Year 4, Day 277, “Living the Dream”. Saturday, 2/01/2025. Day 10 of 10 day Tampa to Bahamas trip (Day 8 of 7 night Bahamas cruise on Radiance of the Seas from Tampa, Florida) – Departing ship in Tampa, Florida. – We woke up this morning opened the curtains and there we are in Tampa. It is a dark cloudy morning.
We are off the ship at 8:15am and in the car driving by 8:35am. Customs was a quick walk through with facial recognition. We picked up our luggage and headed out to the parking garage. We placed luggage tag number 4 on our bags. Then we put them in the hallway outside our room last night before retiring. No porters were available when we picked up our luggage. We decided to walk it to the parking garage. The ship had departed seven nights ago from terminal 2 and our arrival was in terminal 3. The terminals are side by side with the garage across the street from both. We had parked on the second floor. There was one elevator with a long line of people with luggage. We walked our luggage up to the second level. Okay, actually Steve carried them up in two trips. Call me a weakling.
It turned into a nice sunny day. At 5:30pm we are on the other side of Atlanta on Interstate 75. Atlanta was a mess with accidents and traffic. We didn’t expect any different though. We talked about if we were flying today we would be nervous after the two plane crashes. Unreasonable fear is crazy, but it is what it is.
Last thing before I finish this post. Have you ever had Racetrac pizza. The pepperoni pizza is soooo good. It is like fresh bread so yummy. Every trip we stop fill the car up and get coffee and pepperoni pizza at Racetrac. No hotel reservations for tonight we are thinking to go all the way home to our bed.
Here’s a quick review of Radiance of the Seas Bahamas Cruise from Tampa January 25, 2025 – February 1, 2025.
1) Crown Lounge: No specialty coffee machine. Which meant the lounge was always empty. One of the good things about the lounge is meeting and talking to people in the lounge. Therefore that was a huge disappointment to us. We did get to get Starbucks specialty coffee from Lattitudes in place of the Crown Lounge coffee machine coffee
2) Bed: The bed was comfortable but the sheets were too small and did not cover the mattress. Every morning the lower half of our legs from the knees down were on the mattress. That was kind of gross.
3) Early dining: The servers were fast, courteous, and good. We stopped going after five nights to the dining room because of the pressure of eating all your dinner. If you didn’t like it or left any they kept coming back and wanting to give you more. Also once they knew you drank milk it came out warm. They poured it early and then served warm. As far as food the cheese plate cheese was dried out and hard. They were kept out too long on the counter before serving.
4) Windjammer: Good food choices and nice crew all around. Everything was kept clean and neat. Cheese was soft and good. Hamburger rolls were hard. Again left out too long.
5) Ship appearance: Ship is old but the main areas are well maintained. The total ship is very clean. The rooms need updating. Showers are small with shower curtains. Tiles in shower and bathroom kept coming lose. I left them by the sink as they came lose and they were glued in all the time.
6) Room attendant: Our room attendant was very good with cleaning and taking care of anything we requested and when light was out immediately had it fixed. He did have 24 rooms to clean everyday so he was very busy. We had three towel animals out of the 7 nights. We had to ask for Diamond Plus shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, and lotion amenities.
7) Crown and Anchor benefits. The Cheers with an Officer luncheon was nice with good food and wine. Our complimentary two bottles of wine were not delivered to our room until we went and saw the Loyalty Ambassador. It was provided right away. She did her job, but was kind of unfriendly.
Captain Jeffry Thomaes: His announcements were very informative. We loved that he individually mentioned by name every person on the ship that had a birthday. He wished them a happy birthday each day. That included passengers and crew. He also came to the Cheers with an Officer lunch to give a toast. That is very unusual. The captain rarely comes. He seems like a nice guy that really cares about the crew and passengers.
Embarkation: Quick and easy
9) Disembarkation: Quick and easy with facial recognition walk through customs. There were not enough porters at Tampa cruise port when we docked.
10) Bars: Waiter service at the Champagne bar was exceptional.
11) Casino: Machines were tight There was a $10.00 minimum on table games.
Things to ponder today! Have to leave you thinking.
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