New & Improved Grandeur ~ Venice to Palma ~ July 13 ~ My Diary

[suizas]

During the refurb, did they add a lot of balcony cabins? or do you have to book a suite to get one? thank you ~ Grandeur will be out of Baltimore next year, so close to home for me... thanks!

[DragonOfTheSeas]

During the refurb, did they add a lot of balcony cabins? or do you have to book a suite to get one? thank you ~ Grandeur will be out of Baltimore next year, so close to home for me... thanks!

 

I am loving the review, too. We have booked the cruise from San Juan to Baltimore. We live near there, too. So, we wanted to "go get the Grandeur" and bring her to Baltimore. :)

[suizas]

I am loving the review, too. We have booked the cruise from San Juan to Baltimore. We live near there, too. So, we wanted to "go get the Grandeur" and bring her to Baltimore. :)

 

Sweet! what a great idea... what sailing date is that?

[Kteacher]

Great review! We're on the Grandeur for the first time next summer, and can't wait to see the new additions.

[spookwife]

Looking forward to the rest of your review! we have her booked in September for our anniversary. I especially can't wait to see pics of the the refurbished stuff and the new additions!

[dixieva]

Enjoying your review-thanks!

 

Do you have any pics of the bathroom in your JS? We are booked in a corner aft JS on deck 7 for March 2014 and sure hope our room looks like yours!

 

We have cruised on the Grandeur a couple of years ago and even though the ship is old we loved her and can't wait for her to come back to Baltimore!

[bobbyd6363]

Hi Jane - GREAT Reveiw! Keep writing!!!! We sail on the Grandeur from Venice 26 October. Did you try out the new Chef's Table?

Bobby

[Bobal]

Great review and lovely pictures and bringing back some happy memories - we stayed in the Bisanzio a couple of years ago and we sailed on the Grandeur just a few weeks ago :D. I'm so pleased to hear you liked the Grandeur - we sailed on her last year (pre-refit) and were also thrilled with the refurbishment.

 

I was also interested to see your cabin pictures as we had a corner aft JS (7150) with a huge balcony but the cabin seemed smaller than previous JS's we'd stayed in. Your cabin was definitely bigger than the one we had.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review.

[cheffip]

Thanks Jane...great review and pictures. We are boarding Grandeur October. Looking forward to your comments about the the three specialty restaurants because we have booked the $50 package also.

[TravelMadBrits]

Great review so far, thank you!

 

3 weeks on Sunday and we will be on Grandeur, I cannot wait! X

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Enjoying your review-thanks!

 

Do you have any pics of the bathroom in your JS? We are booked in a corner aft JS on deck 7 for March 2014 and sure hope our room looks like yours!

 

We have cruised on the Grandeur a couple of years ago and even though the ship is old we loved her and can't wait for her to come back to Baltimore!

 

LOL we booked a JS directly across the ship from theirs. I hope that means it is the same. I would love to see pics of the bathroom too.

[maxs mom]

During the refurb, did they add a lot of balcony cabins? or do you have to book a suite to get one? thank you ~ Grandeur will be out of Baltimore next year, so close to home for me... thanks!

 

No, they didn't add any balcony cabins, but they added a bunch of really nice Ocean view cabins around the Centrum area. I did not see any of them but i heard they were quite nice. There are all kinds of balcony cabins. You do not have to get a suite to have a balcony.

[maxs mom]

I am loving the review, too. We have booked the cruise from San Juan to Baltimore. We live near there, too. So, we wanted to "go get the Grandeur" and bring her to Baltimore. :)

 

That is so cool! Bring her home! When is that? We like sailing out of Baltimore. It is so convenient.

[maxs mom]

Enjoying your review-thanks!

 

Do you have any pics of the bathroom in your JS? We are booked in a corner aft JS on deck 7 for March 2014 and sure hope our room looks like yours!

 

We have cruised on the Grandeur a couple of years ago and even though the ship is old we loved her and can't wait for her to come back to Baltimore!

 

I do have some bathroom pictures, but they are pretty blah looking. Everything is all white so it doesn't look like much in the picture. but the bathrooms are nice. For the life of me, though......we could not keep the water in the bathtub while taking a shower. We could never figure out what we were doing wrong. Thank goodness there was a drain in the bathroom floor!

I think they had all new plumbing in the bathrooms. It was totally different than when we were on her before.

[maxs mom]

Hi Jane - GREAT Reveiw! Keep writing!!!! We sail on the Grandeur from Venice 26 October. Did you try out the new Chef's Table?

Bobby

 

We did not try the Chef's Table although I wanted to and it is a good deal when combined with the Specialty Restaurant Package. John eats like a 10 year old (you know.....chicken nuggets and hamburgers) and doesn't drink wine, so it would be a waste of money on him. I was really scared that he wouldn't like Izumi but he did all right in there. I'll elaborate on that later. I understand that the Chef's Table is wonderful. We had a couple of cruise buddies that did it on our last cruise. So go for it!

[marci22]

Venice seems so intimidating to navigate with the water taxis and the scary service charges. I don't think I would ever leave out of Venice for that reason :eek:

 

Enjoying your detailed review, thanks for posting it!

 

(ps we travel with 3 teens so I can't imagine how costs would add up for us)

[maxs mom]

After our wonderful first lunch on board.....it was time for the pre Meet and Mingle that our roll call arranged. We all met up at the Pool Bar at 3 o'clock wearing the famous mardi gras beads for identification. We had a great turn out!! I thoroughly enjoyed meeting these folks from all over the world!

[maxs mom]

The muster drill was up next at 4:15. It was not too bad as muster drills go.

Then we went up on deck for sailaway. it was after 5:30 before we got away. I must say.......this was one of the most fabulous sail aways ever! There is no better!

Here we are backing out of our parking space at the dock:

Here are some well wishers sending us off;

Sailing by the Danielli:

[maxs mom]

Venice seems so intimidating to navigate with the water taxis and the scary service charges. I don't think I would ever leave out of Venice for that reason :eek:

 

Enjoying your detailed review, thanks for posting it!

 

(ps we travel with 3 teens so I can't imagine how costs would add up for us)

 

It really wasn't that intimidating........and there are much cheaper ways of doing things there. But we're old and just needed to do things the way we did. Ha!

[Italy52]

Thursday ~ July 12th ~ Venice

We were up early. Breakfast was included at the hotel and it was quite good. Afterwards we set out to explore. There were so many people here......it was insane. We walked straight out the front door of the hotel down this little alley and came right out into the main drag.

The Hotel Danielli (Recently featured in the movie' date=' The Tourist) was just around the corner, so that was our first stop.[/size']

This is the lobby:

Would love to stay here, but it's just a little out of our price range! It was beautiful, though.

 

We stayed at this hotel 12 years ago --- thanks for the picture and bringing back many wonderful memories to mind.

[maxs mom]

More from sailaway. It was the best!!! I'd like to be in St. Mark's Square when a ship sails by!

Here's a cool picture of Venice that I forgot to post earlier.

[size=3

 

[maxs mom]

We stayed at this hotel 12 years ago --- thanks for the picture and bringing back many wonderful memories to mind.

 

So cool! There were lots of tourists in there taking pictures.

[maxs mom]

After sailaway, it was time to get ready for the evening. We go to the Concierge Lounge every night around 7 for a couple of drinks before dinner. They added the Concierge Lounge up on deck 11.....part of the Viking Crown. It's small, but very nice. This is the Diamond Plus perk that we enjoy the most. One drawback here is that the bar server has to go to the Viking Crown to get drinks. There is no room for her to mix drinks in the lounge. Evidently the earlier crowd really loved the hors d'ouvres because there was hardly ever any left by the time we got in there every night! And they very rearely replenished them.

Tonight we go and meet the Concierge, Raj Bhugwath. He was wonderful to us and informed us that we were the top cruisers on board for this cruise. That was nice to know. Here is Raj:

The bar server in the CL was Priscilla from Brazil. What a sweetheart!

Here are a couple of pictures of the CL. They used the same RCI carpet and furniture in there that they used on the Allure.

There was hardly anyone in there this evening so we had a nice visit with Raj.

Ahhhhhh.....I am just now using my brand new laptop and this is so much easier. Maybe I can speed things up a bit!

[maxs mom]

So tonight, we go to the first of the three restaurants in the Specialty Package. We traditionally go to Chops on the first night of a cruise and that's what we decided to do this time as well. We met Steve and Veronica there and proceeded to have a marvelous meal. We got really spoiled here!

Our dinner was fabulous. I think between the 4 of us, we ordered just about everything on the menu! We ate too much, that's for sure. But it sure was good.

And as I've said many times before......this is the reason I cruise!:

Mud Pie!!!

Veronica got the Red Velvet Cake which is my second favorite dessert on the ship.

The service here was unbelievable.

This was a long day.......so after dinner, we retired for the evening.

[maxs mom]

Saturday ~ July 14th ~ Dubrovnik

We didn't dock in Dubrovnik untill noon today, so we could have a leisurely morning. I got up early and went to the CL for coffee as I do every morning. I had a nice visit with Raj. I was usually the only one in the CL in the early mornings.

We ate breakfast in the MDR over in the Diamond/D+ special area that they have set aside. It is very nice over there and the service is great. On past cruises, the servers were the same every day, but on this ship, they were different every day. I prefer having the same servers every day because they get to know you and you don't have to explain all your likes and dislikes daily......but all these guys were great, so no problem.

We sat at the pool for just a little bit and then had an early lunch in the Windjammer. The Park Cafe was not open that early so we had to go to the WJ.

We arrived in Dubrovnik around noon and were off the ship by 12:30. My goodness......it was HOT!!!!! Dubrovnik is beautiful!

This is a picture of the early morning sail in:

More sail in pictures: