This was our 19th cruise. Most of these cruises have been on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. We are Diamond members and usually cruise once to twice a year. I want to list what we found that was excellent on this ship, what was good, what was bad and what was horrible. Some of these things that were bad or horrible cannot be blamed on the cruise line.

What was excellent: Surprising to us, I would say the food. We did my time dining and were always seated quickly with a very nice table for two in a nice location. We had the same waiter and assnt waiter and they were excellent in their service. The food was always very good. The windjammer on this ship is way, way better than the bigger ships. We normally ate both breakfast and lunch in the windjammer. Many varieties of food selections and always very good. Always found a table. Service and staff in the windjammer I would place as good. Tables maybe not cleaned as quickly as it should and there is no more times where a staff member comes up to your table and asks about your drinks. Those days are gone. We were surprised that they no longer have ready made ice tea. You had to go up to the drink area and ask for an ice tea and wait for them to get it ready. Not a big deal but so much easier when they were already made and ready to be picked up. Nice selections of desserts in the windjammer and also very good. We have no complaints about the food at all. Another item I would place as excellent was the Diamond Lounge. Perfect location up at the top with beautiful views of the ocean. Very peaceful and every night they had the most perfect piano music being played by a gentleman throughout the evening. What a great setup. Very good food set up and as many drinks as you want. We enjoyed Jackie, who is in charge of the Diamond Lounge. She made sure everything was going well for us and treated us like family. The entertainment on this ship is outstanding! We thought the music and shows were the best we had been on of all our cruises. The ice show outstanding, the pool band and Bolero's band along with the rock band, again, outstanding. Grease was excellent. What a great evening it was. A comedian they had for another night was so funny. No one does entertainment like Royal Caribbean, just my opinion. On the first night they had Broadway hits being sung up at the Viking Crown Lounge that was excellent. We hated to miss any of the shows. Our room was an inside room on deck 9. Normally we get a balcony room but we wanted to save some money on this trip and decided on an inside room. It was fine. We don't spend much time in our room so no complaints about the size of room. What we expected. Always plenty of room for all our stuff. Our cabin steward was fine. She was friendly enough but we both thought our room could have been a little more clean. When we first got into our room, the mirrors did not seem clean at all but the next day, they were clean. Again, not a big deal so I would give her a good rating.

Now the bad which again, can't blame on Royal Caribbean, the weather was not great. The winds were knock down strong. The first day was rather cool and with over 60 miles per hr winds, it was hard to be outside. They did close the top deck outside after a chair from up above flew over the top and landed on some poor guy. Got knocked in the head and had to get stitches. Another bad thing that happened was that someone of the ship had a stroke on the first night of our cruise as we were cruising to our first stop. Due to the high winds involved, you could not get a helicopter so our ship had to turn around and go all the way back to Miami. Our captain tried to make up the time to get to our first stop which was Labadee but due to the winds, couldn't make up enough to get us there. Again, not the cruise lines fault. Safety first. Felt bad we missed Labadee which we always love and enjoy. Another item I would put in the category of bad, is bar service. Many years back, you could always count on Royal Caribbean to not only clean bar tables immediately but also for a server to come to your table to ask your orders. Appears those items are now gone. Not enough staff is the problem. Tables remained with empty glasses and dirty tables and no one came to our table for our drink order. My husband had to stand in line up at the different bars to obtain our drinks. I think this is a shame. Royal Caribbean needs to up their staffing as no staff member is just sitting around, they are just too busy. Read more