Back from Serenade 11/7-11/14

[sandinmypants]

Just got back last night from our Serenade cruise. We did the St. Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, St. Martin, St. Lucia route. Weather could have been better - while we had very little rain, the islands themselves had quite a bit prior to our arrival so conditions weren't ideal for things like snorkeling, and the surf was pretty high on most beaches (we're big beach enthusiasts).

 

I'm going to start out by saying that we really like our all-inclusive vacations. We had been wanting to take a cruise, so we gave it a try. The ship was lovely, very elegant, well-maintained. Crew was super. Absolutely HATED having to pay for every drink I wanted to consume - more than I thought I would. We got off the ship with a $120 bar bill - it really bothered me more than I thought not to be able to have a couple of Bailey's on the rocks after dinner, or a mimosa with breakfast. We had 5-6 cocktails and three bottles of wine - that's it.

 

The main thing that bothered us more than we thought it would, however, was what I'll call the "structure". One island we didn't port until 10am. We're morning people, up at 5-6am, on the beach @sunrise. The waiting was a pain. Having to take a taxi to & from the beach every day was a pain. Having a scheduled time to be back onboard was a pain - it often meant leaving the beach in the middle of the afternoon (right about naptime, after a few rum punches from the beach bar....dang!)

 

So you can get a feel for the kind of people we are, and why this just wasn't our "cup of tea" so to speak. But it was fun to try, and we did have a good time - loved the Serenade and so glad we didn't pick a larger ship. This is JUST OUR OPINION, no need to bash it or start flaming - I understand that a lot of people love cruising for a lot of different reasons.

 

I'll be back later today to give some details on our ports, our stateroom, some ship-specific things, etc. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

 

And again, we did have a good time - if you have a cruise booked on the Serenade - you'll have a wonderful time - there's no way to not enjoy yourself!

[ciera123]

I'm looking forward to hearing more, especially about the ports. We love to cruise, but it certainly isn't everyone's idea of a perfect vacation and you don't know unless you try. :) I'm glad you still had fun!

[newlu]

Hi,

 

Cant wait to hear about the ports! I am doing St. Thomas (booked a norkeling tour) St. Croix (waiting to see if I book with Big Beird) Antigua (booked the segway tour) Ste Lucia (not sure there, probably one of the 3 tour guides recommended) and Grenada (booking the Creole bus tour).

We also did many AI in the past, started cruising 6 years ago, for me, its the nightlife that I love and the AC everywhere! BUT, we still do an AI (did that last January) now going on Serenade in 2011. But I do understand that a cruise is more hectic and an AI resort you have more space and more freedom. Thanks for posting on the ports later!

newlu

[IMNiles]

I'm glad you had a good time, even though it wasn't exactly your cup of tea. If you ever try another cruise, you might consider finding one that has one or more overnights at a port (not so common, particularly in the caribbean, but they're out there). This allows you to stay out as late as you like, yet still have your home base to go back to whenever you please. The couple times we've had overnights we've really enjoyed the extra flexibility. I think Azamara (a more upscale sister line to RCCL) is doing a lot more overnights these days.

 

As for the early mornings, I'm right there with you, but I simply order room service and have some nice quiet time on my balcony before my partner and the rest of the ship wakes up. If you didn't have a balcony, well then I can certainly understand how you might feel a little cooped up until you could get off the ship. Even so, there are a few great "quiet" places on Serenade if you know where to find them.

 

I also agree that it can be annoying to be thinking about paying for drinks when everything else is so inclusive. This is the practice on pretty much all mass market lines (some luxury lines are super-inclusive). RCL doesn't have them (yet?) but Celebrity offers several inclusive drink packages where you can prepay for unlimited access to various "tiers" of drinks. The most expensive one (which includes virtually any drink under $12) works out to nearly $350 for a 7 day cruise, so you'd have to work that in and see how it compares value-wise to your other all-inclusives. Packages that limit access to some of the more expensive drinks are cheaper. I've done the math and for me these packages aren't a great value, though I'm considering it on my next Celebrity cruise anyway just so I won't have to think about it (how's that for psychology?). It'd probably be a better value if you were on the ship a lot (as opposed to in port, where drinks are almost always cheaper).

 

I'll be interested to hear what you have to say about the ports.. We were just on Serenade for the week of Oct 31, and were diverted by Hurricane Tomas to an itinerary quite similar to yours - Barbados/Antigua/St Maarten/St Thomas. I can't say I was totally thrilled with Barbados, and since it was raining the day we were in Antigua, we didn't venture much past the port area. I wonder what we missed.

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Hopefully you won't get flamed :)

[Kim4]

Thanks so much for your review...I'm sailing on the Serenade this summer, and I've seen many of your comments/questions on other Serenade review threads. You always seemed to post exactly what I was thinking, so I'm looking forward to hearing more about what you thought of the beaches and ports!

 

I don't think you'd get flamed for not liking the structure of cruising...you gave a very specific reason why you didn't like cruising in general. The people that get flamed are the ones who just come in and say, "I hated it, RCI is terrible!!" and then never show up again or give any specifics. :)

[Poorplaya]

Looking forward to hearing more about your cruise, glad you had a good time, even though paying for drinks kinda sucked, you should be happy though with the bar bill you had, mine is always so much more than that lol. :D

[Karma5]

The one thing I dislike about crusing is the structure such as leaving the ship at certain times , being more on a schedule. With a land vacation, I can rent a jeep and be off to where I want and back. However, being on a curise has other advantages. No meals to cook, no dishes, room made up, meeting other people, entertainment. It also helps me to explore different islands . I like land and cruise vacations for different reasons.

Sometimes its just nice to "let someone else drive the bus"

[cgrout78]

Glad you had a great time. I'm on the AOS in January with the same stops I believe.

 

No flaming here...I think me an DH's next trip will be trying an AI. Just to see how that goes. The included drinks would be a bonus as well as everything being "right there" seems more relaxing. Especially after taking such a port intensive cruise this year

 

Looking forward to hearing your ports review!!!

[LBumb]

thanks for posting your honest opinions. glad to hear you still had a good time.

[sandinmypants]

Thanks for understanding, everyone. We really did enjoy the cruise - our 9yo son LOVED Adventure Ocean, which is something I totally did not expect! He actually cried the last night when we went to pick him up.... :( Poor little guy!

 

A lot to do today, back to work tomorrow -

 

Starting w/St. Lucia: We were booked with Spencer Ambrose on St. Lucia but the night before we left we received an email from him stating that the southern part of the island was unaccessible by road, so the volcano/waterfall/Jalousie beach wouldn't work out. So we got off the boat, found a taxi driver and went to Pigeon Point. I believe it's in their island Park system or something? We paid about $5 each to get in, and $1 each for chairs. There are two sections of beach there, one larger than the other. We walked past the larger part to the smaller one, plenty of shade. It's a very "natural" beach, not fine sand but corally rock/small pebbles, with a lot of wave action and rock in the water. We mostly just wanted to "salvage" our day on St. Lucia - normally you can snorkel at Pigeon Point, but they had higher than normal surf so we just played a bit at the edge of the water, 9yo did the sandcastle thing. There are restrooms (running water/flush toilet, no soap or towels), rustic outside shower - but with the water rationing, at about 1pm the water stopped working - no biggie, we can rough it! There's a really quaint restaurant down the beach a bit. We had been cautioned against eating anything not cooked and drinking the water here (RCI provided us each with a complimentary large bottle of Evian as we debarked). Son had some tortilla chips w/a slightly spicy cream cheese dip, I had some deep-fried potato wedges w/a chipotle type of dip, and hubby tried the "roti", apparently a native dish (he has a cast-iron stomach!) It had fish chunks, some starchy potato-like thing, sweet potato chunks, and something else I'm forgetting, all in a curry-style sauce - then wrapped up in a huge wonton-style of wrap and I'm not sure how it was cooked - maybe boiled then baked? Anyway - about the size of a small dinner plate, and just a tad spicy. He tried the local beer, 9yo had pineapple juice, I had the rum punch - very strong but the best I had all trip! Pigeon Point has a huge hill w/a path you can hike up to the old crumbling remains of Fort Rodney (son loved it, said it had an old dungeon but he has a great imagination). Hubby said it had a great view from up there; I stayed on my lounger on the beach.... :) When we went to go back our taxi driver was a few minutes late - we were approached by quite a few others at the entrance to the park where we were waiting, so no problems getting a taxi back. We had them drop us off at the Castries market (driver said "walking distance" - they must walk more than us because it was quite a hike back to the ship!) I wanted some nutmegs for my nutmeg grater - $2 for a baggie of about 10 of them, still in the shell - can't wait to get a hammer and see what's inside the shells, who knows! The market there is quite a circus - hubby wanted a tshirt but the vendors were driving me crazy. I know they need money but OMG. We ended up leaving with nothing because we just couldn't stand getting hassled.

[ramby]

Thanks so much for your review...I'm sailing on the Serenade this summer, and I've seen many of your comments/questions on other Serenade review threads. You always seemed to post exactly what I was thinking, so I'm looking forward to hearing more about what you thought of the beaches and ports!

 

Ditto! Also, curious to hear more about your thoughts about the ship itself, the food and what did your 9 yo love about adventure ocean?

[mutzy]

i was on the same cruise- i love serenade- the staff was awesome- the food was great (ate to much) we had a great time. I feel the ship is just the right size.

 

I really don't think we should have stopped at st lucia- too much hurricane damage- but rccl did drop off water food blankets and towels for the people. my husband saw a lot of mud slides on his excursion. i saw a hill side where all the trees were knocked down. i know they need the tourist dollars but i feel we put a strain on the island's resources.

[Gone Fishing]

Hey sandypants, did you get to try out the solarium early? I took most of my pool pictures early in the morning and the folks back home were asking if I was the only one on the boat.

Did your son care for the kid’s pool or was it too small? Just curious how it turned out.

[NordicPrince]

I'm going to start out by saying that we really like our all-inclusive vacations. We had been wanting to take a cruise, so we gave it a try.

The main thing that bothered us more than we thought it would, however, was what I'll call the "structure". One island we didn't port until 10am. We're morning people, up at 5-6am, on the beach @sunrise. The waiting was a pain. Having to take a taxi to & from the beach every day was a pain. Having a scheduled time to be back onboard was a pain - it often meant leaving the beach in the middle of the afternoon (right about naptime, after a few rum punches from the beach bar....dang!)

 

 

I was just wondering OP how you could make 540+ posts on CC while never having been on a cruise. What would you base your comments on?

 

Just curious.

 

If you didn't like keeping to a schedule you could have stayed on the ship while the majority of people did their thing. I have read here that a few people found 5 ports in 7 days too much for them. DW and I did 10 ports in 14 days on Serenade B2B and loved every minute of it. The only thing that DW did not like was having to let new people into "her" pool on turnaround day.

 

All days on that particular cruise the ship is in port at least 1 hour before the scheduled time passengers can get off. The latest time

to get off the ship was 9 o'clock. Something unusual must have happened to prevent this if true.

 

Is it possible that you did not reset your watch to ship's time and were running one hour in advance?

 

Since I have no knowledge of what an all-inclusive 7 day vacation would cost I was wondering if you could give us an idea of this and see if CC posters would consider this a better value-for-the-money. Personally I don't think I could swing it and actually would probably get bored.

 

Maybe you should consider going on a cruise where the ship is in port for a few days so you don't have to rush back to catch the ship. A cruise to Bermuda is ideal for that. There's lots of different beaches to go to on Bermuda and it's just a beautiful clean and safe place.

 

Or go on a cruise where there are more sea days than port days.

 

Or go on a cruise line which IS all-inclusive. There are a few that are.

 

I just wouldn't give up after 1 experience. If I gave up after one poor experience I never would have found DW.

 

I do wish you many safe and happy travels.

[cgrout78]

I was just wondering OP how you could make 540+ posts on CC while never having been on a cruise. What would you base your comments on?

 

Just curious.

 

If you didn't like keeping to a schedule you could have stayed on the ship while the majority of people did their thing. I have read here that a few people found 5 ports in 7 days too much for them. DW and I did 10 ports in 14 days on Serenade B2B and loved every minute of it. The only thing that DW did not like was having to let new people into "her" pool on turnaround day.

 

All days on that particular cruise the ship is in port at least 1 hour before the scheduled time passengers can get off. The latest time

to get off the ship was 9 o'clock. Something unusual must have happened to prevent this if true.

 

Is it possible that you did not reset your watch to ship's time and were running one hour in advance?

 

Since I have no knowledge of what an all-inclusive 7 day vacation would cost I was wondering if you could give us an idea of this and see if CC posters would consider this a better value-for-the-money. Personally I don't think I could swing it and actually would probably get bored.

 

Maybe you should consider going on a cruise where the ship is in port for a few days so you don't have to rush back to catch the ship. A cruise to Bermuda is ideal for that. There's lots of different beaches to go to on Bermuda and it's just a beautiful clean and safe place.

 

Or go on a cruise where there are more sea days than port days.

 

Or go on a cruise line which IS all-inclusive. There are a few that are.

 

I just wouldn't give up after 1 experience. If I gave up after one poor experience I never would have found DW.

 

I do wish you many safe and happy travels.

 

 

I have been following a lot of the OP's posts, most of which were questions about her upcoming cruise. I wasn't aware that you weren't allowed to post more than "x" amount of times prior to setting foot on the ship?

 

She has also given SEVERAL examples on different threads of AI vs Cruise vacations as far as cost analysis goes. Yes, there are AI cruises, which cost double (at LEAST) the cost of a land-based AI. Not everyone has that kind of money.

 

I'm glad that you have had success on your cruises, but I don't think you need to question her because her feelings aren't the same as yours. She went on the cruise, decided she prefers her AI's and that's just fine. It's a free country, and most importantly HER money and HER vacation time to do as SHE pleases.

[Coralc]

Sandinmypants, how did it go with your early flight from San Juan? Did you make it?

 

I am wondering because we have a 10:40 flight booked, and I knowwe are going to have to hussle. Thanks. :)

[sandinmypants]

coralc - the return flight was no problem. We put all except our carry-ons (& some toiletries that needed to be used on the last night & then switched into our checked luggage) out the night before, with special "red" luggage tags that are provided. You have to let them know onboard if you have an early flight out. They talk about all of the groups leaving the ship in the morning (it goes by flight time, and then those staying in San Juan, etc.) They never even mentioned our group/meeting place in those lists, so it isn't advertised - but there were still quite a few people in that group - more than the red-tagged luggage would indicate - so I know that some people just "budged" into that group anyway.

 

Carrying onward - we didn't actually stay with the group in the requested lounge, we went out on the deck by where they were going to begin letting people off - this got us a lot of dirty looks by the staff at first, and then they actually approached us (there was another group of 3 people out there as well, that had done this before) and they told us we needed to wait in the lounge. We told them that we couldn't stand listening to the FoxNews broadcast that was going on in there, we would much rather watch the deck hands outside. Our next excuse was claustrophobia....and so on. We could tell when the ship had actually cleared because we saw the group being led from the lounge coming out the door toward the gangway - so we just merged in with them. Our red-tagged luggage was right as we came off the ship, we were the first ones thru customs/immigration, and in the first taxi. (Biggest mistake - not verifying with the taxi dude how much - he gouged us for $30 at the airport!) Oh well. We were off the ship @7:35am, at the airport and thru the agriculture check (no line), checked in w/Delta (no line), and waiting at our gate for our 9:45am flight with more than an hour to spare.

 

Piece of cake, would definitely do it again (especially since it was either take the early flight or not go on the cruise!). Loved being home early enough to unpack - that was a bonus.

[sandinmypants]

I'm going to start out by saying that we really like our all-inclusive vacations. We had been wanting to take a cruise, so we gave it a try.

The main thing that bothered us more than we thought it would, however, was what I'll call the "structure". One island we didn't port until 10am. We're morning people, up at 5-6am, on the beach @sunrise. The waiting was a pain. Having to take a taxi to & from the beach every day was a pain. Having a scheduled time to be back onboard was a pain - it often meant leaving the beach in the middle of the afternoon (right about naptime, after a few rum punches from the beach bar....dang!)

 

 

I was just wondering OP how you could make 540+ posts on CC while never having been on a cruise. What would you base your comments on?

 

Just curious.

 

If you didn't like keeping to a schedule you could have stayed on the ship while the majority of people did their thing. I have read here that a few people found 5 ports in 7 days too much for them. DW and I did 10 ports in 14 days on Serenade B2B and loved every minute of it. The only thing that DW did not like was having to let new people into "her" pool on turnaround day.

 

All days on that particular cruise the ship is in port at least 1 hour before the scheduled time passengers can get off. The latest time

to get off the ship was 9 o'clock. Something unusual must have happened to prevent this if true.

 

Is it possible that you did not reset your watch to ship's time and were running one hour in advance?

 

Since I have no knowledge of what an all-inclusive 7 day vacation would cost I was wondering if you could give us an idea of this and see if CC posters would consider this a better value-for-the-money. Personally I don't think I could swing it and actually would probably get bored.

 

Maybe you should consider going on a cruise where the ship is in port for a few days so you don't have to rush back to catch the ship. A cruise to Bermuda is ideal for that. There's lots of different beaches to go to on Bermuda and it's just a beautiful clean and safe place.

 

Or go on a cruise where there are more sea days than port days.

 

Or go on a cruise line which IS all-inclusive. There are a few that are.

 

I just wouldn't give up after 1 experience. If I gave up after one poor experience I never would have found DW.

 

I do wish you many safe and happy travels.

 

540 posts before our first RCI cruise? That was research. I like to know what I'm getting into - so you can't say I didn't know. :)

 

As to staying onboard at the ports - we found the ship to be - ummmm - boring? We like the beach. We didn't do tours, we did the beach. We liked being able to check out six different beaches (five islands plus San Juan). That was the main purpose of the cruise.

 

Our favorite A/I is 1/2 the cost of this cruise, by the time we factored in taxi costs and what few drinks/wine we had. The only benefit we got from the cruise was the variety in beaches. But it came with the downside of the taxi hassles, and less beach time. I knew that coming into this - but didn't know how bothersome it would be. I also didn't know how much it would bother me to not just grab a drink when I wanted one. That's all I'm saying - no need to get defensive.

 

And yes, there was one port where we didn't get off until well after 10am - and by then everyone was crammed into the stairwells wanting off. Not pretty. Ship's arrival time as stated in our Compass was 10am. I can scan & send the page to you if you want it....

 

As I said before, the ship itself is gorgeous, and I can see why people love the Serenade. Service was great, etc. etc. etc. I'm glad we went, it was a wonderful experience. We met fantastic people. Cruising isn't for everyone, neither is the A/I resort experience. I would hope that someone visiting our favorite A/I would enjoy it for the positive aspects - even if they decide it isn't their "cup of tea"! :)

[sandinmypants]

Hey sandypants, did you get to try out the solarium early? I took most of my pool pictures early in the morning and the folks back home were asking if I was the only one on the boat.

 

Did your son care for the kid’s pool or was it too small? Just curious how it turned out.

 

My husband spent quite a bit of time in the solarium, especially early. It was his favorite place to play his guitar. They play WAY too much loud music out by the pool - his guitar is almost soundless. The solarium area is beautiful - but OMG, it's COLD in there! I couldn't stand being in there for very long. Love the little snack bar for grabbing a quick drink of water or an apple/cookie in the afternoon.

 

The kid's pool was good, 9yo spent a couple of hours on the slide with his friends on our day at sea. Otherwise, yep, pretty small. But he was pretty much in the kid's club otherwise - he would sometimes skip dessert at dinnertime so he could rush right up there! I was pleasantly amazed!

[sandinmypants]

mutzy, I agree about the St. Lucia stop. It was great that RCI brought in the supplies, but I just felt bad about stopping there. We were happy to spend our tourist dollars there, but you could tell the people were hurting - even in places like Rodney Bay.

[sandinmypants]

Ditto! Also, curious to hear more about your thoughts about the ship itself, the food and what did your 9 yo love about adventure ocean?

 

 

I'm going to finish up the ports later tonight, then I'll talk about the ship, Adventure Ocean, and OMG - the food!

[marci22]

People: When quoting make sure you copy and paste the entire first part (with the name etc) wherever the quote starts.

 

Copy and paste

wherever you want the quote to end.

 

Do that for each part you want to separate.

[tiggyfrank]

Thanks for this, we will be on Serenade for the 1st time on Sunday!

 

I just hope my boys will like the kids club as much as yours, one of them usually doesn't care for those programs. Can you tell me about it, were they always kept busy with activities? What about it was your son most excited about? Did you use the My Time Family dining? I've been wondering how well that works out.

 

Do you know if there was Texas Hold 'em poker on there and if they had tournaments? If so was wondering how much they were?

 

So I do like all-inclusives too, the thing is for me that I don't really drink so it's not even as worth it! :D For me sometimes I get bored there though, it's like the same thing, the same beach every day. Also there's normally not as many activities or shows as a cruise, the ones I have been to the shows are basically a waste of time. Those are more lazy, lounging around all day vacations, so it's good sometimes - just depends on what you wanna do!

[NordicPrince]

 

I have been following a lot of the OP's posts, most of which were questions about her upcoming cruise. I wasn't aware that you weren't allowed to post more than "x" amount of times prior to setting foot on the ship?

 

That's a lot of posts just to get answers to questions for 1 cruise.

I am not a post stalker, don't follow a history of everyone/anyone's posts. I'm happy for you that you are able to remember all the threads.

 

She has also given SEVERAL examples on different threads of AI vs Cruise vacations as far as cost analysis goes. Yes, there are AI cruises, which cost double (at LEAST) the cost of a land-based AI. Not everyone has that kind of money.

 

Funny I mentioned AI cruises in my post. Not telling me something I don't already know. No need to insult my intelligence.

 

I'm glad that you have had success on your cruises, but I don't think you need to question her because her feelings aren't the same as yours. She went on the cruise, decided she prefers her AI's and that's just fine. It's a free country, and most importantly HER money and HER vacation time to do as SHE pleases.

 

No need for yelling or emphasis.

 

Not questioning her preferences or choices, just wondering how Cruise Critic became a blog of choice.

 

I did offer some reasonable suggestions for further exploration.

 

That seems to be reasonable doesn't it?

[Coralc]

coralc - the return flight was no problem. We put all except our carry-ons (& some toiletries that needed to be used on the last night & then switched into our checked luggage) out the night before, with special "red" luggage tags that are provided. You have to let them know onboard if you have an early flight out. They talk about all of the groups leaving the ship in the morning (it goes by flight time, and then those staying in San Juan, etc.) They never even mentioned our group/meeting place in those lists, so it isn't advertised - but there were still quite a few people in that group - more than the red-tagged luggage would indicate - so I know that some people just "budged" into that group anyway.

 

Carrying onward - we didn't actually stay with the group in the requested lounge, we went out on the deck by where they were going to begin letting people off - this got us a lot of dirty looks by the staff at first, and then they actually approached us (there was another group of 3 people out there as well, that had done this before) and they told us we needed to wait in the lounge. We told them that we couldn't stand listening to the FoxNews broadcast that was going on in there, we would much rather watch the deck hands outside. Our next excuse was claustrophobia....and so on. We could tell when the ship had actually cleared because we saw the group being led from the lounge coming out the door toward the gangway - so we just merged in with them. Our red-tagged luggage was right as we came off the ship, we were the first ones thru customs/immigration, and in the first taxi. (Biggest mistake - not verifying with the taxi dude how much - he gouged us for $30 at the airport!) Oh well. We were off the ship @7:35am, at the airport and thru the agriculture check (no line), checked in w/Delta (no line), and waiting at our gate for our 9:45am flight with more than an hour to spare.

 

Piece of cake, would definitely do it again (especially since it was either take the early flight or not go on the cruise!). Loved being home early enough to unpack - that was a bonus.

 

Thanks! That is great news. We are flying back to the West Coast, and the 10:40 is the only flight that gets us back at a decent time. I will be sure to request red tags. :D