HelenaCruiser2012

Great, thank you!

OK great, thank you both for the info!

Hello, we will be sailing on our favorite ship, Symphony of the Seas, out of Cape Liberty. We want to take a trial run up to the Cape Liberty cruise port over the summer and while we're up there see Symphony. Will we be able to see her go by from Liberty State Park, or is there a place around Cape Liberty where we can watch her sailaway? Thanks for your help!

Completely agree here. DH and I just got off Symphony last Saturday, had an oceanview balcony room on deck 8 and loved it. Loved the cabin, the quiet balcony, the convenience of being on deck 8 and walking through Central Park to get from one end of the ship to the other. BTW Symphony was the BEST! Review coming soon (I hope).

Glad you gave her a good laugh that day. 😊

So good to hear, thank you all so much! Although sorry to hear about the sinus infections broadwaybaby123. Sometimes we don't know when one or both of us will wake up sounding sick but we're not.

OH Awesome!!! Wow that's good to hear and I hope it's the same in Miami. Already stressing about testing this week but this takes a bit of the edge off. Thanks Mikewa!

Hi everyone, we're flying down to Miami on Friday and sail on Symphony on Saturday 9/3! Very excited but a question about the wellness check at the pier - DH and I both have allergy/sinus issues and we're wondering what the wellness check at the pier is all about. It's happened before that after a night in a new hotel we wake up with sinus congestion, sneezing etc. that I guess could be mistaken for something comtagious. What exactly do they check at the pier and would allergy head congestion keep us from boarding? We're vax'd and boosted, both had mild covid in May, and will take our eMed test Weds or Thurs. Even though we may be covid negative that doesn't mean our allergies have gone away too. Appreciate any info, thanks!

Thank you so much for this wonderful review! Following along, we sail on Symphony on 9/3. Thanks for all of the info!

All of you who embark on Sept 3rd & 4th, we feel your pain, we're on a 7-night on Symphony on Sept 3rd! Darn.

That was my first thought too!

All good info, thanks! We're flying down the day before -- hopefully anyway, unless our flight is cancelled, then if we can't get on a later flight we'll be driving from NJ to Miami. Good to hear how Miami handles embarkation, we thought it was easy when we sailed NCL out of NYC too (and a very easy drive up the Turnpike for us). I'm sure we'll be ready to get to the port early but thanks for the reminder that others will be disembarking too. Nervous about the pre-cruise testing 2 days before though and have started wearing masks in crowded places again even though we both had covid in May. One more question, where/when can we print our luggage tags? Thanks everyone for your help!

Appreciate all of the info, thanks! Been awhile since we cruised, really looking forward to being on Symphony!

OK thank you both!

Hi everyone, DH and I secured an arrival appointment time of 10:30 - 11:00 am for our 9/4 Symphony cruise out of Miami. What's the earliest appt time they offer? Just wondering if I had stayed up to check in at 12:01 am if we could have gotten an earlier time. Also I understand that we can't check in earlier than our designated time, but can we arrive at the port earlier (maybe 9:30) and just hang out until our time slot? Thanks!

OK thank you so much for the info! I never thought a vacation could be so stressful.

Thanks Tlbecker1, so if positive on the ship can we disembark with everyone else and go about our lives then?? Not that we would but we could even get on a plane?

Thanks klfrodo, appreciate the input. I didn't realize check-in asks about flights. Also I wasn't even thinking about reimbursement for a rental car (although that would be good), my husband and I were wondering if we would be allowed to rent one and drive back to NJ or if we would have to quarantine in FL until we tested negative - does the cruise line contact govt officials onshore with a list of pax who are positive, and they're there at the dock to meet us coming off the ship? Just trying to figure out the logisitcs I guess like everyone else. We've booked and re-booked a few cruises (and other vacations) since March 2020 and neither one of us wants to think about canceling this one, I don't even know that we could without losing a lot of $$ this close to the cruise date.

... I'm assuming we wouldn't be allowed to fly home as planned, but would we be allowed to rent a car and drive home? We never thought we'd still be dealing with COVID issues at this point but after reading the Symphony thread today - and we're going on Symphony on Sept 3rd - our heads are spinning. Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your help Ashland and Rodney! Kinda what we were hoping to hear. We're excited to try Royal again and have been wanting to go on an Oasis class ship for awhile now. We had an Alaska cruise on Serenade booked in September but with the flight delays and cancellations this summer and since we're flying from NJ we were worried we'd literally miss the boat even though we're flying in the day before. Since Symphony leaves out of Miami, if our flight is cancelled, we can drive down if necessary. Hoping to rebook Alaska while we're on board.

The biggest difference we notice between the two (besides NCL including drinks and specialty restaurants although their pricing is higher initially) is that we think the exterior decks on Royal's ships are much much nicer with more pools. We've only sailed Mariner on Royal, and Star and Breakaway on NCL, but we noticed that outside on Mariner's decks was open, spacious, streamlined, beautiful. DH and I both thought that the outside deck areas on Star and Breakaway were choppy, hard to navigate and unattractive. We can't wait to try Symphony and expect it to be waayyy different than NCL's ships.

Hi everyone, I know this has been discussed and discussed and discussed, but looking for recent info if you can for our 7-day Symphony cruise in early September -- which nights are formal nights? if we go to a specialty restaurant on a formal night, do we have to dress formally there or can we go smart casual? for formal nights, does DH have to wear a suit/sport coat & tie or will a long-sleeve dress shirt be ok? for smart casual nights, can I get away with nice black or dark dressy jeans? We haven't cruise on Royal Caribbean since 2004 and on Norwegian it was very much "freestyle" so trying to get the lay of the land for Royal again. Thanks for your help!

OK great, thanks!

So the cup is just for the Freestyle Coke machines then and not needed everwhere else? I agree would be a pain to carry around. Thanks.

I thought MTD was so we could have dinner whenever we wanted to without being locked into a time? That's how we've been looking at it, like going to any restaurant. I saw online that we could make MTD reservations but we didn't really understand why people would do that. We were so happy they had the MTD option this time around, it worked well for us on our last two cruises on Norwegian. Are we wrong thinking that we can be this flexible with dinner? Thanks.