On Day 5, we docked in Roatan, Honduras. We've been to Roatan before and went ziplining. We didn't have an excursion booked today and decided once again to stay on the ship.


Also, see the cranes and bulldozers? We were docked in a construction zone! They must be working on developing this port.


So we heard a lot of construction noise and "BEEP BEEP BEEP" which isn't anything out of the ordinary for Rachel or myself. I mean Rachel just moved out of her job site trailer before this cruise, so I'm not even sure if she noticed anything out of the ordinary.



We headed up to mini Bites for breakfast today. They have a custom omelette station. I don't really do omelettes, so that wasn't a huge draw for me, but Stove is a big omelette fan.


I'll reiterate here that we never set foot in the Windjammer the entire cruise, and I honestly think if we had, we would've noticed the crowds on the ship. But, know that crowds are almost completely avoidable!!


On our last Royal Caribbean cruise, Rachel and I finally braved the Flow Rider. Stove was trying to convince us to do it again.... when we realized he still hadn't gone on the Flow Rider. We told him it was his turn -we were going to watch him!

The good thing about staying on the ship, instead of getting off at port, is that the wait isn't so long for the Flow Rider. However, it's important to note their hours - I think they shut down at 11 AM, and didn't start back up until 1 PM that day. So make sure that you go early enough in the morning to get a couple of times on the Flow Rider before they close down.


We were in port with a Norwegian ship...


And that's a Carnival Ship in the distance. Carnival has Mahogany Bay in Roatan which is their own private beach. It functions like a private island in that you don't have to pay for chairs on the beach. However, you're not restricted to Carnival-only excursions. You can book excursions through independent groups. When we visited back in 2010, we just walked across the street and went ziplining at an independent company.





Okay, now back to the Flow Rider. There are two Flow Riders on the Oasis-class ships. On Harmony, the port side Flow Rider was dedicated to flowboarding (stand-up), and the starboard side was dedicated to bodyboarding. You have to sign a waiver and get a wrist band before you can do the flow rider. They actually only issue wrist bands for the bodyboarding. If you want to graduate to stand-up, you need to do the bodyboarding and be able to get up fully on your knees with your legs out of the water (not just laying on your stomach). Once you do that, they'll give you a different colored wristband for the flowboarding.


It's important to know that there are also significant physical restrictions to the Flow Rider. For bodyboarding, you need to be at least 52" tall, and for flowboarding, at least 58" (that's only 2" shorter than me!!). It is my understanding that this is for safety reasons. Because this is a moving vessel, Royal Caribbean is very strict on all of their sports activities. If your child doesn't meet the height requirements for the Flow Rider but really wants to give it a go, check out to see if any of the ports you're sailing too have flow riders with lower height restrictions. For example, Grand Turk Margaritaville has a 55" height requirement for the flowboard.


Even if you aren't interested in trying out the Flow Rider, it's fun to watch. They have shaded stadium seating on each side, so you can just sit down and watch people wipe out.


It was Stove's moment to prove himself.... look at him go!!


Get it, Stove!! I'll remind you now that he's 65 years old.


But also, he's skied and kneeboarded behind a boat for most of his life, so actually his skill isn't that surprising.


I actually took a lot of action photos of people on the Flow Rider. It was pretty entertaining, and I thought it might be nice if they wanted their photos later. I let some people know that I had taken cool photos of them, but maybe in the future I'll pass out little cards. Also, I'll clarify that I have no intention of selling photos - just sharing for free download. I have an album on my Flickr if you were on this sailing and would like to grab your photos!


Oooh, a Rachel wipe out! The staff actually lets you have two or three gos in your turn if you're a newbie and don't last very long. This may not be standard practice and only be when it's not that crowded, but that was our experience.



Now she's got it!



Okay, time for me to put the cameras down and try it myself! They were about to close the bodyboarding, so I knew I only had one chance to get a wristband for the flowboarding. I did it! No photos of me, but Dad did take a video. Maybe I'll share it.

Unfortunately, they had already closed the flowboarding for the day, too, so Dad would have to come back to try his hand a the stand-up side.



So now we had the bright idea that we'd do some mini golf.



But it was HOT! Unbearably hot. So we hit some balls around and then retreated to the shade.



I actually don't have any photos from this afternoon, but it was another relax by the pool kind of day.


I set up the tripod and took photos of Rachel and I before dinner. Now I wish I would've done this more!!





As usual, Mom and Dad went to the Diamond Lounge, and Rachel and I picked a new bar to try. This time, we went to Boot & Bonnet Pub. This place is themed very cute and looks like it's going to have a great craft beer selection. Spoiler.... no craft beer. But there is a pretty good selection here, as compared to other bars on the ship.



Tonight, our dinner was at 150 Central Park. This was a restaurant that Rachel was excited for, and she actually wished that she had booked this twice instead of Jamie's Italian.

Unfortunately, we had booked our Aqua Show reservations for the second night of the cruise, and that show was canceled due to high winds. We were automatically rescheduled for the Aqua Show at 9:00 PM tonight. Our dinner was at 7:30.... in hindsight, maybe we should've tried to get them to reschedule us to a different day, but we didn't think it would be a problem - we'd have one and a half hours, that should be plenty of time.

So when we were seated at 150 Central Park, we immediately told our server that we had the Aqua Show at 9 PM. She told us no problem - she's have us out by then. She came to take our order and said, "Normally I don't do this, but since you're trying to make a reservation, I'll go ahead and take your dessert order now." Awesome!



The bread was super good!


Okay, now here's where it gets a little weird. We were waiting for awhile now. The server brings out this dish to me. Now, I had ordered the Roasted Spice Pumpkin Bisque as my appetizer, but at this point, I was hungry, and I didn't really look down and realize that it wasn't a pumpkin bisque. I just needed to eat food because I was really, really hungry.

So ten minutes later, the server comes back to our table and looks at me and says, "Oh, no, you weren't supposed to eat that!" Uhhh.... I wasn't supposed to eat the food in front of me? By the way she said it, you'd think I had just eaten glue. It was Greek yogurt. "It's fine, I'll go get you another." It turns out that the pumpkin bisque is poured over this....


So finally, everyone has their appetizers. We've eaten them. Again, we're waiting. And we start to see people walking toward the Aqua Theater. I look at my watch, and it's 8:30. Our waitress came over and I said to her, "Hey, as you know, we're trying to get to the 9 PM Aqua Show. Will our entrees be out soon?" "No!! No, the Aqua Show is at 10!" "No, it's at 9." "I thought it was at 10!" She's in a panic.

Now, I really don't think that she thought it was at 10. I think she just forgot about it entirely. Because earlier in the evening, she took our dessert order with our appetizers and entrees and specifically pointed out that it was to get us out of there earlier. I think she just got busy with other tables and then didn't want to admit that she had forgotten. And honestly, I didn't care so much about her making a mistake or not admitting to it, as much as I did her trying to make an absurd excuse.

We get our entrees around 8:40. You know we were in a hurry because I took no photos.

Judy has a real quotable gem from the group thread. "Didn't the waitress have us place our dessert orders with our dinner orders so that she could have us out by 9:00, but then the waitress thought we needed our dessert before 10:00, then kept repeating, "Come back for dessert!" Were we supposed to go back after the show, or later in the cruise? I never understood. I'm thinking I ordered cheesecake."

To talk a little more about the food, Rachel really liked the table side Caeser salad - said it's probably the best Caesar salad she's ever had! She had the scallops as an entree and enjoyed them, too. Judy and Stove got the Roasted Tenderloin of Beef for Two, and Judy, who is not a huge red meat eater, said, "My only vivid memory is having a bite of meat in my mouth, chewing, and realizing all three of you were out of your chairs, leaving the restaurant for the water show. That was the best steak I have ever eaten. Really wish I would have just caught up with you guys later."

It's really unfortunate that dinner went down like this because 150 Central Park probably would've been our favorite restaurant, had we not been rushed and had a weird experience with our waitress.

The Fine Line Aqua Show is the evening aqua show on Harmony of the Seas. I sat in the back at the bar, which turns out not to be the best view because your view of the highest dive is blocked by the structure above. This show is pretty tough to photograph. I did my best.


Slack rope is one of the coolest parts of the routine.


The dancing is just weird. Lots of foot stomping, very dramatic. Strange music, but overall pretty epic.


I'll talk more about the daytime Aqua Show on Day 7, but I'll go ahead and say that The Fine Line is much better. I wish I had chosen a seat with a better view (now I know!). I think the balcony views above must be really great for this. The stunts are incredible, but the choreography is weird.... but not nearly as weird as in the daytime show.

I will say that one of the only times I kind of felt the crowds on this ship is leaving the Aqua Theater.... and it really wasn't that bad! I just noticed, 'Oh, woah, there are people on this ship.' This should say more to the lack of crowds everywhere else than it does the crowds leaving the theater (minimal).