Hoopster on HARMONY, Jan 7-14 2017 REVIEW w/lots of photos

[birdylady]

Hey Claudio- Always good to see one of your reviews. Re: FLL tragedy, so glad you guys are ok.

 

Looking forward to following along.

Erika

[wannacruisemore]

Looking forward to this review and pictures! Thanks

[SilkySal]

Thanks for the great pics of the aft BW cabins!! It looks like we will still have a wonderful view, and I am more excited than ever now!!:D Yes, we, too, will request Vinko at Wonderland!!;)

[Geynnyth47]

Hey Silky. This is as good a time as any to mention a little bit about the Abyss slide view affecting the Boardwalk balcony....I hate to say this, but I think your view may be more compromised than mine. Note this first photo below. My cabin is the 3rd from the bottom against the Climbing Wall, and it also the cabin where the slide is at the most center of the Boardwalk, thus the farthest away from my balcony giving me a lot of open space... does that make sense? I think I got lucky when booking as I believe deck 10 (and 11) is the very best view with the slides farthest away from you.

 

 

 

Deck 12 is immediately under the bridge. The slide will wrap up closer to your balcony thus covering a little more of your view than me. Also, immediately aft and to your right you have the control booth right there beside you.

 

 

 

Here's my view looking directly out at the slide as it wraps away from my balcony and upwards, thus giving me a lot of open space to look aft.... note in my other pics in the first post when I stand to the very aft of my balcony I get an almost unobstructed view aft of the Aqua Theatre and beyond. I think the slide opens up at the top and might affect your view a bit more as it reaches the top. Seriously though, you get used to it no problem and added to the charm in my opinion. I loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

Yep! I had the 4 night dining package as well as my D+ BOGO... in fact I did only one evening in MTD and an interesting major fail happened on that night! I'll explain when I get there on night #6.

 

Anyhow, yep I did Wonderland on night #3. I'll have pics and a review of Wonderland later on. It was very cool experience and one of our faves on the ship. Ask for a waiter named Vinko if you can... totally entertaining and a great server. He has a deep voice like Vincent Price and a great demeaner so he added to the whimsical atmosphere of the place and the food as he described everything. Also, we started to ask him about the menu and what to order, and he said "let me take care of you. I'll bring out the courses for you and make your dinner special"... we did not order anything.... he just brought out all the courses of the most interesting and popular choices as we went. It was fabulous. :D

 

I'm dying to try Wonderland I was just posting about it, I'm glad it won't disappoint.

[Geynnyth47]

We're on 14305 can anyone tell me what the view is like?

[SailinC2C]

Quote""Anyhow, yep I did Wonderland on night #3. I'll have pics and a review of Wonderland later on. It was very cool experience and one of our faves on the ship. Ask for a waiter named Vinko if you can... totally entertaining and a great server. He has a deep voice like Vincent Price and a great demeaner so he added to the whimsical atmosphere of the place and the food as he described everything. Also, we started to ask him about the menu and what to order, and he said "let me take care of you. I'll bring out the courses for you and make your dinner special"... we did not order anything.... he just brought out all the courses of the most interesting and popular choices as we went. It was fabulous. :D

 

 

 

This is the best way to do Wonderland! We love that restaurant!

Edited January 16, 2017 by SailinC2C
Had shortened quote and it wasn't showing as quote

[CruisinMama2003]

Looks like this will be a great review so I will follow along too!!

[clpainter2001]

Following. We will be in 9307 in July. Any idea if we will be able to see the aqua show from our balcony? Thank you for the review

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[Hoopster95]

Ellen, Erika, everyone.... thank you for the kind words! I really hope you enjoy following along and get at least one thing you can use in the future out of this.

 

Great Start!

Was This The St Maarten, San Juan, Labadee itinerary?

If so, we're doing this in May for my 40th birthday!

-Michael

 

Hey Michael, yes you're correct.

We were supposed to be on the Nassau, St Thomas, St Marten itinerary.

The day we were leaving Cancun I received an email from Capt Bob from St Marten (Souilaga Tours) saying that my tour was changed from Jan 11 to the 10th. I replied back saying thank you, I must've made a mistake when booking and I really appreciated his service for checking on that without penalizing me. He emailed me back "oh, it wasn't your fault, we've been notified Harmony has changed itinerary and we'd be in St Marten a day earlier"

 

HUH??!! I was a little bit floored. I had not received any notification from RCL. In fact, standing at the check-in at embarkation I had still not received anything so I told the the young clerk that the itinerary had been changed and that I hadn't been notified... the young guy said "oh really?" He didn't even know :mad: The more experienced gal beside him was on the phone but quickly grabbed a paper with our new itinerary and threw it at him to give to us. That's when RCL was telling me about the new itinerary... as I was going on board... and I had to ask for it. As it turns out, the same document was embedded within our Day 1 cruise compass so I'm guessing many people didn't find out until they were actually on the ship for a couple of hours.

 

At this time Photobucket is not uploading any photos for me (it seems to be down) so I can't start any of my review yet, but I'll post this document when I can to show you.

 

And yes, I'll post the compasses each day as I go through.

Just know with all the bad weather we had many of the shows were postponed and changed, which then messed up other schedules. Also note we had a one-of-a-kind Headliner that performed a few times so that was a little different in the scheduling as well. At the very least you'll be able to see the venue hours, night-time scheduling, etc... thx for following :D

Edited January 16, 2017 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

We're on 14305 can anyone tell me what the view is like?

 

Following. We will be in 9307 in July. Any idea if we will be able to see the aqua show from our balcony? Thank you for the review

 

 

There's several photos on line from the sports deck looking down onto the boardwalk and the Aqua Theatre from afar. I wanted to post one for you which I took and put arrows where your cabins are but, again, sorry Photobucket is down for me so I can't post photos at this time.

 

clpainter I think the view from 9307 will be very poor for the show, you need to head down into the theatre for sure.

 

I see that 14305 is a disabled cabin... being up high you may be able to see some of the show through the Abyss, but I don't think it will be any good. do you have mobility issues Geynnyth? If so, there's plenty of areas for scooters, etc at the top of the amphitheatre seating reserved for those with scooters etc by the RCL staff. I would head down there, it's really not the greatest to watch the show from the balcony... I even preferreed to be seated within the theatre rather than in that last balcony I had!

 

Note, the plexiglass on my balcony was quite dirty and you can't see through anyways, you'd need to stand to see.

[Hoopster95]

This sailing was born from a wonderful thread that exploded here on Cruise Critic...

It was, I believe, a quiet summer morning when I logged in to Cruise Critic to see a Harmony thread that had just exploded with many pages of posts, with regard to the new Harmony itineraries being released and the price of cabins. I quickly searched and found that the prices were really too good to be true.... but in fact they were true. I know many posts were made about how several CC'ers never ever had Harmony on their target to book, but just could not pass up on the prices... I felt the same way as I thought Harmony would be super crazy expensive and thus I became one of those CCer's and immediately put down a deposit. The next day, prices rose by hundreds, by a week prices were over double and several of those who booked suites and lofts were reporting increases into the thousands.... prices never came down again. Thanks to Cruise Critic and whomever started that thread, here I was on Harmony! Who knew! :D

 

 

Fast forward to Jan 6, 2017..... I was affected by the FLL airport tragedy.

 

When travelling be savvy and listen to your gut....

During our transport from our Cancun resort to the Cancun airport, I was having a great conversation with a fellow vacationer, a government official from D.C. of some kind (he didn't divulge what his job was). I told him we were heading for a cruise in FLL, and he immediately mentioned he was tweeted by a colleague in D.C. about an hour before that there was a shooting at the FLL airport. Of course my gf and I looked at each other immediately knowing we'd have to be on the ball to make changes as necessary. Upon arriving to Cancun airport, we were 3 hours early but went immediately to check-in at JetBlu. Fellow travelers in line in front or behind did not mention anything, they did not know about the situation when I was asking them. The clerk taking baggage had no clue of the tragedy and they were collecting bags for FLL travelers at other wickets no problem, tagging and sending baggage through. I asked for a floor supervisor who came over and let me know they had been informed of the FLL issues but the plane will leave shortly for Cancun.... maybe there'll be a slight delay. Ya Right! :confused:

 

I told her we'll keep our bags and come back later, we needed time to figure this out. Without missing a beat we quickly walked down the hallways to the other airlines ticket windows. United could get us out to IAH, but we'd have to sleep over in HOU and then fly to MIA in the morning.... nope, we didn't want to do that. Spirit was sold out.... JetBlu nonstop to Orlando was sold out. Finally ***BINGO!!! American had a nonstop to Miami --- 4 seats left!! Ugh... I asked the price (remember I have to deal with the Canadian exchange rate also for me). I couldn't bring myself to fork over almost $1000CA without doing more homework to find out if JetBlu would do anything for me. So to the huge chagrin of my gf, we rolled our luggage back over to JetBlu, and I also called the JetBlu call center. The Call center told me that they know of the situation and the plane is delayed 2 hours.... but still won't be a problem. I talked to another FLorida resident in line who said "shouldn't be a problem, they were involved in an incident like this in Vegas and while delayed a couple of hours they got home no problem. The floor supervisor behind the wickets this time told me they've been given an estimated 3 hour delay but the plane for sure is coming.

 

My gf and I still smelled a rat....

 

THIS NEXT PART IS SUPER IMPORTANT and I will hilight and bold the most important thing for all of you to take note of if you don't know this next piece of information already:

We ran back to the American attendant who helped us. He said the 4 seats to Miami were still available. I was trying to get JetBlu call center back on line and was speaking with them at same time as the American attendant. That's when the American attendant then offered to reserve the seats for us. I said we'd have to pay and I don't wish to do that until I get assurances from JetBlu. He said "We can reserve seats on their system (I assume Sabre) WITHOUT paying until up to one hour before boarding!"

 

Thats' all we needed to make our decision.... we reserved as I continued my call to JetBlu. This second JetBlu attendant let me know that they were starting to give free ticket changes and outright refunds now not only due to FLL, but also the storms/weather issues on the east coast, so I accepted a full refund then and there and thanked them profusely. Within 15 min we were back in front of the American window buying our reserved seats to Miami.... the other final two seats were already sold as well so at this point we were the last two travelers in Cancun able to get to Florida on any flight that day. Had we delayed even a few minutes we could've been S.O.L. We gave American our luggage (best decision to not hand in luggage to JetBlu) and waited for our newly booked American flight. Both airlines could not have done any more for us, and I truly appreciate JetBlu's position to refund us outright to fend for ourselves if we really wished it to be that way, so thank you JetBlu.

 

So now the next issue is how do we get to MIA from FLL?? I fortunately remembered I saved a private car company number in my phone, but had to hunt for it as I forgot the name. I did find it and called, and I got the owner whom I had spoken to about 3 years earlier. I told him my situation and if he please had a driver available that night in this mess. He did! Superb!!... new flights into Miami and car service waiting for us when we got there

 

Fast forward to Miami.... what a mess! 2 hours to get through immigration. The driver waited the 2 extra hours for us. The highway into MIA was a massive parking lot for a couple of miles. Googling for info on my iphone as we went, I realized planes were being diverted to Fort Meyers, Miami, West Palm, etc.... my JetBlu flight out of Cancun... CANCELLED outright!! We would've been screwed. Arriving at the FLL Hilton Beach resort at 10:30pm, we were witnessing the lights of cruise ships leaving at that hour out on the ocean and of course we knew why. We assumed many people outright missed their cruises and we were just super grateful for our decisions we made throughout this day. We now had time to privately talk about the tragedy and how blessed we were to be sitting there in the bar facing a great cruise the next day with a beer in hand rather than mourning the loss of a loved one. Our thoughts were for peace for the families of those who passed and were injured.

 

Here's some well deserved advertising for the private car service I have now used twice, both times excellent service and exceptional communication:

FG Car Services (Owner: Francisco)... you can google their website.

I feel he could've jacked up the price in this obviously somewhat desperate situation, especially with the driver sitting there for 2 hours idle waiting for us to get out of the airport, but they did not. Flat rate $90 from MIA to our FLL hotel as quoted. Needless to say I left a huge tip and texted Francisco a massive thank you. He never once asked for a tripadvisor comment, google review, nothing... very modest. I hope many of you reading this can look this guy up and give him future business if you ever need a car/van/bus in FLL or Miami.

 

 

Well, photobucket still not doing anything for me so I don't know what's going on.... we'll have to wait for the pics. Stay tuned :)

[maryjaden]

We will be sailing on the Harmony in August, so I am looking forward to your review.

[Relmal]

We will be sailing Harmony in April! Enjoying your review so far and anxious for more!

[perfect match]

When you first mentioned the FLL airport tragedy, I was afraid you were going to say that you were in the airport during the shooting. I am very glad that wasn't the case. Still, it was a difficult start to the cruise portion of your vacation. I am impressed with how you and your gf handled the whole situation. I don't think you will ever know where your bags would have ended up if you had checked them in Cancun instead of hanging on to them like you did, but I seroiusly doubt they would have made it onto the ship for your cruise. I have taken some mental notes of the smart moves you made in getting your new flight and transportation changed so quickly. While I hope I never find myself in a similar situation, I hope I would handle it as well as you obviously did.

 

I hope Photobucket starts cooperating with you soon, as I am looking forward to the rest of your review.

[Hoopster95]

I wanted to post one for you which I took and put arrows where your cabins are but, again, sorry Photobucket is down for me so I can't post photos at this time.

 

clpainter I think the view from 9307 will be very poor for the show, you need to head down into the theatre for sure.

 

14305... being up high you may be able to see some of the show through the Abyss, but I don't think it will be any good.

 

 

Yaaaaay! Photobucket is back up and I'm loading and resizing photos for tomorrow. In the meantime, regarding the cabin/view question...

14305 is the red arrow on the top row on the right, 9307 is the white filled arrow below, also on the right.

Note that the Fine-line is scheduled in the evenings, so this night-time view is what you get. Even without the Abyss I think you'd both be too far back to see the show properly... hope this helps :)

 

[Hoopster95]

I don't think you will ever know where your bags would have ended up if you had checked them in Cancun instead of hanging on to them like you did, but I seroiusly doubt they would have made it onto the ship for your cruise.

 

You are 100% correct. We met several people who did not get their luggage in time for sailaway believing they may have it sent to St Martin 3 days later... nope, their luggage didn't show 3 days later either :eek:! Also, we were one of the first off in St Martin and there were a few groups waiting with luggage waiting to embark... they weren't entertainers, they were passengers getting on for the first time having missed embarkation. Ugh! :(

[4ofusreadytocruise]

Following your thread - thanks for posting!

[Hoopster95]

Well folks,

 

I apologize for the delay, working 8-10 hour days (yes, weekends too) really gets in the way of all my bucket list cruise/travel dreams, and really gets in the way of reviewing! lol

 

So let's get this show on the road....

 

I awoke on Sat, Jan 7 refreshed after a great sleep after the stress of the previous almost disastrous travel day as explained in prior posts. We ensured to get up early to walk around the beach for a while, so from the Hilton Beach Resort we made our way around down to Las Olas and back, stopping for pics and grabbing a few things (ie. suntan lotion... wishful thinking) from the local CVS. I hadn't mentioned yet, but our 1 week in Cancun was a mixed bag of wind, rain, sun, and unfortunately 50% cloud. And after receiving the head's up from Capt Bob for the Harmony's itinerary change... as well as JetBlu's stance on refunds due to "East Coast storm front" I was afraid our cruise would not be great weather either (foreshadowing).... more on this as I continue on.

 

I completed my check-in for my Set-Sail very early on, so I ws able to pick the very earliest time slot for check-in 10:30am-11am. I actually arrived to Terminal 18 by taxi right at 11am.

 

 

I had purchased tequila in Cancun, and thus I packaged them up in a separate bag (with bubble wrap) and pointed it out to security right when I was going through. Of course they called the agent on the other side of the scanner over right away, and I went over to the desk to pass them my booze. It was extremely simple and maybe took 5min. They gave me a receipt and sure enough on the final day of the cruise (I did not have to ask at all) the Tequila was in my room waiting for me in order to pack into my suitcase

 

 

The check-in area inside the terminal is divided into the Star/Sky/Pinnacle line and then separate lines for each deck regardless of C&A status. The lines were very equal as I went into the deck 10 line, and I had my sea-pass cards within maybe 15min tops. Heading upstairs into the huge terminal I noticed a D/D+ sign and tried to head over there, but there was a large group cutting me off up ahead, and one of the agents stopped me and sent me back to the normal "steerage" line I had just walked away from. I didn't care, the amount of people in each seemed to be equal. The funny thing is about 1 minute later we were being sent through and easily this "steerage" line was going way faster than the other side full of D's and up.... kind of comical actually.

 

Soon enough we were heading up the gangway!!!

 

 

 

I hadn't been on Oasis since 2013, so I forgot how truly huge the Royal Promenade is as we walked in. I've mentioned the many incredibly awesome photo reviews before me of Harmony, so I won't bore you with many photos that you and I have all seen before of the various public areas, but here is one of them as it's the first view of the Promenade as we headed up the stairs to deck 6

 

 

 

I also mentioned already my trusty go-to camera I have taken soooo many awesome pics and videos for my reviews finally gave out, but it didn't die until day 3 of the cruise. I think the lens was affected somehow as I have several weird colored photos and some of the exposures weren't quite right. I also realize that on this cruise I didn't take the number of pics I have normally done on other reviews, and thus I likely have a few less photos to share with you as I go along. Having said that I hope you do enjoy what I have... not that this next pic is overly important but it's my only photo of this area that seems decent to share. This is the Photo Shop, just right of the last pic of the Promenade on deck 6, built the same way as Quantum (I did a better review of how the screens work on that review: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45108054&highlight=Photo+Store#post45108054) This area is exactly the same and very easy to use with plenty of terminals and was really well staffed the last couple of days with extra staff.

 

[Hoopster95]

I forgot that I wanted to start each one of my days with a short synopsis of what I'll be reviewing so that you all can see what's ahead and I forgot on the previous first post, so please allow me now to summarize Day 1:

 

1. Embarkation & Roaming around the ship
   
2. Boardwalk B1 Cabin 10329
   
3. Jamie's Italian
   
4. Grease
   
5. Night Life
   

 

I'll high light those topics which there have been previous talk about and questions on CC. Also note as I go along, as in all my reviews, I come up with thoughts and things that occurred on that specific day that I can't remember until I actually get to reviewing that day... for example I just thought of drink cards, they were made available on day 6 only. I'll post about that when I get there.

 

If there's anything you wish to ask I'll be happy to try and answer the best I can as I go along as I've already done with a few questions :)

[Hoopster95]

I failed to mention that my #1 goal upon getting on the ship was to book my first night for the Specialty Restaurant for my 4 night dining package I pre-booked on-line, a great value at $100 per person. I initially found a RCL staff right there on deck 5 to help me by the dining room, and she looked up my account...

 

The expectation is that RCL books your first restaurant on night one, but in my case Royal did not book me into a restaurant that first night at all. I had the choice to do whatever I wanted based on availability. We chose Jamie's as my gf is a huge Jamie's fan and actually dined at 3 of his establishments in the UK, so we wanted to check that out right away. This RCL gal on deck 5 had a line-up of people forming, of course all filing in from embarkation, so she was eager to move on from me... I did not bother her with the rest of my bookings and would do that up in Central Park when I got there.

 

But I did ask for one moe thing from here: On night 2 I wanted to use my D+ BOGO and tried to book Izumi Hibachi... for the record:

 

Hibachi is not allowed with any dining package, and

Hibachi is not allowed with the D+ BOGO either! :(

 

It's full pop $35 per person, and by day 3 when I was looking through my Royal IQ ap just checking if I can make any dining changes, I discovered that Hibachi was fully booked each and every night, not a single spot was available whatsoever at any time....

 

so book that early if the Hibachi experience is important to you :)

[Hoopster95]

My intention of getting up to deck 6 right away after speaking to the Dining Hostess was to get out to the Boardwalk before hoards of fellow cruisers take over the area. I wanted to check out the Abyss and also the position of our cabin from below. But on deck 6 just on the other side of the Photo Store is the Schooner Bar, a place I rarely spend any time in (other than for trivia) so I thought I would head on over and check it out

 

 

 

 

My other Schooner Bar pics are quite poor... a couple out of focus etc from my assumed intermittent lens issue I didn't know I had with my camera.I took a few pics as I entered but also realized the partition blocking cruisers from entering the upper stage/dance/DJ area above the Promenade was open so I went in to check out the view from here and what the singers/dancers/Cruise Director sees during parades and events

 

 

 

 

It was time to head out towards the Boardwalk, passing back through the Schooner Bar and under hanging art within the elevator Centrum. This art did not photograph well for me, much nicer in person. The artwork around this ship is excellent and fresh, the best I've seen on any ship thus far, and I'll point out more as I go along in this review

 

[Hoopster95]

I recommend taking a few seconds to look around as you you go through this ship. Even in your own hallway of your cabin there is very cool artwork everywhere... the entry leading out the Boardwalk was no exception

 

 

 

 

And finally, our first glimpse of the Merry-Go-Round and the Boardwalk.

(looks weird with no one around at all.... ghost-town!)

 

 

 

And of course as you continue aft towards the Aqua Theatre, on the right you have Sabor (dinner - reviewed on Day 4) and Johnny Rockets on the left

 

 

[Hoopster95]

And of course what I really want to see is the Abyss and the general look of the Aqua Theatre with the new Abyss front and center. Keep in mind the initial majority reaction: Is it an eye sore? Is it in the way? Is it a fad? I tended to look at it like a new toy or new car, an added benefit, I thought it could enhance the view from my cabin as an added novelty (which for me did exactly that!). First glance looked very cool to me :)

 

 

 

What a beautiful view of the Aqua Theatre right there dead center! On either side you can walk behind the bleacher seating towards either side of the ship, which brings you to a set of stairs leading up to the Rock Climbing Walls on either side. We headed on up to take a view of the Aqua Theatre from there

 

 

 

This is also an awesome place to watch shows with an elevated view above the crowd. There's about 7-8 chair/loungers up there for public use facing the ocean which can be easily turned around to face the theatre. That's CCL's Conquest parked right behind and very close to Harmony

 

 

 

And finally here's a good perspective of the actual size of the slide and it's course as it winds down from above from the vantage point.

 

Edited January 18, 2017 by Hoopster95

[Hoopster95]

We were getting hungry, so we decided to leave the Boardwalk for a proper lunch at the Park Cafe in Central Park, so we made our way out of the Boardwalk, up a couple of flights of stairs (we try not to use the elevators whenever possible) and out into Central Park. I'll have more photos here in the days to come.

 

 

 

 

It dawned on me that I needed to book the remainder of our Specialty Dining so we scooted into 150 Central Park to complete our bookings for the week... all at the 6pm time slot I wanted except the final night, only a half hour later. I took a couple of photos here while we were there and with no one inside. This restaurant is designed beautifully. I'll have a review on day 5.

 

 

 

 

Ok, Ok... my stomach is telling me we've got to eat! Next stop Park Cafe. It really wasn't as busy as I thought it would be, and we grabbed a table for two outside as it was being vacated by other cruisers. In fact as we were getting our lunch, the announcement came that cabins were ready, so there was somewhat of an exodus from several tables leaving the Park Cafe maybe 1/2 to 2/3 occupied rather than full... perfect timing! Great time to eat is 1pm if you can wait.... many cruisers bail out to go to their cabins leaving the various lunch venues.

 

 

Of course I couldn't resist the infamous Royal Kummelweck roast beef sandwich, and for those who aren't into that there's plenty of other choices including soups, various pre-made salads, and the ever popular made-to-order you-choose-the-ingredients salad bar that is always excellent and fresh. I am happy to report that unlike the last couple of times, this Kummelwick was not grissly or fatty... it was perfect! Super good YUM!

 

[Geynnyth47]

Looks exactly like the Allure, at least I know I won't get lost...