Just off Serenade... And an apology

[Darkwolfe]

Just off Serenade this morning. Great cruise, but doggone it all, it ended.

 

I'd like to apologize for the live thread I attempted to start but bombed out on. We got so busy, that I barely got my notes down for the review.

 

Our flight (still in SJU) was just called so I'll bail until we get home late tonight.

[wrp96]

Missed the live from posts, but glad you had a great time!!!

[MAGNUM PI]

No apology needed; you had a great cruise!

 

Serenade is my personal favorite ship; by the way............

 

MAGNUM

[ASeaPrincess1]

Just off Serenade this morning. Great cruise, but doggone it all, it ended.

 

I'd like to apologize for the live thread I attempted to start but bombed out on. We got so busy, that I barely got my notes down for the review.

 

Our flight (still in SJU) was just called so I'll bail until we get home late tonight.

Darn! I HATE when that happens!:eek:

[dirtgirl]

Welcome back!:)

[teresapink]

Wecome home!

I have a quick question...do you know if the TV's on the Serenade have been upgrades? The last photos I saw were from 2006 and they did not have flat screens at the time.....just wondering!

T

[missbogota]

No TV upgrade in the Grand Suite I stayed in last week.

[BroncosFan2010]

Welcome Back! In just 6 weeks I will be on this cruise! I cannot wait! I have a few questions, if you don't mind answering them for me??

 

1. Were there beach towels in your room, or did you have to get them from the pool?

2. How was the food?

3. Did they open the roof of the Solarium, or was it closed the whole time?

 

Thanks!!! I cannot wait to sail!

[missbogota]

Welcome Back! In just 6 weeks I will be on this cruise! I cannot wait! I have a few questions, if you don't mind answering them for me??

 

1. Were there beach towels in your room, or did you have to get them from the pool?

2. How was the food?

3. Did they open the roof of the Solarium, or was it closed the whole time?

 

Thanks!!! I cannot wait to sail!

 

Thank you so much! It was the cleanest, prettiest, best cruise we have ever had!

 

1. Yes we had beach towels in our room everyday.

2. The food was awesome! People that complain on this forum, just like to complain if you ask me... Chops and Portofinos is well worth the extra charge if you are interested. The windjammer has such a large selection, I can't imagine not finding something you like. We ate dinner in there 3 nights because it was so good and quick!

3. The roof was opened only a very small amount (3 ft.). Nice place to read and take a nap.

 

Enjoy your trip...Of course I know that will!!!

[BroncosFan2010]

Thank you so much! It was the cleanest, prettiest, best cruise we have ever had!

 

1. Yes we had beach towels in our room everyday.

2. The food was awesome! People that complain on this forum, just like to complain if you ask me... Chops and Portofinos is well worth the extra charge if you are interested. The windjammer has such a large selection, I can't imagine not finding something you like. We ate dinner in there 3 nights because it was so good and quick!

3. The roof was opened only a very small amount (3 ft.). Nice place to read and take a nap.

 

Enjoy your trip...Of course I know that will!!!

 

 

Thanks for the info! Was there a Midnight buffet on this sailing? I heard there was not one on an earlier sailing.

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

No apology necessary....glad you had a good time, can't wait to hear more!

 

***

[deppong]

did they have the crepe station?

[S&C2]

We have been on Serande twice....love it!!!!. No flat screens yet.

[Darkwolfe]

I forgot that I had to do a PC repair before I could post. I started this thread from the "Crackberry" :D

 

deppong- Never saw a crepes station at all.

 

Mokaheena-

No beach towels in the room. (Quite possibly because I did tell our room attendant that we were very low maintenance and she could keep things very simple for us.) Poolside seemed to be out most of the time too. (Very odd)

Food is so subjective it's silly. One of our group of four is pretty particular, but he usually found something in the WJ even if it took a try or two. MDR was very good in my opinion and Chops was spectacular.

Solarium was never opened. But, that was just as well as we kept hitting little rain showers. However, go swimming in there when you have 10 foot seas at night (open 24 hours) makes for a fun wave pool!:)

Midnight buffet took place and there was a lot of food. Fancy sculpturing was way reduced though. Not really a loss if you think about it. Cuts back on both waste and expense.

 

teresapink- No TV upgrades that I saw. I don't think Serenade has had the bedding upgrade either as of yet. 1604 (our cabin) had bedding that was a good bit stiffer that what we had on Enchantment.

 

Thanks for the understanding folks! I appreciate it. Hopefully I'll get the full review posted in the next day or two. Seemed to have gotten a light bug on the way home though. DW and I both had some dizzy spells today, but we're both feeling better this evening.

[dirtgirl]

I forgot that I had to do a PC repair before I could post. I started this thread from the "Crackberry" :D

 

deppong- Never saw a crepes station at all.

 

Mokaheena-

No beach towels in the room. (Quite possibly because I did tell our room attendant that we were very low maintenance and she could keep things very simple for us.) Poolside seemed to be out most of the time too. (Very odd)

Food is so subjective it's silly. One of our group of four is pretty particular, but he usually found something in the WJ even if it took a try or two. MDR was very good in my opinion and Chops was spectacular.

Solarium was never opened. But, that was just as well as we kept hitting little rain showers. However, go swimming in there when you have 10 foot seas at night (open 24 hours) makes for a fun wave pool!:)

Midnight buffet took place and there was a lot of food. Fancy sculpturing was way reduced though. Not really a loss if you think about it. Cuts back on both waste and expense.

 

teresapink- No TV upgrades that I saw. I don't think Serenade has had the bedding upgrade either as of yet. 1604 (our cabin) had bedding that was a good bit stiffer that what we had on Enchantment.

 

Thanks for the understanding folks! I appreciate it. Hopefully I'll get the full review posted in the next day or two. Seemed to have gotten a light bug on the way home though. DW and I both had some dizzy spells today, but we're both feeling better this evening.

 

Ack - no crepes!:(

 

Hope you feel better soon.;)

[Thomas2280]

Just to let everyone know before rumors start flying, yes we returned to St. Maarten after setting sail. The reason we turned back to St. Maarten was because a crew member ended up with appendicitis and had to be removed from the ship. The crew member is doing well. I got this information from a reliable source.

 

As for the "Gala Buffet" RCCL stopped doing this on all of their ships this past year due to waste of food. No flat screen tv's yet.

[Pumbaamd]

We here in Maryland are waiting for a report from Annieeee, who was on your Serenade cruise. Did you sea her?

Annieeee, where are you?

Rick and Deirdra

[Pepperwood]

did they have the crepe station?

 

Yes, the pizza cafe in the Solarium also made crepes to order (chocolate, strawberry or butterscotch). The station was open for limited hours though, usually 2-7 pm and 11pm-3am. Check your Compass for exact hours each day.

[Annieeee]

We here in Maryland are waiting for a report from Annieeee, who was on your Serenade cruise. Did you sea her?

Annieeee, where are you?

Rick and Deirdra

 

Hi Rick and Deirdra,

 

I am home and freezing! I need to turn around and go back! I had a terrific cruise. We had a day in port for 5 straight days, only sea day was the last day and that was Friday. Will write more about it later.

 

I met Darkwolfe and his wife, Bill and Rosie, DGS and his wife, a few folks from Ontario, Canada and a few others at the Sky Bar prior to sailaway and a few more at Meet & Mingle.

 

Catch you later.

 

Annieeee

[Annieeee]

Yes, the pizza cafe in the Solarium also made crepes to order (chocolate, strawberry or butterscotch). The station was open for limited hours though, usually 2-7 pm and 11pm-3am. Check your Compass for exact hours each day.

 

 

Pepperwood, were you on the tour with us in St Lucia? Besides us, (Annieeee and Robin)there was a young girl named Karen, and I think she was with her mom and dad, another Karen who was with us, and also Ron and Alexis, and a couple from Ontario. Think we were on mini van # 74. Jean Claude was our driver, and if you were on that van, you might remember me. I am the one that asked the driver if anyone had ever asked him to pull over to the side of the road cause they had to go tinkle and there were no restooms nearby. Fortunately for me, the driver knew of one close by and whew, I was able to make a pit stop. It was all that free Piton Beer, rumpunch and that moonshine :D !

 

Annieeee

[Darkwolfe]

Just to let everyone know before rumors start flying, yes we returned to St. Maarten after setting sail. The reason we turned back to St. Maarten was because a crew member ended up with appendicitis and had to be removed from the ship. The crew member is doing well. I got this information from a reliable source.

 

As for the "Gala Buffet" RCCL stopped doing this on all of their ships this past year due to waste of food. No flat screen tv's yet.

 

Thomas, they did have the midnight buffet out by the pool. I was there. So far as I know, Midnight and Gala buffets are the same thing. (shrug)

 

As for the return to St Maarten, that was an interesting sight. All the sudden we went from 8kts to over 19kts. We took back 2 hours distance in 30 minutes. All they said at the C&A meeting was that there was a precautionary return due to a medical issue. That was the last I heard about it.

[BroncosFan2010]

Thanks for the information everyone! I am glad to hear there was some kind of buffet on board! My parents are first time cruisers, and I believe my father is more excited about a midnight buffet than anything else. I would hate to have gotten him all excited for nothing!

[pumkinsmom]

We just came off as well. This was our 3rd cruise on Serenade, 2nd year in a row, same week.

 

We had an aft cabin deck 9, no towels, but another couple traveling with us 5 cabins down had towels. We both had same cabin attendant, Maria, who was excellent. Go figure. No problem with getting them at the pool, they didn't even write your cabin# down. One other note, the deck patrol was great on Fri morn watching the chair hogs.

 

We found the food in the MDR somewhat disapointing this cruise. We ate there 3 times, Chops once, which was excellent as usual, and the WJ 3 times. We felt like the food in the WJ for dinner was much better. There was a sushi bar, an oriental station, other entree's , and salads, and a chef's corner, which was very good. The chefs corner had a special selection prepared by the head WJ chef each night.(at least that is what the sign said) We ate in the MDR on nights 1,3,6. The fishermans plate on night 6 was ok, but not as good as previous cruises. Other selections on the other nights we had seemed dryed out and actually cold. Our DR waiters, Pedro and Al, were great, so no problems there.

We have been on 5 cruises in the last 13 months, so we pretty much know the menus and what to expect, but again it is our opinion.

 

No flat screenTVs in the rooms yet.

 

Don't recall the solarium roof ever open, on any of our 3 cruises on Serenade

 

Midnight buffet (pool party) was excellent.

[Pepperwood]

Pepperwood, were you on the tour with us in St Lucia? Besides us, (Annieeee and Robin)there was a young girl named Karen, and I think she was with her mom and dad, another Karen who was with us, and also Ron and Alexis, and a couple from Ontario. Think we were on mini van # 74. Jean Claude was our driver, and if you were on that van, you might remember me. I am the one that asked the driver if anyone had ever asked him to pull over to the side of the road cause they had to go tinkle and there were no restooms nearby. Fortunately for me, the driver knew of one close by and whew, I was able to make a pit stop. It was all that free Piton Beer, rumpunch and that moonshine :D !

 

Annieeee

 

Yep, the couple from Ontario was us--the ones that kept you waiting because I was waiting for DW to help her up the steep driveway after "brunch" and she found a staircase behind me...:)

 

I will be posting some photos of the tour day sometime this week, watch our meet & mingle board for them.