TeeRick

You will enjoy Symphony. Don't miss the ice show!

We were in Labadee just recently on RCCL Symphony. It was business as usual. It was safe and enjoyable.

Totally agree about the Ice Show! Sit up close and don't miss it. We found that Hairspray was a bit long and dragged on in spots but overall good. Hiro was cancelled twice on our cruise due to high seas and winds so we missed it unfortunately.

We had the Captain's Platter (with Halibut) and the Royal Seafood Platter. We found them both pretty good but not the best we ever had to be honest.

A few weeks ago on Symphony, we dined in Hooked and also had Pupae as a server. She also was a server in Coastal Kitchen for the lunch shift. Very nice lady!

I have never seen a Concierge list. Just targeted questions like yours answered by somebody currently or recently on board. By the way, the Diamond Lounge is now known as the Crown Lounge. Diamonds can use the concierge, but may not be allowed in the lounge during happy hour on certain ships and sailings if a certain threshold of D+ and P's are on board.

Why elitist? Just loyalty members of similar cruising experiences swapping stories. An easy way to start a conversation and make some new cruise buddies.

There seems to be an unnamed loyalty level at 340 pts. Between D+ and P. They had an invited event on our cruise a few weeks ago for D+ members, but it was for 340 pts and above. I can see that in the future being an entry requirement for the Crown Lounge perhaps. Why not just name this level something else like D+340 or P-WannaB?😁

I seem to recall that Celebrity Edge had a sewage order on its first few sailings in the shops area of all places. But they figured it out and fixed it.

We got a letter left in our room inviting us as D+ but I don't honestly remember any more of it. Nobody was at the Crown Lounge door checking. Just card access. I think I recall a sign on the first night saying D+ and P only. My memory on this hazy. With our 5 drink coupons apiece, we didn't bother with the dark and crowded Crown Lounge when we had better options almost anywhere else on the ship.

A library? What's that?😀

Just looked at my Sea Pass card from our Symphony cruise a few weeks ago. It says Diamond Plus on it. When going into the Crown Lounge there was card reader access to open the door.

Royal Suite Class has three levels (Sea, Sky and Star) on the larger ships (Oasis-, Quantum- and Icon-Class). Many people refer to Sky and Star Class levels as full suites. Sea Class is Junior Suites with fewer benefits. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruise-rooms/royal-suite-class If sailing a suite on an older/smaller Royal ship, you come under the Royal Caribbean Suites Program. Again, a Junior suite has fewer benefits. On these ships, there is no Coastal Kitchen suite restaurant. https://highseascruising.com/royal-caribbean-suite-perks/

We did Symphony Feb 10 cruise. The Crown Lounge was D+ and P.

Yes we have gone down significantly in our number of cruises - but still do once a year on Royal or Celebrity. But we go all in on that one cruise and really enjoy it!

Ahh the Duck Hunt is interesting. I did not know much about it until we found several hiding on our Symphony cruise a few weeks ago. A nice kid in the elevator explained it to me. A source of fun for a number of cruisers. It used to be find a dollar in a book in the library. But most have been eliminated!

Sounds like you are done with Royal. We too have mixed in a number of land-based vacations in addition to cruising- which we have reduced since the pandemic and the resulting prices and service reductions. This has been a pleasant change for us. In addition to resorts/hotels, we rent a beach house for a month now - cheaper than 1 week in a suite on Royal and Celebrity.

@IAMGPW with all due respect - the newer of the RCCL ships have been built as floating amusement parks and you should expect them to be full of kids and families. In my experience Celebrity has far fewer kids if you want a quieter ship.

Yes. I did not mean to imply that the concierge was available only in HH. But he/she is definitely there during these hours.

We went to the Crown Lounge on Symphony a couple of weeks ago. Once, briefly. It was windowless / dark. There are so many better choices to use our 5 drink coupons on this ship at least. Yes the old days of free drinks for 3 hours in a Diamond Lounge are gone for D, D+ and P. Other than drinking, I recognize three attractive things about the Crown Lounge during HH. 1) Decent hot and cold appetizers. 2) The chance to connect with other experienced RCCL loyalty cruisers to swap stories. 3) Dedicated concierge

Have fun and please come back here and report. Thanks!

There are negative threads like this for every cruise line here on CC. If everything is this bad, why are there record bookings announced for the RCG cruise lines like RCCL and Celebrity? and other cruise lines too? Must be something right going on. People are focused on prices vs a few years ago. Hyper-Inflation kicked all of us in the butt in every area of our lives. Including vacations. Anyway- just recently back from a cruise on Symphony. It was honestly wonderful.

Just off Symphony. Dined in CK 5 nights. Most men wore casual long pants and a nice shirt. I actually do not recall shorts and/or tees at dinner. Just to "fit in" if that is important at all, no shorts would be my recommendation, even if RCCL does not enforce any dress code. BTW, almost nobody dressed up for the two Formal Nights in CK.

We really enjoyed the entertainment on Royal too. On an O-Class ship like Symphony the entertainment, bar and dining options are exceptional. That is why we like Royal in the Caribbean. For longer destination/ itinerary-focused cruises we do Celebrity, but really looking now at Silversea.

Hi @WrittenOnYourHeart nice to hear about your Anthem cruise. Mrs. TeeRick and I also jumped to the dark side and went over to RCCL second week of February on Symphony, an even larger ship (5500 passengers) than Anthem. We have also been on Anthem a few years ago. I think Anthem has a number of features shared with Edge-Class. What do you think? Our Symphony cruise (in a Crown Loft suite) was really very enjoyable with great service and food (Coastal Kitchen- like Luminae). We booked another RCCL cruise on Indy next year (Canary Islands) in a Grand Suite. As we are D+ on RCCL we get pretty much free drinks (5 per day each) in addition to the ones included in the Suite Lounge. So a good deal for us anyway. All in, less expensive than Sky Suites on Celebrity. We also are looking to do Beyond or Ascent soon on Celebrity. Back and forth between the lines works for us. There are some very nice folks on the RCCL board here on CC too.