Perhaps You’ve Noticed

We’ve been cruising for 13 years. If you’ve cruised as long as we have—or even longer—you’ve seen quite a bit of change.

Like most changes over time, some are for the better and some, well, aren’t. Here are a few changes that come immediately to mind:

Formal farewell. Nearly gone are tuxes and gowns. Some folks don’t bother to dress up at all. And the waiters have ditched their formal wear too.

Different MDR. Our first cruise was on Celebrity’s Constellation and we felt like hillbillies, befuddled at the elaborate place settings. Dinners were five courses, wait times were shorter and waiters even had time to talk to us.

 

Main dining room on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas

More dollars for dining. Specialty restaurants have become all the rage. It may come at a cost, but there are so many more alternatives to the food-for-all-tastes main dining room, and some of them are really exciting.

 

Izumi on Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas

Loyal cruisers exploding. On any given Royal Caribbean ship these days, it’s typical to find hundreds of Diamond Club members. Proof that once you cruise, you’re hooked.

Tech follows us onboard—and off. It’s not just Internet cafes anymore. Technology is everywhere and doing everything—from turning on lights to helping us track our travel companions to serving us drinks. Our faces will even speed the dreaded Disembarkation with Royal Caribbean and U.S. Customs’ new facial recognition.

 

A taste of technology on Harmony of the Seas

Room service perk pooping out. Nearly every mass market line is charging for something delivered by room service.

Extravaganzas extinct. We still swoon over our videos of Celebrity’s unparalleled, off-the-charts Midnight Buffet. Its luau under the stars with parading waiters carrying fruit carvings and doling out samples of guava, mango and papaya. Holland America’s amazing chocolate dessert display.

 

Waiters paraded with fruit carvings, then let you sample tropical fruits of the Caribbean--
on Celebrity, 13 years ago

Cruise ship as amusement park. The cruise lines are outdoing each other with thrill rides, from giant slides to bumper cars to roller coasters. What’s next, a ferris wheel?

 

The Ultimate Abyss on the Amusement Park of the Seas (aka Harmony)

The great cruise smoke out. Smokers have been relegated to one or two areas per ship. One trend with many, many supporters.

All this in 13 years. Wonder what the upcoming years will bring. Any predictions?

One Class, Two Ships. Are They the Same?

Say you’ve been on a cruise and liked it. Now you’re thinking about another one—on a different ship but the same class. You wonder, will the two ships be the same?

Sister ships, as they call them, are indeed, like siblings. They may look kind of like each other. But they can be very different. Or very similar.

Take the Caribbean Princess and Emerald Princess. Pretty similar ships. Then take Oasis of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas. Very different ships.

Here are some of the ways sea-going siblings can differ:

Spacing out. Ships can use their space differently. The first in class Royal Princess debuted without an aft pool and after a fair amount of cruiser griping, her younger sister, Regal Princess, was built with one.

Another example is Celebrity’s Solstice; where the ship had space devoted to glass-making demos, the later ones gave it up to cooking lessons. Harmony has its bionic bartenders where folks sip champagne on sister Allure of the Seas.

Adding activity. Sometimes, a later ship gets more fun stuff. The Harmony added the Ultimate Abyss, as well as two water slides. You won’t find these on its older sibs.

Taunts on Harmony for the Ultimate Abyss

How to chow. Specialty restaurants can vary from ship to ship, even within the same class. For example, Oasis and Allure have the terrific Giovanni’s, but the Harmony went for Jamie’s Italian and added a new one, Wonderland.

Types of chow. The main dining room lunch buffet with the Tutti salad bar is on all the Oasis ships. But the Harmony took the sweets up a notch, with a grand dessert buffet, complete with chocolate fountain.

 

Chocolate, cake and much more to sweeten your lunch in the Harmony's MDR

From one stage to another. Each ship has its own shows, featured artists and sidebar entertainers.

Room for change. Harmony’s room configuration is not the same as that on Oasis and Allure—the two closets are far away from each other (which, by the way, is a good thing).

Art work. What graces the walls, sits in public spaces and hangs from the ceilings are all unique and can give the ship a feel of its own. I’m thinking about the big head in the Harmony’s Promenade, which, well, hits you in the face.

Techie talk. The Harmony is much more plugged in and booted up than its sisters—from its free-standing tablets to its modernized elevator buttons.

We’ve talked about the differences, but what’s the same? Nearly everything else.

So, really, you get the best of both worlds when you jump ship within a class. The ship is familiar. You (more or less) know your way around. Yet, it’s different enough to make it feel like a new experience. How neat is that for your vacation?

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