After cruising many quite a few years , mainly with Thomson we booked a Royal Carribean Cruise for a special Wedding Anniversary. We decided on the Eastern Med Itinerary which included one of our favourite places Santorini. We flew Jet 2 to Fumicenco airport and arrived at the port around an hour later. The staff there dealt with us fairly quickly as it was very busy. We then boarded the ship and had to find our own way to our cabin unlike Thomson where a steward would take you. We had boked the later sitting for our evening meal was confirmed at the time of booking for 8.30. However on arriving at the restaurant that evening we were confronted with a large queue as dinner would now be served at 9pm.

We were shown to a table for 10 and were the first to be seated. A few minutes later two other couples arrived and we made our aqauintances and tried to order some drinks. It took approximately 40 minutes for the waiter to arrive. Tables around us were being served meanwhile. We finally ordered our meals and received our main coursel at 11 pm!. As we had been up since 3 am we decided to skip desserts and retire. Not a good start to what was meant to be an excellent experience.

During the cruise we experienced problems with the card entry system to our cabin. We attended the customer services desk and joined the line. there were TWO staff on duty who were busy answering the telephones whilst the Shore Excursions desk had FIVE staff stood around doing nothing, meanwhile the queue is getting longer by the minute. When we got to be served we were issued with a new set of cards which worked for a day then the same problem arose, in total we had three sets of keys and the lock reconfigured and still had difficulty in gaining access tour cabin. Read more