Iluvcruising2

None booked, though my most recent cruise was on the Serenade of the Seas.

Do you save anything $$ by booking it pre cruise ???

Not for us. In fact, we booked a $100 per adult package upon embarkation. This $100 gave us 5 dinners at 3 speciality restaurants on board the Serenade (Chops, Giovanni's, Izumi). Worked out to be $20 per adult per dinner. I thought it was a decent deal. (Of course this meant that we skipped most of MDR dinnners)

Sorry to jump on board here but is there somewhere that I could view the menu and photos of the food? (I know I could google and find the menu but I'm wondering if there's somewhere on the boards here or on the RCI website that I've missed that would also show he photos).

Chops sounds great - in fact many of the restaurants do. Thinking we'll try one of them on Oasis in Oct. Can't wait! Will be our second cruise. First was Freedom - LOVED it!

 

 

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I was preparing this video and going to put it on my review thread (Serenade of the Seas 7N Baltic cruise - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2367291) but since you asked, I shall share the video link here first!

We had Chops twice during our recent cruise and everything was good. Here is a video of the first dinner at Chops.

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In this video, we were in our cabin and in the background you can hear my family talking to our stateroom attendant who came to introduce himself. Take note gratuities are now US13.50 per person per day and automatically billed to your shipboard account. While they were chatting, I was busy filming this interesting ship sailing past. I later found out that this was a cruise ferry, MS Crown Seaways, abt 36,500GT, operated by DFDS Seaways. The cruise ferry operates between Copenhagen and Oslo. Interesting!

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That's right, no lobster. We just sailed on the Serenade 7N in late May to the Baltics this year.

We recently sailed on Majesty as it was the 4th Royal Caribbean ship we've been on. We love Royal, but the food quality & service in the MDR on Majesty was way below what we've normally experienced. The last night of our 4 night cruise, my son ordered a strip steak cooked medium. It came out more on the medium-rare side, but he went ahead and ate it anyway. I was a bit concerned about it simply because the quality of the food had been sub-par all week. About 8 hours later, my son wakes up moaning saying his stomach hurt and then he immediately got violently sick over and over for about 10 minutes. I'll spare the rest of the details, but he woke up fine the next morning and none of us were sick at all before or after that.

 

We then hopped on Allure of the Seas a few days later and the difference in food quality was astonishing. We ate many of the same dishes and there simply wasn't any comparison...it tasted fresher, better, etc. And nobody got sick! woohoo It was the Royal Caribbean experience we've grown to love and enjoy.

 

I share that simply to suggest not eating steak on a ship cooked less than medium. I'm sure the majority of the time it's fine, but I'll never take a chance with it ever again.

Sorry to hear of that, but I don't think what your son experienced constituted food poisoning.

A couple of years back, we sailed on NCL, and both my dear wife and my Dad got hit by some type of food poisoning towards the end of the cruise. They were ill for 3 days (in bed) with plenty of vomitting and diarrhea and got well only on the day we disembarked!

It is Saturday morning in Singapore. The weekend is here! I had a busy week but glad there is a bit more time to rest and relax this weekend. Once again, thanks to everybody for your kind and encouraging words so far. It has made me want to process my videos more quickly just so to share with you. So here are three more short clips.

The first clip shows you some random scenes that I took while walking around the ship on embarkation day. This was before lunch. The ship was still rather empty. We checked out the pool area, Cafe Lattitudes and the Main Dining Room. Cafe Lattitudes sells speciality coffee and this place was busy during the cruise. However, the snacks are complimentary!

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In this next clip, a very short one, I show you the Teen Lounge area. I figured this was the only time I could get into the Teen Lounge, since this place was for 12-17 years old.

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And in this clip, I show you the helicopter deck. I'm not sure if all passengers know how to get here. But it is worth visiting.

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I booked 1054 yesterday because of your YouTube video. I didn't realize how current that post was. I want to thank you for posting. You pointed me to a room even the agents at rcl don't know about. Ill be thanking you when I sail next May. Best regards I loved your enthusiasm in the video. So did my kids. We are all excited.

Thank you for letting me know of your success in booking 1054! So exciting!

You will love it. It is an awesome cabin at a great price. During the cruise, my Dad joked to me and said that I should do a video or put up pictures of this cabin so that fewer people would know of it. I told him the only reason we knew of this cabin was from an earlier cruise critic post! (If you do a search, you will probably find it somewhere in the archives.) So this content is not new, but perhaps put in a different way (i.e. video instead of still pictures).

Hope you have a wonderful cruise and calm seas! And thanks for watching my videos too. :):)

Perfect-contemplating this cruise next year. Thank you for the wonderful videos.

 

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Go for it!

We chose it largely because of the itinerary. And I brought my retired parents along hence cabin 1054 was perfect. Bucket-list for us.

Thanks a lot for the Helsinki info' date=' Iluvcruising2. Exactly what I was looking for. Our cruise is Stockholm to Stockholm, but we are adding a couple of days in Copenhagen after the cruise. We are also staying at Hotel Bethel so your videos are great. Enjoying your report.[/quote']

 

Glad to be of help. Hope you have a wonderful cruise and calm seas!!

Enjoying your review

 

 

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Thanks for letting me know. Glad you are enjoying the review.

Thanks for sharing your videos and trip summary. I'm going on the Serenade next month and it is my first time in Europe. It's great to see what it will look like crowds and all.

Enjoy Europe. It is certainly very different from the USA. Hope you have a great cruise.

Also enjoying the videos.:)

Thanks for watching!

Since 2-3 years back, we have felt that RCI prices were just getting too high. Hence we have tried other line, while continuing to sail with Royal if and when an interesting deal comes up. The cruise lines are all more similar than different. Don't be afraid to try other lines!

Thanks to singinalot, Ladyarli, VegasCrossfire, IsanTom and others for your nice comments. Glad that the info and videos are useful. I cobbled together various clips and put together this video on how we got ourselves from the hotel to the cruise port. We decided to take public bus. The 80DKK per adult 24 hour pass (I think it was for zones 1-4) covered both our arrivals into Copenhagen and also this bus ride to the cruise port because both trips were within 24 hours of each other. Here is the video.

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Try other cruise lines for goodness sake.

Gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed your review. It was comprehensive and very well illustrated with photos and videos. This could be the measuring stick by which other reviews are compared!

 

My husband and I are sailing on Splendid in September and can't wait to see what the Yacht Club has to offer. It all sounds wonderful! I doubt my live blog will live up to this standard though!

Thanks for your kinds words. Have a great cruise!

Tell you a joke. MSC didn't even match our status. Why? It is a hilarious reason.

During our cruise, I managed to get myself and my wife signed up for the MSC loyalty programme and we were duly allocated membership numbers. Fine and well.

Then I wrote to MSC USA to match our status. They didn't reply. Then I wrote to MSC Germany to help (we had booked our MSC cruise through a Germany web agent). They responded and politely explained that because we are not German, they couldn't help us. They directed us to the local (Singapore) office.

The problem is that MSC doesn't have much of an office in Singapore. Their agent is some commercial shipping firm. Still, I managed to get the contact of the staff there.

Their first response was that they had no clue what I was talking about. After further explanation and sending them all the website information, they said they would contact MSC HQ to find out more.

And then, after a few weeks, they came back with the response from MSC HQ that the loyalty matching IS NOT AVAILABLE IN OUR MARKET! Then the same email had the suggestion that we could still achieve Black Card status simply by cruising more with MSC

Goodness gracious. I feel so discriminated!

Still, we do like the MSC YC product and oh yes, we are booked on another MSC Yacht Club cruise in 2017, despite all this. :):)

ouch, that sucks.

In this next short video, you will see more random scenes from Copenhagen as we walked around exploring the place. We didn't plan to visit any sights as we needed some rest after the long flight. But the walk was good to stretch the legs. Plenty of activities on the river.

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Continuing my review, let me go back to the first day when we arrived in Copenhagen. Our flight on Turkish Airlines landed at Copenhagen Airport in the morning, around 10am. Immigration clearance unfortunately took a while because there were only 3 passport control counters opened, but that was still ok.

We managed to get through and retrieve our bags and it was time to make our way to Hotel Bethel. Having done our research, we decided to take the metro from the airport to Kongens Nytov station. We bought a 24 hour ticket from an automated machine (take note the machine required a pin for my credit card) which cost 80DKK per adult, if I remember correctly. The plan was to fully utilize the 24 hour ticket for the journey next morning, via public bus, to the cruise port too. I think the time stamp on our ticket was close to 11am, so that worked. Our kids (both under 12) could travel for free.

The walk from the airport to the metro station was easy, and I don't recall walking more than 10 minutes. Of course we had to drag our luggage, but we were used to that. The train ride to Kongens Nytov didn't take too long either, 15 - 20 minutes thereabouts. From the metro station, we then walked to Hotel Bethel, using my GPS. Not difficult, though some of the paths are cobbled so it makes pulling the luggage a bit more challenging, but we had plenty of time.

The taxi fare from the airport to Hotel Bethel would be around 275DKK.

As our room wasn't ready, we left our luggage and went for a walk in the glorious sunshine, and also got some lunch at a McDonalds close to the Kongens Nytov station. This video shows you some of the scenes from this leisurely exploration of the immediate area around Hotel Bethel.

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Hotel Bethel has been very well reviewed on the various review platforms and it certainly lived up to its reputation as a clean and inexpensive hotel in a great location. The breakfast was better than expected, so that made us happy. The reception staff were very helpful too. This is a video I made of the hotel room and breakfast. Enjoy!

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We're going on the Serenade in August, and the videos are really appreciated. Reading people's reviews and descriptions is helpful, but actually seeing things for yourself is even more helpful. It's almost like being there! It also helps me to get (more) excited for the trip. I can't wait to see the rest of your posts.

Glad the videos are useful. What is the itinerary of your cruise?

We were on this cruise and took the #14 into the city and bought the all day pass for 8E from the driver. We used this to take the ferry to Sommalinea (5E) so it paid for itself in just those 2 trips.

 

We actually left the Old Market, crossed the street and hopped on the #2 tram for a while and then walked along the park and then ended up following the #14 bus route back to the ship. 70 and sunny and it probably took 30-45 but a nice walk and my husband loves the boats.

Awesome! I didn't know we could do that. Yes, the whole day pass allows you to take the tram too.

This is very useful information. Thanks.:)

Looking forward to more since we will be on Serenade in a few weeks. Can you provide details on the public transport you used in Helsinki? I thought I had read that there wasn't any (apparently not true). Thanks.

Responding to Capn Jack on Helsinki. We took Bus number 14 into the City Center and then took it back again. We relied heavily on Rick Steve's guide for this cruise and found it most useful. However' date=' we couldn't find a Tourist Information kiosk to buy the whole day ticket so we ended up purchasing tickets directly from the driver. They accept Euros and even give change! The cost was 3.2Euro per adult for a one-way ticket. The ride into town took about 15 minutes, and it certainly felt too long to walk. There were many other cruise passengers taking the bus.

The challenge with Number 14 is to know which stop to drop, and this was also mentioned in Rick Steves's guide. There are two options. One is to drop at the bus station stop (I can't remember the name) and take a short 5 minute walk into town. The other option is to take the bus to a stop where you could walk within 3 minutes to the Rock church. We did the latter, but we were too early at that church to enter.

Anyway, I would strongly recommend you getting a copy of the Rick Steve's Northern Europe ports guide to take a read on how he did Helsinki. We basically followed his walking tour (albeit backwards). Take note that the maps he uses in his guide are not easy to use (because they are not detailed enough). I walk using my smart phone GPS function with a downloaded app. We took the bus back to the cruise port from the bus station stop (it took a while to find though)

Alternatively, if you want to play it safe, just use the shuttle mounted by the ship. It is 12 Euro return. A bit more expensive than the public bus (6.4 Euro return) but it is undoubtedly more convenient.

I made a short video of the bus stop outside the cruise port and the walk back. Have expedited this and uploaded so that you can take a look. Hope this is useful.

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Thank you for the information about Serenade! We will be on her in December- so I'm enjoying reading all information about the ship! THANK YOU!!

Thanks for your comment. Plenty more videos and info to come. I just need time to sort them out. Cheers!