Our Armonia Eeperience

[NCTribeFan]

Here you go!

 

I'm currently considering another on Armonia after 4/15 (I'm a CPA so even though I've cut back on my hours (trying to retire!), I can't sail before then).  Looked at Seaside, but Divina was even too much ship for me.  And I just really like Armonia.

 

I know many people want to sail on the newest, biggest, most bells-and-whistles ships but the ship just isn't the destination for me.  Even if I've been to the ports multiple times, I don't pick my cruises based on having things to do on the ship.  And since I rarely dine in the specialty restaurants, having lots of up-charge dining options isn't something that's important to me, either (although I did really enjoy the Surf & Turf restaurant).

 

I like my "best" bartender.  I like the Pub.  I like that area where I sit between the pool and the bar (Il Girasole).  And the prices are great!  So, if people want the things Armonia doesn't offer, and I don't want/need them, AND it keeps the prices low, I'll just keep sailing her! 😁

 

[aprilF]

3 hours ago, NCTribeFan said:

Here you go!

 

I'm currently considering another on Armonia after 4/15 (I'm a CPA so even though I've cut back on my hours (trying to retire!), I can't sail before then).  Looked at Seaside, but Divina was even too much ship for me.  And I just really like Armonia.

 

I know many people want to sail on the newest, biggest, most bells-and-whistles ships but the ship just isn't the destination for me.  Even if I've been to the ports multiple times, I don't pick my cruises based on having things to do on the ship.  And since I rarely dine in the specialty restaurants, having lots of up-charge dining options isn't something that's important to me, either (although I did really enjoy the Surf & Turf restaurant).

 

I like my "best" bartender.  I like the Pub.  I like that area where I sit between the pool and the bar (Il Girasole).  And the prices are great!  So, if people want the things Armonia doesn't offer, and I don't want/need them, AND it keeps the prices low, I'll just keep sailing her! 😁

 

 

Thanks for the link, I saved it and will check it out later!

 

My husband is really excited to try the Seaview, in large part because of all those bells and whistles.  I am starting to be a little concerned that I may not be a big ship kinda gal.  But we will see.  In any case, we both liked the Armonia enough to keep sailing her, especially at deeply discounted rates.  😉

[aprilF]

Alright, we have arrived to the last full day.  Given our scheduling changes this day was actually a sea day for us.  The activities sheet for this day didn't seem to make it home with us so I will do my best to remember.  The day started with our usual workouts and then breakfasts.  Then we hit the pool area for one last aerobics class.  After aerobics the gelato bar was opening and we looked to see that they had changed up the flavors!  They now had pistachio, raspberry, vanilla and chocolate gelato.  We *had* to try the pistachio.   I got a pistachio on bottom, chocolate on top double dip.  Husband got a single pistachio scoop.  I couldn't really taste the pistachio but figured it was just the chocolate overpowering it and that Id have to try the reverse later.  😉

 

Then we went back to the pool for a 10 questions game.  One person would sit in a chair while a crew member would show the audience a celebrity name.  The contestant then needs to ask 10 yes or no questions before giving a guess.  There was a lag in volunteers for the first position so I went up...and did horribly.  By question 5 I was certain I knew who it was.  And then question 6 didn't get answered the way I anticipated.  That threw me and even coming up with questions was a struggle.  Eventually I got through it and gave my incorrect guess and was allowed to return to my seat.  Several others got to play, about half got their celebrities.  It was fun.

 

Afterwards my husband went back to the gym and I just stayed by the pool.  A couple of the entertainment crew came by to try to pursued me to be in the Sea Queen contest and there was just no way that was happening.  I was going to stay around to watch it but there was a huge downpour so all of the outside activities got nixed.  I stayed under the covered outside area and just watched the rain until my husband came back.  We went to grab a light lunch before heading back to the room to shower and change. 

 

When we got back to our rooms we saw that we had luggage tags delivered.  Our tags would correspond with a debarkation time of 9:30.  At that point I told him about our different debarkation options (send some luggage out the night before and wait to get off until 9:0 with minimal carry ons or carry everything off ourselves as early as 7:30).  We did not sign up for a shuttle back to the airport, we had decided to try our luck with Lyft instead but we were uncertain about a few things like when the best time to debark to easily get a Lyft and where to meet the Lyft.  Husband has never used a ride share before but I was fairly comfortable doing it and I figured that as a fallback we could probably get a taxi if needed.  So we decided that Id mostly pack up and then we would see if we felt like we wanted to carry everything off ourselves.  Given what we (ok I) had purchased we had a little extra to carry off but it seemed manageable so we decided that we were going to self debark for our first time.

 

By this point we hadn't eaten in a couple of hours and were ready to go graze some more.  We decided to head back to the dining room for lunch.  We were seated with a great pair of couples.  They were dinner dining mates.  We had a great time talking about our different cruising styles, our home lives and just life in general.  One of the gentlemen asked that his salad not have avocado on it.  So I asked if I could just get a small dish of avocado.  The waiter hesitated, I'm not sure if it was because it was an odd request or if they just normally don't do that.  So someone at the table said "just give her his".  It worked!  There was a spinach dip with chips on the menu and when it came it was pretty big with a decent sized plate of chips.  It was basically the size you would get at a restaurant that was meant to be shared by the whole table.  I commented about the size and one of our table mates said "remember the guacamole?". Which is exactly what I was thinking about.  A dinner earlier in the cruise there was a guac appetizer where you got a scoop of guac that was the size of a large melon ball, I am guessing 2 ounces at most, and three chips.  There were other things like this where it was just hard to anticipate the size of what you were going to get.  Our dinner table mates made a similar observation as well the night before because something was much larger than anticipated.  I know this isn't particularly helpful unless I go through and list the sizes of everything but I can say order 3 or 4 of the guacamole.  LOL  These guys mostly ordered 2-3 desserts, these were my people!  But one gentleman was very disappointed in the texture of the desserts i.e., how cake was always a mousse.  I let him know about the delicious cake in the coffee bar, I hope he managed to get himself a piece.

 

After lunch we went to the Masterchef at Sea.  Not every having seen even one episode of Masterchef or knowing exactly how it was going to work, we did not sit up front.  I was done being a Guinea Pig for the day.  We sat back a few rows and it really started to fill up.  Now the theater on the Armonia has kind of strange seating which I haven't really explained yet.  Basically there are the normal, tiered theater bench seats with tables every six feet or so.  In almost every row but the front there are movable chairs shoved in the space between the table and the next tier down seat back.  It makes it almost impossible to maneuver in those rows and left me feeling a little claustrophobic the one time we tried it.  Eventually these seats started to fill in too , we got fortunate in that no one sat right in front of us so it wasn't so bad.  Anyway, sitting close by was someone who was seated at the next table over at dinner.  I had noticed the night before that he brought some Pepsi down to the dining room so I asked how cool the servers were about it (since we aren't supposed to bring soda on board).  He said they were fine with it and that they even brought him ice.  I was pretty happy because that meant I was getting a soda with dinner tonight!  I had a couple in the room from Jamaica but haven't had a chance to drink any.  That would lighten our load for tomorrows self debarkation too.  We got to talking and he is a big Masterchef fan so he told us a little about it, including that they don't really bake (what I love to do) but they cook meals (what I'm forced to do because we have to eat but I don't love).  So how Masterchef at Sea works is that there is a trivia game at the start, the six top finishers get to compete and do the actual food prep.  The MC starts in with the question and about half were about baking.  I knew all of those answers and freely shared the right answers with our new friend because he was so keen to go up and do that part of it.  I was really pulling for him.  Another question was about tequila, which we also knew.  Then a couple about cheese and other food stuffs.  And a couple of questions about the actual show.  Yeah, those questions I didn't know so well.  I did fine with the cheese questions but the Heinz 57 debut date was a mystery for me and I was flat out guessing about the Masterchef questions.  No one got them all correct, one missed was the best score.  No one in our little group got enough correct to get to compete in the food prep portion.  Once the six smarties were up on stage they got to unbox their ingredients.  Everyone got bread, assorted meats, cheeses and veggies.  There may have been condiments as well.  Right away I knew what I would do.  I would have flattened the bread and made a wrap.  As they started assembling we took off to the coffee shop to get my husband a little afternoon jolt.  By this point the treats display had been changed to cookies and so I requested a macadamia nut cookie only to be pleasantly surprised with a peanut butter cookie (although different from the cookies up on the Snack buffet).   Energized my husband headed back to the gym for one last workout while I went out to the pool deck to enjoy the breeze and retest the pistachio gelato.  The second scoop was just as, well, not exactly flavorless but definitely a less robust flavor than Id hoped for.  After that it was time to get ready for the evening and do just a little more packing up.

 

This evening we had the repeat cruisers party before the show so we had to be ready about an hour earlier.  Even though this was my first cruise MSC has a generous (and clever) status match program.  The details are on the MSC website and you can find common hotel, cruise and rewards status matches on a thread here at CC so you know the best program for you to match to for the biggest benefit. We headed down to the lounge about ten minutes early where we saw the party was already going.  Unfortunately for this party you need your invitation, so we had to head back up to the room for that.  We had seen one of the couples that we lunched with on the far side of the room so we headed over to there to join them.  On the way I tried to grab a drink from the trays at the bar, I was pretty harshly reprimanded.  Of course being on the far side of the lounge by the time the waiters circulated to our area, there were only regular martinis left which neither of us will drink.  After the forth waiter with only martinis came by my husband went and flagged one down that had the drinks we wanted.  😍  By the time my husband got to this waiter, he had given out the last of those drinks but promised to get some for us.  When the waiter came back he insisted we take 2.  A few minutes later the waitress that reprimanded me saw my two drinks and I'd swear she glared at me.  After that it was game on and I was determined to always have a spare drink.  We were really enjoying the band that was playing.  Then the cruise director came out and gave his speech and he had a surprise for us.  He had a wonderful singer come out and sing a song for us.  Our table mates commented that this was one of their show singers at the early dinner show (so later show).  He was not anyone we had during the late dinner showing.  I was shocked to learn that they had two different groups of singers for the two different shows.  Wondering if the dancers are different as well.  Anyway after this the party really started breaking up and they stopped serving drinks 15 minutes before the party was to end.  It was a similar schedule for the CC party so if you really care about getting your full hours worth of drinks, come a little early.  🤣 

 

Tonight's show was Abyss.  Because of the Welcome Back party we were a little late getting to the theater,  We still managed front row but we were way off to the side.  The theme of the show was a fisherman falling in love with a mermaid...I think.  The dancers were great and I really enjoyed ll the colorful costumes.  Because we choose to sit up front where there are no exits we just usually wait until the theater has mostly emptied out before leaving.  On this last night the dancers, or maybe all the performers and only a few dancers were left, are at the exit for a meet and greet.  Its nothing formal but you can just quickly talk to them or get a picture.  I was lucky in that one of my two favorite dancers was at our exit and still there as we left.  I got to tell her how much I enjoyed her work this past week.

 

Ah, the last dinner.  We've known since the beginning of the week that this was our table mates birthday.  He made a big deal out of not wanting the embarrassing cake/ singing to happen.  Unfortunately his partner was not feeling well that night, he seemed to have maybe done too much celebrating that day!  Our other table mates were trying to work with my husband to get the servers attention to let them know about the birthday boy but they picked the wrong accomplice.  He just isn't good at pulling those kinds of surprises off usually.  After several cakes being delivered around us, it looked like the birthday boy was going to get away clean.  As they were saying their goodbyes our servers and others come over with a cake.  Turns out the birthday boy's partner was faking how sick he was feeling.  The birthday boy was a good, but red faced, sport.

 

After dinner we went back to the lounge for the final game of the cruise.  We were a bit early and enjoyed listening to a different band than what was playing earlier.  I don't recall the name of the game but those playing were divided into teams, we were a team of 5 women and my husband.  The cruise director would ask for something and then someone from the team had to run up with the team number and whatever was requested.  The first team would get three points, the second team two and everyone else that came up with the item would get one point.  The first ask was relatively mild, a man with an empty purse.  A teammate immediately upended her purse and shoved it into my husbands hands.  Alright, they came to play.  When the second ask was someone holding a piece of fruit and we were all fruitless I begged someone for their drink garnish, couldn't disappoint the team and all that.  A later question was for two men dirty dancing.  Remember, we only had my husband.  Since the entertainment crew had no issues forcing us to dance earlier, it was payback time.  LOL  By the way, I am sticking to some of the milder asks since I don't want to ruin any surprises.  We had tons of fun and ended up coming in second place, or first place of the losers! 

 

We were done after that and did just a little more packing before setting an alarm (the first of the cruise) and getting rocked to sleep one last night.

[aprilF]

Yes, the worst day of the cruise has arrived...debarkation.  We woke up and quickly got ready.  Because you do not need to vacate your room until 8 am and it was only 6:30 we left our luggage in the room and got our usual breakfast.  We didn't rush but we also didn't dally.  It wasn't that crowded yet and we were finished by 7.  Back to the room for a last pit stop and to grab our belongings.  Of course we had to check all drawers and closets for about the 12th time.  We headed down to the lounge to wait to be allowed off the ship.  Debarkation started and we allowed the first rush to go past and then we joined the line.  Everything moved quickly and mostly smoothly.  There was a holdup in the line my husband was in for scanning out because someone hadn't cleared their account.  So that became a little awkward as there wasn't much space for groups that had been separated to wait for their mates to catch up.  The staff didn't love the backup of people that was happening but there was no way I was proceeding off of the ship until I saw that my husband successfully scanned out.  If you have a choice to stay in the same line, do it.  Or maybe even insist if they try to separate you from your group.  The rest was super easy, quickest debarkation Ive ever done. 

 

Now we were headed to the part I was a little leery about.  I was starting to call up an Uber but I know at airports (and even hotels in Vegas) they are picky about not letting you call for the car until you are in the pickup spot.  We asked someone as we were leaving but they weren't sure.  We went out towards the passenger pickup area and it looked like the Uber request was going through.  Once we got to the spot someone else was waiting on a ride share so that made me feel better.  So, if you are expecting the rideshare area to be marked specially, it isn't.  It is just the regular passenger pickup area.  At this point I was pretty glad we left early because it was just the four of us waiting.  I'm sure later it must get much more crowded with rideshare, taxis and friends and family all picking up in the same spot. 

 

We arrived back to the La Quinta Airport East to find our car in good condition.  I asked them if they needed to know we were leaving, they didnt and we hit the road towards Orlando for a few more days of fun before heading back home to North Carolina.

[aprilF]

A few forgotten things...We had door decorations for Christmas for less than one day before they were stolen.  This is the first cruise I've ever had anything stolen.  Our rooms weren't in a particularly heavily trafficked area so I was surprised.  I know not to put out anything I'm not willing to lose but its an awful way to begin a cruise and it certainly makes you wonder who is on board with you for the next week.  Others had decorations up all week so I don't think it was a matter of our steward taking it down (and I'm sure he would have put it in our room anyway).

 

One night after dinner we did try to go play trivia.  We got there after the teams had been mostly formed but before the first question.  We asked a couple if we could join them.  They said no.  Just no, not "someone else is coming" or anything else.  So that was awkward and we just left rather than stay and get our own sheet.

 

We didn't meet our steward until the second day.  He asked if everything was ok and when I paused he asked what was wrong.  I let him know that the light on my side of the bed wasn't functioning properly.  We were on our way out to breakfast.  By the time we came back he and an electrician had the bed moved and the table and light taken apart and had been working on it for awhile.  They were having a tough time of it and the steward joked how badly did I need it fixed.  I told him it was fine, he was the one that asked if something was wrong and that I wasn't going to mention it.  Anyway, we grabbed what we needed and left.  The next time we came back it was fixed.    That's some speedy service for what wasn't a big deal.  Although I did find it bad that this was a problem 2 weeks after dry dock.  I saw the same electrician working in rooms a few other times throughout the cruise.

 

During one dinner the lights went out for about ten seconds, came back on and flashed again.  I don't know if the whole ship lost electricity, we never got any explanation.  Not sure if it was connected to the engine issues on the sailing before ours.  I'm not even sure if our sailing was having issues or not, engine issues weren't mentioned at all.

 

I really, really think I am a smaller ship kind of girl.  Although I will say that I missed not being able to keep in touch with my husband when we would split off and do different things.  We had a small whiteboard in the room but that isn't an ideal way to keep in touch.  I wish the MSC for Me app or iMessage worked on the Armonia.  I got used to having access to that on a ship very quickly.

 

I will add more if I think of it.  If anyone has any questions, please ask.  Thanks for reading!

[aprilF]

NCTribefan's review reminded me of a couple of other things...

 

One day we went to a sampling at the Surf and Turf.  It was sparkling wine, crab cakes and cheesecake.  I was hoping for a little more of a talk or something but they were simply passing trays of these items.  I did speak with the head server and asked if it was possible to just order sides, explaining that my husband ate meat but I did not.  They said that was fine or that they could have vegetarian food brought up from the MDR and that they werent going to charge someone that couldnt eat their food.  I suspect this policy would vary from sailing to sailing or staff to staff but it was nice to know it was an option for us.  Ultimately we didnt go because my husband was fine with the MDR steak and we would have missed our dining companions.

 

The temperature on the ship did vary a LOT.  Our cabin was an icebox.  It took us 5 days of nudging it down before we were comfortable.  But I do like it cold for sleeping so that aspect was nice for me.  The MDRs were warm.  Ive never been on a ship where this was the case.  I cant even imagine how hot the servers were.  The theater was cooler to cold, which I am sure the performers were very thankful for. 

 

I also wanted to bring up the awkward way the buffets are set up, mainly with respect to condiments but some other stuff was strange too.   An example would be at the pizza station, the order of stuff goes plates, parmesean, pizza selections.  Most people I know sprinkle the cheese on their pizza slices and not their plates.  This isnt a big deal when there isnt a line but if there is a line you are forced to either skip the parm, cut in line or wait in line twice.  Another example was that one day at the salad bar the veggie toppings were before the lettuce.  I dont use dressing but I believe that was also before the lettuce.  I mentioned the butter earlier.  And the burger bar was wonky too.  It's nothing that's going to ruin a cruise but I could see no good reason for the frustrating set ups.  Space wise it didnt seem like it would have been a big deal to rearrange any of the things I had mentioned.  Others commented about it usually as either I was butting in or they were...maybe MSC wanted us to have that bonding experience.  LOL

Edited January 15, 2020 by aprilF

[choose2cruz]

Just came across this thread. Nice review! I'm considering a cruise on Armonia and you answered heaps of questions for me. Thanks!

[shipgeeks]

We cruised on Seaside in January, 2020.  We were so impressed with MSC that we came home and booked two weeks on Armonia, for April-May of 2020.  Cruise cancelled.  Booked Armonia for September, 2021.  Cruise cancelled.  We are now booked on Armonia for Christmas and New Year weeks.  Fingers crossed!  We can't wait to have those delicious sticky buns (and many other good things) again.

We really enjoyed sailing with the variety of nationalities onboard.  I hope that will still be the case when cruises resume here.  The cruise felt so much more like being "away" than what we usually experience with 99% American passengers.