Just off Splendour of the Seas - Great cruise!

[jwolf2006]

There's been a lot of chatter lately about Splendour of the Seas,so I thought I'd write a short note about the eight day cruise from Venice that just finished Saturday. As a summary we had a great time, as did almost everyone we talked to. A few comments of the things that have been discussed:

 

Ship: The Splendour was in excellent shape. It showed some wear that you would expect from a 10 year old ship (e.g. some cracked plastic at the bottom of our shower stall) but was clean and well maintained. We loved the size. It was easy to get around and we didn't miss the ice rink, promenade, or ten extra bars! The Solarium was great for relaxing, especially in warm weather since they kept the roof closed and it got some cooling from the ships AC. You could also get made-to-order crepes there

 

Crew: The crew was as good as I've seen on any other ship, always friendly and helpfull.

 

Passengers: It was a wonderful mix of nationalities. The majority were english speaking with lots of English and Scots in addition to the Americans. But also significant numbers of french, italians, and Spanish speaking passengers. With very few exceptions, everyone was friendly and courteous.

 

Meals: As has been mentioned before, the standard fare in the Windjammer and Dining Room is more "banquet quality" than "good restaurant" quality. The appetizers and desserts were excellent, but the main courses were a little hit and miss. But if you didn't like what you got, our waiter quickly brought you someting else.

 

Entertainment: Again, quality varied. Production numbers were good, an excellent humorous and talented string quartet, a fun magician, and an awful tenor (way over the top).

 

Ports and Excursions:

 

Split: Walked old town on our own using Rick Steves guidebook

 

Crete: Good ships tour to Knossos and Old Town

 

Kusadasi: Excellent tour of Ephesus through Ekol

 

Santorini: Good ships tour of Oia, Winery, and Thira

 

Corfu: Walked old town on our own

 

In all, it was a wonderful cruise. This, of course, is my opinion but it was at least shared by all of our table mates and many other people that I talked to. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Please excuse any typo's since we just flew back to Chicago today and my body and mind think its 5 AM!

[sakana]

Thanks for your review. We're sailing on the Splendour of the Seas in October (slightly different itinerary), and I was starting to worry a little about the bad press. Especially disheartening are reviews about horrendous food. It's not like you can leave and take your business to another restaurant - you're trapped.

 

A recent thread here also had some encouraging comments, so I'm feeling a little more confident about our new experience. I booked our cruise specifically because of the itinerary, my mom was looking at a longer Med cruise on the Navigator, but the Splendour's itinerary spoke to me.

 

PS Is there anything that really stood out in Corfu that you'd recommend?

[JennJ99738]

Thank you, jwolf2006, for posting your review. I firmly believe that people who are dissatisfied will post far more often than people who were happy with their cruise. There is a saying that a happy customer will tell 2 people-- an unhappy one will tell 10.

 

I'm on Splendour on 10/11, also with the slightly different itinerary (Dubrovnik instead of Split and no Crete). Could it be the same cruise, Sakana?

 

Anything on board you think we shouldn't miss, food, entertainment or otherwise?

[sakana]

It is indeed the same cruise, Jenn! I posted to the Roll Call section but only a couple people responded... http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=795529

 

Ditto to jenn's question about "not to miss" on the ship.

[JennJ99738]

I just posted on the roll call. Thanks for the link, Sakana. I'll get around to posting on the M&M, too.

[jwolf2006]

Nothing really exceptional in Corfu. The two forts around the old town were interesting and impressive. The town itself, like in Split, had become a collection of shops selling all kinds of jewelry, tourist goods, etc. On the walk back to the ship (they did have a shuttle from the pier to old town but we badly needed the excercise after seven days of eating) we stopped and had some wonderful Greek Salads at Pizza Pete's overlooking the harbor and with beautiful clear water below. The waiters would throw in extra bread and the small fish would attack it with vigor! We were'nt interested in just driving around the coutryside or visiting the nineteenth century palace of another mad Hapsburg princess, so we just took it easy (it was our fourth port in four days).

[JennJ99738]

We were'nt interested in just driving around the coutryside or visiting the nineteenth century palace of another mad Hapsburg princess, so we just took it easy (it was our fourth port in four days).

 

LOL :D Where did you see other palaces of crazy Hapsburg princesses? Seems just up my alley!

[margbem]

Thanks for your review - we are going on Splendour in late September and at one point we considered cancelling because of the bad reviews. It's good to hear positive news!!

[sakana]

Thanks jwolf,

 

It does seem like Corfu is a "take it easy" port - and that will probably be welcome towards the end of the cruise. We'll likely walk into town and take a look, but I'm not going to feel any particular pressure to do so.

[Pitcruiser]

We are also just off this cruise - were in Owners Suite 8002. While we had a great time, wanted to note a few things:

 

Cabins in the forward port area of the ship from decks 6 to 8 had ongoing problems with toilets not flushing for three days - problem apparently started on last two days of previous cruise. Multiple calls to maintenance and guest services (my last couple calls were simply saying "8002 toilet" - they would laugh and say OK we will send someone) - the need to get dressed and go to midship public bathrooms for those "middle of the night" visits, etc. RCCL eventually responded by giving us a 25% discount on a future cruise for our inconvenience.

 

8002, while a very nice cabin, is directly under the Windjammer, and very noisy while food prep and cleanup is going on. Not just carts rolling, which we were prewarned about, but also very loud banging, crashes from dropped items, etc. The fun usually started about 5:30am and woke us up every morning.

 

The Windjammer food was generally pretty good - much better than what we had on Liberty last summer. Dinner menus were a little uneven - first formal night was great menu with a lot of good choices, second formal night it was hard to find something we wanted to eat (the recommended choice was vegetable paella - bring back lobster or at least a real filet!).

 

On Corfu, we took a tour to the crazy princess palace, but if we had it to do over again would just take the shuttle into Corfu, visit the forts and walk around. It really is a port to take it easy in.

 

Finally, a note on Santorini. There were five ships all tendering in, and the small port area at the base of the cliff was an absolute mob scene when we were dropped on it after the volcano tour. So crowded it was almost impossible to move, made even more pleasant by the quaint European custom of ignoring lines and just pushing and shoving to get wherever you want to be. The line for the cable car was huge so we elected to ride donkeys to the top using the vouchers given us by the tour. The "donkey wranglers" wanted nothing to do with the tickets, and were demanding Euros from people - those willing to pay were pulled out of line and jumped around the rest of us. After finally getting them to honor the tickets the ride up the hill was scary also, especially when herds of the critters coming back down the hill would run through us really banging up our legs. The view from the top was fantastic, but it was so crowded that we only spent a few minutes, then joined the long cable car line, fought off the line jumpers and returned to the ship.

 

Again, all in all a great cruise. It was nice being back on a smaller ship after three cruises on the big guys. Spent one day pre-cruise and two days post-cruise in Venice which is a wonderful city. Major festival blocked the main canal on return so ship docked in cargo port and tendored us to the cruise terminal area. Fantastic fireworks the first night back in Venice connected with the festival - watched them from St. Marks Square.

[sakana]

Wow, sorry about your toilet!

 

Is porttime.com accurate? If it is, we're the only ship in Santorini on my (and Jenn's!) cruise (in fact, all our ports are relatively uncrowded). That should reduce the crowds a little, right? I'm imagining since we're in the cheapest inside room they sell that we'll be the last ones off the ship, though. ;) For now, I'm thinking we can walk up the hill, but who knows how we'll feel when we get there! We've rented a scooter, that sounded like fun.

 

Here's a silly question, can you get honey on the ship? I love honey in my tea.

[Pitcruiser]

Can't say I saw honey, but I don't drink tea and was looking for cream and sugar for my coffee. Just take a little bottle buried in your checked luggage - seal it up in a baggie.

 

As for walking up the stairs at Santorini - it is a really long multiple switchback set of 500+ stairs. Talked to people who did it and they enjoyed taking their time and walking up, except for the crazy period when they said it was really scary dodging donkeys running down and walking up - the donkeys are not being led but just walk up and run down the hill, and the rider can't stear them - steps are covered with (mostly) dried donkey poo so don't wear you favorite shoes! If it isn't crowded pay the cable car ride up (only 3 or 4 Euro, which at current exchange rates is $4, 206!) then walk down - let gravity do the work.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

[sakana]

Good advise, thanks! You brought up another very important point...they do have real cream, I hope? I have to have real cream for my real coffee (bringing my plastic melitta drip filter and coffee and getting hot water, it sounds suspiciously like the ships serve that liquid nescafe concentrate stuff). If they don't have cream, there's another thing to add to my grocery list.

 

Since we'll be in Italy a few days before the cruise, it shouldn't be too hard to buy these supplies before we board...

[Pitcruiser]

Ship had half and half. Coffee was brewed from ground coffee - think 7-11 or CoGo for quality - there is also a Seattle's Best kiosk on the Centrum on deck 6 across from the picture studio - I know my wife and daughter were buying coffees there each night after the show.

 

Since this is your first cruise let me make a suggestion - don't go expecting to recreate the way you would normally structure things in your own life - you will fixate on small things that are bothering you rather than enjoying the experience. Cruising is all about rolling with the punches and not letting the inevitable problems ruin your vacation. Even though Splendour is one of RCCLs smaller ships, there are still over 1.900 passengers on board, and they are serving meals in large buffet or banquet settings. The bigger ships have cook to order in their specialty restaurants, which you pay an upcharge to use. There are no specialty restaurants on Splendour - just the Windjammer (buffet), the King and I dining room (main and late dinner seatings - banquet style food), and a cafe in the Solarium Pool with burgers, hot dogs, pizza and sandwiches. If a special cup of coffee or tea is really important to your day enjoy it in one of the thousands of really cool places you will see on shore. We really enjoyed our dinners in Venice in little restaurants outside along the canals - it sure beats Olive Garden! Just don't do the dollar to Euro exchange rate in your head while you are ordering.

[jwolf2006]

Quick added note on Santorini. I had checked the "ships in port" and saw 5 large ships listed so I signed up for the ships Oia/Winery/Thira tour. We got to the staging lounge early, were in the first tender and bus to Oia and had a relatively uncrowded hour to walk around (by the end was getting crowded). Went to Thira and then took the cable car down at about 11:30. No wait for the cable car, but at the bottom there was chaos! Huge line waiting to go up (over an hour wait) but the real problem was that one of the other ships was leaving around noon and their tendering station was just opposite the cable car station. The result was almost total gridlock that we had to slowly plow though. However, when we looked from the ship an hour later it looked totally cleared up so probably bad timing.

 

But the bathrooms in our little inside cabin worked fine!

[bmc1955]

We also were on the same cruise that finished on July 19 in Venice, and have almost identical comments and feelings as expressed by Jwolf. We loved the small size and the interesting mix of nationalities, found the ship to be just fine even though there were little signs of age here and there, and ate ourselves silly at every meal (diet, here we come....). if you go expecting gourmet restaurant food, you are bound to be disappointed; we went in thinking the food experience would be more or less like staying at a big resort type hotel in Hawaii or somewhere like that - when they have to cater for so many people in such a short space of time, you are bound to lose a little in quality. That said, I cannot recall us ever finishing a meal thinking "that wasn't so good" - we were there for the cruise experience and the ports (wow!) , and the food was really secondary.

 

We also did the ships tour in Santorini so escaped the crowds going up- by the time we were ready to head back, which was about 2pm, the lines at the top were horrendous, so we opted to walk down- let's just say that gave us a fun story to talk about! Still, I would not have missed Santorini for anything- I almost told the family to get back on the ship and leave without me, so I could stay there and just look at the views forever. The funniest thing was listening to some of the people in the line (not from our ship) who were aghast and acted like they had not had any idea that it could be that bad or that there was no other way to get down. Obviously they had not done their homework by reading the posts on Cruisecritic...

 

Two little "dislikes" - internet access was not great (but then I should not have been trying to work on vacation, right?) and TOWEL HOGS by the pool! No towel patrol that I saw, which was a shame.

 

Last thing- if possible, don't even consider a trip like this without spending at least one extra day in Venice - what a magical, unique city.

 

Happy to answer any questions too.

[heatherb1958]

Wow, sorry about your toilet!

 

Is porttime.com accurate? If it is, we're the only ship in Santorini on my (and Jenn's!) cruise (in fact, all our ports are relatively uncrowded). That should reduce the crowds a little, right? I'm imagining since we're in the cheapest inside room they sell that we'll be the last ones off the ship, though. ;) For now, I'm thinking we can walk up the hill, but who knows how we'll feel when we get there! We've rented a scooter, that sounded like fun.

 

Here's a silly question, can you get honey on the ship? I love honey in my tea.

 

Hi sakana,

we were also on this cruise and had a wonderful time. We ate in the Windjammer for all evening meals and the food was lovely. To answer your question about honey , yes it is available. I have it in natural yoghurt for breakfast :) . You will find it in the baskets with the jams and marmalade. If it is important to you I would take a few sachets to keep in your cabin. When I was on Legend last year they ran out half way through the cruise but it didn't happen on this one:D .

 

The roll call thread for the cruise is still active with responses to people's questions. If you have any others, post them there:) .