Day 1, Symphony of the Seas- Royal Caribbean’s LARGEST Ship!

Last year when my husband and I were planning our honeymoon we were thinking about doing a Mediterranean cruise. While we were on Royal Caribbean’s website we saw that their new ship, Symphony of the Seas, would be debuting a few months after our wedding, and would be in the Mediterranean. Our excitement was real!

We ended up booking a 7 night cruise, on Symphony of the Seas.

Fast Forward a year and a half of planning:
The ship was docked in Barcelona, and we arrived to the cruise terminal around 11am. Getting on the ship was smooth and easy! We put on our luggage tags, that you print from home, and dropped the luggage before we checked in. They deliver it to your room later in the day! After this we went through security and checked in. You get your picture taken for your Sea Pass cards, and you are on your way!
*Sea Pass cards are used as your stateroom key, charging onboard the ship, and scanning to exit and enter at cruise ports throughout your cruise.

After this we entered the ship with our Set Sail Pass, and immediately our photos popped up on the screen and we were good to enter! We entered onto the Royal Promenade of the ship and WOW! If you have even been on a Royal Caribbean ship before you know in the promenade they have their regulars, Sorrentos for Pizza, The Cafe for desserts, small sandwiches, teas, and coffees, and more depending on size of the ship. Symphony of the Seas also had the new Bionic Bar, a Starbucks, and Royal Caribbean retail shops, and duty free shops!

Of course after exploring the promenade we went up to Windjammers! Windjammers is a buffet style restaurant that offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now because this ship was so large Windjammers was always extremely busy. Throughout the week they surveyed us multiple times on our experience in Windjammers because seating was becoming a problem. Hopefully by now, they have all the kinks worked out!

While leaving Windjammers we heard an announcement that you had to make reservations for your entertainment/shows for the week. Basically because the ship was so large they couldn’t seat everyone in the theatres. We love live entertainment so we ran down and set ours up. They had plenty of opportunities to see each of the shows, with different days and different times so you could plan it around your excursions, dinner, or other activities you may have planned.

Shortly after this we went to our stateroom, which was an interior room because I am not going to lie…. I do not like to see the ocean from my room. It sometimes gives me anxiety especially if we are going through rocky waters. Anyways, our room was very cute and modern! Basically same set up as the other interior rooms inside Royal Caribbean ships. Our luggage had already been delivered to outside our room as well!

After this we decided to head back to the promenade and check out the Bionic Bar! We get to the Bionic Bar and they have a few iPad looking things, they could have been a tablets I don’t remember! But you could browse through different categories of drinks or create your own! I ordered a citrus drink and my husband ordered a drink that had his name in the title.  You used your Sea Pass card to pay and thats how they knew whose drink was whose. We went and found a seat and waited for our drink to show up on the queue! People kept getting confused about when their drink was up, and would get visibly upset when they thought someone took their drink. It was quite amusing to watch, outside of the fact that robots are making your drink!! Anyways when it was time to get your drink you would scan your Sea Pass card on the end of the bar and the drink would slide down! The drinks were absolutely on the stronger side, which was fun and set us in the right direction for the week!!

We walked the promenade a little more and headed to our station for the muster drill. These are done for safety incase something were to happen in an emergency situation. When you get there you check in with a crew member and they have you stand in a spot and wait for everyone to get there. Our muster station was in the fitness room on Deck 6 which gave us a chance to check it out. It was a clean and large fitness room, located behind the salon and spa area all the way at the front of the ship. After everyone arrived the muster drill was a short clip on what to do in emergency situations.

After this we explored the ship more:
Deck 4- Royal Theatre, Ice Rink, Casino, and Main Dining Room
Deck 5- Spa Center, Royal Theatre, Sorrentos, Boleros, Starbucks, Retail, English Pub, Cafe Promenade, Bionic Bar, Main Dining Room
Deck 6- Fitness Center, Picture Spot, Schooner Bar, Boardwalk, Aquatheatre
Deck 8- Central Park- featuring restaurants and shopping
Deck 9- Where our stateroom was located!
**We loved being one deck away from Central Park because it had Park Cafe which is a quieter spot with a bagel bar for breakfast in the morning!!
Deck 14- Solarium, Adventure Ocean, Card Room
Deck 15- Solarium, Solarium Bar, Whirl Pool, Main Pool, Beach Pool, Waterslides, Sand Bar, Pool Bar, El Loco Fresco, Teen Hangout, Mini Golf, Sports Court, Flowrider
Deck 16-Hooked Seafood, Master Bar, Windjammers, Zipline, Wipe Out Bar, The Ultimate Abyss Slide

Definitely did not see all of this our first day, and did not get to all of this during our full week on this ship either!
Royal Caribbean Deck Plans -Here’s a link if you would like to see the deck layout!

Our dinner time was 6:30 every night in the Main Dining Room. The other option I believe was 8:30, and you set that up when booking your trip. Now of course you have other options for dinner. You can make reservations to eat at one of the other restaurants where that food is not included in what you already paid for, or you can head to Windjammers and eat at the buffet and that food is included.

Food in the Main Dining room was delicious and our waitress was fantastic. They had a portion of the menu fixed every night, and then there were separate dishes that changed every night. You would order an appetizer, meal, and dessert. If you did not like your meal, you could always get a different meal. Our waitress would sometimes bring us an extra dessert just for the fun!

We then grabbed a drink a headed over to the Casino! The casino was split in half, with a non-smoking side and a smoking side, with a bar in the middle. We chose our luck with the slot machines, my husband lost what he started with, and I doubled what I started with. Always fun to brag about being the winner!

Shortly after this we went to the Royal Theatre and checked into our reservation for Hairspray! It was a great show, singing, dancing, acting all extremely talented.

After exploring all day, we were exhausted and wanted to get up early the next day for the first port of call so we did call it quits after the show! We ended up missing the Sail Away party that afternoon, and we missed the balloon drop that evening. I recommend NOT missing those when sailing with Royal Caribbean!!

Stay tuned for more posts about Symphony of the Seas, and it’s port of calls!

Here are the links for my other blog posts on Symphony of the Seas and its port of calls!
Barcelona!
Marseille, France- Cruise Port!
Capri Island!

Disneyland Paris- Should I Airbnb near Disney?

My husband and I are both Cast Members for Walt Disney World resort, and it’s safe to say we love it. We love working their, we love the benefits and the perks, we love Orlando, we just love it.

We decided since we were going to be in Europe, why not make our way to Paris and see Disneyland Paris! Both of us were extremely excited to see Disneyland, I was a little more excited to see the actual city of Paris, but my husband admitted to me that he was more excited to see Disneyland!!

I decided to let my husband choose where we were going to stay when in Paris, since he was more excited for Disneyland Paris he decided to stay in Serris. This is where Disneyland Paris is located, it is about a 35 minutes outside of Paris. He wanted to try out Airbnb, so at this point in our planning it turned into okay fine whatever you want. Now this Airbnb turned out to be extremely convenient it was about a 20 minute walk to Disneyland. Which meant that it was free to get there! There was also bus transportation, and lots of ubers if you wanted to do that as well.

There was lots of airbnbs in the area, there was also an inside mall, and an outlet mall about a 5 minute walk away. This was super convenient for breakfast in the morning and for any other needs you might have.

The town was super cute, and clean. The apartment buildings were white and had little antique look to them, the streets were also quiet. Which is a major perk if you want to be away from a loud nightlife.

Now there is also hotels in the area, off Disney property hotels, and Disney hotels. As we were planning we decided that the Disneyland Paris hotels were a little on the higher side, and we wanted to save more money on where we were at.

When we arrived in Paris at Gare de Lyon, we took an uber ride costing us around 55 euros to get to our Airbnb in Serris. There is a subway/metro station, but at this point we had just been on a 7 hour train ride from Barcelona, and just did not want to be on anymore public transportation. But you can take the metro for about 14 euros per person to go one way.

Unfortunately when we got to our Airbnb, my cellular was not working very well, and we could not get ahold of our host. I thought my husband had taken care of the smaller details, but it turned out he had not!! In the end we waited about two hours before we were let in. I recommend you have this sort of thing all figured out when in a foreign country, with limited talking minutes, and not perfect data!! When the drama was happening my husband looked at me and said is this what you want? Would you rather I get you a hotel? Is it okay that you’re going to be sleeping on a futon? I remember looking at him and laughing, saying its a little late now don’t you think?

In all honesty it turned out being fine. It was perfect walking distance to Disneyland Paris, and also an even shorter walk to the metro station which is what we took when we went into Paris. It truly depends if you want to be closer to Disneyland Paris or to stay in the city itself. The metro was very easy to use, just make sure you don’t get on the wrong train! (We only did that once!!)