Serenade Is a Wonderful Ship

Item: Serenade of the Seas
Rating: 4
Author: CruiseQueenNH

Serenade of the Seas Cruise Review

CruiseQueenNH

Contributor Level: Cruise Director

40 Days Till Next Cruise

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 16

Helpful Votes: 266

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

5 Night Bermuda (Boston Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 10, 2019

Ship: Serenade of the Seas

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 3610

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Awesome, but too short. We were delayed a day but we were refunded one night's stay, porting fees, and packages were prorated down a day. Plus, we got a free onboard credit.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

The activities were great, but they had to be somewhat condensed due to a late departure. We were supposed to leave Tuesday but got delayed until Wednesday. We missed out on some of the traditional cruise activities like Karaoke because there just wasn't time in the schedule for them. There was one time that I had trouble with hearing the questions asked for a trivia game,but it wasn't the crew member's fault and they dealt with it professionally. The only other activity I had trouble with was the mystery game on the last night. The directions weren't really clear on what to do, making it very aggravating.

Entertainment

4 out of 5

Entertainers were excellent, especially the comedians. The singers and dancers were excellent and very friendly during the meet and greet. However, the sound was very oversaturated, making the musical numbers very hard to follow. The Las Vegas Tenors were my favorite group, even signing all the CDs I got from them!

Service and Staff

3 out of 5

Most of the staff was friendly, but on the first night, it took 2-3 calls to Customer Service for them to pull my bunk bed down. We never got the bottle of champagne we were promised either for the inconvenience. Finally, only one of us got our loyalty pin. All three of us have been on the exact same sailings, so how come only one got a pin? I'm not complaining, by any stretch of the word, but these few discrepancies made me wonder what was going on. I've cruised with Royal before and I'm a Platinum member, so I know this doesn't happen often. It wasn't enough to ruin my cruise, I enjoyed it very much, and would gladly book with them again

Ship Quality

4 out of 5

It was clean, but could use a little mani-pedi.

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

It was clean but very noisy. We were on Deck 3, which is fine, and we had an ocean view. That was great, but when we docked, we could hear the crew tying up the ship. We could also hear the motors and the waves crashing against the ship.

Ship tip

Rita's Cantina has the best views of the port. It's in the back of the ship, go there for the sail away for a great view!

Thumbs up

Ports of call

King's Wharf, Bermuda

5 out of 5

Beautiful, as always! There's a free tram to take you to the shops and Snorkel Beach. There's also ferry service to Hamilton, you pay once for a round trip ticket. Then there's a bus that will take you all over the island. Kids will love the Crystal Caves and Aquarium, but hang on to your belongings in the Caves: it's illegal to go back and retrieve list items in the water! Snorkel Beach is beautiful, but the fish have become too domesticated from being fed by visitors. They will bump you if you don't have food!

Thumbs Up 6

Disembarkation

1 out of 5

Very disorganized due to no communication. We were told to report to the Tropical Theater at 8:30ish for an 8:45 departure. What normally happens is there's something on the screens to entertain the audience as they await their departure group to be called. There's usually a crew member there to keep the audience informed on what's going on. This wasn't the case. We were just told to get up and get in line without any idea what was going on. Luckily the staff at the terminal were able to point us in the right direction.