Empress of the Seas Review

3.0 / 5.0
0 reviews

Old Ship Poor Service

Review for Cuba Cruise on Empress of the Seas
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jdragon
6-10 Cruises • Age 20s

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Sail Date: Dec 2018
Cabin: Interior Stateroom

We choose this cruise because we try to do something new every time we cruise. We had never done Cuba so it seemed perfect. I did my research so I knew that we were dealing with an older smaller ship, but figured it would be fine. We we're wrong. It all started with the itinerary changes.

They changed the itinerary three times. The first time we were replacing Labadee with Coco Cay. We had done Cay before so we were a bit disappointed, but got over it when we planned a great excursion for Coco Cay. Then they got rid of Santiago De Cuba and replaced it with Havana. Not there fault it was construction at the port that caused the problem. The third change was the one that really killed us. Only three days before the cruise we got an email saying that Royal had messed up. They had listed the wrong departure time from Havana. They listed it as 5pm when it should have been 5am. They sold excursions and everything. Some how no one figured this out until the week before we were supposed to leave. So there solution was to cut out Coco Cay all together and give us the full day in Havana after the overnight. We were bitterly disappointed. We wound up having only 3 1/2 port days on an 8 day cruise. Had that been the original itinerary we would not have booked this cruise. I do have to say that Havana was very nice as was Cienfuegos Cuba. Grand Cayman was to die for. So we did make the best of a poor situation. Royal did give us $100 onboard credit to try to resolve the situation, but that did not make much of a difference to me.

In terms of the ship itself it was old and dated. The service was only ok and the entertainment was lacking. The worst part for me was the food. The main dining room was good, but not great. The problem was the buffet. The food was horrible. I am a healthy person and honestly the food was so poor it gave me stomach problems every time I ate at the buffet. It is also they only option for lunch most days. We wound up spending the money to have lunch at chops buy the end of the cruise because the buffet was making me sick.

Cabin Review

Interior Stateroom

Cabin 6V

Our cabin was very small. We almost always do inside rooms so we are used to small, but this was next level small. Do not expect any extra storage space!

Port Reviews

Havana

We did a walking tour of the city centers and it was fantastic!

Cienfuegos

We did the Juga Fortresses and city center tour. It was quite nice.

Grand Cayman (Georgetown)

We had an amazing time at Dolphin Discovery! Then we stopped at 7 mile beach on the way back. It was great!

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