Grandeur of the Seas – 1/23 to 1/28/2010
We cruised the five night Western itinerary on Grandeur from Saturday January 23 to Thursday January 28. We had cruised on Grandeur to Bermuda last May/June and decided to take advantage of good rates to cruise Grandeur, again. Bonnie Buchanan handled the arrangements for us – good job, Bonnie.
On Saturday, January 23, I was up at 3 – my traveling companion got a little more sleep, as usual – to catch a flight from RIC to CLT and then on to TPA. We arrived in Tampa around 9:30 and took our time getting the luggage and putting the ship luggage tags on. We decided to try the Super Shuttle instead of a taxi to the port. Probably a mistake because we had to wait a bit for a shuttle and the Shuttle was $24 ($12pp) and I later learned that the taxi fare was only $25, but it worked out fine as we had to wait to board the ship anyway and the Shuttle driver originally was from Lynchburg and he had lived in Richmond about ten years and we had a good time talking with him.
We normally want to arrive a day before the cruise leaves, but for the first time in a long time, we flew in the same day as departure. Fortunately, that caused no problems.
We arrived at the port/terminal before 11, hoping that maybe we could get on close to 11, but it turned out that the ship did not arrive from the last cruise until almost ten, because of fog- this happens from time to time in Tampa – the channel is a tight fit for the big ships . For the first time, I had ordered the soda package for the wife pre-cruise and that went as lots of folks say – the seapass card was not marked when we checked in and it was a bit of a pain. She first was told to go to guest relations - which sent her to the guys doing the soda card – who did not know what to do. They finally just believed us and gave her the sticker; we agreed to come back later if the cup was not in the cabin. Later when we got into the cabin (after 1) we found the cup and a receipt there – I guess the intent would be that we would use the receipt to get the sticker. This will be the last time we purchase the soda package pre-cruise, but I wanted to give it a shot. Apart from the soda package problem, they had other printing problems and no one’s crown & anchor status was showing on their sea pass cards. That is the first time that has ever happened to us. Guest relations put a sticker on our cards which said “Diamond Member.” The best Diamond perk was a private area in the Crown Viking lounge every night from 5 to 8:30 where you could get free wine or beer, or get a 25% discount on other drinks. We enjoyed chatting with other folks there several nights.
We were in 8560 on Deck 8, a Junior Suite, which is the same category we had last year going to Bermuda. If there were a Concierge Lounge on this ship, I would have been more tempted than I was to upgrade to a higher Suite (which were going for a great price), but without the CL, it made no sense at all (not that the lack of sense always stops me, of course).
Sunday was a stop at Key West – we docked at the Naval station and had to take the free shuttle to the downtown area. We first took the ship’s snorkeling excursion on Fury. The weather was too bad to go out to the good reef so we went to another area where the snorkeling was pretty bad. Also, the water was cold – I would guess about 72, possibly a little lower. I had brought our shorty wetsuits and wore mine, and was glad I did. The wife decided not to bring hers on the excursion to wear and was OK, but she is not bothered as much by the cold as I am.
I had signed up with Verizon for the Global package thing for my Blackberry and used it on the ship for voice and data. I will be interested in seeing what kind of bill I will wind up with other than the couple dollars a day for the package from Verizon. Voice is an additional $2.59 a minute (or was it $2.49?)– I forget what the data rate is. Other than the Blackberry, I did not use the ship’s computer as I have in past – so maybe it will be about the same as what I have wound up paying for the computer time.
Tuesday was a stop in Cozumel. We had used Eagle Ray Divers our last three times in Cozumel but this time we did a three reef snorkel excursion through ship which was excellent – there only were 12 pax on excursion which made it very nice – the small number of pax apparently was unusual, but I thought that could occur because of the weather. We were on the El Dorado, a good sized boat for the group we had. Visibility was excellent and we had great snorkeling. After the excursion in the morning, we went back to ship for lunch and then got a taxi to downtown San Miguel and went to the museum and walked around. The shop people were very aggressive but they didn’t bother us as we just kept saying “no thanks” and walked past.
Grandeur is getting a little worn but still is a beautiful ship. Our main dining room service was excellent with PT, Romar, and Simon for our service team. The entertainment was good – as usual these days, the cast of singers and dancers was very talented. The Happenings were headliner entertainment and were excellent. The crowd loved them.
Great cruise.
