TwoMisfits

It sucks, but per the CDC..."If you are feeling sick before your voyage, do not travel and ask your cruise line about rescheduling or reimbursement options." Since she effectively was trying to board from a US port with an active AND documented transmittable viral illness (aka, the cold), I'm not surprised she was denied a reboard. It would be against stated US policy. I think where she debarked and what the diagnosis was mattered a lot for reboarding...

As for multiple entrees, the one night I asked for a cup of the Indian entree for my spouse b/c I knew he'd like the lamb and Indian (and wasn't sure which he wanted - he was tracking down why our teen was late to dinner), my waiter just happily brought my spouse both entrees at the same time, and apologized that the chef wouldn't just plate the Indian protein without the rice (we didn't care, we don't like wasted food, but a cup of rice was okay - the waiter/chef did skip the Indian "breads", so it was about right-sized)... Symphony seems like their staff has customer happiness on point...

FYI - You get about 5 minutes to put on gear and 30 minutes to open skate during your reservation. My 9:10am reservation had us off the ice at 9:45am on Symphony last month. If you have the Key, you can get an additional hour of ice skating on board (so 5 minutes for equipment and about 50-55 minutes for skating), but that's about all you'll be able to do. So, I'd leave the skates at home, and make sure you bring the pants...

Kid events are run at RCCL bars - they don't use a "non-bar" room for pretty much any event. So, for most bars which host the family events, your kids would fine. That said, Rising Tide did NOT host any events on my RCCL ship, so I would assume they might be more strict on ages and trying to stay in the "bar" concept. But Bolero's, On Air, Schooner, etc - it's a free-for-all b/c RCCL does want it to be a free-for-all with all ages activities specifically run in those areas.

We didn't cruise for the ports, but we did set up a plan. Never be the 1st one off, but let the line go and then leave...and then enjoy the ports til we didn't. The plan was. Florida was family. Nassau was shopping. Coco Cay was beach/ocean. For Florida, we walked to the Cove Entertainment District to meet my brothers and their families (don't do that from Terminal 3 - Terminal 1 is where you should do this - take a cab from Terminal 3 - my lesson learned. The blinding heat of the walk from Terminal 3 in a Florida heat wave in May - dang - my brother drove us back). He had found a nice indoor sports bar which had huge servings and decent prices, but since we ate before leaving the ship and had early dining, we just hung out for 2 hours (which the waitress was cool with b/c she still had 11 adults lunch orders and a huge tip from my bros). It's a nice area if you just want to get off the boat and walk, especially if you're Terminal 1. And I've forgotten the name of it, b/c blinding heat amnesia (you're just putting your foot in front of the other - my oldest teen girl almost killed me for this walk, but it was the spouse's idea, not mine. I suggested the cab, but everyone said "15 minutes" - it's not 15 minutes, but more like 30.) PS - I would NEVER do theme parks on the Orlando stop. There is not enough time. I had free tickets for Sea World possible (and one of my brothers and his family were AP holders), but you're still looking at a huge transport cost and about 3-4 hours in parks. It's just not worth it unless your an AP holder or free ticket holder with a small group. In Nassau, we did a self-guided walking tour and eventually let the kids shop the straw market. They had a budget, and I admit, my teen girl actually did the whole bargaining thing. Each kid got something and it was very fun, although the prices you can get there, you can find in town. We stopped by the little boardwalky/harbor area, we hit the plaza, we stopped by a historic Church and the pirate museum, checked out the menus at BK (this was my son's desire), and toured a candy store (as much for AC as anything, but we found the coolest candles there). I was about to stop to look at honey when we felt drizzle, so we hoofed it back to the ship after about 2 hours (a little early, but our feet were tired anyway), and then the torrents of the damned opened up. It only rained badly twice on the cruise - during Nassau in buckets and during our 6th sea day morning - I felt REALLY bad for those who did the beach tours this day b/c on board, while the buckets were unleashing, you could see no one on the beaches. In Coco Cay, we just enjoyed the beach, pool, and water sports. We started at South Beach, and got chairs 4 rows from the ocean and chilled in the water for an hour past the sandbar. My teen girl kept finding ocean life that we shared out there - sea cucumber, huge and small conch, live coral, clams, mussels, etc. And a lot of dead open shells, so we took those home. Once we needed a bathroom break, we switched to the sports there and played table tennis, some table game, and bean bag toss for another 30-45 minutes. When lunch opened at the grills, we switched to the pool, had lunch, and then spent an hour at the pool (made a full walking circuit of it) before heading back to the ship for laser tag. Total spent in all 3 ports was about $60 in Nassau. But we've done Orlando and Nassau a lot...and Coco Cay was our 1st visit, so we figured we'd see what free stuff it offered. We are very happy with how our 3 days went.

It's my chronic immune-affecting condition combined with random viral illnesses - one allergy developed after a 2020 spring Covid case (my anaphylactic tree nut/mango one, b/c I'm one of the 30% who when cashew is the dominant tree nut issue, is also allergic to mango), one developed after another less severe viral illness. After the 2nd illness meets allergy, I learned to eat chicken and rice (and bland foods no one gets allergic to) now with illnesses and not let my immune system "mess up" what the enemies are when sick...

Hiro has a 10:30pm performance one night, so as long as your pair that dinner time with that show res, you should be fine. Skating is earlier, so I would shoot for 7pm. Last skating show is normally 9:30pm, and it's a small theater...

If you have early dining, show times are never an issue. The earliest show was 7pm (last day Flight) - the latest "early show" was Hiro at 8:30pm - all the other shows start sometime in between or at one of those times for those with early dining who want early shows. They ran doubles of most shows each day, so Hiro was 8:30pm and 10:30pm and 2.0 was 7:30pm and 9:30pm on a day (as examples). So, MTD and late dining can make the late shows - you just want to make sure you aren't starting to eat too late (like I wouldn't sit down for a pay restaurant at 8pm and try to make the 9:30pm of Iskate 2.0)...that said, if you make reservations to eat by 7:30pm on any day, you should always be out for a show. Some days, like Hiro day, you can go later, but you'd need the exact reservation you'll have for that (b/c you can watch it on 3 separate days, I think)...

So, to wrap up and ask if anyone has any questions... My spouse did want to mention the best paid and free food he had on ship. He would encourage everyone to go to Solarium Bistro for the lamb chops - his favorite free food on board. He had, like 4, while we went to that dinner, and he might have had more if he wasn't helping me with my fish. Close 2nd to his favorite free dessert was the baklava there - it might have been #1, but he was full! His best paid food was the filet breakfast on the Key last day. (My son's favorite was the filet on the 1st Key lunch). As you can see, paid filets are great...keep them medium rare (or less)... Best thing I brought on board - lanyards for each person with a clear plastic credit card-sized pouch. Looks, teens don't have clothes with pockets all the time, and having their cruise pass when they had Key was REALLY valuable (it's how you got the seating, and the free time on the attractions, etc), as was when they wanted to go to the teen room (b/c to do anything there, you were always turning in your pass) or leave the ship in port (didn't even need to take the cards out). My spouse didn't use one - guess who was the only one who lost his card and had to get it replaced? You can buy these lanyards onboard - $15 for the ones you'd want to wear, $8-10 for the ones you don't...but if you ever got free lanyards (from festivals, game conventions, etc), why not reuse them and bring them onboard? Thing I worried about not having onboard - a nightlight. It's 100% not necessary b/c the bathrooms are a nightlight, and you can have more or less light by just leaving the door more or less open. Easy peasy. Was so happy I figured that out night 1. So, that wraps up a great cruise. I have medical appointments this month before I set our next trip...but here's hoping they go well, so we can get back on board in the near future!

Review of the passive activities - the free ones... So, we didn't go to any deck parties (not even the balloon drop). And we skipped almost all live music, except for when we were sitting in the pools (and then we regretted the switch to live music, b/c the Zumba class was better...and quieter). And we never made the pool "set" activities either b/c we seemed to zig when the schedule wanted you to zag. But we still did a lot of the "put on" entertainment. One thing that I want to mention that Disney should come on board and consider for their afternoon parades is the Anchors Aweigh parade. Now, I thought this was gonna be a lame, kids focused production where you're just hoping they end it as soon as possible. But that dang parade was GREAT. It almost made me go to the Adventure Ocean theater for the puppet show b/c they spent so much on the parade and all the employees were so committed to the roles. The best spot happens to be the front carpet for the shops near the RP (if you can't grab a seat), but the great thing is everyone marches from Royal Promenade around back to the Starbucks (I think), so there's always something going around. We did a bunch of trivia games, a few name that tunes, the brainteasers (and we might have won a few of those), the zen coloring (it was quiet - again, we sought that out sometimes:), a few of the evening game shows (although never got to Dazzles, but I walked in at the end and asked myself why they didn't use that site and the Attic more often for the wildly packed trivias b/c they were MUCH bigger than On Air, Boleros, and Schooner, which tended to be the activity sites), the family and all ages karaoke (a lot - did not expect that to be the hit activity for my teens), a movie, and my personal favorite - the Royal Mystery by Puzzle Break (on the last day). Somehow, I ended up with other avid escape room types, so we may or may not have won the game...which only gets you keychains, so no need to ever feel bad if you don't. We joked that 1 koozie for a 5 person trivia team was always an interesting give away b/c what if you don't know each other? Who's gonna cut the thing up by 5? We also hit the Card Room, which was far livelier and far more stocked than any ship I've been on. Whether it was $1 gambling on some game from Asia (and those folks were into it) or multiple Scrabble games (we even played that one once), or Uno, or Chess/Checkers, surfing the web, or Fluxx (I think that group brought that one b/c we never did find it to play). it was never an empty room when we stopped by - again, so not the norm of my cruising. And they did have books and daily trivia/game sheets (which came in handy, even just waiting the 15 minutes for shows - my teen boys really dislike doing nothing). It was actually a really nice place on board. Only negative for the free passive events was the lack of seating/spacing. As mentioned 2 other rarely used afternoon sites would have probably been a better fit. And there was enough. Now, sometimes, just enough...but still enough. In 7 days, it's about impossible to get bored on this ship. PS - I should note on karaoke - if you go to Family and All Ages karaoke and your song has bleeped out the curse word on screen, one should take the hint. It only took one adult once to make that mistake, and never again (and the adult got cheered when skipping the 2nd curse word).

Review of the free activities - the active ones... So, with 3 in the teen room and my spouse and I still pretty active ourselves, we tried every free activity on the ship. My ABSOLUTE favorite (if you couldn't tell) was Laser Tag. I'd have played that every day. The entire event exceeded my expectations in every good way. That said, it was my 1st cruise ship laser tag, so those who are Oasis class regulars are probably a little more ho hum on it. It did help that I won 2 of my 3 games (and would have won all 3 if I'd figured out sooner that my gun wasn't dying b/c I was hit, but b/c my front hand wasn't fully covering the sensor). As mentioned many times here, you make reservations for this event when you board, so early boarding is best. We got the coveted Day 3 evening slot - so, it acted as our missing "show" event that night before we then hit a game show. That's the perfect slot b/c the other slots, 10am-5pm on Coco Cay day are just not as valued...and folks reserve them and don't show up, so you may not even get to play in your slot. When we got back on board Day 5, I asked if we could play, and the employee said they hadn't run a game in 90 minutes b/c no one was there. So, we showered and came back and helped 2 groups of 2 run a game (so we had 8 b/c one of my teens sat out) and then 6 of us repeated the next game for a group of 12 (that was a great game). My youngest's favorite was the water slides - he did them over and over each morning and afternoon we were at the pool. He loved all of them. His 2nd favorite was the Ultimate Abyss. He even got Mom (me) to ride that one - I'll say, it's a lot, and it's good a bench is sitting at the bottom - I might have taken a few moments to reset the heart rate. It's fast, but it's not too fast...and it's over fast, so anyone can handle it. My daughter loved Ice Skating as her favorite, but she ice skates in real life, so she knew what she was doing. Note, you also make reservations for this on Day 1, so early boarding is better. I will say, this was the ONE and ONLY place I ran into a grouchy unpleasant cruiser. When I was chatting with my spouse about my boys (one who put all the stuff on, and then just couldn't skate), someone said something mighty snippy to me. Now, it was a 9:10am skate on Day 3, so I chalked it up to the wrong side of the bed, but I did have a few guests who did one of those double takes, and gave me a smile when I didn't engage, much (I might have mentioned out loud the wrong side of the bed, but c'mon NJ...). I actually thought there'd be more snippy or unhappy folks on board, so this stands out b/c it was the rare "once" - everyone else was so kind, happy, helpful, and friendly. Note to anyone at 9:10am skate in the seats - if you sit in the front row, folks will probably stop on the walls b/c half of everyone can't skate. And when they stop, they'll probably be talking. So, if you want this not to happen, move up a few rows in the seating - you'll get a better view of the whole ice anyway. My middle kid loved the beach pool best (and it really is salt water - don't do what my daughter did and dunk your head without realizing it). He was happy doing a lot of free activities, but he was most happy just sitting in the pool - a relaxer at best. And the spouse was another Laser Tag lover. It was the one free event he wanted to and did take part in (well, he also rode the Carousel and did the Playmakers and table tennis stuff). Now, we also did the rock walls (fun, but tiring), the Flowrider (fun, but have you seen wipeout potential? My youngest wiped out a lot, my middle never wiped out and was a natural, but both were one and done), the Carousel about 20 times (if you ride Ultimate Abyss, you're there, and while there, why not ride the Carousel b/c it's fun!), the Zip Line (with just 1 chicken out), the mini golf (man, this is not a "Disney roll" course - every ball wants to roll out vs in), the table tennis, the shuffleboard and jenga in Playmakers, every pool and even the kid splash pad til my youngest got brave for the big slides. If there was a free open active activity, we did it. There was plenty of available times to enjoy all of the activities without being stuck in endless lines, even without the Key (although I don't know about Flowrider b/c we only did Key here). KEY Takeaway - it does help to decide when you want to be wet and when you want to be dry, and break the day by one section before a meal and one section afterwards. You need tied shoes for Zipline and Laser Tag, and you need pants for Ice Skating, so this is not stuff you can do in your swim suit and crocs. And you don't want wet feet in ice skates, etc. This is an amazing ship for an active family with teens. If you want to go, go, go, you can - easily...and we did.

It is per day, thus why I mentioned waiting for a sale. I think the lowest it got on Symphony last month was $180 for a sea day, and $100 for a port day, but it was a sell out, holiday week cruise. YMMV on how low the price might go...when you see a price you can live with, buy. If you can't, pass. On my ship, the Key was a price I liked. The unlimited beverage package for my spouse never was (and I looked almost daily for the last 6-8 months prior to the cruise, since it was an easy click on my computer). We loved our Key purchase and didn't miss the beverage package, b/c we paid what we wanted to pay for the value we would receive from it.

If you find a sale and the price is one you're willing to pay and this means a lot to you - buy it. I saw folks using them all over Symphony, and they seemed very happy with their purchase (it's not for me, but I'm betting Key wasn't for them). Many were sleeping or reading when I walked by...very relaxed.

Thanks! Since my food allergies are adult-onset, I figured there may be many folks like me who cruised multiple times before with no issues...and now have issues, so it's like starting cruise dining over again at square 1. Or they may have added to their cruise group and now need to think about it b/c they don't want to exclude their extra guest. Before the trip, I read about everything here on allergies, and while it was really good info (and thanks so much for everyone who posted it), it mostly dealt with paid dining or simple allergies (gluten is the easiest to accommodate - on day 1 and early day 2, most RCCL folks thought I was asking for it, so you know they hear it A LOT). With this review, I was hoping to give allergy folks a guide to the non-paid dining and how to approach it. And to be aware - what is normally okay in your day-to-day life might not be here and vice versa, and you REALLY don't want to make that mistake on a ship in the middle of the ocean. (I'm still sitting here surprised by dairy in the sourdough bread and the hummus - and yet the ability to have the royal kummelwheck with jus - I never get jus)... For those wondering, I did bring on my double pack of epis - kept these in my room with my daughter and spouse fully aware where they were if I ever needed them. I also brought on my allergy pills, which tend to be all I need to handle dairy cross-contamination (which is the most likely reaction I tend to get in restaurants these days - most have no nuts, but avoiding dairy is tough - they don't use it in my dish, but aren't always careful enough with cooking utensils and surfaces). I didn't need either one for the trip, so it was an amazing showing by the RCCL cooking and wait staff everywhere on board. Again, only one fail at Johnny Rockets, and I should have seen that coming when I walked in...

Review of the shows... So, we did all 6 main shows - Hairspray, Flight, the 2 Ice Skating ones (1977 and 2.0), Hiro, and the adult comedy show. Only negative for all but comedy - as mentioned before, the decibel level. Everything is just kept way too loud. Things to know - Hairspray and Flight are in the Royal Theater - as long as you have a reservation, you'll get a good seat. And if you show up, you'll probably get seated. For the ice skating shows, seats are few and good seats are fewer. Suite/Key seating REALLY pays off here. If you have that, showing up 15 minutes before is fine. If you don't, you're gonna wanna think 40-45 minutes so you can get center seats or the opposite side 1st 3-4 rows (Key/Suites get all one side). For Hiro, the Key/Suite seating area is small and was gone 20 minutes before the showing. You REALLY wanna show up 20 minutes before to get a decent seat. If you have a reservation, you will likely at least have a seat worth sitting in, if not a great one. If you don't, you probably won't get in, or if you do, you're sitting in the splash zone. That kinda sucks, so KEY TAKEAWAY - don't bother going to Hiro (or 1977) without a reservation. 2nd KEY Takeaway - biggest aid for Key seats was 2.0. 15 minutes before the show, about the only good seats left were Suite/Key seats - everything else with an unobstructed view was gone b/c the theater is small and the shows are few (only 2 all cruise, both on the last night when entertainment pickings are more slim)... For comedy, come early (15-20 minutes) if you don't want to 1st row or the back of the room - we got great seats (2nd row, so no hectoring us but perfect viewing and appreciation). As for what shows were best, the family split. Interestingly, none of us picked Hiro. We're huge Cirque fans, and while Hiro has awesome stunts and visuals and music, it was 5 minutes too long. It should have cut a big scene and a flying scene (there were 3-4 of these), especially since the "plotting" is so simple. The 3 boys picked Hairspray. The girls picked the Ice Skating, with me picking 1977 and the younger picking 2.0 (she liked how compact and on point that show was). But they were all good and worth seeing. It's why we want this class again - we want to see another ship's version of all the different types of shows. Seeing shows was a BIG reason we cruised (we are dinner, karaoke or trivia, nightly show, nightcap/snack people, so this ship REALLY worked for that)...