[Live Blog] - A Symphony Awaits! 12/15 - 12/22 Eastern Caribbean

[romesauce]

15 minutes ago, Pat'sSeaHag said:

Hi. I'm enjoying your review so far! Question....we will be on Symphony in March. (Can't wait!!) For the first time ever, we have purchased the UDP. Where did you go to make your reservations? Also, did you have any problem getting the nights and times you wanted for any of the restaurants? TIA

 

Enjoy the rest of your cruise!! 😎

We got onto the ship at 11am and went to 150CP to make our reservations. There was no line there. Just make sure you have some sort of an idea where you want lunch and dinner each day. We were able to get all restaurants we wanted to eat at and the times too. Everyday 6pm dinner except for yesterday, which we had dinner at 7pm.

[romesauce]

Current vacation status: One full day on the ship is complete. There is so much to see and do on the ship that if you say you're bored, you're not doing it right. We had dinner at chops which was great. It was quite busy but service was still top notch. While the menu online didn't advertise it, they still have the red velvet cake for dessert! Of course this is what I got and it was delicious as always. Today UDP is Izumi for lunch and hooked for dinner. It's a seafood day for us today! 

[sh2738]

10 minutes ago, romesauce said:

Current vacation status: One full day on the ship is complete. There is so much to see and do on the ship that if you say you're bored, you're not doing it right. We had dinner at chops which was great. It was quite busy but service was still top notch. While the menu online didn't advertise it, they still have the red velvet cake for dessert! Of course this is what I got and it was delicious as always. Today UDP is Izumi for lunch and hooked for dinner. It's a seafood day for us today! 

 

Great to hear. If at Izumi you do the Habachi part could you please let me know what food you get included with the Habachi besides the entree? Trying to see if we could do it with a vegetarian. 

 

Thanks!

[romesauce]

5 minutes ago, sh2738 said:

 

Great to hear. If at Izumi you do the Habachi part could you please let me know what food you get included with the Habachi besides the entree? Trying to see if we could do it with a vegetarian. 

 

Thanks!

We didn't do the hibachi portion as it's not included in the UDP. We ate in the restaurant. Spent $61 dollars on food and it was all covered since we get $35/person at a la carte restaurants. 

[romesauce]

Izumi lunch! We spent 61 dollars on food. We got three rolls, two appetizers and one dessert. All delicious! This was all covered with our UDP since we both got 35 to spend. More than enough to cover for lunch. We will be back in a few days for dinner! 

 

[romesauce]

Currently in st. Maarten! We just walked the port and then headed back to the ship. Today is Jamie's for dinner. Yesterday we had hooked for dinner. Very good. The highlight was the bread pudding. I got the daily fish, blackened style. That was delicious as well. The lobster mac and cheese is very creamy and our favorite side dish of last night. We hit up the buffet for breakfast and lunch today. After lunch we will take advantage of the empty ship and probably do some mini golf and ping pong! 

[romesauce]

[romesauce]

San Juan today! We didn't get much time at this port since we were only docked from 7am to 2pm. We decided to walk around Old San Juan, get a cafe con leche and that's it. We spent about 2.5 hours walking around. Today we're back at 150CP for dinner. Jamies yesterday, I had the lamb chops which was honestly just okay. It was super chewy and hard to cut through and eat. Highlight was the cheesecake. More than half way through the cruise and it has been amazing so far. Only a few minor hiccups but nothing that we'd fret over. We did have the case of phantom knockers last night. We could hear the kids/teens running after they knocked on our door. Otherwise, having an amazing time! 

[romesauce]

[BecciBoo]

Anxiously awaiting more!!  You must be having too good a time to post! LOL

[romesauce]

1 hour ago, BecciBoo said:

Anxiously awaiting more!!  You must be having too good a time to post! LOL

I will write a full trip report and review when I'm back on land. Yep! Having too much fun right now. Currently having breakfast then it's time for the zipline in labadee! 

Edited December 20, 2018 by romesauce

[crewsweeper]

romesauce...Thank you for the "live" share.  We'd booked on the Symphony of the Seas, in 2020, and friends just got off from the Transatlantic, so we're excited.  Gotta get  DW that luggage tag, LOL.  And I want the extremely large coffee mug!

 

Looking forward to the rest, and hoping your great time continues.

[romesauce]

A few pictures from labadee! Apologies for the lack of updates. Having too much fun and want to take advantage of the last full day on this beautiful ship! 

[romesauce]

Hi all! We're back on land and missing the ship tremendously. I'll have a full trip report with review and some tip and tricks in the next few days.

[romesauce]

Hi all! I posted a review of the UDP here: 

 

[Plumbjim]

Nice review. Going in January. Question: did you do the self assist debarkation & what time you made it off the ship?

Thank you!!

[romesauce]

8 minutes ago, Plumbjim said:

Nice review. Going in January. Question: did you do the self assist debarkation & what time you made it off the ship?

Thank you!!

 

Yes. We took off our suitcases ourselves. We went to breakfast in the MDR around 7am and we were able to leave our suitcases at the entrance. We then were off the ship around 7:45am. There was a line to scan your seapass to get off the ship but it went by quickly. This was actually longer than going through customs. Customs was literally 30 seconds.

 

On the schedule we received, they notified us that they allowed self-disembarkation between 6am and 8am.

[Plumbjim]

7 minutes ago, romesauce said:

 

Yes. We took off our suitcases ourselves. We went to breakfast in the MDR around 7am and we were able to leave our suitcases at the entrance. We then were off the ship around 7:45am. There was a line to scan your seapass to get off the ship but it went by quickly. This was actually longer than going through customs. Customs was literally 30 seconds.

 

On the schedule we received, they notified us that they allowed self-disembarkation between 6am and 8am.

 

Thanks for reply. I know better, but it almost makes me want to try for a 10 AM flight out of FLL. If not, I  have to wait until 4 pm to fly out.

[romesauce]

10 minutes ago, Plumbjim said:

 

Thanks for reply. I know better, but it almost makes me want to try for a 10 AM flight out of FLL. If not, I  have to wait until 4 pm to fly out.

Be warned. The line to check in and at security might be long in the morning. We waited for an hour just to get our bag tags and to drop off our bags at the airport. Thankfully, we have TSA Pre-check so security line wasn't long for us but regular security, the line was long. We got to the airport 3 hours before our flight so we had plenty of time, but there were folks in line that had a flight in an hour and they were really cutting it close.

[Grenouille21]

On 12/24/2018 at 12:50 PM, romesauce said:

Be warned. The line to check in and at security might be long in the morning. We waited for an hour just to get our bag tags and to drop off our bags at the airport. Thankfully, we have TSA Pre-check so security line wasn't long for us but regular security, the line was long. We got to the airport 3 hours before our flight so we had plenty of time, but there were folks in line that had a flight in an hour and they were really cutting it close.

 

Enjoying your review!!  We sail on the Symphony in March.  Question about the above post.  Was the long line at the airport just for checking bags?  Was that at Miami or FLL?  We only do carry-on luggage, would we avoid that long line?  I am trying to decide between a 10:30 flight or a 4:30 flight, both out of Miami.  We have TSA pre-check.  

[romesauce]

41 minutes ago, Grenouille21 said:

 

Enjoying your review!!  We sail on the Symphony in March.  Question about the above post.  Was the long line at the airport just for checking bags?  Was that at Miami or FLL?  We only do carry-on luggage, would we avoid that long line?  I am trying to decide between a 10:30 flight or a 4:30 flight, both out of Miami.  We have TSA pre-check.  

 

It was for Miami. The long lines was for American Airlines and it was for both, getting to a kiosk to print boarding passes/luggage tags and then another long line to drop your tagged bag off. So, if you only use carry-on you should be fine if you also do a mobile boarding pass or are able to print a boarding pass before you head to the airport. TSA pre-check line was fairly quick.

Edited December 25, 2018 by romesauce

[Grenouille21]

11 minutes ago, romesauce said:

 

It was for Miami. The long lines was for American Airlines and it was for both, getting to a kiosk to print boarding passes/luggage tags and then another long line to drop your tagged bag off. So, if you only use carry-on you should be fine if you also do a mobile boarding pass or are able to print a boarding pass before you head to the airport. TSA pre-check line was fairly quick.

 

Thank you!  I really appreciate all of the info you are sharing.  Hope you had an amazing time!!  🙂

[Poorplaya]

Love all the info and the pictures, definitely from the sounds of things from a few reviews I've read the UDP is definitely the way to go to try some new food onboard.

[smeck]

On 12/15/2018 at 10:17 AM, romesauce said:

Today is the day! We stayed at the epic kimpton hotel and had a wonderful time. We had quite the adventure yesterday though. So now it's story time:

 

My husband and I had an uneventful flight to Miami. Once we received our bags, we decided to get a cab instead of an Uber. We get into a cab, ride was uneventful as well, and arrive at our hotel. We check in, get to our room, notice that there's a big balcony but then my husband realizes he left his cpap machine in the cab! Now, he just got his a few weeks ago and it was our first time traveling with it. He is obviously upset. We head down to the lobby and start calling the cab company, but wait, do we know the cab number? Do we know the driver's name? We don't know anything. We call the cab company and they were no help, of course. They need a cab number. So we go to the front desk and see if they can do anything. The wonderful front desk lady calls security asking for a favor and gets security to go back in their footage to when we arrived and got the cab number! 

We call back to the cab company and they are still no help. We have the cab number now but they cant radio into this guy's cab because he only does airport rides apparently and he is not in the system. They do suggest us going to the airport and try there. So off we went to the airport, this time via Uber. We get to arrivals and the nicest taxi stand guy understood what our situation was and told us to go to the office where all the taxis idle and wait to be called upon to the airport. We walk there and get to the security office. This is where we met the most helpful officer. His name is Michael. Michael got the cab number from us and radios out to the parking lot for the driver to come to the office but no avail. So then Michael went out and asked a few drivers if they knew the driver of cab 1366. Right away, one guy pulled out his phone and said this is the guy. Michael calls the driver and insisted he should come back and drop off our  cpap machine. 45 mins later, the taxi driver came back and we have our machine back! Michael was wonderful and let us stay in the office and talked about his job and life. Because of his and the kimpton staff, we were able to retrieve our cpap. 

 

Anyways, here are a few pictures of our balcony and view at the kimpton! 

I bet that won’t happen again. 

[romesauce]

1 hour ago, smeck said:

I bet that won’t happen again. 

Yep! Never again. We knew we were extremely lucky that we got it back. The running joke on the cruise was every time we went to a restaurant or even sitting at Cafe Promenade, we'd ask each other if we have the CPAP with us or where it is.