This was my 14th cruise on RCCL. Reason for this one was, to once sail out of San Francisco which was really wonderful. We had the best cabin, an aft Junior Suite on deck 10, next to the corner Grand Suite. Loved it. Our room steward was probably the best we ever had. Concierge service was equally excellent due to the fact that the "cocktail hour" each night was held on deck 13 in the viking crown lounge/disco due to the many diamond members on this cruise. Free drinks and the view - what more can you ask for... Maritza the concierge was wonderful and she made up for the poor finger food they served each night (the exact same every night!). Ports were good, overall a really nice trip, just to short for my taste as I like 12 nights or longer. Now on to the "not so good". First of all the food. The buffet was extremely boring with the same food every day. Bland, often warm instead of hot and almost no variety from day to day. Dining room experience was not much better due to different facts though. The food itself was OK, much much better than in the Windjammer (buffet), but - please RCCL , I hope someone reads this, it is definitely time to change the menus!!!! How can a cruise line, that pretends and promotes to serve excellent food ( yes I know it is not a 5 star cruise line but still not one of the cheap ones either ), keep the same menus and thus serve the same food for 7 years and longer? This is how you get rid of your loyal customers. Very simple. I also cannot believe they still do the Italian night the way they do it. It was nice and somewhat funny the first 5 times but that was years ago. Please come up with something new. I feel sorry for both, dining room staff and customers... Besides, and this is maybe even my biggest criticism, it does not look any funny with the all Asian/Indian waiters anymore, "singing" O Sole Mio... It looks cheap and stupid these days. What happened to the good old days, when the staff came from all over the world? These days, especially true on the Serenade and the Freedom ( at least this is where I experienced it ) they all come from the Philippines and India. No offense, but sorry , they don´t ( or should say didn´t ) do it right. They don´t have the slightest feeling for providing good service and for being somewhat charming. They are often pushy, don´t listen and have no table manners, this experiencing especially with the Filipinos. Again, no offense, just my experience. I know they are cheaper and especially Eastern Europeans get better jobs somewhere else these days but RCCL must know that it will not pay off in the long run if they continue that. My next cruise is on Celebrity and if I experience the same with them I will move on to another cruise line, despite my status with RCCL and Celebrity, simply because it takes away a lot of what a cruise means to me. Interesting though, I was on a short cruise 3 weeks later, this time on the Jewel of the Seas, leaving from Hamburg, Germany. It was a completely different experience, almost like being on a different cruise line. Happy staff from all over the world, lot´s of eastern Europeans, South Africans, a good mix of Indians and Asians but not as many, people from the Islands, from New Zealand and Australia. The atmosphere was completely different. Everybody was in a good mood. Service was great everywhere and from everyone and that does include the Indians and Asians this time, even in the windjammer it was very good and noticeable. When asking the staff, why it was so different on all other ships now, those that do not tour Europe, I was told that hiring mostly Asians is today´s trend, simply because they save money that way... Now figure, obviously Americans don´t seem to mind that or even notice that change or trend, but in Europe they don´t do it that way simply to keep up the good service and please the European customer... That´s at least my conclusion... Says a lot... So, in the future, if you want the good old RCCL experience, make sure you sail in Europe! So these are my biggest complaints. Please change menus (and the themes), yes that does include the specialty restaurants (!!!), and please go back to dining room and wait staff from all over the world, not only from Asia! I hope nobody feels offended by my criticism. It has nothing to do with general attitude towards people from certain countries or areas of the world. Not at all. I respect every human being, no matter where they are from. But when it comes to good service, especially when I pay a lot of money for it, I expect something else, and certainly not what I experienced with RCCL lately (except on the Jewel). However, I am looking forward to the Millenium doing transatlantic in December. Read Less

SERENADE OF THE SEAS, PACIFIC COASTAL CRUISE, MAY 21 - MAY 28, 2006 OVERVIEW This was another great cruise vacation. I went with my wife, our 5 year-old son, our two good friends, and their 7 year-old son. We all had a great time. The cruise was a 7-day Pacific Coastal repositioning cruise, starting in San Diego and ending in Vancouver. We picked this cruise because it gave us a chance to go on a newer, Radiance-class ship, it was fairly close to home (we live in the San Francisco Bay Area), it included some unique ports-of-call, and because it was very competitively priced. THE SHIP The Serenade of the Seas is the 3rd Radiance-class ship I have cruised on (the other two were the Brilliance and the Radiance). I absolutely love these ships! There is so much to do. I made use of the gym, the Solarium pool, the outdoor pool, the kids water slide, the miniature golf course, the self-leveling pool tables, the disco, and the many bars. In addition to all this, our friends also enjoyed the casino and the steam room in the spa. The kids had a fantastic time in the Ocean Adventure kids club, where they spent most evenings from 7pm - 10pm. One evening we paid the $5 per hour (charges begin after 10pm) for the kids to spend some more time at the club and allow us adults to stay out late and try out the disco. THE SERVICE As has always been the case with us on Royal Caribbean, the service was outstanding. Our waiter, Chip, and assistant waiter, Michelle, provided excellent dining service each night. Michelle was especially great with the kids, creating drawings for them and making toys out of paper. Our cabin steward Derickson was equally adept. Our room was always cleaned when we were out for breakfast or dinner. The towel animals entertained our son, and he made up an additional bed for our friend's son when we requested it. The only problem with service that we had on the cruise was being awakened at around 3am each night for the first 4 nights from very loud music on the TV's in the Safari Club below us. We complained during the 2nd night, but the problem persisted for 2 more nights, which we felt was pretty unacceptable. Apparently, the cleaning crew liked cranking up the music at 3am while they worked, and it took 3 nights for the Guest Relations manager to finally solve this issue. I was also disappointed that we did get any sort of formal apology for this, not that we were looking for one. But I have seen others receive chocolate covered strawberries delivered to their cabins for these types of ongoing issues. EMBARKATION / DEBARKATION Embarkation was slow and chaotic as there were 2 RCI ships in port in San Diego, along with the Pride Of Hawaii. It seems they were slow in debarking the previous cruise, so we had to wait about an hour in line before entering the building to check-in. Once inside, check-in went quickly and we were able to board the ship in time for lunch at the Windjammer. Debarkation was flawless. We did the Express Debarkation where we carried our own bags right off the ship. This went very quickly, including going though customs. PORTS OF CALL SAN DIEGO, CA We spent a couple of days in San Diego before the cruise. We really like San Diego and have enjoyed many of its attractions. This time, we explored the coastal city of Carlsbad and took our son to Legoland, which he thoroughly enjoyed. SAN FRANCISCO, CA This was a funny port for us, since we live in the suburbs outside of the city. Still, we decided to do something touristy, so we booked the Alcatraz tour. We booked this tour independently, as we did with all our tours, and not through the ship. The tour included a ferry ride to and from the island and a self-paced audio tour, which was quite good. The weather was exceptional for San Francisco that day, and we really enjoyed all the views from Alcatraz. ASTORIA, OR This was our first ever visit to Astoria. There weren't any particular tours that interested us, so we decided to hike from the pier all the way up to the Astoria column. It was a pleasant walk. My wife enjoyed stopping to do some shopping in the main downtown area. The end of the walk took us though some nice forest areas. Once we got to the foot of the column, it started to pour with rain. After we walked up the 164 steps within the column, we took a couple of quick pictures in the rain before going back down to catch the bus back to the pier. We spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding the rain at the Solarium pool. VICTORIA, BC Victoria is a great city to visit and I'm glad it's included on many repositioning and Alaskan cruises. For this visit, we booked a whale watching tour with WildCat Adventures (www.wildcat-adventures.com/). Using their fast WildCat catamaran, we were whisked away to the San Juan Islands to get up close to a pod of orcas. It was very cold on the boat when we were moving, but when we stopped to observe the whales it was fine. We saw quite a few orcas, mainly just their dorsal fins. We were a bit disappointed we didn't see more than that, but nature doesn't always cooperate. NANAIMO, BC I had never heard of Nanaimo before booking this cruise, but was pleasantly surprised by it. The people in the town were very nice, and we thoroughly enjoyed our private kayaking excursion with Jan Kretz (www.adventuress.ca/). Jan specializes in kayaking trips for women, but is happy to take any group such as ours. We had such a great time kayaking around beautiful Newcastle Island and stopping on a sandy beach for lunch. The total trip took about 4 hours. Jan was great and provided us with lots of information about the local area and the wildlife. SUMMARY This was a wonderful cruise. Next year, the Serenade is doing a similar cruise, sailing out of San Francisco this time. I recommend to anyone who wants to cruise on a top ship to some fun and interesting Pacific Northwest ports to book that cruise! Read Less

Serenade of the Seas Panama Canal Cruise April 24th 2004 Let's get three minor negatives out of the way first, particularly as they either were, or could be rectified quickly and at no cost. The ship was badly let down by poor bar service on deck, in the theatre and in the Schooner Bar. However a conversation with the Bar Chief Steward (Bar Manager) soon rectified the problem and probably added $100s of dollars in bar takings. Dining Room Stewards having to parade around the deck singing and waiving flags is embarrassing to them and to passengers, leave that to 3 star ships, it's not right for a ship of this Class that in my book is almost 5 star. Also during the voyage, a Whale, a Shark, a Turtle and Crocodiles were spotted but no announcements made from the Bridge. Whilst at breakfast in the Reflections dining room we were delighted by the performance of a school of Dolphins but my request to a Chief Steward (head-waiter) for a tannoy announcement to be made was refused because 'at 0950 it would awaken passengers'. The shopping announcement at 1000 was obviously far more acceptable as were the countless and annoying announcements for art sales and bingo. The Master agreed with this and hopefully future Passengers will benefit. Everything else was pretty near perfect: The ship is stunningly beautiful and with a wow factor still there at the end of a two-week cruise. Her designers missed nothing and her builders got everything right. The full Crew from Captain through the Officers, to Stewards, Seaman, Engineers, Entertainers and Cleaners were friendly, polite, well organised and efficient (I still think of myself as a Passenger, not a Guest, so please excuse the lack of modern terms like Hotel Managers, Waiters, Barmen and Attendants) Although filled to capacity, at no time did she feel crowded. The food was imaginative, well presented, plentiful and tasty. Dining room service was impeccable and I never experienced any long lines at self-service buffets. Iced drinks and beverages were available whenever needed and at no charge. There were always plenty of deck chairs, towels for the pool and enough shade unless the sun was directly overhead. Cabins are well appointed; with plenty of storage space and getting a balcony without having to rent the Owners Suite was bliss. Embarkation and disembarkation was smooth and well organised and apart from running out of tickets for the tender operation it generally went smoothly and without queues. Security is tight, very necessary in today's times, but polite and so unobtrusive you don't really notice it. Others have already given a deck-by-deck tour of Serenade so I won't repeat that. I'll just say that everything good written about her so far is accurate. If there is a blip, talk to the right people and get it fixed rather than moan about it. Serenade is a new Ship but my guess is that this crew will keep her clean and well maintained for many years to come. She looks like a ship; not a floating hotel and the fact that I slept through a hurricane suggests she handles like a ship, full marks to her Master for some superb Seamanship then and in some very tight spots in Ports. (Apart from Panama there wasn't a tug in sight and then it was only for effect) Royal Caribbean has got her just right. Bruce Tucker 13th May 2004 tucker_bruce@yahoo.com Read Less