Been on more than 8 cruises with various cruise lines (Celebrity, Princess, HAL, Norwegian, Uniworld) and have been a repeat customer for most of the lines, but this first cruise with Royal Caribbean will be my LAST with RCC. My family of 4 booked 2 adjoining superior balcony rooms and we all looked forward to the cruise since we've heard so many good things about the RCC mega-ships. Yes, our expectations were high, but then the hype about the ship was high also -- it was supposed to be state-of-the-art, etc. I admit that technologically the ship is amazing. But we don't book cruises for the technology alone, but rather for the whole experience (destinations, service, food, activities, etc). First experience -- embarkation -- was a portent of things to come. We filled out online forms and got an "embarkation appointment" to ease the embarkation process only to find out that it was a pointless/useless exercise because RCC didn't even bother with it. We got in early at the disembarkation terminal only to find others with no appointments being processed in some kind of random fashion. No rhyme or reason as to who was being processed, no welcome aboard refreshments while you wait (as we've seen with other cruise lines), and the most excruciating on-boarding experience we've ever had. After waiting 3 hours to come on-board, we were directed to a pizza and sandwich place to grab lunch (which was past by the time we got on board) only to be met with the most unhappy employee faces we've ever come across on a cruise ship and the most unexceptional lunch fare we were ever welcomed with. When we got into the rooms, we found out that simple amenities like shampoo, lotion, etc were only doled out to passengers who ask for them. Say what?! Even your basic La Quinta motel room gives shampoos, etc without anyone asking for them. And I was in a superior balcony room! Never mind that I didn't get my bathrobe and slippers (basic for most cruise lines), but shampoo and lotion? Really? And I was on a "maiden" voyage for the ship in Asia? I would understand if I came on board at the end of a world cruise, but a maiden voyage? I was already disappointed that there were no fruit bowls or filled buckets of ice (which never even got filled during the whole cruise), but basic stuff? And this was supposed to be a "luxury" ship? It just went downhill from there -- from the "Dynamic Dining" concept that doesn't really work (the same concept could be achieved by just changing the menu in the restaurant), the unexceptional buffet fare, unhappy staff, non-caring management. poorly-executed land excursions, uninteresting shops and merchandise, etc. etc. But the really "crowning glory" of the cruise was the chaotic disaster that they called disembarkation. For the hundreds of disembarkations that RCC has executed over the years over the various parts of the world that their ships sail on, you would think that they would have a standard procedure that all their cruise ships would follow. Wrong! A fellow passenger aptly called it ""dumped-off-the-ship and where-on-earth-in-this-inferno-is-my-luggage" experience. Enough said. Read the other reviews about that nightmare of an experience. I thought 3 hours to embark was too long; never thought that disembarkation could take more than 4 hours but RCC managed it somehow.