We took our first family cruise 10/10/14 out of Boston , my husband and I have 2 children who are eight and five. From the very beginning there was confusion as nothing was explained clearly, no signs or directions, we had to just figure it out as we went . The woman that assisted us at embarkation check in was very kind and friendly and explained how our room cards worked, I did like how our pictures were attached for security reasons. After we were done checking our luggage we didn't know where we were supposed to go as people were going through both the embarkation picture line and another check in line, the only direction provide was a vague 'to the ship' sign. After we were all hearded on to the ship deck there was no direction to where we were supposed to go, it was our first time on a cruise and I had heard our rooms weren't going to be ready right a way which was fine but we didn't know where anything was on the ship or where we were supposed to go.

We ended up with the rest of our fellow cruise goers in the buffet, which I found had better food and service than the specialty dining. I did like the kids cafe in the buffet, however consistency was hit or miss. There were times that only one side of the buffet was open during peak hours which equaled long lines and annoyed passengers. On the last day the kids cafe was closed for breakfast so you had to wrangle hungry and bored children in a long line at the buffet which I thought was poor planning. I also didn't understand why the 24 hour dining option was a restaurant and not the buffet? Made no sense to me.

Our first night we had reservations with friends at the Venetian. It took an hour and a half to get a salad, my kids fell asleep from waiting so long and my husband ended up bringing our kids back to the room and I brought him his cold dinner afterwards. We discovered that our interior cabin had one bed that smelled like body odor, items were missing from the refrigerator (which we didn't want to get charged for) and there were various flyers from the last cruise which apparently was Canada judging from the maple leafs. When we went to guest services with our concerns about our experiences at the Venetian and the cabin, the representative was completely disinterested and told me that for dining concerns to alert the maitre d and for cabin service to alert the room stewart. We had never been on a cruise before and had just assumed that guest services was the contact point for everything but we assumed wrong. Read more