Legend of the Seas - Rome to Venice 8/31 Review

[stretchcruz]

We are on the Legend in Feb in a Panoramic Ocean View, 7053, and it was great to see pictures of that class of stateroom. Thanks!!

[Sinppu]

 

 

The best Italy has to offer is the food. Aaahhhhh.

 

Now where are the Med cruises for next year on the RCCL page....

[RedHeadTexan]

Great review so far! I am in cabin 7553 on the Legend in January. :)

 

Lisa

[jrmint427]

The best Italy has to offer is the food. Aaahhhhh.

 

Now where are the Med cruises for next year on the RCCL page....

 

Haha! Looking for ports with the best gelato? :)

[jrmint427]

Great review so far! I am in cabin 7553 on the Legend in January. :)

 

Lisa

 

Thank you! I think you will enjoy it :)

[jrmint427]

We asked Giuseppe for a recommendation for lunch. He had just the place in mind. We asked him if there was anywhere we could go for pizza, and he told us that we did not want to eat pizza for lunch because it is only made in the evening and would be left over from the night before. So, we decided to trust him and ate at Vino Vero. It is a restaurant at the top of a steep hill just outside the main area of Sorrento and it has a beautiful view.

 

 

It was a fixed price menu, which allowed us to taste many items all for the price of 25 euro per person. This seemed very reasonable for the amount of food and drink we ordered, all included in this price.

 

For appetizers, we had bread and butter, a veggie plate, some of the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted, bruschetta, croquettes, mozzarella and prosciutto and eggplant. The mozzarella, tomatoes and croquettes were my favorite.

 

 

The main dish was ravioli with porcini mushrooms and gnocchi. We received individual plates with a portion of each. The service was great too. Someone asked our server about Alfredo sauce and he asked what that was. Apparently Alfredo is not Italian…

 

 

The ravioli was amazing. I mostly ate around the mushrooms but I loved the flavor. The gnocchi was just okay. The cost of the meal also included a shot of limoncello and cappuccino at the end of the meal.

 

 

 

This meal was one of my favorite restaurant experiences of the trip. It was very relaxing and I enjoyed having such a beautiful view while we ate. It felt like an authentic place because we were the only tourists there. They were also hosting a family celebration. Our server told us it was the young Italian boy’s first communion. He was posing for pictures and the family was very excited. We could have stayed there all afternoon but Giuseppe reminded us we needed to get on the road to go to Pompeii.

[esper10]

How was the entertainment in the centrum?

[jrmint427]

How was the entertainment in the centrum?

 

We did not hang out in the Centrum too much, but whenever we passed by, I enjoyed the singers. There were some good performers. They did two aerial shows we saw too - the second was kind of cheesy, but they were really talented, so we enjoyed that.

[jrmint427]

Our final stop for the day was Pompeii for a two hour tour. We met our tour guide, Ciro (pronounced Cheer-oh, I think). We had to pay 11 euro for the entrance fee. There was no line by the time we got there. The weather had been very hot all day but it cooled off during our Pompeii tour and felt perfect.

 

Ciro was a great guide. He seemed to know what we would be most interested in and fit a lot of sights and information into our two hours. He showed us old shops and fast food places.

 

 

He shows us the basilica, which at the time of Pompeii, was a political building where criminals were tried.

 

 

There were pictures and symbols of male “parts” everywhere. I’ll skip the pictures, but this was a symbol of fertility and protection on houses. We also went to the brothels where the beds were made of stone.

 

 

There were pictures of positions on the wall. This was because the brothels were set up to serve the sailors who visited Pompeii. It’s possible there were so many brothels set up so the sailors would leave the women of Pompeii alone while they were in town. However, they did not all speak the same languages, so the pictures on the walls helped them to place their orders by just pointing.

 

One of my favorite stops was the house of a wealthy family. You could still see paintings on the wall, some that looked like wallpaper. It was easy to picture a family living in this house.

 

 

 

We also saw casts of bodies in the positions they were in when they were killed. It was really sad to see, but amazing to think about how they have been preserved over so many years.

 

 

It was also amazing to realize how much of Pompeii has not yet been excavated. Ciro told us this is because we don’t want to be selfish. Over time, the current sites will deteriorate. By not excavating all of Pompeii today, we are saving some discoveries for people in the future.

 

I found it interesting that we were able to walk around and picture life 2,000 years ago, and realize that in some ways, very little in society has changed over that time. They had fast food, brothels, a sophisticated water technology, and patterned wall paper in their homes.

 

The two hour tour was 100 euro for the six of us. This seemed very reasonable for the tour we had. We got back to the port at 5:20pm, just 20 minutes later than we had planned. Our ship was not departing until 7:00pm so we were great on timing.

 

When we got back to the port, I told the first security guards we saw about the limoncello we had bought. I knew the RCI policy was to collect any alcohol bought in ports, and we would get it back at the end of the trip. The guard told me to give it to the next person. I told them again as we boarded the ship. My husband joked that he couldn’t believe I was trying so hard to give away our alcohol. The second check-point told me I would turn it in inside. As soon as we got inside, we went through security. I left it in the original bag as it went through the security screen. I stood there a few moments, looking around, expecting someone to take our limoncello. No one did. So we got to keep our limoncello. Maybe they didn’t care because it wasn’t wine or liquor that they sell on board. Or maybe we just got lucky.

[newcruiser1573]

I loved our visit to Sorrento as well. We purchased the lemon cream almonds and I wish I had gotten more. It was a wonderful leisurely day. I would go back In a heart beat.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Great review! Thank you!

 

Stef

[diligaf51]

Thanks for the review. I am interested in the ship too. Do you plan on adding pictures of the ship as well? Thanks again.

[jrmint427]

Thanks for the review. I am interested in the ship too. Do you plan on adding pictures of the ship as well? Thanks again.

 

Thanks for reading! I will definitely post the pictures of the ship that I have. This was a port heavy cruise, so I have more pictures from the ports than the ship, but will post some ship pictures as I go.

[jrmint427]

We made dinner reservations with the same group from our tour in Naples for 7:30pm. It was another casual night. Most casual evenings I wore a sun dress. While we were getting ready for dinner, this was the view from our room:

 

 

The dinner menu for the night:

 

 

I started with a Caprese salad as an appetizer. It was fine, but could not compare to the Caprese salad I ate earlier in the day.

 

 

The soups were very good. My husband had the garlic cream soup. I had to chilled strawberry bisque. It tasted like a strawberry smoothie so it was more like a dessert, but I’m not complaining.

 

 

I ordered the fettuccine pomodoro again. My vegetarian choies were that or eggplant parmesan. I saw pecorino romano cheese on another dish and asked if they could add that to my pasta, and that was no problem.

 

 

My husband had the pork tenderloin.

 

[jrmint427]

At this point I was becoming more comfortable with ordering multiple items when I could not decide what to get, especially when it was two items from the list of desserts that changed every night and I knew I would not be able to order them on another night. I figured I could share what I didn’t eat with my husband. The dessert menu:

 

 

I ordered the dessert sampler, mostly for the flourless chocolate cake. The low-fat lemon yogurt cake also sounded good.

 

 

 

The flourless chocolate cake was my favorite of the four. I shared several of the other items.

[jrmint427]

Here is the cruise compass for our day in Naples:

 

 

 

After dinner we decided to check out the show again. To walk to the theater on the 4th floor we passed the Schooner Bar where there was a piano player/singer taking requests from the audience. We also had to pass the casino to get to the theater.

 

The show had already started, so we stood in the back for a few minutes again to decide if we wanted to find seats. The show was called “Invitation to Dance” and the dancers were very good, but I was more interested in going back to the piano bar, so we only stayed for one or two songs again.

 

Tony B played piano bar music in the Schooner Bar every night and he was probably my favorite entertainer on the ship. I loved the song choices every night and it was a fun place to sit and chat with others. We ordered drinks and sat to listen for a while. We saw another couple from CC and went to chat with them for a bit before heading back to our room.

 

We came home to our first towel animal of the trip!

 

 

I was absolutely loving the cruise experience at this point. A full day of touring to beautiful places like Positano and Sorrento, getting to experience the history at Pompeii, a fun two-hour dinner with friends, and ending with a drink at a piano bar. It was only my first day and I was already sold on the cruising experience.

[hazeleyez3]

 

Tony B played piano bar music in the Schooner Bar every night and he was probably my favorite entertainer on the ship.

 

I have to agree. We loved the piano bar, wound up there most nights, and I was thrilled that it didn't become a loud audience participation sing-a-long.

[cruise pup]

Loving your review, especially the food porn. Hope there's more of the mdr menu. I'm glad you showed off how spectacular the food is in Italy. I never saw such red tomatoes in my life as I did there. Must be the soil. I did Pizza in Rome but at a restaurant with outdoor tables. It was brick oven and cooked to order. Never had such amazing crust on a pizza. Plus their toppings were absolutely fantastic. I settled on prosciutto. But to tell the truth the basic cheese and tomato would have been fine and the price a lot less. But the prosciutto was excellent. What really made the meal was the appetizer I order. It was a mixed plate of fried foods. The best was the breaded stuffed olives. Never had them before and they were fantastic. This restaurant, by the way, was right off the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, near the Sant'Andrea della Valle church. Forgot the name but the owner is the daughter of the owner of a very famous pizzeria but you need reservations to get into that one.

[jrmint427]

I have to agree. We loved the piano bar, wound up there most nights, and I was thrilled that it didn't become a loud audience participation sing-a-long.

 

We probably saw you there :) We ended up there most nights too, at least briefly!

[jrmint427]

Loving your review, especially the food porn. Hope there's more of the mdr menu. I'm glad you showed off how spectacular the food is in Italy. I never saw such red tomatoes in my life as I did there. Must be the soil.

 

Thank you! Your pizza sounds wonderful... I would have loved to have had more time to try different places!

 

I will post the MDR menus for each night, and more food as well!

 

And I agree... I don't think I've seen or tasted tomatoes like I did in Italy. The tomatoes we had at lunch in Sorrento were my favorite of the trip.

[jrmint427]

Our morning in Sicily was one of our only late morning ports and the only port where we had a ship tour planned. We were not docking until 9:00am and our tour did not start until 9:45am. We “slept in” until 7:45am.

 

We decided to try the Main Dining Room for breakfast. I had tried to read in advance how much time we should save for breakfast in the MDR and I saw several posts that said 30-45 minutes. We gave ourselves one hour just to be safe. We arrived at 8:30am, and we had to meet in the theater for our tour at 9:30am. It’s a good thing we had the hour, because this was just barely enough time! I would not eat there again on a tour day unless we were going to get up even earlier.

 

We were sat with five other people and enjoyed chatting. I ordered an egg white omelet with cheese, tomato and onion and coffee. When they came around with bread service I chose a blueberry muffin.

 

At 9:10am we still did not have our food. At this point I was getting worried, so I flagged down our waiter to tell him we were going to have to leave in 20 minutes. I probably should have mentioned something earlier. He was able to quickly bring out our dishes. I felt bad eating before the others had food, but it was not long until theirs was brought out. The food was just okay, and the coffee was better than what we had with room service the day before.

 

We ate quickly and were able to make it to the theater by 9:30am to meet our tour.

[jrmint427]

We had signed up for the ship’s tour in Sicily called Taste of Sicily. It was supposed to be 1 hour and 15 minutes of free time in Taormina followed by a tour of Mt. Etna at the Silvestri Craters. We really went back and forth between this tour and one called Taormina, Lava River, Wine and Jewels tour. The two main things we wanted to see were Taormina and Mt. Etna. It was not clear in the RCI description whether the second tour would go to the Silvestri Craters, but it would have given us 1.5 hours in Taormina. I emailed RCI asking about this (almost a month before we left), and never received a response. We ultimately decided we did not want to go to the jewelry store, a shorter tour was more appealing, and that there would be plenty of wine on our trip, so we opted for the shorter tour that guaranteed a trip to Silvestri Craters.

 

I was not impressed with the ship tour. It was my least favorite of the trip. I know it is unfair of me to judge all ship tours by just one experience, so I would probably try another on a future cruise, but I decided that my favorite excursions were the private tours with just 6-8 people.

 

We met in the theater on deck 4, showed our tickets and were given a sticker with a number. The number told us where to sit in the theater so we were seated with our tour group. Our ship arrived on time, but there was a delay in receiving clearance by local authorities by about 30 minutes. We later learned that this was because many containers had been delivered to the port that morning and were blocking traffic.

 

As we left the theater to follow our tour group, I noticed that my husband was not carrying anything. He was supposed to be carrying our DSLR camera. We quickly realized it was probably left in the MDR, under the table. I went into a bit of a panic. I told someone else on our tour what had happened, that we were going to run to the MDR real quick, and could she please make sure to hold the bus? We ran off together to find our camera. I was so thankful that it was still under the table, right where we had left it.

 

When we ran back downstairs, we did not see anyone from our group. The line had been moving so slowly, how did they disappear so quickly? We ran outside, through the building at the port, and saw the buses lined up, already boarded. We were the last ones on our bus, but it sat there for another 5-10 minutes, so it was fine. We took a seat in the back of the bus.

 

As the bus got on its way, our tour guide announced that they did not have any extra radios, so if there were any issues or something broke, we’d have to try to fix it. Those of us in the back of the bus looked at each other. What radios? There was an escort from the ship in the back with us, so we asked him, and he took note that there were five of us who did not receive radios. For a 50 person tour, they only had 45 radios. He told us they would ask the other buses when we stopped in Taormina to see if there were extras.

 

They were able to come up with two extra radios. This meant that my husband and I had to share a radio, but given that there was only one ear bud, this was not a great solution. There was nothing we could do at the time, but I went to the Shore Excursions desk when we returned, and they gave us 20% off both of our tickets (in ship credit). This seemed fair given how little the radios were used anyway, and the crew member I spoke with was nice about it.

 

They also announced that we would only have one hour in Taormina. I know it’s only a 15 minute difference, but the hour was not nearly enough time in Taormina. I would recommend a minimum of two hours if you are going to drive there. I’ll share more about our time in Taormina next!

 

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the Catania port and our drive to Taormina. It was a rainy day in Sicily:

 

 

 

 

 

[CleoPat]

Your port was Catania, not Messina? When I went we took a half day afternoon tour of Taormina so we were able to walk from the ship into the town of Messina with time to see the Clock at noon. Had a nice walking tour with time on our own in Taormina.

[betsyl]

Really enjoying your review. I'm giving to look for this itinerary on the RCL website for next summer. We've been to Rome but basically ran through the Vatican to get to the Sistine Chapel before it closed. Your breakfast tour sounded great. Have not been to the other ports and looking forward to reading about them all. :)

[relaxatsea]

Thank you for your wonderful review and great photos!

I am enjoying all of it and look forward to the next installment!