DavidNYC

Hi - wanted to do Wonderland on Symphony in a few weeks. A couple of us have some food restrictions. I saw the menus and wanted to be sure when you selected the appetizer choices - you weren't limited to one from each list for the entire table but that each person could choose what they wanted to have. While there were things for each of us - there were fewer things that would be good for ALL of us.

Really shocked how few posts in most roll calls - have a sold out cruise on Symphony next month and just a couple posts in roll calls here and on Cruise Critic. Have a private tour of Florence booked which can accomodate 8 and we have four so were looking to see to add a few people who wanted to share but not sure if any other options out there I might not know about. Thoughts?

We're on this one too. Wife and I and twins turning 14 during the cruise. We're actually also looking to see if anyone is interested in sharing this Florence tour we booked for August 23. Full day - quick stop in Pisa to see the tower and then Florence. Private tour up to 8 and same cost for 4 as for 8 so hoping to find a family that wants to share. Would be $140/person (can discuss if less than 4 of you!). Tour description here: https://www.viator.com/tours/Pisa/La-Spezia-Shore-Excursion-Pisa-and-Florence-Private-Tour/d520-14391P23

Nah - that will never be me. I'm way too out of shape to run like that! But on a serious note - I've taken about 4 cruises so far (Carribean and Alaska) and have never encountered a port where the ship time was different than the local time. Is this something I'm likely to encounter on a RCCL cruise in Barcelona port? I'm planning tours that end at 4:30 local time (a 10 minute cab from port) as the departure time listed in the itinerary is 6:00 pm. Obviously - if the ship time is off by an hour that makes a huge difference. Any insights?? Not sure why a ship would use a different time than what it is locally - seems like would just be confusing for everyone!

LOL - that's a good point - the only reason I'd have an issue would be major road jams in which case as you noted many of the other tours will be late as well and we can always do the 30 minute walk and skip the taxi And like I said - we'll be on a walking tour in the Gothic Quarter at the end so will always be able to cut out a few minutes early if we think there are issues.

Just realized the "on-board" time for our port stops is an hour prior to the departure time listed on the itinerary. For all our ports we were going to be back well before but we did have one stop (Barcelona) where the plans we made would only get us back to the ship about 15 minutes prior to the 5pm on-board time (6pm departure listed). We're ending a walking tour at 4:30 and should be a 10-15 minute cab back. Just for my peace of mind - hopefully - do they build a little leeway into those times? So if, for example, every street to port gets blocked to vehicles and we end up having to walk and get there at 5:15 should we have any issues? I would assume they set the on-board time a hour prior to make sure there's a little buffer for late people but just wanted to make sure that gangplanks don't get pulled up right at the on-board time. As I said, our plans do get us back prior but want to also anticipate worst case scenario and make sure we'd still be fine.

I notice that dining reservations for my August Symphony cruise are open. We have about $900 of cruise credits but can't use any of them for anything we need to pay for in advance which is causing some angst in figuring out what is likely to be bookable once we board since I'd prefer to use my credits for dining. Wonderland is the main one we're interested in since it's so different (as much as I love sushi and steaks etc. we have enough really good restaurants here that don't feel a need to do those). So question is - do many of these specialty dining restaurants sell out for many days prior to the cruise or should I still have decent availability if I go to book right upon boarding (and will try to get an early boarding time).