Exceptional Cruise

Item: Harmony of the Seas
Rating: 4.7
Author: Ted1955

Harmony of the Seas Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

Ted1955

Contributor Level: Cruise Director

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 24

Helpful Votes: 370

Overall rating:

4.7 out of 5

7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Ft. Lauderdale Roundtrip)

Sail date: August 26, 2017

Ship: Harmony of the Seas

Cabin number: 10-587

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

Overall a very nice cruise but I really would not go on the ship again because of the Diamond Lounge location and the pool being removed from the Solarium. To many people at the pools

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Best ever! Used Park-in-Go lot at half the price of port for parking. Arrived at terminal at 10:50 AM for an 11:00 -11:30 embarkation appointment. Walked through the terminal and right aboard the ship by 11:00 AM. SeaPass Card was on our stateroom door as advertised.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Ship was beautiful. Ate at both Chop's and Jamie's, both had good food with outstanding service. Food in Main Dining room was good as was the Windjammer and Park Cafe.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

I have Pros and Cons, thus the lower rating. Pros> Did both The Abyss and Perfect Storm Slides. The Abyss is a dry slide that drops 10 stories. Sounds daunting but the slide has tiny lights inside that light the way so not so scary. On the other hand the Perfect Storm Slides are water slides and have no lights and are pitch black inside. Very disorientating because your going on way them another, but it was fun. Cons> They removed the Pool in the Adult Solarium and added a Hot Tub and a Shower like structure. They also replaced all the glass above the solarium with plastic sheets and a white cloth mesh. Some of the plastic sheets were torn and blown away. I'm not an engineer but I feel that was pretty stupid to put plastic into an ocean wind stream environment. If you've ever been on the Oasis or Allure Solarium you know it can get hot in there. Why would you remove the Pool? To make matters worst, the Palm Tree Shower was not working. When asked why, I was told it gets everyone wet. Isn't that what showers are for?? So now the ship holds 1,000 more people than Oasis and Allure and they remove a pool, so now 6,464 people need to share the remaining 3 pools. On seas days you barely have enough room to turn around in the pool. We were in the Sports Pool (Adult Only) which was rated for 50 people and there was easily 125 people in that pool.

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Attended Headliner Show, 1887 (Ice Skating) and Columbus, all were very good. The Aqua Show was cancelled due to problems with the pool floor elevator not working. It's a new ship so we expected some bugs. Also did the Rubicon Escape Room. My wife thought she would hate it and actually enjoyed it. Our group solved about 90% of the puzzle before our air gave out. I would rate this as exceptional!! Try it.

Children's Programs

No Children

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Never had bad service anywhere on the ship.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Ship was beautiful and very clean. As far as design, removing the pool in the Solarium was a mistake and moving the Diamond Club to the bottom of the ship with no windows was also a mistake. Also don't understand why RC has removed all the Crown Viking Lounges, this was their signature lounge. Now it's a private area for Grand Suite Guests and above. Seems RC is forgetting that it's the 2500 cabins that make their revenue not the 200 Suits.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

We had a balcony above Vintages in Center Park. The room was nice with a really nice shower but I will go back to an Ocean Balcony as I like to see where I am. Little noisy at night with a Guitar playing but it was over buy 10:00 PM. I think Ocean Balcony Rooms are bigger.