pharaoh

So after dinner last night, we accidentally wandered into the headliner show. I say accidentally, because we typically avoid the headliner because they’re too cheesy or boring or whatever reason.

We’re glad we went in, because the entertainer Earl Turner was actually great! Yes he was a little cheesy but mostly he was really funny. He sang lots of oldies and a few newer songs, and it was a lot of fun.

After that was the love and marriage game show, which I scoped for anyone who wants to sit through a 45 minute long video.

https://www.pscp.tv/w/bK0r-DkyNzE5MTV8MWVhSmJtak12ZG9HWC_shVAEF7PiqTaufUhSm_ThQ3RB2hfO3X3xrR18wdDP

I have to say, we’re bingo people, and there has been a severe lack of bingo on this cruise. I think so far I have only seen two games. What the heck?!

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Detox update: didn’t take a photo because juices are always ugly, but I went down to the Vitality Spa and had them whip me up something called a Fruit Oasis. It had apples, lemons, watermelons and maybe some other stuff in it that I can’t remember.[emoji23] It was delicious and I was surprised that it was included in my beverage package! The regular price is $6.75.

Now I am sitting on deck and enjoying a rainy view of Costa Maya.

But I am sitting right outside of Mini Bites so there’s no telling how long this “detox” will last. 🤷🏼*♀️

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BEAUTIFUL pictures...especially the ones of you and your mom. You're going to have memories for a lifetime. So glad I got to share a few cruises with my mom, now that she is unable.

My mom and I didn’t take vacations together for a LONG time, our first one as grown ups was in 2015 and it has become a yearly tradition. I hope we get to continue these annual cruises for as long as we can! [emoji178]

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Last night we dined at Jaime’s Italian. It was a cute, casual restaurant. I liked how the staff all got to wear jeans as part of their uniform.

I almost never take food photos because I feel like it’s a bother to other people, and the lighting is usually pretty crappy, but since this was a more casual restaurant and it was earlier in the day, AND we were by a window, I decided it would be all right. [emoji23]

For starters we had the meat plank, the crab and avocado bruschetta, and a bowl of calimari.

Everything was tasty, but I probably wouldn’t do the meat plank again.

I really enjoyed the bruschetta! There are so many times when I get bruschetta and you could knock someone on the head with the bread it’s so hard. But the bread for this starter was toasted just right and was easy to bite into. The avocado and crab topping was delicious without being heavy like a crab dip might be. Super yummy.

For entrees, I got the risotto and asked them to top it with chicken breast, which they did. My mom had the carbonara with shrimp.

The risotto was good, but a little salty and very heavy. The chicken was delicious and tender, that was probably the best part.

I tasted mom’s carbonara which was delicious [emoji39] If I came back I would probably get that.

Finally, the dessert that I ordered was WELL recommended by my friends on Periscope, and even as they brought it out to me, someone who was walking out of the restaurant said it was the best thing on the menu. Everyone is raving about it. YES, PEOPLE. I’m talking about .... the cheesecake.

I admit, it is just as delicious as it looks. I’m not normally a big cheesecake fan but it was very good. There is lemon curd drizzled on the plate which is a nice touch, I love anything with lemon curd. Sounds gross but it’s straight from heaven’s kitchen.

Overall, I enjoyed Jamie’s, but I still prefer Giovanni’s. It was also the heaviest meal we have had thus far (as good Italian-American food usually is) and it is now day 5 and I am reaching food overload. We don’t have any dinner reservations tonight and I might just try to skip it and give myself a day to detox. [emoji23]

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I keep trying the famous roast beef sandwich at Park Cafe, but I give up. I’m just not a fan. This time I had it with the au jus and spicy mustard. It was alright.

But it made for a nice photo!

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I’m on this same sailing. There are plenty of kids but I haven’t noticed abundantly more kids than usual. We have sailed in early November, and mid May.

I’ll second the sentiments about the solarium, though. That place is a ghost town.

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You take beautiful pictures. I'm going to need to brush up on my photography skills.

Thank you! I truly can’t take any credit, my iPhone does all the work. I just press the buttons. [emoji23]

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Central Park is one of my fav areas on Oasis class ships.

My current situation:

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The Fine Line just continued our awesome night. Mom was in a legit food coma so I went by myself to the show. I sat up in the third row and off to the side. I was definitely in the splash zone. [emoji30][emoji23][emoji30]

My favorite thing about the show was probably the soundtrack. I knew and loved every song in my youth so it was super nostalgic in addition to being beautiful. I loved everything about it!

Towards the end when the fountains start going off, there was a group of young kids who kept trying to jump into the fountains, and one very stressed out production guy had to come out and tell them to sit down [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] awww. Kids love nothing more than getting drenched [emoji23]

If you follow me on Instagram (link in my signature below) I’m sure you saw my 3,000 Instagram stories of this show so enjoy. [emoji23]

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Oh my God you guys. Last night was THE BEST. We went to Wonderland and I saw The Fine Line. Both were beyond words.

So, first, Wonderland. I am not a foodie and I do not know anything that I ate despite our wonderful server’s explanations, so I have the menu for reference and I will explain our experience the best I can.

First off, our server Juma was so good. He explained everything in great detail, and was attentive without hovering. We let him choose all of our appetizers and we chose our entrees. He brought us lots of seafood appetizers since we said we like seafood.

The five appetizers we had were:

Tomato Water (Sun)

Oceanic Citrus (Ice)

Crispy Crab Cones (Ice)

Buffalo Chicken Eggs (Fire)

Shrimp Kataifi (Fire)

Everything was excellent but if I had to choose I think the Oceanic Citrus was my absolute fave. They came served in little limes, and I could have eaten 20. OMG. The crispy crab cones were a close second.

For our entrees, I ordered the Terroir Beef with Stone Potatoes, and my mom ordered the Halibut cooked in Clear Paper. Both were very, very good. The sauce that came with the halibut really made the meal. My beef was tender and delicious and the Stone potatoes were so cool! They were hard on the outside but soft and yummy on the inside. Also I’ve never seen a GREY potato.

For dessert we had The World, and the Forbidden Apple. The World is the only thing I wasn’t obsessed with, because I don’t like peanut butter. But the forbidden apple was AMAZING! It came with a side of yogurt ice cream which was light, refreshing, and so tasty.

I cannot recommend Wonderland enough. We were ROLLING out of there in a food coma and we both looooooved it!

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I dragged Mom to the bridge wing this morning. She’s really living her best life.

Today we had our CC M&M. It was not well attended because we didn’t get the invites in our room. Someone from the roll call had to call guest services and ask about it, and then posted in the roll call the time and date. But I’m sure lots of people never got the info.

After the M&M we did a quick little suite tour instead of a full blown cabin crawl. We saw a grand suite, a crown loft suite, and Andrew’s famous corner crown loft suite.

I’ve only ever seen that view on Periscope so it was exciting to see it in person! I could have stayed forever but we had to retreat back to our peasant cabin. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

We also had our roll call Slot Pull which was a lot of fun. I think we won around $90 but decided to keep playing until we got a jackpot. It never happened but a lot of fun was had by all!

Post hotdog boardwalk shot:

We all have our vices and a daily iced matcha green tea latte is mine.

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Hi Celine,

Enjoying your review! We spent the day at the Margaritaville resort after getting off the Harmony last month while waiting for a late flight. What a fun place! I have been trying to book it for pre cruise stays but it is totally booked... as far out as Oct 2018! How far in advance do you book your stay there?

Thanks in advance

Kathy

Thank you! Marg is great, I’ve stayed there three times now. It DOES book out far in advance. I booked my October stay back in March. If you have trouble booking directly, try the travel sites and they might have some availability. Good luck!

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Celeisse, I'm glad to see that you and your mom have made it on board safe and sound. If you see any issues from our sailing blame Maureen. :')

Thanks Andrew!

Literally the first thing I did when I got on board was order a Pina Colada and the bartender told me “we don’t have it on board yet.... the last cruise cleaned us out!”

HMMMMMM [emoji848][emoji848][emoji848][emoji848]

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You and your mom look beautiful! Good to know about 150. It wasn't on our list of must try's anyway and now I feel better about that. Do you have any other specialty dining planned? I might have to try my luck on the unicorn myself. ;)

Hahah I think 150 is worth a try, but I enjoyed it a lot more on Allure than I did last night on Harmony.

Yes we have three other specialty dining reservations this week! Tonight we are going to Wonderland, which I’m VERY excited about! I feel like I have been waiting years to try this, ever since it was announced on Quantum. [emoji51][emoji51][emoji51]

Tomorrow we have Jamie’s Italian booked, and then the Izumi Hibachi on Thursday night. We did Izumi on Allure before and loved it.

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Loving this live thread! You are doing a great job! I recognize your name from some Periscopes that I follow :) Have a wonderful cruise!

Thank you!! We’re having a great time!

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For those who asked about the view from the accessible boardwalk balcony, I have some crappy unedited photos. [emoji847]

This is the view from our balcony on deck 14. The room is 14305. That platform above us is the landing for the zip line so we get to cheer for people all day. [emoji23]

This is the room. We keep the scooter next to the sofa but you can easily put it next to the vanity where the outlets are for charging it up. There’s plenty of room.

I love the extra window. The curtains don’t pull on the small window, so we have them clipped to the side with a towel clip [emoji23]

And the balcony

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So yesterday was very relaxing. We decided not to get off in Nassau, even though we unusually had more time there. We left port at 4:30. Usually we leave Nassau around 2???? So this was different.

I spent the day roaming around, taking photos, shopping, and napping lol!

It was our first formal night on this sailing so Mom and I took some photos on our balcony.

We had a 7:00pm reservation at 150 Central Park. We have done this restaurant on Allure in 2015 and I remember really enjoying it. But I was underwhelmed this evening. Nothing was BAD (other than the bread rolls, which were much too hard), but nothing was a WOW experience either.

I had the veal bolognese agnolotti starter, and the scallops. The starter was very yummy and the scallops were perfectly cooked. Mom had the lobster gnocchi starter and also had the scallops. She said the lobster was over cooked but enjoyed the scallops.

We got our entrees around 7:45 and then placed our dessert order around 8:05, and didn’t actually get the desserts until nearly 8:40, so service slowed down A LOT. It just took forever. Probably would not return to 150 CP on this ship.

Also, on Allure we got some cute keepsake menus with our names on them. But we didn’t get that here on Harmony. [emoji30][emoji30][emoji30] oh well!

After that we went to the finish that lyric game, and after Mom went to bed I played around in the casino for a little bit.

I put $50 in this machine because it had unicorns on it. I got back $146. So UNICORN MAGIC IS REAL, NON BELIEVERS!

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Following along. I remember your previous review so looking forward to this one. Looks amazing so far. How amazing that Royal can help with your mom's medical condition and thus she can still travel.

Ship looks amazing. Would love to hear what you think of the Boardwalk balcony and the view. We booked one on Symphony for the first time.

Enjoy your cruise. Thanks for taking us along.

 

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I really like the boardwalk balcony. I thought that we might miss seeing the ocean, because the accessible balconies are a lot closer to the entrance of the boardwalk rather than towards the aquatheatre, but we can see it just fine from our balcony, even with the giant Abyss slide! I’ll try to take a few more photos for reference.

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Through Dialysis at Sea, do you have to pick from a few select dates for cruises, or do you have a lot of options?

 

 

 

My FIL is on dialysis, and has only ever had it done at a different site one time in 14 years, so it may be moot... but I think that a cruise would be the perfect vacation because he can easily go to the cabin and rest vs a "traditional" vacation of spending a lot of time outside of a hotel with no real place to rest.

The reason you gave in your second paragraph is the exact reason we love dialysis at Sea. A traditional or land vacation would be rough on my mom because she NEEDS a good 4-6 hours of rest after her dialysis. Thankfully she only has to go twice a week so she still has plenty of time for other things. But having the clinic right there and being able to get her something to eat directly after, and then being able to have a good nap really is a wonderful luxury for someone on dialysis.

If you look on their website, you can choose any of the dates they’re sailing. They do have quite a lot of options of itineraries and ships, but of course they do not have EVERYTHING. Right now I think they only offer RCI and Celebrity. They’re also pretty good about adding new ships.

Definitely look into it!

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Hola Lionesss! Happy to answer your questions.

1. She’s on hemodialysis.

2. We booked through Dialysis at Sea, which is a travel agency that arranges with Royal to borrow their medical facility space to host dialysis patients throughout the week. DaS works with the major clinics (ie Davita, Fresnius, etc) to bring a nephrologist and a handful of nurses and techs on board to facilitate the dialysis. There are usually no more than 5-8 patients on each of the three cruises we’ve done.

3. All of the nurses and techs are all licensed and certified and trained. My mom has a very tricky fistula and they have taken good care of her on all of our cruises. You don’t pay at the time of the treatment, since DaS is the travel agent, they collect the money for the cruise and the treatments and you pay in advance, just like a regular travel agent.

4. This is a tricky question. For one, yes, we pay A LOT more for a cruise than most people in a comparable category because of the dialysis. Typically the price for us has been between $3-4,000 on top of the normal cruise price. As for the price of the cabin, I usually see the same cabins for less money than what DAS charges on the RCI website but have not gotten a straight answer as to why that is. Unfortunately, they’re the only guys in town that do this kind of work, so we suck it up and pay the price for the luxury of being able to travel together. 🤷🏼*♀️

FYI I have read that some people are able to get the cost of the dialysis covered by their insurance. We haven’t had luck with that.

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I took my mom to dialysis at the crack of 5:45am, so then had the opportunity to roam around as we approached Nassau.

I did a little sunrise periscope which ended up being a quick walking tour from the aquatheater to the bridge wing.

https://www.pscp.tv/w/bKi5WDkyNzE5MTV8MWpNS2dQa01MdlhHTPNyKKo5976114oCQY3sORbDIwHekKsnEdtVCft8UdlC

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Following we will be on harmony in december. Thank you for posting. I love your photos. Have a great cruise. :)

Thank you! I have been working on my “Instagram aesthetic” [emoji849] so have been trying to take better photos lol. You’ll love Harmony!

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Following along. We have an accessibly ocean view balcony on Harmony next year. Love seeing your room. Makes me feel better about room for the wheelchair!

You will have plenty of room for the wheelchair and MORE. My mom and I have done two other cruises in regular ocean view balcony rooms, and if we can even get the scooter in the room, we end up having to shove suitcases under the bed (if they fit), and last time we had to put the coffee table out on the balcony (at the suggestion of the room attendant).

In this room we have plenty of room for the scooter, and enough room to put the suitcases in a corner out of the way. There is plenty of room on the balcony for a wheelchair or scooter and a ramp to get on and off the balcony. You’ll love it. [emoji847]

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I am loving the view from my room tonight. We have an accessible boardwalk balcony. First time not having a standard ocean view. We are LOVING all of the extra space for the scooter and overlooking the boardwalk is great for people watching.

Seriously, we might be forever spoiled.

Sadly today we missed sail away because we were hunting for the orientation meeting for Dialysis at Sea. BUMMER. I ALWAYS miss sail away [emoji24][emoji24][emoji24][emoji23][emoji23][emoji24]

We saw Grease and it was alright.

Tomorrow we’re in Nassau. Someone told me today that they heard someone else at the spa say that we might not be going to Cozumel because of Hurricane Nate. I think that’s just hearsay but I’m not buying any excursions just in case. [emoji30][emoji30][emoji30]

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We are HERE!!!!! I’ve already noticed some improvements regarding the boarding process.

My mom rents a scooter on board, and needs wheelchair assistance getting on the ship. When we have done this in the past, a pier agent has had to push my mom in the wheelchair onto the ship and then we have to wait for the rooms to open before we can get the scooter and get to exploring.

This time, the pier agent got us through security and check in, and then took us to an area of the terminal where they had the scooter waiting for us. This was awesome because my mom was able to take herself up the ramp and we were ready to get going as soon as we got on the ship. So much easier for those who need assistance!

We got to the port around 11 and were on board by 11:30. Now we’re sitting outside the solarium bistro with some frozen drinks YAAASSSS!

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