Grandeur Review

[misand]

Background: My husband and I have been on 2 cruises before. One on the Grand Princess and one on the Carnival Victory. We enjoyed both cruises before so our expectations were high. This was our first cruise taking the children.

Hotel: Stayed the night before at the Holiday Inn Westbank. Rooms looked to have been recently remodeled. Outside not as nice.

Embarkation: Very smooth! We arrived about 11:15. We were on the ship within 10 minutes.

Ship: We stayed on Deck 2 in two adjoining rooms. This worked great. We had a connecting door that we left open all the time. Beds were surprisingly good, but not near as good as Carnival. No real amenities like Carnival either. If you have children definitely get the adjoining rooms. We thought the ship was in very good condition. The dining room was beautiful. My favorite deck was the promenade deck, we would always go out there before dinner.

Dining: We had early seating. This works very well if you have children. They have a children's menu. My oldest who was 8 chose to eat off the adult the whole time. My youngest fell asleep at the table 4 out of the 7 nights. Singh was our waiter, he was great. So was our assistant waiter Jesse. I never had to cut up any of my childrens food. My favorite soup was the potato and jalepeno soup. Yum. The grill food was average. Carnival's pizza is a thousand times better. Breakfast was very good at the buffet and the dining room.

Activities: My husband and DD tried the rock climbing. I participated in the morning walking. It is very hard to walk that top deck when it is so breezy. We went to a few shows. They were okay, but just too tired by the late evening.

Adventure Ocean: The staff is superb. My oldest loved it. Youngest did until it was dinosaur night. Both of them still talk about the Pirate parade. My oldest had a hard time choosing whether to stay with us and dance by the pool or go to AO. We loved the deck parties. The pool is also great, especially for the younger kids. There is an area that is shallow to play in.

Ports: Grand Cayman: Much better than last time. We hired a taxi. He took us to Hell, Rum Cake Factory and to seven mile beach. There is still quite a bit of damage from the hurricane 2 years ago.

Costa Maya: Our favorite! We took the bus to the town. Ate at the Cat's Meow. Food was very good. It was picturesque sitting there by the water. After lunch we went down the beach farther and played in the water. The beach and water area was so soft and sandy. Great for kids. If I could spend the whole vacation at this beach I would have. $5 per person to get to the town and back.

Cozumel: We took a cab to Paradise Beach. My husband and kids didn't like this beach near as well. There were big boulders out in the water. It was still fun, but the kids were a little scared. You can't walk out very far before you can't touch. They had the iceberg, trampoline, kayaks and snorkeling. We liked the kayaks. The trampoline was a ways out. By the time you got out there you were tired. Food was very good.

Overall: We would go back in a minute. Kids loved it. They keep asking when can we go again. Any questions feel free to ask!

[UTMtnman]

We just got off of the Granduer from a B2B from New Orleans to Baltimore and we had Singh as our waiter. He was very good we enjoyed him.

[isujim]

Thanks for the review..........we sail on this particular ship for the first time in September and very much are looking forward to it.:)