BigKFamily

We went to the Solarium Bistro. Plenty of options, but we easily found seating.

Hi, all, Hubby and I just returned from our 8th Royal Caribbean Cruise, our first on Harmony of the Seas (Oct. 1 - 8). Somehow after 15 years of telling my cruise-averse brother and his wife how fabulous a cruise can be, they finally joined us and were blown away. So I thought I'd share our impressions, from veterans and newbies alike. 1. My brother is an amputee, and walks with a prosthetic leg; for anything longer than 20 yards or so, he uses a motorized wheelchair. They initially had concerns about accessibility, especially in the stateroom. We booked them an accessible room, with a balcony overlooking Central Park; we were a few doors down, also overlooking Central Park on the 14th deck. Beautiful view! Their room had plenty of room for his wheelchair, including in the bathroom. 2. Check in was a breeze! I am normally a compulsive rule follower, but despite a 1:30 assigned check-in time, we arrived at the terminal a little before 10:30 a.m., and were on the ship by 10:50. My brother was complimenting everyone there, "You guys are a well-oiled machine." 3. We sailed Oasis in 2014, so the layout was familiar, but there were a few noticeable differences. The Solarium has hot tubs but no pool, which we thought was odd. The dining room is 3 levels, but is oddly shaped, so even at the railing it's hard to see above or below. Ordinarily you don't notice it, until they bring out the cooking staff to be thanked and you can't see them. We did the early seating, and went to the main dining room every night. The food was terrific every single time. I know there are big fans of the specialty restaurants here, but for what we pay to cruise, we partake of what is included, and were never disappointed. My brother and his wife were impressed with the level of service, and friendliness of everyone. 4. The shows were unbelievable. A Fine Line in the Aqua Theater was just amazing! We saw Grease and Columbus: The Musical and loved them. The ice show (I forget the name,) Love & Marriage, stand up comedy ... all of them were great. We went to the Crazy Quest, which we have always found hilarious in the past, and were somewhat disappointed. Maybe a few new ideas are in order. 5. The app has been improved since we last cruised so you actually get notified when someone in your group sends a message. By the way, maybe everyone but us already knew this, but you can save yourself some money by purchasing internet for one person with two devices, as opposed to two people with one device each. Just share the login. 6. With more and more people used to carrying around their own refillable water bottles, RC is going to have to begin finding a way to allow convenient ways to refill them. Most ice and water machines are marked "No Water Bottles." Some of us fill cups and pour it into the water bottles, but lots of people are using the machines regardless. 7. Elevators are always a challenge, especially when you HAVE to use them. We were pleasantly surprised when people allowed my brother to go first, even when they had been waiting. Some even vacated elevators for him. Our only frustration was actually from RC itself. At our first port, they announced the gangway was on deck 3. After finally catching an elevator there, staff said, "Oh, there's an escalator to deck 2, so go back to the elevator." That wasn't too bad, since most people were getting off. The real problem actually came on departure day. We had an excursion scheduled in Miami, and they told us to meet in the Schooner Bar on Deck 6. When it came time for our group to depart, they headed for the stairs for the exit on deck 5. We tried and tried to get an elevator, but of course, every single person on the ship was now packed into elevators going to 5! My brother had to walk down the stairs with my husband carrying the wheelchair. What would a person do if they didn't have that ability? Poor planning on RC's part! 8. The walking track is on Deck 5. It's nice that they've learned NOT to put it on the pool deck! All in all, we were so happy that they enjoyed the cruise so much and are already considering another.

Hi, all, We are sailing Harmony Oct. 1, and I'm wondering how far in advance they open up reservations to the entertainment/shows. Anyone who has recently sailed Harmony who might remember? Thanks in advance!

For us, we've always chosen the later dining time. Our reasoning is, we always take advantage of going ashore, and we don't want to be rushed for dinner. Even on sailing days, we want to shower off all the chlorine and sunscreen before dinner and don't want to be rushed. If there's a show we want to see before dinner, we keep that in mind.

Answers to questions: Themes: Oh goodness, my memory. Let's see -- Welcome Aboard Night, British, Italian, Mexican, Caribbean, Royal Night and Farewell. (I'm missing one in there somewhere.) Our food never came out cold once. We didn't order more than one main, but my hubby did once order two apps, and they came out together. Sorry, we didn't do Wonderland. In fact, we didn't do any specialty dining. We are always able to find dishes we love in the Main Dining Room. Excursions: at Labadee we had originally planned to just relax, but decided to do the jet ski tour. Wow! We have been on jet skis in the past, but this was intense. First off, jet skiing in the ocean is always more challenging than in a lake, which we knew. But our tour guide had us at full throttle all the way. Exciting but exhausting. Spent the rest of our time on the beach In Aruba, we did the Sightseeing and Eagle Beach Tour. Our tour guide Bert was wonderful, filled us in on a lot of interesting history and landmarks, and was very proud of his island. Be prepared for the majority of this to be the tour, with only about an hour of it on the beach. But it Eagle was indeed beautiful and relaxing! We got back to the ship, ate a little lunch, changed clothes, and then headed out for a Sunset Catamaran tour. This was just beautiful! Drinks included. In Curacao, we did our favorite excursion of the trip: a snorkling trip. A lot of the time we were simply on the boat, getting a tour of inlets and bays around the island. Finally arrived at a calm inlet near the Sandals resort, with a sunken tug boat that attracts a lot of fish. We spend a good hour there ... just amazing! If you have a GoPro, or a waterproof case for your phone, bring it! I got some beautiful video there! Shows: there was only one show that required reservations, called "The Book." We were originally told you had to wait until you got on the ship to make reservations, then when we got on, it was all sold out. Not sure if we were given bad info, or if seats went that fast. Nonetheless, we didn't see it. That show is held in Two70. In the Royal Theater, we saw a comedian, a magician, Love and Marriage ... a rotation of shows that I'm sure change frequently.

My husband and I just celebrated our 31st anniversary with an 8-day Southern Caribbean Cruises on Odyssey, our 7th cruise and the first since the pandemic. Here's a few observations ... Our assigned check in time was 1 p.m. We (like many others) have tried to get there as early as possible in the past, so we weren't sure how strict they would be. Since our check out time at our hotel was 11 a.m., we decided to take our chances and go early. The electronic "Set Sail Pass" meant no stopping at the desk before going to the waiting area, and no one looked at our assigned time. We were on the ship by 11:15 a.m. What a breeze check in is now! Everyone always heads for the Windjammer when they arrive ... we headed for the Solarium Bistro. This became one of our favorite places during the cruise. A good selection at the buffet -- many of the favorites from the Windjammer -- but never crowded where you couldn't find a seat. Your Sea Pass is delivered to your cabin, you don't receive it before boarding the ship as in the past. Cabins were ready at about 1:20, and were at our door when we got there. We got lucky and our luggage was already there as well! This also sped along the check in, I realized in hindsight, since we weren't waiting for our Sea Passes at the terminal. It doesn't stop you from getting a drink beforehand, no worries! No more muster drills! We were thrilled with that! (Our last cruise someone actually got sick from standing the heat for so long!) You have to watch a brief video in the app, listen to what the emergency siren sounds like, and then check in at your muster station sometime within the first few hours. So much better! The Music Hall is a great addition -- a two-story nightclub, with great entertainment all week. Two70 is also a beautiful venue. Nice to have alternatives to the Royal Theater. The Royal app was brand new the last time we cruise 3 years ago. We used it constantly this trip, since they are trying to get away from paper Cruise Compasses. But it's glitchy. It often had the wrong information about shows, which is somewhat baffling to me. It should be pretty easy to keep that up to date in comparison to print! The chat function was great -- made it easy to let hubby know where I was and vice versa -- and yes, it was free. I've seen questions about whether you get notifications or not ... the answer is, sort of. I can't speak to how things are with the paid wifi. We used the free wifi and enabled notifications. They would briefly appear on your screen sometimes, other times not. And there was no badge on the app that ever indicated there was a message waiting. However, if you opened the app, an icon would appear if you had a message waiting. I'm always surprised to here how negative people are about the Main Dining Room. We have never had a bad experience with it, and this time was no exception. We always opt for the later seating (it's so much easier on port days to have time to shower and change before dinner.) We heard some people complaining about finding a good time for their My Time reservations. The menu was a little shorter than in the past, and without the regular options that used to appear every night. But each night had a great selection, according that night's theme (Italian Night, Mexican Night, etc.) Our ports were Labadee, Aruba and Curacao. We lucked out with good weather the whole trip, and each of these locations were beautiful. The night we left Curacao, we made an unscheduled stop at Aruba for a passenger to be medically evacuated. It was at about 11 p.m. It looked like everything was handled well, and we heard the passenger was doing well. It didn't delay our arrival back in Fort Lauderdale a bit. NorthStar is a lot of fun and was very easy to schedule through the app. Arriving in Fort Lauderdale we asked for early disembarkation, as we had an 11 a.m. flight. We were scheduled at 7:30 am. Things were slightly delayed and we weren't allowed off until 8 a.m. It was still plenty of time, but another instance where RC simply isn't using their app correctly. They said you would receive a notification through the app when it was time to depart. The notifications were simply coming in at the originally scheduled time, so people didn't know whether to listen to the announcements, or to the app. There was a glut of people showing up at the entrance to the gangway saying "but the app says it's my turn!" All in all, a great trip!