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Another Harmony Review

RSLeesburg

By RSLeesburg,
in Royal Caribbean International

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FloridaGirlLovesToCruise

FloridaGirlLovesToCruise

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Disembarking was a piece of cake. We went up to the suite lounge, ate breakfast, and Raj took us down around 8am or so. We cleared customs and were in our car by 8:30am and home in West Palm Beach by 9:30am. The hardest part was pulling my wife and son off the ship.

 

 

 

In summary, we had another excellent cruise and met some wonderful people. The ship is amazing. Well, maybe it is not so amazing for those of you who have travelled on an Oasis class ship before, but for first-timers like us – WOW. We loved Freedom last year, but this was really an eye opening experience. The food was good to outstanding, and the service was, for the most part, excellent. There were times when we felt that the staff was mailing it in, or that there was not that same enthusiasm that we experienced on Grandeur and Freedom. But, it was not enough to ruin our cruise or even make it a bad experience. My wife and I are huge Top Chef fans, and there are times when the judges need to nitpick over tiny details in order to pick a winner and a loser. I feel like that is the case with this cruise. When I compare it to previous cruises, Harmony exceed expectations in almost every category – but yet, there were just these tiny things that would keep me from making it better than the other cruises we have been on – if that makes any sense?

 

 

 

The one thing that we did learn was that you really need to do some pre-cruise planning for this ship. Most of the restaurants and shows book up quickly. We did not need to worry about the shows as we were traveling in a suite, but we had a tough time getting into some of the specialty restaurants on the days we wanted. So, a little pre-cruise planning may have fixed this issue. My wife had been following Harmony on the “social site that must not be named” and told me that people were saying that the restaurants were booking up fast, but I did not believe her. I figured that they were holding back tables, and we would be fine.

 

 

 

Let me know if you have any questions. I have all the Cruise Compasses and AO Daily Planners. I believe that most of these have already been posted in the LIVE reviews, but if anyone wants them, I can scan and upload these in the next few days.

 

 

 

 

 

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FloridaGirlLovesToCruise

FloridaGirlLovesToCruise

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Thanks for the review of the Harmony. We will be taking our 15 year old granddaughter on it in June 2017. I know you mentioned that you don't eat in the dining room much, but I was wondering what is a good time to go to dinner to be able to see all the shows. We have late dining, but when I looked at the schedule of shows you posted, late dining didn't seem to work very well. Also, when can you book the shows? Is it after final payment? RC's web site says they aren't available now. We were on the Oasis about five years ago and I don't remember having any trouble making reservations. Thanks, Ronnie

 

 

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RSLeesburg

RSLeesburg

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Thanks for the review of the Harmony. We will be taking our 15 year old granddaughter on it in June 2017. I know you mentioned that you don't eat in the dining room much, but I was wondering what is a good time to go to dinner to be able to see all the shows. We have late dining, but when I looked at the schedule of shows you posted, late dining didn't seem to work very well. Also, when can you book the shows? Is it after final payment? RC's web site says they aren't available now. We were on the Oasis about five years ago and I don't remember having any trouble making reservations. Thanks, Ronnie

 

 

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To be honest, I am not sure when you can start booking reservations. But I agree that late seating does not work for some of the shows. We did not make any reservations before we boarded, but my wife was following our cruise on Harmony (social media site) page. She told me that people were reporting that the restaurants were booking up quickly.

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NeilD

NeilD

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As I have stated in other reviews, we are not MDR people. In our four cruises, we have only eaten once in the MDR – the first night of our very first cruise. We had such a bad experience, we walked out during the main course and have never been back since.

 

For this cruise, we ate at the following restaurants for dinner: Johnny Rockets (good), Sabor (good), 150 Central Park (great), and Wonderland (great). We also ate in WJ a few nights (good to great) and once at Mini Bites (good). My wife and son liked to sleep in, so they usually skipped breakfast. Not me. I woke up early and ate breakfast at Coastal Kitchen most mornings (great). :D For lunch, we went to WJ (good), Mini Bites (good) and Coastal Kitchen (great). We wanted to try Jamie’s, but could not get a reservation for the night we wanted. Maybe next time.

 

TIP: I am not sure if this will be true for all sailings, but for this cruise reservations at specialty restaurants were extremely difficult to get, so I highly recommend that you make your reservations before you board.

 

Thanks for the review...The concierge letter says: 'Priority reservations for any of our specialty restaurants'. Did you make any before you boarded? Can you make them with the Concierge before you board? We also don't use the MDR's when we cruise. Not for the same reason. We just like to go to specialty restaurants and want to take advantage of Coastal Kitchen.....Thanks in advance.

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RSLeesburg

RSLeesburg

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Thanks for the review...The concierge letter says: 'Priority reservations for any of our specialty restaurants'. Did you make any before you boarded? Can you make them with the Concierge before you board? We also don't use the MDR's when we cruise. Not for the same reason. We just like to go to specialty restaurants and want to take advantage of Coastal Kitchen.....Thanks in advance.

 

Actually, I never thought to ask the concierge to make reservations for us before we boarded. We did request a cabana at Labadee, and Raj took care of that for us - so, I am sure if we asked, he would have made reservations for us too. CK is great. We never made it up there for dinner, but I ate lunch there twice and breakfast there 5 times. Very nice. And, I am not sure how the suite lounge is on Oasis or Allure, but OMG - on Harmony, it is beautiful. What a great space!

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flgatorgirl

flgatorgirl

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Thanks for the info. My son is almost 9, and is an experienced theater-goer. I'm not worried about the length of the show -- Wicked was 2 1/2 hours, and it was no problem. I will continue to think about the content, though.

 

 

 

I am well aware that we won't get to everything! We have done Oasis and Allure...and still haven't done everything. Looking forward to trying some of the new stuff on Harmony!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds like something my son would like as well. He'd be figuring out how he could build the bionic arm with his Lego :-)

 

 

 

Thanks for the info!

 

 

 

Hi... we were also on the Thanksgiving sailing. My daughter is almost 10 and we took her to grease. I had asked rccl ahead of time and they stated they took the really bad parts out to make it family friendly. I am pretty conservative, so there were some parts that I probably would have preferred she didn't hear; however, I think a lot of it went over her head. She seemed to enjoy it, but we were all very tired on the first night. I wish I had seen it a different day when I was more awake.

 

 

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LisaT91403

LisaT91403

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Hi... we were also on the Thanksgiving sailing. My daughter is almost 10 and we took her to grease. I had asked rccl ahead of time and they stated they took the really bad parts out to make it family friendly. I am pretty conservative, so there were some parts that I probably would have preferred she didn't hear; however, I think a lot of it went over her head. She seemed to enjoy it, but we were all very tired on the first night. I wish I had seen it a different day when I was more awake.

 

Thanks. We, too, are scheduled for the first night as they moved the show on the 2nd night to 10:30pm. I think I'm going to leave it to my son to decide -- Adventure Ocean or the show. I have a feeling he is going to pick AO. If he chooses Grease, I'm certain there will be parts that are not for him, but he will live.

 

Okay, back to packing...I can't believe we fly tomorrow!

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RSLeesburg

RSLeesburg

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Thanks. We, too, are scheduled for the first night as they moved the show on the 2nd night to 10:30pm. I think I'm going to leave it to my son to decide -- Adventure Ocean or the show. I have a feeling he is going to pick AO. If he chooses Grease, I'm certain there will be parts that are not for him, but he will live.

 

 

 

Okay, back to packing...I can't believe we fly tomorrow!

 

 

Have a great cruise! We had to pull our son out of AO to go see The Fine Line and Columbus, but I think he enjoyed both - not sure if he enjoyed them both more than AO though..,lol

 

 

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MANDMTRAVEL

MANDMTRAVEL

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In Jamaica, my wife insisted that we get off the ship and do something fun, so we booked the river tubing at Chukka. It was a blast, and to be honest, I wish we had also booked the zip line and tubing combo – maybe next time. As mentioned previously, we stayed on the ship in Cozumel and enjoyed the water slides.

 

 

Hi, thanks for the review!!! Did you book the river tubing for Jamaica through RCCL's website?

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