Andy C

On Vivino it gets 3.5 stars out of 5 and average price is $12.99 a bottle. Royal's wine selection even at the high end range is atrocious.

John, don't forget to find out if Star class suites were updated during dry dock. Specifically the RLS. Thanks.

Ladies, I am here.

Sorry. Had a crazy week before the cruise then the cruise then a crazy week in the office and now in Tennessee for New Years. I am tapping this out on my iPhone so I’ll be brief as it relates to the Diamond Plus and Pinnacle encounter we had at home. I’ll follow up with a more comprehensive post about food (mostly awful) and service (no where near as good as our prior 3 cruises on Harmony). The Diamond Plus encounter was quite brief and funny. Our Genie Berty (who I will discuss at length later) held seats for us in the first row of full back chairs just outside the splash zone. We arrived about 15 minutes prior to the show and he took the purple star banners off and we sat down. With less than 10 minutes before the show a woman approached us and asked us if we were Diamond Plus. We told her we were Star class. She then told us she was Diamond Plus and that those seats were supposed to be for them. She gave us a scowl and moved on. We just laughed. The Pinnacle encounter was in Coastal Kitchen. My mother-in-law is hyper observant and had already alerted us of stink eye from this particular couple. We were wrapping up breakfast and the boys asked to be excused and walked over to the window to look down at the pool deck below. The Pin couple did not like this and asked to be moved to another table. My MIL noticed this and alerted my wife who got up to ask the boys to come back to the table. As my wife was walking the boys back to the table the Pin lady walked by and mouthed “control your kids to my wife.” My wife said “excuse me,” and the lady turned her back on her. My wife called out to the lady saying, “ma’am.” At that point all the tables by the window had taken notice and were looking (we were at the big table in the middle with the high back purple chairs). When my wife said, “ma’am” the nearby server responded to her. My wife said, “I am addressing the lady walking away from me.” At that point with the Pin ignoring my wife and continuing to walk away my wife raised her voice and told her, “I can control my children; you control your attitude.” My wife was seething with anger and went over to Francisco and Rahul and our Genie Berty who happened to be there to complain about this encounter. They in turn approached the couple and had a conversation with them and explained to them that if they had any issues with the behavior of other guests they should notify the crew. We befriended another family that was on the second leg of a B2B who had already befriended this particular Pin couple. They told them what a nice family we were when my wife told them about the encounter and the Pin lady said She had regretted her behavior and how she had spoken to us which was nice of her but we never spoke. Please pardon typos and informality as I typed this on my iPhone.

Sorry been slammed with Christmas prep. Plus while the two stories are funny (after the fact) they are by no means cliffhangers! Merry Christmas! I’ll try to chime in before weeks end.

I just got off Symphony yesterday. We were in Star class. Every single meal we ate was on par with Applebee's type food (with some meals being even worse than Applebee's type food). I know the food is always going to be lame. We have toddlers who love RCI. We love Symphony and Harmony because they are beautiful ships. We could've done Chef's Table for free but didn't waste our time (my wife laughed when I brought it up). We took almost all of our meals in the suite and ordered from the different "specialty" restaurants.

I am back home now. I will add the story shortly and do a full re-cap of the cruise.

Barry, hope you had a nice time. I would not sail on this ship for free. Our cruise was nice. Crew was cold and nowhere near as nice, warm and friendly as Harmony. Genie was nice. We are home now.

It’s been a rocky voyage literally and figuratively. Overall a disappointing cruise compared to our multiple experiences on Harmony.

Weather too bad to dock at Cococay. Mission aborted. Captain Rob is doing donuts right now.

At least 6 falls detracted from the quality of the show. I didn’t stay till the end.