Splendour of the Seas Brazil Review (December 27, 2014-January 4, 2015)

[kernow]

Apologies for the delay in responding. What a coincidence on the room! I have some pictures of the balcony but am having issues compressing them enough to post. Feel free to email me at kbordentravel at gmail dot com and I will send you all of the pictures that I have.

 

Thanks, I've emailed you:)

 

Julie

[Reddyrat1981]

Thanks for doing this recap! We are going on the Splendour Feb. 1 sailing.

 

Does the Diamond Lounge have appetizers or just drinks? My parents said that some ships have appetizers and some don't. This will be my first diamond cruise, so I'm excited to see what the lounge is like.

 

Also, what safety tips were you given for traveling in Brazil? We are spending 4 days in Rio and then 3 days in Iguazu Falls before flying to Sao Paolo for the cruise. It feels like everything I've read says you have to be incredibly careful - that pickpocketing is a huge problem - much more than places like Rome or Barcelona. I guess iPhones are a particular favorite to steal, so I bought a cheap point and shoot camera to use instead. What did you do on port days?

[grnyel05]

Thanks for doing this recap! We are going on the Splendour Feb. 1 sailing.

 

Does the Diamond Lounge have appetizers or just drinks? My parents said that some ships have appetizers and some don't. This will be my first diamond cruise, so I'm excited to see what the lounge is like.

 

Also, what safety tips were you given for traveling in Brazil? We are spending 4 days in Rio and then 3 days in Iguazu Falls before flying to Sao Paolo for the cruise. It feels like everything I've read says you have to be incredibly careful - that pickpocketing is a huge problem - much more than places like Rome or Barcelona. I guess iPhones are a particular favorite to steal, so I bought a cheap point and shoot camera to use instead. What did you do on port days?

 

The diamond lounge has both appetizers and drinks. There were actually enough appetizers that some people skipped dinner and just ate there. One night we skipped dinner in the main dining room because it conflicted with the Rose Bowl and mostly ate dinner there, with some extra food from the Windjammer.

 

There were some fairly extensive safety tips that I'd read beforehand. For example, one was not to use an ATM at the airport, which was part of why I didn't end up being able to pull out local currency. We'd also been told by friends who'd been to Rio to basically carry nothing on us, but we obviously wanted pictures so I carried my GS5 and my roommate had her camera and other than that we just had the cruise cards and a small amount of money. We didn't have or see any issues, though to take my phone would have been very difficult since I was wearing a long tank top over my shorts that completely covered the pocket that the phone was in. Our tour guide in Rio told people who wore jewelry to take it off.

 

Glad that you are getting to enjoy Iguazu and Rio before the cruise. I spent a couple of days in Puerto Iguazu in 2009 before spending a week in Buenos Aires and enjoyed the falls a lot. Also, I would love to go back to Rio, so spending more time there would be great. Enjoy your cruise!

[Reddyrat1981]

I'm surprised that the menus were the old ones. We sailed in Australia/New Zealand last January and they also had modified ones. Maybe they've given up on freshening up MDR menus since each ship seems to be doing away with the MDR. Did they have anything any night that was Brazilian or South American? In Australia, they served kangaroo steak one night. It was pretty tasty.

[grnyel05]

Well I'm finally back after a lengthy delay in this review. While moving to a new apartment last week I packed away the cruise compasses in a spot that seemed clever for finding them at the time I packed them but in actuality was not. I finally found them today. The first three days are now attached to this post.

 

Day 3: At Sea

 

My first day at sea started out rather slowly. I had plans to attend various activities, including a beginners Portuguese class at the very reasonable hour of 11:45 am, but still did not make it up for that class. I had come down with a bit of a cold on the flight down to Brazil, and all of the activity of the past few days while under the weather was finally catching up with me. Accordingly, I couldn't tell you what the ship was like that morning since I finally pulled myself out of bed at 1pm.

 

Since it was a sea day, they had lunch in the Main Dining Room from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm. I always make it a point to go to lunch in the Main Dining Room as I really enjoy the salad bar they have there. We got there a bit before they closed and they signaled to the person seating us that we were English speakers and we were given English menus. Our waiter was Australian, but also spoke Portuguese. My friend and I both ordered soup from our waiter and got delicious salads from the salad bar. A few minutes into lunch we had some Brazilian passengers seated with us. We obviously do not speak Portuguese and they had limited English, but they really made an effort to communicate with us. We had a nice brief conversation, a great lunch, and headed back the room for some more relaxing.

Day 1 (Santos).pdf

Day 2 (Porto Belo).pdf

Day 3 (At Sea).pdf

[kernow]

Thanks for the compasses, I like the sound of the Portuguese lessons, I hope they have those on the TA.

 

I have what might sound like an odd question. Did they still have the dispenser with body wash in the cabin shower? I was reading another review on Vision and they said it had been removed. Just wondering if this was on other ships too, DH always uses it and will need to bring his own if they no longer supply it.

 

Thanks,

 

Julie

[grnyel05]

Afternoon and Evening:

 

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading in the cabin or on the balcony. Prior to this cruise I had never had an aft balcony before and really enjoyed sitting out back there and enjoying the view.

 

Around 6:00 pm I finally got around to making myself presentable for formal night dinner. This was the first cruise that I'd had early seating in ages, and going to the diamond lounge for pre-dinner drinks around 6:45 pm then dinner at 7:30 pm seemed noticeably earlier than normal. We enjoyed a drink in the diamond lounge, headed to dinner, and enjoyed the food at dinner.

 

After dinner we enjoyed a drink at the Schooner Bar which was our favorite place to hang out in the evenings. While there throughout the 8 nights we met a lot of fellow passengers and enjoyed the bartenders that worked there a lot. There was also a live musician that played periodically.

 

We stayed at the Schooner Bar for a bit then headed to the Centrum for the Captain's Welcome Aboard Party a bit after 9pm. We stood a couple decks up and enjoyed the scene. The captain was greeting the passengers on the stage and some of the aerialists were sitting on a fake chandelier that was suspended pouring sparkling wine into passengers' glasses. Once it was time for the officers' speeches, the chandelier raised up to the upper decks with the aerialists on it. It was all well done. The captain and officers gave their speeches, and Michelle the cruise director translated the Captain's Speech into Portuguese. Afterwards there was a brief show put on called "Chandelier" that we enjoyed.

 

After the party we wandered around the ship a bit, hung out in the cabin before heading to the nightclub a bit after midnight. We danced, made some new friends, and called it a night around 3.

[grnyel05]

I unfortunately can't recall if there was body wash in the dispenser. I do remember that there was a dispenser full of something but don't remember if that was just the shampoo/conditioner combination, body wash or both. Our cabin steward gave us individual bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and body wash. He seemed to give us new ones every day and I remember at one point we had something like 5 individual containers of lotion sitting on the vanity. Sorry that I can't be more helpful!

 

Thanks for the compasses, I like the sound of the Portuguese lessons, I hope they have those on the TA.

 

I have what might sound like an odd question. Did they still have the dispenser with body wash in the cabin shower? I was reading another review on Vision and they said it had been removed. Just wondering if this was on other ships too, DH always uses it and will need to bring his own if they no longer supply it.

 

Thanks,

 

Julie

[kernow]

I unfortunately can't recall if there was body wash in the dispenser. I do remember that there was a dispenser full of something but don't remember if that was just the shampoo/conditioner combination, body wash or both. Our cabin steward gave us individual bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and body wash. He seemed to give us new ones every day and I remember at one point we had something like 5 individual containers of lotion sitting on the vanity. Sorry that I can't be more helpful!

 

Thanks for the reply, as long as there is something DH will be fine, he's not fussy:), I, on the other hand always bring my own favourite brands.

 

 

The Captain's reception sounded nice, we haven't been for years as we usually have late seating and go to the lounge instead. This cruise with the later seating times, we too have early so will go and see it. From the compasses it looks like there was a lot going on around the ship every evening, can't wait!

 

Julie

[grnyel05]

Day 4: Buzios, Brazil

 

Day 4 on the Splendour found us anchored off of Buzios. We did not arrive until 10:00 a.m. with the first tender set for 10:30 a.m., which was perfectly lovely for a late riser like myself. My roommate made it up before I did and grabbed me breakfast from the Park Cafe from the bagel bar just the way I like it-a plain bagel, cream cheese, smoked salmon, tomato, and onions. We did not want to eat too big of a breakfast as we had planned to eat in port. After getting ready, we were off to the tenders.

 

The tendering process went much better in Buzios than it did in Porto Belo. There were two ships anchored off of Buzios today, us and a Pullmantur ship. While we had the worse position of the two ships, we were not as far away from Buzios as we had been from the shore in Porto Belo, and the ship seemed to be running more tenders from the get go. Regardless, the process of getting ashore was uneventful.

 

We had really been looking forward to the stop in Buzios as it was well recommended by all of the crew on board and in the various research we had done before heading out on the cruise. It did not let us down. The town is beautiful, has tons of great beaches that you can either walk to or take a water taxi to, and has great shopping and restaurants.

 

Our first plan was to go to the beach. We had planned to go to one about a mile north of town and headed that direction. Along the way we stopped to take in the scenery and take pictures as it was really lovely. It reminded me of being in one of the smaller towns along the French Riviera. We passed the first beach north of town and continued onto a second one. We stayed briefly but since it was the super high season in Brazil it was absolutely packed so we headed back to town.

 

Once back in town we headed to a place that we had read about online, Chez Michou, which was known for its delicious crepes. I had a chocolate and banana crepe while my roommate went for a savory crepe with mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes, hearts of palm, and basil. We were both very pleased and caught up with emails on the free WiFi at the restaurant. All in all we enjoyed the pit stop.

 

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g303492-d318140-Reviews-Chez_Michou-Buzios_State_of_Rio_de_Janeiro.html

 

After the snack we wandered around Buzios, looked in some shops, and took pictures. After a bit we ran into a father and son from Brazil that we had previously met on the ship and they insisted that we get lunch with them, but they settled on drinks once we said we had just eaten. They ended up getting some lovely looking Argentine steaks and we all shared beers. It was a lovely afternoon. The father warned us that his English was not very good but of course he seemed to speak perfect English and we had a really nice conversation all of our travels throughout the years. After awhile we headed back to the tender pier and headed back to the ship.

[grnyel05]

Night 4:

 

Night four was less eventful that the other nights. With the next day being our day in Rio and New Year's Eve, we made sure to get to bed early.

 

Once back on the ship we relaxed on the balcony then got ready for pre-dinner drinks and appetizers in the diamond lounge then headed to dinner. This was the night that I finally spoiled my dinner and ate some of the appetizers and was converted from then on. Who knew that a mozzarella stick would taste so good or that they had crab salad that was also quite good? It was hit or miss, but given that the main dining room had not been knocking it out of the park, I enjoyed the appetizers.

 

We went to dinner and it was uneventful. By this point my roommate and I had been traveling together for 6 days and were able to make conversation with each other at dinner, but having other people there would have made it more lively. We then headed back to the diamond lounge a bit and chatted with people there before heading to the Crown & Anchor Welcome Back Party.

 

I think all in all a few hundred people attended the Welcome Back Party. There were various drinks available and a band played. The Cruise Director, Michelle, was there and recognized the people on board who had cruised the most, a couple from Brazil who at least as of the time of sailing were the only Brazilian pinnacle club members. They even gave the microphone over to one of them who gave a speech about Royal Caribbean in Portuguese that was then translated by the Loyalty Ambassador into English. It was all good fun, though a fairly subdued affair.

 

After the party, I called it an early night. While I would have been interested in going to the party in the solarium that night, another night of being up late was not in the cards. I will say this party was a concept that I had not seen before. It was a "Traffic Lights Party" where they tell you dress in green if you are available, red if you are taken, and yellow if you are still not decided. This is something I would have assumed I could have gotten out of by not abiding by the dress code, but from viewing the cruise in review DVD apparently they brought shore excursion stickers and made people put green, yellow, or red stickers on at the party.

 

Speaking of the shore excursions team, they, in addition to many other departments, also made themed trees that were placed at the back of deck 5 for the holidays. I think my favorite was the bar staff one as they managed to print fake money with the captain's picture on it as well as other officer's and hang it from their fake tree.

Day 4 (Buzios).pdf

[grnyel05]

Day 5: Rio De Janeiro / New Year’s Eve

 

This was the big day everyone was looking forward to, and there was quite an energy all about the ship. One fun thing about the cruise and having so many of the crew from Brazil was that a lot of them were able to meet up with friends, family, spouses, or even go home during the port days. Rio was no exception and we met various crew from there who were planning to meet up with family, friends, or even go home to their apartments briefly.

 

We got up around 8:15 and watched us pulling into port. There were 4 ships total in port with (a MSC ship, a Costa Ship, and a Pullmantur ship), and we were one of the last ones to get there. We were greeted by great views of the city including Corcovado and Sugarloaf. The weather forecast was supposed to be very hot and sunny—around 90 degrees fahrenheit. So we slathered on the sunscreen and packed up the limited belongings we were planning to bring, and headed to the Windjammer. We’d been advised multiple times that none of the tours included lunch, so we packed some snacks that we’d brought on board, and also ate a large breakfast. It turned out a very large lunch was actually included, but I did appreciate the full size water bottles that we brought with ice water. The one down side of the morning was that the toilet in our cabin was not working. At the time I figured no worries, there are public restrooms and it will get fixed while we are ashore.

 

We ended up doing an excursion through Royal Caribbean in this port. We didn’t do them in other ports since we tend to like to go at things on our own, but it seemed like the most reliable way to get up Sugarloaf and up Corvocado to Christ the Redeemer given the holiday was to go through Royal Caribbean. We didn’t end up booking the tour until we got on board, which could have been an issue given that Royal Caribbean only was able to secure extra buses a few days into the cruise, but it worked out. On this cruise there were way more shore excursions listed though once we got on board than had been available online prior.

 

We went to the theater at our designated meeting time and got off and were on a bus within 5 minutes. We had assumed when we booked that we would be on a Portuguese only tour, because the shore excursions were billed that way. It turns out they had enough passengers for an English-speaking bus in Rio. We had people from the US, Canada, France, Germany, and even Brazil (a very nice family accommodating their son’s non-Portuguese speaking girlfriend). Our guide John was fabulous. He speaks 6 languages--English and Italian as a kid, others came later--and was incredibly knowledgeable and inclusive of everyone. We drove through the port area and business district and headed to Sugarloaf.

 

Traffic was great in this neck of the woods because no one was working on New Year’s Eve. We got to Sugarloaf and probably waited in line 15-20 minutes or so with our tickets before getting on the first of the two trams up to the top.

Day 5 (Rio).pdf

[grnyel05]

Finally took the time to learn how to post some photos in normal size.

 

Guaruhlos, Brazil.

 

 

View of the Pullmantur ship from the balcony in the port of Santos.

 

 

Sailing away from Santos, Brazil.

 

 

Last glimpse of Santos.

[grnyel05]

A distant view of the ship from Porto Belo.

 

 

A view from the tender pier in Porto Belo.

 

 

The tender caught in the storm in Porto Belo.

 

 

Another view of stormy Porto Belo.

 

[grnyel05]

Views of and from corner aft balcony 7634.

 

 

 

[grnyel05]

Pictures from Buzios. That's it for tonight. With my newfound ability to post pictures and having located the compass I'm hoping to get this review done by the end of the week.

 

The main walkway headed North in Buzios.

 

 

A view of the ship from one of the many beaches in Buzios.

 

 

More of the walkway along the beach in Buzios.

 

 

Beach in the main part of Buzios.

 

[tidygirl]

I may have missed this, but do you go to the shows in the evening? And are they all done in Spanish or do they also do it in English?

I have considered someday doing a cruise in that area of the world, but we do enjoy going to the shows but if we don't understand anything we may get bored in the evenings.

[grnyel05]

The only shows I went to were one of the production shows, some of the aerial shows in the Centrum, and 70s night. The production show was introduced in Portuguese and English and most of the songs were in Portuguese. I don't recall any speaking parts for the aerial show but it was introduced in Portuguese and English as well. The songs from 70s night were pretty much all in English and the cruise director would alternate between Portuguese and English for trying to get everyone to dance along.

 

I do know one night there was a comedian in the main theater that was in Portuguese only.

 

I may have missed this, but do you go to the shows in the evening? And are they all done in Spanish or do they also do it in English?

I have considered someday doing a cruise in that area of the world, but we do enjoy going to the shows but if we don't understand anything we may get bored in the evenings.

[tidygirl]

@grneyel105- Thanks so much for the information!

[grnyel05]

Day 5: Rio

 

Back to Rio, my favorite day of the cruise. As I think I mentioned earlier, I woke up when we were still pulling into port. The view was lovely. We had a MSC ship just behind us, and a view of the terminal and some hills in Rio on the other side.

 

 

 

[grnyel05]

Day 5: Rio Continued

 

Back to our shore excursion up Sugarloaf. The cable cars held about 65 people per car so the waits weren't terrible. I actually thought it would be worse of a wait given how bad we had heard crowds would be for the holiday. On the first cable car we had views of a nearby beach and the bay.

 

 

 

Once we got up the first cable car, we had about another 20 or 25 minute wait for the next cable car up to the top. It was in a nice forested area that had shade and animals so it was not bad. Eventually we got up to the top and had 30 minutes to explore before meeting back up and heading down. At first it seemed like a long time given that the area near where the cable car drops off is not very large. After a bit of picture taking we explored to other areas where you could walk around and get views of both the bay and other beaches like Copacabana beach. We also had nice views of airplanes periodically landing one of the city airports nearby.

 

 

 

[grnyel05]

Day 5: Rio Continued

 

After our time at the top of Sugarloaf we headed back down which involved some wait times but we all made back down by around noon. After that, we received a nice surprise--we were headed to a churrascaria for lunch near Copacabana Beach. Given the repeated warnings about how no excursion would have lunch this was a complete surprise and we were happy to sit down and enjoy lunch. We were let off right across from Copacabana Beach and while I did not get a good picture of the beach, you can get a sense of how they were preparing for the day.

 

 

We ended up seated with the Brazilian family who were on the English speaking tour because the son's girlfriend did not speak Portuguese. We had a funny moment before we knew where they were from where my roommate asked if they had tried the Brazilian cheese bread that was on the table. They nicely explained that they were from Brazil and we all laughed. We had a nice lunch chatting with them.

 

There was a salad bar included with various things but I never made it there given how rapidly they brought around the various hot items. There were lots of different meats including different cuts of steak, lamb, sausage, and more that I cannot think of. Between all the meat, the bread, the french fries, and dessert that was included I was stuffed. No drinks were included in the meal so each table settled up at the end. When we went to add our portion for the drinks the Brazilian family was insistent on treating us and wouldn't allow us to pay. They were very generous and nice!

 

After lunch we boarded the tour bus again and headed for Corcovado to go up Christ the Redeemer. Shortly after we boarded the bus the tour guide found out that our tickets for the train had been pushed back to 3:20, so he added some sights to our tour including heading over to where the Samba schools perform during Carnivale.

 

[grnyel05]

Day 5: Rio Continued

 

We headed to the train station at Corcovado next. We had about 25 minutes to wait but we found a place to sit while waiting. Once the train came we it was about a 20 minute ride up to the station near the Christ the Redeemer statue. We had fortunate timing with the ride as it started pouring down rain on the way up, but stopped by the time we got to the top. On the way up we also found out that the captain had called, asking about how far along the tour was as we were due to be the last tour back, and he was concerned about sailing on time to get our spot off Copacabana beach that night.

 

Once off the train we walked up the 200 hundred or so steps up to Christ the Redeemer. It was quite impressive and we were really excited to be there.

 

 

We walked around and took pictures. I was excited to see the Maracana stadium off in the distance. I'm a big soccer fan and watching the World Cup in Brazil was when we decided to book this trip.

 

 

 

The tour group did not manage to all get on the same train going down, so we took a bit of time to look in the souvenir shop at the train station while waiting for the rest of the group. Once everyone was there we boarded the bus and headed back to the ship. We made it back to the ship at 5:45, 15 minutes to spare before our all aboard time. The security people were in a good mood and wished us a Happy New Year.

[grnyel05]

Night 5: Leaving Rio and Copacabana Beach

 

We got back on board and were both a bit hungry so we ordered room service. They said it would be 30 to 45 minutes but it ended up being more than an hour unfortunately and the order did not quite came as we ordered it. The spinach dip came with fries to dip for example rather than chips and the crackers for the cheese plate were all very stale. The other issue we had that night was that the toilet in our cabin was still not working. We called guest services since our cabin steward was not on duty yet and they said they would send someone. I wish they would have mentioned that the person did not need to come in our room as we thought we would need to let them in and had one of us stay in the room rather than on the balcony for sailaway. Eventually after another hour and a half or so we were able to figure out that it was working by just pushing the flush button periodically until it worked.

 

Anyway, it was New Year's Eve in Rio and we were quite excited. We had learned in researching New Year's Eve in Brazil that everyone wears white. I was glad to have learned this well in advance because it was much easier to buy a white dress in July than in December here in the US. We got ready, headed to the diamond lounge briefly for a pre-dinner champagne, chatted with our fellow cruisers, then headed to dinner.

 

New Year's Eve dinner had a special menu. Both my roommate and I got some appetizer I don't remember, a nice salad, and surf and turf. I was not expecting lobster on the cruise because Royal Caribbean generally does not serve it on cruises that do not originate in North America, but there it was. My Dad and I have a running joke about lobster on cruise ships as it seems he is never able to get it when he is on the ships--either they do not serve it on the cruise, he was sick the night it was served, went to the specialty restaurant the night it was served, you name it. By contrast, I seem to always end up with it when it's unexpected--the chef has extra lobster that week, it's New Year's, the ship is going into drydock and they need to use up the lobster, etc. Anyway, unfortunately the surf and turf was only alright, but no matter, it was New Year's Eve in Brazil.

 

One thing I like about the Splendour is the floor to ceiling windows in the main dining room so you could see outside at dinner as there were no curtains. During dinner we could see Copacabana Beach off in the distance and the MSC ship next to us also waiting off of Copacabana beach. At dinner there were also beads, noisemakers, and hats and tiaras waiting on the table. It seems Royal Caribbean prints their New Year's Eve accessories in English only.

 

 

After dinner we headed back to the diamond lounge for a bit and chatted with another family and found out from them looking at Marine Traffic that there were nine cruise ships off of Copacabana Beach. This was way more than I expected since there were only four ships in port in Rio. We had the fortunate position of being the second closest ship to the beach for the evening. After awhile we headed to the Schooner Bar. We had initially planned on heading up to the open decks, but everyone who had been up there said it was really windy and that it was best to wait. We waited it out with a fun crowd and everyone was in a great mood. Eventually sometime after 11 we headed up to the pool deck, walked around, and then found a position toward the front of the ship on the next deck up. The time flew by (the champagne may have played a role in that) and soon we were counting down to the New Year. My Portuguese vocabulary does not yet involve all of the numbers between one and ten so I joined in at tres, dois, um. Right as everyone yelled Feliz Ano Novo(!!) the fireworks started on Copacabana beach. Shortly after that the officer on the bridge really laid on the ship's horn and everyone was going crazy on the ship. I don't remember how long the fireworks lasted, maybe 20 minutes, but it was great.

 

 

I did not have the greatest spot to take pictures, so we bought the cruise in review DVD which captured all of the fireworks. The video I linked below from Copacabana Beach from the year before gives you a good sense of what the show was like. It was incredible.

 

 

After the show we headed to the pool deck where the party continued. The New Year's Eve after party in the disco did not start until 2:30 am, so we still had quite a bit of time before that. It was extremely festive with lots of music and everyone was having a good time.

 

 

Eventually we made our way back to our room to watch the view as the ship left Copacabana Beach. We enjoyed relaxing on our balcony and taking the views in.

 

 

We also had a good view of the crew deck a couple decks below us where a lot of the crew were really starting to celebrate and everyone was having fun. We eventually headed back up by the pool deck and met up with some people we had met previously. After chatting for awhile we made our way to the disco which was absolutely packed. I have never seen so many people trying to get a drink from a bar at once. Regardless, we danced for awhile, had a fun night, and I believe called it a night somewhere around 5am. We later found out that the disco stayed open until 6 that night, and that the bar staff made it home at 7. What a day!

[grnyel05]

That's it for tonight. Next up is new New Year's Day tendered off of Angra Dos Reis.