Splendour of the Seas October 13-20

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We leave on Friday (2 days!) for Venice. We are also spending the night at the Aqua Palace Hotel - glad to hear it is nice. How did you get to the hotel? I think we are going to splurge on a water taxi from the airport to the hotel. Was there no Vaporetto stop after the Piazzale Roma? For some reason I thought we could get closer to the ship and avoid the people mover.

Where did you go for sailing? I want to make sure we have a good view of beautiful Venice as we depart.

Can you tell me which nights were formal nights?

I'm really looking forward to the rest of your review! Welcome home!

DW

 

Debway

 

I am so jealous that you are getting ready to go on the cruise. You are going to have such a wonderful time. The Aqua Palace is very nice, I will make sure we stay there again when we go back. As far as getting to the hotel we decided to splurge and take the water taxi. Now we came in on the train, so for us it a 50 Euro ride. Not sure what the cost is from the airport, but in my opinion very much worth it. Now when we took the taxi, he had to drop us off at Rialto because the water was too high, but it was just a 2 minute walk from the Rialto Bridge.

 

As far as the Vaporetto stop after Roma, I am not sure the Vap driver told us this was the stop for the cruise terminal, so we got off and took the People Mover.

 

For sail away we were on deck 9 on the port side of the ship. Make sure your camera is ready, because it is amazing.

 

Formal nights were Monday and Thursday night.

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Day 2 Bari, Iatly

Ok so day 2 we would be in port in Bari, Italy. We didn't dock until 12:00 so we didn't get up until about 8:30. DW had a massage scheduled for 9:15 so she got up went and got breakfast, while I just took my time getting up. A little note for all of those that book massages prior to the cruise, DON'T!!!! We had both planned on getting a massage, but we waited until we got on the ship, because we knew they had specials everyday and the specials are always cheaper and better than the massages they sell at normal price. My DW got a full body massage, facial and foot treatment for $110.00 + 15%, but this was still a lot cheaper. So my recommendation is to just wait until you see the specials for that day. I promise they will have availability. Now back to the story.

While she was getting a massage, I decided to head up to the windjammer for breakfast, I was feeling a little under the weather, from our previous night, so I grabbed a plate and went a sat in the Solarium to enjoy my breakfast in peace and quiet. I laid in the Solarium for about and hour, got in an early nap and then went and found the DW.

 

I found her on the pool deck, still trying to wake up from her spa experience, which she said was amazing and highly recommends. At this point it was about 11:00 so we went back to the room to gather our things so we good get off as soon we we docked and then headed back up to the pool to enjoy the sun and wonderful weather. One thing that they did everyday on the Splendour which I really liked, was cooked a big lunch on the pool deck. Today was a risotto and everyday it was something different. I liked this because it was different from the food in the windjammer. The DW and I grabbed a plate and by this time we had arrived an gotten the ok to venture off the boat. The DW and I had an exursion booked with RCCL at 3:00 to Poligano and Volares White Cliffs so we decided to just head into Bari, have a drink and come back to the boat. Though I didn't see much of Bari, but what parts I did see where very nice. The old city was nice with a lot of cafes and places to do a little shopping.

 

So we had our drink and headed back to the boat, the tour was to leave at 2:45, so I had just enough time to run up to the Park Cafe and grab a roast beef sandwich. Do not forget to have one!!!:):):)

After eating the sandwich we headed down to hop on the bus and head to Poligano.

The drive to Poligano is about 45 minutes and all along the way the scenery is beautiful. You drive along the coast and see the olive trees and the tour guide is giving you the play by play of everything that you are seeing. Once we arrived in Poligano, we took about a 45 minute walkin gtour of Poligano and again the scenery is amazing. I would highly recommend this tour, because after the tour we had about two hours of free time to walk around the city. One of DW and my favorite things to do is to find small cafes and enjoy drinks, so we wandered back through the old city and sat at the cafe and pizza and drinks and just watched all of the people. One recommendation I have if you take this tour is right across the street from the entrance to the old town is a Gelatto and coffee bar. Not sure of the name, but Do not miss this, by far the best Gelatto we had while in Italy.

So after pizza and gelatto it was time to head back to the boat. The tour left at about 6:00 and we were back on board by 7:00PM. DW and I had to hurry up and get ready as tonight was the honeymooners party and we also had dinner plans for chops.

 

I will try and finish Day 2 tonight and I promise I am trying to get pictures included with the review, but as I stated earlier the computer has not been cooperating.

 

If you have any questions please let me know.

[poodog]

Thank you for this review, we will be on Splendour this June

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Day 2 Continued...

Sorry for the delay again work really seems to hinder my ability to write about the cruise, I guess I need another vacation.

 

So as I stated last time we arrived back at the boat about 6:45 from our tour of Poligano and had to hurry up and get ready for dinner. Our dinner reservations weren't until 9:00PM but we had the honeymooners party at 7:30PM and i sure don't like to miss free champagne. We had decided to go to Chops on the second night because the first night at dinner we had discussed with Leandro, our waiter, what would be the best night and he said Mondays dinner wasn't the best so we decided to go to Chops. The honeymooners party was a lot of fun, so anyone going on their honeymoon I strongly encourage you not to miss this. I liked it so much because it gave us time to meet other couples and Royal really did a nice job. Their was free champagne along with cake. They also had a raffel and gave away some pretty nice gifts. Unfortunately we didn't win, but the gave away a Royal beach bag, champagne and a few other things. So after the party it was about 8:30 so we decided to head up to Chops and see if we could be seated early. One thing that I've noticed on all of my cruises is that Chops never seems to be busy, so we got up to Chops and sure enough they were able to seat us. I think there was one other group of people there. One of my favorite nights on the cruise is Chops night. We go once per cruise and for $30 you can't beat what you get. In my opinion the Chops steak is like going to a Jeff Ruby's, Morton's, etc but for alot cheaper. So if you haven't gone to Chops in the past I would recommend you go. Plus it is such a nice place because its quiet and you don't feel like you are being rushed like you often do in the MDR.

So we go to Chops and I view Chops just like I do the MDR, if there is something I want I am going to order it. So the wife and I each had a salad. I had the Caesar salad and she had the Chops salad. We then split the shrimp cocktail, oysters rockefeller and the crab cakes. The oysters were amazing, highly recommend, but really nothing was bad. For the main course we each had the filet cooked medium rare and it was cooked to perfection. By time the main course came the DW was stuffed so she had like 2 bites of her steak. I on the other hand was determined to finish mine. Along with the steak we had green beans, mashed taters and asparagus. Then for desert she had the creme brulee and I had the chocolate cake. Go for the chocolate cake it was amazing.

So after stuffing our faces for about 2 hours we decided that we were ready to just go to sleep, so instead of fighting through the fatigue we decided to call it a night. Corfu was an early port the next morning we would be in port at 8. We figured lets get rest while we can and be ready to party the next few nights.

Only disappointing thing was we only got 2 towel animals the entire week. :(

 

 

Day 3 we would be in Corfu...

[Spring]

Thanks for every thing, I am on the Nov 17th Venice to Barcelona, and staying on for the Nov24th Barcelona to Sao Paulo part, since I will be on her for 22 days I really enjoy reading ever thing about the ship you have to say. Also I hope to see some pictures of the ship, thanks again.