ChrisK2793

If you happen to be staying in a Grand Suite or better, the suite concierge will send you a welcome email about a week before the cruise ......... you can reply to that email and ask them to book the restaurants and times you want for each day and it will all be booked for you before the cruise.

I’ve never hear this before the cruise we’re currently on ..... another passenger told us that if you tip your server in specialty dining in CASH they get to keep it all, but that if you tip them on your sea pass card, they have to split it with everyone else in the restaurant ..... is this true?

‘they’re on a 4 night cruise for $96 UDP ..... at $179 , I’m guessing you’re on a 7 day cruise ...... Theirs is $24/day, yours is $25.50/day ..... just as good a deal.

‘We sailed on Oasis for Thanksgiving week, right after the refurb ...... I thought the Grand Suite we were in looked all brand new, but others who saw the pics I posted at the time said that they thought it was the same decor as before ..... so I can’t 100% say if it the stuff in the cabin was brand new or not, but it all looked amazing and like new even if it wasn’t. We’re actually sailing on Oasis again tomorrow (Feb 9-16), this time in a Crown Loft.

My spouse has been playing My Vegas on the phone for years and has tons of points. Does what’s in the screenshot below get us anything? Is it the purple coin amount that counts or the gold coin amount?

We’re thinking of booking a TransAtlantic for Fall 2021. Our son will be in 4th grade then and about to turn 10. We figure if we’re going to take him out of school for 2 weeks, we need to do it before he gets in junior high. Oh Harmony we’d be in a Crown Loft and on Odyssey we’d be in a Grand Suite 2 Bedroom. Both are the same price. Odyssey stops more places than Harmony. Which ship and itinerary would our son have more fun on? He’d actually turn 10 on the Harmony one, he was born 11/11/11. See screenshot below for the stops each ship makes .....

Oasis after its amplification is actually WAY BETTER than Harmony. It has a huge Playmakers Sports Bar and Arcade where Sabor and Starbucks are on Harmony. Our 8yo son had a lot of fun playing all the free games in playmakers over thanksgiving. He also LOVED the new kid’s club design on Oasis ....... they have a really nice video game area and it’s just setup a lot better. The cruise director on Oasis also was a lot more involved and had more fun things going an all week than the cruise director did when we were just on Harmony. We’re actually going on Oasis again this Sunday. If you’ve never tried the Crown Loft Suite yet, I HIGHLY recommend staying in one!

YES ..... When the suite concierge emails you about a week before your cruise, you can then email back and ask them to make all your dinner reservations for CK and also for all of the specialty restaurants if you have the Unlimited Dining Plan.

I’d HIGHLY recommend getting the UDP ...... You can usually get it on sale for $179/adult....... that’s basically $25.57/day. The food in the specialty restaurants is WAY better than in the MDR. Just make sure you go and make ALL your reservations as soon as you get on the ship the first day or you may not get the times you want. IF you’re staying in a Grand Suite or above, you can actually make your UDP reservations thru the suite concierge when they email you about 7 days before the cruise ....... just email back and tell them the dates and times you’d like to eat at each restaurant and they’ll make the reservations for you.

YES ..... You can always send your food back and get something else if you don’t like it.

It really depends on your server ....... we were just on Harmony 1/19-26 and ...... all 3 of the nights that we ate at 150 Central Park with the UDP our server (who we tipped well and asked for every night after the first) insisted on bringing out an extra entree each night for us “to try” ..... he actually would have brought 2 extra entrees each night but we said please no lol

Right now Harmony completes a TransAtlantic to Barcelona on 4/16/21 and then her next scheduled sailing after that leaves from Barcelona for a Western Mediterranean Cruise on 5/23/2021.

No, you have to bring your own or buy one on the ship or in the cruise terminal.

Harmony has a 12 night Transatlantic from Orlando to Barcelona 4/4 - 4/16 in 2021. Then she doesn’t have another sailing until 5/23 from Barcelona ....... I’m guessing that’s when she will get her 5 year refurbishment? I hope that means they’ll put a Playmakers where Sabor is now .....

So glad to hear that! I love the way the CK / Suite Lounge is setup on H and S and was afraid they’d be changing them in a refurb!

‘OH OK ....... I guess I got confused by the names ....... I’m VERY GLAD to know then that they won’t be making the CK / Suite Lounge smaller on Symphony and Harmony when they get refurbed like I was thinking ........... I LOVE the way they are on H and S ..... not so much on Oasis lol

No ..... they took a chunk out of both sides of the CK / Suite Lounge to make the 2 suites ..... see pic below of Oasis Deck Plan ...... when you are actually in the CK / Suite Lounge on Oasis, they’re actually much smaller now than even that diagram makes them seem .......... the area is MUCH more spacious on Harmony and Symphony without those 2 suites ...... Allure is getting them now too.

I want to start off by saying that this was definitely one of our TOP 3 best cruises on RCCL. We had a GREAT time! A few days before the cruise, we were Royal Up’ed from a Grand Suite to Crown Loft Suite # 1758. Before this, the Owner’s Suite was our favorite Suite, but now it’s the Crown Loft! BOARDING - We got to the port at 10:15. They’d just started boarding and we were on the ship very quickly. We went right up to the 17th floor and noticed that the doors to the Crown Loft hallway were already opened, we saw our keys on the door to our room and peeked in ....... it was already totally cleaned and setup, so we put our carry-ons in the closet and went to explore the ship. We had lunch in CK when it opened at noon and after lunch, our luggage was already outside the door to our cabin. COASTAL KITCHEN / SUITE LOUNGE - We ate breakfast daily in the CK and had a few lunches there as well. We had the UDP, so we only ate dinner at CK one night when Izumi was a disaster. The food and service in the CK were EXCELLENT. *EDITED* - due to incorrect info Jamie’s Italian - We had dinner here on our 1st and 5th night. Both times we had Mohamed as our server. The food and the service was EXCELLENT. 150 Central Park - We had originally planned to have dinner her on just the 2nd and 6th night, but also ended up having dinner here on the 7th night as well. Everything was EXCELLENT, but I’d highly recommend the short rib and scallops appetizers and the lobster Thermidor and Tenderloin for 2 entrees. Their Urban Garden Martini was also one of my favorite drinks on the ship. This was our FAVORITE restaurant on the ship. Our server we had all 3 nights was excellent as well. I can’t remember his real name but he had us call him Jay. The day we left the cruise, he was also leaving the ship to go back to India for 3 months. Izumi Sushi - We were supposed to eat here on the 3rd and 7th nights. The first night we had a reservation, we were seated quickly and it all went downhill from there. When we sat down, we could hear the 2 tables on either side of us complaining about how slow the service was. About 20 minutes in, a server finally came to take our drink and food order. About 10 min later, the drinks came out for us and the 2 tables on either side of us ..... out of 6 drinks across our table and the 2 others, FIVE of the drinks were totally not what any of us ordered. Fast forward to 1 hour and 10 minutes after we were seated ...... we still had no drinks, no appetizers, no food. We decided to walk out. I stopped by the host stand to let them know we were leaving and why. The family of 2 adults and 3 kids at the table next to the host stand also started complaining and telling us and the host that they’d been there 90 minutes and still had nothing but water. The host’s excuse was “well we only have 1 server for the entire restaurant”. With all the workers on the ship, how do you schedule 1 server for a packed restaurant that also had a line out the door of reservations waiting for a table? Talking to other people on the ship, it seems like everyone had terrible experiences at Izumi this cruise and the ones that endured the long wait for food said the food was the worst tasting they’d ever had at an Izumi. We went up to CK and the host there was able to seat us immediately even though we didn’t have a reservation. They also changed our reservation from Izumi on night 7 to 150 Central Park at our preferred dining time. Wonderland - We’d never tried Wonderland before and were very apprehensive about trying it before the cruise, but decided to give it a shot. We had a great time there. We both loved the food and the experience. In the end we were glad we decided to give it a try. Chops - We had lunch here on day 7. Both the Filet and the Salmon that we had were excellent. The filet was seasoned and had great flavor. I’ve had experiences on Oasis and Navigator in Chops where my steak tasted like they threw it on the grill with no seasoning at all. So I was very happy at how well seasoned and delicious the filet was here. Sabor - We had lunch here on day 3 which was a sea day. Sabor is included in UDP for all dinners, but on Harmony is only included for lunch on sea days. The service was excellent. The guacamole and cerviche were very good. We didn’t have any entrees because we weren’t very hungry that day and just wanted a snack for lunch. OVERALL - The shows we’re great, had a great time at the British Pub, On Air watching karaoke, the pools were never super packed even on pool days. The only thing we missed on Harmony was that there was no Playmakers. All in all we had a great time, we just missed our 8yo son who wasn’t on this cruise with us. I wish he could have come on this cruise, the first day they made an announcement that there were just over 1,200 kids on the cruise. We’re looking forward to going on Oasis with him the week of 2/9 in 12 days when he’s on winter break from school for a week. It will be his first time staying in a Crown Loft and he can’t wait to see a 2 story cabin.

46yo guy from Naples, Florida ...... purposely jumped from 10th floor https://www.cbsnews.com/news/royal-caribbean-oasis-of-the-seas-man-apparently-jumps-overboard-san-juan-2020-01-22/?intcid=CNI-00-10aaa3b

Just saw this posted in a thread about it in a Royal Caribbean Facebook group ....... apparently it was a contract worker working for Atlantis

I found the answer:

They charter the entire Oasis? Wow

This one is from a few hours earlier https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/01/22/world/americas/ap-cb-puerto-rico-missing-passenger.html

We’re currently on Harmony and people are talking abut it ..... see article below: https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2020/01/articles/disappearances/man-goes-overboard-from-oasis-of-the-seas/

We just got Royal Up’d today ...... 4 days before our cruise on Harmony this coming Sunday 1/19/2020 ....... originally booked a Grand Suite 1 Bedroom ........ got upgraded to an L1 Crown Loft # 1758. I actually didn’t even put in our bid until this past Sunday when we were 7 days out. I got the original email about bidding before Christmas. We bid the lowest bid that got us into the “strong bid” zone on the bid meter.