This was my 8th cruise, my 3rd with Royal Caribbean. The ship is older and going in for rehab soon, but it was better than we expected. We chose the ship based on the itinerary. There was a change that we did not expect and were disappointed. Instead of Tortola, we went to St. Thomas. When I called RC, they didn't know why, but looking at Cruise Critic, it was because of the dock/port being repaired in Tortola. Oh well.

RC sent me an email 3 days before our cruise telling us that we could board at 4pm. This was a problem because we had booked our airline tickets about 8 months in advance and we were landing before noon in San Juan. The RC website says that boarding starts at 1pm. I called and spoke to the cruise line to find out that we may or may not be able to board sooner and that just because it said that boarding started at 1, it didn't mean that we could board at that time. We went to the port around noon anyway and had no problem boarding along with many other people. Our room was ready around 1pm.

The RC agents on the phone were not very helpful. They weren't sure if there was shampoo "there may or may not be 2 in 1 shampoo". FYI there was a dispenser mounted in the shower that could have been shampoo. I don't know, but ours had something blue floating in it so I just used my own that I brought, just in case. No laundry on board, unless you want to pay $30 per plastic laundry bag. Read more