We took this cruise to celebrate our 30th anniversary and went with my brother and his wife who were celebrating their 40th. We had previously sailed on the Serenade of the Seas and had a wonderful time. This cruise, while nice, just felt lacking in a few areas.

The ship itself was nice but felt small and closed in due to most of the "action" being on or near the promenade. Everything was in a centralized location so there wasn't much fun in exploring the ship to find those "out of the way" or "unknown" clubs/bars/areas. The promenade was filled with people most of the time and it made us feel like there were just too many people. The pool areas were also right next to each other so they were always full of people and almost impossible to get a chair (mostly due to people "reserving" them with towels even thought that is supposed to be prohibited). The solarium was not enclosed like we were used to, so when it rained (which it did) there were even less chairs to choose from. I'm not a big "sun" person and enjoyed having a solarium that was sheltered from the sun on the Serenade of the Seas.

The dining room was a good size an we didn't feel like it was too congested once everyone was seated; but while waiting for our dining time to begin there was a huge crowd waiting to get in the doors..it paid off to show up just a bit late. The food in the dining room was good. It didn't really impress me as much as past cruises but it was okay. There were a couple of nights that we weren't interested in anything on the menu at all, which is rare with the four of us. We didn't try the Windjammer for dinner but breakfast and lunch were adequate. I wasn't really impressed by lunch at all. The best part of breakfast was the omelet station. You had to bypass the first area of serving lines to head towards the back to even find it though. We were surprised that there were many hours when the Windjammer was closed, dining rooms were closed and the only place to get anything to eat was in the Promenade Cafe, which is as small as it sounds. They serve mainly pizza and a few pre-made sandwiches. As you can imagine, the line was extremely long! It always seemed to happen when people were coming back from their morning excursions, too late for lunch and too early for dinner. We tried Johnny Rockets, which is an additional charge, and it was good but expensive for a hamburger (milkshakes were extra). Read more