Grandeur of the Sea - Venice to Barcelona 26 October 2012 - My Diary

[bobbyd6363]

Hello Cruise Critic Gang!

 

I recently returned from a Mediterranean cruise aboard the newly refurbished Grandeur of the Seas. On 26 October 2012, we boarded the Grandeur in Venice for a 13 day sailing to Barcelona. This sailing was my 30th cruise and I had the pleasure of my partner sailing on his first cruise along with 4 of my best friends. I have been dying to do a Mediterranean sailing and this was our second booking for this cruise as RCCL cancelled our original sailing from Istanbul. I like to post reviews after each cruise and I hope the tips and notes I took will be helpful but mostly I am selfish and want to relive our trip!!!

 

Our trip began early on 22 October with our flight from San Diego to JFK in NYC. We spent the night in NYC visiting and having dinner with friends. We stayed one night at the Hilton JFK (separate review on trip advisor if anyone wants to read it I can share the link). Next morning bright and early we flew to London Heathrow where we had to change airports to London Gatwick. We used the “Smiths for Airports” car service to transfer us between airports. We spent the night at the Gatwick Hilton and early on 25 October we flew to Venice!!

 

The Venice airport is small (reminds me of TF Green Airport in Rhode Island) but our luggage took 30 minutes to show up on the carousel. We booked a private water taxi to take us from Marco Polo airport to our hotel – the Hilton Molino Stucky. I know it is an indulgence (100 Euro) but what a way to travel! We spent one night prior to sailing at the Hilton Molino Stucky (trip advisor for review but WOW) and took the 7 minute (12 Euro) water taxi right to the pier.

 

RCCL had an odd luggage drop off arrangement in a separate building from the terminal but a short walk to drop off our bags. Baggage drop off was crowded and confused as there were literally four buses disgorging 100s of people! There was a mob trying to drop off baggage but RCCl guys were there directing us out of the mob since we had already affixed our baggage tags then we were off to check-in. Check-in for Suites was quick and pretty painless. We shuffled through security and up the LONG tunnel to the ship.

 

We walked into the Centrum and WHAM! The stench is just absolutely disgusting, overpowering and literally EVERYWHERE! I am a US Navy veteran with a lot of time spent on ships and I KNOW what that smell is! After 30 cruises I can honestly say I have never endured a stench like the Grandeur. I mean NCL’s Norway had that smell but only occasionally and I can tell you the Grandeur reeks like a sewer. The poor bartenders in the “R” bar must be immune to the smell now but the Centrum is just unbearable. There is no escaping that odor no matter which level of the centrum you are on. During the cruise I saw people walking around with their hands over the mouth and nose in a vain attempt to block the smell.

 

We found made it to our Grand Suite (Shanghai Suite 8012) pretty easily and were quite happy with it except there was a hint of mold/mildew around the desk/dressing table. I am pretty sure the carpet in our cabin was brand new and possibly so to cover up a previous water problem. My friends had mini-suites aft and there cabin flooded and stayed wet several days and they had to endure a fan running constantly to dry out the floor. Our cabin attendant Maynor (pronounced miner) was great and always around and I really don’t think he ever slept!

 

The Grandeur is small compared to some of the monster sized ships sailing today. Even with 2000 passengers onboard, we never saw crowds. There is no mall and to be honest I kind of miss the smallness of ships like the Grandeur.

 

The food on the Grandeur just plain sucked. The Great Gatsby dining room staff worked hard and our server Carlos worked his butt off to serve 8 tables but nothing could make up for the crappy food. Over the course of the 12 nights we had dinner in the main dining room twice and my friends refused to go back. A perk to suite guests is a special breakfast with senior staff and the Maitre D’ in the main dining room. The premise of this breakfast is to meet the senior staff and dine with a staff member at your table etc. Mind you that after our desire to never dine in the Gatsby dining room again, I basically had to cajole and beg my friends to attend the breakfast. Well the whole thing was a fiasco! First we were a party of 6 and we were seated at a 6 top table with no senior staff member. Second we placed our order and after 35 minutes, 4 or 5 coffee and bread refills we got up and left! The whole thing was poorly managed with absolutely horrible service, and left us feeling that said “perk” was a joke. As suite guests our concierge apparently got hammered by the Maitre D’ because we walked out of the dining room and I guess solely based on fear that the dining room would get a bad review and no tips. For the record we all paid our automatic tips.

 

We ended up dining in Chops three times; Giovanni’s twice; Izumi once and the Chef’s Table once. We spent the other dinners in the Windjammer. I can honestly say Chops was my favorite and the Chops manager Marina and Specialty restaurant manager Elena were great at making us feel welcome. Apparently, my group was well known after the breakfast “event” mentioned above and I am pretty sure an alert was put out on me as the ring leader. While dining in Chops I got cornered by the Great Gatsby Maitre D’ and he gave me the whole spiel about wanting to give us superior service. He was basically asking me to give the main dining room breakfast one more chance. I really felt bad for the suite concierge because I know he was getting a lot of pressure to get us back into the main dining room. So my partner and I finally went to the Gatsby for breakfast on the next to last day of our cruise. We were seated at a large table of 10 people which I have to admit I hate seating like this but am used to it on cruises. We actually met a wonderful lady from Canada and stayed through the whole breakfast service talking with her. We stayed so long that I began to notice the servers were clearing the tables in the dining room setting up for lunch. Going back to the Maitre D’ – we saw him walking around the dining room and chatting with other guests but he never once came over and spoke to us. Mind you I don’t care that he didn’t speak to us but what bothered me is that he harassed the concierge and even chased me down in CHOPS and never spoke to us!

[bobbyd6363]

Grandeur of the Sea - Venice to Barcelona 26 October 2012 - My Diary - Part Two

As I mentioned I have been on 30 cruises and on varying sizes of ships. I think there are some qualities of a smaller ship like the Grandeur that I liked but at the same time the larger ships have some amenities that I missed. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Grandeur was just the right size for the Mediterranean sailing but the refit wasn’t that evident. I have to caveat my statement because I haven’t sailed a Vision class ship before but I didn’t see anything amazing or that really stood out to me. The addition of specialty restaurants was probably necessary given that we hated the food in the main dining room. It bugs me that the food has declined so much on cruises and from discussions with my friends and several other Cruise Critic folks, I am beginning to agree that the cruise line is “forcing” passengers into the specialty venues. I mean let’s be honest, $20 for a steak in the main dining room?! That is just asinine and if said steak is coming from the main dining room’s kitchen – is it as bad as the rest of the food?

 

As I said before, I found Chops to be my favorite. It is small and I found the food to be very good. The evening the Grandeur sailed from Dubrovnik my partner and I decided we wanted to dine just the two of us so we chose Chops. We didn’t have a reservation and just walked up to the hostess and asked if we could get a table for two. Elena (specialty restaurant manager) was at the hostess desk and said no problem. She gave us a table for two by the windows so we could see the sun setting and the ocean - we were the only other couple in the restaurant. The suite concierge had provided us with all the specialty restaurant menus a week before our sailing so I had had time to prep my weight gaining dining selections! We both had the filet and pretty much every side dish they offered! On our second visit to Chops we were a party of six and the restaurant was packed but luckily we had made reservations. The Crème Brule is the highlight in this venue! It comes from the kitchen with a blue flame on top to caramelize the sugar. My partner and I chose Chops as our final night’s dinner and once again no reservations but luckily we again got a table for two by the windows. On this final and our third visit to Chops the Crème Brule’s fire had gone out before the server got it to the table and Marina (the hostess) took it back and got me another one! I have a harrowing story of almost missing the ship in Civitavecchia (Rome) which I will tell later but I do want to mention something about the specialty restaurant staff. We barely made it back about the ship and as I am making my way to the cabin, I happen upon the specialty restaurant manager Elena by the stairs. She ran up to me and gave me a hug! She said she was worried that we wouldn’t make it back to the ship on time. I found that amazing that she knew the six of us almost missed the ship! It’s the small things like that that made the cruise so special and memorable for me.

 

We also visited Giovanni’s twice during our cruise. We had the best table in the room both visits and the same server. Our server was fantastic! He was super helpful at picking items from the menu which meant as a party of six, we got everything! Warning, do not do this unless you are very hungry! WHEW! We ate WAY too much both times we dined there. Don’t fill up on the bread they put on the table or you will not survive the onslaught of food in Giovanni’s! I made the mistake of ordering the Insalata Caprese and quickly got the scorn of all the servers. The server said “Hmmm Americans”. It wasn’t a bad thing but was pretty funny and just that I felt like a dope ordering the typical dish you can get anywhere. The risotto and gnocchi were great but I found the veal tenderloins to be tough and just blah. The dessert cart is a small selection of a lot of calories! I found the tiramisu to be pretty good and the server had no problem adding ice cream! On our second visit to Giovanni’s we asked for a bottle of wine not offered on the wine list which we had enjoyed in Izumi’s. The server had no problem getting it for us. Just more small details that made our trip special!

 

We only visited Izumi’s once and I have to say for me, once was enough. During the refit a large portion of the Viking Crown Lounge was sectioned off and Izumi’s was added to the back section overlooking the bar and dance floor. It was kind of rough the night we visited Izumi’s so if you are prone to sea sickness don’t go all the way up there to dine. I am not a big sushi person but I did have several rolls and tried the hot rock. For me the hot rock is just a gimmick and if you over cook the steak then you can’t send it back! Once again we were a party of six and other than several senior cruise staff and officers; we would have been the only people in the restaurant. Our server worked his butt off for us and I hope it survives. As I mentioned above, we found a great wine in Izumi’s which we began ordering in all the other specialty restaurants. We all live in San Diego and there are a ton of great sushi restaurants that are far better than Izumi. Bottom line – skip Izumi unless you just have to spend the dining package money.

 

On my birthday (Mykonos) the six of us dined at the Chef’s Table. The Chef’s Table has been added to the back of the Great Gatsby Dining Room. You will get an invite/note in your cabin telling you to meet at the “R” bar Centrum level 4. There is a hostess that will meet you in the Centrum and directs you to a sectioned off set of table and chairs and a server will give you a glass of champagne. Note all guests dress up for this is an event (my group of six all wore suits). Let me refer back to the sewer smell in the Centrum because meeting here before dinner is not a very appetizing experience. While sitting there trying to drink my champagne I got to watch people walking around covering their nose and mouth to block out the smell of sewage. When it is time for dinner, the hostess will escort everyone through the Gatsby and into the Chef’s Table dining room. At the table each person will have a place card with your name on it and if you look inside it you will see the seating chart for the table. There will be each person’s name indicating where they sat during your dining experience. Our primary server here was Roxana who we had met and having a blast with as the morning/breakfast server in the suite concierge lounge. Roxana worked with the other server/hostess and the chef during the meal service. Roxana also reviewed each wine pairing for each dish. Note there is a lot of wine served with the food here so pace yourselves! The chef comes out at each course and tells you what is in it and how it is made etc. I have a recommendation to RCCL here – get a chef with a personality! It seemed like he was a robot reading the lines of a script. The food apparently wasn’t that great because nothing stands out to me enough to write about it. However, I can tell you the food was better than the Gatsby offerings! At the end of the meal/event each couple is presented with Chef’s Table aprons and a Royal Caribbean Chef’s recipe book. I have to be a bit snide here but when I looked through the recipe book with all its nice color photos I have to ask one question! Where is the food in that book served? I nor any of my friends (all veterans of 100’s of cruises combined) have ever seen a single dish in that cook book served on a RCCl cruise!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!

[bobbyd6363]

Grandeur of the Sea - Venice to Barcelona 26 October 2012 - My Diary - Part Three

We chose this cruise based on the itinerary with eleven ports in thirteen days and going into this cruise we knew we were going to be worn out by the end. We took the approach that this cruise would be a tasting menu of Europe and if we found a port we could return on a future land tour. On all my other cruises there were 3, 4 and sailing to Hawaii we had a whopping 10 days spend at sea. This cruise we had 2 days at sea and without those sea day breaks this itinerary began to wear us all down. We were dead by the time we got to Toulon! Each port day was basically 0700AM till 1900PM with us trying to cram as much into each port as possible.

 

Our first Port stop was Dubrovnik. After consuming as many Rick Steve’s books as possible we took his advise to do Dubrovnik on our own. It was raining when we got off the ship but we grabbed a cab and headed to walk the Walled City of Old Town. I had read a lot on line and the aforementioned Rick Steve’s books but seeing the walled city is pretty cool. Because of the rain, there weren’t a lot of people around and on the streets of the city. We hadn’t been in the city more than five minutes and decided the rain was enough to force us into a restaurant and bar. We unfortunately met a gentleman that was basically hustling folks to specific restaurants and probably stupidly we let him lead us to the Lanterna a small tavern which turned out to have surprisingly good food. After lunch the rain had stopped for a while so we headed out to walk the walls of the city. We had trouble finding an access point to climb up and start the wall tour but along the way we got to see a lot of the Old Town. With it raining the streets are slick – especially the stairs! We found our way down to the port entrance side of the walls and had gelato and took a bunch of pictures. Note there are bathrooms at the port and near the gelato vendor.

 

We kept walking in search of the way up to the top of the wall and happened upon the chapel where a wedding was going on. The bridal party (groomsmen) was singing, blowing horns and even lit off road flares as the wedding couple exited the church. It was really interesting to see the culture and the sheer fun they were having. We finally found a way up the wall and once on top of the wall the views were amazing. We walked up and down the steps for a while and a word of warning here – there are few hand rails and low walls acting as rails. These low walls left me a tad afraid of heights so just take your time if you ever visit the walled city. Once atop the wall the view really is breathtaking and now that the skies had clear and the sun was shining you could see all the way out to the ocean. The roof tops of Dubrovnik clearly show which roofs are new and where the older roof tops are located. During the war, the city was shelled and a lot of roofs had to be replaced. Now that the sun was shining the crowds showed up. Again with the height of those walls and all the climbing up and down stairs, I wondered how medieval soldiers in full armor made it around the walls and didn’t fall off! There are tons and tons of stairs and some of the steps are tilted and all slick from the rain. This self-guided walking tour was pretty strenuous and if you think the climbing up the walls is tough, just wait until you start down all those stairs! Your legs will be wobbly and with the crowds we saw at the end of the day, it was tough going and when we got down into the walled city it was packed. I spent three months with a personal trainer and one of my goals was to get ready for all that climbing and I guess it paid off because I didn’t fall down or up all those stairs!