A Review of Harmony's First Christmas!

[gi_pam]

Thanks for the picture of Abe's suit, I'll have to show my coworker! He wore the same one to our office Christmas party!!

 

 

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[beachnative]

Day 2: Christmas Day!

 

Breakfast at the Windjammer (see above post!)

 

This morning, guests were invited to the Boardwalk for Santa's arrival. In typical Royal style, Santa actually ziplined across the way above the Boardwalk and then took the Ultimate Abyss down to where the children were waiting! (Along with the Elves and a very hideously dressed Abe Hughes!!!)

 

The children were all chanting and shouting out for Santa, it was lovely to witness. All the children received gifts. Older children got a RCCL beach towel (inspired!!) but I'm not sure what the younger children got...

 

Here are some pictures!!

 

Spot Abe's suit [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

 

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Of all the reviews I've read, this particular post is tops!!! Santa down the Abyss. HaHa. I'm glad that I rode is on my B2B a few weeks ago.

 

Keep writing....you have me hooked!

[rodenboy]

Great review so far Rodenboy...looking forward to the remaining installations. :D

 

Thank you very much Esmerelda :)

 

Great review! We are sailing on her this fall.

 

Thanks! You will have a blast - i'm so jealous!

[rodenboy]

Thanks for the picture of Abe's suit, I'll have to show my coworker! He wore the same one to our office Christmas party!!

 

 

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Crikey, someone else brought the suit?

 

Of all the reviews I've read, this particular post is tops!!! Santa down the Abyss. HaHa. I'm glad that I rode is on my B2B a few weeks ago.

 

Keep writing....you have me hooked!

 

Thank you :)

[rodenboy]

I am sorry, I didn't realise how bad those images would look on a desktop! I will try and shrink them next time.

 

Christmas day lunch came courtesy of Johnny Rockets - you can't beat a good hamburger and we made use of our BOGOF milkshakes. I couldn't fault the burgers or the service but one thing Harmony's JR was missing was the jukebox and the servers dancing. It was always a source of amusement watching the servers dance and sadly they didn't this time. Ah well!

[rodenboy]

Some afternoon Trivia was next up, hosted by Floridan Janet and the subject? All things Christmas!! Some easy, some difficult - the highest score was 9/15 which was my team and another team but sadly we lost on the head to head :(

 

One thing I will say is that the entertainment team were, once again, top notch. A range of staff kept everyone entertained through Karaoke, Dance classes, Bingo etc. All the staff were friendly and approachable and it made for some wonderful events. In fact I would go as far as to say that the entertainment team on the Harmony was the biggest Wow on Harmony!

[Kathie13]

I am sorry, I didn't realise how bad those images would look on a desktop! I will try and shrink them next time.

 

 

 

Christmas day lunch came courtesy of Johnny Rockets - you can't beat a good hamburger and we made use of our BOGOF milkshakes. I couldn't fault the burgers or the service but one thing Harmony's JR was missing was the jukebox and the servers dancing. It was always a source of amusement watching the servers dance and sadly they didn't this time. Ah well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[flgatorgirl]

LOL! I know exactly who you are talking about! I was weirdly fascinated by this person...I didn't consider it a negative, just interesting!

 

 

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The "fascination" lingo made me laugh. My husband and 9 yo daughter took a decent amount of time making up a ton of funny questions to drop in the drop box to ask the cruise director during his late night morning show more about this entertainer. I told my husband the cruise director would never read all the questions aloud during the show, and he didn't. However, he did give them a shout out for being so enthusiastic about this particular entertainer.

 

 

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[gi_pam]

Crikey, someone else brought the suit?

 

I know, crazy right?! My coworker had that exact suit and the husband of another coworker had a similar one in green (the two fellows are friends and planned it ahead of time). I showed him the picture of the suit this morning, he got a kick out of it!

 

https://www.opposuits.com/suits/christmas-suits.html

[rodenboy]

The "fascination" lingo made me laugh. My husband and 9 yo daughter took a decent amount of time making up a ton of funny questions to drop in the drop box to ask the cruise director during his late night morning show more about this entertainer. I told my husband the cruise director would never read all the questions aloud during the show, and he didn't. However, he did give them a shout out for being so enthusiastic about this particular entertainer.

 

 

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Seems everyone already knows who he is ;)

 

I know, crazy right?! My coworker had that exact suit and the husband of another coworker had a similar one in green (the two fellows are friends and planned it ahead of time). I showed him the picture of the suit this morning, he got a kick out of it!

 

https://www.opposuits.com/suits/christmas-suits.html

 

To be fair, i'd buy one of those suits for a laugh which I guess is the thing Abe was going for. It isn't a flattering suit but I guess that's the point haha!

[rodenboy]

So, the evening soon rolled around and here it comes - MDR issues! We had our time booked as we had a show later that evening (Grease!!) and so we were relatively early into the MDR tonight.

 

We were sat down away from our usual server. Bemused, we asked the seating staff what was going on (you will remember from my first post that we said time didn't matter as long as we had a consistent server.) Anyway, we were told that our usual server had a flurry of requests and that it would basically be a first come-first serve thing for all the guests who wanted her.

 

Anyway, we had a great set of serving staff that evening, Jemarrrr and Ames on the wait team and Sandor on the bar staff. Let me say, you couldn't find a better team of people - chatty, friendly, personable - truly what you would expect from a "wow" member of the team. It certainly made up for the mishap of seating us elsewhere. The entire party had the Turkey today (it was Christmas Day after all....) but no Pigs in Blankets... are they a British thing? Either way, we missed them but the rest of the meal was top notch.

 

On a side note, I must have had Onion or Garlic soup as a starter five of the seven days on this cruise. I don't remember being so limited for options previously. I don't have any food requirements other than the fact I can be picky but I didn't think I was ever that picky!

[kdnurs]

Do you know if they were strict on the boarding time on your set sail pass? We have a group of 20 sailing on February 4th and we all have different boarding times from 10:30-12:30. Our shuttle is scheduled to drop us at the pier at 10:30. I called RCCL and was told because we have two diamond plus couples traveling with our group, we should all be able to board at the 10:30 time. Thoughts???

 

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Our group of 12 was allowed to board together and we were Platinum. I was told for every person who was Platinum and non platinum in our group could go. We had 5 so 5 were allowed and the 2 kiddies they said ohhhh just let them go:D

[rodenboy]

Grease is the word and this was tonights show. Let me tell you, it was superb. I could not fault this performance in the slightest. In fact, it was so good, I went and watched it again. I felt that the lady who played Sandy was out of this world. In fact, I could book Harmony again JUST for this production, I truly could. There are not enough positive things I can say about this. My concern going in was that I was wary as to how they would adapt the staging for a cruise ship.... I forgot I was even on one. An absolute MUST if you are sailing Harmony :)

[rodenboy]

Our group of 12 was allowed to board together and we were Platinum. I was told for every person who was Platinum and non platinum in our group could go. We had 5 so 5 were allowed and the 2 kiddies they said ohhhh just let them go:D

 

Hey Angel!!! I'm about to get to the part where I met you ;)

[kdnurs]

As I am between days I thought I would give you a heads up on some of the complimentary dining options we sampled (other than MDR - all that drama deserves its own thread ha!!)

 

Boardwalk Hot Dog House - It's a hot dog; I mean, you can't go wrong with a cheap sausage slapped onto a bun served with onions and ketchup. If my memory serves me correctly, there was less of a choice on Harmony than there was on Allure but to be quite honest I wasn't really that bothered; like I say, a hot dog is a hot dog!

 

Windjammer - Not a bad breakfast choice, most of the favourites still there. Selection did seem lacking in comparison to Allure but when pressed, none of my party could remember what we had previously that we had missed this time. Flavour was lacking a bit but that was nothing that a pinch of salt, pepper or the usual condiment couldn't sort out. The pizza they serve at lunch and dinner is infinitely better than Sorrentos. The dinner offerings are quite good for easy pickings. The Tandoori Chicken was particularly nice.

 

Park Café - you can't go wrong with the Beef sandwich and whilst I forgot on Day 1, I made up for it subsequently - in my opinion its still the biggest draw of the Park Café. I think a lot miss it because the Central Park has so many for fee options that people often mistake it as being the case foe the Park Café as well.

 

Sorrentos - Not great, every slice of pizza I had from there was burnt (to my taste.) Much better on the Allure, but again a Pizza is a pizza and a burnt pizza wont stop me going there again on Harmony or other ships.

 

Café Promenade - No real issue here either. The food wasn't outstanding but it wasn't awful either. I will give them props for trying new ideas but I preferred Allure.

 

All in all, from the free options for food, it's Allure all the way :)

 

We noticed that the menu in the Windjammer didn't really change much at all from day to day. I tried to do different venues to add variety to my day. The Solarium Bistro was GREAT for comp breakfast. I enjoyed the smoked mackerel a lot. My husband and I also enjoyed the main dining room for breakfast where we chose to do menu & buffet for added variety. Took some of the boredom out of breakfast. Lunch was pretty much the same and delicious.

[kdnurs]

Hey Angel!!! I'm about to get to the part where I met you ;)

 

Yeahhhhhh!!! Cant wait to read it ;)

[Gordo]

Thank you for sharing. We are sailing on HOTS on the same itinerary next year, so look forward to reading the rest of your review.

[4ofusreadytocruise]

Enjoying this so far! Thanks for writing...

[rodenboy]

So sorry about the delay, I had a couple of hospital visits and a family dinner on Thursday but we are back in business!

 

Day 3: Boxing Day!

 

Today was the day of the CC Meet and Mingle. A quieter one compared with all my other sailings, this time it was held in Jazz On 4. Everyone was really friendly and it was great to put some faces to names. It was great to meet Angel and her family, as well as Pam's family! A lot of posters sadly didn't make it to the event but as a holiday cruise we were told to expect that in advance. In fact, we heard a breakdown that there were over 2000 non English speaking guests on this sailing and over 900 children and teenagers. I have to say, I didn't notice this. But on saying that, I don't go round checking the ages and nationalities of all the guests!

 

 

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[rodenboy]

Boxing Day also included our visit to Escape The Rubicon! I have to say I wasn't happy that this changed from a complementary to a "for fee" event, but my family and I all love the Escape Rooms having done some in Orlando before the sailing (and after) and some here in England. The Escape room itself was brilliant, I won't give away any spoilers other than "be precise." There was an error on Royal's booking system so although we booked and paid in advance, we didn't show up on their "roll call." I had to show my cruise planner using the Royal IQ app to get in. We escaped with literally seconds to go. Here is a picture of the group of us all. I would say that you would get maximum benefit of the game with round ten guests, we had 14 and it seemed a little crowded at times.

 

I hope this picture is a little smaller than the previous pictures!

 

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Edited January 14, 2017 by rodenboy

[rodenboy]

So, remember how on Day 1 we went to Guest Services and ordered a cake (as well as decorations for the stateroom) as we had a birthday in the house? Well, we didn't get the decorations in the stateroom at the time agreed so during the day we went down to check that the cake was still down to be delivered that evening during our meal at Chops Grille. There was no sign of the cake booking and no payment had been taken for it either. Very, very odd I think you'll agree. We were lucky we went down and checked otherwise we would have had no cake.

 

We think they got confused at the time of booking and only registered, and therefore charged us for the decorations. But that's digressing slightly.

 

While at Guest services we mentioned our decorations hadn't been delivered so they rang the deck manager who told the staff at Guest Services that the decorations had been delivered that morning, when they hadn't. We eventually received them later in the day, hours after the original time agreed. All in all, it went a bit disastrously for the birthday events planned. As a gesture of goodwill they gave us a refund for the decorations by way of an apology for the mishap. Not a Royal wow service, sadly. There is a lot to be said for booking these things in advance, something we will endeavour to do in future. That said, they didn't have our Rubicon booking either. Maybe they just really did not want us on board haha!

 

 

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Edited January 14, 2017 by rodenboy

[rodenboy]

Chops Grille that evening went better! We all love Chops, it's the family's favourite "for fee" restaurant and once again it didn't disappoint. Most of the party went for the 20 ounce Porterhouse adding the additional cost onto the bill. No worries from us, we made sure we had our monies worth in sides, drinks and desserts. Then of course the cake was presented and the wait staff did a wonderful job of singing to my brother, who of course was mortified - like a true British person should be!!

 

The cake was absolutely gorgeous, it was a white chocolate and vanilla cake and it was probably better than most of the desserts offered by MDR the whole week! It was well worth the money and the effort, to get it!

 

 

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[rodenboy]

Thank you for sharing. We are sailing on HOTS on the same itinerary next year, so look forward to reading the rest of your review.

 

 

It was my favourite itinerary so far! We are looking at Allure with this itinerary for Summer 2018! Thank you for following and sorry about the delay in the posts!

 

 

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[rodenboy]

Enjoying this so far! Thanks for writing...

 

 

Thank you so much!! Again, sorry for the delay the last few days but I'm back now!!

 

 

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[rodenboy]

Day 3 also included the first of our two visits to the Comedy Club. Very funny, we had no issue with the fact that the comedian didn't like the Brits very much and found Indy sailings as well as the first Harmony sailing from the UK to be dire because the Brits and I quote "have a stick up their ass." I have never sailed from Southampton myself but my parents have and they find there is a huge attitude shift. The UK cruisers also don't like to hear about if you have sailed on a ship bigger than Indy. They really do love her over here!

 

 

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