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Rhapsody of the Seas - July 29 - Aug 5 Mediterranean Cruise Trip Report


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Hi everyone! We just recently returned from our cruise, and I figured since we had used this board so much for research pre-cruise, that I would I post a trip report and maybe help someone out in the process. At the very least, it will at least provide some time waster for those of you still waiting for your next cruise. I am still in the process of going through all the photos (over 3,000!!) and unpacking, etc, so bear with me as this will most likely not be a fast moving trip report. Of course, feel free to ask any questions you may have along the way.

 

A little background:

I am 41:(, and my wife is 39. This is my first cruise since an Alaskan cruise in 2005 with Princess, and my first Royal Caribbean cruise since 2002. My wife has never cruised with Royal, and has not been on a cruise since 2000. In short, we really had no idea what to expect. My wife was not even sure she would enjoy a cruise at all at this point. Both of us enjoy doing more exploring on our own, so the thought of booking an excursion with the ship (and 50+ other people) was never a consideration. We only booked 1 private tour out of all the ports, and everywhere else we toured on our own. We are not big drinkers, or not big enough to pay for the deluxe package, so we settled on the middle package that gets you the soda cup, but more importantly - allows you to have bottled water, which I drink a ton of. We are also not big on shows of the cruise ship variety, so you won't get much info on that here.

 

Of course when checking out reviews online, while you do find good reviews, you invariably run in to a slew of negative ones - especially for an older ship like the Rhapsody. We had our reservations, but decided to book this particular cruise for one reason, and that was the ports of call.

 

Ports of Call:

  • Venice, Italy
  • Dubrovnik, Croatia
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • Santorini, Greece
  • Katalokon (Olympia), Greece

We had never been to any of these ports, and I have always wanted to see Croatia and Santorini, however was never sure I would want to spend a week in either place. This cruise was a perfect chance to sample them for us. Kotor was not one of the original ports - it was originally Ephesus, Turkey. When it was changed, I was disappointed initially, however once actually visiting Montenegro, I can no longer say that we were disappointed.

 

Pre-cruise:

We originally made a very big mistake/blunder, and that was booking our airfare to fly out of NJ on Friday night and arriving in Venice on Saturday, which was the day of embarkation. I never gave much thought to the fact that there would be any shot we could miss the boat, seeing as how we were scheduled to land at 9:05am in Venice. However, as the day began to get closer, and the weather reports for NJ on Friday got worse and worse, I was in full on panic mode. All I could think of was my last trip to Italy (Rome), where my 6:55pm flight did not take off until 11:55pm and whether or not we would make it to the port in time if something similar happened. As luck would have it, I was able to speak with an actual nice customer service agent from United, who changed our flights to Thursday - completely free of charge!! Of course we had no hotel in Venice for Friday, but I figured with so many hotels, that would be no issue. I was able to find a relatively cheap standard room at Hotel Palazzo San'tAngelo, which looked like it would be in a nice location for exploring. With all that done, we sped up our packing process and got ourselves ready to leave a day early.

 

 

The Flight:

In typical United fashion, we were scheduled to take off at 6:50pm, and finally began our taxiing to the runway about an hour after that. No weather issues at all - just a traffic jam on the runway. Gee, if only they would schedule flights in order to avoid that - oh wait.... We finally took off, and had our airplane dinner, which I must say was pretty good for an airplane - some nice pasta dish. After that it was time to try and get some rest ... Things were going fine, and then all of a sudden I woke up with the plane in its descent. I was thinking, wow, I have been asleep for a long time. And then I looked at the TV monitor, and saw this:

 

 

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Wait, what?? Why the hell are we landing in Shannon, Ireland?? Well, as it turns out, someone on the plane was feeling sick while we were over the Atlantic, and this was the closest place they could land. The person never got off the plane, and we were then stuck on the runway in Shannon, Ireland for two hours, which was so much fun. Here is what I got to see of Ireland:

 

 

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After our quick and fun visit, we were on our way again and finally landed in Venice around 11:30am local time.

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I was a bit nervous as we had pre-booked a water taxi to take us to the hotel, and of course did not book it for 11:30. I was also a bit confused, as this was my first time getting off an airplane like this:

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Thanks to the folks on this board, I was able to figure out where to go once we actually arrived inside the airport, although I will admit - I was still not entirely sure until I finally got to the people mover that I was ever heading in the right direction, but of course we did not admit that to the wife. Once we got down to where the water taxis were, I eventually found someone to point me in the right direction for our taxi, and then we were on our way.

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Apparently there is a 6 picture limit, so on to the next post we go ...

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Water taxi:

Well worth the money in my opinion. Yes, it is expensive. Round trip from airport to hotel, and hotel to cruise port was nearly 200 Euros. Still, the ride in was amazing for someone who has never been to Venice, and the convenience really could not be beat. We saw countless others struggling to roll their luggage over cobblestone or lug them up the bridge stairs, and it looked awful. I would gladly pay the money again - in fact I did, post-cruise from the port to the hotel, and hotel to airport.

 

Here are some pics of the ride in - these are from my cell phone, so excuse the quality:

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And here is the front door of the Hotel Palazzo San'tAngelo

 

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Hotel

In another stroke of good luck, the delay in the flight allowed us to be able to check in immediately. While we were checking in, the concierge person told us that she had good news for us - we had been upgraded to a junior suite room that overlooks the Grand Canal, at no extra charge. A very nice way to start off the vacation!

 

Here is the view from our unexpected balcony:

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We were amazed. Since we were staying in a nicer room/hotel post cruise, we had intentionally booked a lesser/cheaper hotel with a standard room for the pre-cruise stay. I would highly recommend this hotel - the staff were great, the junior suite room was amazing, with great views.

 

We spent the rest of our day/night in Venice wandering around, doing a little site seeing but mainly just wandering Venice and soaking it all in.

 

 

 

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More Venice

Venice is great. It is literally impossible to take a bad picture here. Just wander the streets and snap shots, and you will almost always have a great photo. The day we were there pre-cruise, it was hot. If only that was as hot as it got. Apparently we were on our cruise during what the news was calling Heat Wave Lucifer. I had never heard of a heat wave being named like a tropical storm before, but they got the name right - it was hot as hell all week long!

 

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Embarkation day

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early, took a few more pictures from our balcony, and headed downstairs for our free breakfast - which like all breakfasts in Italy, are delicious. After that it was off to the cruise ship in our private water taxi. I wanted to get there early, so that we could check in without waiting on long lines, and with another day in Venice post-cruise, did not think that missing 3 hours or so today in Venice would really be all that bad.

 

Here are some more pictures of the boat ride to the port, and then our first glimpses of the Rhapsody (and other ships in port).

 

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Check In:

We arrived in the port by water taxi at about 11:00am on Saturday morning. By 11:07am we were on the ship. It was that simple. We were in a Junior Suite, and the Suite line had no one in it. The hardest part of check in was making the walk from where the water taxi lets you off, and to terminal 107 where the Rhapsody was docked. The last time I cruised, I spent over two hours in line in Florida. This was far, far better haha.

 

A little sad to leave Venice behind, but very excited to see the other ports - on a side note regarding Venice, I have to say I did not love the food. Part of this is my fault, as I am not a seafood eater at all, but I guess I expected it to be more like it was in Rome.

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Following along but must ask...is that seriously the first time you got off a plane like that or were you just joking?

 

Nope that was serious - I have never gotten off of a plane in any other fashion other than the typical way where the plane pulls up to a gate and you walk through the thing they attach to the plane/terminal.

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Rhapsody Day 1 - Venice

Obviously since we got on so early, we could not get in to our rooms yet. They had signs posted that we would be able to get in to the rooms at 1:00pm, so we took some time to explore the ship - and of course, to grab one of these little sandwiches I have heard so much about on here:

 

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I am proud to announce, I had the very first beef on weck of this cruise haha. While exploring the ship, I have to say I thought it was pretty well maintained. Everything appeared to be clean, and there were no major signs of wear and tear. Of course, being an older ship, there were flaws to be found if you looked hard enough, but honestly for an itinerary driven cruise (for us anyhow) I did not really care too much about any bells and whistles that were on (or not on) the ship, so long as it was clean, and fairly nice. I would say it met and exceeded those expectations.

 

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At around 1:30pm, the rooms on our level (8) were good to go. We stayed in cabin 8560. The room was nice - fairly large, and had a ton of storage space for our clothes and other things.

 

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The balcony was nice, and had both regular chairs, as well as lounge chairs. Not a huge balcony, but more than enough room for two people. Neither type of chairs were the most comfortable in the world, but hey - they had both, and we used both while on the trip, so who is complaining.

 

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Day 1 cont.

As 5:00pm drew near, it was time for the much anticipated sail away. Up we went to the top deck to get some pictures of Venice as we left the port. I don't know if Venice is the most amazing port to sail out of, but it has to be up there right? I mean, it sure as heck beats pulling away from anywhere in the US that I have left on a cruise.

 

Again, these are cell phone pics, so some will not be the best quality, but I have yet to begun the editing process of my actual 3,000+ DSLR pictures, but at least you will get an idea.

 

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Goodbye Venice!

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Night 1

We had booked mostly all specialty restaurants for this cruise, with only 2 nights eating in the main dining room. We did my time dining, and always asked for a table for just the two of us if we were in the MDR.

 

Our first night, we ate Giovanni's Table. I have to say - I was surprised - the food was delicious! We had an appetizer of mozzarella en carozza, which was wrapped in prosciutto. We also had a flatbread with cheese and some sort of pesto sauce. My wife had a stuffed veal dish for dinner, and I had some sort of filet, although I do not recall exactly what it was - just that it was good. The dining staff/service was excellent.

 

I guess I took picture of dessert, but not dinner? I had originally sworn to myself that I would take pictures of all the meals/desserts, as well as the Daily Compass (I did save all of those), but apparently I blew it on night #1.

 

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After dinner, we wandered around the ship some more, and then spent some time out on the balcony enjoying the stars ...

 

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Day 2 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

The day was finally here! I had been wanting to visit Croatia for a long time. I am a huge Game of Thrones fan, but even long before I knew a portion of it was filmed here, I have been dying to visit this amazing place. We were due to sail in to port at 11:00am, but of course I was up nice and early to check out the views as we sailed in. When I first woke up I was greeted with some far off mountains in the distance, and some of the bluest water I have ever seen.

 

As we got closer, I went up to the top deck, and we were greeted with these beautiful views:

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I have to say, as a whole on this trip, I am shocked at the lack of people out each morning to see the views as we sailed in to the various ports. Some of the views were spectacular, and even more surprising to me was the lack of people who got off the ship as soon as humanly possible. For example, in Dubrovnik we were docking at 11:00am .... I was downstairs and ready to get off the ship at 10:50am, and was let off the ship at 10:57am. There were still hordes of people just getting to breakfast, or jogging around the track at that point.

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Day 2 - Dubrovnik, Croatia cont.

For Dubrovnik, we decided to tour on our own. We really wanted to see the old town, and walk the walls, and from everything I had read it seemed like a fairly easy spot to navigate on our own. Our first issue was finding some Kuna, as we did not get any pre-cruise. This was no problem really, as once you exit the cruise ship, it was as simple as making a right turn and walking down to the bus station area, where there were a few ATM's. We had a brief panic moment as the ATM would not work, but as it turned out it was a problem with the ATM (out of money), not our card. Once we had our Kuna (we took out 800 Kuna) we came back around to the other side of the station to look for a taxi. Finding a taxi was simple - unfortunately, the cab driver we got was not nice at all. When he asked where we wanted to go, he went on and on telling me what a bad idea that would be, and how hot it was outside, etc, etc and of course offering up suggestions and tours that he could provide. I had to tell him no probably 5 times before he finally just angrily took us to the Pile Gate entrance of the old town. On a side note, you can pay for a taxi here in Euros, so you will only need Kuna for the wall, and lunch/shops.

 

The entrance to the old town at Pile Gate:

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The line to get in and pay for the tickets to walk the wall was not very long. The cab driver was correct about one thing though - it was HOT!

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More Dubrovnik, Croatia

While the weather was hot (very hot), we loved walking the walls. There are a lot of steps, and it was not an easy walk sometimes, but there were lots of places to stop and rest along the way. The views from the top of the walls were amazing, and despite our boat not getting there until 11:00am, the walls were not too crowded at all.

 

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Ok, enough Dubrovnik pictures I suppose ... I took so many with my cell phone alone I could spend another hour just loading Dubrovnik pictures haha.

 

After walking the walls, we were rather hungry, so we took a walk down one of the alley ways and found a little restaurant to grab a sandwich and some wine (and a free welcome Prosecco). The food was pretty good, and the wait staff could not have been nicer. In fact, after the very rude taxi driver, the rest of the Croatian people we encountered were some of the nicest people I have ever met.

 

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Found a nice little candy shop for a couple of late night snacks:

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Then it was back to the ship, with some time to relax on the balcony. By the way - the cab driver on the way home? The nicest guy ever, who told us about an old Croatian song that he sang to us about selling your wife and your donkey to move to America lol.

 

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Before we knew it, it was time to sail on to our next port

 

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Night 2

On the second night we had dinner in Izumi. Again, I was pleasantly surprised. The restaurant was nice, the staff was nice and attentive, and the food was pretty darn good. We had some pork dumplings and some sort of spicy chicken as appetizers. For our main meals we both had the hot stone meals, where you cook your own meat on the hot rocks. I had the filet, and the wife had chicken. Just remember if you book this, the pricing is a la carte, however when we booked our cruise we had $100 of on board credit, so the $46 that this meal cost was taken care of by the on board credit.

 

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We did not eat dessert here, but instead went down to the Park Cafe and had some oatmeal and coconut cookies, which admittedly I ate way too many of over the 7 nights on this ship.

 

When we returned to our room, we had our first towel animal:

 

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We headed down to Casino Royale for a bit before bed, where I promptly lost $200 and went right back upstairs and off to bed haha. The next day we arrived in Kotor at 7:00am, and I wanted to make sure I was up in time to watch the sail in, so I had set our alarm for 5:00am ... yikes. Who said anything about getting any rest this vacation?

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Day 3 - Kotor, Montenegro

If you ever have the chance to sail in to Kotor, please, do yourself a favor and wake up early enough to watch the scenery as you sail in to port. Just amazing. I have to take a break from posting and get some work done, but here is a sample of the scenery as you sail in to Kotor.

 

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Back later to post more when I can ....

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Just booked this cruise for next year so following with interest

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

You will love it ... it's been my favorite trip I've taken so far. Any questions you have or think of, feel free to ask away.

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