First RCI cruise. Purpose: medical course with family along for vacation. Spacious room with cheap balcony furniture, not comfortable. Smoker next door ruined my balcony experience! How to avoid this in future? Very comfortable bed, sheets, pillows. Quiet. Comfortable sofa bed for my daughter. Excellent pools on top deck. Excellent production shows including ice skating show. HATE that extra charge items are pushed at you - ex. "fresh squeezed OJ $2.50", Ben and Jerry IC, Cupcakes, use of floats at CoCo Cay, extra charge to eat at Johnny Rockets - a hamburger diner! Great CoCo Cay facilities and lunch. Overall food choices much less than Celebrity and decidedly less quality, "fancy" foods. Had to go to Dining Room to get Eggs Benedict. That is standard fare on Holland and Celebrity. Chocolate croissants offered one day only. Had to ask for ice the first night. Otherwise would have been DRY. Housekeeping attendants seem stretched and not as personally attentive though very nice. Cleaning equipment in hall ways most of the day. I don't remember that on C or Holland. Very good on/off port boarding and tendering. No nice iced wash clothes or lemonade on re-boarding from ports. That spoiled me forever.

Because I go cruising for the food, the balcony views and the personal pampering, I rate RCI mediocre. I paid a lot too. Will go back to Celebrity as first choice. I loved Solstice and Century so it is not necessarily the smaller size. C's staff won me over. Hope they don't change!

Kid program: too many kids. Kept in one big room the whole time. Celebrity had them all over the ship, under control but they had many less children.