travel tips

Symphony of the Seas

We recently had the honor of cruising on Royal Caribbean’s new ship, Symphony of the Seas. This first post is going to be all about the ship- what it offers and things we did. My next post will be about cruising with toddlers.

A HUGE thank you to Royal Caribbean for sponsoring our trip! We had the time of our lives and we owe it all to you!

I’ve received a ton of questions and I’m going to try my best to cover everything in this post and the next post but if I miss something, feel free to message me. 🙂

All About the Ship

Believe me when I say, Royal Caribbean outdid themselves. They literally thought of everything for this ship! I only have good things to say. It’s a dream ship and the ultimate family vacation!

After being a frequent cruiser, I was worried about doing too much walking (it’s the biggest ship in the world) from one place to another but they did a great job of making sure everything was centrally located and getting from one place to another was a breeze.

Symphony of the Seas is organized into seven unique neighborhoods:Boardwalk, Pool and Sports Zone, Central Park, Royal Promenade, Entertainment Place, Youth Zone and the Vitality Spa and Fitness.

Boardwalk- this was one of my favorite neighborhoods because there was so much to look at! They have a hand carved carousel in the center, two 43-foot rock climbing walls, Sugar Beach- an ice-cream and candy store, Playmakers Sports Bar and Arcade, and the amazing outdoor venue- the Aqua Theatre. Also, here you can watch people zip line from the top of the ship and come out of the 10-story slide- Ultimate Abyss! This is such a fun area and one that I took the most pictures.

Pool and Sports Zone- this is where you can find five different pools, the main entrance to the Ultimate Abyss, the slide that is ten stories above sea level that takes you to the Boardwalk in 13 seconds, the Perfect Storm (trio of waterslides), the zip line thats nine stories high, and Splashaway Bay- a water area for kids and toddlers, the adults only Solarium, as well as the surf simulators, miniature golf, and a large Sports Court offering several different sports

That’s me up there! 🙂

Central Park- this makes you feel like you’re in NYC and not on a ship, it’s beautiful! This open-air area has beautiful plants with several restaurants, shops, and entertainment.

Royal Promenade– the heart of the ship. It’s where you first step foot on board and it’s the center of all: parades, eateries, shops, and bars.

Entertainment Place- This is where a lot of your entertainment is from glow-in-the-dark laser tag battle to a full-scale ice skating rink, comedy shows, to the Royal Theater where you can watch the Broadway musical Hairspray and several other shows.

Youth Zone- This is the main hub for kids; the facility is phenomenal. The programs they offer are incredible. I’ll talk more about the kid’s program, Adventure Oceans later in the post and in my next blog post.

Vitality Spa and Fitness– This is where you can go to relax and get pampered or even workout by yourself or in group classes.

Food I’m a foodie and can be very opinionated about food… I can’t even tell you how many times I said to my husband, “This is quality food, not the normal cruise food!”. Everything we tried wasn’t just good, it was delicious and presented beautifully! This ship has 23, YES 23 specialty and complimentary dining options. From Mexican to seafood to a hibachi grill to Italian to a buffet of everything you could possibly imagine, they have it!

They even have a Bionic Bar with two robotic bartenders! It was really fun to watch.

Judd and I had the privilege of taking a behind the scenes food tour to see how they feed 8,000+ people every day. I was just amazed at the systems they have in place and how much food they make every single day.

Something random that I really liked about this cruise is they asked everyone to wash their hands or use hand sanitizer prior to entering dining areas. Being a germaphobe, I LOVED this.

Entertainment Trust me when I say it, YOU WILL NEVER GET BORED ON THIS SHIP! There is so much to see and so much to do! They have everything from zip lining across the ship, to swimming at the pool, seeing the Broadway show- Hairspray, shopping, relaxing at the Vitality Spa, surf simulators, riding the carousal, gambling in the casino, laser tag, mini golf, the tallest slide at sea (10 stories), waterslides, watching the high-flying aqua show- Hiro, and so much more!

Staterooms

This cruise ship offers a large variety of rooms. Every room I saw was decorated beautifully and felt very new and clean. From balcony staterooms that overlook the iconic Boardwalk neighborhood to The Ultimate Family Suite, they have it all. I received several questions about room sizes, cruise lines will only let you book staterooms that will hold the number of people in your party. While staterooms can sometimes be smaller than a hotel room, they are designed to have plenty of places to store your things and allow you to move around the room comfortably). The pictures below are from the Ultimate Family Suite, a 2 story suite with a slide and a separate master suite.

Adventure Ocean Programs (Kids Program) I plan to share more about traveling with kids and the kids program in my next post but wanted to give a general overview of this amazing program. It’s for ages 3-17. The program is “tailored to entertain, educate and inspire the youngest of adventurers with science, arts and crafts, theater, sports and parades that make imaginations run wild.”

It is organized by age groups: Royal Babies (ages 6-18 months), Royal Tots (ages 18-36 months), Aquanauts (ages 3-5); Explorers (ages 6 to 8), Voyagers (ages 9 to 11), and Tweens and Teens program (ages 12-17). Each age group had their own area plus some additional rooms for arts, science, etc. I will be posting a lot more about this program on my next post.

Excursions/Cruise Ports

We didn’t do any excursions this trip, we just walked around Nassau.

However, I did look at what they offered and they have tons of excursions for everyone. One really cool thing that they are opening in May 2019 is “A Perfect Day” in CocoCay in the Bahamas. This is their private island that just went through a $200 million transformation. For years they have asked cruisers what “their perfect day would be.” They designed this island based off of those answers. It will have the tallest waterslide in North America, the largest freshwater pool in the Caribbean, and so much more. I can’t wait to check this place out in the future!

Motion Sickness

Several readers asked about motion sickness on cruises. I do get seasick very easily so I always make sure I’m stocked on Dramamine and Seabands prior to leaving on a cruise. As long as I take the medicine daily I am always fine. I will say on this ship, I never once felt the ship move!

Overall Experience

I had the pleasure of meeting the CEO of Royal Caribbean while I was on the cruise and he said the goal is to make their cruises fun for multigenerational families and the company does a great job of this! They have entertainment, features, and food for everyone of all ages. If you can’t tell, we had the best time and we will definitely be back for another cruise in the future. You blew us away, Royal Caribbean! You were the ultimate family vacation for us and we will definitely be back!

Interested in Booking? I haven’t announced this yet but I am now certified to plan trips for families! I’d love to help you plan your next trip. Email me at BriannaLovesTraveling@gmail.com.

All of NYC in 3 Days

Today I’m going to share how to see everything in New York City in 3 days and not feel overwhelmed! The first time I went to NYC was with my husband when he proposed.

It was a great trip but I was also distracted with being newly engaged and my new ring. 😉

This time I went with my mom and we had a great time!

Day 1

We landed at LaGuardia really early and then took a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at Hampton Inn in Times Square.

The location of this hotel is perfect, I highly recommend this hotel!

After dropping off our bags we went to pick up our tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus tour.

If you have read my past travel entries you know how much I love and recommend these tours! They are the best way to see big cities at your own pace! You can get on and off at all the big stops while enjoying the views from an open double decker bus. I bought the 3 day pass that included: Uptown Route, Downtown Route, Night Tour, ferry ride around the city, ferry ride to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and tickets to Top of the Rock. This also included the Brooklyn Route and Harlem route, we didn’t do these two because the night tour covers Brooklyn and the Uptown Route covers Harlem.

This is what the routes look like! It covers everything!

The first day we did the Uptown Route.

We love sitting on top of the double decker bus. You can see things from here that you can’t from a car let alone the subway.

The first stop was Strawberry Fields in Central Park. This section of the park was named in memory of John Lennon.

Imagine circle

The bus then drove through Harlem. We didn’t get off anywhere but we did see a few cool things such as the Apollo Theater. This is the famous theater where the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and many others started their careers.

Then we went inside the Plaza Hotel.

They had an Eloise store! I was so excited because I LOVED these books/movies as a child.

We then got tickets to go inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). We saw a lot of famous pieces.

Self Portrait by Vincent van Gogh

Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies by Claude Monet

Our next adventure was a subway ride to the Brooklyn Bridge. You have to ride the subway at least once while in NYC.

It was a long walk but the views are breathtaking.

The final stop of the day was Times Square. Day 1 ended earlier than Day 2 and 3 because we were exhausted from waking up at 3 am!

Day 2

On Day 2 we did the Downtown Tour, took a ferry around the city, and the Night Tour.

The first thing stop on the Downtown Tour was the Freedom Tower (the new 9/11 building).

This is now the tallest building in NYC and it is beautiful!

The two 9/11 memorials are right next to the Freedom Tower.

They did a great job designing the memorial fountains.

Then we took a ferry ride around the city.

Such a big city!

We took a little stroll through the Waldorf Astoria. What a gorgeous hotel!

I have to admit I got lost once during this trip and it was trying to get to Grand Central Terminal. We made it though!

We finished the day by taking the Night Tour. Isn’t Times Square beautiful at night?

The views were fabulous and we had a great tour guide!

We loved this part of our trip!

Day 3

Our final day consisted of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Top of the Rock.

Trying to take a selfie at the Statue of Liberty.

The views of Manhattan from Liberty Island were gorgeous!

We were a little disappointed in Ellis Island. They need to make this place a lot more interesting and bring back artifacts that are currently in storage.

Our final stop of the day was the Rockefeller Center. We had tickets to the top which is called the Top of the Rock. This is my favorite place in NYC (and one of my favorite places in the world) for two different reasons: my husband proposed here and the views are to die for!

These views really show you how big NYC is.

This blog post just gives you a snapshot of our trip. Until next time NYC…

Learn to Love Cruising

Hey there!

I decided to write my first blog post about something I have a BIG passion for… traveling. I was lucky to grow up with a family who went on vacation every summer and usually took another one or two trips a year, I saw a lot as a child. Thanks Mom and Dad! BUT my real passion for traveling started in college when I studied abroad in Europe. I loved seeing all the different cultures, I was completely mesmerized. Here we are 5 years later and my passion hasn’t changed and luckily I married a guy who shares the same passion. We make a great team because he throws crazy ideas at me and I make them happen. He’s the spontaneous one with ideas and I’m the planner in the relationship.

Enough about that… Now let’s talk about our most recent trip. This post is going to be about cruise suggestions and tips… The next post will be about the islands we visited.
We are normally not huge cruise fans! Judd and I have been on 3 cruises together in less than 2 years (soon to be 4) although I’ve been on others without him. We often choose cruises as our vacation or as part of our vacations (1 week cruise followed by 1 week of running around Europe) because you get to see so much in a short amount of time. We are not the type of cruisers who LOVE cruising and don’t care about the ports. We choose cruises for the ports. The best part of cruising is you get to travel while you sleep and you don’t have to pack and unpack after visiting a new location! I love waking up in a new city/country. However, we REALLY REALLY REALLY hate dealing with all of the people. I mean this. We like keeping to ourselves and being left alone. We discussed this before and decided to change things up on our last cruise to see if it made a difference to our experience. I’m so glad we did because it made a HUGE difference!

Tips we learned:
1. Splurge for the balcony room, it’s worth it! We spent so much time on the balcony. It was amazing to open the curtains first thing in the morning and see the beautiful views at the new city/country. Pick a room on the left side of the ship! We just accidentally chose this, it almost always has the better views.

2. Get room service in the morning! I am not a morning person and I do not like breakfast. There is nothing worse than fighting to get a place in a buffet line for average/bland breakfast food. (Adults acting like they’ve never seen a buffet before are quite annoying). We would order room service the night before and tell them what time we wanted breakfast delivered. They would bring exactly what we wanted. We’d give them a tip and then we’d eat breakfast on our balcony in our PAJAMAS. It was perfect and so relaxing!

3. The excursions/what you do make your trip! I heard so many people say they didn’t like a port. I asked what they did and they said walked around the shops on the port or the closest beach. You cannot experience the island this way! Those are tourist traps. For each location I looked on TripAdvisor (my favorite website ever) and researched every possible thing there was to do on the island. I looked at reviews and then picked what I thought we would like the best and/or what would give us a good feel about the island.

4. Buy pop/water/snacks! You can bring 12 bottles or cans of pop onto most cruise ships. However, what they don’t tell you is this is every time you come on. We boarded the cruise at 2:00 and the ship didn’t leave until 8:00, so, we found a Walgreens a block away and made 2 trips back and forth to the room! We had enough water and pop to last us the entire week. Have the room steward clean out the fridge so you can put all of your items in it.
5. Random things to pack that can be life savers: magnets (to hold shower curtain in place as the boat moves), hand soap for your bathroom (we hate the bars of soap they provide), hand sanitizer (everyone is touching the same things at the buffet), alarm clock, and a watch (tell what the time is at ports).

6. If your cruise has this option, choose My Time Dining! Some of the cruise lines we’ve been on such as Costa doesn’t offer this. But this allows you to choose what time to go eat. This is perfect in case you had a really busy day and want to nap before dinner or if you are hungry really early. Just go to the dining room when you’re ready to eat.
7. This next tip sounds like common sense but it’s important to remember. The cruises are trying to make money in any possible way they can. There will be a lot of things on the itinerary such as free Detox clinic or massage lessons… don’t go, they are just trying to get you to buy a product or service.
8. Most cruise lines play movies on the main deck at night. GO! Something about watching movies outside under the stars in the middle of the ocean is amazing.

9. The ice cream and yogurt machines are open 24/7 and they are delicious! We always joke that we paid thousands of dollars to go on vacation for unlimited ice cream.

I also found this list that’s very handy: http://www.dcfagowees.com/usefulinfo/Cruise_tips.pdf Thanks to the D.C. Fagowee Ski and Social Club for this packet! I’m not even sure how I ended up finding this but it’s very helpful!

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need any suggestions on traveling! 🙂

Part II coming soon!

Love,

Bri

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