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Symphony, Feb 25, 2023


WAYNO

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An uneventful but wonderful trip thus far.  Today is Feb 28th and we will be touring St. Maarten.  I've been here a few times, but I forget... This will be a whole new experience all over again.  I'll try posting photos.  WiFi has been very intermittent and slow when it does work .

 

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Because the WiFi is very unstable and slow, the previous 3 photos took 30+ minutes to upload.  It hinders me from sharing more photos.  

This then is a good time to ramble... This ship is exquisite.  I've been on multiple other vessels of this class, and they are wonderful too, but this ship is the grandest of them all.  

We've been busy enough that we've only used the Main Dining Room once.    And that meal was scrumptious.  And because we were rushing to meet a show, the wait staff helped expedite the meal.  That was appreciated.

We attended the ice show.  It was the best ever.  It's hard to imagine improving, but they did.

We also saw the show Hairspray.  The performance was great, but overall it was not a show I'll return to see again.

To be continued...

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Ferry to St. John Island  The boat was in rough shape, stinky and very loud.  But apparently it's all they have.  A local acquaintance called our boat  the noisy green one.  45 minutes later we got on a converted pickup that hauls up to 18 people.  It was a very decent and well narrated tour of St. John Island.

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I am now home.  Our flight was cancelled.  Delta did get us home a day later, but they were not easy in doing so.  But that's another story.🤐

Today is Monday morning, up at 4 AM with a jet-lagged brain saying it's really  7 o'clock.😴 

This cruise was terrific and wonderful.  Here are some random thoughts, post-cruise. 

The cruise port in Miami is grand and beautiful.  We were of course early, but they ushered us right through and onto the ship in short order.  A perk of having a Junior Suite.  I've cruised from Miami before, but for whatever reason, I don't recognize this cruise port facility.  Maybe it's new since I've last been here?

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We brought our adult Son with us this time and he had a Balcony Suite of his own.  Our two rooms were casino comps, so we had to twist the bookings to make it work.  On paper, my Wife and Son shared the comp'd Balcony Suite and I had the Junior Suite alone.  In reality, of course my Wife and I were in the Junior Suite.  I don't understand all the differences between Junior Suites, but this one was somewhat larger than other Junior Suites.  And it was quite perfect.  In addition to the sofa bed, it had a bed that pulled out of the ceiling.  I didn't know such a bed even existed.  We usually get well acquainted with our stateroom attendants, but not this time, other than her greeting when we passed her in the hallway.  And the extra service lacked, at least a little bit.  The room was quite clean, but extras, such as paper products especially, remained in short supply.  Simple things, like a box of tissue in the bathroom as well as on our desk in the suite itself, was not to happen.  To have facial  tissue in the bathroom, our only choice was to keep a partial roll of toilet paper on the counter next to the sink.  The attendant never picked up on this.  And one day, some munchkins apparently turned our "out having an adventure" door magnet over, so it instead said "sleeping in".  So we received no attendant service while we were out.  We learned later, a long bunch of rooms surrounding ours also had the magnets turned over.  That must've made for an easy day for the room attendant. 

More to follow so I can insert photos where they're easier explained...

 

 

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You'd think that with as innovative as Royal is, they'd come up with something better than door tags at this point to alert the cabin attendant. On Norwegian, you indicate 'DND' v. 'Service room, please' from the inside of your cabin and that displays outside, right next to your door. No gremlin can change it and there is no risk of it being stolen or falling off the door handle. 

I thought Junior Suites were excluded from the one a day housekeeping edict, but it certainly sounds like your service suffered. I can only hope pax are being honest in their post cruise surveys.

Sorry the wifi didn't cooperate. That does seem to be a prolific live blog theme lately, and i hope Royal figures that out soon. 

But welcome home and thanks again for taking us along!

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More...

 

I'm not bothered by movement in a boat, but I've gotta say, this ship was a rocker and a roller most of the time, and the seas were not rough.  For my boy, it was his first cruise.  It did bother him a lot.  When I talk with new cruisers, they often ask about sea sickness, and I always say it's overrated to non-existent.  I think this cruise will cause me to not downplay that so much. 

 

The theatre shows.  I was very disappointed with the two we saw.  Hairspray.  The performers were great, but the story line was not entertaining.  To each his own.

Same with the show, Flight, Dare to Dream.  I hoped this would have been an aviation documentary, but it was not.  They spent an extended part of a scene, portraying a fully garbed Nun, drinking and cavorting on an airliner.  It was so unnecessary and completely out of place, it caused me to want to leave the show.  They had technical difficulties and the show ended early.  As above, the performers were great. 

There was a Veteran's tribute on the Promenade.  For the most part it was great, until it became a tribute to the Skipper and the crew.  That was the wrong place for that, and it really bothered many of the Veteran's attending. 

The Main Dining Room.  We ate a total of 3 meals there.  The food we ate, as well as the service, was as good as the best I've ever had on a ship.  And as I said earlier, we only ate 3 meals there, as I just could not get interested in the menu changes.  In the survey later, I still didn't see a place where they specifically asked, or even wanted to know, what we thought of the new offerings.  Not wanting to discount my praise of the food we ate or of the service, I rated everything a 10, and now they'll think their menu changes are wonderful.  Sad part too, we ate the balance of our meals at the Windjammer.  The food quality wasn't bad, but the choices were very poor.  Carved beef and/or minute steaks were only offered once.  And pork chops, once.   Every other meal there, to me, was the same.  Hamburger patties and hot dogs.  The service in the Windjammer was also, actually, pathetic.  Drinks, over and above tea,  pseudo lemonade, and water, are not available within the Windjammer, so a server must fetch other drinks.  If a server never finds his way to your table, you won't get any drinks if you don't get them yourself, elsewhere.  I will say however, breakfasts at the Windjammer remain as great as ever.  I'm into comfort breakfast foods, and those choices abound!

I also mentioned earlier, problems at the Dog Hut on the Boardwalk.  I did speak with a manager, and surprisingly, they knew full well of these continuing problems, and just cannot get them solved.  Simple enough for me, I didn't go back. 

The Promenade had returned to the ways of past Promenades, and I very much enjoyed and appreciated that.  It was a vibrant and exciting atmosphere with a lot of entertainment, as well as the never ending sales tables, which surprisingly, I had also missed. 

I try to visit the Chapel on a ship at least once on a cruise.  I never found one on Symphony. 

The Casino... I get my rooms thru the Casino's and I know them pretty well.  I think this Casino was the largest of any onboard Casino I've ever seen.  It was nice, with a ton of newer machines.  It was however very smoky, and there were almost never enough servers throughout the gaming areas.  Often I'd have to go to their bar, or elsewhere, to get a drink, which in my case is almost always just a soft drink.  I still tipped heavily, over and above the multiple tiers of prepaid gratuities, just to keep these guys coming.  Still didn't work.  I also witnessed an awful altercation directed at a lady from another male gambler at a table.  It went on for minutes, the screaming and flipping off, and the foul language.  And the casino, the dealer, and the manager did nothing.  It was bad enough, I told the manager to call somebody to address the problem, and he still did nothing.  Eventually it settled down, until this customer was done at that table, and he started in all over again as he left.  Nothing was ever done.  Anywhere else, he would have been eighty-sixed.

 

We nearly always pay for a sight seeing excursion at every port.  No different this time.  And more often than not, the tours are purchased from the ship.  We were on a tour bus in St. Maarten.  The bus operator spoke such heavy Creole, he was not understandable.  And that was the few times he did speak.  Mostly he sped thru any given area, said nothing, and would not slow for picture taking.  And he did not go through Maho Beach.  So back at the port, we hired a cab, and the lady driver was delightful.  She gave us the personal tour we so desire, and she took us to Maho Beach, and waited as long as necessary until we could see a couple planes land.  Total cost, 70-bucks American.  And worth every cent of the tip, over and above that cost . 

 

Next stop, St. Thomas USVI.  My boy picked out the tour, and I was a little surprised to find us boarding a a passenger ferry.  The direction from the tour ushers was nearly non-existent, and our tours as well as other folks' tours were all huddled together with no further direction.  We were lost.  Enough people with similar wrist bands thought we were going the right way, so we followed the crowd.  Again, I had no idea this was a boat excursion.  Cut to the chase, this was a boat taking us 45 minutes away to another island,  Once at St. John, we boarded  a converted people-hauler pickup truck, and from then on, it was a wonderful tour.  Speaking of the passenger ferry, again, it was rough.  And this is the ferry that folks rely on daily to travel throughout the islands.  St. John Island has no hospital, high school, or most other amenities or services, so these ferries are used extensively with no down-time.  Understandable they are so rough.

 

It's breakfast time.  I'll compile more thoughts.😋

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43 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

 

I thought Junior Suites were excluded from the one a day housekeeping edict, but it certainly sounds like your service suffered. I can only hope pax are being honest in their post cruise surveys.

 

Actually, yes we did have multiple cabin services each day.  The day we were forgotten, was a long day, so when we got back late to no towels or other services, our attendant did return that evening to make our bed and provide new towels.  We're easy on the cabin, so there are really few other services necessary other than empty the trash and provide hygiene paper, which remained barely provided.   I don't know if Royal has caused the attendants to be so cheap with toilet paper and Kleenex, or if this gal took it upon herself to save the company some money.🤔

 

And ya know, I think they've abbreviated the survey.  There's really nowhere to enter such thoughts to the survey.  After you rate the service 1 thru 10, further information is not asked.  By the time you've realized that you could've/should've proved more thoughts, the survey said I was done. 

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1 hour ago, Ampurp85 said:

Did they change some of the story for Hairspray? If I recall from the movie, it was always a sort of "woke" message.

I have not seen the movie, so I am unable to answer.🤔 

But in fairness, I just read the Cliff's Notes version of the movie.  The version on the ship was quite close to the movie. 

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