We returned to Royal Caribbean after a long interlude of 12 years. My husband and I had previously had an outstanding honeymoon on the Mariner of the Seas. This time, we took our 9 year old daughter. While we had a good experience, it did not live up to the first cruise we took. Good points included the Adventure Ocean program which my 9 year old begged to go back to. The ship was absolutely beautiful. The cabin steward Grace was awesome, as she bent over backward to help us out. But we did have a few issues.

In the 12 years between the last one and this one, we have gone on 3 other cruises on Carnival. The food was decent on Carnival, but not as good as on the Mariner. When we ate on the Oasis, it was no different than on Carnival. This disappointed us, as we paid more for Royal Caribbean and expected the same level of cuisine as before. Also, in ALL of our other cruises, we had used the room service breakfasts in order to eat fast and get out to our excursions. This time, we ordered three separate times and only got breakfast actually delivered one time. I had previously had one issue on Carnival, but they corrected and gave us complimentary onboard credit. This time, hotel staff did apologize after the first time it was not delivered and gave us a free bottle of wine, but then the last time we ordered it was not delivered.

On the website it was recommended that we reserve shows and shore excursions. So my husband did this. On day 1 we reserved Cats. When we went onboard, we were told that Cats is never shown on day 1. We also did First Night Done Right, which gave us the option of dining at one of the specialty restaurants for half price. We were told our reservations would be left in our cabin. They were not. Then we went to ask Guest Services and they did not know what I was talking about. They sent us to the Maitre'd who was trying to solicit reservations. We asked her. She did not know what we were talking about. An hour later we finally got the issue resolved. We chose Chops, the steakhouse, as on our first cruise it was truly outstanding. This one left a lot to be desired. Although the seafood was amazing, the filet mignon was tough and tasteless. If we had truly paid $43 a person to eat there, we would have been furious. It was not worth even the half price that we paid. Read more