Not sure cruising is the value it used to be, beautiful but expensive ship!

Hello, we have been back a couple days and overall I would say it was a nice cruise, with ups and downs. For the amount of money we spent (balcony cabin)(not 1st time cruiser), I cannot say that cruising is a value any longer, I wanted to come home feeling wowed and refreshed. The ship albeit lovely and pristine was riddled with opportunities for upcharge. Everywhere you turn RCCL is trying to hit your wallet. There are pushy sales people in the Esplanade throwing raffle tickets at you, demostrations that are only meant to sell you something, there are now up-charges for anything decent to eat from room service (even that was nasty, I tried all of it). The main DR menus have upcharge items as well. There are more crew members walking around trying to sell you dining packages than there are bartenders trying to get you drinks (non existent). The gift shops intentionally don't sell decent souveniers so that you bum rush the flash sales when they happpen, a marketing technique to draw crowd and encourage frenzy (it was bad, i mean humanity at its finest trying to get tshirts). In the old days of cruising, you felt that every activity/meal was special, but with so many upcharge items you feel like you are "missing out" and you get easily suckered in, especially when the upcharge items have 500% better quality than the complimentary items. How can it be "complimentary" when you paid for it in your fare. Please, do your research. Because of ship size/passenger amount Everything should be reserved months before you board, I mean dining, excursions, shows, North Star, Ifly, Florider, everything. You will not be able to go in to shows if they are booked up. Its like Disney now with the reservations. The days of willey nilley do want you want on your own schedule on the ship are long gone apparently. It really sucks the fun out of it, and they are building even bigger ships! I had done my research I thought it was down pat, schedule printed, like the nerd I am, until I found out too late that you need "tender" tickets to leave the ship to go to cococay, I lost almost 2 hours on the island, i was devastated. Like everyone says ship is modern, clean and beautiful, but RCCL must have borrowed $ from a loan shark or something in order to need to hit everyone up they way they do. Crew were excellent with one exception, I had experienced one rude crew member. Two70 amazing venue, shows were very good, live music, Music Hall all great. Wonderland, awesome if you get John from Serbia, other waiters kind of boring, Chops was infinitly better cuts of meat than main DR (wtf?) My best moments were alone on my balcony drinking coffee watching the sea roll by. However I could have spent 10 days in Europe for what I spent on this trip when you include all of the add ons, and I came home feeling a little bummed, and taken advantage of. I am thinking i need to cruise on a smaller/less expensive line next time (with less add ons), even though I have been a loyal RCCL cruiser for several years. Please consider your vacation philosophy when booking, if you dont mind schedules, rushing,  lines, waiting, and getting every place 45 minutes early to get a seat/chair, begging for a waiter to bring you a  14 dollar cocktail that has less than a 1 oz. of alcohol in it, then this is cruise for you!