Cabin Review

CABINS ( Junior Suites) We had 2 junior suites with balcony on the 10th deck . We had my parents & sister & her fam in the same cabins in deck 9 (mid ship) and we had others in our party in deck 8 & 7 (rooms with Balconies). I was very sceptical about getting on this ship as I was aware that it is due to be dry docked in April. This always sounds alarm bells. The size of the suite was excellent - my husband wanted to upgrade and Im glad that we didn't as there was sufficient space for our many pieces of luggage ( we travel heavy!) and we only ever slept in the cabin and really didn't spend much time in it. The size of the WARDROBE was excellent in these rooms! We kept our many pieces of luggage and still had plenty of room to hang our clothes! The cabins were needing some urgent maintenance attention. The bathroom had broken tiles and cracked ceramic - corners were cracked and rusted. Balconies were a decent size. The furniture pieces in the balcony were so bad ( torn/ old/ rusted) that you wouldn't find anything like it in a 2 star hotel! For the $$ that we paid for these rooms I expected such details to have been looked at and fixed before we boarded. Im sure RCI is trying to make as much $$ from Australian Cruises before the ship is dry docked and refurbished and then I wonder if we'll get it back to our shores.CABINS (Royal Suite) We had originally booked the Royal Suite for this cruise. My husband & I were celebrating our 25th year anniversary and he wanted to splurge. I had read so many bad reviews about this room that I decided to email RCI directly and address all my concerns before we finalised our payment ( broken showers, taps, old furniture, old spa ec) They never replied. I forward my email a week later with my original email re queries and putting them on alert that I was prepared to cancel the trip. It took almost another week before they replied and I wish I had kept the email! Not one of my queries was answered , they veered away as professionally as they could and wished me happy cruising . There was no reassurance so we decided to cancel this room. Again , alarm bells were ringing and we decided to play it safe and lock in the two suites. CABIN ASSISTANTThe cabin assistant was excellent (they all work so hard although I felt that the Phillipinos worked much harder at putting a smile on their faces than the indians) ! VINCENT a big thank you to you!!!! Nothing was too much trouble for Vincent. On one of our formal nights he ran with my husband's shirt which we gave to him mins before heading out , to have it pressed. He returned in minutes and presented us with a well pressed shirt! ( we asked on the off chance that it could be done but really didn't expect it to be) Our cabin was serviced twice a day and my 3 twenty yr olds kept their cabin just like their bedrooms and poor Vincent made it look like a castle after he'd been in there! He even folded my son's clothes. We couldn't thank him enough and although our gratuities were built into our package , we did tip him on the side. They well deserve it. We had a different towel animal made up in our room every night! NO chocolates :( but again who needs chocolate when there is so much food! One thing that I found annoying is that there is no PAPER & PEN. Its a floating hotel! Every hotel has paper & pen in the rooms! Cost cutting in this dept is a silly idea! They also need to upgrade those awful side table alarm clocks bought in the last decade!