Symphony Eastern Caribbean Detailed Review 6/29-7/6/19

[CarmenCastalia]

2 hours ago, 37645 said:

Thanks for this review. How long did it take for you all to eat dinner? Thanks 

The servers always asked us if we had any shows or time restrictions on our dining.  

I would say dinners were 90 minutes.  We never felt rushed or that it took too long.

[BigLar1]

Love this review! This helped a lot of my questions because this will be my first RC cruise.  I'm in Cleveland as well so it felt like I was reading my own future review LOL...January 2020, I can't wait!

[GadgetCat72]

Great review, thanks for sharing👍🏾

[perfect match]

Thanks for sharing! Your review brought back great memories of our cruise on Symphony. 😍🛳

[Jj343434jj]

I may have missed it on the Itinerary, but did they not have The Quest game show? 

 

Edit: Nevermind, I see they call it The Crazy Quest Gameshow now. 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Jj343434jj

[UFMOM]

Wonderful detailed review. Thank you for taking the time to write this. We will be on the Symphony with the same itinerary in August with the drink pkg and UDP. So I am taking lots of notes from your review. Lots of good information. I use a cane so it was good to hear there is some assistance for navigating the piers in some ports.

 

Mary Ann

[Vinnie14]

On 7/19/2019 at 2:40 PM, CarmenCastalia said:

Cruise Photos: We normally do not purchase the cruise photos from Picture This!, but since this was our first full family vacation, and we have never had a family portrait, we did get group photos taken on  formal night.  They have backdrops set up on Deck 5 by the Bionic Bar and also take photos on the staircase and in front of the sculpture by Boleros.  There are also a photographer in Central Park.  You do not need to schedule a time, but the earlier you go, the less you will wait.  I believe they begin taking photos on Formal Nights at 4:45. You can view your photos in the Picture This studio on Deck 6 across from the Schooner Bar.  Check your Cruise Compass for their hours as you can only look at the photos during the hours listed. 

Tap your seapass or WOW band on a photo station kiosk and your photos come up.  If you are taking group photos, give the photographers all of your cabin numbers.   If all of your photos do not come up, you can do a photo search by date and time, add them to your portfolio and ask the photo attendant to add them to your folde.  You can purchase photo packages, the smallest being 10 print or digital photos for $159.99.  Prints are 8x10 size only.  Single prints or Digital photos are $19.99 each, but you may qualify for a BOGO 50% off with your Crown & Anchor Membership, making 2 photos $15 each.  We only wanted 6 of our photos, so 3 of us purchased 2 photos each with our discounts.  Package prices were 10 for $159.99, 20 for $249.99, all your photos for $309.99.

I suggest making your purchase before Day 7 as the studio was super busy all day and it was hard to get help from the attendants.  We chose digital prints and were able to download them on the ship onto our phones with the code you get from the kiosk after you make your purchase with your SeaPass card.  We then shared the photos with everyone in our group via email.  You will also get an email 4-7 days after the cruise with a link to all your photos from the ship.  The ones you purchased can be downloaded again and of course you can purchase any others you would like, but the price goes up to $24.95 for 1 digital photo, 5 for $99.95, 10 for $174.95 and 25 for $299.95.

 

Disembarkment:  Our flights out of FLL were at 1:30, so we arranged with our car service to pick us up at 10 am.  It was raining in Miami, so it was raining in Central Park too.  There are umbrellas to use at the door, but be careful, it is slippery in Central Park when it is raining.  We grabbed breakfast at Park Café.  All the breakfast venues close around 8:30 am, so if you want breakfast on departure day, don’t delay.

We have the Moblie Passport App that was helpful at Port Everglades, but we ended up not needing it in Miami.  They use facial recognition at customs.  You walk up to a kiosk, stand on the footprints and look straight ahead.  We never even had to show our passports.  There was another line for those who were travelling with a birth certificate and no passport.  I have no idea what that procedure would entail. 

The pickup area outside the building was chaotic.  Everyone was all bunched up.  There didn’t seem to be a clear area for Uber/Lyft/taxi/van etc. Our driver called and said there was a 30-minute line to get to the port.  We were told to wait with our phone in hand and he would call with a location to meet him.  When he finally got close, he told us to cross the driveway into the center section where we were dropped off at the beginning of the cruise.  It was about a 30-minute commute to the Ft. Lauderdale airport.

 

Hope all this info helps someone else to enjoy their Symphony Cruise as much as we did. Bon Voyage!

(As someone stated in a reply to one of my posts, the WOW bands, Royal Mobie App usage, etc that I am referring to, only apply to my experience on the Symphony of the Seas and may not be applicable to other RC ships.)   

 

this is the best review for us! I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to lay this out per day. Thank you so much!

[Margin Walker]

Outstanding review.  I'll remember the cats eyes when I get lost and have to pick an elevator.  The whole review will really help with my Symphony sailing coming up March 7, 2020!

[barb65]

Thank you so much for your detailed review. You answered a lot of questions I had about Symphony. We are sailing on the Symphony this Saturday (2/22/20) except our stop includes CoCo Cay instead of Labadee. The other port are the same (St. Maarten/Puerto Rico). We are so excited since this is our first Royal cruise.

Edited February 20, 2020 by barb65
Added some words.