This was a great trip. We live in RI so we took the bus to NY, and boarded the ship. Not having to deal with flying was fantastic! I have been on 8 other cruises, RCCL, Princess, and the now defunct Renaissance. I had a great time on this trip, but here are the things I noticed. The ship was showing it's age. Rust on stairs, the wood on the railings was peeling, it seemed that they might have been understaffed, because the ship was dirty. I mean plates, and cups left in the elevators (for quite a while) dishes piled up in hallways....I have never seen that on any other line, but perhaps I have been lucky. The food was good. I never went hungry, but I wouldn't say it was excellent. The service was great... except at the Champagne bar. I got engaged on this trip, so we decided to celebrate with a bottle of Krug champagne. The bottle was shoved in the bucket, and plopped on our table. The waiter managed to open it, and that was it. We had to pour our own champagne, no little extras like strawberries(which we actually got from some other bar waiter in another bar). That was kind of a turn off. $200 bucks for champagne, at least you could pour me a glass! One more thing.... I found most of the events very unorganized. We showed up for several events that just never materialized.... 4 days at sea, and we tried to do two pub crawls, and a beer tasting, and there wasn't anyone there.. could have been better organized.
OK.. Other than the above.... I had a great time. We had fantastic massages, and facials (spa staff was excellent), the room stewards were great..saw them once, they asked what we wanted, we got it, and I don't think we saw them again until the end of the cruise. Very good. Bar staff was excellent. We had one waiter (Fernando) who found out we got engaged, so he brought us a bucket of flowers to our table in the lounge, and some chocolate covered strawberries..... (as the champagne guy should have done).
The ports were great. St. Thomas was nice.. We took a cab to Megans bay (which was, by the end of the day, filthy). Some people are just animals. Plastic cups, food wrappers, dirty diapers, etc. all over that beautiful beach. I don't understand. Tortola: The ship cancelled our excursion to Jost Van Dyke due to local logistics (whatever that means) so we did a beach break to Cane Garden Bay, which was also beautiful, but jam packed with wall to wall people.