my husband and two children (ages 6 &9) sailed on a 7 night cruise out of Galveston November 2-9, 2014. we have cruised 4 times previously with Disney, but it was our first time with RCI. we had 3 other families with children traveling with us for our kids' school fall break, all of whom had cruised several times before with other cruise lines.
i read cruise critic quite often, and we picked this cruise because we heard about the ships' refurbishment, and we would be able to cruise out of galveston and avoid air travel. Our family takes one big vacation every year, and we try to make the most of our limited time off. therefore, we generally have pretty high expectations of the experience, and RCI did not live up to our hopes. so here goes...
the pros:
-the room: housekeeping was fair. most of the time, they did not vacuum our room unless i specifically asked. we stayed in a balcony room that had been "refurbished" but storage space/cabinets/shelves had not been redone, appeared dated, but most of all, we had very little storage. i had to keep my clothes stored in my suitcase all week. drawers were difficult to open and close. here were no toiletries in the room (shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc). i thought this was a pretty basic expectation to have on a ship or hotel. also, there was a strange smell in the hallway outside our room (kind of like poop) all week long.