My trip on the Barmy Harmony!

I am back from my short cruise on the brand new Harmony of the Seas. In fact it was so new that it wasn’t actually 100% ready! But did that spoil my enjoyment? Read on to find out….

I have to say that the check in process was slick & we were on the ship within minutes of arriving at the port. I was travelling with my sister, son & his girlfriend. Our cabins were ready on arrival, so we dropped off our bags & went off to explore. We had a balcony cabin overlooking Central Park which was roomy with a good sized balcony. Our cabin on deck 11 was high enough not to get any noise disturbance unless you had the balcony door open – and even then it was minimal.

View from our balcony

The ship is huge & impressive looking both from the outside and on board. RCI are all about the wow factor with innovations hard to believe you would see on a moving vessel. It was my first cruise on an Oasis Class ship, so the ‘neighbourhood’ concept was new to me and I have to say I thought it was fantastic. The Central Park area was relaxing, but still had a kind of buzz about the place. There were mainly bars in this area, including the Rising Tide bar that moves up & down in between floors (see what I mean about barmy)! The Boardwalk area was louder and more for families with the carousel, Johnny Rockets and Doghouse here. There were a couple of shops here also. It was where the bottom of the Abyss slide was, so in hours of operation there was a fair amount of shrieking going on! I highly recommend having a go though.

It’s fair to say that there was still quite a bit of work going on on the ship and I had heard through the grapevine that things were closed completely on the previous 4 night cruise. I guess it’s the gamble of going on one of the first cruises. The only things that weren’t in operation at all (that I could see) when we were on board was the Aqua theatre (disappointing) and the private deck area on deck 17 (reserved for suite guests) and although that didn’t affect me I would would hope that RCI compensated those that paid a princely sum for these staterooms. Other than that – yes there were a lot of men with drills and hammers that could be seen scratching their heads in various parts of the ship – more so the pool deck and the Aqua theatre, but we got to sample the water slides, the mini golf course,the whirlpools, the abyss, many many bars, the ice rink, the solarium, karaoke and saw 2 shows. Unfortunately the queues for the zipline were always really long, so missed out on that one, but plenty of other things to go at.

The Royal Promenade always had a great atmosphere and although our dining time clashed with the main event I was told that the 90’s street party was great fun. As ever the shops, cafes and bars were extremely busy on our sea day.

The production of Grease was brilliant. Superb singing, dancing and sets. The only downside was that even though we had booked, nobody checked whether you had done so or not, therefore people who hadn’t just wandered in and took up all the seats. We also went to the comedy show one night & the same happened there. They were about to refuse us entry as it was full until we showed our reservation confirmation. I know it’s stand up, but I expected that to be the comedians, not us! In all honesty the 2 comedians were poor. We left before the end. The reggae band were great as were the Tenors of Rock and the kids (and some of the adults) loved the Dreamworks characters on board.

Overall the food was good, but there were disappointments along the way. The food in the main dining room was excellent and the Windjammer buffet was as good as usual. The food in Johnny Rockets was also very good, however it didn’t have the usual atmosphere as most of the tables were out on the Boardwalk, so you couldn’t hear the music & there was none of the usual dancing. Also the way they were seating people was a shambles. Although there was an obvious queue of people waiting, some customers didn’t bother joining it,sat down at an empty table and then the waiting staff served them much to the annoyance of the queue. I didn’t eat at the Doghouse on this trip, but my son was a big fan and the smell was gorgeous!

On our last night we ate in Wonderland. I had been so looking forward to this much hyped restaurant and although it was a feast for the eyes, I’m afraid to say it left our taste buds feeling a little left out. The restaurant itself was beautiful – very quirky and the waiting staff were excellent. You were given a paintbrush to reveal your own menu (see below) and we definitely felt wowed. The view from our table was stunning overlooking the Boardwalk all lit up.

You will see from the pictures below that the presentation was superb and it was a really entertaining experience, but on many of the courses there just seemed to be something lacking in either flavour or the quality of cooking. My son’s girlfriend has a peanut allergy and is a vegetarian. We had informed the restaurant of this earlier and also made it known to our waiters on arrival, yet she was presented with a dish made with chicken gravy and given a dessert containing peanut butter. Not what you would expect. You can see from our smiles that we were not going to let anything spoil our last night and it was great fun, but the food was somewhat disappointing and the mistakes with the dietary requirements could have ended up very badly if we hadn’t have been as vigilant.

One other niggle was that we constantly had problems with our cards with regards to payments getting refused, Despite visiting guest services and being assured that our credit card was pre-authorised we were unable to get dollars at the casino and my sister was not allowed to disembark & sent back to guest services to queue up only to be told to use a different card (believe me when I say there was plenty of credit on it). There were others having the same problems.

All in all we all had a fantastic time and I would love to go on the ship again. It’s no secret I am a big Royal Caribbean fan and the Harmony definitely delivered so much WOW factor that I will forgive it the niggles and hope that it is just having teething problems.

If you want any information or have any questions please e-mail me at [email protected].