Day 1 continued:
Lunch was great, and now the rooms were ready.
We headed up to Deck 10 to check out our room. I had booked an Ocean View Balcony Guarantee room, which means I did not get to choose the room, but would be guaranteed an Ocean View Balcony (as opposed to a Central Park or Boardwalk Balcony). Booking a Guarantee room is a great way to save money, but you have to be careful. I had checked out the available staterooms and determined that there were only a few that were somewhat undesirable, due to being near night clubs or restaurants, or in high traffic areas. I took my chances and it worked out well for us. Some ships have obstructed view balconies, and some of the obstructed views are more obstructed than others. Sometimes it is just a pole in the way, but sometimes it is a whole lifeboat, so you have to be careful. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if it were less expensive and if there were no undesirable rooms in that category.
About 30 days before we sailed we were assigned a room. Actually, before that, I had checked out my Set Sail Pass (kind of like a boarding pass) and saw that it said Deck 10 but the room number said GTY (guarantee). I wasn't sure whether the deck was just a placeholder or the actual deck, but it turned out to be the actual deck.
Our stateroom was 10330, which was allllllllll the way aft on the port side.
This was both good and bad. It was good (GREAT, actually) because it was super quiet. Since the hallway ended with a door to the Aqua Theater Suite 1 door over, the only people who would be passing us would be the people in the suite and the people next to us. The people in the suite seemed to have teenagers, and the people next to us were a couple. So that means no kids running down the hallway screaming in the early morning, and it was likely there wouldn't be kids running above us either since again, the hall ends just 1 door down so anyone running would slam into the door.
It was also nice because it meant we had to walk a lot, which meant we could eat more pizza
.
It was, however, a loooooooooong walk to the front of the ship. So when I was going or coming from the Solarium (will get to that) or the theater, it was a long walk.
But it was totally fine and I have no complaints about the room location.
Now, I had heard that the sofa bed on the Symphony is actually 2 beds, and one pulls out from the bottom as a trundle. I thought this would be great, and the kids could sleep there and I'd have the big bed all to myself. Perfect, right? Except that on rooms that are configured with the bed near the window, the sofa bed doesn't have the trundle. So this room only holds 3 people. I had no idea this was even possible, as I had only heard that the sofa bed had 2 separate sleeping areas! So we ended up having our Room Attendant, Rodolfo, who was awesome, separate the big bed into twins. It was disappointing, but again not a huge deal since I had saved a lot by not choosing my own room.
The room was still really pretty, though I don't like having the bed by the window all that much.
This is where the fridge was, and a few drawers for clothing etc. The hair dryer and 2 boxes of Kleenex were in the top drawer over the fridge. The fridge was empty, and had a lock on it (it was unlocked). The cups you see are the refillable soda cups. All of the cups looked the same, so we used a Sharpie to write our names on them. That rubbed off a few times so eventually I put a Sea Band on mine so I could identify it.
The Key: Our carry on luggage was already in the room, and since that was all we had brought we began unpacking.
This was a great benefit, since we would have otherwise been dragging our suitcases around until the room was available.
There are two closets. One has hanging space only, and one has some hanging space and some shelves, as well as the safe. I forgot to photograph that side.
Our safe was locked, and we couldn't unlock it, so we had to call housekeeping. They came and unlocked it, and we didn't have any issues with it the rest of the trip. But let me warn you, it is SMALL. You cannot even fit an iPad in there. I fit my wallet and our Passports in there and could probably have put our phones in there, and that is all that would fit.
Speaking of small, here is the bathroom. I know, it is a cruise ship, what do I expect? But it is a small bathroom, with a small shower. I will say that over the week I noticed a mildew smell in there as well. Kind of crazy for an almost brand new ship!
The shower was fine. You could adjust the water pressure, and the water got VERY hot if you wanted it to. One thing is, the door would close automatically, so if we were hanging wet bathing suits they didn't really get much air. In fact there just didn't seem to be much ventilation in the bathroom at all, which I am sure it what is causing the mildew smell. I had noticed the smell in one section of the hallway, too.
Let me just say, this did not ruin the trip, nor would it deter me from sailing on the Symphony again. It is just something I noticed, and wanted to comment on. The ship isn't perfect, but it is darn close. If an occasional mildew smell is the worst thing that I can say about it, that's pretty good.
Our balcony had 2 chairs and 2 footstools, and a little table. The chair could recline completely flat, so technically you could lay out there if you used the foot stool as well.
This was our view, and it would again be our view a week later. The traffic looked horrible going in one direction, and at no point did it look like it improved. Yuck!
