Vacation aboard The Harmony of The Seas

This article was featured the Escape Supplement out with the Sunday Times on 25th September, 2016.

First time I heard about the Harmony of The Seas, dubbed a floating city was from a friend of mine who showed me a YouTube clip of this new outrageously luxurious cruiseliner launched earlier this year by the US-based Royal Caribbean Cruises. You could see from the promotional clip that this was one mega-ship packed with unprecedented wow factors. So a few months later, my husband and I booked ourselves a vacation with SMS Mondial in Malta.

The “Harmony” is truly glorious in every sense of the word, from her architecture and design to the level of attention to detail with which the incredible crew manage thousands of guests from all over the world. One article is not enough to explain all the things we did but I will try my best to give you some information of the highlights we experienced.

Facts about The Largest Cruiseliner in the World

In May this year, this 227,000-ton ship, an astounding 362 metres long sailed for the first time into Southampton. After two short cruises here, she has since May spent the summer sailing the Mediterranean stopping at Barcelona, Naples, Marseille, Civitavecchia and La Spezia. Later on in the year, she will head to the Caribbean to cruise there for a couple of years.

We learnt from one of the on-deck information videos that the 16-deck ship underwent 32 months of construction in a French shipyard. It boasts:

• 2,500 state rooms
• 20 restaurants varying from gourmet to Italian, to American to healthy salad bars
• several swimming pools
• Central Park – a living park in the centre of the ship
• 10,000 plants and 50 trees
• 24 lifts for guests
• The Ultimate Abyss – the tallest slide at sea, plummeting visitors 10 stories from deck 16 to deck 6
• The Boardwalk – where kids can have fun climbing and riding the carousel 24-7
• A double-story speciality restaurant called Wonderland
• 11,252 works of art
• 2 robot bartenders at the Bionic Bar
• Virtual balconies with real-time views of the destination for interior rooms
• 2,100 crew members from 77 different nationalities
• 2 FlowRiders with simulated waves for surfing
• Theatres with shows running daily
• Ice-Skating Rink with Ice-skating shows in the evenings

Entertainment at its Best

For the fun-loving and adventurous guests, the onboard entertainment schedule is packed with things to do including events held in the Vitality Health & Fitness centre at Deck 6 with classes running hourly by the fitness teams. The gym is huge with all the high-tech machines and free-weights you can think of. If you think that you cannot go for a jog aboard a ship, then you are wrong. Aboard the Harmony, there is a jogging track available 24/7 starting from the fitness centre with a jogging track that laps around the ship. That was very clever a great bonus for us to jog every morning as part of our fitness routine as opposed to the running machines also available.

Clinging to a mat for dear life, anyone over 4ft tall can shoot down ten decks, twisting and turning in one of a pair of tunnel slides above the AquaTheatre. I tried it and I found it quite scary. My husband on the otherhand did not find it scary at all! The very young children can play in Splashaway Bay, a big water park with little slides.

If you wish, you can fly through the air on a zip wire for a seagull’s eye view of The Boardwalk below.Head to pool deck 18 to zoom down the Perfect Storm trio of waterslides. One of the slides will twirl you around in a giant yellow bowl before flushing you out.

There are also two FlowRiders with simulated waves for surfing, two rock-climbing walls and an ice-skating rink which are a lot of fun! All these are monitored by crew assistants with safety being a huge priority throughout. Yes, when you are not busy exploring the cities the ship stops at or dining at one of the 20 restaurants, there is loads to do on board The Harmony. One little thing I was missing on this cruise and I would like to suggest to the authorities if I may, were the dance classes and animation type of events out by the main pool area as we had on other ships as that really kicked off that vacation feeling for me, but that is the only thing I think that I felt missing if I had to pin-point something.

My favourite area to hang out in the early evenings was The Boardwalk, a kind of activity park with a relaxed atmosphere with a merry-go-round, deck games, a hot dog stand, Johnny Rockets Fifties-style diner, Sabor a Mexican restaurant and a Starbucks Café where I enjoyed several lattes late afternoon in between lunch and dinner. It was also here that the fantastic show called The Fine Line was held at the Aquatheatre with acrobats, synchronised swimmers and hip hop artists giving all the audience one memorable show!

No need to leave the ship for entertainment in the evenings either. The Royal Theatre, which seats 1,380, is the place where we watched an amazing, and I repeat amazing production of two musicals Grease and Colombus which offered performers and singers of the highest calibre. Compared to another cruise we went to last year, the entertainment shows on this mega-ship were in my opinion 5 star.

On the Gala Nights, when everyone is invited to dress smart for photo opportunities, we also enjoyed a few hours at the ship’s Casino Royale where we played various sessions of Craps and Roulette and socialised with other guests from America, Greece, Australia and China.

Wining and Dining

Throughout the week, we dined at 10 of the 20 restaurants including the unforgettable Wonderland, Sabor the Mexican Restaurant, Izumi the Japanese restaurant, Jamie Oliver’s, Jonny Rocket’s Diner and Solarium. All were excellent in their different ways. Breakfast buffet was a must every day. We did put on a few extra pounds I’m sure, but you really cannot be on such a ship and not relish all these divine temptations! It’s part of the holiday fun.

For the persons seeking to just chill and do nothing physical, there are also child-free areas where adults can peacefully retreat to the four whirlpools suspended over the ocean in the three- deck-high Solarium and sip on their cocktails there.

Staying Connected

Usually one of the biggest challenges for passengers on a cruise is staying connected to work via the internet, or loved ones at home, or even relaxing and watching movies in the cabin after a long day at sea. Usually the internet speed leaves a bit to be desired and the connectivity charges can add up quite quickly. Well, Royal Caribbean have changed all of this and have made their passengers (me included) Internet happy with the use of VOOM, considered to be the fastest internet connection speed at sea. Both my husband and I needed to work a few hours a day and post some photos on Facebook while out at sea, so from our point of view, this was a great service we made use of.

We purchased one of two Internet VOOM package deals which are much more affordable compared to the per-minute offerings that cell phone providers and other cruise ships offer.

To cruise or not to cruise is one question many people ask themselves until they experience one for the first time. It is a practical way of holidaying. It is like being in a large floating hotel with much more amenities, plus you wake up and you are in a different city every day, without the hassle of catching a plane. This cruise vacation was one of the best holidays we have had to date, and it will not be our last. As I said earlier, we are now hooked and we are looking forward to book our next one! Which shall it be?