We have about 30 cruises with Royal Caribbean under our belts. The great majority of those were fabulous. Our cruise on Harmony (11/12-11/19/16) was good but not great.

Embarkation and disembarkation generally went smoothly. We loved our cabin (12th deck balcony). The ship is gorgeous. There were lots of our old favorites: the Promenade with eateries & shops; great live entertainment (although still very loud); lots of fun activities like Zumba class & towel folding; enjoyable music by the pool. We also loved some of the new activities such as the water slides & The Abyss. The skating program was lovely, and the aquatic performers were terrific, although I couldn't understand either program's story line. Food at all venues was generally quite good. I loved the art, especially in the stairways.

However, there were many bumps in the road. Our Champagne Sunset Cruise in St. Thomas was more bobbing in the water while drinking champagne punch in a plastic cup with ice. We signed up for Escape from the Rubicon at one of the booths on the first day and had our SeaPass scanned, but when we showed up on our date & time, we were told there was nothing scheduled. (We eventually participated two days later & enjoyed it greatly.) We went to an evening movie one night, then it was announced that the movie was cancelled, lots of people left, and the movie began a few minutes later. There were lots of these "oops" moments, but I won't go into more detail. I don't know if it was training, computer glitches, or trying to do too much, but we'll probably stay with smaller ships in the future. Read more