Amazing Diamond Lounge, but a Terrible Cruise

I have been on many, many cruises, none of which were this terrible. My wife and I are diamond members through Royal Caribbean. When you have cruised as much as we have, there becomes this unsaid expectation of what a cruise should be. I have never had a bad experience on Royal Caribbean and assumed that this trip would be no different.

One of the worst parts of our cruise was our stateroom attendant. She was incredibly rude from the start. She did not introduce herself till the middle of the muster drill (while we were leaving to go to our station). All week my wife and I were having issues with her. There were never enough towels. I'd find her in the hallway, ask for more towels, and not receive them for hours after my shower. She would give us the wrong cruise compasses during the week, so anytime we wanted to know what was going on we would have to go down to guest services to find out what happened. She was incredibly loud. My wife and I work very hard during the week and our vacation time is quiet valuable. She would start cackling and going on at 7am, and would wake our entire area of deck 6 up. It was miserable. On more than one occasion I would catch her complaining about how much she hated her job and how terrible it was to clean these rooms. She would complain about passengers and how messy their rooms were from the night before. What truly was the worst, was when she would constantly talk about partying after her shift was up and the detailed comments she would make about her explorations. I don't need to know that and she should be holding some sort of professionalism. She was the worst stateroom attendant I've ever had.

Our room attendant was bad, however, our dining experience was just as bad. Normally, the dining room is our place to enjoy ourselves throughout the evening with a bottle of wine, good food, and good conversation. Not this time. Our service was unique to say the least. Multiple times, even though we would arrive on time or early, we would be getting our appetizers while the rest of the people around us were finishing dessert. Our waiter never explained the menu to us, never greeted us, and never explained what the dress code was for each night. Finally, my wife and I just gave up and went and ate at other restaurants around the ship.

To top everything off, our final night on the ship I was washing my hands in the bathroom. I hear our neighbors in a stateroom next to us flush their toilet. All of a sudden my feet are soaking wet in a filthy, smelly substance that is about 3 inches high. I run to call custodial staff to tell them there was a leak of some sort. They said they would be there shortly. That was at midnight. I called a second time to notify them that the water was rising...no one came. Finally, around 12:45 someone showed up. When they showed up they were eating pizza. Yes, I said it, pizza. So they had to finish their pizza before they could clean our room. By the time they got out of there it was 2am. 

Finally, the deportation process. I was given the number 12. I had transportation through the cruise company to get me to the airport. I thought to myself, "I've never had an issue with this process! This part will be easy." Wrong again. The day before I had gone and asked guest services twice if my number was right. They explained that there was no problem and I would be fine in making my flight. The next morning, I knew something was wrong. I went up and asked a worker about my number, showing her the receipt to my transportation. She explained that I should have been number 2, not number 12. I had to argue with her to get off of the ship because we would miss our flight, and she rudely told me that we would be standing in the ship terminal waiting on our luggage. Luckily, because we were suppose to be on the early group leaving the ship, our luggage was available for pickup right outside the terminal. We were able to make our flight with no problem. 

The only saving grace of this cruise was the diamond lounge group. These people are the hardest working people on the ship that are available for me at any time. They were helpful, pleasant, and made what was left of our cruise wonderful! I'm very thankful for them and their hard work. 

Be advised if you gone on this cruise ship: you will run into people that don't care. It is what it is. Because of our status with Royal Caribbean, we won't be going anywhere, but man oh man, I'd like my money back on this one.