jbrinkm

My parents sent some pictures of where they are staying. They are spending under $100/night here - as I mentioned before, they were offered this option through Southwest when they bought their flights. It is called something like Johnson Tennis Club condominiums. Looks ok, but small.

Just a few questions - asked specifically about how many times we've cruised on different lines and whether we do specialty dining.

DS is packed and DD is not. She says, "I put some outfits together in my head."

Got this letter emailed today. Has anyone else seen this?

I used it in Roatan and had a fantastic excursion there. I also just used it to book something for Falmouth next week which is our replacement for Labadee. I can cancel with no fee up to 24 hours in advance so that is a huge bonus - I've got something lined up but if I see a ship excursion I like better, I can book on board and cancel this other one. I also really like that you can see reviews of the excursions.

I've always seen these door hanging order forms that you fill out the night before. Sometimes in a folder.

I've told my teens twice since they got home from school to pack. Under/over on whether they did it?

What did it end up being about? Do they still give you the tags you can put on the door at night? I prefer anything over having to call... If you have access to Apple TV and are a space nerd, I cannot recommend For All Mankind highly enough. My husband and I just started Season 4 and it is a phenomenal show. Greek/Spanish?? Those feel like VERY different types of food to me... (And what is a stickybeak?) All of the scenery in your photos is gorgeous.

The suitcase of extras. I'm a bit embarrassed to share this pic but I literally just threw everything in to bring it upstairs from the basement and have not done any organization yet. I just spent some time up in our room getting travel stuff sorted. My attention was so divided - I had about 8 packing projects going at the same time. In the middle of pill sorting, I saw my toiletry bag that I brought up a few nights ago, left the pills and started pulling out toiletries. Then remembered my wet delicates and ran down to washer, then remembered on the way back up that I needed to pull scuba boots and masks then went back to wet clothes and realized I had other clothes still to hang from laundry, pulled stuff to steam or iron, finally started working my way back to the pills still left all over the counter. I'll tackle this suitcase in a little while. The dogs are SO nosy about this stuff. I'm surprised I didn't capture a snout while taking this pic. I bought some ducks but haven't had time to do a clever tag. Can someone point me to a cute tag that I can steal and customize?

Can people (me - I'm "people") who want to pick up rum, Black Mountain Coffee, jerk seasoning, etc. find those items right in the port?

Thanks @twangster. I got the official notice today both from Royal and my TA. Tried to figure out Falmouth quickly last night having no idea what to do there. Sounds like a lot of people on our ship were doing the same thing because I originally wanted a beach club, got on to the resort for a day website that Matt recommends, and they were almost full (Hilton Rose Hall was sold out already, Iberostar had 5 spots left and none of the others offered what we wanted). Doesn't look like there are any other ships there with us - at least none according to Cruise Mapper - but since they also haven't updated to show Symphony, I guess there could be another ship rerouted there as well that I can't see. When I got onto the website, I did the agent chat because it wasn't updated yet for our sailing, and the agent said "everyone from your ship is booking."

When I taught Pre-K (mixed 3 & 4 y.o.), we were capped at 15 and THAT felt like a lot when my para was out. I can't imagine double that with all the neediness of the littles. There is a severe lack of teachers right now - I've been doing a little subbing this year and I'm constantly bombarded with multiple requests every day.

I am dreading today's task of trying to fit everything. We were tight last year (darn kids keep growing and so do their clothes...) and we have more this year due to the diving and random stuff. I may end up trading one of our smalls for another big. We try to have four 20" (come with fare) and two 28" (paid extra) for the four of us, plus backpacks, but not sure its going to cut it this year. The reviews seem great and they do mention the tour guide as being someone very personable and funny. We did Viator two years ago and were very happy.

We got official word today of the cancellation and Falmouth stop from Royal and from our TA. Good point! I just double checked and it is Rio Bueno to Bengal Bay which looks less than 30 minutes away - which we're ok with. My husband kept saying, why don't we just walk around a bit and go to a local beach? From what I can tell, there's not much to see and not many local beaches. Yes, that you access from the 9th floor. That was a main hang out place for DH and I last year on Allure, but with more to do on a new-to-us ship and having my parents along, I probably won't miss them that much this year.

I tentatively booked a half day river tubing to the beach that gets good reviews on Viator for the day we're in Falmouth. I can cancel until the day before so when we get on board, we'll check out what the ship is offering and make a decision then (and also see what type of discount they might offer as per @DoomSlayer in the Labadee thread). The Hilton Rose Hall resort was fully booked already or we would have happily gone there. I was looking at the Chukka Estate+ options but they seemed pretty expensive for what you get and then I saw a few comments that it isn't as nice as it looks, i.e. small, broken, dirty So when we board, my priorities are: book laser tag, check out shore excursions, and try to line up our Wonderland dinner with Italian night in the MDR. And get the soda cups. My parents fly tomorrow and get into Fort Lauderdale around 7:30pm. I'm excited to see the condo where they will be staying. Tomorrow will be a serious packing day - I've already told the kids to get started but I might need to stand in their rooms tomorrow to make sure it gets done. Thursday I'm helping with a fundraiser at their school and Friday we're keeping them home so we make our flight on time (it is a no learning day anyway). We have a new dog sitter - a college student - coming to stay with our Golden Retriever, Pancake, while we're gone and I'm a little nervous about having someone new. We also have another puppy here that we are raising for the Seeing Eye and we'll deliver her to a Seeing Eye volunteer family on Friday morning. The Seeing Eye has very specific procedures to follow with their puppies so it is always best to have someone who knows the system to watch the pups while their families are on vacation.

My cruise planner closes tonight. Should I cancel all of my Labadee excursions now to try to get a faster refund or just let Royal cancel & refund (I guess they would do OBC?? and then refund at the end?)

I leave Saturday and have not gotten anything official yet!! Discovered Falmouth, Jamaica in the planner in the app but no cancellations of cruise planner items, no email from Royal or my TA.

Wow, there are some really, really nice resort day passes available in Jamaica!!! Maybe I'll send my parents there and then my husband and I will take the teens on a more adventurous tour... Although my husband might lobby to go with my parents.

Awesome! Is the rafting senior friendly? I see a lot of trips offered for Martha Brae river. My parents don't have any serious mobility concerns but they are in their late 70s... We might get them some sort of tour and then go do something adventurous with the teens.

We have our PayPal linked to checking and only have the credit card as a backup so I'm not sure what the fees might have been if we wanted to use credit, but the invoice doesn't say anything about it (what we got before paying). They are very responsive if you want to reach out directly to ask!

Yay!! As a former midwestern-er, I love hearing someone say "pop." I've been on the East Coast for 27 years now and have converted to saying soda but still like hearing that.

Yes... I pulled out all of my cruise stuff plus all of the new Bezos stuff I bought and it almost fills up a full suitcase. I blame @asquared17 A lot is still in packaging so I hope it shrinks down substantially when I unwrap it all. Once I get back in there to reorganize, I'll take pics of it so you can see the madness. Went to the bank and got our cruise cash today. Makes it feel really real! It looks like Falmouth, Jamaica is our replacement stop for Labadee. What should I do there? Any suggestions? I am definitely a "planner" @WAAAYTOOO so this Labadee situation is throwing me for a loop, to have to pull something together last minute. My husband jokes that I'm the chess player of life - always thinking 5 steps ahead - and he is a checkers player of life, just responding to what's happening in the moment. I WISH we were getting PDCC! I've never been... I am fairly confident they will! I can't imagine not having a good time on a ship like Symphony. (AND I don't have to share a room with them!! LOL) So many of you just went on or are going on Symphony soon. She honestly seems like the perfect ship to me, except for missing those little Central Park balconies. We do too, and my parents' room is just down 3 doors (2 rooms between). I hope we don't annoy the people in between us by yelling back and forth from our balconies

I'll wave hi on my way off the ship I have a TA and she said she would let us know as soon as she hears, although I appreciate that link! Says we should hear early this week so any minute...

We leave on Friday for our 8-night Southern Caribbean cruise. I will be very busy Thursday - Saturday of this week, so I'm starting now in hopes that it will be easier to keep up with some smaller posts as we begin our travel. This will be our first time on Symphony - I'm super excited to cruise on this ship! There will be six of us: me, DH, DD (just turned 17) and DS (14) plus my parents (more below). Our itinerary is - Day 1 Cruising from Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades Day 3 Labadee (I'm fairly sure we won't stop here, but haven't heard yet what we'll have instead) Day 5 Aruba Day 6 Curacao I'm bummed about Labadee. The last time we were here was in 2014 (kids were 4 & 7) so we were very excited to do all of the adventure activities this year - superman zip line, coaster and jet skis - and bought them all on Black Friday special. Hopefully we'll have some sort of stop since they've had two weeks to figure it out. With an eight night, spring break (crowded) ship, I'd prefer for 3 of the days to be in port. We're flying from Newark, which is not our home airport - it is about 2 hours away - but was half the price. We also have a mix & match flight: JetBlue to FLL on Friday night and United back from PBI on Sunday. I've prebooked a parking space at a private location. My parents are cruising with us for the first time. The company my Dad works for used to charter ships in the 80s so they have cruised before, but nothing like what they'll experience on Symphony. They are retired so got a good flight deal by going down on Wednesday. They are renting a car and have a great price for the three nights for a room in a condo complex (offered as an add on to their Southwest flight). They will be picking up a bottle of wine, some bottled water and maybe a few other things since they'll have so much time. We don't get in until 9pm so essentially just sleeping, breakfast and an Uber to the port. We have an 11:30am check in but plan to get there around 11am. They originally booked a GTY ocean view, which was the same price as an interior at the time. I caught a sale and upgraded them to a GTY ocean balcony, they were assigned 6th floor really early, and then our fabulous TA moved them two doors down from us on the 8th floor. On our last cruise, we did a Discover Scuba for the first time and loved it. So we decided to do our PADI cert over the summer and our OW dives in a quarry in October - that was not fun at all - but we're fully certified and have a dive planned for both Aruba and Curacao. We also rented a car in Aruba. We have a very late day there (9 or 10pm) so we'll dive in the morning and then plan to drive around sightseeing for the rest of the afternoon. We rented from Top Drive and added on the chairs/snorkel/cooler package so my parents will hang out at Eagle or Palm Beach while my family dives. On Curacao, we will dive, my parents will snorkel, we'll change and grab lunch back on the ship and then we plan to just do a self-guided walking trip to the bridge, etc. I also want to check out the artist that @FionaMG mentioned and maybe pick up a print or two. We have all the shows reserved, Escape room booked, specialty lunch at Giovanni's on boarding day, and a meal at Wonderland booked to celebrate my daughter's birthday. I also got the birthday package for her, with the room decorations and cake. Have to run, but more to come!

I've seen several reports this month that they're opening up earlier than before. The old pattern may have gone out the window with not enough reports to figure out the new pattern yet.