Harmony of the Seas Postcard #3 - Rotterdam

Yesterday evening was a big improvement on the afternoon, Grease was very good and should you ever find yourself on this ship in the near future I would highly recommend it. This was followed by dinner in the Silk Restaurant where service and food was of a very high standard. This is our designated restaurant and we believe it's the one allocated to Diamond members and above, a lot of the other passengers were that much older in there and the service was just that higher from our lunch experience. Last night was also a formal night, we were sort of aware of it and I would say 50-60 dressed up. As there was no mention of it in the Cruise Compass so we didn't bother and didn't feel of of place because of it. Again we put this down to poor organisation onboard.
On the subject of Wow bands, I would say for us as an experiment it has to go down as a failure. 50% of the time when we have tried to use it we have met confusion or inability of the crew member to know how to process the transactions. It's been great for opening the cabin door but that is about it.
This morning we arrived in Rotterdam at just before 5:45  (we haven't changed clocks and have been told to use ship time). I hope this isn't going to result in yet more confusion with Rotterdam being an hour ahead of everybody getting off the ship. It's a bloody stupid idea if you ask me!!
We met up with our friends at 7:00 and intended to go to breakfast at the Solarium Bistro but when we got there we found it didn't open until 7:30. So we made our way to the Windjammer which was open and had a quick breakfast before getting off.









The plan was to go to Kinderdijk via water bus but we missed the first 202 waterbus and it was another hour and twenty minutes until the next so plotted another route which involved going up river on a different route with a 40 walk the other end. This worked well and we still arrived an hour ahead of when the next 202 was due to arrive.





Kinderdijk is a Unesco world heritage site where there are a collection of windmills dating back hundreds of years. Two of which you can still go in and both are in working order, in fact the first one we went in had all its sails in and was going round at an incredible speed. Really exhilarating to just stand under and watch the sails being driven round at such speed.







The return journey sadly didn't go to plan either and it involved taking two water bus trips but it made for a very eventful and interesting trip.

Crossing the bridge back to the ship was a nightmare with all the people wanting to take selfies of themselves with the ship behind. Very dangerous in places when you needed to step onto the cycle track with the cyclists not slowing down for anything.





We were back on board for 1:30 and ended up going for lunch in Johnny Rockets Diner which apart from the Windjammer was one of the few venues available to eat and even then we had to wait until 2:00 pm for it to open. What is it about eating and restaurant opening times on this ship?????





We sailed from Rotterdam 30 minutes late at 5:30 and although very chilly it has to be one of the best sail outs there is. So much to see and the first 2 miles done in reverse.







So many people have turned out to see us sail out and it seemed to be all along the river. It makes you truly appreciate the fact we are on the world's largest cruise ship.



Tonight we are eating in Jamie's Italian restaurant at 9:00 which is another venue to squeeze into this cruise. Fingers crossed it's as good as they others. With a $30 per person cover charge you would hope so.

Once again I have added few more photos to the Flickr Album which you will find >>>Here<<<