My husband and I booked this cruise for our anniversary. We love to cruise, and have been on NCL, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Carnival Cruise lines, sailing on both large and smaller ships. We had a great trip, and loved our experiences in the ports. We definitely noticed though, a few issues with this ship that we haven’t experienced on other cruise ships. Nothing too bad to ruin our cruise by any means, we still had a great time, but enough to mention for future cruisers.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Embarkation was relatively smooth. It was broken up by times so we were able to get on the boat relatively quickly.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
We ate at the Teppanyaki, steakhouse, Mexican, buffet and main restaurants. The food was good, and the drinks were great! One word about food allergies: they do not list all ingredients on the menu, so make sure you advise your server of any allergies. Some of the servers asked but not all. I have a peanut allergy, and ordered a snickerdoodle pound cake. The description did not list anything about nuts, however they were in the pound cake. Luckily we discovered it before I ate too much, and was able to take some allergy medicine to avoid too bad of a reaction. But I know people could have a much worse, potentially life threatening reaction, so just be careful if you have any allergies. At the teppanyaki restaurant, a lady sitting next to us advised the waiter right away that she had a shell fish allergy, and was given the soup which contained shellfish. Only after she had eaten some and asked, did the waiter realize the mistake.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
The cruise director staff was very entertaining and put on some hilarious shows. Pools were small but warm, great sail away party!
Entertainment
3 out of 5
Was just okay. The comedians were pretty funny, but the dancers/singers were a bit rough.
Children's Programs
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
Most of the staff were very friendly and outgoing as you would expect to find on a cruise ship. But for the first time in 6 cruises, we encountered a couple very rude employees. Our room steward only liked to clean our room once a day, which honestly we didn’t really care about, but she would take our towels and not replace them, and we were always going in search of coffee for the coffee maker. We would constantly see other room stewards in the halls from early in the morning to late at night, and our steward would hardly ever be out there. One day we walked by a room and she was inside watching tv... the woman making omelets in the buffet was yelling at an older passenger one morning, and one of our waiters actually told us he hated his job. I definitely can relate to having good and bad days at work, but without exception, we have always had exceptional service on cruise ships regardless of the cruise line. There were definitely several staff members that were exceptional. Most of the bar staff were great, and we really enjoyed the cruise director team.
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
The ship was very clean, but still older, despite the recent refurbishment. Walking down the stairs in the atrium, we were surprised to find a step that was actually loose, and wiggled when you walked on it. After advising a crew member of this, she stated they already knew, and that there was another one on deck 7 that had the same issue. 😬
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Our cabin was not the cleanest, but this was due more to our room steward, than the cabin itself. She did not vacuum or clean anything pretty much during our stay, and the shower was small, as they typically are. We did enjoy the size of the cabin, and the balcony was great. A lot of storage in the rooms as well.
Ship tip
It’s a smaller ship, and great for relaxing and unwinding.
This was the worst disembarkation. The ship has you choose what time you would like to disembark, and you receive a color coded luggage tag based on that time. The morning of, they announced when each group could go, but then some staff members were advising people that anyone could go, which caused a very long line getting off of the ship. Then inside the port, the luggage was very haphazard, not organized by color, as is typical, and placed everywhere, so that all 2000 people were in the small baggage area at once trying to pick out their luggage. It was chaos.
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