Serenade of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,675 reviews

Alaska is great, but Royal Carribean is not...

Review for Alaska Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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dimka448
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jul 2009

Reading all reviews below, it seems like I was on different ship... Anyway I'm not that kind of person that only see negatives, but that's exactly what I want to highlight in this review. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my cruise a lot, but comparing to other 5 cruises that I took previously (this one was first on Royal Caribbean) I would say it was towards the bottom of the list. Did I become too picky? Maybe. But here are my impressions...   Alaska cruise- Serenade of the Seas. July 18- July 25 Vancouver round trip.   We arrived to Vancouver from NY on the morning of the day of the cruise. The first surprise that we had - we were stopped by RC representatives as soon as we exited the plane with the question: did you put your cruise tags on your luggage? -Yes we did.- They say that in this case your luggage will go to the ship directly so we do not have to go to baggage area. Convenient? Yes - for elderly people definitely or if you know about this in advance! In our case - we did not! We actually wanted to take something out of our luggage before going to the port! No luck. We've been told that our luggage will not even be in the luggage aria - from the plane it will go straight to the ship. OK, we said, that's fine, but I would still appreciate that if I would be informed in advance regarding such things - so we would have a choice! Next thing they said that we can use they bus shuttle service to go to the ship and we would avoid the customs all together. The price is $79 for two people (twice the price of the taxi). We agreed, even though originally we wanted to take the taxi, but without the luggage we wanted to get on the ship ASAP and decided to save time on customs. We got on the ship around 11:15AM. By 4PM we still did not receive our bags!. To tell you that we were concerned - that would be huge understatement! We did know what to think. Did RC picked up the luggage in the airport? Was it even reached Vancouver? (you know, luggage can get lost during air travel) On the front desk they said that there is no way to verify if our bags are on the ship.. And it could take up to 9 PM to get our bags! Finally by 4:15 we got the first suitcase, but still no trace of the second one. We ask our cabin attendant to check and around 6PM (after the ship left Vancouver) we got a phone call from security office to come and pick it up! The reason why it was there? They founds through X-ray machine a manicure scissors, but since they are not allowed to open and verify it they asked me to open and show them scissors and only after that I was allowed to take my bag to the cabin. There were about 150-200 bags held in security office and passengers that I saw there had exactly the same problem! (manicure scissors or someone had an iron) As you can imagine after all that, we were not in the mood for anything on that day...   Regarding the food.... In the restaurant it was good. Better than it was on Norwegian cruise we took last year. But in their Windjammer cafe - not good at all! First, there was almost no variety neither during breakfast or lunch!. The pastries were the same all seven days! (all 4 of them). Breakfast was also exactly the same (common, you CAN have different things even for breakfast) And what's up with Indian food? Is this the most favorite food of the captain? Why have it every day and dedicate the entire area (cart) out of 4 available to the Indian section? We are in Alaska not in South Pacific; I would think Russian food would be more appropriate. Or at least change it to different ethnic food like they do on Princess (or at least that's was the case 3 years ago).   Regarding the ship (remember this is negative review only, so I will only describe things that I did not like) For Alaska cruise, I would consider it a small ship. The problem is the combination of the weather and itinerary. We spent total 3 days in sea (including visit to the glacier). Weather was pretty cold so spending significant time on the deck is impossible. I'm not even talking the pool area. So everyone had to find something to do inside the ship. Apparently there is not enough room! You have Casino, shops, lounge on the back of the ship and the central area by the elevators. Most of the people were either in shops or in that central area. Again, if I said that it was crowded - it would be an understatement. Especially when they have a band playing near the Information desk, it was almost impossible get trough. Also because of the weather, finding a table in Windjammer cafe was very very difficult (nobody wanted to sit outside). They even have to announce repeatedly to vacate the tables once you are done eating.  You got 20 minutes to eat your breakfast or lunch - like in McDonalds.   Prices and other charges. It looks like with every cruise we take, photos cost more and more. It is up to 19.95 now. And teenagers that make them have no idea about the composition. They got pretty good DSLRs cameras but most of them do not even know how to use it properly! I noticed that most of them use their cameras on "Auto" setting! Regarding drinks. Near the glacier, when it was really cold and windy, they were selling a hot chocolate in souvenir glass for $8.95...... To get a hot chocolate in the regular cup - you need to go down to deck 5  to Seattle cafe. It used to be when cappuccino and espresso were part of free beverages - not anymore - even during dinner in the restaurant.   Ports. For some reason our ship was docked in the farthest point of the terminal in Skagway and Juneau. There were few other ships in the port but for some reason the worst available dock was given to Serenade of the Seas. Could it be that Royal Caribbean is regarded as second rated company? Or this is the cheapest dock in the port? And in Juneau they even charge you extra $3 to get you into town....   Embarkation.  Long an unorganized. We were given 9:10AM time. Or color was called at 10:40AM. And for some reason they do not make announcements on the radio. You must be in your designated are along with other people.... Why? I'm not even saying about another huge line to get through the customs once you get off the ship. May be it is Canada issue and not Royal Caribbean..     Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my trip a lot. Especially that Alaska is one of the most beautiful places in the world and I will definitely visit it again (probably not on Royal Caribbean). I just wanted to highlight only negative things as they might be helpful for people who are looking and comparing different Alaskan cruises.   Thanks and Regards,   DG

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