Neaxan

Day 13 - Disembarkation ?



Time to say goodbye - unfortunately. After our last breakfast at Park Cafe we waited in the Theater until our number was called. At least disembarkation was a breeze - no immigration, no costums, we just walked off. Wish I could say the same about getting to the car rental station. While the new terminal looks beautiful, they apparently didn't think traffic through. Bus and shuttle have serious problems turning and have to reverse out of the berths - this takes time and only worsens the chaos. Additionally, there are no lines for the bus - it's survival of the fittest. Took us 1.5 hours to get on a bus, but getting our car took 5 minutes once we arrived at the rental station. The day was spent shopping at the Disney store and Walmart. When it was time for checkin, we went to our Hotel - Sense Beach House in South Beach. It's a nice little hotel on a quiet block of Ocean Drive.


As promised, we went to South Pointe Park for Symphony's sailaway. We also got to watch Mariner's sailaway and the fireworks for Symphony. Sad to see her go, but we'll be back with Oasis 5 ?




















A little stroll around South Beach:







For those who made it that far: thanks for following along, I really enjoyed blogging for you. I'll do our final verdict (and a little comparison to Princess) later, probably when I'm home.

Day 12:
The last full day of this cruise and only our second port of call – Cape Canaveral. As we booked the Kennedy Space Center Guided Tour, we had an early breakfast at Park Cafe. Meeting for the excursion was in the Royal Theater at 8 am. As we’d arrived early, we were already in line to get off the ship at 7.50 am. Unfortunately, this didn’t help much. Immigration in Port Canaveral was mayhem for non-US citizens. We stood in line for 2.5 hours, shortening our 8h tour to 5.5 hours. This was our first major gripe with Royal. While they can’t speed up the immigration process, their organisation was truly disappointing. They sold way too many full day tours resulting in thousands of people trying to get through immigration at the same time. And instead of reserving the first hours for full day tours, they also let half day tours and passengers without any tours off the ship at the same time. Never seen such a bad organisation and we’ve already done immigration in Russia.
 
On the bright side: our tour guide Doug did everything he could to show us as many things possible within the shortened time frame. I’m sure we’d have enjoyed KSC more hadn’t we been so tired from standing in line for hours – maybe we’ll just try another time. At least we saw some alligators on the way back to the ship ☺️













We were finally back onboard at 4.22 pm (all aboard 4.30 pm), so our first stop was the pool bar for some much needed alcoholic drinks. We managed to get first row seats in the Solarium for sail away. Symphony’s arrival in the US generated quite some interest, we had 2 helicopters documenting sailaway and hundreds of people watching. Guess Carnival Liberty never had a bigger audience ?
 







Before dinner we finished packing, then we went to Solarium Bistro. I have to agree with Twangster here, it’s a pity we only did this on the last day. Well, as we were able to share, we had a significant advantage: we managed to try everything we wanted! We tried Greek Salad, Ceviche, Tomato & Bocconcini, Tzatziki & Pita Bread, Seafood Soup, Stuffed Zucchini, Greek-style Roasted Potatoes, All-natural Grass-fed Skirt Steak with Horseradish, Chicken Kebab, Lemon Pepper Roasted Chicken, Kofta, Moussaka, Grilled Salmon, Fresh Mussels, Grilled Shrimp, Chocolate Nocciola, Loukoumades, Torta de Mele, Tarte Tropezienne, Panna Cotta à la Romana, Galaktoboureko. I wouldn’t recommend the Chicken Kebab but everything else was really good.



Feeling completely full we changed clothes and headed to the pool for some laps and just relaxing in the hot tubs. We fled when it started raining – yes I know we were already wet, but our cover up clothes weren’t ? The evening ended with some final drinks at – you guessed it – Playmakers.



Side notes:
15k steps
Nearly forgot to pick up our pictures – fortunately it suddenly dawned on hubby before they closed the foto shop.
We’re missing Symphony soooooo much ?

Day 13 - Disembarkation ?



Time to say goodbye - unfortunately. After our last breakfast at Park Cafe we waited in the Theater until our number was called. At least disembarkation was a breeze - no immigration, no costums, we just walked off. Wish I could say the same about getting to the car rental station. While the new terminal looks beautiful, they apparently didn't think traffic through. Bus and shuttle have serious problems turning and have to reverse out of the berths - this takes time and only worsens the chaos. Additionally, there are no lines for the bus - it's survival of the fittest. Took us 1.5 hours to get on a bus, but getting our car took 5 minutes once we arrived at the rental station. The day was spent shopping at the Disney store and Walmart. When it was time for checkin, we went to our Hotel - Sense Beach House in South Beach. It's a nice little hotel on a quiet block of Ocean Drive.


As promised, we went to South Pointe Park for Symphony's sailaway. We also got to watch Mariner's sailaway and the fireworks for Symphony. Sad to see her go, but we'll be back with Oasis 5 ?




















A little stroll around South Beach:







For those who made it that far: thanks for following along, I really enjoyed blogging for you. I'll do our final verdict (and a little comparison to Princess) later, probably when I'm home.

Day 12:
The last full day of this cruise and only our second port of call – Cape Canaveral. As we booked the Kennedy Space Center Guided Tour, we had an early breakfast at Park Cafe. Meeting for the excursion was in the Royal Theater at 8 am. As we’d arrived early, we were already in line to get off the ship at 7.50 am. Unfortunately, this didn’t help much. Immigration in Port Canaveral was mayhem for non-US citizens. We stood in line for 2.5 hours, shortening our 8h tour to 5.5 hours. This was our first major gripe with Royal. While they can’t speed up the immigration process, their organisation was truly disappointing. They sold way too many full day tours resulting in thousands of people trying to get through immigration at the same time. And instead of reserving the first hours for full day tours, they also let half day tours and passengers without any tours off the ship at the same time. Never seen such a bad organisation and we’ve already done immigration in Russia.
 
On the bright side: our tour guide Doug did everything he could to show us as many things possible within the shortened time frame. I’m sure we’d have enjoyed KSC more hadn’t we been so tired from standing in line for hours – maybe we’ll just try another time. At least we saw some alligators on the way back to the ship ☺️













We were finally back onboard at 4.22 pm (all aboard 4.30 pm), so our first stop was the pool bar for some much needed alcoholic drinks. We managed to get first row seats in the Solarium for sail away. Symphony’s arrival in the US generated quite some interest, we had 2 helicopters documenting sailaway and hundreds of people watching. Guess Carnival Liberty never had a bigger audience ?
 







Before dinner we finished packing, then we went to Solarium Bistro. I have to agree with Twangster here, it’s a pity we only did this on the last day. Well, as we were able to share, we had a significant advantage: we managed to try everything we wanted! We tried Greek Salad, Ceviche, Tomato & Bocconcini, Tzatziki & Pita Bread, Seafood Soup, Stuffed Zucchini, Greek-style Roasted Potatoes, All-natural Grass-fed Skirt Steak with Horseradish, Chicken Kebab, Lemon Pepper Roasted Chicken, Kofta, Moussaka, Grilled Salmon, Fresh Mussels, Grilled Shrimp, Chocolate Nocciola, Loukoumades, Torta de Mele, Tarte Tropezienne, Panna Cotta à la Romana, Galaktoboureko. I wouldn’t recommend the Chicken Kebab but everything else was really good.



Feeling completely full we changed clothes and headed to the pool for some laps and just relaxing in the hot tubs. We fled when it started raining – yes I know we were already wet, but our cover up clothes weren’t ? The evening ended with some final drinks at – you guessed it – Playmakers.



Side notes:
15k steps
Nearly forgot to pick up our pictures – fortunately it suddenly dawned on hubby before they closed the foto shop.
We’re missing Symphony soooooo much ?

Very nice job.  Sorry it's over !!

Day 13 - Disembarkation ?



Time to say goodbye - unfortunately. After our last breakfast at Park Cafe we waited in the Theater until our number was called. At least disembarkation was a breeze - no immigration, no costums, we just walked off. Wish I could say the same about getting to the car rental station. While the new terminal looks beautiful, they apparently didn't think traffic through. Bus and shuttle have serious problems turning and have to reverse out of the berths - this takes time and only worsens the chaos. Additionally, there are no lines for the bus - it's survival of the fittest. Took us 1.5 hours to get on a bus, but getting our car took 5 minutes once we arrived at the rental station. The day was spent shopping at the Disney store and Walmart. When it was time for checkin, we went to our Hotel - Sense Beach House in South Beach. It's a nice little hotel on a quiet block of Ocean Drive.


As promised, we went to South Pointe Park for Symphony's sailaway. We also got to watch Mariner's sailaway and the fireworks for Symphony. Sad to see her go, but we'll be back with Oasis 5 ?




















A little stroll around South Beach:







For those who made it that far: thanks for following along, I really enjoyed blogging for you. I'll do our final verdict (and a little comparison to Princess) later, probably when I'm home.

Day 12:
The last full day of this cruise and only our second port of call – Cape Canaveral. As we booked the Kennedy Space Center Guided Tour, we had an early breakfast at Park Cafe. Meeting for the excursion was in the Royal Theater at 8 am. As we’d arrived early, we were already in line to get off the ship at 7.50 am. Unfortunately, this didn’t help much. Immigration in Port Canaveral was mayhem for non-US citizens. We stood in line for 2.5 hours, shortening our 8h tour to 5.5 hours. This was our first major gripe with Royal. While they can’t speed up the immigration process, their organisation was truly disappointing. They sold way too many full day tours resulting in thousands of people trying to get through immigration at the same time. And instead of reserving the first hours for full day tours, they also let half day tours and passengers without any tours off the ship at the same time. Never seen such a bad organisation and we’ve already done immigration in Russia.
 
On the bright side: our tour guide Doug did everything he could to show us as many things possible within the shortened time frame. I’m sure we’d have enjoyed KSC more hadn’t we been so tired from standing in line for hours – maybe we’ll just try another time. At least we saw some alligators on the way back to the ship ☺️













We were finally back onboard at 4.22 pm (all aboard 4.30 pm), so our first stop was the pool bar for some much needed alcoholic drinks. We managed to get first row seats in the Solarium for sail away. Symphony’s arrival in the US generated quite some interest, we had 2 helicopters documenting sailaway and hundreds of people watching. Guess Carnival Liberty never had a bigger audience ?
 







Before dinner we finished packing, then we went to Solarium Bistro. I have to agree with Twangster here, it’s a pity we only did this on the last day. Well, as we were able to share, we had a significant advantage: we managed to try everything we wanted! We tried Greek Salad, Ceviche, Tomato & Bocconcini, Tzatziki & Pita Bread, Seafood Soup, Stuffed Zucchini, Greek-style Roasted Potatoes, All-natural Grass-fed Skirt Steak with Horseradish, Chicken Kebab, Lemon Pepper Roasted Chicken, Kofta, Moussaka, Grilled Salmon, Fresh Mussels, Grilled Shrimp, Chocolate Nocciola, Loukoumades, Torta de Mele, Tarte Tropezienne, Panna Cotta à la Romana, Galaktoboureko. I wouldn’t recommend the Chicken Kebab but everything else was really good.



Feeling completely full we changed clothes and headed to the pool for some laps and just relaxing in the hot tubs. We fled when it started raining – yes I know we were already wet, but our cover up clothes weren’t ? The evening ended with some final drinks at – you guessed it – Playmakers.



Side notes:
15k steps
Nearly forgot to pick up our pictures – fortunately it suddenly dawned on hubby before they closed the foto shop.
We’re missing Symphony soooooo much ?

Day 13 - Disembarkation ?



Time to say goodbye - unfortunately. After our last breakfast at Park Cafe we waited in the Theater until our number was called. At least disembarkation was a breeze - no immigration, no costums, we just walked off. Wish I could say the same about getting to the car rental station. While the new terminal looks beautiful, they apparently didn't think traffic through. Bus and shuttle have serious problems turning and have to reverse out of the berths - this takes time and only worsens the chaos. Additionally, there are no lines for the bus - it's survival of the fittest. Took us 1.5 hours to get on a bus, but getting our car took 5 minutes once we arrived at the rental station. The day was spent shopping at the Disney store and Walmart. When it was time for checkin, we went to our Hotel - Sense Beach House in South Beach. It's a nice little hotel on a quiet block of Ocean Drive.


As promised, we went to South Pointe Park for Symphony's sailaway. We also got to watch Mariner's sailaway and the fireworks for Symphony. Sad to see her go, but we'll be back with Oasis 5 ?




















A little stroll around South Beach:







For those who made it that far: thanks for following along, I really enjoyed blogging for you. I'll do our final verdict (and a little comparison to Princess) later, probably when I'm home.

Day 12:
The last full day of this cruise and only our second port of call – Cape Canaveral. As we booked the Kennedy Space Center Guided Tour, we had an early breakfast at Park Cafe. Meeting for the excursion was in the Royal Theater at 8 am. As we’d arrived early, we were already in line to get off the ship at 7.50 am. Unfortunately, this didn’t help much. Immigration in Port Canaveral was mayhem for non-US citizens. We stood in line for 2.5 hours, shortening our 8h tour to 5.5 hours. This was our first major gripe with Royal. While they can’t speed up the immigration process, their organisation was truly disappointing. They sold way too many full day tours resulting in thousands of people trying to get through immigration at the same time. And instead of reserving the first hours for full day tours, they also let half day tours and passengers without any tours off the ship at the same time. Never seen such a bad organisation and we’ve already done immigration in Russia.
 
On the bright side: our tour guide Doug did everything he could to show us as many things possible within the shortened time frame. I’m sure we’d have enjoyed KSC more hadn’t we been so tired from standing in line for hours – maybe we’ll just try another time. At least we saw some alligators on the way back to the ship ☺️













We were finally back onboard at 4.22 pm (all aboard 4.30 pm), so our first stop was the pool bar for some much needed alcoholic drinks. We managed to get first row seats in the Solarium for sail away. Symphony’s arrival in the US generated quite some interest, we had 2 helicopters documenting sailaway and hundreds of people watching. Guess Carnival Liberty never had a bigger audience ?
 







Before dinner we finished packing, then we went to Solarium Bistro. I have to agree with Twangster here, it’s a pity we only did this on the last day. Well, as we were able to share, we had a significant advantage: we managed to try everything we wanted! We tried Greek Salad, Ceviche, Tomato & Bocconcini, Tzatziki & Pita Bread, Seafood Soup, Stuffed Zucchini, Greek-style Roasted Potatoes, All-natural Grass-fed Skirt Steak with Horseradish, Chicken Kebab, Lemon Pepper Roasted Chicken, Kofta, Moussaka, Grilled Salmon, Fresh Mussels, Grilled Shrimp, Chocolate Nocciola, Loukoumades, Torta de Mele, Tarte Tropezienne, Panna Cotta à la Romana, Galaktoboureko. I wouldn’t recommend the Chicken Kebab but everything else was really good.



Feeling completely full we changed clothes and headed to the pool for some laps and just relaxing in the hot tubs. We fled when it started raining – yes I know we were already wet, but our cover up clothes weren’t ? The evening ended with some final drinks at – you guessed it – Playmakers.



Side notes:
15k steps
Nearly forgot to pick up our pictures – fortunately it suddenly dawned on hubby before they closed the foto shop.
We’re missing Symphony soooooo much ?

Day 13 - Disembarkation ?



Time to say goodbye - unfortunately. After our last breakfast at Park Cafe we waited in the Theater until our number was called. At least disembarkation was a breeze - no immigration, no costums, we just walked off. Wish I could say the same about getting to the car rental station. While the new terminal looks beautiful, they apparently didn't think traffic through. Bus and shuttle have serious problems turning and have to reverse out of the berths - this takes time and only worsens the chaos. Additionally, there are no lines for the bus - it's survival of the fittest. Took us 1.5 hours to get on a bus, but getting our car took 5 minutes once we arrived at the rental station. The day was spent shopping at the Disney store and Walmart. When it was time for checkin, we went to our Hotel - Sense Beach House in South Beach. It's a nice little hotel on a quiet block of Ocean Drive.


As promised, we went to South Pointe Park for Symphony's sailaway. We also got to watch Mariner's sailaway and the fireworks for Symphony. Sad to see her go, but we'll be back with Oasis 5 ?




















A little stroll around South Beach:







For those who made it that far: thanks for following along, I really enjoyed blogging for you. I'll do our final verdict (and a little comparison to Princess) later, probably when I'm home.

Day 12:
The last full day of this cruise and only our second port of call – Cape Canaveral. As we booked the Kennedy Space Center Guided Tour, we had an early breakfast at Park Cafe. Meeting for the excursion was in the Royal Theater at 8 am. As we’d arrived early, we were already in line to get off the ship at 7.50 am. Unfortunately, this didn’t help much. Immigration in Port Canaveral was mayhem for non-US citizens. We stood in line for 2.5 hours, shortening our 8h tour to 5.5 hours. This was our first major gripe with Royal. While they can’t speed up the immigration process, their organisation was truly disappointing. They sold way too many full day tours resulting in thousands of people trying to get through immigration at the same time. And instead of reserving the first hours for full day tours, they also let half day tours and passengers without any tours off the ship at the same time. Never seen such a bad organisation and we’ve already done immigration in Russia.
 
On the bright side: our tour guide Doug did everything he could to show us as many things possible within the shortened time frame. I’m sure we’d have enjoyed KSC more hadn’t we been so tired from standing in line for hours – maybe we’ll just try another time. At least we saw some alligators on the way back to the ship ☺️













We were finally back onboard at 4.22 pm (all aboard 4.30 pm), so our first stop was the pool bar for some much needed alcoholic drinks. We managed to get first row seats in the Solarium for sail away. Symphony’s arrival in the US generated quite some interest, we had 2 helicopters documenting sailaway and hundreds of people watching. Guess Carnival Liberty never had a bigger audience ?
 







Before dinner we finished packing, then we went to Solarium Bistro. I have to agree with Twangster here, it’s a pity we only did this on the last day. Well, as we were able to share, we had a significant advantage: we managed to try everything we wanted! We tried Greek Salad, Ceviche, Tomato & Bocconcini, Tzatziki & Pita Bread, Seafood Soup, Stuffed Zucchini, Greek-style Roasted Potatoes, All-natural Grass-fed Skirt Steak with Horseradish, Chicken Kebab, Lemon Pepper Roasted Chicken, Kofta, Moussaka, Grilled Salmon, Fresh Mussels, Grilled Shrimp, Chocolate Nocciola, Loukoumades, Torta de Mele, Tarte Tropezienne, Panna Cotta à la Romana, Galaktoboureko. I wouldn’t recommend the Chicken Kebab but everything else was really good.



Feeling completely full we changed clothes and headed to the pool for some laps and just relaxing in the hot tubs. We fled when it started raining – yes I know we were already wet, but our cover up clothes weren’t ? The evening ended with some final drinks at – you guessed it – Playmakers.



Side notes:
15k steps
Nearly forgot to pick up our pictures – fortunately it suddenly dawned on hubby before they closed the foto shop.
We’re missing Symphony soooooo much ?

Day 11
FINALLY! This is the first day with nothing planned in the morning – well, tbh we’re skipping the final choir meeting. Instead, we’re having a pool morning. Breakfast was in the MDR as we had the time to do it. Then it was up the stairs and on the waterslides. Unfortunately I only did one waterslide – the blue one. That was enough to wreck my swimsuit & waterproof bag for my asthma inhaler. Lesson learned: don’t take the bag with you on a waterslide – in other words, don’t go on the waterslide as I wouldn’t risk going anywhere without the inhaler. At least I can report that hubby did enjoy the waterslides immensely. I took the opportunity to swim laps in the pool while he was having fun on the slides. Unfortunately, the sports pool’s correct name should be „stand in the damn way pool“ so after half an hour I had enough. As we’d climbed the stairs already, we had lunch at El Loco Fresh. We really like the nachos and build your own tacos.
At 3pm it was finally time for the postponed Hairspray matinee. Wow, what a brilliant performance! The cast is amazing and I’d haver never thought they could do all that on a moving ship. We really liked Hairspray, even  though it’ll never be our favourite musical – these are still Phantom of the Opera and Dance of the Vampires.














Time until dinner was spent at Playmakers again. I can report that on day 11 we finally managed to empty Symphony’s stock of Guinness. Guess the provisions master miscalculated a bit. While we were at the Boardwalk anyway, we finally managed to go on the carousel – must’ve been the first time for at least 20 years. We also managed to spend our arcade credit on Mario Kart – I won every time ?
Tonight’s dinner was in Izumi – sushi night! If you’re on the drink package, try the Sake cocktails, they’re really yummy. For starters, we had the shrimp firecracker spring roll (sorry, forgot to take a picture). As main course we had five different rolls: Champagne Lobster in Yuzu Wrap, Crispy Philly, Izumi Spider Roll, Surf & Turf and Izumi Ryu Futomaki. The latter roll was the best sushi roll we ever had, the others were also very good, even though not really Japanese sushi. Apparently American sushi is more bells & whistles ?

As planned, we went from Izumi to the MDR for dessert. This was a good opportunity to say goodbye to Baptiste and Juan – and to realize what we’d missed on our other visits. We had Tiramisu, No Sugar Added Coconut Rice Pudding, Royal Cheesecake and Royal Chocolate Cake – the latter was soooo good!




After dessert we hurried to the Royal Theatre for the last headliner show, Adam Kario, a juggler and comedian. We were a bit late so we wouldn’t have gotten the best seats anyway, but as we were thinking of skipping the show (the other headliner shows weren’t really to our liking), we chose seats at the end of the row to sneak away if necessary. Much to our surprise, this headliner was by far the best, really funny and we definetely regretted our choice of seats.




From the theatre we hurried to Studio B for The Quest – our first I might add. I came close to being forced to be the female captain of our team – luckily someone else volunteered eventually. I can report that Bobby did a brilliant job with The Quest, we had so much fun and were howling with laughter. I won’t get into details here as you know – what happens at The Quest, stays at The Quest ?


After The Quest it was back into the Theatre for the last adult comedy show – we sneaked out halfway through as it was mostly the same material as the last time. Instead of bar hopping, we went to the cabin to start packing.
Side notes
11 k steps

Day 11
FINALLY! This is the first day with nothing planned in the morning – well, tbh we’re skipping the final choir meeting. Instead, we’re having a pool morning. Breakfast was in the MDR as we had the time to do it. Then it was up the stairs and on the waterslides. Unfortunately I only did one waterslide – the blue one. That was enough to wreck my swimsuit & waterproof bag for my asthma inhaler. Lesson learned: don’t take the bag with you on a waterslide – in other words, don’t go on the waterslide as I wouldn’t risk going anywhere without the inhaler. At least I can report that hubby did enjoy the waterslides immensely. I took the opportunity to swim laps in the pool while he was having fun on the slides. Unfortunately, the sports pool’s correct name should be „stand in the damn way pool“ so after half an hour I had enough. As we’d climbed the stairs already, we had lunch at El Loco Fresh. We really like the nachos and build your own tacos.
At 3pm it was finally time for the postponed Hairspray matinee. Wow, what a brilliant performance! The cast is amazing and I’d haver never thought they could do all that on a moving ship. We really liked Hairspray, even  though it’ll never be our favourite musical – these are still Phantom of the Opera and Dance of the Vampires.














Time until dinner was spent at Playmakers again. I can report that on day 11 we finally managed to empty Symphony’s stock of Guinness. Guess the provisions master miscalculated a bit. While we were at the Boardwalk anyway, we finally managed to go on the carousel – must’ve been the first time for at least 20 years. We also managed to spend our arcade credit on Mario Kart – I won every time ?
Tonight’s dinner was in Izumi – sushi night! If you’re on the drink package, try the Sake cocktails, they’re really yummy. For starters, we had the shrimp firecracker spring roll (sorry, forgot to take a picture). As main course we had five different rolls: Champagne Lobster in Yuzu Wrap, Crispy Philly, Izumi Spider Roll, Surf & Turf and Izumi Ryu Futomaki. The latter roll was the best sushi roll we ever had, the others were also very good, even though not really Japanese sushi. Apparently American sushi is more bells & whistles ?

As planned, we went from Izumi to the MDR for dessert. This was a good opportunity to say goodbye to Baptiste and Juan – and to realize what we’d missed on our other visits. We had Tiramisu, No Sugar Added Coconut Rice Pudding, Royal Cheesecake and Royal Chocolate Cake – the latter was soooo good!




After dessert we hurried to the Royal Theatre for the last headliner show, Adam Kario, a juggler and comedian. We were a bit late so we wouldn’t have gotten the best seats anyway, but as we were thinking of skipping the show (the other headliner shows weren’t really to our liking), we chose seats at the end of the row to sneak away if necessary. Much to our surprise, this headliner was by far the best, really funny and we definetely regretted our choice of seats.




From the theatre we hurried to Studio B for The Quest – our first I might add. I came close to being forced to be the female captain of our team – luckily someone else volunteered eventually. I can report that Bobby did a brilliant job with The Quest, we had so much fun and were howling with laughter. I won’t get into details here as you know – what happens at The Quest, stays at The Quest ?


After The Quest it was back into the Theatre for the last adult comedy show – we sneaked out halfway through as it was mostly the same material as the last time. Instead of bar hopping, we went to the cabin to start packing.
Side notes
11 k steps

Day 11
FINALLY! This is the first day with nothing planned in the morning – well, tbh we’re skipping the final choir meeting. Instead, we’re having a pool morning. Breakfast was in the MDR as we had the time to do it. Then it was up the stairs and on the waterslides. Unfortunately I only did one waterslide – the blue one. That was enough to wreck my swimsuit & waterproof bag for my asthma inhaler. Lesson learned: don’t take the bag with you on a waterslide – in other words, don’t go on the waterslide as I wouldn’t risk going anywhere without the inhaler. At least I can report that hubby did enjoy the waterslides immensely. I took the opportunity to swim laps in the pool while he was having fun on the slides. Unfortunately, the sports pool’s correct name should be „stand in the damn way pool“ so after half an hour I had enough. As we’d climbed the stairs already, we had lunch at El Loco Fresh. We really like the nachos and build your own tacos.
At 3pm it was finally time for the postponed Hairspray matinee. Wow, what a brilliant performance! The cast is amazing and I’d haver never thought they could do all that on a moving ship. We really liked Hairspray, even  though it’ll never be our favourite musical – these are still Phantom of the Opera and Dance of the Vampires.














Time until dinner was spent at Playmakers again. I can report that on day 11 we finally managed to empty Symphony’s stock of Guinness. Guess the provisions master miscalculated a bit. While we were at the Boardwalk anyway, we finally managed to go on the carousel – must’ve been the first time for at least 20 years. We also managed to spend our arcade credit on Mario Kart – I won every time ?
Tonight’s dinner was in Izumi – sushi night! If you’re on the drink package, try the Sake cocktails, they’re really yummy. For starters, we had the shrimp firecracker spring roll (sorry, forgot to take a picture). As main course we had five different rolls: Champagne Lobster in Yuzu Wrap, Crispy Philly, Izumi Spider Roll, Surf & Turf and Izumi Ryu Futomaki. The latter roll was the best sushi roll we ever had, the others were also very good, even though not really Japanese sushi. Apparently American sushi is more bells & whistles ?

As planned, we went from Izumi to the MDR for dessert. This was a good opportunity to say goodbye to Baptiste and Juan – and to realize what we’d missed on our other visits. We had Tiramisu, No Sugar Added Coconut Rice Pudding, Royal Cheesecake and Royal Chocolate Cake – the latter was soooo good!




After dessert we hurried to the Royal Theatre for the last headliner show, Adam Kario, a juggler and comedian. We were a bit late so we wouldn’t have gotten the best seats anyway, but as we were thinking of skipping the show (the other headliner shows weren’t really to our liking), we chose seats at the end of the row to sneak away if necessary. Much to our surprise, this headliner was by far the best, really funny and we definetely regretted our choice of seats.




From the theatre we hurried to Studio B for The Quest – our first I might add. I came close to being forced to be the female captain of our team – luckily someone else volunteered eventually. I can report that Bobby did a brilliant job with The Quest, we had so much fun and were howling with laughter. I won’t get into details here as you know – what happens at The Quest, stays at The Quest ?


After The Quest it was back into the Theatre for the last adult comedy show – we sneaked out halfway through as it was mostly the same material as the last time. Instead of bar hopping, we went to the cabin to start packing.
Side notes
11 k steps

Thanks for this Blog! I really enjoyed it !

From ISkate we hurried to the Boardwalk to get in line for Hiro, the Aquashow. Finally we’d get to see one! Guess there had been a lot of complaints as the movement of the ship hadn’t changed much since yesterday but they were still running the shows. Unfortunately, our seats again weren’t the best as a) we weren’t the first in line due to ISkate and b) the whole center part of the Aqua Theater is reserved for PiT (Pinnacle in Training), Pinnacle and Suites. Hiro is a brilliant show with a storyline (see Twangster’s blog for details), but there’s so much going on with dancing, high diving, fighting, synchronized swimming and slacklining – you just can’t take it all in. I guess you’d have to watch it at least twice to see all the details – good luck with the standby line ? Fun part: we kind of got our revenge for the seats. The screeches from the high status crowd when they got wet from the dripping aerialist amused us immensely ? With another detour for a cocktail, we just fell into our beds.


















Side notes
12.2 steps
Planning on getting up early for our way into Port of Miami, as Symphony is rumored to turn before docking. Estimated arrival time is 4.30 am in case you wanted to watch, Matt.
If you suffer from night blindness, Escape the Rubicon is really hard. Speaking from experience here.
Found yet more staircase artwork I liked – and some elevator art:




Stopped by at Vintages – here’s the current menu for tapas:

Day 9
Another early start for us – after yesterday‘s change of breakfast plans, we returned to Solarium Bistro – only way earlier. At 7.15 am, we stood in the ever-growing line – fortunately we were early enough to get seated. Solarium Bistro is a nice venue for breakfast, as you can get made to order omelet and also pre-cooked omelet options as well as fruit pancakes. Unfortunately, it’s just too much hassle on this cruise – too many people know about it.
 
After breakfast, we headed to Central Park for a bit of blogging. After more than a week I finally got one of the Hide & Seek items – this cute teddybear from Joe. At least I was wearing the perfect shirt for the occasion. Sadly, we didn’t have much time to chat as we were on our way to Dazzles for the Guest Talent Show rehearsal. This was our final meeting because we would miss the other ones due to Escape the Rubicon and the All Access Tour.


Escape the Rubicon is an escape room game where your mission is to use the old submarine SPS Rubicon to fire a torpedo at an active volcano and thereby saving the world from its fatal outburst. It's in a dedicated room in front of Adventure Ocean. Our group comprised of 12 people, with us, two indivduals and a group of 8. We were the only non-US citizens so again no language barriers. A staff member introduces you to the story and is present in the room for the whole time. She also instructed us to not touch anything with a red hand on it. Guess what, somebody didn’t heed to the instructions and reset the game when we were on it for about 5 minutes. Fortunately, we could still go on. With a group as big as this, the game is quite chaotic because it’s impossible to know who is doing what. We still managed to save the world with 8 minutes to spare (3 if you count in the 5 minutes in the beginning). Escape the Rubicon is great fun, but you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s worth the 19.99 $ fee. Taking into account that escape rooms are more expensive at home, it was worth the money to us.


Instead of taking a lunch break, we raced down the stairs to On Air for the Royal Heist – another puzzle break experience (without a fee attached). We already did Royal Mystery the week before and had great fun doing it. We joined the same European team as last time. PIty this game is not as well designed as Royal Mystery – you have 45 minutes and we were done with all riddles except the final one after half the time. We then stared at the final riddle for 22 minutes without coming up with a solution – or even a way to the solution. As there were no hints, no team solved the final riddle ?

Time for lunch – we headed to Park Cafe to grab a bite. The afternoon was spent at Playmakers, then a quick wardrobe change and off to Wonderland we went. You know the drill – speciality dinner will get its own post. Next stop: ISkate 2.0 in Studio B. As we had to hurry there from Wonderland, we didn’t get the best seats – can’t always get what you want. ISkate is a show where the cast choses the music as well as the choreography – so don’t expect a storyline – just let yourself be wowed by the performance. Funny enough, one of the songs they chose was This is Me from The Greatest Showman – exactly the song, we’d been rehearsing all cruise for the choir. Yes, we sang along ?

Day 8 - Part III - The Grand Finale
Evening entertainment was Flight – done by the cast of Hairspray. While Twangster was in this cruise's first show, we went to the late night session. Finally another production show for us! And what a show it was – the pictures really don’t do it justice. Apart from the non-existent storyline this was top notch entertainment with goosebumps at the finale. We could rewatch this show over and over and recommend you do it as soon as you get the chance! Needless to say that the cast got a well-deserved standing ovation for this. And we were quite happy that the 45 minutes in an ever-groing line before the theater opened was time well-spent.

Day 8 - Part II
Dinner was at Windjammer – well kind of. We were still quite full from Johnny Rockets, so it was more a litte bit of salad and a few desserts. As this is likely our only evening in Windjammer, we did a bit of recon. A bit more choice than TUI Cruises, but overall we’d say they’re on par as TUI has way better gelato.











 
Side notes:
12.6 k steps
Do Americans ever use spices on fries and the like? I start to understand your penchant for ketchup and other condiments.
No idea what the h*** Aqua Theater is for. If they can’t run a show in the conditions we had today, they’d need perfectly flat seas to do it. Is the Caribbean sea always completely flat or do they just cancel most of the shows?
If you see the Starbucks on board, you'll come to the conclusion that being a Starbucks addict is a requirement to get promoted to officer with Royal.
Towel animal of the day: peacock (at least I'm certain of that one)

More staircase art – I think we’ve got them all now – well, the ones I liked anyway.





Finally, the best piece of art on Symphony of the Seas:

Day 7
Welcome to another beautiful day in the middle of nowhere! Unfortunately, the day started on a bad note for me. As our late night check yesterday revealed two filled pools, I got up way too early to finally get some swimming done. Cue me arriving on deck 15 after all these steps to find all pools but the sports pool drained – and the sports pool closed due to the swell. I’m putting it mildly when saying I was not amused. Guess it’s an American thing when they’re so afraid of something happening and maybe being sued. We’ve had worse seas from Gran Canaria to Morroco on Mein Schiff 3 and they didn’t even put up the partition for the 25 metres (82 feet) pool. But as Germans, if I’d injured myself in the pool I’d have thought it was my fault and not the cruise line’s – they’re not responsible for me misjudging my abilities after all. Well, nothing to be done here with an US cruise line – so back to the cabin to try to wake up hubby – a feat of its own. After finally getting him out of bed and presentable, we went back to Johnny Rockets as we enjoyed the food yesterday. Well, the wait was even longer! Today’s order was Patty ‘n eggs for both of us, hubby also got pancakes, I also got The Works. We still liked the food but it’s just too much trouble for us to do it regularly.
 
After choir practice (hopefully we get there for day 10) we just went to Playmakers for blogging and some beer. As were now 3 hours behind Germany, we’d hoped to watch German soccer. Unfortunately they only showed England‘s premier league, so hubby had to listen to his team on the radio. By the way, we’ve finally done it! We had lunch at Playmakers – Classic Popcorn Shrimp for me, Base Loaded Potato Skins for hubby. The shrimp was just as you’d expect it, but the potato skins were exceptionally AWESOME! We’ll have to get them again, they’re so delicious.


As our dinner reservation was for 9 pm (12 am European time, and it finally feels like it!), we had a second lunch at Park Cafe. That’s where I also spotted this flag – it’s not only fellow Germans, but they’re routing for MY soccer team ?

Evening entertainment was the love & marriage show – another premiere for us. We’ve been married for 9 years now, so no sense in volunteering – to be honest, we wouldn’t have anyway ☺️ We had four couples (1 year, 4 years, 25 years, 50 years married) – it’s no surprise the longest-married couple won. We really enjoyed the show and had so many laughs, unfortunately it wouldn’t work with Germans because they just wouldn’t volunteer that kind of information ? For dinner, we did Izumi hibachi – again coming up in its own post.





Side notes:
12.7k steps
Funny story about the difference between Americans and Europeans: one of our progressive trivia team mates from the UK chipped off part of a tooth when eating in Windjammer. Due to pain and an infection, she had to visit the doctor. Instead of just receiving treatment, they dragged her to Windjammer where she had to show exactly where she got the food and where she sat when the mishap happened – even though she explained countless times that it was her fault as she was distracted. She was really embarrassed by this and didn’t want to return to Windjammer because all staff know her now – and not for good reasons.
Only pool open today was the Solarium Pool – better than nothing, I guess – but not usable for swimming.
My mum finally got the hang of Whatsapp calling. No news on the baby front.
More staircase art:

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.

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
 

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.

Right back at you, it was so cool finally meeting you. Hope we'll meet again on other cruises!
As for the top tier bunch, it did annoy us quite a bit. Were not used to being treated as second class passengers, and sadly you got that feeling on more than one occasion on this cruise. We prefer TUI's approach to this one where loyal cruisers are rewarded without taking anything from the experience of other guests. Examples include bridge tours, free champagne, free speciality choclate, free laundry... TUI does have a designated venue for guests staying in suites and that is fine by us, as it doesn't impact our stay in any way. But taking away a third of the available seats in all entertainment venues and closing numerous venues at times does get on your nerves. We'd still sail with Royal but we made sure Royal got this feedback.
I'm now sitting next to the aft pool on Caribbean Princess and enjoying a nice view of the ocean (something that's hard to come by on Symphony). So it's finally time to do the blog posts that fell victim to too much to do and not enough time - and some post cruise land sickness. I'll also do a summary of what we liked and disliked on our first Royal cruise. As for comparing our Royal and Princess experiences, I'm thinking of doing it once I'm back home ? 

Day 10:
This day was off to an early start, therefore we had breakfast in our beloved Park Cafe. Why the early start, you might ask – the All Access Ship tour, of course! At 119 $ each, we had a YOLO moment when booking this. Hey, when will I be ever able to get a behind the scenes tour on the biggest cruise ship in the world? Our tour guide for the morning was Charly from Shore Excursions, who gave us some insight into crew life on Symphony. First stop of the tour was the engine control room where we were lucky to meet the chief engineer. I don’t want to bore you with a multitude of numbers so here’s the highlights: of 6 generators for the engines, Symphony uses 4 on a transatlantic sailing compared to only 3 when on normal Caribbean itineraries. Symphony has enough fuel to immediately return from Miami to Barcelona without refueling – but we’d lack food and drinks ?


Our next stop was the MDR galley on deck 5, where we got all information from one of the sous chefs. The MDR has 3 galleys (one on each MDR deck) – deck 5 is mainly responsible for soups, sauces, salads, cold plates and breakfast room service. The sheer amount of food that has to be prepared here is really impressive. Royal uses a computer system to predict the amount of dishes they’ll need for each seating – interesting to see this in use.



Down from deck 5 it was back into the bowels of the ship, taking the I-95 to provisions. On I-95, we saw the crew activities board. I’m really quite angry about the amount of money the crew have to pay for internet – in my opinion, it should be free of charge for them as it’s the only way to stay in contact with their family at home. And Royal should be aware that a happy crew makes for happy cruisers!  But on to a more lighthearted topic – provisions: Symphony’s provisions master took care of all our questions. As we still got a few days left, the walk in refrigerators were well stocked - nobody can starve on a cruise ship. For the European season, Symphony had to restock in Barcelona and Civitavecchia on each sailing – not because of the longer advance booking periods but because all goods arrive on (wooden) EU pallets and have to be reloaded on the steel pallets that Royal uses! That’s why Symphony only needs restocking once a week (in Miami) for Caribbean cruises – it just takes less time. Our time with the provisions master also answered another question: how does Symphony dock in Miami? Always on the starboard side, as they can use 2 doors for loading instead of only one when docking portside. Unfortunately, this means that Symphony will always turn in the basin when entering the port – so in the middle of the night most likely.



From provisions, we ventured even further down the ship. The laundry is as far down as you can get on Symphony (assuming you don’t want to take a swim in the fuel tanks). The laundry master explained his department to us and also showed us the use of some of the machines. You can even stumble upon Captain Rob in the laundry ? Most interesting information: crew’s uniforms are cleaned free of charge, but they have to wash their private clothes themselves.


Our last stop on this tour was the bridge, where we met one of the First Officers – and Captain Rob again. It's amazing how approachable and chatty the Captain is – what a nice experience. Best thing about the bridge is the unobstructed forward view, but all the instruments on the bridge wing were also quite interesting. We were even lucky to have not one but two ships in our safety corridor when on the bridge – in the middle of nowhere in the Atlantic! The route is completely at the Captain’s discretion so we took a southern route on this crossing for better weather. Even though the southern route is longer than the northern route, it’s more fuel efficient due to winds and drift.


#


After this illuminating tour, we went to the MDR for an early lunch. We were seated with Americans, Brits and a couple from Taiwan. This mix made for some very interesting political discussions. (Hey, I thought you don’t small talk about politics and religion?!) Fortunately, we don’t mind political discussions as we like to hear opinions from all sides. In fact, we’ve redpilled quite a few fellow cruisers on the topic of Germany on this crossing ? As for the food, can’t remember the exact names (and forgot to look them up before disembarkation ?). Hubby had the Greek Salad, Chicken Sandwich and Chocolate Cake, I had the Tortilla Salad, Steak Sandwich and Apple Pie.






The next event of the day was the Guest Talent Show. The choir's This is Me was the first act, the song was enhanced by a choreography from the progressive dance class. Other than that, it was mostly musical acts. We were quite surprised about the confidence of some of the participants but a few acts were REALLY impressive. The best act was a guy singing New York by Frank Sinatra – in fact this guy was on par with headliner Gary Williams. No surprise he won progressive karaoke.

As we’d had an early lunch and were planning a late dinner, we had a 2nd lunch at Playmakers – again Base Loaded Potato Skins but this time accompanied by Pulled Pork Sliders. From there it was on to Laser Tag. Sadly a session only is 10 minutes, but considering the long lines it’s understandable. Due to the de-icing of Studio B there were only 4 sessions on this 12 night cruise - the first two on one of the first sea days, session 3 on day 10 during formal night dinner and session 4 during sailaway from Port Canaveral. We had other plans for the first two sessions and didn't want to miss sailaway so we chose the lesser evil. Our team didn’t win but at least we were the team’s top players.
Day 10 was the 2nd and last formal night, so we went to the cabin to change into more formal wear (so not playing laser tag in dress and heels!) and then get some pictures taken on Royal Promenade. Dinner in the MDR consisted of the Mediterranean Tapas Plate for starters, Seafood Linguini and Broiled Lobster Tail for entrees and Chocolate Profiteroles and the Artisan Cheese Plate for dessert. Feel free to guess who ordered what ? Verdict on the food: to us it feels as though MDR food is better on Formal Nights – so a good reason to dress up. When leaving the MDR we were advised to come back the next day for dessert (we have a reservation in Izumi and the dessert isn’t really our cup of tea). After a few drinks at the pub we went to bed.





Side notes:
10.3 k steps – most of them on the tour ?
If anyone wondered, yes, drink fatigue is a thing. Well, for me – not for hubby. Food fatigue is also getting real, guess we’ll have a breather in Miami.
Can't really call this a towel animal, can I? ?