Lackluster or worse

Getting onboard the ship was easy in Port Canaveral. We were not greeted with any complimentary drinks or happy workers. Only a couple of people in yellow shirts answering questions and trying to hand out pamphlets. I was sad to learn the main dinning room was not open for lunch, only the buffet which was very busy. The 3:30pm muster drill put me outside on the sunny side of the ship, and boy was it HOT! That sun burns once you’ve been standing there for 40 minutes. Other ships I’ve been on were able to have everyone sit inside to hear the muster drill.

Buffet: The main buffet, split between two inside sections, had a much smaller selection of food than the Norwegian ships I’ve been on. Most of the food tasted like buffet food and I was not wowed by anything (no joke). Seating in the buffet rooms was VERY limited and often there were many groups walking around the rooms looking for an empty table. I even saw groups get into arguments fighting for a table that just opened up. If the sun was shinning in the buffet (most of the daytime) the AC could NOT handle the heat. There were large sections of the room that were uncomfortably warm. Wait staff were often slow at cleaning tables, often having to be specifically told or asked to do so. Main Dinning: I MUCH prefer the way Norwegian does dinning!!! I did not like having to wait for 6pm to have supper. I did NOT like the fact that tables were small and cramped. We had 3 in our group and were put at a small table for 6, often having strangers sit with us. I prefer to eat dinner with my group and not random strangers. The 6pm rush was large and we sometimes had to wait 10-15 minutes after being seated before we got our menus and water. The service did not feel personalized; rather it felt rushed and sporadic at best. On day 3 they interrupted our dinner to have the wait staff dance around the room in a conga line and they pressured everyone to join them. I did NOT like this at all. I think everyone working on this ship is deaf. The person speaking over the loud speaker was so loud. They have the volume cranked up as loud as it would go and his voice was distorting to the point that it was painful to listen to. The music they played for the conga line dance was even more painful. My use of the word painful is not a joke, it was physically painful to listen to… it was that loud! This is the most terrible dinning experience I have ever witnessed and was without any class. What a way to ruin a dinner. Sadly, on day 4 they did a similar thing where they interrupted our dinner to showcase the cook staff and speak for 10 minutes with the PA system just as loud and painful. Thankfully they didn’t blast horrible music. I think having the staff wait for these interruptions lead to recent complaints of lukewarm food. I like to go to the main dinning room to sit down and have a tasty dinner. Unfortunately, almost all of the food I had was pretty bland tasting and poorly cooked. The majority of the food I had was what I would expect at a golden corral buffet… or worse! There was only one item I really enjoyed, the blueberry pear crumb with vanilla ice cream. The ‘prime rib’ did not seem like prime rib. The beer battered fish was cooked soggy, lukewarm, and while the beer batter tasted like beer batter, the fish had an off taste. The shrimp with white rice and sauce was okay, but they butterflied the shrimp and left the skin and tails on. If I’m at home I wouldn’t mind so much, because I would just pull the skin off with my hands, but I don’t do this in a public restaurant. It was HARD to separate the shrimp from the skin once it was cooked. I spent probably 10 minutes separating the shrimp from the skins and by that time everything was lukewarm. Sadly I can’t remember what I had for the 4th night, which tells me how memorable it was. The fresh bread we had nightly was good though! I wanted to try the main dinning room for lunch but was shocked to find out I missed it because it closed at 1pm. The main dinning room staff did a good job and were always running around. They made the best of what they had to work with. The location itself was very bland. Nothing felt fancy or beautiful. There were not many windows to view outside. We were seated at the center of the room, as far from the windows as you can get. That really sucked! Royal has assigned seating, so we didn’t have the option to sit at another table on another night. Three nights were casual dinning, so I was okay with sandals and shorts. The second night was formal night (day at sea), and I wore closed shoes, long pants, and a shirt (no tie or suite). I am on vacation to relax. I understand there are some who really enjoy dressing up and being with others who are dressed up. I think a cruise ship should have at least two main dinning rooms where one of them requires the formal attire and the other maintains the casual atmosphere. The overall dinning experience was so awful that I would not consider Royal Caribbean again for a cruise.

Pool Deck: I was happy to find there was enough pool chairs. I never had to wait to find one. I was very sad to see they check out towels with your room card and charge $25 if you don’t return it with your card. This gives you an idea of the clientele sailing on Royal Caribbean. My two Norwegian cruises never did this. There were only 4 hot tubs, with one of them kept cooler than the rest (which I enjoyed). If you didn’t use the hot tubs at oddball times (such as during a dinner / entertainment time, or during breakfast) you would have a very hard time finding room in any of the 4. I liked that 2 of the hot tubs had shade above. All of the tubs had the railings very far away from the stairs, with no railings into the tub. I noticed older people or heavier people had a very hard time with entry and exit from the tubs. There were 2 pools, but none of them had stairs into the pool (only vertical ladders). Sadly, the main pool was directly connected to the kids pool!!! The dam kids would splash and scream, as all kids do, and if you were close to them you were getting splashed. Only about half of this pool was usable without getting splashed. The other pool was small and ended up being used by kids primarily. There was no pool you could go in without hearing kids screaming. Norwegian did a much better job of keeping the kids out of sight and well entertained. On this ship I saw quite a few kids using the main pool deck. I never had a problem like this on Norwegian. They put a kids splash park / water slide in between the two pools which blocked the view of the TV screen when you were in the far pool / hot tubs. I was very sad they didn’t have any cookouts on the pool deck (not enough room). I really enjoyed the lunch cookouts with good food on Norwegian. The entertainment on the pool deck was either loud or poorly planned. They had this Caribbean band that kept playing for about 45 minutes with 15 minute breaks in between for about 3-4 hours. Normally that wouldn’t be bad, but again I think all of the workers on this ship are deaf. They had the volume cranked up as loud as it would go and the sound quality was terrible. Almost no one applauded the band, not because they played bad, but because the sound coming to us sounded bad and was too dam loud. On our forth day this band flat out asked for tips twice within 10 minutes. My jaw dropped to the floor when I heard them ask to be tipped. Strangely enough, the band played a floor above the pool deck and I didn’t notice them until the end of the first full day. The Majesty of the seas is filled with idiosyncrasies like this. I like how the Norwegian ships had the entertainment front and center on the pool deck. You could watch them play when you were in the pool. If they got rid of the kid splash zone / water slide this would be a great location for the band. Who ever heads the entertainment on this ship should be seriously scrutinized! One day at the pool deck they played Despicable Me 3 on the large TV. That alone is reprehensible; a kid’s movie should be played in a special theater, not at the main pool deck. I want to relax at the pool, not have this idiotic kid’s movie blasting that itself sounds like kids screaming and staying stupid stuff. If this was a Disney cruise I would understand, but this is Royal Caribbean. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they played this movie no less than 3 times that day! 10am, then a direct repeat at noon (WTF?), then around 8:30pm. That is wrong on so many levels; I would fire whoever made this decision. Often in the morning I saw some machine (deck washer?) on the pool deck that had a long extension cord plugged in which was covered with duct tape on the wet pool deck (right next to the pools!). WTF? That seems like an easy way to electrocute your staff and customers! They had a late night dance party which was cool, but again the music was too dam loud and had bad sound quality. The ‘resident’ DJ played mostly pop songs, some old some new, some I’ve never heard before. I was surprised it wasn’t more electronic dance music. Speaking of which, after the late night party stopped around 1:30am I stayed awake and walked to the back of the ship on deck 7. Around 2:30am I found out where the REAL dance music was! Holy crap! Below me was the crew only area with part of it open as a balcony (deck 5?). I wish they were playing this at the late night dance party. I found out why all the workers are deaf! I was on deck 7 and the floors were shaking so much from the bass. I wonder if they swapped the main pool deck system into their crew only area and vice versa? The music they were playing had good sound quality. I had watched documentaries that said a worker’s cruise life is work most day and party late at night with almost no sleep, but I hadn’t experienced this until this cruise. Maybe Norwegian had stricter crew policies? The deck above the pool, deck 12 and 13, had outdoor green carpet that collected water and stayed wet long after the other decks. When you walked on it you could feel the water underneath and hear it, too. Pretty gross. The Norwegian’s I have been on used a material similar to a rubber foam floor that did not suffer from this problem. Misc: I was very surprised this ship didn’t have upscale dinning options. Your only choice was the buffet or main dinning room (and no, Johnny Rockets doesn’t count). The placement of the elevators meant you could have a long walk to your stateroom. I thought it was cool that you could walk from deck 7 all the way up to deck 12 at the back of the boat. Most newer ships put aft balconies there, preventing you from walking around the back of the boat. I was sad that one of the buffets didn’t have outdoor service / seating. Everything was inside. The Norwegian had a very nice small outdoor buffet that you could sit at the back of the boat and enjoy the view and also had outdoor barbeque and grills near the pool! Our 4th day at the private royal Caribbean island was cancelled due to rough surf, which I can understand, but they didn’t even try to compensate us in any way (no free poolside drink, no complimentary milk shake at Johnny Rockets, no $50 credit toward a future cruise, nothing!). What a kill joy! I was a little bummed. I had never gone to a private Bahamas island and was looking forward to it. The ship captain said this was common during the winter months when cool fronts can push through, so keep that in mind. The large screen TV in the pool area that played movies and sports games often had the sound cut out (I think why they put on subtitles). No one on this ship or at Royal Caribbean gives a dam enough to fix it. I really liked that you could walk all around the ship on Deck 7. I also liked that the front of Deck 7 at night was pretty dark (no lights), whereas almost everywhere else on the ship is lit up. I pulled a chair from the side of deck 7 to the front at night time and watched the shooting stars. That was very memorable and will probably be the one thing I remember from this cruise as time goes on. The view of the night sky at sea was beautiful. Unfortunately you don’t get this view anywhere else on the ship, only the front of deck 7. Sadly, there seemed like a lot of nice space on the ship that wasn’t fully utilized. There was a hardly used beautiful enclosed top deck (13? 14?) with 360 degree viewing. There really wasn’t anything up there except a very small bar. This seemed like such a nice area, I’m surprised it wasn’t put to better use.

I really enjoyed the action comedy of Rick Novel. That guy is talented and funny! I wish there were more regular daily entertainment options though.

Cabin was overall good, though very small. My shower would only go from warm to hot. It would not go cool, which was a shame because I like taking a cool shower at night after some time in the hot tub. A warm shower after a hot tub isn't enjoyable for me.

Wish the buffet stayed open a little later, but we got off and didn't wait in a standing line.