Get Out There - Rhapsody Review 11/14/04

Rhapsody of the Seas – 11/14/2004: Get Out There

Embarkation/Debarkation – We stayed overnight at the Tremont which gave us parking privileges at the Hotel Galvez for the duration of the cruise. Just dropped off our car there and they shuttled us over to the pier. We didn’t have to battle out going traffic as the Rhapsody was in dry dock the week before our cruise. Had booked a Junior Suite so we had priority check in and embarkation. We definitely recommend that if you can! Priority check in is for all suites and Platinum and above Crown and Anchor members. We especially loved being recognized as prior RCI cruisers on our sea pass card and being personally welcomed back to our favorite ship. Went to find our room (8588 – you’ll find pictures at the link listed below) and sailed off to the Caribbean. Debarkation went very smoothly and we were out of the terminal by 9:15. Instead of waiting for a shuttle to the hotel, we hired a taxi for four people and LOTS of luggage($10.60 + tip). Got our cars out of valet and were on the road by 10:00. We of course had to stop just north of Houston to eat as it had been more than two hours since we last ate. Chuck did not understand for a minute why the waiter laid a piece of paper in front of him after our meal. It had been a while since we had to pay for a meal!

The Ship (Dry dock?) – As the ship was in dry dock we expected to find big changes and everything clean and spiffed up. We really didn’t notice too much different. All the wood floors had been redone and were very pretty. This included the dance floors in the lounges, all the entry ways to the state rooms, etc. Our stateroom was clean, but showed a little wear. Nothing we would really want to complain about though.. We were very disappointed to find that Ben and Jerry’s was not open for business yet. We got two different stories on that. They could be open this week or next, depending on who you listen to. By the end of the cruise they had unveiled the facility and it is beautiful. B & J, Seattle’s Best and Latte-tudes are all located next to the check out stand for the photo purchases on deck 6. The casino was not sporting the “Western Theme” we all thought was going to happen. The gift shop was expanded. We noticed the back of the ship had “NASSAU” welded on the hull with “OSLO” painted over it. We assumed that the registry used to be in Nassau, but later found out from Captain Charles that all RCI ships will be changing registry to Nassau sometime in the near future. BTW, we did book again for Summer 2005 and the Rhapsody is exchanging Jamaica for Key West every other week.

The Bad News – Speaking of Captain Charles (Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning) – this was his last voyage on the Rhapsody. He is going to work on the project expanding the Enchantment and then will take the helm of another ship. We will all miss Captain Charles and wish him well in his next endeavors. The Rhapsody will also be losing another crew member soon, but we are respecting their wishes not to divulge that information. Just wanted to say thanks for the memories as we know you will be reading this review! Hope the DPD badge goes in your bag of favorite souvenirs.

The Voyage – Oh my! We started out well, but by Monday morning the ship was a pitchin and a rollin! “You know what” bags were in all the stairwells! Chuck was in bed for most of the day as were about a third of the rest of the passengers and some of the crew. That was very sad as it was the first formal dinner and many people missed that. The rest of the week was much smoother! For those of you who are interested in the aft cabins… we will personally choose not to sail that far back again. The balcony was awesome. Big enough for a party!! However, there is a little more motion and you can hear the engines pretty good. None of that should keep you from there if you have your heart set on it. We just didn’t like the LONG walk. When you gotta go, that is a really long walk!

The Food – We each gained 10 pounds. Enough said? The food was just as we expected it. Plentiful, very well prepared and served. Our waiter, Bilal and our assistant waitress, Ioana were wonderful. We fully expect to see Ioana as a full fledged waiter soon. She was so sweet and worked hard for us. Our tablemates were very nice people. There were 10 of us and everyone got along very well. The menu for room service could have been a little better in our opinion. We ordered bagel and cream cheese and English muffins one day. What we got was breakfast breads and bran muffins. Oh well, we just went to the Windjammer and got what we wanted. The room service chocolate chip cookies were fabulous!! Windjammer breakfast was good and lunch buffet had nice variety. Didn’t have too much of that as we didn’t want to leave the pool and our friends to eat! The French fries in the solarium are the best in the world and maybe the universe!

Cruise in Review – GET OUT THERE

Carl Strong and Wilde and Hains were both hilarious!! We did not see John Muledeere and hear that it was ok we missed that. LaRaf were very good, as always. Goose Nuemann and his staff did a super job keeping us entertained .That’s what we love most about cruising. There really is enough variety of entertainment that you can’t help but find something you want to do. The only way you can not have fun is if you choose not to have fun. This cruise we made a pact to participate a lot more than usual. As a result of that Chuck came in 2nd in the Belly Flop Contest, I was a judge in the men’s sexy legs contest and our team tied for First Place in The Quest. Several other Cruise Critic members also Got Out There. Dennis was 3rd place in the belly flop, Lynn was also a judge in the Men’s Sexy Legs contest, Peggy was a jockey for the horse races, all of our guys entered the MSL contest and Eric won! By the way, they have seriously upgraded the prize for these contests. Our group won several medals and RCI hats that can not be purchased elsewhere. Carol entered the Guest talent show and did a great job as Marilyn Monroe. Chuck won the coveted Aqua Mouse during the Meet and Mingle!!

This week’s Cruise in Review video sports quite a few shots of Cruise Critic members because we all worked hard at having a great time.

The Ports – Key West was fun as always. The only excursion we took was the Conch Train, which was interesting. Next time we will take an excursion as there isn’t a lot to do in Key West but drink and shop!

Costa Maya – As RCI was still not going to Grand Cayman we went to Costa Maya. Thanks to this Cruise Critic board we were prepared and knew what to do. We shopped in the morning, ate lunch in one of the open air restaurants and then rented a golf cart to head over to Mahahual Beach. The water was cool, but oh so beautiful. We loved Costa Maya and would go back there any time.

Cozumel – Shopped, shopped and then…. Shopped! Lunch at Pancho’s Backyard and then on to Paradise Beach. Some of our group snorkeled and some just lounged in the water. What a beautiful and fun place. They had massages, more shopping and henna tattoos, which we did experience first hand! We thought we’d freak our kids out and get tattooed. That came in really handy later in the day for The Quest! We wished we had allotted more time for Paradise Beach. Just a note – they do use a water filtration system there so that their frozen drinks were safe to consume. Note: as current time they are redoing the streets along the shopping district. Renting a car to drive in that area is not really an option. If you are thinking about renting a scooter, our waiter said the hospital there told him they stay open due to all the tourist scooter accidents. We were sad to hear that one of the passengers on our ship had to stay behind in Cozumel due to serious injury on a scooter.

Cruise Critic members Rock!

Be sure to talk up Cruise Critic when you are on the ship! It made for some great conversations for us and I’ll bet someone new from our cruise is reading this right now! It is always nice to have new friends join us here at CC. In closing, let us just say that this vacation was a blast – due mostly to the Cruise Critic members we met on our rollcall thread. After months of conversing on the boards it was great to finally meet all of you! From Saturday night meeting for drinks and dinner before the cruise to Sunday morning hugging good bye and the week in-between, we spent time with some of the most fabulous people it has ever been our privilege to meet. Just a suggestion – everyone from our roll call wore lei’s on the first night of the cruise. It made it very easy for us to spot each other. By the time our Meet and Mingle came we were all close friends. Special thanks to Peggy and Eric, Jay and Jana, Steve and Jenny and especially Lynn and Dennis for all the good times and laughs. We have truly made some life long friends this week.

We love RCI and the Rhapsody of the Seas and can’t wait to sail her again in June. We have lots of pictures that are (or will be soon) posted on Webshots. We saved all the Cruise Compasses, so if you have any questions, post your e-mail and we’ll respond back or just post your question here!

shmthaus & mrsshmthaus

Thank you very much for posting the review so soon!

Loved your review! We will be on the Rhapsody on the 28th of Nov. I'm so sorry to hear that Captain Charles will not be there. We were invited to dine with him on one of our cruises on the Rhapsody. This will be our 5th time to be on the Rhapsody. Can you tell me if they updated any furniture in the Shall We Dance Lounge? I know you mentioned they refurbished the wood floors.

Any updates in the solarium room?

Linda

Linda - We will all miss Capt. Charles. How fun it must have been to dine with him!

I don't think the furniture was updated in Shall We Dance. Solarium floor was redone and looks great. That's about all we noticed. We spent most of our time at the outside pool.

The ship of course, looks great. I'll be interested in what you think of the B&J and Seattle's Best stand. I think it is gorgeous.

Thank you! Thank you! Loved reading your review!!!! 14 more days for me!!!

Thanks for the review. We will be sailing on her again in January.

If the Seattle's Best is anything like on the Radiance it will be good.

Great Review! Maybe they are getting Captain Rolf back. You said you ate breakfast at the Windjammer. Have they figured out how to close the lids on serving containers yet in order to keep the french toast, waffles, and pancakes warm yet? Every time I put them down the crew kept putting them back up. I tried but could not adequately explain to them the concept of warm breakfast food.

Chuck - Cpt Charles did say that Cpt Rolf is coming back out of retirement for a couple of weeks to take the helm again. He didn't say who would be taking over after that.

Ali ate french toast quite frequently and said she didn't find the lid up on that warmer or others. Maybe they finally took the suggestion.

Chuck

thank you so much for the review. Can't wait to get on the ROS ... the only thing that that i'm worried about is the post-cruise blues!!!! I hope you are dealing ok with them. I never seem to get over the cruise blues until the anticipation of the next cruise!!!! ;)

thanks again!!!!

P.S I didn't find the pictures link below...did i miss it??:eek:

We have discovered the cure to PCB!! Just book your next cruise on board your current cruise! I am already looking forward to going back in June!

Pictures are not posted yet.... will try to get them up very soon.

I have downloaded the pics to my pc but have to edit them a little. Some of the pics didn't turn out very well and have to rearrange some of them...

Will try to do it pretty quick..

Chuck

So no sprucing up of the staterooms during drydock? Are they well maintained, as a whole, or showing their age?

The new ice cream and coffee areas....are they included in the food & beverages, or is there a fee?

Hi mrsshmthaus:

Welcome back and thanks for the review. I have one question, did you ever make it up to the Viking Crown Lounge at night? Wondering if the lights on the dance floor were repaired.

Fausto

How much is the Cruise in review video?

Thanks

Rooms were clean and nice as usual, but no new furniture or anything like that.

Goose told us there will be an extra charge for the B&J and Seattle's Best, but I didn't think to ask him what it would be! Sorry! :rolleyes:

Viking Crown - don't know what was in need of repair, but it looks on the video like they worked. and I noticed one day when we were at the pool that the lights kept going on and off. maybe they were working on them then?

Cruise Video - 24.95 for VHS, 29.95 for DVD.

Thanks for the info mrs. I'll be sure and stare at the floors more this time!! hee hee

Cat - the ship you are on for 2004, does it have any balcony rooms?

cruizinmimi - those of us from the roll call are meeting in the Schooner Bar at 3 pm on Sailaway to say hi. from there, I think it's muster time and then Mr Wolf and I generally go to the top deck when we leave. Of course, it could be raining but I may be there anyway. Hope we get to say hi.

Mrs - did ya'll visit the casino at all? Wondering if they have three card poker.

One of our new CC friends said he noticed that the crew was removing chairs from boxes as they were disembarking. He also noticed that there was new carpet rolled up in a corner of deck 9.....

He suggests that refurb is still ongoing while the ship is in service. As we were getting ready to leave our stateroom on Sunday am, a crew member knocked on the door and said he needed to do some painting on our balcony....

Wolfie, can't wait for your review to see what else has been done...

Chuck

I can't wait for my review either! Actually, I can because then the cruise will be over!

I'm thinking we are just going to Mahahual on our own rather than pay $50 for the costa maya excursion. Sounds like it is just the same thing only with open bar. With $2 beers, we'd have to work hard to make that worthwhile!

Is ice cream available around the pools for the kids. They love to get ice cream on cruises, so I am hoping there is complementary ice cream somewhere onboad!

Is ice cream available around the pools for the kids. They love to get ice cream on cruises, so I am hoping there is complementary ice cream somewhere onboad!

There is frozen yogurt in the Windjammer Cafe next to the pool. Only thing is that you are supposed to wear footwear, shirts or coverups to go in the Windjammer. You just can't run in for a quick ice cream in bathing suit. It is free though.

Wolfie, we rented the golf cart for 4 people. The little shack in Mahahual was called the El Mexicano and had chairs on the beach with the water coming right up to them. Beer was Sol beer and it was about $2.

How much was the golf cart rental - and how safe did you feel it was... we have a 2 year old.....

I to, want to know how much the golf cart rental was and where did you get it from? Was there a charge on Paradise Beach? Thanks for your review.

I think the golf carts at Mahahual are $15 an hour. The cab rides are about $5 apiece roundtrip. I think we will cab it.

I have heard Paradise is about to start a $5 charge but I don't know if it has started yet. You pay $5 for use of water toys there.

$2 Sols sound great - it's actually a good smooth beer. I usually get that at Senor Frogs!

Wolfie- That is only a temporary ship for this year. They will be framing the new 'cabins' this week or next. One large rear balcony, a great bathroom, but no pool. There is a plug being installed for the hottub though! We need to sell our 2004 cruise to pay for the new one in 2005!

Everyone - You will love Captain Rolf! His is a very funny man. Get use to that Northern European voice saying "The Motion of the Ocean". Say hello to my bar stool at The Schooner Bar!

:( :( :(

I think the golf carts at Mahahual are $15 an hour. The cab rides are about $5 apiece roundtrip. I think we will cab it.

 

I have heard Paradise is about to start a $5 charge but I don't know if it has started yet. You pay $5 for use of water toys there.

 

$2 Sols sound great - it's actually a good smooth beer. I usually get that at Senor Frogs!

The golf carts were $15/hour and we paid for 2 hours in advance. If you go over, you just pay when you return it. It was a blast, we could go where ever we wanted in Mahahual and not have to worry where the cab dropped you off. They are gas powered motors.

We got to PB at about 2pm and got chairs real close to the water. There wasn't a charge for entry. No one even asked us if we planned on using the toys. We didn't do the water toys except for DW, she got a float and floated around while other snorkeled.