Semi-live Pre-opening cruise Symphony of the Seas

[Clarea]

Can you do on-board texting with this app, or do you need to purchase the wi-fi package? ... .

No texting capability (yet) with the new Royal Caribbean app.

[Cruise a holic]

Following. Love the oasis class ships

[JaniceB]

Loved all your pictures except the one of the whole fish. How are you supposed to eat it when it is looking at you:)

[Limapapa]

Fantastic pics and info!! Thanks so much

[grapau27]

The most disappointing 5 pictures of our cruise...

 

Dining room breakfast, with a view to the Port of Barcelona

 

Its not on the menu, but they do have Eggs Benedict if you ask for it

 

This was such a better view 5 days ago

 

I really don't wanna go though!

 

Okay okay, no need for the cattle prods. It's been a wonderful trip

 

Have no worries, there's still a thousand pictures to sort through and post, and we welcome any and all questions. We're off to our next adventure, so we will check in occasionally when we're not screaming our heads off at Port Aventura World.

 

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Thank you for sharing all those fantastic photos.

[stp_mmh5]

Loved all your pictures except the one of the whole fish. How are you supposed to eat it when it is looking at you:)

Well there's a few options to it

1. Let the fish handle a fork from Wonderland and he'll poke his eyes out

2. Cover the face with a napkin

3. Just ask the server to work some magic and get all the meat off for you.

 

While the first option could be entertaining, your server can and will help you out. Our server showed me a quick trick to get all the meat off quickly.

 

Excellent review sailing on 14 april. How many formal nights are there on the cruise.

 

On a seven night cruise they will have two formal nights. Since ours was a five night cruise we only had one.

 

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[stp_mmh5]

So we seriously misjudged our timeline and have arrived at the Barcelona Airport many hours before our flight to Venice, so I'll be up all night to post pictures and comments. So where to begin...

 

Ahh yes the newest feature of Symphony....Wait, Macon is telling me that this is not a part of the ship. Well, I say it needs to be

 

My apologies to CruiseLifeRick and all the others boarding tomorrow, I got a bit excited and broke a part of the ship.

 

Speaking of broken things, the solarium art with the name I can't remember before it broke. But probably already was with the wind blowing it around

 

Admittedly, I think it looks really good. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a nice pool in the solarium...

 

[witty comment]Something original about this[/witty comment]

 

And we added these little guys to the Central Park. If they don't get removed it can be a fun hide and seek. Only hint, we could see them from our balcony.

 

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[stp_mmh5]

On Wednesday, we went to go see Aqua Nation, since you know, Aquatheatre and what not...

 

Aqua Nation, since the actual show, Hiro, wouldn't be finalized until a few more sailings

 

We got great seats. We had other great seats, but definitely sat down in the "I payed an exorbitant amount of money for a five day cruise" section, so we moved to the steerage section, and still had great seats.

 

We were in a green seat and a red seat in case you're wondering which ones we had. I'm not actually showing you those as we had a blanket holding them for about four hours and I don't want to get dragged into the mess that's the chair hog thread.

 

I bet they do feel so cool sitting up there, drinking free drinks and laughing at us lower class...but damn do I want one of those rooms so bad I'd send someone else's kid into a lifetime of debt

 

Things are really looking up now. Can't wait for the show. Hey there's the cruise director. What. Shows cancelled!? What do you mean a six foot wave in the pool is unsafe? Ahh man...Fine, I'll leave. But I'm leaving my blanket here as I want these seats tomorrow

 

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Edited April 6, 2018 by stp_mmh5

[stp_mmh5]

See? The blanket tells no lies. And hides the seats very well from prying eyes

 

Ok, fine, here's the seats.....if you want to sea the see. C what I did there?

 

But we seriously lucked out and got our old seats again.

 

Ya know Dave, I don't feel like I get paid enough for this...

 

Mike thats a fine line you're walking there, tread carefully

 

I'm charging Royal Caribbean $25.99 + an 18% service fee for this picture.

 

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[storknurse13]

Amazing photos! You should charge them!

[TrojanUSC]

Did you experience any of the nightlife at all? Love a good dance club.

[stp_mmh5]

Amazing photos! You should charge them!

 

Thank you, I tried suggesting that to both the photo staff and the crew that was onboard doing b-roll footage. Photo guys had no sense of humor when it came to the service charge and the other crew said my phone camera didn't hold up to their professional rigs. So alas, the photos are here for everyone's enjoyment. I've started a new trial price, only for this thread of free.99 and the service charge. Bill will be sent to your stateroom.

Did you experience any of the nightlife at all? Love a good dance club.

So between Macon and I, we have about 5 1/2 left feet, so we didn't do much night club. That said, we did enjoy the live music up in dazzles, where we did participate in Rock-a-rokie one night. It's like karaoke, but with a live band. There was also plenty of other activities going on one could enjoy the night life in, usually a DJ in the On Air club and Boleros would often have events going on into the night. Jazz on 4 had a soft jazz group that would play until almost one most nights as well. When I get around to posting all the daily compasses, there's a highlighted section that mentions when/where all music events and what not are.

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Macon and Shane,

 

Thank you for the hilarious review.

 

What’s your favorite part of the ship so far? Favorite dish? Happy to wait until the end of the cruise for these answers. I’ll be following along.

 

I would love more detail about El Loco Fresh. Even if it’s not all positive. I’m very curious about what the lunch/snack options are.

 

Also, if you happen to find a bartender with a free moment, I’d love to know if they serve a Bloody Caesar on board anywhere.

 

Has anything replaced the Dreamworks characters found on other Oasis class ships? Any word of any character breakfasts?

 

How full would you estimate the ship is? It looks pretty empty!

 

All these questions! I guess I’m Symphony thirsty!

 

Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience with such wit and responsiveness. Enjoy the rest of your trip!

 

Promise I hadn't forgotten about your other questions. Just had to dig back a little to find the source material

 

That said I'm pretty sure we've covered El Loco Fresh. But if it's a testament on whether we thought it was good or not, we made jokes about how we should run up there and grab something all day...

 

No luck on finding a bartender familiar with a bloody Cesar. Admittedly, didn't think to ask the Hooked bartender. One thing I did notice is that almost every bar had the exact same menu, and no special drinks. When asked, it was part of the roll out. Meaning that as the crew settles in, they'll start making special drinks for certain bars and reintroduce drinks of the day. It took me until the fourth day to notice that.

 

And there is no mention of any sort of replacement character experiences. Most of the entertainment staff just played the question off as they clearly didn't know. One of the entertainment execs was onboard, but I could never get to him to ask.

 

And I have the exact numbers of crew and passengers for you.

 

4198 Passengers

2410 Crew

 

 

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Day 4 Dinner

 

Menu

 

Garlic soup. It was so good Macon almost made me switch out her French onion for this garlic one. Almost.

 

I had the Ahi Tuna. As with every fish dish ordered from the mdr, it's was tough, overcooked and lacked substantial flavor. The only negative experience from the main dining room for us.

 

Macons much better meal

 

Baked Alaska

 

Molten chocolate cake

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Zzzz....Ding ding dong...Alpha Alpha Alpha. Code Zero. Deck number 4. Say again. Alpha Alpha Alpha. Code Zero. Deck number 4. *Looks at watch, 6:15 am, groans*

 

Guess I'll go walk around. Oh look, it's Wednesday

 

Moving dead slow this morning.

 

Calmest seas we've seen so far

 

Bird stowawayed from Civitavecchia yesterday.

 

Ship looks nice when its not busy. And if you look real hard, I think there's a couple of towels out by the pool...

 

I spy our room. Doesn't look like Macon got up from hallway announcement

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Wednesday was a very busy day. Macon had sushi making class, I had the all access tour, wonderland for dinner. Plus as much trivia as possible

 

Gotta start the day out with a good breakfast then

 

Strawberry and blueberry pancakes

 

French Toast

 

Fresh made eggs

 

Buffet area if that's your preference

 

It's the little things like this that make cruising great to me

 

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[stp_mmh5]

So I'm not sure what the rules are on multi posting, so I'm going to wait for some guidance before posting the all access tour photos, because I took a massive amount and even whittling it down its going to be quite a few posts. So for now I'll post all the pictures Macon took of her sushi making class

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding, she forgot her phone so no pictures! Didnt she know we were doing a semi live thread!? (I'm so in trouble for throwing her under the bus)

 

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[suizas]

The picture you posted with the blue lounge chairs lined up close to the railing....where is this location? Deck 5 somewhere?

 

 

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[stp_mmh5]

The picture you posted with the blue lounge chairs lined up close to the railing....where is this location? Deck 5 somewhere?

 

 

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Those are in a tucked away area behind the rock wall on deck 7. So where you get the rock climbing equipment, turn around and behind the wall is where they were all lined up.

 

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[kontraxed]

I was a little surprised by your comment about the quality of the fish dinners. On past RCL ships, the MDR beef was frequently tough and/or tasteless and the fish was mostly very well prepared, so I ate a lot of fish. We go on the Symphony in May of 2019. It will be interesting to see how their meat and fish preparation develops. Thanks for a great review!

Edited April 7, 2018 by kontraxed
I found a typo.

[stp_mmh5]

Time for something sweet. How bout a trip to Sugar Beach?

 

Candy for all your inner child desire

 

Just walls of it

 

And all at the low price of $14.99 a pound

 

I feel a cavity coming just looking at this

 

 

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Sweet treats part 2

 

I scream!

 

You scream!

 

We all scream for ice-cream!

 

Top that!

 

Seems pretty reasonable

 

We never actually came back to try this, which surprises me as Macon loves ice cream

 

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[Ned11]

Sweet treats part 2

 

I scream!

 

You scream!

 

We all scream for ice-cream!

 

Top that!

 

Seems pretty reasonable

 

We never actually came back to try this, which surprises me as Macon loves ice cream

 

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They seem more expensive than the Ben and Jerry’s I got on Oasis.

 

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Symphony All Access Tour time!

So my tour was originally scheduled for 8 a.m. on the final sea day, but was rescheduled for 10 a.m. instead. Normally that's fine and all, but I had originally planned to join Macon at the sushi class, but this tour was much more exciting to me, so Macon rolled sushi without me. And ate it too. How kind of her to share...

 

Anyways, on to the tour. We get a fancy badge that doubles as a luggage tag, a Bluetooth headset that connects to the a microphone used by the tour guide, and a guide on how to knotty.

 

So our route started in the Galley on 5 where Room service is prepped, as well as the main prep area for the restaurant on deck 5. Also on this is where they prepped the fruit and cheese plates.

 

If Macon had joined me, I don't think she would have passed this point

 

Chefs cheffing

 

Okay. That was cheesy

 

These jokes are just fruity

 

I'll just stew on this for a while

 

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[stp_mmh5]

Point Here. Things and stuff. Honestly can't remember as I couldn't hear what he said. Something about an office

 

Brings a whole new meaning to slow cooker

 

And this is what was slow cooking.

 

They had plenty of it. Like they meal prep for a couple thousand people

 

Sous souping

 

And onwards (downwards?) to deck 4

 

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