george layla

Miss G,

Your journey is very interesting, since we are leaving on a transatlantic from Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, also stopping in the Azores and proceeding to (different)  ports in the UK, France and elsewhere.

To help us pack, I would appreciate your reactions on how warm the temperature was outside on sea days, both from FLL to the Azores and from the Azores to France.  How about the temperatures inside in the public areas?

Thanks for your help.

I was recently on the Sun, and found the ship provided library rather idiosyncratic. Someone in charge likes really long biographies and specialized histories. If that suits you, you should do fine. Otherwise very few novels (though I found a good William Trevor novella) and nothing on the area or ports we were visiting. Since the ship had recently gone into service, the exchange shelf had few volumes. Probably a good idea to load up the Kindle.

Thanks for the review. We were on the same cruise and also on deck 7. I generally agree with your assessment of the cruise and particularly the food. Lunch salads in the MDR were great and Giovanni's was disappointing, both in food and service. Chops, on the other hand, was terrific. We usually went later to Windjammer and never had a problem finding seats,though we frequently shared the larger tables.We thought the service staff was outstanding, particularly our waiters in the MDR (we moved around) and the bar staff at Schooner's. The entertainment generally was OK, but the guitar and violin duo was excellent. One aspect you did not mention, and I have not found discussed elsewhere, is that the ship was really, really noisy, much more so than I have experienced on other cruise lines, including Celebrity and Holland America. The open Centrum wafted noisy through decks 4 through 8. Thank God for the Solarium and, during the afternoon, the Viking Crown Lounge.

We were on the Grandeur June 1-10 (our first RCI cruise). When the Evian bottles appeared in our room on June 4, I called the customer service desk and requested that they be removed. A member of the bar staff removed them shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, our bill on disembarkation included an $11.68 minibar charge for June 4. I went to the service desk, and the representative noted that my account reflected that the bottles had been removed, and she reversed the charges.

Problem solved? No. That evening I received by email a revised statement including a new minibar charge of $6.14 dated June 10. I challenged this charge, and it is now supposedly under investigation by an auditing group. RCI obviously has a systemic error in the procedures it follows to assess minibar charges, given the number of complaints appearing here. Despite the small amount, this is a strong disincentive for us to cruise with RCI again.

Public transit is easy to take in Boston, but if you're going outside the central downtown area on a port day, you need to research the routes to have a specific plan and identify alternative options.

Thanks, 138east and Ferry Beach Kayaker for responding to my question. I have used the "T" in the past, but was concerned about the length of travel time by public transit. Given the estimate of an hour each way, we will probably use taxis or Uber.

What day of the week? Cab would be $25-30 each way depending on traffic. Uber is an option. Public transit would be about an hour each way.

We will be in Boston on a Saturday

What would people recommend for transportation from the cruise port to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum? Any estimate of the taxi fare?

Thanks.