A disappointing trip.

Had priority access, walked on happy hour before embarkation time.

Windjammer excellent as ever, great quality and variety throughout the cruise. Main dining was disappointing, a tired menu and the daily specials weren't exactly special.

Gym was very good, best I've experienced at sea or in a hotel. Rock climbing was fun, if you like that sort of thing. Solarium pools were lovely, perfect for an afternoon dip with a drink. Trivia was fun and generally well run, although how some people, who do this on a daily basis and indeed have this as part of their job, struggle to operate a PowerPoint slide show is beyond me. Generally the activities staff were great, Prince, Andrew, Enrique, Rhiannon and Matt especially were amazing and the hardest workers of all the Entertainment staff. We'll get to that in the next section.

To be open, I have worked in the technical side of the Theatre and production industry for 20 years so please treat this review as a considered professional opinion. Yes my expectations may be higher than the average cruiser but these expectations have been met on my previous cruises with Royal. By my count, between the 2 "production casts" on the boat you had 9 "Vocalists" and 28 Dancers/Aerialists. Day 1, no production show... Day 2, Headliner show time in Theatre Royal. 2 songs from "Danny" who the cruise director billed as a star. These were good, sadly this was essentially the last we heard from him. Landry the stand up comic did a good turn. A genuinely funny, kid friendly set that didn't rely on tired stereotypes. His adult only show was equally impressive. Day 3, Peter Byrne. Neil Diamond tribute, excellent showman, fine singer, great patter. No performance from either production cast... Day 4, Production Showtime, the beautiful dream. A prime example of when you give an artistic director a large production budget and Overall quality of the dancing in both casts was excellent, doing the best with the choreography they have been given. Aerialist work was stronger in the live love legs show than pixel's. Part of the thrill of circus stunts is the perception of danger, this cast seemed to have very little aerial experience so the stunts they performed were very basic and not particularly entertaining. The lead female vocalist performed 4 numbers on the entire cruise... Apart from the entertainment staff who worked very hard and were great, we were very disappointed with the entertainment offered.