FionaMG

What D+ luggage tag? Is it still a thing? Can I ask the LA for one on my next cruise???

I'm pretty sure you don't get WiFi included on Radiance class ships either.

Oooh, that's frustrating. Thanks for letting us know the outcome.

Thank you!

I would love to be able to do this and wish the specialty dining places would have a la carte pricing so you could pick and choose. I did think about asking if they would let me have a dessert in exchange for a diamond drink voucher but when push came to shove I chickened out.

Yes. We did this. We took advantage of those C&A special rates that they had a while back. On day one, when I checked the app, I saw that neither of our two disliked MDR menus coincided with the days we had specialty dining booked. No extra charge. However, to change, you need to go to the actual restaurant. The staff at the kiosk can only change time slots booked on board. It took them 20 minutes of trying before they finally figured out why they couldn't do it for us.

As @Lovetocruise2002 says, a strip of space. See where the orange loungers are? That's it.

If you could make lunch work for your family, rather than dinner, it's much cheaper for exactly the same menu and you wouldn't have to worry about it being too late for the littles.

I wasn't able to find out much information at all about this excursion prior to actually doing it, so I have posted a review of it with pics on my blog here: Hope it might help anyone else thinking about doing it.

Thanks!

Day Seven - Cruise Day Four - Aruba Today was the first of our three ports of call. We were in port from 8 am until 9 pm. We had booked an excursion through Royal, called "Aruba's Hidden Gems". The amount of information in Internet Land about this particular excursion is extremely sparse, so we had little more than Royal's own description to go by and we all know how "good" those are. The excursion was initially supposed to start at 1.30 pm but in the week before the cruise it was changed to 12.30 pm. As I understand it, this excursion sometimes operates in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. The fact that this was an afternoon one meant we didn't need to be up early, which was great. I hate getting up early! The meeting point was on the pier at 12.15 so we had a leisurely breakfast and still had time for a stroll through the town to do a little bit of souvenir shopping. This would turn out to be a good call, because by the time we returned to the ship at the end of the excursion (5.30 pm ish) it was coming up to closing time for the shops in main street (6 pm). The souvenir stalls beside the port stay open until later though. Given the lack of information, I was quite surprised to discover that there were two full busloads for the excursion, which was operated by De Palm Tours. It departed on time and our driver/guide was Ray. He was very good but one thing I did not like was that he did not have a hands-free microphone, so he was essentially driving with one hand and using the other to hold the microphone. I meant to comment on this on the post-cruise questionnaire but forgot . The bus itself was comfortable and had air conditioning; it wasn't one of those open-sided ones. I did keep notes on this one, so I would be able to give a good description afterwards. Our first stop was at a place called Tourism Plaza where there is an Aruba sign and, behind it, a path to Surfside Beach, which is apparently popular with locals. It was nice enough but not a patch on Eagle Beach, which has to be one of my all-time favourite beaches anywhere. My pic of DH is far better than either of the ones he took of me, which is why you're getting him! Surfside Beach. The ship in this pic is P&O's Britannia. Ours was parked behind it so you can't see it from this vantage point. Our second stop was at Mangal Alto Beach. Mangal Alto means Tall Mangroves and the beach was hidden behind them to the extent that you couldn't see it from the road. DH did a better job with the camera this time. From here, we drove through the future art district of San Nicolaas, 19 km southeast of Oranjestad, where we saw lots of murals that reminded me of the ones we'd seen when were driving through Wynwood in Miami. Ray told us that the Aruban government is putting a lot of money into this area and that work is ongoing to build a brand new cruise port here. When it is ready, it is to be used for the larger cruise ships while the smaller ones will continue to dock in Oranjestad. The area did look very nice. Unfortunately, since the bus was moving and we didn't stop here, I didn't get any pics of the murals. Next, we stopped at the Grotto of Lourdes, a religious landmark with a roadside shrine built into the cliff that is used for Catholic worship. From here, we went to the first of the two sets of caves we would visit during the excursion. They are located in the Arikok National Park. Quadirikiri Cave. View from the mouth of the cave. Note that there are some very steep uneven steps to get up here. Inside the cave: The "heart" above us in this last one is formed by the light interacting with the minerals on the cave wall. Ray told us all exactly where to stand and kindly took pics for everyone who wanted one. The next cave was the Fontein Cave, which has ancient paintings inside it. There was no steep staircase to get into this one but you still had to take care because the ground is uneven under foot and it is dark inside the cave. The green colour on the rock is caused by the mineral content. There are porta-potties at the caves. Obviously not ideal but when needs must... Be sure to have tissues and wipes to hand. From the caves, we drove a very short distance to see a cove whose name I can't remember and, unfortunately, I did not get a pic of the sign with the name on it. To get on to the beach, you have to go down a staircase. Swimming is not allowed at this cove because the sea is too dangerous. The area around it is very barren. The roads in the national park are not paved so it was quite a bumpy ride even though Ray drove very slowly. However at least we didn't get covered in dust like the folks we saw in some jeeps. From here we headed to our last stop, the Casibari rock formation. We had been here before on a previous visit to Aruba. There is a passage through the rock that you can use to get to the top. You need to be very careful of your footing and also mindful of the very low ceiling. Alternatively, walk round to the left where there is an actual staircase. There is a good view from the top and you can see the ships off in the distance. It was a bit hazy at this time of day, but you can still see them in the pic even so. There are free toilets here but they were out of order on this occasion. They had been in use on our previous visit. However, across the road there is a small facility offering snacks, souvenirs and a proper toilet that you had to pay a dollar to use. We did not go in so I can't say what it was like. This was the last stop on the tour and from here we headed back to the ship. Given the timing of the tour - over lunchtime - and with very little in the way of food available during it, we were quite hungry so we made a beeline for Sorrento's for some pizza, although we were careful not to overindulge as we would be eating at 150 Central Park later. Overall, we enjoyed this tour as it gave us a chance to see some sights that we would not have been able to otherwise. I booked it during a sale at $49.99 each and, in fact, used up some Next Cruise OBC to pay for it. I know it did go up during non-sale periods, but I can't remember exactly how much. I have a feeling maybe another $10 on top. The description lists the tour as being "strenuous". I would have to say that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but the stairs up into the cave could be a bit challenging for some people and it would be a definite "no" if you are not normally mobile. I would recommend wearing trainers (sneakers) or some other comfortable closed-toe footwear. Sandals and flip-flops are definitely not a good idea given the underfoot conditions. Since this has been quite a long post, I'll do a separate one for our evening activities.

Day Six - Cruise Day Three - Another Day at Sea Today was largely a repeat of yesterday, i.e. generally loafing around. It was still very windy but as we were farther south it was a bit warmer. Our Chef's Surprise (or whatever it's called) turned up in the room today. Another sign of the cutbacks. There used to be six bites on this plate; today's had only four. Not that we minded since we didn't eat them anyway. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, formal night had been shifted from day two to day three to accommodate Super Bowl, so tonight's dinner was the corresponding French menu. I don't care for any of the starters on this menu so I didn't order one, plus I was saving space for the bits that come along with the Indian main course. I think DH might have had the pumpkin soup but I have no pic to substantiate that suspicion. I love Indian food. Back home in my native Scotland we have a very large Indian community and we have some very highly rated restaurants. However, I'm the only one in the household who likes it, so I was thrilled when Royal started having a nightly Indian dish, even though they are not as fully authentic as you might get on land. I did ask Stanley about this (he is from India) and he said that, on board, they did not have access to all the spices that they would normally use on land. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the ones that I did have on board. Tonight's was lamb rogan josh: DH had the tenderloin and asked for fries with it. Luckily, fries are on the kids' menu so you can get them every night if you want. He said it was fine, again nothing to write home about but definitely better than the prime rib from the first night. The desserts were good. Warm apple cobbler: And cappuccino chocolate cake with a side of vanilla ice cream. One of the things we missed on this sailing, in comparison to the "old days", was the nightly show. Our typical routine back in those days would be dinner, show, casino, and tea & cookies before bed. At something of a loose end, we wandered onto the boardwalk where the aqua show was due to start. We had bookings for the following night but thought if we could get in on the standby line we might as well see it tonight. There didn't seem to be a huge crowd and they let us in ahead of the usual cut-off time. However, remember that wind I mentioned earlier on... well, it was so strong that the water was literally sloshing out of the pool and onto the stage in huge waves. Obvious outcome, the show that night was cancelled. So much for catching it a day early. Oh well, at least we had bookings for the next night. The cancelled show was rescheduled for 7 pm on night five. So instead we had an early night in preparation for our first port of call the next day, which would be Aruba.

For the L&M show, It never fails to amaze me how many people offer up the number of years they've been married but then back down when asked if they want to play. I'd just keep quiet if I didn’t want to participate.

Thanks. We are very pleased to have made it. With all the changes (think Crown Lounge) we were worried they might change the tiers just before we got there.

Thank you!

That is good to know. We will need to try it the next time we are on a ship with Giovanni's.

Agree with your wife as far as the word "acceptable". Not our favourite but also not one of the ones that we'd class as "avoid at all costs".

It was indeed like the warm chocolate cake and it was mostly chocolate. The hazelnutty bit was more about the flakes on top. I did not order the ice cream with it; our waiter brought that on his own initiative and it was a good call. It did not go to waste.

Day Five - (Cruise Day Two) - At Sea. Today was a hugely significant day for us. This was the day we accumulated our 175th C&A point. After several anxious days of constantly refreshing my account page, the points have finally posted and we have now made it to the eagerly awaited milestone of D+. Woohoo! We were among those who really benefited from the post-pandemic double points promo; without it, we would still have been 22 points adrift of D+ at the present moment in time. We really like when our first full day on a cruise is a sea day because you have time to explore the ship at leisure, so that is what we did, especially since it was our first sailing on Symphony. We had breakfast in the Windjammer. I am not usually a fan, preferring the MDR, but DH likes the WJ because he can see what's on offer rather than having to imagine it from a description on the menu. And to be fair, on this cruise, we never found the WJ to be the seething mass of humanity we were expecting. Perhaps it was because we usually managed to go at off-peak times but we never had to really hunt for a table and we never once heard the recorded message asking people to leave to make room for others. On the whole, we enjoyed pretty much everything we ate in the WJ, which was all but one breakfast and most lunches. I don't remember either of us disliking anything that we tried. I meant to make myself a DIY chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream like @OCSC Mike suggested, but I forgot. I am kicking myself over this and will have to remedy the oversight on a future cruise! First WJ breakfast. All subsequent WJ breakfasts were pretty much identical so I won't be boring you with any more pics of them. And, in fact, I didn't take any pics of our WJ lunches. As you can tell from the breakfast pic, it was a sunny day but there was a very strong wind and this would be a constant throughout much of the cruise, making sunbathing not such a pleasant pastime unless you were lucky enough to be able to find a sunbed in a sheltered spot. That did not stop many of our fellow cruisers from catching some rays. Although it does look quite busy we never had any real difficulty finding a spot to sit in. That said, we don't mind not being right beside the pool and we actually prefer the seats over the loungers. There were a few takers for some of the casitas that can be seen in the pics. I was less than impressed with these. Because the sides are slatted, the wind blew right through them. Also, as the sun moved so did the shade. I did see some of them occupied, though, so clearly some people found value in them. The loungers did have nice, thick padded cushions on them, so I'm sure they were far more comfortable than the normal ones. Given the weather, the solarium was very busy. I somehow managed not to take any pics of the solarium, which was very remiss of me, but we noticed that it had openings in the ceiling that let the air (and the wind!) in and because the wind was so strong on these days, it was whistling very loudly through those openings. I think that noise would have got to me after a bit. We don't usually spend much time in the solarium anyway but I would have to say I preferred the ones on Odyssey and Anthem, precisely because of that, although I imagine it wouldn't be an issue on a calm day. There was a parade called "Anchors Aweigh" in the promenade today (it would subsequently be repeated on the last sea day, presumably to ensure more people had a chance to see it). It lasted about 15 minutes and was a lot of fun. Lots of folks staked out their spots well in advance, taking advantage of the chairs at Sorrento's, the pub and the Café. If you don't mind standing, the overlook at Focus, the photo place, affords a great view. Again, you do need to get there early to secure your spot. Today was Super Bowl and the game was shown in a number of venues. We popped into the theatre just as they were playing the US national anthem and the atmosphere was electric. It was also shown in the Aqua Theatre, which was packed, and at Playmakers. The tables in Playmakers were all roped off; I think you had to book if you wanted to sit there as it said something about it in the app and there was a dollar sign. Because of the event, tonight was not formal night as would normally be expected and the dinner menu was not the usual French menu. Instead it was a casual night and the dinner menu was the Italian menu. Minestrone soup: DH hated this and only ate a couple of spoonsful. He said it had a strong acidic taste to it. I reckon that would have been from the tomatoes. Any time I'm making sauces or soups with tomatoes I throw in some sugar to counteract the acidity. Anyway, since his tummy had been acting up a bit today, he decided just to have a cheese plate and leave it at that. I had the arancini, which I really enjoyed: The sole, which was fine, nothing to write home about. And the Italian chocolate-hazelnut cake, which was better than I had been expecting, having been disappointed with it on a couple of previous cruises: After dinner, we went to see the ice show, which was very good. We were too busy actually watching it to get much in the way of pictures but it is definitely a not-to-be-missed entertainment item. This was followed by a few minutes (literally all the time it took!) in the casino for DH to make his nightly contribution and we then retired exhausted from our long day of doing not a lot and needing to rest up in preparation for repeating it all again the following day.

I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise too. We sat at one of the outside tables at Jamies so it's a safe bet you did walk past us. Sorry to hear you got a bad table in the MDR too.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you! Unfortunately, it didn't. It felt like the naughty corner. I felt sorry for the servers because there were a number of empty tables there and I'm guessing some people probably did switch. I actually don't know what we've done to anger the table assignment gods but only once, out of all our cruises on Royal with traditional dining, have we been given a decent table. Oh well, it's not the end of the world but it did detract from the experience. Yes, I agree, the big red Jamie's sign is a bit of an eyesore.

Thank you!

Day Four - It's Cruise Day! After breakfast, we called a Lyft to the port. It took about 10 minutes and cost just under $13 not including tip. We arrived within our pre-booked time slot but there were some ladies ahead of us who asked if they could come in anyway even though their time was later and they were told yes. Just an FYI for those who may not be able to secure an earlier arrival time. Boarding had already started and although I didn't time it, it probably took us about 20 minutes to get through security, check-in, photo stop and on to the ship. After dealing with the muster drill, we grabbed a seat in Central Park (and a lemonade and some cookies) until it was time for our 1 pm lunch at Jamies. Actually, if I had been thinking straight at the time, I would have remembered about the Park Cafe and not bothered booking Jamies as that is really a strategy to avoid the WJ on boarding day. The couple sitting next to us kindly agreed to take a pic for us. We're both hopeless at selfies. I'm so pleased with the one they took, I'm going to print it a frame it. Lunch at Jamies: Garlic buns. Very good. Meat plank. Also very good. Penne carbonara. DH said it was meh. Super salmon. I loved this when I had it on Anthem and it was just as good here. For dessert we split a banana split. I mentioned in another post on the boards that this was a big let-down. When I had it last, on Anthem, it had come with three large scoops of very high quality ice cream, but today it was three small scoops of normal ice cream. No pic as it did not deserve the space on my camera. By this time, the rooms were open. We had booked a neighbourhood balcony guarantee and been assigned 11195, which we could actually see from our table in Jamies. This was our first time in this type of cabin and it was perfectly fine for us. We did find we missed the over-the-bed storage we had had on Anthem and Odyssey. I think a family with 3 or 4 people would struggle to find room for everyone's stuff. One nice thing was that there loads of hangers, some wooden and a lot of what looked like new plastic ones. On this cruise, we used our balcony a bit more than we have done on previous trips. Comparing CP balcony, BW balcony and OV balcony, I think my favourite is the OV but DH said he really liked seeing CP and listening to the music that they often had playing there in the evening. We knew to keep our curtains closed and we were never bothered by noise so we were happy with our room. The bed is by the door in this room: Keep the curtains closed! The view by day: And by night: Given all of the horror stories I had read about My Time Dining on these bigger ships, we had opted for late traditional on this cruise. We were very disappointed with our table (381) which was stuck away in a hidden corner about as far from the beautiful central area as you could possibly get while still actually being in the same room. If I had remembered, I would have checked out the location ahead of time but having had MTD on all of our post-Covid cruises up till now I completely forgot. The only redeeming factor and which stopped us for asking to change was our servers Sydney and Gendraj. They were just what we old hands expect of our dining room staff: friendly, helpful and attentive to all of our needs. The Welcome Aboard dinner is one of the (IMHO) better ones of the cut-back menus: We had the crab cake to start and it did not disappoint. I know it's not a "proper" Maryland crab cake (notice they've stopped calling it "Maryland style" in the menu?) but we like them. Next came the prime rib. Since they usually overcook this, we asked for medium rare. It came out still kicking and mooing on our plates and we had to send it back for medium. However, either way, it definitely wasn't as good as we remembered. For dessert we had the Boston cream pie and the cheesecake. I wasn't quick enough with the camera here but suffice to say both were very nice. After that and ONLY because I mentioned it to them, Sydney, Gendraj and the up until then completely MIA headwaiter, whose name I never did get because he was so rarely seen, brought me my birthday slice of cake with candle. This is a rather disappointing development on Royal's part. In the past, when we had a birthday or anniversary on board, we would always receive this treatment without prompting. I know it was specified on the booking because our lovely MEI agent @michelle put it on and I saw it on the invoice. But our servers didn't know, the HW never came to ask if anyone had a special occasion (someone at the next table also had a birthday during the week) and if I hadn't made a point of mentioning it it would have gone uncelebrated. In comparison, our DD is currently working as a Guest Services agent on MSC and a member of her team is always tasked with ensuring that everyone celebrating a birthday on board gets a birthday card delivered to their room. It's only a very small gesture but it makes you feel special and I feel Royal have perhaps lost their way a bit in this regard, which is a pity. That said, when we went to the casino after dinner and I tapped my card to get my free $6 play, the slot machine acknowledged the occasion by flashing up "Happy Birthday!" That did make me laugh. I still didn't win anything with my free play though. And then it was time for our ritual bedtime tea and cookies from the Promenade Cafe before turning in for the night.