Serenade 10/10/10-Southern-Review with Pics!

[bigque]

Sea Day is also the 1st formal night. Here is the real deal about dress on formal night as well as dress in the MDR on other nights aboard The Serenade of the Seas. 1st we like to dress for formal nights as part of our overall cruise experience. I brought one suit along with two shirts and two ties to have a different look at both formal nights. You saw various types of dress for men and women on this night from formal wear, suit and ties, pants suits, gowns short evening wear for women, as well as sports jackets and slacks, shirts and slacks or smart casual. We did not see anybody being questioned or put out because of what they were wearing. On the other nights we saw various types of dress also, even some with shorts on. Did not see tank tops or flip flops, but it appeared that anything else was acceptable.

 

After dinner, went to the Welcome aboard show at the Tropical Theater. It was alright, Dennis the cruise director did his usual funny comedy routine, followed by a production show by the cruise ship dancers. Did not stay for the whole show…. Been there done that! After that I did my nightly walking around the ship people watching thing, hung out in the Vortex (Party atmosphere varied from night to night, from good party some nights to downright boring on other nights) for a while and about midnight, went back to the room and hung out on the balcony under the moonlight and then to bed and thus ended my sea day!

 

 

 

 

Night Picture of the smoking area on the 5th deck (Notice the ash receptacles between some of the chairs

 

About smoking: This is not a good area at certain times of day, if you do not smoke. Other smoking area's I noticed are in the Casino, though I never smelt it bad in there. The Sports bar leading into one side of the casino is about the worse area for smoke & I mean real bad! At the Sky Bar and there is a section on the pool deck leading back to the Windjammer on the starboard side. Before the cruise I read a lot about smoking on the balconies on here. I was on my balcony at various times of day and night, and I never noticed anyone smoking. If anyone was smoking on any balcony below, above or beside me I never knew it cause I never smelt any smoke.

 

View of Ocean from the room

 

 

9580 Balcony

 

Kyakers directly below balcony before we left San Juan (Would not have seen them if we were in a balcony that didn't look straight down

 

 

 

 

Up next – 1st port - Barbados

I am going to give a grade for the tour and the island of each day. (My opinion – And you know what those are like!)

[bigque]

Day 2 Tuesday - Barbados

 

 

 

Woke up early to go get pictures of the sunrise (As beautiful each morning as pictures have been shown on cruise critic):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have to go go for now. The rest of Barbados tomorrow!

[IBookHePays]

Thanks for taking the time to post with pictures! Loving it!!

[PhoenixCruiser]

Great stuff, thanks again :D

 

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[seaofwonder]

Looking forward to hearing more!!!

[bigminc]

I'm really enjoying your review and pictures. Great job!

[bigque]

Thanks for taking the time to post with pictures! Loving it!!

 

Thanks! I am enjoying doing it! As I started out saying.. I always wanted to do this after a cruise!

[ciera123]

I'm so happy to see the picture of you on the aft deck outside of the Windjammer. We were on the Constellation (Celebrity) and the entire back deck outside the buffet area was open with tables. We loved eating out there and I can't wait to do the same on the Serenade!!! Waiting for more...;)

[bigque]

I'm so happy to see the picture of you on the aft deck outside of the Windjammer. We were on the Constellation (Celebrity) and the entire back deck outside the buffet area was open with tables. We loved eating out there and I can't wait to do the same on the Serenade!!! Waiting for more...;)

 

It is the same on the Serenade. The entire back deck is open with tables. Until about half way through the cruise, you might only see people at 3 or 4 tables. Best kept secret on the cruise for the 1st 3 days.

[Ruby71]

Enjoying your review! Looking forward to April on the Serenade.

Sharon

[sandinmypants]

Great reviewing, lots of good info! Looking forward to more..... :)

[danp]

We luv this ship.We will be doing our third B2B on her in January.

[WestCoastCat]

I love this ship!!! It brought back lots of wonderful memories.

Can't wait till January!

 

This is a great thread, thank you.

[Worn out mailman]

Hi there. Great review. We did the Serenade in '08 (also stateroom 9580, not a bad spot) and are doing it again in 2011. You are right, that outdoor dining is awesome, both the Windjammer and the Seaview Cafe up high. You're also right about the sail away party. There's no party like those leaving before sunset (say, for instance, a sailaway from Ft. Lauderdale), when you can see better. Still, it's nice that sail away is a little earlier than it used to be from San Juan. I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves.

[Happy to set sail]

Hi Mike - thought I'd take another stab at finding your review from work and I DID! I'll read it tonight when I'm home. This will just keep my after-glow going....

 

Joan & Larry

[sgtgerryf]

Mike,

 

Reliving the week on SOS via your pictures. Glad to have met you and Eileen. Seems like from our first contact at Senor Frogs, Pam and I were constantly seeing both of you either on board or in one of the ports.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the photos.

[LBumb]

thanks for posting. great job.

[pbakken]

Great review and pictures Mike! We too, got the beer purse....handly little thing it is! We only got 8 beers and not the 9 though. Dordy...the bartender at the sky bar said I couldn't refill it with Corona though....grrrr.

 

Keep the review and the pictures coming....can't wait to see them!

Peri

[bigque]

Great review and pictures Mike! We too, got the beer purse....handly little thing it is! We only got 8 beers and not the 9 though. Dordy...the bartender at the sky bar said I couldn't refill it with Corona though....grrrr.

 

Keep the review and the pictures coming....can't wait to see them!

Peri

I guess I had 8 also! Must have had too many of them when I started counting! :D

[Mommy2mo26]

Mike got quite a bit of use of his throughout the cruise...held up well too! I did read somewhere that it is possible to take it on future cruises and just keep doing the "refill" as they aren't changing the colors and they didn't put stickers/tags on your seapass or anything (like with the soda stickers)...good to know ;)

[slm517]

Great review so far! My DH and I are planning a cruise on the Serenade in either October or January.

[bigque]

Will be continuing this review on tonight with the island reviews & Pics... Stay Tuned! :)

[sgjanice]

Cant wait and Im not even going on this ship..lol

[Sirkeline]

Great review Mike:D

[bigque]

Barbados continued:

 

Breakfast was ordered the night before through our head waiter. With the Romance Package, you get a special breakfast card to give to the head waiter the night before you want to the breakfast delivered. It was a very special breakfast with a different menu than the regular breakfast menu you can order for each morning. It includes your choice of a Bloody Mary or Mimosa (Orange Juice /Champagne), salmon, and caviar, among other breakfast items. We couldn’t even eat it all!

 

 

 

 

Best of Barbados Tour (Through RCI) – Departed the ship for 8:30 Tour time. The1st port date the line was long when we got to the 2nd deck gangway. On the rest of the port days the lines were not bad. I guess everybody figured out that they did not need to rush to be the 1st off the ship. Once off the ship we walked over to where the tours depart and as with many ports you go through a mini duty free shopping mall. I did not see anything I wanted to purchase there other than souvenirs to say I been there. The tour took us through one of the poorest neighborhoods on the island with a 1st stop at the house & grounds of I believe was the 1st governor of the island after they obtained independence. You tour through the house and there is an original slave hut on the grounds and that is it. This is the 1st of a weeklong drink of Rum Punch on every tour all week long, which was always too weak or very strong……..Enjoyed them all! Next stop of the tour was at St. John’s Church, an old historic church on top of a mountain and gave you good views of the island and the Atlantic Ocean:

 

 

Original Slave Hut

 

St. John's Church

 

Inside St. Johns Church

 

A view from St. Johns Church

 

From there it was off to Orchid World, which is like a Botanical Garden (Saw some interesting plant life), as well as what the name suggests… Orchids!

 

 

After that stop we were off through the sugar cane fields of the island and back to the ship. Back on board we did Windjammer lunch and went and got in the Jacuzzi as there was not a lot of people on the pool deck and we were able to sit wherever we wanted!

 

 

 

Tour time 8:30 till about 12:30 – 12:45. My grades – Tour Guide – B; Tour itself C-; The Island of Barbados – C (Did not see beaches to give a grade, people from the ship however said they weren’t bad).