Let me start off by saying this was my first cruise on RCI and while I did enjoy it, it was hard not to compare with Princess, the only other line I have cruised on.

It was very nice to drive to the port and leaving at the end was a breeze. There was an outbreak of the dreaded norovirus on the previous cruise and they had called us the night before to state that boarding was pushed back an hour, but did not tell us why. It took us about an hour and some change to get through the boarding process and I was initially annoyed by the jampacked folks in the windjammer, but we quickly relocated to the Viking lounge which was pretty and comfortable. We were not allowed into our rooms until 4pm, which I thought was late, but I wrote that off to the intensive cleaning due to the norovirus and we didn't have any outbreaks that I know of, so hats off to RCI there. What did disturb me though was the way they dumped our bags in the landing areas around the stairs/elevators. Finally around 6:30, as we had walked past them so many times, we just grabbed our bags and hauled them to our room ourselves. Not a big deal, but I found this was indicative throughout the cruise of their organizational skills, or lack there of. On Princess, we never saw luggage, it just appeared magically in our rooms, so I don't know if this was just due to the norovirus or if they normally handle it that way.

Our room, 2126 large outside, was small. When I first saw it I was dismayed. It did not match the picture, the picture showed a couch and ours just had a chair, but we thought this may have been possibly due to the fact it was a connecting room, though we did not request one, and the couch would have blocked that door. After we gave it a day though, it actually was large enough for the two of us and the storage was really nifty. Lots of nooks and cubbies and the closet was big enough. The shower though was a tight fit and no fridge which we had in all our previous cruises. The TV was also pretty tiny though again, we were not there to watch TV so not a huge deal and we have always had a least a balcony before on Princess, so it is not a truly fair comparison. Overall the room was quiet and comfortable and appeared to be in good shape, so I would give it a B + as it was the lowest outside room category and we did get it at a pretty good price. Our room steward we did not see until the second day and he was fine, but nothing spectacular. Read more