REVIEW w/Pics: Rhapsody of the Seas - Alaska

[Germancruiser]

Great pictures- as I can see- RCI should take a little more care of " little" details! Vision Class seems nicley redone inside. I was on board Grandeur when she debuted, quite a different look compared to the new style! Thinks such as hanging door can so easly fixed. Mildew in the bathroom. Not nice, but I suppose it could be fixed during the passenger change on boarding day! It does not take long to change the finishings in bathrooms at all, so they could avoid to keep that work for drydock!

[SPacificbound]

Wow, what a different experience you had on Rhapsody of the Sea. :confused:

[epaul78]

Another beautiful day!

We enjoyed exploring Victoria and even stumbled upon Miniature Land along the side of the Empress Hotel - a whole museum of models and dollhouses, it was pretty neat to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[epaul78]

The way the bags were distributed was the craziest thing I've ever seen - there was a huge pile in the hallway for hours and some people were just taking their bags out of the pile. How can they keep track of the bags that way? Because of this, it wasn't until almost 9 pm that we were able to determine that the missing bag that hadn't been delivered to our stateroom (the one with the tackle box in it) was in fact missing and not buried in the bottom of a pile. Is this normal luggage handling for RCCL?

 

 

We brought fishing gear onboard and the pliers in the tackle box, which would have been absolutely essential had we actually caught any fish, caused a first night visit to the naughty room to make arrangements to get the suitcase out of lockup. Apparently the small needle nosed pliers are a no no, so security had to hold onto those and let us have them for the day in Skagway. The funny thing is that we saw ulu’s for sale in the ship shop and it seems a lot more of a weapon than my pliers, but I guess of you buy it on board then it’s okay? Anyway, we got the “dangerous item” taken care of and that was a super fun way to blow an hour on the first night onboard.

 

We noticed a hardware store in Skagway and next time will just buy a pair of pliers there if we decide to go fishing again!

 

 

That just goes to show that no 2 ships, even within the same cruise line are the same. I was on the Radiance to Alaska sharing some of the same ports as Rhapsody, and our experience was totally different. On Hubbard Glacier Day, they had the ship cam broadcast over the poolside big screen and on the cabin TV's. They also had a naturalist onboard who gave several nice lectures on the Yukon, Alaska, Whales etc and did a total narration as we entered Hubbard Glacier.

 

Additionally, on Radiance, the officers and staff were very visable and personalble.

 

These are just a few examples of why people should not try any cruise line just one time before they pass judgement. I'm not implying you're doing this in your review, but mearly making a general statement. I've seen so many posts where people say "I was a loyal cruiser on ______ line and decided to try ___________ line and it was horrible. Even the quality and taste of the food can vary drastically from 1 ship to another and it can happen even on the same ship, if they have a staff change.

 

Thanks for reading! We would have loved to have the naturalist experience again on this ship, good to know that it must be a ship-specific thing.

 

It's funny, my coworker who roomed next to us thought this was the best vacation ever, granted, he'd never been on a cruise before, but for him it was basically Vegas with transportation to some cool places - loved the casino, loved the buffet and ate most of his meals there, thought his room was groovy, etc. So even on the same ship, same sailing, next-door-to-each-other-similar staterooms, two people can experience the same cruise differently too. We had totally different vacations and we were on the same boat!

 

We wouldn't be opposed to trying RCCL again, as I said in the beginning, we had no control over booking this cruise, otherwise we probably would have picked Radiance instead.

 

This cruise was sort of a mixed bag - it wasn't awful (well except our room), and sure there were some small annoyances, like the ceilings in some places are REALLY low and there is a lot of vibration from the engines in certain parts of the ship. Yet, there were some really great things, like Giovanni's Table - a huge hit with us, the Viking Crown Lounge for a great hangout, and Graham Seymour the cruise director is an absolute riot. We loved Graham's late night show (not for the easily offended). The other comedians Paul Boland and Phil Palisoul were entertaining as well and we also enjoyed the different bands and singers around the ship. You could almost always find music onboard, and the Rhapsody is true to her name in this regard which is one of the things we liked a lot. We liked the captain's Q&A session on the last sea day but weren't fans of the Broadway style musical montage shows - just the format, not the talent, the performers were great. The aerialist shows in Centrium were pretty neat and an interesting use of the space.

 

We did enjoy the Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable and other enrichment lectures. But there could have been a few more - nothing on Victoria at all. We thought the offerings on the 3 sea days were pretty weak overall– glad we brought reading material and games to keep us occupied. Judging by the attendance at the napkin folding class, the other passengers were finding it a bit challenging to find fun stuff during the day too. Bingo, karaoke, shuffleboard, line dancing class and the other typical cruise activities were available, and the casino was open of course. If this was a cruise to a warmer locale, there would be more ways to fill the sea days at the pool, the rock climbing wall, etc. but we did have a lot of dead time.

 

There seemed to be a lot of missed opportunities on this cruise, where it could have been better, BUT one or two little things, as Germancruiser pointed out that can make it awesome or blah. The lack of a naturalist, or the very least a ranger at the glacier was a big "MISS" on this sailing for me.

 

Another example: The art at sea was not anything interesting. Again a missed opportunity to showcase some regional artists instead of the same generic stuff you see on every cruise. I might be tempted to purchase a piece of artwork as a memento of the trip, but there was nothing that had anything to do with Alaska or the Pacific Northwest at all. Turtle painting? Tuscan village? No thanks. Show me something special.

 

We would have liked to do the behind the scenes ship tour but not for $150 per person. $50 at most would be what I’d be willing to spend, especially for such a small ship. The Oasis of the Seas – maybe dropping so much coin would be worth it - that tour probably takes all day, but for little Rhapsody- no. Also the promotional videos in the room are all about amenities that this ship doesn’t have – no flo-rider, no zip line, and the build a bear is a little table and a filling machine on deck, not a boutique in the shopping area as seen on t.v.

 

Okay, and the drinks – the Mt. McKinley Mango whatever? There are no mangoes in this part of the world. The hot chocolates with a splash of alcoholic goodness there were selling on glacier day make a lot more sense as a “drink of the day” than some tropical concoction. At least they did have some Alaskan Amber onboard, so there was that. I'd love to see some more Washington wines on the wine list too, at least for a Pacific Northwest sailing, regional selections make it feel more destination specific and special and would have made a huge difference.

 

It felt like the Rhapsody got lost in Alaska on the way to Fiji, but in spite of that, we had a good trip - it is Alaska after all and even a less than stellar cruise on a shiop that thinks it is in the South Pacific is better than being at work right?

 

Thanks again for reading. I've saved all the cruise compasses and other paperwork if anyone has any questions.

 

[Sinppu]

Thanks for the review, it was very enlightening.

Since you have all the Compasses, could you check which were the formal nights? One of our group has his 40th birthday and it would be nice to know it hits a formal night ;)

Also, were there poker tournaments on board? You can find that from the compass too.

 

Thanks :D

[Funbobby68]

I was on this same sailing 4th time to Alaska , have to say that I enjoyed the radiance far more than the rhapsody , so much so that have all ready rebook radiance for next spring , there is just far more entertainment on the radiance we found ourselfs ,just killing time between events that the staff put on , but I will say the CD graham Rocked it ,he is the best I have ever had as a CD

CHEERS

funbobby

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[heyya604]

We did eventually get some bar soap, but had to ask the steward for it. My friend next door had soap, one more reason I think the steward either hated me or just ran out of time to do our stateroom on embarkation day.

 

I always pack my own shampoo and conditioner, since the quality of the bath products when traveling can be a bit uncertain. :)

 

As a side note, when we were on the Millenium two years ago, we had a full stock of bath items, the usual bar soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, as well as q-tips, cotton balls and other items.

 

Thank you for such a detailed review. We sail tomorrow on this same ship. Quick question, was there a blow dryer in the cabin, and was it any good, if there was? Thanks

[epaul78]

Thank you for such a detailed review. We sail tomorrow on this same ship. Quick question, was there a blow dryer in the cabin, and was it any good, if there was? Thanks

 

 

Yes, there was a blow dryer and it wasn't bad either. It was in the bottom drawer of the vanity.

[epaul78]

Day One - Dress Casual, Alaskan Amber beer special $5.75 :D

Sail away party, Mark Cordes comedian performs.

 

Day Two (at sea)- Dress Formal, Alaskan IPA special :D, Paul Boland performs at 8:30 and 10:30- don't miss it! Napkin folding session one, Martini Clinic (fee applies), Poker Tournament. Battle of the Sexes at 9:00.

 

Day Three (Juneau) - Dress Casual, The Quest game, Ballroom Fever show, Deal or No Deal.

 

Day Four (Skagway) - Dress Casual, Baroque Aerial Spectacular, Love and Marriage Game Show (if you miss it, they re-run it on television).

 

Day Five (at sea) - Dress Formal. GLACIER DAY, plan to get up early! Walk for Wishes Make a Wish Fundraiser walk, Win a cruise Bingo, Family Quest, Pure Country show in the theater, CD Graham Seymour adult comedy, 60 Seconds or Less Game, Napkin folding session 2, Royal Texas Holdem Tournament, Martini Seminar (fee), LaFite Wine Tasting $22 for a flight of four.

 

Day Six (at sea) - Dress Casual. Cake Creation Challenge, Captain's Q&A, Rock Britannia Dance Party, Towel folding demo, Majority Rules game show, 60 seconds or less round two, Bar tending seminar (fee), Napkin folding 3, Aerial Show.

 

Day Seven (Victoria) - Dress Casual. 60 Seconds or Less, Phil Palisoul Adult Comedy (very funny) and Sean Laughlin performs.

[critterchick]

First, we had no naturalist onboard the ship, and the enrichment speaker we did have wasn't scheduled to give a talk about the glaciers until AFTER we'd been there. I think it would have been more beneficial to have scheduled it beforehand. We overheard a lot of conversations along the lines of - Why is that chunk of ice blue? Why is that ice pink? What are those dirty lines? Where are we? What glacier is this? So some educational programming would have been nice.

 

 

Third, they didn't adjust the schedule for the food venues or cleaning and maintenance for glacier morning. We got to the glacier shortly after 6 a.m. and many people had been up for a while to catch the scenery and wildlife coming into Endicott Arm. Meanwhile, the crew is swabbing the deck as well as the solarium so the floors are all wet and slippery and there's nowhere to get a cup of coffee because everything is still closed. Then, when they did start putting out coffee, there were no hot water carafes. Why? I think because they were selling hot chocolate and if the hot water was out, you might be tempted to make your own. Never miss the opportunity to sell you something on a cruise, right? Too bad if you like tea. I did finally track down a hot water in the solarium but there were none on deck by the coffee as there usually are.

 

Officers on this ship are invisible, you never see them, or if you do, they have mastered the art of “be carrying a file folder and walk quickly so you look busy”. Other than the Activities Staff – who were very visible and personable, no management came to the CC meet and Mingle or roamed about the ship much at all. Maybe they were at the Captain’s reception thing, but we were eating and missed it. They were at the Wishes Walk on Glacier day though, but they didn’t bring the file folders this time! The Captain did make appearances as scheduled and we enjoyed his Q&A Session and the daily announcements great deal. He did a great job getting us super close to Dawes and giving everyone onboard ample opportunity to get a good look or two.

[/img]

 

Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts. Rhapsody is one of my favorite ships, but we've only sailed on her with Captain Sullivan, who I believe is on vacation. He makes a point lf being highly visible around the ship (he attended our pathetic 15-minute M&M and was the best part of it IMO) and the senior officers are the same way when he's onboard. Too bad that it didn't carry over to your cruise. But our CD, Luke Aerowsmith, was just ok - he seemed to be tired and bored (he was at the end of his contract, I think).

 

Were there any enrichment lectures on your first sea day? Given that you only had the one sea day before all of your ports of call, I imagine that the lecture would have focussed on the ports rather than the glacier - they can't cover everything in one or two lectures.

 

And yes, the bag pile is fairly typical, at least for the smaller ships. We have often seen our bag sitting in the hallway and retrieved it ourselves.

 

Thanks again for posting.:)

[Sinppu]

Day One - Dress Casual, Alaskan Amber beer special $5.75

Sail away party, Mark Cordes comedian performs.

 

Day Two (at sea)- Dress Formal, Alaskan IPA special :D, Paul Boland performs at 8:30 and 10:30- don't miss it! Napkin folding session one, Martini Clinic (fee applies), Poker Tournament. Battle of the Sexes at 9:00.

 

Day Three (Juneau) - Dress Casual, The Quest game, Ballroom Fever show, Deal or No Deal.

 

Day Four (Skagway) - Dress Casual, Baroque Aerial Spectacular, Love and Marriage Game Show (if you miss it, they re-run it on television).

 

Day Five (at sea) - Dress Formal. GLACIER DAY, plan to get up early! Walk for Wishes Make a Wish Fundraiser walk, Win a cruise Bingo, Family Quest, Pure Country show in the theater, CD Graham Seymour adult comedy, 60 Seconds or Less Game, Napkin folding session 2, Royal Texas Holdem Tournament, Martini Seminar (fee), LaFite Wine Tasting $22 for a flight of four.

 

Day Six (at sea) - Dress Casual. Cake Creation Challenge, Captain's Q&A, Rock Britannia Dance Party, Towel folding demo, Majority Rules game show, 60 seconds or less round two, Bar tending seminar (fee), Napkin folding 3, Aerial Show.

 

Day Seven (Victoria) - Dress Casual. 60 Seconds or Less, Phil Palisoul Adult Comedy (very funny) and Sean Laughlin performs.

 

Well there's a lot more than I asked for!

THANK YOU :);):p:D:cool:

[dforeigner]

Thank you for taking time to write a review.

[Ransome]

We are on the same departure. Looking forward to it.

[cjankowski]

I do have a couple of gripes though.

 

 

First, we had no naturalist onboard the ship, and the enrichment speaker we did have wasn't scheduled to give a talk about the glaciers until AFTER we'd been there. I think it would have been more beneficial to have scheduled it beforehand. We overheard a lot of conversations along the lines of - Why is that chunk of ice blue? Why is that ice pink? What are those dirty lines? Where are we? What glacier is this? So some educational programming would have been nice.

 

 

Second, but sort of along the same lines, is the fact that there was very little Alaska-specific anything on the Rhapsody. They have this huge big screen outdoors and the entire time we're in Alaska it is showing pictures of caribbean beaches, turtles swimming, and coral reefs. Oh and the same 10 trivia questions over and over and over. Really? They can't find some pictures of mountains, bears, salmon, and other Alaska-type stuff? Or how about the ship cam even? They had it on in Seattle and then we never saw it again. It would have been nice to have on a channel in our windowless room too, so at least we could look and see if we need a sweater or jacket to go out on deck. This struck me as a huge missed opportunity.

 

 

We just did this cruie in June and I do agree that having NO naturalist was a bummer. We would have loved it as well. We did also have some questions.

On our cruise they did have the big screen up and were showing Alaska on it. As well they did have a channel on the TV showing the ship cams. I watched them everyday & night. Loved it. Was able to see coming / going in ports as well as what the weather was outside at anytime.

Sorry you have a bad time. We just loved our cruise.

[cjankowski]

The funny thing is that we saw ulu’s for sale in the ship shop and it seems a lot more of a weapon than my pliers, but I guess of you buy it on board then it’s okay?

 

Just to let others know that, we purchased ulu's on the ship. And we were told that if you bought them on board or in town, didn't matter. That the ship would hold onto them until last day and you needed to pick up in bagging area after deboarding. That is excatley what we had to do. We needed to show ship card & receipt to get them back.

[MAHA]

Your ship should have had Captain Rob as the captain. Was he not very visible? We have had him twice on Grandeur out of Baltimore and he was very visible. He was greeting passengers at the gangplank as they departed the ship for ports. We even saw him helping with scanning packages as people were reboarding the ship. His noon time reports were very funny as well.

 

Mary Anne

[suzyluvs2cruise]

Your ship should have had Captain Rob as the captain. Was he not very visible? We have had him twice on Grandeur out of Baltimore and he was very visible. He was greeting passengers at the gangplank as they departed the ship for ports. We even saw him helping with scanning packages as people were reboarding the ship. His noon time reports were very funny as well.

 

Mary Anne

 

We were on the same cruise as the OP and Capt Rob was our captain. We enjoyed his humor on the noon time reports, Capt's Corner and the cake decorating demo. We didn't see him out and about like you mentioned above. Maybe it has something to do with the Alaska itinerary.

[lrskier]

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us and the great pics.

 

Can't believe you found your stateroom as you did, and very sorry to see the little things that could easily be fixed up to make it much more presentable. I would recommend a call to the Hotel Director immediately your next cruise if in fact it happens again. And RCCL needs to know that someone needs to fix that cabin so it doesn't look like a budget hotel room! I believe that the Hotel Director would have brought immediate change to your room, your steward and his habits.

 

We have immensely enjoyed the Rhapsody as we like the smaller Vision class ships. The Radiance is also a wonderful ship and her sister ships I want to enjoy. We have learned to enjoy the larger ships as RCCL has been fair to its returning cruisers. The Oasis and the Allure are to be experienced at least once but i find that the feeling of needing to turn revenue is paramount with many additional things to purchase besides your cruise fare.

 

Again, do write RCCL about that cabin, email and send the pics. And book another fun cruise. Cya

[cheryltwin]

Don't mean to highjack epaul78's thread, but I just got back today from the same cruise a week later. Always impressed by how different the experiences are. Wonderful review so I'll post things that we saw much differently.

 

We stayed at the Hilton downtown Seattle. They have a free shuttle to the pier. Nice perk! Starts at 10:30am... we were on the ship by 11.

 

My sister and I each had our own connecting cabin. I had an outside cabin on deck 2... 2132... near the aft... it was super quiet with no traffic because the hallway ended about 5 cabins past me. Cabins above so no noise. The cabin was extremely clean and well cared for. I always had 2 bars of soap on the counter and there was a decent hair dryer. No cool setting or different speeds, but if you just need to dry your hair it was fine. No plugs in the bathroom. Two on the vanity and that was it! Lots of storage space for me... 3 good sized drawers, 3 small ones and some small cupboards in addition to the closet. There were even a couple of drawers in the bathroom and a tiny shelf unit which was nice to put makeup case, etc.

 

I had the same problem with the shower curtain... it did seem to have a problem clinging to the outside edge of the shower, but figured it out. Water pressure was excellent and I had no problem with water temperature. This is the first cruise I've been on that I enjoyed taking a shower! Yes, bring your own shampoo and conditioner. I also brought a little shower pouf thing from the dollar store and just left it there.

 

Smoking was only allowed on the starboard side of the ship, so we just stayed on the port side most of the time. Supposedly our cruise was pretty full, but we remarked many times that we wondered where all the people were. Never had a problem finding seating space... maybe walked around a little in the buffet on the port days when everyone was eating before they debarked.

 

We saw lots of officers walking around chatting with people. We even sat next to Captain Rob in the buffet before we got off in Victoria. He is totally funny and we so enjoyed him. Graham, the cruise director, was absolutely hilarious. If you can watch his morning talk on TV, it will start your day with a smile for sure.

 

Did not eat anywhere but the dining room and buffet (Windjammer). We always get MyTimeDining and make a reservation for 6:15. We were seated right away but noticed that there was quite a line for people coming at 7:15-7:30... We sat at the same table every night and had the same wait staff that new exactly what we wanted to drink after the first night. We had a table for 2 since we don't really enjoy sitting at a big table. The folks at the nearby tables for 2 changed some nights, but there were two ladies and a couple that were there a few times and we enjoyed chatting a little with them, but didn't feel obligated. If you want a table for 2 alone by the railing, just ask at the check in desk. We had one of those tables the first night but enjoyed sitting closer to the windows and were changed the 2nd night.

 

The drinking water on the ship was really good... I brought 2 glasses of ice water back to the cabin each night and refilled my water bottles.

 

We went whale watching in Juneau... the weather was rainy and cold... Harv and Marv's whale watching was amazing. They will only take 6 people on their boats. Boats are enclosed if it's raining. We saw at least 13 whales... it was quite amazing!

 

Booked the train ride ourselves through Chilkoot Charters and a small 25 person bus picked us up... looked much better than the ship's giant charter bus. We rode train up and bus back. Driver was very knowledgeable and stopped several times on the way back for pictures.

 

Loved the cruise... don't hesitate to ask if you have questions.

[Cassicruiser]

It was great reading your cruise review - Alaska looks spectacular and we love the Rhapsody. As someone who has cruised on both Rhapsody and Celebrity Millennium, I would love to know how you feel they compare? Which did you prefer? We have a cruise booked on the Millennium early next year, and after Rhapsody and Radiance, (we loved both) I am hoping we will enjoy Millennium just as much. Thanks :)

[Tannedprincess]

Hi, I love reading all the posts! I am travelling on the rhapsody this January and was wondering if anyone knows if there is a fridge in the junior suites? What rooms did you all travel in?

Thanks