, letscutitout said:

        For those who have sailed on Harmony of the Seas this summer, did they have a marriage game show? How about a 2nd ice skating show (besides 1887)? I have read about these on-line but don't see them when I reserving entertainment in "My Calendar".

 

Thank you!

On Harmony this week, Love & Marriage was on Day 5, 10:30.  The 2nd ice skating show is iSkate, which was on Day 5, 8:30 and Day 6, 1:00 and 3:00.  No reservations for both, but you'll want to show up 20 or so minutes early for iSkate if you want to get good seats (Note that there are poles in Studio B - where the ice shows are - which partially block the view of the ice for about half of the seats on the sides). L&M is in the Royal Theater and has way more seating available.

Here is a video of a deck 3 OV on Harmony:

It does not appear there is a divider.

5 hours ago, brillohead said:

That's for CASES of water, not individual bottles. 

They now allow up to twelve bottles/cans of non-alcoholic beverages to be brought on board.  If called to The Naughty Room, after showing that it's non-alcoholic and under the number allowed to be brought on board, they should be allowed to take it back to their room.

Had no problem bringing 12 bottles of water onto Harmony in PC this week, in carryon bags.  

2 hours ago, willing292 said:

CK has great menus.  I think you should be able to pull them up on the app.  We are there everyday.

Seconded, we ate there every night this week with the exception of our one specialty dining night. If we hadn't had a comp dinner for 2, we would have been in CK that night too.  And yes, the menus are on the app...made it real easy to plan ahead early in the day and know what we'd order for dinner.

11 hours ago, Oxo said:

Everyone has different tastes and food is very subjective. Wonderland is one of the most special experiences. We go to Wonderland every chance we get.WE think Jamie's is the lowest when we rate the Specialty Restaurants (SRs.) 

Why do you think Wonderland is a one time shot?

When we read the menu, we thought we would never go there for the first time. However, we tried it and again, it is our favorite of all the SRs. 

We were very excited about the Wonderland concept on Harmony...until we saw the menu.  Too weird and not at all suited to our tastes, not to mention very unfriendly to kids.  If they revamp the menu to have more options and be more accessible to families, they probably would make much more money and have better overall ratings from people who do go there.  It really seems like the kind of place people either 100% love or 100% hate...which isn't good for business.

On 7/19/2019 at 6:12 PM, Judyrem said:

The last few  days on HOTS July 7,  they were selling Wonderland dinners on the Promenade.

On HOTS July 14, they had the guy dressed up in the Wonderland suit pushing hard at Windjammer practically the entire cruise. Only saw one person talking to him the entire time though, kinda felt bad for the guy.

On 7/14/2019 at 11:27 PM, ChbyMnky said:

Can you bring any sealed water bottles onboard from ports of call?  If so, what are the limits/requirements?  We weren't planing to bring a case back or anything, but thought it might be nice to bring a few back each day to avoid the high prices onboard.

 

Thank you!

Had no problem bringing our cooler bag with 5-6 bottles of water back on Harmony from SXM.  We didn't buy them in port but brought them off the ship and were bringing back the leftovers, but security didn't even give them a second glance.  YMMV.

Just announced on Harmony, we’re skipping San Juan. Apparently this situation hasn’t improved, and there is a protest in Old San Juan scheduled for 5:30. 

2 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

We were in our cabin on Empress when Captain made initial announcement,  so we could not hear it either. 😉

 

Had to walk around ship and ask for details

We've been sitting under a PA speaker waiting for the next update. 😀

1 hour ago, dhoskins said:

On Harmony now, we will not be stopping. 

Onboard as well.  When did this get announced? Last word @ 10 am from Captain Gus was that they would be conferencing with RCI headquarters and would make an announcement by 12:30 if not sooner.  Plan was to continue to San Juan unless otherwise announced.

We received the email last night for our 7/14 sailing and immediately responded for dinner reservations + questions but haven't heard back yet.  I gather that they answer these emails as they can around other guest business during the current sailing, so it's probably not surprising at all.  Our last cruise on Oasis, we didn't hear back until about 2 days out.

2 hours ago, SRF said:

 

How do you know that the equipment change was not TO the 757 your had arrived on?

 

The flight could have originally been on a 767.

 

Or, even with the same type of aircraft, there are different seating configurations.

 

I have gone from a 767 to a different configuration of 767 that required EVERY boarding pass to be reissued.

Because it wasn't.  The flight was a single flight number, routing DCA-ATL-STT.  Same seating chart for both flights, same 757-200 layout.  It was supposed to be the same aircraft the entire way from start to finish, just a stop in Atlanta on the way.

There was no change of equipment whatsoever - not even to a different 757 - and I know this because I stayed in the gate area and watched the a/c from the window the entire time.  The gate agent thought they could pull a fast one and shift things around, and the look on her face when I called her on it proved that.

Certainly understand that airlines change a/c all the time for ops reasons, but that was not the case in this instance.

Depending on what email platform you're using, you can easily filter emails by subject line or text contained in the email - right into the trash bin if you want.  I do this all the time with Microsoft Outlook (it's under File > Manage Rules & Alerts) - for example, you could filter out any email with '% off' in the subject/body while still receiving other RCI emails.  Takes all of 15 seconds to do.

Yes, we shouldn't have to go to those lengths to avoid spam from companies we're already paying thousands of dollars to, but at least there's a relatively easy way to avoid it.

2 hours ago, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

Sadly equipment changes - especially last-minute substitutions happen with many airlines.

That always causes havoc with pre-assigned seats for numerous passengers. It happens more often than people realize.

 

One a new aircraft is put in play...there is a limited and convoluted process to get people in seats similar to (but not often the same as) the original airplane.

That may be, but gate agents flat-out lie as well. I was on a Delta flight DCA-ATL-STT once, a 757 on both legs.  I flew down seated next to my family in a window seat, got to ATL no problem.  Then when it comes time to board, I get called to the desk and the agent tries to give me a new boarding pass for an aisle seat away from my family, claiming that it's due to an equipment change.  I looked her straight in the eye and told her I was on the flight from DCA, on the same 757 that's going to St. Thomas, that I sat at the gate watching out the window and that plane didn't budge.  Asked her to tell me again why my seat was changed.  She looked annoyed and refused to answer - finally got me switched to a window seat (what I paid for) but unfortunately away from my family.

Moral of the story is, don't trust gate agents when they try to sell you on a story.  Use your head, and challenge them (politely) if necessary.

13 hours ago, brillohead said:

I can confirm that it has improved DRASTICALLY from June 2018 to March 2019. 

You'll be very surprised.

That's very exciting to hear...Sorrento's on Oasis in summer '17 was godawful, an insult to pizza.  I'm actually looking forward to trying Sorrento's again now!

The developer console in Chrome reveals the following error:

It would seem that updating the reference to the script in the board HTML (line 424) to request over https would solve this problem. 

Meh. Probably will skip the parade this time around since they no longer have the Dreamworks tie-in.  Kinda surprised they didn’t just partner with another kid-friendly company, like Nickelodeon or Hasbro. 

On 6/20/2019 at 11:22 PM, Sizzlechest said:

 

The better solution is to put on a pair of rubber gloves and dispose of every duck you find. Hmmm... maybe I'll do that on my next cruise.

Hey, The Grinch decided to make an appearance on CC!

3 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Depends on how far north you go

And how solid of a port security clearance you have...

10 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

You're right, must be the west side. Over by Grills

You can try parking on the north side of the terminal, but you might get a little wet. 😁

We were on Oasis in 2017 and the kids slept on the sofa bed...Our then-16 year old said it wasn't horrible, but it was a little hard.  Said she thought they put a comforter on top of the sofa cushions as padding.  Our then-4 year old liked it a lot, but she's never been picky about where she sleeps. 😄