The opportunity to visit Cuba was very attractive to me, and having cruised with RC in the past I thought this would be an amazing trip. I was half right. Visiting Havana was a dream come true in many ways. The service provided by Royal Caribbean was a nightmare in many ways. From lost luggage to bad food to inaccurate tour descriptions to a poorly maintained ship and an utterly unapologetic (to the point of rudeness) service staff, they cruise line did everything possible to try to ruin my and my family’s vacation. I get it that Empress is an older and smaller ship with fewer amenities. But to me that means the service has to be that much better. Instead I found myself surrounded by churlish and impatient staff, some of whom openly admitted they hoped to not have to work on that ship much longer and get “promoted”to a bigger ship. In Havana our first tour was good, if not exactly as described. The second tour we took though was a complete rip off that barely touched on the original itinerary we were sold on and ran twice as long as it was supposed to with detours to inappropriate “cultural” attractions where we got high pressure sales pitches to buy art and to make donations to performers we never asked to see. Furthermore, the tour took us to many of the same attractions we had seen the day before even though they were not listed on the itinerary. And this was the most expensive tour they offered.

If you go choose ANY other cruise line (they couldn’t be worse than this one) and be very cautious about what shore excursions you buy.