General Impressions of Grandeur of the Seas
September 24th, 2009I should have written this months ago, but I never did get around to it. We cruised on Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas back in May on a 5-day cruise to Bermuda. I think that the 5-day cruises lack a little bit of the amenities and extras that you will find on the 7-day cruises, but it was a great way to get our feet wet (well, except not literally!) with vacationing and cruising with a toddler.
Our first cruise was on Vision of the Seas. Grandeur of the Seas is in the same ship class and has almost the same deck plan. We felt like we already knew our way around the ship within the first day. It took at least a couple of days to find our way around on the Vision. The Grandeur felt very familiar. Vision is newer with its first sailing in 1998. Grandeur’s first voyage was in 1996. One of our overall impressions was that Grandeur was starting to show its age. It was effectively 4 years older than our last experience (since our experience with Vision was 2 years ago and it is 2 years newer). It just didn’t seem as shiny and new as I’m sure it once was, and we encountered several things that were broken or in need of maintenance. Most of these things did not get in the way of us having a wonderful cruise, but it did make us eager to try some newer ships.
Our overall experience was favorable. The ship is not huge (when compared to some of the newer ones), but it is a nice size. We found that we could almost always find a quiet spot to ourselves. This is pretty amazing considering that several thousand passengers (not to mention the huge staff) are roaming around the ship. We didn’t use the pools (non-potty trained kids are not allowed, which is a common rule for cruise ships). I can’t really comment on them.
It’s hard for me to write an adequate review considering that my only other experience has been with a sister ship. We enjoyed the dining experience (after we were switched to a regular table). I know some of the newer ships have more dining options. We made use of the dining room each night and also ate at the WIndjammer for the first day for lunch and the dining room for most other lunches and dinners. We did try the room service at least one morning, but we weren’t hugely impressed by the selection or quality. We had breakfast in the dining room whenever possible – it’s definitely my preferred place for breakfast! We had some snacks at the Solarium cafe.
Some of our favorite places on the ship included the Viking Crown Lounge (very quiet after dinner before the dance club starts in the late evening). We took Maddie up there in the sling several times and enjoyed each other’s company and a relaxing drink. We spent a lot of time on decks 5 and 10 letting Maddie explore and run around. She loved it.
We had fun in the casino and were pleasantly surprised to find a Texas hold’em table running a $1-2 no limit game (perfect for us!). I wrote a separate post about the poker. The rest of the casino was similar to what we found on Vision. It’s about what you would expect from a cruise ship, in my opinion. We’ll have to see how different it is on Jewel.
I believe the staff rotates between several ships, but we did find them to be very polite and helpful. The dining room staff was accommodating to our picky toddler, and she always had many members of the staff coming by to say hello. By the end of the cruise, it seemed like most of them knew her name and they would just come by to say hi, even ones that were not serving us. They went above and beyond and even offered to wash her sippy cup and utensils after each dinner.
Our stateroom attendant was quite friendly and was available when we needed her. She often caught us in the hall and was very pleasant. Our experiences with the stateroom attendant on our last cruise was odd – his appearances always seemed a bit contrived, and it came off as a little creepy. This stateroom attendant seemed very natural in her approach, and we enjoyed the service (and towel animals!) each day. All of our personal staff received a bonus tip from us.
All in all, we had a very favorable experience yet again with Royal Caribbean. We are looking forward to seeing what Jewel of the Seas has to offer!
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