Grandeur of the Seas: 5 Night Cruise to Bermuda: May 30 – June 4, 2009
I have not really had time to do a trip report until now and I have already forgotten a lot. But anyway….
We finally took a cruise to Bermuda, something we had wanted to do for a while, and we had a wonderful time. Sandy Molloy booked this cruise for us and did her usual fine job. When I decided somewhat late in the game to upgrade to a Junior Suite after a price drop on them, she had the confirming email to me within minutes.
We had read some negative things about Grandeur, but, as usual, we could only wonder what other Grandeur of the Seas some of the complainers had sailed. We thought the ship looked great and had a great crew. Having sailed Carnival in February/March, it was nice to be back on Royal Caribbean, which remains our favorite of the mass market lines. This was our 13th cruise on Royal Caribbean.
Grandeur was launched in 1996 and is in the middle of the Vision class Royal Caribbean ships. It is 74,140 gt, carries about 1950 pax, and has a crew of about 760 – I think Captain Rob (Captain Rob Hempstead) said that on our cruise we had about 2000 pax and about 780 crew. It felt less than full on board and it did not feel like they had anything near 2000 pax – which was nice for those of us on board. Although we miss some of the amenities of the larger ships, we think the Vision and Radiance class size ships are the biggest that cruise ships really need to be.
Leaving from Norfolk was great! No air travel. I did, of course, miss the ongoing efforts of the air travel industry to make people’s lives as miserable as possible – it is interesting to see just how they will make each flight worse than the last. I hope that the cruise lines do more cruises out of Norfolk – we would cruise more. A real difference for us on this cruise from our usual Caribbean cruising is that the vast majority of the pax we met were from Virginia and North Carolina. Although we only saw one couple that we knew on board, we met a lot of people from both Virginia and North Carolina with whom we had common friends – the only downside of that was that I had to behave better on this cruise. We drove down to Norfolk the day before departure and spent the night at the Marriott Waterside in Norfolk. I got a priceline price of $75 plus taxes which meant a total cost of $94.31 for the room. I think you can even do better than that on priceline sometimes.
The morning of departure we drove a short distance down the street from the Marriott and parked in a city deck right across the street, more or less, from the pier. It was $14 a day or $70 total. You can park in a lot that is not that far away for $10 a day, they have shuttles back and forth which apparently works OK, but for $20 we figured we would just park close to pier and walk across the street. After parking the car, we walked around Nauticus, a maritime museum next to the pier, and the Wisconsin, the battleship docked at Nauticus - first time I had been there and it was very interesting and enjoyable. We boarded Grandeur after having lunch at Nauticus. We boarded a little after 1 pm or so and there was no wait to speak of. Everything was very smooth and easy. We had 8020, a Junior Suite. The wife professes not to care about what kind of cabin we get – I admit I care – but she definitely liked having the added space of the Junior Suite on Grandeur. It was very nice. Of course, the problem is that as you learn to enjoy the better things, it gets harder to do without them. Our cabin Steward was “Teddy” and he was very good – no problems of any kind. The cabin itself was in fine shape. There were a few cosmetic blemishes, but nothing that made any real difference. Perhaps most noticeable was that the TV was an old, very small set – very unlike the big flat screens you see on the newer ships, but we never watch the TV much anyway, so it makes very little difference to us.
We ate only dinners in the dining room and our other meals on board in the Windjammer. We had excellent service in the dining room and thought the food good. We had very nice Army retired tablemates. The windjammer was the typical buffet and was fine – it never was that crowded when we were there.
The entertainment was enjoyable but fairly forgettable – at least I have forgotten most of the details. The cruise director, John Blair, and his wife were the key cruise staff and they were very nice and did a good job. I did not take notes on this trip and cannot remember the names of any of the comedians or headliners. The ship’s company was full of talented and very energetic young people, as usual, and the production shows were enjoyable to watch – JC, a lead female singer was very good. On this ship, they had a back stage tour open for all and that was interesting, as always. Of the cruise staff, I most remember “Edwin” who did most of the trivia and liked singing at the karaoke when no pax were willing to do it. Edwin did a good job with the trivia and was a good cruise staffer. We enjoy the trivia on cruises and get into it pretty good, but we met our match with “Amy” who did her best to elevate the trivia games to a blood sport. You are usually competing, of course, for key chains and pens, but that did not stop anyone on this ship from acting like at least thousands of dollars were on the line. We heard from a friend of Amy’s, who had cruised with her before, that on another ship, the cruise staff had asked Amy to tone it down and perhaps let someone else win one – not that she would. We found it a lot of fun, because we like to act like it is a serious event with dire consequences, as well. I don’t think Edwin had heard so much trash talking during his trivia games before.
On this cruise, you have a day at sea before and after the two days, one night, in Bermuda. The days at sea were very nice and relaxing. The gym was small but I never had a problem getting access to anything I wanted – not that many people used it. The adults only solarium was very nice and quiet.
Bermuda was wonderful. We had great weather the entire cruise, including the time in Bermuda. On the day of arrival, we took the ferry from the Dockyard (where Grandeur docked) to St. Georges. We looked around the old town and then walked to Tobacco Bay, which was said to be the best snorkeling. We did not find the snorkeling all that good at Tobacco Bay and the beach was very small and crowded. We had an excellent beach restaurant lunch at the restaurant there, however, and it is a picturesque spot. The evening we were in Bermuda we did a ship’s excursion which was a night snorkel – the guys doing it did a good job and it was a lot of fun – we saw some things that you just do not see during the day. The next day in Bermuda we took the bus to Church Bay on the South Shore – very easy to take the bus – we just told the driver getting on where we wanted to get off and he announced the stop when we were there. We thought the snorkeling excellent at Church Bay with good healthy coral and lots of marine life. The beach was not that big, but nicer than Tobacco Bay in our opinion. The water temperature was, of course, cooler than the Caribbean, but it was not that bad. We did bring and wear shorty wetsuits, however, so we were plenty warm in the water and I am not sure what the water temperature was. After snorkeling at Church Bay, we walked to Horseshoe Bay – which is a beautiful beach – generally considered, I think, to be the most attractive beach in Bermuda. No decent snorkeling to the best of our knowledge but a beautiful place. We only walked this because I had misread the map which I had glanced at earlier and had thought it closer than it was – big mistake! We took our time, however, and were able to see more along the way because of the walking. We had a late lunch at Horseshoe and hung out there for a while. There was not going to be any more walking, so we got a taxi from Horseshoe back to the Dockyard where we did a little souvenir hunting in the shops before boarding.
We were very impressed with Grandeur and its crew and had a great time. We may well want to do this cruise again next year out of Norfolk.
