Harmony 4/7/18-4/14/18 - some random thoughts

[iujen94]

Just got off Harmony of the Seas’ Eastern Caribbean sailing. Just a few thoughts -

 

Our family is me, DH, DS11 and DS14. This is our 4th cruise as a family. We’ve been on Allure, Independence and Oasis preciously.

 

Our stops were St. Thomas, San Juan and Labadee.

 

We stayed at the Embassy Suites on 17th Street. The location was perfect - close to the airport and port and right next door to a large shopping center with a Publix and Total Wine. It would have been an easy walk, but we just had our Uber driver stop there on the way to the port.

 

We got to the port (Ft. Lauderdale) around 10:00. We went through security, checked in, and got on board all with no wait. We were on board by about 10:30.

 

Had no trouble whatsoever bringing a case of water onboard. We just taped a luggage tag to it and it showed up with all of our other luggage.

 

We got into our staterooms right at 1:00 (the posted time). All of our luggage was on our floor but hadn’t been sorted and put right by the staterooms yet. We were able to grab it from the hallway and take it with us.

 

We did a 3-night specialty dining package and also had a specialty dining voucher from our TA. We ate at 150 Central Park, Chops (twice) and Jamie’s. We liked them in that order (the kids outvoted the parents to return to Chops over 150 CP). Our younger son is 11, and the adult dining package starts at age 12. When we purchased the package online, I bought the package for 4 of us at the adult price. At our first dinner, they refunded us his package price ($85, I believe?) and charged us $10 at each dinner, even though he ordered from the adult menu. We never asked about this and didn’t even realize it until we looked at our statement later in the week.

 

We were able to book all of our specialty reservations for the week at Chops (which just happened to be the first specialty location we came to). We had been assigned to eat at Jamie’s for our first meal, but had no problem changing that. We arranged our specialty dining as soon as we got on board, and I’m glad we did - when we arrived there was no line, but at least 3-4 groups arrived while we were making our plans.

 

We were able to see the weeks’ worth of MDR menus on our stateroom TV. Formal nights were nights 2 and 5, with lobster night on night 5. We all agreed that the lobster was a little better than it’s been on past cruises.

 

Our kids wore nice khaki shorts and polo shirts in the MDE and specialty restaurants (on non-formal nights) and fit in fine. We saw a handful of people in t-shirts and general “casual” wear, but most people looked nice - polo shirts were definitely the norm for men on non-formal nights.

 

We brought 4 bottles of wine on board for our 2 staterooms. For those interested in such things, if we’d been in a single stateroom, we easily could have gone through security with a few people in between us and both brought 2 bottles. Even going through back to back, no one batted an eye at us. We took wine to the MDR and each specialty restaurant. Only Chops said they had to charge us a corkage fee, although I don’t believe they ultimately did.

 

My favorite tip for Harmony (which I learned on CC) - there is a card slot right by the cabin door. You are supposed to put your SeaPass card there, and your lights and air conditioning won’t work without a card there. Any card will work - this was a great use for our hotel key cards from our hotel in Ft. Lauderdale from the night before!

 

We sent a dining room table request to rcldining@rccl.com about 3 weeks before we sailed and got exactly what we requested - a table for 4 by a window.

 

VOOM worked great all week. We got the 4-device surf and stream package on a Black Friday online sale. The only hiccup we had was, starting day 4, we’d occasionally get kicked out and would have to log back in. So make sure you hang on to the paper they give you with your access code!

 

The Royal IQ app was fine. We found that, although it had a Cruise Compass feature, it wasn’t as complete as the paper Cruise Compass. Also, you could make specialty dining reservations on it, but we found a lot more times were available if we called (or stopped by) rather than using the app. It was helpful for keeping an eye on our statement all week.

 

I bought my kids $50 worth of arcade credit for $40 before we left. I should have waited - one of the offers on their SeaPass cards (we are platinum) was to buy $50 of arcade credit and get $25 free. Also, it was frustrating that there was no easy way for them to see how much credit they had left on their cards (we had to check at Guest Services), and when the credit was gone, they were still able to charge the cost of the games without realizing they were spending additional money and not the prepaid amount.

 

We had reservations for the main aquatheater show for the second night it showed. It ended up getting postponed to another night and ultimately cancelled. So definitely sign up for the earliest show possible if this is a “must do” for you.

 

We were disappointed there was no secondary aquatheater show (on other Oasis class ships we’ve been on, there has been a second family-focused show during the day). Not sure if this was related to the problems with the main show, or if it just wasn’t planned for our cruise.

 

We were also disappointed there was only one showing of the “fun” ice skating show. It conflicted with our dinner, so we had to miss it.

 

We were pleasantly surprised that we didn’t have to leave our cabins until 9am on disembarkation day. I can’t recall, but it seems like we’ve had to leave earlier on past cruises.

 

Getting off the ship was something of a disaster. Only one gangway was working. We were group 53 and were supposed to disembark around 9:20. By 10:15, they were only at group 25 and had not called a new number in at least an hour. We ended up getting off anyway around 10:30 in order to make our flight. We had downloaded Mobile Passport ahead of time and we breezed through Customs - it was fabulous. When we were disembarking, we could see that they had not let any incoming passengers even enter the upstairs waiting area, so I can’t imagine what time the next cruise was ultimately able to board.

 

In all, it was a great week. Happy to answer any questions! (And unfortunately, no, I didn’t keep the Cruise Compasses or the MDR menus.)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Scootch]

Can you share why Jamie's was your 3rd fave? It hasn't been getting very good reviews. Was it the menu or the flavor of the food?

[iujen94]

Can you share why Jamie's was your 3rd fave? It hasn't been getting very good reviews. Was it the menu or the flavor of the food?

 

I was actually super excited about the menu - it was the place I was looking forward to most. But most of the food was just .... meh. The meat plank was FANTASTIC. We also got the arancini and crab/avocado bruschetta, and both were pretty bland. I had the lamb chops on the waiter’s recommendation and they were good, but not as good as what we had at Chops or 150 CP. And DH and my 2 DS definitely preferred those two restaurants to Jamie’s. So overall I’d say that it’s not that Jamie’s was bad - it just wasn’t as good as the other two.

[Scootch]

I was actually super excited about the menu - it was the place I was looking forward to most. But most of the food was just .... meh. The meat plank was FANTASTIC. We also got the arancini and crab/avocado bruschetta, and both were pretty bland. I had the lamb chops on the waiter’s recommendation and they were good, but not as good as what we had at Chops or 150 CP. And DH and my 2 DS definitely preferred those two restaurants to Jamie’s. So overall I’d say that it’s not that Jamie’s was bad - it just wasn’t as good as the other two.

 

Thank you!!