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Symphony Of The Seas 14-21 April semi live blog


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Day  -2

Well after few months it is time again for funny spelling mistakes/bad grammar and near real time blog.

If everything will be ok and nothing  change our flight we will be on the Symphony Of The Seas at this Saturday from Barcelona.

So why this ship ? – really should I explain why one wants to go on Symphony ? ?

Actually, when the first itineraries were published we already booked a cruise for September time but six weeks ago we decided we need some extra vacation until September, we thought first to travel to Thailand for some land vacation but after checking the April/May weather over therel we dropped this idea.

I started to look for April  cruises and I preferred something around Europe to shorten the flight  time , apparently the only available ship was the SyOTC , so well we decided to volunteer and as  @Matt says : do it for the research.

For sure I have not canceled the September cruise as I believe it’s going to be two different experiences.

Europe April Weather  can be still cold and rainy while  September weather will be much warmer (in Italy too warm) so we are planning to focus  doing internal ship activities and some shore excursions while in September focus on other stuff like the water slides and water activities.

Another difference  is that for this cruise we booked Ocean view room as I do not think we would use the balcony too much (too cold) while in September we do have a balcony.

Here is the itinerary: (this is the third time we are doing the same one with Harmony OTS and Liberty)

Day -1 – Barcelona (getting to the hotel and find a nice Tapas restaurant)

Day 1 – Barcelona (We have BOGO deal)

Day 2 – Palma de Mallorca, we will take the bus to the city see what is new.

Day 3 -  Marseilles , we took a  ship tour around the city ,  last time we went on a  tour  to one of the small cities in Provence  .

Day 4 - Florence/Pisa (La Spezia) – We will stay around la Spezia which is a nice small city , Florence is quite far and we already have a tour booked  for the next cruise to visit Florence. I guess we will do some of the shopping there (wine, Balsamic vinegar and yes maybe shoes)

Day 5 - Rome (Civitavecchia) – We have a ship  tour that will transfer us to Rome , we will have around 6 hour to tour Romr  by ourselves , since we already been to Rome (land tours) I think we can find our way. I took the ship transfer to make sure we will be back on time, train and buses can be delayed from time to time.

Day 6-  Naples (Capri) – We did not plan what to do there yet , we might take the bicycle tour if the weather will be nice or just go off the ship and tour the city (by tour the city I acutely mean go to eat a pizza ? ) . From all the ports of call this one is the closet to the city center, walking distance .

 

So tomorrow early morning we are planning to catch the train to the airport (15 minutes) and start our journey to Barcelona (the flight will be via Rome which is funny consider our itinerary, but it was very cheap comparing to the direct flight, so cheap that it would not make sense to use miles).

Drinking – No drinking package this time, we will bring two bottles of wines  and we are planning to buy drinks from time to time (it is a very heavy port itinerary and they want 49 $ per day for the package ).

Special restaurants – We got the BOGO first two night restaurants , I hope one of them will be Hooked and will try Wonderland (even if we need to add some money) but almost everything will be nice, but must have Hooked at least one time to write a report for the blog.

Please feel free to ask questions or ask me to take  pictures of certain things on the ship, I will try to bring as much information as I can.

My partner finally got her SLR camera back from where we left it last time (long story) so maybe we can have some better pictures (although still it is a basic SLRs).

 

Tomorrow Barcelona

 

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 Hey , you do not need to buy me ticket , I will be in the suitcase , no one will notice 

 

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  Day -1

So we arrived to Barcelona after a very long night which I did not catch too much sleep checking if no one decide to escalate a certain situation which will bring to  cancellation of the flight but as you can see all was ok.

We left the airport after around 20 minutes so it was quite fast including collecting our suitcases.

We took a taxi to the hotel which was around 20 minutes and 45 $ ,not a big surprises.

On the way to the hotel we passed near the cruise  port , there were still some ships ibut nothing even close to the Symphony , RC have their own league.

The hotel we took is in Zone 22 on Diagonal Av  (not Diagon ,  no wizards here) , again I used some points I collected during my business trips , they were kind enough to offer us also a free  breakfast as a gift for the status (SPG) we will check how is it tomorrow .

The hotel is very well located near many restaurants and several malls.

We went to buy some water and wine for tomorrow at a huge supermarket, I almost bought a huge Jamon leg but I understood it does not make much sense to carry it with us during the cruise (or in other words it was vetoed ? )

We drop the stuff at the hotel and went to eat at one of the tapas bar we found.

The food was fresh and tasty.

Now I am preparing the suitcase tags which I had to create almost from scratch as our guarantee room  was not assigned to us until this Wednesday so the tag RC site gave me were blanked …

 

Tomorrow finally  it happens , Symphony here we come  

 

Preparing for Hooked. 

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Some Papas Bravas , when I go to a tapas bar I always order Papas Bravavas , it is simple dish but it give a good indication if the place is good or not as it is very easy to ruined it. If the Papas are ok , I order more things, It was very good here

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The view from our hotel window 

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21 minutes ago, mom2mybugs said:

 Do you have any advice for Barcelona (tours,  specific hotels/ areas to stay,  restaurants we can't miss)?  We will embark on vision in summer 2019 and have never been to Europe before!   Jane

Thanks , 

Barcelona is a wonderful city , with wonderful food and  sites .

Regarding hotels , it depends what level of hotel you are looking for ,  If you are OK to use public transportation I would stay away from the La Ramblas hotels and by doing that you can save allot of money. This time I stayed at region 22 which was very nice and I think I would try it again next time , I was in the Sheraton four points Diagonal, it was clean, room was big enough and near by supermarkets, malls and restaurants. 

For cruise , the best hotel I guess will be the W but it is quite isolated from the city and very expensive. when we will come back from the cruise we will try another hotel and another area so I can report how it was. at the past we stayed in the Hilton which was also nice but quite far from the city center.

Barcelona has a good public transportation buses and subway which are easy to use even if you do not speak Spanish.

For restaurants there are many options , every mall has many small restaurants for a quick eats and tapas bars are spread around the city , I can just advise you to avoid  any resultant in the old port as they are mostly tourist traps . 

If it is you first time in Europe you are going to enjoy it very much as almost any ports has so many interesting things to see. 

When I will back home I can send you some more detailed recommendations for restaurants and hotels.

How many days your are planning in Barcelona ? base on that I can recommend on tours (the market , the church ,etc ...)  

 

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Day 1 Barcelona  , part one

Wow that was a long day,

It started at 5 AM, hey who can sleep late during embarkation day, I started to browse the internet thanking someone that decided to wait with the fireworks until we arrived  Barcelona.

When my spouse finally waked up we organize our suitcases and the backpacks with the water and wine.

Quick breakfast ,some last minute shopping for some stuff  we found that we forgot and we did our way to the port.

The drive  took about 10 minutes and around 25 $ including the tip.

We arrive to the port around 10:30 AM , security and check in took about 10 minutes (just validating our CC) but the ship was not ready to board , they said it will be ready around 11:30AM but I knew better (I read this blog after all)  and waited in line. Funny thing about the terminal , once you pass security you arrive to a small mall with several shops , one of the shopssells wines and water, which mean you can bring to the ship  as much wine as you want unless they check the wine for you , I forgot to ask as I already had two bottles  (and 8 bottles  of water +4 Sodas)    , well will find out next time.

They open the gate to general boarding at 10:50 , so up we went.

On deck 5 they gave some free sparkling wine which was nice.

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First thing we  done after we finished the first glass of wine was to go to the central park area to find an open restaurant so we can reserve the BOGO (again thank you RC blog).

CG was opened and I booked as planned Wonderland for first night and Hooked for the second one (you know , for the research)  , no issues and no extra cost was required for the BOGO deal.

Next thing we done was to eat something in the WJ , after all breakfast was a fade memory as it was two hours ago , one may call it second breakfast (Hobbits maybe)

WJ was quite empty, lots of open tables. Food was the regular WJ food, Hamburgers, some carving station, pasta station , vegs and even Indian food.

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We went to take some pictures of the pool deck but since it was rainy we did not stayed there too much time and continue our tour inside.

At 1 PM we went to the room , I really wanted to get rid of our bags has for some reason carry 10 bottles  around the ship is not that comfortable.

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The room is organized very nicely and feel bigger than the room we had few month ago on INDY.

It was time to try something new, so we went one floor up to studio B were they had the laser tag.

We had to wait few minutes until more people will arrive and started the session.

The way they set it up is using some inflatables dividers over the Studio B floor.

They divide us into two groups (aliens and robots) and a 10 minutes session started.

It was fun and full of energy but our team lost which made us decide we need to try it again ? .

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I think it is a very nice addition to the ship. Like many other activities its better to try and do at the first day before everyone finds it.

To relax after running in the laser tag we went to the SPA to add our name to the raffle , they took us a to a tour in the thermal suite and it looked very nice so we decide to buy the pass for the week (200 $ for couple) you know , for the research …

We thought what to do next and it was time to check El Loco fresh , I took a beef Taco (the option are beef , chicken, pork , rice and beans) topped it with some guacamole and fresh cream.

I know we just were in WJ two hours ago but hey it was for the research …

It was quite ok , not Sabor level but still a nice free option.5ad307c694f3a_Elloco2.thumb.jpg.b5a82e7d39f98647dc6c88efe137dd55.jpg

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Day  1 – Part two.

 

After going back to the room we located our luggage , although it was not near our room I still recognize them, apparently they where  near a room number similar to us.So we started to organize our stuff  as quick as we could to be able and push the two suitcases under the bad.The muster drill was next , the same jokes , same spy movie and same can not wait for it to be over  , but it was over after 20  minutes which allow us 30 minutes to get organized for dinner.

For dinner we went to Wonderland , it was not the first time we were eating there , first was at Harmony OTC , we liked it then and we wanted to give it another try.The menu was the same , the food was still very good but the surprise effect was missing ?.Do not get me wrong I still liked the food , mainly the shrimp and the slow cooked short rib.

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The desserts are better looking than taste , I call them Facebook desserts (oh well I know now days Facebook is not that poplar so I will call them Instagram desserts).

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Still , I do recommend people to try Wonderland at least for one time.We did a quick visit at the Casino , saying hello  to the host and getting the free drink sticker , it was  time to go and enjoy hairspray.We successfully found a wonderful seats at row five just in front the stage, all the other rows in front of us was reserve to star class . There were many empty seat for this show, I guess this is the first day effect .the show was nice, good choreography and sound. The 90 minutes pass quite fast.After the show we re visit the Casino for a while , 

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Later on we watched the welcome show which in the end they have tons of balloons drooping on everyone  

 

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Some observation :

 

No CA letter in the room

No meet and mingle letter

Free style machines exist at Sorentos, WJ and El Loco.

The ping pong table are at deck 5 outside neat the running track.

More , later ?

 

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1 hour ago, ABFrenchie said:

Have you been on a Carnival ship with the Blue Iguana Cantina? If so, how does El Loco Fresh compare? My husband is obsessed with the tacos from BI although I much prefer RC a cruise line overall. 

Never been on a Carnival so I can not compare. But I think its decent Tacos. Hope you will be able to convince him :1_grinning:

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