Stealthdog

Port of Miami. The port of Miami seems like a hot mess depending on when you arrive and depart. Royal Caribbean is Terminal A for all the Oasis class ships. Its towards the end of the port island for cruise ships, so not walkable from the downtown area. Arrivals information: Flights to Miami can be done either through Fort Lauderdale Airport (FLL) or Miami Airport (MIA). We have flown into both for cruises out of Miami. It is often cheaper to fly into Fort Lauderdale than Miami, and then take an uber/lyft/etc to the port of Miami (a few years ago an uber from FLL to port of Miami was about $60-70), so price out both airports and find out what is best for you. If you plan to arrive the day prior (or before) to the cruise, both airports are viable options and there are tons of hotels, and other private stay options, between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Our personal preference is staying in South Beach (Miami), but you have options. Fort Lauderdale and Miami are only about 25-30 miles apart. If you fly in the day of your cruise, Miami is probably a less stressful airport experience. Our arrival time to the port for our cruise was 1100-1130. It was a nightmare. There seemed to be alot of passengers leaving the ship late and we were stuck in traffic at the port for 20-30 minutes just trying to get to the RCL terminal. Terminal A is not a very functional terminal - the whole area is a chokepoint for taxis and ride share vehicles. If you are not driving to the port to the parking garage, you will be dropped off in the same area as everyone departing the ship, so it will be very easy to find. The porters are all at the curb and will take your luggage for you as you leave your taxi/rideshare and direct you to where you need to enter the building. We arrived at the port around 1015 and were immediately processed into the checkin areas (and were on the ship around 1100). Miami is one of the easiest and quickest ports to process through. It seems like the designated arrival time is a recommendation (NOTE: other ports are much more strict on arrival times, so Miami may not be representative of other ports). For Miami, I highly recommend you arrive well before your assigned time so you can get on board and make your entertainment and restaurant reservations. I saw nothing there that suggested the port workers were even looking at assigned times for the sea passes. For this cruise, we flew out of DCA at 530AM the day of the cruise, and arrived in Miami around 8AM. We stopped at a whole foods in downtown Miami to pick up wine and water (discussed in another post) before arriving to the terminal. While going through the port, we only had to show our passport and sea pass (we already uploaded our vaccine cards, so we did not have to show any kind of COVID card or negative test). We also did not have to verify credit card information because it was already provided online. Departures Information: When you leave the ship, you will walk through the luggage warehouse. Your luggage number group are displayed and you just need to go to your section and find your luggage. Once you collect your luggage you will move through immigration and customs. This was the first time we did not have to present a passport - we walked thru cameras that conduct facial recognition, and after you will hopefully just move to outside the building to parking, taxis, rideshares, etc. If you are not a US citizen, I did not see what the process was to move through customs and immigration. Once you move thru customs, you are immediately back to the outside area where you arrived on embarkation day. You will have options of taking the cruise shuttle (need to reserve on board), taxis, or ride shares. The taxi line was very long, but seemed to be the cheapest option. The ride share option leaving at 730-800 was very quick. You will need to move to Zone 1-5 outside the luggage building to find the car from your app. We took an uber to the MIA airport at about 800 and it cost ~$25. Our uber driver said he stops driving to the RCL terminal after about 9AM because of how congested it gets, so if you have a late ship departure, your time to get a taxi or rideshare car may be alot longer. But.......for us we left the ship around 730 and we already through airport security (we are TSA pre) and at an airport lounge by 900, for a 1200 flight. Outside of the chokepoint for cars, Miami is a fairly easy port to get on and get off ships.

We just got off the Symphony and Vintages was very confusing. The compass lists Vintages in both the restaurant and bar categories. I tried to order the meat plate and bruschetta at Vintages and was told i couldnt use the UDP. I actually spoke to the restaurant manager about it and how its confusing on the compass. We ended the conversation with this clarification - couldnt order the platter and bruschetta from Vintages, but could walk the 30 feet to Jaimes Italian, order the same platter and bruschetta from them, and just take it to Vintages and eat it there. It was absurd.

For us, it used to be worth it. We enjoy Blu and the thermal suite access. But, recently Celebrity seems to have priced us out. Our upcoming Beyond sailing will be our first celebrity sailing we wont be in aquaclass. We are doing concierge instead and will just buy spa passes with the cruise savings. We will have a better idea this December if we should have gone aqua again.

Departure is a breeze out of the Miami port. Deboarding started a little late, but went quick once they started. No need for passports - they do facial recognition so you can keep your passports in your bags. We had a 730 ship departure, and by 900 we were already at the Turkish Airlines Lounge at Terminal E Miami Airport sipping a mimosa (me) and espresso. The Carnival ship still did not start deboarding when we were enroute to airport so that probably saved time with less congestion. When we get home this afternoon, we will move and organize all our photos to the laptop. Will start posting the reviews tonight and tomorrow. Ill go through each of the restaurants, all of the shows, other entertainment, general ship reviews, and the ports and excursions. For those boarding today (and going back to back), hope you all have a great time! Quickest recommendation for anyone boarding a RCL ship is reserve your entertainment (first) and dining (immediately after) the moment you get on the ship. Dont wait.

No. They were in backpacks and just went through the security scanner. For the water, we did the same thing - put it all in a roll on luggage and went through the security scanner. Noone asked us to open anything to inspect.

Roatan is 2 hours behind ship time. The paper compass tells you the difference (helpful hints for today on the right side of page 1). The online app only states ship time is different but doesnt give the hour difference. We stayed on ship time (Miami time) the whole time. The two Mexico stops are one hour behind ship time. All the tours knew when boarding time. For the Compass - there is a code in your room where you can download the compass to a smart phone. We went to guest services to ask for a paper copy, and they delivered it to our room like normal starting Day 2. Our tour voucher also provided local time and ship time in the instructions for when to meet our tour company. Based on that, i think it may be standard for all vouchers to have that. We didnt book anything through RCL, so not sure what their printout excursion tickets look like. The ship is great, lots to do. You are going to have a great time next year!!!

I have a little free time so will show some pics from todays excursion. We did Sloths, Monkeys, and Iguanas from a private company. Left the business card in the room, but will give that info in the full review. It is certainly easy to do it private or on a royal caribbean tour. We did the iguanas first then the sloths and monkeys. The better half has the sloth photos on his phone, so will post those later. He didnt want touch them. 🤣

Thanks Sea Dog! Ive been looking for your hoodie but no luck so far. We just got back from the Sloths in Roatan and at gym now. We are going to have a bottle of champagne and watch pier runners from our balcony at 330pm. There were about 15-20 runners yesterday at Costa Maya. Watching them from Deck 14 was fun. We will post all of our pictures and reviews of the shows when we get back to land. We are reserved for all of them. So far we have done Hairspray, the comedians, and the 1977 ice show. All 3 were great, but we would rank them 1) comedians, 2) ice show, 3) hairspray. Tonight we see Hiro. In general, doesnt feel like there are ~5500 passengers on board, entertainment is great, food is so-so, and staff is good. Definately having a great time.

Ill let you know in a few days. The captain made an announcement that we will stay on ship time, but local times will be different. Will let you know for all 3 ports.

A few updates: Operation Water and Wine was a huge success. We each brought 2 bottles of win on. We also brought 1 liter and 1.5 liter bottles of water. Noone seemed to care. We had boarding time of 11 and were on the ship by 1030. Was really quick. Outside was a hot mess, with everyone getting off trying to get their ride shares and everyone arriving stuck in traffic. And a welcome aboard drink while waiting for Jaimes to open.

Not the same as your Versailles, but couldnt help myself.

So jealous about Versailles. How was it? We are driving down to Florida in December and will leave the dog with family for our December b2b. Good news too - I survived the early morning wakeup and we are waiting to board the flight.

Woohoo! Lets do this! About to take the other, other dog 🐶 to boarding and remembered they have webcams we can access.......so we will break down and get wifi so we can check up on him. Stoopid me should have bought the pre-sailing priced wifi. Where are you staying in Miami? I think we have always stayed on South Beach.

No drink package this time. Between bringing bottles on board, TA gifting wine to our stateroom, and 40% off bottles in the specialty dining restaurants, it just didn't make sense for us. We have some extra on board credit and will just pay as we go. We will probably get a port/sherry on occasion and a few frozen drinks over the course of the cruise. We will definitely look for you on board!

Operation Water and Wine is a go! Depending on what time we get to Miami, we may eat breakfast at the airport to waste some time. We plan to stop at Whole Foods across the cruise port near Bayfront Park. The plan is to fill up an empty little carryon luggage with water and both of us carry two bottles of wines onto the ship. We are going to test the water a little and get different size water bottles to see if they say anything, but still keep it at 12 bottles of water. If we get called out for the wine, our defense is to play stupid and cite Celebrity's policy of up to 2 bottles per person and say we assumed it was the same since its all the same company. I hope there are no RCL port spies on this board.

I hear you - I've only been to CocoCay once, so definitely looking forward to that. In fact, given the number of times we have been to Cozumel, Roatan, and Costa Maya, CocoCay is the stop we are most looking forward to. We will stop in Labadee for the first time in a December sailing.

Oh no! All of my planning is in shambles. We were already planning on eating like Hobbits with first dinner and second dinner after the late show at playmakers. I guess we will have to figure out how to do three dinners per night to include Izumi. 🤔 Thanks for the headsup! It definately helps with the expectations and figuring out what we want to do on those port days.

I know, right? I'll be up by 3AM, but I'm worried I might get injured or killed by the other half trying to get him out that door that early. 🤕 We aren't too worried about the flight getting canceled. There are hourly flights to both Miami and Fort Lauderdale we can get rebooked on.

We may as well be twins. 🙂 Everyone has different tastes - can't wait to see your thoughts on the UDP!

Hey all, we are getting ready to leave on a 7 night Symphony of the Seas out of Miami this Saturday. I normally do a review of our sailings. I don't think we are going to get a Wifi package this time, so probably won't be providing updates every day, but rather port days when wifi is available or at the end of the cruise. That said, feel free to post any questions or comments - anything before mid day Saturday I will definitely see and will make sure to look into while on board. This is the sailing itinerary: Sat (17th) - Miami Sun (18th) - Sea Day Mon (19th) - Costa Maya Tue (20th) - Roatan Wed (21st) - Cozumel Thu (22nd) - Sea Day Fri (23rd) - Coco Cay Sat (24th) - Miami We are flying from DCA to Miami first thing Saturday morning (530AM flight - ouch) with an 1100AM "wellness check" time. I assume the wellness check time is also boarding time. We are both vaccinated and will have our cards with us - will be interesting to see how boarding process is different from our last cruise. We will have a few hours to spend in Miami before we can board, so that will give us that time to pick up anything we forgot to pack (usually sunscreen) and test the water/wine carry-on policy. We didn't get a drink package and will roll a little suitcase on the ship with us. We are staying in an Oceanview Balcony and are Platinum C&A status. NCL Epic and Independence of the Seas are the largest ships we have been on, so this will be a completely new experience for us. We got the Ultimate Dining Package, and have mapped out the 7 days, so plan to make reservations first thing we get on board. We plan on doing Chops, Hooked Seafood, and Jaimes for seaday Lunches (on port days we'll do Johnny Rockets, Sushi, Playmakers, and/or free restaurants for lunch). For dinners we will check out Wonderland, Chops, 150 Central, Hooked Seafood, and Jaimes. We did all of our port days through the shore excursion group for this sailing. I don't think we have used them before. In Costa Maya we are doing "Chacchoben Extreme Tour" which includes time at the Seven Color Lagoon. In Roatan we are doing "Monkeys, Sloths, and Iguanas" at one of the local sanctuaries. In Cozumel we are doing "Snorkle El Cio and Columbia Reef with Playa Mia" - we usually stay on the ship at Cozumel, but are looking forward to snorkle time. We will probably go to the main production and evening shows, and check out the other entertainment on the ship. We will post daily activities, menus, or other pictures when we can. Let me know if you have any questions!

Its not always that clear. For example, we already see shareholder benefits and AMEX platinum OBC for our December cruise already applied to our cruise planner.

I spoke to Celebrity ref a back to back on Odyssey then Beyond in December. They told me I would receive instructions on the Odyssey if I need a test before boarding the Beyond. That is in line with the B2B information Celebrity put out on their website for north american sailings. Here is the link to the celebrity site that gives the information for B2B sailings and testing requirements. Travel Requirements for US Cruises | Celebrity Cruises The Royal site doesn't give specific B2B information, but I imagine it will be the same - you will be told on Symphony if you need to test for the 2nd leg. And if you do, Royal will provide it for you.

Thanks - need to start looking at the casino more. $2K is doable, we just have to remember to do it all on one account and not split it up. 🙂

We did the Silhouette last December. Chefs and staff change, but if you are doing 2 packages, I'd do Petit Chef and Murano. The food in Petit Chef was good enough to make the experience worth it. It was entertaining. They apparently change their show and menu several times during the sailing (maybe not on a 5 night). I'd definitely do it again. For the other, I'd recommend Murano. Based on your description of DW's tastes, she will probably like Murano, and keeping her happy is key I'm guessing. 🙂 We have only done Lawn Club for lunch and found it really basic and underwhelming. Maybe the dinners are better - looking at some comments above it probably is.

We have sailed Aqua class on every sailing before, but Celebrity has priced us out of it now. We decided to go with Concierge for our Dec sailing on the Beyond (originally Veranda, but repriced for cheaper with concierge). It was about half the price of Aqua (with the sail only rate) and we still get the same number of Club points per day, the daily canapes, and the crappy champagne. With all the different dining options on the Beyond we didn't think we would miss the dining in Blu that much, and with the money saved we can just buy passes to the Thermal Suite. I'll withhold judgement until December.