MY TRANSATLANTIC ON SYMPHONY FROM MIAMI TO BARCELONA - GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

[ManhattanWilliam]

I was on the March cruise from Miami to Barcelona (my 4th transatlantic with RC) in a balcony stateroom and thought the food in the main dining room was horrible. Like a wedding banquet at a Hamptons Inn. I went twice and that was it. Cold, uninspired, rushed service, nothing enticing at all, including the famous lobster tail.  It tasted ok but was served on a plate that looked like it had been prepared 2 hours earlier. Does Royal Caribbean really think we won't notice? I actually found the room service food was better than the main dining room, at least it was fresh. The Bolognese and chicken tenders with fries room service are always very good. The buffet? REPETITIVE. Solarium Bistro? REPETITIVE. Hysterical that they only have Cream Brulee, prosciutto and blue cheese in the Solarium and not the main buffet. Now I had 2 dinners at Chopps Grille and one at 150 Central Park, and all three were outstanding. If I cruise with RC again (which is likely) I will add the unlimited specialty dining because the dining room food is a very bad joke. And they removed the juices from Sorrentos and Cafe Promenade! They only had water (and without the sliced oranges or cucumbers that I loved so much). But ONLY water once the restaurants closed, or coffee and tea, no more juices. NOT a superior cruise experience by any stretch of the imagination. The good points of the cruise were the entertainment (Hairspray was fantastic) and the cabins are among the best as well as the room steward, but otherwise? After Hairspay which started at 8 and ended at 9:30, where were you supposed to eat? The freaking Johnny Rockets closed at 10! It was outrageous. Buffet closed, dining rooms closed, so if you didn't have an early reservation for dinner you needed to grab buffet food at 6pm or order room service, I couldn't believe it. I hate being what we call "nickel and dimed" where you see small annoying reductions that save little and ruin the experience. How much does it cost to slice up a cucumber and add it to water? I'm hearing the NCL (which has always had fantastic food) are cutting way back. And on a HUGE ship like Symphony, they had the band playing in the Promenade and people were dancing there blocking the aisles! WHY not have a dedicated space for dancing for people? On a huge ship like with all those sea days, this you put the band in the promenade and no space for people to dance? So stupid. Overall it was a GOOD experience but most assuredly NOT a great one. I will only rebook when special prices are available, and that's that.

[CanHardlyWait]

If that turns out to be my upcoming experience, I won't even consider another. At any price. Thanks for your honest review. (As sick to my stomach as it has made me with 2 weeks to go) LOL.

[SweetPea]

Your main dining comments are spot on with what Ben&David reviewed on YouTube (also on your Symphony TA). But i think this mediocrity is to push people to premium/up charge options instead. 

We all understand the financial pressures cruise lines are under, given their prolonged shut down. But there is only so much folks can take in escalating prices for a lesser product as cruise lines try to recoup those losses. 

[Xaa]

It sounds like that cruise was horrible.  I wonder what the story is with the MDR.  It's not really a cost cutting move to deliver cold food.  I suppose there could be a labor savings, but I suspect this cruise had some other major MDR issue.  I'm not hearing fleetwide or even continuing issues on Symphony of this magnitude.

While there is always a compliant here and there around this, but the volume centered to one cruise indicates something.  They'll never tell us what, so we'll never know.

I'm really glad I wasn't on it.

[Biaggio]

I was on the same cruise and agree with everything Manhattan William posted. Ate once in the MDR and that was enough for us. Didn’t do any specialty dinning, went to the windjammer which was acceptable at best. 6 more RCL cruises booked, hope it gets better. 

[Pattycruise]

The dancing on the promenade is typical on a lot of ships with the promenade.  I was on Rising  Tide bar for one of the parties , they stopped the bar while we were elevated and I enjoyed the party from above.  I was glad I didn’t need a bathroom.  I think they needed to utilize that space since the other venues were too small and were running other events.  Overall I thought they did a good job with the entertainment and space utilization.  I will say I was disappointed they didn’t run the shows more often as they followed a 7 day sailing schedule and it was like the 2nd week didn’t exist, aside from the make up shows that occurred for Aqua.

I agree with the MDR but we stuck it out-table of 10 solos so it was our time to catch up on the day and upcoming evening plans.  We had a head waiter practically babysitting us by the end of the week with all of our complaints.   We should have had him pull up a chair and eat with us so he could have a better understanding of the complaints.  It amazed me that the food quality and temperature didn’t improve with our babysitter. 

[CanHardlyWait]

2 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

 It amazed me that the food quality and temperature didn’t improve with our babysitter. 

See that's just sad. 

[GJ_123]

 

@ManhattanWilliam We recently sailed on Symphony. We had a very nice time overall but I agree we had a similar experience with a lot of the stuff you've mentioned. The buffet selection was very repetitive and the worst I've seen on RC. They didn't have the 'theme' night at the buffet on this one either which I thought was disappointing, at least it made things feel a bit more interesting if you regularly go to the buffet which we did. They also removed the hot pudding selection which I thought was a bit odd. We were on Odyssey last year and the hot puddings were delicious!

I also noticed the no juice at cafe/Sorrentos, strange decision to only have water available! I don't know if you found this but it was the worst queues I've ever seen at the cafe/Sorrentos (and I don't even think the ship was that busy!). I wonder if it's because the cafe has a poor system as most people are only queuing for tea/coffee but when someone walks down for a sandwich or fruit they are accused of cutting the line!

I agree also with the timings. They need to look at dining options more closely when they are offering shows/entertainment. I think it's a joke the buffet closes at 9pm. It should be open till about 11pm! 11am even seems a bit stingy for the breakfast to end, and it doesn't help that everyone piles in about 10:30am and the place is so busy. Also why does lunch start at 11:30am? There are a lot of things RC needs to look at.

[Xaa]

29 minutes ago, GJ_123 said:

11am even seems a bit stingy for the breakfast to end, and it doesn't help that everyone piles in about 10:30am and the place is so busy. Also why does lunch start at 11:30am? There are a lot of things RC needs to look at.

I also wish the Buffet was open a bit later.  On the breakfast switch over to lunch, those times are really pretty standard switch over times in America.

[deButler]

8 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

I agree with the MDR but we stuck it out-table of 10 solos so it was our time to catch up on the day and upcoming evening plans.  We had a head waiter practically babysitting us by the end of the week with all of our complaints.   We should have had him pull up a chair and eat with us so he could have a better understanding of the complaints.  It amazed me that the food quality and temperature didn’t improve with our babysitter. 

 

23 hours ago, ManhattanWilliam said:

I was on the March cruise from Miami to Barcelona (my 4th transatlantic with RC) in a balcony stateroom and thought the food in the main dining room was horrible. ….      
    Overall it was a GOOD experience but most assuredly NOT a great one. 

We also crossed on this trip and agree 100% with the MDR reviews. This has been BY FAR the biggest disappointment since we restarted our cruising this year post COVID. Overall we really enjoyed the trip, meeting so many fabulous new friends and getting started again in the traveling that my wife so dearly LOVES. She is now totally hooked on Trans-Atlantics and we are currently onboard Explorer doing our 2nd crossing in 2 months. I will say that the food experience here on Explorer has been MUCH Better than what we had on Symphony last month. Maybe being familiar with the new menu, knowing which dishes to order, and which NOT to get has helped.