This was an unexpectedly poor quality experience! This was my 5th cruise (my husband's 4th) and all previous ones have been with Royal Caribbean. It seems that the cruise line is consistently going downhill. The first 3 I took were absolutely fantastic as far as amenities (such as the chocolate buffets, the menus in all dining venues, and the ship's appearance, etc.). The 4th was on Freedom of the Seas a few years ago and I noticed a lower quality experience that time as far as the food and crowd/line handling especially. Now, with this last one on Empress, I'm not sure I want to sail with RCI again.

We knew, of course, that this was a smaller ship but thought it would be good because we were taking our grandsons, ages 9 & 17, who'd never cruised before. We thought the smaller ship ship would be a good intro to the idea of cruising. I guess the best way to describe the experience was that it was great family time (all of us greatly enjoyed the day in Key West on the trolley & at the aquarium and then the day at Cocoa Cay ... glass bottom boat excursion was awesome! ...) BUT our cruise was otherwise pretty sub-par. The ship's swimming pool is super tiny relatively speaking, the food in every aspect was really, really low quality (nothing we had was outstanding), and the ship's decor was tacky (a few hard plastic plants were the only foliage found). My husband and I didn't say much at the time because we didn't want our grandsons to have a bad time but it was almost embarrassing to me that things were so lack-luster after all of the great things we had told the kids about our past cruises.

The cabin was definitely not as described (originally was listed as a panoramic ocean view & it was nothing but a regular ocean view window with a small bump out for the 2 additional bunks) but was clean and pleasant enough. The bath was the usual, tiny ok thing with a door that was about the fall apart due to deterioration. It was tight quarters for the 4 of us but it was totally fine in the end. Read more