Review Legend of the Seas 10/03/04

[csteck]

Hi all, We have just returned from another wonderful cruise. 14 days on the Legend of the Seas, Panama Canal , San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale. We loved the Legend, she is a beautiful ship. We found her clean and in good repair.

 

We started our journey Oct. 2nd. We spent the night at the La Quinta Inn by San Francisco airport. We did the park and fly for less than $100.00. The motel is fairly new, clean and had large rooms. They had a great breakfast which included waffles, hot and cold cereals, scrambled eggs, donuts, bagels, toast, juice, coffee etc. The parking lot fills up at night, so if you have a early morning flight, long term parking may be difficult. Shuttles run every half hour.

We flew from San Francisco to San Diego on United Air. Relatives met us in San Diego and we had lunch at Anthony's at the pier. Great sea food and view of the harbor and ship. Check in went fast. We boarded the ship after 3pm. We inquired about our medical equiptment being on board, but no one was able to tell us. They finally sent us on board to look in our room. Everything was in place and the purser's desk called to make sure we had everything. We use the " Care Vacations " supplier.

 

Cabo San Lucus- It was very hot this day, 104*F. We walked around town and did some shopping. Prices started high, but came down to reasonable in a few minetes. We had done the sail and snorkel excursion on our last visit and found that a fun activity to.

 

Acapulco- We did the deep sea fishing here. The first boat had a good experience and even caught fish. We had 4 on our boat. Gear consisted of six poles, 6 hooks, bait and 1 down rigger. They had no spoons, spinners, lures or other equiptment. They threw the line out 20-30 feet behind the boat and bounced it on the surface going a good 15 mph plus. The crew quickly disappeared for hours. The seas were rough, so we spent six hours going up a wave and down a wave, up and down, up and down. RCCL gave us a 25% rebate and said they would not use these people again. We went accross the street to Fuerte de San Diego fort and did some shopping in town. We didn't have time to see the La Quebrada Cliff Divers.

 

Huatulco- We did the Two Bays snorkeling tour here. We went to two sites to snorkel. We saw fish and coral. Visability was 40- 60 feet. The water and beaches are beautiful. Huatulco is beautiful and clean. Seas were a little rough here to. My only complaint is that they madated the use of the old orange life vest. This made floating a little harder. The snorkel vest work much better. We then went to town and did some shopping. A friend rented a taxi here for $20.00. He saw all the bays, country side and town. He was very pleased.

 

Costa Rica- We did the Poas Volcano tour here. We spent a lot of time on the bus seeing the country side. The Volcano crater was clear and we could see a green pool of water in the bottom. Steam vents surrounded the pool and some had yellow gases coming out. We saw some cloud and canapy forest. No real wild life other than birds. We stopped to shop 3 times. Sarchi has wonderful wood work and hand made crafts. The plantation had coffee, sugar cane, pine apple to name a few. We had a great lunch. We saw many beautiful flowers growing. If you get car sick you may want to take something to ensure a good time.

 

Panama Canal transit. We were up by 6am. To late to get a spot in the windjammer or the front of the ship. We watched most of the transit from the pool area in the shade. It was very hot in the sun. We watched the 2nd transit from deck 4. This gave you a better view of the ship going down in the locks. We found a great place to watch the lock doors open and close on deck 4 at the back of the ship. The view is as good as the front and less crowded. Shopping at Cristobol pier was good. I felt they had the best prices. Many beautiful wood and crafts items here.

 

Aruba- We did a sail and snorkel excursion here. Our second dive was at the Antilles wreck. It was crowded here with 3 tour boats out at the same time. The wreck is shallow and visiability is great. Our first dive sight was off shore from the light house. We saw some coral and many fish. They had a great boat and equiptment. They even had snorkel vest. We wanted to do a tour of the Island, but after 1pm we found it impossible to get a tour on the pier. We did more shopping instead.

 

I'm doing this in 2 parts, because it keeps going poof and is gone. Carla

[NiniB]

Carla, thanks for this helpful review.......... for your tours did you use RCI or private vendors???? in Costa Rica how much did the tour cost and was it private or RCI????? how was the food,,,,

oh,, BTW,,, i will be on the EXACT same cruise in DEC,,,,, :D

THANX,, so much for all your help...............:)

[csteck]

Nini B. The Poas Volcano tour was through RC and the cost was $ 86.00 each. We loved this tour because we saw so much of the county. The views from the mountains are great.

 

This was our 11th cruise and our 3rd with Royal Caribbean. We had a great time and Royal Caribbean has great staff members. They always made us feel like they wanted us to be happy and went out of their way to make us happy. We are in the 45- 55 age range.

 

Our room. It looked soooo small on arrival. The room stewart made our bed together the first night with one sheet. ( one sheet is always a plus. ) We were able to put all our stuff away and our bags fit nicely under the bed. We even had room left over for what we bought in port. The bathroom is small , the shower even smaller. It is about 2 1/2 X 2 1/2 feet, but worked well. They had a small couch, tv, desk, bed , 2 night stands, lots of mirrors, closet, 6 drawers in the desk, and a safe. The bathroom had some storage behind the mirror. The bathroom had soap, TP, Tissue and shampoo from a dispensor in the shower. We call it the no frills cruise line.

The room stewart was Esther. She was friendly and always had a big smile for us. She did a fair job. She forgot a few things over the cruise. She forgot ice one night. She forgot glasses the next and after that we had ice and glasses, but the ice thongs were missing. She left only one clean towel on one of the formal nights. She took all the half used bars of soap one night and didn't leave us any new. These things were quickly fixed with a phone call and the staff was always very pleasant and wore smiles. We got a good laugh over it. She made towels animals for us three times during the 14 day cruise. I do have a complaint about RC pool towel policy. They tell you at the start of the cruise that you are responsible for the towels until the end of the cruise. We had the room steward take our towels several days and not return them. One time it took 3 days to get our towels back. Clean towels at the pool were often not available during this sailing. I think RC should change this towel policy. We heard several complaints that the pool towels were taken by room stewards and not returned.

[csteck]

Sorry, but this keeps going poof on me.

Food. We ate all our dinners in the dining room or ordered off the menu for room service. The food was good. The menu is a little limited. They had 2 appetizers, 2 soups, salad and 4 choices for a main course. Then they had some alternatives which never changed. They had salmon, ranch steak, chicken, and a vegetarian dish. Then you could get a ceasar salad, vegatable, or baked potatoe. My husband is picky and he ate the ranch steak and salmon serveral nights. They served lobster once and had a shrimp and lobster dish once. Prime rib was offered once on a lobster night. They had 3 nights with the better cuts of steak. They had several fish dishes. Things that we don't order include chicken breast dishes, pork chops, duck and lamb. The soups were mostly broths. They could make better soups. Most had good flavor, but no substance. They had the best egg plant parmesan I ever ate on a cruise. Desert was always good. The apple pie alittle bland.

We ate breakfast in the windjammer, room service and dinning room. The windjammer has a problem with keeping the food hot. The solarium has the pizza, with hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken and once fish. Sometimes they have a small buffet with a few items also. The dinning room was always good. One thing I missed was the fruit and salad bar that my favorite cruise line offers. The wind jammer has a salad bar, but no real fruit bar. I especially miss this at midnight.

Midnight buffet and snack service. They had 4 midnight buffets this sailing. Two in the dining room and 2 at pool side. They do a good job. The gala buffet was fantastic. It is amazing what they can do with food. The snack service stinks and so do the snacks. I perfer that a cruise line has a midnight buffet each night.

Getting tea, lemonade, coffee was no problem on this ship. It was always available in two places. There is always a bar open to.

[csteck]

The entertainment was good on the cruise. It was aimed at a little older crowd. The average age looked to be 60 plus this sailing. The best show was done by Mark Preston from the Lettermen. He did a great job. They had the " Happenings " who were good to. They were popular in the 60's I'm told. They had Joey Van do comedy and singing Inpressions, he was good. Wilde and Haines did a comedy act. The best part was the 9 year old girl who joined them. She kept trying to leave the stage and they bribed her to stay. She was a passenger from the ship. Lenny Welch did a great show for us. He has a great voice. Charles Brunner did a show that we missed, but he played piano music for over 58 hours trying to break the Guinness record, and we enjoyed him. My favorite band was the Tropical Duo who did Calypso music, usually by the pool. They did a lot of Clapton hits and included rock and roll from the 70's and 80's. They had a Rock and Roll reunion with music from the 50's which we passed on and also had a night of County CD's in the Viking Crown lounge one night. The Almost original Village people made a appearance one night. The RC singers and dancers always did a great job.

The seating in the That's entertainment theater is great. No poles to block your view. We didn't play bingo and we didn't go to any of the game shows. We missed a day of pool games, but made it to another one. We enjoyed the hot tubs almost every day. We didn't do the rock wall, but enjoyed watching. We never made it to the golf course, but meant to. We always had something fun going on. We spent a lot of time walking laps on the upper deck trying to work off those great meals .

[csteck]

Tendering in to port.

We knew that we would be tendered into Cabo San Lucas, but we were surprised to find out that we would need tendering services in Acapulco to. Royal Caribbean was very un organized. We waited 2 1/2 hours to get off ship in Cabo. The people with tours and diamond members got the first tenders. We were late getting to port. Tours started late as a result and the lines were very long. Most people were nice. We had one guy in his 70's stand in line with us for over 1 hour. His wife was unable to do this. She sat on the stairs and waited for the line to come back by. Someone yelled at her and told her to go to the end of the line. She was upset by this and I saw no need for it. If you can't, you can't. She left the ship with her husband, so it worked out. Royal Caribbean gave people a number and then you waited until the number was called and got in line. I have never seen such a un organized mess. Hopefully, they will get better organized, open more than one exit or something. We were late arriving to several ports during this cruise and it cuts down your time in port.

Disembarkation went smoothly after the ship cleared customs. We had a shuttle to the airport in Fort Lauderdale and a easy trip home. If you want to eat in Fort Lauderdale airport, do so before going through security. They don't have many resturants in this airport. It's not a LAX or SFO that's for sure.

Overall, It was a great cruise. We had a great time and are ready to go again. The Legend is well kept and has a great lay out. If you are considering her for your next cruise I think you will be happy. Good luck, Carla