Serenade of the Seas

[Treven]

Got back from my Mexican Riviera cruise this past Sunday. Had a great time; there were a few complaints, but nothing to impact my enjoying myself.

 

One morning, about 8:30, I had breakfast in the dining room. I was the only person in the dining room other than the staff. I was rather underwhelmed by the experience, so I never had breakfast there again. I went back to having breakfast in the Windjammer (buffet) - where I had lunch almost everyday. One day I had lunch in the Seaview cafe; the Fish & Chips was certainly nothing to write home about - but the Strawberry milkshake was certainly worth the extra charge!

 

I had dinner in the dining room every night. The service was, for the most part, very attentative. The food was good every night.

 

The MAJOR complaint, and the ship/company/crew had nothing to do with it. Upon docking back in San Diego on Sunday morning, it seems that immigration wanted to see 6 "foreign national" passengers. Personnel at Guest Relations kept paging this list of names to report there for immigrations, and of course that held up the remainder of the 2k passengers. Two hours later the people finally decided to show up and the rest of the passengers were allowed to disembark. By that time I had missed my flight; & had finally gotten to the airport about noon. Southwest was able to get me on a flight that was leaving at 12:30, along with my luggage & my walker.

 

I'm ready for my next cruise!!!

[Sue L]

Unfortunately, the immigration thing seems to happen on every cruise. They are always paging those who don't show up. It is truly sad that a couple of people can screw up a couple of thousand others.

 

 

I am glad you enjoyed your cruise. I will be on the Serenade next August to Alaska can't wait.

 

 

Sue

[wrp96]

Hey Treven welcome back! Glad you had a good time. Yeah that immigration problem is part of the reason why I don't recommend early flights to anyone.

[critterchick]

I'm glad you had a good cruise, Treven - sorry for your delay in embarking, but we had the same immigration no-shows that you did, which delayed us for about 90 minutes. I don't know why they don't send somebody to the cabin to drag those folks out of bed.

[Mach1]

Thank goodness you were able to get another flight, yicks!

 

I just loved the Serenade, glad you had a great cruise. I wish every ship had the seaview cafe.

[Sheffie]

Glad you had a great cruise. I also agree about the fish and chips; pass them up if you can! Everything else at the Seaview is wonderful!

[Treven]

Well the next time I'll know better. The problem was that I got the airline tickets through a TA here in town. I would think that she would be familiar with the usual problems with immigrations and book me on a 12:30 or a 1:00 flight.

 

I'll have pitchas posted to my Smugmug website in a couple days - after I finish Photoshopping them.

[goboy]

Yes, we loved the Serenade, too. Beautiful ship. This was our 16th cruise- 10th on RCL. So we know a little bit about cruising do's and dont's. Big complaint I had was right along these lines. When they let people off first that had their own "carry on" luggage- then look out! RCL I think envisioned people getting off with an AWOL bag(for you former GI's), or a small bag for everyone else- No problem, right? Wrong! Passengers were carrying, rolling, pulling huge bags off the ship- So, they blocked all the stairs, corridors, etc. with their huge load of luggage. Plus, there were no RCL staff members to direct anything! Absolutely no order at all to the dis-embarkation process. Embarking- they were Johnny on the spot! Dis-embarking- you were pretty much on your own- which resulted in dis-organized confusion. The only reason we made our flight was that the plane was late leaving!.Also, they need to draw the line on these people who can't seem to show up to settle up, or whatever they do, before anybody can get off the ship. But, that might hurt somebody's feelings, and they certainly wouldn't want to do that. They would rather cause someone who has sailed with them 10 times to miss their flight! I know that was sarcastic, and it was meant to be! Another thing, since I'm on a roll- RCL needs to do away with all the rules on board the ship,or enforce the ones they have. They need to quit pretending they have rules and then let some clown come to dinner at night with shorts, tee shirt, and a cap turned backwards!OK, enough already, we really love cruising, or we wouldn't have spent what we have on it the last 10 years. But, I'll tell you that driving out West the next couple of years is looking . better. Happy cruising.

 

goboy

[Coralc]

Welcome back Treven, goboy! Sounds like you had a nice time except for disembarkation. How was the weather? Did H/Tropical Storm Paul impact your port stops? We were watching but there was no info on RCCL because it was a charter.

 

Looking forward to photos!:D

[Treven]

Welcome back Treven, goboy! Sounds like you had a nice time except for disembarkation. How was the weather? Did H/Tropical Storm Paul impact your port stops? We were watching but there was no info on RCCL because it was a charter.

 

Looking forward to photos!:D

We were a couple days behind the hurricane/tropical depression or what have you. Acapulco and Ixtapa were hot & humid; Puerto Vallarta was less hot & humid; and Cabo was less... The further North we got, the more pleasant the weather. I was on the Helio pad at Cabo taking pitchas and it was quite windy. I attempted to wear my Tilley (hat) but gave up & let it hang by the cord around my neck.

 

I've about half of my pix loaded on SmugMug & hope to have the remainder loaded tonight after the Kings/Bulls game is over. Then I can give everyone the URL.

 

One of the very enjoyable acts was a majician(sp) duo. They were very good. I'm the type that doesn't spend any time wondering on "how'd they do that?", but rather enjoy the entertainment value of it. They hold the Guiness Book of Records title for doing Houdini's Metamorphesus the fastest. They didn't do that particular trick on stage, but rather from a platform in the middle of the audience! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the time.

[alwaysoverpack]

I just gotta post that this is one of my favorite ships (1st being Celebrity Constellation). We had a fantastic time on her last December.

[Treven]

Pitchas! Pitchas! Pitchas!

 

[Coralc]

Great photos, Treven! It looks like a really fun cruise! I can't ever believe how many people are up on the pool deck for the parties on Atlantis. You never get that sort of turnout on other cruises. And you had Charo for the entertainer, what a fun show that must have been. Thanks so much for sharing!:D

 

-Patti:)

[Treven]

In addition to Charo (the principal entertainer) we had Marty Thomas from the Broadway show Wicked, Jennifer Hudson from the movie Dreamgirls (scheduled to open next month), as well as several other singers and piano players. Charo's show was really impressive! She did mention in her show that while her "Cootchie - Cootchie" act gets her to the bank, her principal love is the guitar. Fortunately, for me, the majority of her show was her guitar playing. She recently did the voice for a character in an animated movie in Spain. They played a clip from the movie on the screen behind her, and she sang the song that she sang in the movie. It was really very entertaining.

 

With all the people on the pool deck for the parties, that was probably only about half of the number of passengers on the cruise. I'd usually call it a day (night) about 2 or 3 in the morning and would get up at 7. As expensive as these cruises are (usually $2k for me as I choose to travel alone), I can't afford to spend my time sleeping; I can sleep at home!! When I'd be on my way to The Windjammer for breakfast, I'd run into guys just on their way to their cabins from the party the night before.

 

Looking forward to my next cruise vacation.

[Coralc]

You had some cool port stops too! I thought it was just going to be a standard Mexican Riviera. I didn't realize that you had a special itinerary, too. Some places in Mexico that we would really like to go. :D

 

We will definitely go and see Wicked, if it comes back to SF.:)

 

I checked out your photos of Logan too, he is such a cute puppy!!!:D

[Treven]

Thanks for the comment about Logan; he's 14 months old now and he's definately a Terr(or)ier!! He was so glad to see me when I picked him up from the Vet's last Monday. This was the first time I had boarded him, and he probably wasn't too sure what was going on; nor probably none too happy.

 

Next year's itenerary is leaving San Pedro (instead of San Diego) with the first stop being Ixtapa, then Mazatlan, overnight in Puerto Vallarta, then Cabo.

[DedeM]

The guys are half naked! :eek: ;) Nice pictures! Looks like a lot of fun.

 

Did Atlantis charter the ship? Were there other passengers sailing who weren't part of the group?

[EGG]

I agree with the problem with foreign nationals. I have cruised out of NY 3 times and it always seems to be a problem. This year out of NJ, we were on time to the minute.

 

How about a personal visit to these people the day before to collect their passports, giving them a specific time to show up with a fine added to their bill if they are more than 15 minutes late. How about a personal lounge with continental breakfast? There must be a better solution than those announcements and late debarkation.

 

Any ideas? Anything worth sending to the cruise line?

[Treven]

The guys are half naked! :eek: ;) Nice pictures! Looks like a lot of fun.

 

Did Atlantis charter the ship? Were there other passengers sailing who weren't part of the group?

Yes, Atlantis chartered the entire ship. It was definately "party till dawn" almost every night!

[Treven]

I think the way to handle it would be for everyone getting off have to show their passport, or have their passport scanned. Those 6 or 7 pax that the scanner/reader dinged on should be held aside for immigrations. Granted it would be slower than simply walking off the ship, but I doubt if it would be any slower or less frustrating than having to sit there for two hours twiddling our thumbs waiting for these yayhoos to show up. Plus, added to the frustration of waiting were those passengers who chose to self disembark with their luggage pulling their 30" wheeled bags through those narrow passageways at the same time those of us in wheelchairs/walkers getting stuck in the mess.

 

I think the cruiseline company should disembark all those disabled passengers before anyone else. They did have all of us in one area on deck 6, but by the time they released us, we had to wait on elevators along with everyone else from deck 6, and then fight the hoard on deck 4 where we were disembarking from.

[SeaBreezy]

Treven,

Your pics are super! You are a great photographer, by the way. What cabin did you have? I agree with pbhunt, you guys had a great itinerary! I wish RCCL would add that to their list.

 

Glad you had good weather - I wondered about that.

 

Because it was a charter, do they schedule the same type of activities as on a regularly scheduled RCCL cruise or does your charter company alter the daily/nightly events? Of course, like your main parties, of course are specially done. But, what about things like the Captain's Reception, his Q and A session, dancing lessons, etc..... Do they still do that? Do they have good attendance?

 

So curious? Where the heck is the Big Tomato? I must be a dunce!

 

Thanks for your review and the info.

 

 

SeaBreezy

[parrotthead]

Hey Treven! Glad you had a great cruise...I love the Serenade! Next time in the Seaview Cafe, try the ClamChowder...we had it while on a sea day this past July...sitting on deck in the slightly cool breeze, watching Alsaka slowly sail by...it is one of my fondest memories of that cruise...:)

I loved the pics..they are really good! Seems like Atlanitis Charters are always hopping! I just wish there was a comprable charter for wymon (Olivia aside) :cool:

BTW, great quote in your sig ;) ..Sappho was a wonderful poet!

[IrishMist]

Treven - Great pics! Glad you had fun! We were on the Serenade right before your cruise. We stayed in San Diego for the day and watched you all leave on Sat. from the deck of the Midway. It was a little sad to see the Serenade pulling away without us!!

[alwaysoverpack]

Welcome back. We sailed on the Serenade last year (caribbean). It was our second favorite of all time. We tend to be picky eaters (I am a grad of culinary school and my DH is spoiled), But we did enjoy the food. We had a fantastic waiter at dinner. But like you, we ate at the buffet for breakfast and seaside grill for lunch. We also had fantastic lively tablemates. Sometimes the tablemates really help make the cruise more fun and interesting. Our table of 8 grew twice because others wanted to join us (making it a merrier 12). I hope you have fantastic memories too.

[Treven]

Treven,

Your pics are super! You are a great photographer, by the way. What cabin did you have? I agree with pbhunt, you guys had a great itinerary! I wish RCCL would add that to their list.

 

Glad you had good weather - I wondered about that.

 

Because it was a charter, do they schedule the same type of activities as on a regularly scheduled RCCL cruise or does your charter company alter the daily/nightly events? Of course, like your main parties, of course are specially done. But, what about things like the Captain's Reception, his Q and A session, dancing lessons, etc..... Do they still do that? Do they have good attendance?

 

So curious? Where the heck is the Big Tomato? I must be a dunce!

 

Thanks for your review and the info.

 

 

SeaBreezy

Thanks for your compliment of my being a good photog; I'm a firm believer that it's 50% camera & 50% the person behind the camera. Sometimes no matter what, the camera can't work wonders, but Photoshop is a very useful tool.

 

The cabin was 3541 an accessable cabin. It was two cabins behind the fore stairs but I never heard any noise.

 

Atlantis, of course did the big parties, plus they had two "singles" dinners as well as an alumni (4+ vacations with them) hosted cocktail/canape party. They also hosted a 15th anniversary dinner, where everyone got a package of 6 leather coasters with their 15th anniversary logo on them. Upon boarding, in every room, there was a bottle of wine, two wine glasses & a corkscrew, compliments from Atlantis & the last night, everyone received a small dufflebag (overnight size), also compliments from the company.

 

In addition to all this, there were the usual RCI sponsered get togethers & classes. I didn't go to any of them as I was just too damn busy with other things.