The world – viewed from Norway

After some twenty cruises aboard Azamara and Celebrity ships, we had an urge to try the world’s largest cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas. We are avid readers of Cruise Critic, and we really had no prior expectations regarding this ship. There are three companies under one umbrella – Azamara at the top of the list (in both price and quality), followed by Celebrity and then Royal Caribbean (RCCL), which is the company most suitable for families. We were pleasantly surprised. The ship was new and had naturally benefited from the technological developments that have taken place in the ship-building industry during the past couple decades. Harmony of the Seas is an architectural success: easy to find one’s way around, and the dining rooms were partitioned off into separate rooms so that one never had the feeling of being smothered in a crowd. The colors chosen are discrete and remind one of Azamara’s ships after their recent refurbishment. The shower was spacious and enclosed with an arched door – the most effective design I have experienced on any ship; designers have obviously taken into account that Americans (who are the primary target clients) have also become increasingly ‘spacious’. The arrangement leaves room for only a very tiny sink, and washing one’s hands, not to mention the usual morning face wash, results in a lot of water spilt on the floor. Fortunately the floor mat and towels are changed twice a day, so never mind.

Restaurants

Good, varied food in both the free restaurants and the special restaurants, which, by the way, are quickly fully booked. Our cruise was for only two weeks – if we had chosen a back-to-back arrangement and stayed on board four to five weeks, we would absolutely have longed for a break and a change of dining fare. Quick and efficient service in the self-service restaurant on the fifteenth level. The main dining room that rises three levels tall had random, slow and frequently unenthusiastic service; there was an apparent lack of effective management, because the staff did their best but was unfortunately somewhat inexperienced. The same might be said of the cabin attendants. A couple times we had to remind them that; “Yes, we would like to have our towels changed today, too”.

Internet

Although the company strongly profiles its VOOM package as the fastest Wi-Fi at sea, it was nevertheless as deplorable as that found on any other cruise ship. During peak Facebook-checking hours, one can simply give up. Five minutes to connect to a website is not what I would call voom! Otherwise, it was the usual routine: continual error messages, flashes of lost connectivity or no contact at all. Harmony brags about its lightning Internet access, but when you distribute it among five thousand passengers, it amounts to woefully little per person.

As Elite class members on board both Azamara and Celebrity, we get free Internet time, but on RCCL we got only one day each. We thought maybe access would be better early in the morning or late in the evening, but no – people seem to lie in bed and surf the Internet. The best time to connect was actually during mealtimes.

This brings us to Royal Carribean’s own app, which is supposed to display the program for the day, the meal menus and shows, plus give you an opportunity to book what your heart desires. Royal iQ has gotten more than its share of awful ratings in Google Play and iTunes, and rightly so. It is slow, poor and lacks a lot of information; it is difficult to book events, lacking confirmation of bookings and double-bookings happened. The app is free and can be downloaded only to phones; it does not work on tablets.

Booking of activities

The information on TV was somewhat better and not as slow as what we have frequently experienced on Azamara and Celebrity. Unfortunately, one could not book via TV here because RCCL assumed that passengers use the telephone app or one of the deployed app boxes on board. The TV system was spoilt by junk mail; it is irritating that a system that is not particularly fast to start with has to be burdened with a large number of unnecessary messages that continually have to be deleted. Naturally, the TV system crashed from time to time, so it became extra difficult to check restaurant bookings; but strangely enough, it seemed that the advertisements always came through unscathed. All in all, the two or three important messages we got during the trip drowned in the spam soup.

The idea is that all bookings of restaurants, shows and other activities are to be done on the app-tablets that are deployed throughout the ship. This would naturally have been done if only they were in working order, but they are unfortunately just as poor as the telephone app. The resulting scenario was that people were eager to try out the new tool for the first couple days, but as they gradually became frustrated with how poorly they worked, interest waned – and after a few days, the tablets simply stood there, abandoned and unloved.

So, to book activities or a restaurant table, the easiest solution was to visit the attraction during opening hours and order from a living, breathing person; this worked fairly well, but there were times when one had to wait in a queue. We tried calling to place reservations; the main restaurant answered the telephone, the others did not.

By good fortune, the invoicing system worked perfectly; there was never an error in charging our sea pass for drinks, etc. At the same time, one might question why they make the Diamond benefits system so complicated; the rules must have been written by lawyers who got paid by the hour. In some venues, we had to sign for free cappuccinos; in other places, we did not; we do not know why. Some of the staff did not know what was included, and this naturally led to unnecessary questions and (more or less helpful) answers.

Facilities

As might be expected, there were a lot of enjoyable activities, stage shows, zip-line (do it two or three times in a row), a nice pipe (slide) spanning 10 decks (well worth doing several times – not only a child thing), water slides, pools and jacuzzies; no crowding, no cramped spaces. Good programs, professionally carried out, and a good distribution of restaurants and activities across the different deck levels.

Flushing of the toilet led a life of its own; it had a vacuum system with the usual warnings not to throw anything at all into the toilet that had not first been eaten. Frequently the flushing began when one pressed the button, but just as often, the mechanism seemed to wait – it paused a few seconds after the button was pressed, even up to a minute or two before the flushing was triggered. This prolonged one’s stay in the toilet while waiting to see that one’s dirty deed would be flushed away – it is not something one wants to expose other users to. Fortunately the vacuum flushing worked throughout the entire trip, so people undoubtedly deposited only authorized material in the toilets. But the strange pauses that the system took remained a mystery – could it be that the flushing system was manufactured by the same company that designed the Internet system on board?

One of the pleasures of crossing the Atlantic is that you have to turn your clock back an hour; six times. People at sea are of course accustomed to this phenomenon and have an almost religious reverence for the correct time. On all other ships, we have always been informed when we needed to adjust the time on our watches; Harmony failed to do this. We were not informed, and our watches, the TV clock and the clocks around the ship showed three different times – there is no excuse for this.

On Cruise Critic, there were many complaints about the personnel not being pleasant, kind or helpful. We are happy to say that this was not our experience. Everyone we encountered on board did everything they could to make our trip as pleasant as possible. In particular, the service provided by the staff of the self-service restaurant, the Windjammer, was superior. So I really do not know the reason for the criticism of the personnel; it is possible, of course, that the management of Harmony read earlier criticism and took measures to improve the staff’s attitude. It may also be that we were met by a new and refreshed staff; we noticed that after two weeks at sea there were certain crew members who perhaps began to get bored and were not as service-minded as one might wish.

In general, this was a very successful cruise. However, those of us who prefer tours where there are less families with children will probably return to Celebrity’s newer ships.

This is a good overview of the dining places on board /// And of the ship’s activities

TRYP Hotel by Wyndham Bad Bramstedt, Germany

After a marvellous three-week motoring trip in Germany, we wound up our adventure with a two-day stay at TRYP by Wyndham Bad Bramstedt before taking the Kiel ferry back home to Norway. This was unfortunately a sad finale to our holiday. It was decidedly the most expensive hotel of our trip, but because they advertised with four stars, we decided to book it. However, once we had checked in, we were disappointed at every turn: breakfast was not included, the Internet was inaccessible (and when it did work, it cost extra), neither safe nor fridge in the room, all the furniture was scratched and worn-out, and the chairs in the hotel room looked like they were purchased at a flea market. Only one pillow on the bed. We asked for another, but it never arrived. The sink and shower in the bathroom were cracked; the rug was threadbare and stained. In one corner of the room it looked like a dog had marked its territory. Of course it is possible that TRYP have only just taken over the hotel and are planning to renovate it, but if this is the case, then they should for heaven's sake lower the room rates considerably until the hotel is up to standard. Parking was hopeless. We placed our car in a space reserved for buses; this was possible because we were there at the weekend. Otherwise people parked their cars everywhere and anywhere possible – irrespective of whether there was a parking space or not. This hotel should have been classified as a two-star accommodation and should have been priced accordingly.