Our stateroom was an interior cabin located off of the main passageway. The room was small and generally quiet.  There were many small drawers for storage.  We should have brought more hangers from home for the closet.  If we did not close the shower curtain properly, water flooded the bathroom floor.  Our luggage did not fit under the bed.  However, our attentive housekeeper, Wilfred, kept the room clean.  Occasionally, we could hear the nighttime parties in the Centrum, even with our stateroom door closed, if the glass door between the Centrum and the main hallway was left open.

The Old Town Trolley Tour offered by Royal Caribbean is NOT a hop-on-hop-off tour.  It is a fully narrated non-stop 1 hour 45 minute tour, with historical and current (sports) anecdotes.  It did not include a harbor tour, museum admission, or anything else.  It is an “open air” trolley: There is no air conditioning.  The tour ends at Quincy Market where there is a shuttle bus to go directly back to the ship.  Boston was very crowded due to the July 4th holiday and Harborfest weekend.  Our driver, “J”, was lively and courteous.  She stopped to tell people waiting to get on the trolley that it was a private tour and then got on the walkie talkie to radio the number of waiting passengers at the stop.

In the morning, my husband took a quick jaunt along the wharf to purchase souvenirs and take some pictures.

We booked the L.L. Bean Freeport Shopping Transfer.  It departed at 12:30 PM and returned to the ship at 4:30 PM.  We had a 30 minute narrated bus ride to the Freeport shopping district, which included other outlet stores.  We had approximately 3 hours of shopping time in Freeport before our 30 minute narrated bus ride back to the ship.  My husband enjoyed the junior lobster roll from a window service restaurant attached to one of L.L. Bean’s buildings at their flagship compound.

We booked the Frenchman's Bay Scenic Nature Cruise through Royal Caribbean.  Because of the tendering process, we arrived on the pier about 45 minutes early for the 1 PM cruise.  At the pier, RCI's security officer, RCI's shore excursion staff, and outside vendors (hired by RCI for other excursions) told all of the nature cruisers to wait in the wrong place.  At 1:05 PM, my husband asked more people where we were supposed to meet.  Apparently, we were supposed to be on the 1:15 PM public nature cruise run by a whale watching company.  All of the other tourists already boarded the boat and the whale watch company did not bother to seek out RCI's pre-paid passengers on the pier.  By 1:20 PM, we were the last people on the boat and had a poor selection of seats.  

The nature cruise was about 2 hours long.  Some of the seas were rough and I got sea sick.  The whale watch company does provide barf bags on the ship.  The nature cruise staff tried to “upsell” binocular rentals and refreshments for purchase in their galley.  The naturalist verbally narrated from the top deck, where we weren’t seated.  She told us about all of these eagles in trees, but neither my husband nor I saw anything except some seals looking like sausages sunbathing on some rocks.  At the end of the tour the nature cruise staff begged for tips for their “hard” work over the PA system and held a collection bucket as we had to pass by them to get off of the boat.

We booked the Big Pink Bus Hop On Hop Off Tour via Royal Caribbean.  It was a fully narrated 90 minute ride (from start to finish) aboard a double decker bus.  Afterwards, we walked around, stopping at the City Market and other points of interest.  We walked back to the ship from City Market.

As the ship arrived in Halifax in the morning, my husband was thrilled that we passed within a few hundred feet of the USS Dwight Eisenhower aircraft carrier as it was slowly leaving port.  He took plenty of pictures.

We booked the Big Pink Bus Hop on Hop Off Tour via Royal Caribbean.  Before the tour started, our guide asked us if we had any questions.  It was a fully narrated 90 minute ride (from start to finish) aboard a double decker bus.  Afterwards, we walked around the waterfront area and then back to the ship.

Every piece of our luggage was clearly labeled with 2 Royal Caribbean issued luggage tags (the ones you print off of the computer yourself) with our correct room number on it.However, the breakfast and lunch menus in the main dining room did not vary much from day to day.

Grandeur of the Seas Review

Summer Holiday Weekend

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Large Interior Stateroom

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