Serenade of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,675 reviews

Serenade of the Seas July 24, 2011

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Serenade of the Seas
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NoVa Mimi
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Jul 2011
Cabin: Grand Suite

We arrived in San Juan on July 23 at about 2:30 pm from Washington D.C. and got a taxi to the San Juan Marriott Resort. The fare came to $21 for the three of us, which included $1 per suitcase. On previous trips to San Juan, we had stayed at the Intercontinental. This time, we wanted to try something else, just for a bit of a change. I had reserved a corner room on a higher floor at the Marriott. When we arrived to check in, the line was quite long. It took at least 30 minutes to arrive at the counter to check in. We were told that our room was not yet cleaned and that it should be ready in about 1 hour. The clerk confirmed the type of room that I had reserved. We walked around the area for a while and about 1 ½ hours later we were notified by cell phone, that our room was ready. Well, upon arrival back at the hotel I found that I had to wait in the very same check in line that I had earlier. My goodness, what a poor set up! Having to wait in line to pick up our room key with everyone that was checking in was painful, this time it was close to an hour before I reached the desk. We were given keys to a room on the ground floor in the older section of the hotel. Not at all what I was expecting. We had been upgraded (?) to a suite at the very end of the building on the ground floor. We settled in and while we were sitting on the patio about 6:30 that evening, a wedding party was finishing their pictures. They all looked so beautiful! Then it began to rain, and the wedding party asked if they could go through our room to enter the building. Of course! It was so fun having a wedding party of 20, including the bride and groom, all came through our room to gain entry into the building! Their photographer took photos of us for the Newlywed's wedding memories ? Check out was very easy the following morning, we used Express checkout.

We took a cab to the port at 10:00 and when we arrived there were about 6 people ahead of us. It had been several years since we have sailed out of San Juan and the major thing we noted was the lack of organization for check in. This had always been one of favorite embarkation ports due to the smooth embarkations we experienced. There were no announcements made, no directions given, just a semi chaotic mess. Take passports out, put them away, 6 feet later, take passports out and put them away again. Same with the Sea Pass cards. We were given our cards at the check in window, showed them to get through to have our pictures taken, oops, passports needed again. I had to ask if they thought I was someone else other than who I was 4 feet away from them. What a hold up this whole procedure was. After that process at 12:15 we were in the Windjammer having lunch, mmm!

We were able to get into our cabin, 1050, at 1:00 on the dot. We have not been on a ship this small before and initially we noticed everything was just on a smaller scale. The cabin (GS) was smaller than the GS suites on the larger ships (Adventure and Freedom class). Not a bad thing, just something we noticed. We explored the ship while waiting for our luggage to arrive and found it to be lovely! Muster was just terrible, hot, long, and semi chaotic. I still do not understand why RCL does not do something similar to Princess. On Princess ships, passengers gather in various lounges to watch a video. Everyone remains cool, calm, etc. Also, if on a B2B, passengers are permitted to skip the Muster drill the second week. Much nicer!

Cabin Review

Grand Suite

Cabin GS

When on the balcony, one is in direct sight from the concierge lounge window.

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