Trips, Pics, and Tales

The day has finally come! After more than a year of planning and waiting, we were finally ready to board this ship!  This was going to be amazing!  The Symphony of the Seas is the largest ship in the world! There is most definitely something for everyone on board. I mentioned that we'd sailed on the Allure a few years ago and this is a very similar ship, but there are some new additions. I'll be mentioning them as we go along!  We've also cruised on some of the other "big ship" categories, like Norwegian's Escape, Breakaway and Epic. And we've cruised on some of the mid-sized ships, and even some river cruises!  We have a good basis for comparisons of experiences and definitely know what we're getting into with the Mega Ship atmosphere!  One thing is for sure, on a ship of this size, to really take advantage of all that you want to see and do, a bit of advance planning is necessary. I booked all of our shows in advance, and then it would be up to eve...

More than a year ago we started planning for this cruise, and the day had finally arrived!  We were ready to leave for our big "Celebration" cruise on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas!  This year I turned 50, Megan turned 18 and she graduated from High School, so we wanted to do a big family cruise. It has been a year and a half since the 4 of us went on a family vacation, and it's been at least 6 years since my parents joined us on a vacation, so this was going to be a lot of fun!  We chose the Symphony of the Seas because we loved sailing on the Allure a few years ago, and the Symphony is similar to the Allure but just **MORE**! Plus we really liked the itinerary, including the new Perfect Day at Cococay, which is Royal Caribbean's updated private island.  We left on Friday morning for the airport to fly into Fort Lauderdale, and then we would spend the night in Miami since our cruise was sailing from there. Off we go! Megan drove to the airport,...

We woke up to incredibly blue skies and that wonderful feeling of being out to sea.  Nothing more relaxing than that! Breakfast on the Wind Star is served in the Veranda, with both inside and outside dining.  There is also a Continental Breakfast set out at the Pool bar every morning.  Each morning there was a morning walk with the Ship's Officers offered.  They started with a 2 mile walk and by the end of the week I believe it was up to 3 or maybe 3 and a 1/2 miles. There was also daily Yoga every morning as well.  After breakfast Lisa and I went up to the pool deck and found our chairs and proceeded to enjoy our time in the sun. Sure we had plans to take advantage of some of the activities offered during the day. While it's a small ship, with few activities, we did plan to sit in on some of them.  But relaxation seemed to win over! At least that first day!  You might wonder if we had our own private yacht?...