Quick Review: Harmony of the Seas, October 2019

Harmony docked in Labadee

This time we were back on Harmony for the second time in just under 2 months.  The prior one was quite an adventure (link to prior review) but this one turned out to be just a nice, relaxing cruise on-board one of our favorite ships.

This trip, leaving from Port Canaveral, stopped in Labadee, San Juan, and St. Maarten.  As usual, we arrived nice and early at Port Canaveral and, once again, we were lucky enough to have "expedited boarding".  This is absolutely the best and we were on-board in a flash!  We were on-board and headed to the Park Café (gotta get my Royal Kummelweck roast beef sandwich) by about 11:30AM.  I think total time from parking the car to biting into my sandwich was no more than 30 minutes.

For this trip, we stayed in a standard inside cabin.  I mentioned it before on our first trip on Harmony when we had the inside cabin with the "virtual balcony", these are some of the nicest, roomiest inside cabins we've ever seen.  More than enough space for two people and their stuff.

The weather for our trip was pretty nice however there was some "motion in the ocean", as Capt. Johnny put it, for most of the trip.  The first night was particularly rough.  It doesn't bother me much, I actually enjoy it, but if you are sensitive to this type of motion, I imagine it wouldn't be much fun.  It's funny because our prior cruise during Hurricane Dorian was much, much smoother all around.  I believe the Captain said the ocean conditions this week were caused by a storm far away in the Atlantic that was creating swells somewhere in the area of 3 - 5 meters.  Our cabin was on deck 7 all the way forward, so we were definitely feeling it.

Afternoon arrival in San Juan

As I mentioned earlier, our first stop was Labadee, and while I do like it there, it really has been overshadowed by Coco Cay.  I wonder if Royal has any plans for Labadee.  It was renovated not too long ago so I'm not sure they want to do anything further there for a while.  It's still a nice, quiet place to hang out though.  I got off the ship and did a lap walking around to check things out before heading back on-board to relax.  Mostly, I wanted to get some pictures of the island and the ship.  The next day was San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Our arrival was scheduled for 2PM I believe but we did arrive a bit early.  The upper decks were packed with people watching us arrive as it's pretty uncommon for the ships to dock in the afternoon.  Usually I'm still fast asleep when we dock in the mornings, so it was nice to see.  We did not get off the ship in San Juan since it was such a late arrival and we had evening plans on-board.  Sail away was at 9PM and nighttime sail away is always cool to see.  Our final stop was Philipsburg, St. Maarten.  We did get off here and decided to walk from the pier to downtown.  In all the years we've been coming here, we never tried that as it always seemed like a very long way.  Normally, we just take the nearby water taxi.  Surprisingly, the walk isn't that bad.  I'd say it took us maybe 20 minutes to walk to downtown, not too bad at all.  However, by the time we got there we were ready to head back to the ship because it was pretty hot.  I guess we are getting old but it never seems to be a comfortable temperature in the Caribbean no matter what time of year we go.

Cantral Park at night

For our meals on this trip, once again we avoided the traditional dining room and opted to just nibble here and there at many of the free and "specialty" dining locations.  Normally we so at least one visit to Izumi, but this time we changed it up a bit.  We decided to do Jaime's Italian for the first time.  We've dined at and enjoyed both Portofino and Giovanni's on other ships but never tried Jaime's.  Our opinion of it was, it was OK.  The appetizers were good.  We had the antipasti plank, shrimp, garlic bread, and black truffle arancini which were all tasty.  For a main, my wife had the braised short rib, which was very good.  I had the lasagna which, like the rest of the pastas we had, (I think they brought out a small plate of each) was kind of mushy and just not that great.  Oh well, we actually got a good deal (2 for 1) on the price because it was a port day and they were desperate for business.  The next day, we decided to have some Mexican at Sabor.  We haven't been there in a couple of years, mostly because the quality had gone down in our opinion.  But we decided to give it another try and it wasn't too bad.  Quality at Sabor has definitely gotten better since our last visit.  The highlight again were the appetizers.  We split a beef empanada and the chicken stuffed jalapeños wrapped in bacon.  Both were yummy.  Along with the fresh guacamole, which was very tasty, we were already stuffed.  Our main course were some taco samplers.  We each ordered one chicken, one pork, and one shrimp taco.  My mistake was getting them with corn tortillas.  At home, I enjoy homemade tacos on soft corn tortillas, and for some reason assumed that was what I was getting here.  Unfortunately, they were the hard corn shells, but I suffered through.  Aside from all that goodness we had some very tasty Margaritas.  I had a couple of Jalapeño Cucumber and my wife had one of those and a Grand Margarita.  They were very good!

For entertainment, we spent most of our time in Dazzles enjoying one of our favorite bands "Temperature".  We did want to catch the Aqua Show again on this trip, but it was cancelled quite a lot due to the fairly rough seas.  There were a couple of "silent disco" nights which are always fun.

Once again, a great cruise, with a bit less drama this time around.  Now we wait for a few months until our next trip in early 2020 on Rhapsody of the Seas.

Hits:

• Expedited boarding is the best
• Temperature band
• Sabor has improved
• Captain Johnny is the best

Misses:

• Bit of a bumpy ride most of the week
• Jaimie's Italian was disappointing