Thorben-Hendrik
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Posts posted by Thorben-Hendrik
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They do not directly impact a particular crew member - they get a team score...
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we had soft rolls. there were also thin slices of french bread which were pretty good and very soft.
windjammer has a bunch of different bread and rolls that they don't bring around in the MDR, so you could always grab something from there and bring them to dinner. people were doing that with those seeded rolls (maybe pumpkin seed?) that everyone loves - they were in the WJ but not the MDR, so folks brought their own.
Yes Harmony is all about BYOB:D
WJ has all the choices MDR not really that much - no cheese rolls, nothing with seeds, no mini-bites quite a limited choice in the MDR!
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What Princess does (or did last time we sailed them) was to have US passengers paying gratuities and AU and NZ customers not. It was cheaper to pretend to be a US passenger and pay gratuities rather than claim our actual NZ status.
It is even cheaper to pretend to be a US passenger and NOT pay gratuities...:p:D
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Flame me if you want, I don't care. When we pay 10 times more than you do we expect better service. I could list a dozen more little things that are gone. They even took out the clothes line over the tub. Time to look at other lines. I'm on Harmony right now and I'm not getting what I paid for.
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No surprise here.....:cool:
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. Personally, I think the main Dining room has more choices and tastes just as good ( LOL ) as the Solarium.
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:p:D
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Yes I was referring to the Deck 15 forward men's wash-room - maybe they used a different way to attach the door but it sure hit and ate the legs of the men regularly.
I am from Hamburg.
We really like RCI generally and have always had better experinces than this time on Harmony!
As long as other cruise lines do not have a Flowrider there is no alternative at least for myself :D.
We have many more issues with the O-class layout in general it does not really fit our liking - especially the useless Solarium ( IMHO ) with the cheap plastic foil roof - so we will stay away from O-class and especially Harmony!
F and V-class have never let us down so far!
So that is what we will do in 2017! :cool::)
Depending on alternatives and timing we might consider giving O4 a try in fall 2018 - but not sure yet - it also depends on what she will feature and how the Solarium will be set up on her.
Really looking forward to trying Q4 in 2019 that class also has a very nice Solarium!:)
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A few questions...
Any info on chef's table? And how where the shows?
Generally there is no Chefs-Table - but they were improvising it in the Solarium-Bistro
We liked "Grease"
We disliked "Columbus"
Aqua-shows were very good!
Headliners were very weak...
But that is a question of taste - that will vary from person to person...
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I would assume the ice scooper would have about the same amount of germs the serving spoons do on the buffet.
Worse - lots of folks will use their hands as it is hard to catch the ice-cubes floating around in the bin....
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Germanfflyer, I too saw the same style of ice bin in Park Cafe on Harmony and the first thing I thought about how unsanitary it was. When washing your hands is touted as the right thing to do, this seemed counter productive. We skipped the ice there, and any locations in which ice was available in this style of dispensing. When I needed ice I got it from the freestyle machines. In all honesty the ice makers on Oasis and Allure beside the water machines never kept up to their needed production in locations like Park Cafe and the Wipe Out Cafe.
It's highly obvious that you don't like Harmony, but was it just the service that did it or was there more? I'm asking an honest question as whatever it was it really must have got you. If I remember you were on the TA. In my live review I posted our downfalls that we encountered and I wonder how parallel and varied yours were to ours.
The other thing we think has happened is that RC has taken to technology to reduce staff in some areas. I would be curious to know if the staffing levels are less across the ship, and if so to what level on Harmony compared to Oasis and Allure. A prime example is the shore excursions area with multiple iPads/tablets with less crew to assist guests. A few other simple service cut locations, no drink service in Park Cafe putting more pressure on the bar in a Central Park. The staffed Champagne Bar is now manned by two robots. We have also never seen just 2 waiters at night in JR and 2 waiters in Sabor. Typically there are 3-4 working these venues. Yes these are simple and small locations for a few staff cuts but it does decrease the service levels.
I wonder out loud, could there have been a change in the MDR that led to the inept service that your waiter spoke of? Obviously your waiter feels as though there is a problem since he wants to go, and it is obvious that there is a service issue as other cruisers have made note about it. I noted issues in Specialty Dining venues where we ate, where they are supposed to be even better, and weren't for us.
I honestly think they need to do a major shakeup to get thinks running better. Harmony has been in service for half a year and we expected service equal or better to our past recent experiences. When our food arrived it was great, for mass market cruising, but the patience that we needed for the long waits for it's arrival was exasperating.
As said before it is a mix of very bad service and personnel preferences.
Well there is not much RCI can do about my personnel preferences but the 2 areas where I feel RCI is accountable is service and design or better yet design flaws!
To keep it short - management on Harmony sucks big time! We had interaction with 2 senior officers that was unbelievable bad - to the point that they are not fit for the job - because they are not able to communicate with customers - their wording and excuses were a PR nightmare and if they are not capable to address customer complaints they are not fit to run a work-crew and address those - both resulting in unsatisfactory service levels. It does not make sense to go into the details as there are so many ways the service fails on that ship. No bread-choices in the MDR is a stupid as it gets here....
Those low service levels are also reflected very well in the reviews that you can read on these boards - I was really surprised to see our observations being repeated by many.
A 3rd senior officer that is definitely not doing his job is the Chief of the kitchen - we can argue about menus a lot - but food consistently not being prepared well is something that falls into his domain. His failure is also well documented by now.
Then there is the design flaws:
There are so many of them and it is not understandable why RCI does not fix it.
I will just mention some to give an examples of what I am talking about....
- Entrance to the WJ everybody want to enter into the exit by design - also the washy-washy thing is not working - 4 sinks are not capable of handling the crowds - also IMHO the whole thing is more unsanitary then the hand-sanitizer, the washbasins are unsanitary, the water is not really hot and there is mold all over the sides of the washbasins already, also the towel dispensers are dirty and moldy
- lots of 5 and 6 seat tables in the WJ taking up unneeded space as most will only have 2 persons sitting at them
- the slides splashing the deck making it slippery and creating noise when the crew has to constantly use machines to pick up the water. Someone wrote it is a crew of 4 constantly mobbing and picking up the water...why don't they fix the too short "splash-glass" ?
- Last but not least a SWING_DOOR in the main mens-room that will cut or scratch the back of your legs as it will swing back to the guys standing in front of the urinals doing their thing....outsch! This is the stupidest thing I have EVER seen -and I have witnessed numerous men being hurt by the door - because you do not realize what will happen when someone lets it flip when he exits...
There is a lot more....but I am tired of typing....:D:rolleyes:
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What would you consider a "positive feature" and does it make up for all the down's Harmony "features"?
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To the OP,
You mention there are no clocks in the room. Is there a phone with the time? We always request a wake up call on the phone. Will we still be able to set that up?
You can set up a wake-up call.
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That is how it should work - but I would wait with the purchase until on board to make sure you buy for the right person.
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Are you sure you will like O-class?
We were quite disappointed with O-class and would stick with F-class which we like a lot more!
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More experience than you...
You are making a fool out of yourself!
Sorry you are now on my ignore list....so keep trying to police others - it will not work - good luck!
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Do you have to remove the Wow band to make purchases? It can't be scanned while you are wearing it?
Yes you have to remove most of the times - at some locations they have a scanner that can be moved so you can touch it - but I would say at 9 out of 10 times you will have to remove the band.
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Here we go again...
Very interesting how desperate you are to stop others from posting their opinion.....
Breaking news: There is no way you can stop them!:D:p
You yourself have not sailed on many cruises to begin with - NO cruise on Harmony - yet you claim to be the one to control others opinion or have the right to police their postings.....I find that pretty loco!
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We had a similar experience in the dining room. Not asked about drink orders. Not replenishing water or iced tea, bread, butter, etc. Very slow service...2 hours to eat dinner in the dining room. I'm not a fan of the new menu either. I think they have lowered the quality of the main dining room to get people to go to the specialty restaurants.
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Funny how this seems to be the norm now with Harmony - they also do not give you much choice with the bread.
It is ridiculous how the WJ has better bread choices than the MDR!
Another thing that was observed was the fact that our waiter told us even so 1st seating complained about the duck not being done and tough they served the same underdone duck in 2nd seating - that made him upset because again he got lots of complaints!
For me that is in line with other bad management decisions on Harmony!
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Your "truth" is subjective opinions. I don't discount them, but don't discount those of us who had an amazing experience, great service, etc. Honestly, I was an uncertain cruiser prior to my Harmony cruise, and I'm now a big fan. Everyone has different experiences, and everyone reading the opinions on here need to take them with a grain of salt and try not to let these opinions colour their own experience.
I absolutely agree!
It is the Harmony-Cheerleaders that want to shut up any other opinion - that is why I pointed out the "truth".
A fact is that only 56% of the reviewers were happy with their experience currently.
Another fact is that Harmony currently has the lowest review rating of any big RCI ship.
So some may be aware - that there is a bit of a risk they might not get what they expected.
If you are new to cruising and have nothing to compare the service to - it will be OK - as you have nothing to compare it to. But for RCI the service-standard is well below average....
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Does anybody know how the wow bands work in the casino? Your card is normally scanned when playing table games, so I wonder how that is adapted to the card.
You have to take it off and they will scan it.
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I wasn't stressing no ice as much as stressing there was only water available to drink with hot dogs and pizza. The water had ice in it, but there was no ice machine. It looked to me like it was RCIs push for you to buy the soda package.
I think you are correct - they have really downgraded the free drinks on Harmony as well as the room-service menu that does not really have anything free any-more.
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Tell me more about Royal IQ. I downloaded it but never used it on the inaugural 3 day to Nassau and will be back for 7 nights in December. So for $7.95 you can only text another on the ship, or to anywhere? Anything else on it beside the compass?
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Correct it only works within the ships network.
You can also make show and dinner reservations.
Very often the IQ app would not work due to server issues when we were on not sure if it got more reliable - some recent reviews suggest it is still a hit and miss...
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but the manager that was walking around didn't ever stop by to talk even after I asked the greater to speak with the manager)
This seems to be a common behaviour of the Harmony management too - it also explains the low service level!
Our MDR server told us the last night he has been working for RCI for 10 years - started working on Harmony just before the TA and now has requested to be transferred to another ship - as there are just too many complains and he is not comfortable with the service he is able to give.
There seems to be a Harmony-Management-Problem...affecting the service seriously...
Yes the ice-boxes with everybody helping themselves are also in the WJ - very UN-sanitary - ...but they make you wash your hand there.....but only when you enter ....:rolleyes:
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Amazing just how many times you post that identical false propaganda in nearly every thread that appears about Harmony.
There are plenty of posts for cruisers on Harmony who directly contradict what you've posted.
Saying something over and over and over again doesn't make it true. We get it that you didn't find your experience as good as it could have been. No need to pollute another thread with this kind of repetitive nonsense. :rolleyes:
I know you are a Harmony-Cheerleader but you are not doing others a favour by denying the truth...I am trying to balance the views a bit - to prevent folks from having wrong expectations.
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=554303
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=554260
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=554116
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=554099
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=554162
http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=553279
Currently ONLY 56% of the reviewers were satisfied with their cruise on Harmony and would recommend Harmony for a future cruise!
Harmony eastern December 10 ... Not quite lice review, but some notes along the way
in Royal Caribbean International
Posted
That is because they use cheap plastic foil for the solarium-roof instead of glass on Oasis and Allure - it gets worse when you get into an area where the foil is already ripped and flapping...:D:rolleyes: