The first Royal Caribbean cruise I ever took was great. I had nothing to compare it to at that time. I had since taken 3 additional cruises on Carnival with my children and we had a blast. We decided to try Royal Caribbean since they had not been and found that we were disappointed for a number of reasons. 1) the activities/events were not nearly as fun 2) they missed my son's birthday celebration in the dining room that I signed up for before sailing 3) the photo times interfered with dinner and we were either rushing to get pictures then eat or eat then rush to get pictures 4) the majority of the staff was not very friendly, except for Russell, our stateroom attendent, he was fabulous!

Our children's sea pass cards were linked to my credit card yet their cards were declined several times through the trip, either in the arcade or when getting bottles of water or coffee (they even had the deluxe drink package). When I spoke to guest services I was told everything looked fine. The young lady told me if the kids have a problem they need to call guest services each time, and I was told not to come back to guest services for that problem again. I was disappointed in the customer service.