TeeRick

Just looked at my Sea Pass card from our Symphony cruise a few weeks ago. It says Diamond Plus on it. When going into the Crown Lounge there was card reader access to open the door.

Royal Suite Class has three levels (Sea, Sky and Star) on the larger ships (Oasis-, Quantum- and Icon-Class). Many people refer to Sky and Star Class levels as full suites. Sea Class is Junior Suites with fewer benefits. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruise-rooms/royal-suite-class If sailing a suite on an older/smaller Royal ship, you come under the Royal Caribbean Suites Program. Again, a Junior suite has fewer benefits. On these ships, there is no Coastal Kitchen suite restaurant. https://highseascruising.com/royal-caribbean-suite-perks/

We did Symphony Feb 10 cruise. The Crown Lounge was D+ and P.

Yes we have gone down significantly in our number of cruises - but still do once a year on Royal or Celebrity. But we go all in on that one cruise and really enjoy it!

Ahh the Duck Hunt is interesting. I did not know much about it until we found several hiding on our Symphony cruise a few weeks ago. A nice kid in the elevator explained it to me. A source of fun for a number of cruisers. It used to be find a dollar in a book in the library. But most have been eliminated!

Sounds like you are done with Royal. We too have mixed in a number of land-based vacations in addition to cruising- which we have reduced since the pandemic and the resulting prices and service reductions. This has been a pleasant change for us. In addition to resorts/hotels, we rent a beach house for a month now - cheaper than 1 week in a suite on Royal and Celebrity.

@IAMGPW with all due respect - the newer of the RCCL ships have been built as floating amusement parks and you should expect them to be full of kids and families. In my experience Celebrity has far fewer kids if you want a quieter ship.

Yes. I did not mean to imply that the concierge was available only in HH. But he/she is definitely there during these hours.

We went to the Crown Lounge on Symphony a couple of weeks ago. Once, briefly. It was windowless / dark. There are so many better choices to use our 5 drink coupons on this ship at least. Yes the old days of free drinks for 3 hours in a Diamond Lounge are gone for D, D+ and P. Other than drinking, I recognize three attractive things about the Crown Lounge during HH. 1) Decent hot and cold appetizers. 2) The chance to connect with other experienced RCCL loyalty cruisers to swap stories. 3) Dedicated concierge

Have fun and please come back here and report. Thanks!

There are negative threads like this for every cruise line here on CC. If everything is this bad, why are there record bookings announced for the RCG cruise lines like RCCL and Celebrity? and other cruise lines too? Must be something right going on. People are focused on prices vs a few years ago. Hyper-Inflation kicked all of us in the butt in every area of our lives. Including vacations. Anyway- just recently back from a cruise on Symphony. It was honestly wonderful.

Just off Symphony. Dined in CK 5 nights. Most men wore casual long pants and a nice shirt. I actually do not recall shorts and/or tees at dinner. Just to "fit in" if that is important at all, no shorts would be my recommendation, even if RCCL does not enforce any dress code. BTW, almost nobody dressed up for the two Formal Nights in CK.

We really enjoyed the entertainment on Royal too. On an O-Class ship like Symphony the entertainment, bar and dining options are exceptional. That is why we like Royal in the Caribbean. For longer destination/ itinerary-focused cruises we do Celebrity, but really looking now at Silversea.

Hi @WrittenOnYourHeart nice to hear about your Anthem cruise. Mrs. TeeRick and I also jumped to the dark side and went over to RCCL second week of February on Symphony, an even larger ship (5500 passengers) than Anthem. We have also been on Anthem a few years ago. I think Anthem has a number of features shared with Edge-Class. What do you think? Our Symphony cruise (in a Crown Loft suite) was really very enjoyable with great service and food (Coastal Kitchen- like Luminae). We booked another RCCL cruise on Indy next year (Canary Islands) in a Grand Suite. As we are D+ on RCCL we get pretty much free drinks (5 per day each) in addition to the ones included in the Suite Lounge. So a good deal for us anyway. All in, less expensive than Sky Suites on Celebrity. We also are looking to do Beyond or Ascent soon on Celebrity. Back and forth between the lines works for us. There are some very nice folks on the RCCL board here on CC too.

We also really enjoyed the ice show on Symphony called 1977.

A few years back we really enjoyed Chicago - forget which ship. A few weeks ago on Symphony we saw Hairspray and it was mediocre IMO. Dragged on in spots and was overall too long.

Ship - Symphony of the Seas Sail Date - Feb 10, 2024 (8 nights) Ports- FLL, Aruba, Curacao, Labadee, FLL Deck - 17 Stateroom # - 1714 Stateroom Category – SKY Class - Crown Loft Suite Starboard or Port Side - Port Quiet Stateroom? Yes- very quiet. Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - No. Balcony View - Excellent. No obstructions. Balcony Size? Normal or oversized for class? - Normal CL Balcony size Was wind a problem? - No If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? - N/A Any specific problems with this cabin? - First Floor bathroom - shower leaked a bit Any other comments? - The 17th Floor CL Suites are excellent overall. Great access to Coastal Kitchen, the Suite Lounge, Concierges, etc. Almost a private little quiet enclave on this enormous ship. Service was excellent.

I did notify them at times but it was always on my Seapass card and I never got charged. If perhaps that happened (it didn't) I think Guest Services would remove it. They only time to notify the bar staff is to tell them which Seapass card to charge if you and your spouse (cabin mate) have different amounts of coupons later that day and you want to use one account vs the other. It is all pretty easy and seamless!

Sky suites on X are getting their butlers back soon.

Or you will get check-in any time if you have a suite. Or earlier check-in if you buy The Key program.

Yes agree. I was just adding a comment to the discussion (in case it was useful to some) that people could also book onboard the ship if necessary.

I have been told repeatedly on board by the dining staff that only about 40-50% of available specialty dining slots are pre-sold. They hold back the remainder on purpose. When you board the cruise on any RCCL ship there will be availability if you go to any dining venue or restaurant right away when you board. Make your reservations then for any restaurant.

Do you mean RSV? There is no vaccine anywhere including Canada for Rhinoviruses.

Yes we had a very nice Crown Loft on Deck 17 on Symphony. We loved it!

On the ship we were on last week (Symphony) the limit was $14 a day. We are D+ so we had 5 drinks per day each. We ordered what we wanted and never got charged anything but we did add tips.