Asia & Indian Ocean Cruise Reviews

I am writing to share my totally dissatisfying cruising experience with RCI and their poor complaint handling practice. During the trip, my old mum and her old buddy (over seventies) suffered so much and said won’t cruise anymore because of such bad experience provided by RCI. I wrote a complaint to RCI after the trip, and what they said is the trip was “successfully delivered”. I am so frustrated with their unempathetic customer attitude and poor service. So I decided to share my experience with the future cruisers about my bad experience as reference when choosing cruisers. Most of all, the human traffic control measures by RCI cannot be worse, illustrated with the following examples: 1. When the ship was berthing at Sanya, we joined the RCI’s onshore excursion, but have to wait for an hour for getting off the ship. Moreover, RCI never had enough staff to help to keep people in order in the entire process. Worse was that when coming back, there were only 2 check-points to cater for hundreds of people coming in, resulting in lots of people having to wait for long time. My two ladies could not stand long and had to suffer from a long queue with people elbowing and pushing each other, ending up mourning and almost falling sick when getting back to the cabin. 2. The ship then was expected to berth at Vietnam 8am next day, which made most people flock to the restaurants for breakfast between 6 and 8am (so as to get off the ship at 8am), resulting in hundreds of people waiting for tables or standing to eat at the restaurant. The staff again did nothing to direct people to other places even the restaurant was full. The buffet restaurant ended up turning into chaos. When we were forced to leave for another restaurant, we were asked to wait outside and yet with plenty of empty tables inside. The result was that people could not get tables to eat and tables could not serve people, totally ridiculous. Again, my two old ladies had to rush through all the places for breakfast with their soring legs and ended up eating like a race. Such service quality is totally unacceptable. There are still a lot more examples that RCI failed customers in keeping managing their guest properly and happily with decent human control measures. I cannot believe at all that RCI which claims themselves as an expert of serving thousands of customers with quality service would turn out so ugly. Plus, when I talked at their guest service, some of their staff attitude were rude. Furthermore, some other negative experiences are worth sharing as below: Poor food quality, especially the cooking quality and variety. We were fed up with the same types of bad food for days. My two old ladies even lost their appetite and did not want to eat their food anymore. RCI’s staff’s sense of infection control is totally unacceptable. I had once pouring half the glass of juice into my bottle at the restaurant, the staff then mixed that glass with a new glass, and put them back in the serving tray to pretend two full glasses. Seriously? The guest service were not responsive, probably because of too many people lining up for inquiries or paying bills (the line for paying bills once lasted even for about 10 hours till 12 midnight) all the time. I could not believe RCI’s system was so inefficient and had to let their guests wait all the time in the trip. Is it a cruising trip or a lining trip? The onshore excursion was totally not value for money. The RCI’s onshore excursion only dropped the participants at one seaside with some shopping malls. The weather was bad so that we could not swim, ending up nothing to do. A lot of participants ended up waiting in the coach for coming back. However, the coach did not even provide air-conditioning during the hot and humid summer. In short, I felt like paying money for suffering. The customer services for complaint handling is very bad. After the trip, I wrote a detailed complaint to RCI. They came back with the compensation of cruise coupon or on board consumption coupon for a future itinerary. Since my two old ladies were tortured by their service so much and do not want to cruise anymore, the coupons are actually useless. This also illustrates how RCI is unempathetic and insincere in treating their customers. I then said that if they really wanted to restore the confidence and relieve the suffering for my two old ladies, any token other than cruise related products serve well, even though a nice dinner at a good restaurant would do. However, their literal response from their headquarters to that is: “Even though we recognize a portion of your vacation with us was negatively impacted, the entire cruise in itself was not. This means there were services all of you paid for that were successfully provided.” Literally, the entire trip is ruined to my two old ladies due to their poor service. How hypocritical and thick-skinned of the RCI’s response! Such customer service attitude serves as a final blow to my initiative to talk with them anymore. Hope my experience can help you pick cruisers, especially when with the elderly. To me, I will not cruise with RCI anymore. If you do, good luck and hope you would not repeat my tragedy.

Cruise was a pleasant one. Loved every day on board. The staff on board were very friendly. Food was ample and tasty. WIFI on board was worthy for money. 

We had a fabulous time on the Majestic and visited some once-in-a-lifetime ports.  The crew worked hard to be sure the ship is incredibly well maintained and cleaned even though it was only a few months old!  With a very few exceptions, the entire staff from housekeeping to the officers were especially friendly and made an extra effort to make the voyage special for passengers.  The fitness center is well equipped and large enough so I never had to wait for a cardio machine although the weight machines were sometimes understandably busy.  

Unfortunately, like the sister ship Regal, the sauna is only available to those willing to pay the extra fee ($500+) for Spa access.  We were traveling with another couple and we requested a traditional dinner table for 8 but instead we had table for 4.  We still enjoyed the meals and the servers (Anna and Judit) were fabulous but we would have preferred the opportunity to meet other passengers with a larger table.  One new production show was truly incredible whereas the remained of the stage shows in the Princess Theater were the typical cruise entertainment shows.

Overall, our Princess experience was as expected and we will continue to travel with Princess in the future.  In fact, we already have three cruises scheduled during the next 18 months!

They cancelled both shore excursion that I booked because they only haver in Chinese. The embarkation porcess was terrible the people was pushing deseperate to pass security and there was no body from Royal Caribbean that make some order. Kids fall my wife fall just terrible.

This was the 2nd cruise trip with Royal Caribbean.

The food was fantastic and full of varieties.

The rooms were cleaned almost 3 to 4 times a day (whenever we left the room). Great job!

The show was good. If possible bring in few more international performers..

The cruise director was great.

However the the lady (cant recall her name) in charge of the program was horrible. Acting too childish on TV and rather unfriendly.

Wonderful ship with modern facilities, great shows etc etc

BUT as with all Royal Caribn. ships,we have sailed on many,  The Windjammer buffet style restaurant continues to be a disaster. No matter what time we arrived it was always a problem to find a table !!!! Not enough staff clearing tables and no staff to help finding a table,you  just wander round aimlessly waiting . Dont get a plate of food till you find a table. Not the definition of "free for all" that you were expecting !!!!

Hated it - never again

Excellent service by the staff, including the ones from Windjammer café and dining room. The shows were excellent. It was a smooth embarkation and debarkation process.

Great Experience. We were a group of 5 couples. We sailed from Mumbai to Maldives. It was a great experience. The cruise rooms were spacious. Food was great too. Daily activities were very interesting. The staff was very helpful, polite. Overall a 5 star rating. 

Fantastic cruise - ports were all listed on my bucket list. Flight time is exhaustive though.....

It was one of the best cruises I have ever had. Cannot fault anything at all. It was my first time on a marella ship can honestly say it eont be my last absolutely fantastic

One of the very best trips I have ever been on. If you ever dreamed of being on a sailing ship, this is certainly a fantastic company to cruise with. Reasonable cost for an intimate experience that you will always cherish.

back to back cruise- so didn't disembark - should be a "NA" for this!! A great first Celebrity cruise

we enjoyed the cruise very much, for the ports that we were able to see. but we were very disappointed with the continued changes to the itinerary. This happened several times and turned several port days to sea days- these were NOT weather related changes. The changes narrowed our experience.

when they would move a departure time up in a port they did not increase the time in the next port, it was frustrating.