Looking for suggestions on picking fall foliage cruise

[Illyria]

I am trying to find a fall foliage cruise for us (two adults, 30s-40s, no kids). Frankly our first preference was to cruise Celebrity but their only itineraries in New England/Canada region are 14 days, and that's too long for us this year.

 

So now I'm looking at RCCL options and just can't decide, so looking for helpful suggestions and just general tidbits of knowledge about the ships that may help sway my decision one way or another. These are my 2 options:

 

- Grandeur of the Seas, Oct.1, 8 nights (Baltimore, Portland, Bar Harbor, Saint John, Halifax, Baltimore).

 

- Liberty of the Seas, Oct. 8, 9 nights (Cape Liberty, Boston, Portland, Bar Harbor, Saint John, Halifax, Cape Liberty).

 

I realize that peak times for foliage aren't an exact science, but I figured early October should give us a pretty good chance. Regardless, I'm making a decision mainly based on the ship, not the itinerary.

 

Sure, Liberty is a much newer ship with lots of bells and whistles, more dining options and very nice entertainment shows. However, our previous (and only) RCCL experience was on Allure, and my husband hated it, and I'm having a hard enough time trying to persuade him to give RCCL another try (not that I was crazy about it either). As far as I can tell, Liberty has many of the "qualities" that we both disliked. Specifically, we decided we really didn't like huge mega-ships, and we also enjoy the old-fashioned "dinner-show" or "show-dinner" evening routine (which doesn't happen when you have to make reservations for shows at different times and hope that they don't interfere with your dinner times).

 

Grandeur's itinerary is only a day shorter, so that's not a problem. It also sounds like a really nice ship for a stressed-out couple in need of serious R&R :) But with a ship that old - even after a recent refurbish - I guess I have some concerns. I'd love to hear from someone that has recently cruised on her, to find out if the quality of service, food and entertainment was really up to par.

 

We don't do specialty restaurants - usually we just stick to MDR and buffet and other no-charge options, and I'm not going to expect a 6-star meal on a 4-star budget. I know everyone has their own opinion of what constitutes "good food", but I'd definitely be interested in hearing people's opinions on quality of food on Grandeur in particular and RCCL in general.

[Karma5]

Fall foliage trips are also from Boston on Brillance which is a very nice ship…….a lot nicer than Grandeur……………..

[Cruisin6785]

My husband and I were on grandeur this past October. We had a great time overall, we thought the condition of the ship was excellent, but food and entertainment was lacking. The best meals we had were at the specialty restaurant,

[Cruisin6785]

Sorry, Hit the reply mid thought! Grandeur was only our second cruise so I don't have much to compare it to but I thought the food was a real disappointment from what we had on Explorer the previous year.

 

Anyways, we are also looking into a fall cruise but are leaning towards Brilliance out of Boston.