Garnet21

We have made it to day 7....a sad day as our vacation on this amazing ship is coming to a close.  It was a nice, relaxing, fun day at sea!   We started our late morning by eating breakfast in the Windjammer.  We didn't get up there until about 9:00 so it wasn't too busy and there was still plenty of food to go around.  Right outside the windjammer is a model of Symphony with TV screens explaining many features of her as well as her stats!  Pretty cool!           Once we finished we headed down to Next Cruise for our appointment and YOLO booked a Jr Suite on Allure for November 2020.  This was actually the first time my husband has booked a cruise all by himself.  I was just there for a little guidance and support.  GO Dusty!  This will also be a sailing for just he and I.     We had a little time to kill before our lunch at Jamies Italian at noon so we headed over to Central Park and the Trellis bar for a quick Lava flow (with Kraken of course)!  We also asked a passerby to take a photo of us in our BLOG shirts under the Trellis.         The lunch at Jamies was included in our cruise fare as you get it, along with a bottle of wine, for booking a Central Park Balcony stateroom.  The Meat plank was the best part of our meal for sure!  The view of Central Park is wonderful out the window.         From Jamies we walked around the ship where we ran into the stowaway piano player near the main dining room and checked out some more fabulous artwork around the ship.  This has to be my favorite and reminds me of my daughter as she LOVES lollipops!!       This afternoon we had reserved times for the Zip line and the Ultimate Abyss.  When you are a Key guest, they set aside an hour for each of them on a sea day.  Suites, Pinnacles, and Diamond Plus members are also part of this reserved time.  There were no lines so it was great!     The zip line was fun!  Short, but fun and I did it twice in a row.  I could have gone many more times within that hour if I had wanted to.  Just a reminder that you need to be wearing closed toed lace up shoes.  They do have some shoes available to use if you are like me and only had Keene close toed sandals....oops!     I was a little anxious while waiting my turn for the Ultimate Abyss dry slide!  I thought it was going to be a lot faster than it was.  The lights are really cool in it as well!       We decided to go hang out on the pool deck afterwards with a nice drink while hubby enjoyed a cigar in the designated section.   Pina Colada and Lava Flow   Then it was off to trivia in the Schooner Bar!  General knowledge and we brought in our "message a friend" @Laurac22 We did great but did not come home with the coveted RCL keychain or highlighter. ??       For our last night we decided to try the ever so popular Playmakers Burger (we have heard from many folks that it is better than the burgers in Johnny Rockets). Ok, we totally could have shared this thing! Its huge and the cheese fries are plentiful as well as amazing!  It IS an awesome burger!  We spent the rest of the night at Playmakers with our favorite bartender Lucian!         We ended our night walking around the boardwalk area and taking a ride on the carousel!             Sad Sad to see....       Upcoming additions to this blog in the upcoming days... Review of The Key Food Porn---All the food we had around the ship with menus Drinks--by popular demand I will post photos of most, if not all the different drinks we had onboard with the names. Venues around Symphony  Anything else I might think of that may be of interest 

Day 5 Recap - St Kitts/Nevis
Captain Rob had us alongside in St. Kitts at 7:00 AM.  We enjoyed watching the docking process this morning and I did a scope welcoming everyone!
We decided to grab a bite to eat in Park Cafe which is located in Central Park.  They have breakfast sandwiches, burritos, bagels with various toppings, pastries, etc for breakfast.  On Symphony they do NOT have.a coffee bar with specialty coffee but do have regular coffee, tea, and juices.  This is where you will find the famous roast beef sandwich as well.


Once we disembarked, we headed to find a taxi to bing us to Timothy Hill which is where you can see the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Caribbean on the other.  Our taxi driver was Eunice Williams.  He was a fantastic tour guide as well, giving us a history of the island, its economy, and pointing out various places along the way.  It cost us $32 round trip and it took about 10-15 minutes to get there from the port.  The views are breathtaking!  They also have folks up there who try to have you interact with the monkeys but beware, you will be asked to give them some money if you partake.  We did not.  





Once we were finished taking our thousands of photos, I asked Williams (this is what he told us to call him) if there was a beach nearby that had a bar and some shade.  He told us about the Carambola Beach Club which was just down the other side of the hill.  He brought us there and did not charge us extra for the ride.  There is a large beach with umbrellas and beach beds.  It was quite crowded on this particular day.  We decided to just sit at the bar indoors and have a couple drinks.  It also has a restaurant.  It was very clean and nice.  Williams waited for us there which was about an hour.  





We headed back to port, did a little shopping, and enjoyed the local festivities.


“no paparazzi” he said ???

The Coasta Pacifica was in port with us today.


Once back on board I did a ship tour on Periscope (again if you have the periscope app, feel free to look back on my scopes.  My Periscope name is @karahvacatimes)
We decided to head to the Rising Tide bar afterwards.  This is the bar that starts in the Promenade on deck 5 and brings you up to Central Park on Deck 8.  When running it departs each location every 20-30 minutes.  


We headed up to Vintages where they were having Sangria hour.  This was our first time at Vintages but the sangrias were tasty!

We took a night off from Specialty dining and headed to the Windjammer for dinner.  The one thing I love about the jammer is that you can have American, Mexican, and Chinese food all in one sitting!
Our evening consisted of checking out the "Big Wonder" in the Solarium,


taking in a set at Jazz on 4, and the Love and Marriage show which is always a favorite!  Dusty went to bed a bit early so I headed to Red (the late night dance party) with a few wonderful folks I had met on this very cruise.  

And what better way to end the late night than with some yummy Sorrentos pizza!

Two more days AND they are both Sea days!

Another great day!  I ALMOST feel like I am there, too!  

Karah,  please "live blog" every cruise you go on!! I am really enjoying all the great  photos and detail. You and Dusty know how to cruise and have a wonderful  time.  I hope we are on the same ship sometime soon!  ?  
Marianna 

Karah,  please "live blog" every cruise you go on!! I am really enjoying all the great  photos and detail. You and Dusty know how to cruise and have a wonderful  time.  I hope we are on the same ship sometime soon!  ?  
Marianna 

I apologize for the duplicate photos!  Tried to delete but they just keep popping up ?

Recap Day 3 ( did I mention this was going to be a “as live as I can make it” blog..?? ??
Today is a Sea day, aka relaxation day!! I am not one to sleep in on a cruise or in life for that matter… So waking up today at almost 8 o’clock was completely foreign to me!  I think it had something to do with the fact that I was up until 3 AM channeling my inner @CruiseLifeRick dancing in the attic!  
So we eventually started our day by eating breakfast at an amazing alternative, Johnny Rockets. Breakfast is included in your cruise fare on oasis class ships! And it just might be our best breakfast thus far!


 
We relaxed during the morning just walking around the ship until it was time for our All Acsess tour.  We stopped by the Trellis bar in Central Park for a quick Lava Flow!  Yum!!

  This tour is 2 1/2 hours.  You go to the Galley, the engine room, the food lockers, down I95 which is basically the hallway that goes from forward all the way to aft on deck 2. You also get to go to the laundry room, the incinerator room, and the bridge!  Some of the areas you go to are underwater which is quite neat.  It is neat to see all these areas but really the crew makes this tour!  Our tour guide and the rest of the crew that showed us the different areas were fantastic, very personable and of course knowledgeable. The tour cost is $130 per person and I would highly recommend it!  It’s one of those tours you really only need to do once but is well worth it and for us it only made sense to do it on symphony, the largest cruise ship!  




 
They give you champagne after the galley part of the tour
In the engine room 


-40 degree food locker hubby walked into.  I walked in for 10 seconds and walked back out ?
Hubby helped in the laundry room.  He’s a keeper ❤️
 

This is George!  Everyone say Hi to George ?
Here is another piece of artwork that they placed in the Promenade. I believe all ships in the fleet have a vehicle of some sort on the promenade (if the ship has a promenade) and they decided to go in a different direction for the vehicle on Symphony.  It is a vehicle… But it’s more of a piece of art.  Pretty cool!

Also if you use the Royal app they have this neat x-ray feature for a piece of artwork here on symphony. This is on deck 12 right outside of the aft elevator bank.  


After the tour we headed up to El Loco Fresh for a nice, quick lunch.  The chicken burrito and chicken quesadilla hit the spot and the lime and scallion sour cream was fantastic!  We paired this with a Stella ?

 
Tonight we had specialty dining reservations at chops. Another wonderful meal and instead of a dessert, as I was quite full, I opted for a dessert coffee instead. It hit the spot for sure!



Once again we went and listened to Billy in the schooner bar for a while and then headed over to the pub to listen to some Guitar pop tunes before calling it a night. The gentleman in the pub was fantastic and the venue was packed!  
On to St. Thomas tomorrow!

You are doing an amazing job with the live blog and the Periscopes @Karahvacatimes! Thank you for taking the time out of your vacation to share with all us jealous viewers. 

It looks like you have been having a great time!  I am a big fan of the Solarium Bistro.  I haven't tried Wonderland yet but it sounds like a fun experience.  It's always a great idea to pick @PRC brain for great things to do at the ports of call. Thanks for more great photos, Spicy Girl!  ?  hahaha 

I cruised Explorer in June.  We ate in the MDR almost every night, never had any issues with the food.  They ran out of food?  I've never heard of such a thing.  I met people this morning while waiting to board Mariner who were on that same cruise and they didn't mention any issues.  
It's unfortunate you got sick from another guest.  I've heard of people refusing to give up their cruise because they were sick and they boarded any ways.  Getting sick happens on land as well.  As a frequent business traveler I can't count the number of times I've gotten sick after flying domestically within the U.S.   
They only quarantine when it's appropriate.    Not going to the doctor for fear of quarantine puts other guests at risk.  If you've both gotten this sick you've likely infected someone else.  Imagine how they feel.  

seems a little bit over the top that you are blaming royal for getting ill. sugar free desserts to me don't sound like desserts :/

I'm sorry that your experience was sub par, but, I find this all a little bit hard to believe. My wife needs to eat gluten-free and Royal has been EXTREMELY accommodating to her needs; even at the Windjammer. See this post I made about the topic "Gluten Free" last month.
 

I can also confirm it wasn’t open for lunch on embarkation day for my Freedom sailing last April. Couldn’t even get a margarita from them. ?

Only the best medicine to treat that angry hangover.  A good greasy breakfast with a cold soda will take care of that crap

No cruise ship preparing food for thousands of guests can present true authentic local foods. 
There may be theme nights where the food is oriented towards a region but even then it isn't truly authentic.  

I would try the Schooner Bar. In addition to the Old Fashioned, they have a drink menu with several variations on the Old Fashioned.
Schooner has been one of our favorite bars in general on board Royal ships.

With Cuba on my mind and with a goal of sailing some of the older and smaller ships in the fleet I booked Empress.  With the current fleet it's hard to get any smaller.  I'm supposed to get a glass block based on my current Crown and Anchor points accumulation so as I thought which ship to 'block' on, getting a glass block from Empress seemed like a really cool idea so I booked this cruise with that other goal in mind.
It's a 5 night cruise:
Day 1 - Embark Miami
Day 2 - Key West
Day 3 - Havana
Day 4 - Sea Day
Day 5 - CocoCay
Day 6 - Debark Miami
It's been a few years since I've visited Key West but I need to get some work done so I'm not sure how far I'll venture off the ship. 
For Havana I've a booked a full day excursion through Royal.  I have an overnight cruise to Havana booked in September so I'm using this trip and excursion to discover and plan my next visit there for maximum cultural enrichment.
I have many Canadian friends who have visited Cuba.  They've been able to fly direct since, well forever.   They've given me some ideas so this full day excursion should check all the boxes for an initial Cuba experience and allow me to better plan my next visit.
I've missed a few calls on CocoCay this year so fingers crossed.
Flights were booked through Air2Sea and I'm taking a dreaded red eye flight with airport transfers to the ship by Royal.  I usually just take a ride-share but as a solo traveler the transfer isn't that bad from a cost perspective and it's for research so I know how well it works getting from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) airport to the Port of Miami and back.  I had to work this weekend so the all night flight is an "efficient" use of my time, or so I keep telling myself to justify it. 
Not sure when I might sail Empress again especially since she does mostly Cuba runs at the moment so I've splurged and booked a junior suite.  My first solo JS experience.  At the time I booked it was a reasonable price difference.
My red-eye departs at 1am local time and I haven't started packing yet.  It's only 5 nights so not a hard cruise to pack for. However I better step away from the keyboard and get started.

What's going on in our schools is a nightmare and we can't seem to wake from it.   Yesterday was another tragic day.  My prayers are with you and your school.  My prayer is for us to find solid ways to push back this tide of evil that is overtaking us.  We can't keep saying "this is not the time to talk about it."  If not now, when?  We all have to push back HARD!! 

Outside view would always be above the waterline, although below might be very cool!  ?

Tell them you are checking it out to see if it suits them ?

No [pax] cabins are below the waterline so at the very minimum, they will see out, above the water line.

Somebody reach out and touch me!!!!

This is a normal practice for Royal...we all know it. I have seen multiple threads here and on other cruise sites over the years about these types of things.
 
It comes down to the bottom dollar...always has, always will....they don't care about your situation or cruise plans....IF they did, they wouldn't have cancelled it 8 mths out...lol.
 
What's the definition of insanity?!....

I never realized the extent to which full ship charters occur.  Researching this led me to this page:
https://www.cruisetimetables.com/full-cruise-ship-charters.html
What this doesn't tell you is when the ship was chartered which leads to how many guests were displaced (and upset in the process).
It will be little consolation but Royal doesn't appear to charter as much as some of the other cruise lines.
 
I'd consider writing a letter to Royal's CEO.  I think it is important for him to realize the long term impact of losing loyal customers versus the short term gain of a one time cash grab.