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My wife and I were in a large business group of roughly 150 people. We flew to Miami, stayed overnight at the Airport Fairfield Inn, and then took a bus to the cruise port the next morning. The hotel was fine, although it was tough finding a local place to eat dinner. We did find a reasonable place after a few looks around, but the location of this hotel isn't as good as some others. I would, however, stay here again because it was clean, staff was good, and they really took care of our large group with no worries).
Embarkation was very smooth. So long as you had your Set Sail Pass and supporting documents, it was 1-2-3...and you were on the boat. Total embarkation time couldn't have been more than 20 minutes....tops.
This ship had so many different activities it was hard to keep track of them all. That, overall, was great. We didn't do a lot of them outside of the entertainment, though. This was a shorter cruise, we were tired, and ended up enjoying the quieter things, like reading, dining, strolling, etc. Many of our group reported great fun on the Flowrider, climbing wall, ice skating, pool activities, you name it. The promenade was about the coolest thing I've ever seen on any cruise ship. Shops were good, too, although it was typical cruise stuff like watches, bags, booze, and other boring stuff. Be kinda fun if somebody got creative and put a lingerie shop on one of these. I think they'd find revenue from the men go through the roof...
We dined in the Rembrandt dining room, at the Windjammer, the Pizza place (can't remember it's name), and at Cafe Promenade. All good. Not "great," but the selections were always good, and we, I think, enjoyed the buffet more than anything else (plug for Carnival here...we cruised on the Freedom in June in 2010, and I've never had better dining on a ship than that).
Fitness center was the best I've ever used on a ship. It is very large, very well laid out, the equipment was generally in good shape, and the views of the sea from it were spectacular.
The staff was good...in fact, I'd say they were all very, very much above average compared to other cruises. They knew our names, they took the time to provide good information to us, and really did whatever they could to make our vacation fun, easy, relaxing, etc.
Ports were good. Itinerary was also good...although, having done an eight-day cruise with five sea days....I prefer a longer cruise with more days at sea. That's where the fun is!
The only disappointment we had was with the entertainment in the Platinum Theater. We hit each of the major shows but the last one, and they were were all, for the most part, below par. I don't know what it was, but the voices, although good, were not focused on. Rather, we had to sit through a bunch of wierd stuff that wasn't worth our time or entertainment dollar so-to-speak.
Royal seriously needs to revisit the entertainment on this ship.
We did not attend any of the adult stuff. Didn't appeal to us.
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