If your idea of a perfect vacation is being around 6,000 people including hoards of unsupervised children, drunk teenagers in the adults only areas, loud music blaring, no place of respite, cancelled or unbookable reservations for lackluster entertainment, an overworked staff, overcrowded bars, and midocore to disgusting food this may be your scene...

However, this was not our idea of the big birthday celebration my friend and I planned for over a year, or the promises advertised by Royal Caribbean for Harmony of the Seas. Before I go on to explain our experience I want to point out that I almost never write reviews, but thought that this experience warranted one. We read many glowing reviews of this ship prior to booking over a year before sailing, and were frankly, very disappointed. The friend that I sailed with has been on 4 prior Royal Caribbean cruises and has immensely enjoyed them all until this one, she will never sail RC again. This was my first, last, and only RC cruise. Just a note, while this review does sound like a stand up comedy routine at times, it is sadly all true. Writing this review is cathartic for us, and attempting to laugh now about some of these experiences is really the only thing we can do to deal with the let down.

1. Embarkation was an absolute disaster! First, we were dumped off into what appeared to be a warehouse with veeery long, winding lines everywhere with no direction of where to go or where the line actually began. After finally getting to the front of the line to the health check we were "greeted" by an extremely rude port staff member who refused our negative covid tests that were from a licensed physician with all the information that RC stated they needed in the information on their website. We were then given no option other than to go to "the Covid van down by the river" and made to feel like uneducated miscreants. This SECOND negative covid test cost us $105 each, well there goes some of our hard earned spending money for port days! Read more