Loved it! Only minor complaints/feedback to add is that we wished dining options were open later as we are night owls. Wish the Windjammer would stay open til midnight
Also wish they had outlets near the bed. It was a struggle for us both to charge our phones at night with the setup they had in the room. Even with a long cord.
** make sure to return your pool towels directly to Guest Services or the Pool deck. They charge $25 per towel, even if you leave them in the room. It’s nuts
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Easy, took about 30 mins. Practically no lines.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
MDR was good, not great. Certain menu items were not tasty while others were pretty good. I’d give it a 7/10. Fantastic for being free, but not a restaurant I’d pay to go to if it were back home.
Solarium Bistro: I’d give it an 8/10. Definitely much better and our server was so helpful and nice. He was much better than our assigned servers in MDR.
Windjammer: great as far as buffet food goes, but also hit or miss items. I ate here more often than MDR though because it was more convenient and we didn’t get dressed up much. 7/10
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
There was plenty to do! I am only dropping a star from the rating because I was appalled at the lack of Bingo as well as the price! The 1st time they had it, the “prize” was a suite upgrade. Mind you, this was on the 2nd day and it did NOT mean a suite upgrade for a new sailing, it meant packing up on day 2 and switching to a suite. Well we opted not to play, since we had a fantastic room already, probably one of the next rooms To be honest. We had a wonderful boardwalk balcony with a direct and perfect view of the Aqua show.
The only other time Bingo was available was on the final sea day. It cost between $45 to $74 to play that day. Outrageous in my opinion and that only includes 3 games. Both me and my partner played and didn’t really like the new way they do it. We paid for the $74 value set which included 6 normal bingo cards per round (remember, only 3 rounds though) and an iPad which would play for us and had an additional 6 I think. I didn’t think it was a good value at all, plus it took a lot of the fun away with an iPad. I’m pretty tech savvy but I thought it was still a silly thing. Also, the first prize was only $100 and the final prize was only up to $400. Each round had at least 2 winners, and apparently they split their earnings. Meh.
Everything else was great, we did the Rock climbing, zipline, ice skating, slides, etc.
I will say, they need more Ice skating sessions. I noticed there were only 3 days that they held open skating for guests and it was limited availability. We were lucky to be able to do it once, for 20 mins.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
Loved the Aqua Show!!!! Saw it every night from our balcony.
Didn’t like the Ice Show, but we showed up a few mins late and didn’t understand the plot so we left early.
Enjoyed the theater movies, such as Chicago and Jungle Cruise
Missed most of the other stuff. Heard Cats was awful so didn’t even bother seeing it.
The Piano Singer was AMAZING!!!
Wish they hosted more dance classes and game shows. We missed Love and Marriage and other interactive shows. Wish they’d bring back the Adult Scavenger Hunt too.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Amazing as always!!
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Beautiful!! Just stunning!!
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Loved it! Sort of loud at night, but we enjoyed being able to see the aqua show from our balcony. It was a pretty good view. We also liked being able to look down and see the boardwalk and a bit of the water.
Meh. Too touristy/man made. We didn’t do any excursions or spend any money here besides buying a hat. Everything was very expensive if it wasn’t free. The funnel cakes were great though! And the food selection was great too. But we wished we had rented jet skis or done something here. We opted to just walk around and explore but we got bored very quickly. The snorkeling here wasn’t great either. And everything we wanted to try would’ve been super pricey. The island was so small, we walked the entire thing about 5 times in just a few hours.
It rained heavy the night before so they cancelled our snorkeling excursion. Instead we did a Royal Caribbean Dune Buggy tour for about $85. It was decent. It was 4 hours and they just had us do a follow the leader type drive throughout the city and through some jungle then took us to lunch. We were under the impression that lunch was included since they took out the snorkeling too, but we were given a bill at the end which was over $45 a person. Still, our guides were great and we had fun.
DEFINITELY our favorite port!!! We hired a private guide, who we were referred to by a Facebook cruise group. His name is Justin and he runs Justin Island Tours. He was AMAZING! He started his own tour company at only 15 years old too! Our whole day private adventure included him driving us wherever we wanted in his personal van, giving us island knowledge and history and setting us up on the fly with the tours we wanted. We started with the Sloth Sanctuary where we visited and held monkeys, sloths and a few other creatures, walked on a hanging bridge, then went to Little French Key to snorkel, paddle board, RIDE HORSES!!!, have lunch and relax. For everything we did, we paid $140 a person. It was a FANTASTIC price, and he personalized everything for us.
The port itself was fun If you’re just there to drink, go in the pool, walk around. We just did that. We wanted to go off to the beach but got distracted and just stayed by the boat. The port area really is a maze. It’s definitely a tourist only kind of place.
Thank you for the detailed review! I love the Boardwalk and Central Park balcony rooms. And I think we’ll pass on the Bingo, iPad? Where is the fun in that😂. Glad you you had fun! We leave in 9 days. So excited!
Very informative review! Thank you for writing it. We're sailing in September and we have a boardwalk balcony room booked. I chose it specifically to watch the aqua show. Wondering what room # you were in?
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