4/17/16 short Grandeur review

[bubba83]

Hello all, I am taking my first stab at a review on here. I traveled with my husband (we are both 32) and our 2 daughters ages 5 and 3) It was a 10 night Western Caribbean. Ports of call were Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Falmouth, and Labadee.

 

Boarding: out of Baltimore, was easy peasy. We were delayed boarding until about 11:15 ish because the coast guard was doing a mandatory inspection. I had 2 bottles of wine in my carry on, the security officer looked at them before they went through the xray machine and that was it. He didnt ask what room I was in or anything. We walked around the ship for a little and went with the herd to the Windjammer!

 

Our Room: preferred Ocean view (used to be called the Panoramic Ocean view. 8037. We chose this room because our youngest was too small for the pullman beds. This room had a pull out couch which when pulled out is huge, pretty close to our two beds when put together. And it was comfortable too. Our bed was very comfortable. There was already 2 quilted mattress toppers under the sheet (I take a look to check for bed bugs quick!). Pillows were good too, and hubby now says we need new pillows and a new bed for home, HAHA. The room was spacious enough for our family of 4. Some suitcases we put under the bed and we had two smaller ones out that really were not in the way to put our dirty clothes in. Bathroom is your typical tiny cruise bathroom with the annoying shower curtain, but cant complain, shower water pressure was wonderful and the water can get really hot so watch out. I was able to have our girls stand in the shower and remove the shower head from the wall to shower them every day. The window in the room was AMAZING. Both of our daughters could sit on the "bench" at the bottom of the window with their legs out, feet touching one another and it was pretty tall too. The bed in this room is next to the window, so I immediately claimed that spot of the bed and had the curtains open slightly so the sunrise would wake me and I could enjoy the views at all times. We really didnt stay in our room for long periods of time during wake hours. We napped/relaxed before dinner, showered, and then came back for bed. Or stateroom attendant was wonderful, except I forgot to jot down his name. Always plenty of towels, and he had a towel animal every night for the kiddos. When he would see us walking down the hall he immediately would walk to our room to open our door for us. Whatever we needed he had it first time asked. The room was clean and had no foul odor. The exterior of the window could have used a good cleaning but really nothing I would complain about. Noise: never heard noise from the rooms beside us, centrum noise you could hear but never kept us from falling asleep. The man next to us had a HUGE issue with this. He and his wife were in their 70's I am guess and he kept shutting all the fire doors which are heavy and difficult for others to open to get to their room. He was rude if you ask me and probably complained several times, they finally moved him away from the centrum.

 

Food: Windjammer was your typical buffet food. Dont touch the pre made scrambled eggs, those are awful, HAHA. But they did have two wonderful guys making made to order eggs and omelets every morning. Windjammer on this ship is small and it shows during peak hours of breakfast and lunch. We always found something to eat there. The girls loved bacon, fresh fruit and the hash-browns every morning. For lunch we all enjoyed the burger, fries, fresh salad bar, and other things we tried. They did have pool side grilling on 3 of the days i believe for lunch. Main dinning room: we had 5:30 seating. Leah our head server was wonderful with our table of 11, which included 3 children 6 and under. Food was wonderful. many of us enjoyed the Manhattan strip steak almost every night along with other features. The head and assistant server learned our preferences within the first day or two and had our drinks on hand when we arrived, fruit and chips and guacamole for the kids. We participated in the family time dinning every night. So the servers had our kids fed with whatever they wanted, including desert within about 50 minutes to an hour and then we met adventure ocean staff our at the dinning room entrance at 6:45, it was perfect because then we didnt have to rush with out deserts if we didnt want to. We actually didnt order room service during this entire cruise.

 

Adventure Ocean: Both of my girls and my 6 year old nephew absolutely loved adventure Ocean. My sister didnt think her son would have wanted to go as much as he did. My daughters would ask when they could go every day. They were open from 9-12pm, 2-5pm, and 7-10pm. Port days they were open all day like from 9-5 for example if you wanted to go off without your kiddo (we wouldnt do that). And kiddos would be there early if you chose to do the family time dining. They also offer adventure dining where you could sign your kiddos to go to windjammer with adventure ocean staff for dinner (not sure if there was a fee for that as we didnt do it, i know there was limited spots though). We also chose to have the kiddos there one night later than 10pm (late night hrs are from 10pm until last kiddo leaves for $7 an hr per kiddo) The staff had planned activities every day and did a ton of crafts and other art projects with the kids and they brought them all home at the end of the cruise.

 

Entertainment: We thought the ship was lacking entertainment during the day, especially on the 5 sea days we had. If you like bingo and trivia then you will be fine. The singers and dancers were good. The Arial show was AMAZING. Comedians were all right.

 

Pool: Never utilized the one in the solarium, we called it the morgue (sorry, lol), but did walk through it to access the cafe for the yummy roast beef sandwiches, breakfast on a few days and late night snack. The other pool was perfect temp all 10 days, hot tubs were also great )2 for adults and 2 for children). I almost flipped on a lady who said "I hate kids" Right beside me and my children in the pool because there were maybe 6 kids in the pool with maybe 7 adults, her included...I wanted to ask her what she expected in a pool and tell her if she didnt like the kids she could go to the morgue, i mean solarium :D

 

The general population on the ship was elderly. There was only about 24 kids and maybe 15 teens on the ship. I anticipated the ship to be like this because of it being an older smaller ship and a longer sailing. At time the older folk were slow moving, there were your scooters and wheelchairs that were a bit frustrating at times, but nothing to get upset about, I just walked around them when the opportunity came up. Everyone for the most part was very very friendly. Staff were always smiling and saying hello, coming up to our kiddos and talking to them like they were movie stars or something.

 

 

Ports:

Cozumel- went to paradise beach, $15 one way for taxi. $3 per person to get in, under 6 were free. The water play stuff would have been $21 if you wanted that. They ask that you spend $10 in food or beverage, we did order lunch while we were there and it was good. Beach is pretty rocky, we did find a spot near the end that was sandy all the way out to our shoulders. The pool was beautiful, servers were great and friendly, and the restroom was clean. Great place, we would go back if there again.

Grand Cayman- we didnt get off this day as I wasnt feeling so great and we were not in port very long. But it was beautiful from what we could see. My parents, sister, her husband and son wen to one of the beaches and said it was easy, cheap, and beautiful.

Falmouth- is was a cloudy day, humid and light rain the entire time we were there. We just stayed in the port shopping area during our time there. It was nice, the locals were nice and liked to bargain.

Labadee- cloudy with some rain, a little heavy one time. Sun came through for about an hour or so while we were on the beach. Its grown significantly since 2002 when I was there last :) We swam for a while at columbus cove, ate lunch, and then the kids played at the little water splash park they had before we worked our way on the ship. Locals were pushy in the mens bathroom my father said, wanted money and asked for it because he cleaned the bathroom and offered my father soap and a paper towel. Now when my correctional officer hubby went in he was not even spoken too, he must have a look to him, HAHA. The picnic lunch was yummy and easy to navigate through. The labadoozies were overflowing with rum, mine was actually too strong! We enjoyed Haiti a lot.

 

Drink package: Husband got the premium and got his monies worth every day between alcoholic drinks, soda, and bottled water, but did find that the last 3 or 4 days he wasnt drinking as much alcohol. I thought I would drink more on the vacation, but was so stuffed from all the food I really had no desire to do so. Bar tenders were great, poolside ones walking around every day, no issue with getting drinks and no real long waits. Everyone who was of drinking age in our group all agreed they did not skimp on the alcohol at all for the entire cruise!

 

 

Overall the vacation was great. My kiddos loved their first cruise. I am unsure if we will go on grandeur again just because of the demographics of fellow cruisers on the ship and type of activities offered, a larger ship with more bells and whistles may entice us to cruise again. But before then a bigger house and a trip to Disney must occur.

 

Let me know if you have any other questions I may be able to help you with.

[BobbyD]

Glad that you enjoyed your cruise on the Grandeur. We went on the ship last summer and had a great time. The demographics vary depending on the time of the year. We had more kids/teens during the summer but many families do choose the newer, fancier ships. The Grandeur would probably skew more "mature" regardless.

[cruise47]

Thanks for your review and we will avoid the scramble eggs:D.

 

The drink package sounds pretty nice.

Edited May 4, 2016 by cruise47

[Clarea]

Appreciate the report, Grandeur out of Baltimore is on our bucket list.

[Merion_Mom]

Appreciate the report, Grandeur out of Baltimore is on our bucket list.

 

What?!?!?!? You have never been on the Grandeur, Bob?

 

What are you doing this September? Join me! :)

[Clarea]

What?!?!?!? You have never been on the Grandeur, Bob?

 

What are you doing this September? Join me! :)

What date?

 

Hoping that we get to see Danney whenever we do cruise on GR.

[eddiesgal]

Great review! We were on the same sailing as you were. In fact you were on the Mix and Mingle site if I'm correct?

[Merion_Mom]

What date?

 

Hoping that we get to see Danney whenever we do cruise on GR.

 

First two weeks. Canada/New England, then Bermuda.

[bubba83]

Great review! We were on the same sailing as you were. In fact you were on the Mix and Mingle site if I'm correct?

 

Yep I was in the roll call, we didn't attend the meeting and mingle though...