back from the Med: Voyager June 1-18

Coming up for a bit of air after too-total immersion in all sorts of catch-up chores. That'll be the case for a number of days, so I'll break periodically for my Regent "fix."

Flight to Venice was happily uneventful, and we landed eager to enjoy our 3 days pre-cruise in that marvelous city. Alas, as we were walking to meet the water taxi, I somehow tripped and fell flat on my face onto some rough concrete. Can't account for what happened, just remember winding up on the ground, with hard-slammed forehead and nose too; not to mention assorted knees and elbows (minor scrapes there). So we took my bloodied self back into the airport proper and I was cleaned up and bandaged (bigly) by the very nice first-aid people there. Then back to the taxi and on to Westin Europa (on Starwood points), which we've enjoyed on past trips. Had a fine room, plus the aghast person who checked us in comped us breakfast for the three days: nice. Didn't do as much walking around that arrival day as we usually do (was kinda all shook up), but enjoyed it plenty. Somewhat shaky the following days as well (as well as looking a little like "The Mummy"), but had an excellent time despite. Love that city!

Weather was perfect: as it was, in fact, the entire cruise (teensy bit of pretty drizzle in Taormina, perfect blue sky and sweet breezes whole rest of the trip.)

Wish we'd had another couple of days in Venice, but how disappointed can a person be when what's next is Voyager!

Forgot to mention: For the first time we did one of the free walking tours in Venice and enjoyed it very much. Rest of time enjoyed just winging it.

Back to the un-fun business of chores, bill-paying, etc. Will return anon. Btw, I'm jet-lagging more than usual, since our flight was delayed 8 hours (not so easy on these old and oldish folks). Wake-up call at 5:45, 3 hours before flight at airport in Barcelona-- only to learn that the flight was delayed 4 hours, which turned into 5+ hours-- and when we finally landed in Miami (can't remember how long the flight was, 9 hours?), we had a 2 1/2 hour haul over to Fl's west coast. Flying-- blah! (My husband manages to doze a bit; moi never.)

Back tomorrow.

Glad that you are back safely but sorry to learn about your fall. This seems to happen to all of us at one time or another.

Get some rest - looking forward to a detailed report.

Stay well!

Oh Poss so sorry to hear of your accident at the start of your much looked forward to cruise. Glad that you were able to rest and heal before boarding Voyager in Venice.

Very much Looking forward to your posts of the cruise. Jean.

Sounds like a nasty fall. Glad you're.well.

Will follow your report.

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Poss! Sounds like you are trying to imitate me with falling right before a cruise, but at least you didn't break anything. I must admit I have a little bit of fear of falling now, so understand exactly how you felt.

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip soon.

We were on the same cruise, will be interested to see you side of the cruise. I did a live blog which seemed to be received quite well by readers on here.

Sorry to hear about your fall.

Poss - sorry to hear about your fall - but it doesn't seem to have detracted much from your enjoyment of your cruise! Something about cruising, though - my wife and I have both taken spills on cruises at one time or another (her scraped and bruised, me with fractured hand bones - whee!) but somehow we power through and enjoy the heck out of them anyhow!

Glad you made it home okay - flight delays notwithstanding (I hate that) - and now you can start counting down the days until your next cruise, assuming you have one on the radar!

Thanks for responses. And Rachel, I absolutely did think of you when I took that tumble. Funny (or not so) how something like that tickles some new fear in the system.

So: Usually, I like to board ship pretty much soon as we can, but since we like Venice so much, we spent much of embarkation day prowling around one of the areas we hadn't had a chance to enjoy this time around. We boarded around 3:30, just walked on in, no lines of any sort; nice to be able to go straight to suite rather than cooling heels on pool deck or whatever (not a bad place to cool heels though!)

Immediately felt at home on Voyager. Nothing especially struck me as very different as we walked to our suite. I definitely liked the re-done suites (G, mid-ship, same as always). I'd been afraid we'd miss the chair beside the sofa, but actually we didn't; that might be because we found the new sofa more comfortable than the other. ABSOLUTELY missed the wall cabinets above the desk. We have lots of books, various sorts of papers and other assorted stuff: used to fit so nicely and out of the way in those glass cabinets. Stuff strewn around much more now: didn't like that one bit. room seemed much messier. But we did very much like the new materials and colors and of course found the bed as comfy as ever. Since I've got a lot of back pain these days, I was grateful for the tub, but I really do prefer Mariner bathrooms, with those wonderful showers. Voyager showers feel awfully cramped, though certainly "do-able" (and larger, I'm sure, than on many ships). I didn't like the new bath products at all (I always did before)-- didn't like a single one of them, all seemed watery and completely unluxurious. (Not a big deal.)

Bottom line: We are both very comfortable in those G suites-- which is a good thing because we probably spend significantly more time in them than most.

Meet and Greet: awful. I'm glad that many others have found the new CC/Regent way going to be working well and to their taste. The idea never appealed to me in the first place, but I thought I'd give it a chance (and would again I guess): no reason not to. The reason it didn't appeal is that the whole thing seemed very "commercial" to me. i.e., instead of a casual meeting of folks who'd gotten to know each other on roll call over the months . And I had no interest at all in having officers or staff there: much too "official" that way, too "business-like." (just my druthers)

I've got to say that I think part of the reason this get-together didn't work is that our roll-call was small and as inactive as I can ever remember a roll call being. Some folks posted once and never came back, or perhaps once; there's wasn't the kind of back-and-forth that has happened on other roll calls. And yet, 12 did sign up. Of those 10 people, I met exactly 2, the excellent "Destin Lovers," Mark and Susan (whom I believe some of you know). It was lovely to get to know them a bit over the 18 days of the cruise-- I felt immediate compatibility with them, and enjoyed them throughout.

But here's the most important reason (if I'm not mistaken) that this meet and greet didn't fly: The gathering was held (at around 6:00 I think, and I think on the 2nd evening) in the Horizon Lounge. Well, the HL was a very busy and unrelaxing place. People just everywhere, all milling around. There was a largish gathering of some other group (travel agents I believe?), and plenty of passengers just hanging out before dinner. I had NO CLUE where in that large room to go or whom I was supposed to meet (i.e. how to know them). I even asked several people whether they were with the Cruise Critic group, and they had no idea what I was talking about. I'm not the most comfortable kid on the block in social situations (my husband even less so), so I stepped outside to kind of gather courage to go into the fray once more. Happily, Mark and Susan found me as I was stepping back in: "Are you Poss?" they said-- and that made me one happy camper.

In short, I have no idea whether other CCers were there. Whether there may have been a jolly group of the other 8 somewhere in the vicinity, or whether most people didn't show up, or were wandering around wondering same thing we were. Ray S was in the vicinity, speaking with another couple, but, again, I have no idea if they were part of the CC group. Things were SO much better for past meetings, where the roll call group set up a time and place to gather when/where it'd be quiet and uncrowded and where people could sit and relax and actually get to know each other. For me, this supposed meet and greet was pretty much a total turn-off. (I'm not saying that the new way of going is a "mistake," just not my kind of thing. And this one didn't take off at all.)

More anon.

poss - really appreciate your view on Meet and Mingles. Unfortunately, this is more or less what I expected. No one knows how to arrange Meet and Greets better than passengers (with tor without the help of onboard staff).

Looking forward to learning more about your cruise.

We attended the meet and greet hoping to meet new friends, unfortunately as described above we had no idea who was who? I expected that someone would introduce them self and we would all introduce our self to each other, as said above there was another large group there, we gave up and left.

We attended the meet and greet hoping to meet new friends, unfortunately as described above we had no idea who was who? I expected that someone would introduce them self and we would all introduce our self to each other, as said above there was another large group there, we gave up and left.

We have used name tags, designated very specific areas of the lounge to meet in and have had no problems. Sorry that it did not work well for you. Our last meet and greet was on the Explorer - arranged by two of us from Roll Call and the F&B Director. We had the lounge to ourselves and it was great!

Our CC meet & mingle on Explorer was also something of a failure - only 2 of the 16 signed-up actually attended. I know that some did not receive their invitations, the timing was probably inconvenient (right after lifeboat drill on embarkation day) but I had not considered the venue chosen as a factor. It was the Meridian Lounge (midships Deck 5) and it was very busy. The meet was in a corner and although it was signposted, I could imagine some people taking one look and thinking 'perhaps not'.

I had welcomed the CC initiative on the basis that it made life easier but,on reflection, I think a meeting arranged by and among the participants in the roll call would be more likely to succeed in numerical terms on the basis that it would by definition be at a mutually convenient time and location.

Service:

I wasn't as impressed by the service this time, though a number of staff members were good and a few better than good. Though this aspect of the cruise experience is of real importance to many cruisers, it's not among the most important to us, so it didn't much affect our feelings about the cruise (which we loved, as usual). Our room attendant was ok, but in the past we've had attendants whom it was really fun to see each day and who genuinely seemed to enjoy their work. Not the case this time, though perfectly acceptable service. Whether the people who seem truly to enjoy their work actually feel that satisfaction, pleasure even, who knows? (One would hope that's the case.) But even the "seeming" makes for a better all-around feeling.

Particularly in the dining rooms, I had the sense that a number of the servers were simply going about the motions, i.e. not really "into" their job. Some were delightful and seemed to care a lot (Allison in Chartreuse for instance, and Lorenzo in Veranda), but others seemed almost like automatons. No doubt a good number of the crew are often quite tired, so I don't want to be harsh, but dining wasn't often an "up" experience from that angle (as it certainly had often been on past cruises). Again, this isn't of great importance to us, so it certainly didn't spoil any of the meals. (Except for our first evening in CR, where we had an almost sour server; we just stayed away from that section after that.) (The maitre d' of Chartreuse was another person who showed no signs of actually enjoying his job. I'm not sure I even once saw a smile on his face, even though we dined there 3 times.)

I'm not sure if what I'm about to say now is a matter of "service," but I'll put it here anyway. I'd been asking about laundry service, and for the most part things went well: great to have that service; didn't visit the self-laundry even once. One shirt was messed up in a weird way, but that didn't bother us much. What bothered me quite a bit was when the phone rang one night at 10:25. We were both sound asleep, and the phone jolted me awake. (Yup, we turn in early.) Lordie, I thought there was an emergency of some sort. Why would someone be contacting us at that time (especially since we had the privacy sign on the door)? Well, it was a call from the laundry (!) letting us know that one of my husband's undershirts had a tiny hole in it, and what did we want them to do. Huh?? I asked whether the question maybe couldn't have waited until morning, and the fellow admitted that he hadn't bothered checking to see if the privacy sign was out. But even if someone hadn't put the sign out, why in the world would such a minor question need to be answered at night? He even wanted to come to our suite right then to show me the hole. Very, very strange. I don't know how I managed not to chew him out. Maybe because I was too dumb-struck and sleepy, though I like to think it was out of civility.

More anon.

u

Thanks for responses. And Rachel, I absolutely did think of you when I took that tumble. Funny (or not so) how something like that tickles some new fear in the system.

 

So: Usually, I like to board ship pretty much soon as we can, but since we like Venice so much, we spent much of embarkation day prowling around one of the areas we hadn't had a chance to enjoy this time around. We boarded around 3:30, just walked on in, no lines of any sort; nice to be able to go straight to suite rather than cooling heels on pool deck or whatever (not a bad place to cool heels though!)

 

Immediately felt at home on Voyager. Nothing especially struck me as very different as we walked to our suite. I definitely liked the re-done suites (G, mid-ship, same as always). I'd been afraid we'd miss the chair beside the sofa, but actually we didn't; that might be because we found the new sofa more comfortable than the other. ABSOLUTELY missed the wall cabinets above the desk. We have lots of books, various sorts of papers and other assorted stuff: used to fit so nicely and out of the way in those glass cabinets. Stuff strewn around much more now: didn't like that one bit. room seemed much messier. But we did very much like the new materials and colors and of course found the bed as comfy as ever. Since I've got a lot of back pain these days, I was grateful for the tub, but I really do prefer Mariner bathrooms, with those wonderful showers. Voyager showers feel awfully cramped, though certainly "do-able" (and larger, I'm sure, than on many ships). I didn't like the new bath products at all (I always did before)-- didn't like a single one of them, all seemed watery and completely unluxurious. (Not a big deal.)

Bottom line: We are both very comfortable in those G suites-- which is a good thing because we probably spend significantly more time in them than most.

 

Meet and Greet: awful. I'm glad that many others have found the new CC/Regent way going to be working well and to their taste. The idea never appealed to me in the first place, but I thought I'd give it a chance (and would again I guess): no reason not to. The reason it didn't appeal is that the whole thing seemed very "commercial" to me. i.e., instead of a casual meeting of folks who'd gotten to know each other on roll call over the months . And I had no interest at all in having officers or staff there: much too "official" that way, too "business-like." (just my druthers)

 

I've got to say that I think part of the reason this get-together didn't work is that our roll-call was small and as inactive as I can ever remember a roll call being. Some folks posted once and never came back, or perhaps once; there's wasn't the kind of back-and-forth that has happened on other roll calls. And yet, 12 did sign up. Of those 10 people, I met exactly 2, the excellent "Destin Lovers," Mark and Susan (whom I believe some of you know). It was lovely to get to know them a bit over the 18 days of the cruise-- I felt immediate compatibility with them, and enjoyed them throughout.

 

But here's the most important reason (if I'm not mistaken) that this meet and greet didn't fly: The gathering was held (at around 6:00 I think, and I think on the 2nd evening) in the Horizon Lounge. Well, the HL was a very busy and unrelaxing place. People just everywhere, all milling around. There was a largish gathering of some other group (travel agents I believe?), and plenty of passengers just hanging out before dinner. I had NO CLUE where in that large room to go or whom I was supposed to meet (i.e. how to know them). I even asked several people whether they were with the Cruise Critic group, and they had no idea what I was talking about. I'm not the most comfortable kid on the block in social situations (my husband even less so), so I stepped outside to kind of gather courage to go into the fray once more. Happily, Mark and Susan found me as I was stepping back in: "Are you Poss?" they said-- and that made me one happy camper.

 

In short, I have no idea whether other CCers were there. Whether there may have been a jolly group of the other 8 somewhere in the vicinity, or whether most people didn't show up, or were wandering around wondering same thing we were. Ray S was in the vicinity, speaking with another couple, but, again, I have no idea if they were part of the CC group. Things were SO much better for past meetings, where the roll call group set up a time and place to gather when/where it'd be quiet and uncrowded and where people could sit and relax and actually get to know each other. For me, this supposed meet and greet was pretty much a total turn-off. (I'm not saying that the new way of going is a "mistake," just not my kind of thing. And this one didn't take off at all.)

 

More anon.

Oh, Poss, we were so delighted to wake up and see your blog about our wonderful journey on the Voyager. It was such a pleasure to meet both of you! Many thanks, Poss, for suggesting Mark take the tour to Lucca as he thoroughly enjoyed it. We searched the airport for you after we finally found the Sky Lounge and hope you were in another location for your long wait.

For those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting Poss and her sweet husband, we are sure you will agree they are the most cordial and fascinating couple.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Voyager for incredible service and great food which lasted our entire 17 days. We were able to dine in Prime 7 two extra nights. This was, however, a back to back cruise for some, and the 10 day second part was a totally different cruise. We were told that 57 children got on and the atmosphere drastically changed. We shared the Voyager Lounge and Observation Lounge with a precocious 4 year old who was the life of the party- for her family anyway! I believe there should be some adult only areas on the ship.

For future Voyager cruisers, we are jealous and wish you happy sailing!

u

ng Poss and her sweet husband, we are sure you will agree they are the most cordial and fascinating couple.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the Voyager for incredible service and great food which lasted our entire 17 days. We were able to dine in Prime 7 two extra nights. This was, however, a back to back cruise for some, and the 10 day second part was a totally different cruise. We were told that 57 children got on and the atmosphere drastically changed. We shared the Voyager Lounge and Observation Lounge with a precocious 4 year old who was the life of the party- for her family anyway! I believe there should be some adult only areas on the ship.

 

For future Voyager cruisers, we are jealous and wish you happy sailing!

Yes - the addition of 57 children would definitely change the atmosphere quite dramatically. This is why I suggest to sailing when school is not in session. Glad that you enjoyed the cruise despite the 4 year old and 57 children!

Poss, I would have reported the phone call in the middle of the night as, IMO, this is not acceptable! We will be on the Voyager next year and there will likely be a different crew onboard. Right now we are excited that the G.M. and one of our favorite servers that were on the Explorer will be on the Mariner when we get onboard!

Destin Lovers-- it was fun to see your post! I had such warm feelings towards you both, and, as I mentioned on board, I truly felt something "missing" the couple of days when our paths didn't cross. It took forever finally to locate the right lounge in the airport, and even though it was comfortable, hanging around for all those hours was not the most jolly part of our vacation. I hope that all went smoothly for you on the trip back. And of course I'm so glad that the Lucca excursion was a hit (and the Etruscans from Civi as well, also a favorite of ours).

Btw, I agree that the second leg of that fine itinerary was rather different from the first. In addition to all the kids (who didn't so much bother us, but then we don't spend time in lounges; in fact this time for some reason we never even stepped into the Observation Lounge-- too busy with other stuff I guess)-- anyway, in addition to the presence of kids and kiddies, we found that the dining rooms had a more casual feeling than the first part of the voyage. It seemed that a lot of younger folks boarded in Monte Carlo, and their dress was very much in the "hip" mode: untucked shirts, skinny pants and slinky dresses, lots of black, etc.

Since I'm mentioning dress, I guess I should note that during the whole itinerary there was the usual mix of older gentlemen wearing jacket and tie to dinner and plenty of others wearing casual shirt and pants, often short-sleeve shirts. I'd say that the dining rooms were less dressy than for other cruises. Except for a couple of exceptions, people didn't look sloppy though.

And that reminds me to say that FOR THE FIRST TIME, we were not freezing in any of the dining venues. Hooray! Still awfully cold (for us) in the hallways, but it was lovely to be comfortable otherwise.

Tc: Actually I did the next day mention to the laundry manager that strange late telephone call. I didn't come down hard, not even the littlest bit, and I made him promise first that he absolutely would not reprimand the fellow who made the mistake. But I sure didn't want anyone else being bothered, so I urged him to please make a general statement to his crew about appropriate calling hours.

fudge: Sorry we didn't get a chance to meet, but very glad you enjoyed your voyage.

I'll probably talk about dining next, or maybe excursions. Meanwhile, if there are any questions, I hope readers will ask away. (Though there's not a whole lot of action on this thread. And I know that people much prefer the "live" reports, but for several reasons, I just can't do those.)

Hi Poss, i'm really enjoying your description of your cruise.

Thank you, and looking forward to the next instalment.

Pam.

Thanks for sharing your Voyager cruise experience (Good & not so good).

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Thanks for sharing your Voyager cruise experience (Good & not so good).

 

 

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Wes and Ida, glad you have chimed in. I also love your blogs and pics. Hope you are both well. :)

Hi Pam, thanks for your kind words. Don't want to get to far off Poss's thread topic (poss pls excuse this minor off topic post).

We're doing well: Ida spent the month of June teaching 72 children basic swim skills ages 3-12 (24 each week, 8 per hour) and has made a life skill difference for these kids. And, just three years ago Ida did not even know how to swim.

We are also "journey proud" (meaning we are in the anxious/can't wait to cruise again mode (about a 20 days out). Tho, we studied Regent Norway itineraries while on board the Voyager (Jan-Mar) planning to book on board--the Navigator and Explorer Norway itineraries fell short of the ports we wanted to experience in Norway. We board the Silversea Silver Wind in your neck of the woods next month at London Tower Bridge and then head to 13 different (Flam railway oh boy) Norwegian ports before returning to London Tower Bridge.

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How fabulous!!!

I have sent you a FB message, hope and anticipating the next update from Poss! :D

Pam.

Thanks for ringing in, Pam and Wes. And Wes, you may pursue any tangents you'd like. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but to say again: You and Rachel and Travelcat are responsible for our latching on to Regent a decade or so ago, when we were just beginning to entertain the idea of cruising (which we didn't think we'd much like-- ha!). The three of you were so patient with all my questions, so generous with your time, and so informative and enthusiastic, that we took the bait and have been grooving along ever since.

I'll report on excursions now, even though I've always had the sense that it's an aspect of reports that readers are less interested in than in hearing reactions about the ship. For us, it's one of the most important things, so I'll give it some space here anyway.

I should mention that as the years have passed, my husband and I find ourselves less able to do the kinds of excursions we used to most enjoy, i.e. the active ones. Also, we're not so good at the long days anymore: 7+ hours are too much for us now, though we did do one 8 hour excursion on this trip and survived quite nicely. We also have a real tough time hauling out of bed very early, so sometimes I actually choose excursions based on when one has to be ready. We'd been (sometimes several times) to more than half of the ports, and sometimes we repeated tours that we'd much enjoyed in the past, sometimes tried new tours in familiar ports. And we looked forward to the new ones. There were five tender ports on this itinerary, and that was something I wasn't looking forward to, especially as I know that sometimes those ports have to be skipped. But we lucked out: The weather was glorious every single day (one day of gentle rain for a few hours), and the seas were calm-- so no trouble at all with the tenders. Of course it's more of a bother tendering, takes more time, etc.-- but no big deal.

Ought to say something about Destination Services. E.g. I remembered that they are never exactly the most cheery of staff members, and that held for this crew too. Nothing actually unpleasant, but none of the people behind that desk (or in the theater) seemed to be much enjoying the job. I also wish that they knew more about the details of the tours, but they really do not. I understand that it'd be difficult for them to know all the ins and outs, but the basic cluelessness (except what was described in print) is sometimes frustrating. And I think that at least one of the descriptions was pretty far off-base in rating the level of difficulty. (Every person on this tour felt this.)

Before I launch into talking about which excursions we did in those 17 days, I ought to say that we enjoyed each of them, some more than others naturally, but we were quite pleased. And as I've noted in other posts,we're among the folks who really, really appreciate the included excursions. It's one of the reasons we chose Regent to begin with, and we've been generally very pleased. (Don't mind buses, e. g., and don't mind the group-thing.)

Have too much to do to write more now, so will return tomorrow. Sorry I don't have that nice way of condensing comments and ordering them for easy reading.

Poss, you are doing great. I love your candor! Feel encouraged...I look forward to reading more!

poss, your posts are always delightful and thank you for your kind comment.

Despite our dislike for most excursions, bus rides, crowds, etc., I understand that this is a big draw for some Regent customers and I understand why they continue them (but honestly do not understand why passengers that are not interested in them cannot "opt out" for a credit).

The most surprising thing that I have read on this thread is about the service. As you know, this is unusual and is concerning. I wonder if there was a high percentage of new crew members or ??? Since I'm lazy tonight (too lazy to back one page), could you please tell us who the G.M. was as I don't recall you mentioning her/him. In terms of Destination Services in all of our years of sailing Regent, our last cruise was the first time that I had something positive to say about them. OTOH, I have written to corporate because their service/attitude has been so poor (this was in addition to speaking with the G.M. - but the "incident" was really over the top and I doubt if it would happen again).

I'm looking forward to hearing about your excursions - especially since it is unlikely that we will ever be on one of them but might book a private tour to see places of interest.

Thank you, forgap and Tc.

Tc: I feel a little (but just a little) the same way about opting out of alcohol as you do about excursions. That may sound like an odd comparison, but from the way some people on these boards talk about seemingly non-stop drinking, and from what I sometimes see on the ships, it seems to me that they consume about the same money's worth of included alcohol as we do of included excursions. Probably no real way to measure such things, and, anyway, we do have 2 glasses of wine each at dinner, so I wouldn't want to opt out completely. And what about the folks who eat gargantuan amounts of food as compared to those who are more temperate? And we never go to shows; obviously, our opting out of them (and most of the other activities on board) doesn't lower our bottom line. I know these comparisons don't really hold up: Just saying cruisers on Regent are often paying for things that they're not involved in.

I bet you'll not be surprised to hear that I don't know the name of the GM (had a dinner invitation, but declined: no interest in that sort of thing). I know it wasn't Frank G or Davor. I think I hadn't heard the name before, but I would recognize it from a list. He didn't seem very lively or much the mixing type. Ray Solaire was the CD, a little ray of sunshine, for sure. Felice was captain. Like the GM, he seemed considerably less involved and "user-friendly" than some of the other captains.

About the service: I hope you don't get the wrong idea. Remember that Destin Lover found the service very good, and I think that fudge may have said same. First of all (I think I already said this), service isn't a big deal to us, so the sometimes lack of cheeriness, engagement and industriousness that I noticed didn't mar my enjoyment. (My husband pays no attention whatsoever to things like service. He just totally grooves on the whole shebang.) The gaff by the laundry chap didn't make my day, but also no big deal. I don't think I mentioned yet that, like others, I found the service at the pool fairly wanting. People coming around offering drinks were few and far between, especially on deck 12, but definitely scarce on pool deck as well. And towel set-ups weren't changed with any regularity. Empty, used chairs just sat around without anyone bothering to make them usable again. As in every other area of the ship, of course there were some attentive crew, but it seemed more than usual that many were lackadaisical. (We were seated on the pool deck for lunch one day, in fact at a not very busy time, and no one came around to take drink orders for more than 10 minutes. I finally got up and asked for water myself. Didn't bother me, just sayin'.)

I guess I'll take a break and come back later. Ta ta.