Grandeur of the Seas Photo Review 6/9-18

[RRFPresident]

We each got the filet mignon butterflied for quicker cooking. I asked for mine to be well done and Dad asked for medium well. The manager brought our steaks and rushed off. Normally, and we observed such at neighboring tables, the waiter would stick around long enough to have us cut into the steak and verify that it's cooked to our liking. Dad cut into his and had to yell at the manager to come back because it was still rare inside. The manager assured Dad that he'd put it back on the grill to cook longer and took the plate away. Within literally a couple minutes, he returned with a perfectly cooked steak. We figured it was just a case of him having picked up someone else's order in the first place as to why it didn't take long to return with the properly cooked steak. Someone at a nearby table had to send his steak back because it was too salty. The waiter eventually brought him out another steak that he'd taken the time to ensure that no salt was used at all. The man ate the new steak but said it could have used at least a little salt. It was also interesting to see this same table ask a roaming photographer to take their picture with their cell phone. The photographer refused, insisting that they'd have to ask one of the waiters.

 

My steak:

 

For the sides, we ordered truffle fries (as Princess' garlic & herb fries are a favorite of ours), creamed corn, and mashed potatoes. I didn't exactly measure out portions but I don't see how these little dishes our sides came in were meant to serve a large group. They were physically smaller than my soup bowl.

 

Fries (if these hadn't of tasted slightly seasoned, I would have thought they'd bussed them in from the Windjammer):

 

Creamed corn:

 

Mashed Potatoes:

 

Everyone's favorite part of the meal:

[RRFPresident]

For dessert I got the chocolate mud pie and Dad got the liquid center chocolate cake. Dad had stepped out to use the restroom when it arrived and the manager nearly fell over himself when he saw that I was waiting for him to come back. Literally stopped to assure me Dad was on his way before disappearing again. Umm yes thank you, I can see him walking back in through the door now too.

 

Chocolate mud pie:

 

Liquid Center Chocolate Cake:

 

We tend to drink a lot of water, especially during meals so it really gets frustrating when no one comes by to refill our glasses throughout the meal. After we finished our meal, we weren't sure whether we still needed to have our card scanned or sign for anything since we'd paid for the dining package. Our doting manager was nowhere to be found so we finally called over one of the nearby waiters and asked about it. He specifically said “I have to check with my boss so I'll bring the card over to him.” Really wish we knew what this extra effort was from that made the waiter so nervous. Since I had my back to the wall at a corner table, I had the perfect view to watch the waiter go to his manager and then get entirely confused and yelled at by his manager because he thought he'd been instructed to swipe the card in the machine like everyone else's card gets done. The manager took back the card, rushed over to the same female in a suit we encountered that other morning managing Giovanni's, and she rushed out of sight with it. Eventually, the manager returned our card and a receipt that said $0.00 for every entry. The delay in figuring out the card left us rushing across the ship to snag two of the last couple theater seats in the suite section as they were opening it up to everyone.

 

We had been interested in seeing the production show, All Access, thinking it was more of a behind the scenes talk/share thing but it was simply just a story-line based around partying at a pop/rock concert. Afterwards, Dad stopped by the casino to see if anyone was around to play craps but soon returned to the cabin as no one was there. I wanted to check out the Country Theme Dance Party but it was packed and was more about couples dancing to a band rather than groups or dances being taught for all so I soon headed back to the cabin as well.

 

Around 3:30AM, I got up to use the bathroom. Just as I was thinking that the toilet flush sounded odd, I realized there was no water coming out of our bathroom faucets when I went to wash my hands. I cleansed best I could with a wet wipe and tried to fall back asleep in bed. It was so still and quiet, I eventually stepped out onto the balcony to see if we were moving. Upon confirming that we were, I tried to close the balcony sliding door as I came back inside but it wouldn't slide closed, only more open. Dad woke up upon hearing my struggle with the door and also had trouble sliding it closed. He finally had to straddle the track and rock the door back and forth in order to get it to close. I explained about the lack of water and went into the bathroom to show Dad. By that time of course it had started working again! Thank goodness as I was picturing having to shower at the cruise ship version of the Texaco station. We went back to bed and left a note for our steward John in the morning about the door. He later told us that it had come off the track somehow. I did notice from then on the door that once required some effort to slide leading me to rethink my protein intake, now slid like butter. It was also not until near the end of the cruise that we discovered the extra buttons by the beds that let you turn out the lights after you've gotten into bed. I remember saying to Dad how odd it was that they didn't have such a feature resulting in many a bruised shin and stubbed toe trying to get back to bed in the dark. The next day, I was telling Barbara about our middle of the night drama and she said she had also gotten up to use the bathroom around that time and discovered no water electing to clean her hands with Listerine.

[John Reid]

Yes that is Tony! I believe he said after his time off he was heading to Harmony though.

 

Excellent. We won a two-day USA inaugural on Harmony for November 8.

[sellwingri]

Quick question. Did you have to set up the clock an hour before arriving in Bermuda? I'm concerned with booking an early morning tour if we lose an hour.

[RRFPresident]

Quick question. Did you have to set up the clock an hour before arriving in Bermuda? I'm concerned with booking an early morning tour if we lose an hour.

 

Yes, we had to go forward one hour the night before arriving in Bermuda which would be Friday night. They leave a note in the cabin reminding you to do so before you go to bed on Friday as the ships' clocks change officially at 3AM early Saturday morning. If you have the same itinerary as I did, you don't get into Bermuda until around 2PM that Saturday. We booked an early morning tour for the following day, Sunday, after we'd been in port overnight and by then had no issue with the time change. The clocks stay one hour forward until we went to bed Sunday night.

[JamesEM]

Enjoying your reports and photos, but I must say some of your food porn photos does not look that appetizing.

[RRFPresident]

Enjoying your reports and photos, but I must say some of your food porn photos does not look that appetizing.

 

Not everything tasted appetizing either. And yes, some things that looked so-so ended up tasting great. As with everything, the next person eating the same dish could think it was delightful. That's why I try and include a comment about whether we personally liked it or not.

[LabLover13]

I'm loving this post!! Taking my first RCL cruise, this exact one, very soon. Keep the updates coming!

[RRFPresident]

Day 6 – Nassau

 

Nassau is a port we've been to before and after some brief consideration of the excursions RCL offered, we decided it wasn't even worth getting off the ship. I did notice when scanning our list of charges on the last day that we were refunded a small amount of the same money each about halfway through the cruise. Best we could guess was that we got refunded the port charges since we never got off the ship?

 

Our view straight out this morning:

 

The view straight down from our balcony - we were always churning so much right around the ship, I began to wonder if the spin cycle classes were being held in the engine room:

 

Breakfast again this morning at Giovanni's – I love the Jimmy Dean style breakfast biscuits for a quick breakfast at home so this morning I ordered a bagel, scrambled eggs, and bacon and made my own breakfast sandwich. Dad must have had something he'd gotten before because I didn't bother to take a picture of it.

 

Afterwards, Dad and I split up again so Dad could attend Dr. Tom Ryan's lecture on sunken treasure in the South Pacific Lounge. Rick and I were the only two who showed up to the Schooner Bar to play ABC Word Puzzle. These were brain teasers that read like "7 d I a w" and you had to figure out that that stood for "7 days in a week." We each worked on our own sheet before finally sharing with each other the ones the other couldn't figure out. We both won more pens! Started out this trip asking our steward John for a pen and paper so I could take notes during the cruise and now we're starting to drown in pens. Guess what you're getting for Christmas, family and friends!

 

Light shower had moved into the area while we played:

 

Took some time to walk deck 5 (I vaguely remember stepping out the nearest outside door to kill time between trivias so I'm guessing this was deck 5) and grab some pictures of the sun on the water. I liked walking this deck because you could walk all the way around.

 

Spooky looking:

 

Facing the other direction:

[RRFPresident]

The very aft you could go on this deck featured this great view:

 

One of my favorite shots to get on a cruise is when the sun hits the life preserver just right:

 

Cool little porthole style openings on each end framed the view for a great picture:

[RRFPresident]

I liked how the doors leading back inside had these touch button sensors that lit up green dots all around the little hand before sliding open the door:

 

Next up was Progressive Trivia Round 4 with our newly cemented team of Wayne, Denise, Bob, Sue, Dad, and I. I liked how the Progressive Trivia rounds were held only on days or at least times of the day when we weren't in port. Missed a round of a progressive trivia based Battle of the Sexes on a Celebrity cruise because the session was held while we were off on a ship tour in port.

 

Popped into the Concierge Lounge for a little bit before lunch and enjoyed chatting with fellow CC members. At lunch in the dining room, we once again were seated with a large group. Dad decided to try the popular Tutti Salad bar that was always available for lunch. His version of salad is some lettuce and some tomato so he liked being able to pick and choose ingredients which the staff added and then handed him the bowl to bring back to his seat. Dad also discovered that the salad bar had the better bread.

 

My Singapore noodles with chicken and shrimp (reminded me of Chef Boyardee sauce taste but surprisingly pretty good):

 

Since the Tutti Salad bar is self serve (plus usually a long line even though they take people's orders from both sides with the final step of dressing choices in the middle), a lot of the time the person who chose salad was able to eat well before everyone else. Such was the case this afternoon as our friendly My Time Dining manager came rushing over just as Dad was munching away with a full salad bowl and I sat waiting for my hot entree to arrive. Unlike the other days, without any tours planned, we had no rush whatsoever to finish our meal by a certain time so we got a good chuckle out of the manager's need to check on how timely we were being served and his offering to make our entrees “come out right now!” As it was, our waiter had just brought up the large tray of several covered dishes containing our entrees when the manager approached us. The manager did notice that we'd missed having dinner in the dining room the last couple nights and we explained about being in Chops the night before. He wanted to know how our service was in Chops and we told him about our experience with the steak and lack of water refills to which he thanked us profusely for giving our feedback. We ended up with seats by the window this time and enjoyed watching us dock in Nassau as we finished our lunch.

 

As we wandered out on deck to take some pictures of the port, we heard Captain Ante announce that the ship had been cleared and passengers were able to get off. Not 10 minutes later, we hear CD John come on the intercom and negate Captain Ante's announcement, insisting that the ship has not yet been cleared. I joked to Dad that if in a few minutes, we saw a tall guy scream “Not Feeling Great!” and go overboard, we knew it would be that Captain Ante wasn't too happy with CD John for correcting him. The humidity was very high this day and you could even feel the stagnant warm heavy air inside the ship. I walked around deck 10 to get pics of our fellow docked ships, the Carnival Victory backed in next to us and the Disney Dream had backed in on the other side of them. Guess Captain Ante decided that he would be better driving forward as we were the only ones to pull in straight.

 

You could see the storm clouds moving in:

 

 

[RRFPresident]

While out wandering the deck, I looked up and noticed you could see the Palladium Theater entrance through the window on the deck above me:

 

My funnel is bigger than your funnel:

 

I took a picture of this same lighthouse as we were leaving Nassau and it was gloomy on a previous cruise so here it is from the other side in bright sunshine:

 

For those of you considering that excursion to Atlantis:

 

The foreground of this pic is Carnival's indoor buffet seating, the background of course is of the Disney Dream:

 

Welcome to Mopeds R Us, known to the locals as the Nassau chop shop:

[RRFPresident]

For those interested in the Glass Bottom Boat excursion:

 

Yay, got the Nassau flag without even realizing it:

 

Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the right:

 

This sign explained what was behind a mural style picture of kids playing on the wall near the above shuffleboard:

 

It's too bad Carnival wasn't showing anything good on their poolside movie screen:

 

Your funnel may be taller but our bow is pointier (I just noticed how it looks like that house is sitting on top of Disney's bow):

[RRFPresident]

You've seen their funnels and you've seen their bows, might as well get a comparison of their bridges as well:

 

The closest I got to our rock wall - had a fair amount of heavy winds on deck for the latter half of this cruise thanks to summer storm fronts so it was closed a good part of the trip:

 

Way to welcome a ship back to its hometown of IIVSSVN:

 

From this perspective, those using the slide on the Disney Dream that normally extends out over the ocean, now instead extended out over the Carnival Victory's pool deck:

 

Next we headed back inside to the Schooner Bar for Tribond Challenge, this time with Amy. It was only a small group who showed up to play, including one man who'd just been sitting in the quiet bar to enjoy his cereal. Several of us gathered were frequent trivia attendees including Barbara and Rick so Amy pulled up a chair to sit with us so she could find a Tribond list that we hadn't heard yet. We all got a good laugh when we recognized nearly all of the questions off Amy's small group of lists. She let us just yell out the answers from anyone who figured out the few we hadn't heard yet rather than really compete against each other. Amy promised to seek out new lists before the next game.

 

The walk back to our cabin from the midship elevators:

 

We wandered past Cafe Lattitudes on our way back to the cabin after a refill of my soda tumbler and picked out some treats. I picked out a couple of the cheesecake lollipops that everyone seemed to be going crazy for and of course, we had to get a couple cookies. Being docked, I wanted to sit outside at our balcony table to relax while the water was quiet and enjoy the slight breeze. My first mistake was leaving the plate of treats out on the balcony table while I stepped back in now that my hands were free to get my notes. Turned back two steps into the cabin and a seagull was already on our balcony rail. I rushed out to shoo him away but in hindsight, the logical thing would have been to pull my food back inside until I was ready to guard it at the table. After he left the rail, I stepped back inside just long enough to get my camera. In that moment, the seagull swooped back in, had tried to pick up a cheesecake lollipop separating the stick from the cake, and then moved on to flip a cookie off the plate. Once I stepped back on the balcony, he flew off leaving the cookie sitting upside down on the table. I pushed the whole plate worth to the other side of the table inviting the seagull to come finish what I certainly had no intention of still eating but he didn't have the nerve to come back while I was still sitting at the table.

 

Mug shot of the snack stealer:

[RRFPresident]

The snack that would have been:

 

As I sat at the table adding to my notes, I watched several seagulls swoop in to our ship's open decks only to swoop back over to Carnival Victory moments later. Guess even birds have line loyalties! Sitting on our balcony also gave me the feeling of being on 3 cruises at once because Carnival and Disney both used their time to host parties on their top open decks. I enjoyed the music Carnival's DJ was playing and despite being unable to see the name from our ship, I soon was able to learn which Disney ship was on the other side because I could hear two very peppy young entertainment staff announce that they were starting the “Disney Dream deck party!”

 

We then joined Rick to play the True or False Quiz back in the Schooner Bar and only got 7 out of 15. The questions were so random like whether the founders of the C&A department store were named Chester and Augustus or Cindy and Aaron. Another name based one asked about the guy who came up with the slogan “Beans make Heinz.” I didn't know Heinz even made beans, I only just learned this morning that they apparently make peanut butter!

 

Dad and I had originally thought that we'd take advantage of what must be an empty ship while in these last two ports to use the Solarium pool. We decided to pop over to the pool and see how it was before bothering to change into our swimsuits. They had the roof closed so it was super humid and there was at least 10-15 people in the pool already. So much for everyone being off in port. I sat for a bit letting my feet swish in the wading area while Dad tried to relax on a lounge chair.

 

Soon it became too hot for Dad so we returned to the cabin to relax. I hopped up from my middle of the cruise nodding off stupor brought on by finally getting to enjoy the treat plate sent to us by Francis when I saw Carnival Victory had pulled away.

 

Bye Bye Victory:

 

Took the chance to grab some nice shots of the Disney Dream now that I could see them fully.

 

I banish ye Carnival from the Magic Kingdom:

[sellwingri]

Was your muster station inside or outside?

 

I am LOVING your review! You're really getting me excited for August.

Edited June 28, 2016 by sellwingri

[RRFPresident]

Was your muster station inside or outside?

 

I am LOVING your review! You're really getting me excited for August.

 

We were outside.

[RRFPresident]

Forgot to include the pic of our afternoon suite & this time sweet treat delivery:

 

All I had off this plate was the chocolate drizzled thing in the center and it was pretty good but flaky.

[RRFPresident]

Within another hour or so, Disney left as well and I fell off the couch in my rush to get to the balcony door so I could hear them literally toot their own horn. I will probably never actually sail on a Disney ship as we have no little kids in my family but I'm a sucker for when they play “When You Wish Upon A Star” as their horn when leaving port. It was my first time hearing it in person as the last time I was in port near a Disney ship, the Disney Magic, we left before them. I regret the fact that though we've sailed the Regal Princess, we never heard their Love Boat themed horn played. Dad however, was not impressed with Disney's horn, asking “They do this EVERY time they leave a port? Geez!”

 

Disney has a stowaway:

 

 

In the words of once teen pop star Tiffany...I think we're alone now:

 

We stayed in the cabin this time until just before our scheduled dinner reservation so no happy hour in the Concierge Lounge tonight. As we walked into the dining room, we just so happened to enter on the same side as our preferred 505 table sits. Jay saw us waiting in line behind one other group to check in and motioned us over to come sit at the table. Once seated, he rushed back over to the podium and checked in our cabin number for us. Sure enough, our trusty MTD manager soon came over to check on how well we thought Toni and Jay were doing and we gave him nothing but rave reviews about them and their service. We were asked again about Chops and I told him that the only issue that wasn't relatively quickly remedied was how infrequently we had our water glasses refilled and the confusion about running our card. He was very apologetic and kept promising to “make it right” so much so that it made us feel bad for saying anything. Never did give an answer though about whether we should have needed to hand over our card. A short while later as we sat eating our meal, we noticed the Chops manager who'd insisted on waiting on us walk past our dining room table with a less than happy expression, force a smile and nod of hello in our direction when we made eye contact. We feared that our diligent MTD manager might have called him in to make him apologize at our table but thankfully, we didn't see him beyond that.

 

Dad ordered the Duo of Melon and Grapefruit, sans Grapefruit:

[RRFPresident]

For my appetizer, I couldn't decide between the Baby Shrimp Salad and the English Cheddar Cheese Sticks so I tried both:

 

English Cheddar Cheese Sticks - not gooey like mozzarella sticks but still tasty. The cup had what was described as "sweet lingonberry relish" that reminded me of sweet n sour sauce from Chinese take out:

 

Baby Shrimp Salad with brandied cocktail sauce - a.k.a. a sprig of lettuce, a slice of tomato, some baby shrimp drowned in thousand island dressing, and topped with a slice of hard boiled egg and dollop of caviar. Should have stuck with the cheese sticks:

 

Dad and my coke supplier Jay (diet coke that is):

 

Dad had the Premium Angus Beef Sliders for his entrée:

 

And I had the Linguini with Pomodoro Sauce, both from the "Classics" list:

 

Not impressed with the dessert choices this night, we both had ice cream. Each ice cream dish had these shortbread style cookie sticks with sprinkled sugar on top, and they were delicious!

[RRFPresident]

Stepped out on deck to enjoy the sunset and ran into Kendall and her parents Lisa and Dave. They shared how they spent their day getting to see a local school. Soon Amelia and her family walked up and after a few minutes left them to chat.

 

If you're weird and don't like sunset pics, keep scrolling while I enjoy reliving some of my favorite parts of a cruise:

[RRFPresident]

And one more because it's my review:

 

Stopped into the South Pacific Lounge to check out the small group gathered to play the 60 Seconds or Less game. We weren't as quick to participate as we recognized they were using some of the same games as Battle of the Sexes. I was the only one to answer when Makiva asked who remembered where she was from so she joked that I win the gold medal.

 

Makiva enlisted two young brothers to compete in the challenge of stacking cups and then blowing them off the table with a balloon. They spent the rest of the time batting the blown up balloons to each other.

[RRFPresident]

Then these two guys got drafted to play a game that required you to toss up one pencil after balancing it on the back of your hand, grab it in one hand, pick up a 2nd pencil, and repeat until you'd balanced, thrown up, and caught every single pencil from the table.

 

The guy on the left was really good at it, the guy on the right..not so much:

 

Guy on the right dropped his pile of pencils and Makiva was trying so hard not to laugh:

 

Makiva hoping right guy finally gets to catch his first pencil:

 

Success!

[RRFPresident]

These two young ladies were then chosen to play a game that required donning a pair of pantyhose with some sort of weights in the feet (I'm guessing tennis balls) on their heads which they then had to lean over and move their heads to direct the weights to knock over full water bottles:

 

Next was a take on the orange passing game I'd participated in but this time it was just a regular ball to pass under each person's chin:

 

The ladies fared much better than the guys again:

 

We could only watch a couple games before our new friends Rick and Barbara pointed out that the 2nd Headliner show, the comedy magic of Levent, was starting soon and we all hightailed it to the theater, making it just before Brandon pulled the rope opening the suite seating up to everyone. Brandon joked that this was the hardest part of his day, opening and closing the rope. Brandon told everyone in the area that he wishes they'd follow through on the rumor to make the suite cards black because people who have “gold” printed on their cards as their Crown & Anchor status were getting confused by the sign referencing “only those with gold cards can sit here.” Brandon also gleefully shared that this task was also his favorite part of the day because it was the only time he could tell a passenger no.

[RRFPresident]

Levent's comedy magic show was full of simple tricks and silly humor. Spotted a couple of our new CC friends being asked to participate including Lisa as the star of the show, “Invisible Scissor Lady.” I wish they'd utilize the screens on each side of the stage during every show as I can't imagine everyone in the back could have seen the smaller close up tricks Levent was performing. Dad didn't care for the show very much, commenting that “if this was something I'd have been watching on TV, I would have turned it off.”

 

After the show was over, I participated in a new game called “Find a ladies restroom that didn't have a line.” Closest one just inside the casino not only had a line, but also had people waiting outside and blocking the entrance to the casino. I tried to snag an elevator to go back up to our cabin but watched as the elevators kept skipping our current deck. Ran up the stairs to use our cabin's bathroom and then ran back downstairs.

 

We then returned to the theater to watch the Love and Marriage show hosted by CD John with the help of Katrina and Makiva to lead the spouses on and off stage for each round. John picked a couple married only a few weeks, one married around 60 years, and one that was close to the longest married. Then they decided to add a fourth couple in the mid range of years married and had the interested parties make up their own response to a “Tarzan where are you” cry by the ladies. The audience was then tasked to vote between the couple who's husband physically picked up his wife and pretended to run off with her and the couple who's husband replied by pulling off his shirt. Skin won over cuteness and the couple whose husband pulled off his shirt joined the other couples on stage.

 

Katrina was bringing over the cup for picking people but apparently John couldn't help but bust a move while they played music:

 

2nd longest married couple:

 

Most recently married couple:

 

Longest married couple:

 

John asking for Tarzan impressions: