Good Value but can't compare with Royal Carribean

The ship is beautiful, very clean, a lot of modern features , however it felt very closed in on the inside around the shopping areas. If you are used to the openness of the bigger boats on Royal you will definitely feel closed in. The pool area is extremely crowded, too tied for all these people, there are no designated hot tubs for adults only. All were filled with children who used them as play areas and it was difficult to enjoy them. The adult only pool and area was rather small and always crowded, there were no hot tubs in this area. There was another sunbathing deck (no water) but that was for extra charge. On sea days, if you don't get a table by the pool before 8 am. you will not be able to get one till the end of the day, same with the chairs by the pool. There are no towels at the pool, you have to bring them from your room and then return them back to your room. We had to request them from our room attendant on three separate occasions, because he kept forgetting which made it very inconvenient for us because we had to wait on someone to come bring us towels, one day we actually went without because we didn't want to wait and waste time. The food can't even come close to what you would get on Royal ( not to mention Disney). Breakfast and lunch was ok, about the same every single day. For lunch mainly burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and pizza (which by the way was great, original Italian) , some pasta, one meat, not many vegetable options (and always very bland, not a drop of seasoning). Good salad bar. Dinner buffet was a disappointment, very few choices, I found it very unusual, it was always hard to come up with a plate to satisfy ones dinner desires, but they always have pizza so we mainly ate the pizza, but even tough it was very good, it gets old if you have to eat it for 7 days. Also the buffet is very spread out, and a lot of times we had to walk the whole length more than once in order to fill up a plate. Also very hard to find a table at peak times. You have to get your own drink, nobody ever comes to offer refills on the juices/coffee. Service is only for orders from the bar. We get our own drinks at Royal too but they always have servers that come around with refills or to actually bring you coffee, juice if you didn't get a chance to do it on your own. If you expect steak and lobster on the second formal seating, don't unless you are prepared to pay extra. Loved the gelato stations, however keep in mind it is for extra charge. The water slide was a joke, we all had to scoot down the whole way in order to make it out. The bowling was not quite what we expected, it was a cool touch ( also for extra pay) but it was on strings which got tangled too often and it was a mess. The last two shows were great, however I can't say the same for the first 5. They were very similar, with the same singers (which is not a problem) but it was the same style of singing every night ( a bit on the opera side).

We had a balcony cabin and have to say that we really enjoyed it. Over all we had a good time visiting the islands and relaxing. The reason we did this cruise was that kids sail free and that was a huge bonus, however we missed all the amenities we all get on Royals bigger boats, besides the pool here there was not much else to do.