LandstromCruise Posted January 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2019 Day 3 continued: not sure how some of those last photos got on there, sorry about that. Just my uncle and I went on the tour so after that we met up with the rest of the family. For lunch this day we decided to eat in the Solarium. This was the first time eating in the Solarium on either of my cruises and have to say it was really good. While the choices weren’t as expansive as the buffet, I thought the food was pretty good. It was a pretty nice day out so it became a lay out by the pool and spend some time on the flowrider kind of day. Not sure what’s going on here: Last year wife tried the stand up flowrider and failed miserably. This year she decided to try the kneeboarding Not sure if this video will work, but if it does feel free to laugh. It’s my wife and I laughed so it’s ok. Lol. And if not, you will notice there are no pictures of her actually on her knees on the flowrider so she failed at this as well. F0834FAC-26FD-436E-9849-A7E323AC8C9E.MOV The Cruise Junkie, Lovetocruise2002 and JLMoran 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2019 Did a little picture taking on the boardwalk before it was time to get ready for dinner. This I think is one of the best views on the ship I kept saying I wanted to ride the carousel and never did. I’m just a kid at heart Johnny Rockets If you need a sugar rush, this place will take care of it for you We were going to zip line, but never got around to it before our zip line excursion in St Thomas. After that it seemed a little less exciting Playmakers was packed for the football games. Other than that it seemed like you could get a seat there whenever you wanted. I was going to try it for lunch one day, but never got around to it. Dinner tonight was also in the solarium. We weren’t overly impressed with the main dining room the first couple of nights so we decided to try something different. Most of our group really enjoyed the dinner here. For me it wasn’t really my thing. The food was fine, I’m just more of a meat and potatoes kind of a guy. After dinner we had reservations for Hiro. I was a little nervous about the show being cancelled as throughout the day we had some motion on the ship. After all the shows being cancelled on Harmony last year I really wanted to see this. It didn’t get cancelled and I thought the show was awesome. I didn’t get very many good pictures, but here are a few Lovetocruise2002, The Cruise Junkie, tdcackler and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 Day 4 - St Kitts our first port day brought us to St Kitts. We originally wanted to do The Boss which is and underwater scooter thing in St Thomas but it was sold out. Since we couldn’t do that we decided to do zip lining in St Thomas and Snuba in St Kitts. None of us have ever done something like this before. At first it was hard to get the hang of it. I had to get some more weight added to me as I couldn’t get down very far. Once that happened it was a little easier. It was a little painful on the ears with the pressure as you went down, but overall it was a cool first time experience. I would have liked there to be some more coral and fish as there wasn’t really much to see. We did some local shopping as we always like to get a little something from everywhere we visit. i found this hilarious Here is where we did Snuba. Nothing special This guy really wanted a coconut Who doesn’t need a few monkeys?? It was then time to depart. I wanted to get a few shots since it was a night departure. We had always left ports during the daylight before Since I was out went ahead and got a few other photos. The Abyss looks really cool at night And the boardwalk has a beautiful view as well There were some cool sculptures in the Windjammer for dinner We had a little time after dinner before our reservations for 1977(the ice skating show), so we stopped by the promenade for the 80’s party. It was quite a bit of fun. I was really impressed with 1977. As many others have mentioned the drones at the beginning were quite amazing. I also thought the skaters were able to do quite well for being on a moving ship with a pretty small sheet of ice. After that it was pretty late so it was time for bed. Had this in the room waiting for us Skigoofy, JLMoran and Lovetocruise2002 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjac Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 On 1/16/2019 at 10:15 PM, LandstromCruise said: Not sure what’s going on here: Ah yes. That's what is known as a food coma. JLMoran and Lovetocruise2002 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjac Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 On 1/16/2019 at 10:15 PM, LandstromCruise said: Not sure if this video will work Good job! But, I thought the pointy end of the board went first, not the blunt back end. That could be why she wiped out. Looks like she had fun though. If I tried that, I probably wouldn't be able to move well for a couple of days...even after copious amounts of alcohol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 Just now, rjac said: Ah yes. That's what is known as a food coma. All I could come up with was... Chairs hogs took all seats except one. "Honey we have to share the chair." or "Doh! I forgot sunscreen." "No worries honey, I'll protect you." rjac, JLMoran, LandstromCruise and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjac Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 1 minute ago, twangster said: All I could come up with was.. Not sure what it was but, check out the hand grip in the lower right of the photo. Talk about a death grip...what ever that couple was doing definitely got that persons attention. Perhaps loud snoring or extreme flatulence which can be a by product of the food coma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 3 minutes ago, rjac said: Not sure what it was but, check out the hand grip in the lower right of the photo. Talk about a death grip...what ever that couple was doing definitely got that persons attention. Perhaps loud snoring or extreme flatulence which can be a by product of the food coma. Bookmark 101 for brief pauses to photograph the wild nature around you. SpeedNoodles 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTE Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 Thanks Have enjoyed following along Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 Day 5 - St. Thomas In my opinion this is the best island I have been to so far in the Caribbean. It was just beautiful. We had to get off the ship first thing in the morning as we had a zip line excursion booked. This excursion was high above Megan’s Bay and just had some amazing views! Our tour guides were two young females and they were both informative and funny. Our guides said this island behind Megan’s Bay is for sale for $25M. You just can’t build commercially on it. I’m thinking as soon as I win the powerball I’m buying it and a boat to get back and forth to St Thomas to get my food and I’m out of here! iguanas were just hanging out everywhere And another shirt I just had to take a picture of. We did a little shopping after our excursion and then headed back to the ship. We had no shows booked for the evening so it was going to be a relaxing night. Trying to decide what we were going to do for dinner I stopped up to check out the buffet. After seeing this dessert table and the red velvet cake, I was sold. Windjammer it is! Then just took a few random photos: Central Park at night Solarium at night Piano man spotted in the elevator I noticed this on day 1, but decided to take a picture this night. Our room was 9253. The one sign was in the hallway by the stairwell, and the other was in the room corridor. The room numbers on the stairwell sign were wrong and it was quite confusing the first time or two going to the room Since we didn’t really have anything planned for the night we just watched the family fued show in On Air, and then went to Love & Marriage in the theater. Both were pretty funny. I have heard several people talk about Bobby the cruise director on here. My opinion was he was just ok. I felt the live & marriage show probably could have been a little better with a funnier cruise director, but he was ok. JLMoran, mom2mybugs, Lovetocruise2002 and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 Day 6 - Sea Day It was a little windy today so wasn’t great for relaxing out by the pool. So today we just relaxed and walked around checking different things out. My wife and others in my party decided we would take stairs all the time instead of elevators. One thing it allowed was for me to get some pictures of the neat artwork in the stairwells. I don’t think I got all of them, but pretty sure I saw all of them at one point or another. Here are some: I really didn’t know what to think of this one: It was the second formal night so we decided to eat in the MDR for dinner. As seemed to be routine on this trip I was really bad at taking pictures of the food before we ate. I did manage to get my French Onion Soup. As you can tell, this one looks much better than the one I had a few days earlier. I’m not a lobster fan so I decided to pay the $16 extra and get a Chops Grille Filet. It was really good. After dinner we had reservations to see Flight. I was really excited for this show after reading @twangster‘s review on it, and it did not disappoint. I was really impressed with the props they used for this show. This was probably my favorite of all the shows onboard. It was then bedtime. This was awaiting us: Lovetocruise2002, JLMoran, mom2mybugs and 1 other 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjac Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 11 minutes ago, LandstromCruise said: neat artwork in the stairwells. Yes! We always take the stair cases just to check out and enjoy the art work.....and burn off some calories! Thanks for the photos, they are great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovetocruise2002 Posted January 20, 2019 Report Share Posted January 20, 2019 I am loving the art on Symphony! Can't wait to see it in July! Thanks for posting. FlowBro Ty 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 21, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Day 7 - Nassau we had a short port day scheduled for Nassau(10-3:30). If we had longer I probably would have booked the water park at Atlantis, but felt this wouldn’t provide us enough time to enjoy it. Instead we booked a Segway tour at Blue Lagoon Island. I had never been on a Segway before, but it was pretty fun and relatively easy to figure out. The downside of the tour was we were given a 1:30 timeframe for the tour which was supposed to be 45 minutes to an hour. However, we had to be back on the ferry at 2:15 so we were very rushed to make our ferry or we could have been left stranded. And yes we booked through RCI, but they still rushed us. The island is pretty small but absolutely gorgeous. The aqua color of the water was just amazing! Atlantis: Our ship is bigger than your ship! Probably the funniest part of the whole trip. As I mentioned we were in a hurry at the end of the Segway tour, however my Uncle decided he was going to try and hurry and get a picture of his daughter on her Segway while we was still on his. Lesson learned, this is why you don’t text and drive a Segway... 49091B3F-C894-49A7-BA67-F96ACDA8B12C.MOV JLMoran, Lovetocruise2002, FlowBro Ty and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 21, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Day 7 continued: we rushed back to the ship as it was getting close to all aboard time. There was a long line to get on the ship. We weren’t even at the end of it and we didn’t get on the ship until about 3:45. I think with such a short time in port it is tough to get everyone back on by 3:30 as I think a lot of the excursions all end at the same time. When we got back on decided to go to Park Cafe for a Kummelweck sandwich. I think everyone had the same idea as it was packed. After that we decided to go start packing before dinner. I think I must have been really depressed as this was the last picture I took: mom2mybugs 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 21, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Debarkation our flight was out of FLL, but not until 12:55 so we had plenty of time to get off the ship. We slept in a little, had some breakfast, and just walked around the ship a bit. Around 9 we decided it was time to leave, even though I didn’t want to. Was a pretty easy process to find our luggage even though one of mine was at the wrong number. Luckily I happened to spot it. A quick glance at a screen to do facial recognition through customs and we were outside. It was quite a mess outside the port. I was originally thinking we would try and get an Uber, but ended up just doing a shuttle for $20/person. It was a quick ride and we were at the airport and through security in plenty of time. Lovetocruise2002 and Susie 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 21, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Final thoughts: I really loved the Symphony. She is very similar to Harmony, but I love these Oasis class ships and was glad we chose to go on this trip. These are not complaints, but more observations: 1. The chair hogs were out in full force. I know this is something difficult for RC to manage as if someone is in the pool and have there stuff on a chair I think that is fine. But when people just leave a towel on the chair and are off eating lunch or doing whatever that is just rude to the other guests. 2. There was a huge company group of about 1200 people on this cruise. Many times they had different areas of the ship reserved and off limits to everyone else such as the boardwalk one night, the solarium one night, and others. I know RC is in the business of making money and I am sure this company paid a good amount to reserve these spots. It is just a bummer for everyone else on the ship when you go to do something to find out it’s closed. 3. The food and service in the MDR I thought was a little worse than what I experienced on Harmony last year. Those are not complaints as I didn’t let any of it ruin my vacation and I still had an amazing time and would book this ship again. It is now time though to really start planning our Alaska cruise in July. I am looking forward to being on a smaller ship(radiance) to see the difference between that and the Oasis Class. If you are thinking of booking this ship, YOLO, DO IT! JLMoran, WAAAYTOOO, mom2mybugs and 3 others 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovetocruise2002 Posted January 21, 2019 Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 @LandstromCruise thanks for blogging this! Makes me more excited for July! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTE Posted January 21, 2019 Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Just now, Lovetocruise2002 said: @LandstromCruise thanks for blogging this! Makes me more excited for July! Totally agree!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 21, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 You’re welcome! Sorry it ended up not being live and I probably missed a bunch of stuff, but I know you will love this ship. Let me know if you have any questions and if I can I will answer them. Lovetocruise2002 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2mybugs Posted January 21, 2019 Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Thank you so much for all your comments and pictures! Can’t wait to get on allure and try the oasis class! Jane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedNoodles Posted January 21, 2019 Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 10 hours ago, LandstromCruise said: Day 6 - Sea Day It was a little windy today so wasn’t great for relaxing out by the pool. So today we just relaxed and walked around checking different things out. My wife and others in my party decided we would take stairs all the time instead of elevators. One thing it allowed was for me to get some pictures of the neat artwork in the stairwells. I don’t think I got all of them, but pretty sure I saw all of them at one point or another. Here are some: I really didn’t know what to think of this one: @twangster Maybe I'm alone here, but I see this and think "Phoebe Buffet: Gladys and Glynnis". It'll definitely be on my items for Scavenger Hunt on Symphony next year. Great blog, THANKS for sharing your experience! I hope your Uncle didn't bruise anything other than his ego on that Segway blunder! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LandstromCruise Posted January 21, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 4 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said: Maybe I'm alone here, but I see this and think "Phoebe Buffet: Gladys and Glynnis". It'll definitely be on my items for Scavenger Hunt on Symphony next year. Great blog, THANKS for sharing your experience! I hope your Uncle didn't bruise anything other than his ego on that Segway blunder! Haha. I agree about the Phoebe comment. And yes the only thing bruised was my uncles ego. Stuff like that always seems to happen to him. SpeedNoodles and WAAAYTOOO 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLMoran Posted January 21, 2019 Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Thanks for the really great blog and photos! I especially loved seeing all the stairway art! Some of it I remember from other blogs on Symphony, but a lot of new items here as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlowBro Ty Posted January 21, 2019 Report Share Posted January 21, 2019 Thanks For This Great Blog @LandstromCruise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Gadwa Posted January 22, 2019 Report Share Posted January 22, 2019 Thanks for the blog & photos. Enjoyed!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotleyCruiser Posted January 31, 2019 Report Share Posted January 31, 2019 On 1/20/2019 at 4:39 PM, Lovetocruise2002 said: I am loving the art on Symphony! Can't wait to see it in July! Thanks for posting. we'll be on July 13!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lovetocruise2002 Posted January 31, 2019 Report Share Posted January 31, 2019 3 hours ago, MotleyCruiser said: we'll be on July 13!! Two weeks after you MotleyCruiser 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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