Nice post pandemic cruise. Staff tried really hard to make this nice. Going in September is better than October (weather wise and ports were starting to close up). Absolutely a logistical challenge with lots of added expenses with this cruise coming out of Ravenna. Location of this port for embarkation is horrible. And RCL needs to stop advertising as Venice embarkation. We knew it wasn’t Venice but until you have to make all the travel and lodging arrangements as well as moving all your luggage around pre and post, you don’t realize how much of an expense and pain it really is. Example, we didn’t want to take / find train or bus so we asked about a shuttle from airport to hotel we were staying at. The shuttle cost 220 euros for the 2 of us. This was on top of the cost of the room. Then had to pay another 40 euros the next morning from hotel to the port.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Getting to Ravenna from Chicago was not easy. We knew this was not really out of Venice as cruise was titled but port is a good 2 hours from airports. Once at port, it was a 5 star experience. We had Royal suite and Fabio the concierge met us to take to our suite. Once he got us onboard, Fabio made the experience excellent!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
Really pretty good food. Giovanni’s 3 times and had pasta and steak which were excellent each time. Windjammer had nice variety every time. Room service food was good and always warm. Only negative thing was chef at pasta bar used the same utensil with adding chicken and shrimp. My husband has shellfish allergies so using same tongs was bad.
Drinks were great. Gie the bar attendant assisting Fabio went out of her way to find and serve the blueberry lemon drop martinis!
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
Loved having basketball court and golf course. Wish fitness center for treadmills would have had more hours. I believe it was only open for free use between 6:00am - 9am. Sometimes there were other classes going on ($$) but when there weren’t, it would have been nice to be able to use the treadmills
Entertainment
We enjoyed the atrium entertainment and our Royal suite instead of going to shows.
Children's Programs
We had no kids/grandkids with us
Service and Staff
4 out of 5
Overall service was really good. Most staff worked really long hours and were new. Seems like Covid knocked out a LOT of the previous experienced staff. Retention to build up experience is definitely at risk. Couldn’t have asked for more superior service than we received from Fabio (concierge), Gie (bar attendant in concierge lounge), Joan (room steward) and Manager in Giovanni’s. Have a feeling though they won’t be around too long.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Even though this is an older ship, it was easy to get around. It was clean and for the most part, well maintained. There was rust on pipes above us when sitting on balcony which 10 years ago you’d never see on any RCL ship. But given we’re still recovering from the pandemic and it’s probably hard to get staff, it was ok
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Suite was nice but have to admit, out of all Royal suites we’ve stayed in on RCL (approx 7), this was definitely the smallest. The player piano didn’t work, we’ve been spoiled with usually having 2 bathrooms and this had 1. The mattress on the bed was extremely hard. Towards the end of cruise, Fabio did offer to get mattress changed but he really had more important things to deal with so we declined his offer. But pretty sure next guests will find it uncomfortable as well.
Ship tip
No advice for the ship however we’d never again take this ship or any other ship out of this port. It’s a lot of added costs and time pre and post cruise
Love Athens. Had been here previously. A local driver / guide we used previously took us around to see highlights like Acropolis, changing of the guards, local shopping and amazing bakeries
Fabio once again did an outstanding job in assisting with disembarkation. Negative was we had to take a 2.5 hour bus ride to get to airport. By the time we could get to airport, there were no flights that could get us back to US so we had to spend yet another night in a hotel. The hotel we stayed at by the Marco Polo airport was nice but again, this was yet another expense.
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