It was a nice cruise

As Diamond members we embarked pretty quickly with no problems.

Dinning room food was very good and the waitstaff was excellent. Buffets are a problem on Royal Caribbean. You will never find a seat 11:00 through 2:00 if you are not very agressive to push and shove. Many days we just grabbed two plates, one to put some quick food on it and use the other to cover it and take it back to our room and eat on the balcony. By the time you find a table, your food is cold. Breakfast is the same way. We choose to change out of our bathing suits to shirts & shorts & eat in dinning room. Then go back to our room and change back to out suits to heat back up to the pool only to loose our deck loungers. They need a better idea or more seating.

Pool activities abundant. The Cruise Director Cuddy was amazingly a people person & fun. The entire staff was great. Flow rider fun to watch (we have knee replacements & back problems). I don’t think I could do it but it was fun cheering on all the others.

We enjoyed every show. Very talented people and very entertaining. Voices & bands spot on.

Layout very cut up. Sometimes you have to go up flights then down to get to some areas on the ship. They did correct some areas (we were on this ship many years ago). She needs a face lift though, she is getting old and it’s showing. Hated going through the casino to get anywhere. The cigarette smoke is quite thick and harsh on your senses. Most cruise lines have done away with the smoking in their casinos. I feel sorry for the employees to have to breath that in every day & night. I love to play the slot machines but we were unable to stay in there for more than a few minutes at a time. Even my pack a day sister couldn’t stand the smoke. It was so bad in there, your throat and nose would burn. They had only one small section of non-smoking machines but they were right up against the bar with smokers all around it. There were also young children (12 or 13 years old) in the casino gambling? Actually putting money in the machines and playing by themselves. I didn’t understand how they were able to gamble?

I think we just had a bad attendant. We gave him $20.00 off the bat and asked for my robe (diamond members get one to use on the ship). He brought it that night which was fine. There were only one bath towel and two hand towels so we asked for more (my husband & I were not going to share a both towel). He never brought them. Then we couldn’t find him all day. We did find a stash of towels under the bed in a plastic bag & opened them. After sleeping on a completely flat pillow the first night I keep smelling an odor to it. I took the cover off and found a badly stained pillow that turned my stomach (I couldn’t believe I slept on it). My husband found him down the hall & asked to change it for a new one, he said no problem. We came back to the room & found the same two pillows only covered by two cases. We also had been using the one and only bar of soap & transferring from shower to sink so we asked for another for the shower and an extra one. He never brought neither. We finally called housekeeping for both. We came back to the room to see two new pillows (clean ones) but no soap. We showered for dinner on our only bar of soap & came back to the room to two days of towels still on the floor in the bathroom. At this point I was done. I put the towels outside our door against the wall. There was a knock immediately at out door. I guess his supervisor. We explained all the problems of no soap, towels & smelly dirty pillow. They attendant came back later to apologize saying it’s not his fault. He claims Royal Caribbean won’t let him have clean pillows & more soap or towels? Now we’ve been cruising yearly for over 12 years, mostly on Royal or Celebrity. We’ve had great room attendants and have tipped them heavily for their great service. We don’t consider ourselves as high maintenance. We leave our room clean and neat and don’t ask for much. We just need the essentials, towels, soap & a clean bed. I believe we just had a room attendant who maybe shouldn’t be one. Other than that the room was you normal cruise cabin.

Vallet our luggage on to Detroit Metro and just walked off the ship. Love doing that.