Review -- Transatlantic Cruise 2005
on Splendour of the Seas

summary:
A great and relaxing cruise for us. Besides, our first Transatlantic Crossing. We would love to repeat it, but this time on an Eastbound Crossing, to have minor problems with the time changes. We have set our clocks 7 times back, and then there was the flight back from Texas to Germany with 7 hours ahead time difference, causing a huge jet- lag.
Important to know for some of you, that we had 3 formal nights. The apperals were totally mixed ranging from evening gowns, smokings, dinnerjackets (I even saw a swallowtail) to also nice suits or other beautiful combinations. My husband was dressed in dark grey with changing ties, correct due to my impression. On the other evenings, he never wore a jacket, a nice dress shirt instead, a vest and a nice slack (but no jeans) worked out well. For me I wore every evening something special like a nice pant or pantsuit combined with a chic shirt or blouse. I never felt underdressed.
Those people, who didn´t like to dress up, had their dinner in the Windjammer-Cafe. I never saw someone dressed inappropriately in the Dining-Room.
Because we knew in advance, that the ship was not in a newly- like- condition any more, we were pleasantly surprised how good she appeared, especially compared with Celebrity's Zenith. But we have heard, that the Zenith has been into drydock and redecorated after our Southern Cribbean cruise in february 2005. The size of the Splendour was pleasant. You did not feel being together with 1.570 passengers. The ship was never overcrowded, in fact it was opposite and we always found a quiet place to relax. We never saw rude or drunken passengers, although we have never been around the ship in the late evening hours. Our latest was midnight and this was just for taking photographs of the Gala-Buffet. Only a few children were on board and they've never been bothering.
Food was much better than on the Zenith in february this year, service was really good and we had no officious wine stewards. Considering it all in all it was a wonderful cruise, with many quiet moments, but also a lot of nice and interesting conversations with people from many different countries.
Our personal summary for other cruisers: absolutely recommendable.
During the winter- season the Splendour is based in Galveston, making four or five day cruises to the western caribbean with ports of call like Cozumel. Exeption is one cruise during christmas holidays, which lasts 10 days.
On April 23th 2006 she will be departing for the Eastbound Transatlantic Crossing to Lisbon, Portugal. After drydock she will be cruising out of Venice, Italy weekly for 8 days. There are 2 weekly changing itineraries with the following ports of call: Piräus (Athens), Greece- Kusadasi (Ephesos), Turkey- Heraklion, Greece- Korfu, Greece or alternatively Piräus- Mykonos, Greece- Rhodos, Greece- Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The captain told us, that the Westbound Crossing in fall 2006 will be very unusual. It will take 20 days, starting octember 29th until november 17th 2006 with the following ports of call: Venice- Dubrovnik- Messina (Sicily), Italy- Barcelona, Spain- Alicante, Spain- Malaga, Spain- Teneriffa (Canary Islands), Spain- 6 days at sea- Bahamas- Key West- Galveston. Surely a very interesting cruise.


Alicante Captainsdinner with
Captain Yngvar Knutsen


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