Welcome to Your Favorites, where you have the opportunity to share your travel experiences with fellow Internet Travelers around the world.

Royal Caribbean International

MV Splendour of the Seas

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Malcolm Oliver
# previous cruises: 10 to 20
Date of Trip: August 15, 2004
Itinerary: Mediterranean

SPLENDOUR OF THE SEAS was generally pretty splendid, and proved to be a very comfortable ship with good facilities, however she was state-of-the-art quite a long time ago now.

It is easy to see that RCI have taken all of the good ideas and designs from the Vision Class, and built upon them on the Radiance, Voyager and Freedom Class. Given a straight choice, the Radiance Class wins, but I certainly would not avoid the Vision Class ships, if the price and itinerary is right.

RCI do push their onboard sales too vigorously, but do offer good value for money - comfortable floating resorts, with a reasonable standard of food and service. However, if you are looking for a more sedate and cultured experience with the finest cuisine, you had better look elsewhere and be prepared to pay a lot more money for it!

The '42 Street Theatre' is decorated in a pleasing Art Deco style, with charming illuminated murals of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. There are excellent sight lines, with few columns to obscure your view. It has comfortable leather style seating, offering a number of 'lovers' (twin) seats, rather like mini-sofas. All of the seats are well tiered so you do not spend the entire show looking at the person's head in front. The power of the amplification and lighting systems will certainly not allow you to catch up on your sleep during an RCI show. The waiters will be happy to serve you drinks if required, or keep constantly asking you, even if you don't require.

Unfortunately there is not a dedicated Cinema onboard, although a couple of movies were shown in the show lounge.

The Schooner Bar is an attractive wooden clad space, with lots of lots brass and ropes to enforce the maritime connection. A very proficient barroom style pianist/singer entertained here each night. However, the abundance of smokers here each evening put me off using the room.

The Casino is reasonably large and more attractive than many others I have seen. It has lots of multi-coloured cut class lamp shades and Vegas sparkle, plus the obligatory nocturnal atmosphere.

Splendour's Atrium begins on deck four and stretches upwards for seven decks. A peculiar 'sun like' art object is its centre piece. This atrium has the now obligatorily glass elevators, a bar, a small stage for live musicians (.and dead ones), a pursers and shore excursions desk. There were also several glass Hollywood style staircases, perfectly suited to being used as backdrops for the ship's photographers' formal portraits.

The 'Top Hat Lounge' is located on deck five. This is directly above the theatre, and of a similar size, but just one level high, rather than the theatre's two. It is however, an impressive second venue, a spacious alternative to the main theatre. It is a pity that it did not seem very well utilised or well attended, during my cruise.

In addition there is a second pool, in the Solarium, covered by a moveable glass roof, know as the Crystal Canopy. The pool has a Roman theme, complete with Roman style pillars and water jets which occasionally cascade into the pool. This is an adults only pool, although RCI did not always seem to enforce this, especially later in the day. The Solarium is also linked to the Beauty Salon, Saunas, Massage Therapy area and Gym.

RCI's unique trademark, the Viking Crown Lounge is located on Deck 11. The panoramic glass elevators take you up to it. The Viking Crown is an observation lounge, built around the funnel, which offers good views of the ocean and the pool area. There is a bar, lots of comfortable chairs, and a disco area for evening use. This is a very quiet and cool place to sit, when everybody else is crowded around the pool, scorching in the sun.

RCI operates a traditional dining system on there ships and have not embraced a 'freestyle' system. You are assigned a table and a time (6.30 or 8.30 pm) in the main dining room, the 'King and I'.

I personally like the concept of one grand main dining room, rather than two or three, less impressive spaces as on some other ships. 'The King and I' sounds rather tacky, but is in fact rather nice. It has decor in a Siam (Thai) style, including two sparkling dragons which guard the main entrance. It is a two level room, seating about one thousand guests. However, its design cleverly makes it feel very much smaller than it is

The food and service is very good, although not exceptional. The menu included American favourites like Prime Rib and Lobster tails. Vegetarian and low fat options were available. It was interesting to see that the Maitre d' was using a computerized system to allocate tables and not just a big piece of paper. Never the less I was allocated an early sitting, instead of my preference of late, which I was unable to change. Mind you I did book the cruise on very short notice.

The Windjammer Cafi at the stern of the ship proved to be very popular for casual evening meals. The choice of food was not extensive here, but it was excellent. I had the best pan-fried king prawns of my life here.

Unlike almost all of the new builds, there are no other alternative dining venues on Splendour. However, having said that, I'd be amazed if you could not find something worthy to eat in main Dining Room or Windjammer. There were no traditional style midnight buffets held onboard, but there were several deck parties, with late evening barbecues, which were very popular.

Splendour has a rather large choice of cabin grades, sixteen in fact. These range from Royal Suites, Owners Suites, to Ocean View and Interior Cabins. Although Splendour is a reasonably big ship, she is not so big that her corridors and staircases seem to go on forever.

For this cruise I picked the cheapest inside grade cabin we could find, on deck three. This was the first time I had been in an inside cabin, however it was adequate in terms of space, although not overly generous either. Occasionally two adults would get in each others' way at the bottleneck by the dressing table.

Did I miss having a window, you may ask? Well, yes, and for several reasons. Firstly the lack of natural light can be a bit disturbing. After a day's sightseeing in the sunshine, coming back into the cabin can feel like entering a dungeon. Secondly, I like to know when we are entering port and leaving port, so I can run up to the upper deck and take photographs and enjoy the view. However it was the price savings with the inside cabin that allowed me to take this cruise in the first place.

The shower in my cabin was rather small and separated from the rest of the bathroom by a curtain. The water pressure was quite low, so it was not so much a shower as a trickle, but it still felt good after a hard day's tourism. The toilet was the normal 'Barking Dog' (vacuum) variety.

I was particularly pleased to find that the cabin PA speaker could be turned off to avoid the annoying announcements from the Cruise Director about Bingo and other annoying onboard activities.

One small point about the breakfast room service; it was free and it was prompt, but they never seemed to get my order exactly right. There was always something missing, such as butter or toast or even the coffee!

RCI entertainment is aimed squarely at the mass market. Like much of RCI's operation, it is neither excellent nor bad.

There was the obligatory 'flesh and feathers' style shows, a magician, a plate spinner, a couple of singers, flamenco guitarists, piano player etc. On the whole the entertainment package was adequate to pass an hour away per evening, although some of the individual musicians were excellent. It is a pity that the production shows use taped music and was lip synced, when there was a competent live orchestra onboard. Although, I suppose they do deserve the occasional night off.

What RCI's entertainment package does lack is cultural events, such as guest speakers. I particularly miss these on the sea days. The do not need to offer talks on "quantum physics" or "the theory of relativity", but a few speakers offering general interest topics, would provide some welcome variety to the generally low-brow, programme.

Although RCI clearly strive to attract the mass market and first-time cruisers, our fellow passengers appeared to come from a broad spectrum of society. I must admit though, the phenomenal success of the onboard version of the 'Mr and Mrs' game - billed as one of the cruise highlights - and the pool side 'Belly Flop' competition did make me wonder at times. (I'm proud to say that a Brit won the Belly Flop, by the way.)

I cruised in August 2004, when splendour offers seven night round trips from Barcelona to the Mediterranean ports of Villefranche, Livorno, Civitavecchia, Naples, and Valletta. Each port was fascinating, but with only one sea day it was a very port intensive cruise. The Med sun is also very hot in August, for a Brit!

Excursions were required to see the likes of Rome and Florence. As per normal, these were of good quality, but not cheap.

RCI clearly aim their product at the younger more active set, which includes families. RCI occupy the middle ground between up-scale and full-on mass market. O.K. they do successfully attract the masses, but they still manage to retain some elements of style and finesse.

SPLENDOUR OF THE SEAS was generally pretty splendid, and proved to be a very comfortable ship with good facilities.

(A more detailed version of this review can be found in the 'Ship Review' section).