S. Noble

I visited Labadee in February 2022. I was excited for the floating bar, but in my experience it was kind of a disappointment. I don't know how many seats there are, but not that many... maybe it can hold 20ish people including standing room? 30 would probably be uncomfortable. You can see a picture of it here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2017/04/18/spotted-royal-caribbean-adds-new-swim-bar-labadee Also more pictures of it if you Google 'labadee floating bar' As I recall, we were able to wade to the bar. I think the water may have been waist high, possibly even lower. (Actually, that looks right with the photos Google returned.) On the day we went, it was quite windy and the water was choppy. The water in this area was also a bit uncomfortably murky, possibly due to the weather... we couldn't see our feet. I don't recall any rocks, but there was seaweed. If you're squeamish about this stuff, I would recommend water shoes. You have to hoist yourself up a little ladder to get onto the bar platform. Probably fine, but mentioning just in case. We climbed up onto the bar, took a look around, decided it was just too crowded and left. The idea of it sounded nicer than it actually was. Labadee overall, however, is lovely.

I figured. Bummer. Thanks @SpeedNoodles

Hi everyone. I purchased Royal's post-cruise transfer to Miami airport, for my group of 5 sailing on Oasis next month. When I first called to purchase the transfer, the agent told me that I would receive instructions on the transfer in my stateroom the night before we disembark. He also said that our transfer time would be based off our MIA flight departure time. Some weeks later, my flight time changed. (JetBlue bumped the flight to 1 hr earlier.) So I called Royal to provide the new flight details. (This change, btw, took almost 30 minutes of waiting on the phone with the agent, evidently not a quick change to make.) Anyway, I wanted to double check that we will get instructions on where/when we need to go, and I asked this agent if instructions will be left in the room. Contrary to what the first agent said, this second agent said no; that the instructions will be in the last page of my eDocs. eDocs just came out and there are no instructions there. There is like a voucher thingy indicating we've purchased a transfer, but no instructions. I'm sailing with a small group of first time cruisers and I'm The One That's Supposed To Know Stuff, so just trying to stay on the ball here. 1. When and where will we get instructions on where to go on disembarkation morning, as well as departure time? 2. Relatedly, do you still have a choice of Regular or Self-Assist departure when you have purchased a transfer? (Are transfers always Self-Assist or vice versa?) 3. With a 12:20pm flight out of MIA, does anyone with experience know when we might expect our transfer?

I searched the forums but didn't easily find the answer. Is room service (breakfast) typically available on debarkation day?

Talk about snail mail

I would second that. Magen's Bay is beautiful and very easy to get to by taxi. There is a bar & grill there too, you can eat and drink and rent some equipment.

It is truly a shame that we don't have a live blog going for the cruise that goes to Labadee this week. I'll be checking their FB group though. I'm on the edge of my seat to know how it goes for our intrepid fellow cruisers! Edit: Just noticed that @nhilding10is on the sailing so I'm sure we'll get some news!

@Kathleen Thanks for sharing about your conversation with your genie. I am glad to know that Atlantis brings a lot of their own staff; this is a key thing I was wondering about. Hopefully that will mean minimal impact to RCCL crew.

Friendly suggestion to append “(Not for travel)” or “Not accepted for cruising”) or similar to the title of this thread. (Lots of folks may come here looking for info on testing requirements and might mistakenly think this means these free tests are accepted by Royal, or that Royal is giving out free tests, etc.)

Even thought it's in my itinerary next month, I've mentally prepared myself to expect that we won't go to Labadee. Now I'm starting to get a little ... tiny bit... excited?

There is a private Facebook group for this sailing. I joined the group a few days ago to see what people say about how the cruise goes, whether they miss any port calls or not, etc. Some photos posted there today look like the same crowd, same day. I also had hoped that this was a pre-Covid photo but it looks like it's the current sailing. I would say it's likely since the NYT article indicates they are sailing with 4,700 guests. Increased guest numbers over holiday sailings led to cancellations of subsequent cruises, it seems. I am sailing on Oasis in a few weeks and I really hope we won't be affected by the case-count aftermath of this. If it is true that Atlantis' policy was nonrefundable cancellation: shame on Atlantis. Tone deaf policy in this era.

Yes, they did skip St. Thomas last week, according to this post.

Probably not.

It appears that Ladadee on Harmony's Jan 23rd sailing is out.

@mattpan I'm sorry to hear Casa Bacardi was cancelled; it's a really good time. A spot I always visit when in San Juan. I am on Oasis and supposed to be stopping in San Juan in February as well, but I expect we will not make the stop (and probably/hopefully will stop somewhere else entirely) unless PR relaxes their testing requirement.