Splendour of the Seas Brazil Review (December 27, 2014-January 4, 2015)

[kernow]

New Years Eve sounded brilliant, those fireworks must have been great to see.

 

We are planning the same excursion in Rio that you did, thanks for the review. We also have no mention of lunch, are you saying that the cost was included(apart from the drinks) and do you know if this was just a one off. DH was excited to see you stopped near Copacabana beach, he thought he'd miss out on that with the tour.

 

Julie

[grnyel05]

Yes the cost of lunch was included except for drinks. I do not know if we just happened to get lucky that day or if they normally include it but it was a welcome surprise.

 

New Years Eve sounded brilliant, those fireworks must have been great to see.

 

We are planning the same excursion in Rio that you did, thanks for the review. We also have no mention of lunch, are you saying that the cost was included(apart from the drinks) and do you know if this was just a one off. DH was excited to see you stopped near Copacabana beach, he thought he'd miss out on that with the tour.

 

Julie

[DanceGrandma]

Subscribing

[grnyel05]

Day 6: Angra Dos Reis

 

After staying up quite late the night before, I unsurprisingly woke up fairly late. We did not have firm plans for what to do in Angra Dos Reis. When we booked the cruise, we were supposed to be in Ilha Grande instead of Angra Dos Reis on New Year's Day. A few months before the cruise, the port was changed to Angra Dos Reis. This was disappointing since Ilha Grande looked great. It was formally a leper colony and then housed a prison so the island has tons of unspoiled beaches and great hiking. Initially there was a shore excursion that involved going to Ilha Grande with Royal Caribbean, but that went away after a couple weeks. I had looked into taking the ferry over Ilha Grande, but the timing was not going to work out. There were tons of private tours to Ilha Grande offered from Rio, but I had a lot of trouble finding anything from Angra Dos Reis. So we decided we would wing it once we got to Brazil.

 

We went to the Windjammer to eat since we had not read the cruise compass and did not realize they were doing a special lunch in the Main Dining Room for New Year's Day. The Windjammer food hit the spot though. While out and about we talked to some people who had been ashore, and they said the area near where the tender dropped off was fairly industrial without much to do. Given that we had overindulged a bit the night before and there did not seem to be much to do on New Year's Day where the tender would drop us off, we decided to stay on the ship. We talked to some other people who took the bus to the beach and enjoyed it so there were things to do in the port.

 

We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. The most amusing part was sometime that afternoon when it sounded like a loud party boat was approaching the back of the ship. We went outside on the balcony to discover not just one ship, but a huge ship parade going on around us.

 

 

It was kind of funny because one of the options I had looked into was renting a boat in Angra Dos Reis, which actually looked fairly affordable all things considered. The websites I had looked at did not have availability for specific days listed and looking at that party I think I can safely say we would not have been able to get a boat rented there on New Year's Day. I suspect that Royal Caribbean had the same problem trying to arrange shore excursions, and that's why they was only one tour available, and that it was a walking tour.

 

 

After a perfectly relaxing afternoon, we quickly got ready for the Crown & Anchor top tier event that we had forgotten about until about 15 minutes before it started. They held it on the back deck area near the spa and had various officers there that you could talk to and came around with hors d'oeuvres and drinks. We talked with a person who worked in some sort of accounting or revenue management function who spends a couple weeks on board each ship at a time. He offhandedly mentioned that there were some concerns about being able to get into Angra Dos Reis because of interference with all of the boats out and about and that Ilha Grande was our backup port. It's too bad we did not end up there! I'm still not sure why they changed the port since it was apparently available and both ports require tendering. Oh well. We also chatted with some fellow passengers as well as a person in the IT department. We had a really nice view from the event.

 

 

We ended up leaving before the event was over because it was really hot outside. We then headed to the Diamond Lounge for a drink and I had the rare opportunity to completely spoil my dinner while there since the plan was to eat there and in the Windjammer for the night. My college football team was playing in the Rose Bowl starting at 8pm so our dinner time posed a conflict and we let our wait staff know we would not be there. Normally I would use this as an excuse to book a speciality restaurant and just go to dinner earlier, but the speciality restaurants on board did not open until 7:30 so that was not an option. It actually ended up being kind of fun, getting to try all of the finger foods in the diamond lounge and getting to enjoy a variety of things in the Windjammer. Our view from dinner was not too bad either.

 

 

We finished dinner in the Windjammer, grabbed some drinks for watching the game, and got back to the cabin right as the game started. One of the first things I had done when getting on the ship was checking whether I would have the right version of ESPN on board to see the game. I've generally had pretty good luck with major sporting events on cruise ships which is always fun. Things were looking good at halftime when we wandered around a bit and grabbed more drinks and ordered some dessert from room service. Room service came within a half hour this time and by the time the game ended in a victory for my team it was almost midnight. I stayed up and read while watching the Sugar Bowl in the background, but called it a night around 2.

Day 6 (Angra Dos Reis).pdf

[grnyel05]

Day 7: At Sea

 

Another day at sea and another leisurely morning. Well except one aspect. One thing that continued to be a problem was our toilet not working in the mornings. I previously mentioned the problem all day on New Year's Eve, and it was fine the next morning. After that it did not work any morning for the next four days and our cabin steward had to ask to have it fixed each day. We became familiar with the public restrooms, though this morning the public restrooms on the aft of the ship also were problematic. Right before we left for lunch we had a knock on our door from room service with a bottle of wine as an apology from guest services for our toilet problem. It was not a bottle I would normally order, but I appreciated the gesture.

 

On to better topics. After the morning we went to lunch in the main dining room and enjoyed the salad bar and soup. Our waiter wanted to offer more but even though I'm not normally a salad person on land, the salad bar at lunch always hits the spot, and that and soup and bread was more than satisfying for the first meal of the day.

 

After lunch we spent a bit of time in the centrum and saw a rehearsal for the "Aerial Spectacular" that night. It was really nice to watch the aerial show and fun to watch the rehearsal version. After that, we went back to the room with plans to lay out on the balcony and read for most of the afternoon. We figured we might as well open the wine since we were in port the last day of the cruise but then realized that room service had not delivered a bottle opener with our bottle of wine. I called room service, and they said they would be up right away. I wish they would have given an honest estimate of when they would be there since my roommate was in the gym while I waited for room service, and it took them over an hour to deliver the wine opener and I had waited inside rather than on the balcony so I could hear them. Though once I got outside to read and lay out in the sun it was sweltering. The seas were really calm, which was nice, but it was also really humid. Talking to one of the bartenders on board who was on the pool deck that day we mentioned how hot it was and how shocking it was that the pool deck cleared out in Brazil due to the heat. I no longer felt so wimpy for lasting a couple hours, with breaks, out in the heat.

 

 

 

 

After enjoying the partial sun that afternoon we got ready for formal night dinner. We went first to the diamond lounge where I was now addicted to some pre-dinner mozzarella sticks and also enjoyed some conversation and a drink. After the lounge we went to dinner, which went quickly again. After that we went around and took some pictures around the ship including the Christmas tree and other fun formal backdrops. We also went back to our favorite bar the Schooner Bar and socialized with other people we had met throughout the week. They played the American football games there as well so we watched with interest as another alma mater played.

 

After awhile, we headed to the 70s party in the centrum. I don't know that I've ever attended a full 70s party on a Royal Caribbean ship which is surprising after this many cruises but I really enjoyed this. The cruise director Michelle was great. She could have easily passed for a fabulous 70s disco dancer and did a great job getting everyone into the night in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. That wrapped up a bit before 1am, and we decided to go on a walk through the cruise ship to check out the art, which I've found to be an interesting way to see all of the floors on the ship. What we found to be the more interesting pieces are below.

 

 

 

Around 1 am we headed to the nightclub but it was not active yet so we called it a night and went to bed.

[grnyel05]

The cruise compass from Day 7 is attached. That's it for the night. All that is left is the last cruise day in Ihlabela, our shore excursion in Sao Paulo the day we got off the ship, and the trip home.

Day 7 (At Sea).pdf

[grnyel05]

Finally getting around to finishing this review. Sad to hear that Splendour is being sold! Having been on two ships that debuted in 1996 in the last year--the Carnival Inspiration and the Splendour of the Seas it's not a contest which ship seemed to be nicer. I do not mean that as a bash on Carnival, I've had nice cruises on them but it was an interesting perspective for me considering that Inspiration is one of the newer of the fantasy class ships and all eight of them are still in service for Carnival. It also seems weird since the first time I cruised was back in 1996 on the Song of Norway as a 12-year old who thought the newest ships the Legend of the Seas and Splendour of the Seas looked really amazing with their solariums and mini golf courses. To put this in perspective we did not have a tv in our cabin on the Song of Norway and sodas were free at dinner, though they would slide across the table due to the rough ride. I was impressed that Royal Caribbean had a record of the cruise when I cruised for the second time on them over 10 years later. Back to the review at hand.

 

Day 8: Ilhabela

 

Last day of the cruise at the island of Ilhabela. Unfortunately when we came into port around 9:00 a.m. it was raining, which messed with plans for the day as Ilhabela is pretty much a beach destination. But the views were lovely from the balcony. The toilet was not working again in the cabin as had become the norm. So we set out to give our cabin steward time to service the cabin, let him know to notify maintenance, and get some food. The Qindjammer was our destination again and we enjoyed our meal. Typing this here I am missing the fresh papaya that accompanied virtually every meal in the Windjammer I had while in Brazil.

 

After our meal we came back to our cabin and decided to pack up for a beach day and play it by ear because of the weather. At the very least we could get some food and use some WiFi somewhere. We were in port with two other ships--a Costa ship and the Pullmantur Empress (former Empress of the Seas). We had the first tender position of the three ships and the tender operation was really efficient with three tenders running constantly on the short circuit.

 

The tender dropped us off right in the center of a small town on the island. We decided to explore a bit and enjoyed the lovely views in the town and went into one the churches.

 

 

 

The town itself was small and frankly packed with tourists with the weather being less than ideal and three ships in port so we decided to walk a bit outside of town. We ended up about a mile out of town at a beach club, but as we sat down to get some drinks it started raining again so we headed back to town. The rain let up again and we looked for some restaurants but almost all of them were completely packed. We did our own walking tour out the other side of town but eventually we ended up at a place right next to the tender operations and ordered a bite to eat and some beers. No Wi-Fi available unfortunately but it was a nice time enjoying a great view.

 

 

 

Eventually we headed back to the ship, having enjoyed our time in port. I will say it was interesting being on an itinerary that had 4 tender ports and only 1 port where we were docked. The first port it ended up being not ideal with the long tender ride, infrequent operations, and freak storm that came through. But having done that day after day, it honestly became the norm and now the idea of having 1-2 tender ports on any given cruise does not really seem to be a deterrent. To me it's the price you pay to see some interesting places.

[grnyel05]

Night 8:

 

We got back on the ship and enjoyed some time on the balcony. We still had the rest of the bottle of wine that had been delivered to us for the problems in our cabin and finished that while reading some magazines. It was fun to have nice views of the island, the tendering operations to the other two ships, and being close enough to the Costa ship to hear their announcements.

 

 

Eventually, the Costa ship and the Empress headed the other direction and we also set sail.

 

 

After watching sailaway we got ready for one last night in the Diamond Lounge and off to dinner. We got to the Diamond Lounge and it was about as full as always which meant roughly 10-12 people max there including us. I enjoyed a drink, some of the mozzarella sticks that I am now a big fan of, and of course chatted with the other people there and agreed to meet up with some of them back in the lounge after dinner--a perk of having the lounge hours be 7:30-10 pm for evening cocktail time. Eventually we headed to dinner, taking care of our tips in the Diamond Lounge for the week before leaving, and stopped by Schooner Bar to see our favorite bartenders and get a glass of wine for dinner. Promising to stop by the later, we headed to dinner which was uneventful but enjoyable. We got through dinner quickly since it was just us at the table and said goodbye to our waiters as well as the other fellow waiters who had been so kind to us.

 

On the way out of dinner we watched part of the aerial spectacular show that we had seen rehearsed the day before. I do have mixed feelings about the shows in the sense that there are only certain spaces that have good views so it leads to a lot of crowding, but at the same time I really think the shows are amazing so it's on balance worth it. We headed back to the Diamond Lounge and chatted with some of the new friends we had made, exchanged contact information, and then headed to the Schooner Bar. We ended the night there talking to all of the bartenders that we had made friends with, and headed back to the cabin to pack and get our bags out by the deadline which I think was somewhere around 11. We called it an early night given our excursion and travel plans for the next day.

[grnyel05]

The Day 8 Compass is attached.

 

Day 9: Back to Santos & Sao Paulo

 

Time to finally get off the lovely ship. We woke up about 45 minutes before our excursion was slated to leave and found that the toilet was not working again. My roommate had finally had it and called guest services and asked if there was an sort of goodwill credit they could extend given that this had been a problem for days and we had been kept of the loop on when and whether it would be fixed. They said they'd get back to us but that on board credit was out of the question because the accounts were already closed.

 

We got ready and grabbed our carry ons and headed out. We figured it was probably best to just stop by guest services and see what the deal was on the offer for the continuing toilet problems. I should be clear that we were not looking for some sort of big payout here, just some sort of acknowledgment that we spent hours without a working toilet and no indication that it would be fixed or when it would be fixed and that it ended up eating into our vacation time. Once we were there they said the best they could offer was $100 total on board credit which was fine with us. After we said that was fine the Guest Services Agent weirdly became kind of antagonistic and said that from her records she could only see the one report of a toilet problem. We said yes, that was the one time we reported it to Guest Services not our cabin steward but were kind of confused why she was trying to argue with us when we had accepted the offer. We asked that she split it to $50 on board credit per person and she was not pleased about that but said she would. It turned out that she ended up only applying $50 to my roommate's account and just did not apply the $50 to mine. I ended up calling after the cruise just out of principle at that point to get the credit and the woman I called could not have been nicer. She applied the credit and it ended up going back to my credit card that I had used on the cruise. In the end Royal Caribbean's shore side people were great. I just did not understand the hassle about the credit. Had I been given the option to receive a $50 per person discount for the whole cruise for a somewhat working toilet I would not have agreed to it on a cruise where the cabin was more than $300 a night per person.

 

Anyway, with that digression out of the way, we headed to the Windjammer for breakfast. We enjoyed the food and then headed to the dining room to meet our shore excursion, which was the "The Best of Sao Paulo with Lunch." Here is the description:

 

OVERVIEW: After departing the ship, leave the coastal area following the Imigrantes Highway to São Paulo. The city is reached by crossing the Serra do Mar mountain pass. You will drive through a major industrial area before taking in the city's highlights. After a Churrascaria - Brazilian barbecue, continue with your sightseeing. Tour ends at Sao Paulo International Airport & is only available to guests with flights departing 8:00pm or later. HIGHLIGHTS: - Visit Ipiranga Monument - Visit the Pinacoteca Museum (closed Mondays) - Lunch at "Churrascaria" Restaurant - Visit Ibirapuera Park NOTES: - Flash photography & hats are not permitted inside Pinacoteca

 

Pretty quickly we got off the ship for the excursion with our stickers, claimed our luggage, and got on the busses for the excursion. This again was an English-speaking tour. Our guide was not as good as John from Rio from the outset, but I had an open mind. We started with a narrated drive through Santos.

 

 

Nothing particularly exciting but it was nice nonetheless. We then went through the mountain pass back to Sao Paulo that I had missed while asleep on the way in and really enjoyed the scenery.

 

 

 

Eventually we made it to Sao Paulo and stopped at a park for about an hour. At the time it seemed like a long time to stay at the park but it was quite large and there were lots of places to walk around and take pictures. It was quite relaxing.

 

 

 

 

After the park we stopped at a Churrascaria for lunch. This time one beverage was included but it was the same set up as the last place we had been. The food was still great, but not as good as the place we had been in Rio. We chatted with some of the other people on our tour and then headed back to the bus.

Day 8 (Ilhabela).compressed.pdf

[grnyel05]

Day 9: Sao Paulo

 

After lunch we headed to a monument briefly and took some pictures.

 

 

Then we headed to downtown Sao Paulo for an overview of that area. We eventually ended up near the Estaçao da Luz train station, which was near the Pinacoteca Museum, which was one of the listed stops on the excursion. Our guide had been warning us all day that we may not be able to go in to the museum at all, because there were 3-hour lines for the new exhibition, but said she had gotten the idea to go see if there was a group entrance while talking to another guide at lunch. This all seemed poorly planned for something that was supposed to be included in our excursion. She came back and told us we could get in the group entrance and took us to the museum, then started collecting money for entrance fee outside. Honestly I have more issue with the fact that she was having all of us obviously foreign tourists pull out cash on the street than the fact that she was asking for money at all, though that also seemed odd given that this one one of the only things mentioned on our 8-hour tour. Anyway, lots of people did not have exact change, not realizing that the museum listed on the ticket on the tour was not included so she promised to pay people back later. About 20 minutes later we got into the museum, but not the special exhibition which was fine. By this point I think my roommate and I were mostly dehydrated and first stopped by the museum cafe for some water. We then explored the museum and enjoyed ourselves.

 

 

 

After the museum, it was off to the airport. There was an odd moment where the guide came through to show us that she collected a certain amount for the tickets, and received the same amount, my guess is that someone accused her of stealing. Honestly, I just think it was very odd that something that I'm guessing Royal Caribbean clearly intended to be included in the tour somehow was not. I don't blame the guide, but something fishy seemed to be going on there. Once we got to the airport we were told that we all had to be dropped off at the same terminal, regardless of where our flight left from. We unfortunately were leaving for another terminal so we took the transfer bus about 10-15 minutes around to the other terminals before we got where we were going. All in all if I had to to this day again I would have skipped the tour and taken the $25 transfer from Santos back to the airport. I would have booked a day room at the Marriott next to the airport which would have picked us and dropped us off at any terminal and been cheaper than the tour and would have afforded us a pool, food, etc.

 

Once at the airport we still had about 7 hours before our flight. We were on Aeromexico to Mexico City which only has one flight a day, so the ticket counter was not open. On the plus side we were in business class, which would afford us lounge access, but we had bags to check so we couldn't just go through security to go to the lounges and there were no pre-security lounges. Oh well, we spent a few hours waiting for the ticket counter to open on the Internet, got some crepes from a stand upstairs in the airport, changed into new clothes for the overnight flight, and eventually it was time to check in. They gave us passes for the lounge, we went through security, and then hung out in the lounge for a couple hours.

 

We had one of those small world moments in the airline lounge. When we walked in we saw the people who had tried to pull us out of the diamond check in line Day 1 in Santos because they assumed we did not belong there. The husband of the couple nearly fell out of his chair when we walked into the lounge. This I don't understand--not only do younger people travel enough to have miles that can enable them to book business or first class tickets, or may actually travel in business or first frequently for work, but buying a pass to a lounge is usually not exorbitant. Anyway, the husband woke up his wife who was sleeping in the lounge to let us know that we had walked in and he walked back to where we were sitting to check to see that we were there multiple times. It was odd. Anyway, the lounge was fine and had showers, food, water, beer and wine, etc.

 

 

We eventually headed to our flight around 11:00 for our midnight departure. The departure ended up being delayed a bit, but we got on, and were glad to be on our way after a long travel day. I was relieved to see that what appeared to be a multi-course dinner was served in just two trays since everyone was tired.

 

It was interesting to go from Brazil where everyone spoke Portuguese to Aeromexico where announcements were just in Spanish and English. Our flight attendant just spoke Spanish to us but that was fine with me as I was back in the world of understanding what people were saying to me when speaking a different language. After dinner I settled in for sleep for the rest of the 10-hour flight.

 

We were woken up for breakfast service about a bit more than an hour outside of Mexico City and landed about 5:45 a.m. We had a 15 hour layover in Mexico City so I booked a room with my Marriott points in the Courtyard Marriott connected to the Mexico City airport. We landed to temperatures in the 40s in Mexico City which seemed quite cold upon arrival. Mexico is like the US in the sense that you have to go through immigration regardless of whether you are in transit so we went through immigration. Though in this case we were leaving the secure area anyway regardless of the requirement. We then collected our bags, went through customs, where I got the red light for the first time ever in Mexico, got my bag searched, and rechecked it. We then took the train over to the other terminal, asked for some directions to where the hotel is, and checked in. After about an hour of getting situated in the room we both napped. The day ended up quite leisurely. I hit the gym, did a little work, read, and napped again.

 

Around 5pm we headed out to get some dinner. To me a real plus of having a layover in Mexico City was being able to get the food that I always miss when leaving LA, Mexican food. So we went to a Mexican restaurant in the airport and had a really nice meal. We then went back to the hotel, relaxed a bit, and checked out. We took the train back to the other terminal, went through security, and relaxed briefly in the lounge in Mexico City. Our flight from Mexico City back to LA was also delayed over an hour, but the flight itself was pleasant. Eventually we were back in LA, through immigration, customs, and off to bed before heading back to the real world the next morning and back to work.

 

We were no longer on vacation or in Brazil! I can say that I wholly recommend the Brazil cruise. The fact that it was an "immersion" cruise was never a problem and honestly I enjoyed the different passenger base. Would I book the same cruise again? No. But that's only because if I wanted to visit the same area again on another visit I think I would fly into Rio, travel South through Brazil and into Argentina through Iguassu/Igauzu, and fly out of Buenos Aires. But that generally comports with my attitude about cruising which is it's a good way to get an overview of places that you may want to spend more time at in the future. Anyway, that's it aside from anyway last thoughts that I may come back and post.

[kernow]

Once again thank you so much for a fabulous review. It really is the only comprehensive review of Splendour I've seen while she has been in Brazil and has given me so much information for our upcoming cruise.

 

 

Only just over 5 weeks to go for us now until we leave and this has helped build our excitement. Fingers crossed they have got the toilet sorted out:)

 

 

Julie

[sg1phileshipper]

Amazing review. Thank you for sharing

 

Cindy

[catella02]

Really enjoyed the review. Thanks.

[grnyel05]

Thanks again for all of your kind comments. Have an amazing time on the Splendour! I'm usually not one to post much on here but figured I hadn't seen much on the Splendour or Brazil for that matter and would give it whirl.

 

I too hope they have the toilet issues sorted out, but if they don't for some reason the nearest public restroom is on Deck 6 near the elevators. Other than that, knowing that they don't actually come into your room to fix it I thought is helpful to know.

 

Enjoy Brazil!

 

Once again thank you so much for a fabulous review. It really is the only comprehensive review of Splendour I've seen while she has been in Brazil and has given me so much information for our upcoming cruise.

 

 

Only just over 5 weeks to go for us now until we leave and this has helped build our excitement. Fingers crossed they have got the toilet sorted out:)

 

 

Julie

[grnyel05]

Thanks to both of you! It was fun to reminisce about the cruise.

 

Amazing review. Thank you for sharing

 

Cindy

 

Really enjoyed the review. Thanks.

[earn]

Just booked Splendour for cruise with a friend in Nov, and found this while searching for reviews of the ship. Thanks for posting it. We did Santos to Venice on MSC Preziosa last Easter so it has also been nice to read about Brazil.

 

For anyone sailing out of Santos but doing their own flights, I would highly recommend staying at the Mercure in Santos. It has a beautiful roof top pool and is right on the beach. We wandered round santos until quite late at night and felt safe. Cometa bus from the airport in São Paulo in fantastic and about £6. No need to book.

 

Julie, hope you are both well. Would be good to cruise with you guys again sometime. Believe you met our friend Bryce earlier this year. Have a lovely cruise.

[BettyCruiser]

Thank you for the review. Lots of great information! I recently found this itinerary and hope to work it into my cruise schedule in the next few years:)