drarill

We were not impressed by the Tuscan Grill in the Equinox either. Portofinos in RCCL, as an italian restaurant, is a much better option. We really liked Murano and are looking forward to experience this restaurant in the Silhouette this summer.:)

The 2 vessel wrecks I have been involved with were marchant vessels' date=' no passingers....but all the crew members valuables and anything recoverable were shipped home to them. I would image the same would be for the passingers.

 

AKK[/eOTE']

 

Thanks!!! and good to know. I know that I have jewelry with sentimental value to me... and if something like this happens to me I will like to get it back, no matter how long it takes.

CEO of Costa Crociere President Gianni Onorato:' The wreck will be removed whole '

http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2012/03/23/concordia-finita-emergenza-ambientale-onorato-il.html

I already asked this on another thread. What are they going to do with the safes??? I know that they are giving passengers monetary compensations, but if they can recover the safes, are they going to return the valuables to their owners??? I'm just curious...

Love his guides. I stumble upon them on the Europe boards. The Venice Guide is great, I'm taking his advice about the hotel we are staying one night before our cruise.:)

My children became D+ at the ages of 12 and 11. Wasn't too hard, we cruised in suites and have many longer european cruises, which helped a lot!!!;)

Do your kids go in the bars and the casinos? I would imagine that most/all places your kids go are smoke free on RCCL. Even if you go off the ship, you're going to possibly be exposed to smoke. Are you going to walk around in bubbles to avoid that everywhere you go?

Bluegirlum, my children don't go to bars or casinos. Do yours? or if you don't have children, will you take your children to bars or casinos? Have you cruised on the Oasis? The smoke from Boleros ends up in the Promenade. Also, RCCL schedules some dance classes, popular among children, like the Michael Jackson dance lessons in Boleros. The lady that was given the class (3:00PM) asked the "considerate smokers" to stop smoking because many families were trying to take the class, but they didn't want to leave.

We don't walk around in bubbles, but we don't smoke, our friends don't smoke and smoking is not allowed in restaurants, bars or casinos where we live. I think that the last time that my children were "exposed" to cigarette smoke was probably on our last cruise. Am I a bad parent because I avoid their exposure to smoke???? Will you expose your children to pornography?, to drugs? As a parent you will decide what's good or bad to your children. I'm the child of a smoker who died from a cancer that was probably related to his habit. Back when I was growing up people didn't know the effects of second hand smoke, today we know better.

I'm old enough to remember flying on a plane with a smoking area, I'm confident that most cruise lines will join the 21st century and limit the inside smoking in a near future.

BF smokes, but I'm hardly a cheerleader. I wish he didn't smoke and I think it's a deadly and disgusting habit, but it's a LEGAL habit, and I don't think he should be banned from doing it if it's legal.

 

My mom died of skin cancer. I will probably die of skin cancer. I know what i need to do to try to prevent it. I don't think that people should be banned from tanning, nor should there be a tax on tanning beds to try to get people not to do it.

 

I understand that second-hand smoke affects other people, and that it's different from the sun, and in an ideal world no one would smoke, but non-smokers have so many more options than smokers that I think that all the complaining about the smokers taking over the ship gets to be a bit much. Pick what's most important to you on a cruise (being able to bring booze on the ship; food; smoking/non-smoking; shows; etc) and go with it. If lack of smoke is that important to you, you have options.

Not many options. If you like to dance latin music Boleros is your only option and on the Oasis it was a non smoker nightmare. If you like to go to the Casino, the non smoking half doesnt work either. I read somewhere that having a non smoking area in the Casino was like saying that you can pee in one half of a pool. If you have a smoker on the cabin next to you, then you can't enjoy your balcony. We tried Celebrity this year and loved their smoking policy, and believe me the Casinos were full and people drank a lot too. Our only problem with Celebrity was that our kids were bored to death. RCCL is suppose to be a family oriented cruise line and should have a healthier environment for families.

Jane, what a great review!!!!!!! I wish I could do the same, but I cant upload the photos anymore. I'll try it again after my Oasis in Oct.....

It probably was a different Francois (I know he's the same one) but he was, like, different on the Oasis......like he did not care at all: never lift his face from the PC and when he was asked questions, looked like he was doing you a favor by answering them.....We did ask for an extra card for the Concierge, and if looks could kill, I will be dead right now! He was rolling his eyes a lot from displeasure of being interrupted: maybe he did not likey the idea that Julian was there also.

I'll check later, for more review.....get to work girl!!!!!

I think that Francois was not happy at the Oasis. We were on the Jan 2nd sailing and they were still trying to work out the suite perks at the Oasis. Back then, they didn't have priority seating for suite or D+ guests on the shows. We didn't have any problems because we made our reservations online, but many guests were not happy. You know that on ships with CL and a D&D+ lounge, D+ members are allowed to use the CL and on our sailing he had many D+ that were particularly difficult. We were Diamond members on the Oasis and we didn't receive a card to enter the D/D+lounge.

Nice review!

 

14 pairs of shoes?

Nothing wrong with 14 pairs of shoes, it is good to know that I'm not the only one that travels with more than two pairs of shoes:D

We are Diamond Plus C&A members' date=' so we are still allowed to use the Concierge Lounge. This is a very important perk for us and we are glad that we still have it. Since muster was at 8 o'clock tonight, we wanted to go to the CL a little early. There we met Francois Roux, the Concierge. Francois is a great Concierge.....he always greeted us by name and with a smile. We had lots of good chats with him all through the two weeks we were on board.[/size']

 

 

Here we also met Fe.....the bartender in the CL. She certainly did take care of us. She always knew what we wanted and never let our glasses be empty!

 

 

The CL closed early tonight, so we went from there directly to the Muster Drill. No life jackets.....yay! We had to stand a good while......maybe about 20 minutes. We decided that we wouldn't go down quite as early the next week.

 

Soon it was time for dinner......8:45 on this first night (8:30 the rest of the week). Time to meet the tablemates! In all our years of cruising, we have been extremely lucky with our tablemates and this cruise was no exception. At table 443 we met two other couples......Ashley and Ken from Virginia, both nurses.

 

 

And Sharon and Fred from Philadelphia. Sharon is also a nurse and Fred a paramedic.

 

 

We had a great week at our table. Good converstaion and a fun time!

 

 

Our waiter was Vipin and our Asst. waiter was Hungria and they were great. We had different servers the next week, but the two of them went out of their way to speak to us the next week like we were family!

 

In one of my earlier converstaions with the Maitre D, I asked about getting low sodium meals. He said that would not be a problem. So that first night, our Head Waiter came over and let us choose our meal for the next night. We did this every night and I am so glad we did. The food that we were served was wonderful. It tasted so much better withoout all that salt.

Didn't know that Francois was on the Serenade. He is the best!!!

Keltic: We are taking a ship tour to Santiago in the morning and will like to go to El Corte Ingles, I think that the closest to the port is in Gran Via 25. Can you tell me if we will need to take a taxi to get there or if we can walk. My husband wants to buy some bottles of wine, and hope to find the ones he likes there. Do you know of any "bodegas" (wine stores) close to the port? He wants to buy the Vega Sicilias, Reserva Especial.

Thanks;

Lydia