ARandomTraveler

Some people must not get sea sick 😂

My other suggestion is that if you want to eat at the hibachi, book it at full price and pick your day and time. When you get on the ship, you can ask them to refund the money and apply your dining plan.

If you're on a full ship, all times will be hard to get. I'm on symphony now and all restaurants have been sold out since day 1, so we haven't been able to make any changes to our dining choices, but we are finding that you can pretty much walk in to any restaurant at the end of the day (around 8:30pm) and they'll have a table available from someone who are quickly and left.

The motion at the front of the ship is terrible!!! I would pay to upgrade NOT to be at the front of the ship. I'd take the noise before the shaky, wobbly front of the ship.

Early seating is at 5:30pm (eastern time)

Excellent! Supposedly there's 6400 passengers on board and I've yet to feel like anything is crowded. Food has been delicious (I haven't eaten in the MDR and have yet to try a lot of places still but what I've had has been good with both the free food and the specialty dining). Shows are entertaining, the staff has been friendly and helpful. The seas have been calm (5ft high). I get very sea sick and haven't felt bad yet, though I can feel the boat moving all the time. The gym is well equipped and surprisingly much busier than I expected it to be. Weather has been good, it's overcast during the day which is a little bit of a bummer to me, but for people who burn easily it's probably welcome. It's still warm, and the only rain I've seen so far was last night around 9pm, despite rain being forecast every day. This is my first time on an oasis class ship and I love it. I haven't even explored the whole thing yet because there's just so much to do. The one thing I'm not liking so much is the need to schedule everything around dining reservations. It feels like our day is dictated by food (when we need to be back on the ship in order to shower so we make it to our reservations, then finish eating in time to get to shows, etc). Formal Dinner takes way too long and I think next time I'd like to go back to being a windjammer buffet person because it will give me back so many hours of my vacation. We're in a balcony room, I usually don't use the balcony, but I've used it every day this trip, I sit out there in the morning and drink my coffee. The chairs are comfortable and it seems like there's more room on these balconies than on voyager and freedom class ships. The room had plenty of storage (but large suitcases don't fit under the bed so they're sitting on out and in the way). Those little magnetic hooks everyone keeps talking about have turned out to be a must-have item. I highly recommend getting a pack if you don't have them already.

It pays for itself pretty quickly if you use it a lot. I go to Napa and Sonoma a couple times a year, and I always bring my own wine when I go on beach vacations. It is expensive though, especially if you're not gonna use it often.

I'm on Symphony right now and was just told at dinner to make sure we pay attention to the ship time when we go to Cozumel because it'll be different than the local time. For all other ports we're staying on the Eastern time zone (costa Maya, Roatan and coco cay). I guess maybe Cozumel isn't in the eastern time zone. *I just looked it up and it sounds like Cozumel is in the eastern time zone, but doesn't observe daylight savings time, so maybe that's why right now (in November) the time on the island is different than the time in Florida (which is eastern). I have no idea, but I do know we were told to make sure we didn't use the island clocks when in Cozumel, meaning the ship time stays the same throughout the cruise, even though we'll be sailing in a different time zone.

I'm on Symphony in a room that is right next to the elevators, which are right next to the door to get into Dazzles on the upper floor (dazzles is 2 floors). Not your exact room number, but one that's very close. Yes it's definitely loud. The first night I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but the next night when I walked by the door into the venue, I realized it was a music venue and that was where the noise was coming from. Last night the music went til midnight. Tonight it's supposed to end at 10pm. I was able to go to bed with the noise, but did think to myself that there are probably a lot of people who would be really annoyed at the noise because it definitely sounds like you're next to a music venue. If you're a light sleeper, pick a different room. If you can ignore the noise, it's a great location, very convenient and easy to get to your room and to other areas of the ship.

I don't think you'll have to wait until you board for sailings after November. The sailing I'm on right now is one of the last that had to wait until we were on the ship (the next sailing might have to do so as well). People with December sailings have been able to book shows before boarding. Based on this week's show schedule, it seems there's a show at 7, 8, 9 and 10 each night. Sometimes 7:15, 9:30 or 10:15, but there's generally something you can see at each of those hours. The comedy show is at 8pm every night, but I didn't see it in the cruise planners for previous sailings. If you have the dining package, I'd suggest making show reservations first, and then booking dining around the shows. If you do a 5pm dining time every night then you can go to all of the shows. 5pm dinner makes it so you have to get back to the ship a little early in order to get ready, but guarantees you won't overlap with any shows you want to see.

We streamed a college football game on Saturday with no issues.

So far so good! We stopped in Costa Maya today. The weather app has shown an 80% chance of rain for the past week. This morning when we docked it updated to 90%. It didn't rain at all. It was nice and warm, but it was overcast. Sat on the beach all day and barely got a tan.

We've had 2 waiters remind us that we'll be getting a survey and that it's really important for them to get feedback, and asked that we please fill them out. Neither said anything about what rating we should give. I've been making a point to write down names of employees who have been extra helpful or kind because I've heard on cruise Critic that this can help them get time off or other bonuses.

I use this to bring wine with me on trips (or to bring wine home with me when I go to wineries). I brought wine with me on the flight to Miami last week, and then onto the ship this past Saturday. Made it intact the whole way. And security never even asked me to open the bag to show that it was wine. VinGardeValise - Piccolo 01 - 5 Bottle Capacity plus Clothing - Carry-on size (when empty of wine) - All Purpose Wine Travel Suitcase (Silver) https://a.co/d/0ne8ydV

Remote key and starlink internet can be added to the symphony.

I paid $207.99/person for the dining package for a 7 night cruise on symphony. My experience with dining on the ship so far is that the specialty restaurants are nice, both with food and with atmosphere. However, my experience is confirming for me that I don't like having a set dining time. I wish it was easier to just use the specialty dining without reservations. I'm finding myself eating more food at times when I'm not hungry, simply because I had a reservation. I really like the windjammer more for the ease of dining at your own pace, serving yourself the quantity of food you want, and being able to coordinate meals around being hungry and other activities. I've got 5 days left so I'll see how I feel at the end.

My cruise planner was fixed and now calculates the correct cost for Internet with 2 devices vs 2 people getting their own internet. I haven't come across any rumblings from anyone who purchase the cheaper internet package saying that their packages got cancelled due to the starlink upgrade, but I'll keep my ears open.

Literally everyone on this ship is wearing them. Not a bad look at all, everyone's on vacation and causally dressed, and it blends in with the vacation outfit. Plus it's super convenient, especially if you don't have pockets (sundresses) and don't want to carry around a bag all day.

They used to punch holes in them, even with the RFID chip. You just had to let them be the ones to punch the hole because they knew where it was safe. They don't seem to do it anymore though.

Exactly

No problem. I figured out where I saw it. It was in the cruise compass.

Yep, the on board price on Symphony this week is $98, and they're offering a BOGO with it. I was expecting to see them offer some nice Black Friday deals on board but there are zero deals.

I'm on Symphony right now. The papers in our stateroom told us the Internet was starlink, and somewhere online it also said that, I think maybe when I went to activate my account. I'll track down where I saw it and report back.

I went to playmakers last night on Symphony and I told the waiter that I understood the rules changed a couple weeks ago and that we're no longer allowed to use our credit more than once per day. I asked him the question about whether or not you could use the credit twice in one day as long as you hadn't reached the $20 daily limit yet and he looked at my like I was crazy. He said there was no limit to the number of times you can use the credit each day as far as he knows, and that if there have been any changes to that rule, he wasn't aware of it yet and he said it can sometimes take a while before they get notified of changes like that. And he said that as far as he knows, there's no limit and that as long as he's there when I eat, I won't have any problems using the credit as much as I want because that's how he understands it to work. We only used exactly $20 last night and we went to bed after that so I never tested it, but it sounds like you can still use the credit all day long on Symphony anyway.

They wouldn't punch a hole in mine yesterday on symphony., and I don't see anyone else wearing their seapass cards without the plastic holder.