This was a repositioning cruise as this ship moves it's homeport from Newark to Galveston. A nice, primarily Eastern Caribbean itinerary with Curacao and Grand Cayman as well. Most of the passengers had flown to New York from Texas, but there were also a fair number of Europeans on board, looking for some hot weather before their winter. They got it, as it was still quite hot in the Caribbean but no problems with rain, so pretty ideal weather throughout. The twelve night cruise had about half of the days at sea, which was pleasant and relaxing. The cruise director was one of the more personable ones and he even conducted several trivia games himself, which I don't recall ever happening before. In fact most of the trivia games and the staff that conducted them were far above the average for fun and creativity. The ice show was great, as everyone agrees. Can't understand why RC would build some of it's new ships without the ice rink! The other shows were pretty standard ones, except for Saturday Night Fever, which was a nice change, but not nearly as good of a show as Hairspray was on the Oasis. The classical guitarist was fabulous and his audiences showed their appreciation. It is nice to see this type of entertainer in the lounges again, as it provides a nice variety of music.

Generally things were pretty good on the ship, but as a Diamond Plus level Crown and Anchor Society member who has cruised a lot with Royal Caribbean, I noticed that there seemed to be an inflexible attitude towards customer service and satisfaction, that must have come from the senior management of this particular ship. It wasn't noticeable from the majority of staff, really. But when you pointed out a problem, even if they followed up by checking with senior management, the final word on your issue boiled down to "NO." When questioned further they would say that things were as they were because of "a corporate decision." Therefore they could do nothing to change or alter a menu item ( this was the biggest recurring problem), excessive volume level on an empty of people pool deck or Royal promenade, or on a drink menu item. This is not consistent with my experience on other RC ships. It was really disappointing and I am at a loss as to why this was so different on this ship. Maybe things will improve when it homeports in Galveston!