Serenade of the Seas Cruise Reviews - Reviews

This was our family honeymoon - the trip we always dreamed of!  It celebrated a long awaited honeymoon, and we had the opportunity to do it as a family!  It was a dream come true for ALL of us!

The accomodations were wonderful - our cabin host, Diego, always way over the top for us!  Our room was always in excellent condition, with new towel "guests" to greet us each day.  We developed a great relationship with him, and became friends.  We plan to keep in touch even after the cruise was over.  He helped make this trip feel like "home away from home".  Dinners were excellent, and again we were gifted with the most outstanding servers we ever could have expected - Melbert and Erhan!!  They caught on to our sense of humor, and without losing their professionalism, brought our friendship to a wonderful, new level!  Every night, our family looked forward to dinner, now knowing what the "surprise" of the night would be.  We joked and teased with Melbert and Erhan each night, and they with us in return - each time, trying to surprise each other in a new and different way.  On the last night, we worked with two other tables, and all switched seats.  When they saw our plan, we had half the area laughing along with our joke!  It was wonderful!  Extra special thanks to Ms. Anna (guest relations - an exhausting job!), Mr. Anthony Fernandes (Dining Room Director - excellent job in Reflections!) and Ms. Nicole (Cruise Program Administrator - whose compassion was openly evident).  These people watched and listened to how they could improve each guest's visit, and did so in a manner that we still find incredible!!  Never once did they ever drop a smile, (well, except for Nicole, who diluted hers with tears), lost patience (yes, I think I saw Ms. Anna several times each day with a million questions - and she ALWAYS had the answer!!!), or hesitate to reach out to help us (Mr. Anthony's couldn't have been more eager to help people!), than anyone could have hoped for.

We cannot tell you how this was a dream, a wish, a gift that none of us could ever have imagined, that has left us with the most incredible feeling and memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.  Thank you, everyone, for a trip that exceeded ALL expectations - you have made so many dreams come true without even realizing it - just by being who you are!  Kudos!! 

I am not a big cruising person, but since my husband and parents had never cruised before, we decided to make a family trip out of it.  We have young kids, so a kid area/pool was essential. Since we were taking the grandparents, I didn't want them to be overwhelmed with kids or other passengers on one of the newer, massive ships.  Consequently, I chose Serenade of the Seas-- as a good mix.

I was very disappointed in the Kid Aventure Park/swimming area.  It had one little water slide that barely even worked-- not enough water pressure for my 40 lb. child to make it down without pushing herself. The kiddie pool itself was also very small, and there were hardly any chairs surrounding it for parents to sit.

I was also disappointed by the food in the main dining area.  I'm sure I expected too much (because we live in Las Vegas and frequent some of the finest restaurants in the world), but I wasn't impressed with any of the entree's in the main dining room.  While some of the appetizers were fantastic, the same cannot be said for the main courses or desserts.

Aside from the friendly and accomodating staff, the staterooms were the next best thing about Serenade of the Seas.  For staterooms, they utilized the limited space well, and the beds were very comfortable.

Had a wonderful time on our trip.  Lots of entertainment, excellent room service, excellent bartenders, excellent waiters.  Everyone was very polite and we were made to feel very welcome.  I would definitely recommend this cruise to all my friends!  Fun, fun, fun!!!!

We have taken several cruises. But this was the most relaxing of all. Staff could not have been more accommodating, and we met some wonderful people. Loved watching activities, especially the trivia games. Nightly entertainment was good - loved the Tribut to the Temptations!

This was our third Royal cruise. Service was exceptional. Food choices were very limited. After 10 pm. there was almost nothing to eat. Rooms were great, new bathroom showers are very nice.

As the headline states we couldnt have been happier with the ship or the crew except for cruise director staff.  The ship was always clean, our porter, waiter, assistant waiter and every single bartender(except 1 in the casino) were the best.  They went out their way to learn your name and your drink, fast & courteous from day 1 on.  The cruise director/activity staff did not thrill us, I didnt even see/hear from them until half way through day 2.  Amount and quality of activities including entertainment was fair at best and poor usually.

Don't get me wrong, excellent experience but after hearing from alot of people that "Royal is a step above", I just dont see compared to Princess, Holland America or even some of the Carnival I have been.  Overall food was mediocre.

If you're looking for an entertaining, relaxing vacation, look no further. This cruise was We cruise about every other year as a couple, so when our friends and we decided to go together, we were really excited to share our past experiences.  It was all we hoped for, and in fact cruising with friends was even more fun!  It was very convenient to park and depart from New Orleans. From the boarding to shore excursions, everything on the Serenade went smoothly.   The crew, entertainment, and especially the food were magnificent.  We have always enjoyed cruising, but it was fun to watch "newbies" discover all the benefits of cruising.  All the ports were welcoming with neat excursions, especially Cozumel's Salsa & Salsa experience.  We personally don't like "My Time" dining.  We enjoy building a relationship with the dinner servers, so we won't do that again.  The only one improvement: we should have booked a 14 day cruise! 7 days wasn't enough!  We would repeat this cruise again, especially on the Serenade and will definitely cruise Royal Caribbean again.  Oh! I don't want to forget the great fare we got from ""......no better price anywhere, including the week before departure.  It was easy to book and we received excellent service from our Travel Agent, Becky Mulvey.  

I have been ab avid cruiser on Carnival and people that were also cruisers told me i had to try Royal Carribean. So we did and the food was horrible. I got food poisioning first day. Stuck in my cabin for two days on the rockiest boat i have ever been on. That definately did not help my sickness. I was planning on having a good time and drinking and relaxing so i ordered the premium beverage package which i had to cancel on the third day. So they charged me for two days. At least they did that for me. On the fourth day my boyfriend had food poisioning and we had an excursion that day in Cayman Islands for the dolphin encounter and stingray swim. I went to the man at the excerscion counter to explain how my boyfrien was very ill, everyone knows what you do when u get poisioned, if we could please plan another type of excersion for next day in Mexico. He said he could refund only his because medical, mine was a no. I thought that to be totally unacceptable, this was OUR vacation. Not just my vacation. So my boyfrien not wanting to waste $89 said he was going to tuff it through. He was miserable, the whole time we were supposed to be with the dolphin he was in the bathroom puking. The boat ride to the stingrays he was turning green. I just feel like Royal could care less about our experience with them. Also the entertainment was mediocre. Bands were just ok. Cruise director was alright. I am now burned from cruising which is something i do every year for my birthday.

This set sail out of New Orleans and we spent 3 days at Sea before landing in our first port.   The overall experience was good.   I did find the food in the buffett lacking.   If there was something I would suggest is having a juice bar.   For those of us that juice the constant array of fried foods, hambugers, hotdogs, etc......   really not appealing. 

Once we were able to get off the ship and enjoy local foods.....   much better! 

The ship was very nice. The cruise ship staff and the entertainment on board ship were fantastic. The only thing we were disappointed in was the food quality at the Windjammer (buffet) and in the dining room. The quality of the food seems to have come degraded from our last Royal Caribbean cruise which was about 5 years ago. The other disappointment was that we could not stop at the private island because their were 10 foot waves that day which precludes tendering into the port.  So we had a sea day that day and the scheduled next two days were sea days as well. Three sea days back to back to back was a little boring. It would have been nice if RC stopped again at either Nassau or Key West on our journey back to New Orleans.

The ship was nice and clean. The hospitality was great. I felt that if you are going to show movies we should've show experience with the popcorn. I was surprise that you had to purchase a pop package. Pop would have been better than the water down tea and lemonade. Otherwise great cruise.

when we got on the ship my son, daughter in law and grandaughter was issued anouther sea pass for soft drink cards. The person that issued it did not cancell out the frist sea pass their for they were being charged twice on there purchases. Due to that the bank would freeze the acount and every day we were called to the desk because they said we could not use the sea pass because we didn't have the funds to cover their charges. Guest relations called the bank and they told them what was going on and guest relations would not fix the problem.We were so embaresed anh upset we couldn't enjoy our trip there were things we would like to have done  but we didnt because Royal Caribbean  was not doing ther job. We would get letters left on the door,phone messagesin room to go to guest relations every day. I will not recomend royal carribbean to any one that is going on a cruise. And to top it all off we were carted off at the end of the cruise by security and questioned for over a hour on how we were going to pay and they found out what had happen.  VERRY SORRY WE TOOK THIS CRUISE AND IT COSTED ME NEARLY 10,000 DOLLARS. AND ALL I GOT WAS IM SOORY!!!!!!! 

We had a suite, which is the only way to go and the service was superb.  The suite entitles you to the Conceirge Bar (free drinks from 4:30-8:00)

and many other services.  The headliner shows were not so great.  We saw 2 good shows during the entire cruise.  Adventure Ocean for the kids is great.   The food was above average for a cruise ship.  I would go on this cruise again.  Boarding was a breeze and disembarkation also.

The room steward and diining room service people were very good.  The food was disppointing and lacked imagination.  This was felt by our teenage grandchildren as well.  The ship had just been refurbished but it still felt dated to us.  Balconey rooms are tight especially the bathrooms. The nightly entertainment was just okay.  The teen program also was just mediocre and lots of the teenagers were just walking around the ship and making their own entertainment at night.  The gym equipment was also dated.  Overall the cruise did not leave us with a feeling of excitment about RCCL.  We do cruise regularly and did not feel this cruise measured up.

I enjoyed my cruise alot. What made it rememberable was the level of hospitality from our cabin attendant and dining room servers. They all went above and beyond to make sure our needs were met. Once our dining room servers Randy, Sezir and Paul got to know us, they remember that we like lemons in our water and made sure it was there every night before we came for dinner....so we would not have to wait. Our cabin attendant was the BOMB.....thanks Carlos for make sure we never needed anything. Thank you all for making us feel at home away from home on our first cruise every....hope to see you all again :)

Parking was uncovered, gravel and unmarked. No baggage porters. No instructions. Cost still $112.00.

Beverages $7.00, plus tip, plus tax.

No irons or steamers allowed. No laundry rooms or ironing boards. Pressing offered for a fee.

On board photos were $20.95 for standard 12 x 10, but photos were 5 x 7 inserted in a 12 x 10 photo that had borders of Royal Caribbean photos of the ship.

The nightly show for the late seating dinner at 8 pm, was at 6:30, which defeated the whole purpose for eating late. I never saw a late show because of this.

This was my 37th cruise but last on Royal Caribbean.

Great ship. smooth ride. no propeller vibration. Entertainment was really good every night and great varity of shows. Food was very good. Always something going on all the time. 

The only downer about this cruise was the timing of arrival in Nassau. We wish we could have arrived in the morning so we had more options of excursions in Nassau. And staying until midnight was rather useless. One thing was awesome was the experience at the terminal in New Orleans. We were in and out of there so quickly and we on the ship in less than 30 minutes. When we took a cruise out of Long Beach it took hours. Oh yeah I wish the soft serve ice cream was available 24 hours as it was on our last cruise. I know childish but I am a kid at heart.

After trying to talk my wife into a cruise for the past 20 years, I finally convinced her to give it a try. Although we live 20 minutes from the Galveston port, we chose to make the 6 hour drive to New Orleans because of the the destinations, the ship and the price. The cruise director, John, and his wife were great as were the rest of the crew. The entertainment onboard was nonstop and there was usually a good variety to choose from. And between shows, there was a great rock band playing in the Centrum every night. We dined in the formal dining room the first night. Although the food was really great, we decided we didn't want to devote the time it takes for fine dining because we would rather see the shows. To be honest, we only brought casual clothes and didn't want to go to formal dining in shorts. Besides the fook in the Winjammer was excellent. Tip: When you go to the Winjammer, take a look around at ALL the food on the buffet. If you don't, you will miss some really great dishes. The gym was fine for me. I mostly use the Aerobic equipment like the elliptical, bike, and recumbent bike. I used the gym every day we weren't docked or moored at a destination port. Tip: My wife and I decided on Day 2 to use the stairs only. We decided we needed to do something to mitigate for the increase in calorie intake. Running up and down between Decks 4 and 13 all day long burned a lot of calories. Our state room was an interior on the 8th floor near the front of the ship. This turned out to have an advantage we did not predict, Bev wakes up every morning at first light and has trouble going back to sleep. The interior rooms are pitch dark. First light happens when you flip the light switch. So, Bev slept well. 

One surprise was how easy it was to get on and off the ship at the beginning and end of the cruise. I dropped my first cousin and her son off and picked them up for a cruise (Not Royal Caribbean) in Galveston and it took them hours to get on the ship and situated and hours to get off. We got on pretty quickly without a lot of standing in lines. We took our own luggage off the ship and were driving away from New Orleans by 8:30 in the morning. This was a pleasant surprise for a guy who has a real aversion to standing in lines for long periods. 

Bottom Line: My wife's vacation philosophy leans toward, "Let's plan the most enjoyable vacation ever. Costs is a minor consideration." I'm a "Bang for the Buck" type of guy. I want the most enjoyment and relaxation I can get for the beat price. This was the perfect choice for both. Bev claims it was her favorite vacation ever and we've spent two or three times as much on a week in Europe. I was able to relax and enjoy nonstop food and entertainment for a price so low I honestly don't know how they do it. I plan to take at least one cruise per year as long as I can enjoy it. I will most definitely take another cruise with Royal Caribbean. 

Everything we experienced on our cruise was wonderful. Would recommend this ship for anyone. Everywhere was clean and the service was excellent. Our stateroom was more than we expected and was very pleased.