Happy and thrilling ready for next cruise -- generally perfect food and room service, but some problems with activities

We had problems preregistering in the system. The people at check-in were great. However, my parents (different household) were forced to cancel their cruise because they tested positive for covid 2 days prior to the cruise. But they were given a full refund because they had the travel insurance.

I can't say enough good things about the service team and chefs at our assigned dining table (Rusmana, Paul, and their manager Renato). The all-you-can-eat style of fine dining was amazing, and the service was truly impeccible. Rusama and Paul are a great team and they were honestly among the top few servers I've had in my 2 decades of fine dining. The food and deserts were always top notch (and if anything wasn't good, they would immediately make it perfect with a replacement dish. We had mixed results with the fish, but the steaks, lobster, and other dishes were excellent. The service team would even proactively bring out a different dish that was perfect for us just when they noticed that we weren't devouring the entry I had initially ordered. We quickly grew close to the service team and will miss them and the dining experiences very much.

The average is 3 stars, but only because while the activities were 5 starts, it was very difficult and frustrating to participate in the "complimentary" activities such as the iFly indoor skydiving, the skycrane (sphere that goes up), and the various shows. Be forewarned that it seems like they do not expect most of the passengers to be able to reserve any the complementary activities. And these activities are complementary only on days when the ship is at port -- so if you plan to tour the ports, it's likely you definitely won't have time to participate in the complementary premium activities. They also do not want to encourage use of the FloRider to practice surfing -- even if you are an experienced surfer, wakeboarder or water skier, you will be forced to spend your time on the boogie board rather than being able to just practice surfing. This doesn't make any sense since you would still be taking the same amount of time in line, it's just that your time is wasted on the boogey board when it's your turn rather than being able to practice carving on the surfboard. The rock-climbing was generally open whenever you wanted to go (as long as everything was dry outside). However, you are very limited in the premium activities shows (you can reserve for one complementary session for the entire trip per activity, unless you pay separately -- and many passengers were not able to reserve any sessions. Also, be aware that the multipurpose gym is used for all the tightly scheduled other activities, such as dodge ball, basketball, volleyball, pickle, laser tag, bumper cars, and roller skating. This means that if you have a scheduling conflict, you likely won't be able to participate in some of the activities at all. For example, we never got a chance to roller skate which we really wanted to to. You do not need to bring any of your own equipment for any of the activities, other than shoes. All that said, the variety was fun, and by complaining to guest services onboard, we were able to get scheduled for all the complimentary activities we really wanted -- but their application interface for making reservations was frustrating and didn't work most of the time. Apparently the first thing you should do when onboard the ship is to connect to ship wifi and then use the Royal Caribbean app to reserve all the activities you can before they are filled up and unavailable.

We were really impressed by the quality of the shows and were impressed by the broadway-level theater performances, the singing, the fun interactive audience participation shows, the singing and dancing competitions, the napkin and towel folding classes, etc. The country line dancing lessons and hoe-downs were outdated and need to be reworked. The trivia games were outdated also, with terrible "correct answers". Be aware that Bingo is expensive (about $60 per game)

The 12-17 year old club was "pretty lame" according to my kid. it was also annoying that our older son (just graduated highschool) was tool "old" to participate in the games and activities with his brother who is also his best friend. I understand not wanting solo "adults" to hang with the kids, but older siblings (under 20 at least) should be welcomed. Also, there should be an age separation between the groups for older and younger mentalities within the teen center. Wish more games and activities and dancing/mixers were organized for kids in school, high school, and college.

Our room steward, Arjay, is phenomenal. He was always kind and helpful in every way. I already mentioned above how awesome our assigned waiters (Rusmana, Paul, and their manager) were. In general, everyone in the buffet were also friendly and helpful and eager to please. We're all very impressed by the quality and training of the service teams. They all seemed happy and eager to provide excellent service.

No complaints, everything was well maintained and clean and well organized. Note that there is no free wifi on board. The basic paid wifi is very slow. We were warned by the guest services staff to not bother getting the premium wifi, perhaps because they knew we would be unhappy with the low quality service. Can't wait till they get Starlinks working with inexpensive per passenger or per room wifi (not per device as they currently charge). Messaging on the mobile app was great when it worked, but usually it was unreliable. The notifications were not reliable, and often times messaging simply didn't work. But the paid chat app ($2/day/person, about $15 for the cruise per person) worked well enough where we didn't feel obligated to use the walkie-talkies (GMRS radios) we had brought on-board with us. We paid for messaging because we realized that this would be the only way to reach other passengers on the ship with whom our kids made friends.

We were really happy with the cabin, and would stay here again. The balcony was really nice, even though we had been told we shouldn't bother reserving a balcony. Next time we will definitely reserve a balcony room again.

Disembarking was fine. Although we had to be out of the rooms by 7:30am, and you had to leave your luggage outside the room the night before at 10am, they provided free breakfast/brunch, so it was a pleasant experience.