We recently had an opportunity to go on the inaugural sailing of Royal Caribbean’s brand-new ship the Symphony of the seas.    Fair warning, I have wanted to go on this ship for over a year, so there is a bit of a bias here.  There is so much I could write about this ship, but to keep it manageable and readable, I’m going to break this into 4 posts.  The first post I’m going to talk about the experience of the Inaugural festivities and embarkation.  I’ll get into my initial thoughts and impression of the ship.  The second post will focus on Activities and Entertainment (shows).  The third Post I will talk about the food on-board and accommodations.

Let’s start off with first impressions, in a word “WOW”.  You can see the immensity of the ship as you are driving up to the terminal.  If you are driving you will be happy to know there is parking attached to the terminal.  I know what you are thinking.  “Wow, John, such interesting information, please go on.”  Yep, I know it’s not the most exciting tidbit of info but it is practical.  It also impacts the ease of getting to and on the ship.  For the embarkation process, Royal Caribbean has created a new web app where you can check in from home ahead of your cruise.  You can upload all your documentation and when you arrive you can literally walk right to security.  Celebrity has the same app but heads up, it’s not ready for all ships yet.  From the time we parked our car to actually boarding the ship, it took less than 15 minutes.  Think about how excited you are to get onto your cruise ship and get your vacation started.  Can you get even get into a movie theater in 15 minutes from parking your car?  This is huge.  The debarkation process was just as easy.

The immensity of the ship becomes more apparent and you get an even better feel for the enormity of the ship as you walk through the gangway.  Even the lifeboats are huge.  She is currently the largest cruise ship in the world!  When you walk in you are greeted warmly and are impressed with the newness and the polish of the ship.  There are cool pieces of art, restaurants’ and of course the bionic bar.  Yes, finally you can go high tech with your drink order!  Do you still have to tip the bartender?  Not sure if you do or not, but if you don’t, at least they won’t give you a dirty look, just a bionic finger (just kidding).

Once again, we were on an Inaugural cruise where they christened the ship.  I’ll freely admit it, we are getting spoiled.  Of the 3,000 or so Travel Agents that were on board we had the good fortune to disembark the ship and watch the Christening of the ship from the port.  There were bands, human statues, celebrities, long speeches, drones, largest Champaign bottle in the world smashing into the largest cruise ship in the world and confetti.  We consider ourselves extremely lucky to have been invited to share in this and went live on FB (Click Here to see the Christening) to share this with our friends and family.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth, well more.

Later that night we stood on the deck as there was a firework display to see the ship off.  It was so impressive cars were pulling off the causeway to watch the show.  At midnight there was a balloon drop.  Now this is normally way past our bedtime, but we managed to stay up.  Ok, what is up with people popping all the balloons instead of batting them around like most normal people.  Must have been the influence of the Bionic Bar.  If you can’t tell, the first impression of the ship was pretty amazing.  I was kind of worried I would be disappointed since I had such high expectations going in, but it managed to meet and exceed them.

If you would like to see more pictures of our trip feel free to visit our Symphony of the Seas Facebook Album.  Warning, there may be spoiler alerts for the next posts!