Andrew72681

Has anyone purchased The Key yet on a recent sailing. As odd as it sounds, considering purchasing it for our 3 night sailing on Navigator for May. The Chops lunch and internet are a nice feature, but hoping to gather more info on the semi-private hours for the Flow Rider. My eight year is a huge fan of it, so an hour or so a day with way fewer people would be nice. The private reserved hour in the cruise planner is quite expensive.

Navigator is back in the Royal App as a supported ship. Reservation showing up and Navigator also showing up in the supported list.

I’d also recommend pricing out the internet by itself and The Key services plus the soda package. If you’re going to get internet for all of the people in the cabin, it may be worth the costs between the two.

Not sure which offering it’s supposed to be included, but we had the package on Harmony in December and would assume it was the slower one. Plenty fast for browsing, email, etc.. sometimes was fast enough for Periscoping but I wouldn’t try too much streaming. The results of the first week of December in the attached are from onboard Harmony.

Looking forward to it on our May Navigator cruise. Not a lot of time to show it off in a three night sailing.

Wouldn’t see many problems with it. On our Harmony cruise I saw a litany if older people on it doing just fine. It’s the same speed as if you went on a slide at a playground. The darkness and lights amplify the feeling of speed to make it seem as if you’re traveling faster than you are. At best you’re traveling about 9 miles an hours.

If you can , just pack swim clothes and stuff you’d need in a backpack rather than a carry on suitcase. It’s much easier to explore just carrying a bag.

Definitely agree with @JLMoran, we were on Harmony in December and the biggest advantage of getting on early (we were on board before 11) was exploring the ship when it was empty to get our bearings. Also, other options other than the windjammer will be open, head to Park Cafe in Central Park as most people don’t head there. And if you have any dining reservations to make, getting on early means you get first choice. Right as you board head right and there’s usually a table setup with staff making specialty dining reservations.

Contrary to the principle of diminishing returns, we’ve found that even the little bit of extra space in a junior suite (more often NCl’s minisuotes) makes a big difference. Having a bit more space to spread out keeps us from sniping at each other’s throats. On our Harmony cruise the difference was only 500 dollars for 7 nights. So I’d definitely pay an extra 70 bucks a day for a bit of peace. Just think of it as three bucks an hour ? And even though I could pack a weeks worth of clothes in a carry on my wife and 9 year old aren’t even close to that. They need the walk in closet.

On Harmony they wouldn’t let anyone use them. There is a bleacher area attached to it so you can easily have someone record you from a close vantage point.

Does anyone know if you can combine earned certificates from a prior cruise with offers in your club royale online account? for example, the CASINO ROYALE FEBRUARY 2019 OFFER and a $400 certificate.

@Matt any idea what resources are available to crew members that are having a rough time? Seems like it may be time for RCCL to invest in onboard therapists. It may be that back in the days before connectivity crew didn’t know what they were missing at home. In our connected age, imagine seeing pictures of a new baby of yours on Instagram walking and knowing that you won’t be there for at least six months.

Final Thoughts I wanted to give a few weeks in between returning and reflecting on my thoughts from the cruise and hopefully avoid some of the recencey bias. All in all I’d have to agree with @Matt that Harmony is my favorite ship out there, but that does not mean it’s without fault. Even with the numerous elevator banks they’re programmed erratically which seems to lead to overcrowding. I’d prefer the system like in many hotels where you select where you are going and people get grouped together. Also, the lack of common sense by elevator crowders often causes me to want to develop a pop up cardboard cut out that looks like an at capacity elevator. The main dining room food was among the worst I’ve had, I’d compare it to our early days of cruising on Carnival and well below Norwegian. Temperature was bad, food was bland, and even the choices were subpar. Specialty restaurants- in contrast to the MDR, this one leans towards Harmony over NCL, we had great meals at the Specialty Restaurants, with Jamie’s Italian being the standout. So much so that my eight year old wants to book a flight to London to visit the landslide Jamie’s Italian locations. As others have mentioned signage is pretty poor, as someone who seemingly lacks a sense of direction, those little signs and indications of where I am are very helpful. I hear they’re doing away with it in the future, but in the hallways on Norwegian, fish on the carpet always point towards forward. Embarkation and Disembarkation- this will be an interesting one to compare once the new Norwegian terminal in Miami opens in 2019. Our experience embarking the ship and getting back on and off at ports was much smoother than any ports on NCL. We’ll be in the new Port Miami Terminal purpose built for Norwegian Encore next fall, only a couple of weeks after its opening. Shows and Entertainment- At the top end I’d give this one to Royal Caribbean for the broadway shows, but on daily activities I’d give a slight edge to NCL, mostly because of serendipity, with things like trivia relegated to pubs, and bars we wouldn’t stumble upon activities. On NCLs getaway and escape, they’re held in the atrium where we’d often stroll into an event. Pools and outdoor activities- other than the main dining room category this one is the biggest landslide. The Harmony had plentiful pools, decent water slides, and the flow rider was our favorite discovery. The Perfect storm water slide was fun, but the others were rather slow. Norwegian Encore is slated for great looking water slides to go along with a Go Kart Track, and laser tag, so this one might flip next year. Cabin- viewing mini-suites and junior suites in the same category, we much preferred the junior suite on Harmony, the closet being the differentiating factor. Having a walk in closet is a luxury we’d love to have every time. There was plenty of storage throughout the room. The bathroom however was smaller than we expected with some wasted space in the middle of the room. We also sorely missed the second sink for when everyone is getting ready at the same time. So in Conclusion- we’d never hesitate to book either line, which after four cruises on NCL we thought we’d stick there. Partially because of the latitudes program, but also because of the included added values. However, I think we’ve gotten to a point where it’s just worth paying for the additional space, priority embarkation, etc.. A lot of that is probably because as a frequent business traveler I’m used to boarding first, so why go back to the back on vacations. So we may be Loyal to Royal, we’re also Feelin’ Norwegian.

Day 8 Disembarkation day The day everyone dreads. Not as much this time for me as I was ready to get home and get back to my own bed. Having a departure tag of 33 we knew we’d be called around 8:40, so we got up at 6:45 and got everyone dressed. Addie and I walked down to Park Cafe to pick up a quick breakfast. As I mentioned yesterday, this is normally the day we order in breakfast as it’s nice to have to head down to a packed buffet for breakfast. Luckily, Park Cafe is nearby, but it was busier than we had seen it any point in the week. As the tables were full we walked it back to the room and ate there while Nikki got ready. Shortly thereafter we were ready too early as always and just sat out on the balcony. One of the features I like on RC is that you can see which groups have been called on the internal TV stations rather than running into the hallway to try and hear the muffled numbers. Once again I checked out the map from our journey which gets really just looks like we’re patrolling Cuba for 7 days. At about 8:25 they called the few numbers before us so we walked down to 5 for disembarkation. No wait to speak of getting off the boat, but once we got to luggage claim the terminal mess began. People were backed up all over and groups that hadn’t been called were allowed in line and groups that had were being herded off to the side. Given that we were in a suite and had been told we had Priority Disembarkation this certainly didn’t feel it. Per Matt Hochberg’s advice, once down the escalator grabbed the first porter and grabbed our luggage. Even though we had global entry he said it wasn’t necessary and he cut through the lines and found a line seemingly for portered customers that only had one person. After a very cursory glance at our passports and quick question about buying jewelry we were on our way. The Uber we called only took about two minutes to get there and another 10-15 to get to FLL. The B gates at FLL are always a mess with twice as many people as seats and only lackluster dining options to choose from. We ended up finding three seats a few gates away and setup shop till our flight. We boarded right on time but didn’t even close the door until 30 minutes after our departure time and then with much confusion left by less than communicative crew we sat for another 90 minutes. Finally two hours after scheduled time we took off back for BWI on our completely full flight and this vacation was officially over.

Addie wanted to spend some more time in Adventure Ocean so Nikki and I went to the casino which the best thing about it is unlike on NCL the casino is pretty well hidden down on 4 and you don’t have to walk through the smoky casino all the time. My streak of unlucky continued again, but I did get my points redeemed for four hundred dollars off a future cruise. Ten o’clock is the cut off for luggage to be picked up so we made our way back and packed up all but the things we’d need in the morning. We were assigned group 33 which is about a third of the way through the groups. We also put out the room service breakfast order form as we always do the last evening of the cruise. Our room steward stopped by to say that on disembarkation day there is no room service breakfast. After many years of always ordering that on other lines, that was really odd to hear. It makes it so much easier to get a young child ready for the chaos of leaving with breakfast delivered.

We saved Izumi Hibachi for the last night on the cruise as it seemed a fitting start and finish to the trip. We were one of the earlier seatings as we had dinner at 5:30. I’m surprised they only put three hibachi grills in as they’re always full and I’m sure could fill up one or two more. As we didn’t eat much lunch we ordered some appetizers with the girls sharing a Spicy Shrimp Tempura Roll and I stuck with the easy potstickers. I was adventurous at Wonderland, not starting on sushi now or anytime. Our Teppan chef was friendly, but the shtickola was the exact same as the table behind us, so it would appear they’re working from a script. There was one uncomfortable moment when the chef made a smiley face out of cooking oil. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but he dragged the eyes to the side and said “Japanese eyes” which seemed quite off-color. The fried rice was entirely too full of egg as the chef used 6 eggs in enough rice for 6 people. The meat was cooked well and all of the different proteins were delicious. After dinner dessert was served with choice of either Mochi or a Sesame and Red bean dessert. All in all a very good experience and one we would definitely do again next time on a Royal Caribbean cruise.

I bet by now you can guess what Addie wanted to do after that, and yes we headed back to the Flowrider yet again. Lines weren’t too long as they had the Flowrider divided in half to get more people on. Of course right as I get the hang of getting up on my knees it was time to go back home. We tried to head over to the Pool Deck but it was freezing, so we quickly decided against that and decided to take that time to pick up the souvenirs for others, and of course a t-shirt Addie had her eyes on. We also stopped into the Next Cruise office, but as the 2020 Symphony Cruises aren’t out yet and there’s no credit towards 3 night cruises, it didn’t make sense to book anything.

Day 7 We slept in today so much in the way of morning activities. We attempted to go up to the Windjammer at 10 but quickly learned that was a terrible idea. Not a table to be found and people just holding tables with cell phones or jackets. Yesterday the amount of people was frustrating, today it seemed unbearable. I decided just to skip breakfast, the girls however grabbed a plate and we took it downstairs and grabbed a quiet table in a nearly empty Dazzles. Not having much on the agenda we made our way to the captains corner event in the royal theater. We hadn’t had a chance to meet or get pictures with Captain Johnny the entire week. It was a good time as the Captain is so approachable and affable. So many captains are uptight and don’t seem like anyone you’d want to grab a beer with. The only problem with the event was that it became a whining session for a few customers about little issues on the ship. I did get to ask a question of the Chief Engineer in regards to how the change to Liquid Natural Gas changes how they fuel up and where. After captains corner Addie wanted to see the towel folding demonstration, which was held in the Boot and Bonnet pub. It was a bit odd having a kid focused event in a working pub while people in buying drinks. It’s the one time all week I missed the Atrium concept from the largest Norwegian cruise ships. It was rather short compared to others she’s been to before.

Day 5 Sea Day 12/6/18 Yet again a prolonged wait for seating in the main dining room meant not trying that again. I’ve never had that problem on Norwegian, so appears it’s just poor staffing planning on Royal’s part. As I woke up in a funk (probably too much go,go,go) the girls went to eat at the windjammer and I went back to the room for a bit and skipped breakfast. While I rested the girls went down to 4 to sign up for the Ice Skating session which they said was quite busy. Once they were geared up and on the ice it was packed and difficult to move. High seas today didn’t help either with trying to stay up on your blades. Right at their 11:45 opening we walked into American Icon Grille for the Main Dining room lunch. It’s really odd to me how short the MDR lunches are in sea days. Today was 11:45-1:15 which seems aggressively short for a boat with six thousand passengers. Orders were taking shortly thereafter and delivered quite promptly. Addie went with the Strawberry Bisque with mint foam, Nikki the spinach salad, and as none were that appealing to me I went with the Smoked Potato soup with Chorizo. Since she’s 8, the strawberry bisque worked great as it’s basically a smoothie in a bowl. I took a couple of bites and sent it away. The flavors didn’t work, but we should know better as soups never work on a ship. I guess they just don’t have time to develop flavors. Nikki’s spinach salad was but not great as the “vinaigrette” was just oil. For entrees both Addie and I went with the Lasagna and Nikki had the turkey club. At lunch we never once saw our head waiter, we only saw our assistant waiter Nadine who had also waited our table last night. After lunch we made our way to the zipline and the Flowrider again, and again, and again. I never thought that would be the highlight for Addison. The zipline wound up being almost more work to get harnessed than it was fun to get across. I’m a bigger fan of the ropes course and zipline on Norwegian Escape and Getaway. We tried to catch the 3pm showing of Hideaway Heist at the Aquatheater but with no reservations it had filled up early. Standing room for the show wasn’t in the cards for us so we went back to the room to relax. Sounds like it was a good idea because people we talked to about it weren’t big fans. Dinner tonight was our second formal night and this time in Coastal Kitchen. We all went for the shrimp cocktail as the other options weren’t up our alley. It was mostly the same as the MDR but with a more standard issue cocktail sauce rather than the runny mess from last night. Our service Dane was friendly and playful. Apologies on the main courses, I forgot to take pictures until it was too late. Addison just ordered a Caesar salad with added chicken that was good and better than downstairs. Nikki had tonight’s formal night special of butter poached lobster with favs beans and leeks. I went with the NY strip and added the lobster from the lobster dish for a poor mans surf and turf. Dinner was a step up from the MDR but not worth the thousands extra it takes to get into a suite. I think in the future I’d much rather just buy the full week dining package as the food in the specialty dining venues is a big step up from the dining rooms. For dessert we all tried different things hoping one would be a standout. Not so much today, the baked Alaska, creme brûlée, and chocolate crunch bar A gentleman I sat next to at a blackjack table today was complaining about being “nickel and dimed” to death on cruises now. I think it’s more of just needing to pay beforehand for what you really want. Next time we’ll just do the ultimate dining package and call it a day. Once dinner was finished we visited the Royal Promenade for pictures as Nikki wasn’t a fan of the ones taken in Central Park. As it was after 9 there were almost no lines to speak of, a nice departure from the first formal night. After I’d taken my obligatory pictures we took Addie down to Jazz on 4 to listen to music and then up to the arcade for a little bit. Made it an earlier night than most as we had to be up early to catch our shuttle to Playa Mia.

Thanks. I put one together for an around the world trip I did back in March but never got back to clean it up and marry up the pictures. Didn’t want this one to get away from me.

Day 4 Falmouth Jamaica 12/5 Day 4 started off on a sour note. Only the American Icon was open for breakfast, and with that came a 20 minute wait. Only having the lowest portion of the dining room seems easy to correct when it gets busy, just open up another area. We decided to give Johnny Rockets a try and there was no wait to be found. By halfway through the meal a long line had developed. Our server seemed like she was very rushed throughout the meal. The meal overall was what we call a Sysco meal. Everything tasted like it came out a box and was just “meh” overall. When we got back to the room our room steward informed us that the towel washing machine was out of order and that they were flying someone from Miami to meet us in Cozumel and that wasn’t for another two days. Nikki’s spa day As it was Nikki’s birthday yesterday she went off for a spa treatment today. As usual it’s a much better deal to do it on a port day rather than a sea day. Today’s special was mini-facial and a 50 minute massage for 169 plus 18% gratuity. Nikki rated it average, but she’s been spoiled by the Spa at Aria in Las Vegas. The one thing that did bother her was the pushy sales pitch at the end to buy overpriced lotions. At one point the person said “what you on cruise and have no money” what I said Nikki should have said back is “let me just check Amazon really quick.” Addie went back over to the Flowrider when they opened and I’m pretty sure I created a monster by suggesting it. She went three times today and got the hang enough to get her knees up on the board. Before dinner there was time to stop in on one of the Dreamworks character meet and greet with the characters from Trolls. We went up around 5:30 to see if we could get into Coastal Kitchen, as junior suites can’t make reservations in advance. We walked into an empty restaurant but a thirty minute wait. That would have run past our reservation time for standard dining so we killed some time and then made our way to Silk for our 6:00 reservation. Service while very friendly was spotty at best but even that outshone the food by leaps and bounds. Perhaps we got spoiled on the first three nights but the food was borderline bad. Not just average but bad. Between the three of us we ordered and tried the following Shrimp Cocktail- were almost salad sized shrimp and I wish I had gotten pictures post cocktail sauce as the sauce was runny and had zero horseradish flavor Caesar salad- Addie didn’t mind this one. Spaghetti Bolognese- if the spaghetti at Jamie’s earlier in the week was a good burger at a nice restaurant, this was McDonalds. Garlic Tiger Shrimp- this was the most boring bland dish I’ve had all week, and that includes food at the Windjammer. It was flavorless and the shrimp which had been bisected to resemble a lobster shell just stuck to the shell. ISkate- after dinner it was time to head to studio B for the ISkate show. I really wish they’d just let it be what it really is, a planned, rehearsed, and choreographed show. The premise that “they always follow orders now they get to do what they want” is contrived and clearly false. It was a decent show and it was fun watching them knock over the lights on the ice several times as the space is rather small. Mo5iac- The highlight of the night came in the Royal Theater, with Headliner Showtime featuring Mo5iac. They’re a group of 5 a capella singers based in Las Vegas. They’ve crafted instruments using only their voices that rival master beatboxes from the 1980s. It was a very fun show with a myriad music styles ranging from jazz to pop to classic rock to Christmas music. There was a bit of crowd participation and some singing along. By far the most interesting part was an all a capella rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. I then found myself a seat in the casino for a couple hours more of blackjack. I’ve never witnessed a place where people make more stupid decisions while playing blackjack. Normally that is only the stuff of small limit tables, but at a $25 minimum table I witnessed people splitting tens, and a guy split 4s against a dealer 8. That lunacy meant I was time for bed so I strolled back up to 8 to our room.

Just another quick note on birthday celebrations on a cruise. On Norwegian they kind of made the entire week Nikki’s birthday. They’d bring over special desserts, lots of champagne in the room, nearly constant birthday wishes. They brought over a birthday dessert, but we had to do the singing. Not even a TGIFridays style where other wait staff came over. Not a big deal but something I definitely noticed.

After a quick shower we went up to Wonderland for Nikki’s birthday dinner. Walking in your supposed to be teleported to the land of Alice in Wondeland down to the uniforms of the service staff. Adventurous eater and Andrew have never gone together in a sentence before, so take everything I say with numerous grains of rice. Once seated it took quite a while to get menus and about 15 minutes to even get water as the restaurant was quite busy. Our server Pedro made it up to us throughout the meal with friendly and informative service, which is a must when nothing looks as it seems. Pedro went through the formalities of allergies and then asked that we “trust him” and all we had to choose was our main courses, which we went with all of the Earth options (Short Ribs, Pork Belly, and Chicken.) Appetizers started coming out shortly thereafter which were perhaps a little bit too whimsical for me. Liquid Lobster with caviar Tuna Tartare with Lime sorbet Barbecue chicken eggs Shrimp Katafi For entrees we had Terroir Beef Roasted Chicken Berkshire Pork Belly The short ribs and chicken were both delicious. The pork belly was too fatty for us when you add in that it’s battered and deep fried. Pedro came back around and asked if there was anything else we’d like to try (some tables ordered tons more) and we ordered the Vegetable Garden as Addison was dying to try it. The “dirt” that was there before has now been replaced with Avocado purée. We were all stuffed by then but the entire reason for coming to Wonderland was the dessert course. We again left it in Pedro’s hands and trusted him. He brought out enough dessert to feed half the ship, including a special poison apple for Nikki’s birthday. The deserts were all delicious with the exception of the meringue and bourbon sorbet dish which didn’t work for us. The presentation of “The World” is all very over the top and frivolous. Pedro also informed us that even though we had prepaid full fare for Addison that he had refunded it and charged her the kids price of ten dollars. We settled up the tab and then headed of to Adventure ocean to drop off Addison and we thought head to the comedy show. We arrived almost ten minutes before showtime for the comedy show to find a packed house and not a seat to be had. Even with reservations we would have been standing in the corner at the back of the room. So we decided to skip it and head off to the casino. After picking up Addison we sat in Central Park listening to soft rock covers that I’m not sure most people even picked up on. At one point it was a John Tesh-Esqe cover of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters. After that it was time to get some rest for our Almost Sea Day at Falmouth Jamaica.

Being away from the home port and off the boat we finally got a chance to get up next to the boat and get some clear pictures. After the Pier walk and walking through the makeshift village we wandered off to Adrenaline Beach where our beach bed was for the day. If you’re traveling with little ones or much older ones, be sure to wait for the tram as it’s a pretty long walk out there. The tram will drop you right off near the closest restaurant and restroom near adrenaline beach. Once we were signed in we got our choice of the available beach beds, as we didn’t rush over and took our time the first row of beds right on the beach we’re all taken (those come with two extra lounge chairs) so we wound up one row behind. All in All I found the beach bed to be a really good value, being able to get it at a slight discount was nice, but still would have been worth it at $175. It’s your own private space with is invaluable without having to shell out five to six hundred for the cabana. It comes with extra beach towels, six liters of Evian Water, two lounge floaters, and plenty of pillows to keep comfortable. Once we settled in it was time to get in the water, and then it hit us that we had left the water shoes up in the room, and of course the water was full of sea weed and what seemed like exceedingly spiky rocks. I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that at home it’s thirty degrees and I’m relaxing in the tropics. Nikki ordered a couple of Labdoozies but forgot all the lessons she’d been taught. She forgot to mention a regular cup so we of course were brought specialty cups and charged for them. After hanging out for the beach and one visit to the dragons tail coaster, we went back to the shuttle stop to catch the shuttle. It was quite warm so shuttling back was a very popular option. Boarding back on the ship is where we were hoping one of our Norwegian favorites would be there, refreshing cold towels to wipe off with before boarding the ship. Not to be found though, just another stop to scan SeaPass cards to return towels. Boarding was quite efficient, but that might be because we were a couple of hours before all aboard. With the ship still quiet, we went up to the pool area to take in the water slides while the lines were shorter. One plus of slides while in port is that the wind is almost non existent which can be a problem while cruising. Since we were early and the flowrider opened in 10 minutes we ventured over to wait in line before it opened. Be sure to bring your seapass cards the first time as you need them to be able to sign the waiver form. It was a good thing we got there first as by the time it opened the line was ten people deep. Addie and I booth did the boogie board side and it was hard work. Just trying to keep from wiping out is an effort in itself. I managed to jam my thumb on the way up at the end so that was the end of my illustrious Flowriding career for today. Addie went back twice more.

Day 3 12/4 Labadee, Haiti We finally got moving today about 8:45 and decided rather than heading to the MDR as planned we would just grab something in Park cafe again. The convenience of it basically being on the other side of the hall (our room was behind the restaurants so you had to navigate all the way around them) made it a good choice. The girls stuck to the same options as yesterday and I just went with some cereal. After a quick bite it was time to head off the ship and visit Haiti for the first time. Exiting the ship was smoother than anything we’d experience before on Norwegian or Carnival. What caught me the most off guard was that there was an escalator, which I’d never seen before on a ship. Is this a common thing on RCCL ships? Also while disembarking we walked past Captain Johnny’s Harley Davidson waiting to cruise around the next port. I’m guessing we holds his Callaway’s in the storage trailer.