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I haven't really addressed our cruise director on this sailing - Bobby Brown. I have to say a CD doesn't make or break a cruise for me. I like some more than others but it's not a deal breaker for me. I had Bobby as a CD on Harmony (I think). To be honest he didn't leave a great impression on that cruise. However in the "always keep your mind open" department he has been better than I anticipated on this cruise. I've actually watched the Morning Show more than I usually do. One thing he added to this sailing was a unique special - "How Do You Maintain An Ice Skating Rink On A Cruise Ship?". As a cruise geek this was really cool. Ice cool. Just kidding, but really informative. We enter Studio B to see someone.. watering the ice. Joining Bobby in this presentation is Rubin, the stage manager who looks after Studio B. They discuss thing like where the dance floor used during "RED" or Laser tag is stored (hint, it's under the center section and it slides out from under the seats). That's different from other ship in different classes. As it turns out sailings like a 12 night transatlantic are an opportunity for some maintenance activities. The ship has been in service for several months and while things like the ice surface could go on, once the ship enter routine seven night sailings it would be much more disruptive to perform certain essential maintenance including replacing the ice in Studio B later on, so they took advantage of this 12 night sailing to melt Studio B. To. The. Floor. They melted it down to the bare floor. Like defrosting a freezer at home, once in a while it just has to be done. They began melting it down right after (ok, during) the last ice skating show. That took overnight, then they had to clean it all up and get ready to make new ice. They have since been building the ice up, millimeter by millimeter, by hand, watering each layer every 15 minutes or so, around the clock, since. In fact as we listened to the presentation, the crew came out to repeat the watering process we saw when we first arrived. Then again. The water is special filtered water. This will continue for the three days, around the clock, until the ice approximately 3.5 cm thick (1 1/2"). But that's not all. If anyone follows Nick Weir, VP of Entertainment for Royal he has been touting how they have AMPED up the projection technology on Symphony over Harmony. That in part starts in the ice. Within the ice is embedded a membrane that enhances the resolution of the surface as a projection technology. That membrane was just replaced here on Symphony and you can see it now only because this new ice is crystal clear. At a distance you don't even see it. Zoom in closer and you do. Symphony is the first to employ this projection surface embedded within the ice, not even Harmony has it. Not yet. Studio B has it's own mini-Zamboni used to dress the ice surface each day. The projection technology consists of six side mounted projectors that project onto this surface. Each projector costs around $100k. Combining the six projectors, three port, three starboard into what appears to be a complete image requires precision. The manufacturer is based in Japan and when they need to re-align them (it's a moving ship in seas, stuff moves) they need to fly the engineer in from Japan to align them occasionally. Next they talk about drones. Very interesting. Forty eight drones with twelve spares on hand. Very special technology because within Studio B there is no regular GPS signal like a consumer drone might use. They have to create a reference 'cube' within Studio B for the drones to fly within. That's where these black boxes hanging from the ceiling come in. There are several of them mounted around the perimeter of the ice. Combined with some floor mounted reference points and two portable white cubes placed on the ice surface they create a 3D GPS-like environment for the drones to operate in. Now that they told us this, I recall seeing two white cubes sitting in the middle of the ice floor at the start of the show '1977'. Before the show starts, while we are all waiting outside in line, the drones have to be checked to ensure they are happy with this reference cube. If they aren't it has to be recalculated. This is very new technology in use and with 48 drones operating in synchronicity, it's very precise. The drone batteries are very special and they can't be flown due to HazMat laws. That means when they need new batteries, they'll need to be shipped to America now that Symphony is on her way to Miami. As we listen on, two more crew come out to "grow" the ice. Another few millimeters accomplished. It turns out these are two of the Ice Skating cast. Even they get into the act. It's a team effort, four times an hour, around the clock, for three days. You know how they don't seem to open the doors soon enough? I certainly felt this on Adventure of the Seas recently when the Ice Skating show had long lines. It turns they can't. The room is temperature controlled and letting all that air conditioning out affects the ice surface. They have to keep the doors closed as long as they can. Lesson learned, be patient. It was a very interesting presentation unlike others I've seen on a ship and I thank Bobby for putting it on. It gives me a greater appreciation for the level of effort that Royal puts into their entertainment. One last note. On the way out I saw these coins embedded in the ice. Seems to be a tradition for the current cast who just changed over. The previous ice skating cast, their first contract complete, has just headed home for a short vacation.

Day 8 - Sea Day It seems we did two 'Crazy Ivans' last night. Breakfast at Johnny Rockets again. Followed by a Walking Tour of Central Park with Laszlo, the Landscape Specialist on board. Laszlo is very familiar with Central Park and those with some historical knowledge of the Oasis class will recognize Laszlo since he has played a critical role in establishing all Central Parks across the Oasis sisters including the first one on Oasis. With an April in service date in the Mediterranean Central Park had to be outfitted differently with plants designed for the European climate since it would sail for seven months there before this transatlantic. Now that she is heading to the Caribbean, Central Park will slowly be changed to feature more plants that are designed for a tropical climate. That will occur slowly as plants die or otherwise need to be replaced through 2019. With over 12,500 plants on the ship they can't possibly change it all at once. The trellis should begin to grow with cover over the coming months with it's permanent plants in place. A few weeks ago the ship encountered some nasty storms that were responsible to coating the ship with layers of salt water kicked up by the storms. That included Central Park and Laszlo was quite sad when he returned from his scheduled vacation a few weeks ago to see the damage within Central Park done by those storms. Plants don't like salt water. Along with his three assistants they've been busy trying to bring it back to it's former glory. The Living Wall has some bare spots as a result. The Central Parks across the Oasis fleet have evolved as they learned what works better in an environment like Central Park. Many plants are actually now in special 'pots' or steel cubes much like a planter that can be lifted out on demand to access electrical and plumbing lines that weave under the fabric of Central Park. That's an evolution compared to Oasis where they routinely had to dig up plants and soil to access and do maintenance. Now that I know to look for them, I can see the planters most plants are contained in. You can tell Laszlo loves this job and doesn't even view it as a job, it's a passion. Winds in Central Park tend to come from aft. As the ship moves forward air passing over the upper decks hits the aft glass wall and curls around in a forward motion closer to deck 8 level. During her encounter with a storm a few weeks ago these winds actually knocked over some of the trees within Central Park. Laszlo has never seen that on any Oasis ship before. Plants used within Central Park and subject to the agricultural restrictions of each country visited. Even though she was first built out in Europe they had to choose plants that are approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for her arrival in America. Upon our arrival they will send inspectors to the ship to check each and every plant to confirm it meets USDA regulations. Many countries do the same on a periodic basis, even some smaller Caribbean nations although Laszlo suspects some of them just want to see the ship and enjoy a lunch aboard. None the less protocol requires they allow these inspections to occur for every country the ship visits. Australia has some of the toughest agriculture regulations and for this reason it is unlikely they will ever send an Oasis class to Australia because they would pretty much have to strip Central Park bare and start all over with local Australian vegetation. For similar reasons they won't take Oasis class to cold climates like Alaska because Central Park's tropical plants would be devastated and it's a significant investment in the serious six figures ballpark. The 2018 budget to begin migrating Central Park to tropical vegetation is around $250k according to Bobby Brown our CD. That's just to begin the job. Central Park has a fire break zone in the middle just in case a fire were to break out. In this manner the fire would not spread the entirety of the park. This fire buffer includes height restrictions for trees and distances from sides and balconies. There is a lot more to Central Park then just some plants. The tool shed for the landscapers. This is the entirety of the space the have on board. The irrigation control panel is located here where they can water the many different irrigation zones that cover Central Park. On surveys Central Park often ranks near the top of favorite neighborhoods on the ship. Our 30 minute session turned into 90 minutes due in no small part to how passionate Laszlo is about Central Park and it's vegetation. It was a very interesting tour and I'd like to see Royal invest a little more into it such as giving him a microphone and portable speaker or offering it more than once a cruise.

Day 7 - Dinner My Time Dining Fried Calamari Shrimp Cocktail Jerk Chicken The Jerk chicken was actually very good. I tend to make this too 'hot and spicy' when I make this myself but this was just right. No dessert, saving my waist line for later.

Day 6 Time for something new was the theme of the day. So we went to Johnny Rockets for breakfast. There was a line to be seated but it moved quickly. Unfortunately, service (or more likely the galley) wasn’t nearly as quick. It took ages to get our food (The Works, Patty ‘n Eggs, Omelet), but at least it was really good! Due to the slow service, we were too late for morning trivia and just went to pop choir practice. We had to change our reservation for Escape the Rubicon as it clashed with the guest show. There weren’t many slots available so we had to compromise – guess we’ll have to be quick for the CC minigolf tournament. The morning was spent with minigolf practice (I’m terrible at it), people watching at the flowrider and some arcade games. We might spend our arcade credit on shooting monsters, but we’ll give mario kart a try first Lunch was in El Loco Fresh as thankfully it was operational today. I’d stick to the nachos and tacos if I were you. Quesadillas and burritos are prepared by staff and not the greatest taste. You can build your own tacos and nachos. With the superb weather today hubby finally went on the zipline and even on the Ultimate Abyss. Funny enough, he went down really fast – guess I’m doing it wrong. Today’s visit to Playmakers was during Ultimate Abyss opening hours. No idea how Twangster copes with the sound effects, they’re really annoying. At 4 pm we had our final round of progressive trivia. Guess it was also our last trivia alltogether, hubby is pretty taken aback that it has nothing to do with knowledge, many people just remember the questions and answers from other vacations. Not convinced? Well, final question was in what country you can find the Caledonian Canal. The answer sheet said Portugal and quite a few of the groups put down that answer. Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no connection between Portugal and the Caledonian Canal – it’s in Scotland. Caledonian should be a hint, as it’s Latin for Scotland. Funny enough, even after showing proof of this, the Portugal answer got 2 points, 0 for Scotland. We’re fine losing because we didn’t know enough, but that’s a bit too much stubborn stupidity for us. Guess it’s true, us Germans are very pedantic. On the plus side: more time freed up for using the drink package ? After that debacle, we went rock climbing, a first time for hubby. We didn’t do very well but it was much fun. Guess I lost all my grip in the last 10 years ? With that, it was time for dinner at 150 Central Park. This was the restaurant we were looking forward to the least because the menu didn’t really appeal to us. But the lenghts you go to in the name of research… as always, this speciality restaurant will get ist own post. Entertainment of the evening was another headliner show – Gary Williams – a rat pack style singer. While he has a great voice, the songs got old about halfway through. Mo5aic was our favourite guest artist so far, we’re looking forward to more production shows. Post-entertainment was something we should’ve done ages ago! Having some cocktails at Wonderland Bar – how could we have missed that place? The „Down the Rabbit Hole“ is my new go-to cocktail and hubby was also quite impressed. Not so much with his first choice, the Smoke Rings – great in presentation but not really his cup of tea. To make things even better, we love the bartender, Sorin from Romania. He’s as much car crazy as we are so you always have something to talk about. Before bed we headed up to the pool deck to check the pools – Beach and Sports were filled so I finally see some laps in my future. On our way to the cabin we made a quick detour to Sorrento’s (see, the pizza really isn’t that bad) and the 50s/60s party. There weren’t that many people out and about, but we liked the music. Sadly, we were just too tired to stay. Came home to a towel animal, we’d hazard a guess that it’s a swan, but we wouldn’t bet on it ? Side notes: 11k steps The app is annoying me again. The last few days hubby couldn’t see the menus in it, no I can’t either. We had no idea how busy you can be on a TA. I haven’t had any time to prepare for my next exam in December – this is completely unintentional of course ? The amount of maintenance going on is quite surprising for a ship that hasn’t been in operation for even a year. The perfect storm is still closed for maintenance (rumored to be operend from Nov 6th onwards), one entrance to Central Park has been closed for days, pools also needed maintenance… Royal needs to improve on icecream. Tried soft ice today – not worth the calories to us. That was the only time I really missed being on TUI Cruises – they offer real icecream with no surcharge. We’re still staying true to the no-elevator-rule – here’s some of my favourite „stairs art“ as proof.

Late last night the ship had a different feeling. Like we kicked it up a notch in terms of speed. The map indicates we've turned at as far South as 231° but now we've settled on 237°. We've reached the maximum published ship speed of 22 knots. For a day or two now we've been sailing a steady 266-268° but a turn to starboard followed by a turn to port can be seen on the map.

Day 7 - Lunch Since I was in the neighborhood... El Loco Fresh for lunch Quite popular, I sense Royal Caribbean has a hit here. There are three primary stations and the first offers soft tacos with different meats. Pre-made Burritos are available Finally some Quesadilla Lots of toppings A lot of toppings... My observations... If you are a Mexican food Connoisseur then you'll you need to remember you are on a ship likely very far from Mexico. Having said that it wasn't bad and I'll be eating here again. In fact I have to give Royal credit for giving a strong alternative to another Windjammer lunch option. The Guac isn't exactly how I like it, but they need to make it for the many, not just my taste buds. That's not to say it's bad, just not exactly as it's made in my home. My only gripe was lack of seating. Many people during this noon lunch hour had parked themselves here to play dominoes, watch a game on their phone, read a book or otherwise... not eat. That left few seats for those that actually wanted to... eat. In essence, the same issue any Oasis class Windjammer has - not enough seats for the passengers on board.

Hi cruisers! For those of you who don't know me - I'm Chris from Liverpool, and I work in the duty free shops onboard Independence Of The Seas! I'll be joining the ship on December 1st to start my new contract, and I'll be on the ship for at least 6 months! That means 5 months in the Caribbean, and 1 month in Europe! Let me know if any of you guys will be cruising on the ship, and do say hello if you see me in the shops. We should get a photo together! I plan to post content everyday on my social medias throughout this contract - so make sure to follow my ship life and see everything I get up to, both on and off the ship! I want to give you guys a true insight into what living/working on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship is really like. My Instagram is 'ChrisWongVlogs' and my Facebook page is also 'ChrisWongVlogs' Also, ask me any cruise related questions, and I will do my best to find the answers for you when I am onboard. I can't wait to meet some of you guys!

150 Central Park Here it is, the restaurant we were least looking forward to. In the other restaurants, the challenge was to narrow down our choices – here the challenge was to find enough to not leave hungry. In the name of research, we still couldn’t skip this one. Spoiler alert: even though we planned to, we didn't need a post dinner at Windjammer. For starters, hubby chose the waiter’s recommendation, Braised Short Rib. I got the other recommendation, Seared Honey-Glazed Scallops. We also ordered Crispy Berkshire Pork Belly as I had read much about it on certain boards. What can I say? Our attitude towards this restaurant was way off! I had my doubts about the scallops because I’ve often received overcooked ones (I know they’re tricky to prepare, that’s why I don’t do it myself) – but they were absolutely perfect. Same goes for the short rib. I also had doubts about the pork belly, especially when it arrived and I saw the huge amount of grease – this jelly texture is a pet hate of mine. To our surprise, the pork belly was really crisp and absolutely delicious. We can wholeheartedly recommend all three appetizers. For entrees I again didn’t really see anything appealing to me, so I went with the most recommended choice on the boards – Roasted Tenderloin of Beef – which they graciously let me order for one person as hubby followed the waiter’s recommendation of Lamb Wellington. Guess who regretted his choice? Although the lamb was positively delicious, the tenderloin was just so much better – a class of its own. Food envy is well and alive on board ? Usually this part oft he verdict is reserved for the highlight of the dinner – not so much this time. Guess the tenderloin was just too hard an act to follow. For dessert we chose Fried Cheesecake (waiter’s recommendation) and Peanut Butter Chocolate Tart. Hubby prefered the cheesecake, I prefered the chocolate tart. Both desserts were good but just couldn’t measure up to the entree. I might be a bit preoccupied on this one as all this deep frying isn’t really my cup of tea and I hate peanut butter except for homeopathic doses. Good news: the tart really only has a bit of peanut butter so I could cope. Final verdict: much to our surprise, we really loved 150 Central Park. Food’s taste and presentation was quite perfect and so much better than the menu made us expect. We’d rank it at the same level as some one star Guide Michelin restaurants we’ve tried – I don’t think you can give a higher compliment than that for a restaurant onboard a ship crossing the Atlantic as landbased restaurants have free access to fresh ingridients. Only aspect that was REALLY underwhelming was our waiter, who didn’t care much about us at all – guess he was completely busy with doing everything and anything for the star class couple next to us. At least we couldn’t help but notice that they got a much better service. But that isn’t really a problem – it’s more of what you’d expect from German waiters (he was from India), maybe it’s just that Baptiste, Juan Carlos and Shadiek are a hard act to follow. Funny side note: we’ve met all our favourite waiters when roaming around the ship and they all remembered and greeted us – not so this waiter, he walked right past us a few times in Central Park. Guess you can gather our verdict about him from the fact we can’t even remember his name ? TLDR: If you’re on the fence about this restaurant – please do try it! Believe me, you’ll be amazed!

Between your blog and @twangster, my cruise budget has increased. I am now looking at working Summer school.

The ship is busy with lots going on.

Day 7 - Sea Day Another beautiful sunny day at sea. The Captain mentioned the idea of swell and how it can come across the ocean from thousands of miles away. On this day the remnants of Hurricane Oscar are over 1,200 nm away but the source of our swell today. Wind and waves are from the East behind us, the swell from Oscar is come from the West and North in front of us. The ship is pitching slightly and pools have been drained to avoid water sloshing around. It's a subtle movement today where occasionally one movement might be a little stronger than most. The swell is best seen when video is sped up or in this case a time lapse: The Solarium is popular today. They must be working on the new Solarium Bar cover in the overnight hours as each day a little bit more is done. They now have four glass panels in place: The Solarium Bistro:

Captain's recorded update #3

I am very interested in the Escape the Rubicon. Hope you get to try it and tell us more about it. When I tried the Ultimate Abyss for the first time I went so fast I almost flipped and fell on my face on the second turn, I had to support myself with my arm and I got stuck inside the slide because of that, and I had to push myself down. I guess I was doing it wrong as well! I didn't get the chance to try it again but I would have loved to.

There's times when a purse of that nature is appropriate, this just isn't one of them. My wife & I went to a pre-season Cleveland Browns game against Philadelphia (we won 5-0!!!). She brought her purse, but couldn't take it into the stadium. We had to have it checked at a tent outside. There was quite a lot of ladies in the same predicament. The lady right behind us (Eagles fans) got so upset about paying the $10 fee, she told her husband to forget it, she was going to dump her purse in the trash & get into the game. My wife asked her if she could have the purse instead, which she was OK with & gave to her. When Dianne checked out the price on line, the purse cost $144. Throwing away $144 for $10. With thinking like that, no wonder the Eagles lost!!! Have a great cruise!!!

Well, when you retire (like a lot of us here) you can say "worked to cruise".

We had a great time on a Snorkel trip in Nassau on OCT 23 2018 and I made a very small video of pictures that we took. Hope you like it. Here is the link to the video. I also have a few other short videos posted you my Youtube page. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db3UI762BC8 We were on a 4 night cruise on the Mariner of the seas. We had such a great time. We even met the Capt of the ship at the airport on the way home. How cool is that???

It's repeated several times on channel 14 along with other programs on board like the cruise director morning show.

Probably avoiding a pod of whales, Pirates or Russian submarine. ?

You are too funny! But totally correct in the budgeting department. Symphony prices are so much higher than all the rest! It's quite ridiculous.

Read your online blog and it was great. Have a blast!

Day 7 Much of the morning was spent in the high-back chairs of the 270 lounge watching the gray skies and waiting for Cafe 270 to open so I could grab a final kummelweck sandwich. While I was in getting my sandwich, my wife said that a fighter jet flew low and right across the aft of the ship. Several other people were also commenting that they saw it fly by - guess I missed the air show! I met up with my Brother-in-law on the way to the rooms and we decided to head to the Schooner bar for awhile for some final day Johnnie Walker Double Blacks. It's been our tradition to enjoy a glass of Blue label on the final night and have a cuban cigar that we find on a port of call, but none of the bars carry Blue Label any longer. We asked the bartender why that was, and he explained that too many guests thought it was somehow included in the drink package, so they stopped stocking it in the bars. I think in the past it was about a $20 upcharge per glass which wasn't horrible for Blue label. After a bit, I decided to head down to the casinos, and somehow I turned $20 into $45. (I usually donate $20 to the slots and stop). * side note - this gentleman in the casino bar was the absolute fastest bartender I have seen. He powered through people's orders like a champ. Tonight was dinner in Chops again, but we couldn't get reservations until 8:30. I decided to try the NY strip this time rather than the filet - I think I definitely prefer the filet. The ladies got the filet, and G had the prime rib. We all enjoyed our last meal onboard at chops. Dinner lasted until around 10:00 that night and we were running out of time. G and I grabbed a glass of Double Black neat and headed off to the smoking area in deck 5 to continue our tradition. Coming back to the room, I found that my wife had most of our stuff packed (she's awesome like that). We all opted to do the self carry option at 6:30 AM the next day. And just like that, our 7 night cruise was coming to a close. Day 8 We woke up around 5:45 AM and got ready and put the final items into the bags. We headed down to deck 5 around 6:10 AM which was very shortly after the ship had docked. There were already over 100 or so people queued up with lots more on the way. By the time we cleared customs around 6:50, the line stretched all the way from the midship elevators down into 270 and back up again. I think most people had the same idea! There was also another departure line near the Royal Theater, but I'm not sure how long that was. Once we started moving, it went super fast. Clearing customs was nothing but a camera that you stood in front of and if you were good to go, a green light would appear on the top. We didn't even need to have our passports out, declaration forms... nothing. I'm sure there were random spot checks, but I didn't see any. Either way, I'm glad that this process has been even further streamlined. We met up with the others outside and headed out to the parking garage where we had no issues whatsoever getting out. Including a stop at Wawa, we went from stepping foot off of the ship at close to 7:00AM to home at 9:30 AM - not bad at all! Now we are in dry dock until next year. Right now we are really thinking about an Alaskan cruise and hoping for a good Black Friday sale. Thanks so much for reading my live(ish) blog!

My guess on the towel animal is a brontosaurus. We had a similar one before. I think it’s some kind of dinosaur.

Service on Royal Caribbean is exceptional. When I was on Symphony I asked once for a green tea. They don't always have it in Windjammer but the waiter had to go get it from somewhere else on the ship. Took him a long time I thought he forgot about me, but I was surprised when he finally showed up with my cup. That's true dedication! I wish I got his name.

Captain's corner tomorrow afternoon. I'm guessing he'll mention it.

Our progress... As the Captain informed us a couple of days ago the biggest influence on temperature is the sea water temperature. As such it doesn't deviate very much day to night. Clocks change again tonight but so do they in much of America due to end of Daylight Savings Time, so...

Chops Grille The steak house is a classic on a cruise ship – at least I’ve never been on a cruise ship that didn’t have one. With all your positive reviews about this restaurant in mind, we were quite excited to get to try this one, especially with all the drama around it. Story in short: a lot of people started to see their Chops lunch fees credited back without any notice. Their lunch was cancelled due to a pinnacle take over of Chops for lunch. So let’s move on to the food: We started on Tuna Tartare for me and Charred Beef Carpaccio for hubby. Hubby was so gracious to additionally ordert he Jumbo Lump Crab Cake as he knew I was torn between it and the tartare. All three appetizers were exceptionally delicious, our favourite was the crab cake. You might remember that I already had crab cake in Hooked and the MDR – Chops‘ crab cake is by far the best one! As a second course, we both chose soup. I went with the Wild Mushroom Soup (very good, just nothing special), hubby went with the Lobster Bisque. Unfortunately this wasn’t his cup of tea at all (tasted too much like fish) – he should have stuck with his first idea, the Crispy Goat Cheese Salad. For entrees, hubby chose the Prime NY Strip Steak and I got the Petite Angus Filet Mignon. It’s a compromise for me as I’m not that much of a meat eater but I thought I shouldn’t go with fish in a steak house. Good choice, both meats were absolutely delicious! As sides we share Gruyère Cheese Tater Tots, Sauteée Mushrooms, Truffled French Fries and Salted Baked Potato – all very good and reasonably sized portions at last Highlight of the evening (as always?) was dessert. Hubby chose the New York Cheesecake – verdict: best Cheesecake on board so far. I got the Warm Chocolate Cake, this was again a dessert to die for! Overall verdict: our favourite restaurant up to now! On par with TUI’s steak house, maybe even a bit better. On our next cruise we’d likely do Chops twice – it just was that good! We were also very happy with our waiter Shadiek – Juan’s service was more personable, but his service fitted better in the more upscale atmosphere of Chops.

That is standard from a @twangster live blog ?

Day 6 - Late Some late night boardwalk pictures... Our progress...

It was time to head to dinner and I always try to find an excuse to pass through Central Park. Tonight was no different.

Finally a sunset worth taking pictures of. What's better than a great sunset? A great sunset the largest cruise ship in the world!

Day 6 - continued... Tempted by the Hooked Happy Hour I headed there at 5pm. The deck 16 elevator lobby view towards Central Park. Hooked has a bar in the center flanked by seating on port and starboard. The bar is a full service bar and on this night it honored Diamond Happy Hour drinks but I was more intrigued by the Hooked Happy Hour offer. For $10 you can have the nightly happy hour appetizer and a beer or glass of wine. Tonight's appetizer was 6 raw oysters. The happy hour appetizer changes from night to night. Oysters aren't my thing so I passed. The bar is open to the public as any bar on the ship is. Given the lack of bars that have an outside view on Oasis class in general this is great bar albeit a little on the small side once the masses find it. Here is the regular Hooked dinner menu: Wine list:

This is the busiest I have seen the Solarium. With the new layout it does feel a little smaller than Harmony's Solarium. In some ways it's more open yet seating seems less to me. I'll have to sail Harmony again to compare ?. The hard glass/plastic ceiling works better than's Harmony's vinyl ceiling. The pool on the lower level has a glass front with rippling water flowing over the face of the base. The Solarium Bar remains closed due to construction.

Day 6 Update Glorious day here somewhere in the Atlantic. A perfect 72°F with little humidity. Winds are from aft so with our forward motion there is very little 'felt' wind across the deck. With blue skies and full sun I took the opportunity to take some pictures. Like Harmony there are port and starboard bridge wings. Port side features 'King of the World' like Harmony with a glass floor looking straight down to the sea. Onward, straight to America! The view aft: Starboard bridge wing.

Here we go – embarkation day has finally arrived! The theme of the morning was speed – our taxi arrived 20 minutes early, but luckily we were mostly ready ? Cue us arriving at the terminal about 10 am, but no need to worry, we by far weren’t the first ones. Symphony used terminals B and C for boarding, docked between Norwegian Epic and Sapphire Princess. Funny thing: if you arrive in the port you only see the front of the ships at first – and from that perspective, Epic looked even bigger than Symphony due to the front upper deck design (and the strange dark painting on Epic). Only when you start to see Symphony’s length you realize how big she really is. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures in the abysmal weather – we’re counting on Port Canaveral for that as the forecast for Malaga isn’t good either. At the terminal we got rid of all our luggage except my carry on with medication & medical aids. We stood in line for a minute for security and then got to check in immediately. Wow, placing the sea pass cards at the cabin doors works like a charm – we’ve never been checked in that fast! About 5 minutes from curb to the waiting area – and we didn’t even have expedited arrival. We entered Royal Promenade at exactly 11 am. What can I say? I guess you’ve already seen the big wow on first timer’s faces when they embark an Oasis class ship. Royal Promenade felt wider than some of the ships we’ve been on! Now was the time to put everything I learned from you great people into practice. 1st step: Dining reservations! As we’re on the 5 night package, we couldn’t do reserverations online. We got to the nearest desk and apart from a 10 minute pause due to IT problems (imagine my shock!), we were good to go in a breeze. Step 2: making sure we got all the entertainment reservations – done. After that, we decided to go the „Matt way“ – lunch in Windjammer. Wow, it was packed. We found 2 seats with a very nice couple from Texas and already experienced a massive pro of cruising with an international cruise line: you get to chat with people! We’re both introverts at heart so we’re not likely to start a conversation but we love to chat – that doesn’t work well on German cruise lines ? For lunch I only went with a salad but hubby had a got through the whole restaurant with his plate. His verdict: buffet food quality and selection is better than on TUI Cruises. No red velvet cake for dessert, but red velvet cheesecake – had to go with that for Sweety. We finished lunch a few minutes to 1pm, so off to the cabin next. Our cabin is an inside stateroom on deck 8 – all the way to the front. We usually spend the money we save on the cabin for excursions – this being a transatlantic with only 2 ports, we’ve invested it in speciality dining and drink packages. We were quite surprised with the size of the cabin – it’s more than adequate and even the bathroom is quite good for us chunky types. Even better yet – when we got to the cabin we could already see our poison green suitcases down the hall. We took them and unpacked immediately – finished at 2.15 pm and we even got everything in closets and drawers, the suitcases all fit under the bed – not bad considering we’re travelling with 2 suitcases, 2 travel bags and 2 carry ons! We later found out we were the lucky ones – there have been a few luggage mix-ups with suitcases placed in front of the wrong staterroms. Some of you might remember from my older posts in other threads, that I had a „project zipline“ going on. I can report that I accomplished getting under the weight limit and managed to get on the zipline right before it closed for muster drill – proof in the pictures. Might do it again in better weather for better pictures. Next stop: Studio B for the German guests reception. There are actually German D+ on board who don’t even speak English – no idea how they manage as even we can’t understand all of the German menus and cuise compasses – right now we’re doing better with the English version. Muster drill was quite uneventful other than that I could use the time waiting for a workout (we’re in A2, the gym). Afterwards, we explored the ship a bit and did people watching at the flowrider. Hope I learned something from it, I’m going to try it once the weather gets warmer. We watched sailaway from the wing next to the solarium. As we had to wait for Sapphire Princess to back up, we were late for the after-sailaway FB meeting in Boleros – no problem, we just got a drink anyway. Had to do another nod to Matt and got a Kraken Lavaflow. What can I say? We really loved it and are now officially hooked! Which brings us to our first speciality dinner – but that will be in its own post. Dinner was just a bit too much for us, so we explored the ship a bit more and even threw in two rounds on the lovely running track for good measure. Being close to the water on the track is really nice and seeing the waves explained the rollingwe felt since leaving Barcelona – quite unusual for the Med. The rolling combined with too much food and the fact that we’re not used to that kind of food and drinks anymore brought us to bed early (11.45 pm). Side notes: 15.1k steps American food portions aren’t for us No laps in the pool today – the water is ok but we were just overwhelmed with this beautiful ship and everything that’s going on – another reason why this blog entry is a bit late. Aquanation (no reservations required) tomorrow – keep your fingers crossed that it’ll even happen with the cold temperatures and waves. Otherwise we’ll have to redo all our entertainment and part of our dinner reservations. We LOVE international cruise lines – a bit of small talk everywhere! Restaurants, bars, elevators (no no-elevator-rule if carrying around luggage ?) – it’s unusual for us but fun. First and only time hubby ignored the no-elevator-rule, he met the stowaway piano player. I feel cheated ?

We never got to discussing incentives because sadly there was nothing we were interested in booking.

I know! So sad. One of the better ones too. I messaged Royal earlier to ask who my CD would be in December. They said Jamie Fentiman. Then I asked about Tim and they said he was not on any of their ships. When I flat out asked if he left, they said they could not disclose that. @Joe01 how do you know for sure he left and he's not just on vacation?

Agree- like the golf ball one. ??

Yes, that's one thing about the stair cases. Always great artwork.

JR breakfast on Oasis class only. Crystal blocks are earned starting at 140 points in the loyalty program, the Crown and Anchor Society. After 140 points it's every 70 thereafter.

With some time to kill before the Halloween party in the promenade I went to the Wonderland Bar. A lot people don't know you can visit the bar like any other bar on the ship. You don't have to eat at Wonderland to visit the bar. They have some unique concoctions in the Wonderland theme. They have a table in the bar area that serves as a waiting area. Like the restaurant the bar menu is also unique and backlit. Down the Rabbit Hole: The Smoke Rings cocktail is made with real smoke. Mmmm. Good. With a hint of oak wood smoke.

Day 3 Today is our last port before the crossing – Malaga. Due to the abysmal weather, we aren’t venturing out. It’s just not worth catching a cold with still more than 3 weeks of vacation in front of us. We’ve already got a trip to Spain on our list, we’ll visit Malaga then. We estimated many people would be on excursions today, so we thought we might give Windjammer a try for breakfast. Brilliant idea, now I’m really sold on Royal Caribbean – they have English bacon! Best breakfast item in the world. While trying to flee from the rain by using the corridors to get from aft to fore, we noticed a lot of halloween decorations on cabin doors. Kind of strange to us, but we really love it. Really looking forward to Halloween with so many Americans – it’s not a big thing in Germany. By the way, I’ve kept my promise – Schooner Bar is my new blogging spot to facilitate hubby’s use of the drinking package. Not that it would be necessary, a quick calculation showed we’d already made up for half of what we paid by the end of day 3. Even if drink fatigue starts some time in the future, we’ll have made the packages pay already (and I’m certain drink fatigue won’t be an issue for hubby ?). After our depressing first try with trivia on day 1(Michael Jackson music quiz – we hadn’t planned on participating but were late finishing our drinks in Boleros and just thought why the h*** not), we gave visual trivia national flags a go. Luckily we teamed up with a couple from Belgium and got 13 out of 15 right –we didn’t even come close to winning. Apparently some people know the flags by heart, including Tonga and Aruba. This was followed by an impromptu surprise trivia – scored 3 out of 15 – no worries, best score was 8 or something. On to the pub quiz where we scored 14 out of 21. At least we’ve learned to take the provided answers with a grain of salt, we’re still not able to prove some of them no matter how much research we do. Guess the use of unsourced wikipedia articles is at an all time high with the cruise director’s team ? Trivia isn’t really a thing on German ships but we like it – even though we sometimes have to resort to leo.org for translation purposes. Doesn’t help much to write down the German answer if the team checking your sheet doesn’t speak the language ? As trivia makes hungry (it’s a sport after all), we headed to Park Café for a light lunch. We really love this venue, especially the create your own salad option and the Kummelweck. With all the heavy rain it was easy to get a seat and you had no lines at all. On to the next trivia in Schooner Bar – unfortunately just the two of us as the venue was packed and we couldn’t find our teammates. I don’t recall our score but short answer is we didn’t win. Schooner still was packed afterwards so we moved to Playmakers for more games of Connect 4 and some IPA. The goal is to try out each IPA available – current favourite is Stone IPA. Fast forward to dinner which was at Jamie’s and will be discussed in its own post. Spoiler alert: dinner again was quite big portions, so we decided to walk some of it off on the running track. Looks like our torture devices handle walking on a moving ship completely differently. We both use Garmin vivoactive3 for torture devices (aka fitness watches) – still hubby’s device recorded not only his movements but also added the ship’s movement – while mine did subtract part of the ship’s movement! Quite unfair if you ask me… looks as if Royal isn’t the only company with a questionable IT department. Highlight of the evening was 1977, our first Royal production show. And wow, we were so amazed. As Twangster already said, it’s difficult to give it the credit it deserves in words or pictures. The drones were so cool, especially from a technical standpoint. Brilliant costumes and stage design and impressive ice skaters if you factor in the movement of the ship. The show might be lacking a storyline, but we didn’t mind one bit! That's a quick change! The end of the show coincided with our passage through the strait of Gibraltar so off we went all the way to the aft on the running track. We were quite surprised that nobody seemed to care but well, each to their own. It was quite a sentimental moment to me as it marks the moment I’m leaving Europe for the first time (if you don’t count one day in Agadir, Morocco on a shore excursion). With that it was time for bed. Spain/GIbraltar Morocco Not sure if it wanted to catch a ride or chase us away? Side note: 13k steps Hubby might have spotted the elusive Twangster bot – we’ll have to wait for his day 3 blog post to be sure. We didn’t want to disturb a few hundred people by shouting across the venue for confirmation ? PS: Was finally so annoyed with the way this board handles uploaded images that I switched to using imgur. At least I can now decide on the correct order of things.

Day 3 - Rainy Malaga Rain and lower visibly. Still adjusting to the time change I slept in. Like many I remain on the ship. Weather radar doesn't look promising. Thermal spa is calling my name. Local time as I write this 10:50am, 5:50am in NYC.

Day 2 - Ice Skating Show "1977" No cruise is complete without checking out the ice skating show. Royal has put a lot effort incorporating technology into entertainment and "1977" benefits from this trend. They've amped up the projection technology on Symphony. The show starts out with dozens of drones hovering over the ice and flying in formation as each changes color independently at times and as a formation. You can't capture this in still images, you have to see it live. All the little purple and blue lights are individual drones. A very memorable part involves fast wardrobe changes for one skater incorporated into the routine almost before our eyes. Impossible to display in still photos, another thing best viewed live. While the storyline strays a little at times when taken in it's entirety it is a great show to watch. Oh yeah, they made it snow during one part of the show. Amazing.

Next stop was the boardwalk where some friends had found Playmakers. I'll wait for a nicer day to take pictures. With 4:30pm approaching last call was announced as they began to close bars with muster approaching. My G4 must was conveniently located in the Aqua theater. The rain had stopped. Clouds were starting to break up. Typical "assembly drill". Watch the same 'Spy" safety video, crew displayed how to put on a life vest and the Captain released us. Muster station letters are different than Harmony.

Catching up from last night... Delivered to the room was this decadent creation. Can't recall the exact flavor, either way it was a nice sized treat. On the Windjammer Recon front. Selections to night were Caribbean Night, Thai Corner, with the action station being freshly made waffles, and for the other dessert selection cupcakes. Plus the other hot bar selections. Key standouts from the dining room menu were pork shanks and duck.

We've done two 14 nights (Canaries and Baltic Sea), one 7 nights (Med) and one 5 nights (Metal event cruise). We prefer the longer cruises, albeit usually with many port days. Up to this cruise we thought sea days were a necessary evil. Guess this view will change - this is the first time I had to make a spreadsheet for a cruise so we won't be bored. On another note, with cruise fever finally starting we decided to pack today. I can report we have been successfull - after a bit of reorganization (and sorting out an abundance of clothes) all lugagge is below or at the weight limit. All I can say is I have no idea how I managed 3 months in London with a limit of 88 pounds a few years back ?

I'd love to see options in Colorado but sadly will have to wait for a major rise of ocean levels before a cruise ship will be home porting anywhere near me.