Wonderful Caribbean Cruise

No wifi was available during embarkation, but the long lines moved fast and we encountered no issues.

We thoroughly enjoyed the ship's dining rooms, buffets and bars. We were particularly pleased with the Grand Pacific dining room, where the servers were exceptional, the service was great, and the food was excellent. Every night, we wanted to try each of the new meals as we knew they would rarely repeat on the menus, and because of our large group, we were able to sample most of the new meals each night. Servers impressed us with their above and beyond service, professional demeanor and willingness to make each meal/experience special. We loved the buffet for its variety of food but preferred the dining rooms for their service. We had dinner in the other dining room, Alizar, but we did not experience quality service and did not return. Most of the bars had excellent service, always with a smile. Most drinks were made with care, following any requests. I especially enjoyed the Wasabi cocktail from the Asian restaurant/area (so fancy!), as well as the variety of mojitos offered in the Sugarcane Lounge. Mojitos were available in most of the bars on the ship but twice they had run out of mint everywhere but in the Sugarcane Lounge. We did not try any specialty restaurants.

There were some activities on the ship we tried, but our experience was not great. This however did not dampen our vacation as we made the most of it and enjoyed every minute. There was a "pamper yourself" session at the spa, where the spa manager introduced some products, passed them around and we would use them as instructed, with the intention to sell them to the audience. I would have enjoyed it more had I not been educated on this topic and noted many non-factual pieces of information, albeit presented in a comical way. We enjoyed the 2 salted pools on our sea days, which were generally crowded with people. There is no water slide any longer, which I believe may be a contributing factor to why there were so few children on the pool deck. The 4 hot tubs were great, generally crowded as well, but open quite late so at times we enjoyed using them after dinner. The basketball/tennis/volleyball court is named as such but in fact only had basketball and soccer. We attempted to put up the net as a volleyball net, after which an employee explained the court cannot currently accommodate volleyball and took it down while we were playing. The net was no longer available and even people who played tennis played without a net. There were confusing times at which the court was "open" for soccer/basketball, at times "open" for all, etc. Needless to say it was sparsely used. The gym was available, and most classes charged a fee. A sauna was available free of charge in the change room. The spa was lovely, with a thermal package that included the whirlpool, the cold tub, heated lounge chairs and a sauna. We had a tour of it but did not purchase the spa package. My friends purchased massages, one was impressed by it and the other one was not. There was a running track. Some onboard activities such as trivia, origami folding and bingo occurred during the day. Once each sea day, some of the entertainment staff came to the pool deck and organized some sort of events where the volunteers from the audience would have to dance or compete in some way. It was family friendly and lacked thought or preparation for the most part, unfortunately. Again, this did not bother us as we found plenty of entertainment within our group- we brought a volleyball, and would play in the pool or at the basketball court at times, had a floating device, brought a board game, etc. The evening entertainment was at the theater, we enjoyed the show Elements. The Divas show was not great. There was a comedian one night. During the late night, we would dance at Spinnaker Lounge. The DJ was wonderful and by the end of the cruise he would play songs we had previously requested when our group was up on the stage. Many of the same songs were repeated, which by the end of the cruise, was becoming tiresome. There were a few events that brought people into Spinnaker, such as the Dress up or don't night and White hot night, otherwise there were few people there. The Halloween party was great, the DJ played music on the pool deck, the entertainment team awarded prizes for some costumes, many people came in their costumes, had snack and danced- lots of fun. They organized a Haunted House as well, which, while it was well done, it was maybe one minute long.

did not have children with us

We had a wonderful steward, great waiters and bar tenders for the most part. The bar tenders at the Sugarcane Lounge were not as friendly and we did not feel the service was exceptional but the mojitos kept calling us back! The waiters at Alizar, the one dining room, did not make our experience great, we did not return to that dining room. There were several bar tenders and bar staff/waiters who provided excellent service, in particular Armando and Rafael. They always put a smile on our faces and went above and beyond each and every time.

We stayed in a small indoor cabin, with no window. The lack of window made it hard to get up in the morning due to the lack of daylight, but we turned on the TV to the Bow camera channel which helped. We had expected cramped tiny spaces having read many reviews of this ship before our vacation, but it was not bad! Sure the cabin was small, but the 2 of us had no problem packing and unpacking our luggage, putting our belongings in the drawers/shelves etc. We grabbed extra hangers for our closet which helped fit most of our clothes. We brought removable hooks but found we didn't need to use any. The clothesline provided in the shower was great, although it was a good idea to bring clothes pins to maximize the space for laundry to dry (it took 2 days for anything to dry, we planned accordingly). It was a tiny bit cramped when getting ready for dinner, drying our hair, etc. but otherwise we had no complaints. There was a safe free of charge and a minibar fridge. Our room was always cleaned, our steward was wonderful, completing any requests we asked for in a timely manner. He always left towel origami in our rooms, and we were particularly impressed by a monkey towel animal hanging from our ceiling!

Quick and pleasant. We carried our own luggage out.