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Neaxan

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Izumi Hibachi

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Welcome to our first ever experience with teppanyaki style dining – this just isn’t a thing in Germany. Only the more reason to try it! For those who haven’t experienced this, you are seated around a grill and watch your chef prepare your dinner. In Symphony’s case, there are 8 seats per grill table. We were seated with a couple from Orlando who weren’t very talkative. The other 4 seats were two couples from London who were only talking on their own. Luckily, we had a very entertaining chef in Ryan.

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Before the teppanyaki itself starts, you get the chance to order from the normal Izumi menu (at à la carte pricing). We didn’t, because we’ll be back for sushi anyway. Included in the restaurant fee there’s your choice of two meats/seafood etc. I chose beef and tiger shrimp, hubby chose steak & chicken. Before your chef moves on to the good stuff, he’ll prepare veggies and rice for you. While you’re waiting for that (and enjoying the show, I might add), you’re served edamame and a salad with ginger dressing. We don’t like edamame but the salad was quite good.

Veggies and rice were just as you’d expect them, good but nothing to write home about. The meats/seafood on the other hand were really good. Afterwards, we had a chance to order mochi ice cream for dessert (included in the restaurant fee). Dessert tasted quite interesting, but we’ve had better on this cruise.

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Final verdict: Hibachi is more about show and entertainment and less about the food. I’d say you should do it once for the experience, but for us once is enough.

Side note: maybe don't don your best clothes, we were showered in veggies by the chef on the table behind us - guess his skills weren't quite up to par ?

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On 10/29/2018 at 6:54 AM, Neaxan said:

Here we go – embarkation day has finally arrived!

 

The theme of the morning was speed – our taxi arrived 20 minutes early, but luckily we were mostly ready ? Cue us arriving at the terminal about 10 am, but no need to worry, we by far weren’t the first ones. Symphony used terminals B and C for boarding, docked between Norwegian Epic and Sapphire Princess. Funny thing: if you arrive in the port you only see the front of the ships at first – and from that perspective, Epic looked even bigger than Symphony due to the front upper deck design (and the strange dark painting on Epic). Only when you start to see Symphony’s length you realize how big she really is. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures in the abysmal weather – we’re counting on Port Canaveral for that as the forecast for Malaga isn’t good either. At the terminal we got rid of all our luggage except my carry on with medication & medical aids. We stood in line for a minute for security and then got to check in immediately. Wow, placing the sea pass cards at the cabin doors works like a charm – we’ve never been checked in that fast! About 5 minutes from curb to the waiting area – and we didn’t even have expedited arrival.

 

We entered Royal Promenade at exactly 11 am. What can I say? I guess you’ve already seen the big wow on first timer’s faces when they embark an Oasis class ship. Royal Promenade felt wider than some of the ships we’ve been on! Now was the time to put everything I learned from you great people into practice. 1st step: Dining reservations! As we’re on the 5 night package, we couldn’t do reserverations online. We got to the nearest desk and apart from a 10 minute pause due to IT problems (imagine my shock!), we were good to go in a breeze. Step 2: making sure we got all the entertainment reservations – done.

 

After that, we decided to go the „Matt way“ – lunch in Windjammer. Wow, it was packed. We found 2 seats with a very nice couple from Texas and already experienced a massive pro of cruising with an international cruise line: you get to chat with people! We’re both introverts at heart so we’re not likely to start a conversation but we love to chat – that doesn’t work well on German cruise lines ? For lunch I only went with a salad but hubby had a got through the whole restaurant with his plate. His verdict: buffet food quality and selection is better than on TUI Cruises. No red velvet cake for dessert, but red velvet cheesecake – had to go with that for Sweety. We finished lunch a few minutes to 1pm, so off to the cabin next.

 

Our cabin is an inside stateroom on deck 8 – all the way to  the front. We usually spend the money we save on the cabin for excursions – this being a transatlantic with only 2 ports, we’ve invested it in speciality dining and drink packages. We were quite surprised with the size of the cabin – it’s more than adequate and even the bathroom is quite good for us chunky types. Even better yet – when we got to the cabin we could already see our poison green suitcases down the hall. We took them and unpacked immediately – finished at 2.15 pm and we even got everything in closets and drawers, the suitcases all fit under the bed – not bad considering we’re travelling with 2 suitcases, 2 travel bags and 2 carry ons! We later found out we were the lucky ones – there have been a few luggage mix-ups with suitcases placed in front of the wrong staterroms.

 

Some of you might remember from my older posts in other threads, that I had a „project zipline“ going on. I can report that I accomplished getting under the weight limit and managed to get on the zipline right before it closed for muster drill – proof in the pictures. Might do it again in better weather for better pictures. Next stop: Studio B for the German guests reception. There are actually German D+ on board who don’t even speak English – no idea how they manage as even we can’t understand all of the German menus and cuise compasses – right now we’re doing better with the English version.

 

Muster drill was quite uneventful other than that I could use the time waiting for a workout (we’re in A2, the gym). Afterwards, we explored the ship a bit and did people watching at the flowrider. Hope I learned something from it, I’m going to try it once the weather gets warmer. We watched sailaway from the wing next to the solarium. As we had to wait for Sapphire Princess to back up, we were late for the after-sailaway FB meeting in Boleros – no problem, we just got a drink anyway. Had to do another nod to Matt and got a Kraken Lavaflow. What can I say? We really loved it and are now officially hooked! Which brings us to our first speciality dinner – but that will be in its own post.

 

Dinner was just a bit too much for us, so we explored the ship a bit more and even threw in two rounds on the lovely running track for good measure. Being close to the water on the track is really nice and seeing the waves explained the rollingwe felt since leaving Barcelona – quite unusual for the Med. The rolling combined with too much food and the fact that we’re not used to that kind of food and drinks anymore brought us to bed early (11.45 pm).

 

Side notes:

15.1k steps

American food portions aren’t for us

No laps in the pool today – the water is ok but we were just overwhelmed with this beautiful ship and everything that’s going on – another reason why this blog entry is a bit late.

Aquanation (no reservations required) tomorrow – keep your fingers crossed that it’ll even happen with the cold temperatures and waves. Otherwise we’ll have to redo all our entertainment and part of our dinner reservations.

We LOVE international cruise lines – a bit of small talk everywhere! Restaurants, bars, elevators (no no-elevator-rule if carrying around luggage ?) – it’s unusual for us but fun.

First and only time hubby ignored the no-elevator-rule, he met the stowaway piano player. I feel cheated ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Could you please inform me on what the white and red drink on the left is? It looks super yummy. And does it just come in that size? Thanks ?

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13 hours ago, Neaxan said:

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.

 

 

 

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 ?

 

 

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.

 

 

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!

Did you happen to notice if there were any real vegetarian entrees? Besides like basic vegetables or something? I would like to try this as well but my traveling buddy is a vegetarian. Thanks. 

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1 hour ago, Sh2738 said:

Did you happen to notice if there were any real vegetarian entrees? Besides like basic vegetables or something? I would like to try this as well but my traveling buddy is a vegetarian. Thanks. 

There's one vegetarian entree: cauliflower steak with pumpkin seeds, thyme, garlic confit and greek yogurt. If your buddy is a pescetarian, there's also halibut.

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How did you find Bobby Brown as emcee of the Love & Marriage show? I know that he was criticized in the past for not being especially funny or making the show as lively as other CDs, so I'm curious to know if you found him to be entertaining / engaging / funny / etc., and how well he drew out the contestants into playing along.

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Just now, JLMoran said:

How did you find Bobby Brown as emcee of the Love & Marriage show? I know that he was criticized in the past for not being especially funny or making the show as lively as other CDs, so I'm curious to know if you found him to be entertaining / engaging / funny / etc., and how well he drew out the contestants into playing along.

Both hubby and me actually like Bobby. We love his Scottish humour and the fact that he's all around the ship and quite approachable. He did get all contestants to play along and was very good at teasing answers out of them. I know Bobby isn't a favourite on this board, I guess you have to be used to British humour - it helps ? Mind you, Bobby is our first CD so we can't compare.

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Just now, JLMoran said:

Lifelong Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and Benny Hill fan here, so unless he's way more reserved in his humor I'm guessing I'd appreciate him just fine. ?

Guess you'll like him just fine. We also like the chemistry between him and Katy (Acitivies Director).

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Day 8

Another day that didn’t start as planned. As this venue still wasn’t crossed off our to do list, we wanted to have breakfast at Solarium Bistro. It opens at 7.30 am and we arrived at 8.10 am (we were just slow getting out of bed). The lines were literally around two corners with every seat in the venue taken. Quick change of plans: off to the MDR we went. MDR breakfast for us mere mortals (lower than diamond) is on deck 3 – we’ve never been that far down on the ship. There were a few lines here, but we got in quick as we were willing to share a table. Of course we are – that’s half of the fun! We were seated with couples from the US and Canada. Really enjoyable conversations all around the table – in fact so enjoyable that we nearly missed choir practice ? Breakfast choices were Eggs Benedict (never tried that before) and banana or strawberry pancakes. Guess Eggs Benedict are not our cup of tea, but we’ll return to the MDR for breakfast. Service might not be the fastest, but other than that it’s really enjoyable.

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The rest of the morning was spent on Boardwalk at – you’ve guessed it - Playmakers. At 1 pm, when the crowds were thinning out, we went to Johnny Rockets for lunch. Good onion rings, wishy-washy fries, ok Smoke House and Route 66 burgers, very dry BBQ Chicken Bacon Melt – but the shakes were fantastic (and included in the drink package). After my burger I wanted to go the healthy route and ordered a Crispy Chicken Club Salad – as hubby put it: chicken and bacon with a few green spots ? The salad was delicious, just not what I had expected. I had to pass on dessert but hubby got a Strawberry Super Sundae – easily lunch’s highlight apart from the milk shakes. Ice cream at Sugar Beach wasn't that much better - especially considering a price of 3.54$ per scoop (service charge included). 

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With that crossed off our list, it was time to meet the Twangster bot at Schooner. He’s the one mostly responsible for us doing this blog and solely responsible for us finally buying an DLSR so thank you for that! Was really interesting to hear the perspective of a seasoned Royal cruiser. No pictures as bots are like vampires in that regard – mirrors and cameras don’t work ?

 

Next stop was the running track – a necessary evil after this lunch. We even checked if Aquanation was still on before changing in the cabin – everything was fine then. But as we got back, the Aqua Theater was closed off – both Aquanation shows were cancelled ? Instead, we went to Playmakers to watch NFL. We met a couple from Mexico, her father is German. She even went to Germany to study the language, but unsurprisingly forgot everything except a few words ? Yes, we know that German is not the easiest language - but try Polish or Hungarian ?

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Day 8 - Part II

Dinner was at Windjammer – well kind of. We were still quite full from Johnny Rockets, so it was more a litte bit of salad and a few desserts. As this is likely our only evening in Windjammer, we did a bit of recon. A bit more choice than TUI Cruises, but overall we’d say they’re on par as TUI has way better gelato.

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Side notes:

12.6 k steps

Do Americans ever use spices on fries and the like? I start to understand your penchant for ketchup and other condiments.

No idea what the h*** Aqua Theater is for. If they can’t run a show in the conditions we had today, they’d need perfectly flat seas to do it. Is the Caribbean sea always completely flat or do they just cancel most of the shows?

If you see the Starbucks on board, you'll come to the conclusion that being a Starbucks addict is a requirement to get promoted to officer with Royal.

Towel animal of the day: peacock (at least I'm certain of that one)

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More staircase art – I think we’ve got them all now – well, the ones I liked anyway.

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Finally, the best piece of art on Symphony of the Seas:

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Day 8 - Part III - The Grand Finale

Evening entertainment was Flight – done by the cast of Hairspray. While Twangster was in this cruise's first show, we went to the late night session. Finally another production show for us! And what a show it was – the pictures really don’t do it justice. Apart from the non-existent storyline this was top notch entertainment with goosebumps at the finale. We could rewatch this show over and over and recommend you do it as soon as you get the chance! Needless to say that the cast got a well-deserved standing ovation for this. And we were quite happy that the 45 minutes in an ever-groing line before the theater opened was time well-spent.

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1 hour ago, Matt said:

So many Flight spoiler photos in one message board! ?

Sorry Matt, I don't consider them "spoiler photos". What Twangster and Neaxan have posted have convinced me we NEED to cruise this incredible ship. Those Flight photos have definitely piqued my interest. Hopefully I can book it when the 2021 schedule is posted. I don't care about the itinerary so much because we will probably do a B2B and just enjoy the hell out of this cruise ship! :27_sunglasses:

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Just now, Matt said:

So many Flight spoiler photos in one message board! ?

 

Just now, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Skimmed this one too.  No offense @Neaxan ?

Well, I got good news for you. There's no way the pictures could ever do Flight justice. They're only pictures after all. No matter how good the pictures, you'll still need the whole ride. The goosebump feeling is only achieved when being in a live audience. I guess the whole audience knew what would happen in the finale - with all the hints and spoilers from Bobby and Katy. That didn't dampen the feeling of sheer amazement. This show is truly magical.

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Just now, rjac said:

Sorry Matt, I don't consider them "spoiler photos". What Twangster and Neaxan have posted have convinced me we NEED to cruise this incredible ship. Those Flight photos have definitely piqued my interest. Hopefully I can book it when the 2021 schedule is posted. I don't care about the itinerary so much because we will probably do a B2B and just enjoy the hell out of this cruise ship! :27_sunglasses:

There's only one correct answer to that: YOLO, book it! I'm sure you won't regret it.

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7 hours ago, Neaxan said:

No idea what the h*** Aqua Theater is for. If they can’t run a show in the conditions we had today, they’d need perfectly flat seas to do it. Is the Caribbean sea always completely flat or do they just cancel most of the shows?

I was on Harmony in March and they cancelled all of the shows. Instead they did perform 2 of them during the day while we were docked in one of the ports. Wasn’t quite the same being during the day. 

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9 hours ago, LandstromCruise said:

I was on Harmony in March and they cancelled all of the shows. Instead they did perform 2 of them during the day while we were docked in one of the ports. Wasn’t quite the same being during the day. 

We were probably on the same cruise!  That was our first time on an Oasis class and it was disappointing that they only showed them during the day in the ports.  The CD made it sound like it was unusual and one of the first times for a daytime showing.  The waves weren't that bad (ie DD7 wasn't sick and she is very prone to motion sickness).  However, seeing the aquatheater pool shift water I understood why it was cancelled and wondered if it happened more often too.

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I'm doubting they'll show Aquanation when we're in Port Canaveral. We received a letter stating that due to US immigration everybody will have to get off the ship and be processed in the terminal. Reboarding will be from 1pm if we're lucky as there's also the US Coast Guard inspection. Hubby should be grateful that I booked Kennedy Space Center with Royal. Way better than standing around in the terminal.

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6 minutes ago, Neaxan said:

I'm doubting they'll show Aquanation when we're in Port Canaveral. We received a letter stating that due to US immigration everybody will have to get off the ship and be processed in the terminal. Reboarding will be from 1pm if we're lucky as there's also the US Coast Guard inspection. Hubby should be grateful that I booked Kennedy Space Center with Royal. Way better than standing around in the terminal.

I feel bad for you all, but then again, that means my embarkation the next day will be faster so....

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Just now, Matt said:

I feel bad for you all, but then again, that means my embarkation the next day will be faster so....

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No worries, it doesn't affect us at all.  I was quite sure this was the only reason for the added port so I planned accordingly. This is where vacation OCD comes in handy.

Btw keep in mind we'll be waving you goodbye from South Pointe Park. Well, tbh we'll be waving Symphony goodbye but count yourself included ?

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Day 9

Another early start for us – after yesterday‘s change of breakfast plans, we returned to Solarium Bistro – only way earlier. At 7.15 am, we stood in the ever-growing line – fortunately we were early enough to get seated. Solarium Bistro is a nice venue for breakfast, as you can get made to order omelet and also pre-cooked omelet options as well as fruit pancakes. Unfortunately, it’s just too much hassle on this cruise – too many people know about it.

 

After breakfast, we headed to Central Park for a bit of blogging. After more than a week I finally got one of the Hide & Seek items – this cute teddybear from Joe. At least I was wearing the perfect shirt for the occasion. Sadly, we didn’t have much time to chat as we were on our way to Dazzles for the Guest Talent Show rehearsal. This was our final meeting because we would miss the other ones due to Escape the Rubicon and the All Access Tour.

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Escape the Rubicon is an escape room game where your mission is to use the old submarine SPS Rubicon to fire a torpedo at an active volcano and thereby saving the world from its fatal outburst. It's in a dedicated room in front of Adventure Ocean. Our group comprised of 12 people, with us, two indivduals and a group of 8. We were the only non-US citizens so again no language barriers. A staff member introduces you to the story and is present in the room for the whole time. She also instructed us to not touch anything with a red hand on it. Guess what, somebody didn’t heed to the instructions and reset the game when we were on it for about 5 minutes. Fortunately, we could still go on. With a group as big as this, the game is quite chaotic because it’s impossible to know who is doing what. We still managed to save the world with 8 minutes to spare (3 if you count in the 5 minutes in the beginning). Escape the Rubicon is great fun, but you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s worth the 19.99 $ fee. Taking into account that escape rooms are more expensive at home, it was worth the money to us.

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Instead of taking a lunch break, we raced down the stairs to On Air for the Royal Heist – another puzzle break experience (without a fee attached). We already did Royal Mystery the week before and had great fun doing it. We joined the same European team as last time. PIty this game is not as well designed as Royal Mystery – you have 45 minutes and we were done with all riddles except the final one after half the time. We then stared at the final riddle for 22 minutes without coming up with a solution – or even a way to the solution. As there were no hints, no team solved the final riddle ?


Time for lunch – we headed to Park Cafe to grab a bite. The afternoon was spent at Playmakers, then a quick wardrobe change and off to Wonderland we went. You know the drill – speciality dinner will get its own post. Next stop: ISkate 2.0 in Studio B. As we had to hurry there from Wonderland, we didn’t get the best seats – can’t always get what you want. ISkate is a show where the cast choses the music as well as the choreography – so don’t expect a storyline – just let yourself be wowed by the performance. Funny enough, one of the songs they chose was This is Me from The Greatest Showman – exactly the song, we’d been rehearsing all cruise for the choir. Yes, we sang along ?

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From ISkate we hurried to the Boardwalk to get in line for Hiro, the Aquashow. Finally we’d get to see one! Guess there had been a lot of complaints as the movement of the ship hadn’t changed much since yesterday but they were still running the shows. Unfortunately, our seats again weren’t the best as a) we weren’t the first in line due to ISkate and b) the whole center part of the Aqua Theater is reserved for PiT (Pinnacle in Training), Pinnacle and Suites. Hiro is a brilliant show with a storyline (see Twangster’s blog for details), but there’s so much going on with dancing, high diving, fighting, synchronized swimming and slacklining – you just can’t take it all in. I guess you’d have to watch it at least twice to see all the details – good luck with the standby line ? Fun part: we kind of got our revenge for the seats. The screeches from the high status crowd when they got wet from the dripping aerialist amused us immensely ? With another detour for a cocktail, we just fell into our beds.

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Side notes

12.2 steps

Planning on getting up early for our way into Port of Miami, as Symphony is rumored to turn before docking. Estimated arrival time is 4.30 am in case you wanted to watch, Matt.

If you suffer from night blindness, Escape the Rubicon is really hard. Speaking from experience here.

Found yet more staircase artwork I liked – and some elevator art:

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Stopped by at Vintages – here’s the current menu for tapas:

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38 minutes ago, CruisinUngs said:

I wonder for they will start complaining about that. Is that standard for all sailings on Symphony or just this TA?

There are a lot of Pinnacle members on this sailing.  Usually, it's just a few rows in the middle that are reserved for Suites and Pinnacles and then Star class guest have their Genie reserve seats wherever requested.

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1 hour ago, JLMoran said:

@Neaxan, realized I thanked @twangster but forgot to also thank you for your own live blog! This was really interesting seeing the same sailing narrated from two different perspectives at the same time, and definitely loved your photos documenting your own experience!

Thank you. Blogging is really fun, I'm just a bit behind - too much going on here. But no need to worry I'll likely do the missing entries on the sea days on our way to the Caribbean.

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