Jump to content

Symphony OTS Live! - Transatlantic Oct. 28, 2018 "Coming to America"


twangster

Recommended Posts

Day -4

A year or so ago I had been thinking about Symphony and when I might be able to sail her.  Prices, as expected for her first year were elevated over her sisters.  That is until I came across the transatlantic sailing which at the time was priced close to many seven night Caribbean sailings on her.  Twelve nights on what would become the largest cruise ship in the world for the price of seven?  

I was on Anthem when the light bulb went on and I booked it in a YOLO moment that only the drink package can induce.  

Itinerary is pretty light as ports go:

Day 1 - Embark in Barcelona, Spain

Day 2 - Sea Day

Day 3 - Malaga, Spain

Days 4 - 11 - Sea Day

Day 12 - Port Canaveral

Day 13 - Debark, Miami

No excursions booked or planned.  The ship is the destination.

I'll be sailing in a Boardwalk balcony cabin almost as far aft as you can go on deck 8 right above Playmakers.  My step count for this cruise should indeed also be elevated.  

I'm sailing solo as I often do since friends and family just can't keep up.  I won't be alone exactly as there will be a decent contingency from the RCPeriscopers.live community sailing with me.  Voom and satellite coverage permitting, there should be ample scopes from this sailing.

A business commitment is keeping me stateside until Friday when I'll fly overnight to Barcelona arriving Saturday morning for a Sunday embarkation.  Not ideal but I've got to pay for this cruising addiction somehow.  

Since I'll be in the cruise capital of the world when we disembark in Miami I couldn't let that opportunity go without jumping on another ship so I'll be sliding up the coast to Fort Lauderdale to board Serenade the day we arrive in Miami.  That is a factor in my packing strategy since I'm not flying home between cruises.  

Speaking of packing, I should probably start,  later today, ...or maybe tomorrow.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Twangster,  We'll be on the Symphony with you.  Actually right above you; deck 9 aft, above playmakers, about 5 cabins from the back.  Funny, we looked at extending our vacation cruising out of FLL too, but I don't have enough vacation time banked, so back to work on the 12th.  Hope to see you on board.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day -3

With a burst of motivation last night I got most of my packing done.  Now if I can just get through my work activities I can focus on what's really important.  I'm going on a cruise!!!

Symphony will be the fourth Oasis class for me having already sailed on her other three sisters.  This will be the first time I've sailed Oasis class without access to Sky Class benefits.  Sailing solo I just couldn't justify the cost.  

I booked entertainment the day it opened and secured all of my desired times.

Having booked this cruise while on another cruise at the NextCruise desk I have some On Board Credit or OBC to use. 

I had a 4 night dining package but later cancelled it thinking I'd rather do that when sailing on her again with family in the future.  I may do one or two specialty dinners as the mood suits me if they are available.  I'm usually fine with the MDR or even the Windjammer for dinner so I may just go without any specialty dinners.

Flush with OBC I've booked a new offering, the Thermal Spa pass.  It's been available for purchase onboard for a while but being able to purchase this before the cruise is somewhat new and Royal is working through some growing pains rolling this out.  When purchased onboard the pass provides access to the Thermal Spa facilities during open hours.  In the Cruise Planner I was required to pick a specific time of day.  A phone call to Royal confirmed this was my time of day to use the spa for each day of the cruise.  If this wasn't a transatlantic with many sea days in a row that sort of time of day reservation wouldn't work for me.  I'm hoping that is just a glitch as they roll this out to the Cruise Planner and it will actually allow me access the thermal spa anytime during open hours.  I'll find out on Sunday!

I had acquired the drink package during a sale at a very good price but later cancelled it.  Twelve nights is a long time to drink day after day after day.  On my most recent cruise, a 13 night sailing, I didn't have the drink package and even my daily Diamond Happy Hour drinks started to venture into drink fatigue zone after so many days.  Consequently I'm joining #TeamNoDX on this sailing.

My OBC also covered my Voom plan which was just $11.99 per day for Surf and Stream.  As a long time Voom consumer that's a pretty good rate.

My remaining OBC will be my drink package offset with Diamond Happy Hour drinks.

The Delta app on my phone just let me know it's time to check in.  Finally!

After waiting so long, it's finally here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So have you pre-purchased Voom or are you going to use your D+ discount and buy it once onboard ?  I know you did a whole bot-calculus amortization with cost averaging and depreciation on the various options of Voom purchasing but it was way over my mortal head so I can't remember if the 12+ days worked out cheaper to do the pre-purchase or onboard purchase.  Please don't repost that link.  It makes my brain cells scream. (which isn't real hard to do, BTW).

?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, WAAAYTOOO said:

So have you pre-purchased Voom or are you going to use your D+ discount and buy it once onboard ? 

I've already bought Voom.  At $11.99 per day for 12 days it's cheaper than buying a full voyage plan onboard, even with a D+ onboard discount. 

When I have pre-purchased Voom, I'll sometimes use my D+ discount to 'buy' a day of Surf just to test Surf and have a second device connected that day.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day -2

I've made it to New York!  One more flight!  

Uneventful trip to JFK, I watched two movies on the flight from Denver.  I'm sitting Delta's Skyclub writing this.  They used to be called 'Crown Room' but having flown a bunch back in those days I used to call them the 'Crowd Room'.  The terminal 4 Skyclub is living up to that legacy.    

Curious how our weather will be on this crossing.  It is what it is.  On a recent cruise down the U.S. East coast I didn't lose the jacket until we were almost off the Florida coast.  

My flight is delayed an hour.  Just received noticed my bag was loaded on the Barcelona flight.  That's always a welcome sign.  

Forecast is rain tomorrow.  I would have liked to stay longer and explore Barcelona but my schedule didn't cooperate.

The ship is the destination.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/25/2018 at 10:06 PM, twangster said:

Just learned that Royal is including a transfer from Symphony to Mariner and Serenade for guests doing a side-to-side.  I was just going to use Lyft and figured it would be ~$40-$50 so if this works out it should be pretty easy to move to Serenade after the TA.

Are you going to blog Serenade as well?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My AC Hotel Soms room:

hH1GwGA.jpg

zf4Pxpd.jpg

C9Bp3l0.jpg

74L48pv.jpg

3oCoqOA.jpg

rvLcXXf.jpg

Power ports by the deck area:

i0pt5vp.jpg

 

It's a very nice room by North American standards and there are two guest elevators. The staff have been very friendly.   

I didn't take a lot of picture while walking around since it was raining.  I was surprised to see palm trees here:

Pd2qY15.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, GoodSmith said:

Are you going to blog Serenade as well?

Update... probably not.  I've got a lot of 'balls in the air' including finding a new home to host my pictures.  That's still being worked out and it's all I can do to generate this one, but given that its the newest and largest ship, so be it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 1

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!!

I'm proud of myself... I actually slept last night.  That was probably on account of not really sleeping on the flight over from NYC the night before.  

This morning I checked out the €15 hotel breakfast and decided to walk 2 minutes down the street to a local restaurant even though it was raining lightly. €6 for a cooked to order breakfast and real coffee.  When it was time to pay in my best gringo accent I asked for the check but probably told my waiter "I can count sheep if it pleases you".

Weather radar has us about to see heavy rain before it goes back to a light rain, then possibly a break in rain around noon before more rain right starting around 2:30pm.  Hopefully that will move through and be gone around sail away.  

I'm all packed and ready to go.  Symphony has arrived from Civitavecchia and she awaits us! 

With it's time to go!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, twangster said:

 When it was time to pay in my best gringo accent I asked for the check but probably told my waiter "I can count sheep if it pleases you".

I had a very hard time with communication when I was in Barcelona, most people there didn't seem comfortable with English.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 1, continued...

I looked in the Uber app, €20 to the port but they needed my passport information due to Spanish regulations.  I wasn't comfortable giving Uber my passport details which isn't required when using a taxi so I asked the front deck at my hotel to call me a cab,  €37 to the port.

A first look at the lovely lady.

 1lf5I0b.jpg

Today we were using terminal B and there was a good stream of traffic going to the three ships in port.

Gdsdmso.jpg

Raining lightly as I made my way to the luggage drop.

yGLSvZ6.jpg

After dropping my bag there was the typical security screening.  I had printed my SetSail pass but wanted to see if I could make it all the way just using my phone and the Royal app. 

Expedited check in was pretty fast.  They had several short lines marked for expedited cruisers.  Each had an agent with a handheld scanner waiting for us.   They scanned my SetSail pass on my phone and then they scanned my passport.  "Okay, you are all checked in".  It took about 20 seconds.  Sweet!

The ship was boarding so off I went through some shops in the terminal including one where you could buy wine.  As I turned the corner where they once again wanted to see my SetSail before proceeding the app cycled as if it was refreshing and logging me back in.  After several seconds holding up the line of people behind me that app gave up and displayed this:

kt04A0q.jpg

The ship time was wrong and while I was logged in, it couldn't find me any more.  The "View SetSail Pass" button did nothing.  I had taken a screen shot of my SetSail pass on my phone but it was faster to grab the printed copy from my pocket now that there were 20 or 30 people angrily staring in my direction.   Royal IT strikes again.  Lesson learned, always print it, do not rely on Royal's technology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Up the escalator where we were led outside to get our first look.  Like her sisters she is big!

8WTx9GL.jpg

With a place to step aside I found the screen shot of my SetSail pass and got it ready.  I wanted to make sure I could use my phone to board.  No issues with a screen shot of the app's SetSail pass.

Finally!  On board.

diyxday.jpg

9GUObFE.jpg

mRL8wx6.jpg

 

I visited the spa to check on a cruise planner purchase I had made, the Thermal Spa pass.  It is fairly recent that this has become available for pre-purchase and I wanted to validate how it worked.  In the cruise planner I was required to select a time of day, I chose 2:30pm.  I was hoping that wasn't the only time I could use it but I wanted to check.  The staff at the spa confirmed I could use it at any time during open hours.  I then did a quick tour of the spa.

YwVEsDK.jpg

The spa waiting room.

Bphg1OJ.jpg

An add on service, private couples aroma bath.

9d3KeSB.jpg

pmOqNxC.jpg

0fSmXdr.jpg

They mentioned to come back once I had my SeaPass card to have a sticker placed on it indicating my spa pass.

Avoiding the Windjammer on boarding day I then headed to Park cafe for a Kümmelweck.

0svuWB7.jpg

Soon after I found some friends and we sat in Central Park enjoying our first beverage as we waited for cabins to become ready.

rjfL69H.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...