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We don't leave until April 22 but our Haiti stop just switched to Dominican for anyone curious.

Two Royal ships, Mariner & Symphony

Disembark: I forgot to fill it out in the app, so they chose a time for us. One of our luggage was put on the wrong carousel but luckily we have airtags so eventually we got out of there. Got a Lyft in 6 minutes. We’re staying in Holiday Inn Miami Beach tonight, killer value for money. $400 gets you a King Ocean View right on the beach with beach chairs, umbrellas, food service on the beach. The building is old but they let us use the beach at 9am and got us a room by 11 instead of 4. The view is amazing. You won’t find a better price on Collins. My final invoice came in. All the drinks were free, no idea what happened there, maybe the charter confused the drink packages. Headed to my favourite restaurant in the world, Nobu to get some more seafood before we go home, it was incredible as usual. Sunday we tried Gianni’s and an Everglades boat ride. The old Versace Mansion is really cute and romantic inside. Now we’re at the airport, waiting to go back to the cold. It’s been a great trip, can’t wait for the next one.

Day 5 Sea Day: We slept in, enjoyed a free continental room service right on time, and bought 24 hours of premium wifi for $44. It says it’s Starlink now. The speed was just as good as I get at home. Prior to buying wifi, all my push notifications still came through, even if I couldn’t use any apps. We had Sushi on 5 for dinner, loved the Lobster Ramen and the spicy tuna rolls. My server from Myanmar was the sweetest person in the world. We have had so much fun at this point, we booked 2 more cruises for next year. Tonight was a silent disco in the foyer. It’s very unusual to walk into a room and find 100 people dancing to nothing. The buffet was still packed and buzzing at midnight when we went for a snack.

DAY 4: Jamaica We had to get up early for a 8:30 Catamaran trip. At Ocho Rios they loaded us onto a bus to go outside the port gate and then immediately let us out. It took ten times as long as walking the 30 feet to the catamaran. I have no idea why they did this. The bus driver took longer to ask us for a tip, than the time he actually drove, so bizarre. The party boat was a lot of fun. We paddled around to look at the fish and the urchins for a bit. We were the only boat around, and the coast was gorgeous, the water amazing. We got back on the Summit and checked out the buffet for lunch. I’m not really a buffet person but it’s set up really well, a dozen stations all stretched out to fit a huge number of guests, no lineups for anything. We went to our 4pm Spin Class only to be told they changed the time, and just never updated us or the app. Guess it’s a lazy vacation now. Dinner was Le Petit Chef, and the video was pretty cheesy but the food was delicious. They didn’t charge to serve me my champagne bottle. I don’t think I’d want to watch it again but I’d eat that meal every day. One of the Solarium hot tubs was hot tonight! Thank goodness.

DAY 3: Grand Cayman We woke up, and got lost on route to the tender. We were lost most of the week, thankfully it’s a small ship. Boarding only took 15 minutes since we waited until later in the morning. We walked around town, had a nice Ceviche, used the free port wifi, took some nice photos, and got back on the ship before it got busy again. It was a really clean, safe town. Nobody tried to sell us anything, and it wasn’t too busy despite 2 other ships joining us. Only the pool deck had bar service, the cruise director specifically told us Cayman only allows one bar on board, and that recently they started enforcing that. They had 3 or 4 pop-up bars operating with no computer, just writing down room numbers to charge you later, so there was no wait for a drink. We headed back to the Cold Tub for sailaway. We checked out the shops, got a cute model of the ship, and then we perused the Louis Vuittons but I don’t know enough about the reseller to be confident they were real bags. This is around the time we noticed the leg-swelling. I’ve never seen anything like it. I could only wear sandals for the rest of our trip. We went back to Tuscan for an even better meal. The fresh basil smelled amazing. The lobster rigatoni and minestrone were wonderful. Our servers were very fast. At night we had an 11pm-3am glow party at the pool deck which was really busy and fun. Then we went back to our super comfy bed and slept like babies.

DAY 2 Sea Day: We woke up early for the Behind-the-Scenes tour. Laundry, Kitchen, Storage, Control Room, Bridge. All of the staff were friendly and smiling but the difficulty of some of those jobs was humbling. The view from the bridge is great. We went back to the pool deck to find they still hadn’t heated the pools. We got our Miami Vice and sat in the Cold Tub anyway, thinking maybe cruise ships don’t have hot tubs. Later we heard another guest complain and staff told him they were working on the heating. I found ordering drinks and tipping to be confusing. Some servers scanned our cards with every drink. Some read “Premium” on the card, and never swiped them. Some had no computers and wrote our room# down by hand. Some made us fill out a paper receipt. Still, charges on the app just kept coming up $0. Some staff would not take my dollar bills when I tried to tip them extra, others made bigger & better drinks (what I’m used to on land). The Martini Flight was delicious and we loved all 6, great bang for your buck. We found it odd that there are no garbage cans anywhere. We did the Chef’s Table on Day 2. It started with Canapes in Cellar Masters, where the chef took a group photo and introduced the food manager(?) team. Then we were seated in Tuscan. After yesterday’s meal, we were surprised to be served such a huge dinner. The cauliflower soup was amazing, I could barely finish my steak & short rib. Other guests left before dessert arrived because it was just so much food and took so much time. Bathrooms are in weird locations on Summit, like having to leave a restaurant and go upstairs? Bonkers. We came back to our room to find it VERY clean again, and again, all day. So many fresh towels. In a hotel, I can never stop housekeeping from waking me up at 7am. No problem this week, we never saw the guy, it was just always clean when we got back. We tried the Solarium again at night, but again it was cold. We slept soooo good again.

Embarkation Day: We took a Lyft to terminal G, got a 10:30 arrival time and we were on the ship by 11:30. Dropped off our luggage at the room and went to Cellar Masters to try to book the Veuve Clicquot dinner but she told me they haven’t done that in years. I got an automatic refund for Mixology, it was cancelled this week. Our cards said “Premium Beverage” on them so we went to order a drink and see what happened. It was free for some reason? I assumed they would charge us on the last day. We ran around the ship to look at it while it was empty, so clean and beautiful. We loved the weird art, the old school decor, and the comfortable chairs everywhere. We had lunch at Sushi on 5, no one else was there at noon. The service was really good, and so was the sushi. We got another free(?) drink and headed to the pool deck to try to score a hot tub spot for sailaway. My #1 priority on a land vacation is having a slushy drink in the hot tub, so I was sad to find that all the pools and what LOOKED like hot tubs, were cold. So was the Solarium. Maybe cruise ships don’t heat their pools on Day 1 for some reason, we guessed. We stood at the railing and watched the port go by instead, which is kind of magical. We waved at the Carnival guests as we journeyed out into the ocean, you can see so much of Miami from up there! Off to dinner in the MDR. It was like banquet food for ants. I ate 3 appetizers and 2 mains, which is fine for “free” but I was glad we had no plans to go back. The French onion soup was really tasty, I just wish it was bigger. The Welcome Show was fun, and we had an amazing sleep in our little cabin. I can’t believe how comfortable the bed was and how well the space was used. We fit a lot of stuff in the storage.

This review is from first-time cruisers, on a 5 night from Miami. I'm 33, Canadian, and we visit the Caribbean every year, but never by ship. TL;DR: We loved it, and booked 2 more trips onboard. Booking: We were on a waitlist a couple weeks in November, and we got the call that someone gave up an Angled Balcony 7163, we paid ~500CAD pppd, mandatory gratuity and no AI since it was a charter. We chose to buy Zero Proof so we could count up our drinks after the cruise and see if a package is worth it in the future. I reserved Sushi on 5, Tuscan, Qsine, Chefs Table, Mixology 101, Behind the scenes tour, and a Catamaran snorkel excursion as soon as we could. Thanks to CC, we did some PUPs and got classic status ahead of time. When the Xpress pass appeared, it said PALL but I assumed they would change it to Zero Proof at boarding. Getting to Miami: We left Saturday, because as expected in Canadian winter, the plane was delayed and we missed our connection. They put us on a plane to FLL instead, and we took a Lyft over to our Miami hotel. The charter sold us a group rate $169USD for the Sheraton Miami Airport. Would not recommend. Nice room and view but they overbooked and turned people away. Waiters couldn’t handle the volume in the bar or restaurant. Elevators were insanely slow. Embarkation morning, the person ahead of me said they'd already been waiting 20 minutes so we carried 4 suitcases and our backpacks down 5 floors of stairs, as did dozens of others. Sunday we took a Lyft to get a bottle of Champagne for the ship and check out the beach. The ocean never gets old.

Getting on our first ship with 12 points next week, thanks to you guys!

I think it depends on the sailing. Our charter next week made us sign a waiver stating no photos/videos I take, regardless of who's in them, could be made public without getting their permission, but that we agreed to be in THEIR photos unless we tell them otherwise.

I found online videos invaluable while booking our first cruise. I'm glad there are people doing this and wouldn't be bothered seeing a person/business filming in my vicinity.

Novice here, sorry. I don't have a package and will be buying my drinks so I couldn't be sneaky sharing 'free' ones. Can anyone confirm, will they still only sell me one, if I want alcohol and a water? What happens? I get my martini and then get back in line to get a water after? I'm confused.

Just got my eDocs for April, Chic night is only in the MDR currently.

Interestingly the app shows the same for my April sailing but there are no kids on the charter, so the app may not reflect what will happen in the future.