The UPs and Downs for the Empress of the Seas
Empress of the Seas Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western
7 Night Western Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)
Sail date: February 23, 2020
Ship: Empress of the Seas
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 4 years ago
Review summary
So many people have written about the size of the cabins and bathroom and how cold it is in the cabins, and I always commented saying " come on you're not moving in you'er just staying for the week", how right they were! I have 51 cruises under the belt, with that said, I had to ask the cabin steward to separate the beds just so we could get in the room and have room to move and store our suitcases under the bed with ease. The smallest, coldest cabin at sea for sure, and lets not get talking about the bathroom size, it was like an RV and the tiniest shower as well. If you are size challenged please keep this in mind (I had an inside cabin). The ship is definitely for people who want to sit around and relax. If you need constant simulation then you need to get on one of the larger more active ship on the RCI fleet. The Bands were great, the food and service in the main dinning room were great. The buffet food during the sea days was tasteless and lukewarm at best. It is a very good looking ship on inside, but not up to Royal standards on the outside as it resembled a rusted Carnival ship on the outside. There were a lot of smoking areas which ruined beautiful outdoor areas for the 90% non smokers. I had fun meeting really nice passengers on board as well as interacting with really friendly staff members throughout the ship. Again bands were great, shows and comedians were great, people seems happy overall. A zero for outside look of the ship, and a zero for daytime buffet food. Remember you may experience a much different cruise so cruise with an open mind always no matter what you read.Embarkation
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Windjammer Café
No taste to the food served for lunch on sea days. I don't eat fast food, but I would have gone to McDonalds if I could, and only the wind jammer was open for lunch so big negative on sea day dinning during the day.
Main Dining Room
A big Negative is RCI and the Empress staff and not accustom to what my time dinning means, they still ask you to make a reservation to eat dinner. Other than that the food and service was good to excellent. Nanang and Erwin were top notch.
Boleros
Excellent place to stop and listen to the excellent Latin Band or visit the super nice bar staff for a drink. Everyone that came in there were nice and friendly.
Onboard Activities
Fitness Center
The tiniest gym at sea, I think it was an after thought. Whom ever put that gym there is still laughing.
Entertainment
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
Bring a sweater as the cabin is the coldest I have ever been in, many people throughout the ship left the doors open when in the cabin, I have never seen that before this cruise.
Ports of call
Belize City, Belize Did not visit port