Grandeur of the Seas Oct 15-26 - Greece & Turkey

Thought i would post my review while waiting in the airport to head home. Just got off the Grandeur of the Seas this morning from the 11 night Greece and Turkey cruise.

Overall my husband and I had a wonderful vacation/cruise on this ship.

High points - service and staff was great, most shows were good, stops were good locations except Bodrum Turkey for me

Low points- food seemed the same as on previous cruises over the last few years and the food in dining rooms wasn't anything to write about, some fowl smells around the ship but wasn't around areas that really affected us.

We boarded the ship on Friday Oct 15 in venice at noon. by the way we did the cheap route to the ship and took the atvo bus from the airport for 6 euro each. the only location open to eat was windjammer, park cafe wasn't open yet. Rooms ready at 1pm like normal. Food in the windjammer was the exact same as every other cruise we have been on with Royal for the first day you board! disappointing.. Dropped off our bags in the room and took off for downtown area of venice. we did walk from the pier all the way to st marks square! its duable but does take about 45mins to an hour. we got lost many times but did make it back to the ship.Venice was amazing! worth a visit once in your lifetime.

Kotor Montenegro-little city to walk around and shop a little and eat right when you get off the tender. We did the climbing up the city wall. great view from the top.

Athens/Piraeus - took a private tour of the acropolis not through RCI. worked out good for us. Plaka market is huge but most shops have all the same things.

Kusadasi Turkey - best tour we had. we actually booked a walking tour through RCI. went to pigeon island, saw rug making, and went to a turkish bath. the turkish bath was a great experience and would recommend it.

Bodrum Turkey - big disappointed for me. you can walk or take a free shuttle boat to town. mostly a tourist spot! the only thing to see is a castle which isn't cheap and take a boat ride to a beach for the day.

Mykonos Greece - took a joint adventure with another couple we met. walked to the city (about 30 mins) instead of paying $8 for the shuttle bus. Walked around the city and took a taxi to another small town about 15mins away to see what outside the tourist area was like. one word of advice we noticed people renting atv...the 50cc goes soooo slow on the hills around the island and traffic moves fast... beware!

Santorini Greece - a must do the donkeys! we took them up and it was a blast. now everyone told us we would smell like a donkey but i don't think we did. We also did rent a 150cc atv for 20 euros for the day so maybe the stink got blown off of us then. I felt safe on the atv because there wasn't much traffic while we were there. got to see almost all of the island. i would recommend renting one there.

Split Croatia - i loved this stop. the buildings were so old looking. we walked up to marjan hill and went to the zoo up there also. Zoo was a little sad shape... not much time. oh their pastries there were so good! there was a pizza joint near the pier that had wonderful pizza too and cheap!

I must say our last cruise was on the Liberty which is a much bigger ship than the Grandeur fit us better. We were easily bored on this ship because it didn't have enough to keep our age group busy (30's) like a basketball court. The average age i would say on this cruise was 50/60+. But we only had 2 cruise days so it was fine. Overall great cruise and we kept busy with lots of stops in different ports every day.

Hi Stevie 44875,

we are just home from the same cruise.

We had a great time but did have some niggles with Grandeur.

We felt she was very smart and looked well, but .....

WiFi did not work, TV reception , we kept loosing picture, (I know you dont cruise to watch TV, but it is good to watch the news occasionally!), even films kept breaking up.

Lots of problems with the loo, stopped working three times and overflowed all over the floor once, yuck!! Also lots of sewage smells around the ship. (not our fault I hasten to add!!) Captain says they had a new system fitted in May and things had not settled

No Bridgecam and info about how far you have travelled etc, could not check your SeaPass Acount on TV.

Quite a bit of soot on our Aft , this was our 5th Aft and we have never had a problem before.

We did My Time Dining and that worked very well for us, enjoyed the food.

Entertainment was good, we enjoyed lots of dancing.

Staff were excellent as always.

Ports of call were good.

Loved Venice!!!

We did a Cicchetti Tour in Venice on the Sunday evening which was great fun.

We did the HoHo bus in Athens,Ephesus, we did a private tour which was amazing.

We liked Bodrum, had some lovely Turkish Coffee and baklava,enjoyed a long walk along the Promenade and looking at all the boats!

We were originally supposed to Tender in Mykanos,so was disappointed when we docked. Santorini was so lovely and I agree about Split, it was so pretty, we did a walking tour and it was very interesting.

Getting off this morning was a breeze. We had booked a transfer with clickairport transfers. We booked them for 9am, left the ship at 8 30am, collected our bags and when we stepped outside at 8 40am, our driver was there already, we were at the airport at 9 05am!!!

All in All we had a fantastic time and made some great new friends.

Hope you and everyone else has a safe journey home.

Anne

Oh yeah i forgot all about not having a bridge camera! One reason we went with an interior room this time was because we could just put the tv channel to the bridge and see the weather. I hated not having that!

We did have some minor issues with our toilet too. You would push to flush and 5 minutes later it would finally flush. We did have to call to get it fixed the second day because it wouldn't flush at all. We were in room 2009. Luckily the horrible smell was always at the aft part of deck 2!

Can either of you comment on your Cruise Director - I believe it was Rich Edwards, correct? He'll be ours on our Liberty cruise in 3 weeks.

Thanks!

Thanks for the review. I was on this sailing too and had a wonderful time in each of the ports. Mostly fantastic weather. :)

Can either of you comment on your Cruise Director - I believe it was Rich Edwards, correct? He'll be ours on our Liberty cruise in 3 weeks.

Thanks!

We were on this cruise, also. Rich Edwards was not memorable, though we only encountered him when he introduced the entertainment in the theater, so I may be wrong. Maybe others can comment on how he did with later evening events.

Anne, you picked the right cruise. We had a couple of bad weather days (Dubrovnik and Rome) on next leg, overall colder and very windy. Enjoyed meeting you and hiking Ephesus and Split together!

Also, Bodrum was one of our favorite ports. As sailors, we spent a lot of time gawking at those gorgeous, beamy wooden yachts in town for the regatta.