squattie

Sailed on Oasis on March 3… cartons readily available at WIndjammer.

This ⬆️ 💯 I do not understand why they can’t figure out how to disembark an Oasis class ship in Miami. Both times, with Harmony in 2023 and last week with Oasis, the process of getting off the ship is a total cluster. The ship arrived at 6am in port, and they cleared the ship to start disembarkation by 7:30am. When we arrived in the promenade at 7:30, the line was packed on the track on both sides of the ship. You couldn’t figure out where the line started or ended. Just a solid line of people with signs saying “Exit this way”, which just took you to a line of people with no end or beginning. Then they started funneling people into the Royal Theater with all of their luggage and no where to go. You can’t fit suitcases and people in the theater at the same time. Eventually, it was just a sea of everyone and no organization. At this point, we went to Boleros and found an empty seat and hung out for about 10 minutes. I walked around and eventually found a line moving on the track, so luckily we found ourselves in the correct moving line. Our flight from FLL was at 11:50am. We were in the cab line by 8:15am, which never moved in about 10 minutes. Gave up and scheduled a Lyft, which arrived less than 5 minutes, and was at FLL by 9:00am. Still had plenty of time to spare for us… but an hour after we got to FLL, there was a major wreck that closed I-95 between Miami and FLL, causing a few of our fellow passengers to get stuck in traffic. You never know what may happen these days, so always have a Plan B, just in case.

You have to keep calling until you find a customer service rep who has experienced this before and knows how to fix it. This happened to me for an upcoming March sailing, and took like 5 calls before it got resolved. Had to escalate to the resolutions desk, and then had to hang up for about an hour while they resolved it. Very frustrating, and RC should have fixed this known technical error a long time ago. I had paid in full, but cancelled a shore excursion, and the refund was applied to my initial deposit as well.

We had a water park cabana in April for our cruise on Harmony. We had 6 guests, and were offered the opportunity to purchase wristbands for 2 additional guests ahead of time. Just had to go to the Shore Excursion Desk to take car of the day prior. We didn’t need 2 extra guests, but the opportunity was there. Our cabin attendant was awesome, and was the one to check us off the list that morning upon arrival and put the wristbands on. He got to know us by name and was by our cabana frequently for service, and would’ve definitely noticed additional guests showing up.

Is there a limit to the number of promotions are you allowed to stack on your reservation? For example, if you have a promotion from Black Friday already on your reservation, but another one comes out for a “Fall and Winter Kicker $150 off” do you have to give up the Black Friday deal to get the $150 off deal, or are they stackable so you get both?

We requested a table by a window, and were seated at a table towards the middle of the dining room. I guess the good part is we could see the windows on both sides of the ship 🙃

I emailed about 2 weeks out prior to our recent Harmony sailing. No response and our request was not honored.

We thoroughly enjoyed our week on Harmony of the Seas! We are a party of 3 with 2 adults and 1 child, with ocean view balcony cabin. Cabin: Our room was ready at 1:30pm, so that was nice, and our luggage was already outside our door by that time too. I did not like the reduction in housekeeping service. With our child, we used couch conversion into a bed, and it stayed that way for the entire trip. There were reports with the reduction in housekeeping services that the cabin steward would stow/unstow the bed daily, but that did not happen. So if you wanted to use the couch other than a bed, we would be the ones to make the change. Another issue with the cabin was the missing bottom seal on the shower door. As a result, any time we showered, the bathroom floor had water all over it. We notified our cabin attendant who said maintenance was already notified, but they couldn't get the part. We asked for additional towels daily to basically build our own dam against the door. Fun times, and with only 1/day service, the towels piled up. Dinner: We did not purchase any specialty dining packages. We ate at MDR for dinner every night at 5:15pm. Wasn't anything to write home about, and wasn't bad either. Service was slow a few nights, and found ourselves with a dining experience about 1.5 hours each night. They could easily speed this up and get it under an hour, especially with the simplified menus and smaller portion sizes. The lines for My Time Dining were ridiculous every time we left each evening, basically having to go shoulder to shoulder with guests as we left trying to get to the elevator or steps. Was able to order multiple appetizers and desserts which came at the same time, but the entrees were not allowed to come at the same time. The lobster portion was so small, I went ahead and ordered the NY strip, but had to finish the lobster before they would bring the steak. So in one minute I ate the lobster, then waited another 10 minutes for the steak to appear. Lots of mentions about "at the end of the cruise you will receive a survey"... yada yada yada. This got old quick. Breakfast/lunch: Breakfast was split between the WJ and MDR. Wasn't impressed with MDR for breakfast, might as well go to WJ as the items I was served in MDR had clearly had been sitting for a while. The syrup on my pancakes had crystallized. Lunch was at WJ and MiniBites, both pretty decent grab and go items for pool side. Retail: If you need a watch, HOS has one for you. Just don't buy the first day. By the end of your cruise, there will be 75% off sales and really big yellow signs on the promenade advertising such, with boxes and boxes of watches piled up. Not impressed with overall retail on this ship. Embarkation took us 10 minutes from our Lyft to ship. Disembarkation was a complete disaster, and took us 1.5 hours from cabin to Lyft. Supposedly Homeland Security wasn't ready for the ship, which delayed everything. We've done multiple cruises in the past and did self-disembarkation, and been off the ship in 15-20 minutes. Regardless, the RC staff didn't do a good job managing the process. They made an announcement saying disembarkation was delayed, but then 5 minutes later we get a notification from the app that's it's clear to get off the ship. When arriving on the 5th floor, there were people everywhere and nobody moving. Eventually we found ourselves on the starboard side of the ship, with everyone making a line on the running track. The line was all the way down that side of the ship, then did a u-turn and went through the MDR. Entertainment: We enjoyed all of the shows on board, including The Fine Line (Aqua Theater Show) and Grease. For Columbus, the boat mechanism broke on Thursday night, so they had to cancel the show. RC moved all of our reservations to Friday night. The show was a bit cheesy/corny (think tap dancing sharks and dancing cheeseburgers), so it was entertaining to see how ridiculous it could get. Easter: We were sailing on Easter Sunday, and RC did add a Catholic Easter Mass and a non-denominational service. The Priest was the same person leading the non-denominational service, minus the vestments. At least they had something. Afterwards they had an egg hunt, and provided families with an easter basket to find eggs in the Boardwalk area. Of course there were kids who had 15 eggs, and others had none. Ports were St Maarten, St Thomas, and Coco Cay. For St Maarten, we went with Joyce Prince tours and had a fantastic day. She took us to both sides of the island, and made sure we saw everything we wanted to see. Fantastic tour, and would highly recommend using Joyce, especially if it's your first time on the island. We did a RC excursion on St Thomas (half day catamaran snorkel/champagne tour to St John). You would have thought it was the RC excursion staff's first day. There were single file lines at the pier that started blending together, with no clear beginning or end. When it came time to go, the staff said "oh, just follow the sidewalk over to the two boats" that you could see in the distance and they'll take it from there. When we arrived at the two boats, they started boarding us, but ultimately realized we weren't in the right spot. The guy called someone, and told us we had to go back to the pier. There were other excursion guests already on the boat, who had to figure out among themselves that they were not in the right spot, even though the staff had taken their tickets. We get back to the pier and meet the lady who told us to walk to the boats, who then took us in a different direction to one of the open air taxi-buses. Two guests were not able to make the excursion because they oversold it and did not have the space. Weird start, but when we finally arrived at the catamaran, we had a great time! Saw a small sea turtle, ray, and different types of fish. St. Thomas is the only place we saw noticeable sargassum seaweed, and that was at the port. For Coco Cay, we were originally scheduled to be the only ship that day, but Mariner got re-routed due to bad weather, and beat us to the island. We purchased the waterpark cabana, and enjoyed the day there. Yes, the lines to the water slides are ridiculous and RC should figure out how to manage that. The Daredevils Peak slide had wait times of 1.5 hours at peak, which did decline later in the day. Didn't ride a few of the slides to avoid wasting a good portion of our day standing in a line. We did enjoy the island, and it was one of the highlights of our trip. The mozzarella sticks, burgers, drinks, funnel cakes all were good, and our cabin attendant did an outstanding job. Overall, great week!

My refunds from 11/18 just posted this afternoon. Didn’t have to call or message them.

Looking to get a cabana at Thrill Waterpark at Coco Cay. My family of 3, plus a friend and her family (total of 3 guests) want to split the cost since the cabana holds 6 total guests. The cabana comes with access to the waterpark. Our bookings are completely separate, and not connected. My question is this: if I purchase the cabana, obviously my family’s sea pass cards will work for access to the waterpark. But how will my friends access the waterpark if their sea pass cards don’t have the access loaded? I’ve read about the cabana check in area, and a cabana attendant will come by with wristbands. But how do my friends get inside the entrance of the waterpark to the cabana check in area? Is this something that can be done at shore excursion desk, or wait until we try to enter the waterpark together?