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Thanking my lucky STARS that cruising is back (a Symphony Star Class family blog)


Tiffeven

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We are still yet to learn our lesson about jinxing ourselves.  Steven bragged that 2.5 hours is the longest we've driven with kids without a bathroom stop... 5 seconds later Nyssa yells "I got to go potty" which was, of course, echoed by Kat.  Two bathroom stops in less than 10 minutes... we should hopefully make it there by Saturday lol.

Edit: make that a third stop 10 minutes later haha

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Looking for some advice.  We seem to always do Western Caribbean itineraries and have visited most of the ports so many times that we don't even get off the ship usually.  This year most of our cruises are Eastern Caribbean, so we are going to venture off the ship in port.  Since the kids are not old enough to get vaccinated, they can't get off the ship unless it's a Royal Caribbean port excursion.  Doing a long excursion or an excursion where we can't just leave when we want is not really our style especially with kids, so we are looking for some advice on things for Steven and me to do in St. Thomas and St. Maartin.  We don't want to be off the ship away from the kids for too long, so we are looking for something that is doable in two hours where we won't feel like we are rushing off and missing stuff.  In St. Thomas, we were thinking about Skyride to Paradise Point or Mountain Top, but we are also open to other ideas.  We would like to be able to shop a little bit, take some nice pictures of the view, and of course eat some local cuisine.  If you have any advise on these two locations or any other locations you recommend, please let us know.  Also, if anyone can advise how long it takes to get to these, it would be much appreciated.  The same goes for St. Maartin, please let me know of any recommendations and also how long it takes to get to from port.

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My recommendation for St. Maarten is do Maho Beach.  You can easily grab a taxi at the port and they also have them at Maho Beach to get a ride back. There's a little beach bar right next to the beach. This beach is the beach right at the end of the airport runway so you can watch planes takeoff and land and it's scarily close to the folks at the beach. It's probably a 20-30 minute ride each way to Maho and you can stay as long or little as you want and catch a cab back for around $10 each way.

There's also the water taxi that takes you to the walkable shopping area if you don't want to venture that far from the port.

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Adding on to @AshleyDillo‘s comments about SXM - if you’re comfortable with the walk over the water taxi you can also walk over to the downtown area pretty easily. There’s a cheese shop on the way that sells Gouda to bring back to the ship, and there’s a little museum in the downtown area that’s run by the guy that developed Yoda from Star Wars and has a little museum sharing all of his movie memorabilia. Cool stop for something a little different!  

Most of the restaurants in that area I believe will also let you use their beach chairs if you order food/drinks - but I could also be mistaken. 

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@AshleyDillo and @KLA thank you both very much for jogging our memories.  We have literally talked about doing both of those after reading it in other people's blogs but totally forgot about them since it's been so long.  I think we are leaning towards Maho Beach this trip and downtown and the museum run by the Yoda man on our trip in November.

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We drove until we had about 5 hours left on the drive for tomorrow.  We also made sure we stopped before we passed Buc-ee's so we could make that our first stop in the morning.  We ended up getting the first hotel we could find that was less than a 10 minute detour, sleeps six in one room, and has atleast 4 stars on google reviews.  We booked Hampton Inn and Suites Jacksonville South-Bartram Park.  It probably would not be the hotel I picked if I was doing more than a quick overnight stay on my way to a destination, but as a place to sleep for the night when you are tired, it doesn't seem too bad.  

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7 hours ago, Tiffeven said:

We drove until we had about 5 hours left on the drive for tomorrow.  We also made sure we stopped before we passed Buc-ee's so we could make that our first stop in the morning.  We ended up getting the first hotel we could find that was less than a 10 minute detour, sleeps six in one room, and has atleast 4 stars on google reviews.  We booked Hampton Inn and Suites Jacksonville South-Bartram Park.  It probably would not be the hotel I picked if I was doing more than a quick overnight stay on my way to a destination, but as a place to sleep for the night when you are tired, it doesn't seem too bad.  

I absolutely LOVE that Buc-ee's is a planned stop. So fun!! 

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3 hours ago, KLA said:

I absolutely LOVE that Buc-ee's is a planned stop. So fun!! 

We made friends with a couple on one of our other Star Class cruises.  They are from Texas and raved about Buc-ee's, so when we cruised out of Galveston on Enchantment before the shut down we made a detour to checkout Buc-ee's.   I was just going to walk in for a minute and let Steven know if it was as great as they claimed.  Within 5 seconds of walking in the store, I ran out to the car and told Steven he had to come see for himself.  Our five minute stop turned into two hours and we were still having to drag ourselves out.  Now, if we come anywhere close to a Buc-ee's, we always make it a priority stop.  They actually just announced last month, that they are building the world's biggest Buc-ee's about 30 minutes from our house in Sevierville, TN; and we are stoked!

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Final thoughts on Hampton Inn and Suites Jacksonville South-Bartram Park: 

It was your standard hotel nothing special.  The internet was slow and when I watched a YouTube video this morning, it spent the majority of the time buffering until we switched it to our phone's Hotspot instead.  They did offer an upgraded internet package which was an extra $5 a day, but we weren't there long enough to make it worth it.  We generally stay in hotels that offer suites with a separate bedroom so we have a space away from the kids, but since we were planning on only staying there long enough to sleep, we compromised on this.  It had two queen beds and a sleeper sofa.  The setup was different than most other hotels I have seen like this.  Instead of all three beds being next to each other, the sofa bed was across the room from the queen beds and there was a good bit of space in between which we appreciated as it gave the kids an area to play when we got ready this morning.

The showers had low water pressure and were slippery as they had no type of non-slip material on the floor.  I didn't wake up in the middle of the night, so the beds must not have been too bad.  They were firmer than I like, but Steven said they could have been firmer (we never agree on beds as he likes super firm and I prefer super soft, but as he said we usually compromise and get super soft 😜).

They offered a hot breakfast with pre-made cheese omelets, hashbrowns, yogurt, cereal, plain bagels, and make-it-yourself waffles (but they didn't have non-stick spray and the waffles needed it).  I can't attest to whether it was good or not since I opted for Starbucks instead.  Steven tried it and said it was just ok: not really good but not bad either.  Nyssa, of course, had something to say about the breakfast, well atleast she did about the froot loops.  She enthusiastically told us, "This is really good cereal."  As for the other part of her breakfast, she was quiet and just picked through it.

Overall, it was an ok hotel.  I would give it a 3 out of 5.  We might stay there if it were only to sleep; but for anything else, we would stay somewhere else.

 

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We ended up stopping at the Buc-ee's in Daytona Beach.  Our attempt to eat healthy today in preparation for the food coma of Star Class was thwarted by Buc-ee's.   We even stopped at Subway before to try to keep ourselves from going "full Tiff" at Buc-ee's, but it still didn't keep us from spending $100 on food at Buc-ee's (and that's not including the shirts I bought).  We had never tried the beaver nuggets, so we got some but it was a one and done for us on those.  No worries though as the beef jerky, jalapeno sausage kolaches, fresh chips, fudge, cinnamon cashews, fries, dippin dots, hot dogs, meat and cheese tray should keep us occupied for the next 4 hours of the drive.  Guess I should have sized up on the clothes I ordered for the cruise.

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37 minutes ago, Tiffeven said:

We ended up stopping at the Buc-ee's in Daytona Beach.  Our attempt to eat healthy today in preparation for the food coma of Star Class was thwarted by Buc-ee's.   We even stopped at Subway before to try to keep ourselves from going "full Tiff" at Buc-ee's, but it still didn't keep us from spending $100 on food at Buc-ee's (and that's not including the shirts I bought).  We had never tried the beaver nuggets, so we got some but it was a one and done for us on those.  No worries though as the beef jerky, jalapeno sausage kolaches, fresh chips, fudge, cinnamon cashews, fries, dippin dots, hot dogs, meat and cheese tray should keep us occupied for the next 4 hours of the drive.  Guess I should have sized up on the clothes I ordered for the cruise.

Ughhhhh I would loooooove some kolaches and cinnamon cashews right now. I've never actually been to a Buc-ee's, but having travelled to Texas for work I've had coworkers make the drive in and share their snacks with me. So good - so glad you had a fun stop there!!! 

Just had a conversation with husband about not eating the pastries in the kitchen because of all the pastries in the Windjammer in a few weeks. 

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We got an email this morning that our guest health questionnaire would be available later today.  It wasn't available this morning and I'm not sure exactly when it became available but I just noticed it was now showing up in the app.  I completed it for all of us.  It was very short, and I took screenshots for anyone wondering what was in it.

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19 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

You’re close to me !  I’m in Port St Lucie, only about 15 minutes south. Welcome to the Treasure Coast !

When we drove past Port St. Lucie we thought about you and your new house.  We also really wanted to stop at Club Med, but Symphony was calling.

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We arrived at our hotel around 9pm and doordashed Chipotle.  We are staying at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Airport/Blue Lagoon.  The front desk told us that it is about 25 minutes from the port.  So far it seems like your standard suite hotel, but I will comment more on it tomorrow after I have enough time to form a more complete opinion of the premises.  Until then, here are a few of the photos from the hotel for anyone interested. 

View from the hotel:

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The room (2 Queen Bed 1 Bedroom Suite):

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25 minutes ago, Traveler said:

Just came back from a ship night tour. The team is preparing the ship for you and started with the turn around clean ups. It's ready !

 

 

We are so excited!  It still seems so unreal.  Good luck on the transferring between cabins, but it will totally be worth it for Star Class. 

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Today is cruise day!  We decided to log into the app to see if the e-muster drill was available,  and it was.

You click on safety at the bottom of the screen to access it:

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Then you go through and click on any sections marked as incomplete; and upon completion, it changes to complete.  The only one we couldn't do was Step 3: Visit assembly station, but we will do that once we are onboard.  At the end, it also asked who on the reservation watched the safety drill, and I was able to click everyone on the reservation.  We have a split reservation since only four people can be on a reservation.   I went into the other reservation that consists of two of the kids, and everything was already marked as complete.

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Homewood Suites by Hilton Airport/Blue Lagoon was a nice hotel.  It was what you would expect from an entry level suite hotel.  It didn't have some of the bells and whistle of its upscale competition but we have no complaints from our stay.   Breakfast consisted of bacon, eggs, waffles, packaged strawberry pancakes, cereal, and fruit.  They were nice and allowed us to do late checkout when we asked for 30 extra minutes (thanks to searching for Kat's shoe that ended up still being in the car).  I would give it a 3.9 out of 5.

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Boarding:

Boarding was a mess to say the least and there was absolutely no social distancing despite the signage for it.  It was obvious they are still trying to figure out how to handle the new protocols.  Nobody in the terminal seemed to know what Star Class or a genie was.  We also did not get any Star Class boarding perks and went through the same lines as everyone else (other than the initial suite door to the terminal), but that may be due to the fact that we have children that required testing.  

Upon arriving at the terminal, we showed vaccination cards, negative tests, boarding passes (on phone), and passports.  Steven and I received our "Royal Comeback" bracelet that shows that we are vaccinated and the kids got a yellow bracelet which signified that they needed to be tested still.  We, then, got in line to have the kids tested.  This line only took about 5 minutes, but it would have taken longer if we wouldn't have pre-registered for the test.  The test was a little more invasive than the Walgreens one but not too bad.  We had to hold the babies for it, but they didn't cry.  After taking the test, we were allowed to check-in while waiting for results.  After going through check-in and security, we were told to wait in a sectioned off area on floor 3 for our results.  We were told we would get our results by email in 30 to 40 minutes, and then we could board after we received our negative results.  We waited for results for 55 minutes.  After we received the email, we were being escorted onboard by Sunil almost immediately.

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So sorry to hear about your check in process , I guess the genie power is limited to no exist until you past the test , they will need to do better and figure out how to handle this.  I can tell you that our B2B was also without any star benefits and we just went bent back by ourselves. But now I hope everything is behind you and you started to enjoy the cruise. 

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Day 1 continued:

After boarding, Sunil took us to our muster station, they scanned all of our sea passes, and we were done.  By far, easiest and quickest muster drill I've ever done.  Sunil, then, took us to our cabin where we got our room keys.  Sunil left and we went to ride the carousel and have lunch at Playmakers.  Unfortunately, it was kind of a let down.  The server was not attentive, acted as if we were putting him out, and made a snarky comment about how much food we ordered (had it been jokingly, I would have laughed along as we did have a lot of food but it came across as rude and like we were wasting his time).  At one point, a female server came up to us and asked if we needed anything and stopped and played with the little ones.  She genuinely seemed nice and I wish she would have been our waitress.  The food at Playmakers was just ok.  The kids had chicken tenders and fries, and they seemed to enjoy them.  Steven had Jamaican Jerk wings and Major (hottest) wings, and he said they were just ok.  He said they tasted like hot wings you would get at a pizza place.  I had the truffle burger, and I was not a fan.  It was so greasy that it fell apart when I picked it up and the taste wasn't great to me either.  I've had worse but I've definitely had better.  The Playmaker fries that came with it were on point though, and one of my two favorite things there.  The other being the Playmaker Sundae which did not disappoint.  We also had the onion ring tower (which tasted like typical onion rings),  buffalo crunch rolls (Steven said they were good not great but he'd eat them again), jalapeno poppers (we liked them but wish they had a little more cream cheese in them), and a campfire cookie (we were very full at this point but it tasted good from the little bit we had).

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10 hours ago, Tiffeven said:

 Nobody in the terminal seemed to know what Star Class or a genie was.  We also did not get any Star Class boarding perks and went through the same lines as everyone else (other than the initial suite door to the terminal), but that may be due to the fact that we have children that required testing.  

We have a SC cruise in April with an 8 year old. This is disturbing to read. I sure hope they figure out the boarding/testing thing for SC families. It’s RC so i’m guessing trial and error will have it figured out by then. 🙏🏻

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11 hours ago, Tiffeven said:

Nobody in the terminal seemed to know what Star Class or a genie was.  We also did not get any Star Class boarding perks and went through the same lines as everyone else (other than the initial suite door to the terminal)

That is definitely disappointing, but it might be as @Travelerand perhaps their "genie powers" don't extend to beyond the testing point.  Sort of like pre-covid, where their Genie powers were gone once you were back in main terminals (to collect your bags).

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1 hour ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Hmmm…sounds like a somewhat disappointing first day.  At least Sunil seemed to be attentive (although it was his failure at check-in, if you ask me).  I would have been completely unimpressed with SC if this was my first impression.  

Sunil did everything he could.  The genies were not allowed past a certain point in the terminal.  He was surprised to see that we arrived.  He told us that there is someone downstairs at the terminal that calls and lets the genies know when their guests arrive.  He told me they never told him, and he kept checking.  There was one person when you first entered the terminal that we were going to stop and ask who seemed like maybe she was the one who was possibly a contact point for suites and pinnacles.  It was directly after you enter the terminal and there was a large family who kept asking her questions and a family right beside her that was having a complete breakdown.  The wife was balling her eyes out and the husband kept telling her "I told you you needed that and you wouldn't listen.  The kids and I are just going to go without you."  I felt really bad for them, but I assume it probably had something to do with not reading all of the protocols.  This was distracting even for us (but to be fair I would be in tears if I found out I couldn't go on my cruise too), so maybe between this commotion we got missed by the genie's point of contact.  After another lady saw us waiting to talk to the lady who we thought may be the one we should talk to, the other lady came over and pretty much told us no, we need to go to testing.  I understand if they are trying to keep the kids separate who haven't tested in the terminal,, but why were we allowed to check-in with everyone else before receiving results?  It didn't quite make any sense.  After being shuffled around for awhile, I messaged Sunil on Whatsapp, and he immediately responded and even called trying to help where he could.  Unfortunately,  we had zero cellphone service in the terminal and did not notice that we had a missed message and two missed calls until we got to the end of the process and I was able to hook to wifi.  I do not blame Sunil at all.  Perhaps, we got unlucky or maybe the people at the terminal need more time to make it a smooth process.  If anyone else has any issues at check-in, I recommend reaching out to your genie and learn from our mistake and make sure you have cell reception for them to respond.

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Day 1 continued: registering for Adventure Ocean and Royal Babies and Tots

After Playmakers, we picked up Starbucks (delicious drinks and very friendly staff) and headed to register the kids for Adventure Ocean and Royal Babies and Tots.  This was really fast and the staff members were very friendly.  We were able to register all of the kids on the same tablet despite them being in different classes.  We were very happy that Sunil had reserved our hours after what they told us.  We asked them how many people were onboard, how many were children, and how many were allowed in Adventure Ocean and Royal Babies and Tots.  They told us that there was somewhere between 1,800 and 1,900 people onboard but they couldn't remember the exact number and that out of that 180 were kids.  They also said that they were only allowed 15 kids in Adventure Ocean at a time and 4 children in Royal Babies and Tots at a time.  They said they had to measure the room and add in the fact that they have to allow 6 feet between child.  About this time, Christian chimed in and asked about gaga ball (his favorite cruise activity that used to happen every night in Adventure Ocean after 10pm).  They told him unfortunately, they can't do gaga ball right now because of social distancing rules.  We also asked about the open play area that they generally have open through the day for parents to bring their little ones to play.  We were very disappointed to hear that this will remain closed during the cruise because of Covid protocols.  This was always a nice place to bring the little ones to run out their endless energy.  It was enclosed and we were able to sit on the side and watch the babies play.  I understand why it is closed, but it is still disappointing.

 

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Day 1 continued: Dinner

After registering the kids for Adventure Ocean, we returned to our cabin where we met our room attendant.  He seemed nice and by the books.  He let us know that he wasn't allowed in the room while we were there and asked us to put the "out catching thrills" magnet on the door anytime we leave.  We were planning on eating in Coastal Kitchen, but the babies were super fussy and we called and asked Sunil if we could have it delivered to our suites instead.  We gave him our order, and the food arrived in less than 30 minutes.  One of the few downsides to the aquatheater suites is sometimes food and coffee arrives tepid and ice cream arrives melted.  This was not the case for this meal.  The food was tasty and still hot.  When having food delivered right now, they let you bring the rolling tray into the room since they aren't allowed to enter with anyone present.  I asked him if it was ok if we all shut ourselves in a room and he set it up on the balcony.  He said that was fine.  After he left, the food was waiting for us on the balcony.  Unfortunately, it wasn't set up like they used to do.  Instead of a table cloth with the plates set out neatly, it was just plates stacked on top of each other.  While slightly disappointing, it probably wouldn't have been noticed had we not sailed Star Class before.  The filet mignon and ceasar salad were delicious as always.  While we missed eating in Coastal Kitchen, I think this was a much better decision than going there with tired, fussy toddlers.

 

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