Serenade of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,674 reviews

Port of calls good, RCI a let down

Review for the Mediterranean Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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ptjenn
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Sep 2014
Cabin: Interior Stateroom

We are a couple each 40 years old who recently just completed a 12 day Adriatic Sea cruise onboard the Serenade of the Seas. Ports of call were excellent: Salerno(southern Italy), Sicily, Split, Slovenia, Venice 2 days, Dubrovnik, Montenegro, and Corfu Greece. The last time we sailed RCI was in 2011, and have been on other RCI previous to 2011. We cruise 1 to 2 times a year and only cruise Celebrity, Princess, or RCI. I told my husband unless the iteniary was really good that this would probably be my last RCI cruise. We had an inside stateroom and the size of the shower was very adequate with the nice semicircular enclosing doors. The bed was so hard my husband and I could feel the metal through the mattress no matter what position we slept in and we woke up very sore. After a few nights I noticed under the bed extra bed accessories. We placed an extra thin mattress pad on top of the other mattress pad which helped some. Our shoulders and hip bones have recouped since arriving back home and sleeping in our own bed. We only had 2 sea days and overall the ship areas were very nice- you can tell that there was a refurbishment done recently. We took 4 private excursions and 2 RCI excursions.

3 years ago when we tendered with RCI we had to wait in line starting at 7 am to get a tender ticket. We had booked private excursions and needed to get off the boat very quickly thus we were up very early in order to do this. On this cruise 3 years later to much my surprise, they allowed on tender days a "free pass" for the first 1 hour to anyone not booked on a RCI cruise excursion to just get off at their own discretion and they did not have to wait in line early to get a tender ticket. We had only booked a RCI excursions this time around because 3 years ago we cut it very close on private tours even though we got a tender ticket number 1 or 2. I was OK with the cruise letting others off for the first hour without needing a tender ticket if they did not have us who booked RCI excursions wait one hour in the Theater. On both tender stops we booked a RCI tour our tours both times started at 8:30am but it said we needed to be at the Tropical Theater by 7:45 am. The first tender stop in Split Coatia we were still sitting in the Theater at 8:40am. Thus our 8:30 am tour started at 9:10 am instead and ended later allowing less free time at the conclusion of the tour. I suspect that the fact that RCI let passengers not booked on RCI tours off without needing a tender ticket up to 9 am caused the back flow. I was also upset because we sat for an hour in the theater- we could have slept later or enjoined a more leisurely breakfast. They need to stagger meeting times and not have everone who have 8:00, 8:15, 8:30 am tours all come at 7:45 am. The second tender stop in Montenegro was almost the same experience except this time we waited 45 min in the theater not over an hour an again we were late starting our 8:30 am tour. Both tender stops you could hear the other people huffing and puffing after waiting 45 min to an hour to get off the boat- others were sleeping. To top it both RCI excursions were just OK- medicore. The RCI excursion in Montenegro could have been better but the tour operator talked nonstop without taking a breath and rambled off more dates than a history book about everything.

RCI has also got rid of many things since we cruised Hawaii three years ago on The Radiance of the Seas. No dessert night buffet with ice sculptures, no sea day outdoor cookouts for lunch, no midnight buffets etc. The windjammer closes for dinner at 9:00pm each night and does not reopen anymore. The only places open for a snack are the Park Café or Lattitudes the coffee shop. On the Radiance of the Sea a sister ship 3 years ago the Windjammer was open for snacks from 10 pm to 11 pm or so each night and we used this benefit often. You could get fresh fruit, they had a salad bar, sandwich fixings, cheese, desserts etc on top of one or two other areas being opened. One night three years ago on the Radiance of the Seas we had an excursion where the bus broke down and thank goodness the Windjammer was opened. We did not reboard the overnight stop until 9:45 pm and the fact that the buffet was open for extensive snacks was a lifesaver- I was able to make a meal with salad bar, snacks, meats etc. RCI has also got rid of the chocolates on the bed each night and on Mediterranean cruises no lobster tails at all not even on formal nights. We went to 3 specialty restaurants and they were all good except ONCE again RCI nickel and dimed you for everything!! Try paying $30.00 per person to eat in Chops and find out that you had to pay ala carte prices for Lobster tails or any steaks over 9 oz? The surf and turf was 42.00!! Thus that would have costed someone 72.00 to have surf and turf. I have no problem paying for specialty restaurants but let the passenger be able to order anything they want from the menu. 6 months ago on Princess when we ate in the Specialty Steakhouse I got lobster tail 2 ways and they brought me 8 small tails- way too much- but I only paid the 25.00 dollar coverage charge and Princess does not charge any extra after that. Chops Restaurant had excellent Shrimp and my husband ordered the Filet Mignon which was also good 9 oz only. He joked to the waiter he may need 2 steaks since the max oz. was a 9 oz on all steaks except if you wanted to pay more for a Porterhouse, Ribeye, Lobster etc. My husband ordered the Red Velvet cake. We are from the south and this was not red vlevet cake it was more chocolate cake with a rich white chocolate icing. Not a red cake with cream cheese frosting as it listed in the description. Giovanni's and Izumi were both also very good. The main dining room food was very good- especially appetizers. Desserts were always a big letdown- I have never seen so much mousse and gelatin desserts in my whole life- sometimes someone just wants pie or cake. One night I ordered a White Chocolate Pear Crisp Tart- it said white chocolate mousse with chocolate cookie crunch and chocolate reduction. It was white chocolate mousse very liquidy squirked onto a plate in 4 plops with a tiny, tiny bit of faint chocolate crisps in it- basically white chocolate liquid on a plate. One night in the buffet the desserts were these- coconut mousse, strawberry mousse, white chocolate mousse, chocolate mousse cake bar- mousse not in a cup just shaped into a bar no cake, and one other. I never want to see mousse again. My only thought is the cruise line has found a cheap way to make gelatin desserts or mousses or they have pastry chef that do not know anything about making apple pie, chocolate cakes, or other pies. We ate in the Windjammer for breakfast and lunch and both were good; ate dinner twice in Windjammer as well- due to arriving back at the ship late. There were 3 formal nights- and again I closely memorized the menu for the last formal night- again a let down. Soy meatballs, Thai chicken breast, somekind of chef salad as a main course, vegetarian pasta, and Prime Rib. That was one of the better formal nights- I always think that the formal night dinner main courses should be alittle glitzy but that was not the case this cruise on the Serenade of the Seas. The wait staff was very nice and helpful everywhere except the pool bar- they were rude to me twice. RCI is known to have better entertainment than other lines typically- but this cruise it was good to medicore. 3 out of 4 singers were awful and out of key and ruined good songs we all love to hear. The dancers were fairly good. The guest entertainers were all fairly good as well except they had the Gaucho from Argentina on day 2 and again on day 4??- not sure why a guest entertainer would be hosted twice as the main act especially with their acts being so limited. The cost of internet is always outrageous and we bought a 29.00 dollar package which was useless it took over 15 minutes to download emails each time- thus my husband got on 3 times or so and was out of time. We heard mix reviews on internet and some got on very quickly others complained like we did that it took over 15 minutes to load emails before they could begin to browse through them. The TV stations on RCI are absolutely the biggest advertisements I had ever seen on any cruise line stations were from channel 14 to 43. Over 4 stations were things about our current sailing on the Serenade of the Seas, two other stations were always advertisements and programs on other RCI ships- the building, the making of other ships, and even travel channel episodes on other RCI ships. Channel 30 through channel 43 were other non-English speaking stations. In February on Princess they played movies on the big screen and in the Princess Patter daily it would also list the same movie playing on the big screen with the times and station at which you could watch the same movie in your stateroom. It was always nice after dinner and the show to come back to the room and find good movies playing in your stateroom as you tried to wind down and get ready for bed. We watched in February movies that were only 1 year old or so- Galaxy, Xmen, etc. On the Serenade of the Seas that was not the case at all. Their was one movie channel TCM and almost every night it was a very old movie playing from 30, 40, 50 years ago and sometimes in black and white. No recent movies from the last few years EVER played in the room. The most recent movie that played in the evening one night was The Postman with Kevin Costner and that movie was from 1997- that was the most recent movie we watched in 12 days. The best programs on the stateroom TV were food network episodes.

Cabin Review

Interior Stateroom

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