This was our second cruise, the first was a Disney cruise. We have been to several all inclusive resorts in several countries and find it to be a far better bang for our buck. But that is not the reason I am writing this review, as I believe everyone has their own tastes,likes,dislikes etc. The reason I write this is, one part of the experience that I found to be in such poor taste, I can't believe it actually happened in this day and age.

On the final night of this cruise, we had our dinner in the dining room, as most night we did(not the buffet). Before the meal, the dining room staff, all the waiters,cooks, hosts, etc. congregated for a farewell/thank you performance if you will. A nice touch for the last night. They did a short performance, singing etc, and recognising the vast diversity of home countries of the staff. As a finale to this performance, they sang one of the American anthems(I apologise, as a Canadian, I do not know the name of it, but it was an American patriotic anthem, which most people would recognise). And as it was sung,the vast majority of passengers were Americans, and they all stood up, hand over hearts and sang along. Now I want to make something clear, I have nothing against America or Americans. They're great neighbors, allies, etc. etc. My problem is, this was an international cruise, with international passengers, and I would bet 100% international(non-american) dining room staff. Royal Carribean had this staff stand and sing a song(anthem or whatever you would call it) about America, not a globally neutral song, but America. Sung by probably close to 100% non-americans to an international audience. I can't figure out for the life of me, what place singing that song had to do with that cruise, my vacation, or anything to do with any part of it. I was EXTREMELY offended by this, and I'm typically not one to take offense to things of this nature. It had NO REASON to be part of their performance. I found it as tasteless as it would be to sing a song about heterosexuality in a room with members of the LGBTQ community. It was an international cruise, with international passengers and international staff, on an international ship. Sure, the vast majority of passengers were Americans, but this was not a cruise entitled "the celebrate America cruise". It was my vacation as well, and I don't like to feel like an outsider for not saluting another nations flag while I am on it. I'm disgusted by this, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. As Americans, you have every right to be proud of your nation, but those of us from other countries have every right to be proud of our own. I have no more interest in singing your national anthems as you would singing mine.Singling out one nation to celebrate on an international cruise, is absolutely absurd.

We found most aspects of this cruise to be satisfactory. Again, cruising is not in our opinion to be the best bang for our buck, and again, this is just our opinion, as many people truly enjoy cruising over other types of vacations. The food was for the most part excellent, better than most all-inclusive resorts. All staff that we encountered were polite and service was good. The embarkation(boarding of the ship) was an absolute gong show. I understand getting thousands of people on board, through security, and checking in, is a huge task, but three hours serpentining in a line was insane. I don't have anything to offer as a solution, but I'm sure given some thought, this process could be streamlined. Our cabin was fine for the four of us, obviously on a ship, you're going to have limited room in cabins, so the tightness of it is to be expected. The big window looking out was a pleasant surprise. Of the 3 shore excursions we did, the highlight was snuba diving in grand cayman. We weren't expecting much, after a long wait to get off the ship, taking the tenders into shore, then waiting for an hour to be taken to our excursion. Then the snuba excursion was literally a couple hundred meters from where the tenders bring us to shore, so it seemed like it was going to be a waste of time excursion. But it was absolutely amazing. Beautiful reef, sunken ship, beautiful colorful fish(and many huge tarpon). We've done lots of snorkeling excursions in the past, and this was by far the best water related excursion we've ever been on. Could not say enough about how pleasantly surprised we were by this excursion. Read more