Great ship with lots to do

Symphony of the Seas Cruise Review to Europe - Western Mediterranean

r3gen

Contributor Level: Third Mate

Cruises: 4-6 cruises

Reviews: 2

Helpful Votes: 49

Overall rating:

4.2 out of 5

7 Night Western Mediterranean (Barcelona Roundtrip)

Sail date: July 22, 2018

Ship: Symphony of the Seas

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 3580

Traveled as: Singles/Friends

Reviewed: 6 years ago

Review summary

This cruise was a week of fun for me and the friends I was traveling with. We took advantage of many of the fun activities on board including the escape room and laser tag. The escape room was very well designed with quality props. There was one feature that wasn't working properly so that caught us up a bit. However, we still escaped with a large chunk of time left. I would say that the puzzles were fairly easy, but it was still a lot of fun. We also bought a 5 night dinning package on board the ship. We dined at 150 Central Park, Hooked, Chops, Wonderland, and Jamie's Italian. Jamie's and Chopped had really amazing food and great service. Wondering was also a very fun experience. Hooked was very mediocre and though the mussels were absolutely delicious, the rest of the food we got was mediocre, though service was great. 150 Central Park was pretty good, but the food wasn't overly noteworthy and our server was really obnoxious constantly trying to upsell us on the add-on items and more expensive wines. He was also pretty pretentious. Main dining was... main dining; nothing to write home about, but decent food. When it came to the buffet, I was pleasantly surprised as the food exceeded my expectations. I can't say they were very high going in, but I found it pretty easy to find something enticing and delicious each day. Despite the number of people on the ship, it never felt terribly crowded. The sea day was the only time that it was more challenging to find lounge chairs, but there were still plenty of chairs that were available. This ship has a pretty good nightlife too. Never went to the jazz club, but did go to the nightclub which was pretty fun and I really enjoyed their "silent" parties where everyone gets headphones and can choose between different channels to listen to and dance or watch others dance to different things. Lots of fun!

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Service and Staff

4 out of 5

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Overall, I thought the ship has a very good layout. I liked how different areas are segmented off and organized. Even on the sea day the ship wasn't too crowded, though it was noticeable that it was a sea day as the lounge chairs on deck were very occupied whereas on sea days it was easy to space out. The ship was kept very clean and still had that new carpet smell.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

The room was very nice. I loved that they added more outlets to the rooms on this ship. There were 3 US outlets and 1 European outlet at the desk and one by the bed. They also had USB charging ports at the desk and by the bed. The only downsides to this cabin specifically is that it is directly below the jazz club on deck 4 and above one of the gangways so if you want to go to bed early (fortunately not a problem for us) you will have a lot of noise from the jazz club at night and if you want to sleep in (more our speed) then you will hear banging and other noises as they dock and deploy the gangway. This room also has an adjoining door to the adjacent handicap room. This is both a really nice feature if you know the people in the next room as we did, but it also reduces the sound proofing between the rooms. Overall, we did not hear our other neighbors or noise from the hallway so the room overall has good sound isolation, but you can hear some extra noise through the adjoining door which is near the beds in both rooms.