Overall I question whether we will take this cruise line again given our experience. We had been on this ship before out of Galveston, TX and it was a much more pleasant experience which is why we had booked on this ship a second time. I had written a very long follow-up to Royal Carribean corporate and they didn't seem to care given their response which is unfortunate if they want to keep our business. Rather than try to re-explain I've included it below:
I am writing to you today in order to bring to your attention a multitude
of problems we experienced on our recent cruise April 12 - April 21 that
has me questioning whether my wife and I will continue to utilize your
cruise line for our vacations. I will point out this is not our first
cruise with Royal Caribbean. We had taken a 7-night cruise on board the
Navigator of the Seas 4 years ago out of Galveston, TX. Before that we had
sailed with another cruise line for 2 cruises. That first Royal Caribbean
cruise was very enjoyable, and we did not have any problems at all which is
why we decided to go again on the same ship. Our latest cruise was nearly
the opposite by comparison. Allow me to explain why this is the case.
First of all, your website is extremely unstable. During our whole planning
process the website would crash, links would not work and it was difficult
locating basic information. I also had to resort to contacting you thru
Twitter in order to find this email address to send this to you. Anything
longer than a few sentences using your email form gives me an Access Denied
message.
We sailed out of the Port of Miami and this had to be the most disorganized
boarding process I have ever seen. The part with driving up to the terminal
is probably out of your control (that was a scary and high stress situation
in itself) but once inside the terminal there was no signage directing us
where to go and staff did not seem to know themselves where we had to go
and ushered everyone to one line to stand in. We had used AAA to book this
cruise and had been given a priority boarding pass in order to check-in
faster (one of the many reasons we have used AAA) but when we presented
this to staff, they ignored us and told us to stand with everyone else.
After check-in we then had to stand in a disorganized collection of people
all waiting to board and there was only one staff member yelling at the top
of his lungs (which was not very effective given the amount of people there
at the time) to let people know when it was their turn to go up the one and
only escalator to get to the ship. By comparison, at Galveston's port staff
were very friendly and everything was clearly marked including a line for
Priority Boarding. Check-in and boarding was a breeze. We knew where we had
to be and when and boarded in an orderly fashion. Depending on what level
you were (Diamond Plus, Emerald, Gold etc) there was a line for you, and it
was arranged neatly. None of that was evident in Miami and considering this
is Royal Caribbean's home port this was very disturbing. Unfortunately, our
troubles did not end there.
Once we were allowed to go to our staterooms, we got our sea passes and
noticed our Dining Room reservation said My Dining. We had chosen 5:30 for
our dining time and all our paperwork had confirmed this leading up to
departure. Thus, we had to go to Guest Services and wait for approx 40
minutes. In line we had heard we were not the only ones with this issue.
During this time there were other staff members with tablets asking people
in line if they could help. We clearly explained our problem and were told
we had to wait here. By the time we got to the front of the line the staff
member at the desk told us we had to go to the dining room to fix this. We
explained we had already waited for approx 40 minutes and another staff
member told us we had to go here. When this staff member was called over,
he denied having told us to wait in this line as we were standing right
there. In the end we were told for that evening we had a table at 5:30 but
going forward there was nothing she could do. Luckily, we were still in
port so we called our travel agent and she confirmed with Royal Caribbean
corporate that we were supposed to have the 5:30 reservation in the dining
room. Eventually they spoke with the dining room staff and got us a table
that we could have each night at 5:30. We confirmed this with the Dining
Room manager that evening and that the table we were sitting at the time
would be ours the whole cruise. However, the next night we were moved to a
different table that we then questioned. Because there was 2 of us, they
changed our seating to a table for 2 that might as well been joined to
another table of 2. If we were separated so we could be by ourselves I
would not have questioned it even though the table of 4 we sat at the night
before was promised to us but due to the close proximity to another table
we did question it and after a clear look of annoyance by the section head
waiter he said it "was fine" for us to have the original table we had. I
will say though the rest of the cruise the section head waiter greeted us
warmly and made sure we were taken care of. Also, our head waiter and
assistant waiter were fantastic every night.
Going back to our first night, it got to be around 10PM and one of our bags
had yet to be delivered to the room. We again went to Guest Services and
the line was only a 30 minute wait this time. Thankfully our bag was behind
the counter, apparently the tag had been torn off. What was disturbing was
the fact when we pointed out our bag, they just gave it to us no questions
asked. We did have a name tag that could have been checked with our sea
pass or ID but was not. That is a pretty big problem and could have made
this situation worse if someone else happened to point to our bag and walk
off with it without some confirmation they owned it. On top of that there
not even an offer to have someone bring the bag to our room. It was a big
bag and it was on wheels so we were able to move it ourselves, but it would
have been nice to at least offer to have the bag brought up to the room.
We had to maneuver through the Royal Promenade at a busy time I might add.
In general, there always seemed to be a noticeably long line at Guest
Services throughout the cruise. Our previous cruise we had observed there
being a long line the first night but after that we'd see maybe 2-3 people
at a time anytime we passed by.
Starting the second night we noticed there was a loud whistling coming from
the balcony of our stateroom. We reported it the following morning and a
technician did stop by later in the afternoon. He checked our door to the
balcony thoroughly even after we said it was not that door causing the
issue. He glanced at the partition door and said there was too much
pressure from the wind and there was nothing he could do, without even
looking at it, then left. On our previous cruise we also had a balcony room
and had noticeably windy days as well. Never did we experience the
whistling sound we had to deal with on this cruise. Neither of us slept
well as a result most of this cruise. We got a reprieve when we started
sailing in a westerly direction, so we moved with the wind instead of
against it but that all went away the final night and it was noticeably
louder. After the second or third night of this I told my wife that I
couldn't wait until this cruise was over. That is not something one should
say when on one of the most popular cruise lines out there.
It was around this time that we remembered that we were supposed to have
$50 of on-board credit for booking through AAA. Again, we waited in line at
Guest Services and they said there was nothing they could do. Because we
were at sea and did not sign up for the Wi-fi package we were not able to
contact anyone off the ship to determine what happened, at least not
without a sizable charge. When we returned to port, we contacted out travel
agent and she informed me that Royal Caribbean corporate confirmed we
should have gotten the credit on our account, but it was never there. Royal
Caribbean did refund us the $50 in the end, but it was another example of
something we were supposed to get and for whatever reason when the
information got passed to the ship it was lost.
On the last night, we had ordered one digital print to be emailed to us. It
was noted that it would take 4-6 days to receive. So far as of today, Day
12 (or 9 business days) I have yet to receive it. That is $19.99 we paid
and did not receive what we paid for. If we are not going to get it at this
point, I'd like that refunded to my credit card ASAP. From what I
understand people that have ordered digital prints are either getting other
people's prints or nothing at all, so I know this is not an isolated
incident.
This ship was recently in dry-dock and had some improvements made such as
new restaurants and water slides. One would think that extensive testing
would have been done on the water slides to make sure they were good to
use. For example, the raft ride (I forget what it is called) had an issue
with people getting stuck, myself being one of those that had to be
rescued. I will say the lifeguards took great care of me and made sure I
was alright, but I had second thoughts about going back on. It’s a shame
that more attention was not given to the common areas during it’s dry-dock
stay. There are portions of the ship that really could use some attention,
the Solarium being one of those. There are portions of the "ceiling"
surrounding it that are falling apart. Speaking of the Solarium there were
some mornings when there was no music playing on the pool deck until 11AM.
The above-mentioned whistling is another example. These are minor problems
but when very visible problems are observed it doesn't inspire confidence
in the care given to the ship overall.
Overall my wife and I along with many others we spoke to on the cruise
thought the entertainment was lacking or scheduled poorly. For instance,
there were sporting events that I wanted to attend but they were scheduled
at 5, right at the time to get ready for dinner. The popular game show Love
and Marriage was scheduled for 2:30 in the afternoon on a sea day. Few
people would be able to attend since most people would be at the pool. The
shows to me felt shorter compared to our last cruise. It’s like our cruise
director (whom was rarely seen) was more concerned about quantity rather
than quality.
To summarize, this cruise was a major departure from what we experienced
previously on the same ship and we are hesitant to book another cruise with
Royal Caribbean because of the issues outlined above.
