Quick Review for Rhaspody of the Seas Feb 11-18 out of Tamps

[k8ster72]

Hi Everyone!

 

My DH and I were on this cruise and selected it for both the ship and the itinerary. We had cruised on the Rhaspody 14 years ago. It was our first cruise. RCL made a great first impression and we were glad go be back. Our itinerary was as follows: Embark, Sea Day, Roatan, Belize City, Costa Maya, Cozumel, Sea Day, Debark.

 

In the time since we went on that cruise, we are now Diamond members, almost Diamond plus. We have also recently gotten our diving certificates and selected this particular itinerary specifically for diving. We did dives at every port, all arranged outside of the cruise line. We had no trouble at all with any of the operators or getting back to the ship with time to spare.

 

Here are a few items that are frequent concerns of Cruise Critic people:

 

1 - Towel Animals - got them all but the first and last days! :D

 

2 - Diamond lounge - a bit crowded until the early dinner crowd left, but the spillover area was plenty adequate. The service was excellent. Diamond breakfast was also good.

 

3 - Service - Our last three cruises were on the Liberty, Quantum, and Oasis, in that order and so stepping down to a smaller ship was a bit of a shock to the system. That being said, with our more itinerary-driving adgenda, we were not bothered by the lack of ice skating, zip lining, iFlying, etc. We were pleasantly surprised by the higher overall level of service on this cruise.

 

4 - Embark/Debark - Easy for both. We arrived later than usual, around 1:45PM, and had no wait at the pier. We did self-porting of our luggage to debark and left after the initial rush, around 8:15AM and were off and through customes by 8:30AM.

 

5 - Food - We mostly ate at the Windjammer for dinner as most of the time we were not terribly impressed with the choices on the MDR menu for dinner. We always found something good at the WJ. We did MDR it most days for breakfast except for 2 days where we had to be out early and opted for room service. The only times we ate lunch on the ship were in the Park Cafe, or for the special Galley Tour Brunch (excellent!:cool:). We also ate at Izumi for dinner once and Giovanni's for Lunch the first sea day. Both were very good.

 

6 - Chair Hogs - didn't use the pools, so didn't notice.

 

7 - Kids - Didn't see many, but the few we did were well behaved apart from minor, occasional fussiness. Adults were fairly well behaved too! :cool:

 

Our biggest complains were both the port information, or rather lack of it. If you are not interested in shopping at duty free shopts right by the port, they are worthless. Additionally, the port guide for Costa Maya had a map or Roatan inside of it instead of the one for Costa Maya. Luckily we were familiar with these ports other than Costa Maya and had no trouble finding our way.

 

One thing we noticed that may not have been as troublesome during past cruisses is that in all of the port shopping areas, it is very difficult to find your way outside of the area to where you can meet a private tour or pick up a cab. They are great if you use the shore excursions (which is what they want) or just want to go to Diamonds International. For example, in Cozumel, they had a nice escalator that went up to the pedestrian bridge and into the port shops, but instead of having a down escalator, right after, you had to walk all the way around (and, coincindentally right past Diamonds International :rolleyes:) and to the back to find stairs or an elevator back down.

 

We found it nearly impossible to find our way through of the Costa Maya shopping maze and got railroaded on to a very slow open-air transport instead of to an actual cab, which almost made us miss our dive. :mad: We will know better next time.

 

In the future, I would love to see some more helpful information included in the ship's port guide instead of having to research everything my self.

 

Other than the port shopping area annoyances, the overall cruise was great and we would do this particular one again. It was especially neat being back on the Rhapsody again after so long.

[k8ster72]

Oops that should be "Tampa"

[Baseball fan]

Thanks for the review. I am booked on Rhapsody late this year.

 

What is the Galley Tour Brunch? Cost? How do you sign up?

 

Thanks

Dena

 

 

 

 

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[CapeCoralCruiser]

Thanks he review, we'll be on Rhapsody early April. I'm set for diving in Roatan, but who did you dive with in Belize, and would you recommend them? Sounds like SOP in the DL these days, with more & more Ds/D+s, but glad to hear you had good service. Just curious, who is the DL concierge? This will be our first time on Rhapsody, but have been on three of her class sisters, so familiar with the layout.

[k8ster72]

Thanks for the review. I am booked on Rhapsody late this year.

 

What is the Galley Tour Brunch? Cost? How do you sign up?

 

Thanks

Dena

 

 

 

 

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I am not entirely sure it where it was advertised outside of the Diamond lounge or Diamond dining room breakfast. Cost was 35. Had 3 course meal including mimosas and/or champagne.

 

 

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[k8ster72]

Thanks he review, we'll be on Rhapsody early April. I'm set for diving in Roatan, but who did you dive with in Belize, and would you recommend them? Sounds like SOP in the DL these days, with more & more Ds/D+s, but glad to hear you had good service. Just curious, who is the DL concierge? This will be our first time on Rhapsody, but have been on three of her class sisters, so familiar with the layout.

 

 

In Belize we used Shore Excursioneers. We did a one tank dive at Hol Chan Marine Preserve and the Shark Ray Ally Snorkle. The group they used was Aqua Scuba Belize. We thought they did a great job with our varied group. We had some first-dive open water people along with a separate dive master and some snorklers along as well. Everything worked very well and though, shallow and easy, the Hol Chan dive was excellent and we saw an abundance of fish. There was an option to do a 2-tank reef dive if we wanted to but with the flight, we decided to keep things simple and shallow (deepest was 25 feet).

 

We wanted to do this as this combo (with Hol Chan being a snorkel before) was our (DH and I) first snorkle trip together and kicked off our interest in diving. The trip involved a flight (:eek:) to Ambergris Caye from the Belize Municipal Airport. If you are not bothered by the prospect of a low-altitude (2500 feet), non-pressurized cabin flight after diving, then this is the way to go. If this sounds too risky, then I hear great things about Sea Sports Belize. They are a close walk from the tender port.

 

Other other operators were: Roatan - Sea Divers at Tranquilseas Eco Lodge, Costa Maya - Doctor Dive, and Cozumel - Aldora. All were excellent!

 

Our DL Consierge was Alan from the Phillipines (?). He was pretty good.

[crusinpeg]

What is the pedestrian bridge and escalator in Cozumel? I don't recall them

[Cory4girls]

Thanks! Going Mar 11 on the same itinerary and am happy that the food was reasonably good! Looking forward to it!

 

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[BEENSAILING]

What is the pedestrian bridge and escalator in Cozumel? I don't recall them

 

 

Based on what pier the ship comes in ... the pier closer to the "downtown" area has the pedestrian bridge and escalators and elevators. With many stores to pass as you are trying to get out to the parking area / street. The other pier you walk out on the pedestrian pier - no escalators or elevators needed. Over the years, 2 or 3 of my Royal cruises came in at the "easier" access pier. This past November on Navigator we came in at the downtown pier. I am not sure if there is a way to know ahead of time which pier will be used for each cruise.