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LIVE - October 28 - November 9 - Barcelona to Miami - Bringing Symphony home


Neaxan

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7 hours ago, Traveler said:

We went to Hooked on our April cruise (the third Symphony cruise) and when the came to ask us what we thought we said the same , it was very tasty but way too much. I guess  many other people said the opposite ... One of the issue/good thing is that usually you never come hungry to a dinner on a cruise  ?

True, we skipped breakfast that day but had lunch in windjammer and an afternoon snack at El Loco Fresh - that didn't help much. By the way, your post on how to catch a Twangster bot is hilarious. We were reading it while standing in line waiting for Studio B to open and both had a laughing fit - imagine the looks we got ?  I'll keep your idea in mind but might try another approach first - depends on the bot's next posts.

6 hours ago, monctonguy said:

Silent disco!!.l..so much fun......sorry to hear they didn't have any music you enjoy......wish they had it on every Royal cruise....

 

Enjoying your blog.....a transatlantic/repositioning cruise is on my bucket list!

If you like the silent disco you'd love this crossing - it's on 3 nights!

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Day 3

Today is our last port before the crossing – Malaga. Due to the abysmal weather, we aren’t venturing out. It’s just not worth catching a cold with still more than 3 weeks of vacation in front of us. We’ve already got a trip to Spain on our list, we’ll visit Malaga then. We estimated many people would be on excursions today, so we thought we might give Windjammer a try for breakfast. Brilliant idea, now I’m really sold on Royal Caribbean – they have English bacon! Best breakfast item in the world.

 

While trying to flee from the rain by using the corridors to get from aft to fore, we noticed a lot of halloween decorations on cabin doors. Kind of strange to us, but we really love it. Really looking forward to Halloween with so many Americans – it’s not a big thing in Germany. By the way, I’ve kept my promise – Schooner Bar is my new blogging spot to facilitate hubby’s use of the drinking package. Not that it would be necessary, a quick calculation showed we’d already made up for half of what we paid by the end of day 3. Even if drink fatigue starts some time in the future, we’ll have made the packages pay already (and I’m certain drink fatigue won’t be an issue for hubby ?).

 

After our depressing first try with trivia on day 1(Michael Jackson music quiz – we hadn’t planned on participating but were late finishing our drinks in Boleros and just thought why the h*** not), we gave visual trivia national flags a go. Luckily we teamed up with a couple from Belgium and got 13 out of 15 right –we didn’t even come close to winning. Apparently some people know the flags by heart, including Tonga and Aruba. This was followed by an impromptu surprise trivia – scored 3 out of 15 – no worries, best score was 8 or something. On to the pub quiz where we scored 14 out of 21. At least we’ve learned to take the provided answers with a grain of salt, we’re still not able to prove some of them no matter how much research we do. Guess the use of unsourced wikipedia articles is at an all time high with the cruise director’s team ? Trivia isn’t really a thing on German ships but we like it – even though we sometimes have to resort to leo.org for translation purposes. Doesn’t help much to write down the German answer if the team checking your sheet doesn’t speak the language ?

 

As trivia makes hungry (it’s a sport after all), we headed to Park Café for a light lunch. We really love this venue, especially the create your own salad option and the Kummelweck. With all the heavy rain it was easy to get a seat and you had no lines at all. On to the next trivia in Schooner Bar – unfortunately just the two of us as the venue was packed and we couldn’t find our teammates. I don’t recall our score but short answer is we didn’t win. Schooner still was packed afterwards so we moved to Playmakers for more games of Connect 4 and some IPA. The goal is to try out each IPA available – current favourite is Stone IPA. Fast forward to dinner which was at Jamie’s and will be discussed in its own post.

 

Spoiler alert: dinner again was quite big portions, so we decided to walk some of it off on the running track. Looks like our torture devices handle walking on a moving ship completely differently. We both use Garmin vivoactive3 for torture devices (aka fitness watches) – still hubby’s device recorded not only his movements but also added the ship’s movement – while mine did subtract part of the ship’s movement! Quite unfair if you ask me… looks as if Royal isn’t the only company with a questionable IT department.

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Highlight of the evening was 1977, our first Royal production show. And wow, we were so amazed. As Twangster already said, it’s difficult to give it the credit it deserves in words or pictures. The drones were so cool, especially from a technical standpoint. Brilliant costumes and stage design and impressive ice skaters if you factor in the movement of the ship. The show might be lacking a storyline, but we didn’t mind one bit!

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That's a quick change!

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The end of the show coincided with our passage through the strait of Gibraltar so off we went all the way to the aft on the running track. We were quite surprised that nobody seemed to care but well, each to their own. It was quite a sentimental moment to me as it marks the moment I’m leaving Europe for the first time (if you don’t count one day in Agadir, Morocco on a shore excursion). With that it was time for bed.

Spain/GIbraltar

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Morocco

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Not sure if it wanted to catch a ride or chase us away?

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Side note:

13k steps

Hubby might have spotted the elusive Twangster bot – we’ll have to wait for his day 3 blog post to be sure. We didn’t want to disturb a few hundred people by shouting across the venue for confirmation ?

PS: Was finally so annoyed with the way this board handles uploaded images that I switched to using imgur. At least I can now decide on the correct order of things.

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Jamie’s Italian

Welcome to speciality dining part 2 – this time not on the 5 night package because it would’ve left us one venue short and Jamie’s was the cheapest to book individually. Our original reservation was for 8 pm but that clashed with our entertainment plans. So we changed the dining reservation to 7 pm but it never showed up in the cruise planner. I emailed Royal and got the answer that they’d forward it to Symphony but when we boarded and did our package reservations, Jamie’s was still at 8. Luckily, booking dining was the first thing we did on board, so they were able to change the time.

 

Unfortunately no table mates this evening – in fact not even neighbours. Our waiter was Juan Carlos (no, not the former king of Spain!) and he was brilliant. We always went with his recommendations (might have added a dessert choice of our own) and were never disappointed – quite the contrary. I’ll have to write down the names of the crew who impressed us the most for WOW recommendations, currently on the list are Juan Carlos and Baptiste (MDR).

 

Onwards to the real reason you’re here for: the food. We wisely chose to have a meat plank for only 1 person and share that. Good thinking with the portion sizes coming later. The plank was good but nothing out of the ordinary. Our other choice was the Ultimate Garlic Bread which was really tasty and – by recommendation – the Crispy Squid. If you ever find yourself at Jamie’s, get the squid! Best dish we’ve tried the whole cruise up to now – it was so good that hubby had to get a second serving.

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For entrees we only went with Juan Carlos‘ recommendations: Lamb Chops Scottadito for Michael, Genaro’s Tagliatelle Bolognese for me. For sides we both chose a Caprese Salad and hubby added Crispy Polenta Chips. Hubby’s verdict: best lamb chops he ever had and he really enjoyed the polenta chips. Bolognese was also really good, though I also love my Maggi Fix glutamate and curry ketchup version ?

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We decided to share desserts because we both couldn’t decide between the same 3 choices: Epic Brownie, Amalfi Lemon Meringue Cheesecake and Tiramisu. We didn’t care for the cheesecake (guess there’s a first time for everything) but loved the tiramisu – it tasted really light with all the orange cests (I no it isn’t light J). Our favourite was the Brownie which really deserved the Epic.

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Verdict: although seemingly more ordinary than Hooked, we prefered Jamie’s. Might’ve been because we had less expectations and were truly surprised, but I can’t give a real reason. Food just sometimes is subjective.

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I saw some questions about ship motion in his highness' blog so instead of seizing the amazing bot's blog I'll give you my 2 cents on it.

We're currently experiencing  a lot of motion - as in 4m (~14 feet) waves, all pools empty, postponing of Hairspray, solarium closed motion... our cabin is the first inside stateroom from the front on deck 8 so it's especially noticeable in here. Luckily, we don't mind - no sea sickness or anything up to now - hope it stays that way.

The view from the running track (yes, you can get wet in the open spaces): 

 

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10 minutes ago, twangster said:

The motions hasn't been that bad actually.  Like walking on a subway train.

Wouldn't mind at all if they hadn't postponed our Hairspray show. I guess a lot of people would also like to use the pools now that it's finally warm. I'd hoped they'd refill them today as motion is a lot less, but they used the opportunity for maintenance.

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Day 4 – Halloween

Here it is, our first real Halloween – German ones don’t count as it is not really a thing. As we had so much food for dinner yesterday, we only needed a light breakfast at Park Café (is it evident that we like the venue?). We were up quite early (for us), so we made it to morning trivia in Schooner. Questions were all about Halloween, horror movies etc. – good for us. We won our first trivia and as it was only the two of us in the team, we got to win all the prizes. Guess I won’t need any more highlighters in the near or distant future ?

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The next event on our list was pop choir class. Yeah, who’d have guessed? But I was in a choir at school and enjoyed so I thought why not. Admittingly, my voice was better before I wrecked it with years and years of Death Metal vocals – so no solo for me. To my utter surprise, hubby wanted to join in – learn something new about your spouse any day… We’re practising This is me from the Greatest Showman – no, didn’t know that one before. Session was only listening to the song a few times and getting some people to volunteer for solos.

 

Lunch today was in Sorrento’s – I knew I had to try the pizza when I read all the comments about how bad it was. Our verdict: it’s not the best pizza we ever had, but it’s good comfort food. Next stop: visual trivia Horror movies – didn’t win. If everything had gone to plan, we’d have gone to the Hairspray matinee then – but it was postponed due to the ship’s motion. The good news: because of that we could do progressive trivia. We formed a team with two Brits, while they could help with the language, we we’re all stumped on some more US-based questions. Well, it’s for the fun anyway.

 

Dinner was up next – quite early because we didn’t want to miss Halloween’s fun and games. We didn’t go in costume because we’d have been toothily challenged – no fun eating with vampire fangs. We'd reserved a table for 5.30 pm and even got our favourite waiter Baptiste. For starters, I took the Maryland Crab Cake that I already had in Hooked (only significant difference was the aioli mayonnaise – much better in Hooked), hubby chose Roasted Garlic Soup – just ok. For entrees I was torn between the Moroccan Spiced Ahi Tuna Steak and the Thai Chicken Breast. Baptiste warned me that the fish had a 50/50 chance of being overcooked, so I went with the safe option and was quite happy with it. Hubby chose Roasted Pork Chop and couldn’t complain either. Highlight of this dinner was my dessert, the Chocolate Molten Cake – that’s really one to die for. Hubby had No Sugar Added Pineapple Upside Down Cake – nothing to write home about. All in all, the food was better on our first visit, but service was much faster (although less personal). To be honest, the crew had much more to do on this occasion as the MDR was packed – last time it was noticeably less so. Overall verdict: food was significantly better last time and is now well below TUI Cruises – good thing we’ll have speciality dining mostly for the rest of the cruise (and yes, I can see Ultimate Dining Packages in our future).

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Being done in about an hour gave us more time to get in costume – make up took most of the time even if it didn’t look like it. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures due to the make up, so please visit the great Twangster’s blog for impressions. Our first stop was the Attic (Haunted House) – entertainment and cruise director’s staff really went all out on this one. Most enjoyable was the couple that was right behind us -  so much fun watching them react to everything. Next stop: Playmakers – I know… again… but we’re still trying out craft beers and they actually showed German soccer (hubby’s team). After they won, we just hung out at the Promenade and watched other dressed up crazies. For us it was quite strange that so many people took part in the parade – especially with sub par costumes – I promised hubby that next time we’ll also register for it even though I’ll have to practise make up first. I can report that our favourite won the costume contest – it was the Addams Family and they really were spot on. When the party on the promende ended, we had our first snack at Cafe Promenade and went to bed afterwards (after removing the make up of course ?)..

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And because we’re not bots, here’s proof of our Halloween efforts:

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Side notes

16k steps

Yes, we’re fast becoming trivia addicts and we’re enjoying this cruise way too much – guess we’ll be back on Royal – not loyal to Royal because we’re way too focused on itineraries but I see us alternating between Royal and TUI. Or maybe switching to Royal completely once we’ve sailed all itinieraries on our bucket list (Norwegian Fjords, Alaska, Panama Canal, South America, Japan, Arctic – yes we know it’ll take us decades to cross them all off).

No Hairspray, no Solarium, no pools ?

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Drinks in the MDR have never been a problem – quite the contrary. You couldn’t finish a glass without being asked if you’d like another one.

We love Halloween! Not a big surprise as we’re horror movie/novels types anyway.

Funny little European observation: really don’t want to generalize here, but we’ve encountered quite a few „entitled“ Americans. Complaining about creaking in the cabin (well, it’s a ship and we have pitching and rolling…), having to stand in the rain in Barcelona for about one minute while staff checked your documents to allow you into the terminal, slow service in the MDR (believe me, it wasn’t that slow), room steward not personable enough, staff who are not completely fluent in English… From our standpoint, it’s really minor things we would never dream to complain about, but these people apparently love to give hell to the crew.

Clocks changed tonight – 1 more hour of sleep is always welcome – gotta love westbound TAs!

Limp Bizkit quote of the day: keep rolling rolling rolling, keep rolling rolling rolling

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7 minutes ago, Neaxan said:

 

We won our first trivia and as it was only the two of us in the team, we got to win all the prizes. Guess I won’t need any more highlighters in the near or distant future ?

 

Funny little European observation: really don’t want to generalize here, but we’ve encountered quite a few „entitled“ Americans. Complaining about creaking in the cabin (well, it’s a ship and we have pitching and rolling…), having to stand in the rain in Barcelona for about one minute while staff checked your documents to allow you into the terminal, slow service in the MDR (believe me, it wasn’t that slow), room steward not personable enough, staff who are not completely fluent in English… From our standpoint, it’s really minor things we would never dream to complain about, but these people apparently love to give hell to the crew.

Congratulations on a great trivia win!

On the second point, those would be the PIT (Pinnacle In Training a.k.a. Diamond Plus) and Pinnacles.  If they can't find something to complain about, they'll create something to complain about.  Having just done the Snowbird Migration cruise that was also a top heavy, I've grown an immunization to it. 

On Adventure in an elevator a few weeks ago - "This is the worst cruise ever!", "We had to wait 8 minutes in the terminal!".  Hmmm, I'm thinking this is one of the better cruises I've done and an eight minute wait?  Seriously?

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17 hours ago, twangster said:

Congratulations on a great trivia win!

On the second point, those would be the PIT (Pinnacle In Training a.k.a. Diamond Plus) and Pinnacles.  If they can't find something to complain about, they'll create something to complain about.  Having just done the Snowbird Migration cruise that was also a top heavy, I've grown an immunization to it. 

On Adventure in an elevator a few weeks ago - "This is the worst cruise ever!", "We had to wait 8 minutes in the terminal!".  Hmmm, I'm thinking this is one of the better cruises I've done and an eight minute wait?  Seriously?

Laughed so hard at the PIT comment. I guess you're spot on on that. We saw a Pinnacle complaining that she had to drag her suitcases about 20 metres from taxi to porters in Barcelona. All this focus on status isn't for us but guess you have to take the bad things along with the good ones.

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Day 5

Today we again took it upon ourselves to climb the stairs to Windjammer for breakfast. We found seats quite easily – only thing missing was the English Bacon ? Fortunately a staff member overheard hubby telling me that were was turkey bacon instead of English bacon – so he just got some English bacon fixed for us! Wow, that’s dedication and a service level we really don’t have in Germany. Robert, our cabin steward, was also exceptional this morning. As we kept the cabin on don’t disturb after the mayhem we left when preparing for Halloween, we didn’t get a towel animal. So instead of yesterday evening, we got our elephant this morning.

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The rest of the morning was filled with our usual programme – morning trivia (didn’t win) and pop choir practice. Then it was up the stairs again, this time for some table tennis. We planned to have lunch in El Loco Fresh, but for whatever reason it was closed. So we decided to get some Hot Dogs. I went down the fast (well not really that fast) route – Ultimate Abyss – hubby had to take the stairs because he had the camera with him. We skipped 1pm trivia – let’s face it, we would’ve been quite useless at Game of Thrones trivia. Instead, we did the Royal Heist Puzzle Break in a multinational team (Brits, Belgians, Dutchmen and us). Fortunately, everyone was fluent in English so no language barriers here. I can proudly report that we managed to name the guilty party with about 4.5 minutes to spare. That meant 3rd place for us, although there were no prizes anyway. At least it was good practice for Escape the Rubicon and so much fun! Quite the contrary to progressive trivia, which really isn’t much fun. Riddles, tribands and dingbats are especially difficult when English isn’t your mothertongue and the theme of US-based questions did continue a bit. Pity we had to skip the pub crawl to attend this, but we couldn’t let down our team members. At least it was already part 2 of 3 – we won’t do the second progressive trivia.

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After trivia we managed to get in some laps on the running track. It’s much warmer now and less wet as the waves really improved over night. Dinner was at Chops Grille – this will be its own post. Had some interesting discussions with hubby while at dinner. When Oasis 5 comes out, we want to do the TA on her (if she moves to the US) – Matt, shouldn’t that be the 2021 group cruise ?? Post-cruise plan is Orlando with Disney and Universal (and whatever else we can manage there) – in 3 years we should easily be thin enough to do all the attractions. The other topic we discussed: we thought about skipping our reservation for the headliner show (Hector is Magic) and try to see 1977 again as we were SO impressed. Unfortunately, we kept our reservation and went there. The magician wasn’t really bad or anything, we just didn’t enjoy it too much. Not our cup of tea – we’ll know next time. We had some drinks at Schooner but called it an early night as Symphony was like a ghost town – probably the Halloween aftermath ?

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Side notes:

11k steps

Pools still drained in the morning – rumor has it they were filled in the afternoon – will check tomorrow

 

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Chops Grille

The steak house is a classic on a cruise ship – at least I’ve never been on a cruise ship that didn’t have one. With all your positive reviews about this restaurant in mind, we were quite excited to get to try this one, especially with all the drama around it. Story in short: a lot of people started to see their Chops lunch fees credited back without any notice. Their lunch was cancelled due to a pinnacle take over of Chops for lunch.

 

So let’s move on to the food: We started on Tuna Tartare for me and Charred Beef Carpaccio for hubby. Hubby was so gracious to additionally ordert he Jumbo Lump Crab Cake as he knew I was torn between it and the tartare. All three appetizers were exceptionally delicious, our favourite was the crab cake. You might remember that I already had crab cake in Hooked and the MDR – Chops‘ crab cake is by far the best one!

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As a second course, we both chose soup. I went with the Wild Mushroom Soup (very good, just nothing special), hubby went with the Lobster Bisque. Unfortunately this wasn’t his cup of tea at all (tasted too much like fish) – he should have stuck with his first idea, the Crispy Goat Cheese Salad.

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For entrees, hubby chose the Prime NY Strip Steak and I got the Petite Angus Filet Mignon. It’s a compromise for me as I’m not that much of a meat eater but I thought I shouldn’t go with fish in a steak house. Good choice, both meats were absolutely delicious! As sides we share Gruyère Cheese Tater Tots, Sauteée Mushrooms, Truffled French Fries and Salted Baked Potato – all very good and reasonably sized portions at last ☺️

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Highlight of the evening (as always?) was dessert. Hubby chose the New York Cheesecake – verdict: best Cheesecake on board so far. I got the Warm Chocolate Cake, this was again a dessert to die for!

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Overall verdict: our favourite restaurant up to now! On par with TUI’s steak house, maybe even a bit better. On our next cruise we’d likely do Chops twice – it just was that good! We were also very happy with our waiter Shadiek – Juan’s service was more personable, but his service fitted better in the more upscale atmosphere of Chops.

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Day 6

Time for something new was the theme of the day. So we went to Johnny Rockets for breakfast. There was a line to be seated but it moved quickly. Unfortunately, service (or more likely the galley) wasn’t nearly as quick. It took ages to get our food (The Works, Patty ‘n Eggs, Omelet), but at least it was really good! Due to the slow service, we were too late for morning trivia and just went to pop choir practice. We had to change our reservation for Escape the Rubicon as it clashed with the guest show. There weren’t many slots available so we had to compromise – guess we’ll have to be quick for the CC minigolf tournament.

 

The morning was spent with minigolf practice (I’m terrible at it), people watching at the flowrider and some arcade games. We might spend our arcade credit on shooting monsters, but we’ll give mario kart a try first ☺️ Lunch was in El Loco Fresh as thankfully it was operational today. I’d stick to the nachos and tacos if I were you. Quesadillas and burritos are prepared by staff and not the greatest taste. You can build your own tacos and nachos. With the superb weather today hubby finally went on the zipline and even on the Ultimate Abyss. Funny enough, he went down really fast – guess I’m doing it wrong. Today’s visit to Playmakers was during Ultimate Abyss opening hours. No idea how Twangster copes with the sound effects, they’re really annoying.

 

At 4 pm we had our final round of progressive trivia. Guess it was also our last trivia alltogether, hubby is pretty taken aback that it has nothing to do with knowledge, many people just remember the questions and answers from other vacations. Not convinced? Well, final question was in what country you can find the Caledonian Canal. The answer sheet said Portugal and quite a few of the groups put down that answer. Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no connection between Portugal and the Caledonian Canal – it’s in Scotland. Caledonian should be a hint, as it’s Latin for Scotland. Funny enough, even after showing proof of this, the Portugal answer got 2 points, 0 for Scotland. We’re fine losing because we didn’t know enough, but that’s a bit too much stubborn stupidity for us. Guess it’s true, us Germans are very pedantic. On the plus side: more time freed up for using the drink package ?

 

After that debacle, we went rock climbing, a first time for hubby. We didn’t do very well but it was much fun. Guess I lost all my grip in the last 10 years ? With that, it was time for dinner at 150 Central Park. This was the restaurant we were looking forward to the least because the menu didn’t really appeal to us. But the lenghts you go to in the name of research… as always, this speciality restaurant will get ist own post. Entertainment of the evening was another headliner show – Gary Williams – a rat pack style singer. While he has a great voice, the songs got old about halfway through. Mo5aic was our favourite guest artist so far, we’re looking forward to more production shows.

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Post-entertainment was something we should’ve done ages ago! Having some cocktails at Wonderland Bar – how could we have missed that place? The „Down the Rabbit Hole“ is my new go-to cocktail and hubby was also quite impressed. Not so much with his first choice, the Smoke Rings – great in presentation but not really his cup of tea. To make things even better, we love the bartender, Sorin from Romania. He’s as much car crazy as we are so you always have something to talk about.

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Before bed we headed up to the pool deck to check the pools – Beach and Sports were filled so I finally see some laps in my future. On our way to the cabin we made a quick detour to Sorrento’s (see, the pizza really isn’t that bad) and the 50s/60s party. There weren’t that many people out and about, but we liked the music. Sadly, we were just too tired to stay. Came home to a towel animal, we’d hazard a guess that it’s a swan, but we wouldn’t bet on it ?

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Side notes:

11k steps

The app is annoying me again. The last few days hubby couldn’t see the menus in it, no I can’t either.

We had no idea how busy you can be on a TA. I haven’t had any time to prepare for my next exam in December – this is completely unintentional of course ?

The amount of maintenance going on is quite surprising for a ship that hasn’t been in operation for even a year. The perfect storm is still closed for maintenance (rumored to be operend from Nov 6th onwards), one entrance to Central Park has been closed for days, pools also needed maintenance…

Royal needs to improve on icecream. Tried soft ice today – not worth the calories to us. That was the only time I really missed being on TUI Cruises – they offer real icecream with no surcharge.

We’re still staying true to the no-elevator-rule – here’s some of my favourite „stairs art“ as proof.

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On ‎11‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 9:12 PM, Neaxan said:

member overheard hubby telling me that were was turkey bacon instead of English bacon – so he just got some English bacon fixed for us! Wow, that’s dedication and a service level we really don’t have in Germany.

Service on Royal Caribbean is exceptional. When I was on Symphony I asked once for a green tea. They don't always have it in Windjammer but the waiter had to go get it from somewhere else on the ship. Took him a long time I thought he forgot about me, but I was surprised when he finally showed up with my cup. That's true dedication! I wish I got his name.

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10 hours ago, Neaxan said:

We had to change our reservation for Escape the Rubicon as it clashed with the guest show

I am very interested in the Escape the Rubicon. Hope you get to try it and tell us more about it.

10 hours ago, Neaxan said:

finally went on the zipline and even on the Ultimate Abyss. Funny enough, he went down really fast – guess I’m doing it wrong.

When I tried the Ultimate Abyss for the first time I went so fast I almost flipped and fell on my face on the second turn, I had to support myself with my arm and I got stuck inside the slide because of that, and I had to push myself down. I guess I was doing it wrong as well! I didn't get the chance to try it again but I would  have loved to.

 

 

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3 hours ago, GoodSmith said:

I am very interested in the Escape the Rubicon. Hope you get to try it and tell us more about it.

When I tried the Ultimate Abyss for the first time I went so fast I almost flipped and fell on my face on the second turn, I had to support myself with my arm and I got stuck inside the slide because of that, and I had to push myself down. I guess I was doing it wrong as well! I didn't get the chance to try it again but I would  have loved to.

 

 

Hubby had the same problems. We'll have to practice getting some speed without any accidents.

2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

My guess on the towel animal is a brontosaurus.  We had a similar one before. I think it’s some kind of dinosaur. 

I think you're right. We were wondering about the legs but as we couldn't come up with anything with legs we thought it was  a swan gone wrong ?

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2 hours ago, Sweety said:

Between your blog and @twangster, my cruise budget has increased. I am now looking at working Summer school.

You are too funny!  But totally correct in the budgeting department.  Symphony prices are so much higher than all the rest!  It's quite ridiculous.

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Just now, Lovetocruise2002 said:

You are too funny!  But totally correct in the budgeting department.  Symphony prices are so much higher than all the rest!  It's quite ridiculous.

Yes, they're way higher. Another reason we chose the TA because prices were quite reasonable for this (at least when we booked - let's not talk about what the prices evolved to). This being our first Royal cruise I can't really compare, but I think the price we paid was more than warranted. Only problem: I don't think we could ever go much smaller.

We're planning to try Quantum class as Anthem will be based in the UK but I don't see us doing anything smaller than that. We just had our next cruise appointment, unfortunately they had nothing for us other than the Oasis eastbound TA and we're not doing that. As it stands now, Oasis will be doing the westbound TA after drydock without passengers - I hope they change their mind on that one or we'll have to hope for Oasis 5. Also no pre-cruises for Spectrum, the first cruise will be from Barcelona to Dubai (we were hoping for some Med pre-cruises). Also no  booking something different altogether and switching cruises afterwards - not under German rules ? Guess we'll just have to keep an eye on the itinerary releases. And I'm just dropping another hint to Matt here: Oasis 5 transatlantic group cruise ? The higher airfare might level out with the lower cruise fare.

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150 Central Park

Here it is, the restaurant we were least looking forward to. In the other restaurants, the challenge was to narrow down our choices – here the challenge was to find enough to not leave hungry. In the name of research, we still couldn’t skip this one. Spoiler alert: even though we planned to, we didn't need a post dinner at Windjammer.

 

For starters, hubby chose the waiter’s recommendation, Braised Short Rib. I got the other recommendation, Seared Honey-Glazed Scallops. We also ordered Crispy Berkshire Pork Belly as I had read much about it on certain boards. What can I say? Our attitude towards this restaurant was way off! I had my doubts about the scallops because I’ve often received overcooked ones (I know they’re tricky to prepare, that’s why I don’t do it myself) – but they were absolutely perfect. Same goes for the short rib. I also had doubts about the pork belly, especially when it arrived and I saw the huge amount of grease – this jelly texture is a pet hate of mine. To our surprise, the pork belly was really crisp and absolutely delicious. We can wholeheartedly recommend all three appetizers.

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For entrees I again didn’t really see anything appealing to me, so I went with the most recommended choice on the boards – Roasted Tenderloin of Beef – which they graciously let me order for one person as hubby followed the waiter’s recommendation of Lamb Wellington. Guess who regretted his choice? Although the lamb was positively delicious, the tenderloin was just so much better – a class of its own. Food envy is well and alive on board ?

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Usually this part oft he verdict is reserved for the highlight of the dinner – not so much this time. Guess the tenderloin was just too hard an act to follow. For dessert we chose Fried Cheesecake (waiter’s recommendation) and Peanut Butter Chocolate Tart. Hubby prefered the cheesecake, I prefered the chocolate tart. Both desserts were good but just couldn’t measure up to the entree. I might be a bit preoccupied on this one as all this deep frying isn’t really my cup of tea and I hate peanut butter except for homeopathic doses. Good news: the tart really only has a bit of peanut butter so I could cope.

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Final verdict: much to our surprise, we really loved 150 Central Park. Food’s taste and presentation was quite perfect and so much better than the menu made us expect. We’d rank it at the same level as some one star Guide Michelin restaurants we’ve tried – I don’t think you can give a higher compliment than that for a restaurant onboard a ship crossing the Atlantic as landbased restaurants have free access to fresh ingridients. Only aspect that was REALLY underwhelming was our waiter, who didn’t care much about us at all – guess he was completely busy with doing everything and anything for the star class couple next to us. At least we couldn’t help but notice that they got a much better service. But that isn’t really a problem – it’s more of what you’d expect from German waiters (he was from India), maybe it’s just that Baptiste, Juan Carlos and Shadiek are a hard act to follow. Funny side note: we’ve met all our favourite waiters when roaming around the ship and they all remembered and greeted us – not so this waiter, he walked right past us a few times in Central Park. Guess you can gather our verdict about him from the fact we can’t even remember his name ?

 

TLDR: If you’re on the fence about this restaurant – please do try it! Believe me, you’ll be amazed!

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Just now, GoodSmith said:

That's like 7 decks up, right? I am starting to like this No-Elevators rule and may follow it on my next cruise. It's even faster for me to take the stairs.

Yeah, it's 7 decks. Worst thing was going from Izumi to the pool deck to check the pool situation. On the bright side: no waiting at the elevators after shows ?

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Day 7

Welcome to another beautiful day in the middle of nowhere! Unfortunately, the day started on a bad note for me. As our late night check yesterday revealed two filled pools, I got up way too early to finally get some swimming done. Cue me arriving on deck 15 after all these steps to find all pools but the sports pool drained – and the sports pool closed due to the swell. I’m putting it mildly when saying I was not amused. Guess it’s an American thing when they’re so afraid of something happening and maybe being sued. We’ve had worse seas from Gran Canaria to Morroco on Mein Schiff 3 and they didn’t even put up the partition for the 25 metres (82 feet) pool. But as Germans, if I’d injured myself in the pool I’d have thought it was my fault and not the cruise line’s – they’re not responsible for me misjudging my abilities after all. Well, nothing to be done here with an US cruise line – so back to the cabin to try to wake up hubby – a feat of its own. After finally getting him out of bed and presentable, we went back to Johnny Rockets as we enjoyed the food yesterday. Well, the wait was even longer! Today’s order was Patty ‘n eggs for both of us, hubby also got pancakes, I also got The Works. We still liked the food but it’s just too much trouble for us to do it regularly.

 

After choir practice (hopefully we get there for day 10) we just went to Playmakers for blogging and some beer. As were now 3 hours behind Germany, we’d hoped to watch German soccer. Unfortunately they only showed England‘s premier league, so hubby had to listen to his team on the radio. By the way, we’ve finally done it! We had lunch at Playmakers – Classic Popcorn Shrimp for me, Base Loaded Potato Skins for hubby. The shrimp was just as you’d expect it, but the potato skins were exceptionally AWESOME! We’ll have to get them again, they’re so delicious.

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As our dinner reservation was for 9 pm (12 am European time, and it finally feels like it!), we had a second lunch at Park Cafe. That’s where I also spotted this flag – it’s not only fellow Germans, but they’re routing for MY soccer team ?

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Evening entertainment was the love & marriage show – another premiere for us. We’ve been married for 9 years now, so no sense in volunteering – to be honest, we wouldn’t have anyway ☺️ We had four couples (1 year, 4 years, 25 years, 50 years married) – it’s no surprise the longest-married couple won. We really enjoyed the show and had so many laughs, unfortunately it wouldn’t work with Germans because they just wouldn’t volunteer that kind of information ? For dinner, we did Izumi hibachi – again coming up in its own post.

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Side notes:

12.7k steps

Funny story about the difference between Americans and Europeans: one of our progressive trivia team mates from the UK chipped off part of a tooth when eating in Windjammer. Due to pain and an infection, she had to visit the doctor. Instead of just receiving treatment, they dragged her to Windjammer where she had to show exactly where she got the food and where she sat when the mishap happened – even though she explained countless times that it was her fault as she was distracted. She was really embarrassed by this and didn’t want to return to Windjammer because all staff know her now – and not for good reasons.

Only pool open today was the Solarium Pool – better than nothing, I guess – but not usable for swimming.

My mum finally got the hang of Whatsapp calling. No news on the baby front.

More staircase art:

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