Traveler

16 hours ago, twangster said:

Not trying to pick a fight, I was hoping to learn something.  Maritime law is fascinating to me. 

I was thinking about future cruises in 2019 and beyond and Asia came to mind.  This thread has been enlightening.  I was hoping to use the ship as a means to experience the culture by day (in port) but have a comfortable place to return to when I needed to escape it.  In this case a little too much local culture seems to be on the ship. 

The best in that case will be to take a cruise from HKG or From Singapore , there are nice routes that goes to Vietnam on the Voyager and on the Ovation.

On our cruise from HKG to Singapore (Taiwan and Vietnam) i never encounter any of such issues.  

Up until few month ago the cruise that came out from China or to China was mark as special cruise that are catered to local (main announce in Chines , some changes in restaurants and some difference in shows) 

I do not see it anymore, we were on a cruise from Hong Kong to Vietnam but I guess its different as most of the passengers were from Australia.

I thought to book a cruise origin from China, one of the considerations were stories like you published , but if I will go on one we will set our expectation.

 

Yes no duty free in on the ship from Barcelona , 

Everything you buy you are paying the VAT of Spain even if you are in Italy.

If you bought products on the ship which are more than 95 Euros you can get a form from the ship , stamp it when you are getting out from Europe (the last port which is in the Euro union) and get the VAT back (after commission) in the airport.

Drinks as said here is 10% (and you can not get VAT back on drinks). 

3 hours ago, adb0617 said:

Ok....I looked for the BOGO in the Dinner section and couldn’t find it. I see all the individual restaurants but not BOGO. Can someone direct me to where it is. I really appreciate it!!

Ussaly it will appear later 

Around 2 to 1 month before the cruise , just keep checking from time to time.

 

21 hours ago, adb0617 said:

Hey!  I have thoroughly enjoyed all of your pictures and insights.  We are going on the Symphony in July for our 10 year anniversary.  We have been on 4-5 Royal Caribbean cruises in the past, but all to the Caribbean.  I have never done this much research or blog reading before going on a cruise before and it has been great.  I have a few questions if you don't mind answering:
1.  What is BOGO?  Do you book it online before you get to the cruise or once you have boarded?  If you book it online before the cruise where do you find it...I have not seen it on the Cruise Planner (unless I missed it)

2.  What is CA?  You said you didn't get a CA letter in the room.

3.  Which internet package did you get?  We will be using it mostly for posting pictures and calling our daughter on Face Time while in WIFI since she will be back in the states.

4.  Naples...if you had to choose one of the following to see which would you choose?  For someone that has never been to Naples and most likely won't be back.

               *Amalfi Coast and Pompeii

               *Capri, Sorrento, and Pompeii

               *Amalfi Coast, Postino, Sorrento, and Pompeii

               *Capri

               *Sorrento and Amalfi 

   5.  Marseilles (Provence), France...I'll be honest none of the excursions sound appealing to us (although we have never been).  Would you do it own your own?  Is there anything there that is a must see and don't want to miss?

I know that is a lot of questions...your post was awesome!!  Thanks for all your help!

First of all congratulations for the anniversary.

I see that most of your questions already been answered ,  

The BOGO package was very successful for us as we booked exactly the restaurants we wanted (Wonderland and Hooked) so we paid 40 $ each which otherwise would cost us almost 96 $  each. (Wonderland 53.90 and Hooked 42.90) so it can be a big saving , the only issue is that you need to use the restaurants in the first two nights but its good.

If you booked it , once you board the ship go to one of the special restaurants (the best will be to go to central park on floor 8 which has many of the special restaurants) and ask them to book you the one you wants.

For the  Napoli shore excursions , I tend to agree with other people comments , its going to be very hard to do it and July its going to be very  hot and humid in Napoli , The Ruins of Herculaneum can be a good option as it quite short and will leave you time to do other things (The ship is there between 8 am to 7:30 PM so you gave almost 12 hours) .

Another option if you really want to see Pompii is maybe Taste of Sorento and Pompii is the one for you.

Please note , most of the archaeological items that was found in Pompii is actually presented in a Nappoli  Museum  .

Another option for Pompii will be to take go first thing on the morning  to Pompii  before it will become too hot  (with a private tour or ship transfer 31 $)  and add to it later something else. I would not take  a tour from the ship just for Pompii as they will waste your time on some ceramic factory near the Pompii gates.

Capri , Sotento and Pompii is a crazy route which I would avoid , its good just to say I have been to this places as you will not have much time to enjoy them ...

 

Regarding Marseille  , you have an option to take a bus from the port to the old port were you can spend easily few hours , the bus cost is 18 $ both way  (you can pay at the ship)  another option is to go to Casis with very nice view in the way.

 

By the way this week you have 15- 25% dicsount on most of the excursions in the cruise planner . 

For the internet package, I took the faster one but it depends what you want to do , if it is just emails and whats up + surfing the internet the lower package will do , if you want to watch YouTube and Netflix you need the stream one.

Enjoy your cruise   

8 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Yes, I have been there many times.  I love the Amalfi coast.  It is so incredibly beautiful.  Believe it or not, I actually do NOT like Italian pizza (they do not know what American pepperoni is....)...but I love the cappuccino.  I can't wait to get some local mozzarella de bufalo.  It is so salty and delicious.  YUMMMM !

This will likely be my last biz trip to Italy.  All of the sites that I go to will be completed after this.  Only Bahrain and Australia left.  

Yes , they only have the hot Salumi , well at least you will enjoy the cappuccino.

I am actually back tot he airport (20 hours after I came to do my laundry) going on a business trip to Lima,

Meanwhile trying to organize the CC pictures , found out I am missing first day. 

4 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Ah....ol' Napoli.  I will be there next week.

Wow , you are going to enjoy it , there is something about this city which make it very special .

Do not miss the coffee and the Pizza . 

Bonus post 

So during the flight back yesterday I had few hours (its a short flight) to review some old pictures.

During this semi live blog I described many  other tour options  that can be done from the  ports , so here are pictures from tours we done while we were on the Harmony of the seas during October 16 sell at the same itinerary.

 

Marseille - The tour was to Cassis , a small city with wonderful view , the pictures are from the near by cliffs :

 

 

In La Speza we rented a car a drove first to a viewpoint over the port and later to one of the old towns near by.

Here some picture from the area :

In Napoli we to ok a tour to Sorento (with making pizza) and in the way to the city we stop near Amalfi coast :

Day 8 – departure ☹

 

Lucky for us we went sleeping quite early for a last day (around 1 AM ) so we could catch few hours of  quality sleeping time.I found out the hard way that one of the departure day depression is lacking good sleep on the final day.

Our departure time was schedule to 9 am so we had time to organize things and catch some last breakfast in WJ , this was the first day I saw the WJ full but still we found some space to seat and eat a quick one.We left our room around 8:40 directly to the gangway, In Barcelona they have two terminal for Oasis class , terminal C and B , even tag numbers are sent to Terminal C and odds goes to terminal B , as I was not paying attention we found ourselves in the wrong terminal … so we had to do all the way back to the other terminal , the advantage was that we could take one last picture of the ship.

As our flight was schedule only to be the next day (500 $ less) we waited for a taxi to take us to our hotel. Beware , taxies lines in Barcelona port can take up to 30 minutes (that’s the cases if you are not leaving the ship at 7 AM anyway).

We arrived the hotel (Crown Plaza 10 minutes ride from the port and 18 $) as no rooms were available yet we were given access to the launch were we had our second late breakfast  , rooms were available around 11 AM so we went up put our stuff and left to tour Barcelona for few hours.The hotel, although not in the main center, is located near Espania square (10-15 minutes walk) which has a metro , a very impressive fountain nearby and some museum/shops

We took some picture and went to the Subway so we can catch a ride to boqueria food market and to La Rambla avenue.

 

Boueria became a very touristic place although still there many stores which sells fresh food for locals.

If you can avoid it during weekend it is best as the place is  very crowded. Still I would not miss it .

We took some small mixed Jamon plate and fresh exotic fruits cups.

Off we went to walk at  Rambla  until we decided to add back to the hotel.

Later we went to a Supermarkets to buy some Jamon and Cava to bring back home (remember we promised some Jamon to the cat ? ).

Flight back was 6 am so we went to sleep early,  during the cruise I found out that I will come back home , do my laundry and fly day after to South America for some meetings. 

So some thoughts about the ship :

First , it is wonderful ship , I am so happy we will be on it again on September.

We discussed with some crew member which told us that RC brought many people from other ships for few weeks , I do hope they will continue with the excellent service.

The same crew member told us that the new bar, Playmaker was a big success, I could so that every day it was full of people.

Internet was excellent in the entire ship , when we wanted to work on another device we just had to login on this device without logout the other (which is good but can also create some internet wars, sure  I need to buy the travel router for next time as suggested by @twangster  , will do it next week when I will catch my connection flight in EWR)

We brought two bottles of wines and open them one in Hooked and one in the MDR , we were not charged for any fees.

The laser tag is fun, I would recommend to try it, if you come as family maybe even try to be on opposite teams.

The ice show is not to be missed.

Hairspray is very nice, well performed.

We did not took the drinking package  as there was only one sea day so with two bottles of wines , three paid drinks and some very drinks in the Casino we managed to handle it.

RC were very generous with the sparkling wine, almost every day they gave it free in the WJ.

Going on one of the first cruise prove itself to be very good, the ship for sure was ready with 98% of her features.

Another cruise came to its end, thanks whoever followed, as always it was enjoyable to write it , let me know if you have any question on the ship or the ports, would happy to answer.

Day 7 , 

As we went to sleep quite late the day before we waked only around 10:30 AM (which is achievement for us  now days) we went to the WJ to eat MP style breakfast , for some reason in the WJ they call it lunch.

The rest of the day was spent between deck 15, Laser Tag , Ice , puzzle solving (second round) and yes also casino (which was nice to us)

We decided to dedicate the last day to try and visit places we did not had time to check before on the ship and here some of it :

Dazzle 

It seems they had some more space to Sorento's 

The since lab in the adventure ocean :

They add vending machines on deck 15 , the only problem is (beside the price) is the operation hours which are very limited and contradicts the logic behind the vending concept.

 

On deck 15 they also added a charging station for cellphones , very useful I think.

Central park at night : 

 

Some arts : 

 

MDR dinner : 

 

And starting to prepare for the next cruise 

4 hours ago, Boston Babe said:

And I wonder if it will cease once Symphony comes back here to the States. Now THAT's what I remember about cruising in the "old days"  People would just take pictures of the ice sculptures and carved fruit etc. It really is/was an art!

I sure hope it will stay the same, 

For sure they will do something for the first few cruises from Miami, For this first  month they brought many veteran workers from different ships just to make sure everything goes smooth .

50 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Fantastic pictures of Napoli! Really liking this blog, you’re really making me think hard about doing Mediterranean before Norway / Iceland, instead of the other way around. 

 First of all thank you , 

Regarding the Mediterranean vs Norway/Island , one is all about history/culture and beautiful  landscapes the other is more nature , hard to choose.

The advantage of the med is by ability to serve the Oasis class (if you like this class) while Norway more tending to Vision/Voyager and from time to time freedom classes.We might try the fjords routs next year , always wanted to do it.

Day 6 Napoli , One of the most interesting stop with many options ,

Many are going to Capri, a nice small island with breathtaking views, to go to Capri you take a 45 boat ride (or more than one hour if you are taking the slower boats), the cheapest way to get there will be to buy the tickets by yourself in port but the risk is lack of space in the boats.

The other popular attractions are visiting Pompeii, the old city which is impressive and about 20 minutes ride from the port , Sorento a nice town , Amalfi coast (one of the nicest landscape road in Europe) and some more.

Vesuvius in the background 

We decided not to take any of those as we have been to Pompeii, Sorento and Amalfi road previously  and we are planning to visit Capri next cruise. So we just went to visit Napoli, now if you will ask an Italian which leaves in north of  Italy what he thinks about Napoli (and to be more accurate about Napoli people) you might get interesting reaction which will make you think twice if you want visit the city. I, on the other hand say forget it , do not miss Napoli , it is a beautiful city with tons of character.

One thing is quite true , as the cruise director said (and he is from Napoli) traffic lights/signs in Napoli are just decorations.Yes , at the exit from the port you will have many taxi drivers try to solicited you some trips but not much more (even less) comparing to many other places like Jamaica.Once you pass the road to the city you can find many nice small streets, interesting buildings, small shops and restaurants.

We just went between the streets without any certain direction, stopping from time to time to espresso shots  (and other type of coffees).

 

We did came to a place with a street performer , well not exactly street as he perform from his home terrace and organize the crowds to sing with him , very funny.

After few hours we went to find a good Pizza (which is an easy task in Napoli) , we found some small Pizzeria that served huge Pizzas , we split one between us as we did not thought we can finish two .

Pizza cost around 9$ it was very very good (and not just because we compared it to Sorento’s).

Later we went to one of the small supermarkets to buy some Limoncello, prices are much better than the tourist stores.

We started our way back to the ship to catch another laser Tag session, we won this time.

Dinner was the MDR again, I must say the service was very quick , one hour including everything.

I took the tenderloin, excellent, we paired the dishes with a Malbec wine I brought with me to the ship.

Another excellent day.

20 minutes ago, Matt said:

That's your machine?!

Yes 

Another benefits of fresh new ship , the machines still not tuned 

Now I have reason to stand at the long line of the guest services

 

1 hour ago, Matt said:

That Windjammer dessert display is no joke!

I guess this is one of the pluses of being in a new ship.

They are really trying.

Here is today lunch display

Sandwich anyone ?

8 minutes ago, arebee said:

Love the pics of Rome.  It had me take out my old photo albums and look at them again.  I was in Rome in 1977 on my last Navy Med Cruise.  I got some of the same pictures as you, nice to know things haven't changed that much.  Italy and Sicily and Palma were my favorites ports.  Now I want to go back...

Rome is one large  outdoor museum , where ever you go in the city center there is something. History all around, love this city.

Day 5 Rome ,

Well there is  only one place to go here , do not even bother on the other tours ,Rome is a must and I think I do not need to explain why.Our tour today was “navigate  Rome”, its actually a guided transfer to Rome were you get a cell phone that has several applications to guide you around and help you find your way.With the device (Samsung note 3) you are getting also  earphones. The guide kept reminding us that its 500 $ fine if we lose the device (not a bad revenue for RC as you can get such devices for much less).The application also contains a way to communicate with the guide and ability to send photos to your email from the phone. The meeting time was 8 and around 8:30 AM we were on our way to Rome.The ride took  90 minutes so around 10 we were dropped near the Vatican. During the ride the guide offered to sell Vatican tickets which save you the time to stand in the ticket office lines or a panoramic bus tour with ability to hop on and off.

The cost for the Vatican tickets is 34 $ , the buss is 35 $ and both are going directly to your sea pass account which is very comfortable. We tool the bus tour although you can do without it and I will explain later.

If you plan to visit the Vatican museum take into consideration the way it is organized, it actually a linear maze which you can only go forward at the end after more than a mile you will find the Sistine chapel , it can take more than an hour until you get to it.

Also please mind air conditions are not that common in Rome , which mean most of the places missing them including public buses and small shops/restaurants.

Check before if the ST Paul is accessible or not,

While walking near the Vatican you will encounter many people trying to sell you Vatican tickets/tours, they can be annoying but just tell them that you already have tickets, its usually works. 

We went to the bus station (around 0.5 mile from the Vatican), the bus came quite fast and we took it just until the next station , which is the famous fountain/Spanish stress.

Note , from the bus stop to the attractions you will need to walk around 0.25 miles.

The fountain was not working for some reason but we throw some coins in anyway, after all we suppose to come back at September.

From the fountain we went into the Spanish stairs, tons of people around but still nice to see.

Next station was the Pantheon which is always impressive considering it was built almost 2000 years ago. Just remember if you are planning to go visit some churches make sure you have the proper outfit (no shorts, no cut sleeves).

 

We tried to find something to eat that is not in the middle of the tourist attraction in Rome its not an easy task but we found some bar that served lunch, it was full with local people (well at least the people inside seemed to speak Italian). The food was ok, not something to write home about but did the work.

After lunch we went to eat ice cream, do not miss it , you cannot go wrong with ice cream in Italy.

We continued to walk to Venice square to visit the capitolina hill where we later took the bus back to the Vatican area

, since we had some extra time until we had to catch the group we took another ice cream (just to test if the pistachio flavor is same everywhere , for the research nothing else)   and excellent espresso.

In Italy you can find many espresso bars where people are drinking coffee standing up (around 1 $) its like refueling station for people , they come , drink the espresso for 30 seconds and go. By the way no Starbucks around ?    

We started our way back, but before heading to the port the bus travel via some of Rome monuments.

All in all a nice tour. If you want to save some money, you can catch this tour or even just transfer to Rome and take the public bus to where you want to start your walking tour, most of the main sites are nearby (the colosseum, the Pantheon, the capitolina , Spanish stairs . (around 15 – 20 minutes).

We came back around 5:30 PMs , we tried to do again the laser tag but it was closed already although they published it will be closed at 6 PM.

Dinner again was in WJ, they had lots of cakes and tons of fruits.

We were too tired to go to a show today, so we called it off qu ite early, all in all very enjoyable day.

2:30 am the studio B is quite full with people enjoying the party

Another strange thing, no love and merige (they published something similar but cancelled it) and no quest.

Again maybe it's the route since those game are almost zero effort to arrange .

27 minutes ago, twangster said:

Agreed.  But if no lobster in Europe that left me wondering if my Australia cruise in January will have lobster.  It's Caribbean lobster tail (as opposed to Maine lobster), so if they aren't shipping them to Europe maybe they don't ship them to other regions too.

On our cruise to south east Asia we did not have lobsters either .

But you will have many interesting fruits

16 minutes ago, CGTLH said:

From what I recall they don't do a lobster night on those runs. True test is once back in the US.

On Harmony at the same route they had lobsters not just in the MDR but even in WJ , but maybe it was a one time thing

 

39 minutes ago, Boston Babe said:

The corridors look so much wider than on most ships or is that your camera angle? Looks gorgeous!!

I think it's wider or so it's seems at 2 am

Bad news , no Lobster tail on second official night 

I hope its due to the route and not due to efford to push people to Hooked

 

And that's another 2 am daily activity:

It's a good example how big the ship is