Great Trip - but a long review of the pitfalls

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 13

Review summary

We chose to sail on Royal Caribbean for our first cruise because I wanted lots of fun, but not a frat party environment. Embarkation was super easy! We drove to port from PA (3 1/2 hr. drive) and the parking was super easy. We had zero problems getting all checked in. We arrived at the port early, just before 9 am, and the process of getting on the ship was relaxed. We boarded the ship around 11 am. We had purchased the Ultimate Dining Package and they make your first night's reservation for you (but you have no idea what it is until you are onboard). I have to say this caused me quite a bit of angst prior to sailing. We didn't want to eat at Izumi and had little interest in Jamie's Italian, so not knowing if reserving our dining choices would be a problem or not was frustrating for months leading up to our cruise. We boarded the ship right near Wonderland and we were able to immediately reserve the restaurants we wanted right there. You can make any dinner reservations at any of the restaurants from all of the restaurants, ie. we made reservations at Wonderland for Chops Grille. The next thing I immediately attended to was scheduling Puzzle Break - as soon as we were onboard I was able to do it by using the Royal IQ app with my phone. Once those 2 things we accomplished we were ready to start having fun! As with any trip, there were some hiccups and disappointments. I'm going to list them below because others may share some of my personal quirks, please note - the "good" far, far, far outweighed the 'bad", I just think the info might be useful to someone else! My Bad List (not in any particular order): 1. Soda Cup - we had the drink pkg and the cups were supposed to be waiting for us in our cabin. It seemed everyone on ship got their cups when we were let into our cabins at 1 pm., but us. Our cabin steward had no idea where they were. He had us call guest services, they said the cups would be coming. We checked back in a couple of hours, still no cups. I'm going to condense this a bit - it took numerous phone calls, waiting in line, and a whole bunch of other nonsense to finally get cups at around 11 pm. If this happens to you - just go into any of the bars and ask the bartender for a Coke. Easy peasy, but we didn't realize this and wasted a lot of time just trying to get a soft drink. 2. Cabin temperature - this was the absolute worst thing about my cruise for me. The A/C is fake - you cannot adjust it. The thermostat in the cabin 'appears' to be adjustable from 68F to 72F but it really isn't. All you can control is if the blower is running or not. Anyway, here's the problem: I cannot sleep at 68. My bedroom at home is usually around 58F this time of year for sleeping and lower than that in the winter. I know this is a personal quirk, but I absolutely cannot sleep in a warm/hot environment. I had gotten up at 3:30 am to drive to the pier and the first night on the ship I had no sleep due to the temperature - I was in meltdown mode. Guest services did their best to improve the situation (there was absolutely nothing to be done about the 68-72 temp) but they did have a fan sent up to my cabin. It wasn't a little, crappy desk fan. They sent up a fan that would probably be used for floor drying. So...a cool shower (there is no such thing as cold water on the ship - in the bathroom you have a choice between tepid and hot), going to bed with my hair soaking wet and laying on top of the covers with the fan on high got me a little sleep. I'm sure there is some eye rolling about this, but if you share my need for a cold bedroom, this info might be helpful. 3. Here's another personal quirk - I like to sleep in a dark environment. No such thing on this cruise. We intentionally booked an inside cabin because of all the reviews I had seen about night lights and such because the inside cabins are so dark - they lied! It is NOT dark! LOL The 'virtual balcony' screen (which, by the way, I find stupid) cannot be completely turned off. You are provided with a little remote control to turn it on and off. On - you get to look at a grainy, pixelated view of what is outside. Off - the stupid thing glows. There is a set of drapes in front of it, I guess so that you will be fooled into believing you have a window, but the glow emits from around the sides and bottom of this stupid thing. Ugh! For other dark sleepers - there is also a portion of the bathroom light that never, ever turns off. So...in this supposed 'dark' inside cabin - there is always a bluish light being emitted from the virtual balcony and yellowish light coming from the bathroom (with the bathroom door closed the light glows from under the door.) 4. Beds are rock hard. I'm just going to leave it at that. Those are the worst things about my experience. The info might be helpful. Now on to all the good stuff!! Dining - Windjammer - meh. Just meh. Loads of choices, but everything is reminiscent of school cafeteria food. Nothing seems to be hot, and everything is on the bland side and it is crowded. I do highly recommend it for breakfast and it is perfectly fine for a bit of lunch, but I would NOT want it to be the only option for my vacation. If you are okay with sandwiches made from low quality deli meat and mushy pasta, etc. go for it. Here's some of the things I ate from the Windjammer and what I thought about them: 1. Scrambled eggs - good, they were decent 2. Lasagna - bland and mushy - school cafeteria food 3. Sandwich I made from ham and cheese - the ham is incredibly low quality - yuk. 4. BBQ Ribs - dry, dry, dry That's all that really comes to mind. There are things on the buffet that you just can't mess up - like a big serving dish full of bacon. But my overall perception of it was blah. MDR - We had several breakfasts in the main dining room. I would have only done this once, but others in my group wanted to do it multiple times. The food is the same food on the buffet - you just get to sit for half an hour and wait for someone to bring it to you. No thanks. Chops Grille – Fabulous! We had 3 dinners here and the food was incredibly good. I highly recommend the Gruyere tater tots, the filet, and the NY strip. Jamie's Italian – I'm not a good reviewer for this because I am not a pasta fan. I had one lunch and one dinner here. For lunch, I ordered the lasagna – it was okay, just okay. For dinner, I ordered the tagliatelle – complete, utter mush. 3 bites and I was done. The pavlova dessert was good. Spectra's Cabaret was wonderful and mesmerizing! We Will Rock You – meh – the best part was the end. The Gift – Didn't bother to go to it. Warning – do NOT walk bare footed from the pool deck to where the soft serve ice cream station is. I badly burned the bottoms of my feet. It was like stepping onto a screaming hot cast iron frying pan and to get off, you have to step on it further – ouch! I wanted to note all the things that caused me problems on this cruise, but with all of that, I had a WONDERFUL vacation! It isn't helpful to tell anyone that my steak was sooooo yummy, but it might be helpful to someone to know that you have absolutely no control over your room temp. In closing – we are already planning our next cruise on Anthem – it is a beautiful ship! Someone does need to replace all the pretty pictures in the elevators that have been defaced – we only found 1 picture that didn't have the eyes scratched out of it (it's a shame that there is always someone who has to be a jerk). Happy cruising!

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Cape Liberty (Bayonne), New Jersey

King's Wharf, Bermuda

Disembarkation

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