Legend of the Seas - Rome to Venice 8/31 Review

It was a lot of fun to walk around the museum with no crowds. Many times our tour group was the only one in the room. It would have been easy to hear our tour guide without the headset, but it was also nice to be able to wander around a room and hear her no matter how close we were.

 

The Hall of Tapestries:

 

 

The Gallery of Maps:

 

 

The maps here were drawn in the 1500s and it is amazing how accurate they were.

 

 

The Raphael Rooms were really interesting. Our tour guide was great at pointing out details in the paintings. For example, this is Raphael’s portrayal of Michelangelo, shown writing poetry. As a tribute to Michelangelo and his own style of painting, Raphael painted Michelangelo with a lot of muscles:

 

 

When we finally reached the Sistine Chapel, I was in awe. We had 20 minutes on our own in the room and I could have spent longer. It really helped that our tour guide had given us a thorough overview of the room, so I knew what we were looking at. Guards were constantly reminding people, “Silencio! No Photo!” I did not take any pictures, but later wished that I had. So many people were ignoring the instructions and I did not see anyone else being kicked out, but I guess it was not worth the risk.

Oh--this is so beautiful!! Thank you for posting.:)

Oh--this is so beautiful!! Thank you for posting.:)

Thank you!

Fantastic review so far. I can't wait to read more! This is incredibly helpful since I will be planning a trip like this in the near future. Looks like you had a wonderful time. :D

Thank you! Let me know if you have any questions as I go. Do you have an itinerary in mind?

The final part of our tour was St. Peter’s Basilica. We were able to enter quickly after exiting the Sistine Chapel, but as you can see, it was beginning to get crowded:

They were setting up something in St. Peter's Square:

It was beautiful inside. Packed, but beautiful.

Our tour guide, Tiffany, was incredibly knowledgeable and kept me engaged for the entire three hours of our tour. I could have spent longer on a tour with her. The tour was expensive, but well worth the money in my opinion. I feel like we got so much more out of our visit to Vatican City thanks to Tiffany.

I had picked out a pizza place based on online reviews for lunch near the Basilica, but I thought I would take advantage of our tour guide’s knowledge and ask her where to go for pizza. She told us that Alice Pizza, nearby, has the best pizza in Rome. That was the place I had read about, so we were sold (and already had printed directions)!

We took a few more pictures of St. Peter’s Square before heading to lunch.

It was just a 5 minute or so walk to lunch. Alice Pizza was very good. They cut off slices, weigh them, and then heated up the pizza before serving it. That made me a little nervous (how long had it been sitting out?), but it tasted great. I really just wanted to taste two different pizzas (Caprese and Funghi e Formaggio), but somehow we ended up with 6 slices of pizza and 2 waters, all for just 9 euro.

There was no seating nearby, but they had little mats you could use to sit on their stairs to eat.

After lunch we walked back to St. Peter’s Square to find a taxi. We picked up our luggage at the hotel and waited for Rome Cabs to pick us up for our transfer to the port.

We got back to our hotel early, but we did not have to wait long. Our Rome Cabs driver showed up more than 30 minutes early. We were supposed to leave our hotel around 1:00pm, but ended up leaving closer to 12:30. The driver did not pressure us to leave early. I took about 5 minutes to finish up an email I was sending using the free wi-fi at our hotel, and then we figured since we were ready to go, we might as well get an early start.

We were picking up another couple we had met on CC at their hotel near Piazza Navona (the couple we ran into at the Colosseum the day before!). We arrived almost 45 minutes earlier than planned. We hung out at their hotel for only about 10 minutes before they arrived, and then we were on our way.

The ride to the port went by very quickly. It could have been the company. We enjoyed chatting the entire ride. I would guess that it took about an hour to get to the port and we arrived just after 2pm.

The check-in process went very smoothly. Our driver dropped us off right where RCI was collecting luggage. Someone from RCI greeted us, stapled our luggage tags on our luggage, and headed off with it. We went through a very short security line, filled out a short questionnaire confirming we were not sick, presented our passports (which they collected), and got our sea passes. And with that, we snapped a few pictures and walked right onto the ship.

Once we got on board, I unpacked. It felt good to settle in, knowing this would be our home for the next nine days. Our first suitcase arrived within an hour and the second came 30-45 minutes later. We also got to meet our room steward for the first time, Nina. She was wonderful! Someone had told me that if we wanted ice each night, we should ask for it on our first day. I asked Nina, and she made a note. Not only did she make sure we had fresh ice every night, but every day when we returned from our excursions, there was fresh ice in our room.

I will post pictures of our room next!

We stayed in room 7555, a Panoramic Ocean View room (category F). There were only a handful of them on the ship. We were very happy with the room. Maybe it was because I set my expectations low, but I was expecting a closet and I thought our room was pretty large.

There was the bed, a couch, a desk and TV, closet and bathroom. And a nice big pole.

The large window was very nice. Not as nice as a balcony, but I always enjoyed the view when I was getting ready in the morning and it let in plenty of natural light.

There was a decent amount of storage space. The closet was large enough for all the clothes we wanted to hang up. I think I counted 28 hangers which was more than enough. There were shelves next to the closet, a few small drawers and shelves in the bathroom, and three large drawers at the desk.

The bathroom felt very small. We could not get ready in the bathroom at the same time, so I mostly used the desk to do my hair and makeup each day. The shower was tiny, but worked okay. The water pressure was much better than I expected. Funny story (I guess) – I took a cold shower my first day. Not freezing cold, but not even close to warm. I thought I had it turned to as warm as it would get. I was so frustrated, wondering why no one had warned me that there is no hot water on the ship. Well, my husband solved the problem – you just had to push the dial a little harder to get the water to be warmer.

I used the hair dryer in the room. It was okay, but you had to keep a button pressed while holding it for it to stay on. It’s inconvenient but I would guess that is a safety feature.

There were only two US outlets in the room and one European outlet. My hair straightener just barely fit because the outlets are close to the bottom of the desk. There were no outlets by the bed, so I could not keep my phone plugged in on the night stand like I do at home.

I used the phone alarm a few times (in addition to setting our travel alarm and my cell phone). It worked fine, but usually called 2-4 minutes later than I had asked.

The location of the room was decent. It was close to the elevators. My only complaint would have been that we could hear the entertainment in the Centrum from our room. It wasn’t super loud, but loud enough that I would not have slept through it (I’m a light sleeper). Luckily it was usually quiet by 11pm – 12am, but if you are a light sleeper and want to go to bed earlier, you might consider ear plugs or another room.

I’ll include pictures of towel animals and a review of room service in a later post!

I will try to post the Cruise Compass from each day on our trip. I was excited to review our first Cruise Compass when we arrived in our room. Apparently other people received a schedule for the entire week, but we only got the daily version.

At 4:30pm we went to the pool bar for an unofficial Cruise Critic meet and greet. I was excited to put names with faces and get to know the people I would be touring with over the next week. I can’t believe we didn’t take pictures, but it was fun chatting and the time flew by. We stayed until 5:45, when we had to head downstairs for the muster drill.

The muster drill is a safety briefing where they show you how to use a life jacket (you don’t have to bring one to the drill), and you stand under what would be your life boat. There was a number on our sea pass (5), and that was our muster station. It did not last too long, and we made friends with another couple while we waited. I realized we could have brought drinks with us and turned the muster drill into a muster party!

Our next stop was customer service. When we got to our room there was a notice regarding the $120 ship credit we had received from our travel agency. There was no notice on the $100 ship credit we were supposed to have received from RCI. We wanted to check with customer service just to confirm we would have a total of $220 in ship credit.

The customer service rep seemed annoyed with us. She told us that it takes 24 hours for ship credit to post. We asked if we would receive some kind of confirmation notice once it posted. Her first reaction was to tell us no, there are 2,000 people on the ship and they can’t confirm ship credit for everyone. This took me back to my request for water on our flight! But really, they can’t confirm ship credit??

We pushed her on this, explaining that we wanted to know for certain how much ship credit we had so we could adjust our spending accordingly. She said, “Well you’re not going to spend $200 tonight.” What if we were? I asked her if we should come back to Guest Services the next night to confirm. She finally told us that if we were going to be so skeptical of her, she would provide confirmation. I’m not sure why the attitude was necessary, but she did leave us a voice mail the next day to confirm our ship credit had posted, and I appreciated that.

We went back to our room to quickly get ready for dinner. We were both very hungry by this point!

We chose My Time Dining (MTD) for this trip. We only made an advance reservation for our first night, for 6:30pm. I found it interesting that they had a 6:00pm option online, but the dining room did not open until 6:30pm. I had also indicated in my reservation that we wanted to sit with other people (randomly assigned). I thought it would be fun to meet and compare travel notes with others, especially on the first night.

Dinner was casual so I stuck with the same outfit I had worn to the Vatican Museum. They first sat us at a table for two. I asked if we could move to a larger table. They made us wait a few minutes, but then moved us to another table for eight. The larger table was right by the window with a nice view when we left the port. I actually did not even notice we were moving until someone pointed it out.

I was glad we had requested the move to sit with others. We were the youngest couple at the table. It was fun to hear about everyone else’s cruise experience, and this resulted in a few more friendly faces that we would see around the ship and on our excursions.

Dinner was much better than I expected. I had been warned that the food was not great. Some of it was actually very good, and the rest was just fine. I was pleasantly surprised that vegetarian options were clearly identified on the menu. So were gluten-free and dairy-free. But I noticed throughout the week that sometimes they had vegetarian options that were just not marked as vegetarian, so you have to keep an eye on that. For example, they had a vegetarian pasta dish every night (linguini pomodoro), and some nights it was marked with the vegetarian symbol, other nights it was not.

They offered continuous bread service. I tried the sourdough and the poppy seed. I realized that the bread basked every night could quickly add pounds. I ordered two appetizers. First, the fruit medley, which included all my favorite fruits: Pineapple, kiwi and strawberry.

I also ordered the eggplant and artichoke tart.

Both appetizers were great. My husband had the Caesar salad.

They only had one vegetarian main course, linguini pomodoro. It was better than I expected but not as special as the appetizers.

My husband ordered the prime rib. He said it was good, better than he had expected, but not the best he ever had. See, I promised there would be pictures of meat:

My favorite dessert on the ship was what I ordered the first night: blueberry & peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

I was so full I couldn’t eat it all, but it was amazing. My husband ate the Bailey’s Crème Brulee.

Dinner lasted about two hours. This was standard for each night. I enjoyed dinner and the conversation with our tablemates, but I was almost falling asleep at the table by dessert.

We decided to at least check out the entertainment in the theater after dinner. I think they called it a “variety” show, but what we saw was a man playing the piano and singing, and a light show with puppet shadows singing along to the music. We stood in the back for two songs. They were definitely talented, but it wasn’t enough to keep us up longer, so we left to go back to our room and to bed.

She finally told us that if we were going to be so skeptical of her, she would provide confirmation. I’m not sure why the attitude was necessary, but she did leave us a voice mail the next day to confirm our ship credit had posted, and I appreciated that.

There are rotten apples in every basket, I see.

Completely unnecessary to be so snide. :mad:

In case it wasn't clear, I didn't mean you ;)

But your food porn is addictive!!! GREAT photos. Thank you :)

I am enjoying your review. it's been three months since we sailed on the Legend and reminising about some of my own experiences by reading yours.

I sailed on Legend 13 nights Italy/Croatia, so I am really enjoying your report. I also made a lot of friends on Roll Call before the cruise and also got a lot of info from Trip Advisor! I plan ahead just like you -- only I made a looseleaf binder with tabs for each day. Packed just the pages and threw them out each day just like you:) I also put down what I will wear each day so I don't overpack:o I've gotten myself a Nook now, so I put all my lists on that along with guidebooks so I don't have so much weight... Can't wait to read more.

Thank you!

 

 

 

Thank you! Let me know if you have any questions as I go. Do you have an itinerary in mind?

Honestly as long as I get to see Italy and Greece, I will be a pretty happy camper. :D

~Jess~

Love the review so far! I like that you included prep/planning information as well. We've been debating a European/Mediterranean cruise to see a bunch of cities and limit the unpacking/packing but have two main roadbumps:

• Can you really see what you want to see in these famous cities in a 6 hour stop?
  
• We enjoy many of the shows and cruise ship activities, but I'm not sure we'd want to do any and forego a port or whether in the evenings we'd just be too tired.
  

Any thoughts are appreciated. Looking forward to the rest of the review.

Love the review so far! I like that you included prep/planning information as well. We've been debating a European/Mediterranean cruise to see a bunch of cities and limit the unpacking/packing but have two main roadbumps:

• Can you really see what you want to see in these famous cities in a 6 hour stop?
  
• We enjoy many of the shows and cruise ship activities, but I'm not sure we'd want to do any and forego a port or whether in the evenings we'd just be too tired.
  

Any thoughts are appreciated. Looking forward to the rest of the review.

I know that JrMint will be able to answer you, but I thought I'd also add my 2 cents.

For me, it isn't possible to see everything in a short port stop.

My husband chose a short Med cruise that hit Rome this past April. I didn't mind doing it because I knew we were taking a land trip to Italy next year.

We were also on this cruise that left from Rome, but it hit places like Montenegro and Slovenia - two places I have never said "I want to spend a week in."

Again, I didn't mind hitting Rome and Venice because I know we are taking a vacation there. Its during that trip that I will go in to see the Vatican. Its on my bucket list, but I don't want to go there and worry about time - which is why I skipped it in April.

If we didn't have the vacation planned, I wouldn't be going on a cruise that went to Rome - it would be too much of a tease.

We did one around the Baltic region last year but, again, its because I've never thought "I want to spend a week in Estonia or Finland."

Conversely, I refused to book a cruise that stopped in Le Havre unless we had already traveled to Paris for multiple days.

As for the activities, we didn't really partake in a lot of them. We went to a few of the shows and to the Schooner Bar, but that was about it. We just wanted to rest up for the next day. I will say though, I would never skip a European port for the cruise ship activities. :)

There are rotten apples in every basket, I see.

Completely unnecessary to be so snide. :mad:

 

In case it wasn't clear, I didn't mean you ;)

 

But your food porn is addictive!!! GREAT photos. Thank you :)

Haha! I agree. The same lady was nice enough to us the next day, maybe we just caught her at a bad time.

Thanks for the comments on the food porn :) Glad someone besides me enjoys pictures of food!

I am enjoying your review. it's been three months since we sailed on the Legend and reminising about some of my own experiences by reading yours.

Thank you! I actually read your review of the Legend just before we left, it was very helpful and made me even more excited to go on this trip!

I sailed on Legend 13 nights Italy/Croatia, so I am really enjoying your report. I also made a lot of friends on Roll Call before the cruise and also got a lot of info from Trip Advisor! I plan ahead just like you -- only I made a looseleaf binder with tabs for each day. Packed just the pages and threw them out each day just like you:) I also put down what I will wear each day so I don't overpack:o I've gotten myself a Nook now, so I put all my lists on that along with guidebooks so I don't have so much weight... Can't wait to read more.

It sounds like we have a lot in common!! A binder would have been better than my folders - I'll have to do that next time!

Love the review so far! I like that you included prep/planning information as well. We've been debating a European/Mediterranean cruise to see a bunch of cities and limit the unpacking/packing but have two main roadbumps:

• Can you really see what you want to see in these famous cities in a 6 hour stop?
  
• We enjoy many of the shows and cruise ship activities, but I'm not sure we'd want to do any and forego a port or whether in the evenings we'd just be too tired.
  

Any thoughts are appreciated. Looking forward to the rest of the review.

Lissy, I had some of the same questions as you before we left.

To answer your first question: No, we could not see all that we wanted to in the famous cities like Rome and Venice or really any of the places we went. I like to explore and would loved to have spent a week in almost all the places we visited. But for us, being short on vacation time, it was a decision to either see a little in many different places or a lot in just one or two cities. We've enjoyed vacations where we've had plenty of time in each city we visited, but we were curious to give the cruise a try.

The way I see it, I would love to go on more cruises, but I won't give up the land vacations either. It's just two different experiences.

The cruise forced us to pick a few highlights in each country, and gave us just a taste of each. We know now that we would like to go back to Naples, we want to go to Dubrovnik instead of Split next time, and we plan to retire in Slovenia ;-) We had a great time, but you have to be okay with the fact that you will not see everything in a 6-8 hour period. It also helped that we started in Rome and ended in Venice, so we could take an extra night in these cities.

To answer your second question, like hazeleyez, we would never skip a European port for cruise ship entertainment. I was worried we would be too tired in the evening too, but I think this is a personal thing. Maybe it was the excitement, but I think we made the most of our ship in the evenings. We enjoyed 2 hour dinners, mini golf, shows, the piano bar and drinks with friends. We were usually back on the ship by 5:30 or so, done with dinner around 8:30, and went to bed around 11:00 most nights. This worked for us, but again, everyone is different.

I know that JrMint will be able to answer you, but I thought I'd also add my 2 cents.

Thanks for chiming in! It's always helpful to hear different perspectives.

We ordered room service for breakfast our first morning in Naples, and that was the only time we did on the entire trip.

We had a private tour booked for the day and we were meeting our tour group on the ship at 7:15am. We thought room service for breakfast would be convenient so we could eat while we were getting ready. The way it works, you complete a card the night before and hang it outside your door that night. You can choose a delivery window on the card. I selected the earliest window available, 6:30 – 7:00. We also selected a variety of foods to share.

They called us at 6:45am to let us know the food was on its way. It arrived at 7:01am which meant we did not have much time to actually eat.

The scrambled eggs were cold and had a weird texture. The hashbrowns were cold too. We had only placed 1 order for bacon, but it showed up on both of our plates. The toast was cold and hard as a rock. They forgot the bananas we had ordered. Luckily, we had also ordered a fruit plate and that was the only thing I was able to eat. It came with pineapple, melon, kiwi, orange, 1 strawberry and grapes.

We tried eating in the MDR for breakfast the next morning. I will provide a review of that a little later. We finally tried the Windjammer on our third day and loved breakfast there. We stuck with the Windjammer for the rest of the trip.

We met up with our tour group on the ship so we could walk off the ship together. This was a relief for me because I had no idea what the process for getting off the ship involved. It turned out to be incredibly easy, at least on this particular day. We literally went down to the first floor, presented our sea passes, which they swiped through a machine, and we walked right off. There was no line.

We were just three couples this day. We had booked with Sorrento Top Car and requested Giuseppe as our guide. We were early exiting the ship and we did not see our guide, so we hung out at the port for a little bit.

Another tour guide asked us about who we were looking for and when we said Giuseppe, he yelled, “Hey, Peppe! Wake up!” We realized our tour guide had just been around the next corner. He had a comfortable van that held the six of us.

Our first drive was to Positano. Giuseppe provided some history on Naples. We could see how close Mount Vesuvius was to us. It has two peaks today and is about 3,000 feet at its highest point. It used to be one peak and 9,000 feet. It was amazing to picture how tall that would have been. I think this picture shows you how close we were:

Giuseppe stopped along the way at several points to let us out of the car for pictures. There were some really beautiful views.

As we got closer to Positano there were more and more tight turns as the road wound around. The driving made me a little nervous. We got very close to motor bikes and pedestrians. I asked if there were a lot of accidents in Naples. Giuseppe said no, not a lot, but when there are accidents they are really bad. There is no way I would have been willing to drive myself there!

The Amalfi coast is absolutely beautiful. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before. Positano was built on an extremely steep cliff with steps that go all the way down to the sea.

We parked in a garage and then walked down to the sea. It was pretty, but it felt very touristy. It was a Sunday and many of the shops were closed. Most of the shops that were open were tourist gift shops and clothing stores.

The view at the sea was beautiful.

It was hot and the water looked so cool, I thought it would be a good idea to put my feet in the water with my sandals on. I did not realize the beach was not made up of sand; it was made up with rocks and pebbles. Pebbles that quickly filled my sandals.

We were on the search for a coffee shop as we walked back up in the direction of the garage where we had parked. We only saw one café, so that is where we stopped. My husband and I split a cannoli and I had a cappuccino. The cappuccinos are not sweet in Italy, so I added a sugar packet, which I don’t normally do at home. The cappuccino was 2 euro and very good.

After we finished our drinks we met back up with Giuseppe to head to Sorrento. Positano was quaint, but I was definitely fine spending just an hour or so there. It’s a good place to enjoy the views, take a quick dip in the water (if you don’t mind the pebbles!) and sit for a coffee.

Wow:eek::eek:What amazing sights, and I must imagine, smells and sounds on a trip like this. Thanks for sharing. I am glad that I stumbled on your thread early because it was a Legend review; this is turning into a most excellent primer for a European trip.

I have never been to Europe and I have always worried that such short times in each place, plus multiple stops, would not be enjoyable, but it looks like I will have to rethink that. I like the perspective of getting a little taste and seeing what you like and then in the future perhaps select an itinerary more focused on some areas and less on others.

Do you happen to know how full your sailing was passenger wise? Did any areas of the ship feel congested or crowded to you? Any personal favorite spots or don't miss shows or lounge acts? I'll be patient :D

Giuseppe stopped for more photo opportunities on our way to Sorrento.

Giuseppe dropped us off in the main town square, Piazza Tasso. He told us to meet him back there at 12:30pm, which gave us almost an hour and a half.

We walked up and down the two main streets with a lot of shops.

Many of the shops were souvenir shops. It still felt touristy, but had a little more energy than Positano. There were many limoncello shops, and most of them were offering free samples. Giuseppe had told us that limoncello is made from moonshine and lemon peel. You could really taste the alcohol, and some samples were smoother than others. In my opinion, Limonoro had the best and that is where we bought some for a souvenir. Limonoro also offered samples of lemon cream, mango cream and chocolate balls filled with limoncello. It was all great!

After walking for almost an hour and a half, even though we knew lunch was next, we stopped for some gelato. Unlike most gelato shops in Italy, this store reluctantly agreed to let us each have a taste. I tried the Nutella/hazelnut combination but chose to go with plain Nutella. My husband ordered the pineapple. The gelato was very good, but it was rich and I could not finish it all.

I really enjoyed Sorrento and would love to go back to spend more time. It seemed like a great town to use as a base someday to visit other nearby sites.

What a great review, jrmint427! We did a Venice cruise this summer, too, and had the BEST time. Loving seeing what you did at each port.

Wow:eek::eek:What amazing sights, and I must imagine, smells and sounds on a trip like this. Thanks for sharing. I am glad that I stumbled on your thread early because it was a Legend review; this is turning into a most excellent primer for a European trip.

 

I have never been to Europe and I have always worried that such short times in each place, plus multiple stops, would not be enjoyable, but it looks like I will have to rethink that. I like the perspective of getting a little taste and seeing what you like and then in the future perhaps select an itinerary more focused on some areas and less on others.

 

Do you happen to know how full your sailing was passenger wise? Did any areas of the ship feel congested or crowded to you? Any personal favorite spots or don't miss shows or lounge acts? I'll be patient :D

Thank you for the kind words!

I'm not sure if our sailing was completely full, but I think it was at least close. The only area of the ship that felt too crowded for me was the pool on our sea day. Other than that, it never felt too crowded. I had no issues finding a table at the Windjammer, seats in the bars or the theater, etc.

My favorite spot was probably the Schooner Bar in the evenings, with "Tony B" singing crowd requests at the piano. Absolutely Fab was my favorite show (of those we went to) in the theater. It was a song and dance show covering British music, and they even sang the Spice Girls :) There were a few singers in the Centrum who were really good. I also enjoyed the aerial shows in the Centrum - some of it was a little cheesy, but I was impressed.

What a great review, jrmint427! We did a Venice cruise this summer, too, and had the BEST time. Loving seeing what you did at each port.

Thank you! I am enjoying your trip review and pictures too :)