My husband and I thought that we would try something different this cruise and go Royal rather than our norm, which is Carnival. We have never had a bad cruise with Carnival, however, we didn’t see an itinerary that caught our eye during the vacation week that we had scheduled off for out of the port that we use. No biggie, we were all for trying something new! (Our mistake)

Day 1 starting our voyage on Harmony of the Seas, embarkation was a breeze! Easiest check-in/boarding process I’ve ever had. Royal did not provide sign and sail cards until rooms were ready and they left them in an envelope outside your cabin. In the meantime, they provided a paper with a barcode you could use as a temporary sign and sail card for any purchases onboard the ship. We boarded the ship and had very minimal time before our cabin became available. We had a standard balcony cabin that was pretty much the same as all of our Carnival cabins. Our cabin had a “cooler” instead of a fridge. This is apparently a Royal thing. It was better than nothing, but a fridge would have been nicer. We purchased bottled waters for our cabin and they were “chilled” and that was about it when we took them out to drink. Next was the laundry fiasco! There was a paper bag left on our bed that had laundry service instructions. There was a promotion on the first day to get your clothes ironed for half price. Perfect we thought! I hate ironing! I packed as many clothes as I could into the bag as instructed and left for our room attendant. She informed us she would have our clothes back to us the following day, though the instructions stated it could be up to 48hrs before clothes are returned. We head to dinner where we are seated at a table for 6. We asked our waiter why we weren’t at a table for 2, he stated he’d have to speak with his manager. Luckily, no one else showed up. (We are all for table sharing at breakfast but not dinner and especially not after a long day of travel) I ordered chicken Marsala and my husband ordered prime rib and a baked potato. My food was edible. That’s where I will leave it. The presentation was not as expected. My husband’s steak was okay but he had to eat his baked potato plain because he was never offered butter nor sour cream as we watched the other waiters go from table to table serving it to their guests. Our waiter was inattentive. The dining room was bare, likely due to being the first night, so there’s no excuse that he was overwhelmed. The dining room manager came and told us that we had been assigned a new table for 2 in a different dining room for the remainder of the cruise.

Let’s head into Day 2! We were excited for breakfast. Breakfast in the main dining room has always been a highlight of our cruises in the past. We made our way to the dining room for breakfast where we were shocked with how limited the menu was. However, it was a day at port so we had hopes that the sea day breakfast would be better. So, Perfect Day at Coco Cay! First time for us. It was okay. It was literally a water park and man made beaches! Nothing spectacular, but relaxing nevertheless. We beached for a while and had lunch that was provided at the park. I was impressed with the variety of food that was provided for lunch. We headed back to the ship for an afternoon nap before dinner. Luckily, we slept past our dinner time (5:00) because our laundry still hadn’t been dropped off so we had no clothes to wear to the main dining room. My husband had a few extra casual shirts that he was going to put on so we could go to the buffet. He proceeds out of our room with his shirt and asked staff in the hallway where he could find a laundry room to iron when he was informed that “Royal does not do that.” Note to future cruisers! Carnival, laundry rooms everywhere. Royal, pay for laundry service or go wrinkled. Had I known this, I would have paid to have all of our clothes ironed. Moving on, the buffet was great! Lots to choose from. Good service. Around 12:45am we were woke up by our drunk neighbor who in the moment we thought was in the hallway w/ his guests. They were being extremely loud and obnoxious. We could hear their entire conversation word for word. We ended up calling in a noise complaint after 20 minutes went by. Apparently security came and did not see anyone in the hallway so we then were called and security asked my husband to come out to the hallway where he was basically confronted about the people actually being in their room and not the hallway. We had no idea being woke up out of a dead sleep where the people were, it sounded like they were in bed with us. We were giving them the benefit of the doubt and thought that they were just locked out and waiting on someone to let them in. We have never experienced a “bad neighbor” on a cruise before. Security tells my husband there is nothing they can do when guests are inside their cabins and that, “Sir many people are still awake.” As we were approaching 1:30am at this point. Read more