my1

After 3 Cruises with Disney, we decided to try Royal Caribbean.  What a mistake... the worst customer service, food, and concern for passengers!  Never again.

The biggest thing we saw was the HUGE safety issue of getting off the boat in Bar Harbor.  We got off the second floor elevators to find a massive group of people dead stopped in the elevator area; there were lines of up and down the hallways where the rooms were – all the way to the back, turned around, and back the other way – both sides of the boat.  There were people on the stairs.  There was no one moving.  Finally a security guard showed up - just one.  He did his best to move people.  After 30 minutes of clearing the second floor, the people on the stairs gave up and started moving down and cutting in line.  We heard announcements that they had stopped allowing people on line because the stairs had backed up to the fifth floor, and then crossing the Promenade.  What brilliant mind never thought to set up cordons for the masses of humanity that wanted off the boat?  What second brilliant mind sent ONE security guard to take care of HUNDREDS of people?  And giving priority to those of us who had booked tours through the boat?  A complete and utter joke.  All you needed that day was someone on the stairs to trip and the domino effect would have taken out several hundred people.  No joke.  The pure safety concern on with this should have caused someone to lose their job. We came within minutes of not making our tour.  We just got on the bus before it left because it took us well over an hour to get through the mess of the trying to get on the tender.  Then there was the time to get the rest of the people on the tender, move it, and get them all back off again. Had we not left an hour and a half to get to the tour we would have missed it. Getting back on the boat in Boston was unorganized and we were lucky only having to wait 45 minutes.  Some people waited over 2 hours. What brilliant individual decided to bring every tour back at the same time? The boat was in a state of disrepair. Chairs in the dining room were falling apart – connector between legs hanging off, arm rests obviously missing, splinters on the arms. Curtains in the stateroom were stained and the liners ripped. In the bathroom, there was rust on the doorframe and there was peeling paint. The only way we could make sure we didn’t get water from the shower over the lip and into the bathroom was to stop running the water halfway through the shower.  Drain was slow and clogged. There were stains on the bedspreads and on many table cloths in the dining rooms. The food in the Windjammer is worse that Golden Corral on its best day.  Pasta stuck together or overcooked on several nights.  The burgers were inedible.  Sushi is more than spicy tuna.  Everything salty. Food hit and miss.  Selections were mixed – most nights nothing sounded appetizing.  Caesar salad as dinner?  Turkey that was dry with stuffing like paste.  Food was OK to mediocre on the best nights. Steaks were an extra charge to the tune of $11-$13 each. My 11-year-old hated the kids club.  Why?  Because of the low number of children, he was put with 5 year olds in the space for the younger kids!!!  He was FORCED to do activities with the group, not allowed time to just play on a computer by himself.  He was so bored he refused to go back.  We took this trip so he could have some time away from us, and us away from him.  We should ask for a refund on fees for the kids’ club because of how poorly it was run. The ship has the slowest elevators in the civilized world.  No matter where you wanted to go, add 5 to 10 minutes on waiting for the elevators or stopping at every floor even though no one was there to get off/on.  Several times, an elevator passed us in the direction we had called it without stopping at all. We took an excursion in Bar Harbor that included a lobster lunch, with steak available upon request.  The night before the trip, I went to the excursion desk to ask about one of us getting the steak.  The employee first told me that steak was not available.  I showed him the outline of the tour and he had no idea.  He jotted my name down on a piece of paper, stuck it in his pocket, and told me he would email someone later.  Handled completely unprofessionally and with no idea if there would be a follow-through.  Luckily, the tour operator was able to accommodate the steak request. Pool area was wonderful, exceeding expectations.  Unfortunately to get a towel at the pool I needed to show my room key and have the towels checked in/out like library books.  So you make your customers feel like we would steal the towels.  Nice.  Thank you for making me pay through the nose and feel like a thief at the same time. Because of the lack of needing anyone to pick up towels since you need to check them in and out, there are very few employees on the deck at any time.  In turn, the people who are smoking start moving into the center portions of the deck.  Several people smoking were sitting around the bar and just adjacent to the hot tub.  The smell was disgusting. Where were the employees to send them back to their area? One night we were ready for the movie – Avengers: Age of Ultron to be shown at 6 PM on the screen over the pool.  When we left at 6:40PM, the movie was not yet playing and there was no one around to ask why it was not playing or if they would ever start it. After being told that the bed for our 11-year-old was a pullout couch, we were surprised to have the porter drop the bed out of the ceiling like a bunk directly over another bed.  Not what we were promised. The constant assault with paper ads outside the Windjammer by the massage staff is horrible.  The waste of paper is appalling after they make such a big deal of “Save the Waves" and the fact that all surveys are done online. Opened the shuffleboard cabinets to be able to play. After getting to the third cabinet where only one or two usable sticks were there, we gave up.  The sets were broken – mostly rusted through.  Broken pieces were still left behind in the cabinets.  Really – no one services them?  Why have them if every set is broken and near unusable? We had AAA priority boarding.  The lines were long when we got there, and I showed the voucher to a person directing people to lines.  She actually laughed at me and said I was crazy if I thought they would honor it.  Again, customer service at its best… not a simple “sorry we don’t do that” but make you feel like scum. Menus were posted outside the main dining rooms on huge touchscreens.  Most of the time the wrong menu was there – a different lunch menu than was being served or a dinner menu during lunch. And as for that lunch menu for sitdown lunches – it was unchanging.  We ate there 5 out of the 9 days.  And it was always the same.  Can’t think up anything else for lunch? We paid extra to go to the Mystery Dinner at the Portofino.  The timing was all off – whenever the breaks came in the acting, the food was not ready.  When we got our food, the acting was starting so you could not hear.  My steak was served to me, along to the steaks in proximity to me, VERY underdone.  As in raw.  After waiting what seemed to be a horrendous amount of time.  Food was mediocre at best even with the limited menu for the special event. To add insult to injury, the departure lounge (the Sphinx) was set up so that there were very few places to sit or put down carry off items.  The center was roped off (we needed those a few days prior for the Bar Harbor tender lines!) and all the chairs were set up too close together, as if to close off the tables.  Meanwhile, there were a large number of people trying to sit.  Why have a departure lounge with hundreds of people assigned when you can’t use it?  And why was it set up this way - because staff is trying to set up for a buffet for the next cruise – so don’t let your departing customers sit down.  Thank you for the tips and you can leave now!!  Sorry we haven't called your number yet.

Not the customer service I paid for!