Another Harmony Review

Hi everyone. We just returned from the Harmony 7 night Western cruise over Thanksgiving (Nov 19-26, 2016). I know there have already been a few reviews, but wanted to also add my comments on the ship and this cruise.

BACKGROUND:

This is our fourth cruise and first on an Oasis class ship. All of our cruises have been on Royal Caribbean. I am not sure if I would classify myself as a loyalist. We have loved all of our cruises and have seen no reason to try something new – although we met a few new friends who have invited us to try Norwegian, so we may take them up on that offer. In the meantime, we booked our next cruise while on board – the 9 night Southern Caribbean Christmas cruise on Navigator in 2017. We are already super excited about this cruise! But you clicked on this thread to hear about Harmony, so let me get back on topic.

We drove to the port, leaving our home in West Palm Beach around 9:30am and arrived at the port around 10:45am. This was our first time driving to Port Everglades, and what a difference from driving to Baltimore (our old homeport – we moved to South Florida in June). Baltimore was super easy, super simple. Port Everglades was more disorganized and chaotic; I was not a fan.

After dropping off our bags, and despite the many recommendations to park offsite, we parked at the lot adjacent to the terminal. Luckily we were there early and there were lots of spots available, but I was a little surprised at how small the lot was. It seemed the same size as the lot in Baltimore, and that was for a ship with one third the passengers. I wonder why they did not build a ramp garage. Parking was only $15 a day (or $105 for the week), which I felt was very reasonable – especially with the convenience of being able to walk to your car after the cruise. In fact, our porter took our bags directly to our car after we returned from the cruise.

For those familiar with the Oasis class, I am sure there is much on Harmony that is familiar. For us newcomers, the ship is nothing but impressive. It is one thing to read over and over again how nothing compares to an Oasis class ship, but it is another to climb aboard and be amazed. It is absolutely true that you do not even realize that there are 6,000+ passengers onboard with you. Not sure how they do it, but the world’s largest ship does not feel crowded at all. Here are some more quick facts about the ship.

Harmony Fun Facts 1.pdf

Harmony Fun Facts 2.pdf

We booked a Grand Suite (11254) and it was amazing. This was easily the nicest GS we have ever had. I am not sure if this is standard on all Oasis-class ships, but we loved the partial wall between the bed and sofa, and the two TVs mounted on each side of the wall. Although we do not watch a lot of TV, it was nice in the evening for our son to watch a Dreamworks movie, while my wife and I watched the next cruise channel and dreamed of our next adventure. The one drawback was the lack of a PS3/DVD player in the room. I usually bring a few movies for our son, but this trip I did not pack any movies – and a good thing, as there was no DVD player in the room. The balcony had two chairs, a small table, and two loungers.

We also loved the location of this room – it was very convenient to the suite lounge/Coastal Kitchen, pool deck, arcade (our son’s favorite spot on the ship) and Windjammer. It was just a short walk to Adventure Ocean. It was a bit longer walk down to Central Park, the Boardwalk (our favorite location on the ship), and royal promenade – but with the extra desserts we were eating, the longer walks were perfect.

Here is a copy of the letter from concierge detailing the perks of being in a Sky Class suite.

PS: For those curious, the beds were firm but very, very comfortable.

Sky Class Perks 1.pdf

Sky Class Perks 2.pdf

I will be on Harmony Dec 10th - so like reading all the reviews. Thank you for taking the time!

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More than happy to read another Harmony review! Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts

As I have stated in other reviews, we are not MDR people. In our four cruises, we have only eaten once in the MDR – the first night of our very first cruise. We had such a bad experience, we walked out during the main course and have never been back since.

For this cruise, we ate at the following restaurants for dinner: Johnny Rockets (good), Sabor (good), 150 Central Park (great), and Wonderland (great). We also ate in WJ a few nights (good to great) and once at Mini Bites (good). My wife and son liked to sleep in, so they usually skipped breakfast. Not me. I woke up early and ate breakfast at Coastal Kitchen most mornings (great). :D For lunch, we went to WJ (good), Mini Bites (good) and Coastal Kitchen (great). We wanted to try Jamie’s, but could not get a reservation for the night we wanted. Maybe next time.

TIP: I am not sure if this will be true for all sailings, but for this cruise reservations at specialty restaurants were extremely difficult to get, so I highly recommend that you make your reservations before you board.

The entertainment on Harmony was unbelievable. We saw Grease on the first night and it was excellent. It felt just like a West End show. We also saw Columbus, which was quirky but also very well done. The Fine Line was so amazing, we saw it twice. We also saw Hideaway Heist – it was lighter and fun, but also fantastic. We did not manage to see either ice show - it is really hard to cram in everything there is to do on this fantastic ship. We did take our son to see Trolls in 3D in the main theater twice. It was a great movie and was a nice break in the afternoon. Here is a list of the shows for our cruise.

Harmony Shows.pdf

I will be on Harmony Dec 10th - so like reading all the reviews. Thank you for taking the time!

 

 

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You are welcome.

Our son went to Adventure Ocean most evenings. It is an incredible space, but I was shocked to see so few kids in there in the evenings. Last year on Freedom, it was like standing room only some evenings. I guess more kids were eating late dinner or catching shows with their parents on this cruise. Also, for parents with little children who do not want to use the Nursery, Harmony has a little play area where you can sit and play with your children.

The pool deck is also very well laid out. Our son loved the water park and the water slides. He dragged both my wife and I on all the slides, and they are a lot of fun. We stayed on the ship in Cozumel, and there were no lines on the slides in the morning. I think we went on all three slides in less than 15 minutes. One interesting thing occurred – during our stop in Cozumel, a swarm of bees took up residence on the canopy over one of the hot tubs. My wife and I were in the tub when she noticed a lot of bees. We exited and within 5 minutes there were literally hundreds swarming (see pic below)

The back sports deck is just jammed with activities. Our son tried the rock wall – his first time, and he did pretty good considering. He is still too small for flow rider, and the line was generally too long for the zip line. But we all tried the Ultimate Abyss. It was fine to try once, but not necessarily something you would want to do over and over again. The one activity that I wanted to do, but did not have time was the escape room – maybe next time.

We had three scheduled port stops – Labadee, Jamaica, and Cozumel. We did the same stops last year on Freedom (with additional of Grand Cayman), so the ports did not excite us too much. We booked the cruise to sail on the new ship. In Labadee, we booked a cabana at Barefoot Beach. It was a nice day to hang at the beach. In Jamaica, my wife insisted that we get off the ship and do something fun, so we booked the river tubing at Chukka. It was a blast, and to be honest, I wish we had also booked the zip line and tubing combo – maybe next time. As mentioned previously, we stayed on the ship in Cozumel and enjoyed the water slides.

One interesting thing tidbit for those who have followed my other reviews. You may remember in my Grandeur review, we were in Port Canaveral when Freedom was leaving. We were on the pool deck and got a huge cheer from Freedom, and then the crowd on Freedom started to shout “Our ship is bigger than yours”. It was this taunt that led us to book Freedom the following year. Well, flash forward to Cozumel this year, and from our balcony, we could see two Carnival ships – the Glory and the Conquest, and one Norwegian (Getaway I think). Well my son turned to me and asked – “Dad, can we yell our ship is bigger than yours when they leave?” I said, “Yes, yes we can.”

Enjoying your review. Your son must be very proud giving the shout out to the other ships. It was his time to shine:)

Disembarking was a piece of cake. We went up to the suite lounge, ate breakfast, and Raj took us down around 8am or so. We cleared customs and were in our car by 8:30am and home in West Palm Beach by 9:30am. The hardest part was pulling my wife and son off the ship.

In summary, we had another excellent cruise and met some wonderful people. The ship is amazing. Well, maybe it is not so amazing for those of you who have travelled on an Oasis class ship before, but for first-timers like us – WOW. We loved Freedom last year, but this was really an eye opening experience. The food was good to outstanding, and the service was, for the most part, excellent. There were times when we felt that the staff was mailing it in, or that there was not that same enthusiasm that we experienced on Grandeur and Freedom. But, it was not enough to ruin our cruise or even make it a bad experience. My wife and I are huge Top Chef fans, and there are times when the judges need to nitpick over tiny details in order to pick a winner and a loser. I feel like that is the case with this cruise. When I compare it to previous cruises, Harmony exceed expectations in almost every category – but yet, there were just these tiny things that would keep me from making it better than the other cruises we have been on – if that makes any sense?

The one thing that we did learn was that you really need to do some pre-cruise planning for this ship. Most of the restaurants and shows book up quickly. We did not need to worry about the shows as we were traveling in a suite, but we had a tough time getting into some of the specialty restaurants on the days we wanted. So, a little pre-cruise planning may have fixed this issue. My wife had been following Harmony on the “social site that must not be named” and told me that people were saying that the restaurants were booking up fast, but I did not believe her. I figured that they were holding back tables, and we would be fine.

Let me know if you have any questions. I have all the Cruise Compasses and AO Daily Planners. I believe that most of these have already been posted in the LIVE reviews, but if anyone wants them, I can scan and upload these in the next few days.

Enjoying your review. Your son must be very proud giving the shout out to the other ships. It was his time to shine:)

I was surprised he even remembered that incident from two years ago. :D

When it happened, my wife turned to me and said, I want to sail on that ship next year - so we booked a Thanksgiving cruise on Freedom the following day. My son was there with us, but he was only 5 at the time, so I had no idea he remembered the taunt...lol

Thanks for posting the C's letter

Thanks for posting the C's letter

You are quite welcome. The two LIVE reviews posted many of the cruise materials, but I did not see the letter get posted and thought others might find it useful.

I'm on Harmony now and loving it! DH and I saw 1887 tonight and it was great. We don't do the slides as we are retired and too out of shape, lol. We were a bit surprised at all the Suite perks Royal has removed. The luggage valet used to be free for Suites, now they charge $25 a person. There used to be a DVD player in the Suite, not anymore. And the Thermal spa was free when Royal started the new Suite program, now that perk is gone, too. Luckily I printed out the perks program last summer so they couldn't refuse to give us the spa. Small stuff I know, but it ticked hubby off enough to go to Guest Service and complain.

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I'm on Harmony now and loving it! DH and I saw 1887 tonight and it was great. We don't do the slides as we are retired and too out of shape, lol. We were a bit surprised at all the Suite perks Royal has removed. The luggage valet used to be free for Suites, now they charge $25 a person. There used to be a DVD player in the Suite, not anymore. And the Thermal spa was free when Royal started the new Suite program, now that perk is gone, too. Luckily I printed out the perks program last summer so they couldn't refuse to give us the spa. Small stuff I know, but it ticked hubby off enough to go to Guest Service and complain.

 

 

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You know, I remember the luggage valet last year on Freedom but we could not use it as we were driving the WPB to close on our new house after the cruise, and this year we drove to port so did not even look at the luggage valet (although I have the sheet with the compasses). I did not realize that it went from free to $25. I did notice the DVD players missing but thought that this might be just on Oasis class ships. But, they did add free Voom for each suite guest - I hooked up my wife's and my iPhones so we had Internet the whole week, and hooked up my son's iPad, which he used the watch his minecraft and rolbox You Tube videos all the time.

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About booking NCL, don't, at least not the Epic. The swimming pools are beyond tiny, like 12 by 12 feet, and if you're not in a Suite, the toilet is in the bathtub! I'm not kidding! So many other things are wrong with that ship NCL only built the Epic and cancelled plans to build her 2 sisters.

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About booking NCL, don't, at least not the Epic. The swimming pools are beyond tiny, like 12 by 12 feet, and if you're not in a Suite, the toilet is in the bathtub! I'm not kidding! So many other things are wrong with that ship NCL only built the Epic and cancelled plans to build her 2 sisters.

 

 

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Ouch. I think Epic was the ship that our friends are sailing on in Europe. We were not planning on going to Europe next summer, so I was leaning more towards Escape or Getaway. At the moment, we are only planning our Navigator cruise [emoji41]

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Thanks for the review.

I would have thought speciality restaurant reservations would have been held back for Suites.

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Thanks for the review.

 

I would have thought speciality restaurant reservations would have been held back for Suites.

 

 

 

 

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They may have held back some, but there were over 300 suite guests on the cruise - so any tables held back could have been easily booked up by suite guests. Although one other poster thought the Royal IQ app may have been to blame as it allowed people to book reservations, and both nights we went to 150 Central Park and Wonderland we heard that they had a number of cancellations. So I think people booked up the restaurants on day 1 and then cancelled at last minute.

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Thanks for the review.:)

Any reason why you didn' go to Coastal Kitchen for dinner?

We were a bit surprised at all the Suite perks Royal has removed. The luggage valet used to be free for Suites, now they charge $25 a person. There used to be a DVD player in the Suite, not anymore. And the Thermal spa was free when Royal started the new Suite program, now that perk is gone, too. Luckily I printed out the perks program last summer so they couldn't refuse to give us the spa.

This is very disappointing. We will be on Harmony in Feb. in a Star Class suite. I had heard that they were slowly stripping these Star Class perks and I'm sorry to hear that it is continuing.

The Luggage Valet thing is apparently screwed up all around. I hear some of the ships aren't offering it at all anymore. I hated hearing that. I LOVE the Luggage Valet service and I am very upset that they are charging for it. I guess I am just happy to hear that Harmony has it at ALL. Did you have to pay the $25 PP in the end ? I think we will dispute it if they try and charge us.

The spa thing is going to be a point of contention for us as well. I also have the original flyer showing that 7 day thermal spa pass. Did you have any trouble getting them to honor that ?

I have been told, over and over again, not to bother making any [specialty] dining reservations...that our Genie will be able to get us into any restaurant we want...but I am a little nervous hearing that the specialty dining room reservations were so booked up. I guess I will make that a point of discussion when we establish contact with the Genie before the cruise.

Hello to everyone! I loved your review! We are travelling next february and will be visiting the same islands. It'll be our first TIME with RC.

We are know, reserving Shore excursions. We' ve been at Jamaica before and done the dune River falls wich we loved. Reading you've done the River tubes I want to know if you consider they are good for a 12 Years old boy. We saw Videos and noticed that you go all hand to hand you say? And think they are very easy...

Sorry for my english. I speak spanish.

All the info you can give me about excursions in the same ports will be very welcome!!

Thanks!

Irina

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