Serenade of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,675 reviews

Easter Week on the Serenade

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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Tex_Jen
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Apr 2010
Cabin: Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Background - I'm a single female (age 48) and I was cruising with a friend (Marilou). I'm not about to tell you another woman's age. This was my 8th cruise (all on RCI) and this was my friend's 2nd cruise. She had completed a short Carnival cruise after this one had been booked and before we sailed on the beautiful Serenade. The Serenade was the first ship I sailed on in 2004. She still holds a special spot in my heart and that particular cruise was also during Easter break.

Pre-Cruise - We flew to San Juan the day before and stayed at the Marriott Stellaris in Condado on points. We arrived in San Juan about 3:30 p.m. It did not take long to get our bags and for the first time we did not have to have our bags checked by security as we left the baggage area. I have cruised out of San Juan many times and this was always a hassle, but nonetheless a rather comforting exercise knowing that nobody else would be leaving with your luggage. We went to the taxi stand and they told us how much our fare would be and handed us a flyer with the fares spelled out on it. Again, a bit different since in the past they would hand us a ticket with the fare calculated and handwritten in. The taxi ride was very quick from the airport to the Marriott Stellaris. Since I have stayed here several times (haven't been back in 2 years), I could pretty much tell where the taxi should turn. It was a bit surreal. When we arrived our room was not quite ready. Since I do have Marriott rewards, they offered us a $50 credit on the room since it wasn't ready on time. My cruise friends Alan & Diana were also at the Marriott and when we called them they were waiting in the lobby with their luggage as their room wasn't ready either. We met up until they got the call their room was ready. Ours was ready shortly thereafter. At this point, we decided to just haul our own luggage to the room. I've had to wait for a room at the Marriott in the past and they had those buzzer things like you can get at restaurants. This time they wanted your cell phone number to call you, but you had to be in the right place in the building to get reception as the seating area near the elevators seemed to have the worst reception. The hotel was quite full and I don't think all of the elevators were working so it took a while to get to our room. We had some fantastic views from our balcony. We had planned dinner with Alan & Diana, Gary & Rose. All of us met chatting on our M&M thread on Cruise Critic. I had received recommendations for Ropa Vieja and Alan had made reservations. Our seatmate on the plane had told Marilou and me that she didn't think they would be open on Good Friday. We thought "Hey, we have reservations". All should be good. When we walked over with Alan & Diana, we met Gary & Rose outside the restaurant that was indeed closed. We wound up at a Chili's up the street. Not exactly the Puerto Rican flavor I was looking for, but at that point, I just wanted to be fed. The next morning we awoke and went to spend that credit in the Buffet Breakfast at the hotel. Food was good, but service was definitely lacking. We were asked what we wanted to drink and that took a while before the coffee and juice arrived. Then, when we were obviously finished, we had to wait quite a while for our check. Service at the Marriott as a whole was quite good and very friendly. The restaurant just took a bit of the shine off.

Cruise - At this point we were definitely running ahead of schedule so we decided to join Alan & Diana in a cab to the port at 10:30a.m. May I say that unless you are Diamond or better, this is a fruitless exercise? Gary, Rose, Alan, & Diana all were able to go in the building while I (Platinum) waited with everyone else for the doors to open. The perks of being Diamond. I have a few cruises to go. Doors would open late on this particular day. I prefer to wait until about 11a.m. or so to go to the port. The luggage line tends to move quickly and by that time the check in line is almost nonexistent. We were on board fairly quickly once they opened the doors and wandered around the ship for a bit after stopping for lunch in the Windjammer where the Diamond foursome had already been relaxing for quite some time. I don't remember when our cabin was ready, but it was definitely early compared to years past. Luggage arrived before we got back from our pre-meet with CC friends. We had cabin 7600, an E3 center hump. Gary & Rose were right above us and we would see each other most mornings gazing out at the port we were entering. Since I had been in a center hump before, I knew there were some differences to the usual E3 cabins, but I had originally intended to be on my own so it didn't bother me. There is no storage behind the mirror on the left as in most E3 cabins. Also the drawers on the left are about half the normal size. There is obviously some sort of structure that runs through there on the hump cabins. This particular cabin has been changed to an E2 on future cruises that I have looked at. The best part was that we could close our doors on any of the Centrum noise, but we were quite close to the stairs up and down. Deck 6 has the Champagne bar. We were also on the same deck as the Business Center. I did get an Internet package, but connection was limited to hotspots (business center was one) and even using those computers, they didn't always shut down properly and continued to collect my time for cash. Guest Relations tried to correct it, but every time I signed on, I had to go down and have a discussion with them. At that point, I gave up. Much has been discussed about the size of the showers so I won't repeat. There was plenty of room for both Marilou and me. Amazingly enough we did not use all of the storage available to us, but we were trying not to invade each other's space either. The night stands are small so you don't want to put anything on top when you go to sleep. Chances are very good you may knock it off when sleeping in that twin bed.

Cabin Review

Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Balcony

Cabin E3

Cabin had obstruction to left of mirror over desk. No storage on that side and drawers to left of desk were only half size due to the ship structure that seemed to be built there. Great view. Never heard any noise from the hallway once the door was closed.

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