Scottee25

Does Harmony have the Stowaway Piano Player?

I literally posted that 5 minutes before you did.

Just checked the unlimited dining package for a sailing I currently have booked: For restaurants with a la carte pricing, you'll receive a $20 food credit, which can only be used once a day. So you are correct. Bummer because we loved going to Playmakers on Odyssey but I can't say we ever went there more than once per day to eat. To drink, that's a different story 🙂

We were actually considering doing a WB TA in Fall 2024 but Royal changed the end port for the ship we wanted. We really wanted to do the WB for all the reasons everyone is suggesting. Unfortunately the stars don't always align the way we want and we need to take what is offered.

It was my understanding that you are limited to $20pp per tab at Playmakers. Never heard of any limit on the number of times you can eat there per day. In fact, was told that if you wanted you could close your tab when you hit the $20 limit and just open a new tab.

Surprised your TA has never heard of this. This is very common on this class of ship. I have experienced it with this class on numerous occasions. Questions I have for you... If you attempt to do a mock booking on Royal's website for this sailing does the cabin show available when you select: 2 Passengers? 3 Passengers? 4 Passengers? If you answer No, Yes, Yes then that would confirm that the cabin you want requires 3 or more people. I get that you were talk something by someone on the phone. I would also venture to say if you call back, you'll get a different answer. It's the nature of the beast with Royal's call center staff; they simply are not adequately trained on all matters.

Thank you!

I am wondering the same.

Where can one find the deployment flyers?

Something to keep in mind when catching a cab NOT at a cab stand... you are likely to be charged more and the driver most likely won't use the meter. There were a few times we were exhausted and didn't want to walk to the nearest cab stand (or the nearest cab stand didn't have any cabs) so we would see a cab and hail them and pay their inflated price for the convenience. They'll usually quote you a price at the beginning in such cases. As far as English goes, most of the cabbies we encountered spoke at least a little English but I would plan on having any deep conversations 🙂

That's pretty much in limbo now that the CEO of the venture resigned not so long ago.

How married are you to the idea of taking the train from Rome to Civitavecchia? How many pieces of luggage do you have? I know everyone's tastes are different but I personally wouldn't want to take the train to Civitavecchia and then try to work through the rest of logistics of getting to the port. We were just in Italy in mid May (Transatlantic from Fort Lauderdale to Rome and then 8 nights in Rome). We arranged a private transfer to pick us up from the port and take us to Rome. They also work in the opposite direction as well and can drop you off at the port. They can be a bit pricey (anywhere from 130-170 Euros for 2 people) but well worth it in our opinion. We made day trips to both Florence and Naples during our stay in Rome. We booked business class seats on Trentalia high speed trains. Trentalia seemed to have many more high speed trains running through out the day so the schedule worked better for us which is why we chose them over Italotreno. If you book ahead of time and don't need refundable or changeable tickets, Trentalia offers Me & You rates that are for 2 people and often can include Business Class seats. They do charge 2 Euros to pick your seats. I don't remember exact costs but it was most likely around 35-40 Euros per person each way. Business class had comfortable seats and once the trip is underway, they come buy with a beverage cart with a light snack. Coffee in the morning, alcoholic beverages in the evening. They also have sodas and other beverages. They also gave us bottled water that we took with us while we were off exploring the city.

I agree 100%. Like seriously, how many effing slot pulls does one need in a week? If there had just been the one original slot pull on my sailing, I would have participated. However, when this other passenger rolled in and dropped 4 of them I could see right away what they were trying to do and wanted nothing to do with it. Part was because they were running 4 of them. Part of it was this person was just annoying me with everything else they said. At that point I wanted nothing to do with them. Hope that everyone else who did participate had fun but I do know a significant number of people also decided to not participate in the slot pulls either. I feel that a lot of those responding here that you, or any of us who see some of the unethical behavior of some slot pull organizers aren't seeing the whole picture.

Very cool, but nope, never. Maybe the operators in Europe are different? The ones we have organized have all been in European ports. The tours have all been great so we were happy with that 🙂

We did a tour to Girona when we were in Barcelona back in 2019 that was Game of Thrones themed. Loved getting my geek on! I would also recommend a trip to Monserrat if staying in Barcelona. We had a tour upon disembarking in Barcelona that took all of our luggage and took us to Monserrat and then Cava tasting before finally taking us to our hotel in Barcelona.

We did back in May. We booked the excursion through Royal, mainly because when we booked this cruise, only ship sponsored excursions were allowed. The excursion in question went to Lucca and Pisa. We actually spent the majority of the time in Lucca (part of that was because our Royal "escort" disappeared and our tour guide spent over 30 minutes in Lucca trying to locate her. This caused us to lose some time in Pisa). Lucca was incredible. My girlfriend and I could have spent a week there just wandering around. At this point you can use a third party tour company to tour in Italy and there are several who offer tours to Lucca for cruise passengers. I wouldn't miss any of them. Palma may have the least number of options but it is still a beautiful island and definitely worth seeing. If you don't feel like going to Rome (we just spent 8 nights there and I would be happy to go back tomorrow if we could), there are other places you could visit. For instance, we we got off of the Odyssey in May, we paid for a transfer service that picked us up from the port and then took us to Orvieto and Civita di Bagnoregio before taking us to our hotel in Rome. It was pricey for the 2 of us (it would definitely be more reasonable if you can split the cost with more people) but WOW, what an experience. Naples of course has Pompeii which should not be missed. Herculaneum is on the way to/from Pompeii from Naples. Also in Naples is the National Archeological museum which has many impressive pieces. As others have suggested, the pizza in Naples is wonderful so be sure to sit down and have some!

It isn't uncommon? We have organized a few shore excursions and never received anything from the tour operator nor did we ever ask. Usually it was a small group of 6-8 but we handled all of the logistics of planning and paying in full up front (if required) or paying the deposit. Have found that everything thankfully has always gone smoothly but we never expected anything of anyone for the work we put in. FWIW 🙂

Generally I would not consider it unethical as long as it is all disclosed upfront and the organizer isn't trying to run a handful of slot pulls on the cruise. I have seen organizers disclose several things upfront, especially withholding winnings after a certain amount has been won to cover tax liabilities. I understand they put work into organizing the whole event and they do have to look after themselves. On the other hand, on my most recent sailing, we already had a slot pull set up with an organizer. We had a spreadsheet with a list of everyone interested. Then this other passenger rolls in a few months before sailing and starts promoting their slot pulls (plural). We informed them that someone had already signed up to organize the slot pull (seriously, how many slot pulls does a sailing need?). This other person really didn't care. They were still going to run their 4 (yes, four) slot pulls. I even brought up that the time they were looking to host their slot pulls could potentially interfere with progressive trivia. They didn't care. They caused a lot of confusion with many that had already signed up and really created a cluster to deal with. In this situation I found this person's behavior to be unethical and their being unsympathetic to the work others had put in to organize other events that their slot pulls would interfere with really turned me off to the character of this individual.

We won a Royal Up to a Grand Loft Suite on our recent Odyssey TA. The bid amount was WAY less than if we just booked the Grand Loft Suite 🙂