 |
 |
|
Name: Peter Perrin
Email: perrin.howard@sympatico.ca
Age: 51
Occupation: Management Consultant
NumberOfCruises: 1
TravelAgent: No
Ship: RoyalCaribbean-Splendour
SailingDate: February 14, 1998
Itinerary: Grand Caribbean
FoodDiningRoom: 90
CruiseDirector: 92
CabinComfort: 93
FoodRoomService: 92
CruiseStaff: 90
CabinAmenities: 92
FoodLidoDeck: 88
DiningRoomService: 90
CabinQuietness: 88
FoodMidnightBuffets: 88
CabinSteward: 88
ShoreExcVariety: 90
FoodVariety: 90
DeckService: 88
ShoreExcValue: 88
GoodForHoneymoon:
CasinoStaff: 90
PrivateIsland:
GoodForFamilies:
LoungeService: 90
TenderService: 92
GoodForSeniors:
BeautySalonStaff:
EntertainmentLounges: 85
WheelchairAccess:
ExerciseFacilities: 90
EntertShowLounge: 82
OverallPortsofCall: 85
BeautySalon:
EntertainmentPoolside: 85
CruiseActivities: 90
Casino: 90
AirSeaProgram:
MedicalFacilities:
ShipCleanliness: 92
EmbarkDisembark: 88
DiscoNightclubs: 85
DeckSpace: 90
Stabilization: 92
ShopsOnBoard: 90
SpaceRatio: 93
OverallCruiseValue: 90
Submit: Submit Review
Date: 03 Mar 1998
Time: 20:56:03
Remote Name: 206.172.182.123
Remote User:
Comments
This was the first cruise for my wife and I and people seemed surprised that we would
choose an 11-day adventure for our first. However, we were
not disappointed and in spite of rough seas for the first few days (which sent many people
scrambling for Bonine pills from the purser's desk) we
suffered no ill effects. In order to provide more perspective on our comments, I will add
that both my wife and I are fairly seasoned travellers and
both of us are around 50 years old. Now, let me begin at the beginning...
The travel package was put together by Encore Tours (Our travel agent was Cruise
Holidays), in other words it was not the air-sea combo offered by
RCI, which looked like a much smoother operation. We had to pay an extra $35 each to
request our own airline (Air Canada), which we would
probably have been given anyway, since they have 4 direct flights daily from Toronto to
Miami. However, since we are Elite members of Aeroplan (Air
Canada's frequent flyer program), we wanted to ensure that we were on Air Canada. As it
turned out, this was a prudent action since it allowed us to
be upgraded to business class on the flight to Miami (as the Economy Section was over
sold) and it allowed us to be assured of an earlier flight as
Standby patrons, on the return to Toronto.
Further on the topic of travel arrangements (before I go into details on the cruise) we
weren't very pleased with the last minute (one week before
departure) flight arrangements by Encore and therefore the poor airline seating that
Cruise Holidays was able to get us considering that we booked
the whole trip well over 6 months in advance. What's more, Encore provided ‘Super
Shuttle' passes to get us from the Miami Airport to the ship and
back. Well, when we got off the flight in Miami, waiting at the Gate was a representative
from Royal Caribbean (big sign) not knowing any better, we
followed her to the Shuttle Bus Area. Super Shuttle was nowhere to be seen, but there were
several Royal Caribbean buses and they immediately
agreed to take us to the ship.
Well, guess what? Once again, there was no ‘Super Shuttle' in sight when we got off
the Cruise Ship at the end of the trip. There was, however, a
very harassed looking Encore representative who explained that ‘Super Shuttle' didn't
run regular buses except on weekends and she was in the
process of arranging one for our trip to the airport. Well, an 11 passenger bus finally
arrived after about 25 minutes and took half of us off to the
airport. In the meantime, there was one couple who were going to Fort Lauderdale and were
advised that they would have to wait for at least an
hour until a bus could be arranged. I was prepared to be ‘spitting mad' if we hadn't
got onto the first bus, because we really wanted to get on the
earlier return flight, rather than have to wait until 7 pm as our tickets showed (the poor
flight arrangement problem). We were already tired, having
had to report to Immigration Officials at 6:30 a.m. and then stand around (literally)
waiting for about an hour until they called our colour to get off the
ship - but that's another story. Let the cruise begin...
Day 1 - We arrived on board about 3:00 p.m., a process that went fairly smoothly,
including the exchange of our passports/birth certificates and
Credit Card for our blue boarding card/Super charge card (the one document that does
everything on ship - DON'T LOSE THIS!!!) We found our
room, a standard outside, which proved to be everything that the brochure advertised,
including a nifty credit card operated safe; freshened up and
joined the sail-away party on the pool deck for a rum punch cocktail including souvenir
glass (for $8 US each which included the obligatory 15%
gratuity for drinks). The ship sailed promptly at 5 p.m. and we did some exploration while
waiting for our bags to arrive and prior to supper (we had
second sitting which has its pros and cons).
Our bags arrived between 6 and 6:30 (a little unsettling, since we had already sailed!)
and we quickly unpacked our clothes and were delighted to
find that they all fit well into the closet (our particular room #2564 had a column that
used up some closet space but others had even roomier
closets!). We met our room steward (Lukman from Indonesia) fairly early on, and in the
absence of specific instructions from us did a fairly average
job of ensuring that the bed was made, towels were fresh, waste baskets emptied and ice
bucket filled. He was often in the room when we came
back from exercises or from breakfast. He made no attempt to tidy any of our personal
effects, but seemed to work around them. I would
recommend that passengers decide what they want their steward to do, and let him/her know,
as I heard other passengers complaining that their
steward tidied up so fastidiously that they had trouble finding their things! By the third
time that we went snorkelling, he did manage (of his own
volition) to get beach towels to our cabin the evening before, which was a nice touch.
At dinner, we found ourselves at a round table for 6 with two British couples, one younger
(just married) and one older (about 60). We all got along
well, although supper was the only meal that we all took together. Our table was #114,
right next to the 4th level entrance on the starboard side -
not a great view and the space was very cramped. Our waiter was from Bulgaria and the
assistant waiter and head waiter were from Portugal. Our
wine steward was from India, as were many of the wine stewards. All our serving people
spoke English well, except for the assistant waiter. In fact
the head waiter chatted rather too much (one of our table companions had his dinner grow
cold while the head waiter yakked at him!) and the wine
steward wouldn't shut up when he was trying to convince us to do the second wine tasting
of superior wines for a $35 touch.
Incidentally, the wine selection was excellent, which was due, according to the wine
steward, to the summer itinerary in Europe where people's
tastes were very demanding. (By inference, we North Americans don't know what good wine
is!) In fact, the wine steward was generally hard to
take, mixing up our orders several times, monopolizing conversation, failing to pour our
wine, etc. If the wine steward hadn't been receiving an
automatic 15% gratuity, he certainly wouldn't have received a big tip from us! Another
point on dining room meals relates to the vast array of cutlery
with which the table was set. Three forks and three knives and in place of a soup spoon
they offered a dessert spoon (Tablespoon) and if you didn't
have soup, they whisked that away. For dessert, you were left with a pie fork and two
coffee spoons (at the top of the plate). We all seemed to
ingest adequate amounts of food, of course, and didn't complain, but all our table found
the setting a bit odd. Perhaps it's just that we are all of
British heritage and this setting is the standard for Norwegian-registered vessels.
We had been advised to sign up early for shore excursions, since some of them sell out
quickly. We had researched our options prior to boarding
and did the sign-up as soon as we arrived on board. This worked out OK as we were able to
get all our selections BUT we discovered that a couple
of the selections available were similar but not identical to those published in the
pre-trip brochure - if we had had more information about these, we
might have made slightly different choices. A better strategy might have been to sign up
for those that were early in the cruise and which we were
sure about and ask questions of the Shore Excursion staff at the earliest opportunity in
order to complete our selection.
We had second sitting for dinner, which enabled us to relax in the Viking Crown Lounge
(one of our favourite places) after a day onshore, watch the
sunset and generally get ready for dinner and show (7:15 p.m.- Good pianist!) at a
leisurely pace. However, with the 8:30 p.m. start, we were often
not out of the dining room until well after 10:00, which didn't leave much evening for
dancing, since we like to rise by 7:00 a.m. On the dancing, we
found the Top Hat Lounge to have more sophisticated and relaxing music than the Viking
Crown Lounge. Apparently the DJ (Franz) was hard of
hearing and intended that everyone else should become so!! Regarding dinner hours, It
would be neat if a system could be worked out for a mixture
of early and late dining evenings (but that would be chaos, I suppose - especially when it
came to tipping the appropriate waiter)
Day 2 - We awoke to docking in Key West at the military base and were anxious to get
started on our first excursion ‘Fury Catamaran Reef
Snorkelling'. This could have been a lot of fun, except that the weather was cool and we
sailed out in brisk winds that later became gale force. For
those who like sailing as we do, the catamaran ride was a lot of fun - but the snorkelling
was the pits! Those who attempted to swim over to the reef
couldn't see anything due to turbulence. In the end, the Fury operators refunded our money
(we didn't even ask for it, as the weather wasn't their
fault) which was a very nice gesture. I would also point out that this was the cleanest,
best-equipped boat that we snorkelled on, with a very
safety-conscious crew! After returning from snorkelling, we freshened up, had lunch and
did the requisite tour of town with T-shirt purchase.
Although it was Sunday, the place seemed to be wide-open. RCI laid on trolley
transportation to and from town, which was very convenient (and
apparently preferred by the Military Base people). The rest of the day was uneventful,
except for the heavy seas which troubled some passengers.
Day 3 & 4 - these were days at sea and included formal dinner and meeting the Captain.
We did a little on-board shopping and gambling as well as
started our involvement in the Ship Shape fitness program. The Centrum shops had helpful
staff and good selection and value, considering they had
a captive audience. Once you get started on the Ship Shape stuff, you have to keep going
until you get enough ‘bucks' for a T-shirt or other
paraphernalia - between my wife and I, we ended up with 2 T-shirts, a beach bag and a
belly pack. I also earned a genuine Royal Caribbean Plastic
Key Ring (these are valuable) by helping to demonstrate line dancing (also part of the
fitness program). We found the Ship Shape Team (all part of
the Cruise Director's Staff - our Cruise Director was Gordon Whatman) to be enthusiastic
and a lot of fun (except perhaps for Franz) - they also ran
the Bingorama, Horse Racing, Masquerade and Karioke Nights etc. Gordon Whatman was a real
workhorse and also quite a multi-talented guy. The
Horse Racing was fun and for those who were willing to pay $130 - $175 US for a horse
(they were auctioned off), they stood a 1:5 chance (there
were five horses) of winning about $800 on their horse later in the cruise. There were two
people headlining the Theatre Event (42nd Street) for the
evening - one a singer (mediocre) and the other a comedian (racist, bigoted and disgusting
- we got up and left!!!)
Day 5 - We were supposed to dock in Curacao, but apparently a sister RCI vessel had a bump
with a local ferry and they stayed in port an extra day,
so we went to Aruba first. To the credit of RCI, most of the shore excursions were able to
be re-arranged. Here we did our second snorkelling,
(Sailing and Snorkelling Tour) on a less than glamourous Catamaran. There were two heads,
neither of which worked very well (marine heads are
finicky things) and we sat next to two drums of gasoline and the skipper, who seemed a bit
nervous on the rough water outbound. Snorkelling was
OK but on the return trip, the mainsail ripped and we returned under jib and engine power
(good thing we had the extra gasoline!). The crew was a
little less conscientious than in Key West. We were interested in the duty free shopping
in Oranjestad, which was an easy walk from the ship, so spent
the afternoon in town. I even managed to make a few dollars on the nickel slots! The ship
stayed in port until midnight, but we enjoyed the evening
on board.
Day 6 - Willemstad, Curacao. Again the shore excursion people were able to re-arrange
everything except the Willemstad Trolley Train Tour, so we
got our money back on that. We did do the Curacao Snorkelling Tour (by Motor Launch) and
this was definitely the most beautiful marine life we saw
on the trip. Above water the site was unattractive, located behind a huge freighter that
was docked for engine repairs, but the water was pristine.
The head on this vessel wasn't plugged, but I don't think that it was actually operational
either, and it wasn't private (no door - which could be a
problem for some people with ‘unlimited rum punch'). I don't think that they even
counted heads to make sure that we were all back on the vessel
after snorkelling! Instead of the trolley tour, we definitely enjoyed shopping and got
excellent value on jewellery at D'Orlahn ( a division of
Boolchand's). Speaking of shopping, we certainly found Christine the Shopping Advisor to
be informative and helpful. She was available for an hour
each evening in the Champagne Bar and gave lectures that were taped for the ship's TV
system.
Day 7 - We decided to do breakfast in bed this day (at sea) and were pleased with the
prompt service (we ordered the night before) and the
warning telephone call before they knocked on our door. We normally ate breakfast in the
Windjammer Cafe where the food was always bountiful
and varied! It was buffet style, but you could get fresh omelets made to order as well. I
found the orange juice to be very watery, but otherwise no
complaints. We often lunched in the Windjammer as well, and it was like a full buffet
dinner. Afternoon tea from 4-5 p.m. helped us make it through to
supper! We missed the first Tour of the Navigational Bridge on the second ‘sea day'
so we signed up (between 9 a.m and 10 a.m. only) for one of
three tours (no children). It was an interesting ½ hour event, conducted by the second
officer. Today was Franz's turn to teach line dancing - in
fact, it turned out to be the Merengue. His instructions went something like this
‘Hey man, this is real easy. Anyone can do this. All the people at
home can do this. Just watch me, man. Now, have you got it?' As it turned out, the dance
was (fortunately) VERY EASY and many of us were able to
pick up on what he was getting at, but overall, Franz's teaching skills were even worse
than his skills at volume control in the disco (do I sound old?).
Day 8 - We had read all sorts of negative reviews on Jamaica and Ocho Rios and therefore
decided not to book any shore excursions, but play this
one ‘by ear'. As it turned out, the workers at Dunn's River Falls were all on strike
and therefore all excursions to that location were cancelled. Some
outings included plantation visits, or cruises or shopping as well as the Falls and that
portion of the excursion was generally carried out, but many
people were disappointed and I understand that there was some hassling over rebates. Once
we had sized up the situation, we did walk into town
and visited Soni's Plaza and Taj Mahal - Interestingly, most of the establishments were
operated by East Indians (as the names suggested). We
certainly didn't find any great bargains there! We were uncomfortable, being accosted by
taxi drivers while we were in town, but otherwise no ills
befell us. Some people we spoke to, who took taxis off into the countryside were not so
lucky, having to pay thieves to let them go through
roadblocks. Apparently the Plantation visits were under heavy security, so no one had a
problem at those sites. While Jamaica is, admittedly, a
beautiful country, one has to wonder why the cruise line chooses to visit the place, when
there are so many other beautiful and safer sites to stop!
Day 9 - Georgetown, Grand Cayman - We did the Stingray City Snorkel tour, which was very
interesting, but not really snorkelling - you stand on the
sand bar with your face in the water and you aren't permitted to use fins, lest you should
injure the stingrays. My only complaint was that the tour
operators charged for everything except drinking water and ghastly lemonade - we had our
own underwater camera, but they were offering to take
pictures and process them digitally so that you could return home with a computer disk
image, which was an interesting addition (for a fee). Some
people who knew their way around departed the Stingray City tour as soon as it returned to
port and walked across the highway to Seven Mile
Beach (maybe a half mile walk). They said that snorkelling was SUPERB over there and they
easily caught a taxi back to the ship later on. We took
the buses and tender back to the ship, freshened up, ate lunch and returned to town. Let
me say, that on a Sunday afternoon, this is possibly the
deadest, least interesting town in the Caribbean. A colleague of mine tells me that it's
not much more exciting on any other day of the week (which,
compared to Ocho Rios, may be a good thing). Anyway, I think that it might be a great
place for a quiet week of relaxation and snorkelling. Later on,
we enjoyed the Top Hat Lounge entertainment with 50's and 60's Sock Hop and a visit from
Elvis!
Speaking of the Top Hat Lounge, a number of Ship Shape participants commented on the
smoke-filled atmosphere in the Top Hat (we did our
exercise classes there in the morning). Generally, we found that there was A LOT of
unrestricted smoking on the ship. There were smoking sides to
all the lounges, smoking anywhere in the Casino and people smoking everywhere on deck, in
corridors, waiting for elevators etc. It seemed that
smoking was not allowed in the Dining Room nor in the 42nd Street Theatre, which was a
good thing.
Day 10 - Cozumel was our last stop, where we did the Cozumel Snorkel Tour. This was
scheduled for an 11:30 departure from the ship (because we
had stopped in Playa del Carmen and then expected to tender ashore). As it turned out, the
transfer of passengers at Playa del Carmen went very
smoothly and we were able to dock at the International Pier in Cozumel so we had about and
hour and a half to kill before our tour. It was beautifully
hot and sunny, so relaxing on deck was wonderful, but we were anxious to get on our way
and were a bit frustrated that we couldn't take better
advantage of our new found time. As for the tour, we were taxied to a grungy little
restaurant at Playa Corona. The tour consisted of the divemaster
leading us out into the water (pushing a floating dive sign ahead of him) and parallel to
the shore for about a quarter of a mile then back again.
Every time I stopped to dive and look for fish, (the water was rather murky) an assistant
dive leader would come up behind us and urge us to hurry
up and move along. Eventually, the dive leaders got most of the crowd back to shore and
just left us out in the water to play by ourselves. We
returned to shore after another 20 minutes or so to discover showers that didn't really
work, toilet/change rooms that you wouldn't want to spend a
lot of time in and cold beer at $3 a bottle. We were able to return to the ship by taxi at
our leisure (providing that another couple was also ready to
return - 4 per cab), but all in all, I would say it was a less than satisfactory event. As
usual, we were pleased that we planned ahead and had taken
our own snorkelling equipment.
Later, we did the $4 taxi ride into San Miguel and bought the requisite T-shirts and
Mexican Blankets. It was a good taste of Mexico including a
street celebration that was taking place; we felt reasonably safe and were unmolested by
ware mongers or taxi drivers. I would definitely like to
return and find some better snorkelling sites. Here's an example of where the pre-trip
brochure didn't describe all the various excursions. We
learned too late that the Fury Catamaran company also ran a snorkelling tour and I suspect
that it would have been a lot better run and more fun!
What's more, it started at 1 p.m. so we could have taken advantage of the early arrival
and gone to town in the morning. Oh well, hindsight is often
20:20.
Our last cruise day found us back at sea and we definitely had to do the Bingorama which
had risen to over a $10,000 jackpot. Also, we gathered
together all the various pictures that the cruise staff had been taking of us and made a
final selection, choosing one large semi-formal portrait ($20)
and 2 smaller casual photos ($6 each). I felt that the charges were pretty steep, and the
quality of photography was only mediocre. If they had just
sold us the whole lot (about a dozen photos) for $40, I'll bet that they would have had a
lot more sales. I didn't find the head photographer to be
very pleasant or easy to deal with - ‘Take it or leave it; Next...' The farewell show
with a comedy juggler, the ship's dancers and the Cruise Director's
staff was a lot of fun.
Disembarkation - On the second to last day they continuously run a 20 minute talk show
(narrated by Gordon Whatman) explaining the
disembarkation process, which is really a rather simple affair. The true story goes like
this:
1. You will be given coloured tags to put on your luggage. Put tags on ALL YOUR LUGGAGE
(even carry-on) and put your packed non-carry-on bags
in the hallway outside your room before 12 midnight on the last sea day. 2. You will arise
very early (before 6:30), either for breakfast (if you want
food, it's mandatory to use the main dining room - there's nothing else) or to line up for
return of your documents and US Immigration clearance.
You will be given a number so that you know when to go to get your documents. 3. You may
eat breakfast at 6:30 or at 7:45 (according to your
seating). 4. You will have picked up your documents and vacated your room by 8 a.m. 5. You
may not linger over breakfast because of next sitting
or because the waiters must get ready for the new shipload. 6. You may wait for
disembarkation anywhere that you please (the pool and schooner
bars are open for drinking, although most people choose to crowd onto the 4th floor
outside the dining room and on adjacent stairwells) but you
may not leave the ship until your colour is called (and you have no idea in what order
they will be called). 7. You must disembark by the Central area
of the 4th floor, otherwise, this area is off-limits - this is for US Customs officials
and disembarkation by approved colour only. 8. If you feel the urge,
try to locate a washroom that is as far away as possible from the fourth floor, as those
close to the 4th will be plugged and flooded, with waiting lines
(wading lines?) In retrospect, unless you are anxious for your vacation to end (or have a
plane to catch), my recommendation would be to get your
pocket novel and find a nice chair by the pool right after breakfast. Wait there until
about 10 or 10:30 and then stroll down and walk off after the
crowd has disappeared.
Well, that's my story, and whether you believe it or not (having read this far) we had a
terrific time and would do it again in a minute - Just send
money, please! Bottom line here is that it's not inexpensive and they ding you for
EVERYTHING in a bottle or can (although the on-board duty-free
liquor is a REAL bargain). Nevertheless, if they gave away all the booze, they might end
up with a shipful of drunks. Anyway, it's a gorgeous ship
and we loved it (right up until the flooded toilets) and I still miss the daily address by
Captain Johnny, ‘Good morning, good morning, good morning
Ladies & Gentlemen. This is your Captain speaking from the bridge' - a colourful
character indeed!
Want to book your cruise at a great rate?
Click here.
Questions or comments? Mail to webmaster@cruiseopinion.com.
Copyright ©1996-2001 CruiseOpinion.com. Last modified: January 17, 2000.