Background: About 60 cruises, most on Celebrity, some on Princess and Royal Caribbean. I am comparing this cruise to the 6 I've taken on Oasis-class ships.

The biggest problem with the cruise was that there were not enough crew members! Waiters, instead of having 2-3 tables to serve, had 6-7. They were generally friendly but always frantic. We ate at Silk, Chic, Grande, Wonderland, American Icon...we never once saw an assistant waiter! The dining room service was incredibly poor--not because the waiters weren't polite, but because they were overworked and unable to provide attentive service.

It was common to have one person served their main course 5-10 minutes before the other 3 in the party. Plates we were finished with were not cleared for 20 minutes after we had finished. It took a very, very long time to get a refill of water--once you could flag down the waiter to ask! On Oasis and Allure, you'd never have to ask for the whole table to be served at once, for finished plates to be cleared, and for empty water glasses to be refilled! Read more