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I found a bunch of pictures from our honeymoon cruise in 1993.  We were on Premier's S/S Atlantic (one of the Big Red Boats).  We were docked at Nassau at the same time as the Empress (was it the Nordic Empress at the time?).  I just remember being awed by how big she was.  I think the Atlantic was ~30,000 tons and their S/S Majestic was ~17,500 tons.    The "Big" Red Boat is off on the right (with the life boats on the top deck).   I have no idea what the little ship on the left is, I just know my wife will never get on that ship unless it was a tender vessel....
Apologies for the non-twangster image quality, a scan of a crappy 25 year old print.

I found a bunch of pictures from our honeymoon cruise in 1993.  We were on Premier's S/S Atlantic (one of the Big Red Boats).  We were docked at Nassau at the same time as the Empress (was it the Nordic Empress at the time?).  I just remember being awed by how big she was.  I think the Atlantic was ~30,000 tons and their S/S Majestic was ~17,500 tons.    The "Big" Red Boat is off on the right (with the life boats on the top deck).   I have no idea what the little ship on the left is, I just know my wife will never get on that ship unless it was a tender vessel....
Apologies for the non-twangster image quality, a scan of a crappy 25 year old print.

I found a bunch of pictures from our honeymoon cruise in 1993.  We were on Premier's S/S Atlantic (one of the Big Red Boats).  We were docked at Nassau at the same time as the Empress (was it the Nordic Empress at the time?).  I just remember being awed by how big she was.  I think the Atlantic was ~30,000 tons and their S/S Majestic was ~17,500 tons.    The "Big" Red Boat is off on the right (with the life boats on the top deck).   I have no idea what the little ship on the left is, I just know my wife will never get on that ship unless it was a tender vessel....
Apologies for the non-twangster image quality, a scan of a crappy 25 year old print.

I found a bunch of pictures from our honeymoon cruise in 1993.  We were on Premier's S/S Atlantic (one of the Big Red Boats).  We were docked at Nassau at the same time as the Empress (was it the Nordic Empress at the time?).  I just remember being awed by how big she was.  I think the Atlantic was ~30,000 tons and their S/S Majestic was ~17,500 tons.    The "Big" Red Boat is off on the right (with the life boats on the top deck).   I have no idea what the little ship on the left is, I just know my wife will never get on that ship unless it was a tender vessel....
Apologies for the non-twangster image quality, a scan of a crappy 25 year old print.

Not to sidetrack the cruise discussion but this is the same experience my sister had flying out of Philly to Key West on American.   Delayed, delayed, cancelled, rebooked 3 days later  on a 5 day trip .  At least they were able to get to Florida later that day (Orlando) and then do the 8-10 hour drive to Key West.    Next time, if it's practical, Southwest out of Baltimore has lots of options to Florida.  Driving from Orlando or Tampa to Miami would have been more palatable than Philly to Miami.
Glad you had a good time.  I feel the same way about the drink package.   Comparing costs for us, I would have broken even but it would have been cheaper for my wife not to have gotten a package.  I just look at it as a convenience  fee to not worry about it during the trip, why add stress to vacation?!   
 

Smoke free casinos. 

The Enchantment was our first "real" cruise ship back in '06 and we were on her again 2 years ago.  It's perfectly fine, as long as you know you're not getting the zip lines, aquashow, 5 different specialty restaurants, etc.  It is older but still comfortable and a good introductory cruise ship for adults.  I thought the food in the MDR was decent and we thought the Windjammer food was the best we had experienced.  We did MTD and were able to secure a table for two by the window every night.  
The main theater entertainment was so-so, the head liner was good but the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers shows were just okay.  The Schooner bar on that class of ship is better than any on the big ships as it's right along the windows.  The casino seemed (to me) to be smokier than other ships so if you're smoke sensitive that might not be the place to hang out.    We didn't have any issues with getting a seat at the pool(s).
While we prefer the bigger ships, I would have no problems with an Enchantment of the Seas cruise.  Have fun on your trip.   

The Enchantment was our first "real" cruise ship back in '06 and we were on her again 2 years ago.  It's perfectly fine, as long as you know you're not getting the zip lines, aquashow, 5 different specialty restaurants, etc.  It is older but still comfortable and a good introductory cruise ship for adults.  I thought the food in the MDR was decent and we thought the Windjammer food was the best we had experienced.  We did MTD and were able to secure a table for two by the window every night.  
The main theater entertainment was so-so, the head liner was good but the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers shows were just okay.  The Schooner bar on that class of ship is better than any on the big ships as it's right along the windows.  The casino seemed (to me) to be smokier than other ships so if you're smoke sensitive that might not be the place to hang out.    We didn't have any issues with getting a seat at the pool(s).
While we prefer the bigger ships, I would have no problems with an Enchantment of the Seas cruise.  Have fun on your trip.   

You can spend a good amount of time at Disney Springs, but it's predominately shopping and eating. It's usually quite busy too.   Disney is brilliant, they have turned a shopping center and restaurant area into a pseudo-5th theme park destination.   
 
Plus you don't have a full day and one key to doing Disney is to be at the parks prior to them opening for the day.  Say the ship docked at 9:00 you were off by 9:30 and on the bus/uber/etc by 10:00.  Maybe you could get to the Magic Kingdom by 11:30-12:00, right at high noon for crowds and lunch.  You'd probably have 6 hours before having to turn around and repeat the trip (guessing the ship is leaving at 9:00 PM).  If you wanted to hit the big rides during that 6 hours, you might be able to do 3, maybe 4.  
The only way I'd do Disney as a Port Canaveral excursion is if I was a season pass holder, had my fastpass(es) lined up, and just needed a Disney fix.    As someone else mentioned, if you want to do Disney, you'd be way better off doing a dedicated trip. 
 

Yep.   Winterville, NC?   I'll have more $ for cruising once I stop spending lots of $ at ECU...

I personally would need to do a lot of research for the patch option.   I know lots of folks swear by them but my wife refuses to try the patch because she had such a bad reaction way back in the 90s.  I know they've gotten better but she's been scarred for life on them I'm afraid.

every travel agent I've worked with has said the same thing.  My wife is also very susceptible.  We have not been on that class of ship but we've been on the Enchantment and she finds that the only time she really notices it is when we are in the theater (front).

Congrats.   We did our 25th on the Allure back in October and loved it.  As it was our first time on an Oasis Class ship, we loved the main aqua show.  The advice we'd seen about that show is to not book it on the first night's sailing as it is often cancelled (due to currents?).  And that turned out to be true for us, but we caught it two other times and loved it.  Also loved the Ice Games show.  I think @rjacmentioned the observation deck and that's pretty cool too.    Try a dining package, we loved Gionvannis (went back a second time).  try the drink of the day, everyday since you have the DDP, if you don't like it, don't drink it....     We were still new finding things to do even on the last day when we found the Solarium at night was nice and quiet with some comfortable, semi-secluded seating up by the Solarium bar. 
 Oh, maximize your time and get there early to get on the ship as soon as possible.   Unless you have The Key, the ultimate dining package, or something else that gets you a specialty lunch on the first day, try the Solarium Bistro for lunch on embarkation day.  It's a much more pleasant experience than fighting the masses at the windjammer.   The first thing to do on-board is book any dining reservation for the week and then go up to the Bistro.  By the time you're done, some crowds will have caught up to you but you can explore the ship now or go hang by the pool.  
Hope you have a good cruise.

My wife fell in love with that ship class so we're hoping this will work out.

Two weeks ago they did call Diamond Plus and Diamond at Port Everglades. They did a poor job of policing it but they were seating and calling people by C&A levels 

They basically treated the pasta dish entrees as side dishes for us.  We had salad, app, pasta, and main course.  

Sorry I'm a bit late, but instead of post cruise depression I managed to get a post cruise cold. I'll try to keep this as short as possible.
There were two major drawbacks for us on Royal: the class system (also called C&A) and the shortage of waiters in bars and lounges (Playmakers being the notable exception). I'm hoping that it isn't that bad on normal cruises with less top tier cruisers. As for the missing waiters, well at least you get to know your bar tenders.... Apart from that, we were really happy with our first Royal experience. The food was better than expected, staff was phenomenal, entertainment top-notch and the ship amazing. We also liked the international mix of cruisers. TLDR: we'll be back - for Oasis 5 transatlantic and we're also looking at Anthem cruises from Southampton.
 
Regarding our cruise with Caribbean Princess: we can't recommend it. The ship is old and looks the part (we've sailed on ships 10 years more senior that looked better) and there isn't much to do. Caribbean Princess also has some major problems with vibration - your plates and glasses are constantly moving in the buffet (deck 15!). Food in the MDR is way worse than on Royal, so bad that we only went twice. We liked the buffet better than the Windjammer so we spent most dinners there. As for speciality dining, Sabatini's was on par with Jamie's, but Crown Grill was way inferior to Chops Grille. Yes, Crown Grill is cheaper than Chops Grille, but I'd prefer paying a bit more for better quality.  We liked Planks (part of the buffet that sells barbecue dinner for 12$ per person).
Regarding service, Princess was also inferior to Royal - there were A LOT of staff but they prefered to chat among themselves, therefore you often had to get drinks yourself. I didn't mind that much on Royal but if there is enough staff around, why don't they work? We also had a bad cabin steward who forgot the water for my CPAP even though I prebooked it (took some reminders) and who was capable of overlooking empty dishes and glasses for up to 3 days in a row. I just stacked them up until even he couldn't not notice anymore... Other bad service examples include Princess not providing German menus or cruise compasses even though they advertised it beforehand (no problem for us but we met some fellow Germans that were really struggling). Another thing that really annoyed us was the amount of advertisements and sales. You were constantly plagued by staff trying to sell mimosas, speciality dining, pictures... or even schnapps glasses in the MDR after dinner. And trust me, they weren't subtle about it, it was really rude at times.
There were a few good points about this cruise: the Caribbean (yes, we'll have to do it again), the super comfy bed (way better than on Royal) and in part the medaillon. When it worked, your stateroom door was unlocked when you approached - a real plus when carrying food or drinks. You could also order drinks from anywhere you set via the app - well, at least when it worked... it's still quite buggy. Funny enough, while the app manages these more complicated things, it's impossible to show the MDR menu of the day, or any day in fact.
Guess the comparison between good and bad points says it all - we'll definetely never sail Princess again, we were indeed very happy when we finally could disembark. Descriptions can't do it justice to say how bad it was. On the bright side, the flight home was actually rather enjoyable. I fear I'm now spoiled and will never fly economy on intercontinental flights but well... at least I'm willing to go to the US again!

This is just more of an FYI, relaying my just concluded experience with calling Royal to get an exception for the Deluxe Drink Package (wife doesn't drink alcohol).   As most know, you can't do it on-line, so you have to call 1-800-398-9819 .  The first person I spoke to didn't have an idea as to how to grant an exception, she said book the refreshment package first, then go in and book the deluxe for myself.  All that does is add two Deluxe and one Refreshment Package to the cart (approaching $900).    I cancelled that and called back.  I wish I would have gotten the name of the rep as he knew what to do.   I had to exit out of the cruise planner and then he was able to add the Deluxe + Voom for me and the refreshment package for my wife.  I had to give him my CC info and I got the confirmation email and I've confirmed it's in my cruise planner.    So as Matt has said in the past, if the first person you speak to can't help you, hang up and try another one.
Also,  as others have noted, the exception they will grant is for the other person to get the Refreshment package.  That works for us but I know others don't want that.   I'm not sure what to say about it as it didn't seem to be an option to not get a package or to just get the soda.     The Bogo $ for the Refeshment Package was $18/day which I thought was pretty good as we'll go through several bottles of water a day alone. Four of those, an OJ, and a virgin daiquiri and you're at $18.    Deluxe + VOom was $59.

Cruise Summary
Symphony is a fantastic ship.  The evolutional changes and differences compared to her sisters including Harmony have been well thought out and executed.  The Solarium is outstanding and my favorite of all in this class.  The changing colors of the art in the Solarium day and especially at night is pretty great.
Playmakers is a hit and from my deck 8 boardwalk balcony very nearly on top of it I never heard any noise from Playmakers.  
The main shows such as Hairspray, 1977, Flight and HiRO were also fantastic.  Flight was very well done and I look forward to experiencing it again on the 50th birthday cruise.  The enhanced projection technology even in HiRO was noticed.  I appreciated the artistic nature of HiRO more and the symbolism of equality and unity.  
The crew were all top notch and I can't recall a single poor crew interaction.  Like all Oasis class the crew can be very busy at times but they always had a smile on their face.
I was pleasantly surprised how well the O3b Voom held up across the Atlantic.  There are times when poor weather or satellite switch-over can impact even the best satellite technology so it's not the same as internet on land but it never really let me down.
This was my first transatlantic but it won't be my last.  The days flew by and before I knew it I had to think about packing.  
Next cruise - Serenade of the Seas from which I am writing this post.  Ten days in the Eastern Caribbean.
I hope you have enjoyed following me on this journey and I thank you for viewing.

Final thoughts:
Pros:
Loved the Allure, great ship   we are confirmed big ship fans. The Entertainment in general was fantastic Food was decent, some better than others but overall I'd give it a B Exception was Chops, that gets an F  and it will be a long time before venturing into another Chops In general the staff was very friendly and pleasant.  Guest Services wasn't the friendliest but they are usually dealing with problems or complaints so as long as they aren't rude, they get a pass from us. Check-In / Disembarkation was simple Cons:
Unorganized Embarkation but that might just be because of the previous delayed disembarkation Did not care for the MDR aesthetics, we prefer the Grand multi-level MDRs Schooner Bar was a let down.  The Vision-Class schooner Bars are way better.  Plus the drinks were terrible.  I loved the Enchantment Schooner Sidecar, the one on the Allure was totally different.  I tried another drink and it was bad too.  I thought it might have been me.  Maybe i've grown soft in my drinking or something.  Then I saw a group at trivia who clearly enjoyed their alcohol, and one or two of their drinks were undrinkable as well The walkways can be narrow around the pool deck.  If there's a scooter or stroller coming, it's a one-way lane.  The outside deck on deck 5 is also narrow.  The jogging track takes up most of the deck. The following is for information purposes as it comes up often in the boards, it's not meant as an editorial:
Dress Code -    there really wasn't a dress code, pretty much anything went.  T-shirts and shorts were prevalent, even in Chops and Giovanni's.  However, there was enough mix on Formal night where either crowd wouldn't be out of place.  There were enough Tuxes, Suits, Ballgowns where if you wanted to dress up, there were others equally as dressy.  I also saw enough T-shirts and shorts where that wasn't out of place.   I just don't want to be the one guy in shorts when everyone else is in a Tux or vice versa and that would not have been an issue.   Smoke:  it is noticeable around the pool bar on the port side where there are several tables with ash trays.  We had started out on the starboard side and hadn't realized there was smoking until we went to the other side to hunt for shade.   The smoking impact on the Casino was interesting.  There was a smoking and a non-smoking section and I did not find the Non-Smoking section to be that bad.   It was too much for my wife but she is hyper-sensitive to smoke but even she said it wasn't as bad as other ships.  The smoke did drift up the Starboard aft stairwell.  You could tell by Deck 6 (casino on deck 4) and one night you could start to get a whiff around Deck 8.   The smoke smell definitely encroached into that elevator bank so we just made sure not to use that one.    Still prevalent but much less than on the Enchantment.

Completely agree on both of these points.  That was our same experience.  Three different restaurants the first three nights and we saw several of the same people in each (to include the MDR).  And while finding a "prime" lounger might have been difficult, finding a lounger was not an issue at all.

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.

On the Allure it popped up on Day 5, same $

Day 8 – Sept 23 – Disembark day (a sad day - so sad I didn't take a single photo)
We were up at about 6am to get ready and pack.  We headed to the WJ for our final breakfast – sad times.  Back to the room to pick up our cases and then off we got. Overall I was very impressed with how they got thousands of people off the ship pretty seamlessly.
Once we got out of the terminal we ordered an Uber.  I was a little concerned at the prospect as it was a little manic but it all worked out fine.  It was helped by the fact that we were randomly allocated an Uber Lux even though we ordered the normal UberX.  It was a white Jaguar so pretty easy to spot when it arrived since it stood out from the mass of other cars.
Our flight was leaving Miami at 5pm and at this point it was about 9am.  We had thought previously about what to do in the interim.  One option was to kill the time doing one of RCLs excursions which is basically a bus tour which then takes you to the airport.  We wouldn’t have got much from that as it would really have just been a way to do an elongated airport transfer.  I had a better idea.  When we come to the States, especially Florida or Vegas, we like to hit an outlet mall and do a bunch of clothes shopping.  Neither of us particularly enjoy clothes shopping so at least for the past few years it has been a way to do a year’s worth of clothes shopping in one day and then not have to do anything else for the rest of the year.  So I had searched for outlet malls.  At first I saw the Sawmills one in Ft Lauderdale but the problem there would have been that we would need to get from there to Miami airport which is a long enough drive to encounter unexpected problems on our way to the flight.  So I looked for ones near Miami airport and found Dolphin Mall - a mere 10-15 mins drive from the airport.  That seemed like a great option.  The only downside was that since it was a Sunday it didn’t open until 11am so we knew we’d have to wait about. The upside, I imagine they do a fair amount of business from people either coming from or going to the airport so the website noted that they have lockers for luggage storage - ideal.
So that’s where our Uber headed.  We had no issues getting there and the Uber dropped us off at the main entrance.  We found some seats outside in the shade so we camped out and read as we had maybe 80 minutes until the shops opened up.  With about 15 mins or so to go we headed inside to find the lockers.  We found the closest ones we managed to get our two suitcases and all other carry on things in to two of the big suitcase sized lockers.  They were $5 each for the full day.  The smaller ones which we didn’t use were $3 each.  They are automated and seemed to be the exact same make as the ones at rides in the Universal Studios parks except without fingerprint scanners.  There weren’t a whole lot of lockers but I think there were multiple locations throughout the mall.  One thing I found strange was that later when we removed our things from the lockers there wasn’t an option to release the locker.  You pay for all day and they’re meant to be multi entry access so I think the two lockers would then be out of action for the rest of the day even though we’d left – unless they have another way of determining that the contents have been cleared out.
Anyway, we got a map and planned our attack.  We had a very successful shopping trip including purchases in Nike, American Eagle, Converse, Ralph Lauren and Levi – all American outlet mall classics!  At about 2.45pm we headed back to the lockers to clear out.  I had packed an extra duffle bag on the way here so we threw our purchases in there and I would just carry that on our flight.  One final Uber to the airport and that was our trip over.
We got a double whammy of frustrating news when we got to the airport. Out flight to London was delayed by 1.5 hours and our connecting flight up to Edinburgh had been cancelled and we’d been put on another one about 2.5 hours later than the first.  I knew we were likely to make most of the initial flight’s delay back and since we already had a decent layover in London, the extra 2.5 hours was not welcome – especially after a red-eye flight with little to no sleep.
A Taco Bell before security served as our farewell to fine American cuisine.  I then a beer after security while waiting on the plane, suitably shocked when they asked to be paid for the beer.  There was NFL playing at the bar so it wasn’t too painful a wait.
With the jet stream providing a tail wind the flight was only about 7.5 hours and as expected most of the delay was made back.  I watched one film while dinner was served - The Commuter – another perfect plane film.  Pretty silly and mindless with no great scenery that would be missed through the low definition screens.  Then as usual with a red-eye flight there was the usual struggle to get some sleep.  Once in London we settled in to our layover and read/tried not to pass out with fatigue.  One more short flight and we were back in Scotland – one week older, a little less milk-bottle coloured and livers slightly more pickled. 

On the Allure it popped up on Day 5, same $