Tiffeven

My family has Wendy. 

I woke up this morning in my own bed. Very disappointed that my morning Starbucks order hasn’t been delivered. 
 
Yesterday was disembarkation/travel day. I woke up around 6am to get a shower and start packing. I liked not having to pack the night before and leaving our bags out to be picked up. This was another perk of Star Class. Our last and final Starbucks/mimosa order got delivered around 745 and Hossain came at 8 with attendants to grab all of our bags. Bummer. We headed towards the elevators which Hossain was able to call immediately and skipped all the floors straight to the gangway. He escorted us all the way off the ship into the terminal. It was a sad goodbye for us. 

Day 5… again. I spent an hour writing my last post and clicked submit reply and it vanished and is nowhere to be found. 
 
We docked St. Thomas around 7am but I unfortunately miss that. We didn’t wake up until around 8 when our drinks were delivered. We had to quickly get ready since we overslept. The whole crew went to Costal Kitchen around 845 for breakfast. I had my usual. After breakfast, Jake, McKenzie and I had headed to our excursion. The rest of the crew planned on staying on the ship since everyone had done St. Thomas before. 
 
The excursion we did was Mountain Top & Villa Botanical. The last time I was in St. Thomas, I remembered being scared to death by the crazy driver. Turns out, you didn’t truly visit St. Thomas unless you get scared to death with their crazy driving. The one thing I found interesting was that they drove on the left side of the road, yet their steering wheel was on the left as well. Our first stop was the botanical garden. It was so beautiful. Though I do not recommend the excursion/visit if you have difficulty walking or have a little little one like us. We were able to make it work with our baby carrier but I was worried of tripping because the grounds were very uneven. At the garden were parrots, peacocks, and tortoises as well as lots of native plants of course. After the gardens we headed to Mountain Top and has “The Worlds Famous Banana Daiquiri’s”. They made me wish that they had these on board. 
 
After our excursion, we headed to boardwalk for some hot dogs. Then we took McKenzie on the carousel a couple of times. After boardwalk, we went to the bionic bar for the first time which was a cool novelty. We then  met my brother for Visual Trivia: Airlines. Which, to be honest, was kind of cheating because my brother is a flight attendant. We also sat next to a pilot and joined forces. Needless to say, we dominated the competition (well they did, I was no help). After trivia, we stayed for bingo which I was NOT a fan of. $30 for 1 single game is ridiculous. $300 was the guaranteed prize and the game took like 35 minutes. 
 
After bingo we headed back to the room to get ready for bingo. We went to chops which never disappoints. I had the ribeye. I had to cut dinner short because McKenzie was done for the day and need to go to bed. Once she was down, my parents came to watch her and Jake and I went to see Hiro again, but had Hossain reserve us seats in the front. Jake really wanted to watch the show “how it was meant to be seen” and absolutely was like a kid in a candy store. I kept on looking over at his face and he was smiling/laughing ear to ear. He said that was one of the best shows he has ever seen and was glad we got seats in the front for them. We both recommend for anyone with Aquatheater seats to see the show both on your balcony and in the theater. 
 
After the show, we went to the casino for a bit, then headed to bed. It was a great day. 

All have minus Hibachi. It is the only remaining location that is vaxed only 

I told Hossain that we went to the windjammer and he texted back with the vomit emoji!

It is currently 7am and we are nearing our destination for today. Today we are docking in St. Maarten. We are doing the Philipsburg  by Trolley Train excursion with the whole crew. I thought I’d try and get a jump start on todays writings.
 
Jake, McKenzie and I plan on trying Johnny Rockets breakfast at 8:30. We told our genie this and he said ew, and reminded us that their is Coastal Kitchen from 7:30-9:30. 

Day 3! Today we were a bit more active. Today was mostly about McKenzie in the AM and then us parents in the PM. McKenzie and I were up around 7:30am and had mommy and me balcony time. We were dancing to the sound of the waves ❤️. Our standing morning drink order (Starbucks, Mimosas, Bloody Marys, and Infused Water) was all delivered around 8am on the dot! The sleepy heads slowly started to wake up for their drinks about an hour later. DJ woke up right after me and did yoga on the balcony. I was getting hungry so I tried to wake up everyone for breakfast… Coastal Kitchen closed at 10am for breakfast and by the time everyone was ready it was 9:45am. We didn’t go to Coastal (annoyingly) because we didn’t want to be those people rolling in right before closing time. So we went to the Windjammer for breakfast. I was not too pleased with the windjammer. (I almost never am because I feel as if peoples rudeness just shines bright whenever we go there.) People we’re definitely rude. I had 3 people cut in front of me at separate occasions for food like they were going to run out… of course they didn’t. I had a light breakfast of avocado toast and bacon. We had lunch reservations at Izumi at noon so I didn’t want to get too full.
 
After breakfast we took McKenzie to the baby splash zone. She had a blast and loved crawling in the water. We only had her in the water for maybe 10-15 minutes because she was getting tired. I plan on going back tomorrow when less people are on the pool deck since we will be docked at St. Maarten. 
 
For Sushi lovers, Izumi is a dream while dining Star Class. There is no limit to what you order. They just ask that you do not waste, and only order what you truly feel like you’re going to eat. I had a Miso Soup to start, the Poke Bowl (the best Poke Bowl I’ve ever had) and the Truffle Creamy Lobster Tempura Roll. I really need a minimum of a 2 week cruise in order to appreciate all of the food. 
 
After sushi, we had a private decorating kit delivered to our suite. Wayne, DJ, Jake and I all made a competition out of it. We still need to show Hossain the photos of the cupcakes we created. However, I am already claiming myself as the winner. 

Jake and I went to the Solarium for an hour to hang out in the hot tub. I got a couple Bahamas mamas which were good but I think the Pool decks were better. 
 
We had to quickly leave because we had to get ready for dinner. Dinner tonight was Jamie’s Italian. We got every appetizer to share. My favorite was probably the calamari. I got the shrimp linguini for my main. Very good but I wish I had more sauce. We asked for our desserts to be delivered to the room because we had a 7pm showing of Flight. My family went to the 7pm showing while Jake and I got McKenzie to sleep. The family came back and we switched duties. Jake and I then went to watch Flight. Our genie met us at the entrance and escorted us to our reserved seats. A perk that is nice when you struggle to make time like me!  I am sad to say that I did not enjoy Flight. I loved aspects of the show, the props were impressive and the talent was good. But the story line sort of confused me. I do not want to ruin the show for others who may watch it so I will not go into detail.
We then headed to the 60 seconds or less game show in On Air which was nice but I think majority of cruise guests went to the Disco so it was very thinned out in participants. I was a participant for a round and had to balance then catch pencils in my hand. I lost by a couple of seconds. 
 
To end the night, Wayne, DJ, Jake and I got Sorento's Pizza. 

My brother complained to me that I didn’t write my post day blog post yet. So my apologies for being late for anyone who maybe waiting. Yesterday (day 2) was a beautiful sea day.  We had breakfast delivered to our balcony at 8:00am along with our standing Starbucks order. I had the salmon and lox and a grande ice chai tea latte made with oat milk. The salmon bagel is my typical go to breakfast on cruises. 
 
After breakfast, Little Wayne, DJ, Jake, and I did the Escape Room with other Star Class families. It was submarine theme but that’s the extent I’ll say in case anyone else participates in the future. We escaped with 10 minutes left. 
 
After the escape room, we all went back to the room to relax for a while. Around noon the whole crew went to Playmakers for a light snack. Wayne, DJ, and I went down via the Ultimate Abyss and my Mom, Dad, and Jake went down with McKenzie via the elevator. My husband is freaked out at heights, hence why he didn’t go down. The pulled pork nachos were Devine and I think I’m going to make a whole meal out of them one day. Little Wayne didn’t care too much for the pulled pork on the nachos since they were a sweeter tang and he prefers a more savory taste. The garlic fries were also really good! 
 
Wayne, Jake and I are on a Facebook group for the sailing that we are on. On the Facebook group, a Slot Pull was organized for 1pm. Buy in was $20 and a total of 60 people signed up. So all in all $1200 was played. We started at Wheel of Fortune for $5 bets. Everyone got to spin 4 times. So much fun. If anyone has the opportunity to be part of a slot pull I highly recommend. We ended up at $1160ish when everyone took their turns. The group then decided to move to another machine.. quick hits. $5 max bet and everyone spun 4x again. That machine was a terrible decision. We ended up with around $900 I believe. Finally the group decided to head to high stakes room and do a $25 max bet until we lost or won jackpot. We ended up winning a $2,600 jackpot! Everyone took home $45! We all tipped the girl who hit the jackpot $5 as a thank you. 
 
After the slot pull we took McKenzie and walked around the ship. She was due for a nap (her and her pappy played while the rest of us were at the casino). Jake took McKenzie on the carousel and the BEST thing happened. McKenzie waves for the VERY FIRST TIME. I’m sure the other passengers thought I was crazy because I started cheering and crying. We then got some icecream at Sugar Beach and it was DELICIOUS. I got the tiramisu and I think I could service solely off of that.
 
McKenzie fell asleep on me and we headed back to the room and let her nap, Jake took a nap as well. We were awoken about 30 minutes in to a doorbell ring with special infused water for DJ. Just a little bitter but it was funny.
 
Dinner was at 150 Central Park and nothing disappointed. I had the Lamb Wellington. It was good, no complaints. After dinner Jake and I stayed in with McKenzie and put her to bed around 8:30pm. Jake then asked Hossain, our genie, for a pizza and a dozen wings to be delivered. I thought he was crazy because we JUST had dinner. But by the time it came… I had two slices of pizza as well. We then crashed around 10:30pm. 
 
All in all, day 2 was a very relaxed and chill day. Nothing over extraordinary for readers but everything that the hubby and I needed, relaxation with our daughter ❤️

Wow. I am trying to sum up my thoughts from our first day and the easiest thing to say is just wow…
Yesterday was amazing. We got to the port around 10 and the star class porters were right on getting our bags tagged and loaded up. Check-in was smooth and took roughly one minute for all seven of us. We sat down in the suite lounge which in my honest opinion was a little bland for being the suite section but I guess Covid has a little to blame for that? The couches were very comfortable but that’s about it. Hossain met us and another family of his and walked us on board around 10:45ish. He has us waiting in the Royal Promenade while he took his first family to their rooms. We decided to have our first beverage on the rising tide bar. I had a lovely mimosa! 🙂 It was nice hearing the champagne bottle popping open. That was the sound that officially resonated vacation for me. 
 
After about ten minutes waiting on the rising tide bar, Hossain came and got us. He walked us to our room (2BR AT deck 9). McKenzie and I were the first in the room and wow, I knew we were in for a great time. The decor on Symthony is beautiful. We had birthday decorations in the room for DJ and I and Hossain gave us birthday cards. I could right a book on the room but I’ll save that for another time.
 
We then went to our mustard station to get that out of the way. Jake got a hot dog, then we all rode the carousel with McKenzie for the first time. She loved the vibrant colors of the animals. We then came back to the room, our luggage was waiting for us so we unpacked. At 12:30 we had a welcome lunch from Chops delivered to our balcony. I had the shrimp cocktail and filet mignon with asparagus. The filet was a bit over cooked but was still juicy and flavorful so I didn’t mind. 
 
After lunch we finished unpacking, explored a bit, ate Sorentos pizza, went to the spa for the raffle (lost), then came back to the room to get ready for dinner. We had Coastal Kitchen. I got the Smoked Salmon and Crispy Pork Belly for an appetizer and the Salmon for my Entree. I could see myself eating at Coastal every night. My only complaint was our service was a little spotty. We will definitely have to ask for speedier service moving forward because 2 hours sitting for dinner with an eight month old is not my definition of fun. Pre baby I may have liked that but not anymore. I had to leave before dessert was brought out because McKenzie was getting fussy and was ready for bed. 
 
My parents thankfully took night duty for McKenzie so us ‘kids’ could go out. We saw iSkate2.0 and I LOVED it. So much passion in some of the skaters and spunk. I would watch it again. After the ice show…. Well there’s not too much to remember after that because we all got drunk… off of lemon drops for me! 
 
This was a lot to unpack but it is nice looking back at our first day. I am currently the first one up and I am watching the beautiful blue waves on our balcony. Life is good. ❤️
 
 

We had starbucks delivered in the morning.  Make sure you ask for a table cloth for eating out on the balcony. 
We also asked for an additional cooler to keep things cold.  Also ask for water bottles versus the cans they provided. 
i am not sure if they are doing the galley or bridge tours post covid yet.  Not sure if you are using the day care for your daughter, but he can arrange some times for you. 
We did do a wine tasting at Vintages.   They have changed the way luggage gets to you.  Int he past it went with you and was in your room immediately.  Now they have to sanitize it and it may not be there for a little bit of time, so make sure to pack anything you need in a carry on.  You will be able to get in your room as soon as you board.  
Don't forget Ben and Jerrys and milkshakes are included!
You will have a great time and great to share with family!
 
 
 

The time is finally approaching very quickly and I have officially decided to blog my vacation experience with the www (aka Royal Caribbean Blog)! 
 
I am Kayla (25f), a new mommy and newer wife to my wonderful husband Jake (26m). We will be cruising with our little girl, McKenzie (8 months), my mother, Kelly, father, Big Wayne., brother, Little Wayne, and brothers friend (ex boyfriend but friend still? I have no idea!), DJ.  We will ALL be cruising on the March 19th sailing on  symphony of the Seas in the 2 Bedroom Aqua Theater Suite! We are BEYOND EXCITED. 
I have so much excitement that I decided to live blog throughout our trip in order for me to calmly express my excitement for everything. 
 
I plan for this blog to mostly be about our experience with sailing Star Class mixed with sailing on Symphony mixed with sailing as first time parents. As you can read this trip is about all firsts! 
 
Feel free to join along with me! 

Good morning @Booscruize it's 01 November.....I'm getting excited for you. Your posts had me pulling down my wedding album circa 1992. Holy Hannah, was that really me? Patiently waiting.....
 

Update: We are just 11 days from boarding Oasis for our FIRST ever Star Class cruise! Our Genie Shane scheduled a call with us yesterday and he is a GEM! He went over the protocols currently most of which we were already aware. Still bummed that the tours and classes are still a no go. But he did assure us that things  are changing daily. Also another weird thing is we have reserved tuxedos for the wedding but he informed us that this service is no longer available. HOWEVER, he said if we have ordered them and received confirmations (which we have) then we should forward those to him and see what magic he can do because this seems like a problem on their end. If not then we can bring tuxedos but we were desperately trying to avoid that hassle. Otherwise it was all good news! Our at home tests have arrived in the mail and we are off to Florida in 7 days!! 

One of our Genies actually had a couple request a photographer to follow them into the theater, taking pictures as they went to their front row seats so people would think they were important!😂😂. @Booscruize, you should be fine!

It’s finally happened!! Just got our long awaited  Genie email for our sailing and we got Shane!!! I’ve heard nothing but RAVES and so we requested him and now it’s official! So excited!!!! Ok so is this the time that I send him my two year in the making prep/wish list and hope he doesn’t immediately give us to someone else? 😂😂😂

Steven made me promise I'd take this one off from blogging.  Last cruise, I stayed up late every night making sure I blogged for the day while he went to sleep only to wake up 2 hours later and me still be up blogging.  Blogging is a ton of fun, and I plan on blogging many more in the near future, but this cruise I'm going to let @Booscruizetake point, and I am just going to be lazy haha.
While it does add more onto your already full plate, you will be glad you did when you look back and you have all the memories written down of your amazing trip.  I went back and reread one of my live blogs during the shutdown, and I was amazed how many of the little details that I had forgotten.  This will be a special way to always remember the lovely time you and your husband had with all of your friends.

Just getting back into the message board swing of things. Great blog. So glad great liveblogs are back. 

Steven said we can't be friends anymore lol.  He survives off diet coke.
 

It's so hard to keep up with RCB, FB, and CC.  I did that before the shutdown, now my cruise social media game is lagging behind haha.  They do design the rooms well to block out the noise.  It is really interesting how quiet it is, and then you open the balcony door during Hiro, and wow, it is so loud.  Then, you shut the door and can barely hear it again. 
Cruising really is a great way to make friends.  So often, those we cruise with (passengers and crew alike) end up feeling like family by the end.

As @WAAAYTOOO said, the second bedroom is really small.  The two beds that are up high do have rails.  The lower ones don't.  Personally, I would put your eight year old on one of the top bunks, your six and three year olds on the two lower beds, and then have your dad sleep in the living room on the sleeper sofa.  You can also request to have the two lower beds pushed together if you are more comfortable with your kids sleeping together (that's what we do).  There's definitely enough room to bring your Dad, but obviously it will be less space.

@WAAAYTOOO  thank you! I forgot your first SC was a 2 br ATS. Hope you’ll get to cruise soon and share another wonderful liveblog!  Stay well. 

Steven made me promise I'd take this one off from blogging.  Last cruise, I stayed up late every night making sure I blogged for the day while he went to sleep only to wake up 2 hours later and me still be up blogging.  Blogging is a ton of fun, and I plan on blogging many more in the near future, but this cruise I'm going to let @Booscruizetake point, and I am just going to be lazy haha.
While it does add more onto your already full plate, you will be glad you did when you look back and you have all the memories written down of your amazing trip.  I went back and reread one of my live blogs during the shutdown, and I was amazed how many of the little details that I had forgotten.  This will be a special way to always remember the lovely time you and your husband had with all of your friends.

Final thoughts:
This trip has been absolutely amazing.  It was off to a rough start, but wow, it ended as one of our favorite cruises.  We worried about how cruising would be with all of the new Covid restrictions and if we would walk around with a scarlet letter on our heads bringing kids too young to be vaccinated on a cruise.  We were totally wrong.  Everybody on the ship was very nice and some even smiled, laughed, and played with the kids, especially the youngest two.  We didn't get a single rude comment or look from other passengers about cruising with kids.  The staff seemed so happy to be back at sea and were very accommodating. 
There were obviously things we missed like the Quest, Love and Marriage, World's Sexiest Man Competition,  and the Belly Flop Competition.  We also wish we could have done laser tag and the escape room, but there is so much to do even without those that it was still an amazing trip.  One thing I missed was the interaction that we usually get with our room attendant.  I don't think this was his fault though, as there are so many new rules they must abide by such as not going into the room when the guests are there.  It made the experience less personal with him even though he seemed like a nice guy.  The vaccinated only and everybody shows were also an annoyance at times when the everybody show ended up playing too late for kids.  Hairspray was phenomenal, but Steven commented that the minimal seating detracted from the ambience (there was less people to laugh and clap at key moments in the performance).   We also did not like having the Windjammer closed for dinner, but we were always so full anyway.  We only made one stop at the Windjammer this cruise, and we actually perferred how it is now with them serving you food.  It's nice not to have to worry about people touching all the food with their hands plus the food seemed fresher perhaps due to smaller portions being brought out at a time.  Sunil picked out all of our servers at the specialty restaurants and he did a fantastic job because all of the servers we had were wonderful (with the exception of the guy at Playmakers, but Sunil did not choose him).
We continually saw the Covid restrictions being modified.  Room service went from not being allowed in your room to allowed in if you go into a different room and then finally to closer to what it used to be like all within a one week period.  We watched a limit of five in a pool be modified to no limit.  The genies went from not being able to pick up your kids from Adventure Ocean to being able to.  Initially, we were told they were not doing the 2 for $20 t-shirts sale on this cruise because it puts people in too close of proximity to each other, but on day 6, the t-shirt sale happened.  Cruising is slowly returning to normal, and we watched this transition happen every day.
I would be remiss to end this without taking about Sunil.  If you are lucky enough to get him as your genie, you are in for a treat.  He truly made this trip unique.  He went above and beyond and became like family to us.  The kids are already talking about requesting him as our genie when we go on Symphony in April, which we are definitely going to do.  For anyone wondering, he goes home on November 27th, and then he is going back to Symphony in January. 
Lastly, thank you to everyone who followed along.  I hope this helped show what the current state of cruising is.  Happy cruising and best of luck to everyone!
 
 
 
 

Steven made me promise I'd take this one off from blogging.  Last cruise, I stayed up late every night making sure I blogged for the day while he went to sleep only to wake up 2 hours later and me still be up blogging.  Blogging is a ton of fun, and I plan on blogging many more in the near future, but this cruise I'm going to let @Booscruizetake point, and I am just going to be lazy haha.
While it does add more onto your already full plate, you will be glad you did when you look back and you have all the memories written down of your amazing trip.  I went back and reread one of my live blogs during the shutdown, and I was amazed how many of the little details that I had forgotten.  This will be a special way to always remember the lovely time you and your husband had with all of your friends.

Steven made me promise I'd take this one off from blogging.  Last cruise, I stayed up late every night making sure I blogged for the day while he went to sleep only to wake up 2 hours later and me still be up blogging.  Blogging is a ton of fun, and I plan on blogging many more in the near future, but this cruise I'm going to let @Booscruizetake point, and I am just going to be lazy haha.
While it does add more onto your already full plate, you will be glad you did when you look back and you have all the memories written down of your amazing trip.  I went back and reread one of my live blogs during the shutdown, and I was amazed how many of the little details that I had forgotten.  This will be a special way to always remember the lovely time you and your husband had with all of your friends.