REVIEW -Explorer - 8th Time is not the Charm

[JohnGaltny]

Finished my number 8 Cruise on Royal two weeks ago and now, with time to recover, it’s time for another set of random notes from the decompression chamber. My travel party this trip was my wife and I, and a bunch of RCI rookies (two models, my model daughter in law, son and 2 year old grandchild.) Homeless Ralph got left home this time. Members of SOPA (Society of Perpetual Outrage) please be warned, there are models on this cruise and I will actually discuss smoking so please stop here and move on.

 

I’ve already written an open letter to RCI about the more major problems we had on this cruise so there’s no reason to do so again here. If you’re curious, or just have some truly demented attraction to 7 pages of flame wars and a massive attack by the Royal Carribots, you can go here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2049285

 

Embarkation Day was an absolute joy since this was from Bayone and, therefore, didn’t involve an airport or any of the mystical creatures that call themselves TSA. Since limousine prices now approximate the cost of a space shuttle joyride, we drove in two cars about an hour to the port. Here I caused (yes I caused it) our first snag. While I had briefed my son (this was the first ever cruise for him, the DiL and baby) on what I thought was everything, I neglected to tell him to stop and drop off the luggage before heading to the parking lot. Thus, after I dropped off my wife and one model, I caused a minor traffic delay by going looking for him. This did not please the porter brigade and, honestly, I can’t blame them for getting upset with me when trying to get 2,500 people off, 2,500 people on and generally running a circus like merry-go-round where most of the passengers are from New Yawk and Joisey. Fortunately, I speak the language of the ten dollar bill so all was (eventually) forgiven.

 

Anyway, as penalty for my lack of foresight I was looking at dragging all the luggage from the parking lot to the terminal which, at my age, could have caused us to miss the ship altogether since it was already 11:15 AM and the ship would be gone by 4:15. I was saved by the free shuttle that runs from the lot to the terminal and the wonderful driver who almost ran me over trying to let me know she was there. Actually, getting run over would have been preferrable to dragging the models' luggage since I wasn’t sure they had left at least some of their furniture at home.

 

Check in was, as always with RCI, relentlessly efficient. Give the luggage to the porters, bribe them appropriately to insure it gets on the ship rather than the harbor, walk through the Corleone wedding tent and go through security. Since I travel with photography gear that looks identical to small bombs on an X-ray machine, I go through my normal “let’s tear this apart” inspection which always leaves me with approximately 14 seconds to put it all back together and get back in line. I’m so used to doing that that I actually can repack the gear bag in the time it takes a NASCAR pit crew to change 4 tires, fill a tank of gas and spit tobacco juice through the missing tooth space.

 

In order to avoid making this review totally worthless, here’s my PSA: Because my DiL’s passport is still in her maiden name but the baby has our surname, I had brought a pile of documents sufficient to establish our own country. Naturally, since we were TOTALLY prepared, nobody asked for anything. I guarantee if I had not brought all those papers with nice raised seals, I’d have been making frantic phone calls to government offices on a Saturday morning. I am sure that would have worked out well.

 

Anyway, despite all my mistakes and complications, we are on board, sea passes in hand by 11:45. Since I am a veteran, I know better than to argue with the cavalcade of the stomping herd at the Windjammer on Embark day so we all adjourned to 5 Deck for tiny sandwiches, pizza and assorted tranquilizing libations. Cabins were opened right on time and luggage came by 3:00. Mustard drill was easy and our muster station was run by a young woman who could have joined the models for photoshoots so, for the first time, I was sorry when the Captain dismissed us from drill.

 

More to come later but here are the reasons for all that luggage:

 

Edited June 4, 2014 by JohnGaltny

[ozone34]

I like it, keep up the good work.

[JohnGaltny]

SAILAWAY – TRADITION....Tradition...dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah....TRADITION

 

Immediately after Muster Drill I am reminded (not that I needed it) that my one and only constant carp about RCI has always been the elevators. Whoever designs these for Royal should be hunted down and beaten with long sticks. Fortunately, at this point we never got close enough to even see them passing us by so there was zero frustration. Yet another PSA to newbies (I’m in a rare helpful mood today). We always book a cabin on either 8 deck or 9 deck hard by the aft elevators. This means that all the important stuff : the MDR, casino, pool deck, casino, pool bar, Solarium Bar and my “at sea office” the Schooner Bar (Oh yeah, did I mention the Casino for my wife?) are all within a three deck walk, or at least a short stagger depending on my at sea office time. Besides, walking up and down the ladders (or stairs for those who insist) is a decent fractionated (medicalese for “do it many times”) cardio workout and one of the few things left aboard that Royal doesn’t charge extra for.

 

Back to the cabin and meet our cabin steward, Henry, a genuinely nice man but one who is clearly rushed. Wifey and I are relatively simple cruise clients. Clean sheets, a bucket of ice and the occasional towel animal are plenty for us. On this trip we got the towel animals. The ice bucket I requested either was unavailable or one of the magicians had turned them all invisible cause I never did see one. We did get very nice robes to use but I found them really not all that useful for mixing in my drinks. All in all I would have preferred the ice.

 

With everyone safely ensconced in quarters, we all headed up to my favorite (read as “least crowded) sailaway spot, the Viking Crown Lounge. I love that place at all times and, to me, the spaceship replica is one thing that truly separates Royal from the other lines I’ve sailed. I always find myself hoping that the bug from Men in Black doesn’t see it and decide to go home. Anyway, my entire party (except my granddaughter) enjoyed our traditional drinks of many colors and the new crew members went out to the sports deck to see if we actually did clear the Verrazano Bridge. WHEW, we made it again.

 

Smooth sailing out of the Harbor and, once again, I marvel at the skill of the bridge officers and crew at maneuvering 100,000 tons or so of metal with no brakes through the sea going version of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Really well done guys and I’m almost glad that you missed that moron in the 25' powerboat who likes to play chicken in a game he cannot win. Someday he’ll undoubtedly change the name of his boat to “Smudge”.

 

THE GULF STREAM STRIKES

 

If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you know I get motion sick on a merry go round yet I still insist on cruising to Bermuda. There is a psychiatric term for this in the DSM IV -- STUPID.

 

Anyway, this guarantees that we will spend the first sea day crossing the Gulf Stream, which, in turn, insures a beam sea which, in turn, insures that I will be mixing my proprietary drug cocktail (worthy of Hunter Thompson) of meclizine, scopolamine and, most importantly, Jack Daniels, prn.

 

In this case we had three of us dealing with this mal of de Mer (son and DiL were kind enough to join me) and, since they don’t like Jack Daniels, they were missing THE key ingredient of my cure. On the bright side, ashore they are both way smarter than I am, so it was kind of nice to have a surprise waiting for them. Hehehe. I also got to instruct them on the nautical terms Leeward (the side to throw up on), and Windward (the side not to).

 

Despite the occasional greater or lesser bouts of the technicolor spit, nobody missed a dinner. Since everyone is always so concerned about food, let me get it all out of the way at once. REQUIRED DISCLAIMER - Food is subjective and the opinions expressed herein do not represent those of management (in this case - my wife).

 

MDR – Food in the MDR was as expected, somewhat hit and miss and usually of banquet quality. Feeding 10,000 or so meals a day will do that and we do not expect a 5 star dining experi-ahhhnce on a cruise ship. All in all we could always find something we liked (in many cases several things to the detriment of my waistline) and there really is no reason to complain. In addition, our wait staff was really pleasant but seemed much more rushed than on other cruises. Minor things like soft drink refills and second bread requests were slower than we were used to but this was clearly due to staffing levels NOT staffing effort.

 

In addition, my granddaughter was the star of the MDR among the wait staff. By day three, if we got there first, we were invariable asked “Where’s the baby”. The staff was so solicitous of her that it got embarrasing at times and when she started blowing goodbye kisses to them every night, the charm assault was complete. Honestly, I think that these people are away from home for such a long time that anytime they see a child who isn’t screaming and who actually says a somewhat garbled “dank U” to them, they just melt. One waiter from three stations over visited us every night. He has a 16 month old at home who he won’t see until November so I think the granddaughter may have briefly eased that for him (or made it worse). I hope it was the former.

 

Back to food, the Windjammer was what it always is. Decent selection, mostly warm to almost hot food and repetitious as a political speech. On a 5 - 7 day cruise this is not a real problem but anything longer would start to approximate a prison food riot.

 

For breakfast, my wife and I always use room service and enjoy the time on our baclony. This trip the food was always delivered toward the end of our chosen time (ie: 9:00 to 9:30 meant 9:29 & 30 seconds) and this, in turn, guaranteed we’d never worry about burning our mouths on anything. Again, looking at the delivery cart, it appears that staff cuts mean a serious lot of deliveries by one employee at one time and my guess is we were on the far end of the line. Reason to mutiny - no but an annoying mosquito bite nonetheless.

 

Midrats were the sandwiches and pizza on 5 deck. I love the little finger things and the pizza has risen from the normal cardboard to somewhat tasty cardboard. This is the one place where NCL just blows RCI away. Still, Promenade Café is more than adequate and by keeping midrats small there is that much less for the really serious boozers to hurl.

 

The Real Model and Star of the MDR staff (Fortunately she got her looks from mom -see the lady on the left in pic # 1):

Edited June 4, 2014 by JohnGaltny

[Thetrail]

Finished my number 8 Cruise on Royal two weeks ago and now, with time to recover, it’s time for another set of random notes from the decompression chamber. My travel party this trip was my wife and I, and a bunch of RCI rookies (two models, my model daughter in law, son and 2 year old grandchild.) Homeless Ralph got left home this time. Members of SOPA (Society of Perpetual Outrage) please be warned, there are models on this cruise and I will actually discuss smoking so please stop here and move on.

 

I’ve already written an open letter to RCI about the more major problems we had on this cruise so there’s no reason to do so again here. If you’re curious, or just have some truly demented attraction to 7 pages of flame wars and a massive attack by the Royal Carribots, you can go here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2049285

 

Embarkation Day was an absolute joy since this was from Bayone and, therefore, didn’t involve an airport or any of the mystical creatures that call themselves TSA. Since limousine prices now approximate the cost of a space shuttle joyride, we drove in two cars about an hour to the port. Here I caused (yes I caused it) our first snag. While I had briefed my son (this was the first ever cruise for him, the DiL and baby) on what I thought was everything, I neglected to tell him to stop and drop off the luggage before heading to the parking lot. Thus, after I dropped off my wife and one model, I caused a minor traffic delay by going looking for him. This did not please the porter brigade and, honestly, I can’t blame them for getting upset with me when trying to get 2,500 people off, 2,500 people on and generally running a circus like merry-go-round where most of the passengers are from New Yawk and Joisey. Fortunately, I speak the language of the ten dollar bill so all was (eventually) forgiven.

 

Anyway, as penalty for my lack of foresight I was looking at dragging all the luggage from the parking lot to the terminal which, at my age, could have caused us to miss the ship altogether since it was already 11:15 AM and the ship would be gone by 4:15. I was saved by the free shuttle that runs from the lot to the terminal and the wonderful driver who almost ran me over trying to let me know she was there. Actually, getting run over would have been preferrable to dragging the models' luggage since I wasn’t sure they had left at least some of their furniture at home.

 

Check in was, as always with RCI, relentlessly efficient. Give the luggage to the porters, bribe them appropriately to insure it gets on the ship rather than the harbor, walk through the Corleone wedding tent and go through security. Since I travel with photography gear that looks identical to small bombs on an X-ray machine, I go through my normal “let’s tear this apart” inspection which always leaves me with approximately 14 seconds to put it all back together and get back in line. I’m so used to doing that that I actually can repack the gear bag in the time it takes a NASCAR pit crew to change 4 tires, fill a tank of gas and spit tobacco juice through the missing tooth space.

 

In order to avoid making this review totally worthless, here’s my PSA: Because my DiL’s passport is still in her maiden name but the baby has our surname, I had brought a pile of documents sufficient to establish our own country. Naturally, since we were TOTALLY prepared, nobody asked for anything. I guarantee if I had not brought all those papers with nice raised seals, I’d have been making frantic phone calls to government offices on a Saturday morning. I am sure that would have worked out well.

 

Anyway, despite all my mistakes and complications, we are on board, sea passes in hand by 11:45. Since I am a veteran, I know better than to argue with the cavalcade of the stomping herd at the Windjammer on Embark day so we all adjourned to 5 Deck for tiny sandwiches, pizza and assorted tranquilizing libations. Cabins were opened right on time and luggage came by 3:00. Mustard drill was easy and our muster station was run by a young woman who could have joined the models for photoshoots so, for the first time, I was sorry when the Captain dismissed us from drill.

 

More to come later but here are the reasons for all that luggage:

 

Hate to add to your thread and I can say after your last one, hopefully anyone who has read your previous threads will look and move on, like I'll be doing after this post...:rolleyes:

[LMaxwell]

Hate to add to your thread and I can say after your last one, hopefully anyone who has read your previous threads will look and move on, like I'll be doing after this post...:rolleyes:

 

This is an enjoyable and fact filled review. If you don't care for it move along to sundry other topics. Play nice Mr. Seagull.

[BillOh]

Finished my number 8 Cruise on Royal two weeks ago and now, with time to recover, it’s time for another set of random notes from the decompression chamber.

 

I love that start, I'll probably steal it for my next review. Its been a couple of years since I've been on a new ship so I have put less of the stuff many people want in reviews (compasses, food porn) and made my recent reviews more random thoughts and notes. Off to read the rest, considering Explorer in 2016.

[golfer1966]

SAILAWAY – TRADITION....Tradition...dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah....TRADITION

 

Immediately after Muster Drill I am reminded (not that I needed it) that my one and only constant carp about RCI has always been the elevators. Whoever designs these for Royal should be hunted down and beaten with long sticks. Fortunately, at this point we never got close enough to even see them passing us by so there was zero frustration. Yet another PSA to newbies (I’m in a rare helpful mood today). We always book a cabin on either 8 deck or 9 deck hard by the aft elevators. This means that all the important stuff : the MDR, casino, pool deck, casino, pool bar, Solarium Bar and my “at sea office” the Schooner Bar (Oh yeah, did I mention the Casino for my wife?) are all within a three deck walk, or at least a short stagger depending on my at sea office time. Besides, walking up and down the ladders (or stairs for those who insist) is a decent fractionated (medicalese for “do it many times”) cardio workout and one of the few things left aboard that Royal doesn’t charge extra for.

 

Back to the cabin and meet our cabin steward, Henry, a genuinely nice man but one who is clearly rushed. Wifey and I are relatively simple cruise clients. Clean sheets, a bucket of ice and the occasional towel animal are plenty for us. On this trip we got the towel animals. The ice bucket I requested either was unavailable or one of the magicians had turned them all invisible cause I never did see one. We did get very nice robes to use but I found them really not all that useful for mixing in my drinks. All in all I would have preferred the ice.

 

With everyone safely ensconced in quarters, we all headed up to my favorite (read as “least crowded) sailaway spot, the Viking Crown Lounge. I love that place at all times and, to me, the spaceship replica is one thing that truly separates Royal from the other lines I’ve sailed. I always find myself hoping that the bug from Men in Black doesn’t see it and decide to go home. Anyway, my entire party (except my granddaughter) enjoyed our traditional drinks of many colors and the new crew members went out to the sports deck to see if we actually did clear the Verrazano Bridge. WHEW, we made it again.

 

Smooth sailing out of the Harbor and, once again, I marvel at the skill of the bridge officers and crew at maneuvering 100,000 tons or so of metal with no brakes through the sea going version of the Cross Bronx Expressway. Really well done guys and I’m almost glad that you missed that moron in the 25' powerboat who likes to play chicken in a game he cannot win. Someday he’ll undoubtedly change the name of his boat to “Smudge”.

 

THE GULF STREAM STRIKES

 

If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you know I get motion sick on a merry go round yet I still insist on cruising to Bermuda. There is a psychiatric term for this in the DSM IV -- STUPID.

 

Anyway, this guarantees that we will spend the first sea day crossing the Gulf Stream, which, in turn, insures a beam sea which, in turn, insures that I will be mixing my proprietary drug cocktail (worthy of Hunter Thompson) of meclizine, scopolamine and, most importantly, Jack Daniels, prn.

 

In this case we had three of us dealing with this mal of de Mer (son and DiL were kind enough to join me) and, since they don’t like Jack Daniels, they were missing THE key ingredient of my cure. On the bright side, ashore they are both way smarter than I am, so it was kind of nice to have a surprise waiting for them. Hehehe. I also got to instruct them on the nautical terms Leeward (the side to throw up on), and Windward (the side not to).

 

Despite the occasional greater or lesser bouts of the technicolor spit, nobody missed a dinner. Since everyone is always so concerned about food, let me get it all out of the way at once. REQUIRED DISCLAIMER - Food is subjective and the opinions expressed herein do not represent those of management (in this case - my wife).

 

MDR – Food in the MDR was as expected, somewhat hit and miss and usually of banquet quality. Feeding 10,000 or so meals a day will do that and we do not expect a 5 star dining experi-ahhhnce on a cruise ship. All in all we could always find something we liked (in many cases several things to the detriment of my waistline) and there really is no reason to complain. In addition, our wait staff was really pleasant but seemed much more rushed than on other cruises. Minor things like soft drink refills and second bread requests were slower than we were used to but this was clearly due to staffing levels NOT staffing effort.

 

In addition, my granddaughter was the star of the MDR among the wait staff. By day three, if we got there first, we were invariable asked “Where’s the baby”. The staff was so solicitous of her that it got embarrasing at times and when she started blowing goodbye kisses to them every night, the charm assault was complete. Honestly, I think that these people are away from home for such a long time that anytime they see a child who isn’t screaming and who actually says a somewhat garbled “dank U” to them, they just melt. One waiter from three stations over visited us every night. He has a 16 month old at home who he won’t see until November so I think the granddaughter may have briefly eased that for him (or made it worse). I hope it was the former.

 

Back to food, the Windjammer was what it always is. Decent selection, mostly warm to almost hot food and repetitious as a political speech. On a 5 - 7 day cruise this is not a real problem but anything longer would start to approximate a prison food riot.

 

For breakfast, my wife and I always use room service and enjoy the time on our baclony. This trip the food was always delivered toward the end of our chosen time (ie: 9:00 to 9:30 meant 9:29 & 30 seconds) and this, in turn, guaranteed we’d never worry about burning our mouths on anything. Again, looking at the delivery cart, it appears that staff cuts mean a serious lot of deliveries by one employee at one time and my guess is we were on the far end of the line. Reason to mutiny - no but an annoying mosquito bite nonetheless.

 

Midrats were the sandwiches and pizza on 5 deck. I love the little finger things and the pizza has risen from the normal cardboard to somewhat tasty cardboard. This is the one place where NCL just blows RCI away. Still, Promenade Café is more than adequate and by keeping midrats small there is that much less for the really serious boozers to hurl.

 

The Real Model and Star of the MDR staff (Fortunately she got her looks from mom -see the lady on the left in pic # 1):

 

 

Ahhh here she is....she is a cutie.

[barbienj]

Subscribing...

[JohnGaltny]

MY THREE MODELS (not Starring Fred MacMurray) in BERMUDA

 

We arrived in Bermuda on time and as advertised at about 9:00 AM. I like this because it actually gives me time to metabolize all residual Jack Daniels, scarf down the scrambled eggs that I got every morning as substitute for that ice I requested, and watch us come in through the North Channel.

 

Even though Bermuda is really just Eastern North Carolina, it is a beautiful island and the weather was just gorgeous. Of course, after the winter we just survived in New York, anything without a pile of weird, off color brown snow is a welcome change.

 

Since the ship isn’t cleared until 9:45 or so we can’t make the 9:30 ferry to St. George so we laze around (at least I do while the models are busy in hair and makeup - I just push buttons in an occasional correct order) and debark about 10:15 to go buy our transport passes and hop on the line for the 11:30 ferry. To answer your question YES you want to be that far ahead. The ferry runs only 4 times a day, has 400 seats and roughly 8-00 people wanting them so you are going to spend some time in line. (OMG!! Yet another PSA – If the line for transport passes is long right off the ship, just walk on by to the metal shack looking thing and buy them there.)

 

The ferry ride to St George is a great ride and it dumps us right into the St. George combination of Mexican bazaar and Jersey Shore souvenir stands. After some aimless wandering around, we walk up the hill (everything in St. George involves walking up or down a hill) and do our location shooting at the Unfinished (and now unopened) Church. Next is a hike down to Tobacco Bay for some more location shooting and some ocean downtime. Then it’s a short, $3.00 (suspension optional ) bus ride back to the middle of town. From there, grandparents avoid the true evil of a tired 2 year old and take the kid back to the ship for nappy time while young people head off by bus to Hamilton. We’ve already seen all we want to see in Hamilton which, frankly, is not much so back on the ferry we go.

 

A WORLD WAR AVOIDED

 

At this point, back in that line I mentioned, the woman in front of us is obviously nostalgic for World War II since she “invites” her late arriving party of 8 to join her in line. However, 100 or so of the people behind us apparently think this is not quite (what’s the Brit word?) oh yeah - cricket and a lively discussion ensued. It was here that I learned that apparently the State bird of New York is the one that one flips. Tragedy was narrowly averted when crazy woman apparently decided to join her colleagues rather than insist on her inalienable right to “backsies-frontsies”. Good call.

 

Back aboard, with the very pleasant quiet of a nearly empty ship, the wife and I enjoy some balcony time while being sure to make NO sound that will turn a sleeping angel into a three horned beast complete with tail and hooves. Actually, wifey doesn’t mind me not talking all that much, so I just sip my medicine and do the wise married 32 years thing – SHUT UP. I’m stupid (see above) but I am almost as capable of associative learning as your average Great Dane.

 

YOUNG PEOPLE RETURN TO A LESSON IN CRUISING

 

Along about 5:00 PM I get a text from the man in charge of the landing party telling me that they won’t get back to the ship until about 6:30 and will meet us in the MDR. Again, this is his first cruise so in my own gentle way (see my avatar) I ‘splain to him that arriving 30 min late for the MDR is incredibly rude and discourteous to the wait staff. They need to feed us, clean up and seat another mob at 8:00 so compressing their time that way just doesn’t work for me. After what the idiots in Washington call “a frank and candid exchange” we agree to meet in the Windjammer when they are back aboard. In any event, we have a fully rested baby with us so I know OUR service will be fine. The yung ‘ uns are on their own.

 

Dinner in the Windjammer isn’t bad except that the third generation soup isn’t appetizing and some of the sandwich bread was apparently reincarnated from paper towels. Despite this, all are decently fed and up for the evening adventures.

 

 

Coming up -- Real Indians mob a fake one and a Sports Illustrated shoot ends in a wild ride.

Edited June 4, 2014 by JohnGaltny

[JohnGaltny]

Hate to add to your thread and I can say after your last one, hopefully anyone who has read your previous threads will look and move on, like I'll be doing after this post...

 

Oh gee, ANOTHER Christmas Card I won't get.:eek:

[Clarea]

Greatly enjoying the narrative John.:)

[Darkwolfe]

This should be quite entertaining.

 

Pity some people don't have a sense of humor. What a sad way to go through life.

[jenfromjersey]

I am actually really enjoying your "snarky" narrative. It is nice to see some humor in a review!

[Susie51]

Your thread is a refreshing perspective. Looking forward to more.

[aurelius180]

I always enjoy your reviews! Almost on par with SailorJack. :p

[JohnGaltny]

BERMUDA DAY TWO - BEACH SHOOT AND THE DRIVER WITH A CRYSTALLINE BREAKFAST

 

One of the things I enjoy about this cruise (aside from the Gulf Stream) is the overnight in port. While I like seeing new places, every so often it’s nice not to have to run back to the ship by 4:30.

 

The shoot schedule for Day 2 involves getting up early and high tailing it out to Horseshoe Bay for our beach shoot. I cannot show it, or even link to it here without getting sent to the principal again, but if any are that curious, I’ll tell you how to get there in the final entry of this review but —sshhhhh— don’t tell SOPA.

 

The busses don’t run from Dockyard at 7:00 AM so the night before I went through the complex procedure of arranging a cab to pick us up. This involved walking to the cab stand, asking the driver if she wanted a 6 person fare at 7:00 AM, hugging her back and taking her card. Somewhat easier than your average trip to the DMV.

 

At 7:00 AM, with models magically in full hair and makeup, we are there and, mirabile dictu, so is she. For those curious, the cab ride to Horseshoe Bay is about 30 min and the fare was $40.00 including tip. Driver was incredibly nice.

 

It turns out that the early morning call was one of the few things I did right. Aside from having decent light, those busses that don’t run early start running about 9:00 so we had roughly 2 hours of nice private time at a GORGEOUS beach and even more gorgeous little cove right next to it. I had intended to walk up to Jobson’s Cove but, like any sexagenarian (a misnomer if ever there was), avidly sedentary and devotedly lazy guy, I was not at all upset to find everything we needed within 100 feet of where we walked on.

 

We wrapped the shoot at about 9:30 and as we walked out, here came the herd. Another little tip – we had heard about the guy who drives you up the considerable hill for $2.00 BUT he’s to savvy to show up while the throngs are coming DOWN the mountain. Unlike Butch and Sundance, there’s no morons on his team. So now it’s (carry the) lights, camera and–action– drag everything up the hill. COPD stay away from my door.

 

We wait a short time at the blue (outbound) bus station and clamber aboard an empty bus with a driver who apparently had a bit of a tiff with his spouse that morning. He grunts at us in what might have been English that, indeed, this bus goes to Dockyard and proceeds to provide both bus and rollercoaster ride back. HUZZAH, transport and amusement park all at once.

 

Back to the ship for an early lunch and, with the ship still relatively uninhabited, we do some shooting in areas like the Schooner and the Promenade. I had NO idea that bartenders were so interested in photography but I almost always had two or more standing right behind me.

 

After that, some downtime hanging out at the Dockyard and then nice and easy, back to the ship until we meet THAT security person. For the first time all cruise two of the models became suspicious characters when they didn’t look exactly like their photo Ids. Why, you ask? Because of things called wigs and makeup. Honestly Ms. Security person, NOBODY in those magazines actually looks like that (well, maybe Giselle Bundchen) but after more “frank and candid” discussion, they were waved on through, apparently clear of all suspicion as the world’s most gorgeous terrorists.

 

THE COMPASS MAKES ME A FOOL and THE INDIAN INDIANS LOVE THE DOMINICAN INDIAN

 

One of the sets we wanted to use was the Maharajah Lounge for the Indian motif. The girls all wore modern wardrobe and I figured I’d be smart so I looked through the compass and found a “window” when nothing was scheduled there. Brilliant right? WRONG again. The reason nothing was scheduled was there was an Indian wedding in there so we stayed outside and spent some time shooting with the elephants. Just about that time, the wedding let out and, all of a sudden my Dominican DiL, masquerading as an Indian, was approaced by the Grand Poobah of the wedding insisting he get a picture with her. Mrs. Poobah was not overly amused but she was mollified when I promised to take a shot or two of her and her sisters. So we pose Mr. Poobah with DiL and suddenly she is surrounded by people waiting in line for a picture with her. For the next 20 minutes or so we had a fine old time with the wedding party, everyone got their pictures taken and Mrs. Poobah got her family image so they went away happy and DiL got a HUGE ego boost for a married mom.

 

Another good dinner in the MDR, Granddaughter charms the staff again and we take the night off for drinks, revelry, drinks, casino, drinks, the 70s party, drinks, the silent disco, drinks, midrats, casino and, oh yeah, drinks.

 

Next up ---- Coming home and an end to this screed.

Edited June 4, 2014 by JohnGaltny

[JohnGaltny]

I always enjoy your reviews! Almost on par with SailorJack. :p

 

PLEASE DON'T put that kind of pressure on me. I'd be happy being 4th best since I consider him the first three. He is the acknowledged master (or to my new Indian friends "guru").:D

 

Thanks to all. A bit more to come, not all of it great.:(

Edited June 4, 2014 by JohnGaltny

[LindaO]

11:rolleyes:

[PCWalton1]

This is fun, keep it going. :)

[niksmom630]

Loved your Freedom review, and this one has started off just as entertaining! And that "little" model by the way? Not surprised she has charmed the MDR staff--she's a beauty!

[wolfganghowell]

And??????

 

That was just my snarky way of subscribing. Keep it coming. And yep that GD is a beauty.

[JohnGaltny]

FINAL SEA DAZE AND A SUMMARY OF WHICH SOME WILL NOT APPROVE (but I keep the grammar fanatics happy)

 

As scheduled we pull out of Bermuda on time and I’m kind of let down because everyone was apparently aboard on time thereby depriving us of a normal departure entertainment – watching the more solipsistic among us do the “Dash of the Dock”. Ahh well.

 

Usually, wending our way homeward is not a happy time but on this trip our final “at sea” day was, in some ways, our best. My wife and I both love sea days for the relaxation and just general hanging out.

 

In no particular chronology the following occurred:

1) We apparently got to the front of the room service breakfast line since everything was hot and good (except the coffee which is always hot and mostly recycled battery acid);

2) NOBODY got at all queasy coming back across the Gulf Stream;

3) wife and son won a combined $120.00 in the casino to finish the week only down a little fortune;

4) I found the first bartender who gave me that “glad you’re here” feeling so typical of prior RCI cruises (Clive at the pool bar - this WOWs for you);

and 5) we did a final "Formal shoot" in some of the gorgeous areas on Explorer.

 

In addition, I spent some time talking to a lady who would normally annoy me to the point of homicide – the washee/washee lady, Kenger Browne. I was kidding her about being so “up” at all times and we got into a serious discussion during which it became apparent that behind her "schtick" is a serious passion about her ship. She wasn’t aboard when the Noro wiped out the ship in April but she took it very personally. I will always remember her saying “That will not happen on my ship”. Ms. Browne, you got a WOW card and my eternal admiration.

 

In addition, although he is very much an acquired (or not) taste, we enjoyed Erky from Turkey and his semi demented laugh. Perhaps because he’s a touch sarcastic (so different from me) we loved his humor and his energy in keeping the entertainment going.

 

Docking in New York and Debarkation was typical Royal excellence and ease itself. Of course, waiting in the MTD dining room for our color to be called, we were asked three times by other passengers “Where’s the baby?” I wonder if we hadn’t brought her if we would have even existed. :D Next time SHE pays the bills.

 

Anyway, reading the above you’ll get a hint of why I titled this review as I did. Let me put this UP FRONT for the Royal Carribots: :

 

WE ENJOYED THIS TRIP AND WILL SAIL RCI AGAIN”.

 

There, feel better???

 

Still, as veteran Royal fans, this trip had some disappointing aspects. The major ones are in my other thread.

 

The rest were little “mosquito bites” which are annoying (and sometimes itchy) but do not spoil a cruise for us. They can be summed up with the phrase we used in reference to NCL “It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Royal”. By that I mean that, in general, the crew was competent and did their job well but that little extra feeling of “we’re glad you’re here” (maybe the “WOW”) was missing except for those few I noted in both the ship’s survey and my open letter.

 

While I have ZERO proof, my feeling is that staff reductions are now hurting both quality and morale. Our MDR staff was neither lazy nor incompetent but they ran around like rats on speed all week and, except for the granddaughter, simply could not deliver the personal touch we are used to. I represented restaurants for years and I can spot the difference between incompetence and understaffing. This was the latter.

 

Cabin stewards, bar tenders, Windjammer staff (except Kenger) and all the ancillary staff down to the guy giving out towels all seemed, if not dispirited, less spirited than our previous 7 cruises. Go read my other Explorer review to see what I mean.

 

I also note that I am by no means alone. When I first wrote of this “intangible” feel of the ship I was amazed at how many other RCI veterans felt the same way. Even today, as I am researching Celebrity for a January cruise, I am seeing very similar comments. Of course your mileage may vary but I am certainly not as delusional as my normal cruising alcohol intake would otherwise indicate.

 

Lastly, in full disclosure, the rest of the family and the two models (all of whom were on their first RCI cruise) had a fine old time and, without our frame of reference, thought it was all great.

 

As a parting shot, in case I haven’t yet offended everyone, let me tell you a story that amuses me to this day. I haven’t counted but I think there are 10 or 12 bars on Explorer, exactly ONE of which allows smoking. I wasn’t involved (for once said my wife) but as I was waiting for my new BFF Clive with my drink on the last day, a woman walked up and demanded that the guy next to her put out his cigarette. Now this wasn’t like “please put that out until I get my drink” ohh noooo — this was a childish demand by a superannuated version of a self-entitled spoiled brat. After all, there were only 12 other smoke free bars for her to choose from, including 2 within 100 feet or so of where she stood. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there were cheers throughout the tiny realm of the pool bar when she was told, in pure New Yorker, to just bugger off. There is indeed justice in small corners of this world.

 

So that’s it ladies and germs. You’ve been a wonderful audience and to borrow a phrase from my southern friends:

 

I’ll see you in January, God willing and hope the creek don’t rise.;)

 

or to put it in my native tongue: FUGGEDABOUDIT, see youse next time.

Edited June 4, 2014 by JohnGaltny

[Dave85]

Great review as always, thanks for the laughs!

[Darkwolfe]

Well done John! Enjoyed the humor greatly.

[JohnGaltny]

OOPS sorry, I promised a way to see the shoot results.

 

SOPA, please turn away right here. I have had my 5th warning and am currently awaiting my set of steak knives.

 

To you guys (sexist assumption I know but what are the odds? :D) you can follow these steps but don't blame me if you object to beautiful women sometimes in formal gowns; casual catalog wardrobe and (oh yeah) the occasional bikini.:

 

Go to Google

Search for Bilsen Galleries

On the home page, just below the slide show is the "Featured" section.

There are four Bermuda Galleries there. They are not complete yet but you'll get the idea.

 

Enjoy all the hard work the three models did. OR go to all that trouble, become outraged and report me again. Your call and having said how little I care, I've said more than I care to say.