GOS Review (9/24 - 10/4) ~ Part 1

[LuvMyVette]

Hi

 

Listed below is a review from a recent cruise on Grandeur of the Seas. Myself, Max's Mom and Ted Hain contributed to this review.

 

I posted this on the "Ship Reviews" but from what I gathered, it will take a while for this review to be posted.

 

Due to having too many characters, this will be listed in two parts.

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

ORIGINAL CRUISE ITINERARY

 

9-24-04 ~ Baltimore, Maryland

 

9-25-04 ~ At Sea

 

9-26-04 ~ At Sea

 

9-27-04 ~ Key West, Florida

 

9-28-04 ~ Cozumel, Mexico

 

9-29-04 ~ Belize City, Belize

 

9-30-04 ~ At Sea

 

10-1-04 ~ Cococay, Bahamas

 

10-2-04 ~ Grand BahamaIsland

 

01-3-04 ~ At Sea

 

10-4-04 ~ Baltimore, Maryland

 

 

UPDATED ITINERARY DUE TO HURRICANE JEANNE

 

9-24-04 ~ Baltimore, Maryland

 

9-25-04 ~ At Sea

 

9-26-04 ~ Kings Wharf, Bermuda (Arrived at 12:00pm)

 

9-27-04 ~ Kings Wharf, Bermuda (Departed at 1:30pm)

 

9-28-04 ~ At Sea

 

9-29-04 ~ Labadee, Haiti (8:00am – 6:00pm)

 

9-30-04 ~ At Sea

 

10-1-04 ~ Nassau, Bahamas (7:00am – midnight)

 

10-2-04 ~ At Sea

 

10-3-04 ~ At Sea

 

10-4-04 ~ Baltimore, Maryland

 

 

PROS OF CRUISE

• Meet and Mingle Party.
  
• Spending time with our new friends.
  
• Ship had a nice layout and beautiful décor.
  
• Two pools (Main Pool ~ party pool) (Solarium ~ relaxing pool for 16 and above only).
  
• Calm seas and decent weather.
  
• Great entertainment.
  
• Excellent bar service in the Champagne Lounge.
  
• Numerous activities to keep the energetic person busy. Extremely fun and friendly staff.
  
• Ports we visited were enjoyable.
  
• Entertainment in the dining room was pleasant.
  
• Nice cabins with plenty of storage.
  
• Towel art was really cute.
  
• Snack bar at the Solarium Pool was good.
  
• Windjammer had a decent selection of food (breakfast, lunch and snacks).
  
• Midnight snacks were very good.
  

CONS OF CRUISE

• Changing a 10 day cruise from 5 ports to 3 ports was inadequate. At times we felt like we were just wandering around looking for somewhere to go.
  
• Bathrooms (especially the shower) were extremely small in the standard cabins.
  
• The smell of raw sewage in the center areas of the ship; especially on decks 2 through 4. This lasted throughout the entire cruise. Some days were worse than others.
  
• Ship had continuous water and toilet issues. Water was slightly yellow and public toilets were backing up or not flushing. Water was turned off twice for service.
  
• Excursions were expensive and some of them weren’t worth the price. A few of them were extremely unorganized or people couldn’t go on them due to lack of space.
  
• Insufficient bar service in the Viking Crown and Schooner Bar.
  
• No more drink cards (alcohol).
  
• Adult soda cards were expensive.
  
• Dining Room food was good but some portions were very small.
  
• Service in the Windjammer was slow at times (cleaning tables).
  
• Started to run out of food/beverage items toward the end of the cruise.
  
• Lack of motivation from many crew members (bar service, dining room, stateroom attendants).
  

[LuvMyVette]

Listed below is Part 2 of this revew.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

PERSONAL COMMENTS FROM LETSPARTY:

This was my seventh cruise with RCI and the second time on Grandeur. We observed a lot of changes with RCI since our cruise on the Nordic Empress last year and we were disappointed. You could tell that there were a lot of cutbacks and a change of attitudes with a good portion of the staff. Some of them had an “attitude” and were not friendly whatsoever. Not sure if we will cruise again with RCI due to this.

 

Our cabin (3134) was located on Deck 3 near the cabin attendant’s storage room. We were woken up every morning around 6:30am since they were setting up for the morning cleaning. We heard them talking, ice buckets being filled, carts clashing into each other, etc. We also think this was an area that the food service came through since there were a lot of dropping of plates throughout the cruise.

 

The M&M party was a lot of fun and meeting those that attended was very nice. We spent a lot of time with Max’s Mom/Max’s Dad as well as Ted/Harriet. The Solarium Pool was our hang out during the day and we enjoyed each other’s company during the cruise. Thanks to them, their friendship and plenty of laughs, our cruise was more pleasant and entertaining!

 

DH/I kept busy with the activities on the ship and collected enough Ship Shape Dollars for two t-shirts. I climbed the Rock Wall and made it to the top which I was thrilled about. Being 190 feet above the sea was a remarkable experience.

 

Not sure when we will cruise again but hopefully in the near future and maybe with a different company.

 

 

PERSONAL COMMENTS FROM MAX’S MOM:

I keep waiting for someone to cook my dinner, clean up after me twice a day, and turn down my bed – not happening here! Despite the disappointing itinerary change, we had a great time, sewage smells and all. Meeting fellow cruise critics was great. Wish we could have met up more often. We really hit it off with the Let’sParty duo and Ted and Harriet. Thanks for the tour of the Junior Suite, Ted! Our dinner partners were also fabulous. We had a great time with them all week. Our favorite spots on the ship were the Solarium Pool and the Champagne Bar. We booked another cruise on board for March and hope to do another in June. We suggested on our comment card that ALL RCI ships needed to have concierge service. We really missed that on this ship. Can’t wait to cruise again.

 

 

PERSONAL COMMENTS FROM TED HAIN:

· Embarkation was fast and friendly.

 

· No direction to cabin once onboard.

 

· Junior Suit was clean but furnishings were old and tattered.

 

· Bathroom amenities were nil.

 

· Cabin attendant’s (Marvin and Hernan) were excellent.

 

· Found most hotel staff helpful.

 

· Room service was timely, food quality wanting.

 

· Luggage delivery to the cabin was slow; we found our last two bags by the elevator.

 

· Breakfast and lunch in the Windjammer was adequate.

 

· No assistance given to the seniors or the physically challenged in the Windjammer (spoiled on Celebrity).

 

· Great Gatsby main seating was very good. Waiters, service and entertainment was excellent.

 

· Entertainment in lounges was very good.

 

· Cruise Director and staff were excellent.

 

· Production shows, dancers and themes were good. The singers were poor. Guest performers were excellent.

 

· Would have liked to have more time with the M&M members during the cruise (my fault, should have arranged more).

 

· Dancing, games and parties were great.

 

· Disappointed in not having a priest onboard, we were told there was.

 

· Disembarkation went smoothly.

[marinersfan]

Great review! We are cruising on this ship in April, is the sewer smell always there or was it just this particular cruise? We were on the Vision of the Seas a few years ago and the sewer smell was horrible. Maybe I should think of another ship, or maybe back to Princess. Does anyone know how long it takes to get your deposit back?

 

Evonne

[gambler]

We have cruised on the Grandeur 5 times and only noticed the smell this past cruise. The Grandeur is scheduled for drydock this October so it should be fixed.

[luckymomx2]

Thanks for taking the time to share your trip reports! We cruise on the Grandeur next May and I can't wait to experience her myself! Welcome back!

[maxs mom]

Thanks, Trish, for posting!

 

I think this ship has had a sewage problem for some time because I have read about it in other threads. I've noticed a similar problem on the Voyager, but it wasn't as pronounced as on the Grandeur. Hopefully while in dry dock, the problem will be addressed.

 

We forgot to mention that we won the Quest!!!! That's pretty good for "old" people!!

[dak_friendly]

BEFORE Drydock! (at least repaired!)

 

The Grandeur is in the middle of one cruise and has another one next week (which I'm on). :eek: Someone reported that the smell was caused by a overflowing toilet on Deck 2. Scary thought since my stateroom is unfortunately located on Deck 2.

[PSCruiser]

I've seen a lot of comments over the past months about the sewer smell, but never experienced it at all this past August. Only time was when off the ship at docks, and I assumed they were pumping the sewage out.

[checker]

We were on the same cruise. Our first with RCCL and I was very satisfied with the whole experience. I really did not mind the itinerary change because of the circumstances of the hurricane, but wished we could have have more time at Bermuda with the shops open.....we were there on Sunday (shops downtown closed) and had a difficult time walking around in the wharf area because of a bike race. The traffic to Hamilton on Monday a.m. was terrible...we took the bus.....had to turn around and take the ferry back as soon as we got to the stores so we wouldn't miss departure time!!

 

The sewer smell was pretty much always in the Centrum, sometimes faint, sometimes strong, but it really didn't do much to spoil my time as I had seen the previous threads about it and was expecting it.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I kinda felt funny about going to Haiti (Labadee) with all the devastation on different parts of the island....I felt we really didn't do much to inject into the economy.....RCCL owns Labadee, doesn't it? So all rental fees, drinks, etc, goes back to RCCL. I suppose they employ some people, so maybe my feeling is misplaced.

 

We enjoyed the size of the ship, the food, our wait staff, our steward, our table mates, virtually everything. We heard many people commenting on the last day that they felt that 10 days was too long. I must say I was more than ready to come home, our longest previous cruise was 8 days. Maybe if we had done our original itinerary this would not have been the situation.

 

I agree with the comment about the singers not being so good. Our table mate said he felt like he was at a high school production. That pretty much summed it up. There were plenty of opportunities to hear great music all over the ship at various times. Nice.

 

We will definitely be traveling on RCCL again in the future.

[maxs mom]

Hi Everybody!

 

 

 

Just bumping this up so others can read.

[CaptJackSparrow]

I've heard rumors that the Grandeur is going to be refurbished - anybody else hear that?

[LuvMyVette]

Hi Everyone

 

Thanks for the compliments on the posting, it's greatly appreciated. I completely forgot about winning the Quest! Thanks Max's Mom!!:) The Quest was a riot and a lot of fun!! :cool:

 

GOS will be in dry dock for a few weeks to basically get an over haul to the engine room and underneath the ship since it's due. There will be a lot of cleaning and reorganization involved but didn't hear anything about refurbishing the entire ship.

 

The Captain mentioned that discussions are now being held to expand GOS. It hasn't been approved yet but most likely it will be since one of the sister ships received the approval. I seriously doubt that the ship will be refurbished if it's going to be expanded in the near future. I was on GOS in 2000 and the decor is exactly the same.

 

I also wished we were in Bermuda longer. DH/I were there in July last year (Nordic) and loved it! We rushed around in Hamilton on Monday morning to visit some of our favorite shops but there wasn't enough time to cover everything. We were hoping to go back to Flanagan's (Pub) to have a few more pints. Of course they weren't open at 11am! :D We were able to go there on Sunday since that was the only business open in Hamilton. Funny to see Front Street with no traffic, no cruise ships, no people, etc.

[dak_friendly]

I've heard this as well. They're getting a Johnny Rockets. Here's the info:

 

http://www.creative.rccl.com/sales/Royal/General_Info/Flyers/SL04-122293_Johnny_Rockets.pdf

 

You'll need Adobe Acrobat installed.

[VaCruzers]

Interesting...about Johnny Rockets...OK by me so long as the Solarium Cafe continues to serve burgers & fries as well. They are so much better than the Johnny Rockets (at least the ones I've been to both on land and on AOS)...not that my opinion matters.

[TheBaron]

Hi,

Yes, we are back and this was the worst cruise vacation I have ever taken. I was so disappointed with The Grander of the Sea, that I do not believe I will ever take a Royal Caribbean Cruise again.

The trip started with an itinerary change that I understood. I had called up before I left and was told that we would be going to Nassau instead of Freeport and Coco Cay and I understood that. After we paid our $100 parking fee we were then handed a sheet that showed of the 10 day cruise we were only going to make 3 stops, Nassau ... Been to and would never have gone back, Haiti ... lets party while the country has over 2,000 dead this week and no clean water or food, and Bermuda ..... another cherished spot I would have never returned to.

In Bermuda we arrived on Sunday and everything was closed. My wife goes on these cruises with the intention of shopping at every port. We left on Monday at 1PM which gave us almost no time to do anything. The staff was useless on what to do in Bermuda if you didn't purchase one of their over priced packages.

Next to Labradee, Haiti. Great if you like just to go to a beach. Nothing special. I snorkeled ... NO FISH in this water. The beach was beautiful and clean but I did not spend $2,000 to go to a beach. No culture of the Island was offered at all except that you could purchase hand made items from very overly aggressive vendors. Not great in my book but this was the best day of the trip.

Nassau is Nassau, a third world country with a nice tourist area if you like hotels. Travel off the beaten path and you are in the third world. At least there was shopping to be had.

All in all the ports were a disappointment to the 9th degree.

The ship on the other hand was as bad as the ports. The smell of sewage could be smelled through out the lower decks and the elevators. Everyone was talking about the smells. I for one called twice about this putrid smell in my cabin but nothing was done. NOTHING.

The staff, excluding the wait staff, were very unfriendly. From 3 Carnival Cruise I can say they are the fun ships. The staff barely acknowledged your existence. The bar keeps were good, but it seemed everyone else, the work was a chore that they would rather not be doing.

The music was so poor. On Carnival, they get the people moving all the time with the music. The steel drums and the Caribbean sounds. On this ship we had a band the played 1/2 hour and was off 1/2 hour and played the same songs over and over again. The songs were very non - Caribbean motivating. During the time the band did not play they played the SAME CD over and over again. The CD was great music the first day, good music the second day and by the third day we were trying to guess the song that came next. This I would say made the cruise boring.

I am a diabetic. The ship offers water, coffee and unsweetened lemon aid that I can drink. I opted to get the Soda pass because it stated, "Unlimited soda and juice from behind the bar". The price was $60 then they added an additional 15% tip to the price. $69.00 for the Soda Pass. As I said, juice from behind the bar. The only juice that I can drink because of the low sugar count is tomato. No problem, there is plenty for the bloody marys and it is served at breakfast if you ask for it. Well, on day two, I was told tomato juice is not included. I said it states any juice from behind the bar and again I was rebuked. I contacted the purser and he checked with the head waiter. I was then contacted and told tomato juice was not included. I was also informed by the purser, yes the sign is deceiving. I asked for my money back and was told they don't give refunds. Great, about 3 liters of soda for $69.00. What a waste.

By the 8 th day of the cruise they ran out of milk for cereal and 1/2 and 1/2 for coffee but substituted cream and by the 9th day we had to drink our coffee black. Coffee is a Staple to my life. This was just wrong.

Now about the massive savings that Royal Caribbean got from us. I turned on the news on Tuesday morning and low and behold they were talking about Royal Caribbean. They stated due to over expenses and the hurricanes that RC was not going to meet its expectations on wall street. Why do I bring this up? We traveled and never passed

30 miles below Florida. RC saved about 2,000 miles of travel on us. I checked the weather every day hoping they would change the Itinerary but nothing. We could have done Bermuda first and then gone to Berlise, Couzmel and Key West. The weather was perfect in these areas for the whole time after hurricane Jean left the area. The hurricane never even hit Key West except for some winds. Berlise and Couzmel were just fine. This was a cost savings on our back. We chugged from our last port back to Baltimore at 10 miles per hour on day 8 and 15 miles per hour on day 9. They had to drag out the trip because there was so much time.

This was the worst cruise by far that I have ever been on, but any cruise is better than my best day at work. The food was very good and the dining room service was excellent.

My wife and I are gearing up for another cruise in May or early June. This time I am sure it will be Carnival.

We will be in touch closer to that date.

 

Craig Baron

Cabin 2084:mad:

[aaabbbme]

Re a posting above, smell could not have been caused by an overflowing toliet. It smelled like a huge open septic tank. Would take a 50-seater outhouse in the sun to smell so bad. Plus it was apparent at places other than midship on decks 2, 3, 4. It smelled outside Windjammer most days, plus Windjammer had water on floor by wall many days -- don't get you clothes wet! Saw that ship put air mover fan there once, I assume to dissipate the smell. Smelled outside dining room on deck 4, starboard; smelled in vicinity of Centrum elevators, various spots; etc.

[aaabbbme]

We weren't told all five of our scheduled jports were canceled until we had been dropped off at Baltimore, bussed to security and going through. I believe there was no safety need to avoid Belize and Cozumel; rather a fuel saving and economic motivation. Many problems: nauseating severe toliet odor in some public areas, ran out of some basic foodstuffs like real iced tea, butter, coffee creamer, almost no lettuce, fresh fruit down to apples and unripe pineapple mostly, etc. Tour service was super lousy.

 

To mention one item: Our Nassau Seahorse II "sailing" catamaran snorkeling went to the poorest excuse for a coral reef I've ever seen, virtually no fish visible from surface, two men who dove down reported some fish, water was dreadfully unclear, sea was so rough it was unpleasant to try to snorkle and extremely difficult for many to reboard, especially since slippery metal ladder flipped up and down excessively in waves and once whacked me in the guts pretty hard. Boat did not sail out as advertised but motored out; it put up sails to come back in but didn't bother to trim them and relied on the motor again for the return. Drop off at Atlantis was a huge distance from the hotel: round and round and round large marina basins.

 

Many other problems on this cruise: Virtually no provisions for moving passengers the large distances from gangway to actual activities in Bermuda (King's wharf) and Nassau -- terribly long walks in heat instead., skirting around basins, blocked off streets, cycling race at Bermuda, relocated local buses. Dining room assigned dinner table waiter and asst. waiter and stateroom attendant were excellent. Sometimes the rest of the service, even dining room staff at open seating for breakfast and lunch, were insolent. The pool bar server refused to serve me the special drink of the day frozen, but he was supposed to do so. The insolent breakfast waiter refused to take my order for breakfast fruit, instructed me this was the time to order juice which I didn't want. Another bartender brought my drink, I had ordered a Stolies and Roses, and instructed me I should have asked for a Stolies gimlet -- And I paid a lot of money for this treatment!

 

The whole tour operation could not have been worse -- from the absence of information and sellers to the lousy limited products.

[patrickc]

This was our 3rd cruise this year out of Baltimore-- twice prior on Celebrity Galaxy. We love the convenience & thinks its amazing to hop aboard in our hometown! We were excited to try RCCL-- the ship is beautiful, layed out really well. My family & I were so thrilled with the new itinerary & were grateful that RCCL was able to accomodate us in middle of 4 hurricanes vs outright cancelling (it was almost canceled). True, it would have been good to spend another day in Bermuda- or to spend night in Bahamas-- it was a lot of slow chugging at times just to, well, kill time! I think everyone fealt very badly about being in Haiti after so many just died. My father could not eat in front of the band- he fealt too guilty. We tipped & bought as much as we could. Labadee was spectacular- more beautiful than Hawaii, but it was sad knowing what had just happened. There are things I like about both cruiselines but Grandeur really did not have the same ammenities-and, interestingly enough, RCCL was more expensive. I missed the little things like bath amenities, refrig, servers at buffet (I hate buffets w/everyone touching things), no trays or help in casual eating areas. I also must say that the end of the cruise was disappointing when they ran out of decent food-- no ice tea, no butter, no creamer for coffee-- these are little things that add up. We had an unfortunate experience our first night with rowdy & illegal behavior-- security was laxe & I have written RCCL about the situation. We'll cruise RCCL again but after reading the other posts about this cruise, I guess my family & I may be too forgiving.. oh, and it did smell the entire time. We were on 4th floor w/ adjoining rooms-- luckily we brought lysol to spray our bathrooms-- I believe sewage was gurgling up through the showers.

[fay54]

Boy, I am so worried about the sewage smell. We have booked two rooms on the 2nd deck, center ship, for June, 2005. I can only hope that this is corrected when the ship goes to drydock. Will be anxiously awaiting news of cruises after it has been in drydock. This is our 6th cruise and I sure hope it is not ruined by a smelly ship.

[Comet Cruiser]

Hi all, We were also on the Grandeur Sept. 24th-Oct.4th. We had a great time! No complaints about anything! Maybe it's because it was our first cruise and we were novices, I don't really know. Yes, we did smell the sewer smell, but it wasn't that it ruined our cruise. Yes, they did run out of butter I noticed, but they did have margarine still and also they had powdered coffee creamer and milk available.We found ALL of the staff we encountered great and very helpful, they made our cruise special. Maybe it's cause we are Canadians and were so easy to please cause it was our first time. Perhaps if we had been to those places before we might have been upset too, but HEY...RELAX....No cooking, no cleaning, no phones, no work for 10 days..I wouldn't really of cared where they took us!! Yes, we also paid a lot of money for our cruise and it was more cause it was converted to American money, but the cruise was worth it to us. My sister and her hubby were on the 3rd and they noticed the smell but they managed to cope with it. I think sometimes people just like to complain, I figure we were all lucky, just to have missed the hurricanes! We had sunny days and met lots of great people, we would do it again tomorrow if we could, on the Grandeur. We really enjoyed our time on that beautiful ship. Again, we all had the best time EVER! No complaints about anything!!, except maybe it was too short a vacation. The worst part was the drive home....11 hours! Now THAT is something to complain about!

Relax....enjoy life

Gail

[fay54]

Thanks for the favorable comments despite the smell. We cruise in June and were a little worried. Thanks again. We feel better.

[TheBaron]

FYI to all, I called up and complained about the cruise I just took, see the above posting, and I was issued $400 off my next cruise. It is a lot less than I feel I deserve but it was a gesture on RC's part. I will now attempt another RC cruise on their larger ship out of Bayone NJ. About the untruths on there soda and juice card, I was issued half back and feel this is a fair resolution. I did drink soda and now I have paid $$34.50 for the 30 or so sodas I drank. Next time I will know not to take the soda deal.

Good luck to all.

Craig

[madelinerose]

Well, I know one thing, if the Grandeur reviews get no better, and the drydocking doesn't take care of the sewage odor and the tattered and torn appearance, I'll be cancelling our cruise out of Baltimore in November of 2005. :eek:

 

We have an aft corner JS and I would expect, at the very least, good service.

[LuvMyVette]

Hey There

 

So sorry to read that you had such a miserable cruise and all the problems that you encountered. :( I'm glad to hear that RCI compensated you. :) DH and I plan on sending a letter to RCI about the negative parts on our cruise. After seven cruises with RCI, they need to know that things are going down hill. We started cruising with them in 1992 and between the last two cruises, there are a significant amount of changes that are not good. It's really sad how much it has changed.

 

Good luck with your next cruise and hope you'll have a wonderful time.

[TheBaron]

Hi,

Yeah, it was too bad we had all the problems. I have never experienced such a poor cruise. We are going to try again. We are going to take the Voyager of the Sea out of Bayone NJ next May 20 or June 3rd. I said I would not take another RC trip but with $400 off, even thought that is just a drop in the bucket, I will try on, what I think is their newest ship.

We are going to do Labadee again but I thought that was one of the nicest beaches I have ever been to, next to St. John. We will hold off a trip through the Panama Canal for another year.

Have a great year and happy cruising.

 

Craig