This has always been a great ship it is just very tired. It just came out of a multi-week dry dock for the new Amped upgrades. However a number of things were skipped which really shouldn't be. It is very easy to tell what was upgraded but also very easy to see what wasn't and really should have.
Updated:
New dinning room, everything is fresh and new and very white. However this seems to have been done to add in as many as 50% more tables making it difficult to even move and dramatically downgrade the service. To make up for increasing the tables while reducing the staff they stopped bringing bread to your table, instead opting for a bread basket on every table. The are spread so thin, that I was never introduced to the waiter or assistant waiter, or really anyone. We only saw one person and his name didn't match either on the card on our table. The food was below the typically royal standards, and we were never once checked on in the main dining room. Splurged for the steamed lobster and got it baked, I made due with what I had though. The portions seem to have actually shrunk so we each ordered multiple entrees and were still hungry. There are no more formal nights instead replaced with a dress your best night, basically removing the lobster night as well. The interactive TVs outside the main dinning room have been repurposed to be the same as those by the elevators. Meaning you can no longer see the entire trips menu from the TVs only from the new iPhone / Android app (which feels very beta if not Alpha, and doesn't have half of the functionality in the Royal IQ app, that is later in the review.
The Star Lounge: This under used lounge got the same white makeover as the dinning. It all bright and fresh. It is primarily a multi-function room at this point but isn't well suited for any of its functions. It is used for some the Karaoke, which is the best use of it other than as a night club to replace the one taken over by Izumi; but it isn't used for that all of the big night activities are up on deck 14 in the jazz club / Viking crown lounge. This is also used as the bingo hall as on many ships, though most move to the theatre for the win a cruise bingo, though we played all bingo games in this room. The staff didn't seem all that interested in bingo repeatedly opting for the more expensive per game single game bingo (biggest package is $38 including a $3 ink dauber, 24 computer cards, 6 paper cards, and 2 crack it aka pull tab strips) for a cover all. With over a hundred people in the room the prize was $300 and there were multiple winners. The final win a cruise bingo was three games, for $72 including the dauber, but if you bring back one from a previous game on the same cruise they discount the $3 for the dauber. The largest $72 ($69+dauber) package is 36 digital cards per game on the tablet, and 6 on paper with 2 crack-it strips. They also offered if you buy 4 crack-it strips for $5 each ($20 total) you also get another 6 cards for the final win a cruise bingo game, but only for that game. The bingo tablets have also been upgraded, though they no longer have a kick stand making it difficult to see while daubing your paper cards and taking up a lot of room on the very tiny cocktail tables from the lounge (another reason why this room isn't good for bingo). Another reason is its multi-purpose is it is also sometimes used for the art auction, so the art for at least one of our games filled the room taking away needed seating and blocking sight lines to the stage. I also am not a fan of using a computer that knows the numbers on every card to choose the bingo ball numbers instead of drawing physical balls like they used to. Thankfully for this cruise there was no major jackpot that could span multiple games. If there has been a limit on balls to win the jackpot I would have not even bothered playing know the computer could rig the game. Though the prizes were a really low percentage of the money took in from card sales.
As previously stated this room is used for some but not all of the art auctions, the remainder of the art auctions are in the open outside the ice rink, aka studio-b in the art gallery. Personally considering how much of the ship was over looked from this drydock I would have skipped this one in favor of much needed other improvements.
Escape room: This has replaced the chapel on deck 15, not fun to get to as there is only one bank of elevators that go to 13 and 14, and two of these were down for upgrades that frankly should have been done in dry dock, more to follow on that. The escaper room was fun and challenging, though it is only a 50 minute escape room instead of the more standard 60 minutes, basically less puzzles. This room is visually a clone of the room on the Independence of the Seas but I am told the puzzles are different (can't confirm this). It is fully automated with the exception of a lot of key based locks, basically a lot less automated than that of the room on the Harmony of the Seas but less that can break down or malfunction. I really enjoyed the room and it is visually stunning though the stairs they took us up and are intended for the escape room are not the set with chair lift, so not sure if those who need assistance are able to participate or if they would just bring you up the starboard stairs. We were told that we were that fastest time since the room had been tweaked recently. The room doesn't seem worth the million dollars they spent on the Harmony room, then again neither does the one on the Harmony. There are symbols on the wall that make up part of the puzzle and they several of which were falling off the walls (the room is less than 6 months old). Our game had also been rescheduled last minute due to not enough people (though I have done games all around the country with only 2 people before and succeeded). Still fun and worth checking out. Cheaper than I normally pay on land but considering I already paid for the cruise and the harmony used to be even cheaper i was disappointed but not surprised by the $20 per person price tag. Considering this is being run by the cruise directors staff, it shouldnt need an expensive charge per person or a minimum number of people.
Sky Pad: This looked like a lot of fun, but never got to try it. This is a trampoline, with bungee cords and a vr headset, which appeared to be cellphone powered. However being at the top of the ship in in a giant glowing soccer ball with holes cut in it this was closed every time it was too windy or it rained, which happens a lot in the Bahamas. This doesn't need to be outside and the openings in the soccer ball shape could be filled with plexiglass or something similar to protect it from the weather. It is also ironically next to the flow rider and water slides, though you need to be dry to do it. This also requires you to wear an extra wrist band in addition to one for your wavers so they can write information on it what counter weight to add to you based on the scale they have you stand on.
Sky Climber, this is a cute climbing area for kids, though big enough for adults that may need to go in after them and get them out. There are also several hammocks which were alright but nothing special.
Mariner Dunes mini-golf. This looks like a beautiful course, though oddly is forward on the ship with no elevator access. You need to take the elevators to deck 12 then take outside stairs to deck 13. There are also some lounge chairs and a couple of rain shower things next to it, that frankly could have allowed for an 18 hole course instead of a 9. The layout is rather odd with a lot of wasted space. Though more importantly with Royal Caribbean’s standard foam golf balls this game is basically impossible to play while the ship is moving. Being forward on the ship means there is enough wind to blow your ball across multiple holes (I personally experienced this). There also aren't any floor or street/pole lights around the course making it difficult to play after dark except only for the most determined. There are some lights around the edge of the deck but they only light up part of a couple holes. Fun course either way, but only playable while docked in port and there is low wind.
Laser Tag: They gave it this foolish them and back story but it is just normal laser tag. They have this big inflatable bouncy castle type of arena they deploy in the studio-b ice rink. Which is fine, but it means less days for ice shows and free skating. The system is kind of clunky and one of our guns malfunctioned during a game but it was blown off by the staff as my brother just being a bad player. This entire activity was just poorly organized. Sometimes they would prep the next group while one was playing but others they would just let you sit there causing as much as a 20+ minute delay between 7 minute games. In general it is a lot of fun, though the automated announcer voice kept saying which team was in the lead the tv monitors (the only thing you can really see while waiting) stay locked on the previous games scores until the game ends (very annoying and reminds me of laser tag systems from over 10 years ago were you needed to shoot something to download your score, thankfully we didn't need to do that). The theme to the laser tag and lack of bases means you can only play one basic game with 2 to 4 teams. The teams are chosen at supposedly random though after multiple games were never even, one team always had several players less than another and once with few players we had four teams, mine was two people with the largest team having 5 people. In short laser tag is always fun especially when free though could be executed better. I am actually surprised you cant reserve the arena like you can the flow rider.
Playmakers sports bar and arcade: I was really looking forward to this one as I love chicken wings, and while they are an extra charge it isn't that expensive, though cheaper to order the same wings from room service. Sadly when this was installed on the ship the number of flavors available through room service were decreased to match playmakers. This is annoying because they only have BBQ and three levels of buffalo. I would have liked a teriyaki or Thai sweet chili sauce, which ironically both sauces can be found one floor down in Izumi (literally right below Playmakers). Over all I was kind of disappointed with Playmakers. The food was decent and service was alright. The place just seemed half done and poorly planned. There are a lot of TVs but typically set to only two channels. The pool table and arcade games feel like they were bought from an old bars going out of business sale over a decade ago. The pool table is not a nice self balancing one like on the Quantum class ships, it is instead a 5-6' used coin operated table rigged to be free. The lights above the table aren't aligned with the center as if the two groups installing them didn't communicate. This means the lights hang over one side and the corner, making them easy to hit your head on. There is not bridge available but the table is so tiny you dont need one from anywhere. The cues are cheap and wont take the chalk very well. And the balls tend to move with the ship or for us when the tide came in at Nassau and the entire ship was tilled for several hours due to a poorly planned job of tying the ship up to the dock. The foosball table was nice and looked new with lots of annoyingly bright lights that flash in your eyes when someone gets a goal. The score boards only show one teams score per side and the ball number which was confusing at first. This is also not self leveling for when at sea and is completely sealed and automated so you can't loose the ball. Though the previous coin op slot wasn't closed well with wires hanging out. There were only a couple other video games and sadly no pinball. The Big Game Hunter was malfunctioning with a scrolling screen the entire cruise. That left a multi game system with a couple classics like galiga and digdug. It is two player but it is turn based, nothing that lets two people play at the same time. There is also a Golden Tee game which was fun and they were all free but there was a lot of empty space as if they intended to add more. There was also an open panel missing its cover on the wall which appeared to be access to the video systems for the bar. That was kind of it, though due to the limited food options on the ship and the dog house closing before dinner for the night it is good for snacks or even a pub meal.
Izumi: Not much to say here as it is on many ships. The service and food were good. Annoyingly this ship changed it from a seating fee to an a la cart menu (sort of). They charge $39 for hibachi for a single protein or $45 for two. The Menu provides specific combos but they let you mix and match any two. There was nothing on the menu about getting three but they allowed us for an ever changing free (it went from $10 to $12 to ultimately $8, though the price difference for the second protein is only $6). This was by far the best meal we had on the ship though my brother couldn't get lemonade like you can at the other two specialty restaurants on deck 11 but then those are next to the wind jammer.
There is another bamboo bar which looked interesting but I never saw anyone in it. It had a couple small plates on the menu in addition to specialty drinks.
Stateroom TVs and App. The tv service has been "upgraded" (air quotes). They basically removed the interactive tv function and give you the standard Samsung remote. This is because the old system was slow and instead pushes you to use the new Royal Caribbean app. The problem is the apps like the new website really aren't ready for prime time. They feel unstable at best. I used an iPad Mini for the app and it would crash. It also would inconsistently pull up information and randomly hang. For instance I would try to look at a menu but the menu buttons wouldn't appear, so I would back out and go back in and they would appear and the menu would work for a while though not fun to view the pdf menu on the small screen. You login to the app via your standard login for the royal Caribbean site. This means you can only see your folio and logging out to change users is annoying and a lot of clicks. The other fun part of this "upgrade" is the tv channels. They are no longer the standard channels 2 thru 38. They are now 13-1 through 22-3. Though the channel list which is still a channel on the tv instead of printed out like land hotels are still using the old numbers instead each of the new channel numbers have been labeled with the old channel numbers. Basically channel 15-2 is labeled as channel 6 type thing. You can see this by hitting the channel guide button on the remote but it is just a list of real to take channel numbers kind of like if you re-label your HDMI input to Cable, it is still HDMI 1 just with a label. The headache is the old channels are still programmed into the tv so a lot of channels with static.
Now the old and tired.
The elevators are the most annoying. They didn't bother to update them in drydock instead leaving them to be updated at sea. This means two elevators at a time will be down until they finish. Each pair from what I understand takes several weeks. Ours were two of the four total elevators going to decks 13 and 14. Now as this ship no longer has a night club many activities required you go head to deck 14. Also the new updated elevators don't communicate to the old ones. So, in areas like the forward elevators which are in groups of three. Two are updated and one hasn't been requiring you to hit both buttons on each side of the hall way. Otherwise the button will only call the elevators on their related side. The elevators on a cruise ship are slow and annoying to begin with. Having them sub-divided by buttons or having two less are both bad ideas. This really should have been done in drydock. The new elevators change from the old black backlit buttons to the newer silver buttons with blue lit numbers. They also talk telling you the floor and if the doors are opening and closing, which is fine until you have one stopping on every single deck then ti gets really really annoying. They also have an LCD display in the car with stuff for the day but it never changed. One of the starboard side aft elevators was actually advertising a welcome aboard party for the Allure of the Seas.
My other big issue was with the bathrooms. None of them were updated. They are old and tired. Most of the chrome as rubbed off the fixtures showing the white or black plastic underneath. Some of the sinks don't work. many soap dispensers don't work instead replacing them with new ones stuck to the mirrors instead of fixing the built in ones. The only semi-modern upgrade to them are the dyson air blade hand dryers though paper is still available. These are also not cleaned enough as every mens room had puddles. Though the falling apart door openers/closers with open panels and the damaged decorative door designs in the casino were just funny. The bathroom in my stateroom was alright though definitely a lot of wear. Lots of places for bacteria to hide in the damaged wood around the mirror.
Bars, the bars I guess have upgrade soda guns that appearently haven't worked in months forcing the them to use warmed bottled soda. For someone who doesn't like ice in his soda this is annoying. They also added the freestyle machines which is the only place to get a soda late at night which means carrying around the cup as why would you be able to use your seapass to unlock the machine and use provided cups, that makes too much sense. I ended up losing my cup to crew members who snagged it as soon as I walked away from the craps table (Twice, and it took me almost a full day to get a replacement). From what I was told only three bars had working soda guns. And while the only free style machines that I saw were in the windajmmer that closes and in the middle of the promenade (not very convent especially during parties on the ship). And they were constantly running out of many drinks seemly only be filled once or maybe twice a week? That or everyone likes the same random flavors they would run out of.
Casino: The casino was odd, they don't have the machines for a slot tournament. The tabled they used for the blackjack tournament has no sight for the dealer to check for a blackjack. And the poker tournament was repeatedly canceled though when they charge you they can't refund your account instead giving you cash hoping you will use to play the tables. Also it closed earlier than any other ship I have been on. At about 2am with the tables all full and multiple people playing slots they announced they were closing in 30 minutes. Every night it was closed before 3am, if not before 2am. They also close the craps table well before everything else, probably because it requires the most dealers. It was closed before 12:30am one night so I couldn't even play. I played more games and bet more than my brother and he also somehow ended up with more points than me, go figure. Then again cruise ships have always had weird staffing levels and they never really updated our betting amounts so the best way to get points is to play the slot machines unfortunately.
Food. The main dining room food I started to address above and really was kind of disappointing. Though the best example I can give is my hot donuts desert was so cold I could have sworn they were refrigerated. My brother had a creme brulee that was super oily and soft. We missed the main dining room by 10 minutes due to trouble getting a cab and the long walk back to the ship and were sent away. We called to complain and were assured they allow people 10-15 minutes past the time and to apologize allowed us to order from the dining room menu for room service. They sent it but it was all gross like it had been sitting out for hours. We also ordered my brother his lemonade and it arrived over an hour after the food. We ordered room service for lunch one day off the room service menu and it was much better. We also ate in Jamie's Italian which I have had on other ships, it was just average. Not really worth it even with the 20% off they gave us for making the reservation on the first day, then again compared to the main dining room I would have preferred Johnny rockets. We ended up speaking the the head of the main dining room and he apologized and asked what he could do for us, but considering it was the last night there wasn't much he could do. We just hope it is better for others next time.
Staterooms: The staterooms don't really look to have been touched other than the tv channels. And our room didn't have a coffee table. I don't know if it was just our room or if they removed them in general but it made it more annoying when trying to eat room service and watch a movie. There were really no updates to the room besides a smaller phone which with less buttons to call for various departments. Everything involves calling zero and being transferred. They give you the extension for departments but they dont answer after hours and you need to call the front desk anyways. We had issues with our safe that just needed new batteries but it took multiple calls and finally a straight out insisting they replace the batteries instead of flipping them for the 5th time. New batteries did ultimate fix the issue. We also had AC problems. We kept lowering the thermostat throughout the first day but it never got colder. We ended up calling maintenance who said after checking the temp in the unit itself that it was fine and yet the room was still over 70F. I had him check the room temp and it showed over 21C. I then did some quick math in my head and that is about 70F to which he stated I am drunk. He switched it to F and it showed 71F. He then tried to insist we didn't give it enough time to lower the temp, which we had responded again that we set it to the lowest setting over 5 hours before. He ended up flushing the system and reported he cleared a clog. The room did slowly improve after that. Nothing like being too warm to sleep at 4am. The other disappointing thing was they didn't upgrade the door looks to the proxy card logs. You still need to insert your card, which isn't a big deal but it means you can't get the wrist band instead of pulling your seapass out. Then again, they never worked that well for me on other ships.
Over all, I made the best of my vacation because really what other choice do I have. I just hope they fix the remaining issues. And don't skip over the bathrooms and random carpets on their next batch of ships like the Navigator in January. Over all though this upgrade cost over 100m and I am wondering if most of that went to bribes or embezzlement because it certainly didn't go into the ship.
In summary, the new features are fun. The re-done lounge and dining room are ok but nothing special, and everything else feels like a downgrade specially where service is involved.
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