Live Blog: Reflection, Italy, Croatia and Montenegro. September 16-September 26.

[terrydtx]

Loved your whole thread as it brought back the great memories of the same cruise we last month on the Reflection. Hope you both have a safe travel home.

[chemmo]

Thanks for the review, I have been following daily, you have brought me a daily dose of Mediterranean sunshine!

[asnaleah]

Thanks for taking us along with you! Hope you get home in a timely fashion.

[sbt518]

Fantastic review, thanks for taking the time to write it. I hope you made your connecting flight. 

[calicakes]

Thanks for following along.  I'm sorry that you didn't hear about any entertainment or fancy alcoholic drinks.  We wanted to stay away from large groups at the theater.  With that being said, I felt both solo female singers were really great.    We don't drink alcohol, so can't comment on that.  We did have a number of zero proof drinks, all were great.  

 

We FINALLY made it home last night at midnight*PST).  We were up since 5am Italy time, so we were up for over 24hrs.  We missed our connection in NYC because of the late to leave flight from Rome.  They moved us to a 6pm flight.  We had to go through customs and then have our luggage reticketed from LAX.  They wanted us to throw our luggage back on the rack WITHOUT reticketing it.  Thankfully, I was paying attention.  

 

We then had to go through TSA precheck Again with our carry ons.  They changed our seats and we were window/middle in Main Cabin Select( I paid for Premium economy so I'm not happy).  Note to self: If I can only book business class for one direction, make it Business class when coming back from Europe.   

 

 

Both Julie and I felt the service was really great, except on the first sea day.  The pool bartenders were SLAMMED.  There were only 2 or 3 pool attendants. Our room attendant and butler were both amazing.  Our room attendant Julieana( from Jamaica) was super cheerful at all times.  Same for our Butler.  

 

  Certain food items have declined in quality(ie: The tuna) .  The melons were pretty decent on this cruise. The berries were very sour and not readily available. A lot of the food on the buffet was very bland.   The majority of desserts in Luminae were great( and I'm a former pastry chef).    I tried one dessert on the buffet and it was terrible.  The pastries at breakfast were good, although a few times there were underproofed or underbaked( doughy areas inside). 

 

 We rarely used Michael's club.  When you're up in a room on the 11th floor(AFT), you( we) didn't feel like going back to Deck 5 for an afternoon snack.  When we took our Feb cruise on Oceania, the special area for Suites was right down the hall from us.  

 

We met some super nice couples.  Get involved in your roll calls.  We shared transportation with the same couple from Rome to Port and from Port to Airport.  We did a private excursion in Florence from the roll call.  

 

If I missed anything, please ask.  We didn't book anything else.  We have a July 2023 Baltic booked on Oceania.  

 

[calicakes]

On 9/26/2022 at 10:03 AM, sdnich said:

We are on the summit right now out to sea and I just ordered room service for lunch didn’t feel like going to the restaurant!  hopefully people don’t think that we have Covid!! 

We never thought that in the first few days, only after about a week did we start to think that, and then seeing trash and linens in red bags sealed the deal. 

[NSW519]

I enjoyed reading your review - thank you for sharing your journey - pleased you made it home safely!