This may be a little long but I will try my best to make it informative and helpful. We were a small family and friends group, 7 people, ages 18-79. The booking process was extremely frustrating. If you add up all the hours I was on the phone trying to get things booked correctly, choose nearby cabins, book shows/dinners, etc....., it would add up to several days, mostly waiting on hold or getting transfered around! Although I'd booked directly, I finally brought in a travel agent to help (mostly because I wanted to know the moment the dinners and shows opened up for reservations). It didn't help as much as I'd hoped (you don't need a travel agent unless they REALLY, REALLY have some secret or special knowledge or experience!) Also, while RCCL allows you to do this, they must hate when you do because once there is a travel agent on the booking, they really don't want to talk to you at all. I suspect you get much better service when you book directly and don't use a travel agent.

We chose this cruise for the ship; I'd been wanting to sail on the Harmony (or at least one of the Oasis class ships) almost since they came out, especially for the atrium balcony cabins (overlooking Central Park or the Boardwalk). 2 of our group had Central Park balcony cabins and the younger group chose an oceanview balcony. Both were pretty standard cabins and we enjoyed both views. There was a little bit more noise during the day in the Central Park cabins than we expected (and this would be maybe even more true of the Boardwalk view cabins) because both are open at the top so you do get some of the sounds from the pool deck (music starts pretty early). Because they're open, you can also still step out on your balcony and get an idea of the weather before you leave your cabin. We'd book these cabins again.

The staff is obviously trained first for professionalism and secondarily for fun so they are all very good and friendly but if you enjoy the playful, fun room stewards and waiters that you might have experienced on other cruise lines, it may be hit or miss on this one. My mom and sister had a great room steward. Our other two cabins were serviced by someone whom we rarely saw and so it was a little disappointing but for the most part, our cabins were adequately serviced. The same is true in the restaurants. One of the specialty restaurants and one of our main dining nights, the waiters were sort of just going through the motions but the other nights, it was good. Don't expect them to make a big deal of your celebration though. We told every restaurant that this was a celebration cruise and specifically told two of them that we'd like to do something special for our celebrant (High School graduation) but we never got anything. The best you can expect is the waiters singing "Happy Birthday" but we weren't celebrating any birthdays. Read more