LisaLisa87

Yes, it was. If Web is still there, I highly recommend him!

I ordered the peanut butter chocolate tart, but I didn't care for it. I thought the sorbet and the tart were an odd combo. DH ordered the fried cheesecake, which is what our server recommended. I didn't expect to like it, but I was surprised! It's not nearly as heavy as it sounds.

Those open air taxis typically wait until they're full (or close) before leaving. In our experience, they wait for people going to the same place (like Magens Bay or Charlotte Amalie). I'm pretty sure you can ask for a private taxi, and you may even be able to ask for a tour. Charlotte Amalie is the downtown area and one of the main shopping areas. Some of the shops never reopened after the pandemic, but we still found plenty of places to check out during our last couple of visits. My favorite shop there is called Fish Face. They have a nice selection of clothing and gifts. Keep in mind that most stores close at 5pm. There is also shopping at Havensight, which is the main cruise ship dock.

Hi @CruiseMomTX. For our second land trip, we had scheduled a snorkeling tour through St. Thomas Scuba & Snorkel Adventures. Sea conditions were rough that day, so they offered us an island tour via Jeep instead. We weren't sure what to expect, but we had a fantastic day. Our guide/driver was a local named Web. He was a really interesting guy, and he made the tour both informative and fun. We chose to include snorkeling in two different spots, but you don't have to do that. We saw a lot of the island, stopped for lunch at a really fun taco spot, and pulled over a handful of times to take photos. We were staying on the island, but if we hadn't been we could have included shopping time as well. Highly recommend! https://www.stthomasadventures.com/stthomasjeeptours

We sailed on Harmony for our 20th and 25th anniversaries, and we chose 150 Central Park for our anniversary dinner both times. We enjoy the food and the ambiance there, as well as their signature martini which they prepare tableside. I'm not a big fan of Chops these days, and I agree with the PP who said that Jamie's doesn't feel very special (although I like their food).

I'm sorry to hear that the rainy weather is continuing. That pesky tropical storm Philippe is probably the culprit. So did you end up bringing your lightweight umbrella from home? If so, good call! Glad your tour is going ahead. Enjoy St. Thomas. Maybe the sun will peak out later!

I'm enjoying your report so far! I'm not sure how you feel about independent tours, but I thought I would offer a suggestion. We spent a week on St. Thomas in 2021, and we had booked a snorkel tour (via boat) that ended up being canceled due to rough sea conditions. They offered us a land tour at a discount instead. We did the "Island Jeep Excursion" with Web as our guide, and it was fantastic. Web is a really interesting guy and he showed us all around St. Thomas, stopping often to let us take photos (and taking photos of us as well). Highly recommend. https://www.stthomasadventures.com/stthomasjeeptours One other thing... if you get to Wonderland again, I consider their "The World" dessert a must try. It's one of my favorite cruise ship desserts. I hope the weather clears up for you! ETA: I just saw post #178, so it looks like you're all set. ALSO, did you notice when you were at Park Café that they have espresso drinks there as well? That was my go-to spot on Harmony. It seemed like not many people knew you could get them there (until late in the cruise, at least).

We sailed on 9/2 and I had to call and request mine. It was emailed while we were on the phone.

We were on the 9/2 sailing, and open skate showed up in the app after we boarded. I’m glad I checked while we were eating lunch, because it was only being offered in the afternoon on day 1. DH and DD went at the first time available, and there were so few people there that they were able to stay on the ice for at least 30 minutes. I didn’t check to see if they added more times later.

Definitely deck 11. The balconies and interior space get smaller as you go up. We had 11730 on Allure and it was amazing! Friends of ours were above us on deck 12 and we had them over for wine on the balcony one evening. The husband was kind of salty about how much bigger our balcony was. 🤣

Try reaching out to Bananarama directly. There is an email address at the bottom of this page detailing their beach package: https://bananarama.com/activities/ Infinity Bay offers day passes as well. https://www.infinitybay.com/explore/activities-events/Day-Passes

The lime and coconut is the signature drink at the bars on the Oasis pool deck. My sister and I enjoyed several of them, but interestingly, we weren’t able to get them on embarkation day. We got the little Malibu pails at the bar at the back of the ship. Sadly, I forgot to bring mine home. I was hoping to get one when we were on Harmony a few weeks ago, but they didn’t have the buckets or the drink.

@Starry Eyes, that is a really good point. We just moved to FL two years ago, and I do think that we'll be cruising much more frequently than we did when we lived in MD. I don't think either of us will cruise solo much, but I can see myself cruising with my sister every so often. This solo cruise is really just a way to get us to D so we won't have to pay for the beverage package going forward. 😃 We're actually leaning toward me taking a 3-night in a JS since that's the most efficient way to get the points we need. I have my eye on a December sailing on Liberty. It isn't the cheapest option, but it requires the least time off work and will have the least impact on the person who stays behind. I appreciate all the input!

Yes! I'll go check out his videos to see whether he addresses the booking process.

Thanks @brillohead. I had a lightbulb moment when I read the above part of your response. It seems like common sense now, but I wasn't seeing any references to GTY fares since I was changing the number of guests from 2 to 1 before I got to that point. I agree that it would be nice to have the expertise and connections of a TA in this situation. Since we hadn't planned (and budgeted) for this extra cruise, we're planning to book it through Chase Sapphire and use some of the rewards dollars we've been saving for the past couple of years. So unfortunately it wasn't an option to work with a TA this time.

Thanks, Ken. I was prepared for a 200% solo supplement, but I'm seeing 250% and more. It occurred to me a little while ago that having me sail solo on a 3-night in a JS might work. I'm going to explore that option now.

Thanks, Molly. I wasn't logged in when I was searching, so I may not have been seeing FL resident rates. I'll keep that in mind going forward.

I want this for DH. He has a very stressful job and I think he would love every minute of a solo cruise. The challenge would be to keep his bar tab under control!

I didn't realize that was a thing! I'll do some searching.

Thank you for the replies so far. I should have mentioned a couple of other things: 1. We live in FL so would not need to fly. 2. I found a couple of 5-night Mariner sailings from PC that would fit the bill for me. If at all possible, I would like for DH to be the one to go (it's only fair). 3. The best deal I've found so far is a 3/4 night B2B on Freedom in late October. The total cost is a little more than we'd like, though.

Hello! I'm venturing into new territory and could use some assistance from those of you with experience booking as a solo cruiser. DH and I have decided that one of us should take a solo cruise sometime in the next few months so that we'll be Diamond in time for our February sailing on Icon. I want to acknowledge out of the gate that I'm aware some people think this is a dumb thing to do. FWIW, we'll only do it if the cost of the "extra" cruise is the same or less than the cost of 4 cocktails/day/person. Additionally, we plan to pay for the cruise with rewards $ from our Chase Sapphire card. I'm 9 points shy of Diamond and DH is 13 points shy. On the surface, it's obvious that I should be the one to take the extra cruise, but there's a wrinkle. I sailed on Oasis for 4 nights with my sister earlier this year, so it's really his turn. He also has a lot more vacation time than I do. I've spent hours at this point searching for inexpensive 7-night cruises, and I expanded the search today to 3/4 night B2Bs. I've also specifically checked "Going, Going, Gone" sailings. The process has been time and labor intensive, but that isn't really the issue. I'm finding that instead of the solo rate being twice the per person double occupancy rate, it is often much higher than that. For example, say the per person fare is $519/person double occupancy. Instead of the solo fare being $1,038, it might be $1,600+. Why is that? And more importantly, are there certain types of sailings (i.e., # of nights, ships, departure ports, etc.) that tend to have smaller solo markups? I apologize if these are stupid questions but, as I said, this is all new for me. Thanks in advance for any insight! 🙂

We really liked Breezy Bay because of the central location. As others have said, take the tram there. The day we were there, the water at Breezy Bay was much calmer than the water at Chill Island. We’ve only been there the one time, so I’m not sure how unusual that is.

We were on Harmony last week and ate at CK three times. We were told on the first night that we would have the same server all three nights, and we did. We left a cash tip each time anyway. We tipped both concierges at the end of the week. One of them did more for us than the other, and we split the total accordingly.

We returned recently from a Western Caribbean sailing on Harmony of the Seas, during which one of our stops was Roatan. We had never been to Roatan and wanted to see as much as possible during our relatively short port day (7:30am all ashore to 2:30pm all aboard). I like to use local tour companies when possible, and quickly narrowed our options down to three. After studying the companies' websites and reviews, we decided to go with Victor Bodden Tours. We were traveling with our 20 year old daughter and all three of us are pretty adventurous, and we decided we'd get the most bang for our buck with a private tour. The base price for a private tour varies depending on the number of people in your party, but for the three of us it was $30/person. There is sort of a menu of activities to choose from, each of which includes a description and estimated time commitment. We ended up choosing their monkey and sloth sanctuary, ATVs, and snorkeling at West Bay Beach. They waive the $10 entry fee to the monkey and sloth sanctuary if you book either the ATVs or the ziplining. The charge for the "Mayan Jungle ATV Adventure" was $65. Our original plan was to go to a public part of West Bay Beach and rent snorkel gear, but that isn't how things played out (more on that later). So the starting cost for our day was $95/person, although we knew we'd end up spending more for snorkel gear, a tip for our guide, and possibly lunch. One of the nice things about booking a private tour was that we could start anytime we wanted. We ended up disembarking at 8am because we were anxious to get going. It was very easy to find the Victor Bodden kiosk, which was right outside the port and within the "Town Center" at Coxen Hole. Unbeknownst to me at the time, we were greeted and matched with our guide by Victor himself! As we walked to one of their large, air conditioned vans, our guide told us that he was happy to be assigned to a small, private tour. I've debated about this decision, but I'm not going to mention his name in this review. He wasn't a bad guide, but he did seem to be phoning it in at times. Some examples: He did not introduce himself or ask for our names. I had to initiate that conversation. He also didn't provide much in terms of information/history/etc. unless we asked questions. This is despite the fact that we included the "Photo Opportunities/General Sightseeing" option when we structured our tour. There were no stops for photos between stops at all, and at the time I guess I was too intent on making sure we fit everything in to ask. I'll refer to him as our "driver" from now on. 😄 Our first stop was Victor's Monkey & Sloth Sanctuary. This is where we paid for our tour in cash (there was no deposit required ahead of time). We were impressed with this facility. Our driver introduced us to another gentleman who would be our guide at the sanctuary. He was great -- knowledgeable, informative, and patient. We were not rushed through at all and got lots of great photos. Another gentleman handled the sloth portion of the tour. I'm not sure if this is typical, but only the three of us were inside the enclosure for this part. Once we finished our tour, we joined back up with our driver who took us to the ATV area (on the same property as the sanctuary). I'm not sure whether this is always the case, but it continued to be just the three of us for this part of tour, along with a guide who rode in front and an assistant who rode in the back. It was fantastic having just the three of us in the group because we were able to move pretty fast and didn't have to wait for any stragglers! The description had said we'd been riding for an hour, and that turned out to be accurate. We had a blast and got some fun pics. Our third and final stop was the least defined of the three. I had done some research and knew that we wanted to snorkel from West Bay Beach. I found this link helpful for DIY advice: https://www.uponarriving.com/2016/06/16/snorkeling-west-bay-roatan-honduras/ Our driver spent the drive over trying to upsell us on various "better" options, and by the end we were confused about what we actually needed to pay for. He did convince us that we might as well pay for day passes to a beach club so we'd have lounge chairs and an umbrella and access to bathrooms and showers. We ended up paying $15/person for day passes to Paradise Beach. From there, things got a little muddled. Our driver told us he'd get us a great deal on a boat tour that would allow us to see more sea life and include snorkel gear. I wasn't convinced we needed to go out in a boat since the reef is accessible from the beach, but my husband liked the idea. I will say that our driver talked the guy who was selling the boat tours down from $55/person to $15/person -- less than just renting snorkel gear would have cost. So in the end it did work out pretty well. Logistics aside, I have to say that this was some of the best snorkeling we've ever done. The reef off of West Bay Beach is amazing! So vibrant and alive. We didn't see any turtles, rays, sharks, etc., but we did see an unbelievable number and variety of fish and coral. It was simply stunning. My one regret -- and it was my biggest regret from the whole cruise -- is that we had forgotten our underwater camera at home so we weren't able to take pictures. I thought for sure the guide on the boat with us would have one, but he did not. That was such a big miss in my opinion. We would have paid good money to have some photos of our experience!! When we finished snorkeling, we showered off and changed and then hung out on our lounge chairs for 20-25 minutes before heading back to port. We didn't have time for a meal, but there was a little grocery store just a little ways down the beach and were were able to get two beers, two bottles of water, and two small cans of Pringles for $6 USD! Just enough to tide us over until we got back to the ship. We had a fantastic day and were back onboard in plenty of time. I would rate the things we did during the tour as a 5 out of 5, and our driver/guide as a 3 out of 5. I would book with Victor Bodden Tours again, but next time I would request a guide who is known for doing a great job with the "Photo Opportunities/General Sightseeing" portion of the tour. I'm not going to reach out to the company regarding our driver because he didn't do a bad job, he just didn't do as good a job as we would have liked. The deal he got us at West Bay Beach more or less offset his deficiencies as a guide, in our opinions. I have one last note, and it's about tipping. I had planned to tip our driver/guide, but there were several other people I hadn't anticipated. In the end, we tipped our driver, the guide at the monkey & sloth sanctuary, the sloth handler, the ATV guide and assistant, and the boat driver/snorkeling guide (who was in the water with us). Luckily we had brought plenty of extra cash, but be warned! https://www.boddentours.com/

Wow. I'll wait for the early reports (I'm booked on the fourth sailing), but that is a bigger number than I was expecting. Hard to believe the passes would sell out with that kind of capacity.