danadi18

Hello,

I will be traveling to Rome this summer withy 3 daughters (ages, 11, 12, and 14) in tow.  I'm finally starting to plan our shore excisions and would love any recommendations for tours that will keep their interest.  I was looking at Rome4Kids as well as Rome in Limo.  We'd love to go to the Colosseum too.  Any info is appreciated!

Has anyone been here recently?  What did you do?  I'm having a hard time finding an excursion here.  I'll be traveling with my husband and my three kids (ages 12, 10, and 9). Thanks for any insight!

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Did you bring a tripod or was the merry go round shot hand held?  Impressive.  Love the shot of your 3 girls standing at the railing looking at the sunset.

Thank you! Hand held at 1/30 SS. I’m a photographer so I’ve done this shot a few times before and can be reallllly still when I need to! 

14 minutes ago, jjjhill said:

 

Your photos are stunning. Deets on your gear?

Thank you!  These were shot with a 35 1.4 on a canon 5D Mark iii.  

3 hours ago, RCLcruiser2012 said:

Hi!  LOVE reading your review.  We had a great experience at kids club two years ago with plenty of activities BUT now you have me worried....  Taking an almost 5 year old to now an almost 8 year old will be different....  Did they not group with the ages?!?!  I personally liked them grouped by ages with appropriate activities... Thank you for your review.

They do group with ages, but I wanted to make sure that my girls stayed together since the younger two are shy and wouldn't go in on their own.  I think during the say they do science activities in the lab, but my girls only went in at night. Hope this helps!

Day 3 (another Sea Day!)

Yes, I chose this itinerary because of the amount of Sea Days.  They always end up being my fave because I don't have to get up early and rush around to get off the boat.

Day 3 was a lazy one.  Well, as lazy as you can be with three little females running around you at all times.  Enter husband.  After some more avocado toast and mimosas at the Windjammer, Mama wanted to just lay down at the pool and read her book so daddy stepped in to take the girls to the different activities they wanted to do.   After about an hour or so of relaxing with our whole crew, the girls saw some kids who had their faces painting so of course they wanted theirs done too.  So on they went.  And on the way back they did a game of mini golf.  All the while I sipped some frosty mud slides and finally got to read my book and listen to some music.

When they came back, the hubby and I decided to try out the water slides since we didn't get to the day before.  Tip - get there when they open!  I think we got on line at 12 or so and we ended up waiting over a half hour to get on the racing slides.  The toilet bowl slide line (I know that's not the actual name but I can't remember it and well - it reminds me of a toilet bowl) was even longer and moved even slower since they only allow one person at a time, so we raced the first time around.  He won.  Always does.  Damn him.  For some reason, there is a higher demand for the blue slide than the yellow but I think they're both the same.

Today's lunch was El Loco Fresh.  Listen, I'm not a foodie by any means but I thought it was just "ok" as far as Mexican food goes.  I love Tijiana Flats, Moes, and Chipotle and would eat any of those first.  Yes it's a great concept but I thought it could have been tastier.  The girls loved making their own nachos with all the toppings and I really liked the guacamole.  I told you, I love all things avocado.  The MIL did not like it one bit and I believe my father and uncle compared it to Alpo dog food. Now, it wasn't that bad!  They're harder to please than me.

After lunch,  my daughter ran into a friend of hers from school randomly at the pool, so they all decided to play together and go down the slides.  They had a blast! Finally someone to play with that's not related to them!  Totally a win/win for us since the girls were extra entertained now.  

While they were occupied, the husband and I ventured into the Solarium for some adult time.  We hung out in the hot tub for a bit although I don't know why- it was blazing how outside.  But it was nice not to have and kids splashing in our faces 🙂 We had reservations for just the two of us at Wonderland that night so we decided to go back to the room, get cleaned up and feed the kids before they went into the kids club.

Before we fed them, I noticed a gorgeous sunset outside and bribed my children with candy from Sugar Beach to go to the back of the boat for some pictures.   This was actually the only sunset I remember seeing because we were always busy doing something else as the sun was setting each night. Here are some from the back of the boat that night.

Gasp!  An actual picture of me!  LOL.  I'm always the one taking the pictures so there are always very few with me in them.  The youngest was obviously over it by then, but 2 out of three look good AND I'm in it, so I'll take it...

And one of the sun right before it dipped under the horizon.

When we got the central park, they were playing the Lego Movie 2 at the Aqua Theater so we decided to feed the kids Jonny Rockets while they sat outside and watched the movie.  Oh yeah, they rode the carousel a few times too.

The MIL met us at the theater and she stayed with them while they feasted on Jonny Rockets.  Did I mention that the milkshakes come with the beverage package too?!  So as the children were supervised, we left them there to finish and we were off to Wonderland.

Well of course we had to have a cocktail at the Wonderland Bar first!  So we each got a different drink this time.  I think there are four specialty cocktails on the menu total so by now we've had them all.  Alice the hostess called our name and we were whisked away to our tables and asked to paint our menus with water to make them come to life.  So here's the thing about Wonderland.  Don't come here to eat like it's your last meal on Earth and want to stuff yourself until you have to be rolled out of the restaurant like Violet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Don't come here if you're a meat and potatoes kind of person only and don't like trying new things.  Come here for the experience.  And definitely come here for the DESSERT.  that melting ball of chocolate was by far my favorite dessert of the trip.  Maybe even of my life - and I've eaten a lot of desserts 😉 We tried a little bit of everything and I highly recommend the short rib.  So delish!  

After dinner, we went back to check on the girlies.  They were of course sleeping.  Snoring actually. So we went back out for a nightcap.  We watched little karaoke, watched some amazing Latin dancers at Boleros, had some late night pizza again and called it a night.

Tomorrow -St. Maarten!

6 hours ago, driftersdream said:

Sounds like you are having so much fun!!!  Enjoying your review!!

Thank you!

51 minutes ago, blueridgemama said:

Of course Disney would win😊 Its Disney for goodness sake. The problem with Disney is that you can take about 2 RCI cruises for one of theirs. They are a tad expensive! Enjoying your review and pictures.

Totally agree. This is the reason we did this cruise in the first place. Spending that much $$$ on a cruise when I can spend half is hard to justify. But you know the saying “you get what you pay for!”

27 minutes ago, MissDaisyofTexas said:

Following!

We just got off Anthem of the Seas, our first Royal Caribbean cruise after 7 on DCL. I was so disappointed with the kids club. My 8-year-old daughter tried it 3 times. Every time, they were just playing with balls and hula hoops. It was totally not her cup of tea. We are booked on Oasis of the Seas for 2021, so I hope there is more for her to do on that ship if the kids clubs are still not a good fit for her. (My 11 and 15-year-old sons loved Anthem though).

Totally agree. With all the amenities on the RCL ships, they should really amp up their kids club. After we got off, I asked my girls which they liked better - Disney vs Royal. It was a unanimous decision - DISNEY. And all because of the kids club. 

1 hour ago, ryguy2008 said:

Good to know! I also have a 12 pm arrival time and was considering going early. 

Do it!!  You'll get right on and have an extra hour of exploring!

1 hour ago, phabric said:

I am following along.  I am interested in what you did at each port?

I'll get there!  Our itinerary was St. Maarten, Puerto Rico, and Labadee.  I chose it because I prefer the at-sea days to the port days.  The only exclusion we did was in St. Maarten - Caribbean paddling.  Highly recommend it and I'll get into it in more detail when I write Day 4.

Day 2!

And just like I knew they would, my girls woke up around 6:30 AM ready to start their day. Hubby and I dragged ourselves out of bed only to see that we were docked in the Bahamas!  Huh?  How much did we drink last night?  Today was supposed to be a sea day!  We ordered room service coffee and some pastries for the girls to snack on so we could drink our coffee in peace and try to figure out why we weren't looking at the open ocean...

Soon after, the captain came on the loud speaker and informed everyone that we had to make an emergency stop this morning because a passenger on board needed emergency medical assistance and needed to be let off the boat.  He said it wouldn't affect the rest of our schedule and that we would be leaving as soon as possible.  At this time, we had no idea what happened and could only speculate.  As the week went on, I heard rumors from several people around the boat that a kid in the kids club had hit his head on the show rack badly and needed stitches or something else of the sort.  Remember how I told you that I thought the kid-to-adult ratio wasn't right?!  Yep.  This may have been a result of that.  They need more counselors in there.

Anywho - we weren't docked in the Bahamas for too long and like he said - it didn't affect the rest of our port days.  Plus we had to get to rock climbing for our oldest child at 9.  (Another activity we found out about when we went to The Attic after the muster drill).   We walked right up to rock climbing and my daughter climbed to the top and rang that victorious bell.

After working up an appetite, we went to the Windjammer for breakfast.  Here are a couple of pics I took along the way.

We got to the Windjammer, washed our hands, grabbed a mimosa and then I found the item that I ate every single day.  Avocado toast!  Nope, I'm not a millennial but I looooove all things avocado.  And every day they made it a little different.  One day it had a slice of prosciutto on top, another day it had tomatoes, mozzarella and balsamic vinegar, another day it had smoked salmon.  They had the rest of the breakfast culprits there.  Definitely enough to keep my girls fed and happy.  Later in the cruise I ate at Park Cafe for breakfast and wished we had eaten some more breakfasts there.  Park Cafe has amazing breakfast paninis.  A breakfast item I much prefer to greasy, thin bacon and undercooked breakfast potatoes.  As you can tell, I wasn't that impressed with the Windjammer breakfasts but they were good enough...

We left and decided to head to the pool.  There we ran into the rest of our crew and joined them.  We basically pool hopped and had some cocktails until it was time for our first Laser Tag session at 1 PM in Studio B.  Thank goodness we had reservations because we were able to walk right up and get ready to play.  There was a stand-by line that seemed to move very slow because obviously reservations take priority.  NOTE- You have to wear sneakers to play.  If you show up wearing flip-flips, they won't let you in. Laser Tag was FUN!  This was the first time my girls have ever played and they had the best time.  I was super impressed with the set-up they had too.  

Lunch time!  But where to go?  To the Park Cafe!  I read a review on here that he roast beef sandwich there is a MUST and let me tell you- it is.  They carve it right there and add au jus, horseradish, mustard or all three.  It is so tasty!  I also got a fresh greek salad which I loved so much and went back to get seconds.  It wasn't packed in there at all and the food was way better than in the Windjammer in my opinion. 

By the time we were done, we decided to go back to the room to give the girls some downtime before dinner at 5:30.  I brought coloring books, cards, and games for them to play which was imperative to keep them from bouncing off the walls in our room.  Although sometimes they literally did bounce off the walls. Didn't matter to us though.  We sat on the balcony, shut the door, had a drink and watched the waves.

I cannot remember what we ate that night, I only remember what we did after dinner.  Hiro!  Woah, I think my jaw was on the floor for the whole show.  Have you ever seen O in Vegas?  This show reminded me of that.  So many amazing things going on at once and I didn't even know where to look.  They do crazy acrobatics on top of you, dive into that tiny little pool, and their dance moves are amazing.  If I had to pick only one show to see while on board, Hiro would win hands down.  It is a MUST SEE.  Make reservations as soon as you can.  We sat in the splash zone which the kids got a kick out of.  The dancers are right in your face and you get splashed often. 

My youngest fell asleep on my lap during the show, so we dragged them - yes dragged because they were so exhausted - back to our stateroom, got them tucked into bed, waved good night  to my MIL, and headed back out for some late night fun.  Like I mentioned, I usually go to bed early and I was surprised at how late I was able to stay up most nights.  We headed to the Wonderland Bar for a specialty cocktail.  It was EMPTY!  We had the bar to ourselves so we tried a couple of drinks on their menu.  I got a drink with some cotton candy in it and my husband got something with a bunch of smoke which he inhaled and started coughing.  The bartender laughed at him and said most people let the smoke disappear BEFORE taking a sip.  We all had a laugh, finished our drinks and headed down to the promenade. We heard lots of laughing coming from On-Air. Karaoke night again!  Some people really get into it and it can be hilarious. If you're really into karaoke, get there EARLY!  It's a small venue and there's never enough places to sit for everyone.  Most nights we ended up standing.  

Then we headed to the pub, listened to the singer in there (he's awesome), and had a beer and some late night pizza and garlic sauce from Sorrento's. I'm pretty sure that's where we ended our night.  We were exhausted but tomorrow is another sea day so we could sleep in a bit.

Next post will be Day 3!

9 hours ago, SCruiseFam said:

Great review so far! I can’t wait to see pictures!

Thank you!  Now to figure out how to add them 🤔

11 hours ago, ryguy2008 said:

Great review! Did you have expedited boarding since you checked in with the app? 

Nope!  I checked in a couple of weeks before and they gave me a 12 PM boarding time but we went early anyway.  

I was thinking the same thing. LOL 

You're welcome!  And yes, there's a huge salad bar but as far as main entrees, I wasn't paying attention to vegetarian options.  I would assume being such a huge ship that caters to many people that there must be, right?!  LOL but you know what happens when you assume... 😆

Hi everyone!

Before I cruised, I scoured these boards for any and all info I could find on the Symphony so I decided to contribute and write my own for future cruisers. I took a million and one pics, but I haven't uploaded them yet.  I'll add them as soon as I do.  But for now, I just want to write my review as it's fresh in my head.

We were a group of 10 - My husband and I with our three daughters - ages 9, 7, and 5. My mother, father, aunt, uncle AND mother-in-law also joined us.  So we had a multigenerational group.

Embarkation - The husband and I have done 7 cruises together and several were out of Miami.  I have to say that this was THE FASTEST I have ever arrived at the port and walked onto the ship.  At 11 AM, we were dropped off at the front, walked into the doors, went up the escalator, showed our passports and flashed our set sail passes on the RCCL app and boom.  Done.  After putting our carry-on luggage through the machine to get scanned we were already walking into the Promenade.  It was so fast that I remember saying "That's it?  We're on already?"

TIME FOR OUR FIRST DRINK!  Yes people, I bought the drink package.  Highly recommend it if you're going to have more than a few drinks a day.  Think about it - mimosa in the morning, drinks of the day by the pool, wine at dinner, and chocolate martinis after dinner.  Totally worth it in my opinion. Specialty coffee is also included which I took advantage of as well.  The room service coffee is "meh" at best. We all got a glass of champagne at the Rising Tide Bar, raised our glasses and cheered to the amazing week we had ahead of us.  

The next to-do was to get the girls registered for the kids club.  We went on a Disney cruise last Spring Break and were super excited to see what this kids club was all about.  (More about Disney vs RCL kids club comparison later in this post) I was nervous though because RCL splits up the age groups and Disney does not.  I think the ages are 3-5 year olds, 6-8 and 9-11.  Just great.  I was worried all three girls would be split up and wouldn't want to go in on their own.  My girls are a gang and like to stick together!  As I signed them up I very politely asked if all of them could be placed into the 6-8 group and they said "no problem at all."  Victory is mine!  I read reviews on here regarding this very issue and have heard that it can go either way.  Some of the kids club counselors say yes and some say no.  This one obviously said yes and that was that.  The girls were super psyched. After celebrating our victory with another glass of champagne, we met up with the rest of our family and had to make the very tough choice of where to have our first meal.  

Suvery says...The Solarium Bistro!  I knew I didn't want to go to the Windjammer buffet because it was a mad house and I personally don't like being treated like herding cattle while I pick out my food.  The Solarium was a perfect choice because it was so quiet and also had a great variety of food.  We all got two tables together, ate some lunch and yes- had another drink. Before we knew it, it was already 1PM and the captain came on the loud speaker to tell us that our staterooms were ready.  So there we went.  We had two adjoining balconies on Deck 10 - staterooms 10-550 and 10-552.  Nice and spacious as far as cabins go. Also- super clean!  No stains on the carpets, the bed linens were white and bright it just overall felt clean to me.  Bonus- our bags were already waiting for us outside of our rooms.  I've been on cruises where we didn't receive our luggage until 4 even 5:00, so this was a treat.  We quickly unpacked, let the girls play in the cabin for a bit and then it was time for the muster drill.

Ughhh I dislike muster drills.  Yes they are necessary and important and blah blah blah, but they are always boring.  This one though wasn't bad at all.  Our muster station was in the Royal Theater and we just sat and watched a cutesy movie and DONE!  Easy peasy! AND air conditioned.  Ever bent a muster drill outside?  Yeah, that sucks.

TIP- If you are interested in doing activities such as laser tag, ice-skating, or even signing up for a show - HEAD TO THE ATTIC ON DECK 4 AFTER THE MUSTER DRILL. We were one of the first people in line and were able to sign up for two sessions of laser tag, add Flight, and also find the information for ice-skating.  If we hadn't done this, we would've had to wait in stand-by lines to do these activities which is never fun on a cruise when you could be doing other things!  

We then went up to Deck 15 for the Set-Sail party and got the drink of the day and said Bon Voyage to Miami!  

Since we  had the first dining time at 5:30 since we have little kids, so after we got all signed up for our activities, we decided to head back to the stateroom to get ready for dinner.  We had a beautiful table right next to a window in the Main Dining Room on Deck 3.  Our waiter and assistant waiter were cheery and fun and did well with our girlies.  The food was pretty good.  I had the escargot, caesar salad, chicken marsala and creme brûlée.  My husband got the prime rib and that was WAY BETTER in my opinion, so I ended up eating his.  Yum!

After dinner, we did some more exploring and the girls wanted to go to the kids club to check it out.  After looking up their names, they were all welcomed in, asked to take off their shoes and off they went.  I was totally a creeper mom and hid behind the door for a bit just to make sure they were settled before I left.  Yep, they seemed fine.  Now for the kids club comparison.  HANDS DOWN- Disney does this the best.  They practically have an entire deck dedicated to their club and there are many, many counselors walking around, playing with kids, and facilitating fun activities.  I'm talking about arts and crafts, decorating cupcakes, blowing up volcanoes, dance parties, video games, EVERYTHING.  Nope, RCCL doesn't hold a candle to this.  They were all in one big room and it seemed like a free for all in there.  Bunches and bunches of crazy kids and TWO counselors.  I was pretty sure they were violating some kind of kid-to-adult ratio here.  The girls still had fun though.  Some days more than others.

The hubby and I got a drink at On-Air, laughed at some karaoke, and headed to see our first show of the week - 1977.  

Tip for the shows- GET THERE AT LEAST 15 MINUTES EARLY.  Since there were only two of us, it wasn't too difficult to find seats together but if we had gotten there earlier, they wouldn't have been in the back! Oh well though, I was still super impressed with it.  Better than any other ice-skating show I've seen on a boat. My advice?  Don't miss it.  We watched it until the end, scooped up our exhausted children from the kids club, and took them back to our state room to get to bed.  The perk of having an adjoining room with your mother-in-law is that she babysits!  MIL goes to bed early so she stayed with the girls while we went back out for the balloon drop.

Let me tell you this-  having three girls this age is exhausting.  Most nights I'm in bed at 9:30 and up at 6.  I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the Balloon Drop at midnight.  But the excitement got to me and we partied until those balloons came down and were all popped.  I also have to note that the band was great!  They sang lots of fun songs and I danced like nobody was watching.  Although apparently my aunt was and recorded me. *Places hands over my red face in embarrassment.*  That's what the drink package will do to you. Definitely worth staying up late for.  What a great way to kick off our vacay!  

And that's it folks for Day 1!  I'll be back for Day 2!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Interested in any all info [emoji4]

I would also appreciate a review from the Family Suites as well. We have booked one in December and are wondering the same thing. ;)

For those of you who have taken a self-excursion to the Baths, did you just have to pay for the cab and ferry ride? From what I read, Speedy's is the company that runs the ferry and also provides cabs. Are there any other expenses?

Thanks!

I came back from the Baths this past weekend and we did the self excursion and to me it was a great decision! Keep in mind I'm 41, my wife is 33 and our little one is just over 3. We're both in good shape but I really don't see anyone having issues even if you're out of shape as long as you're not too out of shape. We left the ship at 7:15. The walk to the ferry is about 10-15min. We took the 7:45 Speedy's and got to VG at 8:30. Cab ride to the Baths drop off area was no more than 5-10 min. The hike down was about 10 minutes to the top of the Baths where you start going through the rocks. The 10 min hike is really not that hard at all and I carried my 3 year old 80% of the way down. She doesn't like to walk on dirt... Going through the caves/rocks had more obstacles as you need to climb some steep stairs and go over some boulders but not that many, and still pretty easy. My 3 year old had a blast in the caves! I'm highly opposed to going through the Baths from Devil's Bay as everyone you encounter in the caves will hate you unless you're going on a slow day. The walk in the caves is only about 10-15min if you don't stop much. But we took our time and explored the less traveled areas as well and we were in it for a good 30min. We came out to Devil's Bay around 9:30 and the beach was gorgeous! The water was really fun to wade in but be careful, waves could knock you down and probably has strong riptides. My wife who never wades in saltwater did this time as she had so much fun. We left Devil's Bay at 11:40ish and went up the trail from Devil's bay. This trail has no steps unlike the trail coming down. It's slightly longer because of it. Again, I carried my 3 year old going back up. We got to the top just before 12 and rested a bit at the restaurant. Got on the cab around 12:30 and made it to the 12:45 ferry no problem. Ferry coming back dropped us off next to the ship, not sure why, but that was a treat!

 

Overall, it was a trip well worth going. The beach is gorgeous, the caves are a must see. And I'd recommend doing a self excursion to maximize time and money. We saved over $110 compare to ship excursion!

Thanks for all the info! Did you find information prior to your cruise about this self excursion, or did you just figure it out when you got off the boat? I'll be traveling with 3 kids: 5, 3, and 2 and I really want to go to the Baths as well. i think my older 2 will be fine, and my husband can hold our 2 year old if need be. I would rather do the self excursion to save time and money as well. Any extra info would be greatly appreciated!

Just wondering if any of you thought it was worth going to the Supper Club show? We are traveling with 3 kids 5 and under and plan on having one date night without the kiddies. The show is The Brat Pack show which is really up my alley because I love 80s movies, but I know nothing about the food being served. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

Which is your favorite? Cagneys, Food Republic, Teppanyaki, Pincho, Bayamo...so many to choose from!!! I'm sailing the Escape in December and I can finally start booking my reservations for the specialty restaurants in a few days. Any recommendations? Also, does anyone know if I could possibly find a menu to any of these?

Thanks in advance!

Thank you so much for all the info! I'm a photographer, so the Baths really appeals to me and I'll split the group of I have to! Haha. Thanks again ;)

I'm sailing to Tortola in December and this is the port that I'm most looking forward to visiting. Does anyone have any great ideas for a big group that will have 5 kids 5 and under? I really want to do that Baths but do you think it will be too much?