A Harmonic Voyage Home, a Harmony Transatlantic video series (& 18,000+ photos)

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Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! Coming off the holiday weekend it seems fitting to go to the holiday at sea with the Spooktacular Halloween Party. On the night of October 30th the entertainment staff took over the Royal Promenade to get everything decorated for the next day. In a couple hours they traveled from one end to the other throwing decorations up all around the Royal Promenade.

 

 

 

 

They had a lot of festive decorations for fall as well as Halloween, with tons of pumpkins and apple popping up all over the place.

 

 

In other areas of the ship they added a few carved pumpkins.

 

 

During the day they had some halloween themed events like a scavenger hunt and lectures in addition to the usually scheduled sea day activities.

 

The actual Spooktacular Halloween Celebration started at night with the haunted house in the On Air Club. This was run by the entertainment staff and featured a walk through of several different scenes from horror movies and some zombies and other creatures trying to scare the guest. It was a fun part of the event and the line for it stretched all the way to the theater and out onto the jogging track as everyone wanted to give it a try.

 

 

Following that they kicked off the party with Tino Jackson's tribute to Michael Jackson. It took place down at the end of the promenade in front of the Rising Tides Bar and was PACKED! It was the most crowded the ship got at any point with so many people trying to cram into the small area to see, and it was a small area that could actually see the event. I've said it a couple of times, but I'll say it again, the Royal Promenade is huge, but is really lacking in viewing space when holding events the way they do.

 

It's common for ships to do the Thriller dance lessons, and they are often performed on their own with no audience or shoe horned awkwardly into another event. This was tagged onto the end of Tino's performance as it naturally fit. For once it actually worked for the whole night with Tino's crowd pleasing performance as Michael Jackson and the Thriller performance bridging the gap to the costume contest and Halloween Party that I'll have later today.

 

Hope you enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions about Halloween on the Harmony of the Seas. This was my first Halloween, I've been at sea for Thanksgiving twice, but no other holiday. It was certainly a huge step up in terms of the entertainment and acknowledgement of the holiday compared to Thanksgiving, but it's also a much easier holiday to do activities for.

 

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Couldn't fit it in the last post, but one Michael Jackson for good measure.

 

 

Following the Michael Jackson tribute the ships band played a few songs to fill the gap until the costume contest began. This took place on the same stage as the Michael Jackson tribute but had a smaller area sectioned off so there was a bit more room to fill into watch, but it was still packed! The compass listed it as a parade through the promenade and even the crew were expecting a parade. But they ended up just doing a catwalk which disappointed a lot of people that had been waiting back farther (even just at the pub) and didn't get to see anything. The costume catwalk took about an hour with 265 guests participating. They had several categories and Abe Hughes commentated the entire event.

 

 

I'm not going to play favorites so you can check out the photos from October 31st to see a few or watch the video to see all of them.

 

Following that the band returned to play a few more songs until it was time for the cruise director staff to announce the winners of the costume contest.

 

 

That was immediately followed by the countdown to the balloon drop to cap off the night!

 

 

 

Apparently a balloon drop is just an excuse to pop balloons because from the moment the first fell it triggered several minutes of continuous balloon popping throughout the promenade until every last one was dead.

 

The band continued playing for a few more hours until nearly everyone was gone, most had left after the balloons were done. This of course left behind the huge mess of popped balloons.

 

 

The cleaning crew took care of that quickly though and before I even went to bed all the trash was gone like it never happened.

 

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There are several different kinds of official parties on-board the Harmony of the Seas. It's actually the nicest variety I've seen of any ship with three very distinct events that each have their own style to try and appeal to the different demographics that sail.

 

The first party I'm going to share is the new headliner party for the line, Harmony High. It took place on the 25th, the sea day between the ports and the same day as the Captain's Reception and Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle. This is a party based on the concept of a high school dance to play off the theme of Grease since it's the main musical. While the music matches some of the past Centrum and Royal Promenade parties, the experience and style of the event is much closer to Groovytown. If you've been following my past reviews you probably remember that I didn't care for Groovytown AT ALL. It was simple music and dancing with very little to really see except a few in character people, some small dance moments and then a dance off. That's pretty much how Harmony High can be described but they seemed to have learned from a few things.

 

 

Harmony High features the band playing live through the whole event along with the entertainment staff in character. But instead of a few dance moments on stage, the entertainment staff were moving throughout the crowd the entire event and had a humorous story line that progressed throughout the event. I'm not sure how many people on the dance floor saw it, but from the seats watching you could clearly see and follow the hilarious plot as it unfolded with the music throughout the event (as you can in the video below). That didn't take it to the wow factor of a Royal Promenade/Centrum party, but it certainly gave it a big dose of entertainment value for the full length of the event, something Groovytown was severely lacking. Now some of that could have been the entertainment staff themselves, I have no idea, so it may not be the same during other shows, but it was certainly entertaining for ours on the Transatlantic.

 

 

 

 

Towards the end of the event they did a class and dance a massive dance.

 

 

As well as a dance off, both similar to the ending segments of Groovytown.

 

 

Just like Groovytown and most of the parties, once the actual event portion with the entertainment staff was over the band continued to play more songs for a while into the night.

 

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The second and third events both took place on November 2nd starting with the Totally Awesome 90's Street Party in the Royal Promenade. This would be the event that most closely matches the perception of what a traditional Centrum/Royal Promenade party is supposed to be like. It was hosted by the Activities Manager Tino Jackson along with a team of entertainment, youth, and sports staff members. Once again it utilized the temporary stage at the Rising Tides ends of the promenade as well as the three upper level overlooks that were used for the Captain's Reception.

 

 

It mainly features dancing as they went through the different songs and doing some of the classic dances. There really wasn't too much produced to it in terms of costume changes or enhanced elements like the other traditional shows have (Rock Britannia probably being the most produced).

 

 

It does utilize the venue lighting though and IMO thanks to the 90's music is a bit more up beat and high energy than some of the other parties.

 

 

I enjoyed it because I know and enjoy the music so for me this was the first party to have nostalgia to it. It didn't get anywhere near the size crowd I would have expected though. A lot of people online seemed to hate it from the moment they heard 90's and I would assume didn't turn out to give it a chance. Even liking the concept though, I have to admit that it was enjoyable, but is certainly ranked lower on my list of centrum/street parties that I've seen.

 

 

The music was good, the staff was great, and they did a good job of taking over the area, but I really think they needed a few costume changes or sketches in it. It just needed something to give it some extra personality to highlight the event like the Village People or the Queen do to their respective parties.

 

 

You can give it a chance yourself though by watching the video below and let me know what you think of it.

 

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The third party held is RED: The Nightclub Experience which took place immediately following the Totally Awesome 90's Street Party. This event premiered on Quantum's Two70 venue and was ported over to the Harmony of the Seas for Studio B.

 

 

You could feel the presence of Two70 in the changes the made to Studio B. The venue obviously took full advantage of the sound and lighting system that already exists. They also added large lit up towers reminiscent of the venue lamps in Two70 as well as table that went over top of some seats to provide better seating for chatting with a drink, something Two70 has by default. The one thing they obviously couldn't recreate was the vistaramas, but they did lower a mesh screen on either side of the floor limiting the seating to only a few rows, but giving them a surface to do some simplistic ambient projections on to.

 

 

They even added a bar directly on the floor to make it easier to get drinks.

 

 

The main part of the experience though that separates it from a normal night at the club is the appearance of weird things throughout the event.

 

 

 

 

The actual party lasted several hours, so I've edited together a video of just the special appearances and some of the club ambience from the party.

 

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Sorry, it seems like their was a flag on one of the songs in the 90's party video preventing it from being viewed. I've had to mute that part, but it should now be accessible.

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That's all of my entertainment videos. I'll have the complete ship tour video along with theCruiseView, but I'm doing something different, that I actually did 7 years ago with my first ever videos for Oasis of the Seas. While releasing theCruiseView there will be commented venue/neighborhood tours. A non commented variant of those segments will be released for each neighborhood as standalone videos. When I release those I'll discuss those areas of the ship (including dining) as well as the production shows that took place there. Those production show posts could be huge because they were all incredible and I saw each one so many times!

 

For today though we are going to enter the port part of my video releases starting with the main highlights video for every sailing the timelapse arrivals and departures. I use a GoPro with a suction cup mount on my balcony, cabin 9132, the very first balcony on the port side of deck 9. I got surprisingly lucky this sailing, it fell a few times while setting it up, which was more than usual, but only once during actual usage and it landed in a way that was actually a better shot than the original. You'll see that right at the beginning of the Malaga departure. That is the actual slipping then fall with not a single image removed and no one was even near the cabin to know until I went to shut it off afterwards. I did not film the Ft. Lauderdale arrival as a timelapse because it was so dark and wouldn't have worked well, but I do have an arrival video for that, as well as a timelapse of the three sisters meeting.

 

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The Three Sisters timelapse was obviously filmed on the 4th. I have the Harmony arriving at the Allure of the Seas, as well as the three sailing side by side until they depart, and then some of the sunset until my SD card was full.

 

Since I have the photos available to share. When we met up I had to run to the cabin to setup the GoPro and took a picture of the Allure right on the TV's bow camera.

 

 

If your wondering why I always pick the first balcony (unless their is a special one available), it's because of views like this. If we leaned forward we could actually see to the bow.

 

 

Here is what my setup was, I learned to put the foot rests under the camera and that's what saved the timelapse when it fell in Malaga. I found the camera still vertical with the suction cup mount slid between the foot stool and glass.

 

 

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As i mentioned yesterday I'm going to go through the ports that the Harmony visited and then go back to the areas of the ship. Obviously the first port of call was Barcelona, Spain (It's a bit out of order but Disney/Paris and London will be the last thing I touch on since those videos will be after all cruise stuff is completed). We arrived on Friday October 21st, about a week after we originally left the US. The flight into Barcelona from Paris took us over the French Alps.

 

 

It was noticeable that we had to go higher just at that point in the flight which was neat because it was a short flight and never really got all that high. Flying into the airport we passed right along side the port and then over the entrance so we got a birds eye view of all the ships in port that day which included one of the new Mein Schieff ones as we as the new Carnival Vista.

 

 

 

Driving from the airport to our hotel we got a closer look at the ships from across the water.

 

 

 

We stayed at the Hotel Barcelona Universal which was just a down the street from the port making it convenient for our departure day. It was also on one of the busier streets making it a good place to get around. Our room was large and spacious as well with a corner view. The nicest feature of the hotel though is it's roof top patio. From up there you can look over a lot of the city. I wasn't expecting it because it didn't look like a towering hotel from the street, but it does have a nice amount of height over much of the city giving great views including over to the port where both Mein Schieff and AIDAura were visible from the hotel.

 

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With the camera I got last year it's like they were right there along with many of the landmarks of Barcelona.

 

 

 

 

This included the Olympic torch from the Barcelona games, that's two years in a row now I've had a pre-cruise hotel that overlooked the Olympic torch having started in Vancouver last year.

 

 

At night we took a walk to go see the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc. This was incredible. They do multiple performances to music and the fountains travel down the entire length of the street. Unfortunately the music is very hard to hear from nearly anywhere but right at the fountain, but it's still an incredible sight to see and really cool how many different ways it can spray.

 

 

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It was a great way to spend the first night in Barcelona. On our second day we went over to La Rambla for a nice walk, some shopping, and a visit to a market.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2016 by DEIx15x8

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By the end of our time it was starting to get a bit stormy looking, but we still took some time to walk near the port area to look at some yachts and spot the old Sovereign of the Seas.

 

 

 

 

After that it was a bit of an off and on sprinkle so we stayed back at the hotel to rest up for the cruise the next day and enjoyed the evening view.

 

 

On the 23rd, the day we were to board the Harmony of the Seas it wasn't the nicest looking day, but not too bad. Still some blue skies mixed with the dark clouds.

 

 

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As we took our taxi to the ship the skies got a bit more ominous and it started to pour. It was about the perfect timing for us to have to unload our luggage in the rain. When we got to the terminal there was a bit of a line and crowd. They used two completely independent terminals for loading the Harmony of the Seas since there are so many passengers to get onboard. Once we got through the initial line though things went smoothly. They had the same setup as Quantum with people walking around with iPads to check everyone in. The one thing I noticed was missing compared to Quantum was the lack of luggage tracking. That never worked on Quantum for our sailing so I'm not sure if they've removed the whole idea all together now.

 

 

Once fully checked in the skybridge actually connects between the two terminals for people to board.

 

 

We were not alone in port though, the NCL Epic was with us along with two Costa ships, the second of which arrived after we had already boarded Harmony and were in our room (view from our cabin).

 

 

 

For the most part, after boarding things remained dry and the skies slowly improved. By departure time it was a beautiful day.

 

 

As we left the ground team celebrated the end of another season.

 

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It was a rather fun sailaway. The Harmony of the Seas is too big to turn around near it's berth so it had to back all the way down to the entrance and then back into an area to go forward out of the harbor. On the way it tried to get the Epic involved in a horn battle but got no response. The two Costa ships on the other hand couldn't wait and kept on going the entire time we passed them.

 

 

 

 

As we were about to head to see the Norwegian Epic-ly dull started heading out as well.

 

 

Right around that time the sun started to set giving us the perfect entrance to the open Mediterranean Sea, which I guess is actually rather small and congested when the majority of the sailing is the Atlantic Ocean, lol.

 

 

 

You can watch the full departure and enjoy the horn battles in the video below.

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If your interested in seeing more photos you can check the albums from teh 21st to the 23rd.

Europe - October 21, 2016 - Barcelona (581)

Europe - October 22, 2016 - Barcelona (300)

Harmony of the Seas - October 23, 2016 - Barcelona Embarkation (452)

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Our second port of call was the second day with a stop at Palma De Mallorca. We got there right when the sun was just starting to come up, but weren't first. The Rhapsody of the Seas beat us into port by an hour.

 

 

 

 

We took a sight seeing excursion that took us to a few different locations around the city as well as a few views of our ship.

 

 

 

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It then took us to see a Flamenco show.

 

 

 

Back in port it was a beautiful sunny blue skied day the entire day. The Rhapsody left an hour before us. Unfortunately there was no horn battle or even a single horn blast from her during the departure.

 

 

 

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When it was our turn to depart, we once again had a different kind of departure. I'm not sure what was going on but we were basically drifting for about 30 minutes before we actually kicked the engines in and really got moving out of the harbor. We once again had to back out and then turn around to leave.

 

 

 

You can check out more pictures from this day in the 10/24 album:

Harmony of the Seas - October 24, 2016 - Palma De Mallorca (1175)

 

And of course the full arrival and departure video that also includes the Rhapsody of the Seas' departure.

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Enjoying your review. Really nice photos and videos.

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The 25th was then our preview sea day, but the 26th was our second and final port of call, also Harmony's final European stop, a visit to Malaga Spain. This was also their busiest port day of the year if not ever with 4 cruise ships in port for the day as well as a few ferries. We were the very first to arrive under darkness pulling in forward and docking at their cruise terminal. It wasn't a long or complicated path to reach the terminal, but we got there really early and it took them so long to tie off that we were a little late.

 

 

Just as we were getting along side the dock a large ferry sailed by to dock farther in the harbor.

 

 

Directly in front of us was one of the world's largest yachts, the Octopus, a yacht owned by Paul Allen that is often used for research expositions and other reasons beyond just pleasure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht)

 

 

 

While they were still tying us off Holland America's MS Oosterdam arrived and docked just behind us. She also pulled in forward and was early just like us, though still spaced by the hour that she was scheduled to be, yet we were still tying off as she was being typed off.

 

 

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While eating breakfast the third ship arrived, Fred Olsen Cruise Line's Braemar who docked at the end of the harbor near the ferry. She's probably most famous for being the ship that was split in half and extended in a timelapse video that was all over the news a few years back.

 

 

We had another excursion for this day to explore another new port of call for us. Just as I was getting ready to leave the ship we had a nice sunrise and I spotted the fourth cruise ship of the day the MSC Splendida on the horizon.

 

 

 

While on our excursion we went to a few historic locations and explored the city. The first was a lookout that offered some beautiful views over the city, port, and at that time the Splendida docking. It was an absolute mad house up there though with so many buses trying to squeeze through a tight windy hill road. You can see the bull ring in the bottom of the photo.

 

 

You can see a crane over the Harmony of the Seas in this photo. They were loading construction materials onto the top deck to gut and redo the poolside bars during the crossing.

 

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The excursion took us to several other spots including Picasso's house, a historic church, and some free time in the city center for shopping. You can see those photos in the album: Harmony of the Seas - October 26, 2016 - Malaga (1628)

 

When we got back to the ship they were loading a ton of new supplies onboard for the crossing. The Harmony like all Oasis class ships were only designed for 7 night sailings so they don't have enough room to store 13 nights of supplies.

 

 

Since it was an early excursion we still had plenty of time left so we took a walk to the beach for the afternoon which offered some great views of the ships and was right there.

 

 

 

 

 

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For departures, the MSC Splendida was the last to arrive, nearly 3.5 hours after us, yet they were also the first to depart 30 minutes before us.

 

 

They had a rather silent departure, but when it was our turn to leave the road leading to the ship and along the fence of the cruise terminal was lined with people wanting to see the Harmony. Malaga was not a usual stop for her so this is only the second time they've had a chance to see her which made it special for them.

 

 

 

 

We were next to depart and did it by backing out and through the harbor before turning around in the sea. Like in the previous ports, we put on a bit of a horn show for everyone that turned out and the Oosterdam joined in as you can hear in the video.

 

 

Out at sea the conditions were perfectly smooth and just a light breeze until we got going. What was weird though was that their was a foggy haze on the horizon with a yellow tint to it. It appeared to just blend right into the mirror like ocean that was reflecting it creating an unusual effect as we sailed out to sea that I've never seen before.

 

 

The MS Oosterdam then followed shortly behind us. You can see all the photos in the album below and check out the entire arrival and departure in the video.

Harmony of the Seas - October 26, 2016 - Malaga (1628)

 

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It wasn't on the itinerary, but the Harmony of the Seas was forced to stop at another port on her way across the Atlantic. On the night of October 27th, the first sea day of the crossing, she had to do an emergency medical evacuation at Funchal Madeira. It took place at around 3am, and you can imagine my surprise to finish filming theCruiseView and decide to take a walk through the ship as I always do before turning in only to find a giant island on the horizon directly in front of us. Certainly not what I was expecting with a planned 9 days of no land in sight and a diversion from our scheduled course.

 

 

We ended up going right into a bay area, but because of Harmony's size could not dock so we remained off shore an a boat came out to do the transfer.

 

 

 

It took them about 30 minutes to get everything in order before going on their way, and we then immediately were back on our way. We did have a nice view though while we waited.

 

 

Once they were gone though so were we.

 

 

 

You can see more pictures in the album from the 27th: Harmony of the Seas - October 27, 2016 - Day at Sea (744)

 

And of course a full video of our stop there:

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The final arrival of the voyage was of course to Port Everglades on Saturday November 5th, 2016. Since we were already off the coast for the three sisters meeting we were able to get in extra early. I chose to stay up to watch our arrival and actually didn't even film theCruiseView until after we had docked (a mistake I'd likely not make again).

 

The pilot boat came out to meet us through some seas that were rougher than they felt.

 

 

As we reached the channel I was surprised that people had actually come out to watch the arrival. On both sides of the channel you could see the flashlights shining as well as camera flashes.

 

 

 

There wasn't any noise or festivities as we pulled in since it was so early but there were some lights on in the Point of Americas. Not sure if they were watching the arrival as well, but that would be my guess.

 

 

As she reached Terminal 18 she docked as if she'd done it a million times, as I'm sure Captain Gus has.

 

 

Just before I turned in for the night at about 6am, the Caribbean Princess started to lineup to enter the Channel and make her arrival.

 

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When I woke up we then had a beautiful sunrise to welcome the Harmony of the Seas to Florida.

 

 

I also by luck timed it perfectly to wake up just in time for the Freedom of the Seas to arrive on the horizon. She swapped places with the Oasis who left empty yesterday for Port Canaveral while she was arriving empty to Ft. Lauderdale that morning from Port Canaveral.

 

 

In addition to the Freedom of the Seas the USS Zumwalt was off the coast doing some testing. If your not familiar with her she's the latest US navy vessel that has been delayed several times and went billions of dollars over budget. She has a completely unique design that is supposed to make her invisible to radars. Having watched her for a few days, she also disappears from sight very easily depending on her angle and the atmospheric conditions at the moment.

 

 

When the Freedom of the Seas eventually made it into the harbor she docked on the other side of the port, but fully visible from the Harmony.

 

 

Departures were scheduled to start early, and I've been informed we made a big no no in picking the final departure time slot, but we were in no rush to go anywhere and always want to get every last second out of a vacation that we can. Unfortunately it was a big mistake on this one, but one I don't completely regret. During the transatlantic the crew conducted their required weekly drills, but we were at sea for 9 strait days which meant that they had to perform them while sailing and without fully performing a lifeboat drill. It seems that this was not completely acceptable to the US coast guard. So while trying to manage the debarkation of 6,000 guests they also had to perform their required crew drills. This ended up causing them to stop several times for a total of over 2 hours! I took full advantage of the situation though and got to have some fun exploring the empty ship for one last time and took some incredible rare photos. You'll also see this footage show up in the sports and pool walk through videos that'll be posted with theCruiseView, when I'll discuss those areas.

 

 

Unfortunately though the rain clouds from the above photo eventually moved over the ship and put an end to my fun.

 

When they finally finished up with their drills they were able to get back to their scheduled departures. Unfortunately after 13 nights of Royal Caribbean proving why I used to be so loyal to them and doing just about everything right, they went and made the same mistake they did to end our Quantum sailing 2 years ago. Instead of holding up the embarkation and having people wait in the sitting area a little longer before boarding. They rushed the departure calling the two hours worth of groups in less than one. That meant that the ground crew had no time to move luggage and around and get things organized. Instead the terminal was a mess with luggage everywhere. They didn't even have a designated spot for our group, the sign was laying against a wall waiting to be put out and each of our 6 bags was scattered to every corner of the room. It was by far the most disorganized luggage pick up. The lines for customs were huge and backed up as well making it even harder to move around the room to find your luggage. While trying to leave the ship we got flagged by the CBP for some reason so someone from the ship fast tracked us past the customs lines to a side room where we waited a few minutes and then were told we could leave with no explanation of why we were flagged or what it was done for. It saved us some time though.

 

Outside though was as big a mess as inside as people were arriving while tons of people were still trying to leave. The taxi line was massive and after waiting a little bit in it, we eventually gave up and called a car service to leave. We ended up finally leaving the terminal just after 1PM, by far the latest we've ever gotten off a ship and the most disorganized departure I've experienced. Just like Quantum, I can't blame Royal Caribbean for the delay and they handled it far better than Quantum, but they are once again 100% responsible for rushing everyone off the ship at once rather than continuing to properly manage the flow to ensure things went smoothly. They spend a lot of time trying to make the arrival smooth, but the departure is still by far the worst and least, or maybe biggest, WOW moment of most cruises. They've got to come up with a better process or start building waiting lounges for the departing guests if they plan to keep throwing everyone out at once.

 

 

This wasn't the end of our cruise though since we had two nights at the Marriott in near by Hollywood.

 

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