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When I took my first cruise on Vision in March 2015, I could not have predicted that I would be sailing her again so quickly as my 7th cruise and my 3rd one this year!!! While I think this is the last hurrah for a while (we have rhapsody scheduled for next spring break, but the family wants some land trips to disney and london and my credit cards are screaming in agony lol), it is going to be an amazing trip. The set-up: 2 years ago ish, we started looking at Europe Itineraries. We were getting ready to turn 50 and had wanted to do Europe forever, but Disney kept getting in the way ? As soon as the itineraries came out, we saw the 12 day on Vision. I truly wish that we were on a different ship in that I really wanted to try radiance class, but I enjoyed Vision as my first ship. We wanted to do something different though, and we looked at the ultra spacious family room. We only had 3 people traveling...more on that in a sec...and Sharla at MEI was able to grab 4032 for us. It has a separate little bunk room for our 16 year old and a large couch/seating area. There will be tons of storage and room to move around. I don't usually care about our space much, but this will be nice since the whole trip will be 16 days with our pre-cruise stay in barcelona. Those of you with teenagers know that some space will definitely be needed! We thought about a balcony, but because Vision is so small and older, the balcony rooms are a lot pricier than on some of the newer ships. In some ways I wish we'd tried jr suite...we'd have gotten 24 points!...but this trip is already a huge reach for us, so we will enjoy our different room with a big window and enjoy the ocean breezes on the outside decks! The travelers: Jane (mom2mybugs), Jeff (the husband who doesn't love cruising as much as I do but is really looking forward to the ports) and Madison (16, who is very much excited for Europe). In retrospect, we should have also booked our 22 year old and 20 year old on the cruise as well. 2 years ago, we figured they'd both be working, but Morgan is still finding her perfect post-college job and John just got back from a study abroad in Germany and can't find a 6 week job. I'm not sure we could have afforded to bring them with air-fare, excursions, etc, but booking them at the beginning would have given us the flexibility if it wanted them to come. I looked at adding them a few months ago, and the muster stations were full and the cost to put them in another room (even interior) was insane. So they will be staying with the 2 members of the family that I will be missing dreadfully (the 2 schnauzer puppies!) and basically keeping the house hopefully standing! Madison is usually a huge teen center kid...we hardly see her at all on the cruises because she meets people and ditches us immediately. We aren't expecting nearly as many teens on this trip as we see in the Caribbean on spring break cruises. However, she is not as stressed because the port days are so long and she is planning on lots of family time. I am hopeful that she will find a couple girls to hang with in the evenings and on the sea days, because Jeff and I are pretty boring and we'd also like a little us time! The itinerary: Amazing! July 24--Fly out of Chicago O'Hare at 630pm, arrive Barcelona at 9:50 July 25-28 Barcelona. We have a barcelona city card, a barcelona day tours 1/2 day tour (they will pick us up from the airport) and a segrada familia ticket. We will just roam around and eat/drink! We are staying at an airbnb very close to the segrada familia. It has a tiny balcony, 2 bathrooms and bedrooms and is out of the tourist area. We thought about staying near the ramblas, but really wanted to not exhaust ourselves before the trip. We can easily metro it looks like and we should be able to see a fair amount. We are still trying to decide if we will go to Tarragona (Roman Ruins), Sitges (beach town) or both on a day trip (train out by ourselves, or do a 100 euro tour)...I still can't decide. I don't want to race around, but i will regret not seeing the aquaduct and other ruins. I'm very worried about the heat in europe though...my daughter tends to drag/mope/get herself sick in heat and my husband isn't in great shape. We may just do the tour because it is easy and the van will be air conditioned. Oh yeah, and Jeff and I will celebrate our 29th anniversary on the 28th! July 29 Board Vision of the Seas early....yep...I'm one of the those people who are there before security opens! I am so excited! July 30 Cannes No tour scheduled. Either we will do the public crowded beach or take a taxi out to a more quiet location. Didn't want to spend a ton here since the other excursions are crazy expensive. July 31 Florence (well La Spezia). I know someday I will get back to Italy. After Paris it is a true bucket list trip. However, i am trying to tell myself that I will go back over and over. It is going to be hot, crowded and we are cruising into a port a fair distance from Florence, Rome and Athens. So we did all tours with Royal. We are skipping Pisa since time is limited, and just doing Florence. I really really wanted to buy an Uffizi ticket on my own but I can't quite figure out how much free time we have and I know that I wouldn't have more than a couple hours. I think we are better off just finding one of @Traveler's gelato places and relaxing. It will kill me...I'm a go/go/go hit every museum person but I'm trying to make my mantra "Pace/pace/pace!" Aug 1 Rome (again...not actually rome but far out). We did a tour that will get us into the vatican museum and st. peters and I will see the Sistine chapel along with a gazillion of my close personal friends. It will be packed. I will be heartbroken if things are too crowded or the pope closes something, but again, I'm telling myself nothing is a have to...I will be back!!! We will drive past the coliseum, but i traded that entry for the religious art! Aug 2 & 3 Sea days! Much needed relaxation in my happy place on my sky deck chair near the bar! I have my paperback books, my sunscreen and my chair clips! I am tempted to do the thriller dance class which i think would be fun, but might involve me getting off my deck chair or not getting one in time, so maybe not! Aug 4 Athens! I heard they closed the acropolis for 6 hours because of the extreme heat. I am hoping this doesn't happen while we are there, but they will find something for us to do. This is the port I'm the most worried about heat and water consumption. Hoping nobody gets heatstroke. Aug 5 Mykenos Jeff will celebrate his 51st birthday in Greece! Because he is a high school social studies teacher, one of my majors was history and Madison is looking at anthropology/archaeology as a potential college major, we are going to the ancient ruins in Delos. This will also be hot. Really Really hot. Hoping the fact that we are done by noon will help. This will be a very cool port stop though! Aug 6 Santorini This is the stop that originally i was really pumped about, and now I'm hoping we survive. There are 4 or 5 ships in port that day, so it will be crazy crazy crowded and hot. We are simply going to do a tour of Oia, walk around a bit, and then hit a cafe for some wine. I think this stop will be a take pictures and soak up atmosphere because I feel like it will be over-tourists. I don't think we will get back to Greece, and so I hope we can see what we want and enjoy whatever we are able to do. Aug 7 Sea day! I loved this itinerary because it gave me sea days to relax on a port intensive cruise. Again, Vision is a bitty ship, so I think we will enjoy some trivia, my deck chair will call my name and I will spend my $20 on the quarter game in the casino. Aug 8 Valetta, Malta We are doing the blue grotto and fishing village tour. It will be relaxing, we will see the beautiful caves and water, and I'm actually looking very forward to not having a lot of ships here. Apparently they filmed some of Game of Thrones here? Means nothing to me but since Jeff and my son have been binge watching the first few seasons this summer, he might recognize something! Aug 9 Last Sea Day. And that dreaded day of having to get packing! Ugh. I have never done a cruise over 7 days and I think it will be amazing. However, I will not be looking forward to going back to work (in education, August is gear up for the year time lol!). Aug 10 Back in Barcelona. We have a 355 flight so we had some options. We didn't want to hang at the airport all day so we considered the option to stay on the boat. I thought that would be pretty depressing...all these excited people just starting their trip and we would have to be going home. So we decided to do the montserrat trip and airport transfer. We had been trying to figure out montserrat earlier and decided it would be a fun last day activity and we wouldn't have to worry about the airport transfer or catching a cab. It says it is good for any flight after 3 and will get us to the airport by 1215. I will be stressed about getting through security but i know really we have plenty of time. Dining and Extras: We bought a 4 day dining pkg. I would have considered the udp, but there are only 3 specialty restaurants on vision, and we don't want to do them that much. We will go to giovannis on Jeff's bday, chops, izumi and I think chops a 2nd time. I've never gotten fish at chops, so i'm tempted to try it one time. Chops is a trickier restaurant for my vegetarian girl, but she can live on the sides!!! And the dessert!!! Jeff and I also are doing Chef's table again. We have done it twice before, and I know this is a repeat menu but I enjoy it a lot, and I'm hoping I get the world again for dessert! We are going my time dining this time, and expect that we will hit the windjammer a couple nights (esp. Rome and Athens) because we will be tired. We booked middlish times...630ish...because if madison does want to meet people, she can, but we didn't want to do too early. We are kinda getting tired of the scheduling specialty at 530 or 6 for her, so we might schedule stuff a bit later and tell them she is leaving. Then we can have dessert and coffee together. I haven't really checked out show times, etc., since the compasses out there have been pretty old. However, again, we can either try to get an earlier table at my time, or skip the dining room if there is something we really want to see. We are going team drink pkg as usual...it is close for jeff in terms of price, and i totally benefit. I also think we will be drinking a ton of water, so that will totally make up the difference, plus sending jeff for my morning latte! We snagged it on a sale for $48 and then upgraded to $57 for the voom. Voom will be spotty...vision is not known for its good internet...but i want to be able to check email and facebook message the kids back home. Plus, if we get signal, I will try and periscope for sure (I think I'm mom2mybugs there). I will also try to blog. I have to try and find the email that had the info on the picture compresser thing. So that is it....I'm doing a week long babysitting live-in job that pays for a lot of our plane tickets so i'm crazy busy until Sunday. Then its drs appointments, last minute pedicures and on our way wednesday!!!!! So can't wait to share my first experiences in these amazing ports. Jane

No love for me. Deluxe bev pkg is still only $52 with BOGO50 / 25% off. C’mon Royal!! Where’s that intern with another $18 sale for all 2019 sailings?!?

I’m hoping not. I feel like there will be a fair number of brits and Americans on any royal ship. Plus the fact most Europeans learn english. She speaks some Spanish. Of course I’m sure she wouldn’t mind practicing her Spanish or learning Catalon if some cute 16 year old boy from Barcelona we’re on the ship! Jane

It's a unique experience if I'm doing something you haven't done!!!! I still want you to adopt me lol! Jane

Going through some pics this morning and realized that some never made it in.

If it is walking all over the ship in robes we call them Yetis. We had a good laugh on the Symphony TA by doing a whole Yeti bar crawl. PHOTO CREDIT: TWANGSTER

Let's talk about crew. Harmony is no longer the newest or largest ship in the fleet, however, I would say that she has now evolved from that role into a ship with a big heart. General vibe is great and that is mainly down to a great crew. Marc Walker was CD for Week 1 and Dennis Charles was CD for Week 2. Marc is probably my new favourite CD now that Abe Hughes has left. Absolutely hilarious at L&M and great joie de vivre that really helped the atmosphere on the ship. I actually liked Dennis more than I thought I would - he still has plenty of energy and did a decent job hosting, although I missed a few events due to being sick or due to poor scheduling (not his fault, I'll mention later). He was also friendly and patient when my mother asked him a question about customs (unrelated to Cruise Directing). My criticisms would be that he talked for too long at L&M and it kinda dragged with some of the audience walking out. He also needs to stop shouting into his microphone at events, we can hear him easily. If he can cut those two things out, he would definitely be one of the best. Either way, both of these guys were SO MUCH BETTER than Bobby Brown. Moe was Activities Manager both weeks - he was good fun. Did have slight problems sometimes understanding his Fiji accent. He is moving to be entertainment manager on CocoCay after the current sailing, glad that I got to sail with him before he left ships. I have sailed with Captain Gus several times and both him and Captain Johnny are my favourites, so it's great that they are both assigned to the same ship. Both have a very upbeat presence and are probably the only two Captains active on social media. Both seem to be friendly and enjoy being around guests. Our stateroom attendant Vibert Joseph was fantastic. Such a sweet guy and did a great job. I did mention earlier that I would like a decrease in how frequent they clean the rooms, and I still feel the same way. Staff around the ship ranged. Some were excellent (shout out to team at Starbucks). Plenty of awesome crew on Harmony, although I can't remember much names. A few duds - server on Week 2 at CocoCay seemed intimidating and was quite difficult to communicate with, and I felt as if he kind of ignored me. Sorrento's staff were mixed, a few friendly ones but there was one real dud that really seemed to be going through the motions and got the wrong order one night (instead of 2 cheese slices, it was 1 cheese and 1 half pepperoni - half of the base was missing). Cafe Promenade and Park Cafe were OK, but I felt that with these 3 eateries, they needed to bring Latisha Jones from HM 2017 back to train them and improve the mood in these venues which was sometimes a bit dour. Everyone else that we met was friendly. Great crew on this ship.

Got me!!!!. As my kids would say, don't I feel sheepish?!!!!

First post cruise workout done. What happened to the saying - "calories don't count"? ?

I don't know who is right and who is wrong. If the windows couldn't open, it wouldn't have happened. If grandpa hadn't put the little girl on the railing, it wouldn't have happened. I one thing I do know is that no amount of money will bring that little girl back or fill the endless whole in the hearts of that family. There are no winners in this. Not RC. Not the family. No one. It was 10yrs ago yesterday that friends of ours lost their 18m old daughter, who died in her sleep. Not a day has gone by in all that time that they don't think about her and the what ifs. They, like this family will have to deal with what happened forever, what ever the outcome of this litigation. Again I say, In cases like this. There are no winners, only losers.

I love this thread ... maybe more than I should, lol.

I saw an article online where Viking Ocean Cruises offers a cruise sailing for 245 days, visiting 113 ports, in 59 countries. Too much? Would you consider it if time and money was not an obstacle? I would. My wife says she wouldn't want to be away from family that long. Might have to try my first solo cruise!

They were planning real skydiving but the Jones Act and PVSA wouldn’t let them disembark passengers early.

I heard that cabin was a....wait for it....wait for it a dump! Thank you! Goodnight! Try the veal and don't forget to tip your servers.

At $18 each

"No privilege" is mostly used for children so they can't purchase things on their own. (This avoids things like $200/day at the arcade, 15 sodas a day at $4 each , etc). Their SeaPass card is then only an ID and a door key.

Once you get on board, a nice place to wait for your room to be ready is up in the Suites Lounge (Deck 17). You will have lots of room to store your carry-on bags so they won’t be in yours or anyone else’s way. The views from up there are incredible and there will be lovely treats for you while you wait ! Get there as early as you like. As Ashley said, the Suites waiting Lounge at Terminal A is beautiful and you will be among the very first to board.

We're doing a 7 night western med next May as a graduation present for our oldest - may be the last vacation all four of us take together. Our youngest will graduate in May 2021 and who know what will happen with jobs, grad school, etc so we want to do this one right. Will be following along and taking notes! We sail round trip from Barcelona too. Common ports will be La Spezia & Civitvecchia.

If the people in the Grand also purchased the Key then it is basically redundant of the features with the Suite. I would cancel and get my money back. For the Junior Suite the Key is beneficial.

I was worried about this for a 9-night Explorer sailing out of Civitavecchia for next August! Now that it'll be amped by then maybe there'll be TOO much to do!? Also I hope the Europeans don't judge us for the water slides! Big garish number comes sailing into Santorini marring the pristine coastline, haha

1. Is there any real difference between the Suite Lounge and the Diamond Lounge? The diamond lounge is smaller and will be very crowded during the Diamond happy hour period each evening. The suite lounge will also be popular during happy hour for the free drinks. However, since you all have the DX drink package I would avoid both lounges during happy hour. You have access to better drink choices compared to the well drinks and table wines offered during happy hour. Outside of happy hour, the two lounges are not substantially different other than different decor. 2. Will me and my girlfriend be missing out by not being able to enter the Suite Lounge? As offered above, with the DX you are better off avoiding the lounges during happy hours. During that day both lounges will have seats available. The suite lounge may be slightly nicer but doesn't offer anything that's not available in the diamond lounge. I suppose emotionally there may be some FOMO but I wouldn't let that get to you. 3. In your opinions- is it even worth upgrading the Junior Suite to a suite in order to get the "'Gold Card"? IMO not on anything except Quantum and Oasis class. A gold card doesn't offer significantly better benefits on Freedom class other than a slightly bigger cabin. 4. My girlfriend, a first time cruiser who has never been out of the country is concerned that since she got shared diamond status she will be looked down upon-Should I be worried? Not at all. If her SeaPass card says Diamond she is Diamond. Period. End of story. No one will know her cruise history and it's not relevant. Put her mind at ease, she is a Diamond member like everyone else who is a Diamond member. 5. I'm also wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks about the Liberty of the Seas that they were wanting to share. Check out the helipad, it's open to the public. 6. I've read thru man of the "Liveish" cruise blogs and I am considering doing one of myself as this community seems like a great one. That would be great but keep yourself in the present with your fellow cruisers. Live blogging is an effort and it can consume time. Time on a cruise is precious so if you have some free time and feel like participating that's great but do not let it take you away from living in the moment. You can always recap and post about it after the cruise when you are back on boring land.

The embarkation times for US sailings are not enforced by Royal. You can get to the terminal as soon as it opens and get on board once boarding begins. Usually there's no issue with getting to the terminal around 10:30am and being on the ship by 11:00am. Since you are in a suite you will be among the first set of passengers to board if you are already waiting in the terminal when boarding begins. Port of Miami has a nice waiting area for Suite passengers, so it would be a comfortable wait if you do decide to go early and the ship hasn't been cleared for boarding yet. Tons of people board before the rooms are ready. If you pack swimsuits in your carry-on or wear them under your board clothes you can take advantage of the pool deck or you can just explore the ship and grab some food. If you have a drink package it will work via your SetSail pass that you used to board the ship. You don't even need to wait until you fetch your SeaPass from your room to take advantage of it.

I am so excited for you!!! I can't wait to go on the trip vicariously through you! By the way, where was your son in Germany? Mine just returned in May from a year abroad there. He did an internship in Braunschweig last summer and then spent the school year in Bremen. We were lucky enough to visit him twice: first we took the entire family on a cruise (the first one on Royal and third one overall) and loved it. We sailed out of Southhampton and went to Hamburg, Oslo and Bruges. We went back and did a land trip in March. After that, I told my husband that we will do something warm next March, and gave him a choice: an all-inclusive or a cruise. The all-inclusive would have been his choice but for our great experience on RC. Have a great trip!!!

Wow! Jane...this sounds like an amazing trip! We did a 12 night itinerary similar to this one on Brilliance back in 2005. It was one of my favourite cruises ever! Very port intensive but the memories and pictures that we have from that trip are so precious. Soak it all up! I've been wanting to do an itinerary like this again, but that is not in the 10 year plan at the moment. Probably when my girls are older like yours. I'll be following for sure! This made me laugh out loud! I was so happy to come home after 11 nights from NYC/Anthem GC just to get "my space" back! I get it! With these port intensive European sailings, it doesn't really matter what ship you are on. You'll be so tired you'll barely see it lol. Better on a small ship because then you don't feel like you are missing out as much on board. Red Velvet Cheesecake!

Following, bucket list cruise for me so will learn at your expense :)

Yes! Don't worry - will post ASAP.

Excursion also follow supply and demand practices. The last time excursions went on sale I grabbed a dozen or so across a handful of cruises. Many of those were booked at rock bottom prices. They went back up in price after that sale until this sale came along. In some cases maybe I was the only person who had booked excursions in New Zealand 7 months from now. Some came down in price and I saved even more. in other cases it's possible other guests also jumped in during the last sale. If an excursion is half booked they aren't going to deeply discount it this far out. It went on sale just not as deeply discounted as it was when I booked. I keep a spreadsheet with my excursions listed and I check them frequently which is how I found this sale. I have a total of 19 excursions booked right now and saved over $120 from this sale. However not all of my excursion dropped below the price I previously paid. I don't see this "new math" but simply as supply and demand.

@Fuzzywuzzythank you for your service!

Hello? Photo credit?

Going to be there in Sept. so I will give it a try. Thanks I didn`t know. Living in Tenn. we don`t have those sophisticated products here.

Thank you. Entertaining as always. Wished that my spring break was two weeks earlier.

I don’t disagree with your sentiment about hotel bath tubs, but don’t think it has to do with being a women. A gross tub is gross no matter the gender.

Never going to happen. I don’t even show up in my scopes. ?

Would consider length! We did 54 days/17 countries including some countries that one would now not dare to go to. It is easy to keep in touch, and electronic bill pay helps. The biggie is your home/apartment. If apartment dweller, perhaps could put furniture in storage and have about 3/4 of a year with no rent, insurance, utilities to help offset cost. Did meet someone who said living on ship competitive with high-end assisted living facility.

34 days... But hey, who's counting? ?

Watched? You gotta crash in! Or is that something that just Brandon & I do? ?

Funny you say this. Every other podcast I listen to, I have to turn the speed up to 1.1x in Overcast or it sounds too slow. Not RCBlog podcast! I had to put him back at 1x or it was too hard to follow! ?

Hey Ken! I did not even realize that you are on the message boards! Thanks for reading the live blog ? Totally agree! One day @Michael Vitale, his wife, a few others, and I were in the Diamond Lounge watching @Matt do FB live. Even when sailing with him, we tune in. Totally devoted lol.

Great live blog @Lovetocruise2002. It was fun to read all 18 pages of this live blog post being on this cruise. Not meaning to hijack, but a few of my random thoughts. It was fantastic meeting everyone on the Group Cruise. One of my favorite cruises so far...by far having 80+ other groupies to hang with was fun. As has been mentioned about eating in the Two70 Cafe is a hidden gem...the Solarium Bistro is another great place to avoid big crowds. One funny moment was on day 2 or 3 I was eating dinner up there, and I get a notification on my phone of @Matt doing a live periscope, and I look around the small room, and two other tables were listening in. Where ever I would go, I would usually see a friendly face, or a red MEI lanyard (thanks @AnnetteJackson .) As mentioned, the flow of people is not very good, especially around the Royal Theater. What made it worse, there were major shows/events scheduled when a major show ended, and another event started in 10 or 15 minutes afterwards. People trying to get in (and blocking the hallways) while the theater was letting out. Also noticed a few shows/events that started 10-15 (one was 20 or 25) late. I don't remember this happening so often on my previous cruises. Being on three Voyager class ships in the past, Anthem my new largest ship...I did miss the openness of a promenade. Looking forward to joining more group cruises in the future.

OK, I know I made the most recent posting on this thread, and I certainly wasn't thinking about the family when I wrote it last night. I don't regret anything snarky I say about the attorney, but I just got a huge reminder about what this family is going through. The family is from a town literally 10 minutes south of where I live (I've known that since the event happened), but I just read the obituary. The memorial service took place this afternoon with visitation until this evening. Apparently Chloe was a preemie, given her low birth weight and early medical scares, which I can relate to as the mother of 32-week preemie who, thank God, is now a healthy 16-year old. For her to die the way she did, in such happy circumstances (family vacation) after overcoming problems at birth just takes my breath away. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/kpcnews/obituary.aspx?n=chloe-wiegand&pid=193383989&fhid=8595

Walking around in robes or just in general?

Just what I want to fly... a "glitch" flight.

Yeah us scots get everywhere lol i mean 9 of the signatures on the declaration of independence are Scottish and 34 presidents have ancestral roots to scotland ? And of course probably the most famous rock band from Oz (ACDC) had the Young brothers from Kirriemuir

Only on select "glitch" flights. ?

FINAL THOUGHTS: Well, what a trip this was. Probably one of the longest that we've taken (18 days in total). I enjoyed every minute (almost) of it. From Orlando to the Harmony to New York. Plenty to talk about in due course, but the first question I will answer is: Would you sail Harmony again? Yes!, Harmony is a great ship with a pretty awesome crew and a great lineup of shows. I've enjoyed consistently returning to her. However, I don't think that I would do another B2B on her. I feel that doing 2 weeks on a ship that isn't new to you can get a tad stale by the end. I don't believe that Harmony will be my ship for 2020. I kind of want a break from Oasis Class but all of the Freedom Class are offering lacklustre Caribbean itineraries, and the only good Voyager Class option is Explorer out of Civitavecchia and they are having a charter during one of the weeks that we would sail so she is ruled out. So, probably yet another year on Oasis Class, but hoping not another one on a 2nd gen. Maybe a return to the 1st gen? Both Oasis and Allure will be amped by our next cruise, and both NJ and Barcelona are great departure ports for us.

I suspect the intern is triple checking everything, potentially at their new job somewhere else.

Overkill is one of my favorite songs, ever. Had no idea he was born in Scotland though, I had to look it up! Glad you had a good cruise, Joe!

They have a really pricey option out there already that includes everything..it's called Star Class ?

I'm less worried about seeing someone in sandals than I am about seeing someone in "Nope, I don't own a mirror" skimpy pajamas. The only cruise that we have been on was another cruise line(Carni---) and there was a verrry large and confident woman rocking her extra small Winnie the pooh shorts and crop top jammies walking through the buffet.

I agree with your list 100%, I would just ad that I would also get off at all the southern Caribbean ports as to me they are all fantastic and top anything on the list above.