kleo30

 

Upper deck was closed because on our March cruise on GR, we had rough weather and the deck split. They're working on it and what you saw as "Kindergarten kids painting the deck" was only the first coat.:rolleyes:

We were on the cruise after you. We noticed that paint and wondered if it was fresh. They were working on it near the end of our cruise. I didn't see it after they finished.

Most nights after that, the music was loud and more ethnic than we like. So we didn't stay after the DJ came in.

 

What does that mean?

All I meant was the music they played was more what my teenage African American nieces like vs. what we were expecting in the disco (70s, 80s, disco). I couldn't quite decide how to say that.

Wonderful on ww. I have maintained my weight loss for 8 years.

 

Looking forward to seeing grandeur in less than a month.

 

 

I think I may journal now that y'all have said it was fun to do so.

Congratulations!!

Is there more to the review than just the first 3 days....when I click on the link for your blog only days 1,2,3 come up....I could be missing something :)

Yes, if you go to the bottom of that page, it will say older posts. Click on that and you'll get more pages (and keep clicking because I think it is several pages back where it started. If you keep clicking, you'll see my other two reviews from 2013 and 2011 on Explorer).

Just a few things:

1. Loved your review. We are on the Grandeur with the same itinerary on January 6, so I found your review quite informative and helpful. It has a been a lot of years since we have cruised on an RCI ship and you answered a lot of our questions.

2. Question: on the outside Promenade deck, were there lots of lounge chairs, and could you walk all the way around the ship on the outside deck?

3. I saved the best for last...you do look GREAT!

Thank you!

The loungers on the promenade deck were plentiful, on both sides. I'm not sure if you could walk all the way around. I'll ask my husband if he knows. We went out to that deck several times, but didn't walk it.

Fantastic review. We will be on the Grandeur next October and I'm really looking forward to it.

 

Here are a couple of observations and a question.

 

First, one of the reasons your review is so entertaining is your positive attitude. I read many bitter cruise reviews based on what I see as minor problems, but you didn't let any of the issues you faced get you down.

 

Second, I notice that you and your husband belong to Weight Watchers. You are inspiring me to give it a try (my wife tried it and failed, I think because I wasn't on board with it).

 

Here's my question. With all the opportunities to eat on the cruise, how do you manage to stay on the WW diet?

I hope you love the Grandeur!

How did I stay on the WW plan. Well, I didn't is the short answer. I did make a plan to walk the stairs as much as possible and to eat and drink whatever I wanted HA. My goal was to gain less than I did on my last 10 day cruise (which was 8 pounds), and I did. I gained 5.8. And to not be more than 2 pounds over goal, which is the legal weight rules for staff and lifetime members, and I'm not :) So all is good.

Other than cruising, I take my WW plan with me on vacation, because it really is a way of life. But there are so many drinks and desserts (the food, other than Giovanni's, doesn't interest me so much. I do order what I want but rarely at all of anything. Oh, and raspberry pastries).

There are some exciting things happening at WW in the next few weeks. I say give it a go. If you do the work, the plan works. I am a leader for them now, and absolutely love helping my members succeed, while being motivated to stay at goal :)

Hi Kelly,

 

Really enjoying your review/blog and pics with so much detail.

 

I have kept journals for about a half dozen cruises now; handwritten in a leather bound book. While cruising do you make entries during the day or catch up at night? I usually take notes then knock out the daily at the end of the night. To some, it seems like work (and it is) but it helps to make those fleeting cruise moments more permanent. ;)

 

Also, did you shoot much video?

I'm glad you're enjoying it Steve.

I like to journal in the morning with coffee. It helps me catch up with the night before, and I write whatever things we plan for the day, which usually is different than what we actually do.

If we are in the cabin mid-day napping, and I wake up first, I'll sit outside and catch up.

But rarely after dinner. I do that catching up in the morning.

I really love keeping a journal of our cruises. It is relaxing to me.

I loved your review.

 

We just took our first cruise on Freedom of the Seas out of Port Canaveral, but we live in Maryland and are only an hour from the port. I would love to sail out of Baltimore.

 

Your review was great. I am thinking we should try this cruise the next time. And I loved how you rolled with anything that came your way without complaining. Broken toilet, rain, no problem. Not everyone would do that.

Are you totally addicted now? We were hooked after our first cruise on Explorer.

We can't change the circumstances, so may as well make the best of it is my philosophy. Although that first day that was yucky, I was sad. I wanted one last sea day. But seriously, if it was Day 9 in the middle of November sailing from Baltimore before the weather was yucky, I had nothing to be sad about, so I gave myself a pep talk and made the best of it.

DH and I have just started dance lessons about 6 months ago. We tried to find places to dance on our cruise but were not too successful. DH would also like to jitterbug.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to write this.

I really enjoy writing the reviews of our trips. I like going back and reading them, too. I would LOVE if there were more 70s and 80s music, but what can ya do. The pool deck band sometimes played stuff we could have danced to if we weren't too lazy to get out of the lounge chair lol.

Drink package worth it?

 

Coffee, tea, water, soda, occasion alcoholic drink.

 

Debating on package.

For us, the drink packages were worth it. Doug had the premium and I had the ultimate. We each had 4 or more bottles of water a day. I had Starbucks once a day. I had a mimosa with fresh juice at breakfast. And we both had quite a few cocktails (2-4 at the pool, 1 before dinner on the balcony, I'd have wine with dinner, after dinner shooters, a couple more in a bar after dinner and another to take back to the room to enjoy on the balcony before we'd go to bed). There weren't any cocktails we ordered that went over the limit. We got mixed drinks like Long Island iced tea and all kinds of frozen cocktails and martinis. Doug used the soda cup frequently and had soda with dinner or lunch. I only used it to keep water cold at the pool. So we definitely got our money's worth. We will definitely purchase them again.

We are also,though I need a break from the eating.

Enjoyed the ease of driving to port and all the sea views of the ship

I needed a break from drinking lol.

I just realized this posted twice...not sure what happened.

Enjoyed your review. I also went up to the Windjammer for Coffee and pastries to bring back for the cabin for pre breakfast . The coffee was good but for some reason what we had at dinner in the MDR was bad .Had to be our section,

WE enjoyed Labadee and also met the Rum lady in ST Marteen ,She was generous with the samples. WE bought the Guavaberry and Lime then went back and told her that she was a great salesperson and she gave us more samples.

I was disappointed that the music at night was low key but the shows were surprisingly good

................Frank:)

We didn't do any shows this time. The music seemed to either be ballroom dancing in the centrum or loud (very loud) not our style in the Viking Crown Lounge at night. We love to jitterbug but couldn't find anything to dance to most nights.

We always order room service pre breakfast lol! Thanks for the great review, so looking forward to our trip on the Grandeur!

 

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Usually I didn't know what time I was waking up, and I was too grumpy to wait for room service lol.

Just finished, you made me want to go back on Grandeur! Now, I'm gonna check out the rest of your blog, especially the crafts. :D

My blog used to be about home schooling our 3 boys. Now they are grown and mostly moved out. I need to refocus and rename and not just post a cruise review every year or so lol.

I'm ready to go back to the Grandeur right now.

We just got home from the 10 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Grandeur. We had an amazing time. I posted a detailed, day by day review, on my blog if anybody is interested in reading it.

Grandeur Nov. 11th ~ 10 night review

If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them.

We just got home from the 10 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Grandeur. We had an amazing time. I posted a detailed, day by day review, on my blog if anybody is interested in reading it.

Grandeur Nov. 11th ~ 10 night review

If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them.

Doug also met with Edgar. They told him somebody flushed chicken bones, but who knows what the real story was. We were on deck 8 on the aft. It was just annoying that most every day there was a problem with our toilet. And on the 2nd day, within a 24 hour period, it quit flushing 5 times for hours at a time. But otherwise, we had a great cruise.

ETA: The only other negative would be the woman in the cabin next to us wore an obnoxious amount of perfume. So much so that we often went in from our balcony when she came out. You could smell her perfume while walking up the hallway to get to the aft. And always when walking past her room....with the door closed. I'm not sure how her daughter stayed in there with her without a headache.

According to the Guest Relations Manager, Edgar there were numerous plumbing problems including the shower which overflowed with sewage. When I showed them a photo of the shower showing what had come up, it was handled including sanitizing the room. With health issues plaguing many cruise ships lately, it could have been worse. Egor the maintenance supervisor inspected the pipe chase near our cabin and it was full of dirty water. They handled it immediately following a meet with Edgar. This was after several calls to the front desk and waiting an hour for someone to respond before we went down to GS.

We were on this same sailing. I did see babies, but didn't hear any crying. We did encounter, on several occasions, one boy (must have been 10 or 11) who was rather rude. Otherwise, the 62 kids on board didn't seem to be a problem for us. I did remark to my husband how on Explorer, the 62 kids were hardly visible, but on Grandeur, you saw them frequently.

We didn't encounter rude scooter passengers. There were quite a few of them, but they never felt rude to me.

We had an amazing crew. We also had toilet issues....all through the cruise. It was like Russian Roulette whether or not the toilet would flush the entire time. We used public bathrooms frequently. My husband called Guest Relations frequently and ended up with a meeting with the manager of Guest Relations.

We thought the crew was amazing. This is only our 3rd cruise, but the best one we've ever had. I'm going to be doing a detailed review with lots of pictures over the next few days (on my blog) and will post a link when I do.

We are looking forward to sailing Grandeur again next year of the following, depending on our schedules. We like sailing in November, and our son is getting married 11/14 next year.

We did that lobster catamaran excursion last year. It was really nice. Lunch was really yummy.

I've lost 102# after being overweight my entire adult life. My body was very unforgiving. So I wear shapewear. I have a wardrobe of it.

Yes, I do wear it on my cruises. I also wear clothes that fit. But I have a muffin top, with or without clothes, and quite a bit of hanging belly skin, and shapewear smooths that. It doesn't make it flat or go away, but it smooths and keeps it from jiggling. To me it is almost like wearing a bra. It keeps things where it should be.

Yes.....they do take cash there.

Thanks Jane.

It turned out to be such a nice day. We settled in and read and enjoyed the sights. The beach bar is great here. They let you run a tab. There are nice beach boys and great bar service.

$50 is a good deal for the cabana.

Do they accept cash? Or do you need to use a CC?

I'm looking forward to reading your review, Jane :)

Not a whole lot more, but much differently than I do at home. I do, however, drink more than I usually do.

Hi Kelly,,,How are you guys doing? Is doug still driving OTR or has the relish business taken off yet? Virginia and I are doing the grandeur the end of march so you will have to let us know how you liked her.

Best Wishes,,

Tony

Hey Tony! Doug is still driving, but is home every other morning. He has a run up near Boston.

Have a great time! I recognize you - I read your Explorer review when we were planning our Explorer cruise!:)

We loved Explorer! Hoping to love Grandeur just as much.

We are looking forward to sailing on the Grandeur in November. We've only sailed on the Explorer. I'm looking forward to a smaller ship and relaxing.