We were really looking forward to this cruise. It was the first one for our 4yr old and our first one on RCI. We came with a VERY large party, reserving 6 cabins for our group alone. All in all we paid 1.5 times the amount we normally pay with Carnival per person but thought we were getting a better experience with RCI since we had done all the Carnival cruises by now. Baltimore was beautiful and enjoyed the night we stayed there but the vacation quickly went downhill once we boarded the ship.

The ship really shows her age and smells it too. The carpets were dirty, chairs looked very worn and overall just very aged. Even on the pool deck things weren't much better. The staterooms were smaller than we were used to but seemed to be the cleanest place on the ship. We were on the ship 9 days and not once did we see anyone cleaning the common areas. There was a handout in our rooms warning us of the signs of Norwalk virus or "Norovirus" but from past experience we had never had any issues with this. I guess that should have been a warning sign right there. Within the 9 days, 15 of our 17 members with our party alone had contracted Norwalk including our 4 yr old, 2 got pneumonia/bronchitis and 3 got pink eye. If you haven't had or heard of Norwalk, google it now. You can't kill Norwalk with hand sanitizer. The virus is only killed by bleach and washing your hands. It's VERY contagious. RCI's solution to cleaning was to place hand sanitizer stations in front of the common dining room areas and to have a person standing there telling you to sanitize. During the trip, we noticed the only people cleaning were in the Windjammer (which I have complaints about that later) and they were taking a dirty rag and going from table to table without bleach or any other cleaning agent. You can guess what they were spreading from table to table... and it for dang sure wasn't good cheer.

Speaking of staterooms, our room attendant was awesome! Seriously only person on the entire ship that wasn't rude. He was interactive and friendly with our children and was very accommodating. He was definitely one of two good parts of this ENTIRE cruise. Read more