We are C&A Diamond Plus and been sailing for over 14 years and have seen many changes, new ships, entertainment and activities, which has made cruising with RCI interesting and entertaining, however after our last two cruises we are beginning to wonder where our memorable cruise experience has gone. One of the primary reasons for choosing a cruise for our vacation was the way we were treated and how it seemed that the entire purpose of the cruise line was to make us feel special by providing fine dining with 5 course meals, quality selections, meals that took two hours to complete and different menus on each ship. Midnight Buffett, late night pool parties, fruit carvings, ice sculptures, lovely flowers were the norm. Nice gifts and events to mark our advancement as Crown and Anchor members and encourage us to continue to be "Loyal to Royal" made us feel like valued customers and guests each time we returned.

Now it seems that RCI has decided that the masses are to be satisfied with institutional quality food, okay service, stale menus and second class treatment as priority is given to the small minority of passengers who choose to spend the big bucks for their week at sea or spend extra in the "specialty" restaurants to obtain the quality that was previously available every night in the main dining room. Venues and areas once available to all are off limits to all but a few or, like the Viking Lounge and Concierge Lounge, have been eliminated completely on Allure of the Seas. Of Couse the primary shows, Mama Mia, OceanAria, Blue Planet and Ice Games are fantastic but the comedian had only one routine that he performed nightly in the comedy club and did the exact same show on night seven in the Amber Theater. RCI still has live music, provided by 28 accomplished musicians on this ship, and is to be commended for not going the way of so many, like Disney, and having everything on a sound track. The little extra shows by the orchestra in Dazzles, Jazz Club and on the Boardwalk, along with the smaller more intimate venues where there were only one or two musicians were not to be missed. The singers, dancers, divers, skaters, acrobats and musicians were outstanding and the highlight of this cruise.

While the ship was clean many of the furnishing were worn and dirty to include the couch and drapes in our cabin. Any time, but especially at night when we were trying to sleep, if there was any ship movement our cabin creaked, groaned and made sounds like marbles rolling inside the walls. After experiencing this for a few nights we discovered where previous occupants had tried to stop this noise by shoving paper, a copy of the daily planner dated January 26, 2016, into a space between wall panels and found that this along with additional wedging of paper did nothing to stop the noise. We brought this to the attention of our cabin attendant who informed us later that engineering said to call them the next time we heard the noise. It was still groaning on night seven. Overall we were disappointed in what we experienced on this cruise, not from the overworked frontline employees but from the results of poor management decisions, lackadaisical supervision, from the cruise director to our head waiter who we never met, to serving some of cheap wine. (Tisdale, which can be found in the grocery store for about $4 a bottle.) The effort to make us, the majority of the passengers feel special and provide an experience that one cannot receive in a land based vacation was just not provided on this cruise as expected and as it was in the past. Read more