In the middle of the promenade is a staircase that leads down to the casino. I have never seen anyone take these stairs but the stairs function as a chimney for the cigarette smoke in the casino. The smoke from the casino comes up these stairs and into the promenade. The entrance to the casino is on either end of the promenade, one deck below. Smoke from these casino entrances also ends up in the promenade, , main staircases, and the elevator areas. RC makes statements in their policies such as "our ships are designated as non-smoking" and "onboard all interior public spaces are smoke free". This is misleading and not what happens in actual practice. I had hoped that after RC improved their smoking policy that it would be better than before, but in the common areas it is just as bad. A nonsmoker should be able to take a cruise and not have to breathe smoke. The casino could easily be configured so that smoke does not easily flow into other areas, but RC has not done this. It seems like the most important thing is the comfort of smokers in the casino at the expense of everyone else. They have a bar and a cigar lounge on the ship where smoking is allowed and they smoke from those venues does not enter other parts of the ship. Why don't they do the same thing with the casino. The casino basically is centrally located, open to other areas, place to smoke. I have witness people in the casino just smoking and not playing. I have tried RC twice and while no one is smoking on the balconies anymore, you still have to put up with a lot of smoke, and you shouldn't have to. It has left a bad taste in my mouth and I plan to wait until this improves, to take my next RC cruise.

For some reason when you and your travel agent tell RC about you sleeping preference (apart/together) the information never makes it to cabin steward. On both of my RC cruises they had it wrong when I boarded. I heard many other people complaining that had other stewards, so it seems to be a system problem, not just my steward. Our steward also neglected to give us the paperwork and luggage tags before we departed. I had to get them myself. The seating requests also do not get passed through. When we asked about our seating arrangement not being right, the only way they could fix it was to have as eat at *PM instead of our requested 5:30, so we had to live with the mistake.

The Galveston terminal is crowded, confusing, small and has contradictory signs. Read more