It's interesting to read reviews on this Puerto Rico departing cruise. I can see why a first-time cruiser would be amazed by all this ship has to offer. What we saw however was a cruise line cutting corners all over the place. Prior to this sailing (ending tomorrow) the cruise previous had a serious virus outbreak. RCL sent us many text messages on the subject prior to boarding (great communication), and urged us to show up after 2pm to board. What greeted us at 2:45 pm was 2 vague lines of 500 people each...one for bag drop, and then get back in line to board. Remember when the porters used to help with luggage? Not so here, you carted all yourself to the front of line one. To make things more aggravating, we encountered many "locals" who saw one of their fellow Island inhabitants handling the luggage...and whoosh they cut to the head of both lines. We witnessed cash changing hands...and this process allowed at least 50 people (we saw) to cut in front of 1000 grumbling and hot cruise customers. Where was RCL staff? Nowhere to be found, or keeping themselves cool indoors is the answer.
Once onboard, you could tell workers had been diverted to extra sanitization duties, and RCL's excellent steps in doing this probably allowed this cruise to be pretty "well". Good job RCL. However, we look around and see Cabin Attendants being overworked, no assistants, no flowers everywhere like there used to be...and now sliced salmon in the Windjammer for breakfast has gone the way of various ice sculptures...adios.
Lack of security folks meant that unruly passengers became more annoying, and it was usually fellow passengers that took action. In one example, a woman turned on a boom box and played salsa music during breakfast (can't make this up)...until a passenger told her to turn it off. During the outdoor movie (in English) last night, noisy and drunk Spanish speaking passengers sat right down besides everyone and interrupted the evening to the point where most everyone had to relocate to hear. Finally, I'm a bit old fashioned. You don't allow 16 of your fellow passengers to cut in front of line for food. The nice redneck fellow behind me who stopped the nonsense by offered to place his fork into someone earned my regards, and compliments. In the "old days", RCL security was omnipresent...not here, probably not on any RCL ship given budget cutting equates more profits.
All of the paper goods disappeared due to the previous voyage illness issue. No biggie
lousy snorkeling
Get up to the old fort, which is close...but involves some healthy stairs. Hang around long enough...and avoid the aggressive taxi dudes and you hear quite a bit of history from the US loving folks