ScooterScott22

Different port, different rules. We are headed out in September to the southern Caribbean so it is good to hear that they are choosing to open the casino while in port, since some of our party like to gamble and will not fully utilize the long port time. We were surprised in March to see the casino open at some of the port stops on the Wonder. Guessing that Royal didn’t care so much in the past but now even a percentage of the casino revenue is better than 100% of no casino revenue.

Agree with others that weather predictions for anyplace are a bit of a guess and the further out you are the more suspect they might be. BUT… This is the Caribbean and since temps don’t vary much between summer and winter (that is why cruises go there year round, right?) you can expect warm and sunny weather with maybe some passing showers. As mentioned your dates are in hurricane season, so if that weather phenomenon occurs expect your sailing itinerary to change to keep you, the guests, and the ship safe and in as much warm and sunny weather as they can find.

I’m guessing that you will want to be at the airport around 10 am (or so) for an international flight. It will really depend on when you can get off the ship. The transfer from the port to the airport should only be 10 -15 minimum but Miami traffic can be in predictable. Our last flight out from MIA after a cruise we got the Uber at 9:15 so as long as you are off the ship in a similar timeframe you should be fine. Good luck and have fun planning!

Forgot to share this in my initial post. We did Wonder of the Seas, in mid-March, she was in great shape and looked like a new ship!

Harmony last month, overall things seemed to be in pretty good shape. A few things showed some wear and tear if you looked. The couch in the stateroom had some wear that was pretty easy to spot but you had to be looking to find other problems/issues. Explorer or Enchantment?

@CruizIan thanks, personally no issues for me with the wait times, and I hope others realize that we are the ones on vacation so we have nothing but time to spare. My concern is efficient work flow for the staff. I have seen the wait staff from Izumi crossing through the casino to order and then bring drinks back to the restaurant. The crew work hard every single day of their contracts, so why not make the process more streamlined for them? This is just one example, it robs the wait staff of time with the guests when they are already short staffed. (Could a server cover one more table, generating another tip for them and one more happy guest who was able to get a specialty dining reservation.). They also have to weave in and out of all the traffic in the casino, so I am sure that occasionally drinks are spilled, causing waste and further delays. Not trying to be argumentative, just hope that folks realize that the cruise staff do their best. Also, if it is a policy for wait staff to “pace” the flow of drinks, they can still do that without running to other parts of the ship to do their job with a little planning

Maybe we can convince “Bar Rescue” to come in and do a show, heck they could do whole series with one episode on each ship. LOL.

Was on Harmony a few weeks ago and the bartenders at CK and Suites Sun Deck were very open about supply issues. I was discussing scotch and bourbon and they shared that supplies were low and very hit or miss on re-supply. Some bars were out of specific brands but others might still have something you are looking for. My guess the situation will remain very fluid. The suites sun deck was the only place the had a couple of items, likely the whole ship got re-stocked at the same time and that location just didn’t have the same demand as other spots on the ship. Unfortunately, we didn’t get off the ship in St. Thomas since we had been there a number of times before but my friend found and got a few bottles Blanton’s in St. Kitts. They were a little higher in price than ideal but it was there at least. Good luck with the bourbon situation and have fun,

First, I was using voice typing so had to correct the “sweet guess” to Suite Guest! LOL . Someone should have called me out on that! You May want to give yourselves a few extra minutes, since once they started lining up, I’m not sure how they managed suite guests that arrived later. (We were in a suite so I didn’t pay much attention to what happened behind us.). We had some friends sailing with us that had a PAT of 11:30 and even though they were right on time, they almost missed our lunch reservation at 12:45. There is a guy who posted a video about the boarding on 5/15 on Harmony that is not pretty. Looks like people are not following PAT’s assignments.

Agree that the servers really don’t get much credit for the work that they do related to getting drinks in the specialty restaurants. We were just on an Oasis class sailing and Izumi servers have to go to the casino to get drinks, most of the Central Park restaurants are served by the Trellis bar and that all seems like poor logistics. Granted wine is usually from inside the restaurants, it is just spirits and mixed drinks.

We just travelled out of port Canaveral a couple weeks ago on Harmony. The experience was pretty similar to what was mentioned above. I can add that because of some travel logistics we were dropped off early before our 10:30 PAT. We sat around waiting for a bit so I will run through what happened. Folks started to lineup near the entranceway even though the queues weren’t open yet. A port representative came out around 10 or 10:15 and with a microphone made an announcement that they will start lining up shortly. The gentleman proceeded to call pinnacles and suite guests right around 10:30 to enter the cues . After that he called for the key guests. Then he started calling the 10:30 group and continue to fill in the queue space near the port entrance. I don’t recall exactly how long but there was a short wait and port staff started to look at cruise docs and COVID tests while we waited for the doors to open. It wasn’t long and they started letting guest into the port for security screening, and then you proceeded up to the check-in.

Thanks @dodgestang that is very helpful. We are lucky enough to be in a suite with a piano soon and would love to have something playing occasionally. We thought some info might help on the boards too, for anyone else that might get one of these suites in the future. DW knows how to play but has not touched ours in a long time. I don’t know how but like to occasionally goof around on our piano. We keep our piano more because there is a little history to it, not because it gets so much use,

My guess is it will vary by location and dish. The sit down restaurants are all going to ask if there are any dietary restrictions (allergies, Etc) at the beginning of each meal. That would be the time to discuss the use of MSG. The servers can assist with some questions but expect that a chef will visit the table to help guide you to acceptable options. In the Windjammer you will have to mention it to the staff and a chef will guide you through the stations to review acceptable choices. The menus/offerings do change so even though some standard foods will be there, new items will need to be reviewed for MSG.

We haven’t made reservations for Playmakers since we have only stopped for snacks/apps there (and it has turned into dinner once) but have made reservations for Sabor. My guess is they would be similar. They probably are not necessary but could be helpful at certain times. For the OP question, DW seems to have the trick to getting reservations in the app. It is not exactly the same as show reservations but similar. I haven’t been as successful in the app and usually end up going to a live person. LOL

Was searching for some information about the pianos that are in a few of the suites. There was only one thread on here that had any details, back in 2018, and limited information on other forums also. Wanted to see if anyone had any details they could share. What I can find is that - - The piano can be played but that would require the knowledge and ability. -There is some information out on forums about an auto-player system on the pianos in some suites. If anyone has any information on the auto-player systems that would be great. (Ship and year might be helpful, functionality, and ability to upload would be helpful) - The concierge or genie could arrange for someone to come in and play but that would likely have an associated cost and probably would be limited to hosting a party or event in the suite. Any suite in the fleet that has a piano will be special. If there is an option to have the piano auto-play that would be a bonus.

Saw that you are onboard now, we did Harmony less than two weeks ago. Hope things are going well. We had UDP and only did CK once for dinner, but had lunch a few times. Things seemed in order for the most part, expect some bars being out of a few items.

Star class suites are the only suites that includes the unlimited dining package. Unfortunately that limits the included UDP to the Oasis and Quantum class ships. Seems unfair that even the largest suites on some of the other ships don’t get that perk.

If you are keeping track of how far someone is will to travel for a cruise, we have both sides of the argument under our belts. We live in central Florida and home port out of Canaveral. We have done two European cruises (Copenhagen and Dover), and two/three west coast (LA and Vancouver). We had a Tokyo planned and a Brisbane also, both missed during the 2020 to 2022 cancellations.

Post COVID there have been small cards on the tables. One side says ‘unavailable’ and the the other side says ‘clean’. The wait staff will usually stop by and see if you need anything or pick up your dishes and flip the card to the dirty/unavailable side if you haven’t. Once you leave and they clean they flip it back to the clean/available side. Hope they keep this process moving forward, since it really makes it easy to find seating that is clean and ready.

For other that might click on this thread, adding some detail. All day Coastal Kitchen access (breakfast, lunch and dinner) will be available for Star and Sky class suites. Sea class is only able to book dinner based on availability and Sea class would be the Jr. suites. All other “suites” will be Star or Sky.

Being from the Orlando area, it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue for us. We have done a few sailings during the season and have one booked for this September. Since the ships can sail around storms expect that if there is something, your schedule/itinerary may change but they will keep you away from the storm. Probably not the biggest risk, but only you can determine how much you might want to chance it. Our hope is that if something happens on one of those sailings, they can’t get back to port as planned and “darn it” we have to extend our cruise by a few days. We had two past experiences with storms while sailing. - One was a passing hit from a forming depression while in the Bahamas. Got a little rain from that but the ship made it back to Port Canaveral the next day as planned. We had a couple days at home before the storm had grown and hit the east coast with minor damage. - The other was a trans-Atlantic that a storm went up the east coast and disrupted our stops in the Canadian maritimes. The captain turned the ship and sailed around the storms. Had a day with some showers while still crossing. The ports that were canceled were disappointing but it got us extra days in NYC. Good luck with the planning.

They had adjusted embarkation from Sydney to Brisbane like a month ago. We were fine since it was 2022 we still had not booked flights. Today they just took them whole cruise away. Our letter states the whole cruise is cancelled. Radiance letter states they are now moved to our ship.

So we had booked Tokyo - Seattle in May of 2021 while on Ovation in Alaska in May 2019. Because of everything going on in 2020 we decided to lift and shift to the Sydney - Honolulu, April 11th, 2022. Thought we were good. Today we got the notice that Royal was making changes to 6 ships and “cancelling” our cruise. The actual words “our April 11, 2022 Quantum of the Seas cruise has been cancelled”. While we were disappointed we did understand. It was hard to take that we would have to take a refund and book something else. No 125%, no price match, and really not many optionS since many rooms are already booked on other things that might be available. Then we heard this from some cruise critic people, that Radiance is being moved to our sailing. Very disappointing to actually find out they are lying.

May have to reach out to you all about moving a Club Royale cruise week have in December. Since it will likely be cancelled we figured it was just going to be lost. After a quick look at this thread it sounds like it might be possible to move it. We were lucky to upgrade all the way to the Owners Loft Suite for a good price so doubt that will happen but it would be nice to at least move it to another sailing.

We did the Oasis a few years ago when our son was 9 and that was about 3 weeks before Christmas. The promenade is the main area that was decorated. A few other spots had some decorations but overall it didn’t seem to be all that different. There might have been a couple of holiday specific activities but with so much to do on an oasis class ship you have your choice to engage in them or not. One nice thing was a picture from formal night by the tree became a Christmas card.