And secondly, I apologize now to any of you who don't want to see a bunch of photos of a ship. I know that many people, myself included scour the internet for photos of ships they are going to be sailing (or are considering sailing). The Legend of the Seas was recently "revitalized" and there are not a whole lot of post dry dock photos of all the redone spaces out there--so for the sake of my fellow cruise critic addicts this post will be very ship heavy. Feel free to skip it if that is not your thing.
And with that, let's get back to the trip report!
We slept late-ish and had breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express (included), then headed back out to drive nearly two hours on to Genoa. We had an address, and printed directions to the parking garage that the Royal Caribbean office in Genoa recommended when I called as well as a confirmation of our reservation and paid deposit.
Arriving around 10:00 at the address (which matched the directions to a T) we had a very "only in Italy" experience. We pulled up to a parking garage alright, but it looked very industrial and there was no marked entrance and no sign saying "Parkmar" or anything else for that matter. We had slowed to a crawl on the one block long street and I was rereading the directions (in case we missed something) when two men came running over from a car and flagged us down to ask if we were looking for Parkmar. They explained that we were in the right place but that the garage was full and they would be taking the car to another location. We could leave the car there, leave them the keys (which we knew would be required anyway, because they bring your car to the ship when you debark) and go ahead an pay the balance and they'd call the shuttle to come get us to take us to the cruise. So, we stood there in a deserted parking lot handing over our car keys and 100 Euro in cash and then got into an unmarked van. So NOT the norm to American sensibilities! But, we have been here long enough to know it is pretty typical stuff for Italy.
Once at the port, we dropped our bags, headed in, signed some forms and were told by an employ that it would be 30-45 minutes before boarding started and strongly encouraged to walk around town. It was cool and VERY windy and we still had carry ons and we knew we would have a full day to explore Genoa when we came back through and started week two of our back to back cruises, so we declined and stayed warm and not windblown in the terminal (along with another German couple).
Before long we were checked in and headed through security to board the ship. As expected, security saw all the bottles in our hard sided carry on and made me take them all out. I really wish we had thought to take a photo of all 8 of our wine bottles (and two of winery grape juice for the kids) all lined up on the security desk! It was pretty comical. The others boarding at the time must have thought we were trying to sneak on and getting caught. In fact, we were completely within the rules. Royal's policy (since January) is to allow 2 bottles of wine per cabin to be brought on for each cruise. We book two cabins (one for the kids and one for us adults), so that was 4 bottles. Royal's website also says that for back to back cruises you can bring eh wine for the second cruise and security will hold it for you and deliver it to your room for the second portion. Sure enough, as soon as security understood that we had two rooms on each of two cruises it was a non issue. 5 minutes later we wheeled our bag, now lighter 4 bottles until the following week, outside and then onboard the ship.
The kids headed right up to"Latte-tudes" to play a game of Connect Four while us adults stopped by guest services for extra keys. Latte-tudes is the premium coffee shop onboard. If you want to drink coffee that is not "swill" (per David) this is the place to get it--at a price. They also sell cupcakes and Ben and Jerry's ice cream here, have a lending library, games to borrow and in the morning there are pastries available (at no extra charge). Here are a few photos of the space:
One armed with extra keys, we followed time honored cruise tradition and went straight to the buffet for lunch.
We actually did not have the pretty little display above. Only 300 passengers boarded in Genoa, which was not enough to put out the welcome mat, apparently. Nor was it out for the 200 who boarded the following day in Marseilles. The display went up in the primary port of Civitavechia, where approximately 1000 passengers boarded. So, for us, the above display was on the LAST night of each of our loops around the Med, but the photo seemed more fitting here.
It was a fairly standard buffet. The food was good but nothing spectacular.
There was a definite oddity about the room though. ALL of the tables in the Windjammer indoor seating area were set extremely low to the ground. Almost coffee table height:
We found this very awkward and uncomfortable and carried our food outside, or when it was too cold and windy then into the Solarium, any other time we ate from the buffet.
After lunch we went for a walk around the rest of deck 9, by the outdoor pool:
and the indoor, Solarium, pool:
and even stopped to play some of the "pool games" the staff had set up (they had come up with alternatives that could be played on deck and not require getting wet, to accommodate the cool and windy weather.
It was getting close to 1:00 (the designated time at which you can enter your stateroom), so we headed down to deck 6 and sure enough our rooms were ready. We had E2 balcony staterooms. These are rooms which were porthole rooms before the refurb and essentially a balcony was welded onto the side of the ship (sticking out further than all the others) throughout that entire deck, turning the rooms into balcony staterooms. These photos are of 6532 (which looked identical to the kids' 6524). The age of the ship really showed in how small the rooms were. We have had interiors that were bigger than these balcony rooms!
Two features of the closet drove me bonkers:
1. the hangers were the annoying kind that cannot be fully removed from the rail (as if anyone has room in their suitcase to steal hangers from the cruiseline!) AND to make matters worse, when the little plastic ring part that stays on the bar was installed half of them had the hole to put the metal part in facing towards the back wall and half out towards the room. It was a pain in the backside to twist everything around and get it hung up.
2. Putting the safe smack dab in the middle of the wall (from top to bottom) essentially made that entire half of the closet useless. Shirts and pants hung down onto the safe, getting wrinkled and dirty and blocking entry to the safe if you hung them on the top rail, and drug on the floor getting wrinkled and dirty if hung on the lower bar.
On the plus side (and I cannot believe I failed to take a photo of this!), you could open the closet door and fold it flat in on itself so it was totally out of the way and you could still easily walk in the hall area, open the bathroom or main door, etc. This was a first for us on any ship and we really liked that design.
Of course, we enjoyed the balcony too:
Of note, both of our rooms (and both of the ones on deck 6 we moved into the following week) had no smoking signs on the balcony:
It appeared to us that ALL of the deck 6 E2 balconies on the Legend of the Seas prohibit smoking. Our best guess as to why is that it looked like no water lines (and thus, fire suppression systems) were run out to those added on balconies. We LOVED this because it meant none of our neighbors were smoking and we would consider intentionally booking these smaller rooms again in the future for this reason. I would imagine that a smoker who had paid for a balcony in order to have a place to easily smoke onboard would be upset though. So here is your warning--no matter if you see it as a good or a bad thing, take note!
The rest of our day consisted of playing Scrabble with David from the Cruise Staff in the piano bar (Schooners--where all trivia games are held as well):
Attending the muster drill (which was SO easy--boarding at an alternate port, we all got to just sit in the theater for the main part of it, and then right at the end just be walked by our muster station), here is a photo of the theatre that I took while waiting for the drill to begin (by the way, the seats are particularly comfy):
having dinner at a HUGE table for 13 right in the dead center of the dining room (photo to come later in the report) with a group of passengers who all boarded in Genoa like us (another family of Americans living in Germany, a mother and teen daughter from Estonia, a couple from Austria and a couple from Texas),
and then we finished up the evening playing a very fun game in the Anchors Aweigh lounge. The game was called "If You Know It, Dance It." The room was divided into two teams. A song was played, and the first team to have someone on the dance floor dancing the move that is associated with the song gets 10 points. After that, both teams flood their half of the floor and all dance the move and each team gets one point for each dancer on the floor. It was a lot of fun, and worked really well for an international crowd since it was not at all language based. Our family score quite a few points for our team too! I was the first person up on the first song--I can recognize "Walk Like and Egyptian" very quickly it turns out. And no one can place a Michael Jackson song faster than Rio (who, it turns out is also really good at dancing like the kids in Footloose).
Here are a few photos from the lounge before the game:
Well, I hope you have enjoyed reading about our first day even a tiny fraction as much as we enjoyed being there.
Look for a post about the port of Marseilles tomorrow.
--Hadley
No comments:
Post a Comment