I know this is supposed to be the newest & greatest ship, but I was surprised that I wasn't 'blown away'. My hubby & I first cruised with Royal 7 years ago & loved everything about it - food, service, cleanliness, everything. But this time it was different.

Getting on the ship was pretty easy. We arrived at the port one hour earlier then they asked & I am glad we did that - we walked right on board & right to our room.

The room was OK. Nothing special - this time we really splurged & went for the balcony stateroom. Again, it was no big deal, it is by no means private, you hear everything through the walls & if your neighbors have their balcony lights on - well, you might as well have yours on too. Spending thousands of dollars I expected not to hear EVERYTHING. The floors are metal with a thin layer of carpet & if you drop your shoe it echoes throughout. Kids running through the halls sounds like the walls are going to fall in. We have 2 young children so we are used to it, but I just thought Royal would have sound proofed better - I've heard less through the walls in a Best Western. We also had a water issue - some pipe in the wall outside our room was leaking, more like pouring water out of it. So our carpet was soaked for days & had to have a blower in our room for 3 days. Try to relax with that! they made no attempt at an apology, and basically ignored the situation like it never happened. Read more