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

[racerxspeedy]

I'm following along too! We'll be on Harmony in October and booked cabin #12329, 2 decks above yours! Do you think that view is just as good?:rolleyes: We'll be celebrating our 34th anniversary with our two adult kids and a few friends!!:cool: Also, wondering if you tried Wonderland and if it would be okay to wait until we board to make reservations there for our anniversary for 10 of us. Do you know if they offered any "deals" for booking on the first night?:rolleyes: Thanks! Looking forward to your review!

 

Here are some new pics from 12329 - .......since you asked

 

 

[SilkySal]

Thanks for the great pics of the great view from our balcony this October!!:cool: Don't go trashin' our room now, ya hear?:p Have a great cruise!!!!;)

[Hoopster95]

Is 150 Central Park included in the dining package?

 

Thank you for your awesome review!

 

Hi Inna. Yes, Central Park is included and I'll be reviewing it on Day 5 of you follow along. :)

[Hoopster95]

Here are some new pics from 12329 - .......since you asked

 

Thx racer! Interesting to see how different the view is and how much the obstruction affects the view only 2 decks apart. From those pics you provided, I feel that the less "obstructed" view from both the Abyss and the wing above is a lower deck than 12.

[racerxspeedy]

We will be on the ship next Saturday. Your review is great timing for us.

 

In 2 weeks I will post pics from our Cabin Crawl which includes the view from 11329 ....deck 11 ...which should have a decent view rearward view.

[Hoopster95]

I mentioned earlier that I feel night time on Harmony for me is more beautiful than during the day. Allow me to share with you a few photos around the ship.... having come back from Wonderland to change, I had the opportunity to take the following photos from the balcony.

 

 

 

The "Fine-Line" image was already on the big screens in anticipation of the crowds to come, as this will be the first performance to actually take place... the previous two being cancelled due to rough seas and weather conditions. Looking below, there was a small line already gathering, and we were a good 45min-hour before show time. And look at how Dazzles shines from a distance... just beautiful

 

 

 

We planned to enjoy a few minutes walking through Central Park and taking photos prior to the show so off we went.

 

 

 

 

Looking down into the Promenade through the glass enclosure

 

 

Edited January 23, 2017 by Hoopster95

[cruisedancemom]

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Hoopster95]

One of my favorite photos of this sailing is the following... although past Xmas, this picture has awesome color, very festive with the lights in the trees and sunglasses, and an excellent look into the elevator Centrum of the hanging artwork

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed that short stroll around Central Park. We hung around a bit listening to the cello player, taking selfies and other personal pictures, and then we headed back down to deck 6 and the Boardwalk to get to the Fine Line show. And what good is any Oasis Class review without the pre-requisite night time photo of the carousel??! lol

 

 

 

Sabor at night

 

[Hoopster95]

I don;t think there's a bad seat anywhere to view The Fine Line. other than the first 2 lower benches... the show does splash quite a bit so pretty much only kids went down there to be splashed on (and the performers made a point of aiming their efforts at them)

 

 

 

As with the ice show the night before, I wasn't getting the story line at all, but at least the show was entertaining with many elements to admire as it progressed

 

 

 

These guys are way way waaaaaay high up! And yes the tight rope performer did make it back to safety. I can tell you that during another showing that was rescheduled due to the weather issues, we were still experiencing waves/winds and while viewing part of the show in my balcony, this tight rope walk of the performance was outright skipped. I also think some of the dives were skipped as well as I watched a bit from my balcony that afternoon. So those at that show don't have a clue the elements that they missed seeing.... the show must go on!

 

 

 

 

Overall a pretty good one-of-a-kind show and performance to watch. One of the rescheduled shows was scheduled to daylight hours... I strongly recommend watching this at night as the lighting, effects and especially the various moves/elements performed have much more impact in the darkness

 

[Hoopster95]

With The Fine Line done we had several options...

Tonight was also the 50's & 60's party down in Studio B... we decided to pass on that. Also tonight was the "Silent Disco" once the nightclub opened in The Attic... we decided we didn't want to stay up that late. Still feeling under the weather and the effects of the stress of getting to FLL a few days before, we opted to spend some "quiet" time in our room before bed and hit the sack early, knowing that we wanted to be quickly off the ship in the morning at our 1st port of call St. Marten.

 

A quick note about ship time vs. island time... the ship stays on East Coast time, however the islands are ahead one hour with daylight savings time. Therefore an 8am sail-in to port means 9am to a local on land... and if you're supposed to be on your private tour at 9:30am..... well.... you'd better figure out for yourself when exactly you need to be off the ship and especially when you need to be back on!

 

A word of advice... never use your iphone for time as it may revert to island time!! Wear a wrist watch set to ship time

 

 

 

 

 

[rockon391]

Thanks for the review!

 

Can you get a picture of the drink packages?

 

Thanks!

[Hoopster95]

Thanks for the review!

 

Can you get a picture of the drink packages?

 

Thanks!

 

Shoot, sorry, I never did explore that as I don't drink nearly enough to make any package even close to being worthwhile. Early in this review I have a picture of the drink card.

 

Your drink package offerings were very clear in my cruise planner, so check yours.

There's a ton of other threads specifically on this topic if you use the search tool.

This may help you also:

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/shared_assets/pdf/menus/beverage-flyer-general-v4.pdf

[cpayne]

[quote=

 

The attic looked to be a really cool place... but this is the only time I ever saw it!!! I booked the comedy show for 9pm on day 4. There was never any mention that it was or wasn't a "family" comedy show and I was looking forward to my first time in the Attic from some raunchy laughs. When we got down there for the show, they pointed us toward Studio B as it was a "family" show for everyone, and that the late 10:30pm show is the one we should've booked if we wanted the Attic "adult" show. Grrrrr. Anyhow the attic did look like it could be a very neat experience and this was one regret for this cruise... the interior stage was very cool and the art/signage was interesting too (I like the sign on the left the best)

 

***********************************************************************

 

We too are signed up for a 9 pm Comedy show. I'd like to see both the family friendly AND adult show. Doesn't seem that the online reservation system allows me to register for both. Nor does it show that the 10:30 is adult comedy. May be some families in for a surprise if they sign up for the 10:30 version? Usually the adult show is later than this so 10:30 would not raise any flags to me that this would not be child friendly. Guess we will keep our 9 pm reservation and try the stand by list for a 10:30 show as well.

[tahqa]

The winds and in clement weather that cancelled fine-line and drove cruisers inside the nights before had taken it's toll on several of the Solarium panels. In all I saw at least 5 that were ripped like this one, or the full panel outright missing altogether.

 

 

Those panels have been ripped and/or missing since at least the first week of December. I like the glass roof panels of Oasis and Allure so much better.

[Hoopster95]

 

We too are signed up for a 9 pm Comedy show. I'd like to see both the family friendly AND adult show. Doesn't seem that the online reservation system allows me to register for both. Nor does it show that the 10:30 is adult comedy. May be some families in for a surprise if they sign up for the 10:30 version? Usually the adult show is later than this so 10:30 would not raise any flags to me that this would not be child friendly. Guess we will keep our 9 pm reservation and try the stand by list for a 10:30 show as well.

 

Agree with everything you say... I bet the 9pm you have will be in Studio B as well rather than the Attic. Simeon was great... but the "head" Comedian really struggled. It was totally lame. If I were you try to change your reservation to 10:30pm instead as they were letting anyone in at 9pm for studio B as it's so big.

[Hoopster95]

Those panels have been ripped and/or missing since at least the first week of December. I like the glass roof panels of Oasis and Allure so much better.

 

Wow, really?! :eek:

From the TA??

 

Yes, Oasis Solarium is SOOOOOOO much better than Harmony in my humble opinion. The slats on Harmony are a major fail in design... top deck 16 loungers mid-ship above the pool were warmer and less windy than the wind blown Solarium... wasn't a Solarium at all when you need to wrap yourself up with towels to stay warm. Now add no pool in Harmony's Solarium.

 

Bar none, the very best Solarium in the fleet is Quantum Class.

[Hoopster95]

Ahhhhh.... land ahoy! I was so ready to have a day ashore and hopefully with some great weather. I did not have a great sleep on this night. I had the alarm ready to go for early wake up so that we can get on land right away, but I awoke more than an hour before that and just was not going back to sleep... so I quietly got dressed and headed out to watch sail-in as we to arrive at 7am ship time (8am island time). It was just after 6am by my watch and this is what I saw once getting up to top deck... we were within a half hour of docking already

 

 

 

I had a bunch of time on my hands so I used this morning to get the many photos of the various areas I did not get the chance to do in the previous days, especially in the bad weather. I did a mini-tour top deck this morning and grabbed some great shots for my memories

 

 

 

 

Here's a close-up of the slides as I walked forward on the port side of the ship. On this side is also a private entrance p to the suite deck, very convenient down to the slides and other amenities of the pool deck if you are staying on the suites

 

 

 

 

And before entering the Solarium, here's a look down into one of the cantilever hot tubs... I am not joking, in your mind's eye picture this... My gf and I counted 25 heads in there one day. It was disgustingly packed every time we walked by, "people soup" my gf called it. I have never seen anything like it on any other RCL ship. We were totally turned off and did not even bother ever trying the hot tubs.

 

[Hoopster95]

I entered the port side of the Solarium.... what a difference in the quiet morning vs. the crowded peak sea days we just had. This space is beautiful other than the two extremely major design faults (well, in my opinion anyways): The slats of the roof offering zero protection from any wind, and especially when travelling at 20 knots during sea days, and of course the lack of a pool. I guess RCLs argument here would be that we have 4 pools outside on the pool deck.

 

 

 

 

Down below is a small misting/shower area. You can also see the hillside of St Marten in the distance, gives you an idea of the broken view with the slats breaking it up. In comparison, Quantum's full floor to ceiling basically 2-3 storey full glass panels are outrageously awesome for site lines and view, I feel Harmony should followed that design instead.... oh, and Quantum has the cascading 3 tier wading pools also.

 

 

 

 

The very best view forward is at the bottom level of the Solarium directly in front of the glass. This is the place to go. There's Jewel already docked... more on this shortly

 

 

 

And for those of you wondering, clearly labelled in several areas of the Solarium......

 

[Hoopster95]

Exiting the Solarium on deck 15, I happened to be at the slides area which I really hadn't investigated yet. While I had hoped to spend some time on the slides this cruise, it sure hadn't happened yet with the weather, and now with 3 port days coming my timing to do so will be challenged. Here's some cool shots right under and beside the two sets of slides.

 

 

 

The flight of stairs up to the top is really not bad at all... basically approximately equal to 2 decks.

 

 

 

I found the signage on this ship to be exceptionally clear... whether in the Solarium, pool deck, slides, wherever... signs/rules are clearly visible.

 

 

 

The Perfect Storm definitely looks really cool, and you will see it's the slide with the longest lines as I discovered. It's also the most fun of the three slides. More on this on another post when I finally do the slides...

 

 

 

 

Unbelievably, we spent zero time... not a single second... throughout this entire cruise anywhere on the pool deck. Blows me away actually. Time and weather didn't allow for it this time in our case. In retrospect, the determining factor every time we were up there (either taking photos, passing through to the sports deck, trying for loungers but opting for the Solarium, etc) All 4 pool deck areas were grossly crowded, the worst I've seen. Not only that there is zero siteline, and I do mean zero, of anything to do with the ocean, you may as well just be in a pool at a local hotel resort in Vegas or any other city... Made me long for the dreaded small pool deck of {.... GASP!!!!...} Radiance Class!!!!! {...foreshadowing... next post...}

 

[Hoopster95]

Many of you following along have likely read many of the comments on various threads about how the worst pool deck in the RCL fleet is on Radiance Class, and that Radiance Class, while the favorite of many regulars here on CC, is no where close to being my fave at all.....

 

Well.... que the "I told you so's"! lol.

I'm sure all you PNs and D+'ers out there would figure good old Hoopster would come around at some point....

 

We were close to docking and I walked to the port side to view our proximity to the pier as Capt Johnny had pulled ahead and then put Harmony into reverse to back into the pier... and there she was in all her glory.... Jewel! I literally stopped in my tracks and grinned, I could not believe what I was thinking. At that very moment, I actually said to myself inside my head "I wish I was on Jewel instead". I know, I know, all you Radiance lovers out there are all laughing at me now, elbowing your significant others "HONEY, come here! LOOK AT THIS!!! Hoopster actually prefers Radiance Class now!!!" lol

 

 

 

Yep I'll be on Jewel in Aug/Sept far a b2b. I was just on her last December as well prior to Explorer and Adventure, and I quickly determined that regarding these first 4 days on Harmony as my criteria, I was longing for those "smaller" classes over Oasis Class. I also quickly thought that if RCL continues to build more and more Oasis Class ships going to Nassau and Cozumel over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ..... whew! over again, that the RCL mega ship resort brand will slowly be losing my business.

"Long live Voyager and Radiance Class!" {torches and pitchforks in hand. marching in Miami to the RCL's head office front door} LOL!!!!

 

On the other side of Harmony the P&O Ventura was already docked as well.

 

 

 

And off in the distance Grandeur was approaching

 

 

 

Ok.... back to the port side to take a closer look at Jewel.

 

 

 

As we pulled up beside her, I took a close up of her brand new deck 11 balcony cabins just below the gym and running track... that's my only concern for Jewel. I noticed on Navigator with all of her new cabins that she was more crowded than my previous Voyager Class sailings, and hopefully the few cabins added to Jewel during her drydock last year doesn't add too many more people as Radiance Class has the best public space per passenger ratio of any of the RCL ships. My b2b in Aug/Sept will be Greek Isles plus a very cool Western Med itinerary, 5 ports in 6 nights including Monaco, Barcelona (9am-9pm), Palma De Mallorca, Sardenia and Cagliari... superb. Can't wait!!

 

 

 

And now Grandeur was backing in and parking right in front of Jewel. My understanding was Grandeur's port time was 8am - 2pm so also the first to leave in the afternoon. Ugh... too short a time in port for St Marten.

 

[Hoopster95]

Here's some last looks at the various pools at the pool deck. Now, like in the previous images from yesterday, imagine from this viewpoint all of those loungers strewn in every direction, fellow cruises sitting and climbing over the rocks and railings, general chaos with 1/.2 hour to 45 min lines for one slide ride.... uhm ya... NO! Sure is beautiful when empty!

 

 

 

I really liked the look and design of the kids pool. Very very cool

 

 

 

 

And here's the "adult" pool of the 4 pools

 

 

 

 

A last look at deck 16 above pool deck. Like deck 15 below, this area was chaos as well. Loungers were pulled out a rotated depending on the sun's direction... and when necessary, pulled out into the paths at an angle. Like my pool deck comment above... sure looks great empty! lol

 

[Hoopster95]

Up on deck 16 in the elevator landing at the WJ is this scale model of Harmony

 

 

 

The screens on each deck close to the elevators are great for finding your way around and looking up the compass and venues. On port days they have a small synopsis of the port and the current weather... as you can see here docking at 6:58am ship time, 75 degrees F. I was truly hoping for warmer, but that wasn't to be on this vacation unfortunately.

 

 

 

You rarely see "average Joe" pictures in reviews of the elevator landings, hallways, etc, so I thought I'd include them here.

 

 

 

 

 

Back to my cabin.... coffee, breakfast, back-pack packed... good to go! I took one final shot of Harmony docked from my balcony.

 

[Hoopster95]

We were one of the first off the ship, the group in front of us had just started to move as we headed down the stairs to deck 3... and down the elevator we went to the security checkout.... "BONG"... and out we were!

 

 

I love St Marten as it affords superb site lines for photographing ships in port. Today was no exception with Harmony. Wow... she is HUGE

 

 

 

 

 

I love this photo, which is likely rare in some respect, with both Jewel and Grandeur together in the same frame docked end to end

 

 

 

I had reserved on line a private tour with Soualiga Boat tours, the #1 tour as rated by Tripadvisor. I did their tour 2 years ago and it was excellent! I had no qualms booking it again to share the experience with my gf. My previous review of Soualiga is here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45026626&highlight=Docked+and+off#post45026626

It is definitely different than this review today so you should look back on it if interested. It's interesting to have a positive experience one time, and then the next it's the exact same people/places/boats/etc but the experience is different.

 

For those of you who do not know the St Marten pier, bear with me. But reaching Soualiga is very easy. Just walk through the pier shopping area to the taxi stands, past the big "St Marten" sign where everyone takes pictures, through the security check point gate, and out on to the sidewalk. This yellow building and "Chesterfield's" restaurant will appear in about ten minutes of easy walking. Go through the restaurant and the Soualiga's pier with all of their boats are there waiting for you... extremely easy.

 

 

[Hoopster95]

We arrive to check in, signed the waiver, and were told "it's 9:30am now, but you're going to be on a 10;30am tour"

... Huh?

"Well, we need you to be more flexible as the ships before you are leaving earlier so we're putting you on the last tour leaving for the day"

...Uhm ok

"And by the way, you have to wait as the Celebrity and CCL ships are just pulling in and we have to wait for passengers to arrive from the ships"

... GRRRRRR!

 

 

Not much we can do, I just wish we were given the heads up by email so we could've taken our time in the morning rather than rushing to ensure we were there on time. We made the best of it... we told Capt. Bob we were going for a walk, so we headed over to the beach for a short stroll... still very empty as the 6 ships full of passengers on this day haven't streamed onto land yet

 

 

 

Passing the well known Holland House, I found this sign and took note by talking to the guy trying to sell us loungers... hosted by a local restaurant called "Nu", this wasn't a bad deal at all considering the number of ships in port and the likely high demand. I'll keep this in mind for next time

 

 

 

We continued our walk to the ferry pier, than around to the shoppig areas on Front street which were starting to open, walking all the way back past Old Street and the Guavaberry Hut. Gf found a great little store at the end with import Italian clothing and bought a couple of pieces before we quickly made our way back as per the tour's request at 10:30... they still weren't ready. In fact, we didn't load the boat until closer to 11am. It was mentioned that we would still have plenty of time to do the full tour but in the end I felt a couple of things were rushed.

 

It was explained to us that our itinerary would be shifted as we had a late start compared to the other boats that have already left, so our order of what sites we go to will be adjusted accordingly. No problem, as long as we have a great day I didn't care!

 

We had a beautiful day today as we sailed out of Philipsburg and around towards the airport and Maho Beach. Just before getting to Maho we turn inland and go underneath the swing bridge and into Simpson's Bay to check out all the mutli-gazillion dollar yachts. I f I remember correctly, the bridge opens regularly twice a day I believe, but if you wish to order the bridge to open to get your yacht out, you can pay them a very small and nominal fee of several thousand dollars to open the bridge when you want them to!

Here is an incredible youtube drone video of Steve Jobs' yacht "Venus" going through

 

 

 

Heading past Simpson's Bay, we cruised under the Simpson's Bay Lagoon Causeway Bridge, thus crossing the border from the Dutch side to the French side. We cruised around reaching Marigot in the distance and we could see Fort Louis perched high up on the hill in the distance... such great memories! If you haven;t seen my Fort Louis pictures from my Adventure review this past August, take 30 sec to click this link and view... definitely worth the while and likely you'll want to visit Marigot yourself after seeing these pictures:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=50941510&highlight=fort+louis#post50941510

 

 

 

Our first stop would be "Creole Rock", a well known snorkeling spot visited by all boat tours. The snorkeling was horrible as the visibility was almost zero. The waters were churned up and everything was a dull brown gray with maybe 3 feet visibility if you were lucky. Very disappointing. We tried our best to see anything and move to various parts of the reef but to no avail. Ah well, c'est la vie

 

Next stop would be the beach of Grand Case, a French resort town. Here we would throw anchor and climb out to the beach to be fed at a local restaurant. It was the same place as 2 years ago on the previous tour. The beach is beautiful with a really high surf. We had time to walk up and down the beach to take various pictures, as well as walk out to the road side to get a feel for the street, traffic, french signage, etc.

 

 

 

Lunch is fabulous! The fresh Mahi is a must. Another must I discovered last time is their Guavaberry liquer smoothy. I went to the bar to order a pair right away before walking around out in the streets. When we came back in 5 min later others in our group saw what I had ordered and there was a line for the smoothy lol! Delicious

 

[Hoopster95]

Lunch over we headed for another well known boating spot, an island called Ile Tintamarre, where there's supposedly lots of turtles. Well, visibility here was great but there were zero turtles. And unfortunately there was hardly any other fish as well. Very disappointing, another bad stop with not much to see other than having a swim. The highlight here was gf diving down about 20ft to pull up a very large and live conche. But truthfully we stared down out a whole lot of sand and sea grass for a half hour

 

Next stop... Pinel Island. I loved this place last time, and loved it again. This was even more disappointing than the snorkeling... we only received 25min here. It was commented several times to the Capt that we should have cut short the snorkeling time to have more time here instead.

 

 

 

This island is also famous for Iguana's, however like the fish and turtles, there were very few that showed up compared to 2 years ago. Check this out:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45026879&highlight=iguana%27s#post45026879

It's too bad as I came prepared with some left over french fries from Grand Case to feed them, so the few iguanas that did show up had a feast!

 

 

 

We had to leave way way way too soon. What a shame. It was explained to us that there's a local ferry that transports from the mainland (Yellow Beach) to Pinel island every half hour during the day if you wish to pan for a self excursion. I just might have to plan for that next time

 

 

 

Heading back "home" the Capt/ went full throttle around the island back the same way we came, except bypassing Marigot to follow the coastline with Anguilla in full view off in the distance. We passed several of the luxury homes on the hillside, including one owned by Trump, and also had a short stop at Maho. He had only about 10 minutes there and said that was all the time we had and can't wait for any planes to land... waste of time. On the way back now to Phillipsburg we pass close by to this impressive masted schooner just outside of Simpson's Bay... very impressive.

 

 

 

Now having left Maho maybe 5-6 minutes beforehand, I look back and see a very large plane landing, looks like it's the huge AirFrance Airbus as I can make out the AF tail logo... just missed the best plane of the day. Grrrrr. Ah well. We were almost home

 

 

 

We were dropped off about an hour before all aboard so no issues getting back. One of my cruise rituals is to get a shot of the aft end of the ship by the roped tie downs... no exception here.