Being my second cruise and first on Royal Caribbean, I was amazed at the difference in the beauty of the ship, the friendliness of the staff and the numerous things to do. Everyone was extremely nice and caring. The stateroom was clean and very nice on the inside. The food was a lot better than what I was expecting. If you go on Youtube, they have a video of the culinary adventure, that goes behind the scenes on the day to day cooking on board, it is interesting. It's called "Mega Food." We were able to take a tour of one of the kitchens and they talked about the same things that were in the video. It was very informative. There were a few grumpy bartenders and one shore excursion leader, but that didn't make the cruise any less enjoyable.
If you go on the dolphin trip in the Grand Cayman, the excursion itself was really fun. They take pictures of you swimming with the dolphins, so you get excited about buying pictures. I was expecting to pay for the pictures (Obviously), but I was blown away at how expensive they are. For my wife and I to get a CD with 6 pictures on it, it would cost us $130.00. We caught a couple on our cell phone, before being asked to leave...lol. Everyone on the trip was complaining about the prices.
I will definitely sail with Royal Caribbean again in the near future. Just one tip, that didn't change the outcome of our trip...make sure to pay attention to the small print on the information when booking. There is a $13.50 gratuity added per person, per day to your bill. Just make sure you budget for it or pay for the gratuity when you book and those charges do not get added at the end. Also all of the specialty restaurants and ice cream shops are not free and not cheap...still good though. I was under the impression that most of them are included in the price. I was completely wrong....lol. All in all, great trip.
The staterooms are very nice. If this is your first cruise, it is not as big as a hotel room. I have stayed in the interior rooms and this time on a balcony. I will always get a balcony from now on. It is more expensive, but the view and the experience is worth it to me. The room attendant we had was awesome. He cleaned the room twice a day and always called us by name in passing or when he came to the door to see how things were going.
We boarded the ship and began the vacation. Everything went smoothly, it was raining the entire loading time, but everything went well.
We had planned to take a horseback riding tour in this port. We were unable to and had to cancel the tour. In the port, there is a moderate size shopping center for souvenirs, cigars and a flea market style area where craftsmen sale their work.