AT SEA FROM DUBAI, UAE TO AQABA, JORDAN VIA GULF OF ADEN AND RED SEA--Saturday-Thursday, April 20-25, 2013

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Days of Cruising on The Legend of the Seas

We left Dubai that evening and headed south along the coast of Oman and Yemen and then into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea where we will cruise for the next 6 days covering close to 5,000 nautical miles.

On the second day of cruising, we had the usual “all people on deck” drill and on the next day, they held a “what to do in case of pirates or other emergency” drill. We were instructed to stay in our cabins if we were in an inside cabin and move into the halls if we were in an outside cabin. A red card was placed into the key slot of each evacuated room when the room was checked by the stewards. The end of the red card also was a stripe of reflective material that was a heat sensor, so they could tell if there had been a fire in the room. Anyone caught in any other parts of the ship, were escorted to inside spaces, away from any glass, like the stair wells or into rooms like the auditorium.

Additional precautions were taken during our passage in the “possible pirate” area. For example, we had a few guys who looked like they had once been SEALS scattered here and there and the ship’s security people constantly scanned the sea from each side of the ship. Furthermore, every stateroom’s blackout drapes were to remain closed between sundown and sunup, many of the lights that highlighted the ship were muted or turned off, and several of the deck areas were closed during the evening hours.

Valerie and I spent the time doing what we usually do in Rosie when we have down time; we read, played computer games, did laundry, wrote and prepared pictures for the blog, and napped. Here we also people watched and Valerie played the slots. I am not much of a joiner really, so, I didn’t take part in any of the daily activities scheduled by the cruise director. Valerie enjoyed playing the slots every day. We would have maybe played bingo, but they wanted you to pay $16 for 4 cards and then they played only a handful of games, not even an hour’s worth.

Since there are no ports to explore, I thought I would take this time to give you some of our impressions about the two cruises and our views on cruising in general.

THE SHIP

The Legend of the Seas is an older ship built in 1995 and has had the insides totally refurbished recently. We still see work that needs to be done. For example the sill outside our window is rusty and there are marks like foot scuffs on the walls in the stateroom. This whole second cruise a small group of men have been working noisily from 7-7 repairing the facing around the two-story windows right above us. We have not been happy, and complained about the drilling, walking around, and other loud sounds coming from the work.

In general, the ship it is adequate in size and design although having the guest services desk right above and next to where the band plays or the dance instructor holds class in the atrium is poor, as it is hard to hear and understand the non-native English speaking people manning the desk. I think another negative is not being able to find a quiet place to sit and read as the common space is all along the central atrium on all floors and within hearing distance of all the activity that takes place there. Unless of course, you are a member of one of the “special” clubs and can use their lounge space.

The décor of the ship is pleasant, not lavish, with art and furnishing in keeping with a good hotel on land. Our room is more than adequate, but that is because it is a large handicapped room that I requested in order to have the grab bars, shower bench, and higher toilet in the bath that is more comfortable and safer for me.

The theater is pleasant with seats that are designed to allow everyone to see the stage and the rows of seats are not crowded allowing for adequate leg/knee space and are quite comfortable.

The library is adequately stocked but the “reading room” blends into the cupcake/coffee/ice cream shop, so sitting there is a little awkward. There are about 10 work stations at the computer/Internet area, but you don’t have any room to put your materials down and the Internet is expensive for our needs. So, we work on our laptops mostly in our rooms, and then “connect” when the port allows us to do so.

THE PEOPLE

What surprised us was the difference in the people between the two cruises. There are more characters, more young people, and more children on this second cruise, possibly because it was so cheap. It is a repositioning cruise for this ship that will sail in the Mediterranean for the summer.

What kind of characters you ask? Well, one Hell’s Angel-type man has a braid that he can sit on and although he looked big and really tough, he was holding the hand of about a 2 year old boy. Several old men also have no hair on top of their heads and have ponytails in the very back of their heads, just not as long as his, which has to be at least 4 feet long. A 50+ woman has her head shaved on two sides with a Mohawk styled hair-do straight up on top, dyed bright blonde, and has tattoos all over her arms and even on her ear lobes. I have never seen tattoos on ear lobes before. Her spouse in a small man bent over and very stooped-shouldered and bald. Their skin is leathery and she wears a small bikini on her ample body and he wears a polka-dotted thong.

The people, in general, seem to be more uninhibited. On the first cruise people swam laps in the pool and sunbathed in the deck chairs with maybe a maximum of 5 in the pool at one time. This cruise, the pool is standing room only, full of women of all ages with thong-cut bikinis and men with tiny Speedos under their hanging beer guts. Some of this difference may be that we have more Europeans and fewer Chinese people on board this trip.

When you go by the pool area they seem to be having an on-going noisy/fun pool party from morning to night. Today, the pool was crowded with people standing in the water while they watched the 3-hour movie, Lincoln, on the huge screen hung above the pool. Stranger to us, is the number of leather skinned, older women or, seriously out of shape women (read falling out of their tops) who come into lunch with “cover-ups” on over their bathing suits--believe me, they are covering up nothing. For example, one cover-up a woman was wearing was a bright red crocheted top made with more holes than yarn.

It seems the cruise ship is the vacation spot and not the excursions to different countries as was the case on the first cruise. Valerie talked to a man who had spent 900 days of his life cruising and I spoke a couple this morning, who said this was their 26th cruise. The couple from Norway, who were our dining partners, said they like to sit in the sun and look at the water for 5-6 hours a day. I wouldn’t mind looking out at the sea for some time if, there was land, or birds, or whales, or dolphins, or even ships/boats, etc. to see.

For the 6 days we have been sailing from Dubai, we have seen 3 black-colored birds skimming the water, a few flying fish, about 6-7 cargo and tanker ships and no land---just water, water, and more water. Not even the pirate boats that plague these waters were in evidence, but one man said that a military ship was along side us for a while—we missed seeing it, as it was on the other side of the ship from our stateroom and we don’t walk 5 miles (not even 1) around on deck 10 that he does every morning. We had hoped that the channel leading up to the Suez Canal was narrow enough that you could see land on both sides and that at least there would be a little more shipping/fishing activity--wrong!

Valerie and I have come to the conclusion that the people who love to cruise are the same people who love to spend their vacations at a beach resort. Over and over people have told us they like this kind of cruise where there is nothing but water as it is relaxing and they can sun themselves and swim and walk the decks. They have no decisions to make—like where to eat or what they want to do and are completely cut off from phones, e-mails, and faxes. Valerie and I are relaxed when we have something to see, explore, appreciate, marvel at, think about, or learn from and about. In other words, we relax when our minds are engaged.

THE FOOD

I have mentioned before that we have not attended the formal dining room, but a couple of times. On the first cruise, one of the woman at our assigned table did nothing but complain the whole time, as ”she has been in the business 40 years” and----blah, blah, blah---you fill in the blanks. We found the food very well-prepared for the most part on the Windjammer buffet and we could eat when we wanted to and not be forced to have dinner at 6:00 on the dot every evening. We could also sample a little of this and a little of that from a wide array of dishes that were offered. Every evening they offered one steam table of food that was from a different country---India, Mexico, Japan, etc.

The Windjammer has a duplicate set of three 10-12 foot double sided serving islands-–one on each side of the of the half-circle dinning room. Near the kitchen is an area where chefs have specialty items and toward the seating area are three more food islands. We especially enjoyed the presentation of the food with carved melons and vegetable arrangements scattered among the offerings. Flanking the specialty area near the kitchen wall are drink machines—coffee, tea, water, iced tea, and lemonade depending on the time of day. The seating is along the outside glass wall on the bow of the ship so you can get a nice view.

At breakfast, the first island has cereals, milk, and yogurts; the second island has breads, muffins, and pastries; and the third island has scrambled eggs, tater-tots, corned beef hash, bacon, sausages, etc. There are two chefs frying eggs and making omelets in the front, an area devoted to toasted items and national items, and an island of fruit at the back.

At lunch and dinner, the first island is the salad bar, next is the bread/rolls island with the end displaying the antipasto selections of cheeses, fancy meats like parma ham, artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, olives, marinated veggies, etc. These are followed by two steam tables holding different selections on both sides of meat, vegetable, potato, and pasta dishes. At the specialty area is a carvery with different roasts for both lunch and dinner. Sometimes instead of a roast, they make a Mongolian stir-fry, pasta plates of your choice, or chicken gyros. At lunch they also have an area with pizza and hamburgers or hotdogs.

One center table holds a selection of desserts that always includes some kind of fruit. This island includes dishes of plain jello in a variety of flavors--people scarf it up and not just the kids. What is up with that???

The first dinner on the second cruise we decided to try the dining room again. This time our assigned table mates were pleasant, a couple of teachers from Florida and some people who live in Norway, but have lived in the USA in NY and PA. However, dinner took 2 hours to get our orders taken and all the courses served for just the 6 of us. Valerie wanted escargot and duck with current sauce that was being served at the formal dinner the next night, so we got on our fancy duds and attended, but we have gone back to eating the buffet since then.

The “fancy duds” can be really fancy with black sequined formals for the women and tux for the men with some woman wearing tons of glittery jewels. Some of the prettiest outfits we thought were worn by a number of Japanese women who wore their kimonos with obis.

The food seems to be tailored to the groups that are on board. For example, on the first cruise there were a lot of Chinese, including a group of about 50 from the San Francisco Bay area and so the chefs prepared typical Chinese breakfasts items. It was interesting to see Congee (rice cooked with lots of water to make a mush), that they topped with fried garlic, fried pickle slices, dried fish, and other items I have no idea what they were. On this cruise, the same space is now devoted to a full English breakfast with grilled tomatoes, Scottish eggs, fried eggs, Canadian bacon, and baked beans.

They offer at least one dessert that is sugar free and one that is gluten free. Items on the steam and serving tables are marked as such. At least one offering at dinner is a vegetarian entrée. Some sort of fish and some sort of chicken is served every night. They have regular sugar, raw sugar, and both the pink and blue stuff. Where we see a lack, is in the fat-free salad dressings as they offer only one kind and that is raspberry vinaigrette, which isn’t a tasty addition to all salads and is not served at every meal.

They have unlimited milk, tea, coffee and lemonade, but other than those items, you have to buy a package for unlimited sodas or wine or hard drinks and the packages are not cheap.

If none of the dining rooms suit you, you can purchase your meals and snacks at several different shops/restaurants—why anyone would pay for a cruise that includes meals and then purchase meals at a restaurant is beyond me. Guess some people can’t live without their “Seattle” coffee, so buy it special at the Cupcake House. They also have free room service with a limited menu and the Park Side Café that serves sandwiches, desserts, a limited salad bar, and the standard drinks free all day. Valerie gets late evening really good carved roast beef sandwiches here to eat before she goes to bed.

For additional pictures of the food and offerings at the Windjammer, see the April 8-9 blog of this trip.

THE ACTIVITIES

As I have said, we really didn’t participate in any activities other than the evening entertainment and the scheduled off ship excursions. They do have a bit of everything from a full service spa, to duty free shops, to church services with both Protestant and Catholic clergy on board and trivia games, rock climbing, karaoke contests, miniature golf, swimming pools, arts and crafts, movies, dance and exercise classes, lectures, and so on. A daily guide is brought to you each evening giving the schedule for the next day.

Many women seem to think shopping is a major activity on board ship with 6-7 shops on the 5^th floor plus cameras available at the photo shop. It seems that there is a major sale of jewelry items and watches every cruising day.

There is lots of intimate or party-type of entertainment depending on the cruise day. Our favorite is a classical guitarist. There is also a duo who sing and play rhythm and blues and are frequently the ones at the pool getting a party started. There is a combo performing a variety of popular songs and a piano bar performer, who is a far way from being the “Piano Man.” Today, for example, there are 12 different performances.

The special nightly entertainment has varied from illusionists to singers to operatic tenors to piano concerts and original performances by their own group of dancers and singers. Valerie’s favorite was the three women who were called the Supreme Dream team and had the place jumping with Motown classics. Most of the finalists in American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and America’s Got Talent would put these performers to shame. And, unfortunately, in 30 days of sailing, there was no country music nor balladeers like Roger Whitaker.

Two times during the cruise they have aerialists who perform in the central atrium or Centrum, as they call it. It is a fascinating show to be held on a ship, and fun to watch from the top decks. These shows usually take place during a fancy dress night when they aren’t taking pictures of the captain and guests.

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