Serenade of the Seas Review
First-time family holiday cruise - great time had by all
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My extended family (10 total, ages from mid-70s to early teens) decided to celebrate the holidays somewhere warm where nobody had to host. Most of us were first-time cruisers, although my parents have taken numerous river cruises on much smaller ships. We chose this cruise based on a combination of the dates, the ship size, and itinerary.
We all arrived the day before departure, staying overnight at the Hilton Riverside. There are easily-found shuttle busses that take you straight there from the airport for $20 each, or of course the taxis become economical for larger parties sharing a ride. This venue turned out to be a lucky choice, as the weather in New Orleans was miserable -- cold and rainy -- but you can navigate from the hotel to the cruise terminal entirely indoors. The worst part of the experience was huddling outdoors just onboard on the ship for our boarding photos!
The Serenade was a wonderful ship; it seemed quite large to us (until we docked next to the Oasis of the Seas later on, LOL) but we were navigating it confidently after only a day or so and nothing felt too far away, although the elevators seemed to be crazy busy on embarkation day. I particularly liked deck 6 aft, where the Schooner Bar and Safari club combined to provide a piano bar, pool tables, a great dance floor, and relaxed/quiet ambiance. My nephew lived on the basketball court up on deck 12. ;-) There was often live music in the Centrum too, but its stone floor was brutally hard on our feet.
Cabin Review
Superior Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony
Our stateroom was nicely sized and didn't feel cramped at all (except, perhaps, inside the shower stall). I've stayed in smaller or worse hotel rooms. It had a small refrigerator, which we mostly ignored, but no coffee maker. This didn't strike me as much of a drawback, with the buffet only a few flights of stairs away. Our balcony wasn't huge, but it was large enough for us to sit in the chairs and doze in the tropical air as the sounds of the surf below wafted up to our ears. On deck 9, you can hear the water but no spray ever made it up to us that I saw. You're fairly sheltered, and about equidistant between the upper decks (sports/activities on 12, buffet on 11) and lower decks (bars etc on 6, dining on 5 and 4).It felt like a loooong way down the passage to the Centrum elevators, but the forward elevators were pretty close at hand -- however, about the only thing in the forward part of the ship is the Tropical Theater, which we rarely visited.