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Grandeur of the Seas to Bermuda Nov 1, 2013



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 21st, 2013, 10:57 PM posted to rec.travel.cruises
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Posts: 375
Default Grandeur of the Seas to Bermuda Nov 1, 2013

Background Information

We really love Bermuda and a cruise is the cheapest way to travel
there. This was our sixth visit.

This was my 24th cruise and probably almost my last cruise -
three of our previous cruises were on RCCI. Previous Cruises:
(for me - age 75 )

1950 HAL Nieuw Amsterdam - transatlantic NYC to La Havre
1950 HAL Nieuw Amsterdam - transatlantic Southampton to NYC
04- NCL Crown to Bermuda
05- NCL Crown repositioning -Phila to Miami.
06 -HAL Maasdam back to back Caribbean and repositioning
07- RCI Grandeur of the Seas - repositioning Baltimore to Tampa
07- NCL Pearl - Caribbean from Miami
08 -NCL Jade - Med cruise Barcelona to Venice '08 with my
grandson
08 -HAL Statendam - back to back Panama Canal cruise Ft.
Lauderdale to Lima Peru and back - 26 days
09 -HAL Rotterdam - with 2nd oldest granddaughter Scandinavia and
Russia
10 -Celebrity Mercury - Caribbean
10 -NCL Pride of America - Hawaii - with 5th (youngest) grandson
11 -RCCI Enchantment of the Seas B2B- Bahamas & Caribbean
11 -HAL Amsterdam - Alaska
11 -Carnival Pride B2B - Bermuda & Bahamas
12 -Dawn Princess - Australia with 3rd granddaughter
13 -HAL Maasdam - Caribbean
13 -Disney Fantasy B2B - Caribbean with 4th granddaughter


Travel to embarkation Port and Hotel information

We drove up to the port a day in advance and stayed at the
Hampton Inn in Linthicum. All Hampton Inns, have a free
breakfast and free wi-fi. We had the cruise package which
included free parking for the week and a shuttle to and from the
port. I like the Hampton Inn and the cruise package worked (as
my husband said) "Like a charm".

Embarkation: Usually Port Maryland is a very nice port to cruise
from, but this time it was less satisfactory. They made Bob give
them his little tiny pen knife. Why I don't know since the ship
is fully equipped with steak knives should one wish to hijack the
ship with a knife. They also made him dump the water out of one
of the water bottles (but only one of the four). They wanded me
but I could have had a dozen knives in my pocketbook because they
did not look at that. Wheelchairs boarded at deck one, but since
I had a powered vehicle, I had to go up the ramp, but the scooter
didn't have any problem with this. We were on before we could go
to our room, and also before the Windjammer was open. (scheduling
mismanagement)

The lifeboat drill directions were on the TV, but they did not
say whether we needed to bring our life jackets. The cruise
director did say eventually that we did not need them, but since
the announcements didn't go into the cabin, I had to be alert to
open the cabin door so we could hear them. The scooter could get
out on the Promenade deck for the drill, but they put me back
against the wall so I couldn't see anything (like how to put on a
life jacket) because of the people standing in front of me.
And I had to lift the scooter over the threshold to get off the
promenade deck because it was too steep in that direction.

We had a nice sail down the bay and two of the Baltimore news
helicopters (WjZ and WBAL) flew over the ship as we were leaving.
Ship information. We have been on Grandeur before. Since the
refurbishment, the decor was less depressing. The cruise left
Friday about 4 pm and got to Bermuda about 3 pm on Sunday. The
weather going over was somewhat rough and the pool was closed. We
had to be back on the ship by 3:30 on Tuesday. It was also
expected to be rough on the way back, but it wasn't so bad. Rough
weather does not bother us and our stateroom was in the perfect
position with the least movement (deck 2 midships)

The captain's announcements around noon were very hard to
understand.

Activities. We did not do any activities except for the cruise
critics meeting. The cruise director running it did not have us
get up an introduce ourselves so that we could identify others in
the group by sight. Because it was rough weather we couldn't
circulate that much because it was difficult to walk, but we
could at least have said our names. We did have name tags and
drinks and there was a raffle.

Service - The waiters at our table for dinner did a good job of
taking care of us. Our cabin steward was also good.

But the service in the Windjammer was absolutely abysmal. Since
I can't stand very long without pain, I use a scooter, and in
only two instances did someone offer to help me (and one of those
times was at lunch in the Great Gatsby dining room.) It is not
possible to hold a plate and a drink or a cup of soup and still
steer a scooter. Some people just defaulted to having the person
traveling with them bring them their food. But I like to look at
the food first to decide what I want, and I don't want my husband
to have to wait on me. He has to do enough of that as it is.
Also the labels were too high for me or even a shorter person to
see them. One lady said she had to ask her husband if she
couldn't see them by standing on her tiptoes.

Port & shore excursions- since this was our sixth trip to
Bermuda, we did not take any ship excursions except for the Horse
and Carriage ride around the Dockyard area on Friday. This was
very enjoyable. For the rest of the time in Bermuda, we hired a
blue flag guide (Lewis Foggo) who was very helpful and
knowledgeable. We had an itinerary of places that we wanted to
go and he helped us with this.

Cabin - we had a sea view room on deck 2 midships. This area has
less movement when it is rough. It was really nice to be able to
look at the waves from down close to them - if you are on an
upper deck you really can't get an accurate idea of how big they
are. People were estimating 20 - 25 foot waves and they weren't
that big.

I had no problem getting the scooter into the cabin (it was not a
handicapped cabin). We got our suitcases before the drill and we
could also store the suitcases under the bed by lifting up the
frame so that they could go under.

The main problem with the cabin (and this is also true of
Enchantment of the Seas) is that if the bed is a king, you can't
get around the bed on one side because the end of the bed is hard
up against the dresser. So for both of us to be able to get to
the bathroom, we have to have twin beds.

The bathroom was quite small, which I didn't mind (actually I
prefer to be able to reach the sink while sitting on the toilet),
but there was insufficient counter space and the little shelves,
the drawer and door on one side were too shallow to put something
like a regular hairbrush into with out having it diagonal. It
took a long time to get hot water, and I never did manage to have
hot water for a shower. Some of the drawers were hard to open
and close.

The other problem with the cabin was the TV. It was a nice flat
screen TV, but the channel with the bow camera and the ship
information was out of focus for the whole cruise. Also there
was very little to watch on the TV. There were about four
foreign language channels, another five channels advertising RCCI
cruises or excursions or shops, and then International CNN and
International HNN, a cartoon channel, and re-runs of Seinfeld,
Friends and the Big Bang Theory. This meant that we could not
get any US news or even US weather. The weather report on HNN
didn't even have the temperatures for Washington D.C. We could
usually get the football games.

We had a little piece of paper which told us what discounts our
level of Crown & Anchor were entitled to. The only one I was
interested in was the internet. I had to go to the computer cafe
to sign in, and then configure my computer to use the RCCI wi-fi
(which I could use in the cabin - and the internet was fairly
fast). The $400 package was 25 cents a minute, and I was
entitled to a discount if I signed up on the first day. But
there was no way I could tell if they had given it to me or not
until I got my final bill.

Dining - we had a lovely group of people to eat dinner with and
our dining steward's birthday was the same as mine but she was 50
years younger. I felt that the seating of people at breakfast
and lunch was slow and inefficient, and also that service in the
dining room tended to be slow. The food was good, but I thought
the extra price items on the menu were ridiculous and we did not
get any. Nor did we go to any of the extra price restaurants. I
like to drink cranberry juice and I know that Grandeur doesn't
have it, so I brought my own with me.

Disembarkation - the disembarkation lecture was on the TV, but
failed to mention what time we have to vacate the cabin. We got
our luggage tags on the last day. I do not know how they assign
the times, but we were to get off at 8:10. It went smoothly -
Bob got his pen knife back, and our shuttle took us back to our
car.

Summary: We went on this cruise because we love to go to Bermuda
and it is cheaper to do it on a ship than it is to fly and stay
on land. Also it is most convenient to leave from Baltimore.
Currently the only way we can do this is to sail on Grandeur of
the Seas.
  #3  
Old November 22nd, 2013, 01:50 PM posted to rec.travel.cruises
[email protected]
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Posts: 375
Default Grandeur of the Seas to Bermuda Nov 1, 2013

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 22:16:19 -0500, Bill
wrote:

On 11/21/2013 4:57 PM, wrote:

We had a little piece of paper which told us what discounts our
level of Crown & Anchor were entitled to. The only one I was
interested in was the internet. I had to go to the computer cafe
to sign in, and then configure my computer to use the RCCI wi-fi
(which I could use in the cabin - and the internet was fairly
fast). The $400 package was 25 cents a minute, and I was
entitled to a discount if I signed up on the first day. But
there was no way I could tell if they had given it to me or not
until I got my final bill.


Thanks for the review. We were on Grandeur several years ago and it was
our least favorite Royal Caribbean ship (nothing much to do and I didn't
like the lack of free food options like they have on the Promenade on
larger ships - do they still charge for pastries at the coffee shop if
you don't get a drink?). As for your Internet bill, couldn't you have
checked your current bill via the TV, or asked for a bill at guest
services? That should have showed the charge, along with any OBC you
might have had.

Bill


I could have gone to Guest Services, but there didn't seem to be
an option to check the bill on TV. Royal has apparently
eliminated the option to have an internet person so there's no
one in the internet area to ask.

I don't know about the pastries as we didn't go to the coffee
shop - we don't drink coffee

We have only been on two Royal ships because we like to sail out
of Baltimore, and there have been only two that were sailing out
of there.

We sailed on Grandeur out of Baltimore in 2007 and after that
cruise Bob hated it so much that he said he was never going to go
on another cruise. But since I had already booked another cruise
a week later, he obviously has not stuck to that.

Then we did a back to back out of Baltimore on Enchantment which
had been stretched and Grandeur was better because on Enchantment
they had not added seats in the Lido or theatre so there was
never a place to sit in the Lido and you had to go really early
to get a seat for the shows.

 




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