Thread: Legend of the seas *June 2-15 2008* Italy and Croatia

Omg, Lars, are those converse tennies? You look adorable

Originally Posted by hanna

Omg, Lars, are those converse tennies? You look adorable

Thank you sweetheart!! and yes they are tennis something but not converse. I think they have a "G" on them. Italian or something....

4

...Oh yes check in. Dont you all just love check in!!!! The exitement and anticipation of the cruise and to get the sea pass!!!!!
I just wanted to give the check in guy my passport and say to him while jumping up and down: give me my sea pass, give me my sea pass, please I need my sea pass now!!!
But not so fast!! Not even with no line at check in!!!
First Arnaldos Cuban passport do manage to cause confusion, even with a Spanish residency card inside.
The check in guy was sceaming to one of his co-worker:"Patrinella, is Cuba part of Schengen????!!!"
LOL.. I wanted to say its not even in Europe love!!!
But he excused himself, took Arnaldos passport and as fast as he had gone he came back and said very firmly: "You dont worrrrry!! I´m not!!"
Great!!!Fine!! Perfect!! They said they had to keep his passport (as usual), finished the process, which took no more then 10 minutes and we got our sea passes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now the voyage truly can begin!!!

We sat down in the waiting area where they provided cookies and refreshments as we waited to board.
Reading our sea pass card our dinner time was at 9pm, a bit too late so that had to be changed asap!!!
Our boarding number was 11 and I guess we didnt wait more then 15-20 minutes before we where onboard.
From we left the B&B at 1030am it had taken maximum no more then aprox 45 minutes until we where onboard!! Thats pretty good I think. As far as I can remeber we boarded at 11:15am.

Me onboard looking to find the dinning room and hunt down the Maitre...in front of the Anchors Aweight Lounge

I love your writing style, Lars!

I can hardly wait to hear more.

(you youngsters can manhandle the luggage yourselves....us old folks have to pay!)

This one is for you Ken.
Costa Romantica

5

....and Char, here comes more........

Finally onboard!!! After months of planning, waiting, having fun on CLF and more waiting we had finally arrived onboard. I just L O V E arriving onboard a ship for a cruise. The feeling, the smells, everything. Its pure bliss!!!

My first impression of the Legend was that She was kept immaculate clean and sparkling. She wasnt clean just for embarkation day, but during the entire trip crew member was cleaning and polishing all day long. Which ofcourse is a good sign. However, the Legend OTS is now 15 years old and She is in need of an upgrade. Carpets, upholstery etc was worn and torn.Apparantly the ship is not due in dry dock before 2010!
However, I loved the sence of being on a ship and not a resort type ship. I paticulary liked that there was so many windows letting in lots of light and everywhere you turned you had a view of the ocean!!

As we boarded early our cabin was not ready before 1pm. We couldnt even have a little peek or try to leave our hand luggage in the cabin as all the fire doors leading to the corridors was kept tightly closed.
We decided to explore the ship and to get familiar with our magic carpet for the next 14 days.
We started with the Romeo and Juliet dinning room located aft on deck 4 and 5. We had requested a table for 2 at 830pm but found out that we had gotten a table for 4 at 9pm. Tables for 4 can be a bit tricky as they are best for 2 couples that know each others, tables for 6 are managable but anything bigger is just to large and dinner kinda drags out.
But the Maitre wasnt suppose to be at his desk before 1230pm so we continued our tour and ended up at Windjammer Cafe for our first meal!!!
After lunch we walked down to deck 4 and talked to the Maitre. Slipped him a little something and she was more then willing to help us. She said she had table 60, 24 and a few others available at 830pm but more if we wanted at 630pm. She told us to go and have a look at the tables and tell her what we thought of them.
We took table 60. All the way toward the end of the Dinning room on deck 4 but close to the galley so our waiters didnt have to run to far for extra desserts..LOL... The table was next to a pillar but still had enought view out the windows to the ocean.
With that sorted out, two happy chaps left a happy maitre( I should think..LOL) and headed for our cabin.
We had booked and outside cabin on deck 6 starboard side close to the atrium and the lifts. We had gotten just the cabin we wanted and 6552 was perfect.
It was smaller then simillar cabin on other RCI ships but had enough closet space, drawers and built in shelves for more then we had brought along!! The bathroom as you guys know and the shower curtain are a different story and a different fight.
We rested for a while, had some chocolate covered strawberries courtesy of our travel agent and waited for our luggage!!.......
.........and waited for our luggage..........
By 4pm our cabin steward had been to introduce herself and 1 suitcase and a bag had arrived. We had lifeboat drill at 415pm so had to get ready for that....

After lifeboat drill we had arranged to meet 4 other people I had chatted with on the roll call over at the DS.
We were suppose to meet at Pool deck by starboard whirlpool at 445pm but when we arrived no-one was there. We walked around a bit, took some pictures of the sail away and looked out for our group again.
There was a group standing by portside whirlpool that looked like they just had met. We walked over and asked if they were the once and YES!! Bingo!! - We introduced ourselves to Mary Jane and her daugther Mieke, Alex(andra) and Kay.
We had arranged taxies and tours together in some of the ports and had lots to talk about. We hit it off right away, and all of them are wonderful people that for sure made the cruise even better. We did hang out a lot and commited the ultimate sin of reserving sunbeds for each others!!!
The Meet and Mingle party that was supposed to be help the first sea day had been moved up to 530pm on day one so we all went to the Viking Crown Lounge to meet the others.
I guess maybe 10 out of the 28 that had signed up attended the party. Not to many but the once I had comminucated the most with was there including Mary which unfortunalty I just bumped into a few times during our cruise. She seem like a very sweet woman.
By now the time was 550pm and Mary Jane (MJ) and Mieka had to go and get ready for their 630pm seating. We stayed for a little while longer before we thought we should check if the rest of our luggage had arrived.
I think we got our last suitcase around 630pm. Mary and her husband did not get theirs before after 8pm!! Luggage delivery was very slow I thought and it must have been very unsettling for those that didnt get their luggage before hours after we had sailed.
We unpacked the last suitcase, changed for dinner and went up to the Viking Crown Lounge, my favorite lounge, for a sail away drink...
You might have noticed that I havnt had a drink yet??!! LOL.. Not that I usually do drink alot but we did have a little Mojito in the Scooner Bar after lunch...RCI makes their Mojitos almost better then at Hotel National in Havana (Cuba)
Anyway, we toasted to our cruise with a perfect Cosmopolitan and a Lava Flow (dont ask, he loves them. One of the reason he wants to go back and back to RCI..LOL)
By now it was almost dinner time ..............

Legend of the Seas deck plan
Deck plan

(Arnaldo all dressed up and only a life boat drill to go to...LOL..What is he pointing at?? and why??)

6

....Food, food glorious food.......and in the Romeo and Juliet dinning room we met our "Romeo and Juliet" in the form of our waiter Alex from Ukraine and his assistant waiter Emi from Colombia. Both exellent, a fantastic team.
I have been in the restaurant-hotel buisness for over 20 years now and sometimes its difficult to close my eyes to what is happening professionally around me but I am on vacation and I dont really care if the items like menu, water and bread are not served in their correct order. Sometimes we got the bread before the water, sometimes we waited 10 minutes for bread and sometimes 20 minutes before the first course to arrive but as I said I am on vacation and dont really have any place to go!!! However the menu always arrived quickly. RCI new menues are good. I like the new brown "leather" fold out design of the menus. Its very contemporary. We always found something interesting to eat and I liked the new additions of Vegetarian Curries and other Indian dishes. The menu contained a good mix of Asian, European and American cooking. Now, the tast and flavors is another story..

Alex and Emi were really charming and they always brought to the table more then we ordered. Our table looked like a buffet with 4 dessert plates sometimes!!!!

The only thing I can remember is that I had Prime Rib the first night. It was tender but lacked tast. Arnaldo had Salmon. He had salmon almost every second night. Very hit or miss!!
The bottle of wine was good mind...
After dinner we went to the Casino and played some slots. lost some, won some, lost it all!!!

We didnt stay long and retired to our cabin early. As we didnt go to the show that night, it was on at 8pm for all guests, I watched some of it on tv. It seemed ok. I think they tried to be acrobats and used to be with Cirque Du Soleil. I understand why they used to be part of the troop!! LOL..Did some more channel zapping and drifted off to la la land very fast.
How can you not, the beds, bedlinnen and the pillows on Royal Caribbean are really comfortable. I was glad I asked for 2 extra pillows as one wasnt really enough..
It was fantastic to be back on a ship and I always seem to have the best sleep onboard cruise ships.
And as the ship sailed to our first port, Portofino, I turned off the light in our cabin.......

At anchor, Portofino, Italy

Loving read this! MORE - MORE!!!!

This is great Lars, and your pictures are fantastic. We want more!

Garry