Mrs. Regular

Amazing report! I also love a hot girl walk on deck early. We were on Brilliance in May for Alaska and saw all the same performance cast, they were phenomenal. The flag celebration is also my favorite event on smaller ships! Have a safe travel back to NZ!

Same, I have serious FOMO now. A cruise with this crew would be a hoot and a half!

LOL! Once it falls low enough on the page maybe you'll finally get rid of this ear worm! I

Great update! Agree with you about that Solarium pool, the Quantum class has Oasis class beat on that one. We also really liked Hooked for lunch. Have a relaxing trip back north! It's been sunny but not very warm all week.

I'm just chasing Diamond at this point but he shoots for the rafters, lol. We will probably do the solo interior approach for the next few cruises. Right now we are thinking Greek Isles in 2027, and after that Bermuda and Mexico. After this cruise we will be officially halfway to Diamond so if we can get there in the next 3-5 years I'll be thrilled. A couple more thoughts about the Symphony! Crew were amazing. Especially in the dining room. This was the first cruise in a long time that we noticed the dining staff were actually having.... FUN! They were laughing, smiling, joking with one another and the guests while providing super efficient service. I think that's a sign of a positive working environment with upper management. We did the Sip Tour Brunch experience on the last sea day and got to take a peak behind the curtain in the galley and learn about how the dining service works. We spoke with one of the head chefs and head waiters. Both were wonderful and shared that the popularity and quality of the food on Icon has inspired the Oasis class ships to step up their game. The chef said corporate has upped the Oasis class food budgets so they can provide better quality food and I have to agree. We weren't disappointed with the food on Brilliance in May but we did notice a huge difference in the quality compared to Symphony. This was the best food quality we have had on any of our trips across the board. Entertainment was fantastic, we never ran out of things to do and there were a few activities we didn't get around to doing like zipline and skating. There was all skates on the 6th day that didn't appear in the app until Day 4, but reservations were always "sold out" and then on the morning of Day 6 all the sessions disappeared from the app entirely and never came back. At both ice shows the ice looked SUPER sketchy so perhaps they didn't want guests making more grooves and gouges than necessary. It was also very wavy this day and the ship was rocking a lot so there could also have been safety concerns. We loved doing the trivia and games with the activity staff, our favorites were Daisy and Jaylord, they did the best trivia and had fantastic energy. We would 1,000% sail this ship and ship class again and are looking forward to whenever that will be. I'm sad to be leaving Royal the next couple years but very excited to try Disney (finally) next year. For now, this is Mrs. Regular signing off!

Mr. Regular has declared that next cruise he wants to be in a suite. Excuse me while I perform CPR on myself. Doesn't he know we have a brand image to uphold? If he were to create a username here for himself it would be "Chasing Pinnacle" LOL! He wants to get top status ASAP and, to his credit, he has realized suites get you there faster. Since we don't do the casino, that's the avenue he's picked. We shall see once he learns the price tag associated with it but for now, he's suite-curious and honestly who am I to stop him?

LOL good eye. That's me coming in a strong third place at If You Know It, Sing It! It was a fun game. I wonder if the large showing of Pinnacles is due to it being a Casino cruise? Since that's often the quickest way to gain top tier status? We also talked with many Pins about how they booked this week assuming there would be fewer kids, but we we alllll wrong about that one. The kiddos weren't a huge problem all week but they made their presence known more than any of us adults assumed, I think.

Looks so nice!! Have a great day!

Came home with an unwanted souvenir. It's not COVID, but it's got me down for the count. We absolutely loved this ship. Both of us were a little concerned/skeptical about the size and crowd management when cruising for seven days with 6,000 of our closest friends. I had imagined bodies squeezed in everywhere. We really didn't notice it at all other than when trivia was in smaller spaces like Boleros, The Attic, and On Air. Otherwise, the ship layout is so smart. The neighborhoods really do provide enough room to spread everyone out especially on sea days. We never had to fight for chairs on the sun or pool decks, even at 1 p.m. We could always find a seat in Central Park or Schooner Bar to listen to music. We lined up for MTD around 15 minutes before opening and had no issues getting seated in 10 minutes or less and only one time did we not get the table we requested. I went to the gym one time and it's huge, there was plenty of available machines and space for everyone. Pool and bar layout is also very smart - instead of one or two huge pools and a bar that spans the entire deck, the 3 mini pools and smaller bars on each side plus the bar on the sundeck allowed everyone to be served quickly and get a spot in the water. We really liked the beach pool a lot. Didn't venture into the Solarium much mostly because we were having so much fun elsewhere, but it is also HUGE and the seating comfy and available. Entertainment reservations were useful but I noticed not really needed, at least for the later shows. We had reservations for all of those but the venues were barely half full when the house opened for everyone 10 minutes before curtain. Like every ship, the Windjammer seating is a problem at peak times. Spaces we really loved: Rising Tide Bar Vintages Central Park Schooner Bar Boleros Pub Studio B Sun Deck

OMG. Luckily we saw no pineapples but on our first day we were wandering around the Boardwalk and a guy definitely suggested upside-down pineapple behavior to which we politely declined

I'm so sorry I couldn't bring more sun with me from yesterday! Hopefully you will sail into it tomorrow and have a fantastic week.

Home safe, now tackling laundry and getting caught up on work email. Talk about Sunday Scaries! It's going to be a busy week at work so I may be behind more than I'd like wrapping up the last half of the cruise week. Land sickness has set in and the Bills are looooosing spectacularly at the moment so I don't feel badly about going to bed.

Hmmmm, yeah the menu is 80% seafood so I'd use the money on another dinner that you will enjoy more. We aren't frou frou food people either and we found this to be a very accessible way to enjoy fine dining. I got the sense that everything is prepared to order and unless there are food allergies that need to be accommodated, there is little to no deviation from the menu. For instance, I asked if they have a vegetarian or Vegan version and they said "not really" which I took to mean "this is not the experience for that"

Morning from disembarkation day We had a relaxing last days at sea and are all packed up. Going up to grab some food and coffee before hitting the road. Once we are back settled at home and I can sort through photos I'll post a recap and final thoughts. The TL;DR version is we are now Oasis Class snobs. What an incredible class of ship!

Good morning! A lot has happened since my last post, let's get to it! First, hurricane/tropical storm Helene. Love and thoughts and good wishes to all those impacted. From the limited coverage on the cruise tv, it looks like there was significant impact on the west coast. The impact here has been minimal, though many onboard had their Nassau excursions canceled yesterday. The night before, if anyone had an excursion that involved a boat got notified their excursion would not happen, so this also included going to Blue Lagoon and Pearl Island. The wind was very strong and waves/white caps very visible all day so out of safety it made a lot of sense. I understand the disappointment that comes with a canceled event you were looking forward to. Given that, a lot more folks remained on the ship or wandered off into port to explore briefly and then came back. Waves last night and today have been about 10-15 feet and the movement after dinner made me fairly sea-queasy so I went to the cabin after dinner and Mr. Regular went to the comedy show. Can't say I was too broken up about missing that one. Rewinding to our Chef's Table dinner. I'll be doing a more comprehensive Corks and Forks Report but this meal deserves its own shoutout. What a fabulous experience, we had a meal like no other and would do it again every cruise. Mr. Reg said "did we just start a new expensive tradition?" Dude, I love you but we started an expensive tradition the first moment we stepped onto the Rhapsody in 2017. Booking Chef's Table is a rounding error that this point. But, I'm glad I have his buy-in all the same. We dined with two other pairs, a mother-daughter celebrating the daughter's 22nd birthday and a married couple we became instant friends with and will be keeping in touch after the cruise. They are so fun and won the Love and Marriage show last night. Not surprised! We also loved getting to hear from the chef before each course, asking questions, and giving our thanks and praise for his amazing creations. We felt this was well worth it for us. After Chef's Table we took a walk back to the Boardwalk and were so happy that Hiro was going on! Seas Wednesday were pretty calm and we were crawling toward Nassau anyway so the conditions were perfect. I am SO glad we got to see it, it was a performance like I've never seen anywhere else. My jaw was agape the whole show. Last night's shows were canceled due to the high winds and I'm not sure it's going to come back this sailing. The conditions today are also not looking good. I now want to get on every Oasis class ship just to watch the different aqua shows. Incredible. Yesterday was Nassau day, we had our Casita on the sun deck all day. I would say that if you aren't getting off the ship there are lots of free loungers available and the drink service that everyone gets so the only benefit of a Casita on a port day is the dedicated bar service call button, day bed situation, and some shade. If you like a day bed at Coco Cay, this is similar to that experience. We hopped into the beach pool when we got too warm (it was very sunny and HOT all day!) and put that call button to good use. We discovered the refreshing Frozen Mojito and had several of those before packing up around 5 and got ready in the room for dinner. Last night during dinner I was checking the Facebook group for our sailing and several people posted that the staterooms had no hot water. I said that to Mr. Regular and he told me halfway through his shower the hot water cut off completely. I didn't know that and I must have gotten the last of the hot water for my shower so I had no idea that happened. Others adding to the posts reported a pipe had broken somewhere and maintenance was working on it. When I got back to the room the hot water was still out, and then a little later, maybe around midnight, the water was back but it ran red/brown/black before being clear again. This happens at home too when the water goes out or sediment gets into a pipe so I wasn't alarmed but others in the Facebook group have been freaking out. The hot water is still just lukewarm and the complaints on social media are out of control. It's a closed loop system, we are in the middle of the ocean, and they can't just call Roto Rooter. Hopefully it will be resolved soon, otherwise it may take until we reach Bayonne and other maintenance can come onboard. Today we are at sea. We don't have a ton of plans other than getting around to doing some of the activities we haven't done yet like the Abyss, Zipline, and skating. The weather is iffy, I just watched a band of rain pass over the ship from our balcony (that was cool!) and now it's clear outside but still windy. Mr. Regular just came back from his hot girl walk and shared that the waves look MUCH bigger from deck 5 than our room on 11... I'll report back what we get up to! A sneak peak at Chef's Table, this is the famous The World dessert. Just after the band of rain passed over us. Check out the peaks and valleys in that water. Our current position is just north (but way East) of Cape Canaveral, where the port is closed until mid-afternoon.