Harmony of the Seas Review
Awesome ships with great ports. WAY too many kids. What's with the dogs?
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We have previously been on the Oasis and Allure. We were excited to go on the Harmony. As expected, the Harmony is a gorgeous ship. I love the Oasis class ships, as they are easy to navigate and all the neighborhoods help to spread the people out on the ship and help make it feel uncrowded. The shows on this ship are absolutely top notch. Grease was, by far, the best show we've seen on a ship and so fun! Every single show on the ship is just amazing. The ports were great, too. Between the ship, shows and ports, this had the potential to be the best cruise we've ever gone on. But...
We usually go this particular week because it's between school breaks in the U.S. so we've found it a good time to cruise when there isn't many kids. Except this year! We were told there were 1,500 kids on the ship!!! That was way too many! Children were everywhere, even where they shouldn't be (solarium, bars and hot tubs). From what I understand, RC was offering a "kids are free" promotion that might have been the reason why it was so inundated with little kids.
There was a Jewish holiday that week so there were certain things done that week to cater to the Jewish passengers (changing the Solarium Bistro to a kosher restaurant, for instance). It seems like it would have been better to set up the kosher restaurant away from the Solarium, since that brought kids into that area.
Cabin Review
Ocean View Balcony
DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT choose this cabin!! We thought it would be great to be close to the pool deck (which was convenient, for sure). However, this is the loudest cabin ever! It took us a few days to discover what the constant noise was. This cabin is directly under the Mini Bites restaurant, where they serve quick foods. It has an omelette station in the morning, then changes over to serve hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and nachos. If you are in room 14692, for all the hours Mini Bites is open you will hear CONSTANT, super loud chair scraping noises as people get in and out of their seats when eating.
The design of the cabin was actually awesome. It seemed more spacious than the balcony rooms on some other ships. The closet set-up was great. So, go ahead...get a balcony because they're great. Do yourself a favor and go down one more deck so you can have some peace and quiet in your room, though!
If you're already booked in cabin 14692 and didn't think to look for reviews until afterwards, pack earplugs and consider downloading a white noise application for your phone.
Port Reviews
St. Maarten
In St. Maarten we took a water taxi over to the beach and rented beach chairs and umbrellas. It was a lovely beach day. My only warning to you is to carefully select your beach chair location. When we first got there, there was one waverunner in the water by our chairs. This ended up being a place where, the entire time, waverunners were coming and going. It was a bit nerve racking only because completely inexperienced people were driving through swim areas and coming in hot towards the beach area where our chairs were. Just be sure you know where the waverunners will be operating and try to get a chair away from there as much as possible.
San Juan
We walked to Castillo San Cristobal, which we were able to tour freely without needing to sign up for a tour. It was very interesting and you get some beautiful ocean views from the fort. I definitely recommend going there. Our port day was pretty short in San Juan. I would have liked more time to explore Old San Juan.
Labadee
Oh, Labadee, how I love thee! We headed to Nellie's Beach. Rent floats, it's so worth it! You can go out a bit further, away from the crowds and have a perfect relaxing day. I LOVE that my drink package works on Labadee and that they provide lunch. RC really does it right with their private islands.