We are on the same ship, but being non-elite in the "cheap seats", a nightmare experience getting to Newark (not the cruise's fault), and packing for a cold three weeks, I think we are having a slightly different experience. Not bad necessarily, but not quite as amazing. 🙂 Let me sum up (in hindsight, the summary got a bit long).
We were among those with messed up drink packages and stood in that line. Not a huge deal.
MDR
We've definitely seen this is a new crew. By last night, we could also see a lot of improvement in our MDR staff, so I think it is a matter of getting them all used to working with each other and getting into the swing of things. Back to the Prime Rib comment from above, we are ordering up. The first night, I ordered medium rare (as is proper for all red meat), and that sucker was definitely in the "stick a bandaid on it and send it back out to graze" category. We said something to our Maitre D, and he told us to order a step up in the dining room. It feels very wrong to be ordering Medium instead of Medium Rare, but it seems to be working. We are a little curious about the "How to Grill a Steak" seminar today. Are they going to teach it the Summit Way or the right way? Granted, we're from Texas. We're very serious about our meat!
BARS
The drinkers in the group have not been having great success. Out of stock on many of the things they want to try. We also are having a difficult time finding a bartender who can do actual mixology on cocktails. We have had that on past cruises. For example, if I say I want a sweet, fruity cocktail, they give me a blank stare. If I don't know the name of it, forget it. And even if I do, it is likely they won't have have the stock that they used to. But there are still drinks on board, and our group is still happily enjoying them, so it's not like anyone is going to go into detox or anything from lack of alcohol!
CABIN
We are in Concierge Class, and no real issues with the cabin. It is quite lovely. Storage space has been nice. Decent room to move around and the shower is adequate size for a ship. I have definitely squeezed myself into smaller! Our attendant is significantly better than our last attendant on our AUS/NZ cruise pre-covid, and he has been stellar so far. (Granted, that wouldn't take much as on that cruise, we put our DND on the door for most of the trip just to keep him out of our room.)
BUFFET
We're getting the lay of the land for the buffet. Everything seemed all over the place, and we couldn't really find anything. Today as we were leaving we saw the map of the stations at the entrance before the hand washing station (which I really dig). That would have been helpful for us to have noticed previously, but now we know where it is and have taken a photo to study, we will be better prepared for the rest of the trip. The garlic fish yesterday for lunch was one of the best things I've eaten on the ship. Not overcooked, flavorful. If that shows up again, I'm getting a larger plate. We found the "afternoon tea" in the Oceanview cafe too. But it's not all together. The sandwiches are at one station, the scones at another, the desserts at another, and naturally, the tea is the standard Bigelow options unless you go to Cafe Al Bacio first. Still. quite nice, and the scones are tasty.
Jim/Iain, on Monday, I was still so worn out from our Saturday travel debacle, that I didn't do my normal photo tour of the ship. I see from your photos and grey clouds today, that I chose poorly. Your photos are great. Also, you did the same tour that we did in Halifax (now I know to look out for that green jacket), but being from the flat plains of Texas, the humidity was killing me by the top of that Citadel climb! Looking at your photos, I see several that I should have gotten for my scrapbook, but we were so done by the time we hit the boardwalk, we just headed back to the ship. I think I need to hang with you so I can get true scrapbook worthy photos!