Joe01

Most definitely! I wish we had one in the UK.

Just finished my final exam and I am now officially a HS graduate. Been a long ride. Now time to focus on cruising! I've seen a few people start their live blogs early on here, so I'll follow suit. I'll be leaving 1 month today (June 27th) to head for 2 weeks on the Harmony of the Seas. Below is the itinerary: June 27th - Flying from Edinburgh to Orlando (on United via Newark) June 28th - Orlando, Florida June 29th - Orlando, Florida June 30th - Embarking Harmony of the Seas in Port Canaveral, Florida July 1st - Perfect Day at CocoCay July 2nd - Sea Day July 3rd - Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas July 4th - Phillipsburg, St Maarten July 5th - Sea Day July 6th - Sea Day July 7th - Port Canaveral, Florida (turnaround day) July 8th - Perfect Day at CocoCay (again!) July 9th - Sea Day July 10th - Costa Maya, Mexico July 11th - Roatan, Honduras July 12th - Cozumel, Mexico (docking with the Liberty of the Seas!) July 13th - Sea Day July 14th - Disembark Harmony/transfer to Airport/Fly to Newark/6 hour layover in EWR (may go to NYC for lunch) and fly home to Scotland July 15th - Arrive in Edinburgh/Drive home to Glasgow (hopefully won't be 5 hours late like in 2016) I was quite hesitant to return to Harmony initially (I'm a Sagittarius, I'm easily bored and like to try different things), but the 2 calls at CocoCay were too tempting to pass up. In addition - Port Canaveral, Costa Maya and Roatan are also new to me. I've never been to the Orlando area, so I'm going to need some help regarding what to do on my 2 days there pre-cruise. Definitely planning a Cheesecake Factory visit! Planning an express visit to New York for lunch on debarkation day - I will need it since United Airlines serve awful food. I wish there was a decent airline that flew between Scotland and the USA - who wants to fly across the Atlantic on a 757? I digress - just not a fan of flying. I'm going to have a 2nd stab at live blogging. I tried it last time and I wasn't too successful for multiple reasons but none of them should apply this time, particularly since I now have more phone data so will be periscoping more. No pics until I'm home, but plenty of scopes + commentary. All comments, questions and compliments welcome, although if you dislike what I'm saying, please don't try to derail my blog - I'm deadly serious, it happened last time and I was pretty irked by it. Any issues with my comments, then drop me a direct message. Thanks. ? In addition, you might know me as the CD connoisseur on here. For now, Marc Walker is scheduled to be the CD (let's hope there will be no changes at the eleventh hour like in 2016 when Abe Hughes had to extend his time home and John Blair came in instead). I've heard great things about Marc so hopefully I will enjoy him. Moe is his AM and I believe that they are a team that work well together so I'm getting the best of the best for the CD/AM combination. Captain Gus is onboard as well, we've sailed with him several times - great guy although I hope he's updated his schtick now that the ship has switched homeport. We'll be in an inside stateroom on Deck 6. We had options to upgrade but no point paying extra when the inside is perfectly sufficient. I think that's all for now. Looking forward to this sailing. If you have anything to say, I'll see you in the comments below.

2 great ships - enjoy! Voyager will be newly revamped as well.

Yes - Oasis is visiting but that's not the same as two being homeported from there. Oasis is taking people from the New York/New Jersey market, while Harmony is serving those sailing from PC.

Melbourne would be an awesome home port. Not so sure that they would send a mega ship there first though, but could be a good place for Voyager or Serenade to sail from. I imagine Ovation will stay in Sydney.

When did I ever say that it was someone else who mentioned Asia? All I said that the Captain implied Asia based on his language. I don't see what the issue with my quoted post is here.

There is definitely the demand in PC for a big ship, hence why Harmony is there and the 3/4 day cruises got upgraded to Mariner. However, adding an additional Oasis Class would be a major leap in capacity. They have never had 3 ships in PC (except for when Explorer came for one season, but that was likely a test to see if they had enough demand to support Oasis). I think they should add an extra ship in the winter to PC and take it from there, but best not to put all their eggs in one basket. Same with Texas, when an Oasis Class goes there, I believe it will replace Liberty, not supplement her. Also, there is the problem that there simply aren't enough Oasis Class for that to happen. If we have 1 rotating Europe/Florida, 1 rotating NJ/Florida, 1 year round in Miami and 1 year round in Port Canaveral, there is only one additional ship, and that will likely go to Texas, unless the Asia rumour is true.

I don't think that a ship really gets changed for Texas. Navigator and Liberty got dry-docks shortly after they arrived but they didn't add anything exclusive to Texas. It's still taking mostly American clientele after all. The way that he phrased it made me think that he meant Asia.

I'm not so sure about Canaveral taking 2 Oasis Class ships. That's a lot of people per week.

Jamie has now left Indy and won't be back on a Royal ship in the foreseeable future. Cuddy Cudworth is taking over mid June instead.

They are sailing empty between Bayonne and FLL.

Med and Baltic ships are built the exact same way as Caribbean ships because they spend the winter in the Caribbean. I don't think that would be it. I still think Asia is what he means. Royal don't do the other things you mentioned and I doubt they will start any of them.

Jamie Fentiman has left the Indy and I believe is not going to be a CD for the foreseeable future. His post was slightly cryptic and by the sounds of it, he may be back at some point.

I remember someone asking about Indy - Jamie Fentiman is unwell and Mark Rous (former AM on Navigator & Indy) has taken over for now. Not sure who will be there this summer.

Another negative impact of this is on the crew. There are a lot of British crew (particularly those who work under the CD) that may want to be based out of Southampton (trust me, I've known that to happen) and now that option is limited for them.

6 weeks until I set sail on Harmony! Any feedback on CD Marc Walker or AM Moe?

Plenty of time for them to do something between now and then - I remember the old Bayonne terminal pre-Quantum which was certainly not fit for that class and they managed to update the port enough to take them. Maybe she'll do Friday and Saturday departures?

It's been rumoured for a while that she would be in Florida. With Adventure going to Galveston, I think Odyssey will do the 6/8 night sailings.

I don't think Vision Class would have worked in Southampton - the last time we had a small one was Legend, which was 13 years ago and the first ship that actually sailed from there in the first place. Since then, we've seen Navigator, Independence, Adventure, Anthem and Explorer. What I feel could have worked alongside one larger ship in Southampton is re-introducing the Radiance Class in Harwich. Both Jewel and Brilliance spent several years on that itinerary, and I believe Splendour did it in the 90's, however the itinerary was cut in 2016. That could have taken on the Norwegian Fjords/Scandinavia market.

This may actually be good for me - I've wanted to do Indy again for a while but my group refuse to sail from Southampton. Only trouble is that we are already sailing the Caribbean on Harmony this year.

Brilliant to hear. I was looking forward to hearing feedback of him given that he is new to Royal.

I don't know every single CD in the fleet, and 4 of the 9 CD's I have sailed with are no longer CD's with Royal. And FWIW, 51 isn't what I would deem as old. By old, I'm meaning the 65+ (retirees) crowd that you tend to find on CC and they tend to do longer cruises on smaller ships.

I never said anything about sense of humour or older people losing it - please don't put words in my mouth as what you are implying means something totally different to what I am saying. Having sailed with Jimmy and watched clips of him on YouTube, he has a CD style that appeals more to a younger audience. Older audiences tend to prefer someone less energetic and instead, one that is more visible and personable. The younger audiences tend to prefer someone energetic. Jimmy himself admitted in an interview (which is on YouTube) that he switched ships in his first CD contract because he worked better with a more energetic crowd. Younger and older audiences do bring different things to the table. Also, there are generational trends also make one more appealing to a particular clientele. My parents (Generation X) have different tastes to me. Similarly, my grandparents (born before or during WW2) would also have different ideas of what is entertaining/appealing.

Yes - had him on Oasis 5 years ago. Didn't pay much attention as it was my first time on the Oasis Class but came across fun, friendly and energetic. I think his style appeals more to a younger audience and works better on the big ships, which is why some older people (mainly on CC) have given negative reviews but the younger guests love him.

I've heard some good reviews of him before.