Brilliance Greek B2B Trip Report ~ Menus~Cruise Compass~Photos

[luckybecky]

Hello Cruisers!

 

We recently completed a back to back cruise from Italy to mostly Greek Islands ports. I’ve got a very detailed trip report for you with Cruise Compass for each day, menus and food porn and more.

 

This was our third try for this cruise. In November 2019, my husband turned 60 and for his birthday present, our daughter reserved a Greek cruise scheduled for a few months later. Well, we all know what happened next. We tried to reschedule in 2021, but that didn't work out either. Now it finally happened!

 

Last August, we were able to book a cruise for June 2022, so this gave us almost a year for planning. We originally were going to do just the 7 day cruise, but in looking at the itineraries, we noticed that the cruise the following week went to different ports (only one port, Mykonos, was repeated) and we figured if we were spending the money and time to get to Italy, we might as well make the most of it. So we booked the B2B, using a big box travel agency.

 

I think we got a really good price on our deck 7 balcony cabin. Over the next 10 months, I checked the price many times and never saw it lower than what we paid, and by springtime it was hundreds of dollars higher per person for each leg of the B2B.

 

However, the big box TA that we used does not participate in the royal up program, so we were not eligible for that. I was a little jealous in the weeks before embarkation to see roll call and FB members talking about having their bids accepted, several commenting that their bids had been "weak," and some even upgraded to suites. But it's ok, we chose a balcony cabin that we would be happy with,

even without an upgrade.

 

We were not able to get the same cabin for both legs of the cruise. I checked cabin availability several times and called our TA a few times but was never able to get it done. We would just have to move a few doors down the hall on turnaround day.

[luckybecky]

Over the next months, I spent a lot of time researching and reserving shore excursions for each port. We rarely do ship excursions. Our roll calls were pretty slow, but we were able to join a small CC group for one tour.

 

We bought airfare several months in advance. We considered flying to Rome or Venice, but Bologna is much closer to Ravenna and the transfer to the port would be easier. And Bologna did not cost any more in airfare than those other cities. It is striking to me that RC is selling this as a “Venice” departure when Venice is roughly 3 hours away!

 

We decided to spend 2 nights in Bologna. That would give us some time to get over jet lag, and to see the city. I found an apartment immediately adjacent to the main square. We planned to take the train to Ravenna the day before the cruise and spend one night there before boarding the ship on Sunday, June 12.

 

At some point early on, I reserved the drink package at what seemed at the time very expensive $53 per person, per day (+gratuity). Later, the price went up to as much as $71 pppd, then around Memorial Day was $66. So I'm glad I got it when I did.

 

We also reserved the unlimited dining package for the first leg of the cruise for $168 pp. Later it went up to $252. We have not cruised RC before and wanted to have the chance to try all the restaurants, so we went for unlimited dining the first leg, and then planned to try the free dining venues on the second leg of the cruise. Since this is a small ship with really only three specialty venues (Chops, Giovanni's Table, and Izumi), we thought one week of specialty dining would give us plenty of opportunity to try those restaurants.

 

Based on my experience with the pricing of these packages, my advice would be to reserve them as early as possible. Then, go back and check the price frequently in the weeks and months before your cruise. If the price goes down (or you just change your mind), you can always cancel the prior purchase and re-purchase at the lower price. The same goes for excursions. Book them as far in advance as possible for the best selection and price.

 

So by early to mid May, we had everything in place: air, hotels, excursions. I researched how to get from Bologna to Ravenna and Ravenna to the cruise port. We bought travel insurance. We do not use the cruise line insurance. We use InsureMyTrip. We get better pricing and better coverage. We had some eMed covid tests and also the address of a pharmacy where we could get our testing done in case we had any trouble with internet or whatever, getting the eMed done. All set to go!

[luckybecky]

Packing

 

I am a firm believer in packing light. Counting travel day 1, 2 nights in Bologna, 1 night in Ravenna, 14 nights on the ship, and finally one last night in Bologna before flying home, we were going to be traveling for 19 days. I have several very lightweight blouses that are good for summer travel and I often wash these, and lingere, in the sink. But it is a challenge to pack light for a long trip. I abhor paying the exorbitant ship prices for laundry.

 

I have two packing rules I follow every time. One, I always take a carry-on or tote bag, with essential items: one full change of clothes including undies and PJs, essential toiletries like toothbrush/toothpaste etc, any necessary medications, chargers etc. (Spoiler alert, this will be very handy later!!). The second rule is we always cross-pack. Meaning, we don't have his and her suitcases. For checked baggage, we share. Some of his stuff goes in my suitcase, and vice versa. That way, if one suitcase is lost, at least we both have some of our stuff in the other suitcase.

 

We also sometimes will pack a carry-on for our first few days of the trip, so we don't have to unpack *everything* to find what we need in the first few days. For example, since we were going to be in Bologna for 2 nights and Ravenna for one, I packed the carryon with outfits/pajamas/other essentials just for those three days.

 

The other suitcase was for more clothes for the rest of the trip. That way we don't have to dig through all of our stuff and re-pack every time we move hotels. For our three week trip, we took 2 smallish to medium sized backpacks with items for the flight (snacks, travel pillows, electronics, etc), a carryon suitcase, and one larger checked bag.

 

About 10 days before our departure date, I received a very confusing email from our airline about Covid testing. Long story short, we did not need testing but the airline info was very misleading. This confusing, constantly changing and conflicting information was very stressful. Maybe next time I will just do a test so that I have it in hand no matter what.

 

[luckybecky]

Wednesday June 8

 

Finally! We’re off! We left San Antonio on Wednesday morning, flying to Newark, then Newark to Munich, arriving in Munich on Thursday morning.

 

The flight to Munich was delayed and we missed our connection to Bologna by mere minutes. We had a loooong race to the gate, delayed by passport control, only to see our plane sitting there but already closed up. To their credit, the airline had already rerouted us by the time we were able to speak to an agent and they assured us that our luggage would make it onto the new flight. That flight was also inexplicably delayed.

 

After all the confusion from our airline about whether or not we would need to show a negative covid test, we were never asked for one. Of course we will still need to test for the cruise. We were never asked to wear a mask in the airports or on planes, until the last leg of the flight. From Munich to Bologna, medical grade masks were required and enforced.

 

Thursday June 9

 

We finally arrived in Bologna about five hours after our scheduled arrival, and some 26 hours after we woke up yesterday to begin our day. We took a cab from the airport to the city center (about 20 euro). We looked around for about an hour and then went to our apartment for a nap. Many of my first photos of the trip were lost due to an unfortunate accident with my phone, but I have a few from this time.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the entrance to the street where our apartment was located

 

 

[luckybecky]

After a 3 hour nap, we got up and went out to find a place to eat. There were dozens of places near our apartment, immediately adjacent to Piazza Maggiore. We landed at a place nearby and had pasta and wine.

 

Here is the street right outside our apartment:

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we walked to Lloyd's Farmacia located on Piazza Maggiore. We asked for an appointment for Covid testing tomorrow. The lady didn't speak English, and we don't speak Italian, but we were able to make ourselves understood well enough to get appointments for tomorrow at noon. (I remembered the word "domani" from a long-ago Italian class, and "Covid test" seems to be a universal language.)

 

By now it was about 10pm local time and we headed back to our apartment after a very long day. We had rented an apartment on VRBO. There is an exterior door to enter the building which contains maybe 20 apartments on 4 or 5 floors. As we tried to enter the exterior door, the key broke off in the lock!! Oh no! This meant that not only could we not enter, neither could anyone else! I frantically

messaged our host.

 

After several minutes, a girl arrived and tried to enter. We showed her our broken key and explained the problem. Fortunately she spoke English (God love Europeans, so many of whom are multilingual). She was able to contact someone inside who let us in, and blocked the door open so other residents could get inside. A stressful end to a very long day of hassle.

 

I guess one of the good things about staying at a hotel would be that you just contact the front desk staff for any problem. It is more trouble if you have to contact a host who is off site.

 

On the other hand, we had a (small) two bedroom apartment, with king bed, small kitchen, living room, and extra bedroom where we put our suitcases. You don't get all this space in a hotel, and it was literally steps from Piazza Maggiore on a very lively street with many shops and restaurants.

 

What a day!!! With travel delays and then the issue with the key … I always say, the worst part of traveling, is the travel. We had some wine and went to bed.

[luckybecky]

Friday June 10

 

I woke up at 4am after sleeping only a few hours. I couldn’t stop worrying about our upcoming Covid test. My husband on the other hand was sleeping like a baby. I piddled around for hours. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and woke him up at 9. We headed to the pharmacy at 10am, even though our appointment wasn’t until noon. They graciously agreed to perform our test early. Negative! What a relief!

 

We walked around briefly, then went back to the apartment to meet our host and get a replacement for the broken key. Then went to find a restaurant that I had heard was good, called Gallery Pizzart near Piazza Maggiore. It lived up to the reputation!

 

We ordered a charcuterie platter for an appetizer which was amazing! It turns out that it would have been enough for lunch, but we didn’t know how generous the portion would be so we ordered pizzas for entrees.

 

 

I asked the waiter how big the pizzas are. He said, oh, about 300 grams, not very big. As Americans, we measure our pizzas in terms of diameter, not grams, so 300 grams didn’t mean much to us. But he said they weren’t large, so we thought they were personal size and we ordered one each. Oh my goodness! Big mistake. The pizzas were probably 14-16 inches. Each. Delicious but way too much food.

 

 

 

We took most of the pizza home and had it for supper later. All of this food, plus two glasses of wine each, cost 41 euro – not a bad deal at all since we got two meals out of it. And it was sumptious.

 

We dropped off the leftover pizza at our apartment and headed out to explore.

[luckybecky]

We found the two towers degli Asinelli and Garisenda. Built over 1000 years ago, and I read somewhere that one of these is the tallest leaning tower in the world.

 

 

I really wanted to attempt to climb the 498 steps to the top. Paul was less enthusiastic. We had not booked tickets in advance, however, and the next admission time available was not until almost two hours later. We didn’t want to hang around for that long so we didn’t get to go inside and climb the tower. Or at least, that was our excuse.

 

I had also heard about the Finestrella (“little window”) di Via Piella, a picturesque spot where you can catch a glimpse of one of Bologna’s few visible canals, dating from the middle ages. Unfortunately at the time of our visit the canal was nearly completely dry and not quite so picturesque as one might have hoped.

 

 

A short distance away we could see a market of some kind so we went to have a look. It turned out to be enormous with stall after stall of all sorts of goods: clothes, purses, household goods, all kinds of stuff. Paul said it looked like the world’s largest garage sale!

 

Finally we headed back toward Piazza Maggiore, stopping for a treat along the way. Nothing beats real Italian gelato!

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We entered the massive church, the Basilica di San Petronio. Built in the late 1300s, it has 22 chapels, the world’s oldest functioning organ, dating from 1471, and the world’s longest sundial.

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

By this time we were pretty tired and still adjusting to jet lag, so we went back to our apartment. We napped a little, then enjoyed our leftover pizza for supper. Organized our suitcases to be ready for tomorrow.

 

Here are a few more shots of the markets right outside our door:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

Saturday June 11

 

Once again, I slept only a few hours, woke at 3 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Paul as usual slept like a log. I believe it was around this time that we received the good news that the US was dropping the requirement for a negative Covid test to re-enter the country. Hooray!

 

We left our apartment about 8 am and walked one mile to the train station. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous so all this walking has not been a problem.

 

We tried to purchase tickets at the ticket machine, but couldn’t find Ravenna listed so we went to find help. A lady told us that these regional tickets had to be purchased at the tabbacchi, not from the machine. They were only 8 euro each, so a cheap ride. However the train was completely packed and we had to stand for the 70 minute ride.

 

Arrived in Ravenna. We had booked a B&B that is literally a 2 minute walk from the train station entrance and was very easy to find. It was only around 10am so too early to check in but they gave us our key and let us leave our luggage.

 

We headed out to see the famous mosaics. The are absolutely stunning! There are several churches dating from around the 5^th century that have the most beautiful, intricate mosaics. Ravenna is a UNESCO site for this reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

The churches also all have ancient towers which are very picturesque.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had some delicious pasta and Paul had roasted rabbit for lunch. After visiting some more churches, we finally headed back to our B&B for a much needed nap. We had been on our feet since 8am, walking and standing on the train, except for a brief respite during lunch, and Paul was tuckered out. Later we went out for dinner and finally returned to our room to get ready for boarding tomorrow!

 

 

We had a bit of bad news this morning. One of the people on the second leg of our B2B cruise developed some cold symptoms and subsequently tested positive for covid. She says she is improving and did not become seriously ill, thank goodness. She reports that she was able to reschedule her cruise for early July, so that’s great! But I don’t know what this did to her flight plans or may have cost to change. Hopefully she had trip insurance that may help cover some of those costs. We had a shared excursion reserved with her and several other people, so she had to drop out of that.

[Tin can]

We are heading to Ravenna for a Greek Isles cruise next summer so really looking forward to this. Thanks for posting.

[luckybecky]

Sunday June 12 – Embarkation Day!

 

Finally, the day we’ve all been waiting for!

 

We had a good night’s sleep at our B&B, then went to their little cafe right next door where we had a delicious continental breakfast. Our checkout time was 10am. We left just before 10.

 

As noted, we were only steps away from the train station, where the RC shuttle was waiting to take us to the port. We had reserved this ahead of time for $15 per person each way. We arrived at the port around 10:30.

 

Our check-in time wasn’t until noon so we expected to have to wait at the cruise terminal before boarding. But this was not an issue. Before entering the terminal, our Covid test result was given a very brief glance – it was not carefully checked for the date/time administered. We waited about 15-20 minutes because the terminal wifi was not working. But soon they announced they could begin checkin, and we were almost first in line. It was fast and easy. We were onboard before 11am!

 

 

Of course the ship was nearly deserted at this time and not much was open. We found a comfortable chair by the window in the Schooner Bar, had a drink and did the online portion of muster, which consisted of watching a very brief video about how to put on a life jacket, and what the emergency horn sounds like. By the way, while sitting here I happened to overhear one crew member talking to another who said they are short 90 crew on this sailing.

 

Stopped by Chops to make reservations since we had Unlimited Dining for this cruise. The hostess made us a reservation for 12:00 lunch at Giovanni’s today and dinner tonight at Chops. We also reserved Izumi for tomorrow night. I had been told to make dining reservations ASAP once on board (with unlimited dining, you cannot make reservations prior to boarding). Later in the afternoon, I used the Royal app to make specialty dining reservations for every night of the cruise.

 

Lunch at Giovannis was good. We were the only ones there. We were there for about an hour and no one else arrived during that time.

 

Paul ordered the tuna appetizer and I had a salad. I ordered the pear and walnut salad (only on the lunch menu, not available at supper), but the waiter brought the insalata di rucola. I didn’t realize the difference until after he set down our plates and left us to eat. I didn’t bother calling him back to bring the correct order. It was fine.

 

Tuna

 

 

Salad

 

 

Sorry, but the rest of my food photos and the menu from lunch were lost. The lunch menu does have a few minor differences from dinner. 

 

They were out of the rose wine I ordered so I had white instead. I had the carbonara pasta, Paul had the bolognese. Everything was good. We skipped dessert.

 

After lunch we went to complete muster. All you have to do after watching the videos in the app is to report to your muster station. A crew member spoke to us very briefly (less than a minute) about what to do if we hear the emergency horn. And that was it. Easy peasy.

 

[luckybecky]

A little after 1:00 we went to see if our room was ready. It was. Our luggage was already in the hall. We got into our room and unpacked.

 

Thoughts on the cabin: our balcony is GREAT! It is an extended balcony; from looking at deck plans it seems that there are only a few of these on deck 7 forward. All the other balconies are standard size. I really LOVE that we can see the sky and have so much room on our balcony. It is a good four to five feet deeper than standard.

 

 

The cabin is one of the smaller ones we have had. It is pretty tight. Definitely smaller than Carnival and Celebrity. Probably about the same as the one we had on our only NCL cruise. We have only a loveseat for seating; we later met a couple who said they had a full size, 3 cushion sofa in their cabin (9044). There is plenty of storage, though. The closet is the best designed one we’ve had. Lots of space. I'm sorry, but my cabin photos were also lost. 😞 

 

There were two US and two European outlets, along with whatever this thing is.

 

 

 

 

There was a surprise waiting for us!

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We unpacked and then set off to tour the ship. We signed up for the spa raffle. Later, we went to the gym for the raffle. The very first number called was “Deck 7! Seven Zero One… Six!!!” We are 7018. I thought it was going to be us! So close!

 

First thoughts of the ship: the pool area, particularly the water slide, is no comparison to Carnival. So that is something to consider if you are traveling with kids. Of course Royal (and no one else that I know of) has a rock climbing wall. So there’s that. There are lots of bars and lounge areas.

 

And again, to my endless frustration, my ship photos taken during this time were lost in an accident that would take place tomorrow. At least if it had to happen, it happened early in the trip so I didn't lose everything. 

 

Midafternoon we went to the orientation show, hosted by the hotel director. He was pretty dry, no jokes or whatever, but good information. He said that as of the time he was speaking, around 3:30pm, we had about 1600 passengers on board and he said if everyone who is booked makes it on board, we should set sail with about 2000. Full capacity is 2543, so we are at about 80%. Later, at the spa raffle, I met a lady who was doing a back to back from last week. She said on last week’s sailing, they had only 1100, so things are definitely ramping up (but still not at 100%).

 

After this, Paul went to take a nap, and I went to watch sail away from the helicopter pad, which we had discovered during our ship tour earlier this afternoon. Very few people there and a terrific vantage point. We also met our cabin steward around this time. Chris from Trinidad and Tobago, on his first day of his first contract. He just got here yesterday, and is already working hard. He said his contract is six months and three weeks, almost 7 months, so he won’t see home for awhile.

 

Here is the Cruise Compass for today

 

 

 

 

I'm not going to scan all four pages of the Compass every day because much of the info such as opening times is redundant. I'll put the full four pages for tomorrow and then try to make sure I post the last page with the daily schedule of activities each day.

[luckybecky]

Later we changed for supper and went back to the Schooner Bar for a pre dinner drink. Our waiter from earlier today, Dilip, took care of us again. There was a guitarist, Juan Valenzuela, who was fantastic.

 

We had a 6:45 reservation for Chops. Lovely table by the window. Great service. We were served pretzel bread and onion bread with butter, to start. For appetizers, we had beef carpaccio and crab cake.Next, lobster bisque and wedge salad.

 

Then, a petite filet and NY strip. We ordered these medium rare. They were served closer to medium well. Certainly past medium rare. We aren’t truly picky, so we didn’t send them back. We did enjoy them. But we pointed it out to our waitress. Of course she offered to make it right. We weren’t upset about it and told her it wasn’t a big deal; we would have sent them back if we were that troubled about it. It didn’t bother us that  much. But we did think they should know that the steaks were definitely not cooked to order.

 

Our waitress asked us to put a slice of each of our steaks on a plate so she could take it and show the chef that it was overdone.

 

The sides were excellent: tater tots and asparagus. The steaks were also served with our choice of peppercorn, red wine, or bernaise sauce.

 

We finished off with key lime pie and warm chocolate cake, both delicious!

 

And hopefully for the last time, I'll apologize that the menu and food pics were lost.

 

We finished dinner just in time to run over to the evening show, which had just started. A man who we later found out was Orlando, assistant cruise director, was standing in for the cruise director. I’m not sure why, but Jamie the regular cruise director was not on this cruise.

 

The acrobatic duo was good. We just were not “wowed” by this first night show. I am really into the live entertainment and shows. This is a big part of the cruising experience for me. This show was good, but truthfully, they are going to have to step up the game to win me over to Royal.

 

We had a short, unsuccessful spin in the casino and then went up to spend some time enjoying our balcony. The weather has been amazing, and it was so pleasantly cool to sit out enjoying the breeze and sound of the waves. I LOVE our big balcony. Here's a shot taken from the back of deck five, a great place to watch the sunset.

 

[luckybecky]

Sorry some of my photos are coming out smaller. If the cruise compass isn't legible, let me know and I can try to scan it again. I scanned them all exactly the same but on my screen just now the activities page is looking small to me. Anyway...

 

Monday June 13

 

Dubrovnik! What a beautiful port. The sail in is very scenic. I just realized the one drawback of our extended balcony: it’s not very private. When I wake up in the morning I like to go straight outside (in my pajamas) to check out the view and the weather. Anyone from above, the bridge, or either side can see onto our balcony. My Pjs aren’t much to look at. 🙂 But nevertheless I just love this larger balcony!! I’m not complaining. Just pointing out that you probably shouldn’t plan to sunbathe nude out there. 😀

 

We went to breakfast at the buffet. It was very busy, as would be expected right before docking. I was disappointed in several ways. The scrambled eggs were cold. The bacon (specifically listed as “crispy bacon”) was practically raw – for the rest of the cruise it was always deliciously crispy so my first impression got better. There was a long line to get toast, so I just took a piece of untoasted bread, which was stale. Overall I wasn’t impressed but maybe it was just because turnaround day is so hectic for the crew. It did get much better.

 

There was no self service drink area in the main buffet area. You had to go up to a bar where there were half full glasses of water and juice with no ice. You had to ask for them to add ice. Paul wanted a diet coke and was told he had to go to a different bar. The whole setup was very inconvenient.

 

Later, in the solarium, we found a drink station that did have an ice dispenser along with tea and water.

 

I really try not to be a Karen, and I never let little things ruin my vacation. And I know that in this forum I am talking to a lot of loyal Royal cruisers. But little things do add up to a big impression. So far, there have been quite a few little things. Such as, served the wrong salad, overcooked steak, cold eggs; restaurant out of rose wine, and no offer to sub a different rose; show was just ok; room very small. On the other hand, the crew have been fantastic. All very friendly. 

 

We are only on day 2 and have a long way to go so I am certainly not writing off Royal by a long shot. I hope you won’t take my complaints that way. I am just pointing out all our observations large and small. Trust me, we had a marvelous time!

 

So after breakfast we went back to our room to gather our things. On other cruise ships, we usually have found beach towels placed in our room for use in port. Here, we had to go to the pool to sign out some towels. That wasn’t a big deal.

 

We stopped at a bar to ask for a bottle of water to take into port. He declined to give us one and said they were selling water at the debarkation point.

 

We went down to deck 2 and sure enough they did have water, in cans. This is really inconvenient because once you open the water, you have to drink it all. You can’t close it and put it back in your bag, and you can’t refill it.

 

We hopped the Royal shuttle to the old town, $15 per person round trip. Once there, we walked around town for a little while and took a short swim near the marina. The water felt great!!! So cool and clear.

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We had a 1:30 “kayak and snorkel” excursion with an outside provider. We met up and everyone was present a few minutes early and we were off. We heard one family ask “we will be back by 5pm, right?” and the lady who met us assured them yes, we would. (If the tour went as scheduled, we should be back around 4)

 

So we proceeded to the beach and got instructions from our guide, Eddie. I asked again, we will be back by 5, right? Yes, he said.

 

We are not experienced kayakers. As I recall this was described as a beginner kayak, "no experience required." It was supposed to be a 2.5 hour trip. As we set out , our guide said we would be paddling all the way around the island of Lokrum. We thought that seemed ambitious, but OK.

 

Off we go. We paddled, and paddled, and paddled. Paul estimates we paddled 30-45 minutes and stopped then only because some young women were falling far behind. We are in our early 60s but we are very active, we exercise regularly and consider ourselves very fit for our age. But this was a rigorous paddle and even the young women were struggling.

 

After a few minutes rest to let the girls catch up, and a little commentary from our guide, we were off once more. We were paddling hard.

 

We finally reached a cool sea cave and had a few minutes to rest and take pictures, but not to get out and swim or snorkel.

 

Then, off again! We paddled and paddled some more, and then had a short rest sitting in our kayaks while our guide gave us some more commentary. More paddling, and we reached a small inlet with a beach. Here, our guide approached us and said, “you have to be back by 5?”

 

Um, yeah. That was the idea. Back on board time is 5:30, and it was our understanding that the last shuttle was leaving at 5.

 

Now this was supposed to be a “kayak and snorkel” excursion and we have had pretty much nonstop paddling for 2+ hours with no snorkeling. Apparently we have now arrived at the snorkeling spot, but our guide is concerned we won’t have time for that.

 

 

 

 

Long story short, our guide arranged for us to return with another group who were leaving sooner. We did not get to snorkel. But we did make it back on time to catch the shuttle. Very tired. Most vigorous arm workout I’ve had in years! The scenery had been beautiful but we wished the tour had been less vigorous.

 

To make matters worse, the “waterproof” phone case I used turned out to not be waterproof. My phone got doused in sea water and is dead as a doornail. Never came back to life. All my travel apps from currency converter to trip bookings are on there. 😯

 

[sgmn]

Enjoying reading your trip report. Living in Europe we love European cruises, so much to see. Bad luck with the phone and that your snorkel trip wasn't as planned . Looking forward to hearing more

[luckybecky]

Back on board, worse for the wear. We showered and then I tried to use Paul’s phone to at least download some necessary travel apps, etc. that were on my now defunct phone. Spent quite some time unsuccessfully trying to reset passwords so I could log into those apps. The trouble is, I don’t remember all those passwords (which were saved on my phone) and they all want to send a reset code…. To my phone.

 

Very stressed, I finally gave up and we left to see sailaway and for dinner at Izumi.

 

 

 

Ok, so I needed this. As soon as we sat down they brought us a generous portion of complimentary edamame. Dinner was great! Paul had Shrimp Firecracker spring rolls for an app. It was good. I had miso soup and pork gyoza dumplings, both very good. For our mains, Paul tried to order the spicy miso ramen, but they said they were out of that. So instead he went with Tonkotsu Ramen. It was good, but it had a large piece of pork that was sort of hard to eat. Like, are you supposed to pick it up with chopsticks and just bite off a hunk? Maybe it’s just us, LOL. He also had the spicy crispy tuna roll and he liked it. I had Yaki Udon with beef. Excellent.

 

From this point on I began using my husband's phone so should have photos of most everything. I hope! Here's the menu:

 

 

 

 

And a shot of the restaurant:

 

[luckybecky]

Edamame

 

 

Shrimp firecracker spring rolls

 

 

Pork gyoza dumplings

 

 

Tonkotsu ramen

 

 

Yaki Udon w/beef

 

 

[luckybecky]

We finished off with the assorted mochi ice cream which was weird. Little balls of ice cream with a sort of gelatin skin, or something. The chocolate lava cake was very rich and delicious but was not “lava” as it was cooked through with no gooey center as described.

 

 

 

There was a family of four adults and four children here, kids aged say 8-12 maybe, and they were pretty noisy and rambunctious, excited, up and down from their seats. You’ll see why I bring this up.

 

We went to the evening show which was Singers Showcase with Akeem and Keri. They were good and we really love the live orchestra, which we saw on several occasions in various venues.

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a little time in the casino and then back to the room where we found a cute towel animal left by our steward Chris. Dirty towels: the wet towels we brought back from our kayak excursion were not picked up by our stateroom attendant. We never got around to returning them until a day or so later. Apparently the towel check in and check out situation is pretty strict on Royal. We have not found this to be the case on other cruises.

 

 

 

There was a stunning full moon on view from our balcony.

 

[luckybecky]

Here are all 4 pages of the Cruise Compass for today.

 

 

 

 

 

I have to take a break for now but will be back with many more menus and photos of our ports.

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by luckybecky

[Preziosa]

Thank you so much for your review. We are doing your second leg the 11. Th of September. It is Very difficult to Read Daily Planners.

I look forward to Read the rest. You do a realy great telling

[luckybecky]

I'm not sure why the daily schedules and menus are showing up too small to read. The first page of the first one was fine, and then the rest are small. Anyone know how I can fix this?

 

Oh wait, I think I've got it. Is this better?

 

Cruise Compass

Day 2 Page 1

 

Day 2 Page 2

 

Day 2 Page 3

 

Day 2 Page 4

Edited July 7, 2022 by luckybecky