After a hard year where I lost both parents my husband and two adult children decided to cruise over Christmas. We were hoping it would help us not think about the people and traditions we were missing. We wanted to establish new traditions we could continue year after year. All of us were looking forward to this cruise.

Unfortunately, the experience was frustrating and the customer service was bad. Before the cruise, I received an e-mail to download the app and check in to our cruise. I did so immediately and tried to make a reservation for the shows only to find out that most were already sold out. I was only able to get one reservation for a show on the last day of the cruise. When I got on the ship I asked about the system and was told that I was just out of luck if I didn't have a reservation for the shows. Dinner reservations were the same way. I called on the fist day onboard and was told that all reservations were full every day of the cruise except for 9pm. I couldn't believe that all the reservations for meals were completely full for the entire trip. We were allowed to eat in the Main Dining Room one time, but told we could not come back and the only reason we got to eat there was because another customer was doing something else and so we got their table. So much for dressing up and taking photos of my family! I visited guest services multiple times and talked to staff members throughout the ship to no avail. I was told over and over that I was just out of luck.

The internet on the ship was spotty and didn't work well. This included the in room television channels that froze or cut out while we were trying to watch shows. When trying to get off the ship, my family of 4 received 3 different sets of instructions about deboarding. The announcements that were made on ship were not loud enough. When I asked for clarification from staff members about things I only heard part of, they did not know. I was told that I should go to the hallways when announcements were being made so that I could hear them. There was poor communication about how to leave the ship for excursions. At guest services I was told that I was one of 6000 people on the ship. In other words, my questions and requests were not important. At guest services a manager was called over but did not address us. Instead he wispered with the staff about us while we were standing in front of them. Read more