1. The charging for towels system is very flawed. First, $25 is excessive to charge for poor towels (I can understand $10). I asked around and many people didn't know about the policy to return towels. There should be large clearly written signs in many places so people understand how crucial it is to return towels. Second, after one of the first days on the cruise, when my 14 year old son, RETURNED 6 towels he had checked out for himself and our family were not showing turned in, he was told the next day he could not check out any more towels. He is very responsible and was distraught over this discovery. As a teenager, he did not know how to find restitution with the towel agent. My sister was told by the towel agent that she took out 2 towels, when she only took out 1 towel (she thankfully was able to clear this up at the towel station). I had to go to Guest Services to clear up the 6 towel situation for my son. The wonderful night manager in Guest Services, corrected the situation for my son who was very worried he had done something horribly wrong. The mgr was sincere at listening to us explain the truth and took excellent care in restoring our faith in Royal Caribbean by eliminating the $150 towel charge. The cruise I took 8 years ago did not have this rule, so it needs to be explained better.

2. Another area RC could really help guests have a much better experience is at the Photo Stations. The signs stating how many people can have their pictures taken is in extremely small font. My family of 13 waited 30 minutes only to be turned away by the photographer because he was not allowed to take a picture of more than 6 people! My family was so irritated at that point they refused to stand in another line that could handle 13 people, so we NEVER got the professional family photo I had hoped for on this once in a lifetime family cruise we can never afford to do again. THE SIGN FOR HOW MANY PEOPLE ALLOWED AT A PHOTO STATION SHOULD BE IN HUGE UPPERCASE LETTERS FOR NEWER CRUISERS WHO DO NOT KNOW BETTER! IT SHOULD ALSO BE EXPLAINED CLEARLY IN CRUISE REMINDERS NOT TO GET IN THE WRONG LINE. RC should have at least 1 employee going by the lines to let the innocent people know the line is only for parties of "x" amount of people, so they are not waiting for 30+ minutes only to be turned away! This only seems fair to help new cruisers out. I understand more experienced cruisers probably know this rule, but I was on one other RC cruise 8 years ago and I had NO IDEA ABOUT THIS RULE!

3. I found some RC website information to be contrary to what actually is on the ship. Please consider adding more accurate descriptions and pictures for the CELEBRATION CAKE. I ordered 3 cakes to be delivered on the first night to our tables of 13 because they were described as feeding 2-4 people. The cakes were in fact much larger, feeding normal slices to 8 people. The dining manager only had an order for 3 cakes with NO WRITING ON THEM, when I clearly requested during my 3 separate orders what writing to include on the cakes. I ordered one cake online to test out how it would turn out, because the online order has NO PLACE TO SAY WHAT TO WRITE, so I entered it in the "delivery instructions" area. I ordered 2 cakes with RC agents by phone who assured me the writing would be on the cake. But as I wrote, the dining manager did not show anything on my order indicating what I wanted written on the cakes. The Dining Manager tried to correct the situation on the first and what looked like the busiest night for them, by coming to the table after I complained in private to the server. My family found out about the cakes I wanted to surprise them with, so that was ruined. Then half my family could not wait for the cakes that took extra time to get ready, so they left. I had to have them save 2 of the cakes for the next nights because they were larger than described online and we could not eat them all. The waiters came with one of the delicious cakes and sang to half our party for my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary which was very nice. But the writing was clearly written fast and messy because of the rush job due to not having the cake writing information in advance as promised by the RC phone agents! The phone agent's accents were also extremely hard to understand in english, but I spelled everything out clearly to them and they repeated it all back to me so I know they had it spelled correctly when I ordered. The wait staff did the best they could, I do not blame them at all. I do think RC's website should do better by describing the actual cakes delivered in the dining room as feeding 6-8 people, NOT 2-4! Maybe the cakes delivered to staterooms feed 2-4 people, but not the cakes we had from the Allure dining room. Read more