Grandeur of the Seas Review
Immersion Cruise from Colon Panama On Grandeur of the Seas
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This is a review of our cruise on the Grandeur of the Seas, March 18 - 25, 2012, out of Colon, Panama and the travel to and from the cruise. A bit about myself. This was my 16th cruise in the last 12 years. The lowest level cabin I have ever stayed in was a balcony but most have been suites. I am Diamond on RCCL and we stayed in the Royal Suite on this cruise. I am in my late 50s, live in the South, and go on a cruise to relax and do a few excursions. I do not generally go to any shows or participate in activities like bingo or games. But hopefully I can give you a good overview of this ship and general information on the ports we visited. I was traveling with 2 friends of a same age and background.
This cruise is what they call in Immersion Cruise. As I wanted to see part of the Panama Canal without the huge cost and time to do a transit on a cruise ship, this seemed the best for me at this time. There were 3 ladies total on this trip. Two of us flew from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday afternoon. We stayed at the Marriott Spring Hills Suites. I have stayed here in the past and would do so again. The hotel is nice and clean other than some of the carpets in the hallways, which is fairly typical, provides a shuttle to and from the FLL airport as well as a shuttle to the ships sailing out of that port. They have a full bus with a trailer behind that allows them to pick up or deliver a large group of people as they put the luggage in the trailer. We used this service both coming and going to the airport. On the night we arrived we had dinner with my TA of 12 years at a great Greek place not to far away.
Friday morning we were picked up by the 3rd person in our group who lives in the Florida Keys. We went to the Miami airport to fly to Panama City. We arrived in PTY mid afternoon and got a taxi to our hotel, the Country Inn & Suites in Amador. It sits right at the mouth of the canal entrance on the Pacific side and you see all vessels entering or exiting the canal. Of course at night, you really only see the lights on the ships. This hotel was clean, tile floors which is typical of the tropics, and the people were extremely nice, especially at the front desk. When we arrived we had 2 separate rooms booked, one for 2 of us and one for the other lady. When asked if these rooms could be near each other, the manager on the desk said if we would be willing to wait about 30 minutes for them to clean a suite with 2 bedrooms we could have that for the same price. That suited us very well so we waited in the lobby for a tad under 30 minutes in a nice sitting area then were given keys to this suite. It had a large kitchen, bigger than many apartment kitchens I have seen, a nice living area with a sofa, love seat, and arm chair in a U shape configuration. The first bedroom to the side had 2 queen beds with a bath that had a door to the bedroom and to the living area. The second bedroom was smaller but had a king bed and a private bath. The balcony is small with no chairs but decent enough to step out for a short while. All of the balconies in this hotel were the same as far as we could see. The pool was on the ocean side and a very nice size. It has an hourglass shape with a small arched bridge going over the middle. There were many tables with chairs and umbrellas and many lounge chairs too. There is a TGI Fridays attached to one end that is accessible to the hotel directly. We ate both of our dinners there as we were just not up to traveling out again to dine.
Cabin Review
Royal Suite
A few notes on this Royal Suite. I was in it in 2003 for a Transatlantic cruise. I also know that this ship goes into dry dock the end of April so would not have been surprised at some slightly shabby areas. Not so in the suite. The lighting was all new since I last used it and had much better controls. The sofas in the living room appeared to be very new. The Jacuzzi tub was working better, the lavatories that are rose glass and have been carved on the underside had been replaced as one of them had some chips when I last used this suite, the bedding was new or not very old, and everything was spotless. The only thing that was not perfect was the baby grand piano, which uses discs to play music, did not seem to be hitting all of the notes when you used it that way. However if you just sat down and played it worked fine. We had a good steward but I was saddened to hear that Mary Joy, the steward that I had in 2003 was still working on this ship and still had this suite but was on her last week of vacation. She was due back next week. I would have enjoyed seeing her again as she was wonderful. That being said, we were well taken care of on this cruise. When we arrived we had the normal bottle of bubbly, a fruit basket and a 2nd one as well sent by our TA, and a dozen red roses on the dining table. During the week we were given two bottles of wine, a white as we embarked and a red a couple of days later, a bottle of non alcoholic bubbly after they found out one of us did not partake, and every night after there were some type of goodies from the chocolate dipped strawberries to other hors d'oeuvres. Just nice to have.