I'm writing a fairly extensive review here in light of the vast number of overwhelming negative reviews for the Empress of the Seas. Like many of you, in advance of our cruise, we were really regretting her decision to sail on this ship. In reality, if we had the option to cancel, we certainly would have. To Royal Caribbean's credit, they noted a negative comment that I posted on Facebook and actually CALLED me a few days before our cruise to assure me that they had aggressively addressed the concerns of the first groups of passengers. They told me that I should expect a wonderful vacation, and offered me the personal email address of one of the vice presidents of the company. I thought this was quite impressive. Now on to my actual experiences on the cruise that set sail on June 11.

Embarkation was a breeze as many others have noted. This was our seventh cruise on Royal Caribbean, and easily the smoothest embarkation process.

There were numerous complaints that I read from earlier cruisers regarding food quality and the time it took to get food and drinks. I must say that all of the bars seemed to be sufficiently staffed, and I never waited more than two or three minutes to get a drink- even at the pool bar. Lines also did not seem to be much of an issue at the Windjammer. As a tip/suggestion, use the left hand entrance to Windjammer-that line is much shorter. The food selection was pretty good, although on several occasions the food temperature was lukewarm at best. This seemed to be the case most often at breakfast time- barely warm eggs and cold sausage seemed to be the norm. Service in the main dining room, while courteous, was easily the slowest I have experienced on any cruise. With that said, most evenings we were in and out of the main dining room in 90 minutes or so. No real complaints about the food quality – pretty consistent with my other Royal Caribbean cruises. There were plenty of choices each night- it definitely did not seem restrictive in any way. AND- the ice cream machine worked beautifully. Ice cream was always available. Read more