mehkonomics

TL; DR: overall nice experience but service is hit or miss and food is not as good as other cruise lines we have been on. Rooms feel more spacious than other cruise lines. Review: We were on a Thanksgiving week 5 day cruise from Miami to Mexico (Cozumel and Costa Maya). We were traveling as a family of 4 with two young children. Pros: Great staff and set up with the kids club (Adventure Ocean) Good variety of bars, especially the wine bar Nice layout of ship, especially the Promenade Relatively less of the typical “hard sell” to get you to buy more stuff than on other cruise lines. Other passengers pretty nice and well behaved compared to other cruise lines (especially Carnival) Cons: Service was sometimes terrible, especially in the main dining room. Don’t promise towel animals to your kids! Only got them twice in 5 Days Entertainment kind of lacking compared to other cruise lines. LOTS of maintenance issues. There were constantly broken soft serve and soda fountains, broken elevators. No self serve laundry (which means if there is a luggage “incident” like we had you are in for one big expensive laundry bill) Food: 2 out of 5 stars This is usually one of my favorite parts of cruising as it is an opportunity to have someone else cook fabulous food. However, RCI falls dead flat in this regard. The menus are dated and dull. If you are researching what kind of food you can expect, really any menu for any cruise ship on RCI for the past 3 years will tell you what to expect. Also, Jade (the Asian section of the buffet Windjammer) seems to have disappeared. If you read other reviews saying they sometimes have sushi, don’t expect that. Also the quality of some of the meat is terrible. The New York strip that is in the MDR is flavorless and inedible. On other cruise lines we have been on the difference in quality between the buffet and the MDR is considerable, but on this ship (and I suspect all RCI ships) many of the dishes and quality were identical. This actually lead to this being the first time I have ever skipped on speciality dining altogether- why pay extra for what will probably be the same mediocre food as in the buffet? Cabins: 4 out of 5 stars Spacious and well laid out. We were worried that with four of us in a room we would constantly be on top of each other but it was fine. Closet space and storage was especially well thought out. Venues: 3 out of 5 There were surprisingly few entertainment options compared to other cruise lines we have been on. Especially in live music...almost nothing in that regard Kids: 5 out of 5 This is where RCI really shines. Adventure Ocean is great!! Our kids literally begged to go. If you are wondering about timing of it it is basically: 9-12 AM, 2-5 PM, 7-10 PM on sea days Variable hours on port days, 7-10 port day evenings. From 10pm -1 am they also have an after hours club that is $7 per kid per hour The staff is WONDERFUL! Embarkation/ disembarkation: 3 out of 5 Painless embarkation. Slight delay in boarding but wasn’t a big deal. Disembarkation is always the worst part of any cruise for many reasons, and RCI is no exception. Although I will say they are a little more humane than other cruise lines (especially Carnival) in the availability of lounges (and even coffee, tea, and snacks!) while you wait.