FionaMG

I would go with option 2. Coco Cay is your beach day. You don't need to buy any extras there but if you can get the water park at a sensible price then the kids would undoubtedly love it. St. Martin is one of our favourite ports. You can get an island tour at the taxi stand, no need to pre-book, and then you can arrange with the driver for a couple of hours of beach time, if you like. Or, there is a boat trip that comes highly recommended by @OCSC Mike (I'm tagging him because I can't remember which one; Captain Bob or something like that). San Juan, no excursion needed. Visit the El Morro Fort. It's amazing. If you enjoy walking you can walk there but it's quite a long and uphill walk. Otherwise you could get a cab up and stroll back down again afterwards, which would let you explore some of old San Juan.

We had 11319 on Harmony and never noticed any noise. That said, this was in September 2021, so one of the very first post-pandemic sailings, meaning there were only about 1,000 guests on board! Here are some pics to give you an idea of what the view was like.

I sincerely doubt Royal will offer that sort of itinerary any time soon although I would love to be proved wrong. Celebrity might. Otherwise, I think you'd probably need to look at Princess. If I'm not mistaken, they usually do that itinerary at least a couple of times a year.

Not so far. I'm still seeing the exact same as @JohnK6404. Sabor is still showing up on the app but, of course, the app is never reliable this far out.

I need to try this Dancing Drums thingy with my free play.

I always find it cold inside the ship. I think I have ice water in my veins instead of blood. The cabin air con is almost always too cold for both DH and me so we usually turn it off if we can or turn the heat up if we can't.

@wiltsw, check-in has just opened. The earliest time is 11-11.30 am.

My check-in just opened! I was furiously refreshing the page and it finally opened at 12.05 am ship's time, since she's already in the right part of the world. I was able to grab the earliest boarding time for my party of 5: 11-11.30 am. Now I have only 46 days to worry about them getting all the work finished on time!

Yup, this is us too, although I do remember thinking Joff Eaton, whom we came across on Anthem, before he went to Serenade for the World Cruise, was very good.

Unfortunately, there is no rhyme or reason as to when MTD opens up on any given sailing. In the past, I've had everything from 4 months to over a year. You literally just have to keep checking back.

Covid saved Royal's bacon on that one!

I never buy the DBP either but, in the name of research, I just checked the price on my Allure cruise in April and I'm seeing $65.98. It just goes to show that it's worth checking your cruise planner daily because you never know when some random sale is going to appear. I've seen similar sales before, purportedly to celebrate some international day or other, and they do usually disappear after 24 hours.

This is called "interporting" and Royal have been doing it for some years now with Oasis-class ships on this itinerary, so they have plenty of experience and it generally all works very smoothly. What happens is that one of the two ports - so far, it's always been Barcelona - is designated as the "home" port, so a majority of passengers embark and disembark here and all of the onboard events, such as the welcome aboard and farewell parties, are geared around that port. This means that for the minority who start and end their cruise in Rome such events will be out of kilter. Other than that, the benefit of boarding in Rome is that it will be less busy because fewer passengers board there and you get to enjoy a largely empty ship on your first day as most of those who boarded in Barcelona will have Rome as a port day and will be off the ship.

Ok, I caved. Booked a neighbourhood balcony guarantee for 27th of September out of Barcelona. That's the same week we sailed on Harmony on her inaugural season. History repeating itself. Now all I need to do is book a 5-9 night cruise beforehand and we will qualify for a crystal block on Legend!!!

I vaguely remember that they did precisely this back in 2016 with Harmony, although I could be having a senior moment. I still have a Harmony Inaugural Season t-shirt. It's a bit worse for wear now after all these years, but it's fine for the beach.

@Bowen, you've been given some great advice by @Pattycruise. Given that your dates appear to be flexible, I agree and would just like to underline how hot and crowded the entire Med can be in July and August. Pretty much all of the European schools are on holiday in those months so many, many families will be travelling during this time. Your best months for sightseeing are June and then from mid/late September through October. There will fewer kids and (somewhat) smaller crowds during these months too. If you want to sail from Venice itself, you'd probably have to look at lines that sail from the port of Marghera. Unfortunately, neither Royal nor Celebrity do, so you'd need to be OK with going with someone like MSC or Costa and that's a whole different experience. That said, they do tend to be a fair bit cheaper, so I guess it depends on what matters to you the most. They do have some very decent itineraries. Note, however, that even these lines no longer provide the same sail-away experience that people used to rave about in the past, now that the Italian government has banned the larger cruise ships from the immediate area.

I have to say I think that was a very sensible move by your wallet.

It's the same menu across the entire fleet. Presentation may vary slightly but that's about all the difference you'll see. Completely negates the whole philosophy of a chef's table meal.

Glad to have been of assistance. I would be completely comfortable with a 1.30 flight. It's the ideal time; no stress and worry about potentially missing it and not a lot of hanging about at the airport before it either. Win win, definitely.

Yes, you can; however, there's no direct train, so you will have to change. Here is the port's website, which has lots of helpful information, including details about the trains: https://www.civitavecchiaport.org

Test loads typically only stay up for a few hours and then are removed from the website. These sailings should be fully posted at some point this week.

Hi @Joel.Perez and welcome to the boards. I would not risk booking a flight as early as that. You need 45 minutes to get to Rome Airport from Civitavecchia in a best case scenario and that's assuming there are absolutely no delays in traffic along the way. Sure, you can do self-assist departure and probably be among the first few passengers to disembark; that's the easy part. But the thing is, just because the ship is scheduled to arrive at 5 am doesn't mean that it will or that you'll be able to get off that early. Also, you need to be at the airport a full 3 hours before the flight's departure time because security at FCO is known for having long, slow-moving lines. If you're travelling in business class and have privileges like priority check-in and fast track through security you can probably make up a bit of time but, even so, if there’s any tiny hiccup anywhere along the way your flight will almost certainly be leaving without you.

Yes! I couldn't agree more!

The best place to start is the Foreign Office's gov.uk website for travellers. This site provides pretty much all of the information you will need regarding entry requirements for any country you might be visiting. It also contains official contact details that you can use to make further inquiries, if necessary. Here is the link for Singapore: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/singapore/entry-requirements And for China: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china/entry-requirements

Good luck! Tbh, I could take it or leave it, but I know DH would be over the moon to sail on it and he has a BIG birthday coming up next year, so I'm thinking that would be an amazing birthday surprise for him.