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The ship was recently renovated, and felt brand new! Ours was only the second cruise after the renovation. Improvements included essentially re-doing all the staterooms, adding specialty restaurants and many others.
Before going on the cruise we signed up for the "Meet and Mingle" Roll Call. One of the best moves I have ever made! Before getting on the ship, we "knew" about 35 other cruisers! We had made plans for all the ports (none of which included a cruise company shore excursion).
Positives: The ship is in excellent condition and looks beautiful. Enforcement of not bringing alcohol on board is spotty at best, which is good. We managed to have our own bottle of wine at every dinner except one, and the wait staff opened it for us with no charge for corkage!
Negatives: No self-help laundry, not even an iron. Our cabin steward told us that Royal Caribbean is all about making money. Food in the main dining room good but not as gourmet as I remember from earlier cruises. I think gourmet food is now saved for the "specialty" restaurants, so RCI can make more money. Wait staff is tasked with more that I recall from previous cruises, so service is a little worse.
Overall, the experience was delightful. We got along extremely well with our dinner table-mates, and enjoyed meeting new people at breakfast and lunch open seating. In addition we had our 35-strong CruiseCritics family! It was like being part of a big group and yet independent. The ports we visited were Kotor (Montenegro), Athens, Kusadasi (Turkey), Bodrum (Turkey), Santorini and Split (Croatia). We were also scheduled to dock at Mykonos but could not because of high winds. Excellent ports with lots to see.
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