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First the good stuff-
Good#1) The ice show was amazing. They don't promote it as much as they do their other shows- probably because seating is limited (about 800 seats)...but it is by far the best show on the ship. We went twice.
Good#2) The junior suite we stayed in was wheelchair accessible for one of our party. It was enormous and beautiful. Very nice. Cabin staff was gracious and helpful. It was all very accessible. If you are alone with a wheelchair the only issue is that the door to the hallway is quite heavy- would have been nice to have an automatic door or a lighter door that opens when you insert the door key- but this is a minor detail.
Good#3) The food in the dining rooms was variable- from excellent to mediocre depending on the night. The staff was always bending over backward to help. They were very nice.
Good#4) The staff in general was very nice and tried their best to bend over backwards for all the guests.
Good #5) The food at Portofino was wonderful. They really hit their mark at that restaurant. It is worth the extra $20 per person to eat there.
Neutral #1) The food in the windjammer cafe for breakfast and lunch was average (not great) cruise food. I like it, many will not. We took NCL in the past and the food was about the same for breakfast and lunch- and since NCL is not rated as particularly good for food, I think this doesnt say much for Royal Caribbean- still, the food was adequate at those meals.
The BAD stuff:
BAD#1) If you are a wheelchair user. Or if you have one in your party. Do NOT buy the transfers to and from the ship/LAX. Royal Caribbean has no accessible tour buses so they contract with Supershuttle to provide you with your transfer. Supershuttle has exactly 3 Wheelchair vans out of 300 vans in their LA fleet. They will NOT call a van for you until you show up to their kiosk. Therefore, you will wait an hour for a van to take you anywhere and you will have to repeatedly ask them to check on the status of the WC van to make sure they have not forgotten you. In San Pedro at the end of your trip the Supershuttle kiosk is in direct sunlight and you'll bake in the heat for an hour while they get you a ride. It costs $60 each way in a taxi and you'll have fast service to and from the port- we suggest you spring for the taxi. I think if you have 3 in your party it works out to about the same either way.
BAD#2) The excursions desk person was rude and unhelpful. He appeared to hate his job. He was dismissive and would not let me explain why I wanted to talk to him about accessible excursions. I went back a second time at the urging of the cruise (they asked people to go to him who needed WC access on excursions) and he told me I was too late- that I should have come earlier. I reminded him that I tried to talk to him days before but he sent me away and he deflected responsibility for his error and told me the only option he would offer was an expensive (hundreds of dollars) private van for the day. Thankfully this moron was the only bad staffer on the ship- everyone else was extraordinarily nice. I missed NCL's excursions staff, however, when I talked to this guy because when we cruised with NCL they were more than helpful.
BAD#3) The food in the steak house was of poor quality. It is definitely not worth paying extra to eat there. We heard this from several others on board. The steak is good- but you can order that anywhere onboard for a little extra- but the remainder of the entrees, the appetizers, and the desserts were worse than we had in the main dining room on other days.
BAD#4) The dining services did not appear to really embrace the need for many of us to have sugarfree/low carb options at each meal. They DID have sugarfree options at breakfast, lunch and dinner in the main dining areas. These options were not always low carb, however, and one wonders whether they actually consulted a dietician before putting them out for diabetics to eat. For example, one day the sugarfree option for dessert was a pineapple upside down cake. So...pineapple...the most carb laden of the fruit family..that's on top...and the cake was deliciously heavy...probably loaded with 80 carbs by itself...I dont think it was well conceived. The other issue is that at the one-and-only midnight buffet by the pool they failed to put any sugarfree/low carb desserts out at all...and this also occurred at the only afternoon snack time that I attended...so they seemed to put in these sugarfree options with less than full committment to them.
BAD#5) The only indoor jacuzzi is in the spa and that's fine- but while this would be the perfect place to make the jacuzzi easily accessible for wheelchair users- it was completely inaccessible with stairs to entrance. It made no sense- so if you are going someplace cold and want to take your jacuzzi indoors then you'll need someone with you to pick you up and place you in the indoor jacuzzi because it is not at all accessible. The two outdoor jacuzzi's in the solarium are reasonably accessible- but only by accident- there was no obvious attempt to make any of the pools or jacuzzi's accessible on the part of Royal Caribbean- but by virtue of the fact that the jacuzzi's in the solarium have a 1-2 foot edge around the jacuzzi essentially at hip-height- one can transfer over the edge into the jacuzzi. It's obviously not meant to be entered this way- but it worked.
BAD#6) Is it because this is a European cruise ship that they cater to smokers so much? They allow smoking in most bars and half the pool deck. This despite the fact that smokers appeared to comprise less than 30% of their guests. This meant that those of us who don't like to marinade in smoke and who are used to smoke free environments in California, could not spend much time in most of the bars (even when we wanted to hang out, have a beer and listen to live music) and 85 percent of the pool clients were crowded into 50% of the pool deck space while the small number of smokers created clouds of cancer dust and warded off the rest of us from finding seats near the pool, seats in the bars, etc. Crazy. I understand when they allow smoking in casinos- and as far as I am concerned if you must gamble (we did) then you have to put up with that- it's true in Reno and Las Vegas...why not a cruise ship. But near the pool? In a bar when you want to listen to live music? We wished for a nonsmoking ship.
PERSONAL OPINIONS: A few thoughts- but these may not be agreed upon by others who experienced them- the singing and dancing shows were good- not great- but good. The band was excellent. The comedian we saw- Troy Thirdgill, was incredible- very funny. The magic show- LaRaf...we did not like- we thought it was very cheesy. The ice show as noted above- marvelous. The QUEST gameshow- if you like Jerry Springer you'll love the opportunity to make an idiot of yourself in The Quest gameshow. If you dont, then you'll want to skip it. We would have loved more music onboard- more jazz, some blues (there was none), etc. Finally- our opinion is that Mazatlan is a poor and depressing place to take a tour of the city. I am sure that some of the excursions were worthwhile- but if you are only going to take the city tour and mexican show- save your money and enjoy the ship- We were sad for the people who live there. Looks like the town lost out on tourism business decades ago and is just marginally getting along now. Puerto Vallarta looked much better (though we didnt go out there due to the excessive heat).
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