Rewind

Just about to start the first Aqua Theater show for tonight. We have reservations for the second show.

We have Captain's Corner on our schedule for later this week. 🙂 Formal night tonight. We are sitting in the Pub on the Promenade using our Diamond vouchers. The band is out on the Promenade and are doing a very nice set of rock/jazz.

They just did their warmup in the Aqua Theater: Two shows tonight, two tomorrow, and two on day 5. View from our cabin - meh. Even the next cabin back will have partially obstructed views but better than what we have. I think deck 8 starboard or deck 10 on either side would be good. Deck 11 and 14 are fine too but I think you are getting a bit high up.

Good morning from the gulf! Not too much happening yet, Windjammer breakfast was fairly decent - slightly better donuts than other ships. 🙂 The noise on the boardwalk did stop right about 10:30pm last night and it was nice and quiet to sleep. I did hear a bit of music at 4:30am but that was only because my body still thinks that is 6:30am and I was already waking up. But for now, we are here:

10pm - back in the cabin. Can hear some noise from the boardwalk. Hoping it quiets down in a bit. Goodnight for now.

There was an Alpha call a couple hours ago. Just as the 9pm ice show was about to start, the Captain announced that we are heading back to Galveston to get the passenger the help they need. Captain said we should be back at 2am but it won't affect our port stops - we will just be sailing faster. Ice show was good but a bit serious. I know we have seen more light hearted shows on other ships. Even so, I wouldn't miss it.

We are sailing on a Sunday and the two big screens in the Aqua Theater are showing NFL football. It is noisy in the cabin when there is a touchdown. We will see how it goes the rest of the week.

Speed results (bottom two were previous when in Solarium, top two are lying in bed in the cabin with door closed): We are deck 9, second from the last cabin (9727). Picture I posted above is from our cabin, but here it is in portrait form: If we were in the last cabin (9729), we would have a much better view. Also, deck 10 might be better with how the slide curves but can't verify that from here.

We won't be staying up this late (back one hour for the end of DST and back another for us living EST), but thought the combo of these two events is a bit humorous:

Will do. Previous two tests were both done sitting in a lounger in the middle level front of the Solarium.

Correct - we are lowly Diamonds in a Boardwalk view. First time in a Boardwalk and thought we would give it a try (and it was cheap). We did have 6 bottles of water in our stateroom when we arrived.

Nothing in Cozumel (we have been there a few times). In Costa Maya, we are doing a Bike / Kayak excursion through the ship. In Roatan, we booked a private excursion with Victor Bodden.

You should be able to pick a boarding time when you check in using the app. Crowds - there will be some, but we have had good luck on the big ships as they move people around fairly well. The worst times for crowds are when shows let out - either avoid those areas or if you are at that show, wait in your seat a while for the crowd to dissipate. I can update later this week when I have more info. There are two performances of the ice skating show tonight (7pm and 9pm) and one of Columbus the Musical (8pm). Aqua Theater shows start tomorrow, and Grease is at the end of the week. We are booked for Columbus on day three at 3pm (sea day). For those Diamond members, we have been kicked out of the Crown Lounge between 5pm-8pm, reserved for Diamond+ and Pinnacle. The lounge is available all other times though WiFi is Starlink: But for the more fun pics:

Hi all and welcome to an almost live Harmony of the Seas trip report. I’ll have the basic internet package so I should be able to post throughout the week. This will be our third Oasis class ship and look forward to trying out a Boardwalk Balcony cabin. I’ll let you know if we get any notice of what access we have to the Crown Lounge. Quick rundown so far - Stayed at the Country Inn and Suites last night - a bit to close to the motorcycle rally but we were tired enough to sleep through it. Ate breakfast at the Sunflower Bakery and Cafe; I do recommend the grilled cinnamon roll. Took a rideshares to the terminal at 10:45, didn't check my watch but we're on the ship by 11:15/11:30. We had a noon scheduled time but things were moving fairly fast. Checked in to our muster, went up to Windjammer and saw a line to get in, back to Central Park to get lunch at the Park Cafe (we did make a quick detour to make dining reservations at Chops). After a bit of wandering, we grabbed a couple loungers in the Solarium to wait until rooms become available. More to come and I will check in a few times a day - let me know if there is any specific things you want to know.

Diamond here. I don't drink, DW has 1 a night, maybe 2 if we go see a show. Now the evening soda I get and the handful of waters that we use the next day for excursions are quite nice. The biggest benefit for us is the 24 hours of free Wifi each. Benefit to get to D+ would be the two days of WiFi each and reserved seating at shows. If they remove the drink vouchers, will we buy a drink package at a discount? Not a chance. Does Royal have the best loyalty program currently? I think so. But even with that, we are trying other lines as well. Have done one MSC and have both a Virgin and Celebrity coming up; did not like the ship design of the MSC but want to try another layout to see if it suits us better; Virgin - we got a deal in order to try them but otherwise I think they are quite pricey (like more than an Icon sailing pricey).

I use the hotspot option on my phone. Works well if the DW wants to hop online while we are elsewhere on the ship.

We did a one way rental after a cruise - there is a combined Enterprise / National / Alamo rental location just over the bridge. They have a shuttle that runs from the cruise terminals to the rental office - makes it easy. But I will say, get up and get off the ship as early as possible to get on the first car rental shuttle. We did, got in, got our car, and got out just before a mass of people showed up. The rental car is great for a couple reasons - A. Some place to keep your bags as you explore Kennedy. B. You are on your own time table and not someone else's. C. Prices are fairly cheap - I think possibly cheaper than two people booking transport through the cruise lines.

Congrats Chris! We are on Icon in Feb 2025. Maybe we will see you, maybe it will be some other ship in the future. Keep up the great vids!

It's a long shot, but you could see if you can swap to 6305 and 6307 just down the hall. 6305 is the Ben and Jerry's Sweet.

I see you are sailing in April. I will check in November and report back. 😁

I have done many Royal cruises and only one MSC cruise. In general, I think they are more alike than different. But a quick comparison of our one cruise on MSC Seashore: Food quality is a bit better on MSC (pizza hands down is better). Trying to find complementary food on MSC is more difficult; Royal has a good handful of complementary venues and someplace open 24 hours to find food. At least on the Seashore, only the MDR and the Buffet were complementary and everything else was an extra cost. The MSC production show staff did a different show each night. Royal's production cast will do at most two shows, but they also have the Ice Skating show, the Aqua Theater show, and a couple guest performers. I can't compare ship design across fleets with my limited MSC knowledge, but I will say the MSC Seashore felt very much like Royal's Anthem - to me both felt cramped and did not manage crowds very well. I do love Royal but I'm not a fan of the Quantum class design - not saying I had a bad cruise, just didn't like the ship. Same with MSC's Seashore - drove me absolutely nuts that there wasn't a place that passengers who did not book into MSC's suite classes could see where the ship was headed (no public spaces look forward). However, I do think you will be blown away by Symphony. There is so much to do on the ship itself, you might miss a few thing - we did while we were on a 12 night transatlantic on a sister Oasis class.

Yep, I think they announced cabins were ready at 12:50pm.

I think the traffic itself is limiting the flow of people checking in. There were a bunch of people waiting outside but even when we said we were early, they just waved us through.

I should add, check-in was super easy. We left out hotel at 11:45 and we were on the ship at 12:15. Scheduled check-in time was 1:00pm.

Well - we crossed the street all set to walk it... And one of the Port agents was heading in and offered us a ride. It would have been perfectly fine for us as we are in our low 40s, but would not recommend it for everyone.