Stealthdog

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.

Yes - we have about $1k obc, so didnt make sense to go with the all included rate. We went with the sail rate and will use the obc to pay for everything.

I recently booked a balcony on the Beyond for a Dec 11 sailing. Repriced and upgraded to concierge class last week and saved $500. Total now for 2 is $2500. Still more than I like to spend on a 7 night, but we decided to splurge to get on the newest ship. I would never entertain the suite prices on Celebrity....and its not just celebrity, suite prices on every cruise line I look like are out of control. But I guess people are paying it.

Baltimore was very strict, but I think it has to do with it being the tiniest port I've been to. I was a last minute booking and got a very late boarding time. I ubered there a little early and they checked my boarding time. The Florida ports are generally more fluid - much larger and easier to process people. Even Port Canaveral (which is smaller than Miami and Fort Lauderdale) - we showed up early last December for a Celebrity cruise and they just moved us through.

How does Labadee compare to CocoCay? We stop in Labadee on a Dec cruise. Thanks!

Maybe. Their updated guidelines ref B2B is vague and state they will let passengers know onboard if they need a test (to be provided complimentary by Celebrity). They dont actually say what will trigger the need for a test, only that most wont need one. Getting on the first sailing seems to be covered with no test required.

You will get instructions on the ship and will likely be given a test a couple days before your first cruise ends (assuming policy doesnt change again). This is how they have been doing current b2b cruisers.