We've taken many cruises with many cruise lines (Celebrity, Disney, Princess, RCL, Carnival...) but this holiday cruise from December 2015 was very disappointing. The problems began upon arrival on the ship. The elevators were minimal and one or two were broken and out of service at the beginning of the trip. Several of the elevators were missing buttons and one had cracked glass. Staterooms are not as nice as some of the other ships we have been on, and the bathrooms tend to have a displeasing odor, as well as being small. In addition, we could barely enjoy our balcony because there were so many smokers. We were herded like cattle for the muster station and had to stand on deck for a long time, while other people got to muster in comfortable lounges.

Although we had two cabins with a linked reservation that had a 8:00pm main-seating dining reservations for 4, half of our party was given my-time dining, while the other two were given the 8:00pm seating but with no assigned table. We waited TWO hours in line in the main dining room to speak with the dining manager to correct Royal Caribbean's mistake. However, when it was our turn, we were told there was nothing that they could do and we would have to take the my-time dining with no guaranteed reservation time. In addition, a couple came up while we were dealing with our dining issue, without waiting their turn, and after screaming and yelling they were given the correction they desired. As a Platinum RCL member, this was unacceptable. So we spent more time waiting in line for the guest services manager, who said she would take care of it and we would have 8:00pm reservations. However, once again, this did not happen.

This brings me to how disappointing the service on this ship was. For instance, when we made a 8:00pm reservation with my-time dining on New Year's Eve, we had to stand in line until 9:00pm until we were seated. At that point, we didn't want to even have the appetizers or dessert (knowing how slow the service always was) because we were going to miss that evening's show. Unlike some other reviews, we do give credit to the food in the main dining room. But, the service was horribly slow. It took usually two and a half hours to go through an entire meal. Read more