Take a Walk on the Mild Side
Written: Sep 07 '04 (Updated Sep 08 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great embarkation port, friendly staff, decent food, good price.
Cons: Smallish ship (lots of motion), constant barrage of spending opportunities.
The Bottom Line: The Legend to Mexico sailing out of San Diego was perfect for adult cruisers who want a relaxing experience.
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| sduncanae's Full Review: Royal Caribbean Legend of the Seas |
This review is for the Legend of the Seas, sailing date August 22, 2004. The Legend is almost done in Mexico for the year, but I think you will find a lot of useful information about sailing from San Diego, the Royal Caribbean experience, and planning your own cruise in general. In general, I found this cruise to be a more relaxing, less frenzied experience than some I’ve been on, thus my title “Take a Walk on the Mild Side”. A prime example of this is the 1AM curfew for kids 17 and under.
Selecting a Cabin
To save money, we selected inside cabins at the top of the economy category. These cabins are not buried on the bottom floors, either. You can be up on decks 7 and 8, and still end up only paying half of what an outside cabin will cost. Get a brochure or print the floor plan from the internet and have a few in mind. My favorites are at the end of the corridors, or in the middle – not near the stairs or elevators. For this trip, we chose 7003 and 7005, located forward on the starboard side of deck 7. Some say that forward cabins experience more rocking motions, which we found to be true – even in mild seas. If that bothers you, you might look mid-ship instead.
Buying Your Cruise
Every cruise vacation starts with booking. Everyone would like to think they got the best deal, but how can you improve your odds of doing just that? Well, these are my suggestions…
Start 6-8 months out, and select your cabin first. At this point, you’ve got a good chance of getting the one you want. Taking ROH (run of the house) on a bargain fare is not likely to get you a great cabin or location, and upgrades are less common these days as they try to fill up the ships.
Don’t call the cruise line first thing. Start by trying several internet sites that are tied into the cruise lines reservation systems and will show you actual prices and cabin availabilities. Now you know what the current discounted prices are. If you buy on the internet, you are not just buying from a computer. You will be contacted by an agent if you decide to book online.
Now call Costco travel. Yes, once again, Costco has the best price and you don’t even have to buy a 12 pack. I am not kidding. We paid $629 per person for a 7-night cruise. They have a real travel agency in Washington State with real people too. If you get a busy signal keep trying.
Sailing from San Diego
This was our first cruise from San Diego, and I have to say it will now be my favorite port. Know why?
The cruise terminal is five minutes and a $7.00 cab ride (plus tip) from the airport. If you buy the RCCL transfers, you will have to wait for your bus to fill up before you leave, and pay significantly more. RCCL personnel at the airport will take your bags for $3 each and they get delivered to your room just the same.
Many people drive to the destination city to save money, and those folks often live in the surrounding communities. This is reflected in the population of the ship. Call it a generalization if you wish, but folks from the San Diego area seem to know how to act in polite society. If you fly from the west coast, there are many flights and it is not as important to come the day before to insure you make your cruise on time.
The cruise terminal is next to a number of interesting places, including the Midway aircraft carrier museum and Seaport Village. So if you don’t want to board early, there are things to do.
Embarkation
You can be first on the ship with a one-hour wait if you wish. Simply show up at the cruise terminal by 10AM and wait behind the iron gates and watch as they clear the ship and let the employees back on. Unless there was a problem with customs or another reason that the ship does not board on time, they will start letting you inside the terminal at 11AM. Shortly thereafter, a boarding agent will check you in and give you a boarding number. If you were among the first, that number is ׀”, and you will board right after the special needs folks. You can walk right up to the Windjammer café, which opens for lunch at 11:30AM, just like every other day.
Your cabin will not be ready until 1-2PM. The corridors may even be closed until after 1, so plan to have your carry bags with you for a while. Pack a swim suit or a pair of shorts and start enjoying your extra bonus half day while the others wait in check in lines.
Alcohol
This is a question many people have, so I’ll get to it now. There is a great deal of misinformation about how to get and consume alcohol on RCCL. In fact, some staff we asked didn’t even know the straight scoop! For good or bad though, boozing is a major part of cruising, and here are your options. You can…
Smuggle booze on board. People do this, and it is against RCCL policy. We didn’t, but your luggage handlers and cabin steward are too busy to think about being the alcohol police.
Buy drinks, wine and beer on board, one drink at a time. The drink of the day is $3.95 plus 15% gratuity. Call brands are more like $5.00 plus tip. Beers are $3.25 (domestic) and $3.75 (imported), so imports top $4 with tip. A 20 oz draft is $4.60. A glass of wine at dinner is over $6, bottles start at $20 and most are over $30.
You can buy the “Wine and Dine” package, which they will offer you the first night at dinner. For $109 (plus 15% tip = $125), you can have a bottle of wine each night! Yes, that’s seven bottles of wine. They will either “store” the bottle for you (yah, right) or you can carry any remainder right out of the dining room with you and you are free to consume it anywhere, anytime. Bring your own paper sack if you are modest. There were perhaps 12 wines to choose from - a nice variety from France, California, Spain, Australia, and even Oregon, including 1 or 2 desert wines.
Buy hard liquor in the duty-free shop (after you sail, naturally), pay the $9.50 consumption fee and drink it on the ship. As an example, you can buy a liter of Absolut Vodka or Seagrams VO for $11-12. Add the consumption fee, and you are spending $21 for a liter of good booze. That’s 33 ounces, or about 20 drinks for about a buck each.
Buy a “soda card”. You must do this on the first day. With tip, it’s about $54 for adults, and $42 (I think) for kids 17 and under. You now have unlimited sodas, including Rob Roy’s, Shirley Temples and other bar favorites. It also works at dinner time, although they seem to be fairly liberal with pop at dinner anyway. You can also have your kid fetch you sodas and mix it with booze purchased in the duty free shop. Now that’s setting a good example!
You can buy wine or beer at port and bring it back on board. Yes, this is permitted! You can bring a reasonable amount, which is not published, but I estimate at less than 12 beers and 1-2 bottles of wine per person returning from port. Just put it right on the belt of the x-ray machine like it was a Mexican souvenir. Your first opportunity is Cabo San Lucas where you can get a six pack of any beer for $6 US. I didn’t price wine there since I bought the Wine and Dine package (hic). You cannot bring any hard liquor on board. They will take it and return it to you when you leave the ship, and it will count against your duty free purchases (limit 1 liter per person). There. That should clear up your alcohol options.
Your Cabin
Since I cheap out, I can’t tell you much about the outside cabins, but the inside staterooms have two stiff twin beds separated by a night stand that can be pushed together. You will probably have more room to move if you leave them apart.
Our cabins (7003 and 7005) were the 138 sq. ft jobs, and for two people were quite adequate. We brought our 15 and 18 year old sons, and got two cabins. For purposes of booking, you need to book one adult in each room, but official policy allows you to warehouse your older kids in an adjacent room once you get there. Simply go right to the pursers desk and ask for an additional card for each room. This means two of you will need to carry an extra card. Have them punched at the pursers desk and put a string or lanyard through them.
Sound insulation was very good. I could barely hear my kids watching TV and laughing late at night, and not enough to bother me. Speaking of TV, RCCL has 13” Sony televisions on retractable swivel stands. The nice thing about these (as opposed to some cruise TVs) is that they have video inputs on the front and back. We brought a portable DVD player which was a real plus when the kids ran out of things to do. There was also a good assortment of family sitcoms and almost to video movies (two per day).
The bathroom is small, and my main criticism was the way the toilet was angled put your knees into the door.
Some people say you don’t spend much time in the cabin, but we do, and we found these cabins comfortable and quiet. We were able to store our largest bag in the closet, and smaller ones fit under the beds. Drawer space was adequate. No robes were provided, so you may wish to bring one for lounging. The best thing about these cabins were the location. Two floors up to the pool and buffet, and two or three floors down to shopping and entertainment. Nice.
My tip of the day for inside cabins is to bring a small flashlight for using the rest room at night. These rooms are so dark you could develop film in them!
Dining
Our strategy is to make every dinner, and sacrifice formal breakfasts and lunches for other activities, like sleeping in. You can eat a buffet breakfast until 11AM but the fare is pretty much the same every day. They also make simple omelets on deck. The lines were never very bad for any food, except before and after shore leaves or on the last morning. Buffet lunches were steamer tray stuff, always with a good variety of fruits, salads and deserts. You can get hot dogs and hamburgers in the Solarium pool café, and they also feature other items like chicken sandwiches and fish sticks on certain days. Snacks are served from 3-4PM if you are still hungry. There is also a midnight buffet one night, and a poolside buffet another.
Dinners are delightful and the best part is being served by, and getting to know your wait staff. These folks try very hard to do a good job, so be on time and appreciative of their services. Meats were fairly tender, and there was the usual favorites like lobster tails, escargot and prime rib. On the Legend, they had a new position (new to me) called the head waiter. This is not the Maitre d’ that you might meet once at the beginning and again at the end for his tip. This was a zone waiter who filled in for gaps when your other staff was busy and made sure everything was to your liking. It is a great idea, and there is a smaller gratuity recommended for this person.
I woke up with a start in the middle of the first night and realized I forgot to pack my suit! I had a shirt and tie, but no suit. So rather than spend $85 to rent a Tux, I wore tan pants and a shirt and tie. And you know what? No one noticed or cared. Most men take their suit coats off as soon as they sit down, and some don’t even dress up. On my last cruise, I saw a guy wearing a suit with hiking boots. So, it’s up to you how formal you get, because it’s not mandatory. Of course some folks, especially the ladies like to dress up for fun. So while you have your nice clothes on, consider getting a picture taken with no sitting fee.
There is a very limited room service menu that my kids used several times. It is nice if you give the server a tip when they bring your food.
Ship Condition and Cleanliness
The Legend was built in 1995 and it is starting to show some wear, but in general it is very well kept up. Aside from dining hours, common areas are not cleaned instantly, so you might see the same highball glass sitting in the elevator lobby for an hour or two, or room service trays set out for quite a while.
I kept seeing them clean the banisters and rails and realized that it was to prevent the spread of illness such as the Norwalk Virus. You would be wise to wash your hands before eating. We did not hear of anyone getting sick on our cruise.
Carpets, walls, and seats were all clean and in good shape. Some deck chairs looked like they would impart a smudge to your swimsuit, but most were just discolored, not dirty.
Entertainment
No saving of seats, no children in the first five rows, blah, blah, blah. No one pays any attention to these rules, just like on shore. So show up 30 minutes early for a good seat, and 45 minutes early to sit right up front.
The headliner for our show was Kelly Monteith, a famous comedian who has been on the Carson and Leno shows, and even had his own show for a while on CBS. He was great. Next in line was Wild and Haynes “dangerous” comedy. The local sing and dance troupe was twelve very talented folks including four singers. They put on two shows (early and late). Less glamour and glitz than on some cruises, and less revealing costumes as well. Sorry, Grandpa. You can buy drinks here as well, and they will even honor your soda cards in the theater.
Reality shows have invaded cruising, so the theme of the audience participation events often mimics a night of Fox TV shows. American Idol meets Karaoke these days, and there is also no shortage of amateur crooners. I don’t go out for this tripe, but hey, each to their own. I think they sell a lot of drinks at these things.
Shopping
The small shopping “mall” on deck 5 had a few decent deals. I mentioned the $11 liters. Cigarettes were $20 per carton or two for $35. They had a sidewalk sale where I bought two nice, tasteful watches and a wallet for $10 each. My wife bought a RCCL backpack, an over-the-shoulder type for $20. Those were good deals.
Then there was the usual; overpriced or cosmetic junk jewelry, gold by the inch, $18 T-shirts, and every kind of ship-related souvenir you can imagine. My advice is spend sparingly, and shop like you were back at your local Wal-mart.
And then there is bingo. Win a free cruise and thousands of dollars in prizes! They constantly push bingo, over the PA and on the TV. What they don’t tell you is how much it costs. You get all excited to play, get there with the expectation of spending $10 and find out they are only offered in “packages” that add up to big bucks! Some guy named Ralph is going to win it anyway. You are better off frittering it away 5 cents at a time in the casino on their newer, entertaining slot machines.
Art auctions are on every cruise. You get a chance to preview the art and put a sticker on it if you have interest in it. They bring it up to the podium and tell you what it will cost. By now you’ve had two glasses of Champagne. Unless there is more than one person interested in a piece, there is no bidding. You either take it at that price, or you don’t. Some auction! Oh, that nice frame? It’s not included, except on a few smaller pieces. You get yours in a tube. And most of the time, it must be shipped to you. You might as well shop for art on the internet.
Speaking of Internet
Yes, there is a lovely internet café, more like a library actually. For 50 cents a minute, you can enjoy Yahoo mail or any other internet site. You can also surf the RCCL advertising sections and informational areas for free (boring). We needed to register my son for college, and the first opportunity was while we were at sea. We had all our information ready, and did it in 12 minutes for $6.00.
Shore Leave
We have been to these ports several times, and go back primarily to enjoy the cruise itself. One reason that late August sailings are more heavily discounted is that IT’S HOT IN MEXICO IN AUGUST YOU IDIOT. Ten minutes in a Mexican cab and you will know what I mean. We are talking 90 degrees and 95% humidity. If you have a weak constitution, high blood pressure or other malady, stay on the ship and hang out! It’s wonderfully quiet. You can have an entire swimming pool to yourself.
We did get adventurous and take the Jungle Excursion in Puerto Vallarta. The A/C in the bus broke on the way up the treacherous mountain road. They take you to a jungle restaurant where you can join a 45 minute nature hike or stay and swim in the river (complete with high dive platform). Our guide was great but we were soaked to the bone with sweat before it was over. Except for the heat it was a good value at $38 per person. Exotic foods are available. A plate of shrimp was $18 - a bit expensive, but you will not get anything like it at Red Lobster.
Getting Off
No silly, I mean disembarkation. Here’s another place where getting a room at the top of the economy class pays off. The higher the floor, the sooner you can leave. You are asked to leave your room by 8AM and wait in a common area. Everyone congregates in the center of the ship near the gangway so they can jump up when their (bag tag) color is called. We have found that if you are due to depart fairly early, you cabin steward is happy to let you loaf in your stateroom and you will still hear your color called. We walked off with little hassle. They collect your customs declarations the day before, so there is no customs inspection unless you look like you need one. Cabs are plentiful.
Summary
Next year the Legend gives up this itinerary to the Vision of the Seas, and sails out of Los Angeles instead, so you may have to wait a while to sail out of San Diego on Royal Caribbean. After trying Miami, LA and New Orleans, however, I can definitely say this is my favorite port to sail from. The Legend was perfect for adult cruisers who want a relaxing experience. Ahhhhh.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
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Epinions.com ID:
sduncanae
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Member: Steve Duncan
Location: Washington County, OR, USA
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 0 members
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