Serenade of the Seas Cruise Reviews - Reviews

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.

A great 7 day cruise.    Loved the cruise staff, always friendly and ready to help out.   The food was really good.   This ship didnt have as many different restaurants, but this was a smaller ship that we have cruised before.   But will say again the food was great.  We went to Key West....amazing......parasailed with the Fury watersports group and would do that again in a heartbeat. Be sure to go see the Pirate on Duval Street....fun.   Nassau was a good place to shop.   CocoCay was perfect, water, sand, hammocks, and no one to try and sell you trinkets.  After reading some of the other reviews was kind of wondering what the food would be like on Cococay.   I thought that Royal Caribbean did a great job of providing a great picnic type of food while we were there.   Burgers, hotdogs, bar-b-que, fresh fruit, cookies, brownies, it was fabulous.   The beach was nice and sandy, there was some sea weed growing in the water, but for heavens sake people that is nature.   It wasn't a bother.  

This was our first time on Royal Carribeean and hopefully won't be our last.   Nice, clean rooms.  Great staff.   All in all it was a great experience.    

The ports of call were very nice. This is a great itenerary. I've been on several cruises and this is one of my favorite shedules. The Serenade was a beautiful ship. In all most of the staff was up to Royal carribean standards. However, many and I mean many in the wind jammer were just going through the motions. There were not very friendly or helpful. The windjammer was the poorest quality of food of any ship I have EVER been on and that is 5 now. The selection was terrible. The hours very resrticted.  The fact that you can only get ice cream like 2 -3 hours a day is ridiculous...it's soft serve ice cream...it should be round the clock.  In addition, the people running the alternative Park Cafe were also short and not helpful at all. I was really taken aback. That is typically not the way RC runs their ships. I realize space is limited but it could be reevlauted a bit to give the guests a few more options.

The room staff was awesome. Typically you only see that kind of service on a carnival boat. Our steward Victor was very helpful about the ports of call and very good to us during our stay.....wis i had him every time. That's the highest compliment I can give him.

This was our First time on mytime dinning. Luckily we were as our waiter the first night was TERRIBLE! We opted for another table the next night and landed a real gem. Albert and his assistant Vlada are a great team. They are tremendous and basicallly saved our cruise. We were so in dispair with the dinning situation from the windjammer and the first night dinning experience that they were really instpirational. They were very informative, not too chatty, very professional and very good at their jobs. Again.....we specifically scheduled our dinning ouround their schedules the rest of the week. That's the highest compliment I can give them. They were a tremendous team and treated us very very well.

In all it was a good cruise, with GREAT ports of call!  Atlantis was amazing. We'll definately make that a resort destination stop. I would like to think that the dinning mishaps were a bad trip but my brother and sister in law were on this ship weeks earlier and a similar story occurred. We had a good time but we had to make some adjustments to our dinning situation to do so.  My wife is still miffed over the ice cream! lol

The main dining room experience was superb.  Our waiters were attentive and remembered our likes and dislikes from one meal to the next.  The entertainment was great.  Hilarious comedians!  The art lectures and auctions were fun as well as informative.  We were in room 8000 and the room was great.  We had a seperate area which had bunk beds and the room could be closed off from the rest of room.  There was a nice sitting area which had a small sofa sleeper and a chair along with a small table.  Really had a feeling of a small den.  The ship was exceptionally clean.  

This ship is one of the smallest ones I have been on but it wAs also one of the most relaxed. All of the staff was very friendly and helpful. This ship is immaculate and beautiful. The food was wonderful and always fresh. I can't say enough good things about this vacation.  The ports are wonderful  especially the day in Atlantis. Key west was beautiful and coco cay was the most relaxing beach.  We loved this cruise!

Great winter vacation on the Serenade of the Seas. All arrangements went smooth as we (two couples from North Alabama) took in New Orleans prior to departure on the Mississippi River. After a great day at sea enjoying food, scenery and shipboard entertainment we had more of the same at Key West, FL. Back on board we repeated the same routine plus the relaxing nights in our room. Our shipboard times were spent around the attrium entertainment, the auditorium entertainment and poolside entertainment. The nightly auditorium shows were absolutely fabulous - one of the few ships still providing a good live band. Also professional singers, dancers, gymnastics, worlds best ventriloquist in Ron Lucas. Next a day in Nasau, Bahamas where you walk and shop. Spent time at the Art Gallery. The next day was spent on Royal Caribbeans prive island Cococay. A 80 degree, breezy day on the beautiful beach where Royal Caribbean put on a fine grilled spread of burgers, hot dogs, chicken and all the trimmings. Some more island shopping on the way back the ship. Great shipride back to New Orleans and back to north Alabama where we missed two snow storms and an ice storm.

Wonderful cruise - ship and service were great.

Only negative is the itinerary - not enough time in Key West.  Bahamas same thing - got there after noon - Key West had to leave at 4:30 and at Bahamas - got there after noon - and left much later - but all the stores closed by 5:00 or 5:30 - and people do not want to be out after dark

Good cruise but defiantly not for younger people. Dining room staff and steward were great. Other staff were helpful but could have been better. Food was good. Buffet was ok. Room service was good and fast. 

This was our second cruise and first on Royal Caribbean. Everythung was wonderful !! We had a outside cabin which I recomend service was excellent. Some people complained about differant things, but what is there not to like. We will use RC again.

All aspects of the cruise were very good except for the quality of the food.  The ship was always very clean and the crew well trained and went out of their way to be helpful and receptive to our requests.

We had a wonderful Christmas onboart the Serenade of the Sea. We were so impressed with how clean the ship was and how friendly all of the people working were. This was our first cruise on Royal Caribbean, but will not be our last.

Enjoyed our cruise a lot. We were supposed to go ashore on Coco Key but because of wind it was too dangerous for the tenders. Other ships beat us there so we would have had to go ashore by tender. That gave us 4 sea days that provided for a very relaxing and fun vacation. I only have a few complaints. 1 - The Solarium which was supposed to be a shaded pool for ADULTS ONLY had kids in it everyday. I was very unhappy this was allowed. 2 - This was my 7th cruise and one of the very few that does not leave 2 complimentary bottles of water in your room every day. I could never remember to buy one before going back to the room each night.

The Vortex nightclub stays open really late which is great if the mood to dance all night hits you.

Enjoyed the cruise but, have to admit we were terribly disappointed that we were unable to go to CoCocay Island.  Second time now that we have been unable to go to the island. 

We were disappointed in the night time dancing venues....Went up to the Vortex to find "NOTHING" going on,even though the Compass stated that 70'-80's music should have been playing.  The lack of "live music" versus the "lets push a button" DJ was extremely disappointing.... Smaller ships aren't all they are advertised to be......

We have had superb luck with Royal Caribbean in the past, and were expecting to have a similar experience again.  However, the Serenade of the Seas 7 day Bahama's Cruise out of New Orleans over Christmas was the worst cruise exeperience we have had to-date.  I do not want to get into intimate detail about the issues, but primarily the food (other than in the specialty restaurant) was the worst we have experienced.  I can only liken the food in the buffet to what you would find in the mess hall during basic training for the Army.  Not only was the quality of the food poor, but even more scary was the fact that the food was cold to luke-warm causing concern of possible health issues.

Key West was the one shinning light in the cruise, but the short time we had in Key West didn't allow much time for exploring or partying.  The time we had in Nassau would have been nice had there not been five other cruise ships docked there at the same time and their thousands of passengers roaming the streets and filling the bars and restaurants before we arrived.  Atlantis would have been a fun place to spend time, but their casino was geared closer to Monte Carlo pricing, as were their restaurants.  We couldn't utilize their buffet unless we were guests of the resort. Then the final straw was when we reached Cocao Cay and the tenders had been shut down due to rough seas.

This resulted in our continuing on for three days at sea (slower paced obviously).  On a small ship like Serenade of the Seas, where the food was already a problem, we now were able to identify that the entertainment and activities were equally lame (unless you love playing Bingo that is).  The only positive things coming out of this trip wwas the service at the various bars, and the other service staff who did go out of their way to try to do a good job.

I do have to say that this is also the first cruise where we felt that we were actually on a ship with the continual rocking, and it took us three days to get our sea legs on then another three days to get them off once we were back in New Orleans. If you were looking for a cruise where you could rest on deck and sleep and unwind, this might have been adequate, but we decided two things from this experience.  First that we will no longer cruise the Caribbean (mostly because we are not really beach bunnies) and secondly that we will be more careful to chose a ship where the food and off-ship activities more closely meet our goals. So would I recommend this cruise?  No I don't see an older crowd like myself feeling like they got their monies worth, and I wouldn't recommend it for the younger beach crowd because of the short time we were in port.  That coupled with the poor food quality makes this a non-starter for a return engagement by our family.

Tim Winn 12/21/2013 Voyage of Serenade of the Seas Bahama's Cruise

The on board credit and restaurant credit was non existent and having proof in writing wasn't good enough went to customer service 4 times and I finally had to call the travel agent but to no avail-customer service was no help at all this is the 2nd royal Carribbean cruise that I went on and the on board credit was incorrect and then you have to give them proof which I had but the proof in writing but that wasn't enough.  My wife and I cruise a lot and I have never had any problem with my on board credit with other cruise companies except with royal Carribbean they need to send a secret employee to carnival and see how to do it correctly