Newcruiser215

I did it for $88 pp in June and I thought it was worth the price.

We were on Symphony in June and after our first experience with the Windjammer, we stuck to the Solarium Bistro the rest of the week.

Surprised that you're not seeing it. I'm seeing everything for my July 23' cruise.

If you can, wait until Black Friday. I was able to get passes for $88.

What's odd is the fact that the DBP + Voom package is $97 a day. Isn't that normally more?

My Wonder sailing is currently $98 a day.

We had the basic “surf” package on our Symphony sailing last month and we had no issue with FaceTime.

On our June Symphony sailing, we did Chops the first night and that was our favorite meal. Jamie's was a close second, and there was a major drop off after that. My wife enjoyed her whole lobster at Hooked but I did not care for my surf & turf. Izumi Hibachi was very subpar. In hindsight, we should have done 150 CP.

I was on the June 18th sailing and I tested positive when I got home.

If you're staying in a suite, your concierge can make advance reservations for you. If not, do it upon arrival.

I was recently there a couple weeks ago and the food was my biggest dining disappointment of the week. I also had the surf & turf and we did not enjoy it at all. My wife had to send her lobster back.

I couldn’t see the show schedule in the app until we got onboard.

Unfortunately, I left the show schedule in our stateroom. Sorry.

I love a good onion ring but these just tasted like grease. The lady next to us on the beach kept buying stuff so they just came coming over to her like vultures. At some point while I was in the water, my wife got a "free" massage. I was so confused. Lol. I think where I messed up was just buying the Voom Surf and not Voom Surf + Stream or it was just too many people using the wifi. It worked really good in some places on the ship but in room for example, it was bad.

The nicer tumbler cup. I hope the plastic ones are temporary.

Those plastic cups are….. something.

I just read they have new plastic cups now. No more Coca Cola souvenir cups.

Thank you. Glad I could help.

I didn’t even get my money’s worth out of those cups because I fell in love with the complimentary lemonade.

Sounds like you did the VIP tour. Lucky you!

Yes, and that tied into my early frustrations once we were on board. We booked the 3 night dining package so once I got onboard and connected to the WIFI, I thought I could just go into the app and make my reservations there. Wrong. The app did not recognize that I had the package so any reservation I tried to make, it wanted me to pay. Now I have to stand in line and try to make my reservations and surprisingly I was told that Chops was unavailable for the first 3 nights so I settled for Jamie's. The kicker is, when I checked the app a hour later, I somehow had a reservation for Chops on the first night and 4th. It was a mess but it got straightened out. In terms of entertainment reservations, I did not have any issues getting those times. A couple shows we attended without reservations and we had no problems getting in.

Thank you!

Hello Everyone. Just like the title states, we are fresh off the Symphony of the Seas and I wanted to briefly share my experience with everyone. Before I get into the actual cruise, I’ll share a little info about our travel party and our pre-cruise hiccup. I’m 34, my wife turned 30 today and we have 3 kids (10, 4 & 3) but they did not join us on this trip. We are frequent Disney world visitors so we decided to fly from Philadelphia to Orlando on Thursday and then Orlando to Miami on Saturday morning. This proved to be a major rookie mistake because our 9:30am flight to Miami was canceled and then 6 Uber drivers canceled our trip once they saw where we were going. One driver agreed to take us for $250 cash instead of going through Uber but I was not comfortable with that. Finally a driver agreed to take us, so 4 hours later and my bank account $286 lighter we made it to Miami around 11:45am. Now onto the show….. Embarkation - A little overwhelming. Very busy and very rushed but also, very efficient. We were on board by 12:10pm. First Impressions - Wow! Pictures and YouTube videos just don’t do it justice. Beautiful ship that shows no signs of aging. The Royal Promenade was a mad house and trying to make specialty dining reservations at one of the desks was chaos. Didn’t seem well organized and we ended up with the wrong reservations. Getting our freestyle cups was also a hassle. They were not in our stateroom so I went back down to promenade, walked over to where they were signing up guests for a beverage package and asked for two cups. I was directed to Boleros, but Boleros was all out so back to the desk I went. It seemed like they did not want to give out their cups to people who already had the package but after some hesitation, they finally gave me what I paid for. Gee thanks. Stateroom - We had a Oceanview balcony (2D) on deck 10. Very spacious, bed was comfortable, everything was in great condition and our room was cleaned twice a day. Entertainment - Hairspray (A+) was performed several times through the week, Hiro (A) was also shown multiple times, however, it was canceled one night due to a safety issue, 1977 (B) was shown 3 times towards the end of our sailing, as was Flight (B). We also saw the Love & Marriage game, which was very enjoyable. Specialty Dining - Chops was our favorite, with Jamie’s a close second. Hooked was a big miss for me but my wife really enjoyed her 2 pound Maine lobster. The crab cake was not good, my surf was very mushy and my turf was not flavorful at all. Izumi Hibachi was another miss. I’ve never had bland fried rice before that night. The chef was very entertaining but the food just did not do it for me. Complimentary Dining - The windjammer was okay. Solarium bistro was open everyday for breakfast, lunch & dinner and it was much more enjoyable than Windjammer. El loco was very popular with long lines everyday and the food was pretty good. The main dining room for dinner was hit or miss. The beef tenderloin was amazing, however, the following night the lamp chops were not good. My wife had the NY strip twice, one night it was very good but not the next time so there was some inconsistency. We also took advantage of the unlimited soft serve ice cream cones. Other dining - Playmakers overall was a good experience. I didn’t love the onion rings but everything else was good. Finally, my biggest dining disappointment…. Coco Beach Club. I was not expecting 5 star dining but I wasn’t expecting that both of us would have to send our lobster back because it was simply not edible. We were not the only guests who experienced this that day. Pools - We loved all of the pools especially the solarium pool. What we didn’t love was people reserving pool chairs at 7am even though there are numerous signs telling people not to do it. By 10am, good luck finding a couple chairs. Ports / Excursions- St. Maarten, we booked the Great Bay Beach experience. Decent beach, the only downside was locals asking you every 2 minutes if you wanted a massage or purchase a hat, bag, beads, etc. St. Thomas, we did the 5 star island tour. Driver took us around the island for picture stops, down to Magen’s Bay (great beach) for two hours and then 2 hours of downtown shopping. Perfect Day (amazing island), we did the Coco Beach Club. Voom - Terrible and very unreliable. Crew members - Excellent. Very friendly, attentive and very personable. I never felt like just another guest, which is amazing when you consider how many other guests are on board (over 6,000 for our sailing). Our MDR waiter Rande was excellent. He always went out of his way to stop and talk to us when he would see us in other dining venues. My wife wanted to take him home with us. A+ all around. Disembarkation - A breeze. Took no time at all. Final thoughts- Overall, this was a great experience. I can’t wait to share this experience with our kids and we’ve already booked our next cruise on the Wonder.