Hi,
Do you know the ditty "Sailing, sailing"? We sang it at day camp as kids, it has hand actions to match the lyrics, I loved it. I have just come off the "salty sea" from 13 nights of cruising the Atlantic, Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale and it was magnificent! Dad wanted to get from Toronto to Marco Island for the winter season via a cruise from Europe and I was his cruise buddy for the adventure.
Royal Caribbean, Legend of the Seas, 70,000 ton ship, 2000 passenger capacity (only about 1400 for this crossing) a ship built in 1995, recently refurbished but looking its age none the less. This turned out to be a very, very geriatric cruise. I was at the youngest range of the age group, only two children on the whole ship. Mika (4) and Emma (2) became ship 'rock stars' with a captive audience of grandparents aboard. Dad loved everything about the trip. We started with three nights in Barcelona, meeting up with my new friend Evelyn from Houston. She he joined us on the cruise, her very first ship adventure and she is now a new convert to the love of cruising. After touring Barcelona, which we all loved, it was onto the Legend and into the wild blue yonder.
We stopped in Allecante, Malaga, Funchal and Tenerife before hitting the high seas for seven nights of straight sailing. Dad only likes the sailing days, not the port stops. We did get him off the ship to walk around but he would rather hang on the ship for the most part. The food was good, not the best I have ever had, but not terrible. The ship amenities are rather limited since it is one of the smaller ships in the RC fleet. Dad didn't like the tiny sauna on this boat. He has now learned that he needs a 140,000 ton ship to get the size steam room he needs. No more baby boats for him! He has already booked two more Atlantic crossings for 2014, one on the Oasis ship, a mega 5400 passenger, 240,000 ton monstrosity for next fall. I bet the steam room on that sucker fits the bill.
Our dinner table mates were a bit of a challenge. The first problem was the size of our table, 14 chairs! You couldn't talk to anyone because they were so far away from you. For the first 4 nights, people kept ditching our table and moving to other dining spots... We were starting to worry about how offensive we might be to chase way so many guests. Finally we settled into two couples from the USA, two couples originally from Cuba and the three of us... A motley crowd to say the least. We made it work.
The entertainment at night in the main show was passable but the ship went to bed at 10pm with not much to do, almost no one to talk with and certainly no one to party with. It's the first cruise I have ever been on with absolutely NO night life. Oh well. The crew loved it since they could quit early and go below for their own fun and frolic. I did get to dance once with a crew member who would have loved to take me to a staff party to dance, but it is strictly forbidden to let guest member below deck with crew. Drats! Banished to the upper decks with the Geritol set.
I have endless cruising tales to tell.... But you will have to buy the book.
Xox
M
