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Harmony of the Seas Review - Western Caribbean (7/29/17 - 8/5/17)


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My wife, my two sons (both college age), and I just got off the Harmony last Saturday, so I thought I would contribute a review on Cruise Critic to assist others, as the site has always been a good source of information and entertainment for me. (I've been a CC member for years, but I really wasn't able to post anything as my e-mail address wasn't compatible with CC's system -- some type of technical glitch. My post history completely disappeared at one point a few years ago). Anyway, I received assistance from a very cooperative CC tech person, and was able to get back on as an active poster under my new e-mail address). -- Sorry for going off on a tangent, but I figured I might end up on the business end of the standard "Welcome to Cruise Critic" response, as my posting history makes me look like the quintessential newb.

 

We've sailed on RCCL regularly, taking an annual family cruise every summer over the last 10 years or so. This was our fifth time aboard an Oasis class ship. We've sailed on Oasis (twice), Allure (twice), and Independence, Mariner, and Explorer one time each. It's been a while, but we've also sailed on NCL and Princess as well. My sons are 100% loyal to Royal now, and don't want anything to do with any ship that doesn't have a promenade.

 

Okay, let's get this thing kicked off. Before we get started however, I'll disclose right up front that I don't have any Cruise Compasses, we didn't dine at any premium restaurants, and we did not go anywhere near any kids clubs. (With the exception of doing the Rubicon Escape Room which is actually located adjacent to Adventure Ocean -- I'll cover that later).

 

Driving to Port Everglades and Embarkation:

 

We always bring a case of water with us, but this time I nearly forgot about it. At about 9:45 pm on Friday night while getting our luggage lined up in the entryway, I realized I was missing our usual case of bottled waters. I immediately headed out with my son to the nearest CVS in search of H2O, as the store closes at 10:00 pm. We arrive at the store on two wheels Starsky and Hutch style, pull in the first parking spot directly in front of the glass door, as I check the time on my iPhone -- 9:57 PM. Made it. That's when two employees casually walk up to the door, look me right in the eye, and turn the lock. Colorful language filled the interior of the vehicle. I immediately headed way farther down the road to the 24 hour CVS store, all the way, commenting on the overall state of customer service in America. We secured the case of water and finally headed back home.

 

We drove across Alligator Alley from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale early Saturday morning. It takes about one hour and forty-five minutes to get from from my driveway to the shuttle parking lot at Park-N-Go, and this trip was even a little quicker than that. We pulled in to Park-N-Go, our luggage was loaded on the waiting shuttle, and we were off to the cruise terminal almost immediately. If you are driving to Port Everglades, definitely consider Park-N-Go. It was $61.30 including tax for 7 days (pre-paid online) and the shuttle service both coming and going is top-notch. Never a wait, and you get dropped off literally on top of the porters.

 

We and another family exit the shuttle. Luggage gets off in great shape, and the shuttle driver grabs the precious water I successfully hunted and gathered the previous evening. Not really sure what happened next, as everything morphed into something like the slow motion scene from the Matrix movie when Keanu Reeves bends over backward to dodge the bullet. All I remember is the shuttle driver grabbing the case of water while attempting to pull off some type of fancy one-handed-under armed-swing-ninja style move -- and my 24 bottles of water went in 25 different directions. There were bottles bouncing down the shuttle stairs, flying under porter carts, ricocheting off once happy pre-cruisers, while others simply vanished in some alternate type of space-time continuum. I stood there silently for a moment -- scenes of the two CVS guys locking the door in my face, the subsequent cussing, the relentless driving around at 10:30 the night before -- all flashing in my head as I stared at bottle # 24 spinning like a top on the pavement at my feet. My wife quietly picked up four random bottles (one for each of us for the terminal waiting area) and placed them in her bag. No one spoke. I firmly bit my lower lip, and we headed quietly to the check-in area.

 

We arrived at the check-in windows at 10:30 am, were seated very briefly in the Platinum section on the second floor, and were walking down the Harmony's promenade at 10:45 am. We always arrive at the port early, but this is the earliest we've ever been allowed to actually board. Normally we head to the Park Cafe for lunch, but I figured that the Windjammer couldn't possibly be crowded at this time, so we rolled the dice and grabbed an elevator for deck 16. Yet another first for us -- we were literally the ONLY guests in the Windjammer. In case you never get to experience it, I can tell you that the food stations -- especially the perfectly staged desserts -- look like something out of a magazine...right before they are assaulted by 6,000 people. We were already seated at our table eating lunch before the first of the other passengers began arriving. **Free Harmony tip** -- If you see a cake-looking dessert called "Chocolate Bar" at the Windjammer, take it. A fantastic start to what would be a fantastic cruise....

 

More to come..... (And based on how much I've already written, I'm thinking this may be a long one -- sorry).

Edited by NaplesGoBlue
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I buy cases of water anywhere that has a good price at the moment. Sometimes that happens to be CVS; and, although their Just the basics brand water taste good and is priced great, their packaging/wrapping is the weakest/flimsiest I have ever come across.

If you grab the case from the plastic wrap, be prepared to have to play pick-up water bottles.

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I was on this same cruise and am looking forward to your review.

 

I can also second your recommendation of the "chocolate bar". I ran into those gems one afternoon up at Mini Bites and almost devoured the guy's entire tray.

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Did you do the pre check in compleat with taking your own photo? Just wondering as I did my check in but my hubby thought I was crazy for wanting to take his picture as "They will do that when we get to the port, they always have before" so basically I did everything else including the credit card info except the picture, do you think that will slow us down greatly?

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Flying water bottles! So sorry for the mishap at the very start of your trip, but sounds like it was the one thing that had to go wrong, and since you hadn't even boarded yet, that's a good sign that everything else will be great.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your report.

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Did you do the pre check in compleat with taking your own photo? Just wondering as I did my check in but my hubby thought I was crazy for wanting to take his picture as "They will do that when we get to the port, they always have before" so basically I did everything else including the credit card info except the picture, do you think that will slow us down greatly?

 

I did the online check-in, complete with uploading our own photos (that were taken in front of a plain white wall with a flash). When I got on board, the person checking us in said our photos were too dark (which was odd, I thought they almost looked too light). Anyway, he re-took all four of our photos and sent us on our way....which took (literally) about two minutes extra. We got inside the port around 10:45 and were on board by 11:00 AM...it was VERY fast.

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Love, love, love your review style and look forward to reading more! We sail on HOS in 5 weeks:) When I was reading your water bottles story I was envisioning it all and felt your frustration as you must have been "boiling" inside, Good for you that you kept your cool and didn't let it ruin the start of your vacation. Hopefully by now you can laugh about it!

 

Looking forward to your thoughts about the rubicon:)

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to write your review and sharing it with all of us....especially the ones who have planned a HOS vacation!

 

Happy cruising everyone!

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I did the online check-in, complete with uploading our own photos (that were taken in front of a plain white wall with a flash). When I got on board, the person checking us in said our photos were too dark (which was odd, I thought they almost looked too light). Anyway, he re-took all four of our photos and sent us on our way....which took (literally) about two minutes extra. We got inside the port around 10:45 and were on board by 11:00 AM...it was VERY fast.

..Thank you soo much! I stress over silly things sometimes and I didnt want to feel that I needed to force my hubby into compliance and letting me take his picture. I feel better now!

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A great writer...caught my attention immediately. We will be a group of nine on HOTS November 4th. My husband and I are the veterans to cruising, the rest are newbies--going to be fun seeing everyone's reaction. We have been on the Oasis twice.

I am ready to read more.

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Day 1 Continued.....

 

We finished lunch at the Windjammer just in time, as the masses began descending on the defenseless food stations like a proverbial swarm of locusts. Alas, the Windjammer once again officially looked like the Windjammer. I debated getting one more "Chocolate Bar" dessert, but we wanted to get back down to the first day action on the Promenade, and check out the rest of the ship. We took the elevator down to deck 3 to verify our table arrangement. Everything was perfect -- table for four as we requested through our travel agent, and a bonus -- right next to a window. Score. We walked around the sports deck, played some table tennis, and then checked out the Boardwalk.

 

Our rooms were ready at 1:00 pm as promised, and our luggage was already waiting there. Score, again. We had two connecting inside cabins on deck 10. Our entire family loves inside cabins because it's so easy to sleep in that tiny, windowless sarcophagus. (Insides are basically akin to those extended "hibernation chambers" you see in outer space sci-fi films, like the recent movie "Passengers". But. instead of waking up 90 years early and seeing Jennifer Lawrence in the control room, you wake up 90 minutes late for morning trivia and see a 74 year old senior citizen sporting his metallic gold Speedo in the hallway).

 

After unpacking, we went back down to the promenade and I picked up the first of what would be many Coconut Ranger cookies I would dispatch over the next 7 days. I have an absolute addiction to all of (*the NON-sugar-free*) cookies on these ships, and I almost never pass a place that has them without stopping. The Cafe Promenade is unfortunately located directly in the middle of the -- you guessed it -- Promenade, so we pass it a lot. And they always have cookies.

 

There was one thing that was a minor disappointment on this ship -- the Cafe Promenade offered the exact same desserts every day throughout the entire week (though the cookie flavors did change regularly). The only other ship we ever saw this on was Independence. Other ships have always introduced new or different desserts in the Cafe Promenade at least every other day or so. The silver lining to this was that the banana bread was available every day, and it was outstanding. I'll mention Sorrento's here as well. I know as a Cruise Critic regular that this is a volatile subject, so I'll tread very lightly and try not spark a pizza-induced cage match. I'm not sure what it was, but we all agreed that the pizza seemed better on Harmony. I'm not sure if it was the crust or the cheese, or maybe both, but we all concurred that it was better than usual. Keep in mind that we've actually enjoyed Sorrento's pizza on every ship, but that's coming from me, and two sons who will eagerly consume a $1.19 Totino's frozen pizza, which is essentially constructed of a slice of flattened Wonder bread painted with ketchup and topped with a less-than-generous amount of white shavings they boldly describe as "cheese". I'm pretty familiar with cheese, but I can't confirm that those shavings are remotely related to any actual dairy product. Anyway, the Sorrento's pizza on Harmony was pretty good.

 

We attended our muster drill in the Royal Theater. As others have already stated, the drill is basically a low budget Lifetime Network film that lasts about 15 minutes or so and provides you with absolutely no applicable survival skills or ability to handle any actual crisis whatsoever. It's sort of like this -- Think of someone showing you one episode of General Hospital, then -- if the situation arises -- expecting you to adequately perform emergency open heart surgery. The best part is, you get a double-feature. The epic animated film "Wash Your Hands" is included as part of your fully paid cruise fare. Spoiler Alert: They sing the song "Wash Your Hands". A lot.

 

After muster, we returned to the sarcophagus to change for dinner in the MDR. In actuality, the cabins are MUCH nicer than any other Oasis class ship -- the rooms each have two closets, a noticeably larger shower, a clean modern look, and are just laid out much better. We ended up booking a cruise for next summer while onboard, and chose the Harmony again, based largely on the much-improved cabins.

 

Dinner was great, and our waiter Frances was superb - the most efficient, hardest working waiter we have ever had, period. I won't get too much into the food, because opinions vary so widely on the subject, but the new menus were great, and nearly every single item we ordered was excellent. As long as I can get shrimp cocktail as an appetizer and real cheesecake for dessert every night, I could not be happier.

 

We had reservations for Grease on night 1, so we quickly changed out of our dinner clothes, and headed to the Royal Theater. We encountered our first -- but certainly not our last -- "seat savers" right out of the gate. After years of close observation on past cruises, I have determined that effective seat saving is not just a skill - but an intricate and captivating art form. The master seat saver can weave a tapestry of illusion and deception that mesmerizes even the most observant individual. And this electricity-filled opening night of Grease was no exception. I watched in wonder and amazement as only 3 people carried out a strategy to save a total of 14 contiguous seats. The three individuals spaced themselves out at about four seat intervals, then proceeded to conspicuously place various personal articles -- hats, purses, jackets, shoes, socks, freshly worn underwear, honey-stung chicken, and Diamonds International coupons on every empty seat in between. The ingenious use of available resources was surpassed only by their obliviousness towards the constant barrage of "seat saving is not allowed" announcements continuously blaring over the theater's public address system. The "discussions" they had with other weary seat-seeking passengers during the 15 minutes it took for their other 11 people to arrive provided some pretty engaging pre-show entertainment at any rate.

 

Grease was outstanding. I've never seen the actual play, but I can attest that it held true to the movie. It did however take a little getting used to hearing Sandy speak without that classic Olivia Newton-John Australian accent. The actors, sets, and performances were all top notch. The actress that played Rizzo was simply fantastic. It was announced that the cast actually changed mid-cruise, as the final show on Friday featured entirely new performers. Prior to this cruise, I thought Mama Mia was by far the best show I had seen on a cruise ship, but Grease was certainly just as good, if not better. A+ by every measure.

 

We finished the evening late, watching karaoke at On-Air, then passing by the Cafe Promenade (so another cookie) and off to bed. Day two was right around the corner....

Edited by NaplesGoBlue
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Thank you for your review!! will be on HOTS in 29 days for a B2B and will accept any info possible about the ship.

 

 

LoyalToRoyalCCL : If there's anything specific you would like to ask, please let me know. I'll be glad to help any way I can.... Have a great cruise.

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