I just came back from an Avon Training cruise with Royal. This was my 1st time sailing with RC. I have sailed mostly with Carnival (3) and once with Norwegian. From all of the reviews and people I spoke with before sailing I expected way more.
1) Our waiter was very dry and hardly spoke with us. He kept serving the wrong dishes to the wrong people. I got the impression that he didn't speak much English as we tried to talk with him. He never smiled and the few sentences he said sounded like they were just memorized.
2) The sail away party was basically non existent. Maybe about 30 people up on the deck and there was no camera man walking around. Also, there weren't any shots of the "party" shown on the Big Screen during the sail away.
The room had a lot of storage space in the closet and behind the mirrors. We could hear some of the engine noise but it wasn't too bad.