Serenade of the Seas Review
Staff truly made our time relaxing and enjoyable
Rating by category
Additional details
We met up with members of our extended family who live in 4 different states for this Thanksgiving cruise. Uber driver from hotel to the terminal knew exactly where to go. In the terminal, I thought we may have a difficult check-in because minor children were staying in a variety of rooms without their parents (with older cousins, grandma, etc.) and we had a lot of questions. The gentleman who helped us knew exactly how to get us situated.
This was Serenade’s 1st cruise after a 2-week dry dock. On the whole, I found the ship to be in lovely condition (Tropical Theater, Schooner, Solarium, Centrum and main pool were our main areas). A couple of things that need to be addressed are:
1) the carpet in the Windjammer -- there were hundreds of little pilled up carpet fibers all over the floor in the seating area. I've never seen anything like it. None of it ended up in our food, so I guess it didn't hurt anything.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony
I will always cruise with a balcony because that's the best way to wake up and have coffee and the best way to enjoy a glass of wine before dinner. 8022 has an unobstructed view. The room's furnishings are basic. The room layout on RCCL's Serenade is less desirable than Ruby Princess. On Serenade, the stateroom door is in the middle of the cabin with the bathroom immediately to one side and the closet on the other side. So the doors are constantly jamming into each other. On Ruby Princess the stateroom door is situated off to one side, so when you walk in, the bathroom is on the same side as the closet and there's just a wall on the other side. The closet faces the bathroom, so there's a little changing area separate from the main part of the cabin. No doors needed on the closet. Much better use of space. We did have a bigger vanity in the main part of the cabin on Serenade than on Ruby. I guess that's the tradeoff.