Regal Princess – 12/6/15 – 12/13/15 (Owner's Suite, AIBP, Ship, Culinary)

[sunsetbeachgal]

Looking forward to your review. We are on a cruise in January that visits Costa Maya and I know very little about it. Glad to hear you a enjoyed the port.

[Colo Cruiser]

Looking forward to your review. We are on a cruise in January that visits Costa Maya and I know very little about it. Glad to hear you a enjoyed the port.

 

Costa Maya......

Great place. Best to take the shuttle over to town.

Its about a 5-10 minute ride.

Beautiful beach with shops and restaurants.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[lindy sails]

Costa Maya......

Great place. Best to take the shuttle over to town.

Its about a 5-10 minute ride.

Beautiful beach with shops and restaurants.

 

 

That is good to hear. We will be there on New Years Day. Thanks!

[Linerguy]

Happy Anniversary! Glad to read you're having a good time....can't wait for your full report.

 

-Russ

[Golfisabeach]

Going on Regal in February. Celebrity cruisers so this will be a first. We are in a mini suite on the bump! Happy anniversary and am enjoying your posts.

[Sam.Seattle]

Thanks for checking in Jeff.

[Gallivanting Souls]

Oh, that ravioli with the sinful creamy sauce is to die for!!

 

 

This sounds really yummy! On the Grand, Alfredo's only has the wonderful pizza. What other great dishes do they offer on the Regal/Royal? I will be on the Royal next year.

Thank you!

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your posts.

 

Keith

[sunsetbeachgal]

This sounds really yummy! On the Grand, Alfredo's only has the wonderful pizza. What other great dishes do they offer on the Regal/Royal? I will be on the Royal next year.

 

Thank you!

 

 

If you like eggplant there is an eggplant rollatini. I love the various salads and antipasti, the tiramisu is also very good. We also love the various types of pizza.

[Croptop]

Thank you for these reports from the Regal. I'm going to sail on her in a little over a year so I'm eager to learn as much about her as I can (of course, I won't ever be in an Owner's Suite but I can enjoy it vicariously through others).

 

Enjoy the rest of your cruise. Looking forward to your full review posting.

[WISH84]

Good morning friends and thank you for all the Anniversary wishes. We had a great one for sure!

 

So we are sitting in the IC having a cup of coffee and donut. Waiting out a few moments before we disembark this wonderful ship. Said our goodbyes to the crew who made this a memorable vacation and found out that a couple may actually be in the ship next year. That would be fantastic but we all know how plans change.

 

We tipped our Concierge, Liudmyla, yesterday while she was working the desk at Guest Services and it appeared to us she almost started to cry which in turn made Dawn almost cry. I think that closes the debate on tipping the staff.

 

Hope to put together my full review by next weekend which I will post here in this same thread.

 

Ciao for now! [emoji6]

[Oh2B@C]

When I see your pictures of the ship, your suite, the food; well as Hootie would say "I only wanna be with you ooh-ooh-ooh..."

[WISH84]

When I see your pictures of the ship, your suite, the food; well as Hootie would say "I only wanna be with you ooh-ooh-ooh..."

 

 

LOL. [emoji23]

[Jig2306]

Can't wait to read your review. Just curious. Was the Randy Heddon Quartet on your ship? If so did they mention if they would be on the Regal next year? We were on the Regal last March...loved the ship and decided the entertainment by this quartet was the best we had experienced in a long time!

[WISH84]

Can't wait to read your review. Just curious. Was the Randy Heddon Quartet on your ship? If so did they mention if they would be on the Regal next year? We were on the Regal last March...loved the ship and decided the entertainment by this quartet was the best we had experienced in a long time!

 

Honestly, there was a quartet on board but I do not remember seeing them mentioned with that name. When I get home I'll try to remember to look up them up. Right now I'm saying 75% chance it was not Randy Heddon. :confused:

[TracieABD]

Thanks, Jeff, for getting back to us!

It sounds as if you had a marvelous time.

 

I agree about the passengers. We noticed a marked difference between our cruise in the Caribbean in January on the Royal and our cruise in the British Isles in June on the Royal. Folks were much better behaved on the BI cruise.

[WISH84]

Here is my detailed Review with overall opinions. And remember, they are just that.. my opinion. You may have a different opinion based on your experience

 

The Hilton Marina Hotel

 

I've already made some comments about this property so only as a "final" review I will say this. Staff. Now, the staff we encountered and had interaction with were great. My concern would be the lack of staff overall. They did everything they could to take care of any concerns we would have had the first night (remember we were very "with the flow" the first day) but even on the 2nd night they were short staffed so the original story of "It was supposed to rain all day so we decided to staff lightly" didn't pan out. We ended up using our complimentary dinner certificates for two cheeseburgers that I must admit were pretty tasty. So the food is good, but getting it out to you is a concern. We would stay here again however for next year I may actually try the Hyatt Pier 66.

 

Overall Rating: B-

 

Embarkation

 

Aside from the grumpy lady we already discussed, whom by the way we never saw again the entire cruise so "yay for us" LOL Embarkation was as smooth as I could have wished for.

 

We arrived to the port, purposely, very early. Left the Hilton at 9:45am, made a quick stop at the corner Walgreen's and were standing in line (the correct end of that line I will add) waiting to board. I believe I mentioned we were on board by 11:50am and were told our rooms would not be ready until 1pm which is a first for us with Princess. Other's seemed to be surprised by that as well. However in the grand scope of things, this wasn't a huge concern to us nor to anyone else we spoke to.

 

Lunch in Alfredo's was fantastic and after lunch we made it to our Suite, Cabin B734 which you have seen pictures of already. More on the suite later.

 

Overall rating for Embarkation: A- I'm subtracting points for the room not being ready as expected.. but only "style" points. :cool:

 

Baja Deck, Port Side, Owner's Suite B734

 

So most of you know already we have this suite booked for next December as well. We always try to cruise for our Anniversary (this year we were in Cozumel for our special day) and next year we actually Embark the Regal on our Anniversary.

 

The suite is fantastic. We spent as much time in the living room portion of the suite as we did the bedroom. I had no issues operating the two TV's independently of each other (yes, if I intentionally tried to change the TV in the bedroom with the remote from the living room it would work) but this wasn't an issue as long as the one remote couldn't see the other TV.

 

I do wish you could access your ship account from the TV but why complain about something you can't have and knew that going into it. As many people "rave" about the Regal.Princess.com app, I struggled with it. Many times my Iphone wouldn't even allow me to bring it up. I did go to the Internet Café an the young man there helped me set it up but the next day, still had an issue. So we resorted to the old fashion way of doing things: Carried a copy of the patters with us and used Guest Services for any account questions I had.

 

Back to the Suite. Sorry for digressing.

 

The Suite came with a full arrangement of flowers. Beautiful flowers including two "Birds of Paradise" which I simply love because we had a full bush of these in the backyard where I grew up. I only mention these flowers because I saw a string here once about the lack of flowers for either Suite passengers or Elite passengers. Can't remember which but in either case, we had flowers. We also had a nice orchid flower in the bedroom and bathroom. Added to this were the dozen roses I purchased for Dawn and the arrangement I purchased for the room. So the room had a very nice fragrance to it the entire week.

 

The mini-bar set up was nice. I was able to exchange some of the offerings given for something we liked with no problem whatsoever. The ship sent us a complimentary bottle of Champagne (a full 750ml bottle, not one of the split sizes) so we were going to drink that at Sail-Away but in the end it wasn't delivered until later that night so we saved it for our Anniversary.

 

The Balcony was tremendous. Loved being able to get a "side of ship" view along with the "aft" view. Nothing better than getting up early in the morning with a cup of coffee and the view this suite offers. Ditto for the evening sans the coffee and replace with a cocktail. The view, the sound of the water.. just perfect.

 

Breakfast in Sabatini's I mention this here because you only get this if you are a full suite passenger. First off... overall rating here is an A+++. Service, food, everything about it was first class.

 

So why did we only use it twice? I'll tell ya ;) If you want to play nice and not be a total butthead on Sea Day's, then you can't eat in Sabatini's if you want a chair by the pool. I refuse to be a chair hog (more on that later) so on Sea Day's, Sabatini's wasn't an option for us. The other days it just didn't mesh up with our schedule. However.. the two days we did use this perk.. we LOVED it. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

 

SOOT Okay, here is what everyone has been waiting for. Right? You've allowed me to ramble on to this point but now you're finally glad I'm getting to the point of talking about the infamous "soot" issue. So here it is.

 

Soot is an issue. However, it was not such an issue that we felt we couldn't use the balcony as some have mentioned in the past. I've seen people say it wasn't an issue whatsoever and I've read others say how it just "ruined" their cruise. This wasn't the case for us. For the most part.

 

Of the seven days we occupied this suite, there was soot on the balcony almost every day however it was very light. Our cabin steward, Renan, did a fantastic job of keeping the suite balcony clean and available to use the entire week.

 

But let's talk about the one day when it was an issue. Not just for us but apparently for everyone who had an aft balcony and this one day happened to be Friday, our Anniversary.

 

It didn't happen until the evening. We had come back from our evening enjoying the ship and planned to sit out on the balcony with a cocktail. A perfect ending to a fantastic day. That is until I sat down on the furniture outside and immediately could feel the grainy nature of the soot. It was horrendous. I jumped up from my seat and could see the black streaks on the cushion, then looked down and saw almost the sand like nature of the decking. Soot was everywhere.

 

Well, this ended our desire to spend anytime on the balcony that night. Obviously. So the next morning when we finally saw Renan (he informed us they had been called to a meeting to discuss the soot and he was aware it was an issue) he came into the suite to check the balcony out and you could tell how upset he was for us. We brushed it off and simply asked that he clean it up when he was able. Later he told me it took him about an hour just to clean the balcony. I have a picture of it that I will try to post later for you but along the wall of the room, on the outside on the deck, is.. for the lack of a better term, a drainage gutter. After he cleaned this up, that gutter was near black with the soot that he had washed off the wood deck.

 

 

So my overall rating of the Owner's Suite is a "B". It looses a full grade because of the soot. When you spend that kind of money for a cabin, you should be able to use all aspects of that cabin to its full extent. This simply was not the case with our balcony. Yes, I will mention this to Princess when I fill out the review but in all honesty, what can they do about it? I would have thought some time with a model of the ship inside a wind tunnel would have informed the designer this was going to be an issue and I refuse to believe they knew about it and simply overlooked it. But seeing as this is the 2nd of the Royal class ships, I would hate to see what the soot issue looks like on the Royal if it was addressed and improved for the Regal.

 

AND.. yes, we have already decided we will cancel our Owner's Suite for next December in lieu of.. just a standard old balcony. Now, in all fairness.. not just because of the soot.

 

The amenities given for the suite and our ability to use them simply can't justify the expense. We are not yet "Elite" with Princess and it's nice having "Elite" benefits that come with the suite but again, not at that expense. For example, the Suite comes with "Priority Reservations for the Specialty Restaurants" Well, so does being Elite. So our priority does not take priority over any passengers with Elite status. So even when we attempted to book the Crown Grill for three nights out of seven, we were never able to get the time we wanted. I would ask for 6 or 6:30 and be told 7:15 or 7:45. I understand the six o'clock hour is in high demand so I never fussed about it. But on Tuesday when I asked in person if we could get a later time (they only had 5pm for us on Tuesday) I was told they were overbooked and this simply wasn't possible when also trying to "accommodate walk-ups"

 

Accommodate walk-ups? I've spent ONE MILLION DOLLARS for this suite (I'm exaggerating but you get the point) and I'm told "can't help you" because I also have to try and accommodate walk-ups... I felt like the guy in Ocean's 13 trying to get into the Asian Restaurant. That won't mean anything to you unless you've seen the movie but if you have seen the move you know the feeling he has when he's told "I simply can't accommodate you and those tables are reserved" when there was nobody in the restaurant at all.

 

Let me give you two positives about the suite we did use, on more than one occasion: The Suite Breakfast Menu (simply fantastic) and the ability to have anything delivered from Room Service off the MDR menu. Can you say "Fettuccini Alfredo and Crème Brule"?? :cool:

 

Moving on. Because I simply didn't think I would spend that much time going on about the suite (which we did love, but wouldn't book again).

 

Culinary

 

Here it is: Overall Rating gets an A+.

 

The Buffet is great. We enjoyed the layout, the hot food was hot, cold food cold, selection was tremendous (although we did seem to have "Flavor's of the Orient" available more times than I would have expected. And I thought their Beef Lasagna was as good as any lasagna I've ever had from a buffet. I must have helped myself to four or five servings during the course of the cruise.

 

The buffet also does a great job during breakfast. Ordering an omelet is as simple as it gets. I never had it delivered to our table, choosing rather to wait for it to be cooked and my number "called" when it was done. The selection of breakfast items was bigger and better than any I've seen before, another reason why eating in Sabatini's for breakfast only twice didn't bother me in the least.

 

Crown Grill was fantastic. We reserved three nights but only ended up there two nights. We cancelled Saturday night only because of a scheduling conflict and ended up having room service from the MDR. The steaks were always cooked perfect, the Black and Blue French Onion Soup is, in my opinion, to die for and the lobsters are pretty dang tasty as well.

 

We only ate in the MDR one night (Friday night) to celebrate our Anniversary. This should tell you how good the other food outlets are. And, on this one night the MDR was outstanding. I had both the Lobster and Shrimp (it was the 2nd formal night) AND the Beef Wellington (which was cooked perfectly).

 

Alfredo's can't be beat. The food and service is fantastic.

 

The Poolside grill does a "good" job. I say "good" because it is what it is. Cheeseburgers, Hot Dogs, Pizza. We ate from this grill on several occasions during the cruise and never had anything we didn't finish.

 

Although we wanted to try the Crab Shack, we didn't due to conflicts with other dining options we had planned.

 

International Café was perfect. Coffee there was never a disappointment, food always exceptional in our opinion.

 

All Inclusive Beverage Package Overall rating: A+

 

We will purchase this again. Our current reservation for the suite next December was booked under the Sip & Sail promotion and we will lose this benefit when I rebook into another room. However, I will then purchase the AIBP because for us.. it worked.

 

I was going to keep track to determine whether or not we actually came out ahead or a little behind financially but after abusing the package the first three days, I didn't feel it was necessary to continue tracking anything. Yes, we lost a little speed as the cruise progressed and of course on port days. But when you consider coffee's in the morning, bottled water (there were many bottles of water consumed) along with all the morning adult beverages, drinks by the pool, before dinner drinks, dinner drinks, after dinner drinks, Crooner's Lounge, Wheelhouse Bar... I could go on.. trust me.. the "simplicity" of this package was well worth it to us.

 

We never had a problem getting a drink, never thought "service" was slowed down because we had the package and in fact, many times with half a drink still sitting on the table, the server would bring us another round based on their experience serving us the day before. Both of us were also able to order two drinks (one for each of us) without the other person being there as long as we had both cards to show. So this prevented the need for both of us to get up from our pool loungers to get a drink. We would take turns doing so and this wasn't a problem.

 

Chair Hogs

 

They were out in full force this week. Dawn and I went outside at 7:50am on the first sea day to find nothing but a wave of blue/white towels sitting on nothing but empty chairs. Of all the loungers available around the pool.. at least 95% of them were occupied with towels. There were only a handful of people actually sitting in chairs.

 

Later we spoke with someone who had walked by the pool on their way to the gym who said at 6am fully 50% of the chairs already had towels on them.

 

Really people?

 

The Regal Princess Overall rating: A+

 

Many reviews have been written about the ship, her staff and the lack of a center stair case (HA.. you thought that was going to slip by didn't you). Actually, I'm not going to mention anything about the stairs. I say this because of my hip issues, the stairs were only used when absolutely necessary and I never felt waiting for an elevator was any worse on this ship than any other ship we've sailed. We heard people complain about not having these stairs but I'm going to cover "people" in just a bit.

 

So we loved this ship, can't wait to sail her again next December and quite honestly, when its time to book our next cruise, unless there is an itinerary that makes it impossible for us to book the Regal, will do so in the future.

 

So in closing my review I have two last minute things I want to write about. They are:

 

Staff & Tipping You probably have already seen me mention Liudmyla, our Concierge Attendant who is also a Guest Services Desk Attendant. If I could get reassurances that she would be the Concierge Attendant for next December, I would keep the suite. She was that important to us. She handled every single dinner reservation request or question we had, she called us almost daily to check in to see if there was anything we needed or she could handle for us. When we asked her to come visit us at the Guest Services Counter, where she happened to be working on Saturday, and we give her the tip envelope we had for her, Dawn and I both saw the look in her eyes and the emotions tied to that tip. And she had no idea how much we had just given her. The shear fact that we had tipped her was enough for this look of appreciation to overcome her.

 

The same can be said for Renan, our Room Steward. We invited him into the room to chat with him and to give him his tip. The same look of appreciation came over him as it did with Liudmyla.

 

So, whether you agree with the auto tips or not (and by the way, we pre-paid our tips and had no intention of taking them off) and whether or not its anyone's business other than the person getting the tip and what's written into their personal employment contract on how to handle cash gratuities given to them (I don't think its anyone's business by the way) the look both Renan and Liudmyla gave us said it all. They appreciate more than words can express the thought and act of receiving the tip.

 

And these two, especially, deserved the extra tip they received. They both worked extremely hard for us and I'm sure they did for others as well.

 

And lastly....

 

Passengers of the Regal Princess

 

You know where I'm going with this.

 

First there was the woman outside before even getting on the ship. Yes, we had cut into the line but not on purpose and certainly not by design. When informed of our error, my wife advised the lady we would move as soon as I returned from taking a picture. She didn't want to move before I returned because she knew I would be standing there wondering why my wife left me. But even after being told this, the woman couldn't stop. To the point where my wife finally decided she had to say something back.

 

There was the woman inside the show room yelling at the handicapped gentleman to sit down when he was simply trying to make his way to a seat. This really chapped my hide but another gentleman sitting much closer to me took it upon himself to say something to her for me.

 

There were other instances, more than I would like to admit, of this type of behavior throughout the trip. But I'm only going to mention one more.

 

Saturday morning, standing at the Guest Services Counter.. this special person stood there.. berating the employee and demanding immediate satisfaction to her complaint. Regardless of how many times the employee tried to explain the issue was out of her control and she was sorry and that a more senior officer of the ship would contact her to discuss her concern.. that was not good enough for her. She continued and continued.

 

Then felt it necessary to remind the employee that she was... yup, you guessed it... ELITE. And had over 20 cruises under her belt. And how would YOU (the employee) feel if this was YOUR cruise and this had happened to you and she wasn't going to move from that desk until this issue had been resolved to her satisfaction. Oh, I forgot to mention she had four other ladies with her. All with the same concern but none acting up as she was.

 

I had had enough. I approached the desk, asked her to take her complaint back to her room and wait for the Sr. Officer to contact her. That this employee had done everything she could do for her and to continue this "scene" was doing nobody any good, specially herself as with each word she uttered was falling on ears that could no longer hear her. You know this didn't sit well with her but in the end, she did back down a little and I had walked away. I don't know if she ever got resolution to her concern or not but by her actions, I'm hoping she did not.

 

And I must apologize to all of you as I didn't let you know what her issue was. You see, it had rained on Saturday morning and some outside activity had to be cancelled. When the rain stopped, she was not satisfied that someone had not gone outside to "dry" whatever area of the ship needed to be dried so this outside activity (I think it was a class of some sort) could be reinstated and her cruise could continue. She seemed overly concerned about why her class would be cancelled but others scheduled for later that day had not been.

 

I can't make this up my friends. She was complaining about the rain.

 

The positive: We met so many friendly people who didn't have a care in the world. They were so happy to be on a cruise, to be cruising with others who felt the same and went out of their way to be considerate to their fellow passengers and who made this a very special vacation.

 

Sad how the so few can make such a large impression. I Hope you agree.

 

So that's it friends. If I didn't cover something you had hopped I might, please ask and I will do my best to answer your question. Want my opinion about something, ask and you shall receive.

 

Were you on this cruise and had a different experience? Please let me know. That's what this is all about. To share our experiences.

 

Just keep it friendly please!! :cool:

[trystran72]

Hi Jeff!

 

I am just off the same sailing and loved every single minute of it. The staff really were top notch!!

[sunsetbeachgal]

Thanks for such an honest balanced review.

 

Could you add a few words about the ports and what you did in each?

[decamp303]

Jeff - Thanks for the great review. We are booked in an Owners Suite for a Baltics cruise in June. We can still change to a Penthouse suite and save a few thousand dollars, but give up the aft and awesome balcony. Would you rate the soot issue severe enough that we should change suites?

[WISH84]

Thanks for such an honest balanced review.

 

Could you add a few words about the ports and what you did in each?

 

Princess Cays

 

We took the tender to the island fairly early and found a couple of free loungers under a tree. These worked perfectly for us. We were able to get as much sun as we wanted and yet not have to hide under a blanket for several hours either. We didn't reserve anything so we just enjoyed the island. We went back to the ship for lunch.

 

Grand Cayman

 

We did the Dolphin Encounter and Stingray Tour. This was a fantastic tour. My wife is still talking about the Dolphins. Not so much the Stingrays. I think having them in the wild, swimming around here at will was a little hard for her to take. Then of course when "feeding" time came, one of the critters tried to take some food from the wrong hand and if you've ever done this tour, you know those suckers can do just that.. suck. So she ended up with an INSTANT bruise on her hand. It's still there but finally going away. I don't see us feeding the Stingrays any time soon again. But she would swim with the Dolphins all day long if she could.

 

Side bar: Picture package from the Dolphin portion of the tour $140. Picture package from the Stingray portion: $60. Yup.. .$200 in pictures from that one day alone.

 

Costa Maya

 

Catamaran Sail & Snorkel. We thoroughly enjoyed this port. I understand Princess does not call on this port very often and we had never been. We would look forward to this port again although next time I think we would just opt for a cab ride into the downtown area and walk around. I picture this little port town to be what Cozumel must have been like "back in the day".

 

Cozumel

 

No plans. We always take a cab into Downtown and walk, shop, eat, drink. This is what we did this time too. We love Cozumel.

 

If you have any specific questions, please let me know.

 

:)

[Oh2B@C]

You see, it had rained on Saturday morning and some outside activity had to be cancelled.

 

 

It was a shuffleboard tournament and she is the six-time defending champion at The Villages. I can see why that mattered so much to her...:rolleyes:

 

Very much enjoyed your review Jeff, thanks for taking the time!

1. Did you go into Princess Live?

2. Did you use the Retreat Pool area?

3. What would you say are the best changes they made to the buffet, other than the layout of course?

[WISH84]

Jeff - Thanks for the great review. We are booked in an Owners Suite for a Baltics cruise in June. We can still change to a Penthouse suite and save a few thousand dollars, but give up the aft and awesome balcony. Would you rate the soot issue severe enough that we should change suites?

 

I am VERY hesitant to make any kind of recommendation for you. Not because I don't have an opinion.. but that's exactly what it is.. my opinion. Your personal experience could be very different. However, I will say these things and you can go from there.

 

1) We've never done a Baltics cruise so I have no idea how much "balcony" time you will have available to you. Soot was always a bigger issue in the morning. After the room steward cleans the deck, it wasn't an issue at all.

 

2) Soot exposure is also going to depend a lot on the wind direction. There were a couple of times we could clearly see the soot from the funnel's blowing directly off to our left or right. When there was no "cross directional" wind and the soot blew straight to the back, is when the soot was the worst.

 

3) The Penthouse Suites are the exact same as the Owner's Suite except for the balcony (You know this of course) so now the question really comes down to how much time will you spend on the balcony. We just KNEW we would spend as much time as possible on the balcony. We even planned our days around how much time we would spend out there. Then came the cruise and we didn't spend HALF as much time as we thought we would. We considered actually "laying out" on the loungers one day but when that day came, it was so hot that the only way either one of us would have been comfortable doing so was to fill the bathtub with cold water and use it as a make shift pool.

 

The view is tremendous, the balcony is fantastic. For us, we can't justify the added cost for those two items and that's what it really comes down to for us. A balcony can be had for about $2200 depending on destination and days. The Owner's Suite is much, much more than that.

 

You see how I'm hesitant to recommend what you do? :cool:

[WISH84]

It was a shuffleboard tournament and she is the six-time defending champion at The Villages. I can see why that mattered so much to her...:rolleyes:

 

Very much enjoyed your review Jeff, thanks for taking the time!

1. Did you go into Princess Live?

2. Did you use the Retreat Pool area?

3. What would you say are the best changes they made to the buffet, other than the layout of course?

 

From the outfits they were wearing, I swear it was some sort of yoga class. At least the couple who approached the desk to complain about the lack of "Dry Cleaning" at the same time were wearing matching white pants, royal blue tops and matching tennis shoes... ;)

 

We did NOT go into Princess Live. My wife's first profession was TV News Producer for NBC, ABC and FOX. Going inside that venue would have drove her insane. However whenever we walked by it, whatever was going on inside did seem to be heavily attended. So somebody was enjoying it.

 

We did NOT use the Retreat Pool. We spent some time back there, but this was also very heavily populated and the "towel monsters" were very popular there too. They held a Star Gazing event back there and the young man going trough the stars in the sky and telling the Greek Mythology behind them was outstanding. That was the best thing we did in this area.

 

We heard many people complain about the layout of the buffet. But once you understand it's layout.. it's simple as pie. The Horizon Court is the "upscale" side of the buffet. Nicer furniture, more options to choose from. The Horizon Bistro is more casual, same options just fewer of them and they have a nice selection of sandwiches and more casual items to also choose from.

 

The Pastry Shop is located between the two. Food from either side of the buffet was very good. And this coming from a F&B person who has also eaten at just about every ultra buffet in Las Vegas. I mean, they really did a good job.

[sunsetbeachgal]

Jeff - Thanks for the great review. We are booked in an Owners Suite for a Baltics cruise in June. We can still change to a Penthouse suite and save a few thousand dollars, but give up the aft and awesome balcony. Would you rate the soot issue severe enough that we should change suites?

 

 

I'm not Jeff, but we did a Baltics cruise in June on a Holland America ship in a suite with a huge aft wrap balcony and it was wonderful. The views off both the side and the back of these fabulous ports was priceless. We were out there all the time...but it was a tad too chilly to sit out in the chairs. There were nice soft wool blankets that we wrapped up in at times. We used the binoculars provided in the suite as the scenery cruising in and out of some of these ports is fabulous. But not a warm weather cruise!

Edited December 14, 2015 by sunsetbeachgal