PlanetRC

I would not want to pay the Star premium for the nicer suites on a Freedom class ship.  I don’t know that I will again on any ship; the premium is too high and the benefits have been pared back a ton from the early days in my view.  In the past, Star got to short-cut almost everything, which was a huge benefit on an Oasis-class ship.  This benefit has largely gone away.  The genies of my past would get us into escape rooms, laser tag, ice skating, back stage theater, or something else special.  Last  cruise was a bridge tour that we had no interest in as we have done it before.  Genie can no longer make sure nursery time is available for dinner, and not once did we see a snack without a special request.  No Starbucks delivery for adults; no special drinks or ice cream surprises for littles.  To me, genie is now a person to arrange shows and dinners as well as help get you on and off the ship.  On a Freedom class ship, suite concierge is great for all of this.  I feel like the Star premium has dramatically increased in price while really cutting back on benefits.  But, since people continue to pay the premium, they likely would do so on a Freedom-class ship as well . . .

I also forgot another point...Unless they spruce up the rooms big time on small ships, none of them have much WOW factor. The RS on small ships maybe...but other than that, none of them could make me justify SC pricing.

Day 4 - Roatan 
We were greeted at the pier by the shop workers, drummers, and dancers. I don't recall this when i'm previous sailing, but I may have just missed it.
 The kids had room service for breakfast, and we left the ship shortly after it docked for our excursion. We did the 3 stop snorkel through Roatan Getaway Tours. We paid the deposit by PayPal and the balance in cash.
It is pretty easy to get out of the port for a 3rd party excursion. Go straight down the main path and turn right at the exit sign. You go through a pavilion selling tours. Keep following the path and cross the road (inside the port). The exit gate is in front of the two story blue building. All the third party tour operators have to wait across the street, but they are helpful at pointing out each other.
Here's more of a close up of where you get out. Go past the gate for cars, stay to the left in front of the building. 
I have a waterproof case for my phone, but I can't get it to work well in the water. I guess my fingers get too cold to register on the screen. Sorry no snorkeling photos. 
The van used to transport us was clean and the ac was cold. When we arrived at their boat, we were offered water and outfitted with our gear. It was the four of us and one other couple for the first and third of the snorkel stops, another one of their tours joined us for the middle stop there were maybe 10 in that group. All the snorkel locations were close to their dock. We had two guides in the water and saw lots of lobster, barracuda, parrot fish, and the shipwreck just off Coco View dive resort's property. 
At the end of the tour, the couple we were with asked to go to the beach, so we dropped them off on the way back to the ship, and the driver headed back to get them later. 
As we pulled away from the dock the same group came back out and yelled "thank you" in unison.
We got dressed for the evening and headed to the crown lounge where we ran into the Stowaway Piano Player. We had ice show reservations that conflicted with dinner reservations, so we just went to the WJ.
The skaters performed well, and there was only one little bobble, but DH and I didn't care for the show. The graphics on the ice were cool, but we felt the story line was forced. It was good, but we're ok to skip this one next time we are on Harmony next year.



We were supposed to go to the rescheduled aqua show this night, but the kids were exhausted, so we asked Ooma, the crown lounge concierge to reschedule for the next night. She was able to get one reservation and told us she would keep trying to secure the other three and let us know. She was able to get the remaining seats the next day and left voice messages for both rooms.

Buy 1 Get 1 50% Off for 48 hours only* seems to work for Royal. 
 
*For full offer details, visit http://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruiseplanner. Offer applies to purchases made on May 07, 2024, and applies to select ships recieved by customer between May 09, 2024 - May 31, 2025. Offers are non-transferable and not combinable with Crown & Anchor discounts or any other offer or promotion. Additional fees may apply for enviromental or regulatory compliance. Prices and offers are subject to availability and change without notice, capacity controlled, and may be withdrawn at any time. Royal Caribbean International reserves the right to correct any errors, inaccuracies, or omissions and to change or update pricing, fees and surcharges at any time without prior notice.

Edited as Mrscalvink669 is technically challenged after a few drinks

Parental Advisory: Explicit language 
Greetings from Mrs. Calvin,
I’ve been informed that y’all are anxiously awaiting a guest post by yours truly and I apologize that I kept you waiting. As you know, I’m almost 50 and in the words of the late and great Toby Keith, “I ain’t as good as I once was”. I’ve managed to muster up a few brain cells after 5 days of drinking and I think I can coherently put a sentence together. Figured I’d do this before I have my first margarita of the day…morning. 
I’d like to add a little entertainment for the ladies reading this, I hope you appreciate. 
I can’t for the life of me get good “makeup lighting” in these cabins, is it me? I mean, I’ve been doing this female thing for almost 50 years now and I KNOW my eyebrows need to be tweezed (and at my age, probably my mustache) but I’m just not seeing it in these mirrors. Maybe eyebrows don’t grow on ships, I dunno, we’ll see when I get home. We went to The Empire Supper Club last night so I wanted to add a little eyeshadow to these saggy eyes, truth be told I probably looked like a damn clown because of the very forgiving lighting in the cabin. &$#% you mirror, I know the truth.
I’m finally at the age that I just don’t care, but admittedly I do when it comes to swimwear in public. While I can finally not care and walk around awkwardly in a swimsuit, I gotta make sure these bottoms are where they’re supposed to be as I exit the pool. There are a lot of buttcheeks….err…umm…Europeans on this cruise and I have to admit that I admire their confidence and their “I don’t care” attitude. More power to you. 
Speaking of not caring, go see Grace at the piano bar. She’s a blast and I had a girl crush on her. Not one care given about anything she said, even with a kid front and center. Mr. CK got to hold her harmonica during Piano Man and she told him that he had strong hands and they needed a safe word. I love it. 😂
I got called up on the stage at the headliner show the first night. While I would’ve loved being the center of attention in my younger days, I was quite embarrassed. He was cute though…and sweaty. Very sweaty. Those damn lights are hotter than heck. He also doesn’t know the difference between parallel and perpendicular, but because of the reason previously mentioned, I’ll give him a pass. 
I’ve just been scolded by Mr. Live Blogger himself that this is “TLDR” so I must end it here. Besides, my margarita just arrived. Hope you all have a great time! Cheers! 🍹

It's good to live in Florida?  🫢
There's Oasis class ships everywhere with the possible exception of Lake Eola in downtown Orlando.

Ok, big fail on my part as I got the tomahawk ribeye and didn’t snap a single pic while at chops.  Rookie blogging mistake, but I will blame it on the amount of wine consumed up till that point.
As for the tomahawk ribeye, it was delicious, and even though it says 32oz, that is with the bone so really not that huge of a portion when compared to the bone in ribeye.
Going back further yesterday, after the wizard of Oz, I sat down at the 3 card poker table and on the first hand hit a 6 card straight flush.  I only had $10 on the six card bet, but that was still a quick 2K. 😎I ended up giving $400 of that back before the end of the night, but in all it was good!

Today we are in Roatan, we have a casita by swim and tonic.







The Moet doesn’t come with these casitas, it’s the bottle we got on boarding day 😉

Joining the party! We just booked, can’t wait to get back on Harmony again!

@Kathleen here is a video I found before our last cruise that walks through the new terminal suite boarding area. Inside the building footage starts about 2 minutes into the video.
 

Joining the party! We just booked, can’t wait to get back on Harmony again!

RCBot: **Beep boop please give us all your money pay no attention to the cutbacks fleetwide beep boop**

RCBot: **Beep boop please give us all your money pay no attention to the cutbacks fleetwide beep boop**

Separate "higher end"toiletries that may or may not have you smelling like a salad.

Here is a very cool site a forum member created that you may find helpful for comparing ships... https://rc.cruises 
 

Booked our 1st RC cruise on Oasis back in 2017, had no problems with CO. That said, we switched to another big box agency for subsequent cruises because they offered better deals, which is consistently what I’ve seen since then when quoting cruises. 

If you're sailing Star or Sky Class, the suite sun deck (enter from deck 16 > 17) is a great place with few people around to crowd you. We've done sailaway from there before on Symphony and it was great.

If not..at the front of the solarium (outside - deck 15). There's a good look of this space in the video here:
Another option if you want to go aft instead of forward would be near the Wipeout Bar/Ultimate Abyss entrance (enter from deck 15 > 16) here:
 

Going on 47 years of experience here and my wife now has her third degree black belt in shopping....she lost her credit card a few weeks ago and I didn't report it....whoever found her card and was using it was spending less than she was. So when we go shopping, I always hold her hand...that way she can't spend any money. My wife can't resist a sale, especially if it's marked down....last week she came home with an escalator!! (Thank you Rodney Dangerfield)