This was a 15 day cruise of South America starting in Valparaiso, Chile and ending in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I booked this cruise about a year in advance while we were on another Royal Caribbean ship so that we could get the on board credit; $100 each person. After booking on ship I made payments and completed the personal information requirements on the RC's web site. All of the on line procedures worked well except that for some reason the system would not accept my air arrangements and so I had to call the cruise line a couple times to make sure that they had the correct information. I booked our air separately myself because for some reason RC's system did not have our local airport and I figured I could get better flights for us doing it myself. I usually do fly to the departure port a day early but decided that since the flight got to Chile early morning there was room for delays. After booking our flights I arranged for transfers at both ends of the cruise. I was glad I did this because the cruise ports at both ends are more than an hour from the airports.

The RC's Splendour of the Seas is one of that cruise line's older ships in its Vision Class. It was launched in 1996 and was refurbished in 2006. The ship was nice and well maintained. But you could definitely tell the difference between this and RC's newer ships. A good analogy would be its like having a model year 2000 Mercedes that's well maintained but you know that it does not have all of the latest and up to date bells and whistles. For example, RC's newer ships have flat panel HDTV's, the stunning atriums and promenades, etc. This ship was nice but missing the upgrades. It did have the new upgraded bedding that all RC ships have.

While the ship was nice I did not care for its layout with the Windjammer Cafe on the front and the main dining room kinda mid-ship. The gym is on the front of the ship and kinda small; never used it. The ship does have a solarium with a pool and two hot tubs. Read more