I will start by saying this was my first cruising experience, so I cannot compare this other cruises. Our cruise departed from Vancouver at Ballantyne port. We were to board between 11am and 3pm. We arrived at the port at 2pm and assumed about a 45minute wait which we were told by previous cruisers was normal...we were completely wrong! All in all it took 3 hours and 1o minutes from the time we got in the first line to the time we boarded the ship. We were told by royal carribbean that this was due to customs officers who were "taking their time," as the ships cruise director explained in our safety display. It turned out that early that morning the computer systems had gone down causing the delay and the people who had arrived to board at 11, also waited over 3 hours before getting on the ship. Not only was the wait time unbelievable, there was only a few employees around who were all annoyingly cheery and were lying to us about what was going on. I want to also say that the customs officers were great. They were very friendly, quick, pleasant. It was clearly not them with the problem. Once onboard we thought we may be given a small credit or something to apologize for the wait, but absolutely nothing was done. After complaining, we were apologized too but that was it. The cruise itself was okay but most ports were just tourist shops, not local at all and you could not do much. The only positive thing I will say is that the workers (not the main employees) but the room cleaners, bartenders, and waiters were all amazing. They were so nice, generous, friendly, helpful, and everything else. I really appreciated that! If you take a cruise, leave good tips for them!!!!

Departing the ship was equally a nightmare. Although, getting off the boat and back through customs took less time (about an hour), it was completely disorganized, people budding in lines. luggage thrown on the ground in the middle of the lines and was total chaos. Once getting through this, we were happy to grab a cab (because Ballantyne port is not downtown) and get back to the hotel, but to our surprise, the line up for cabs was longer than the line to leave the boat. It was also slow, and disorganized, people from other lines going ahead of us and the man controlling it was horrible, rude, and grumpy. It was another absolute disaster. We ended up waiting 1 hour and 15 minutes to get a cab and were so happy to be away from everything royal carribbean!

After this, I would not cruise again!