A Tale of Two Cruises - Connecting Balconies to Ultimate Family Suite B2B - Symphony W. Med 8/20 - 9/3

[berkeleykel]

Clearly this has turned into a post-trip report rather than a live blog, but I’ll keep plugging away. 
 

Finally, Week 2, Day 1 - Welcome to Star Class

Just in case someone else ever does a back to back in Barcelona non-star class —> Star Class I’m going to go into a lot of detail here on the process so please bear with me.

We received a note in our room a couple of days before the end of Week 1 advising us how the process would work for moving rooms and going through immigration. We were told to vacate the balcony rooms by 9 am and to meet at Schooner Bar by 9:30 to receive our new sea pass cards. Windjammer supposedly finished up breakfast service at 8:30, but I knew that was a lie told to Barcelona disembarkers to hurry them off, so we strolled into Windjammer around 8:30, then arrived at Schooners close to 9:30. We had left our luggage packed up in our room before we left for breakfast and told our room attendant our new cabin number for him to have the bags moved. 

I’d estimate around 30 people were at Schooner Bar for the consecutive cruisers hand-off. We were handed our new sea pass cards as well as Star Class bands and around 9:45 am were led down to the gangway together as a group to have our old sea pass cards swiped to “exit” and new sea pass cards swiped to “enter,” although we never had to step outside the ship. The crew in charge of the consecutive cruisers processed us first since we were Star Class, but I don’t think this was official policy or anything. The ship was still very crowded at that point and deck 5 was a bit chaotic, but the process took all of 1 minute and we were free to go.

Our genie had given us his WhatsApp info already so we had texted in advance that we’d let him know when our consecutive cruiser process was done so we could meet up. Here we hit a snag, however, as apparently our internet packages for week 1 ended at 9:30 am, but our new packages for week 2 didn’t let us log in until after 10 am. Not super well thought through. In the meantime I sat in Schooners cursing the Wi-Fi.  I could also go on a rant here about Brexit and the fact that my UK data no longer works in the EU, but I’ll spare you. 

When we were back online I texted the genie and he was to Schooners within 10 mins to collect us and take us to the room! We made it just before 10:30 am, so early that they hadn’t delivered the welcome snack yet, although the spot for it had been set up.

The room was a complete surprise to the kids and they went pretty crazy over the slide. 

[berkeleykel]

While the kids were trying to kill themselves on the slides and enjoying the legos and video games, I took some detailed photos around the room. 
 

First downstairs, including the downstairs bathroom when you first enter the room. Yes the fridge (which is across from the bathroom at the entrance) is no where near the mini bar; yes it’s really annoying. 

The Legos are a mix of small (normal size) and large (toddler size) so they worked great for our 7 and 2 year olds. 

The top of the dining table comes off to turn into an air hockey table, although the power is a bit weak and the table too was really heavy to lift and move.

The controls for the blinds and lights deserve their own post. I had to have help from the stateroom attendants (whom l did not see for several hours, so we were stuck with closed blinds for a while). To open the blinds, you have to select and the unselect the blind you want to open/close. This only operated the long heavy blinds. The thin layer was manual, as were the blinds upstairs by the master bedroom. 

Chalk was provided for the chalkboard wall running behind the dining table. 

[berkeleykel]

Now the upstairs. 
 

the kids bunk beds had these large thick orange sides you could add to prevent rolling off the side. My 7 year old still didn’t quite feel safe up there without anything between his head and the slide, so he ended up sleeping on the sofa which converts to a bed. We left it as a bed the full week since there wasn’t really a need for a sofa up there. 

The master bath has double rain shower heads.  
 

I swore I took a photo of the kids bathroom but apparently not. I liked the decor but it was a bit hard to give them a bath with the tub tucked into the corner.  There was also a weird TV like thing in the mirror except it didn’t seem to play anything. 

[ckruetze]

9 hours ago, berkeleykel said:

There was also a weird TV like thing in the mirror except it didn’t seem to play anything. 

Apparently it plays what is played on one of the two TVs in the kids room. I guess it doesn't have a tuner. You have to change the input to HDMI something and then it will play the same that is played on another TV.

 

9 hours ago, berkeleykel said:

Yes the fridge (which is across from the bathroom at the entrance) is no where near the mini bar; yes it’s really annoying. 

I fully agree. My guess is the fridge part of the furniture is something they use in a lot of other rooms too so they just included in that room. But it really doesn't make any sense.

 

9 hours ago, berkeleykel said:

The controls for the blinds and lights deserve their own post.

That's impressive that you worked out how to operate the blinds. For me it was a hit and miss. Sometimes it did work. Sometimes it did not. The most annoying thing for me was that you can't stop half way. It is either fully open of fully closed.

[berkeleykel]

13 hours ago, ckruetze said:

Apparently it plays what is played on one of the two TVs in the kids room. I guess it doesn't have a tuner. You have to change the input to HDMI something and then it will play the same that is played on another TV.

Ah that makes sense. Given the 4:6 person to TV ratio I don’t think we ever even bothered to turn the TVs on in the kids room. 

[berkeleykel]

Finishing up day 1, here are the snacks that were delivered soon after we made it into the room, as well as the champagne that was waiting for us, and a close up of the jacuzzi.  You needed to ask the stateroom attendants to fill the jacuzzi (I started doing it myself the first day and they seemed a bit miffed). It takes around 2 hours to fill and they empty and sanitize it every 24 hours. It seemed like a bit of a faff so after the first day we didn’t ask for it to be filled again until around day 5. The controls were pretty slow and clunky but it got surprisingly hot and the jets were pretty powerful. 

For lunch we were told by the genie that no reservations were necessary for lunch at any of the specialty restaurants so we were free to go wherever we wanted that was open. We chose Jamie’s Italian. To be honest, we used to live within 2 blocks of a Jamie’s Italian in London for 3 years and ate there maybe twice. It’s not really my favourite — I find it dry and boring — but I was hoping it would be better on the ship. I thought the arrabbiata was pretty bland and the kids hardly touched their pasta. It was also kind of weird to see Jamie’s place plastered everywhere. The server was nice though and we ended up seeing her a lot around the ship throughout the week shilling for the specialty restaurants. 

For dinner we went to Coastal Kitchen for the infamous night 1 filet and it was absolutely amazing, best steak on the two weeks of the ship by far.  I was not a huge fan out CK as a venue though. It’s hard to describe but it seemed to lack character. It had the downside of feeling too pretentious for rowdy children but without enough redeeming qualities to make the stress worth it, if that makes sense.  That was the only night we ended up there for dinner, although we went back for breakfast a couple of times. The service was great. 

Eta: the weather for week 2 was way different than week 1. When we first boarded in Barcelona (and in all of the port stops) it was sunny and sweltering. Week 2 boarding was rainy and windy. I heard they paused boarding at one point due to the wind, and the genie later told us a big crate of supplies fell over and was destroyed while trying to load it onto the ship.  Thankfully we had had our fill of nice weather already that it didn’t bother us much.  It cleared up later and we had a beautiful rainbow and sunset in the evening. 

[Ampurp85]

That pasta looks horrid, no wonder nobody enjoyed it. 

[berkeleykel]

Week 2 Day 2 - Palma de Mallorca. Excursion: Mallorca Beach Transfer

My husband and I had a discussion about excursions the day before and ended up doing a major reshuffling of excursions for the week. We had originally planned to stay on the ship in Palma, do an RC excursion to Cassis in Marseilles, and do an RC excursion to Pisa and a beach from La Spezia (in addition to a Pompei on your own excursion in Naples, which we kept). Due to weather in La Spezia looking rainy and slightly chilly and a desire to spend more time hanging in our wonderful suite, we decided to cancel the La Spezia and Marseille excursions, but added in a quick beach excursion in Palma so I could get my beach fix in (England is not renowned for its beaches, especially if you plan to actually get in the water).
 

The RC excursion to a beach outside Palma (Playa de Palmanova) was a repeat from our trip on Wonder last summer so I already knew what to expect.  I didn’t write down the specifics,  but you can see my blog from Wonder last year for more details if you are interested. The main thing is to make sure you have euros to pay for the loungers/umbrella which I think cost us somewhere under €20 for the day.  You are picked up and dropped off in front of the Hotel Tropico and there is an ATM in front if you are short on cash.  There is a small section of the beach that is watched by lifeguards if that interests you. There is an outdoor shower further along the beach, as well as public toilets (cost I think is EUR 50 cents, coins only) although the toilets are not in the best shape. We spent around 1.5 hours in the water and then changed and had some ice cream and cocktails along the beach. The length of the excursion (4 hours) was plenty for us, although there is an extended option if you want to spend more time there. Based on the time stamps on our photos I think we arrived around 9:45 am and had to meet back at the bus around 1/1:15 pm. The weather was pretty good — around 80F — although it was a bit windy. We brought a small safe with us to store our cash, credit cards and phones while we were in the water, although it felt like a pretty safe area. The water was relatively clear and we saw several small fish. Waves were minimal.  The beach seemed cleaner than it had the previous year, and is sandy so we brought a bucket and shovel with us.

In sum I don’t think the beach is anything special, but has all the basics you need for a few fun hours with minimal fuss. 
 

 

[berkeleykel]

Dinner for Day 2 was at Chops. Our genie stopped by to chat, as he did every evening meal. The service was good. The food was okay (I’m not really a steak person so would have skipped it if left to myself, but my husband is). Our children were terrible. Maybe it’s just me but with staying in star class and especially such a special room I felt particularly self-conscious about their behaviour - I was worried bad behaviour would suggest they were spoiled and entitled more so than when we were in non-suite class with the masses - and their behaviour did get progressively worse during the 2 weeks so it became a constant stress. For example, we allowed my youngest, who rarely has juice back home, to have juice with his meals on the ship and he quickly turned into a diva, demanding JUICE JUICE JUICE like he was dying every time we sat down at a table.  We also didn’t see many other kids in the specialty restaurants which made it feel like we were under a microscope more. 

After dinner M went to kids club and husband, A and I went to see 1977, which had not played during week 1 due to injury.  It took me a while to follow the plot and I think I would like to see it again now that I think I’ll understand it better.  We witnessed another near injury right next to us when the main star tripped and stumbled coming off the ice.  He yelled out in shock but returned to the ice soon afterwards and seemed fine.

I didn’t seem to take many photos that evening but he’s one I did take of our balcony.  The biggest negative of the balcony for me was the lack of loungers. I understand the space was tight, but they could have at least added footstools for the chairs like they had in our regular ocean view balcony room.  It felt like a step-down in that respect.

We felt very sorry for the stateroom attendant having to climb up into the climbing structure to clean it regularly! Our kids actually didn’t make use of it much. The 2 year old was a bit too small and the 7 year old a bit too big.  

We played ping pong only once. On precisely the third serve we knocked the ball off the balcony and it landed way down in front of Playmakers!  We eventually found it set aside waiting for our retrieval at the desk of the carousel attendant.  You might not be shocked after seeing how close the table is to the edge of the balcony. Also there are huge gaps under and around the balcony dividers, so there are many ways to lose the balls easily. After our ball fail my son was too scared of hitting someone 11 decks below with a ping pong ball in the head to try to play again.

[berkeleykel]

Day 3 - Marseille. No excursion/did not leave ship. 

One of the main benefits of the b2b and of having done the same itinerary the previous summer is that we didn’t feel the pressure to take full advantage of the ports, so we were able to spend more time in our room and around the ship.

On Day 3 we played 3 rounds of trivia and peaked for the trip - we won twice and came in second once. To be fair though the sessions were more lightly attended than usual since it was a port day. In the afternoon we made a special request of the genie to help us skip the line for laser tag.  I was never quite able to figure out the time that laser tag and ice skating sessions were made available to book in the app and missed out on both during week 1. During week 2 I managed to book ice skating for day 1 but didn’t manage laser tag for day 3. We  set up a time in advance to meet up with the genie and he led us into a side door and worked it out with the event staff to have us slotted in.  I don’t think this would have saved time over having a booking, but if you can’t get a booking this saves you from being subjected to the standby line.  A is too young to play so he and I “watched” (you can see very little other than the outside walls) from the stands while husband and M played.  When we returned to the room afternoon snacks were waiting for us.  The genie had snacks sent to us every day around 3 pm (we had asked for fewer snacks than the day before to avoid food coma).

For dinner we went to Wonderland. This was a highlight for us. We loved the atmosphere, food and presentation.  The waiter was super attentive and the Mad Hatter even refilled our water!  The only downside was that the cocktails tasted pretty meh, but they were 10/10 in style.  The potted shrimp and the mushroom dessert were our favourites.  The kids liked their fried mac and cheese. 

After dinner M went to kids club while husband, A and I saw Hiro again. It was great to see the show from the front/center seats that the genie had saved for us. Hiro is exceptional and I hope we’ll be back on Symphony at some point to see it again.  We loved seeing and hearing it from our balcony throughout the sailing as well, including later that night. 

[berkeleykel]

Day 4 - La Spezia.  No excursion/did not leave the ship. 
 

This will be brief because I have almost no recollection of what we did this day between breakfast and dinner time. We slept in and had breakfast at Johnny Rockets because we wanted table service and it was open a bit later than Coastal Kitchen.  The servers there were exceptional and gave A a toy when he was upset over something, probably being denied MORE JUICE. 

I think we probably stayed in the room all afternoon for video games, legos and air hockey.  

For dinner we have Jamie’s another shot but I was disappointed to see the menu was basically the same from lunch. The penne carbonara was slightly better than the arrabbiata had been.  The kids pasta again remained untouched. 

After dinner we all went to see the magic show, which was the same as the one that had been in Wonder the year before.  The magician was was Spain and did a bilingual show which is why I think they like him for this itinerary. We were sat very front row and the kids were super excited.