Sailing on Grandeur-happy to answer any questions

[janice2348]

Ok, 2nd attempt to upload files..

 

Island tour map, National Museum, St. Peters, Compasses (front and back), also departure information.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/100980018@N02/sets/72157644097752169/

[janice2348]

the only real complaint i had was the not being able to keep tabs on your account in the room tv to know what you are spending. and my cabin steward was a little lazy. but i just roll with small stuff so as to not spoil my time. if you have a positive attitude and know nothing is perfect you will have a good time. unless everything goes wrong then yeah i wouldnt blame anyone for not wanting to travel it again.

 

 

I agree about the TV; also no room service info and no breakfast room service door hanger??? I don't think they wanted you to order room service. Yes, we made the best of it. We decided to just enjoy ourselves as much as possible.

[janice2348]

:)Thinking of sailing the Grandeur next year. Your review may help us decide.

Also, we like to play shuffleboard on the Explorer, not sure if this ship has it. Please check for me.

 

:DThanks,Tom

 

Here is a pic of the shuffleboard...

 

[janice2348]

I would love to know if the damage to the railing on the upper deck is fully repaired.

 

Have a great trip! We are sailing on her in 2 weeks! :D

 

Pictures of the damage repairs

 

 

 

We heard a lot of creaking around the damaged area below that deck. I am hoping they make repairs soon. It is hardly a "small walkaround". You can clearly see the crack goes along the whole deck.

[seeshore]

Park Cafe was open late night. I had an awesome coney dog after watching late night comedy one night and so OK pizza after The Quest. My son typically had 4th meal there around midnight each day.

 

Was the little Seattle's Best Coffee place (can't remember the name) open late also? I seem to remember that pastries were served there on Enchantment.

[Harooni]

I agree about the TV; also no room service info and no breakfast room service door hanger??? I don't think they wanted you to order room service. Yes, we made the best of it. We decided to just enjoy ourselves as much as possible.

 

haha funny you said that , we didnt have a room service menu also and when i asked i got a small slip they take orders off. i did get he breakfast door hangers though. but since my room was small and i like the buffet options we just did that and it was great for me.

[summersigh]

DH and I were on the Grandeur the same time as you were … but frankly, our experience was very, very different.

First let me say …. I’m not an RCCL cheerleader but the folks we met and talked with as well as our table for ten in traditional dining enjoyed themselves and felt that the staff they had face-to-face contact with were caring, helpful, and pleasant.

We were in a balcony on forward port side of deck 7.

 

Shower pressure great. Start shower after you close curtain or you will have a flood.

No floods for us but we did need clips to keep the curtain from blowing in on us.

 

Lots of storage space- no need for over door hanger. Agreed

 

Delayed flushing but no smells Same here – but only the last evening for slow flushing and it was fixed in an hour or so.(we were on Deck 7)

 

Beds hard as a rock. Ours was firm but not in any way uncomfortable

 

Don't think the thermostat does anything. Changing the thermostat in our cabin drastically changed the temp in the room – we had both heat and AC.

 

Room steward never cleaned the toilet. Bare minimum service Our steward kept the cabin spotless and provided ice twice a day as we requested on the first day.

 

No room service menu in cabin or on tv Our Room service menu was in the center drawer of the desk and breakfast Room Service menus hung on a hook near the cabin door.

 

If you have thick long hair bring your own hairdryer. The hairdryer in our desk drawer had plenty of power for my long hair.

 

Windjammer was hit and miss. No cutting in lines or grabbing food with hands. Fellow cruisers were mostly over 50 and very courteous. Agree here … but during the school year all the lines have an older age average – most of the younger cruisers are home with their kids.

Loud music on pool deck on big screen starting 7 am. Not sure why?? Especially with the older crowd Don’t know about this … never hit the decks until well after breakfast in the MDR

 

Chair hogs with no enforcement. Did not have to check out towels. If folks had to do a sign-out/ sign in on towels it would solve the problem. There were a few chairs with towels saving them. Staff attempted to remove one and a woman 2 chairs down went ballistic on them.

 

Nothing much to do on the ship. It’s a small ship built before all the “modern” amenities were expected and installed.

 

Very few announcements from captain. The Captain gave an update every day but it didn’t play in the room – had to open the door to hear them.

 

Staff cleaned up and kept decks clean. Rust stains on front of ship. They were painting as we were leaving.

 

MDR mostly miss. Service bare minimum or overbearing. This was to be the highlight of our cruise and sadly fell short We had excellent service at our table for 10 from Terry Ann and Lenardo. Every dish on the menu may not have been 4stars but with the wide variety of choices, none of the 10 of us went away hungery.

 

Crew was just not into it. Fellow passenger told us wait staff told him they do not see a lot of the auto tips (traditional dining) and they are pissed off. This makes me wonder why we have to auto tip Everyone at our table was doing auto-tip and again we did have excellent service.

 

Before you say I only want to complain, we really wanted to love this cruise. After our cruise experience on Enchantment we hoped recent negative reviews were wrong.

This review is only my opinion. Take what I have said along with what others have said and decide for yourself. Others on this cruise were saying much the sane as me. Others may have loved it. The many, many folks we encountered were in the “loved it” group.

 

I am pretty sure we are done with Royal Caribbean. We are looking at a River Cruise down the line. Maybe that is more our speed. I feel we have given Royal a fair chance and it's time to move on. Reading your review I truly believe for you to be happy you need to sail a much larger ship or perhaps a different line. IMHO …. For the size of the ship and the cost of the cruise … the Grandeur came through as promised.

[janice2348]

DH and I were on the Grandeur the same time as you were … but frankly, our experience was very, very different.

First let me say …. I’m not an RCCL cheerleader but the folks we met and talked with as well as our table for ten in traditional dining enjoyed themselves and felt that the staff they had face-to-face contact with were caring, helpful, and pleasant.

We were in a balcony on forward port side of deck 7.

 

Shower pressure great. Start shower after you close curtain or you will have a flood.

No floods for us but we did need clips to keep the curtain from blowing in on us.

 

Lots of storage space- no need for over door hanger. Agreed

 

Delayed flushing but no smells Same here – but only the last evening for slow flushing and it was fixed in an hour or so.(we were on Deck 7)

 

Beds hard as a rock. Ours was firm but not in any way uncomfortable

 

Don't think the thermostat does anything. Changing the thermostat in our cabin drastically changed the temp in the room – we had both heat and AC.

 

Room steward never cleaned the toilet. Bare minimum service Our steward kept the cabin spotless and provided ice twice a day as we requested on the first day.

 

No room service menu in cabin or on tv Our Room service menu was in the center drawer of the desk and breakfast Room Service menus hung on a hook near the cabin door.

 

If you have thick long hair bring your own hairdryer. The hairdryer in our desk drawer had plenty of power for my long hair.

 

Windjammer was hit and miss. No cutting in lines or grabbing food with hands. Fellow cruisers were mostly over 50 and very courteous. Agree here … but during the school year all the lines have an older age average – most of the younger cruisers are home with their kids.

Loud music on pool deck on big screen starting 7 am. Not sure why?? Especially with the older crowd Don’t know about this … never hit the decks until well after breakfast in the MDR

 

Chair hogs with no enforcement. Did not have to check out towels. If folks had to do a sign-out/ sign in on towels it would solve the problem. There were a few chairs with towels saving them. Staff attempted to remove one and a woman 2 chairs down went ballistic on them.

 

Nothing much to do on the ship. It’s a small ship built before all the “modern” amenities were expected and installed.

 

Very few announcements from captain. The Captain gave an update every day but it didn’t play in the room – had to open the door to hear them.

 

Staff cleaned up and kept decks clean. Rust stains on front of ship. They were painting as we were leaving.

 

MDR mostly miss. Service bare minimum or overbearing. This was to be the highlight of our cruise and sadly fell short We had excellent service at our table for 10 from Terry Ann and Lenardo. Every dish on the menu may not have been 4stars but with the wide variety of choices, none of the 10 of us went away hungery.

 

Crew was just not into it. Fellow passenger told us wait staff told him they do not see a lot of the auto tips (traditional dining) and they are pissed off. This makes me wonder why we have to auto tip Everyone at our table was doing auto-tip and again we did have excellent service.

 

Before you say I only want to complain, we really wanted to love this cruise. After our cruise experience on Enchantment we hoped recent negative reviews were wrong.

This review is only my opinion. Take what I have said along with what others have said and decide for yourself. Others on this cruise were saying much the sane as me. Others may have loved it. The many, many folks we encountered were in the “loved it” group.

 

I am pretty sure we are done with Royal Caribbean. We are looking at a River Cruise down the line. Maybe that is more our speed. I feel we have given Royal a fair chance and it's time to move on. Reading your review I truly believe for you to be happy you need to sail a much larger ship or perhaps a different line. IMHO …. For the size of the ship and the cost of the cruise … the Grandeur came through as promised.

 

Thank you for your views. We are looking into river cruising. I don't think a larger ship is the answer or even another line. I am happy that you enjoyed your cruise. I am hoping that others will take all opinions into consideration.

[Dharma517]

Sorry you didn't have a great time. Sometimes have not so great room stewards and not great MDR experience can really dampen your trip. I think a bigger ship and better servers ...before you give up totally.

[jc4me]

Thank you for the review. Now, this makes me a little anxious about our trip in September. We are paying considerably more than we normally would for a cruise and we have an inside room! We will give RC a try and hopefully we won't be disappointed. We've only had one cruise where we were less than satisfied and that was on Norwegian. The food and service were less than stellar. Hopefully this cruise will be better than that one was!!

[JGaleCPA]

Thanks for your honest review. What kind of clips did you use for the shower? Clothes line clips? Snack Bag Clips? Curious minds want to know.

[summersigh]

Thanks for your honest review. What kind of clips did you use for the shower? Clothes line clips? Snack Bag Clips? Curious minds want to know.

 

I used the kind of big clips that you'd use for the back of long hair and a couple of clothes pins ... pretty much what I could find in my bag of "misc cruising stuff". :)

 

The water pressure and temp were great by the way :)

[JGaleCPA]

Thanks!

[janice2348]

Thanks for your honest review. What kind of clips did you use for the shower? Clothes line clips? Snack Bag Clips? Curious minds want to know.

 

Actually we didn't use any and probably should have:D

[janice2348]

I just don't think I can handle the motion sickness and we are thinking a River cruise might be the way to go.

 

Thank you all for your kind responses. Everyone has a different experience so take it all in consideration.

[atthebuzzer]

Here is a pic of the shuffleboard...

 

 

:)Thank you for the pic.

 

:DTom

[janice2348]

:)Thank you for the pic.

 

:DTom

 

My pleasure:D

[greenline]

We are sailing on the Grandeur in Sept. Hoping all goes well we were on the Explorer two years ago and the service was top notch with RCI. We heard bad reviews on the Carnival Pride also but we sailed on her last year and had a great time service their was top notch also.

[2funlovin]

Janice,

Appreciate your offer on answering questions and posting pics of the Grandeur. We are sailing May 2015 and really looking forward to it!! We have a balcony cabin. Do you know if the balcony can be opened between rooms?

 

Hope you had a great cruise! Look forward to hearing about it.

[Cmx3d]

Did the compasses go away? I can't seem to see them anymore. Can anyone else see them or is it just me?

[greenline]

Yes would be nice to see a current copy of a compass from the Grandeur.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[sharse]

We just got off the Grandeur today. I too was a bit disappointed in the food, mostly because so many people RAVE about it. I am a good cook and a picky foodie, though, so I'm a bit hard to please. Last night I had lamb shank, however, and I must say that was probably the best meal I had all week. And I found desserts to be quite good also. Our waiter asked us to rate the food from 1 - 10, noting that this is a "new" menu. I told him I would give the food a 6 or 7. Mostly because it could have been warmer. I didn't have anything awful, but it certainly wasn't a 10.

 

(Actually… the chicken they grilled out by the pool yesterday was also delicious, now that I think about it!)

[schlimazel_traveler]

Tell us more. Sounds like as long as we're not expecting "great" (and I'm not), it will mostly meet expectations?

 

I am looking forward to that lamb shank! It's the last night, you say? Did you note the order of the menus by any chance?

 

Did you try various venues, or just the MDR?

[sharse]

Tell us more. Sounds like as long as we're not expecting "great" (and I'm not), it will mostly meet expectations?

 

I am looking forward to that lamb shank! It's the last night, you say? Did you note the order of the menus by any chance?

 

Did you try various venues, or just the MDR?

 

Yes, the lamb was the last night and it was VERY good. The night before that was lobster night, and that was good too. Hard to mess up lobster! The shrimp cocktails were always fresh and tasty. My son had lasagne one night and it was good as well.

 

The first night I had manhattan strip steak and it was pretty good. I can't remember the second night (which was formal night). One night I had pork loin which was good, but just not quite warm enough. I suppose that's my main complaint, and in a venue that large I know it's hard to deliver a super hot plate.

 

The panninis in the Park Cafe were a favorite of mine. Parma ham, arugula, brie…. yummy.

 

We didn't go to any of the optional venues simply because of cost. We ate in the MDR every night (My Time Dining) except for the night we were in Nassau. By the time we got back to the ship we were tired and wanted to just hang by the pool so we had dinner at Windjammer. I did get pretty tired of the Windjammer, I must say. My breakfast was always fruit and oatmeal or I asked for two eggs over easy. I didn't try the pancakes or toast, so I can't report on my experience as an earlier poster did.

[sharse]

I just don't think I can handle the motion sickness and we are thinking a River cruise might be the way to go.

 

Thank you all for your kind responses. Everyone has a different experience so take it all in consideration.

 

On the May 2 sailing there was a bit of movement until we got to Florida, but thankfully nothing that made anyone feel sea sick. South of Florida it was smooth sailing and we felt very little. On the way back, right around OBX, we started feeling it again, but again not enough to make anyone sick.