Serenade of the Seas Review

Greek Isles

Review for Greece Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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Trekker954
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Oct 2014
Cabin: Two Bedroom Suite

Just off the nine night Greek Islands cruise onboard the Serenade out of Civitavecchia in a two bedroom family suite – five adults, (Mom, Dad, DD, DS and DIL). Daughter and I did the 12 night Med cruise onboard the Serenade last year same timeframe out of Barcelona that we enjoyed a tad more. We also spent a week in Rome pre cuise.

I arranged for a private mini van from Roma to Civitavecchia (5 persons and tons of bags) for 145 Euro from romeshuttlelimo. They arrived promptly on time and it took quite a while to get through Rome Center and we arrive at the port in about 1 ½ hours.

Check in was fairly easy, all lines were about the same, although they did have a suite line. We arrived about 12:30 and was on board right about 1 and walked right to the cabin, dropped off our carry ons and decided who was getting which rooms.

Cabin Review

Two Bedroom Suite

Cabin TS

Five adults were staying in this suite. We took advantage of the kids/friends sail free. So with the purchase of two, we had a total of five adults. We've been in grand and owner suites that seemed much larger.We weren’t putting any adults in the drop down bed. Two adults in each room, one adult on the pull out couch. Both bedrooms had its own desk and closet space. Neither was walk in. Then for the adult staying in the main area, there was also sufficient if not more closet space than the bedrooms. I was pleasantly surprised by all the closet space. The room attendant was never able to figure out how to tuck in the sheet for either the twin sets up or the queen bed. We all complained and even spoke to him that we’d wake up with the sheets completely sliding off the beds. So here we are lying on something that isn’t covered with clean linen. Yuck. Other than that the room attendant was decent. I was disappointed in the suite bath amenities. Basically you received shampoo, conditioner, shower wash and lotion. NO shower caps, NO q-tips or cotton balls. Thank God I had brought some with me. But I was pretty sure in prior suites I had always gotten q-tips and shower caps. In our nine night cruise we received one towel animal on day two (or may have been day three). Our C&A gifts were all in the suite waiting as were numerous welcoming letters and invitations to this or that. The first morning the Suite concierge AND the Diamond concierge both left messages early morning. So cover up those phones if you don’t want to see them flashing each morning starting around 6 a.m. All the following mornings we only received them from the Suite Concierge Nizar. Same old stuff, weather update, have a great day, etc. Nice, but enough already and I haven’t mastered how to delete without having to listen to the entire message. A few times, they also delivered nasty hors d’oeurves. But again, nice of them. So our two bedroom suite was Deck 8 8668, corner wraparound. They had put three chairs, a table and two upscale (sort of) loungers. All pads were horribly moldy. There was hardly room to walk around. We asked them to take out one of the loungers. They said they could not replace the pads as they were fire retardant, so they covered them with gold towels. One time. Anyone who gets aft cabins, knows everything is covered in soot after a couple of days. We did spend quite a bit of time out there, but luckily not all at once.There was a suite packet in our room that listed the menu we could order from each day. That was supposed to be changed each day, but was not. We never ended up ordering in the room because there were five of us and it just wasn’t big enough. Oh, we did have enough seats to sit in in the main cabin part once the couch was put back in place. The suite packet also contained a list of board games and movies we could order. The movies were old and the board games all missing piecesThe benefit of the concierge assisting with tendering priority and disembarkation is very nice.The last day our toilet did not flush, we called and they sent someone up right away.

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