carumba7

The age is 16 for sure!

Serenade on the MED, best trip ever!

carumba, having sailed on every size ship currently in the RC fleet, I would urge you to take a Vision class ship. Sure, I love the big ships, but I love Vision class, too. I love the feel of easily being able to walk all over without feeling like I have just hiked the Appalachian Trail.

 

;) :D

Now I'm convinced, I will do it for sure! I absolutely fell in love with Serenade last year and will sail again on one of her last voyages out of New Orleans in February. For this trip (for us anyway) it’s more about the ship than the itinerary.

Karen

Great review, I wish I had read something similar to this earlier. Found a KILLER deal on an OS out of Tampa in February which I had put a hold on and let expire. I was a bit leery because of some of the reviews I had read, plus the size of the ship. I haven’t been on one this small and I was worried I would feel more motion of the ocean! Lesson learned, find a deal that good I need to grab it!

Serenade of the Seas June 6, 2015

And on my new favorite ship, I'll have to put this one on my wish list!

That sounds really interesting, I'll have to look that up. What ship?

It is 11-nights. I think there is only one Arctic Circle cruise this year.

Prices for a Grand Suite (for 2 people) for our Arctic Circle cruise in June of next year have gone up to $11,058. That is more than $3,000 than we are paying for our GS.

What is Royal Caribbean thinking? They can't sustain these prices.

Wow, how long is your cruise? We paid less than that last year for 3 people in a GS Med 12 day.

Mine is down 1k from last Thursday, but still more than what I paid. That's a crazy price swing!

Booked two months ago and now the price is up $1,200.00 for the two of us. I originally thought it went up after it was announced they would no longer be sailing out of New Orleans but it looks like that was not the case!

Florence with no discussion :)

Could not agree more!

I agree with everything cruisemom says. Definitely allow some time to stand/walk/explore/soak in the "round" square either before or after you do the interior buildings. One point of note, if you decide to explore the square before your entry into the Vatican Museum for your tour, be sure to allow at least 15 minutes to walk to the Museum entrance from the Square. It is further than you might think to get there via the sidewalks you must travel. As you approach the Museum entrance, in peak season, you will likely notice a lengthy line of people. This first line you notice is probably the people without tickets waiting to get in. So keep walking until you can see the entry doors to the Museum. Then figure out which line you need to get in with your advance tickets. It's probably a much shorter line of people with the same entry time as you.

Yes, the length of time and lack of signage getting from the square to the museum entrance is what caught us off guard. Luckily even in late June having purchased our tickets/ tour ahead of time we were able to walk right in barely making our time!

Wow, congrats. Love, love love a GS!

Nice to know for future reference, I didn't even think to ask!

I was a little concerned about the smaller size of Serenade last summer, but was so pleasantly surprised! The smaller feel, plus all the glass made everything very open. The outside seating at the WJ and CL were an added bonus!!

We sailed last summer on Serenade GS 1554 which is basically in the same place as your cabin is on Brilliance. It was our first hump and hopefully not our last. The double sliding doors and large balcony were perfect. Best memory is spending time with our friends while hosting a “Welcome to Venice party!”

Having completed a 12 day Med this past summer, I would not recommend early seating as we wanted to take full advantage of our ports. Late seating gave us plenty of time to rest, shower and visit the CL before dinner.

Having said that the youngest in our party of 8 were 16 year olds, not 6. When ours were this age they rarely wanted to eat in the Main DR and opted for the kids club almost every single time so it was never an issue.

So many choices, I’m sure you will have a wonderful time!

Rates have already gone up..

That was crazy fast!

Just booked balcony with ins. for $1056.00. Air for $283.00 r/t from Syracuse, NY

Was that for one person or two? I don't see that!

This is certainly a personal preference, but I would not go back to an interior cabin. Even on Port intensive itineraries, being able to watch arrivals and departures from you own private balcony is priceless! Open the doors and enjoy the ocean breeze and sounds of the sea!!

They are showing one grand suite left...$757 pp....wish I could go!

I sure wish I would have seen that one!!!

This route is on my wish list, thanks for sharing!!

Looked at their prices. For 2 people plus luggage they are nearly twice the price of other companies (80 euros against 48 euros). For 4 people plus luggage they quote 91.20 where BCN travel quotes 69 euros for a van carrying up to 7 people.

 

We have used BCN Travel many times and found them very reliable and pleasant to deal with.

We were actually 3 people with 6 pieces of luggage and 3 backpacks (crazy I know, but it was a 23 day trip and when they say you can bring two bags each....) I can't remember right now how much we paid but it was not 80 euros. Friends we were traveling with had to take 2 taxis (as we would have) and ended up paying more than we did with this service. Our driver even helped us find the baggage storage in the airport after our cruise before our flight to Paris.

We may have gotten a discount because we booked them for 3 legs of our trip. Regardless, I would do it again to have the piece of mind that they were there waiting when we needed them and didn't have to worry.

We have used Barcelona Airport transfers and have been very pleased. Ready and waiting for us on all three legs of our trip.

http://www.barcelona-airport-transfers.com/

There are so many things you can do out of Solerno that you don’t need a tour for. Take the train to Naples and to Herculaneum, or the ferry right from the port to Positano. On our last trip we decided to take the local bus (about a 10 minute ride) to the hill-top town Vietri sul Mare and had a great day with very little crowds!

Karen

Have a great time! We went our first Radiance Class cruise this past summer and loved it.

Looking forward to traveling along in your warm weather…..