Good morning from...bleh, who cares now...🙄
I'm here sitting in my office going "wow, its over now". I've looked forward to that cruise for so long as I booked in March of last year.
Pre-cruise.
The memory of last year's drive up to Bayonne was still fresh in my mind so i made some modifications and this time, everything worked out absolutely perfectly. As you've seen, we stayed at the Embassy Suites, which overall, I think i liked a little better than the Springhill Suites I stayed last year. Being across the street from the Mall and Starbucks was probably the cincher, but leaving at 3pm as opposed to 6 pm made all the difference in the world.
Embarkation. Super easy. 12 minutes, door to ship. We had the earliest timeslot when it opened, which was 12:00. I was on the ship by 11:50. My driver called early and really picked us up at about 11:00 and I worried it was too early, but with traffic, it actually worked out well.
Onboard Activities
Most of the onboard activities did not interest me this time around. My wife is the trivia junky, but only if she has knowledge of the area in question. I did find the "prizes" to be interesting. Apparently, you got coupons, and if you won enough coupons, you can turn it in for a prize. I only briefly saw the prize list. Its not that large and I remember seeing 10 points = a backpack, but from what i heard, it was a crappy one.
Food.
Those of you who have followed me before. The pictures do get repetitive. As a repeat cruiser, I'm remembering the dishes more and more. My big complaint really is not for me, but my wife. She is recently Glutten free and now has a nut allergy. The problem is she also can not tolerate artificial sweeteners. Her choices of desserts were...ice cream. When Royal decides to make glutten free desserts...they use..almond flour.
I was very worried about the changed menu that was announced in the beginning of the year. I am pleased to say, that the quality of food was not affected. Now, that's not saying much because the food hasn't improved. Its stayed the same. There maybe less choices, but its the food you're used to. The one hit that affected me was Escargot. You only saw one picture of it, but rest assured, I had 2 helpings of it every night it was offered. Previously, i would have done that for every night of the cruise, but it appeared maybe 5 times over the course of this last cruise. Its kind of a blessing and a curse for me. Curse, because i don't get it, but blessing those two appetizers got to be allocated elsewhere.
Funny note, on the last night of the cruise, the table next to us came over and said "holy crap, where the hell do you put it all. We saw you every night just putting it away!!!". I probably averaged 3-4 appetizers, 1-2 entrees and 1-2 desserts.
Bottom line for food. It was sufficient for my taste. There is one unknown. The food in the MDR and the Windjammer is institutional. That's the best word for it. The ship cooks 20K meals A DAY!!! Its a factory, not a kitchen. The food feels like it. Someone said to me the food is missing soul. Its not bad. Its just missing something. Substance? You definite feel different when eating on land.
Chops. I only went to Chops once. It was delicious. Absolute 180 from the last time I ate at Chops on Jewel. That meal was pretty much perfect. Here, I do believe Chops is worth the upcharge as the steak we had was delicious.
Izumi's. We did the Sake Sushi lunch pairing. I still think Izumi's is too expensive for what you got. That lunch was over 100 bucks including gratuities. This one is better than the normal Izumi menu, but that's my opinion, that its overpriced and you absolutely do not get what you're paying for.
Ports:
Portwise, this was an AMAZING itinerary. Definitely bucket list. However, Greenland is a one and done kind of thing in my opinion. If I go back, due to like the arctic repositioning this ship went on before our cruise, I'd do it, but I won't go again just for Greenland.
Manhattan. I know this is not technically a port of call and Royal will only do this again if something forces them. But I thought porting in Manhattan is awesome. The only downside. Bring lots of money. Its not cheap. There is SOO much to do in Manhattan, its insane. It was totally anxiety ridden with so many choices especially when we had less than 24 hours to decide what to do as none of us knew we were going to Manhattan until 11pm on Tuesday for a Thursday departure. In the future, if time permits, I think we will make NYC a stop prior to boarding in Bayonne and budget that out as well.
Nuuk. This town reminds me a little bit of Juneau, Alaska. However, I didn't feel the town was very welcoming. The boat tour we did was great and our tour guide was amazing. It had the same feel as Alaska where it felt untouched by man. However, after the tour, we went into town, and it felt less welcoming. Even though most everyone in town here spoke English, the signage did not include English, so it was difficult to navigate on your own. I feel bad for those people who came into Nuuk with no excursion in mind. We generally love just exploring, but given the language barrier and also, cultural one, made it difficult even for us. One of the issues, is that the buildings look alike. I could not tell if it was private property, or a storefront. If the door had operating hours, it was a little difficult to figure out if it was a public door, or a back door. Also, the locals seem to keep to themselves here unless they were specifically tourist oriented.
Qaqortoq. This was my favorite. The town was very welcoming. It was much easier to figure out what was a store front and what was private property. Everything is fairly close by and the locals were very friendly. The people who worked specifically with tourism spoke English, but the normal population may not. We have a little difficulty trying to get Acetaminophen because a: they sell medicine behind the counter, and B: the guy behind the counter didn't speak English and couldn't figure out what we wanted. It was interesting. One note. And this is probably the only thing against Royal Caribbean. There is a tour that I debated and eventually discarded because it was a $309.00/person tour to the Hvalsey Church Ruins. Its about a 2 hour tour. We had friends do this and they were very angry about it. It was not a tour. It was literally a boat ride back and forth. $309/person is one of the highest tour prices i've seen. For a two hour boat ride with no informative narrative. Once they got to the ruins, it was a self-guided tour. When they complained to the tour guide, they said Royal only paid them to shuttle people to the island. The independent boat drivers were charging 100/person for tours. I felt that Royal is taking a big cut from the locals and sticking it to the passengers.
Nanortalik. We had no excursion here. There were only 2 offered if i remembered correctly, and one sold out quickly and then bugged out. It was too short here, but the town is very small. You can walk the entirety of it in 30 minutes. I liked this town for a different reason and I'm insane, i know it.
So Nanortalik makes me feel like this is a town out of H.P. Lovecraft. Innsmouth. The locals, were somewhat standoffish. They appeared to go through an act for the tourists, but we had to leave at 1:30. Why? Because something is coming out of the ocean after dark and we don't want to be anywhere in that area when that happens. I'm a Lovecraft fan. Hence, why i'm insane 😛
St. John. I wish we had more time in this town. We barely had enough time to get poutine, souvenirs and get screeched in before we had to go back to the ship. It was slightly longer than Nanortalik, but not too much longer. I felt like we barely scratched the surface on this one.
Service. The crew was outstanding. I have No complaints with the crew and the service. I should say that every crew member did their very best and it showed. I thought the Cruise director did the best she could with the situation in hand. Talking to one of the crew the night before debarkation. We made a remark about the entitledness on this cruise and they told us that they were warned before the cruise that this would be a difficult cruise. I kind of understand why Kat stayed on script and did not wander far from the generic. I thought personally, she was a wonderful person.
The wifi sucked. When it worked, it was great. But on this cruise, it was the most inconsistent of all my cruises and the inconsistency outweighed the previous slowness of even the non upgraded (non O3B) ships.
The ship itself. Two things I had not foreseen. 1 is the lop sided tier that favored Diamond and above. The second was a more personal matter. Because this was a primarily indoor cruise, the ship felt overly loud. On previous cruises, it was easy to find a quiet spot. Here, it was impossible. The Safari lounge, the aft lounge on Vision and Radiance classes, I have found previously to be a nice quiet spot for much of the cruise. On this cruise, that was not the case. The Pinnacles had their happy hour there every day. And there was a lot of things going on there like Bingo and Art Auctions. The Schooner Bar was overly loud and hopping, as that was the 2nd common area for activities. There was always some music or activity in the Centrum that resonated up the levels due to its open air. Solarium was the only "outdoor" venue that was enclosed so that was a popular place to hang. They actually opened up the 2nd floor of the MDR for additional seating because the Windjammer was used for gaming as tables because very scarce on the ship. All these issues to me made me a bit overstimulated near the end of the cruise and I had issues trying to decompress. After 14 nights, I admit it was starting to get to me and combined with the lousy inconsistent internet, I was actually glad for this cruise to be over.
Otherwise, I loved the Radiance class ships.
Disembarkation. - yeah. My ship to door was 24 minutes, which is average. BUT, that time does not include the waiting to be let off the ship. I made it to the street at 10:50pm. This is the latest I've ever gotten off a ship. We sat in the centrum and then the next cruise waiting for that line to move. It was only when the line started to move, did we disembarked the ship. I would say this is the worse disembarkation ever, but this was all CBP's fault and not Royals. They suspended disembarkation right after we finished breakfast at about 8:30am. Resumed at 9:45, but then quickly suspended it again. There were 4 agents working the ship. No facial rec. I looked at my last live thread and they did not use facial rec last year either, but they had it. It was used as a support stand for the customs agent. Not sure if we couldn't use it because of Greenland, or because it crashed, or because it just never worked.
Overall impressions.
Despite the issues, I met some really great people on this cruise. Each port, despite its issues, were an adventure I loved. The serenity in each of these ports (except for Manhattan) was awesome and amazing. The extreme luck of seeing Northern Lights for at least 5 nights in a row was awe inspiring. The whale sightings were an added bonus. I had an interior room, and although it has its issues, was perfectly fine. I slept so well in that room and I'm totally relaxed. This cruise is in my top 3. Which now stands like this
#1 my wedding cruise Carnival Pride in 2015
#2 my NYE Grandeur cruise 2014/2015
#3 This one.
#1 will always be #1 and #2 will be hard to beat. But this one was definitely a contender.
so thus ends my 14 night adventure to Greenland.
Next cruise, will also be a first. Will be my first Virgin AND Transatlantic cruise. Another 14 night.
I do plan to do a live thread there. So, I hope everyone enjoyed this thread. I am absolutely humbled that just looking at the thread now, I have had 33K views. Thank you for reading along.
I want to do a major shoutout to @little britain for contributing her images and comments. Its always interesting to see different views on the same cruise as some of you may have remembered with the two live threads on Enchantment I did before and the sharing of the Live thread I did with @FionaMG.
Again, thank you all.
