Dragonkeper

Loving the review! I am sailing on the Freedom on Aug 11, 2018 and going into PR 2 days before. I have sailed on the Freedom a couple time before and love the ship. I also have a cousin that is one of the featured singers performing in both shows( Marquee and Once Upon a Time). I can't wait to get back on the ship.

Following along. we are on her Aug 11th!

I am also on the Freedom Aug 11. I am going into San Juan on Aug 9.

My name is Glenn and I will be on Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas Aug 11, 2018.

Great review! I will be on the Escape in October.

I am enjoying your review!

There is no such thing as a formal night on Norwegian. Unless you pay extra to eat in either Bayamo or LeBistro, you do not have to wear long pants. All 3 MDR's on the Escape as well as all of the other specialty venues allow shorts to be worn. They are so relaxed, I have seen multigenerational families eating in Cagney's steakhouse with the men in shorts, t shirts and baseball caps, with junior wearing his backwards. Not appropriate IMHO, but that is a discussion for another thread.

 

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Good info to know. Thanks!

Love the latest outfit and all of your outfits. You could have worn that to the Glow Party too. What does #OOTD stand for?

It stands for Outfit Of The Day.

On the Escape, only Le Bistro and Bayamo require men to wear long pants.

 

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I will be sailing on the Escape this October and it will be my first time on NCL, so I want to make sure I understand correctly. There are only two places on the ship that requires men to wear long pants for dinner? Are there any formal nights? This will definitely lighten my suitcase. :D

Following, I will be sailing on the Escape in October.

Following. I sail on the Escape in October.

Looks like they have posted the cruises out of San Juan for May-Nov 2018 and it will be the Freedom.

Does anyone know why there are no sailings out of San Juan between May 2018 - Nov 2018? Or am I just not looking in the right place? I know that they are moving the Jewel and the Adventure to different locations during that time, but I at least thought that they would have other ships taking their place.

Exactly. Especially with memory cards being dirt cheap now, you can spend $20 for a card and take thousands of pictures.

 

Another way to look at it is pictures are the cheapest souvenirs you can buy from your vacation.

 

Now the hard part for us is we have 4 cell phones and 4 cameras so when we get home and try to combine them into a slideshow to watch, that becomes A LOT of work. Then you say, well, maybe next vacation we should take less pictures. But we never do...

I know how that can be. Over the last 10 years when we cruise that amount of pictures that we have taken has increase each time. On our last cruise on the Harmony of the Seas out of Barcelona there were 24 of us and we took a combine total of over 47,000 pictures, this was over a 8 day period. It took me a couple of months to pick out 2789 of the best and put in a slideshow with music for the family. The show was over 3hrs long, but everyone enjoyed the trip and the memories. Maybe on the next cruise I will take less pictures. :D

To borrow a phrase from the Capitol One TV ad – what is in your cruise? To me, a cruise vacation is the ultimate buffet of vacations. There are many ways to enjoy a cruise vacation and just like eating a buffet, people will have different experiences even on the same sailing. Just a matter of personal preference on how you approach your cruise.

 

For us, our preferences on a cruise are based on the 3 E’s:

 

• Entertainment
  
• Experience a new ship/port
  
• Enrichment (not so much in Caribbean cruises but on Alaska cruise, the naturalist on board can educate you on many items
  

 

Notice that “relaxation” is not on the list. Being cheap, I want to maximize my dollar value when I go on vacation. I didn’t spend thousands of dollar and sat hours on a plane just to relax on a vacation. I can relax and sleep for free in front of TV on the weekend. I vacation to see and experience different things. So that’s the bias of this trip report.

 

If you read my previous report, you will know we take a lot of pictures on vacation. It’s from something I read awhile back which has become my motto – the most expensive picture on the vacation is the one that you didn’t take. Basically the thought is you have spent a lot of money/time/effort to get to wherever your vacation spots are and you don’t want to go home and think – dang, I should have taken a picture ZZZ while I was on vacation. Even if you can go back later on, at the extra cost, the lighting/mood/people will be different and you may never be able to recreate the exact same atmosphere so when in doubt, take the picture.

 

I am enjoying your Trip Report. I will be sailing on the Freedom in Feb 2017. I also take a lot of pictures when I cruise, in this age of technology I take pictures of anything and everything because it is free pictures. By that I mean that it cost you nothing to take the pictures and it cost nothing to develop the pictures, so why not take a lot of pictures to remember your vacation. :D

Following. Will be sailing on her on Feb 26. Looking forward to more of your review.

I was on the Harmony of the Seas last month out of Barcelona and I had the Royal Replenish package, the price for that was $22 a day, the total I paid was $170.94, this was for 7 days which included the gratuities and VAT. I have a cruise on the Freedom of the Seas in Feb 2017 and the same package which has been renamed to the Refreshment package is now $26 a day and does not include the gratuities so my total for a 6 day cruise is $184.08 when you add the gratuities. I guess I will not be getting that package.

We sailed at the end of June as was able to sign the waivers from our TV. We signed for each activity we thought we would try.

That's good to know. Thanks.

I'm sailing Harmony in December and mine isn't showing up either, but I have a feeling many things won't be until it is re-positioned in the Caribbean. How soon are you going? When I went on Oasis last December, I did all that waiver signing on-line and guess what? They made me RE-sign the waivers on board anyway. Said signing on-line didn't matter! So I wonder what the point was?

I will be sailing in less that 25 days out of Barcelona.

I have a question for those that have sailed on Harmony of the Seas recently. How did you sign the onboard activity waiver? (Zipline, Flowrider, etc.) Were you able to sign them using the TV in the cabins? Could you sign them using the Royal IQ app or did you have to sign them at each activity?

I know that when I sailed on the Oasis in 2013, I was able to do it online when I did my online check-in, but it is not showing up for my sailing on the Harmony.

Thanks.

Does anyone that has sailed on the Harmony of the Seas on their 7 day itinerary out of Barcelona have pictures of the menus from the main dinning room? I would be interested in seeing if it is a new menu.

Will be watching here. I sail on the Harmony in 90 days!

No discounts on Vision last month.

Thanks.

Has anyone seen any C&A discounts on drink packages on any ships lately.

Would love to know what the new menus will be, also if they plan on having a prohibition party like on the Oasis and Allure. Would like to know also how well the Royal IQ app works on this ship.

I wonder if they will have the Prohibition Party like on the Oasis and Allure. I also wonder what the Red Party is. Is it similar to a White Party, but you wear red instead?