Live - Grandeur of the Seas March 7-19 ..::.. vegetarian, honeymoon, first time cruisers!

[dorifuta]

Getting underway with Grandeur of the Seas! 12 day cruise to the Caribbean. Our stops have been modified to Puerto Rico, St Maarten, Dominica, Barbados, and St Kitts and Nevis. Make sure to check out DragonoftheSeas' live for their B2B on the Grandeur! 

 

Already I have forgotten a few things--my Japanese textbooks, a pair of sunglasses (🙈), and a few other small things. Oh well. We will survive, and persevere! 

 

With the more intensive check ins, there was a bit of delay. The hand sanitizers are very aggressive (appreciated, but I just did it 10 feet back!). Boarding was pushed back an hour from 11AM to 12PM. We bought The Key, which was supposed to come with Chop's lunch at the MDR from 11:30-1:30. Unfortunately they didn't adjust the mealtime--understandable, since they have to prep for dinner. The woman at the entry way signed us up for a Chop's lunch tomorrow instead which was lovely 😃 we have been exploring the ship for most of the afternoon.

 

Captain Patrick just wrapped up our drill and we are about to make weigh. We are staying in the Chesapeake overnight to wait out waves from a big storm up the coast. We aren't heading into the Atlantic until tomorrow evening! 😲 

 

Vacation had started! 

[SG65CB]

Go to the comedy show. When the comedian asks if anyone is on their honeymoon make sure you raise your hand and say yes. 

 

[dorifuta]

1 hour ago, SG65CB said:

Go to the comedy show. When the comedian asks if anyone is on their honeymoon make sure you raise your hand and say yes. 

 

Hoping go drag Husby along to the comedy show!! 

[dorifuta]

Feeling totally gobsmacked at the size and complexity of this thing. So far everyone is lovely! And we have all mutually agreed to not shake hands on board which is hilarious.

 

Luggage delivery has been a little 😬 fraught so far. I found my bag halfway down the hall in front of someone else's room, and Husby's bag still hasnt shown up yet. We wiped down all the hard surfaces in the room and I have bagged the remote control...insane though he believes me to be, I am hoping we do not have to use our first aid kit!

 

RC left a bottle of champs and two glasses in our room which was lovely! The little card says "Enjoy your new life together." 🥰 The ice was nearly entirely melted when we got here so I plan to ask for a refill so we can enjoy later. The drink package came with a double walled reusable Coke cup, so I'm super excited for that! 

 

Shout out to the two ladies we met at muster drill! Hoping to see you tomorrow at the meet and greet, sorry the embarkation meeting didnt happen. 

 

Already hit up the rock climbing wall, looking forward to doing it again soon! 

[dorifuta]

Had dinner with the lovely Deltablue and DragonoftheSeas and one other Cc-er whose username I didnt get. Also met JHU in line! 👋 hi yall!

 

So, meals for vegetarians.

 

Windjammer was a little complicated. We ate a lot of starches (pasta salad, chickpea salad, Cole slaw, potatoes, bread) and there was one steam veggies option and one grilled corn. Good to know. Hard to find. 

 

In the main dining room, I got fruit for my appetizer and Husby got the mushroom soup. Tomorrow I'll ask to speak with someone to confirm the stock for the soup. The vegetarian items on the menu were not well-marked: things like apple cobbler and ice cream werent marked as vegetarian. And while gelatin is always a possibility, it's just not NORMAL for some of those items. So I think the veggie marker was incomplete/inconsistent. Hoping for better turn out tomorrow on that front. 

 

Husby went to the spa and really enjoyed his treatment. Cant say much else there besides that, but he wished that hed had more direction and could have relaxed in the environment more than he did. I enjoyed no lines while rock climbing...but the auto-belay equipment was unnerving since I'm used to a human on the other end of the line. 

 

Bed early tonight and lots to do tomorrow! I love that the Compass comes in the evening so we have a hot minute to figure out what we want to do tomorrow. Still trying to figure out tipping though 😩

[SlipperyVic]

Interesting you say that you had an intense check in experience.

 

I was on the cruise immediately before you and found the lack of screening at check in to be alarming. The entire enhanced screening process seemed to be a guy outside the port that asked if we have been to China. That was it. No health questionnaire at all.

 

Once on board the only place they encouraged hand sanitizer use was at the buffet. It was not mandatory, just suggested. No mandatory hand cleaning after ports.

[dorifuta]

1 hour ago, SlipperyVic said:

Interesting you say that you had an intense check in experience.

 

I was on the cruise immediately before you and found the lack of screening at check in to be alarming. The entire enhanced screening process seemed to be a guy outside the port that asked if we have been to China. That was it. No health questionnaire at all.

 

Once on board the only place they encouraged hand sanitizer use was at the buffet. It was not mandatory, just suggested. No mandatory hand cleaning after ports.

Interesting! We had the one guy outside the building asking all the questions, then after the X ray machine was handed a health questionnaire and when we turned that in, had another set of questions asked. There was hand sanitizer at every station. When we actually walked on board the ship, someone squirted some hand sanitizer for us, it didnt seem like a question. We walked from there to MDR and then Windjammer without touching anything. When we got to WJ, had another offer of hand sanitizer. I have a skin condition, so too much sanitizer use causes flare ups and pain, so I said no thank you I just did it a few moments ago. Then she was like "No, you have to." 🤷‍♀️ 

[cloud_nine]

10 hours ago, dorifuta said:

So I think the veggie marker was incomplete/inconsistent.

 

Yep, it always has been. RCI have never been good with marking things as veggie or not.

[dorifuta]

5 hours ago, cloud_nine said:

 

Yep, it always has been. RCI have never been good with marking things as veggie or not.

.a.n.n.o.y.i.n.g. I dont like being a nag asking about every second thing on the menu! 

 

Well today we did get our Key lunch at Chop's. The view was PHENOMENAL and we loved how quiet it was. I grilled someone on the mushroom soup--pureed mushrooms with spices and cream. No stock! So I had that. Which was SO. SO GOOD. Definitely going to have more tonight!!

[cloud_nine]

Yes, the Chops mushroom soup is very good and I have been told that it's vegetarian so I choose to believe it. I know what you mean about asking, it's really quite annoying having to constantly ask, but if you ask to speak to the Head Waiter, they will generally know more than your normal waiters and if they don't they will ask the chef. Also MDR should have a vegan menu if you don't mind eating vegan (I have to be careful with vegan food due to coconut allergy), plus they can always do pasta with a tomato based sauce if you don't see anything on the menu you like. Definitely speak to your Head Waiter though and things should (hopefully) go smoothly from there. They have in the past even made things off menu for me when there wasn't anything on the menu I liked/could eat. 

[JM-1972]

We were on Jewel of the seas last month and they offered a vegan menu in addition to the normal menu in the dining room, they also had a separate Indian Menu with a meat or fish main course plus a veggie curry. We had amazing vegetarian food. Ask if they have a vegan menu as I understand that it is fleetwide.

 

 

[Vessel of Honor]

Have a wonderful life together and a terrific cruise.  We are leaving on same Southern Caribbean cruise April 4, 2020 which will be our fifth time on Grandeur.  I actually booked the same cabin. 🤣  Started our packing already.  Can you tell we're excited.  Royal loyalist...😍

[dorifuta]

I'll have more photos to update with a little later today, but theres suggestion that we might be skipping San Juan and going straight to St Maarten. We are off the coast of I think Georgia at the moment. Fingers crossed we will get an official update soon. 

[puppycanducruise]

You're off to a great start.

Looking forward to reading more and seeing more pictures.

Thanks for taking us on your cruise.

[tcmagnum]

Sounds like you guys are off to a great cruise!!

Happy Honeymoon!!

[dorifuta]

Heard again that we are skipping San Juan 😭 The ship is going slower today, saw it at 15.5 knots earlier versus the 17.7 yesterday. But the rocking has eased and the weather is perking up. Rumor has it the captain decided slowing down to keep passengers safer, and ships were having trouble docking in PR even when they were down there, so skipping the first port is the way to go. I'm very sad! Puerto Rico was the reason we chose this SPECIFIC sailing, so it is a huge bummer to miss it. What I've heard is that we will be at St Maarten at 3pm on wednesday instead, so I wonder if we will have a chance to go explore during that time.

 

Last night at Chop's, the waiter had eggplant parm prepped for me, AND a huge plate of pasta with veggies, AND an extra cheese tot order 😰 it was *so much food* and v hard to say no. We brought dessert back to our room after dinner though which was lovely. 

 

MDR formal night tonight! I'm excited for it. I spoke to our waiter, Nikola, on day 1 about getting more vegetarian options for meals. He knew we werent there yesterday so I'm hoping today we will be able to see some more options. (And maybe get more of that mushroom soup.🤤) 

[dorifuta]

Officially official: will not make it to San Juan. Going right to St Maarten for the 0800 docking. Wimp womp.

[dorifuta]

So yesterday we were going to rock climb, but I fell back asleep, whoops. Then we wandered the Solarium looking for a place to sit and seriously couldnt find any, so we sat and read in the Centrum. We had lunch at the MDR with a lovely crew of folks. I've attached the menu--beef burgers are vegetarian now??? 🤪 I wound up doing a bunch of if-thens. If this has stock, then I want that. If this doesnt have meat, then I want this. 🙄 it was OK, a little bland, but okay. 

 

We hung out in the Centrum again, chatting with folks and doing some of the games going on there. We went to trivia and 80s music trivia (one crew got EVERY single on correct, that was amazing) and then it was formal night 🥰 Dinner was lovely and I asked for the vegan menu tonight. Ordered something from it as well as the vegetarian entree from the main menu.

 

After that, Husby went to the show and I went to karaoke. I was a little tired but figured I could sing early then get to bed....but people SWARMED the sign ups! I spent so much time helping people get their numbers down that there was no room the sign up. 😭 Could have signed up on standby but I wanted to get to bed early, so I headed out. I have been so flattered by people asking me to sing though! 🙈 As I walked out of the Schooner Bar, who do I see but Husby walking from the Palladium towards me! XD He didnt think the impressionist was very good, so he was coming to watch karaoke. We called it a night and went to bed. 

 

Weather was sunny but very chilly, and there was SOOO much wind on the deck. I couldnt really even give it a shot. But getting warmer day by day! We are bummed to miss Puerto Rico, but are having a lot of fun on sea days anyway. 

 

All the hand sanitizer use is really starting to be a problem for my skin. I've been applying medication every day and lotion as much as I can, but it isnt helping. A little worried on how this will go at this rate...😅

 

I swear I have some non selfies but I'll upload then when I can get them off my camera 🤣

[cloud_nine]

Loling at the vegetarian beef burger! Maybe they meant that you could also get it in a veggie burger option? Or maybe they meant to put it on the Gnocchi and it got put next to the wrong food! Either way, did you get the empanadas? Those are so good! Or at least they were when I had them a few years ago. Did you get a dessert from the lunch menu? Was wondering about the gelatin issue, as I would imagine the ganache tart would have it, but not sure about the cake. 

[ljmandelbaum]

Got to laugh at the vegetarian beef burger.  

We cruised on Disney Christmas week.  The  only symbol on the menu was for vegetarian / lite fare.  It was funny seeing a chicken dish having the vegetarian symbol.   We just had to trust the waitress.

 

On Independence last month, we were able to see the vegan menu, so my vegetarian daughter asked for it the 2nd night.  Waiter was great, had it ready for her and made her order early since it takes longer.  

[dorifuta]

On 3/10/2020 at 10:14 AM, cloud_nine said:

Loling at the vegetarian beef burger! Maybe they meant that you could also get it in a veggie burger option? Or maybe they meant to put it on the Gnocchi and it got put next to the wrong food! Either way, did you get the empanadas? Those are so good! Or at least they were when I had them a few years ago. Did you get a dessert from the lunch menu? Was wondering about the gelatin issue, as I would imagine the ganache tart would have it, but not sure about the cake. 

I tried to get the empanada yesterday but was told it was for one day only. 😩 I've been avoiding the desserts bc there have been lots of Jell-o and mousse, so I'm not sure. 

[dorifuta]

On 3/10/2020 at 10:50 AM, ljmandelbaum said:

Got to laugh at the vegetarian beef burger.  

We cruised on Disney Christmas week.  The  only symbol on the menu was for vegetarian / lite fare.  It was funny seeing a chicken dish having the vegetarian symbol.   We just had to trust the waitress.

 

On Independence last month, we were able to see the vegan menu, so my vegetarian daughter asked for it the 2nd night.  Waiter was great, had it ready for her and made her order early since it takes longer.  

So far I've been able to order off the vegan and main menu during dinner. Theres no vegan menu during lunch though. 😰 I'd be so annoyed if they didnt distinguish between vegetarian and "lite" fare! They're often not nearly the same!!! 

[dorifuta]

 I'm so sad, my big long post has gone missing 😭 I will rewrite it, but an update here first. We are not going to St Maarten--some kind of new medical regulation has all cruise ships being turned away. We are en route to St Thomas instead and expected to arrive by 10AM.

[Luckiestmanonearth]

The health code changes are 21 vs 14 days for passengers who’ve been to one of the level 3 countries like China and Italy.

 

There were 3 ships that were supposed to be in St Maarten today but only one (Celebrity Edge) was cleared.

[vacationlover_mn]

On 3/7/2020 at 5:11 PM, dorifuta said:

Luggage delivery has been a little 😬 fraught so far. I found my bag halfway down the hall in front of someone else's room, and Husby's bag still hasnt shown up yet. We wiped down all the hard surfaces in the room and I have bagged the remote control...insane though he believes me to be, I am hoping we do not have to use our first aid kit!

Yep, we have had the "luggage left way down the hall at another room" happen on about half of our cruises!  The first time was stressful.  Now I'm pleasantly surprised if my bag actually makes it to our room 🙂