First couple minor issues we noticed - no longer were pool towels provided in the suites. Moses told us that every cruiser now has to go to the towel stand on the pool deck and have our card scanned to show we have checked towels out. We usually like having the bigger pool towels on hand to use when showering as well as on excursions. As it is, we checked out two towels the first full day to be used on our tour in St. Lucia. Upon returning to the ship, we dropped off our towels and the guy manning the table told me my card didn't need to be scanned and he'd take care of it. A couple days later Dad went to check out a towel for using the pool and it was the same guy who remembered Dad and told him not to bother scanning his card. We did double check our onboard account statement a couple times during the cruise and were never charged for any towels.
Second issue was the water that came out of our cabin bathroom sinks. It came out of the faucet fine but once in the clear glasses, you could see a cloudiness to the water. It looked like I had made up soapy water and poured it into the glass. The first time this happened, I brought the glass over to show Dad and those 30 seconds of walk time made the water clear up. I even refilled another glass and got the same result, this time lasting long enough for Dad to witness. He noted that it was a result of air in the pipes but acknowledged that there should be no reason for it. I filled a glass a couple times over to get the cloudiness in a picture. The water itself tasted fine though I never did try to drink it until it cleared. As the cruise went on, there was no more cloudiness. I also noticed after my first shower in the bathtub shower that it no longer pooled water in the tub so maybe whatever was causing a slow drain in the bathtub was also causing air in the pipes?
These first two pictures are right after collecting the water from the bathroom sink
This is the same glass of water after I walked it out into the adjacent bedroom
Back to the cabin tour:
That door to the left is the walk in closet. Directly to the right is the door to the 2nd bathroom which has a shower stall. There is a light switch right by the door handle that controls the living room lights. The light switch for the walk in closet and the smaller bedroom are on the wall between the walk in closet door and the bedroom door. We spent a lot of time playing light switch roulette trying to figure out which was which.
Anyone know what this box is for? Too shallow to hold anything and it isn't a door stopper because the door opens the other way.
Inside the walk in closet: Life jackets and the bunk bed ladders tucked away in the corner. Plenty of drawer space with shelving and more hangers than we could ever need between this and the wardrobe cabinets in the main bedroom. Dad's suitcase is tucked away under his hanging clothes. It went so far back I could have laid down and still fit inside.
Turning my back to the entry door, you can see how narrow the hallway is between the bathroom door, desk, and bedroom door. You couldn't pass by if someone had one of those doors open.
Here's the same view when the bedroom door is open:
Same goes for trying to get by the other direction when the bathroom door was open:
12 days of playing Marco Polo as you maneuvered the hallway so no one got a swinging door to the face.
Smaller bathroom - No dispensers in the shower but we had small bottles of the "high end" toiletries. There is a step up to get into the bathroom and a small lip to step over to get into the shower. Each bathroom door had hooks on the back for hanging things.
Smaller bedroom - Dad kept the beds split into twins because it was easier to use his CPAP. The bunk beds come out from the ceiling, an improvement from the ones that stuck out from the wall even when closed on Oasis. Dad found that his feet would often kick open the bedroom door as he laid in bed and took to propping the door open with the desk chair. Otherwise it would swing back and forth with the rocking of the ship.
What was the point of this glass panel and curtain for looking from the 2nd bedroom to the living room? I thought maybe it was for checking in on sleeping kids but that curtain got pulled shut every evening. Would have made more sense to put the door there. The only full length mirror is on the other side of the wall in the hallway and I kept stopping at the glass window first. It's tough to see fully but where the tape on the carpet stops is where the orange extension cord meets up with a black extension cord that runs along the other bed until reaching the plug behind it. Note no TV in this bedroom.
That wooden shelf running along the wall next to Dad's bed (bottom left) seemed to have some narrow cubby openings that would have been accessible if you put the two twins together. (Bottom right) I'm standing in the doorway to take this picture so you can see how close the end of the bed is to the door. You had to turn sideways to walk between the bed and the little mantel below the mirror.
Proceeding down the hallway you encounter our desk which held our main outlets, coffee maker, and ice bucket. This is also where we found the treat plate of the day deliveries. There's two US and two European outlets.
What the glass window looks like from the hallway:
Living room space had floor to ceiling storage unit with cabinets, drawers, and shelves. The fridge is in the bottom center cabinet. We had the hookup for the provided video game system we could borrow controllers and games for from the concierge but no actual system. The safe is a key pad safe and is in one of the top cabinets. One top corner of the label on the safe was worn out from people using it to pull open the safe door. It'll say "open" once you put the correct code in but doesn't spring open on its own.
This couch folds out into a bed to sleep two more people. There is also two matching chairs that faced the TV. According to RCL's floor plan, those two chairs were meant to be facing the couch but for the most part we liked it this way better. We kept that large window behind those chairs covered by the curtain because it left such a blinding glare while sitting in the living room.
Here's what that window looked like from outside the ship - The rest of our balcony is to the right of the window:
I found it funny that aside from bathroom and matching ice bucket glasses, this was the only piece of dishware/glassware in our suite. At one point, Moses did take one of my used bathroom glasses and didn't put a new one back for a couple days. No big deal since each bathroom had two and the ice bucket had two. Would have cared more if I was one of 8 people using this cabin. Pro-tip: Swipe a couple extra packs of napkin rolled silverware from the buffet and bring them back to be stowed in your cabin. Comes in handy when you grab a quick snack or come back to find a plate of treats in your cabin. I made the mistake once of grabbing a napkin roll while getting breakfast only to realize that they don't include a spoon for my yogurt, just knife and fork. Spoons will be in a cup or bin somewhere so make an extra effort to grab one if you are taking back something that requires it. Anything you order from room service directly will include a couple napkin rolls of silverware.
Here's what that window looked like from outside the ship - The rest of our balcony is to the right of the window:
Random thought - I also noticed in the buffet how the cereal was in dispensers and not as individual sealed boxes that some cruisers will stockpile or use as snacks on excursions. If you expect to need a little pick me up while on tours, you might want to bring your own sealed cracker packs or granola bars etc.
If you turn your back to the couch, this is the view of the main bedroom which I used. I was impressed that it was a firm mattress. On Oasis you could feel the one sided indent as you climbed in each night. This is supposed to be a sliding glass door to close off the space but there was a door wedge jammed under the sliding part and a rut in the carpet were you could tell someone tried to force it closed. I was afraid something would break if I tried to move that wedge so I simply pulled the curtain closed by itself when I wanted privacy.
There is a set of light switches controlling the living room space and this bedroom's overhead lights to my right leading into the bedroom and a switch just for the bedroom over that nightstand on the right. There is also wall mounted sconces by each pillow that can be controlled individually by a toggle switch underneath them. These are also over the couch. There is a thermostat for each space within the cabin and we definitely each tweaked ours as the cruise went on. We'd also find that various public spaces around the ship were either very warm or very cold randomly only to be fine later. A time or two I'd come back to the cabin to relax only to find it so hot it was making me feel ill. Headed back out to find something else to do and soon felt much better. Returned to the cabin a couple hours later and it wasn't so bad. Not sure if they had intermittent A/C issues or somebody flipped the wrong switch somewhere.
Nice vanity area with the same set of plugs as the desk. I mostly used it as a catch all for my phone, purse, and hairbrush. The TV was pretty decent, unfortunately the Grandeur still doesn't have the interactive system where you can use your cabin TV to view your account, watch on demand movies, or order room service. We had several news channels, a couple kids channels, one channel that showed some old TV shows (the same episode of each a day - I'd catch a couple minutes of the same 7th Heaven episode throughout the day), one that I always seemed to catch showing the end credits of some movie, and the usual cruise fare of a bridge cam channel, filmed events onboard channel, and the channel that simply ran the schedule of activities over and over. On the right is the two large wardrobes full of hangers. I only needed one of them to fit my clothes so I stowed my suitcase inside the other one and used its hangers to organize my t-shirts that I'd already worn and intended to wear again. On the bathroom door side of the vanity, there is a cupboard with shelves and then drawers leading down to the floor where I stowed shoes and non hanging unmentionables.
Each window to the outside had this sheer curtain and a blackout curtain behind it so it will be dark if you want to sleep. I like being able to peek outside when I wake up in the middle of the night so I'd pop open the middle of the curtain slightly before going to bed. The sheer curtain helped curtail some of the strong glare while keeping natural light. The center of this large glass is a sliding door to access the balcony but I never actually stepped through it since the dining table bumps up against it. I did open it one morning so I could stand in the bedroom and take pics while still in my pajamas.
Above left is how I organized the wardrobe closest to the bed. Plenty of hangers and no bar in the middle so you can hang anything from long dresses to jeans. I also hung up shorts/pants and bathing suits because we had more hanger space than drawer space. The one white item hanging in that left picture is our provided bathrobe. I never bothered to try it on for the fluffy factor. Above right is the closet closest to the bathroom. That's a full size suitcase that's half as tall as I am. I did notice some extra bedding stuffed under my bed so you could probably fit a suitcase that size under the bed too if you have multiple suitcases. I used the bottom of this closet to toss in my dirty clothes so they were out of sight. If the suitcase wasn't in there, you could easily have fit one of those popup hampers I've heard some people like to bring. Personally, it's already dirty so why not just throw them on the floor of the closet itself?
The only drawback of the storage on the side of the vanity is the trade off of doors. If you had the cabinet or a drawer open, you couldn't open the bathroom door and vice versa. The drawers didn't pull out very far and stuck a little but were good enough for small items like my socks. There was some storage behind the mirrored doors of the vanity and a drawer in the countertop. That light switch by the door is for the bathroom.
Not much counter space as the sink takes up most of it. That shelf underneath holds the trash can, extra toilet paper, and sanitary disposal bags. Just enough space to stow my personal ladies necessities.
Normally I don't like to take out my individual toiletries but this time there was no space to leave my travel bag out on the counter. Everything stayed put nicely despite lots of ship rocking. I did keep my toothbrush in its own travel case on the shelf so it all remained sanitary. Below these shelves is a small drawer that looked a little worse for wear so I left it empty. Under that was this cupboard (above right) that was just big enough to fit my travel bag sideways and still close. This way anything extra I needed was still within arms reach but not in the way.
Good to see that the bathroom bottle opener has joined us again - doesn't everyone dream of cutting out the middle man and just popping open your beer while using the bathroom?
Oasis had L'Occitane products (which I may or may not have brought home with me, I plead the fifth) but Grandeur gave us Gilchrist & Soames. My bathroom had two bar soaps, an accessories kit (qtips/cotton balls), lotion, shampoo, conditioner, and bath gel (body wash). Always replaced as used and if you need more, feel free to ask your steward. I'm not usually picky and will use any product provided but found that the shampoo left my hair feeling like it needed conditioner. In comparison, I never use conditioner at home no matter the random brand of shampoo. There is a hair dryer in the top drawer out in the living room space. This was the first time I'd found a cabin hair dryer that wasn't somehow mounted in place. This one you could take out of the drawer and go use it wherever there was an available plug. I usually pull my hair up and let it air dry but Dad used the hair dryer and said it worked fine.
This shower also had a moveable showerhead so you could adjust it for a child's height or for using as a handheld. Plenty of grab bars for safety and that square that looks like a stain by the drain is a rough patch for stability under your wet feet. I did bring a throw away bathmat but never used it. I did however, take extra care in using the grab bars whenever I turned around in the shower.
Thankfully there wasn't that much of a step into the tub and the towel rack on the other side of the shower provided great stability as I stepped out afterwards. They do leave a little towel for putting on the floor as you step out of the shower.
The bathtub and shower stall has a retractable clothesline for hanging wet clothes. This came in handy when Dad climbed in the pool onboard without remembering to take his shirt off first.
And finally, our crowded balcony. I missed having a lounger but we did use the larger table and chairs to have lunch al fresco a couple times. I think it would have been more practical to have just the large table and a couple chairs out there. We often had to push aside a chair or the small table just to move around on the balcony. We'd also always step out onto the balcony before spraying on sunscreen or bug spray. There is a small step up in and out and note how the glass doesn't extend all the way up to the railing. While sitting in the chairs I could easily slip my whole arm in between so definitely be mindful of any children who could easily toss your prized possessions through that opening right at their height. Thankfully no bird fly by this time stealing my snack off the balcony table.
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