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Symphony of the Seas: 13/05/18-20/05/2018 Review with pics!


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Hello all.

I got back from a wonderful week on the Symphony about 4 hours ago. So naturally, starting to write my review is the top of my list of things to do.

Background:

I booked this cruise literally 3 days after stepping off the X Reflection last August. I had just been away with my parents and sister and my boyfriends first words to me were "When are we booking our cruise then?!". We decided on the Symphony for the following reasons:

1. Its the newest ship in the world

2. Its the biggest ship in the world

3. We thought (oh how wrong we were) that the ship would attract a younger crowd

4. We would not get bored (my bf has a tendency to bore with things easily and always likes to be doing something).

5. We wanted to splash out on a more expensive holiday whilst we had no major financial ties.

So it would be my 8th cruise, and it would be Luke's 1st cruise. Not only was it his first cruise, it was also his second ever proper holiday abroad. With the 1st being a lads holiday to Magaluf, 3 years prior.

Nothing like throwing him in at the deep end....

For those of you who don't know me (probably all of you) my name is Olivia and i am 23. I work in IT as an IT-to-business change consultant within a large cut price grocery store in the UK. My partner in crime is Luke, also 23 and also works in IT. However he is an IT Infrastructure developer/engineer/maker and breaker of things for a large manufacturing company. So as you can gather, we are both IT geeks, so we were looking forward to all the technology onboard the ship!

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After assessing finances, we agreed that a Central Park balcony would suit us best. at £1380 each for the cabin, flight and zoom, it wasnt horrific, but it also wasn't cheap. I have done insides and balconies before, so was intrigued to see how i would like an "inside balcony". Luke's input was minimal, his only requirement was that "it was a room with a bed". Helpful as ever.

Additional extras included deluxe alcohol packages each, 2 ship excursions and a dinner reservation in Wonderland. Spoiler alert: The £40 reappeared after too many cocktails down the rabbit hole. I was gutted. (Physically and metaphorically)

Hope some of you will want to follow along! I am hoping this review will bring a different view on this ship, as we are not the normal demographic for cruising!!

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DAY 1: Travelling and Boarding

As we live a couple of hours away from Manchester Airport, we decided to go all out (jokes) and stay at the Premier Inn round the corner. I say round the corner, it was literally on the airport site. We then walked 10 mins to a favourite pre-holiday pub of mine (The Romper) and got 2 rump steaks, all the trimmings and 2 glasses of wine for £20. What a bargain.

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Roll on 4am and we packed the car up and drove the 5 mins down the road to the Terminal 1 Meet and Greet car park for our 8am flight. Very efficient but we got back today to find the drivers side door handle had been severely damaged and Luke was much upset. Luckily they are paying out but his car is his pride and joy! (16 plate Ford Focus ST3 in Stealth Grey if anyone is interested in cars...)

We started to get slightly worried about the age of passengers when we rocked up to the gate to find we were the youngest there by about 20 years (not including the 3 year old child. The child's owners were probably the next youngest after ourselves). We knew going into this that we would be in the minority, but what we did not realise was how much in the minority we were. However, it did not stop us from having a good time!!!!!

 

A short flight time of 2h10 and we landed safely in Barcelona. Picked up our organised bus transfer and we were on the ship by 1pm, ready for the cabin being ready!

 

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After we had checked our cabin out (it was lovely!!!) we headed to the nearest bar to start making the most of our drinks package! The first of many many Caribbean Coolers.

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Day 1 Part 2: Exploration and FOOD

Naturally, after drinking a couple of cocktails we decided we needed to go find us some food. Unfortunately, the gravitational pull that is the Windjammer occurred, and my plans for a quiet snack in Park Cafe were thrown out the window. I was expecting the crowds, but it still did not make the most pleasant of experiences. My favourite part was when i sat down at a table with only a half drunk glass of milk on it, to be then bombarded by 3 angry Chinese ladies 5 minutes later, informing me that i had stolen their table. I could have argued my point, but with the language barrier/my hunger i just decided to find another table and attempt to find Luke to tell him we had moved.

Now, despite my 5'7, 117lb frame, i am known on a cruise to eat a lot of food. So here we have the most random assortment of foods i could get my hands on the quickest. Spoiler: it was all awesome and at that moment i did not care that my chickpea curry was infiltrating my fettuccine alfredo. Looking back now, i realise this looks kind of gross. Luke also panic picked food, and ended up with a salmon sandwich (he doesnt even eat salmon?!?? and some quiche). His excuse was "i was overwhelmed". Which i can understand. Cruise buffets can be quite large and intimidating for a first visit! (Buffet culture is not that big in the UK)

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Whats that? Another Caribbean Cooler?

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We also took the opportunity to hold an impromptu photo shoot on and around the "King of the World". Guess which one of us does not do heights...

 

 

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The whole cruise we walked past this pool saying "we need to take photos from the outside with one of us in it!!!". However we erm forgot to take the picture. We had a whole plan as well involving a go pro and some tequila. Oh well.

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Having the time of my life on the carousel. Turns out it doesn't go well with 4 (approx) Caribbean coolers and creamy pasta sauce.

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Following. On the Symphony in July!

 

I see you are from Charleston! I spent a lot of my summers there as my Uncle moved there 20 years ago! A gorgeous place to live!!!

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Day 1 Part 3: Dinner and a sunset stroll.

 

We had the most amazing waiter team, Mary and Sijav. Mary had been with RCI for 15 years! She was top notch and made our evening meals so lovely. I had read so many negative reviews regarding the food in the MDR, that i was apprehensive that the food would not be great, and i would be heading to Sorrentos to top up afterwards (SIDE NOTE: i will come onto Sorrentos at a later post. I wasted a good 15 minutes of my time reading a whole thread about how horrendous the pizza was before i left. Spoiler: IT WAS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD)

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I had the:

- French Onion soup: Incredibly flavoursome

- Turkey: Tasty and the meat was not dry

- Apple Pie: Literally could not fault it

So for evening 1, the food had been really good. Luke's phrase of the holiday was "That was actually really really good" after trying something new. Now we are not fancy diners by any mean. We enjoy normal food, but also like to have the odd fancy meal for special occasions. We have eaten at 1 Michelin star restaurants and i'm not saying this food deserved a star, but i would be happy paying around £10-£18 for the main courses. That puts it (in my book) at the level of a good local non chain restaurant.

After dinner we went to go explore the running track at dusk. We then headed to the balloon drop and dragged ourselves to bed. It had been quite the day.

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I will post day 2 tomorrow! I need to get myself to bed!

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DAY 2: Palma Majorca

We woke up bright and early and headed up to the Windjammer for some breakfast. I have got to say, the food on this ship was amazing, but the breakfast buffet was the one thing that let it down. No fried egg/omelette station, and the scrambled eggs were powdery. I have also managed to find marmite on most ships i've sailed on, but none could be found! Minor in the grand scheme of things but its the little things that count! I could also not find any grapefruit halves, and the pastries and toast bread section was lacking. I had to ask specifically for a bagel as i could see none anywhere!!

I grew up visiting my Uncle in Charleston SC, and often stayed there for weeks at at time in the summer. So i am used to the various breakfast items found in breakfast joints in the Southern States. I decided to have biscuits and gravy, with a side dish of waffles, bacon and syrup. Luke was very confused, and looked at my plate in horror when i sat down. It was meh. Gravy was cold and biscuits (FOR THE LAST TIME, THEY ARE NOT SCONES LUKE) were dry. He spent the rest of the holiday complaining that Americans had ruined scones. Men. Pft.

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The solution is to use the dining room breakfast and order menu/use the buffet set up. A lot more civilised!

So, i would say 80% of people who got off the ship were going to explore the old city of Palma. Rich in culture, it seemed like the best option for ships docking at the port.

Nah. We got off the ship, jumped straight into a taxi and headed 20 minutes down the coast to the party town of Magaluf. Remember earlier on i said Luke had only ever been on one other foreign holiday? He wanted to go back and relive the memories of his 10 days of drinking and dancing. I'm surprised he remembered any of it if im being honest.

Turns out everyone is still in bed at 10:30 am on a Monday morning in Magaluf. So we wondered around, got a coffee in and English pub and waited for the sun and the people to crawl out of their caves. I then decided that as i had never been on a "girls/lads holiday" to a party island, i needed to "DO A SHOT IN MAGGA". So. We found the nearest bar, (Luke said it used to have a bucking bronco and was much upset to find it had gone) and had a shot of vodka each. Job done. Life complete. (Almost).

 

When the sun finally did come out, we grabbed some daiquiris at a frozen daiquiri place on the beach front, and sat and people watched. We sat on the pier for a while and watched the fish in the water below.

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Before we left, Luke showed me all the sights of Magaluf. "This is the waterslide i passed out on and lost my flip flop". "This is the shop i had to buy new flip flops from". I honestly have no idea how he made it back home after that holiday.

 

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Trying to get a taxi back was a bit of a nightmare. After walking the streets for 20 minutes, failing to flag any taxi down, we resorted to going into a hotel and asking them to call us one.

Back on the ship and we had a little explore around the boardwalk and the back of the ship.

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We then tried El Loco Fresh. It was amazing! The taco meat was tasty, and there were so many additions you could add to them! The nachos were also very good. Washed down with a Corona, it was probably one of the best lunches had during the week!

 

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Loving your review so far. Looks like you had a great time! We'll be on Symphony in March and can't wait! I'm with you...you keep hearing bad reviews on MDR on Royal but we quite enjoyed it on Allure (maybe one meal that wasn't great, but not bad out of 6). Looking forward to hearing more.

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