Adventure of the Seas vs Harmony of the Seas

Any love for Adventure of the Seas? I know. Two completely different ships. Harmony of the Seas holds twice as many passengers and has all the latest and greatest. Adventure of the Seas was just refurbished 2018 and now has Perfect Storm water slides, Flow Rider, and Rock Climbing Wall. But I'm wondering about Adventure still getting a lot of negative reviews. Not a good ship? Harmony is $1600 more for the same week and is one night less and one port less than Adventure.

We spent 2 weeks on Adventure this past January and another week last month. The ship is in excellent shape. We are lookign forward to two more weeks on her next year.

I have been debating between these two ships also, with pretty much the same exact scenario.  We are looking at a Spring Break cruise and Harmony is almost $1300 more and one less day.  I'm wondering if my kids (11 and 13) will have enough to do on Adventure without the bells and whistles of Harmony.  Has anybody with tweens been on both ships and have an opinion? Thanks!

We did a B2B on Adventure pre-refurb, and had an amazing time.  We're on Harmony in June, and very much looking forward to it, but I can't imagine liking it $1,600 worth more for less time and less ports.

We didn’t understand all the negative reviews for Adventure.  We had a great trip on this summer with our 11 year old.  I wouldn’t hesitate to go on it again.

I prefer the Voyager and Freedom class ships.  They are well-designed and don't have so many others onboard!  Plenty to do...we don't need all the "bells and whistles"...so it suits us best!  I think they are the perfect sized ships!

Oasis class is by far our favorite.  However, Adventure is a great ship too.  With the scenario you gave, I would book Adventure.  🙂 Save the $1600 for another time on a “cheaper” Harmony trip. 

The only RC ship we have been on is the Oasis. I know we would miss the Aqua Theater shows, but I can’t really think of anything else that could justify spending $1300 more!  What am I missing???

14 hours ago, cb at sea said:

I prefer the Voyager and Freedom class ships.  They are well-designed and don't have so many others onboard!  Plenty to do...we don't need all the "bells and whistles"...so it suits us best!  I think they are the perfect sized ships!

Agree, even without the extra day and lower cost versus the Harmony, we would choose the Adventure.  We feel more connected to the ocean on the Voyager and Freedom classes, with more and easier access to views of the ocean.  The lines for most things (Sorrentos, Cafe Promenade) were shorter as well.  They are very easy to navigate and get familiar with.  They still have a ton of fun things to do, and are beautiful ships.

On Oasis class, besides the lack of views as mentioned, I felt like we could never get away from crowds all hours of the day.  It was a PITA to get around that ship sometimes with the aft section split in two.   Some of the benefits of the Oasis class, for us, were a proper night club (Dazzles), and the Aqua Theater out back.  It's a big ship though, and tiring just getting from place A to B in some cases.

Dan

We have done both, we enjoyed the Adventure and big enough class to get most out of the ship.  We go on it again at end of November.

We will never do Harmony again, we loved the interior of the ship but we are always in the Solarium and for some reason Royal did not put pools in the the solarium.  The top deck was always full since the solarium was to hot everyone went to the middle and back of the boat.

16 hours ago, martikus said:

We didn’t understand all the negative reviews for Adventure.  We had a great trip on this summer with our 11 year old.  I wouldn’t hesitate to go on it again.

Because people are more inclined to review things when they had a bad experience, at this point I take any review here with a grain of salt.

I was so nervous to go on Anthem because of all the negative reviews on CC, and it ended up being far and away the best ship I've ever been on. When I see some review that gives the ship 1-star and has a zoomed in picture of a tiny bit of rust behind the bed at the bottom of the wall, I just laugh.

Our only Royal cruise was on Oasis - managed to get a pretty fair deal for Spring Break just this past March (had to do an inside guarantee cabin to do so, but we ended up in a super convenient location so it worked out great), and yes, it is a modern marvel offering more to do in a week than you can actually accomplish. 

Our Tween's favorite parts of cruising are hanging out with other kids in their clubs and feeding herself at whatever buffet / counter service eateries are available, on her own schedule. Her prior cruises (also as a tween, when she was 11 and just- turned-12, respectively) were Carnival Triumph and Carnival Sensation, both a far cry from Oasis, and she enjoyed them just as much overall as Oasis in spite of the vast differences in the ships themselves. I would say the sheer numbers and diversity of other kids onboard Oasis made it a bit easier to find her tribe amongst hundreds of potential buddies. 

We are sailing on Adventure of the Seas next August to Canada/New England and I'm glad it has a Royal Promenade.  My husband and I will certainly miss Central Park and the tremendous variety of included dining options but we will have a balcony this time and it wouldn't kill us to spend some vacation time actually relaxing, maybe reading while enjoying the sea breeze.

In the end I guess I like to collect ships.  There are so many to try, and I don't look at it as a competition between vacations. Travel always has challenges but there is fun in trying new experiences.  In fact, my daughter, when she was still little, put it best. I once asked her which of her vacations, to that point, had been her favorite and she had the perfect answer: "The one I'm on right now!"

I’ve been on Adventure and her sister ships several times and really enjoy sailing on them.  I’ll sail on her again in January.  It’s big enough to offer extras like the ice skating rink and promenade but still small enough to enjoy the water.  I’ve only sailed on one mega ship, Oasis, and it was my least favorite ship.  When I cruise, I want to feel like I’m on a cruise and see water from locations other than just my balcony.  Just my opinion