Royal Caribbean Rhapsody of the Seas 22.7.17 - Day One

[Dinglebert]

Having never done one of these before I am finding that I need to come back to edit/add things which I forgot the first time and which I feel if you are a first time cruiser are important to know.

The Journey

The flight from Edinburgh was at 7.30 to Venice with Jet2. Have never flown with them before but had no reason to be concerned. The flights and connections were the choice of Royal Caribbean so wasn't really bothered as it was up to them to get us there.

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to discover the Jet2 have a different setup in Edinburgh to every other airline I have ever flown with. Their checkin desks are not connected to the luggage belts, therefore you have to check your luggage in and then queue again to give it some someone who was working on their own with 3 different flights and there really didn't seem to be a system of what he was doing. We had fears it would be the last time we saw our cases.

By the time we go through to airside we only had 30 minutes to the flight time. A quick bacon roll and then on we went. The flight was only just under 3 hours so easy as compared to our usual 9 hours.

Arrived in Venice at Marco Polo airport. The only airport I have seen to have less organization was in Zante. We hall had to queue in the smallest arrival hall I can remember. Over 18s with no children could go through the automatic machines the rest of us just had to queue and queue and indeed queue. Eventually we got through found the RC rep easily and as we had just missed a connecting bus we had to again form a queue to wait for enough people to fill the bus.

The connection was about 30 minutes where once again we joined a new queue to get our passes etc for the ship. About 40 minutes later, passes in hand, suitcases taken away to be delivered to our rooms it was finally time to go onboard.

Passes

The passes you get are your passport about the ship. You get it at port checkin. Its your door key, it gets scanned on and off the ship at port, its the card you use to charge things to your room. It shows any drinks package you are on. In short its the only thing you need to carry with you at all times. Some people put theirs on a lanyard. We didn't. It also shows your photo hidden in the chip.

As you can see the card fades quite quickly.

The Ship


The ship was everything I expected it to be and more. You enter on deck four and are staight onto the centrum.

It took some getting used to for the first day or so. The centrum goes from deck four up to deck 10.

When they bought it 20 years ago the Rhapsody of the Seas was RC biggest ship, now it is their smallest. It had just over 2300 passengers and 800 staff onboard. The largest number of passengers around 550 were UK, then followed by 500 from the USA. In total just over 50 different nationalities onboard.

At no stage did we ever have any issue getting a seat anywhere, either a deck chair on deck 9 or at any event. We did meet a number of other cruisers who swore they wouldn't go on anything with more than 3000 guests. Indeed one described a recent cruise on the new Brittania where he had to get to the theatre an hour before to ensure a seat and a complete lack of chair around. I can't speak to their experiences as this was our first cruise. I am sure others an attest to their validity. The size did mean that we came across the same people a lot during our week.

Our first visit onboard was to the "windjammer", the buffet restaurant on deck 9 to get lunch. The choice was overwhelming and very tasty.

At 5 we sailed from Venice. It was a stunning view going past all of the main attractions of Venice. The shame was because we were straight from airport to dock and then at the end back again we didn't get a chance to walk the streets. Next time we will go a day earlier or stay a day later.

Our cabins were larger than I expected. Our cases arrived a hour or so after we were on board and we met our cabin steward for the first time. The cabin stewards are described as ninjas. You leave your room for a minute and when you come back your bed has been made again and there is a towel animal on it. Your towels have been picked up. In reality like all staff they work 7 days a week for around 8 months straight. All staff must get 10 hours a day off duty. Our room steward worked 7-1 and then 5-10. He knew all our names by the end of day one. That was everyone on our corridor.

There is one thing above all other on the cruise which was every single crew member we met from cleaner to officer met us with a smile and a welcome every single time. Staff could not do enough for you. An example of this is that one day about day 5, I dropped my "beer card". It had my name on it and cabin. However, the crew member who found it, spoke to the bar staff who knew we enjoyed a quiz and they turned up at a completely different part of the ship where we were to hand the card over before I even knew I had lost it.


We had booked late and so had "my time" dining. Rather than first sitting or second sitting in theory we could dine at anytime. The reality was we dined the same time every night in order to get the same waiting staff. Our waiter and assistant waiter anticpated our needs before we knew we had them after the first day. The boys cokes were replaced as soon as they had finished them without ever having to be asked.

We ate all our evening meals in the dining room rather than the windjammer or speciality restaurants.

Then it was off to the opening night show in the theatre. The live music onboard the ship was quality. From a guitar/violin duo, a live orchastra, bands, piano bar there was live music available for most of the day.

The enterainment that evening was a mime artist and a chance to meet the entertainment director. Now I can see mime artists far enough and most of the act was classic suitcase not moving stuff. However his ostrich impression for the first 10 minutes as very entertaining. Our boys went off to the pool deck to view an open air movie.

Every evening a Cruise Compass is put into your cabin. This is a four page list of all activites the next day. They also have separate flyers for different "offers" on. I will scan and post the Cruise Compass for each day as soon as I finally get around to unpacking.

We had failed the first day to make a meeting place and time so did spend 30 minutes trying to find them later. They had found the late night buffet.

Off to bed, exhausted. One advantage of the inside cabin is when the lights are switched off its pitch black.

[Smilesonfaces]

Interesting that rhapsody was once rcl's biggest cruise ship. We are going on Harmony which is now the worlds
biggest ship (for the time being) So glad you enjoyed your cruise. We did a med cruise 7 years ago and our children loved it do I hope they do now they are older.
Will look out for your next reports.