Sunday—Fort Lauderdale, FL
We had a quick hotel breakfast and then it was time to board the shuttle at 9:30. Embarkation went really super easy and fast—our shuttle left the hotel about 9:40 and we were getting on the ship about 10:50! After we got through check-in, we were just finishing getting our group picture taken when our friends came around at the corner…so we were able to get a group photo together! It turned out really good so that was one of the six that I bought!
Some quick snaps while the professional was taking her photos.
Then a little bit of check-in (the kids had to get security bands that they would need to wear the entire cruise) and playtime (there was a playset in the waiting area).
And before we knew it we were headed up the gangway!
The first thing we weren’t expecting was NOT walking right onto the hustle and bustle of the ship’s Promenade. We actually had to walk down about 30 yards. But we headed straight to Boleros, the bar where we got our first drink on the Harmony—and the place we got our beloved wrist bands. AND LEARNED THERE WERE NO WRIST BANDS ON THIS SHIP!! WHAT?!?!?! Yeah, they don’t have the technology for it on this ship—they will (hopefully) after the upcoming spring 2020 renovation but for now it’s old school.
Well, it’s certainly first world problems but that was really disappointing because we’d talked them up so much to the kids and were excited that we’d actually managed to save our bands from the last cruise. But we didn’t plan ahead with lanyards because we thought we’d all have wristbands!! (Note: I did happen to throw in two lanyards so Owen and Katie were able to use those but Tom and I just used pockets or my purse.)
Since we were at a bar…we got our first drinks—of course a margarita and a mojito.
We sat down to gather our thoughts a bit since Dad needed to sit and rest. The kids went to check out the pizza place and our friends wandered in the bar. We then explored the ship a little and the kids and Grannie rode the carousel.
And I got a margarita from the Mexican restaurant…I started with the Sweet and Spice and it was yummy.
Then we all met at Chops for lunch. I had to sit in the big fancy chair in the lobby.
We really enjoyed it, but BIG SURPRISE Katie didn’t like anything. She did start with the jumbo shrimp cocktail but didn’t like it and it was downhill from there (she didn’t even like the mac and cheese).
You can see all our shirts!! Kind of.
When it was time for dessert Tom said he wanted nothing. He got it.
Then he and Mark were joking about it being the Marine corps birthday so Mark told the waitress that it was Tom’s birthday…
It was really fun, the food was excellent, and we all had a good time.
After Chops, the kids explored more with Papa and Grannie and went to the pool while Tom and I decorated the room door as a suprise.
And Papa and Grannie’s door:
We were also finally able to get in our room (though we had no luggage yet)…and we were really surprised by the differences between the Harmony and the Allure. We had thought it would be pretty much the exact same…ha.
The room was definitely a little smaller and not laid out as nicely (the bathroom and balcony were smaller, the closet was in an awkward spot, and the couch/kids’ bed was closest to the window), we didn’t have nice big desk drawers for clothes, and there were only two outlets in the entire room! (And you can’t bring extension cords so you’re stuck.)
There were other little differences that jumped out, too. For example:
- The bar where we get our Bloody Marys doesn’t have the nice high back leather chairs we used for people watching (and drinking our bloody Marys) in the morning. And the Bloody Mary bar (shrimp, bacon, etc., is apparently somewhere else).
- We can’t text. You have to use their app and it’s constantly logging you out and dropping the wifi signal.
- They didn’t have the chili cheese fries at the pool Cafe!!!
Tom stayed in the room to rest and I went up to find everyone at the pool and sat on the lounge chairs for a bit. Katie had her first of many ice creams…
Ignore my lips. I put it on waaay too thick so it came off.
Then it was time to leave!!! Tom did make it up to join us.
We showed the kids the room and got changed for dinner. Soon it was time for dinner and it was great. Owen ordered from the adult menu and had steak and Katie got pizza from the kids menu. They had fun with their friends. We enjoyed French onion soup (Tom) and crab cakes and oysters (Jen), prime rib (Tom) and a seafood mash (Jen), and pear blueberry crumble (Jen) and molten lava cake (Tom). It was all good except the crumble was pretty plain (it was sugar free). At the time I thought I didn’t really need to take pics of the menus because I didn’t need to record everything we ate… But now, after the fact, I wish I had.
I do know we had dessert shots every night—our friend Mark had heard about them on his previous cruise (they aren’t on any menu). They were always very good and were always something mixed with Bailey’s!!
After dinner we went back to the room and the kids were excited for their first towel animal!
(They had been bummed there was no towel animal so we asked our steward about it. So we were nicely surprised after dinner!)
Then it was off for the big water show Ocean Aria. They did a little crowd warm up and this happened:
The show really was something to see—divers and acrobatics using a tiny little pool. The kids loved it, though, and eventually went and sat right up front and got splashed! After they went down, a huge group of kids joined them!
Afterward we let the kids roam the ship on their own (we wandered as well) and gave them instructions to be back to the room by 9:30 and they were! So then they were allowed to go out again on their own until 10:30. They were out playing ping-pong and who knows what else. We did sign them up for the kids adventure camp thing so they’ll do that later this week.