Neaxan

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.

Day 5 Today we again took it upon ourselves to climb the stairs to Windjammer for breakfast. We found seats quite easily – only thing missing was the English Bacon ? Fortunately a staff member overheard hubby telling me that were was turkey bacon instead of English bacon – so he just got some English bacon fixed for us! Wow, that’s dedication and a service level we really don’t have in Germany. Robert, our cabin steward, was also exceptional this morning. As we kept the cabin on don’t disturb after the mayhem we left when preparing for Halloween, we didn’t get a towel animal. So instead of yesterday evening, we got our elephant this morning. The rest of the morning was filled with our usual programme – morning trivia (didn’t win) and pop choir practice. Then it was up the stairs again, this time for some table tennis. We planned to have lunch in El Loco Fresh, but for whatever reason it was closed. So we decided to get some Hot Dogs. I went down the fast (well not really that fast) route – Ultimate Abyss – hubby had to take the stairs because he had the camera with him. We skipped 1pm trivia – let’s face it, we would’ve been quite useless at Game of Thrones trivia. Instead, we did the Royal Heist Puzzle Break in a multinational team (Brits, Belgians, Dutchmen and us). Fortunately, everyone was fluent in English so no language barriers here. I can proudly report that we managed to name the guilty party with about 4.5 minutes to spare. That meant 3rd place for us, although there were no prizes anyway. At least it was good practice for Escape the Rubicon and so much fun! Quite the contrary to progressive trivia, which really isn’t much fun. Riddles, tribands and dingbats are especially difficult when English isn’t your mothertongue and the theme of US-based questions did continue a bit. Pity we had to skip the pub crawl to attend this, but we couldn’t let down our team members. At least it was already part 2 of 3 – we won’t do the second progressive trivia. After trivia we managed to get in some laps on the running track. It’s much warmer now and less wet as the waves really improved over night. Dinner was at Chops Grille – this will be its own post. Had some interesting discussions with hubby while at dinner. When Oasis 5 comes out, we want to do the TA on her (if she moves to the US) – Matt, shouldn’t that be the 2021 group cruise ?? Post-cruise plan is Orlando with Disney and Universal (and whatever else we can manage there) – in 3 years we should easily be thin enough to do all the attractions. The other topic we discussed: we thought about skipping our reservation for the headliner show (Hector is Magic) and try to see 1977 again as we were SO impressed. Unfortunately, we kept our reservation and went there. The magician wasn’t really bad or anything, we just didn’t enjoy it too much. Not our cup of tea – we’ll know next time. We had some drinks at Schooner but called it an early night as Symphony was like a ghost town – probably the Halloween aftermath ? Side notes: 11k steps Pools still drained in the morning – rumor has it they were filled in the afternoon – will check tomorrow

Found it Matt, it was in the App. Will see if it is posted outside Hooked when I pass by tomorrow.

My voice is too fragile to be the lead in a death metal band. If I'd done it I'd be voiceless. But don't you sing along with the songs you like? Well, I growl along ?

I'm certain I saw this somewhere. Will search for it after the headliner show and post it to my blog when I find it.

Laughed so hard at the PIT comment. I guess you're spot on on that. We saw a Pinnacle complaining that she had to drag her suitcases about 20 metres from taxi to porters in Barcelona. All this focus on status isn't for us but guess you have to take the bad things along with the good ones.

Day 4 – Halloween Here it is, our first real Halloween – German ones don’t count as it is not really a thing. As we had so much food for dinner yesterday, we only needed a light breakfast at Park Café (is it evident that we like the venue?). We were up quite early (for us), so we made it to morning trivia in Schooner. Questions were all about Halloween, horror movies etc. – good for us. We won our first trivia and as it was only the two of us in the team, we got to win all the prizes. Guess I won’t need any more highlighters in the near or distant future ? The next event on our list was pop choir class. Yeah, who’d have guessed? But I was in a choir at school and enjoyed so I thought why not. Admittingly, my voice was better before I wrecked it with years and years of Death Metal vocals – so no solo for me. To my utter surprise, hubby wanted to join in – learn something new about your spouse any day… We’re practising This is me from the Greatest Showman – no, didn’t know that one before. Session was only listening to the song a few times and getting some people to volunteer for solos. Lunch today was in Sorrento’s – I knew I had to try the pizza when I read all the comments about how bad it was. Our verdict: it’s not the best pizza we ever had, but it’s good comfort food. Next stop: visual trivia Horror movies – didn’t win. If everything had gone to plan, we’d have gone to the Hairspray matinee then – but it was postponed due to the ship’s motion. The good news: because of that we could do progressive trivia. We formed a team with two Brits, while they could help with the language, we we’re all stumped on some more US-based questions. Well, it’s for the fun anyway. Dinner was up next – quite early because we didn’t want to miss Halloween’s fun and games. We didn’t go in costume because we’d have been toothily challenged – no fun eating with vampire fangs. We'd reserved a table for 5.30 pm and even got our favourite waiter Baptiste. For starters, I took the Maryland Crab Cake that I already had in Hooked (only significant difference was the aioli mayonnaise – much better in Hooked), hubby chose Roasted Garlic Soup – just ok. For entrees I was torn between the Moroccan Spiced Ahi Tuna Steak and the Thai Chicken Breast. Baptiste warned me that the fish had a 50/50 chance of being overcooked, so I went with the safe option and was quite happy with it. Hubby chose Roasted Pork Chop and couldn’t complain either. Highlight of this dinner was my dessert, the Chocolate Molten Cake – that’s really one to die for. Hubby had No Sugar Added Pineapple Upside Down Cake – nothing to write home about. All in all, the food was better on our first visit, but service was much faster (although less personal). To be honest, the crew had much more to do on this occasion as the MDR was packed – last time it was noticeably less so. Overall verdict: food was significantly better last time and is now well below TUI Cruises – good thing we’ll have speciality dining mostly for the rest of the cruise (and yes, I can see Ultimate Dining Packages in our future). Being done in about an hour gave us more time to get in costume – make up took most of the time even if it didn’t look like it. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures due to the make up, so please visit the great Twangster’s blog for impressions. Our first stop was the Attic (Haunted House) – entertainment and cruise director’s staff really went all out on this one. Most enjoyable was the couple that was right behind us - so much fun watching them react to everything. Next stop: Playmakers – I know… again… but we’re still trying out craft beers and they actually showed German soccer (hubby’s team). After they won, we just hung out at the Promenade and watched other dressed up crazies. For us it was quite strange that so many people took part in the parade – especially with sub par costumes – I promised hubby that next time we’ll also register for it even though I’ll have to practise make up first. I can report that our favourite won the costume contest – it was the Addams Family and they really were spot on. When the party on the promende ended, we had our first snack at Cafe Promenade and went to bed afterwards (after removing the make up of course ?).. And because we’re not bots, here’s proof of our Halloween efforts: Side notes 16k steps Yes, we’re fast becoming trivia addicts and we’re enjoying this cruise way too much – guess we’ll be back on Royal – not loyal to Royal because we’re way too focused on itineraries but I see us alternating between Royal and TUI. Or maybe switching to Royal completely once we’ve sailed all itinieraries on our bucket list (Norwegian Fjords, Alaska, Panama Canal, South America, Japan, Arctic – yes we know it’ll take us decades to cross them all off). No Hairspray, no Solarium, no pools ? Drinks in the MDR have never been a problem – quite the contrary. You couldn’t finish a glass without being asked if you’d like another one. We love Halloween! Not a big surprise as we’re horror movie/novels types anyway. Funny little European observation: really don’t want to generalize here, but we’ve encountered quite a few „entitled“ Americans. Complaining about creaking in the cabin (well, it’s a ship and we have pitching and rolling…), having to stand in the rain in Barcelona for about one minute while staff checked your documents to allow you into the terminal, slow service in the MDR (believe me, it wasn’t that slow), room steward not personable enough, staff who are not completely fluent in English… From our standpoint, it’s really minor things we would never dream to complain about, but these people apparently love to give hell to the crew. Clocks changed tonight – 1 more hour of sleep is always welcome – gotta love westbound TAs! Limp Bizkit quote of the day: keep rolling rolling rolling, keep rolling rolling rolling

Maybe not the best choice for an hour of laps but good to know ? When we were upstairs yesterday, the whole Solarium was still closed.

Wouldn't mind at all if they hadn't postponed our Hairspray show. I guess a lot of people would also like to use the pools now that it's finally warm. I'd hoped they'd refill them today as motion is a lot less, but they used the opportunity for maintenance.

I saw some questions about ship motion in his highness' blog so instead of seizing the amazing bot's blog I'll give you my 2 cents on it. We're currently experiencing a lot of motion - as in 4m (~14 feet) waves, all pools empty, postponing of Hairspray, solarium closed motion... our cabin is the first inside stateroom from the front on deck 8 so it's especially noticeable in here. Luckily, we don't mind - no sea sickness or anything up to now - hope it stays that way. The view from the running track (yes, you can get wet in the open spaces): VID_20181031_151925.mp4

Jamie’s Italian Welcome to speciality dining part 2 – this time not on the 5 night package because it would’ve left us one venue short and Jamie’s was the cheapest to book individually. Our original reservation was for 8 pm but that clashed with our entertainment plans. So we changed the dining reservation to 7 pm but it never showed up in the cruise planner. I emailed Royal and got the answer that they’d forward it to Symphony but when we boarded and did our package reservations, Jamie’s was still at 8. Luckily, booking dining was the first thing we did on board, so they were able to change the time. Unfortunately no table mates this evening – in fact not even neighbours. Our waiter was Juan Carlos (no, not the former king of Spain!) and he was brilliant. We always went with his recommendations (might have added a dessert choice of our own) and were never disappointed – quite the contrary. I’ll have to write down the names of the crew who impressed us the most for WOW recommendations, currently on the list are Juan Carlos and Baptiste (MDR). Onwards to the real reason you’re here for: the food. We wisely chose to have a meat plank for only 1 person and share that. Good thinking with the portion sizes coming later. The plank was good but nothing out of the ordinary. Our other choice was the Ultimate Garlic Bread which was really tasty and – by recommendation – the Crispy Squid. If you ever find yourself at Jamie’s, get the squid! Best dish we’ve tried the whole cruise up to now – it was so good that hubby had to get a second serving. For entrees we only went with Juan Carlos‘ recommendations: Lamb Chops Scottadito for Michael, Genaro’s Tagliatelle Bolognese for me. For sides we both chose a Caprese Salad and hubby added Crispy Polenta Chips. Hubby’s verdict: best lamb chops he ever had and he really enjoyed the polenta chips. Bolognese was also really good, though I also love my Maggi Fix glutamate and curry ketchup version ? We decided to share desserts because we both couldn’t decide between the same 3 choices: Epic Brownie, Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake and Tiramisu. We didn’t care for the cheesecake (guess there’s a first time for everything) but loved the tiramisu – it tasted really light with all the orange cests (I no it isn’t light J). Our favourite was the Brownie which really deserved the Epic. Verdict: although seemingly more ordinary than Hooked, we prefered Jamie’s. Might’ve been because we had less expectations and were truly surprised, but I can’t give a real reason. Food just sometimes is subjective.

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.

True, we skipped breakfast that day but had lunch in windjammer and an afternoon snack at El Loco Fresh - that didn't help much. By the way, your post on how to catch a Twangster bot is hilarious. We were reading it while standing in line waiting for Studio B to open and both had a laughing fit - imagine the looks we got ? I'll keep your idea in mind but might try another approach first - depends on the bot's next posts. If you like the silent disco you'd love this crossing - it's on 3 nights!

Guess I'll try the normal one in the next few days just to make sure I don't like it. Thank you so much! Happy I'm not embarrassing myself here. I'm born and bred German by way of what is now Poland (Silesia), but learning English was quite easy to me. In exchange I'm really bad at math ?

Day 2 After the overwhelming start yesterday, we used this day for settling in a bit. We got to meet our stateroom attendant Robert (from Costa Rica) who made sure we had everything we needed. Easy task, take the trash and empty glasses out once a day and leave some toilet paper and towels every few days and we‘re good. He was astonished he didn’t manage to catch us yesterday – no surprise there, we only use the cabin for sleeping and showering, well, on this cruise also for blogging. Though I had to promise hubby that I’d take the laptop to a bar for typing the blog and uploading the pictures next time. He needs to stay ahead on the drink package ? Not really a worry, I guess we’re ahead a few days already. We usually don’t drink any alcohol, but cruising and festivals are a completely different story. As we were still quite full from Hooked yesterday, we chose a light breakfast in Park Café – very convenient from our Deck 8 stateroom. Afterwards, it was onward to the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle in Studio B. With more than 700 people registered, there wasn’t that much mingling going on – at least not if you didn’t know anyone. But we got to meet Captain Rob and the hotel director as well as the CD (Bobby Brown) and the AD (Katy …). I might be going out on a limb here, but I really like him. He’s funny (well, in a Scottish way so maybe that‘s more of an European thing) and for those that don’t like him: rest assured that he was put through his paces in the M&M raffle – Studio B is quite big and has countless steps if you’re greeting the winners at their seat ? Next stop was the cabin for the day 1 post, then we were on our way to Aquanation with a slight detour – Park Café to try a Royal Kummelweck. Yes, they’re delicious. We managed to get some drinks for the show from Trellis Bar when the announcement came that both Aquanation shows were postponed due to the weather. Instead, we went to Mo5aic who will leave the ship in Malaga. Not really our kind of music (we’re fans of melodic death metal all the way!), but wow they were talented! We had tons of fun and didn’t regret watching them. All throughout the day we had some encounters with strange tastes. The waiter in the pub really asked if we would like to have ice in our beer – who would do such a dastardly thing? On an afterthought, serving Guinness from a can – in the PUB! - is blasphemy anyway. We’re also putting our drink package to use on the Freestyle machines to experience everything we’ve never tried before. Our least favourite so far is Root Beer – can someone please explain to me why you’d voluntarily drink copious amounts of something that tastes like a cough medicine? Maybe it’s just our European taste buds or the fact that I only try the diet versions? We also went to Playmakers today, though only for drinks. It’s a nice venue and I see us returning quite often just to drink beer (craft beer is on the menu!), watch some sports and play some Jenga or Connect 4 (had to look that one up as the direct translation from German would be „4 wins“ ). Guess we’ll also try some of the food in the future. Today we had to cut our visit short to prepare for formal night. On TUI Cruises there are NO formal nights so with no experience we decided to better go all out. This process took ages – mostly due to lack of practice. When I was finally finished (sorry hubby – didn’t want to keep you from drinking) we took some pictures on the promenade – hopefully there’ll be a few good ones in it. I’ll need them as proof for the family at home – this is the first time since my wedding that I wore a dress, heels and make up. We’ve been married for 9 years in case anyone wonders…. Dinner in the MDR was just WOW. After seeing so many pictures in live blogs I was expecting quite plain food presentation-wise and knew to be cautious with my orders – I’m a picky eater when it comes to meat. But boy did they deliver – all courses apart from the mushrooms were delicious, wine was refilled immediately, our assistant waiter Juan and especially our waiter Baptiste were fantastic. We’ll be requesting them for the few times we’ll be in the MDR – now I finally get it why you like to keep your waitstaff ? Our neighbours made the evening even more perfect – a nice couple from Atlanta with whom we had very enjoyable conversations. Our food choices: Wild Mushroom Vol-au-Vent, Duck Terrine, Baked French Onion Soup (yes, it is THAT good!), Roasted Beef Tenderloin, Teriyaki Salmon, Carrot Cake, Crème Brûlée, Apple PIe à la Mode, Royal Cheesecake. Good thing we didn’t went for lunch. All in all we’re truly impressed even though the overall quality is a bit less than TUI Cruises‘ MDR – we don’t mind at all. Were it not for the itineraries, I could see us switching to Royal completely. As it stands now, we’ll just have to book both. The evening ended with a few more drinks and Adult Comedy in the Attic. Comedians on this cruise are Jim David and Robbie Prinz. Contrary to the warnings we had about this from fellow Germans, we were both able to follow the show quite easily and enjoyed it immensely. Guess if you can watch NCIS New Orleans without going nuts as a non-native speaker, Adult Comedy is a piece of cake. Hubby did also check out HUSH! Silent Party but as expected, the music just isn’t for us. Tomorrow is our last port stop before the crossing. The weather forecast is dismal so we’ll likely stay on board. If it rains as much as predicted, they might rename Symphony into Noah’s ark. Side notes: 11k steps Again no swimming – I signed up for a Transatlantic, not for an Alaska cruise! Still no sighting of the Twangster bot – or were you periscoping sailaway on the bridge wing in Barcelona? The app is quite shaky – sometimes you see your reservations, sometimes you don’t. A few reservations just won’t show up anyway – Izumi and Solarium Bistro namely. Guess that‘s what my trusty spreadsheet is for? Another YOLO moment: we booked the All Access tour for Tuesday 6th by sheer luck. Didn’t see it advertised anywhere, we were at Guest Services because we had no idea on which sea pass card we got the arcade credit – and the guests next to us were just booking the tour. We just had to jump at this opportunity, I mean what ship could be better to do this tour on?

No-elevator-rule means we don't use the elevator at all. Only allowed exemptions are travelling with luggage and - since yesterday - when wearing heels. Unfortunately no sighting of the twangster bot yet. Will only take and post a picture if he allows it, don't want to risk his bot status ?

Again thanks for all your kind words. To answer your questions: 1. yes, the portions were way too big. Maybe it's more of a Hooked thing than an American thing? Only one way to find out ? We're used to smaller portions that allow you to easily try a few courses. We already adjusted our ordering for this evening - worked much better. 2. Haven't tried one of the pools yet, it's 10°-14° Celsius (50°-57° Fahrenheit) with strong winds and I don't want to freeze to death - see above, I'm a wimp. Well, they also cancelled the Aqua shows today so I'm not the only one ? Looked like the pool all were the same size so I guess I'll just use the one with the least people in it once we have warmer weather. With short pools like this I don't count the laps and just do an hour - hope my fitness watch will allow such a small length, then it might count the laps half-decently. Look at the bright sight, these pools offer lots of opportunities to practice your turns.

Hooked As others have already posted the menu and remarked on the atmosphere I’ll limit this to our food choices and impressions. Gotta head off to the Mo5aic show soon – Aquanation was unfortunately postponed due to low temperatures and waves/wind. For starters, I chose the Maryland Crab Cake, Michael got the Shrimp Cocktail. I loved my appetizer, Michael didn’t like his one very much. To be fair, this is mostly due to a misunderstanding. In Germany, shrimp cocktail is more of a shrimp salad and not just a few boiled shrimp with sauce. Our second course was the New England Clam Chowder for me and should’ve been the House Salad for Michael. Instead, we both got the Clam Chowder and to make up for it, hubby got the House Salad after the soup. We both liked the Clam Chowder very much, unfortunately I can’t say it was the best one I ever had. This honor is reserved fort he one I had in Killarney on our honey moon – sorry Hooked ? Hubby also liked his salad with shrimp skewer. As main course, Michael chose Surf & Turf while I got the Captain’s Platter – we both didn’t dare try the whole lobster that was also offered J Sides: fries and coleslaw for him, lobster mac & cheese form e. We both loved the lobster tail and hubby also liked his steak, although parts weren’t quite medium any more. I also liked the grilled shrimp skewer but didn’t care much for the fish fillet, I was full anyway. Regarding the sides, fries and coleslaw were fine, I didn’t like the mac & cheese – this has less to do with the mac & cheese themselves, I just don’t seem to get what Americans like about it but I had to try at least once. Final verdict: We really liked Hooked, even though hubby is not a fan of fish. Food portions were way too much for us – we’d have prefered smaller portions in order to easily try out more different things. On the quality, taste & presentation side, we felt it was on a par with the TUI Cruises MDR (that’s indeed a high compliment). In the TUi MDR lobster tails are only available for an upcharge, so this could be a fair comparison. Hooked offers a daily special from the bar during happy hour – we might come back for lobster rolls.

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 ?

Unfortunately no laser tag on day 1 - they offered ice skating instead. Lesson learned. We thought we could use the wrapper for our contact details in case a suitcase got lost in transit, we only put the luggage tags in before leaving the hotel for Symphony.

T-1! After a very short night’s rest we got up at 4.15 am. Thankfully the hotel provided some tea, coffee and croissants. Well, tea for Michael – I usually don’t drink coffee or tea, but if hubby doesn’t get his regular fix he really is unbearable. Airport security was a breeze and we boarded the plane on time. Can’t tell you how the flight was, I slept away most of it ? The good news: all our suitcases made it to Barcelona (I had a bit of a panic over this) and we promptly got them. The bad news: apparently we are NOT the only ones with poison green suitcases, some others indeed had the same model. Well, we got that sorted and everybody left with the right suitcases even though the luggage handlers managed to lose one of our luggage tag covers (the ones that were recommended on this board) ? Luckily, we got one spare. Taxi to the hotel was 45 € (tip included) and I even got the chance to practice my long forgotten Spanish skills. Our hotel is Barcelona Catedral right in the middle of Barri Gótic. We arrived at 11 am, room would be ready at 2 pm so we went to explore the Disney store we saw coming in. Looks like it will be quite difficult to buy something for a baby boy if you don’t want it to be Marvel themed – maybe Miami has a better selection. On the way back we got soaked by torrential rain and decided to wait in our hotel’s lobby for the remaining hours. Thanks Eurowings for the priviledge – our original flight would have gotten us to Barcelona at the right time, but a few months back they decided to cancel it and book us on this 6.45 am flight – of course forgetting to mention this detail to us… it sometimes pays that I have travel OCD and religiously check everything countless times. 2 pm sharp we could finally check in and got a room on the 5th floor – great, I’m already being punished for my self-imposed no elevator rule. After dropping off the luggage we went to Santa Caterina market to get some softdrinks for the day. The market hall is smaller than la Boqueria but also less crowded and touristy. Unfortunately no pictures as they didn’t come out right with our old camera – didn’t want to risk the DLSR in the rain. As the weather was only getting worse we decided to cancel the walking tour and switch to appropiate acitivites – watching sports! German football (Borussia Dortmund) for Michael and eventing cross country in Pau for me. Who am I kidding? We both fell asleep while watching ? When we awoke, the weather seemed ok so out we went. Strolling through Barri Gótic and up and down Las Ramblas. On our way back to the cathedral we found a restaurant to our liking and got some tapas. I even remembered to take a picture! Not bad for someone who’s so forgetful that she forgets to breathe when sleeping ? The restaurant’s name is Colom and we can definetely recommend it – great food, nice atmosphere and reasonably priced. Now it’s off to bed, thankfully we get an additional hour of sleep as Europe is setting back the clocks tonight. Taxi is already booked for 10 am. Side notes: 14,5k steps today Need to get my sister to explain Whatsapp calling to my parents (again) – apparently our crash course on Friday didn’t stick No laps in the (rooftop) pool today – it was way too cold – and yes, I know I’m a wimp

Thanks for all the kind words, love to do this kind of interactive. Actually, the blogging is fun and not a burden. Will be nice ro relive this once post-cruise depression kicks in. Currently waiting for hubby to upload the pictures on the laptop. I'm way too clumsy to type the whole thing on the phone ?

You don't miss out on much in Barcelona, it has been raining the whole day. Predicted to lessen around 8 pm. The forecast for Malaga is even worse. Hope to meet you on board.

Thank god it’s Friday! Only two nights and we’ll board Symphony – it’s finally getting real! The day started early for us as we had to drop off the boys at the cat hotel. Luckily, everything went way better than expected. Four of them have never been there but instead of hiding under an armchair, they just went and explored the rooms and sometimes passed by to get some cuddles in between. We shouldn’t have worried, they’ll also have a great vacation. After rushing home and loading the suitcases in the car, we were back on the road and vacation mode really started to kick in – true German style – getting all annoyed with other drivers because the motorway was packed. Turns out Southern Germany had their last school day before the autumn holidays – and a few other federal states had their last day of autumn holidays today. Not the best conditions for 400 km (249 miles) to get to my parents, but what can you do? Slowly crawl, I guess – at least in comparison as Germany doesn’t have a general speed limit for motorways. 4 hours later we did the required pre-cruise family visits and then went to the airport with my parents. Cue another hour of – you guessed it – packed roads and traffic jams. Finally, my parents dropped us off at the airport and took the car home with them – instead of us paying the astronomical parking fees, we prefer to spend the money on some speciality dining ? Evening check-in was painless – we got rid of the suitcases in 5 minutes and walked to the Maritim airport hotel. After dropping our carry-ons off in our room, we went back to the airport for dinner. Mussels for me and pizza for Michael at L‘Osteria. Sorry, forgot to take pictures (I’m new to this blogging thingy) – but the food wasn’t something to write home about anyway. We also had our first beer as a warm up for the ultimate beverage package – an original Bavarian Franziskaner. The other option would have been Duesseldorf’s alt bier and as a born Cologne girl I’d rather die from thirst than drink that. I’m sure there are similar animosities between neighbouring cities in the US? ? After dinner we went to the spa – Michael for the sauna and me for an hour in the pool to burn off the alcoholic calories. Now it’s off to bed as boarding starts 6.15 am tomorrow.

The car is packed (food for the cats) and our luggage is downstairs, ready to load. Don't worry, we won't take everything on the ship. Part stays in the car as we're expecting to come home to winter weather. Although Bavarians should know how to drive in winter conditions, they certainly don't, so you always have to prepare for the worst. The presents are for the soon-to-be mommy and daddy ?