cruiselife

I decided to buy Voom onboard and with Diamond Plus discount, I found the price quite low 

Fabulous meal at Izumi.  With the ultimate dining package, you get $35 per person stipend.  In short, that’s a lot of food. 

Views from the balcony in Miami as I wait for the others to get ready. It’s already 26 degrees Celsius (I don’t do feirenheit as a Canadian) so I’m excited by the day. 

Hi Guys,
This is a last minute creation for a live blog for my cruise on symphony of the seas. I meant to start info bit earlier but I have had a crazy couple of days with having to buy a new laptop and other last minute errands. I live in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada and am travelling with my mom (M), her Partner (S), my younger sister (B) and family friend (C), we range in ages from mid 40s to my younger sister being 18, I’m 21. We booked 3 staterooms (as a preference we like only 2 people per stateroom as we have to fly in we normally do a couple of days before or after so have 12 days of stuff for a 7 day cruise). We booked one ocean view balcony on deck 9 and 2 interior rooms of deck 9. About 2 months ago a received an email asking if I wanted to bid with RoyalUp and I saw this as a research opportunity so bid the minimum bid of $200 on a neighbourhood balcony cabin. I found out yesterday that I received the upgrade so now we have one interior cabin on deck 9, one ocean view balcony on deck 9 and one boardwalk balcony on deck 10. M, S and C flew into Miami on February 12 and B and I flew in on February 14. We rented an air bnb as we would have needed 2 hotel rooms for 5 adults and we like having a kitchen. We have water taxi booked for Miami and am looking forward to doing some exploring. I bought the 4 package voom on sale and I have the refreshment drink package as with the exchange it is too expensive to buy the deluxe drink package. I will bring my 2 bottles of wine on board as well. Our ports of call are St. Maartin, St. Thomas and Nausea. For St. Maartin we have a jet skiing tour booked, in St. Thomas we are going to take a taxi to Meaghans Bay and enjoy the beach. In Nausea Im staying on the ship, but the rest of my family is going to Atlantis (I don’t like water parks particularly). If you have any questions or want me to find something out just let me know, Im happy to find out if I can. Side note: I love lying in a pool chair in the sun and reading a good book so thats where I will be most sea days.   I am currently writing this sitting on the balcony of the air bnb and it is fantastic! No pictures tonight as I'm going to bed now as I was up at 2am to catch my flight. I will post some pictures tomorrow from around Miami. 

Day 3 (Sea Night)
We had reservations at Wonderland tonight and we weren't really sure what to expect. We knew the experience was going to be really cool, but we had also heard a lot of mixed reviews about the food. We were pleasantly surprised. At first we were a little concerned that we weren't going to be able to find much for my wife to eat since she is a vegetarian but it actually turned out to be her favorite restaurant on the cruise. They modified a lot of the dishes to make them vegetarian and there were a few that already were anyways. Personally I didn't like the entrees nearly as much as the appetizers. They weren't bad, but the appetizers were just incredible in my opinion. We enjoyed the cocktails as well but forgot to get a picture.
There will be a lot of pictures here because the courses just keep on coming. In the spirit of Wonderland I won't explain any of the pictures and let your imagination do it's thing (I wouldn't be able to explain them anyways). We loved the whole experience and we had a joke that if you didn't go through the door then you didn't really eat at Wonderland. 



Following a great dinner we had reservations to see impressionist Jeff Tracta. He did impressions of people and music and he did them very well. He had a great Donald Trump impression that either side of the spectrum could get a laugh out of. He covered every genre of music and I think cruisers of all ages really enjoyed it. We are always so impressed with the types of acts that Royal Caribbean brings onboard. We really missed that when we tried out Carnival on our last cruise and they rolled out the same cast every night to just sing and dance to a different genre of music. 

After the show we headed into the Promenade and caught the 50s and 60s party. One thing we really love doing on a cruise is just standing by and watching people have a good time. There is something about being on a cruise that lets people really let loose unlike anywhere else in my opinion. 

When the party ended we decided to close out the night at the pub with our favorite entertainer Kieron. We were joined in the pub by several cast members of The Fine Line that you can see in the picture. Kieron was really popular among the crew and you could always find members of the Grease and The Fine Line in the pub when he was performing. He was really good about playing requests which is always nice. I requested Let It Be and was able to get a video of him playing it. 


Day 3-Kieron Movie.m4v No late night on a cruise is complete without a slice of Sorrento's. I also found that the quality of pizza has improved since our last cruise. I actually found it quite good but the drink package helps. It was a great sea day today and the port stops begin tomorrow morning with St. Maarten. We were very excited to check out 3 brand new ports for us.  

Day 4 (St. Maarten)
Today was our first port day and we grabbed a quick breakfast at Park Cafe before heading out to meet the famous Leo Brown who we had hired as our driver for the day. We were joined for the day by Independence of the Seas. Leo has new van now that is much larger than his old vehicle and we had been trying to find someone to join us but were unsuccessful. Arriving in St Maarten was beautiful and unlike any ports that we have been to before. It was cool seeing all of the massive yachts. The black one had a helicopter on it!


When we met up with Leo we found out that he had found another family that were also Royal Caribbean Blog followers from Canada. Neither of our groups knew we had anyone else joining us but it was a good surprise. They were really great people and it was a lot of fun meeting them and having some company for the day. One thing we didn't know would be included was that Leo had a big cooler in his trunk with plenty of drinks of some of his own homemade rum punch. I thought it was a nice touch!

Our first stop was Maho Beach to watch a few planes land. I have seen tons of photos of this place, but I had no idea how crowded it actually was. I agree with @Matt on his opinion that it is definitely something to see, but I wouldn't want to stay for very long. We stayed for about 20 minutes and then headed out.

Next we drove around and saw different parts of the island. Being a native of the island Leo had a lot of information that you wouldn't be able to get from just anywhere. It was cool learning about the history of the island, the impact of the hurricane, as well as Leo's experiences growing up there.
We headed to the French side of the island to get some food and stopped somewhere in Grand Case that Leo said was one of the best areas to get some local food. I didn't get the name of the place, but it was really good food. I had the Mahi Mahi and rice and it was delicious. My wife had some rice, cole slaw, and fries. The restaurant was located right on the end of Grand Case Beach so we were able to go back and get a look at it. There were a few locals there enjoying the beach but it was pretty much empty other than that. 

Following lunch we drove around a little more including brief stop at Orient Beach. It looked incredible there and I think when we return to St Maarten that is where we will probably spend the majority of the day. It was just massive and seemed so natural compared to a lot of the beaches we have seen in the Caribbean. In order to make sure we got back with plenty of time we headed back to the port stopping at one more overlook.

We really enjoyed the tour of the island but would have liked to have spent a little more time out of the car. It was a great way to see the whole island and learn where we would want to spend our time when we return though. We still had about an hour and a half and we kind of regretted not spending a little more time on the beach so we decided to take the water taxi over to downtown Philipsburg and get our toes in the sand.
This area was a lot cooler than I was expecting and I really liked the Dutch architecture. There were lots of stray dogs running around that seemed to just be a part of the community there. 
St_Maarten-Phillipsburg_A.mp4 We didn't want to stay too long and risk missing the ship so we headed back on the water taxi. The sail away in St Maarten is absolutely beautiful and at that point was by far the most beautiful island we had ever visited. This is definitely a place we will be returning to because there was still so much more to experience. The sun was beginning to set as we sailed away and it made for an amazing view.

St_Maarten-Sailaway_A.mp4
Tonight we have dinner booked at Jamie's Italian and are seeing The Fine Line!

It was definitely a bad way to start but luckily we never had an issue with service for the rest of the trip. We actually had great service every meal after that so I think it was just a one off for us.

Day 3 (Sea Night)
We had reservations at Wonderland tonight and we weren't really sure what to expect. We knew the experience was going to be really cool, but we had also heard a lot of mixed reviews about the food. We were pleasantly surprised. At first we were a little concerned that we weren't going to be able to find much for my wife to eat since she is a vegetarian but it actually turned out to be her favorite restaurant on the cruise. They modified a lot of the dishes to make them vegetarian and there were a few that already were anyways. Personally I didn't like the entrees nearly as much as the appetizers. They weren't bad, but the appetizers were just incredible in my opinion. We enjoyed the cocktails as well but forgot to get a picture.
There will be a lot of pictures here because the courses just keep on coming. In the spirit of Wonderland I won't explain any of the pictures and let your imagination do it's thing (I wouldn't be able to explain them anyways). We loved the whole experience and we had a joke that if you didn't go through the door then you didn't really eat at Wonderland. 



Following a great dinner we had reservations to see impressionist Jeff Tracta. He did impressions of people and music and he did them very well. He had a great Donald Trump impression that either side of the spectrum could get a laugh out of. He covered every genre of music and I think cruisers of all ages really enjoyed it. We are always so impressed with the types of acts that Royal Caribbean brings onboard. We really missed that when we tried out Carnival on our last cruise and they rolled out the same cast every night to just sing and dance to a different genre of music. 

After the show we headed into the Promenade and caught the 50s and 60s party. One thing we really love doing on a cruise is just standing by and watching people have a good time. There is something about being on a cruise that lets people really let loose unlike anywhere else in my opinion. 

When the party ended we decided to close out the night at the pub with our favorite entertainer Kieron. We were joined in the pub by several cast members of The Fine Line that you can see in the picture. Kieron was really popular among the crew and you could always find members of the Grease and The Fine Line in the pub when he was performing. He was really good about playing requests which is always nice. I requested Let It Be and was able to get a video of him playing it. 


Day 3-Kieron Movie.m4v No late night on a cruise is complete without a slice of Sorrento's. I also found that the quality of pizza has improved since our last cruise. I actually found it quite good but the drink package helps. It was a great sea day today and the port stops begin tomorrow morning with St. Maarten. We were very excited to check out 3 brand new ports for us.  

Day 3 (Sea Night)
We had reservations at Wonderland tonight and we weren't really sure what to expect. We knew the experience was going to be really cool, but we had also heard a lot of mixed reviews about the food. We were pleasantly surprised. At first we were a little concerned that we weren't going to be able to find much for my wife to eat since she is a vegetarian but it actually turned out to be her favorite restaurant on the cruise. They modified a lot of the dishes to make them vegetarian and there were a few that already were anyways. Personally I didn't like the entrees nearly as much as the appetizers. They weren't bad, but the appetizers were just incredible in my opinion. We enjoyed the cocktails as well but forgot to get a picture.
There will be a lot of pictures here because the courses just keep on coming. In the spirit of Wonderland I won't explain any of the pictures and let your imagination do it's thing (I wouldn't be able to explain them anyways). We loved the whole experience and we had a joke that if you didn't go through the door then you didn't really eat at Wonderland. 



Following a great dinner we had reservations to see impressionist Jeff Tracta. He did impressions of people and music and he did them very well. He had a great Donald Trump impression that either side of the spectrum could get a laugh out of. He covered every genre of music and I think cruisers of all ages really enjoyed it. We are always so impressed with the types of acts that Royal Caribbean brings onboard. We really missed that when we tried out Carnival on our last cruise and they rolled out the same cast every night to just sing and dance to a different genre of music. 

After the show we headed into the Promenade and caught the 50s and 60s party. One thing we really love doing on a cruise is just standing by and watching people have a good time. There is something about being on a cruise that lets people really let loose unlike anywhere else in my opinion. 

When the party ended we decided to close out the night at the pub with our favorite entertainer Kieron. We were joined in the pub by several cast members of The Fine Line that you can see in the picture. Kieron was really popular among the crew and you could always find members of the Grease and The Fine Line in the pub when he was performing. He was really good about playing requests which is always nice. I requested Let It Be and was able to get a video of him playing it. 


Day 3-Kieron Movie.m4v No late night on a cruise is complete without a slice of Sorrento's. I also found that the quality of pizza has improved since our last cruise. I actually found it quite good but the drink package helps. It was a great sea day today and the port stops begin tomorrow morning with St. Maarten. We were very excited to check out 3 brand new ports for us.  

Day 3 (Sea Day)
We woke up around 9:30 after a late night and decided on Park Cafe for breakfast. This became our go to spot most days because it was just so easy to run in and grab something. The selection isn't nearly as good as in the Windjammer or Johnny Rockets, but the convenience factor was there and the food was still good. I always got the fried egg, ham, and cheese muffin while my wife had the vegetarian options that changed each day. She would also get the fried egg one as well and switch out the ham with the vegetables occasionally. 

After that we took a few laps around the jogging track and heard some commotion coming from the Aquatheatre so we went to check it out. It was the Crown and Anchor ceremony. For those curious the top cruiser had 2,340 days and he gave a really awesome speech about his love for the crew, but also the Flowrider. Once the ceremony was over we headed over to get in a round of putt putt. One thing I noticed was that they are using some kind of foam balls, I am not sure if this has always been the case. Being a golfer I didn't love the way they felt putting but I guess I could always use an extra excuse anyways!

Next we went back to the room to get dressed to hang out on the pool deck. We said we were going to take it easy on the drinks for the day, but then the pineapple guy showed up. We are suckers for a Pina Colada in a pineapple just once on a cruise, so we paid the extra $9 to get one. It was an absolutely perfect day at sea and this is the calmest I have ever seen the ocean on all of my cruises. 


This one is for you @FlowBro Ty. We hung out on the pool deck for the majority of the afternoon before heading back to the Flowrider. I gave it a shot and it was a lot of fun, but I am not very good at it. It is hard to get practice because there is usually a 30 minute or longer wait and I don't like to spend my whole day waiting for my turn only to fall after a short time. There was a guy that was ridiculously good at it and you could always find him back there killing it. Here is a 20 second video of him doing his thing on another day. He was definitely the best of the cruisers that we saw all week. I added a picture of someone else riding just in case the video won't load for anyone.

VIDEO Flowrider-Surfer.mp4
After that it was time to head back to the room and get ready for dinner. We are going to Wonderland tonight...
 

Day 3 (Sea Night)
We had reservations at Wonderland tonight and we weren't really sure what to expect. We knew the experience was going to be really cool, but we had also heard a lot of mixed reviews about the food. We were pleasantly surprised. At first we were a little concerned that we weren't going to be able to find much for my wife to eat since she is a vegetarian but it actually turned out to be her favorite restaurant on the cruise. They modified a lot of the dishes to make them vegetarian and there were a few that already were anyways. Personally I didn't like the entrees nearly as much as the appetizers. They weren't bad, but the appetizers were just incredible in my opinion. We enjoyed the cocktails as well but forgot to get a picture.
There will be a lot of pictures here because the courses just keep on coming. In the spirit of Wonderland I won't explain any of the pictures and let your imagination do it's thing (I wouldn't be able to explain them anyways). We loved the whole experience and we had a joke that if you didn't go through the door then you didn't really eat at Wonderland. 



Following a great dinner we had reservations to see impressionist Jeff Tracta. He did impressions of people and music and he did them very well. He had a great Donald Trump impression that either side of the spectrum could get a laugh out of. He covered every genre of music and I think cruisers of all ages really enjoyed it. We are always so impressed with the types of acts that Royal Caribbean brings onboard. We really missed that when we tried out Carnival on our last cruise and they rolled out the same cast every night to just sing and dance to a different genre of music. 

After the show we headed into the Promenade and caught the 50s and 60s party. One thing we really love doing on a cruise is just standing by and watching people have a good time. There is something about being on a cruise that lets people really let loose unlike anywhere else in my opinion. 

When the party ended we decided to close out the night at the pub with our favorite entertainer Kieron. We were joined in the pub by several cast members of The Fine Line that you can see in the picture. Kieron was really popular among the crew and you could always find members of the Grease and The Fine Line in the pub when he was performing. He was really good about playing requests which is always nice. I requested Let It Be and was able to get a video of him playing it. 


Day 3-Kieron Movie.m4v No late night on a cruise is complete without a slice of Sorrento's. I also found that the quality of pizza has improved since our last cruise. I actually found it quite good but the drink package helps. It was a great sea day today and the port stops begin tomorrow morning with St. Maarten. We were very excited to check out 3 brand new ports for us.  

This is a great place to start!
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/getting-started

In case anyone was wondering, here’s boarding day spa specials

we enjoyed a spectacular sunset as we passed under Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Absolutely perfect sailaway weather!
For dinner, we headed to Izumi on deck 12. 

Day 3 (Sea Day)
We woke up around 9:30 after a late night and decided on Park Cafe for breakfast. This became our go to spot most days because it was just so easy to run in and grab something. The selection isn't nearly as good as in the Windjammer or Johnny Rockets, but the convenience factor was there and the food was still good. I always got the fried egg, ham, and cheese muffin while my wife had the vegetarian options that changed each day. She would also get the fried egg one as well and switch out the ham with the vegetables occasionally. 

After that we took a few laps around the jogging track and heard some commotion coming from the Aquatheatre so we went to check it out. It was the Crown and Anchor ceremony. For those curious the top cruiser had 2,340 days and he gave a really awesome speech about his love for the crew, but also the Flowrider. Once the ceremony was over we headed over to get in a round of putt putt. One thing I noticed was that they are using some kind of foam balls, I am not sure if this has always been the case. Being a golfer I didn't love the way they felt putting but I guess I could always use an extra excuse anyways!

Next we went back to the room to get dressed to hang out on the pool deck. We said we were going to take it easy on the drinks for the day, but then the pineapple guy showed up. We are suckers for a Pina Colada in a pineapple just once on a cruise, so we paid the extra $9 to get one. It was an absolutely perfect day at sea and this is the calmest I have ever seen the ocean on all of my cruises. 


This one is for you @FlowBro Ty. We hung out on the pool deck for the majority of the afternoon before heading back to the Flowrider. I gave it a shot and it was a lot of fun, but I am not very good at it. It is hard to get practice because there is usually a 30 minute or longer wait and I don't like to spend my whole day waiting for my turn only to fall after a short time. There was a guy that was ridiculously good at it and you could always find him back there killing it. Here is a 20 second video of him doing his thing on another day. He was definitely the best of the cruisers that we saw all week. I added a picture of someone else riding just in case the video won't load for anyone.

VIDEO Flowrider-Surfer.mp4
After that it was time to head back to the room and get ready for dinner. We are going to Wonderland tonight...
 

Day 3 (Sea Night)
We had reservations at Wonderland tonight and we weren't really sure what to expect. We knew the experience was going to be really cool, but we had also heard a lot of mixed reviews about the food. We were pleasantly surprised. At first we were a little concerned that we weren't going to be able to find much for my wife to eat since she is a vegetarian but it actually turned out to be her favorite restaurant on the cruise. They modified a lot of the dishes to make them vegetarian and there were a few that already were anyways. Personally I didn't like the entrees nearly as much as the appetizers. They weren't bad, but the appetizers were just incredible in my opinion. We enjoyed the cocktails as well but forgot to get a picture.
There will be a lot of pictures here because the courses just keep on coming. In the spirit of Wonderland I won't explain any of the pictures and let your imagination do it's thing (I wouldn't be able to explain them anyways). We loved the whole experience and we had a joke that if you didn't go through the door then you didn't really eat at Wonderland. 



Following a great dinner we had reservations to see impressionist Jeff Tracta. He did impressions of people and music and he did them very well. He had a great Donald Trump impression that either side of the spectrum could get a laugh out of. He covered every genre of music and I think cruisers of all ages really enjoyed it. We are always so impressed with the types of acts that Royal Caribbean brings onboard. We really missed that when we tried out Carnival on our last cruise and they rolled out the same cast every night to just sing and dance to a different genre of music. 

After the show we headed into the Promenade and caught the 50s and 60s party. One thing we really love doing on a cruise is just standing by and watching people have a good time. There is something about being on a cruise that lets people really let loose unlike anywhere else in my opinion. 

When the party ended we decided to close out the night at the pub with our favorite entertainer Kieron. We were joined in the pub by several cast members of The Fine Line that you can see in the picture. Kieron was really popular among the crew and you could always find members of the Grease and The Fine Line in the pub when he was performing. He was really good about playing requests which is always nice. I requested Let It Be and was able to get a video of him playing it. 


Day 3-Kieron Movie.m4v No late night on a cruise is complete without a slice of Sorrento's. I also found that the quality of pizza has improved since our last cruise. I actually found it quite good but the drink package helps. It was a great sea day today and the port stops begin tomorrow morning with St. Maarten. We were very excited to check out 3 brand new ports for us.  

General trivia time!

Sailaway and our cruise has begun! We enjoyed sailaway from the helipad, which is such an underrated and little known spot you can go while on any radiance, voyager or freedom class ship!

Matt is evolving !!  YIPPEE !!!!

You know you're a cruise nerd when...

Rooms were ready promptly at 1pm. We had heard one announcement that it would be ready at 1:30, but I think that was to keep the masses at bay. Everywhere else the 1pm time was advertised. 


We are in a standard balcony ocean room. We have stayed in this category before, so nothing Earth shatteringly different for us. 
Note the Valentines Day touch, along with chocolates! 
We also noticed the air conditioning control is a new model. 

I had heard with Ultimate Dining Package some people had been able to eat at a specialty restaurant for lunch. I figured it was worth the try to see if they would seat us.  Sure enough,  they looked us up and happily seated us for lunch. Keep in mind that if you are cruising soon, you can and should ask politely but be prepared for the answer to be no. The rules clearly state lunch with UDP is for sea days only  

This is the first Royal Caribbean cruise ever I have ever been on that I have not eaten embarkation day lunch in the Windjammer. 
 

Scientific proof the weather is absolutely perfect today in Tampa

In my experience a man enjoying a "told you so" moment is short lived.  Recommend generous drink package utilization in hopes it purges her memory.  

I wanted to leave about an hour before my wife was willing to even consider it. When we arrived and boarding had begun I gave her my “told you so” face

Once we got onboard we booked our specialty dining. We have the ultimate dining package, and got reservations for everything we wanted at the time we wanted.  There were a few specialty dining waiters waiting right as we boarded, so they took our reservations nice and easy. 
Our first stop was the Solarium Bar to enjoy some embarkation day drinks!


Always book your drink packages before the cruise.  We paid $49 versus the $70