Caribbean Cruise With Many Ups and Downs

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 23

Review summary

The cruise was very fun, and there were a lot of memories made. However, a lot of what we experienced was not great. The ports were overall very nice, except for Puerto Plata, which was in the Dominican Republic and the beaches there were very much so a let down compared to the other ports. The food is not available on the boat after 10 PM, except at one restaurant where the food is honestly a three out of 10. You get so bored of that food by the second night, and there is no way to get a midnight snack at any sort of buffet or snack station. It took forever to get a drink at the bars because they favored certain people and some only had one or two bartenders that only really catered to people from the haven or platinum members. They also refused to play any college football games, especially during the playoffs, because they said “they were not able to because they were not given the rights to do so”. That is definitely not true because any bar even the bars that we’re off the ports were playing college football games and if they do not have the rights, they should be working very hard to get those rights. The Internet is terrible and was our last resort to watch the game, however it was so slow that we barely could watch it still. You have to PAY for internet. The lines for the Internet were miles long and they would cut people off even if you had been waiting there for two hours. There is one lady that works for two hour increments and she is working all by herself to help over 4000 passengers . This was ridiculous because it is the holiday season when we were on the boat and we were unable to call anybody to wish them a merry Christmas or happy holidays at all. If we wanted to call them, we would’ve had to pay five dollars a minute to call which is just a ridiculous number. They did a very good job saying merry Christmas and we did feel like we were in the holiday spirit except ( they could use honestly a little bit more decoration). they had a lot of holiday activities which was very nice but I wish there were more holiday themed foods maybe more holiday cookie buffets or deliveries to your room the night of Christmas because it is a Christmas cruise. The Christmas meal was also not great however, the New Year’s meal was pretty good. The Manhattan room was where we ate most meals because the speciality restaurants were full very fast when we got onto the ship. The restaurants were very limited as well and should be open for reservations 24 hours in advance so that people could book them and all have a fair shot. Everything is separate on this biat because if you want to have your own space where you can sit and tan by the pool, you have to pay an extra charge if you want it to be quieter and not dirty and gross. You cannot even enter the spa area unless you get a treatment or else you have to pay $600 a person. They try and rope you into all of this within the first few hours of the cruise, which they should do a better job of because there was no availability by the time we wanted certain things. They only had 40 spaces for the private pool deck or if you were in the haven then you would have a more private pool deck. Otherwise, there would only be two pools that you could go in and they are not even the size of a hotel pool. They are smaller than a hotel pool and there are thousands of people trying to get in them at a time . It is a germ fest. Overall, this boat was too large, and they did not have enough staff to fulfill all of the passengers needs, especially at the time of the holidays. I understand it is there a holiday too though and I did feel bad for many of the waiters that were not “higher up” that we’re working, which seemed like 24/7. If you want to get Starbucks and you are a Starbucks drinker, you might as well invest in the premium beverage package because otherwise you will be paying seven dollars minimum for a drink that you might normally get for 4.95. also, our room steward was not nice. Our room was never cleaned the way it has been on other cruise lines or even on previous cruises. when we walked in, there were children’s toys on the floor still so he did not go over the room very well. It is very hard to complain about some thing like that because we were going to have this exact room steward for 11 days. I wish that there was somebody like a boss that was watching over them that would check in on us and ask if we were doing OK with the room steward because you cannot really complain when they have access to your stuff at any point of time. We did not get any towel animals like we usually do on other cruise lines and he never took any of the glasses from our room away. He barely filled the soaps and actually they were so watered down that we could not use the shampoo, the last two nights of the cruise. We also had to beg for ice and you might as well bring a case of water on the boat because otherwise, it is very difficult to get. I would again like to reiterate how bad the Internet was. it was a constant battle for so many people. The lines were insane. The way that they do it is by minutes, so you have to shut off your minutes into different spots in order to save them for another day. However, they were drain on purpose. I think that is why they make you do it in two separate spots, and many people were struggling with it because they woke up and had no Wi-Fi anymore the next day. It is a way for them to make even more money when they obviously have the ability to give us all free Wi-Fi if they wanted to. I can only imagine more elderly passengers, struggling with this so much more because they don’t understand many times how to use certain things on their phones.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Miami, Florida

Oranjestad, Aruba

Willemstad, Curacao

Kralendijk, Bonaire

Castries, St. Lucia

St. John's, Antigua

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

Disembarkation

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