LeeW

Printed list for your sailing usually appear in your cabin on the first day. Someone may have one of these. In the meantime you can scroll through the current schedule on the app: 1. Open app and hit the person icon to get to your current cruise 2. Touch "select a different cruise" 3. At bottom of next page under Don't see your cruise? touch "Let's add it now" 4. Touch "Browse our ships" 5. Touch "Harmony of the Seas" 6. Touch the first or second cruise on the list, "Feb 25-Mar 3" This brings up the daily planner for the current cruise. Look through the different days for the entertainment.

Swapping names of one person on reservation can be done up until a few days before cruising. Just contact whoever you booked your cruise with. No charge.

MyTime will officially start around 6:45 but people will line up in both reservation and non-reservation lines starting around 6:20. Often the hosts will walk down the lines and ask if anyone wants to be seated now on a different floor. If so, you get escorted to another level of the dining room. Menu order and what is offered can change randomly. Typically "formal" nights are 2 and 6, usually on sea days. Look at Harmony sailings within a week of present time on the app doing the same itinerary as yours for a clue as to what you will have. If those are not available try another Oasis class ship doing a similar itinerary and ports on similar days to yours.

Royal train is a charter that unloads on the pier fairly late in the afternoon. If you want to get to the ship early you need to take a bus. Actual Goldstar (and Adventure class) boards at 6 am downtown Anchorage and gets in to Seward around 11. This ends at the terminal in Seward, with trolley to pier available (although only about a 15 minute walk). We booked Goldstar for this summer directly with the railroad because we want to get to Seward and the ship much earlier than the charter train. Includes a meal (but pretty limited breakfast menu), soft drinks, two alcoholic drinks, and the glass dome view. Adventure class is seating only plus a snack bar and some space in a dome car. Slower than a bus but we considered this as an excursion and granddaughters haven't taken a large sightseeing train.

Not sure there is a fix once you get off the ship. It is fairly common for photos not to show up in your folder (they use facial recognition, but when they ask for a cabin number they can punch it in wrong). They can fix this onboard. Note that they only link in pictures that have someone in your cabin in the picture and they won't add photos from iFly that require a separate purchase. Last time I tried the help because I only had one photo purchased and it should have been two. Never got a response but in my case I finally figured out that I had an extra "credit" for the second purchase. But all photos did appear greyed out on the website, unlike your problem.

Last cruise a small group snorkel trip in Bonaire was sold out for a year up to about 2 weeks before the cruise. Then suddenly became available until they shut down online bookings 5 days before the cruise. We booked direct with Epic Tours Bonaire and got a similar tour with only 14 people onboard for $100 less than the ship tour would have been. Some of these sold items may be placeholders since the contract may not be finalized. Or they could be someone holding a bunch of bookings for a group and then releasing them before they get onboard (after 5 days any refund is returned as refundable onboard credit rather than to your credit card).

Also often have large booths on the Promenade and sometimes booths set up around pool to sign up people for drink packages.

Just remember you can't change both names on a cabin. One original person in the booking has to sail (although they can change cabins onboard to move people around).

You didn't say where you are sailing from, but in general they don't allow non-suite guests in through the suite entrance in any port. Most ports are not enforcing checkin times and you can show up when you want and get in line. For example, we got in line at 9:30 last week in Fort Lauderdale and were in the terminal about 10, with passengers still getting off. Not sure the suite 1 hour rule was ever enforced, even during startup after covid. You can also keep looking at checkin times and change if an earlier time becomes available. Note also that the app never required you to fill out passport information before choosing a boarding time. You could do that and then fill in the other information later. Most folks on this board are aware of this and if they want an early time they will use the app just after midnight local port time 45 days before sailing to select their time.

Earliest I have seen since restart with MyTime has been 6:30, although on many ships the 6:45 actually starts getting processed earlier. You won't get a 6:00 reservation. Agree that best for you would be early dining. They do handle large tables for MyTime (10 or so), but first night will be a pain. After that they will have you at the same table. With a 6:45 reservation you will likely get in around 7:30 for that size group since they have to clear multiple tables in the same area and put them together.

The ghost is in the Liberty elevators as well. Push a button, it lights with three other buttons and goes out. Skips floors. Goes up instead of down. Three or four buttons broken on each elevator...

One exception to the plan - second person can sign up for "rest of cruise" instead of one day at a time just after midnight three nights before departure. And earlier times on that day seem to result in a charge of around $10 after the coupon is applied. From what I have seen the coupon seems to be slightly more than two single days.

Liberty uses the app, and it is the easiest way to find out which deck to get off on in ports and what dining venues are open now. Of course it dropped my signin four or five times last week and I had to log in again. Seems like more than on other ships. Wifi was pretty good in most areas except a couple of local spots in solarium near front.

In the past the "other cruises" link showed all your cruises and a link to other ships at the bottom. Now it shows one other cruise and a link to the full list, then go to the bottom, select, then select ship, then select sailing. Just one additional level but seems to be harder to find.

Just got off Liberty. Three and four day cruises, so crowd was considerably different from what you are thinking about. Liberty does need refreshing but crew tries very hard to keep things looking good. Buffet is small (so is Vision's) and was mobbed many days. Couldn't really use Cafe Promenade because food and fancy coffee were all one line with few servers. Park Cafe on Vision is in the solarium and very convenient. There is more entertainment on Liberty than Vision (Vision does a lot of entertainment by crew in the atrium). Liberty has Saturday Night Fever, another production show and ice show. Liberty has slides, Vision doesn't. The solarium on Liberty is open top and has lots of standard mesh loungers (not real comfortable). Vision has some padded ones and solarium is covered. Casino on Liberty actually had more and better machines than Oasis or Anthem class ships. And video poker even paid double for quarter single line jacks or better or bonus poker.

This is what I would have expected - the Royal app in the medical section indicates that an injury on the ship is treated at no charge. Likewise gastro illness and covid.

By the way, Liberty is using both terminal 18 and 19 in Port Everglades. We have NEVER seen such a steep gangway as 19. They loaded wheelchair folks with luggage on 1 because there is no way a chair could go up that ramp. Same issue getting off.

We did B2B last year and had reserved a beach bed on Chill Beach for second cruise. Canceled it because they are out in sun. Chairs everywhere have umbrellas and lots of trees so bed would have been hotter. Yesterday that area was fairly chilly so we moved inland. Hideaway was also calmer and warmer.

Recommend Uxmal over Chichen Itza in Progresso. Bus company that handles the pier transport runs it at 930 last we were there. Shorter trip, well excavated ruins, and far fewer people. From Coz would never take a trip to mainland. Way too much ferry and bus time for ruins time. Ships sometimes offer Tulum and beach or snorkeling but travel time kills the latter and you still get short ruins. Native to Chacchoban worked great for us and we got there well before big busses. Private guide for 6 people and pretty good ruins. Note pyramid stairs are steep and large steps.

As of yesterday Liberty is still giving out old style blocks.

We did Freedom out of Miami on 28 December and then drove up to Orlando for week at Universal. Water at Coco Cay was pretty cold this year. Warmer yesterday but still chilly. If you have time for southern Caribbean at Christmas it is a lot more comfortable in Aruba than the Bahamas.

Not our experience, although accent can be heavy for some crew. And this is true even in US sailings. Only difference I can think of is that in Europe you can stay late on debarkation day for a price. US requires zeroing ship before next set of passengers get on.

Currently on Liberty and no Freestyle here. They do give you the cups with the soda package and fill them at any bar from the gun. Cans are available but cost extra - more choice than gun. No freestyle on Coco Cay either.

All aboard yesterday was 4 (although departed 2 hours late). So you had to be onboard at 230. Online checking is 45 days out. They let people into the terminal around 930 and security about 20 minutes later.

Avoid Voyager. Set up for Chinese cruises and no video poker. On Liberty they have around 6 Superstar machines. Single line quarter Jacks or better actually pays double for two pair. Unusual on cruise ships.