Great weather, interesting ports, less thrilled with ship

Rotterdam Retired Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean

gogogeo

Contributor Level: Third Mate

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 3

Helpful Votes: 60

Overall rating:

3 out of 5

14 Night Mediterranean Romance (Barcelona To Venice)

Sail date: October 10, 2015

Ship: Rotterdam Retired

Cabin type: Suite

Cabin number: 7030

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

We enjoyed the ports. Highlights were Barcelona and Venice. High winds kept us out of Livorno, where we were looking forward to an excursion to Siena and San Gimignano, but we were taken to Elba instead which had historical features.

We were disappointed the ship did change its lounge entertainment for the entire two weeks (although the quality of entertainment in the main showroom was excellent), the food or service wasn't as good as we remembered from a previous HAL cruise, and the transportation support at Venice was woeful.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Neptune deck suites very spacious although seems like a lot of wasted space for 2 people. Best part was the double-wide balcony and extra light it provided. Free laundry and use of the Neptune lounge were pluses too. We got upgrade at a reduced rate; don't think we would pay full price for it.

Ship tip

Specialty restaurants were very good.

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Barcelona, Spain

5 out of 5

If you start or end your trip here, book a few more days to enjoy it; great city.

Thumbs Up 5

Palma De Mallorca, Balearic Islands

3 out of 5

Calvi, Corsica

1 out of 5

Monte Carlo, Monaco

5 out of 5

We drove through MC on an excursion to Nice. Glad we went to Nice, and still got a lot of MC color from our guide.

Thumbs Up 0

Livorno (Florence & Pisa), Italy

1 out of 5

Can't rate as high winds kept us away

Thumbs Up 0

Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy

1 out of 5

Skipped long tours to Rome as we had been there before; styed on ship

Thumbs Up 1

Naples, Italy

5 out of 5

Did a private tour of Pompeii and Herculaneum which was great

Thumbs Up 0

Catania, Sicily

3 out of 5

I enjoyed the excursion to Mt Etna; my wife did not. Town was closed as it was Sunday

Thumbs Up 0

Corfu, Greece

5 out of 5

Kotor, Montenegro

5 out of 5

Most pleasant surprise

Thumbs Up 1

Venice, Italy

1 out of 5

If needing a taxi, get as much info as possible. We needed to get to airport and were only told by HAL that taxi's would be "limited"; after waiting at the taxi next to the ship for awhile in vain, we learned--from another ship's cruisers--that we needed to take a shuttle bus to the next pier where there were plenty of taxis.

Thumbs Up 1

1 Comment

Other reviews of this sailing

A great first trip to Europe