Good but RCLand Delta miss boat on being great

Celebrating our 10 year anniversary with our 10th cruise, we treated ourselves to a Grand Suite.  The triple bonus airline I received was a big motivator and best price on Delta Sky Cruises also were major reasons we used this service.  It was enjoyable we have a very nice time the overall experience from reservations to initial boarding to our experiences with the amenities were all things which if handled better would have set this cruise apart from the others.

In an attempt to keep it short and simple will list positives and then negatives

Pros:

Triple miles on booking with Delta Sky Cruises

Delta had best price and I researched several sites

Priority Boarding was great and getting Sea Pass was quick and efficient

Room was wonderful and great balcony

Our steward Elena was among best we ever had on a cruise. Polite, attentive and always willing to accommodate any request we made.

Olive n Twist bartenders – Sharonn, Marlon and Chris were top and very wonderful to talk cruising, RCL and anything else.

“Butcher” (Concierge at Diamond Club) was very welcoming and always happy to see all.He kept the happy hour there light, funny and entertaining.

Jeff Trachta was a great talent and put on an amazing show.

“Once Upon a Time” was one of the best ever seen on any cruise ship and not to be missed!!

Beach Club on Labedee was wonderful.

Raj – Concierge for Suites was very nice most helpful during de-embarkation phase.

The “Royal Loyals” (frequent RCL cruise folks) were very friendly and were always kind enough to talk all things cruising when we wanted or anything else.

Captain was wonderful, friendly and when any possible weather issues came up was open and honest in keeping all informed and we had a very smooth sailing.

Pools were very nice and ship was very beautiful.

Cons:

Agent booking us on Delta was not very pleasant, rushing through process and not very knowledgeable

When boarding no one greets you except those trying to push you to buy drink packages.

No organizations to where to have initial lunch.

The staff doesn’t know about the special amenities suite guest have and we had to remind them about certain discounts we were eligible for on drinks, coffee and internet.

Wanted a 630pm reservation at Giovanni’s but Concierge told us they would only give us a 645pm. Not a biggie but then restaurant never filled at all and 80% were empty well past 730 so didn’t quite get why initial request couldn’t be honored.

Server at our main restaurant was more concerned with chatting with guests who were finished their meals then at least stopping by even after 25 minutes sitting there.We moved after 3 days of this type of service.

Cruise Director was okay but a bit too much focused on trying tobe overly funny instead of entertaining.

TV stations are limited and more foreign language stations most on Spanish then English. The Spanish channels had more American comedy shows to watch while the English stations were focused on shopping, excursions and cruises or watching the Cruise Directors TV show over and over and over again.Would have loved to see more of the night shows re-running.

The guy(can’t recall his name) running the Trivia games was often condescending, rude, and not very friendly to the players especially if they walked in late.

Photographers were horrible.They have little imagination with posing people and angles and set ups are routine.They don’t seem to have an ‘eye’ or feel for capturing guests.We didn’t buy any and seeing most of the other guests photos were went surprised how many were still up on the board even on last night.