My wife and I took back-to-back cruises on royal Caribbean from Hong Kong to Sydney. The following is a summary of the problems: Lengthy check in times, messed up visas for China and Viet Nam, lengthy waits for all services, no port information, average food quality and no premium selections except at extra cost (also my wife got food poisoning on the ship), poor punctuality, poor movie selection, and the tendering process to get off the ship took almost two hours each way at tendering ports. On a bright note, the ice show was spectacular.

In summary, this is the worst cruise we have ever been on, and we have sailed with seven other cruise lines. Royal Caribbean cruises have too many passengers and not enough staff. It is like they have never run a cruise before and are using trial and error for their operation. To use an Australian term, they are the bogan cruise line, and will never be first class. This was a three-week cruise that my wife and I were really looking forward to but it turned out to be a nightmare. So much so that we got off early.