X-RCI comparison part2

[glgolfer]

29 January, 2008

Today was waffle day. Had mine plain with syrup, Judy had black cherry sauce. Both were good and a nice size. Also saugage links and bacon. No waffles on RCI. X wins.

1000 for the connections party in Michael’s club. Very pretty room. About 20 showed up out of 40+ signed up. Dru, the CD, was there for a few minutes. Very good gathering, some of us stayed and chatted for a while after the end of the party.

****Just had coffee, tea, juice, and water; but no snacks. No raffle or small gifts. RCI wins big time.

Just had some ice cream in the Ocean Cafe.

****Prefer the ice cream service with hand dipped on X to the sometimes very hard to find machines on RCI. Kudos to X.

Stopped at the casino on way back to cabin. Won $10 on 25 cent slot. Same as RCI so far, some machines seem to pay off better than others.

The Ocean Café is one of the wifi hot spots.

****Speed about the same as RCI. Sometimes faster (or slower) than others. Tossup.

Docked in San Juan at 1330. Off shortly after that. Walked to La Mallorquina for lunch. One chicken and one seafood asopao. The seafood one contained calamari, baby octopus, scallops, shrimp (with one whole head on shrimp) and oysters, Shared some of each. Dessert was one vanilla flan and one coconut flan. Measured closely so we had the same amount of each.

We both think this is the best flan we’ve ever had. Not a one time thing, had this flan 3 or 4 times so far.

Then across the street for some chocolate for which I paid a ridiculous amount for some Belgian chocolate.

Off next to the Butterfly People. Bought a couple items for us and a small gift for the neighbors that watch the house and water the plants..

From there to the ship.

Loafed til dinner. While loafing, talked to the folks around the partition on the next balcony.

They’ve only sailed on Carnival. Their next cruise will be on Celebrity. Maybe all the rest.

His two main comments (Paraphrased) were: There’s hardly any kids on this cruise. Nicer than Carnival. There’s a better "class" of people on this cruise. (His words, not mine).

I don’t think he’ll cruise on Carnival again.

Dinner with our nice tablemates. Another good group. Started with escargot, I had gazpacho, Judy none. Both had rack of lamb. Since I missed the creme brulee the first night, asked if I could have some later in the cruise. They brought 2 for me tonight. Wanted more, but too full.

**** Nobody liked the escargot recipe. RCI’s better. My gazpacho was good and the lamb was excellent. Slight edge to X.

Retired to the cabin for the night. Ate too much and tired after walking around Old San Juan.

30 January, 2008: Breakfast on the balcony again. Ordered for between 0630 and 0700. Arrived at 0645.

****Room service about the same as RCI. Tossup.

0700: Arrived Tortola.

My back really bothering me this morning. Decided no to do the tour we had booked as I "hate" buses anyway and had no desire to bounce around most of the morning. Judy went. She will take many pictures and report on the North Shore & Pusser’s Landing tour.

Judy’s tale of the tour.

Tour left right at 0800 as advertised. Bus was little Nissan 30-seater. Shiny and clean. Very narrow between seats. Driver Peter spoke English with such an accent that sometimes we couldn’t understand. Nice of him to circle the island counterclockwise since driving on the left side of the road kept us hugging the mountain instead of overlooking the dropoff to the ocean. Steep roads and hairpin curves kept everyone’s fingers crossed. Stopped just before 0900 for restrooms and giftshop. Unfortunately, it didn’t open until 9. Unremarkable vegetation. View just water and islands. 83F so very nice for the people from up North. Island was pretty clean. People were friendly.

Amazing amount of traffic for an island 4 x 23 with 28000 population. Speed bumps frequently! Several 15 minute stops with island souvenirs. Pusser’s Landing was really classy. 35 minutes turned into 45 minutes then back to the ship. Paul’s back would not have enjoyed this tour today.

Tour tale over.

Judy back and off to lunch. Judy had pasta and a salad. I tried an egg salad sandwich with potato

salad from the station where the waffles are served in the morning.

****Personal opinion caveat: much prefer RCI’s egg salad and potato salad. X’s bread was good.

****Aside about the TV programming. Equally bad on both, but X has been using the US feed of ESPN instead of the European ESPN soccer channel (at least it always seems to be the soccer channel). That alone makes X the huge winner (to me).

1600: Leaving Tortola. Judy commented on sewer smell on balcony. Only lasted very short time. First time for that.

On to Casa de Campo.

Informal night at dinner. Mix of jackets & ties, jackets only and short sleeve shirts. No one turned away. Judy had crab cake appetizer, I had vichyssoise. We both had the spinach salad and veal chop and crepes suzette. Everything was excellent.

Went to the casino for Judy to use the match play coupons for roulette. She won some, I lost some on the slots.

**** Coupons: RCI no contest for Diamond Members. X coupons virtually worthless.

Tonight we skipped the singers and dancers as it was too loud for Judy the first show and went to one of the lounges for some quiet music. Stayed for the liar’s club and had a good time.

Done for tonight.

[sea-cruise]

Enjoyable reading. I haven't seen Pusser's Pub in 15 years, but I remember the stained glass lamps with the twisted brass poles, and the player piano (does Grover still sit at it?). I bought some beautiful pink carved coral at a gallery in Roadtown.

We love X but now that we're retired RCI fits our budget more. :) Thanks for taking the time to post.

[SA Traveler]

Paul, I'm enjoying your review. We've only done one cruise on X and it was on the Galaxy and we weren't impressed. We may have to try again one of these days on a different ship. Enjoy the rest of your cruise. I'm jealous! Lou

[jillybabes]

Enjoying the comparisons Paul, hi to Judy...Looking forward to tomorrow's comments...Later, Jill:cool:

[MarciaL]

Thanks Paul & Judy. Take care.

[Schplinky]

Great review. Have fun.