Beautiful Cruise, but make sure you don't have a balcony directly below a deck that extends out past the ship.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Embarkation was fine overall
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
The food in the main dining room is okay but not what I expected based on the quality I have had on previous cruises. I believe they've put such a strong focus on all of their additional paid dining, which pretty much took up an entire floor, that the food included in the main dining suffered a bit. The buffet had a good variety what was often times difficult to find a seat in because there's pretty much only one buffet for the entire ship
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
The adult pool area in the solarium was very nice although they did seem to have some issues with their hot tubs, for example one of them was not very hot, at the same time one of the other ones was not running.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
All of the stage shows were good with the exception of Pixels Cabaret, and it was absolutely terrible. The technology part of the show with the lights the video screens that move around was cool, but this storyline of the show, the music, the costumes was so bad and hard to follow that people were leaving in the middle of the show. The show is also designed where only the front three bench seats could really see anything because most of the dancing was done on platforms that were lowered all the way to the ground.
All the trivia and little things they did in the bars was great, along with the different musical acts.
Children's Programs
No kids
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
The service on the ship was fantastic they always did their best to make up for the flaws of the ship and were always very fast and friendly.
Ship Quality
2 out of 5
I thought the cleanliness of the ship was good, but was very disappointed that pretty much all of the shops were just high-end jewelry stores purse stores ect. They didn't even have really a store with general items/necessities. There was about a 5x5 wall that had some things on them. It was also pretty disappointing how much space the specialty additional pay restaurants took up. I believe there were five different additional pay restaurants which kind of limited the number of things people could do on the ship. Also extending the deck out directly above someone's room and not informing them of the massively and obstructed view really blows.
Cabin / Stateroom
1 out of 5
The room felt a bit small but I expected that, I did not expect to ever the complete lack of plugins. There were zero plugins in the bathroom, other than a plug that said for shavers only that no plug would fit in. They also may have a single plug on one side of the bed so if you and your spouse want to have your phones charging in next to you for an alarm your out of luck. The mini fridge only has a depth of about 4 in which isn't even big enough to hold one of their small plates or bowls. It does however take up the entire cabinet that it's in.
The absolute worst thing about the room however was the fact that my balcony, along with most of the other rooms on the 13th floor, had a massively obstructed view. It was not listed as an obstructed view balcony nor did they charge as if it was an obstructed view balcony. There was a giant overhang for the 14th floor that went out for my balcony about 10 ft which meant I could only get about 15° of view looking out. Every other floor The view would have been fine but nowhere does Royal Caribbean warn people of this when they are booking.
Ship tip
Never book a balcony room on the 13th floor because there is a very large overhang above your head for deck 14 that will obstruct a significant portion of your view. You will not be told about this at the time of booking.
Port was fantastic. Lots of stuff to do right next to the ship. Went whale watching with Alaska Tales and it was amazing so so many whales a few even came within 10 ft of the boat
Not too far of a walk into town from the ship. It was a neat little town with lots of little shops. We took the train ride which was great until our train broke down near the top and we had to wait almost 2 hours for another train to come up and pull us back down. Stuff happens though and they gave full refunds, it just gave me less time than I would have liked to go around the town.
Was a little confusing getting off the boat on where to go but for the most part people were helpful in telling you. We walked the mile or so to fisherman's wharf which had a few restaurants and some neat permanent water houses. Then took the little water taxi they had over to Chinatown and just walked around and went to some shops. Walked probably about two and a half miles back to the ship just looking at things and shops around the city. The legislative assembly was a great area and building, along with the Empress Hotel with lots of little things around it.
Everything went smooth. We had checked our luggage with the cruise ship the night before using their free airline valet service. They print off your plane boarding passes, and check your bags in to the airline for you. We were a little leery our bags might not make it to our destination but they all did, and it was so much easier than carrying the or collecting them from the dock.
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