Leaderboard

Got my first sea day T-shirt ready for action.

Crisis averted. @GatorCruiser was kind enough to offer to grab my wife some chocolate croissants from the SL but they were out in the CL today.

Hooked tonight. apps: oysters Rockefeller and raw oysters me: blackened captains platter Wife: surf and turf interestingly the filet here was better than Chops

Breakfast this am. Windjammer special brought back to enjoy on balcony. Food was fine but view was sublime

My wife did but the pic is on her phone. She added a piece of brownie too.

Mason Jar Brunch Another Mississippi Moonlight Chicken from the sandwich minus the bread with mashed potatoes & a biscuit Peanut butter stuffed French toast Chicken n waffles Blueberry johnnycakes with pulled pork Chicken pot pie Bread pudding Go Bananas Fried oreo

Playmakers for lunch. Was busy as hell. We got lucky and got good service. Others around us? Not so much. Me: wings wife: poke nachos. Pics below drinks: sauv blanc, new Belgium IPa and of course a goalpost marg #deluxebeveragepackage

Who are you and what have you done to @Lovetocruise2002?

2nd time sailing with Captain Rob.

Freedom and oasis at coco cay today. Man we got lucky with just us in port yesterday. Everything was much more chill. For us, may have been best coco day yet.

For anyone wondering, I completed the process for the return of my Vuori hoodie today. We decided to ship it to our U.S. mailbox for several reasons. The main one was that the link Royal sent me only accepts US addresses. If I want it shipped internationally, I would have to wait for another email from Royal, and who knows how long that will take. So with that in mind, domestic shipping for a single hoodie came to $47.86. Lesson learned. I need to do a better final sweep next time, or book a smaller cabin so that things don’t hide as well

Might have been heat stroke. I have no explanation. MDR Italian night was unexpectedly good. Arancini (forgot a pic) was crispy & tasty, lasagna actually had meat & wasn’t mushy, & even my wife loved the chocolate hazelnut cake. Neither of us tasted any hazelnut. It was very similar to the molten chocolate cake which she loved on Allure. Thanks for the recommendation @FionaMG ! Apologies for the missing bites. Waiting for Name That Tune: 80’s and trying a “Metalliquor”

Yesterday. Thanks for remembering. Mason Jar pics coming later. My wife took over (she has a better phone & takes better photos than I do) so I have to get them from her & I’m too stuffed right now.

Have a wonderful and beautiful memory cruise. I have said many times before, this blog is expensive. Now I have Symphony on my list for 2026.

Doubly lucky with Labadee cancelled. Some ships who were supposed to be alone now have company later this week from re-routed Labadee itineries. That said, I was there 3X with Indy/Freedom & it wasn’t bad (neither Oasis class ofc). Hideaway also helps now too. That said, love being there alone & Wonder is actually alone quite a bit. Scheduling quirk in my favor. We’re alone again twice this summer (as of now).

Yeah, I'm going to go with option 1, do a better final sweep next time lol

Word on the street is 6700 pax this cruise. Just shy of 2k are children.

Waiting for top tier event. We rarely bother going but had time to kill before Mason Jar. It’s in Studio B for some reason. Thought it was usually in the Aqua Theater.

So many people say this. It’s bizarre that the steakhouse would have the worst filet… especially since I’ve enjoyed filet from 3 other venues & I’m not even a huge filet fan… I prefer some fat in my steak like a ribeye.

Update...upgraded

Lavender Martini and desert pear marg at schooner.

God bless these people. Just an insane amount of points

Breakfast this am. Windjammer special brought back to enjoy on balcony. Food was fine but view was sublime

Congratulations!! We had our first Diamond cruise on Oasis in January. I guess it all depends what you usually 'do/purchase' when it comes to drinks and internet. I bought the soda package and bottles of water as I didn't want to use our 'free' drinks on Dr Pepper and water during the day, and then used our free drinks on wine (I don't drink alcohol so the 'boss' did well from it!). At the end of the night if we had any drinks left we would grab bottles of sparkling water to take back to the cabin. For internet we pre-purchased the 1 device as we usually do and flipped between us, but we then chose to have our 'free' days on sea days so we both had access if/when required. The Crown lounge was a nice place to get away from the crowds, and when the coffee machine was fixed on week 2(!) it meant lattes etc were accessible without queuing. The snacks were quite nice and despite it being a huge ship with lots of Diamond and above guests, it was never crowded in there. On Oasis it was ideally placed for the theatre for pre and post shows! We also took the chance to get our 1 free photo each (well 2 each in our case as we were B2B) so make sure you do that on your last night if you have had some pics taken. We didn't really use any of the other benefits although we did get the complimentary waters and snacks in the room each week. There will be much more experienced Diamond members on here with more/better advice! Enjoy!

Not 5k pax but a total of 5k people including all the crew. I think a 7N should be fine, I am doing a total of 11N on her in May. I have no qualms about finding things to do or whether I will enjoy myself. I prefer Oasis class only for the food offerings, but Freedom does have Playmakers, so I am fine. I think even on a larger class like Oasis can be boring to some people if you don't like the offerings.

I’m fascinated to try the filet at Giovanni’s now that everyone speaks so highly of it. I have always just ordered Italian dishes in the past. service at hooked was excellent by the way.

We leave on Friday for our 8-night Southern Caribbean cruise. I will be very busy Thursday - Saturday of this week, so I'm starting now in hopes that it will be easier to keep up with some smaller posts as we begin our travel. This will be our first time on Symphony - I'm super excited to cruise on this ship! There will be six of us: me, DH, DD (just turned 17) and DS (14) plus my parents (more below). Our itinerary is - Day 1 Cruising from Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades Day 3 Labadee (I'm fairly sure we won't stop here, but haven't heard yet what we'll have instead) Day 5 Aruba Day 6 Curacao I'm bummed about Labadee. The last time we were here was in 2014 (kids were 4 & 7) so we were very excited to do all of the adventure activities this year - superman zip line, coaster and jet skis - and bought them all on Black Friday special. Hopefully we'll have some sort of stop since they've had two weeks to figure it out. With an eight night, spring break (crowded) ship, I'd prefer for 3 of the days to be in port. We're flying from Newark, which is not our home airport - it is about 2 hours away - but was half the price. We also have a mix & match flight: JetBlue to FLL on Friday night and United back from PBI on Sunday. I've prebooked a parking space at a private location. My parents are cruising with us for the first time. The company my Dad works for used to charter ships in the 80s so they have cruised before, but nothing like what they'll experience on Symphony. They are retired so got a good flight deal by going down on Wednesday. They are renting a car and have a great price for the three nights for a room in a condo complex (offered as an add on to their Southwest flight). They will be picking up a bottle of wine, some bottled water and maybe a few other things since they'll have so much time. We don't get in until 9pm so essentially just sleeping, breakfast and an Uber to the port. We have an 11:30am check in but plan to get there around 11am. They originally booked a GTY ocean view, which was the same price as an interior at the time. I caught a sale and upgraded them to a GTY ocean balcony, they were assigned 6th floor really early, and then our fabulous TA moved them two doors down from us on the 8th floor. On our last cruise, we did a Discover Scuba for the first time and loved it. So we decided to do our PADI cert over the summer and our OW dives in a quarry in October - that was not fun at all - but we're fully certified and have a dive planned for both Aruba and Curacao. We also rented a car in Aruba. We have a very late day there (9 or 10pm) so we'll dive in the morning and then plan to drive around sightseeing for the rest of the afternoon. We rented from Top Drive and added on the chairs/snorkel/cooler package so my parents will hang out at Eagle or Palm Beach while my family dives. On Curacao, we will dive, my parents will snorkel, we'll change and grab lunch back on the ship and then we plan to just do a self-guided walking trip to the bridge, etc. I also want to check out the artist that @FionaMG mentioned and maybe pick up a print or two. We have all the shows reserved, Escape room booked, specialty lunch at Giovanni's on boarding day, and a meal at Wonderland booked to celebrate my daughter's birthday. I also got the birthday package for her, with the room decorations and cake. Have to run, but more to come!

Yes... I pulled out all of my cruise stuff plus all of the new Bezos stuff I bought and it almost fills up a full suitcase. I blame @asquared17 A lot is still in packaging so I hope it shrinks down substantially when I unwrap it all. Once I get back in there to reorganize, I'll take pics of it so you can see the madness. Went to the bank and got our cruise cash today. Makes it feel really real! It looks like Falmouth, Jamaica is our replacement stop for Labadee. What should I do there? Any suggestions? I am definitely a "planner" @WAAAYTOOO so this Labadee situation is throwing me for a loop, to have to pull something together last minute. My husband jokes that I'm the chess player of life - always thinking 5 steps ahead - and he is a checkers player of life, just responding to what's happening in the moment. I WISH we were getting PDCC! I've never been... I am fairly confident they will! I can't imagine not having a good time on a ship like Symphony. (AND I don't have to share a room with them!! LOL) So many of you just went on or are going on Symphony soon. She honestly seems like the perfect ship to me, except for missing those little Central Park balconies. We do too, and my parents' room is just down 3 doors (2 rooms between). I hope we don't annoy the people in between us by yelling back and forth from our balconies

Just think... next cruise, you'll be included in the D+ figures! Is it today or was it yesterday that you hit the big 175?

I don't think Royal's loyalty program is a bad off as people believe (i.e. too many). Those total numbers are about a third of the pax count, the higher tiers barely make up 10%.

Pending does not always go to accepted but it's definitely a good sign! More often than not, it goes to accepted.

During our 8 day cruise in December 2023, Between my parents and us we had 18 vouchers per day. we got our cabin steward water and pop of his choice. He was very grateful. Every two day he had a case plus.

Day 8 - The sounds. Will update on the morning.

I’m following your adventures! I will be boarding Symphony in 58 days with my two grandsons and their mom (my daughter ). We have 2 OV connecting balconies. I'm looking forward to your ship and food pictures as well as your “off ship fun!”!

Congratulations! Same situation for us in May. For us, the main thing is the 4 complimentary drinks (up to $14) per day, excluding Starbucks of course. We like to purchase internet access for the entire cruise, but if you don't do that you would get one free day for one device. I see those as the two main items that would be new for us. There's a few other changes, but nothing that I will get too excited about. I guess I should add the Crown Lounge access too. That will be new for us. Others might have better info on this.

You’ve really done your homework, @jbrinkm. I’m impressed. I know you will have a great time. You have chosen a magnificent ship with a top tier itinerary. Congratulations on achieving your OW cert. Looking forward to your live blog.

Hi all. We are going to be sailing on Adventure in April as first time Diamond level. Just wondering if there are any tips youse could share about what to expect or to look for at this new level for us. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I need to freaking retire. Work is getting in the way of cruising.

Current scotch selection at schooner here on Wonder.

Yay!! As a former midwestern-er, I love hearing someone say "pop." I've been on the East Coast for 27 years now and have converted to saying soda but still like hearing that.

Reimbursed for what though?

Congratulations on making Diamond! Don't forget to introduce yourselves to the Diamond Concierge during their posted hours in the Diamond Lounge. They can work wonders on resolving most issues that pop up during a cruise.

Any time it goes into pending mode, it cannot be modified or cancelled, regardless of the outcome.

FWIW, shorts & a polo made me more dressy than half the MDR on Wonder the past two nights.

Wonder was alone in July 2023 too when we went to PDCC

No ship is too small when you compare it to the alternative of not being on a ship at all.

The steak at Hooked is 10x better than the one at Chops. TBH every steak from everywhere is better than the one a Chops imho.

Freedom is still a large ship in the grand scheme of things

Wait util you see a casino booking invoice that has been upgraded ! Those are hysterical....and completely unintelligible.

I don’t know for sure but with only 65 pins aboard perhaps not? Also captain Rob is helming Wonder currently.