Royal Caribbean International

MV Grandeur of the Seas

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Operator: Royal Caribbean International
Year Built / Last Refurbished: 1996/1996
Length / Tonnage: 916 / 74,140
Number of Cabins / Passengers: 975 / 1,950
Officers / Crew: Norwegian / International
Operating Area: Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda

The American songwriter Harold Arlen said it in a mouthful.....”You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative...” Royal Caribbean International, formerly known as Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, is a true success story in the shark eat shark world of modern day cruise ship operators.

It all started with a dream of some experienced Miami shipping men and it came to reality through the hard work and unchanging visions of a second generation. It’s hard to imagine when you look at ships like the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS and consider that her owners are expecting a pair of twins that will come in at some 55,000 TONS MORE THAN THIS 74,000 TON GIANT that it all began with 5000 rust buckets like the 1927 built EVANGELINE and YARMOUTH. Veterans of short haul coastal trades linking Boston and New York with Nova Scotia, these ships ended their careers in the three and four day market along with fellow veteran, the FLORIDA of 1930. These were the ships, with their $54.00 per person minimum fare for the three nighter (and actually, in terms of buying power, a three night Florida to Bahamas cruise is cheaper today!!!) to the Bahamas that began it all...the successful regular cruises from South Florida, which was and is a style of cruising fundamentally, though certainly not totally, different than routine cruises from New York, the west coast, or Europe. The idea of cruising from South Florida quickly began to attract increasing numbers of vacation seekers, happy to begin a cruise in warm weather and relieved to avoid sailing past often ferocious waters off Cape Hatteras.

Putting together a consortium of three Norwegian shipping companies, men like Ed Stephan got Royal Caribbean going in 1970, when they took delivery of the first of their new breed, the SONG OF NORWAY. She was followed the next year by the NORDIC PRINCE and their identical sister, SUN VIKING brought up the rear in 1972. Admittedly, the old guard, used to a wide range of public rooms, cabins of various sizes and decor, and European hotel crews, did not quickly take these ships to their bosom, and veteran cruise passengers fond of the stricter formality of another style stayed away. I still don’t know anyone who liked their “ravioli sized” cabins. It’s been uphill towards the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS ever since.....these new RCI giants are dandy...and since the old guard whose favorite ships are longer gone than they are, their opinion of the first trio should not stand in your way of looking at what these new ships are.....grand in every way.

Having a fondness for intimate 500 passenger ships, I boarded the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS as a skeptic....how could any ship, no matter its size, deliver a high quality, personalized service, as well as manage to reduce or eliminate line ups and bottlenecks for popular activities? And would we be just passengers with ID numbers on our Super Charge ID cards, or recognized guests? Well, I’m scraping the egg off my face as I write, for the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS, save an occasional glitch, surpassed my expectations. Now I know what draws passengers back to Royal Caribbean.. On this ship, they offer one of the most complete and comfortable extra large vessels around, but only when necessary could passengers be herded like cattle.

For such a large vessel, rarely carrying fewer than 2000 passengers during peak season, the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS has an amazing array of lounges. For intimate ambience, consider the Crown and Anchor Club which is turned into a cigar smoking room during the evening, and the Explorer’s Club....both rooms are quiet havens, well away from boisterous nightlife. The ship has a card room and library one deck below, also ideal for peaceful reflection. Now on to the livelier spaces. The Palladium Show Room is not a lounge...it’s a theater, without windows, and it has terrific sight lines from virtually every seat, an excellent sound and light system and a complex stage that rivals anything seen on Broadway...and best of all....it’s comfortable!

The largest lounge aboard is the aft situated South Pacific Lounge, comfortably fitted with sofas, large chairs, a dance floor with bandstand and a bar. Nearby is my favorite nocturnal haunt, the Schooner Bar, with magnificent floor to ceiling windows and oh so soft lighting.... here’s where a top notch pianist will entertain your musical requests each night. Cleverly located near the dining room entrance, the Champagne Terrace is a pleasant space, perfect for that pre dinner cocktail and dance.....and they serve hot appetizers nightly! The Dining Room, a magnificently muted (color, decor and NOISE wise) has, like it or not, both smoking and non smoking sections. To many, the most important public room on any ship is the casino.....GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS’ will not disappoint, as it offers blackjack, roulette, craps, Caribbean Stud Poker and slot machines aplenty. And finally, there’s Royal Caribbean’s signature room.....the Viking Crown Lounge....high atop the ship and terraced for unobstructed views of the pool areas below. Let me tell you how easy it is to find seating in any of the lounges....the only traffic bottleneck I saw was during the shops’ opening hours, which understandably drew large crowds to a seemingly endless array of sale items (prices for shipboard souvenirs seemed high, and the quality less than imposing). So, to sum it up, no matter what your mood is at any moment, the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS has a place for you.

Here’s a record of sorts....I had seven perfect dinner entrees on a seven night cruise. The dinner service was leisurely, personable, and a pleasure. The sommelier we had deftly navigated us through the wine list. The Windjammer cafe offers a limited but capable breakfast and lunch.... with stand alone circular buffet bars for hot foods, cold foods, salads and desserts, so that lines are minimal. During lunch, there’s a choice of five hot entrees with a “roast du jour”. .From 6:30pm to 9:30pm, the cafe offers casual dinner dining. There’s an outdoor covered area, both port and starboard, with ceiling fans and pleasant varnished wood banquettes and chairs, for al fresco diners.

I’m a man who thinks that a great dinner party is one with 50 Benedictine monks who’ve pledged silence, so I wasn’t looking forward to an RCI dining tradition....singing waiters...but I’ve been foiled again....because on this cruise ship, the singing works, and in fact, it’s a welcome vote of good cheer to all....there were no sappy speeches coming from a lounge lizard cruise director, inviting us to drown ourselves in overactive tear ducts for our cruise had come to a close.....there weren’t any cues to put our arms around our table companions and pledge eternal friendship....and blessedly, there were no insistent instructions to clap ourselves silly for waiter, busboy, pastry chef.... their parents, grandparents, and so on and so forth. And when the waiters did sing, it never disrupted the service...it was cute, quick and lots of fun.

The minimum grade cabins are AMAZING!!!! At just under 160 square feet, but through ingenious design, these cabins sport some of the best storage space I’ve ever seen. No less than 14 drawers, a 53" long closet (with 24 wooden hangars) and oodles of shelves for toiletries, books and what nots are fitted in each room. The lighting in each cabin offers maximum charm, with a noticeable lack of harsh fluorescence. Wooded accented walls, full length mirrors, cheerful and colorful artwork, curtains and carpets add a warmth to the living space.

Each standard cabin has a love seat or easy chair. Lower beds can be arranged as french twins (queen sized bed). Electric outlets for 120 volts and 230 volts are cleverly arranged at the desk for the ever popular lap top computer, cd player, or whatnot. Category “D” cabins are similarly equipped but offer a small private veranda. There are a handful of these cabins located aft, and any added vibration felt from the engines might be overlooked if you are a fantail fan....the ship’s wake and the gentle rolling ocean can be hypnotizing! Outside Bridge Deck cabins come in 5 sizes, big, bigger, bigger yet, huge and cavernous. All are considered suites, and all have the requisite luxuries....mini refrigerators, sitting areas, verandas, large bathrooms with tubs, and more storage space than two people could fill on a seven day cruise. RCI, thinking of family travelers, has outfitted four suites in category AA to accommodate up to eight people. I saw every type of cabin on this ship......and there wasn’t a single one I wouldn’t have been happy occupying.

Anyone who wants “it all”.....night life, quiet life, romantic spots.....should be pleased with the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS. I saw all age groups, many nationalities, many income brackets....everyone seemed to have a great time. It’s my opinion that whenever a ship carries this many passengers, you’re bound to find pleasant company. I do offer this caveat....if your primary concern is formal service, you should consider looking elsewhere....pretension does not go over well on GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS.

From San Juan, the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS's Southern Caribbean itinerary includes stops at Oranjestad, Aruba - Willemstad, Curacao - Philipsburg, St. Maarten - Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.

At San Juan, Puerto Rico, the ship ties up at the foot of the old town, an area that has been rehabbed into a charming colonial style maze of small streets, chock a block with boutiques, bistros and the like. The St. Thomas call offers a full day for potential pocket draining, but sun worshipers can be whisked to lovely Magen’s Beach on the other side of the island.

During the summer she will move to Europe for a series of 7-night Wetern Mediterranean cruises leaving from Barcelona with stops at Villefranche,(Nice), France - Livorno(Florence/Pisa)Italy - Rome(Civitavecchia), Italy - Naples, Italy - Valetta, Malta. She will also offer 7-night cruises from Civitavecchia, Italy with stops at Naples, Italy - Valetta, Malta - Barcelona, Spain - Villefranche,(Nice), France - Livorno(Florence/Pisa)Italy.

She returns across the Atlantic in September for a series of 7 and 10 night cruises to Canada/New England from Boston. The 10-night cruises stop at Portland, Maine - Halifax, Nova Scotia - Sydney, Nova Scotia - Quebec City, Quebec - Saguenay River - Saint John, New Brunswick - Bar Harbor, Maine. The 7-night itinerary includes visits to Portland, Maine - Halifax, Nova Scotia - Sydney, Nova Scotia - Saint John, New Brunswick - Bar Harbor, Maine.

Back to Harold Arlen’s musical thought....positives and negatives... negatives first....and in the scope of things, they are quite picayune.....

I’m for hygiene and all, but must the friendly attendants in the Windjammer Cafe wear rubber surgical gloves? Or was the liver on the steam table recently extracted from one of the passengers?

Room service....tsk tsk....had we only asked we’d have known to forget room service on the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS...but the choices offered in the in cabin menu seemed so appealing....you could get full lunches or dinners and hot entrees for breakfast....IF you had the patience of Job....for the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS, because of berthing shortages for crew, has only 8 people in the room service department, whose job, on our cruise, was to provide prompt attention to 2,254 passengers! That’s only one crew for 281.75 passengers (and you thought the flight attendant on the plane ride to Miami would NEVER get to you!) Needless to say, the waits for any request be it a glass of juice or a filet mignon, could be from 10 minutes to 2 hours...depending on the luck of the draw. Having said this, RCI is well aware that they are understaffed with room service personnel and are busily working to correct a situation they are first to admit is well below their high standards.

I really wish the waiters did not feel compelled to hint, beg or flat out ask their charges to mark “excellent” on the comment cards. I cut off our waiter mid speech, because I’m not comfortable with people groveling ....and the craziest thing of all was that he was wasting his breath on us....because his work WAS EXCELLENT and there was absolutely no need to bring up the matter.

Tables for two in the Dining Room are as rare as two headed cows.....and your travel agent would have to be a Merlin the Magician to get one for you in advance.

The cruise director has absolutely no business, during his debarkation talk, intimating that the suggested tips of $3.00 per person per day for the waiter and the room steward and $1.50 a day to the bus boy are the MINIMUM suggested tips....these figures are in line with the standards by which most cruise lines operate. The cruise director ought to be muzzled for this tacky infraction of good taste.

And speaking of the cruise director, on the plus side, he kept his public announcements to a minimum....but the REPEATED pleas to come to bingo became tedious. AND, his staff, with one exception, wasn’t the most personable group I’ve encountered....having said that, with over 2000 passengers aboard, one cannot expect them to become your best “bud”....but a smile and hello when in an elevator or passing on deck couldn't have hurt.

I know standards of American service have changed over the years....and some people might view good service as being a bar waiter passing by your deck chair every 5 minutes (no exaggeration) doing his best imitation of a stadium hot dog vendor trying to get you to buy his wares.... but would it be so difficult to have these hard working staff position themselves at strategic locations on deck where they could be summoned as needed?

And cheerfully I APPLAUD the following.....

Very friendly purser’s desk, eager to help and always patient with the passengers.

With the exception of a boom box located at the pool bar, there is no irritating piped in music played out on deck, so that any serene moment you might wish to enjoy is blessedly preserved.

The petit fours are heavenly.

The Fifth Dimension, if any indication of the caliber of star entertainment RCI provides, rockets this company into first place for quality show times.

Not that this should concern anyone but someone like me, who spends half his life at sea.....but it was fun and refreshing to meet real seamen, Captain Ulf Svensson and hotel manager Jonathan Booth.....both men have a fascinating history working aboard passenger ships of yesteryear....and it pleases me that they enjoy people AND ships enough to make the GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS their home.

The amount and variety of deck space on GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS is magnificent....only during peak sunning hours would a late riser have to hunt a little while to find a deck chair (and only if that someone required a pool side chaise). And here’s another pleasant crowd pleaser....the windows along the side of the ship in the pool area slide open to prevent the lido from becoming a human slow roast pit. And even in the most oppressive of Caribbean sunshine, there are tons and tons of large soft beach towels available to mop off the sweat.

Our room steward was the first, in many many cruises, to refill, without being asked, ice in the champagne bucket......a shining example of how the room stewards consider the smallest details while servicing the cabin.

The GRANDEUR OF THE SEAS is a seagoing Levittown....a FULL SERVICE RESORT, with facilities, food and entertainment to appeal to all age groups, all income brackets, and a bevy of nationalities. The various departments are operated in a non traditional seagoing way...it’s designed to operate as a resort....the fact that it floats is, to most, a pleasant bonus, but I believe that to RCI, it’s not a requisite. Because the line has broken the distinction between a pleasure ship and a land based resort, RCI makes first timers, cruise novices, and hardened cruise veterans comfortable....it’s a vacation product that does not intimidate. So here’s the BOTTOM LINE......HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!