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Let me Serenade You - the 12/11-18 Review with Too Many Pictures

subtchr

By subtchr,
in Royal Caribbean International

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BopRN

BopRN

Posted
Posted

Awesome!! We live in Vandalia 2 miles from the airport! We are sailing on the Serenade in May for a 2nd time. I noticed they have done away with Luggage Valet from San Juan which was WONDERFUL when we used it before. We had a really bad past experience waiting in line for 3 hrs at that airport to check luggage. What was your experience with check-in? We are hoping never to experience that nightmare ever again!

 

Thanks so much for the pictures! Here we sit in Ohio under a blanket of snow so your pictures brightened my day!!

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waterbugohio

waterbugohio

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WONDERFUL review!!!

 

I also would like to know more settings on your cameras. You can tell you have a true love for photos, (do you give lessons??)

 

Amazing how many "buckeyes" this thread is drawing in.

 

BopRN, we have done Serenade 3 yrs in a row, just coming back in November. They did not have the luggage valet this last time and we had a 5PM flight back to Dayton. We walked right up to the ag inspection, took about 3 min. Then on to check in, no problems there either, we had printed our boarding passes ahead of time. And then on to security, which if I remember right took us about 15 min. We had plenty of time (thank godness) as they had moved our gate and we walked from one end to the other, they had set up a "side" extra gate which was not well marked. By the time we figured this out it was already boarding. This was all on Air Tran.

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brianabrad

brianabrad

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Amazing review! I am so excited for our trip on the Serenade now.

 

For me, I am most concerned about attire in the MDR. I've only been on one cruise with another line and they didn't have a dinning room per say so you never had to worry about dressing for the meal. I noticed in one of your photos someone in the background was wearing jeans. Is that common? Would it be okay for Brad to wear a nice pair of dark jeans with a polo shirt tucked it (it appears thats what that man was wearing).

 

Any other tips for first time Serenade cruisers would be great!

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OHCruisin

OHCruisin

Posted
Posted

Great review and some beautiful photos. I'll be going on Serenade in February, my 3rd time. I do, however, hope we DON'T have Mercedes as CD. We had her on AOS last year and I did not care for her at all.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves on one of my favorite ships.

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karylrocks

karylrocks

Posted
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OHCruisin - we are on your sailing and somewhere on here I found a schedule that said that our cruise director will be Marc Walker. Not sure how accurate that is but I think they rotate every few months.

 

subtchr - thanks for this great review! No such thing as too many pictures. My DH is a photographer and we always come home with hundreds of pictures.

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bobmacliberty "Live from...." Rare

bobmacliberty

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Great review. It must win the award for most pictures in a review...which is a good thing! Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

 

For those who were asking about the camera and settings used, here's a thread that I just started in the Cruise Critic photo discussion area that shows how you can view EXIF info in an image to answer these questions:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=27239055#post27239055

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RAE6

RAE6

Posted
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These have got to be some of the most beautiful pics I have seen in reviews!

 

Especially the ones of San Juan, amazing. I want to travel there just to see these places.

 

Oh and what kind of online classes did you take? You surely got your money's worth and then some. You can sell these prints and I would be your first customer!:)

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BILL-WI

BILL-WI

Posted
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Thank you for sharing your spectacular review and photos with us. It made me feel like I was on the cruise with you.

 

Serenade is my favorite ship and I will be back on her in just about 2 weeks...I can not wait!

 

BILL

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Sequim88

Sequim88

Posted
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I had to clip and paste the review into a Word doc (destined for PDF) for my internet challenged brother (dial-up too slow for pictures). It's 300 pages! :eek: subtchr you "wrote" (OK photograhed) a whole book! Thank you very much because even though the itinerary is different from our cruise in Feb. (with karylrocks and OHCruisin) it is still a great preview. Especially all the pictures of Serenade - inside and out. The time spent putting this all together is very much appreciated.

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subtchr

subtchr

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You all are very kind. All I know is that writing this review has been my form of treatment for post cruise depression...

 

I thoroughly enjoyed your review! Cruise soon so you can write another!

 

From your lips (fingertips) to my DH's ears (eyes)...

 

Awesome!! We live in Vandalia 2 miles from the airport! We are sailing on the Serenade in May for a 2nd time. I noticed they have done away with Luggage Valet from San Juan which was WONDERFUL when we used it before. We had a really bad past experience waiting in line for 3 hrs at that airport to check luggage. What was your experience with check-in? We are hoping never to experience that nightmare ever again!

 

Thanks so much for the pictures! Here we sit in Ohio under a blanket of snow so your pictures brightened my day!!

 

Yep, and on top of the snow this morning was added a layer of ice...yuck.

 

We got to the airport after our city tour about 3:30 or so, and the agriculture check just took a few minutes, no waiting there. There was one airline that seemed to have a long check-in line (Continental maybe?), but ours (United) was empty. We had checked in online but not yet printed our boarding passes, since if you have to check bags you have to check in at the desk anyway. The security line seemed long, but it probably only took about 20 minutes, and we had plenty of time to chill at the gate.

 

For me, I am most concerned about attire in the MDR. I've only been on one cruise with another line and they didn't have a dinning room per say so you never had to worry about dressing for the meal. I noticed in one of your photos someone in the background was wearing jeans. Is that common? Would it be okay for Brad to wear a nice pair of dark jeans with a polo shirt tucked it (it appears thats what that man was wearing).

 

Any other tips for first time Serenade cruisers would be great!

 

What you described for your husband was VERY common. I think I might have mentioned it somewhere, but this is the first cruise I even saw quite a few shorts on men in the dining room. This can be a contentious issue on the CC boards, but it didn't bother us at all. My DH does wear a suit or sportcoat and tie on formal nights, but khakis and either a nice polo or sportshirt the other nights. Lots of dark jeans, too. Don't worry, it's your cruise!

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subtchr

subtchr

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For those asking about the photography, all I can say is have fun playing!

 

That's the joy of digital photography to me, that I can take 50 shots, and even if only 10 of them are good, it's no loss. In fact, it's a gain because I have learned something!

 

I got my DSLR (a Nikon D5000) a year or so ago, and I play around a lot with the different programmed settings. I have SO much to learn about the "why" certain settings work in different situations, I really do need to take a class. But with these new cameras, the technology is so good that if you let it "take the lead", as it were, you WILL come out with some great photos.

 

If you want to see some really great photos and get some sound technical advice, visit the Photo forums here on CC. There are some amazingly talented folks over there. I get a little overwhelmed sometimes when they write about the advanced technical info, but I try to pick up what I can.

 

I just look for great angles and colors and anything else that catches my eye. Someone mentioned the San Juan shots - that has to be one of the most "photogenic" cities I have ever visited, right up there with New Orleans. So many examples of the old juxtaposed with the new, bright colors, plus the turquoise water and bright blue sky...just stunning.

 

Now having said that about the DSLR and what great pictures you can take, the revelation for me this trip was my new little toy, a Sony TX5. Talk about good things coming in small packages! It slides into a pocket, but it takes amazing photos in all kinds of conditions.

 

Other than St. Croix, my Nikon never left the ship. All the photos in Antigua, Dominica, St. Thomas, and Grenada were with the little Sony.

 

It's shockproof, and more importantly waterproof. Snorkeling conditions were not the greatest this trip, it was either raining or had just stopped, so it was a bit cloudy and/or murky, but I still got some pretty good shots. I can't wait for an opportunity to use it underwater on a sunny day with clear water.

 

But even when you are not actually taking it underwater, the waterproof quality is great to have, whether it's raining, or you're sweating, or you just don't know what conditions you will face.

 

And I mentioned it earlier, but it has two very cool features that I used often. The first is "sweep panorama". Just push the shutter, sweep the camera across the view you want to capture, and it creates the image. Some examples:

 

9d5abf9e.jpg

 

2d66e7bc.jpg

 

ef5e11ee.jpg

 

The other feature I used both on and off the ship is a "Twilight No Flash" setting. It's so hard to get focused shots in low light, but the technology allows it to take many shots and "combine" them internally to avoid that blur. Most of the photos in the theater, and some of the San Juan nighttime shots were using this setting:

 

f4e1780e.jpg

 

0793f828.jpg

 

No, I don't sell cameras or own Sony stock, but if I could only take one camera anywhere, that would now be the one!

 

Great review. It must win the award for most pictures in a review...which is a good thing! Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

 

For those who were asking about the camera and settings used, here's a thread that I just started in the Cruise Critic photo discussion area that shows how you can view EXIF info in an image to answer these questions:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=27239055#post27239055

 

Thanks for the info, just a question - since we are not posting the actual photo, but a link to a photo-sharing website (photobucket in my case), how does this work? Thanks for the post and any insights!

 

Hope that helps anyone, thanks again for the kind words!

 

Sue

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subtchr

subtchr

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Thanks for all the advice on the camera! I've been thinking that it might be nice to get a new one to enjoy for our wedding and honeymoon.

 

How was the battery life with the camera?

 

Battery life was pretty good, never had to worry about it over the course of a day of heavy use, but I did charge it each night if I had used it quite a bit that day.

 

I may get an extra battery, as I have for the DSLR.

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johnbob7

johnbob7

Posted
Posted

ok, i admit, been lurking...doing the adventure in january, but did serenade two years back and loved it...but because of you i just bought the sony camera... seems like a perfect cruise camera...thanks for sharing...

 

bobj

 

ps i did order extra battery, pet fear is running out, never do if I charge each day but never want to be out on excursion and run out, right?

 

thanks again

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bobmacliberty "Live from...." Rare

bobmacliberty

Posted
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Thanks for the info, just a question - since we are not posting the actual photo, but a link to a photo-sharing website (photobucket in my case), how does this work? Thanks for the post and any insights!

Sue

I don't know for certain, but I assume that the EXIF viewer software is smart enough to follow the link back to Photobucket and get the data from the image file there.

 

We're giving my daughter one of the new Sony cameras with the sweep panorama feature for Christmas. Looks pretty cool. Daddy may have to borrow the camera every now and then. :D

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