Symphony of the Seas: Outside Cabin Review
In 2023, I was fortunate to spend 7 nights onboard cruise ship I’ve wished for SO long that I’d be able to one day cruise on: Symphony of the Seas, one of the huge Oasis class ships from Royal Caribbean. The itinerary was a 7-night trip out of Barcelona - what I’d call a ‘crowd-pleasing’ Mediterranean itinerary. What I mean by this is that it ‘ticks off’ multiple of the popular European ports, and is ideal for a first dive into European cruising, but doesn’t go anywhere ‘off the beaten track’ (these huge ships can’t do this anyway, to be fair). Our ports for the week: Barcelona, Palma De Mallorca, Marseille, La Spezia (for Florence/Pisa), Civitavecchia (for Rome), Naples, and then back to Barcelona - a busy week!
In this post, we’re not talking about the cruise itself - I want to tell you about my room, as this was my first experience cruising with Royal Caribbean. All that I had seen before boarding was what I’d found on YouTube and various other cruise review sites. So, what cabin did I book?
For my week onboard, I was staying in cabin 3642. If you haven’t cruised before, don’t freak out when you see such a long number - this is essentially cabin 642 down on Deck 3. Location-wise, this meant that I was a stones-throw away from the ground floor of the Main Dining Room (I’m not exaggerating here - there were only 9 other cabins along my corridor that were closer to the Dining Room! Let me show you in picture form - the red rectangle highlights my room - perfect for sleeping late before meeting others for breakfast, right?!
On paper, this room was also really handy for being so close to the stairwells and elevators, but far enough away that I wouldn’t hear the ‘ping’ throughout the night as the elevator arrived on this floor!
The location to the Dining Room was one thing that did make me nervous about this cabin. Yes, I could sleep late before breakfast and I could also really push the limits with leaving the cabin pre-dinner and still being ‘on time’ (OK, you’re starting to get to know me better now…), but would thousands of people be making noise enroute to breakfast each morning, and therefore waking me up earlier than I would have planned? Stay tuned…
The next thing that I was nervous about with this cabin is what was upstairs - going by the deck plans, I was directly underneath the onboard Casino. If you’re reading this post and have cruised on British cruise lines in the past, you’ll know that being near the casino generally won’t be an issue (us Brits don’t seem to spend a huge amount of time in there, and it’s therefore quite a quiet venue on lots of British ships…). However, this is an American ship, and one thing I’ve learned about the American cruise market over the last few years is that they really enjoy the casino, and it can be loud in there well into the night (or, on some ships if it’s a ‘sea day’ the next day, ALL NIGHT!).
So, Dining Room on one side and the Casino upstairs - was this an issue? Absolutely not! I’ve been on some more ‘premium’ cruise lines recently where the sound-proofing was pretty rubbish and, at times, I’ve felt like I could be sleeping with the corridor door open. However, not on Symphony. It could be because it’s such a new ship, or perhaps it’s standard with Royal, but their sound-proofing was absolutely excellent - absolutely no issues at all! On that note, I also had zero noise coming from outside the window either - not even on the windy night that we had! On older ships, I’ve found that it’s quite common to get quite a bit of noise from the water outside on the lower decks (you’re not that far off the waterline down on Deck 3 of Symphony) but again, zero noise in here!
Ok, now that we’ve covered the cabin ‘on paper’ using the deck plan, let’s look at the physical cabin itself - here’s some photos:
From a size point of view, I did think this cabin was excellent. I should add - while I did travel solo on this cruise, this is not a solo cabin - this is a standard cabin designed to hold 2 people (I believe the sofa would then fold down to accommodate a further 2 if required). I really enjoyed my time in this cabin - the design of it was excellent, and it actually felt a good bit more luxurious than I expected for a relatively low-priced option on this ship class.
There were, however, two key points that I would call out in this review that are worth thinking about if you would potentially book an Outside cabin on this deck of an Oasis Class ship:
1) Storage
2) The View
First up, storage. Look at the photos of the room - what’s missing? There’s two VERY narrow wardrobes - one on either side of the bed - but nowhere else. Most cabins I’ve stayed in feature a much bigger wardrobe with plenty of hanging space, but I did find it to be really limited on here from a solo traveller point of view - I can’t imagine what it could be like having 3 other people in this cabin…! Now, there are plenty of drawers (there’s a really good unit over by the window), but I do find that, while cruising, it’s hanging space that I need more than drawer space. This was particularly important for this cruise as I was onboard in May, when the weather wasn’t warm enough to commit to just ‘shorts and t-shirt’, so I did need to hang jumpers/sweaters and jackets in there! That said, I guess Royal Caribbean is a much more ‘casual’ cruise product than some of the other lines, so this perhaps takes into account you wouldn’t need ball gowns etc on this ship?!
Second, let’s talk about the view. You’ve seen the pictures online - waking up and opening your curtains in the morning to the rolling ocean, as the ship pushes towards the next port. However, what the pictures don’t show is the view once you’re in port. With a balcony cabin (and an inside cabin!), you have a much higher degree of privacy than some outside cabins, as demonstrated by this image taken as we prepared to cast off and depart from Barcelona - the gangway was so close to my room that, when they detached it, it swung right past my bedroom window!
This isn’t a huge issue most of the time, but it can be annoying when you’re docked and the view is blocked by the gangway. On an Oasis Class ship (Oasis of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Harmony of the Seas, Symphony of the Seas, Wonder of the Seas and Utopia of the Seas are all Oasis class ships!), guests will usually board the ship in to the huge indoor Promenade, which is up on Deck 5. This does mean that, rather than looking out over the gangway and terminal building, you’ll often be docked with the gangway right outside the window…
So that’s it - my thoughts on cabin 3642 onboard Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas. If you’re planning a cruise on here, I’d say this is a pretty good room option if you want to save the cost of a balcony, but want to upgrade from the inside to get some daylight and some lovely views while you’re at sea (and depending on where you dock). I believe that most, if not all, of the Oceanview (Outside) cabins on Symphony are on these lower decks, so hopefully the points in this post will apply to most onboard.
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If you’d like to see more from embarkation day on this enormous cruise ship, then come over and check out my YouTube video filmed on embarkation day - I had an absolute BALL this day!