Overall a wonderful cruise with fantastic ports of call. There was a large group that took over the Solarium, and the ship is in need of some cosmetic attention. The spa services were incredible - we tried out couples massage, pedicure, and hair treatment. All were above and beyond our anticipation. We love the smaller ships and the more intimate connections we make on board them. The food was a touch below our previous experiences, but still good. Staff and crew were, as always, polite and helpful. Based on this trip, we booked full transit of the Panama Canal for next Spring out of Panama - no need to fly to California. We have several more cruise dives planned, and I will put all the details on my blog at DeepWaterHappy.com. We just completed ABC Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao trip and St. Kitts, Nevis, Maarten recently, so had lots of recent experience for comparison. Our shore excursions will be covered on the blog - we book with RCCL as well as with outside companies regularly, and I'll cover those details thoroughly. Kim and Bill - about to be Diamond Plus on our next cruise!
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Fabulous - we were on a back-to-back, so it was fast and easy.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
Main dining room was excellent. One evening we did have the small table by the piano, right in the walkway - we learned to specify that we did not want that table. Offerings were good breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Windjammer buffet was dependable as always with lots of salad options, smaller portions of desserts were appreciated so we could cut back or try more than one, and the soups were divine. Main Dining room staff accommodated our seating with the addition of several new friends with ease.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
We used the fitness center - great equipment in top-notch shape, no wait lines, and the morning stretch and following classes were invigorating. Solarium pool and hot tub was taken over by a large group for this cruise, so we enjoyed the main pool and music for a pleasant change.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
All dependably good!
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
We were on board for the new menu plus, our first four-night cruise featured two room services a day, and the second cruise one service a day. The crew gracefully made the change with no confusion or problems.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Some common areas were not as clean as we are accustomed on the other ships. We saw a broken glass in the theater, old food in corners in the outside seating area aft of the Windjammer, bits of paper trash here and there. There is a broken window in the area aft of the Schooner Bar, some actual band-aids on windows in the Windjammer area, and many areas in need of brightwork (varnish) or rust inhibition.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We travel with foam mattress toppers, so our bed was super comfortable. Cabin size was regular balcony size, with the enormous addition of the aft balcony area plus this cabin is on a corner, so the balcony is not three times the regular size, but more like five times the size. We used it for drying all our dive gear - see my blog at DeepWaterHappy.com for articles about how we enjoy dive cruises, usually with a balcony cabin.
Ship tip
The Solarium has 52 deck chairs - spaciously placed. Other ships of this class have three rows of chairs that are more crowded. So, it's nicely spacious, but not many chairs. Don't be shy to have pool attendants move towels holding chairs after 30 minutes, or you will never get a lounger.
We booked an excursion through the ship. The street peddlers were the most persistent of any we've ever encountered. We could not hear the tour due to their tenacity. However, the boat ride portion of the tour was fabulous.
We did the Wonders of Engineering excursion - the only one I would recommend as it takes you all the way to the Pacific and around the harbor there, after transiting several locks and parts of the canal.
We took an independent excursion that was a combination of banana plantation tour, national park tour, and Tortuguera waterways tour. Fantastic day. We saw monkeys, sloths, a poisonous viper, butterflies, birds, herons, and even those lizards that walk on water.
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