Our cruise was very nice and we had a lot of fun, but that does not eliminate the fact that not everything was perfect. The Windjammer was constantly crowded, the new menu is inadequate, the entertainment was on the boring side, and the staffing levels are unacceptably low. I sailed on this ship a year ago and everything was different this time. The basic features of the ship remain unchanged, but the service on the ship needs improvement.

The Windjammer had the best food on the ship so everyone seemed to come in bunches. Royal Caribbean condensed the Windjammer hours since my last cruise. They eliminated the late night dining in the Windjammer and the Cafe Promenade stayed crowded the entire trip. At the Windjammer, we constantly endured an annoying announcement for people to finish eating and surrender their tables for others to enjoy their dining experience. It is offensive for the cruise line to rush people dining during a dream vacation. Hilariously, one night we met our formal dining waiters in the Windjammer because they stated only a few showed up for formal dining. Consequently, they reassigned them to the Windjammer for the evening.

The lemonade was scarce during the cruise and was only available during lunch and dinner; however, the only place where it was pleasurable was in the formal dining rooms anyway. Most of the lemonade was like flavored lemon water. Servers who operated the self-service drink stations discouraged your insistence for a fresh drink. They encouraged you to take the warm and watered down glasses already lining the trays. Lemonade is the only sweetened beverage that one can drink without paying extra. The brand of white sugar Royal Caribbean uses does not sweeten very well and the raw brown sugar disappeared completely after the first few days of the cruise. The poor availability of the lemonade did not affect me as much as many because I paid $74.75 for the Coca Cola Entertainment Beverage Package, which allows unlimited refills of your electronically activated cup at a few self-service stations throughout the ship. They advertised over 100 choices of beverages, to include various flavors of Coke, Sprite, Diet sodas, Hi-C, Fanta, and Dasani drinks. Not instigating a conspiracy theory, but if the shoe fits ... Read more