karmacats

Giovanni's Grill is on the deck plan but not mentioned in Harmony dining options. I thought it was one of premium restaurants. Also saw somewhere they served lunch.

I'm pretty sure giovanni's is being replaced with jamie's italian on the harmony. both casual italian, both serve lunch (for a fee, though less than dinner).

Can't wait...can anyone get up to the helipad? We will head there for sail away. Look forward to meeting you

yep, anyone can go up there.

there are a couple of ways to get there. the easiest for your first time finding it, as long as you can do stairs, is to go all the way forward on the outside walkway around deck four (either port or starboard is fine), until the walkway ends in a long staircase near the front of the ship. go up that staircase, and there will be a flat area, then another 5 or 6 steps that take you up to the helipad.

on liberty, you could also go through the sphinx lounge (called the pyramid lounge on indy) on deck 5 forward. there were metal doors on the sides of the lounge which let you out at the top of the staircase, so you only had to go up the last small set of a few stairs. these doors are not marked and don't really look like passenger-accessible doors, but they are fine to use. on liberty, DH and i went up the stairs the first time we went to the helipad, but came back through the doors in the sphinx so that we'd know what they looked like; after that, we went out through the sphinx. i'm not sure if the doors are also there on indy.

keep an eye out for DH's long hair - it's halfway down his back - that's how everyone recognizes us. :p it's actually pretty amusing during sailaway - it can get kind of windy up on the helipad if you go near the front, and he kind of looks like Cousin It.

The marketing says it's a dedicated space. So the puzzle remains. A search of deck plans reveals nothing.

oh, good. glad it's its own space, no matter where it is. i'm looking forward to it. :D

My favorite thing about freedom-class ships is that you can go on the helipad. We spend sailaway there, and last liberty cruise watched a meteor shower from there one night. (i'm on the same cruise as you in feb, so i'll see you at sailaway if you decide to head there :D ).

i agree the cupcake decorating class is really fun. the ice show on indy is also supposed to be very good.

Anyone know where Puzzle Break is going to be? My son is wracking his brain trying to figure out where they will put it

That's the puzzle. :D

It was in the teen disco on anthem. During the day they converted it into the puzzle break room. Not sure on Harmony if it will be a dedicated space or another multi-use room like on anthem.

Based on the small number of people who can do it (i think it was 12 per hour-long session) and the large number of guests on harmony, i really hope it's a dedicated space, so they can run it more often. the employee working there on anthem said it would be a dedicated space on the new quantum class ships, but i didn't ask about harmony.

a little more info about the shows/entertainment. looks like there will be two aqua shows, also.

http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/1222/harmony-of-the-seas-sets-the-stage-for-first-at-sea-entertainment-lineup-/

Just a quick thank you to those who said nice things after my novel posted yesterday. i agree this thread is waaaay too valuable to be closed. i've gotten most of my harmony info from here. :)

i'm really excited about puzzle break. it was a highlight of our anthem trip. and i love the ice shows, so i'm happy to see there are two of them.

These sound terrific, thanks for the info!

 

So is there a sticker or other indication of the package on your seapass? Or do they have to scan it to check?

There is a sticker - we just cross-posted and i talked about it a little bit in my previous post. :p

i've gotten replenish 4 times on 4 different ships, and sometimes they scan the card and sometimes they don't. they do seem to have gotten stricter about it, and the last couple of cruises they have scanned the card almost all of the time. at times when i've gotten to know a bartender and they recognize me they will not scan it, but usually they do.

Is it different if you prepay? For the soda only package, it's embossed if you pre-purchase, and a sticker if you purchase on board.

 

Is the sticker for the Replenish package different from a soda-only sticker?

whether or not you prepay for replenish, it's a sticker on your card, not embossed on it. i think it's the same for the alcoholic packages, too. i think only the "coca cola" logo gets embossed on the cards for people who prepay for the soda package; any other package gets the sticker, no matter when you pay.

the sticker for the replenish package is a little square that says "RR" for royal replenish. i have no idea what the sticker for the soda-only refreshment package looks like.

Thanks for all the info.

Just wondering what the cost normally is for nonalcoholic cocktails?

And is there a good selection?

 

I just can't seem to find any pricing or menu for nonalcoholic cocktails.

 

Thanks!

$4 - $5, depending on the ship (and sometimes depending on which bar on the same ship :) ).

there is usually a very good selection - the bartenders can make virgin versions of many alcoholic drinks - pina coladas, daquiris, lava flows, mudslides, etc etc. once i get to know a bartender i'll often ask them to surprise me and they come up with some good stuff; one made me a peach/pina colada combo which was delicious, and one brought me a rosewater lemonade (which was a standard drinks at that particular bar - cafe 270 on quantum - but i never would have known it existed if he hadn't told me to try it).

Just curious, do you ever hurt your arm from "ringing your own bell"?

totally uncalled for, dude.

i was merely trying to answer a question (what will the GS look like), explain why i had personal knowledge to answer the way i did (i've stayed in a GS on a newer ship, and the stylization on harmony seems to be the same), give notice about the shower/tub situation (there are those who can't climb into the tubs, and others like myself who don't like the tubs, who should know what they are getting in a room), and inject a little humor (because everyone loves sharing a stateroom bathroom with their spouse - and yes, before you berate me for my high-class, multi-toilet lifestyle, i know many people have just one bathroom in their home, including DH and i for many years, but now we have more and are each used to our own space when getting ready in the morning).

i'm sorry if i've offended your delicate sensibilities by a) trying to be helpful and answer a question and b) trying to make a joke (obviously a no-no on CC, even when you include a smiley) and c) being excited about my upcoming harmony cruises, because no one else on CC ever discusses their stateroom arrangements or upcoming trips.

if it makes you feel better about yourself, DH and i work 50-60 hours/week in public service jobs (making 1/10 of what we'd make in the private sector, but doing it because we feel public sector work is more fulfilling), only cruise suites when we get a good deal (that crown loft you're so jealous of? we got it on mega-sale and paid about $4000 - not cheap, but probably pretty typical for a 7-night family vacation), and have about the same amount of cruises listed in our signature as you do. oh, and most of our spare money goes to taking care of my terminally ill mother, who lives with us. we're not exactly extravagant. so forgive me for being excited enough about my first trip to europe in almost 20 years, and my first ever transatlantic, to joke about it in a message board about the ship we're taking on those voyages.

sorry, i did not mean to write a novel, and i know you really need to be thick-skinned on these boards, but apparently i'm feeling rather thin-skinned tonight.

now back to our regularly scheduled harmony programming. move along...nothing to see here.... :p

I wonder if the GS on Harmony will look like the picture or the layout?

 

I'm over the top excited for this cruise. :)

i'm guessing the floorplan/layout, as the picture looks like the one that's been up forever, but the floorplan/layout is new, and looks a bit more like the quantum-style room, with a partial wall between the living and sleeping areas.

i'm actually kind of bummed - we found the grand suite on quantum to feel really tight because of the wall. our friends' balcony cabins actually felt more spacious. we're in a GS on the harmony transatlantic and i don't want DH and i to be tripping all over each other. bad enough we have to share one bathroom for 13 nights... :p

then again, the description says the bathroom only has one sink, and the floorplan/layout shows two, so who knows.

i also noticed the crown loft master bath shows a tub instead of the awesome two-person shower. i'll miss that shower for sure! (we're in a crown loft in feb 2017.)

lest i sound too negative, i should say i really like the quantum/anthem style decor, and i think the rooms will look great. i've also heard there's good storage, which we'll appreciate - we're on the 7-night med in a balcony before the 13-night transatlantic in the GS, so will likely have a decent amount of luggage. :eek:

If I am reading between the lines correctly - Dynamic Dining improved the service but the food was the food at what ever restaurant you ate.

hahahahaha. yes, that's it exactly. and without my long-winded rambling. :p

We did the late seating (i think it was 8:30) of DD Classic on the 12/12 cruise.

We really enjoyed it. We had liked dynamic dining on quantum, but missed having the same servers each night, so this was like the best of both worlds - we got to rotate and try the different restaurants, but kept the same waitstaff each night, who were great.

Another benefit was that you didn't have to wait online outside the complementary restaurants. Even people with reservations had to wait for a bit to get a table number assigned. But those of us on classic knew our table numbers, so after the first night they told us to just skip the line and go in and sit. The table was in the same basic location in each restaurant, so we were able to find it pretty easily.

Dinner was still long - for our party of 5 it generally took about 2 hours - but one night we needed to get out early and just told them when we were seated and our servers made it happen.

To be honest, we had major issues with the food on anthem - quality was just poor, and i wasn't thrilled with the selections - but that had nothing to do with our servers or the "classic" experience.

The only downside for us was that, because we didn't really like the food in the complementary restaurants, we might have gone to alternative venues or ordered room service more often, but we felt like we should show up since our servers were expecting us. probably silly, but we did skip two nights (once for coastal kitchen, once for chops), and our servers seemed kind of bummed (we told them beforehand so they could use our table for other parties). if you're fine with the food in the 4 main restaurants, though, i think classic is a great experience.

I guess I'll jump in LOL... Wonderland is dinner only at $49 and Jamie's is $20 for lunch and $30 for dinner.)

 

 

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just fyi, jamies lunch was $25 on the 12/12 sailing. the price we had seen online was $20. we were kind of surprised when we got the bill, but didn't want to cause a dustup for $5/pp, so just paid it. the food was great, anyway.

Call the C & A number, not the general number.

 

800-526-9723

 

:)

Just did it. :)

Luckily this time I got someone who was informed. Kept my OBB credit (reduced to $100 from $200 as expected) and she had no problem giving me the $300 OBC instead of the C&A discount.

I'd never downgraded before - I'm glad it went smoothly. And hopefully this info will help someone else if they ever need to downgrade.

We also got a center-hump D2, so I'm pretty pleased with that, all things considered. Now I just have to see if i can convince our stateroom attendant to put a lounge chair out there. :p (or, more accurately, convince security, as they are the ones who usually put the kaibosh on that...)

As long as you keep the same booking number, you won't lose the OBC from booking on board.

You should be able to get the $100 OBC for booking onboard AND the $300 OBC for booking a balcony. If you are eligible for a C and A balcony discount that is NOT combinable with the $300 OBC offer.

Thank you both!

I'll have to have them override the C&A discount because the $300 OBC is better (we're emerald, and within 6 mos of the cruise, so our C&A discount isn't much) - hopefully that won't be an issue.

We are going to call tonight to do the downgrade when DH gets home from work. Kind of bummed, but oh well. Life happens. :p

DH and I are currently booked in a GS on Allure in May but are thinking of downgrading to a balcony. We booked this onboard so have a $200 OBB credit. If we downgrade the room, will we keep the credit (though reduced to $100 because of the room now being a balcony rather than a suite)?

Also, there is now a $300 OBC under the current specials. I know it's not combinable with C&A, which is fine. But does anyone know a) if it's combinable with the OBB credit and b) whether we would be eligible for it since we are just changing categories? The balcony is way more expensive than it was when we first booked the GS, so i would hope we'd at least get the $300 credit out of it, since royal uses the current price rather than the time of original booking - i'd consider this a "repricing" and therefore hope the credit is available, but who knows.

I've run into a ton of C&A reps lately who have given me bad info - i would have lost $100 on a cancelled booking if i didn't know any better - so i figured i'd get some cruise critic info before calling to change rooms. You guys are awesome. :D

chefs table/prime table/whatever it's called these days is in the back of chops. it's in a totally separate, walled-off room, but has glass doors where you can see through to the restaurant. we did not try it, but saw the room while in chops.

we also tried to register for puzzle break using royaliq and although the app said it went through, it never showed on any of our schedules. on day 2 we checked with the concierge and it was definitely not on our schedules, so he reserved it for us, but at that point most games were sold out so our options were limited. so, if you are interested, sign up early, and do it in person - i think you can do it at a desk in the seaplex. it was one of the highlights of our trip and definitely worth doing. if you don't get a slot, you can show up at the room a few minutes before one of the scheduled games and see if there are standby slots - 5 people got into our group that way, as a reservation of 5 didn't show.

So much of the negative reviews seem to be around the staff and their lack of attention.

This should be an easy fix and really needs to be addressed at the top.

The other negative reviews seem to be around technology failures (both on and off-board).

I really haven't seen much negativity about the ship itself.

These seem to be very easy fixes and really need some attention at the corporate level.

Staff is under contract, so maybe there will be a staff refresh soon?🙄

for the most part, we thought the staff was great. we had a rude host at chops, but otherwise, everyone was wonderful. the servers were way overworked - as my mom would say, they were running around like chickens without their heads - but even so, were friendly, polite, and fairly prompt with the food. other than the puzzle room, we really didn't have much issue with technology; the chat feature on royaliq didn't work for the first day or two, but otherwise we didn't have any tech problems.

our biggest complaint was lack of activities, and activities at weird times. on quantum i read half a book because i had no time to laze around and read; on anthem i read 3 books. (not that reading books on a cruise is a bad thing. :) ) we also didn't like we will rock you, but that's just a personal preference thing - we really liked spectra's and the gift.

our other major complaint was food quality, which seems to have gone down drastically since quantum, especially in the beef department.

obviously, each sailing, and each person on each sailing, will have different issues. i've heard plenty re tech and staff; we just didn't have them personally. what i think it adds up to is really growing pains; eventually everything will get straightened out and the ship will be fantastic. i just don't think they are there yet. (the possible exception to that is food quality - it seems to be going down across the fleet.)

Devinly Decadence also fits the bill and it's free. Depending on where your cabin is, it might be inconvenient while waiting for your cabin. Mine is on deck 13 so it's right near DD.

we didn't discover devinly decadence until the last day, and i'm pretty bummed -we had tried to go there for lunch a couple of times on quantum and it was always so busy that we didn't even try on anthem until day 7. we had the lunch buffet and it was delicious. i would definitely do it for embarkation lunch if it's open. and probably many other lunches as well. :p

Or they're not interested in paying that much for lunch when they first get on the ship (or later, given how it's apparently not very busy during the cruise, either).

on quantum it was often sold out for both lunch and dinner. it didn't seem to be nearly as busy on anthem, for either meal, but i don't know why - the food was definitely comparable on both ships. maybe it's the new price point. or maybe it just depends on the cruise - we were on a 7-night, so not much time to get bored in the complementary restaurants (though our quantum one was only an 8-night, so not much difference, and jamie's was always packed there).

normally i wouldn't pay for lunch, but on embarkation day it's totally worth it to me - a nice place to stow our luggage, and not having to fight the windjammer crowds, definitely makes my first day more relaxing. i know plenty who would disagree, but for me it's money well-spent.

Did you pay online or had just checked the price? I thought lunch couldn't be reserved.

had just seen prices online. lunch can't be reserved online or prepaid. it wasn't busy, though - i don't think most people realize it's open on embarkation afternoon.

Thanks for the info. I think $20 is the normal lunch price. I'll try asking for a discount at Wonderland itself and see what they say.

lunch is now $25. it still said $20 online so we were quite surprised when the bill came. decided not to make a fuss for $5, since we enjoyed the lunch (did it on embarkation day - nice and relaxing!).

For recent "Magic" cruisers...do they still serve brunch or tea in Palo?

we had brunch on our 10/28/15 magic cruise. it was on nassau day, as we didn't have any sea days (it was a 4-nighter with a CC double-dip).

It's so interesting to me how people have different experiences on the same cruise.

My party of 5 was also on the 12/12 cruise. we found the food in the complementary restaurants to mostly be meh, but silk was the favorite of all 5 of us, and our general tso's was crazy spicy (even according to my high-spice-tolerance DH). we all loved spectra's and hated we will rock you, and were torn on the gift (2 loved, 2 didn't, 1 not much of an opinion either way). i loved the more sophisticated look of the esplanade and honestly it doesn't feel much different to me size-wise than the freedom-class promenade, though of course they are both much narrower than the ones on oasis-class.

quantum last year was one of my favorite cruises so i had high hopes for anthem, and was a tiny bit let down. a lot of the activities were at weird times so we didn't get to see/participate in them, like the love and marriage show at 3:30 in the afternoon, bumper cars way early in the morning, and adult karaoke only held twice and both times during late seating classic dinner. since we did classic dining we had the same servers every night and no wait, which was great, but they were severely overworked and could have used more help. food quality seemed to have gone down a lot, especially meat - dishes that used to have filet or decent-quality tenderloin instead had some weird meat that was so strange we actually had a debate over whether it was beef or pork (the server insisted it was beef, but...blech). chops was raised to $39 pp and totally not worth it food- and service-wise. so, there were some disappointments.

there were a lot of good things, too, however. as i mentioned, we loved spectra's cabaret, and some of the food was quite tasty. we absolutely had a blast in the escape room (made it with 7 minutes to spare!), and those in our party who did it loved ifly. we also really liked north star, and the journey cover band. 270 is just the coolest place to hang out. we had great service from our dining room servers even though they were rushed, and from our stateroom attendant, and only came across one rude employee the whole trip (the host at chops) - everyone else was friendly and smiling.

sorry, didn't mean to hijack the OP's review. i started to respond about our silk dinner not being flavorless and ended up writing a novel. :p long story short, i do think there are staffing issues, and felt the activities were a little light and scheduled strangely, but we had a good time, kept busy for the most part, did not come close to starving, and would definitely sail on anthem again.