We chose this cruise due to the ports of call that it offered. Of the seven destinations offered, two were changed before the trip, one being the port for the Florence/Pisa leg of the trip (the main reason we chose this cruise was to see Florence in particular). Sadly the alternative port offered was La Spezia which made the trip into Florence difficult and we missed out on what was to be the highlight of our trip. Suspect the change in port might have always been planned, but they kept the itinerary promoting Florence to attract people such as ourselves.

The booking process and everything leading up to the cruise date was diabolical. Never seen such an arcane website system such as Royal Caribbeans, and customer services on the phone were very hit and miss in terms of helpfulness.

It seems the driving force for this particular cruise was cost cutting and/or maximum revenue generation. For example, for every port we docked at, we seemed to be at the worse end of the dock options (I suspect they get cheaper docking fees accordingly). All other cruise lines docked at the same ports were in far better placed locations, which made walking into town centres etc far easier for them and a nightmare for us. Excursions were extortionate, as were the drinks and wifi packages which were incredibly expensive (and therefore not taken up by ourselves). Read more