Good but sadly no longer great

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 58

Review summary

The dining room was the main culprit--it seems with the new mega-ships online Royal has taken experienced staff from the shorter sailings and staffed up the mega ships and hiring new staff for the replacements and it shows--especially in the dinning room. Too busy to visit with the Patrons, or too new to know what to do the main dining is rapidly becoming a fast food experience. You now can get better service at an Appleby's than on Royal--very sad. it alos shows on the pool deck at days at sea--the IOS has 4000 guests on-board but during a sea day only 3 servers were on hand to wait on the pool deck crowd (guess that the succes of pre selling drink packages has offered up the option of no longer needing wait-staff on deck--they already have the money and dont need to provide service to get any more)-- lastly the concierge was completely useless on the IOS--couldn't (or wouldn't ) solve any issues presented and during regular hours was more absent than present in the lounge. Cabin staff and bartenders were excellent. It seems the difference maker between a good cruise and an outstanding one are the little things/touches and Royal has moved more toward larger crowds, bigger ships and less of the little touches that makes the difference between OK and Fantastic.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Ft. Lauderdale (Port Everglades), Florida

Costa Maya (Mahahual), Mexico

Cozumel, Mexico

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