dragontrainer

I will defer to others on the administrative issues of having two drink packages. If there is a good likelihood you'll end up needing to go the route of Drink Package + Refreshment Package, I'd recommend checking the pre-cruise pricing as there is a good chance the buy-ahead Drink + Refreshment is the same price (+/- a few bucks) as the non-discounted Drink Package by itself. Even if you decide there is a chance you can make the Drink Packages only work onboard, it may end up about the same cost as just grabbing the Drink + Refreshment ahead of time and skipping some of the onboard headache.

This site has a table for all the ships with what is included and what is specialty (along with lots of other info). Royal Caribbean Information Collection (rc.cruises) (I did not make it, but really appreciate the person/people that did!)

I'm guessing it's the "kummelweck" sandwich. If you're familiar with the Buffalo Wild Wings chain, they used to be referred to as BW3, where the third "W" was Weck, for the kimmelweck (or apparently kummelweck) roll that the roast beef is on. I've had them in Park Cafe on the Oasis ships, I don't see a Park Cafe on Quantum, but haven't been on it so I'll wait along with you for someone helpful and knowledgeable to answer the Quantum question.

To verify how the carry-on is practically achieved, would you just carry the drinks on, or should they be in some form of bag? For example, if I want to bring 12 x 500mL bottles (16.9 oz) of pop/soda on a ship, is it generally acceptable to just carry them openly by the plastic ring holder*, or should I plan to have a bag of some sort? Or does it not matter? (*This assumes plastic ring holders are allowed as well, I could envision there may be a rule I don't know about for oceangoing vessels that don't allow these, which would be a separate question. To preempt the environmental/wildlife discussion, I cut these into smaller pieces before discarding and the pop/soda is sold with them anyway, but I fully understand if there were a rule against them the cruise line wouldn't care about how I handle them).

You may have already looked into this, but coming from Europe there are two primary ways to get into the Buffalo/Niagara area: - Fly to Toronto and drive (potentially train) down to Niagara Falls - Transfer through a US hub and into Buffalo The Buffalo/Niagara (BUF) airport is not very large and does not have international flights to/from Europe. For price, which is cheaper varies. I've needed to do both for work; drive up to Toronto to catch a flight, or do something like Buffalo --> Detroit (or Newark, or JFK, or DC) --> Europe. Flying through Toronto usually lets you get a direct flight (I think either Heathrow or Gatwick has flights?) but you need to drive down (usually ~ 2 hours). If you're going to stay on the more touristy side of Niagara Falls (the Canadian side), you'll already need to be in Canada anyway. If for some reason you want to avoid entering Canda at all, that would eliminate the Toronto option. While the train from NF to NYC will most likely be cheaper, given the time (7-8 hours), you may want to at least look at flying from BUF to one of the NYC airports. The flights are quick and may not be too expensive, but you are at the mercy of the airlines and all the schedule risks that entails. A one-way rental car may also be an option from NF to NYC; I haven't priced that option. We are looking to cruise out of Bayonne in the future to see how well it works to drive in from Western New York (WNY) to a cruise versus fly to Florida (or somewhere else) before/after. I looked at trains from the WNY area but we decided we'd rather drive and park (though we have the built in advantage of already having the vehicle). I generally have no issue getting on a train to get around Europe, I'm not overly enthusiastic at the idea of being on a US train for 8 hours.

If you haven't, you could also consider checking out a Roll Call for the sailing and see if anyone else wants to participate (or offer to meet up and hand off some ducks to someone else to "hide" for your grandkids to find).

It's exciting to hear a positive review of the ship; we'll be on in a few months with our kids. Did you notice if they had shuffleboard anywhere on the ship (maybe around the sports deck?) I have a son that really enjoyed shuffleboard on our last cruise (Symphony) but I can't find a definitive answer of whether it exists on Harmony. If it does, it seems it's not in a similar spot to other Oasis ships. Thanks!

Does the background account information still show TR as noted above? I assume at some point either the "TR" or "Legend" will have to change.

My wife is an epidemiologist and worked in infectious diseases and a government entity that tracked down the sources of foodborne illness outbreaks. The community utensils at a buffet are a significant source of issues and we sanitize after every trip (we carry our own). I like all-you-can-eat buffets, but she will almost never eat at one based on her work experience. Another source that is largely overlooked but very similar to the community utensils are menus, almost everywhere. It's been instilled in me, imagine your reaction to someone licking their fingers and touching the serving spoon before you; you should have a similar reaction to the menu you were just ordering from (whether on a cruise ship or not). Obviously, people touch menus and buffet utensils every day without having an issue, but I'm willing to take the extra precaution.

The breakfast at Johnny Rockets is free. They have some premium options you can pay extra for, and the menu is slightly updated from what is shown above, but there is no charge for the general breakfast. I try to go early in the cruise (e.g., Day 2) and it's almost empty before word gets out and it fills up more later in the cruise.

Following up on my own post, I found a menu online that looked more like I remember, but I'm not sure how acceptable it is to link to another cruise site, so decided not to include the link. The main difference is there is not an omelet option shown, and they devote more space for "Premium" options that you pay extra for (Rocket Loaded Potatoes, Rocket Breakfast Burger, Maple Bacon Shake).

It's a diner-type breakfast. It had options like eggs, choice of meat, potatoes, toast. They also had a few scrambles with eggs over potatoes with various topping options (including chili). My wife was able to get just egg whites, so it seemed they were making the food to order on the "grills". I found this link that showed a menu, though it may have been updated as this doesn't look how I remember it:

One update to a comment I made above about no additional costs, just in case you aren't aware. Unless you pre-pay gratuities, you will get a rather sizable charge to your account for gratuities to pay before leaving the ship. They are $18/person per day ($20.50 for suites above junior) charged to your stateroom account. Payment for gratuities is a whole topic of its own here. We choose to pay them, some choose to remove them, but I won't clog this thread with that discussion.

I haven't been to CocoCay, but I recall seeing the link below (I believe put together by someone on this site) that has a lot of summary information for Royal Caribbean. In particular, there is a dropdown near the bottom for Perfect Day at CocoCay that shows what is included and what has extra fees. A coworker was just on a cruise that went to CocoCay last week and he said they really enjoyed their time there and did not pay anything extra. Royal will even have food/drinks available. Royal Caribbean Information Collection (rc.cruises)

You're already getting a lot of answers above, so I'll add a more generic response. We sailed on Symphony recently with our kids and I can say from experience you can have an awesome vacation without spending anything additional if you want (I do get the pop/soda package for myself and enjoy the Coke Freestyle machines you can use with it, but have cruised with just the free beverage options with no problem). We find the food from the "free" options to be good and have never felt the need to do a specialty restaurant ourselves. There are a lot of options for free food on Symphony, including the main dining room, Windjammer (buffet), Park Cafe (in Central Park), the quick Tex-Mex place at the back of deck 15 by the sports court, the Solarium Bistro (though that one you have to pay for dinner I think). It's not well advertised, but you can even get breakfast free at Johnny Rockets (on the Boardwalk - deck 6) if you want a more diner type breakfast (lunch/dinner have a charge there). There is also a hot dog place on the Boardwalk that's free. On the Promenade (deck 5) Sorrentos has pizza and Cafe Promenade has sandwiches/snacks for free. I'm probably missing things. In case you have any worry, there is not a tracking system for when/where you eat. You can absolutely eat in the main dining room, then go to the buffet (Windjammer) after for second dinner. In the main dining room, you are not limited to a single selection. You'll have a choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert each meal. If you would like two different entrees you are free to order both (there are a handful of items that have a cost, like extra lobster on the lobster tail night, but that will be clear on the menu). I imagine if you're regularly ordering multiple options and not eating them you may get some pushback, but I will often get two appetizers each night, and a few times per cruise will get a couple of entrees. We've also gotten an entree to share with the table while everyone else orders what they want. We have done both Royal Caribbean excursions and done things on our own at ports, it just depends what looks attractive to us. For example, we've taken a cab to/from Sunset Beach in St. Maarten on our own. An often-noted benefit of taking a Royal shore excursion is that you have some protection from arriving late and the ship leaving without you. If you go off on your own and get back late, you're largely on your own, so it's mainly up to your risk tolerance. There are a significant number of people that do ports on their own, and even book tours with 3rd parties, so you don't need to feel like you're doing something wrong or odd if you don't do a Royal excursion. The shows are free, though for Symphony you will want to register for the day/time you want to attend before boarding (for Hairspray in the main theatre, the ice show (1977? - The name is a year but I may be off) in the skating venue, and the Aquashow Hiro in the Aqua Theatre at the back of the ship), the Adult Comedy Show, and another production show (Flight?) in the main theatre. There are multiple options for each. Others will be able to give a better timeline for registration but I think it opens ~30 days before the cruise in the app? Then on the ship, I think doors open ~30 minutes before show time (lines may start ~45 minutes before, but we didn't line up that early). There is also a standby line that they let people who are not pre-registered enter for any extra seats ~15 minutes before. There was also a headliner show (singing act) one night in the main theatre, and an extra water show and ice show on our cruise, those did not need reservations. The waterslides, flowriders (stand up and boogy board), zip line, rock climbing walls, and ultimate abyss (dry slide on back of ship) are all free (though you'll need to check hours daily). For your little one, there is also a younger kid area (Splashaway Bay?) though I don't know the current rules for swim diapers (I have some recollection of being able to use them on a similar ship when one of our sons was that age, but others again may have more information). Enjoy your cruise, you should have a great time!

There may be a bit of tongue-in-shoe included here as well, but for others reading, I'm nearly certain RC won't let you go barefoot, even if you're ok with it. (I imagine it's a combination of needing to stand/squat on a thin metal ledge before takeoff, and landing on a padded box). I don't recall anyone being allowed to keep glasses (sunglasses or prescription) on. On Symphony they were also weighing kids on a scale to determine if the met the minimum weight and were turning people away based on results.

For this sailing/itinerary, did the ship time change any days? Or did they stay on Eastern the full eight days?

We somehow missed the memo on the 45 day check-in and I happened to look 43 days out for this coming cruise and they were already at 1:30 as the earliest time. It's not the end of the world, but I'm not looking forward to the two kids constantly asking when we're going to get on the ship... I've heard there are some items that can only be booked once you get on the ship (e.g., laser tag) while it seems most things need to be done ahead of time. I'd also recommend verifying the app works well for your phone, our phones were a bit older and it rarely made it to any usable pages before crashing (though I haven't seen that issue noted by others so maybe we push out phone upgrades more than others).