Jamesszy94

7 hours ago, TheMaxRebo said:

Part 4 - a cloudy, rainy, no good day .... That was still lots of fun

 

The next day was a sea day and we all slept in a bit ... I gotta say the window screen really make the rooms day as it was after 8 by then but was still pitch back in the room.

 

I went to Pearl Cafe for coffee and food and the steak and eg sandwiches are pretty great

 

At 11:30 we had a meetup for a shot glass exchange which was fun to meet a bunch of people and we picked a mystery shot glass which was a custom made on for the cruise which was cool 

 

We then had much at Giovanni's Kitchen - overall we enjoyed it - with he meat platter, pasta carbonara, pizza, and tiramisu being our favorites. I will say the open concept for this in the promonade did make it really noisy and felt more like a restaurant in a mall or something. 

 

As mentioned I had created the lanyards for a bar crawl and set up a couple of meeting points for people to get them and then hamg bout any maybe hit a bar or 3 ... First one was after lunch and we met at the 1400 Bar. We really liked this bar overall and the 1400 is a great drink - was awesome to get as the group (gave out about 40 lanyards at this meet up) with everyone getting the drink with the smoke bubble.

 

After hitting up a few bars with folks it was getting close to dinner time. I definitely prefer a set dining time vs the My Time Dining but 5pm is pretty early. I guess my sone enjoyed the escargot he tried the day before as he got his own for dinner that night. There was a slightly different menu for Icon for Day 2 that featured Main Lobster - our server didn't know how long it would last, might only be 1-2 months total

We then had reservations for the Ice Skating show and we really enjoyed it..the one on Symphony of the Seas was just weird and we kept finding holes in the plot. This was sort of odd too but it just worked better as a collection of segments vs a storyline type show. Victor, the juggler, was really good - definitely recommend this show 

Later that evening we did Taylor Swift Trivia in the Music Hall - which my 9 year old took very seriously 

 

We had reservations for the Comedy show that night but while we made it to the Attic prior to start of the show, they said they were full and you had to get there 15mins prior to start of show with reservations. It was annoying in the moment but it worked out well as we stopped by Dueling Pianos and saw some folks we met earlier had a spot up front and we joined them and had an absolute blast. 

 

I think I got on Sarah's good side by requesting a Janice Joplin song so got picked for a number of things including leading the conga line - which is not something normal to my personality, but we were about 7 bars into the bar crawl by that point

 

These shows get packed so definitely get there at least 45 mins early if you want a seat

 

Was really late for us so we headed back to bed at that point. 

 

Coming up next, a much sunnier sea day but people were making up for lost sun and the pool deck was packed! 

Yikes!! So many people - the only time I've seen that many people on a cruise is for Harry Potter trivia... suddenly everyone seems to be a Harry Potter nerd during that time... 

Love your smoke bubble effect.

Oh how the other half live!!

On my next cruise in about 3 weeks time.. I'm only in an Oceanview 

Glad y'all are enjoying your time on Harmony! 

I would LOVE to try Oasis-class one day... but y'know... Royal refuses to send one down under.

45 minutes ago, mattymay said:

Not sure, however I think that pretty much confirms that Anthem will be in Sydney.

Yikes..I guess we're stuck with QN class... I guess it's still *technically* a new ship...

Anthem is supposed to make a stop in Hong Kong in April of 2025.. so maybe Royal are doing Sydney > Asia routes again? 

Enjoy Icon! Looking forward to the next 7 days of seeing pictures of a ship I'm never getting on.... 

4 hours ago, Babsy47 said:

Ok — this happened to me late one night.  I was late for a flight and TSA Pre had closed.  My shoes did not emerge from the scanning machine.  They said it would take them at least 30 minutes to get in the machine to find the missing shoes, and I only had about 15 minutes.  So, to the flight I went — in my socks.  So embarrassing!

Honestly why do they make you take your shoes off in the United States? Every other country I've been to, you can just leave your shoes on, but when we went through TSA Customs back in 2017, we had to take everything off, including socks and shoes....

Personally I would go the day before if I had to fly - but that's because airlines in Australia (at least Domestic flights in Sydney) are rubbish -  constant delays, random cancellations. 

Cruise is for a Monday? Expect to see me there Sunday morning 

*looking at you Jetstar*

5 hours ago, ScottishRobbie said:

Personally, I think the struggle with Quantum bookings is because not as many people want to sail from Brisbane. Especially international visitors, they would rather have sail away from the beautiful Sydney Harbour as opposed to Brisbane port, which is in the middle of nowhere and right beside a cargo port and a sewage plant.

You're right about not many people wanting to sail from Brisbane - why would you want to sail from Brisbane if the ports are the same as Ovation and you could sail out of Sydney Harbour, which is 10x more beautiful. Which is what I'm saying, if they want to homeport a ship in Brisbane, they need to change up the itineraries and not have it be the same as the Ovation ones, otherwise, there's no incentive to sail from Brisbane.

4 hours ago, Chili said:

It’s possible for Sydney to host a Oasis but probably not just yet.

From what I believe OPT can physically host a Oasis but if the terminal can process the passengers is the question.

I have offered wondered why inter cruise have so many staff lately ,Every 20 feet there’s someone guiding you through.

They have boarding time down to 15-20 minutes. Maybe they are getting ready for something big.

They're probably trialling how long they can get boarding times down to. AFAIK I was under the impression that an Oasis-sized ship would fit into the OPT, Ovation isn't that much smaller length wise than Allure, Allure is 362m, Ovation is 348m, and Allure has two more decks than Ovation does. Ovation is pretty big already, so I think Oasis could definitely fit, but like you said, the question is whether OPT can process passengers fast enough.

14 hours ago, ScottishRobbie said:

Forget it. As much as I'd love to see it, it's not happening any time in the next decade. Oasis class are too big for Circular Quay so can't homeport there. They currently struggle to fill Quantum out of Brisbane, so there's no sense in upgrading to an Oasis Class there. And even if they did, where will it sail to? Quantum almost exclusively sails to the South Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef. On those runs all ports except Noumea are tender ports. In 14 years of sailings, Oasis class haven't tendered, so I doubt they'll start now.

I feel like the reason they struggle to fill Quantum is because of the itineraries and the fact that Sydney already has Ovation. If they gave Brisbane an Oasis-class that went to different destinations, I could see people being willing to sail out of Brisbane more + it would be the closest Oasis to many of the Asia-Pacific countries, like China, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore etc. I'm sure they'd be able to fill up an Oasis-class if they really wanted to.

Oasis7 for Australia!?! 

14 hours ago, Leroyr55 said:

Financial debate aside my humble opinion is I pretty much think I prefer another Oasis class over an Icon class. I just think the Icon class has become an amusement park at sea. I like my vacations to be relaxing. Guess I’m showing my age

Stop. Don't give them ideas for ship names...

Amusement Park of the Seas..

As long as it's not based in North America, it's whatever. Does Royal know something get we don't know? Are they finally building a new port in Port Kembla in Australia? Will Oasis7 be based in Australia?!

23 hours ago, F1guynz said:

My favourite so far is freedom class but we are on Harmony in September so is subject to change.

I've only been on QN... well because we've only had QN here in Australia (since I started cruising)...and I didn't start cruising till I was 22... and also because I missed Voyager the first time she was here. I would love to try another class of ship - I'm just not willing to pay thousands of dollars to fly

Allure is finally getting her amplification this year? 

Explorer received hers last year? 

Another live blog for me to live vicariously through... until either:

a) Royal gives us Aussies an Oasis/Icon class ship. I refuse to fly to the US just to get on a 7 day cruise on an Oasis class. I have money, but I'm not THAT rich.

b) I can experience a suite... I'm not poor or anything, but I don't have as much disposable income as some others... 

I think we might be on the same cruise. Cruising to New Zealand 10 nights? If so yay! It depends when you get there, if you get there between say 10am to 1pm, that's usually when the lines are the longest, cause people wanna get onto the ship as early as possible and get to the pools, buffet etc. If you go after 2pm, there's usually no line. On all of my Royal sailings, I got to the port at around 1pm, and there was still a line, but it wasn't insane. 

YMMV.

On 2/12/2024 at 9:00 PM, Chili said:

I just watched that Carl , Sydney cruise schedule has removed Anthem and has now got    Unknown vessel— Royal Caribbean.

Allure to Galveston? You would think they are are full of the big ships and would give us one.

We might get Navigator !!!  Are you ready for a repo from Hell . A . to Sydney.

Maybe they'll send us Utopia  (Last minute changes are always possible!) As long as we get a new class of ship or something different that isn't a QN class, I'll be happy.

I do hope that we get more exotic/different destinations. South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand cruises are starting to get boring, there's only so many times you can visit those ports. 

But then again... people visit PDCC many times...

47 minutes ago, mattymay said:

Well there are OPT port bookings for 25/26, so hypothetically even if the captain of Independence was correct, he's talking at least 26/27 season. I'm sure lots can change in 3 years.

Yeah, that's like still a long time, let's just focus on the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 season first!

Here's hoping once Allure's finished getting her amp, they send her down to Australia! I guess everyone should sail Ovation/Quantum? one last time before she inevitably leaves the Australian market for good.

46 minutes ago, F1guynz said:

I don’t think we will see an Oasis class ship in the foreseeable future due to the number of tender ports which severely limit where it could go.

You never know! Stranger things have happened. 

8 hours ago, mattymay said:

The only way there would be no RCL Quantum class sailing out of Sydney harbour is if something bigger were coming that couldn't fit there. 

3 Icon and 6 Oasis in the next few years, it's getting a bit top heavy in the northern hemisphere lol. You never know I guess!

Either that or they're sending us Voyager and possibly a Radiance class... OR they're designing one of the "Discovery" class just for Australia market.. I guess we'll see in 2 months when Royal release their deployment!

8 hours ago, mattymay said:

The only way there would be no RCL Quantum class sailing out of Sydney harbour is if something bigger were coming that couldn't fit there. 

3 Icon and 6 Oasis in the next few years, it's getting a bit top heavy in the northern hemisphere lol. You never know I guess!

But which port would Icon/Oasis homeport in? The OPT isn't exactly suited to host an Icon/Oasis sized ship... and White Bay is almost impossible lol

5 hours ago, Chili said:

Maybe Allure ? It’s going in for pretty big refit early next year. Almost 2 months worth I read somewhere.
They might convert it to duel fuel ,Apparently we are making marine methanol here soon.

I've always said they should give us Allure!!

Maybe the dry dock will remove the plants in the Royal Promenade! 

My bid for an Oceanview got accepted..

2 minutes ago, steverk said:

I'm nit sure what's going on, but that price doesn't make sense to me. I live in Houston and sail Galveston a lot. I've never paid that much.

For example, I've got a 6 night on Voyager at the end of April. Jr. Suite 3 people. I paid $2165usd plus port and gratuities.

In Oct 2025 I have an A2 2br aqua suite 4 people on Harnony for $9156 plus port. Since it's star class it includes gratuities, dining, drink and internet packages.

I don't have to fly, but the prices I see aren't anywhere near $4500 per interior room.

 

Those prices I listed  are in Australian Dollar, but also it's for a sailing that's in 2 months.

2 hours ago, Chili said:

 Carnival group just has old flee bag ships with bad food,worst that Royal.

But! Carnival has Mardi Gras, Celebration and Jubilee! Also the 

2 hours ago, Chili said:

Another thing to consider,we are a safe destination in a troubled world.

Are we really that safe though?