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How many drinks per person would experienced cruisers say is the break even for purchasing a drink package at the current price of 52/person/day? My sister and I are cruising in 2019 and neither of us are really big drinkers so the about 750 total for two people for a week cruise seems really expenseive to me. 

We we would probably have Starbucks in the am, soda at lunch, 1-2 cocktails in the afternoon, wine or cocktail with dinner and 1 drink with evening entertainment. 

So I am curious what others feel is the break even amount of drinks that makes the purchase of the package cost effective?

thanks for your help

Yes I’m considering packages too. Currently they are 52/person/day which seems really expensive. The soda package that I have is only 85 for the week for one person so spending another 700 just on alcohol seems extreme. Hoping that the price drops so that the price makes sense over purchasing them without it. 

I think this is a super idea. I will be sailing on the Symphony and I will look forward to this. Not sure if I will need to buy anything but it will be great to have the option. I love the convience of having the option though and not having to use the store especially if it is something import and the stores aren’t open. 

My sister and I would be very interested in this, however, she is a vegetarian. Have any vegetarians gone to this? Would she be able to eat any of the sushi? She makes her own vegetarian sushi so I know she would love this. But don't want to spend that money if the only sushi that you can actually eat isn't vegetarian friendly. Thanks . 

The pictures aren’t showing up for me. Has anyone else encountered this? Thanks. 

13 hours ago, Neaxan said:

150 Central Park

Here it is, the restaurant we were least looking forward to. In the other restaurants, the challenge was to narrow down our choices – here the challenge was to find enough to not leave hungry. In the name of research, we still couldn’t skip this one. Spoiler alert: even though we planned to, we didn't need a post dinner at Windjammer.

 

For starters, hubby chose the waiter’s recommendation, Braised Short Rib. I got the other recommendation, Seared Honey-Glazed Scallops. We also ordered Crispy Berkshire Pork Belly as I had read much about it on certain boards. What can I say? Our attitude towards this restaurant was way off! I had my doubts about the scallops because I’ve often received overcooked ones (I know they’re tricky to prepare, that’s why I don’t do it myself) – but they were absolutely perfect. Same goes for the short rib. I also had doubts about the pork belly, especially when it arrived and I saw the huge amount of grease – this jelly texture is a pet hate of mine. To our surprise, the pork belly was really crisp and absolutely delicious. We can wholeheartedly recommend all three appetizers.

 

 

 

For entrees I again didn’t really see anything appealing to me, so I went with the most recommended choice on the boards – Roasted Tenderloin of Beef – which they graciously let me order for one person as hubby followed the waiter’s recommendation of Lamb Wellington. Guess who regretted his choice? Although the lamb was positively delicious, the tenderloin was just so much better – a class of its own. Food envy is well and alive on board

 

 

Usually this part oft he verdict is reserved for the highlight of the dinner – not so much this time. Guess the tenderloin was just too hard an act to follow. For dessert we chose Fried Cheesecake (waiter’s recommendation) and Peanut Butter Chocolate Tart. Hubby prefered the cheesecake, I prefered the chocolate tart. Both desserts were good but just couldn’t measure up to the entree. I might be a bit preoccupied on this one as all this deep frying isn’t really my cup of tea and I hate peanut butter except for homeopathic doses. Good news: the tart really only has a bit of peanut butter so I could cope.

 

 

Final verdict: much to our surprise, we really loved 150 Central Park. Food’s taste and presentation was quite perfect and so much better than the menu made us expect. We’d rank it at the same level as some one star Guide Michelin restaurants we’ve tried – I don’t think you can give a higher compliment than that for a restaurant onboard a ship crossing the Atlantic as landbased restaurants have free access to fresh ingridients. Only aspect that was REALLY underwhelming was our waiter, who didn’t care much about us at all – guess he was completely busy with doing everything and anything for the star class couple next to us. At least we couldn’t help but notice that they got a much better service. But that isn’t really a problem – it’s more of what you’d expect from German waiters (he was from India), maybe it’s just that Baptiste, Juan Carlos and Shadiek are a hard act to follow. Funny side note: we’ve met all our favourite waiters when roaming around the ship and they all remembered and greeted us – not so this waiter, he walked right past us a few times in Central Park. Guess you can gather our verdict about him from the fact we can’t even remember his name

 

TLDR: If you’re on the fence about this restaurant – please do try it! Believe me, you’ll be amazed!

Did you happen to notice if there were any real vegetarian entrees? Besides like basic vegetables or something? I would like to try this as well but my traveling buddy is a vegetarian. Thanks. 

On 10/29/2018 at 6:54 AM, Neaxan said:

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 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Could you please inform me on what the white and red drink on the left is? It looks super yummy. And does it just come in that size? Thanks