This was the Serenade of Seas annual repositioning cruise from San Juan Puerto Rico to San Francisco CA. We traveled via privately arranged air from Tampa to San Juan a day before the ship's departure. Embarkation was smooth and painless since we had obtained our "Seapass" on-line.
The Serenade is a beautiful ship, and is very well maintained. My wife and I have cruised 23 times and are partial to RCCL's "Radiance" series ships (We have been on all except the "Freedom" class ships. We have cruised TransAtlantic on the "Brilliance of Seas" before. There is a sense of space and uncrowdedness on this ship, even though she carried a full capacity 2200 passengers.
The itinerary was well balanced. There were 2 port calls, 2 days at sea, then the Panama Canal transit(all day),4 days at sea and 4 port calls on the Pacific side. Something for everybody. The sea was like glass for 11 days out of the trip, only on the last 3 days was there any perceptible ocean swell action that I prefer, but the Serenade at 91,00 tons is too big to notice. One special aspect of this 14 day cruise was that the entertainment was spectacular. They had only two nights of the RCCL Singers and Dancers (not our favorite type), and the rest was top of the line feature entertainment. On-board activities were OK, but not excellent.