Serenade of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,675 reviews

This comes down to a Royal vs Celebrity comparison, spoiler, Celebrity wins!

Review for Canada & New England Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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lexmiller
10+ Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Sep 2016
Cabin: Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

I wanted to allow my impressions to settle in, so I’m writing this review a month after sailing. We are Celebrity loyalists, but this cruise was round trip out of Boston, our home port - driving our car a mere 20 minutes to the port and just parking it there was super appealing! The ports of call are places we’ve always wanted to go and since we are Elite Plus on Celebrity, we transferred smoothly over to Diamond in Royal’s Crown and Anchor club - so, we thought, hey, it’s not Celebrity, but as long as we can be Diamond, let’s do it! Well, as suspected, there is a vast difference between a Mass Market cruise like (Royal) and a Premium cruise line (Celebrity).

We have the unique ability to give a dual perspective regarding the staterooms as our adult daughter and her friend had a cabin in a different section from our cabin - we both had verandas on deck 7, neither had a suite, so the compare/contrast is clear and unmuddled. Basically, our cabin attendant was, in all of my cruising experience which is somewhat extensive - the worst cabin attendant we’ve ever had, ever ever ever. And oddly, the attendant my daughter had, was one of the absolute best - her name is Marites - a friendly, kind, efficient and talented woman, an asset to the company. I won’t give the name of our attendant, but I had a few conversations with his superiors. Basically, Marites did everything right - always made sure there was plenty of shampoo, lotions, soaps etc; lots of amazing towel art; she left wine glasses in the room when she saw the girls had brought wine bottles on board - basically, she thought of things they needed/wanted before they did.

Our attendant, well, first of all - we never even met him! He NEVER came to our cabin to introduce himself! We had to request hair conditioner and lotion - what??? Why should we have to do that? Shampoo was in a large refillable bottle affixed to the side of the shower. I left a note on our bed the first day, since he never introduced himself - saying that we needed hair conditioner and lotion as well as more pillows. When we returned to our cabin, the pillows were there, but no conditioner or lotion. I called him on his phone and he said, “Oh, I am so tired……I will find someone to bring them to you.” WHAT???? First, I’m sure he is tired!! But you NEVER say that to a guest in a complaining fashion!! Further, it took 90 minutes for the someone that he found to come to our cabin with the lotion and conditioner!

Cabin Review

Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin E1
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