Royal Caribbean Cruise Line
Royal Caribbean Legend Cruise Review
Western Caribbean

Joe Farrell
Age: 46
Occupation: business owner
Number of Cruises: 4
Sailing Date: February 18th, 2006

Ok –this is a review of the Royal Suite on the Legend of the Seas. It is essentially a blogwhich I posted real time during the cruise .

We are sitting in our hotel waiting to go to the ship. It's 9a and we spent the last 2 nights here in TPA figuring that if we did not leave 2 days early the huge snowstorm of last week would have happened today! So we bought cheap weather insurance by taking 2 extra days off work and taking our 12 yr old to Busch Gardens yesterday - TIP: They have FREE beer in the hospitality house.

We are looking forward to getting on board and getting unpacked more than anything else - it is kinda hard to have enough luggage for a week cruise on a boat with a guest laundry and spend 2 nights in a hotel!

FYI - Quorum Hotel in Tampa is $170 a night for the Concierge floor - has a great lounge, alcohol and Starbucks coffee in the am - RCCL wanted to charge us $210 a night for pre-cruise accomodations in a regular room. We simply booked the web rate and save $50 a night . . . and got the club floor 0- which has FREE internet access ($6 a day otherwise) and the aforesaid lounge making breakfast free and evening cocktails saved another $40 a day -

Flights down were on us, and were painless - even got in to TPA 20 min early .

Looks like we picked the right winter week not to be in the Northeast or Midwest!!!

See you later tonight after sunset and before late seating!

I'd appreciate if this thread could get bumped once a day to keep it on the front page so I do not have to go looking for it!

Joe, Lynn & Doug


The good the bad and the ugly - Day One

Special Amenities - None. Period. Slippers and robes. Did not meet cabin attendant until after sailing - no access to cabin until 1.30p. No escort - no special treatment at all upon embark. 2 btls of sparkling and still water free - nice bottle of Vive Cliquot for sail off in cabin. Dozen roses in cabin. You get in line with everyone else for everything, tours, Purser, room service.

Cabin - very nice - you CAN connect an ipod to the stereo - speakers in all 4 rooms - bed hard a rock [I love it, wife hates it]. Deck has lounges chairs a table and 2 chairs. worth the extra grand we paid over a junior suite. Priority tender tickets waiting in cabin - all ports now tender.

The good = am on vacation! On a cruise.

Food was OK in dining room - my problem is that all food is bland bland bland -no flavor since someone may object to spices. We ordered one of everything at our table and just mixed and picked Chinese style and everythng was very good but also very bland. Good diet forv old folks.

LOTS of kids - good cruise for a 12 yr old.

Signing off at 35 cents a minute . . . .will post tomorrow after Caymans - Formal night tonigiht .

1.12p - western tip of Castro's evil domain. sunny, windy and clear - temp 72F, water 76 pools are 81F.

Will have meet and mingle in 45 min - Viking Crown lounge

Had a nice massage this am - very relaxing - another Friday. Ruins in Costa Maya and Coz. Dolphin quest.

The frustrating part for me is that here we have 2 btls of champagne in ice buckets - and we have to ASK the cabin attendant to restock the ice. He came to do the room this am and after I came back and the room was don e both ice buckets still had melted water in them - I asked him and he OK and then took another hour to get them under ice again.

I ordered a carafe of coffee this am and we are keeping the carafe and the setups - the suites are just under the Windjammer so we are planning on running upstairs to get coffee 1st thing!!! Takes 2 minutes instead of 30-45 in the am for room service = another TIP!!

I'm a 1/2 full kind of guy, but, when I actually pay for the glass too - I expect a little better service!! The suites are just bigger cabins - if you want amenities cruise a ship with a concierge, or pick a tonier cruise line! Can;t really complain - its 75 and sunny and I'm reading a book in a lounge chair on our double sized balcony!!

I am remembering why I vacation in a rented house in hawaii - there are people EVERYWHERE!!! Kids are having a blast though so it makes it all worth while! Waiters in the real dining room are great, overall service is fine and I see happy smiling faces everywhere.

I know it sounds like I am complaining but I am NOT !!! I'm trying to give everyone the flavor of the moment!!!

Sitting in the C&A lounge @ 1.21p - signing off for now -

As we passed Cuba and entered the Caribbean the clouds moved in and it has hgotten caribbean partly cloudy but the wind is fierce!!!

TTFN

Royal Suite includes 2 1ltr bottle of water - 2 bottles of 1.5L sparking water and 2 redbull - that last an interesting selection.

The suite is a little worn around the edges, wear is evident but not too bad.

Cayman day - I have been here b4 and just got off to buy cigars. Liqour is priced higher than some mainland shops - buyer beware. I looked at a Rolex GMT - they were asking $5075 - not $5k mind you, but it was still $2700 more than I could have bought it for a Heathrow 3 weeks ago. So - there are no real deals here.

If you want tshirts tshirts tshirts. . . this is your place. I tried to buy a set of black coral cufflinks and pins and they did not have the shirt pins - 'we ran out' was the answer. How do you run out when you are running the jewlers in the next room? cie la vie.

Formal night last night was lovely - seeing everyone dressed- only about 1/3 of the men had tuxes - mayber fewer than that v- the women looked great.

We are seated at a table for 8 and have not seen anyone else except us yet. Must be my after shave.

Coffee is truly horrible - tastes burnt most of the time - over boiled for sure. Yet, they'll charge you $5 for a cup at Ben & Jerry's - have not taken them up on that yet.

If you are in a suite - CALL for spa appointments now - makes it easier. They 'prebook' spa app'ts - for 8a and 6p - so you need to change them, How ahard can it be to ASK you - by email - b4 you leave what you want?

I LOVE the ship on port days - QUIET - peaceful!!!

More tomorrow from Costa Maya

sitting here in the suite -= wifi works here signal is ok

the kids program for 12+, well, sucks. there is essentially NO program. A shuffle board tourney, minigolf - NOTHING at night. There is supposed to be a scavenger hunt last night but there were no counselors - this is not Disney or Carnival - thankfully when it comes to carnival . . .

Lynn and I are enjoying the suite immensely - even without amenities. The space is wonderful - comfy, spacious, though a 19" TV seems a little small in this day and age. I miss my Tivo!! I also am gonna miss 24 tonight!! somebody tape it for me!

I'm from Marlborough CT - small town of 6000 in SE CT - not Mass. After having lived in NY, NJ, and LA, small town america works for me perfectly!

Costa Maya - Feb 21 - seems like a place that in 25 years will be a major tourist destination - the seas seem a little confused and rough which was confirmed by the Capt., so perhaps it may not be a major boating area, but the water is gorgeous and the beaches pristine.

We did the Chacchoben Ruins tour and I had one major issue with the tour - the tour company, instead of taking you straight to the ruins, instead takes a 30 min detour to a cheesy little roadside tourist stop hacked out of the scrub designed to part you from your money. What was amusing was some of the 'native' crafts had Made in China, Made in Malaysia and Made in Guatemala stickers on the bottom which made it even more offensive to me. I would rather have spent the 30 minutes it took for this tourist trap at the ruins exploring on my own, RCCL claims they had no idea about this stop and at least told me that they'd look into it. Unless they are getting a cut I suppose.

The ruins were absolutely fascinating to see basically how fast the jungle took over from the civilization. Our guide was very knowledge about the history, but I overheard different stories from different guides, so history down here appears to be under some interpretation!

The tourist trap at the port sold nothing of value - the stuff was the same stuff you could buy at any flea market in the southwest USA, at higher prices. I am a tequila aficionado and looked at some tequila at the pier and prices were actually higher than I could buy the same item at home. I bought a bottle of Gran Centennario Anejo for $52.99 last month and they wanted $56 for it and would not bargain at all on liquor prices. They had some specialty brands but one would think that a person who buys high end tequila would know the market and thus I cannot believe that they sell a lot of it. I'll wait for this bit of shopping til I get to Cozumel.

We sit here tendering into the Mosquito Coast today. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous - a brief [less than 5 min] rain shower yesterday pulling out of Costa Maya and that has been it - partly cloudy and 80F most days - forecast is for more of the same through the end of the cruise. My wife has gone ashore since she has always wanted to see Belize and I have a lounge chair and few strawberry margaritas in my immediate future.

I will be leaving 2 books behind to start a Royal Suite lending library - so Cape Cod Guy - see if they are still here when you get here - cabin attendant's name is Anthony.

So far no invitations to dine with Capt or see the bridge - and nothing has been advertised as being available.

Just another day on the Caribbean Sea!!!

I'll answer anyone's specific questions when I get back - please be patient!

Belize - Feb 22 - I stayed on board this am and enjoyed another warm sunny Caribbean day - my wife wandered off and shopped and literally bought nothing. Every shop has the same stuff, same jewelry, same designs, same everything - kinda disappointing but everything around the world seems to be going in that direction.

I decided to wander off the ship and look around and it took me one hour to get off the ship to shore. I found Gavin last evening and mentioned the issue and indicated that he had heard about the long delays - the tender operators wanted the boats full so they sat for over 35-45 min at shore until they filled up. They simply did not want to operate empty boats in the face of expensive fuel! Once the cruise and shopping person left the gangway they slowed way down and Gavin indicated that they would have a chat with the tender operation next time through.

Dinner last night was the dance of the crazed waiters and the silly dance of the drunken passengers. I missed it since my wife came down with a fever and a upper respiratory infection and had a high fever. She appears better today - no - it was not Norwalk virus!

Cozumel - Feb 23 - cruise ends in 2 days! boo hoo! I went ashore this am early and finally found some tequila at decent prices - so I bought three bottles and a few t-shirts and now have something to put on my customs form! My wife and son went to the Dolphin Swim at Puerto Aventura and are not back yet but I'll report on that tomorrow! We are enjoying ourselves and have a $1500 ship account, but that includes the excurions, the wine club and my wife's multiple spa treatments - so its not THAT bad.

By the way, I walked on the ship with 3 bottles of tequila in a carry bag and they did not care at all - no one asked me to remove the liquor and no one asked me to remove the carryon bottle of tequila either when we boarded. Maybe they only pull rum and vodka!!! They have NO - ZERO - selection of fine tequilas at the ships bars - the fanciest is Jose Cuervo, and all the bars do not have that one!!! That is akin to drinking Boone's Farm at age 45!

The afternoon is getting cloudy as I write this and perhaps we get a little liquid sunshine today toward the end of the afternoon . . . .

Hope you are having fun reading this - Joe

OK - Review of the Coz. dolphin excursion - was done swimming with the fishes [ok. mammals] by 10.30a - they did not ANYONE leave Playa Del Carmen until after 1.30p - my wife almost fainted 3 times - and she was alone with my son. She lacked the hutspa to simply go buy a ferry ticket and leave - uinderstandable since she did not feel well. They held everyone hostage again for 3 hours to spend money on worthless crap. she wrote up a scathing report for the explorations desk. Look, how hard can it be to give people their ferry ticket and tell them to go back at their leisure or with the group when the group leaves - there is only ONE ferry after all.

As for the 'same crap' - here is an example - I was looking for a nice cufflink and stud set- NO one had studs, yet I saw the EXACT same selection of cufflinks in Belize, Costa Maya, the Caymans and Cozumel - NOTHING different. I saw the same sinks and shirts and pottery everywhere - EXACTLY the same stuff. How is this worth my time? so, our STRONG recommendation is that you book ANY excurions yourself and spend the extra $10 to do it alone - then YOU control the time you spend wherever you go and don;t waste your money on any of the crap - you can find it just as easily on ebay and it'll cost less and you will not have to haul it home.

We also grew tired of the bland food. I got off the boat in Coz, found a little liquor store about 8 blocks inland that had a fantastic selection very inexpensive, and hauled them back to the boat. I also had the best darn heuvos and chorizo I have EVER had at a little joint next door. And - I drank the water. It was filled with locals who were very friendly and one of them spoke pidgin english which worked with my italian laced spanish and we talked for over an hour about their lives and culture and I got more from that hour than a week of propaganda spewed forth by RCL and the tourist boards. These folks like the tourists who respect their culture and despise most of them who arrive in t-shrts and bathing suits and treat them like servants. I saw it with my own eyes in most ports.

There is a military checkpoint between the Costa Maya pier and the main highway - these folks confirmed that you NEVER go south of there if you value your property or life. The rebels in Chiapas control that part of the country and banditry is high. The info you get from the cruise ship tour operators is that it is there for safety of the port and touristas - the real reason is that it is the last place the Mexican government actually controls until you get to Belize.

We had one interesting event @ Coz - 2 ladies were almost an hour late gettng back to the ship. Capt. Olsen was waiting for them and when they arrived they all received a cheer from the balcony cabins on our side of the ship when the tender arrived with them in tow - they covered their faces as they got on board!

I used to like sea days, but that was on Holland America! The geezers stayed in their cabins or went to the 'how to pack' seminar and the decks were calm. Sea days on this cruise were a madhouse - reserved chairs on bothdecks by 8a - rude shoving and people just being generally obnoxious. I enjoyed having a younger crowd on the cruise, but I spent the last half of it alone, with my wife asleep in the cabin sick as a dog. Kind of limited my fun.

Wait Staff -we sat at Table 103 - waited on by Julia [Yulia Genova - from Estonia but of Russian heritage - interesting person to speak with, by Cozumel we got off the boat together and she joined me while I bought cigars but declined to join me on my tequila hunting expedition!] and Diana [from Guatemala]. They were wonderful, but then, they had no one to wait on except us. BOTH of their tables emptied out. There were 4 people @ Table 105, and after the first night 2 of them left to join another table right next to 105 and the other couple splt on formal night since they did not want to sit at a table for 8 alone. We had another table for 8 and it was the 3 of us, and just ME 2 of the 7 nights. I got lots of attention. As I said, food was ok, but bland - we have 2 mexican ports and you'd think they would have mexican food, but nooooooo. BLAND BLAND BLAND = only seasonings were salt, pepper, ketchup, steak sauce, cocktail sauce and horseradish.

Kid's Program - ages 3-11 looked ok. Ages 12-14 woefully inadequate - they expected 12-14 yearolds to introduce themselvesto each other, find likeable playmates and then deal with the 15-17 year olds who were hanging out in the same space. Poor poor operation and NO - repeat NO - counselors for that age group. These poor kids are barely out of elemenary school and are in the middle of dealing with the hardest 5 years of their emotional lives and they are thrown into pressure cooker with older teens who are off kissing and making out in the corners of Optix and on various parts of the ship. I watched 2 12 year old boys walk up to optix, look in, look at each othe and then walk away. Thats' not fair to those kids.

Getting Off.

We awoke at about 7a from the sounds of the deckhands. Then at 7.15 there was the announcement to basically get your ass out of bed and be out of your cabin by 8a. It was nicer than that,but that was the gist of the announcement - alot louder than the others!

Lynn felt a little better and was ready to leave after showering by about 8a - and we heard the announcement that 'White' [all the suite holders and I titanium passholders [a joke] had white] could leave the ship. We moseyed off at that point and were off the ship by 8.15a and they then started all the other colors. We were through immigration and had luggage and were in a taxi literally by 8.30 and at the airport by 9a. So debark was fast and easy and had ZERO wait and ZERO hassle. They have it down to an art and a science.

As we left immigration I glaced back and there was a line going up the stairs and escalator, and back to the ship - so white passholders got the better end of that bargain. I imagine wait times began to really stretch out at that point. Gone are the days when immigration precleared cruisers with passports. . . . and all you needed to do was get luggage and deal with customs.

Overall, I and my wife were utterly disappointed in the amenities in the Royal Suite- the best one was getting off - which was priceless but still was sad since it was at the end.

I will send RCCL a nice letter, basically telling them that they delivered what they promised - hence, I will spend my premium cabin money elsewhere. If I spend $6k for a week for 3 people I want to be wowed with service, not met with indifference and getting delivered what was promised. To capture the premium fare markey you need to EXCEED expectations.

I will scan and PDF the Cruise compasses and the Kids 12-14 cards - and put them on my website and link to them later in the week.

Here are answers to specific questions:

Windjammer was 1/2 closed until Coz - then it opened up the other 1/2 but the entry on that was still closed when we left.

Ship Motion: noticeable - one night we had strong winds from the east and about 4 foot swells and I heard several persons got ill. Personally, I do NOT get motion sickness at all so it was not a problem, Lynn is incredibly senstive and she did not have any problems at all. I think the REAL reason is that our bed faced forward, in all non-suite cabins on Legend the beds face sideways so you get the combination of forward motion and the side to side while your semicircular canals are 90 degrees to the direction of the ship - IF you are motion sensitive I would STRONGLY recommend a cabin with a foreward or aft facing bed. In fact, as I'm sitting here typing I STILL feel like I am moving.

"Snacks" - you get them on both formal nights - very unsatisfying presentation. The doorbell rings and you get a plate shoved into your hands. No explanation, no 'complementary note,' no reason why you are getting it. So, it was not thought out at all - they assumed you knew what it was about.

Other questions:

1) Could you check the library to see if it looks like a good one-- many choices/some new books.

About 3 years out of date - NO current bestsellers.

2) Does the thermostat in your suite work or is it merely decorative?

Yes - within a narrow range it worked fine.

3) Does the bathroom light switch turn off the wall plugs(wondering about bringing a night light)

In the RS ALL lights are on dimmers - no night light is needed.

4)We are in Cabin 7132- aft. Have you talked with anyone in one of the aft cabins who can tell us anything about them?

I saw the aft facing cabins - looked very private.

5) How would you rate your beds (1-10 with 10 being perfect)--I have read some negative comments and wondered if a mattress change was part of the refitting last year in drydock.

The RS mattress was hard as a rock - VERY VERY Firm.

6) What shows are they doing and are they good?

Shows are fine - nothing special and nothing horrible - geared to, well, I'm sorry here, but people who do not get out much. The entertainers are ok and we had the 'original Drifters' one night which was nice - I'm not a fan of 50's/60's motown but these guys were entertaining and fun to listen to. The best evidence of the show quality was that by Thurs. night there was no one there - I saw the main seating Thurs night show and there were 12 people there.

6) Are you having FUN????? I hope so. And thanks again for sharing

We had fun, was it as satisfying as the 12 days we spent last year on Maui renting a house with a pool? Sadly, no. Too many people and too much geared to hurry up and wait. Will we cruise again? Only for Alaska. We're done, we spent alot of money and rediscovered why we have not been on a cruise since 1998.

If you WANT exceptional service and a nice cabin, do NOT book a suite on Legend or any other Vision class ship. If you want to be on Legend, then that is a different animal. If you want service, I'd go to Celebrity or even Holland or Norwwegian and book a suite, get a butler and maid and concierge service and be done with it - RCCL is too 'main cabin' oriented to do a good job of premium cabin service. That's my opinion in a nutshell.

BTW - I hope that everyone understands that problems and opinions are what I intend to describe - the staff was wonderful [though one day the bartenders could not make a strawberry margarita - the first one was yellow and the second one was white and the waitress just kind of looked at me like I was crazy - so I held up the drink and asked the cruisers on both sides of me - Is this a strawberry margarita - and the Chorus said - NOOOOO!!! She was not amused, but then spoke almost no english and said "This is what the bartender gave me.." Had she never sold a strawberry 'rita before?] , polite and competent.

The food was plentiful and cheap - the lobster was typical buffet quality, though there was a lot of it. Cruising is fun, though not for us. Everyone is different and a fresh [realisitic?] perspective is sometimes helpful for those planning a cruise.

The RS cabin attendant was horrible - he was NEVER around.

We needed kleenex when my wife was sneezing and draining, it was 6p - prime time for cleaning, and he was nowhere to be found. I went out 15 min later - same thing. Was NOT in a cabin.

On Friday, at 10a - I locked myself out, again, he was nowhere to be found. There were 2 other times when he said he was on duty [8-1 and 4-9] and he was nowhere on the deck. I was out for 20 min until my wife heard the phone ring.

Amazingly, the RS Cabin attendant had TWELVE cabins, of which 6 were suites, to attend to.

We got towel animals twice, nothing special or fancy about his service at all. He tidyed up ok, but he was nothing special. Lots of smiles, little substance, did not want to talk until we had his tip envelope. I only tipped him for a cabin rate, and then only for 2 people, he was really that bad. I told him I was disappointed with the service and would have given specifics but he just smiled some more and I walked away.

He actually told ALL of the suite guests that on the Tampa departure night there would be NO late service - I needed to figure out how to pull out the sofa bed on my own, and it is NOT your normal sofa bed - it requires several separate steps to get it open instead of pulling it out like a normal sofa bed. He earned his low tip.
 

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