Serenade of the Seas December 2016 11-night short review

Hi all, I intended to write a really detailed review with lots of pictures and stuff for our Serenade cruise this past December, but, well, I just lost motivation a few days in and just never got around to finishing it. I decided instead to go ahead and write a sort of summary review to hit the highlights (and lowlights) and just not include any pictures. So, with that said, the one cruise-related thing I did get around to uploading was the cruise compasses! Here is the link the those:

As you can tell from the compasses we did the 11-night itinerary to the Southern Caribbean. This was our first time at all of the ports except Antigua and we booked this cruise last year while aboard the Serenade on the 10-night itinerary (her first call to Martinique!). My wife and I are both in our mid-30's and this is our second cruise on the Serenade, and really I consider this our second real cruise. Our first was just a 2-nighter on the Bahamas Celebration to see if we would like cruising and obviously we did because we keep booking more... We do like doing excursions in every port but this trip we booked all of them with private operators rather than through the cruise line. It's not that I didn't like the cruise line operated ones we did last year, but for these particular islands and what we wanted to do the private options just turned out to be better and/or cheaper. I'll split this review up into two posts, the first will cover the ship, dining, etc. and then second will cover the ports of call and our excursions. I'll also be happy to answer any questions.

Ship

The Serenade is starting to show a little more wear than she was a year ago, but she is still in great shape. Most issues we noticed were purely cosmetic (a little rust here, some worn furniture there, etc.). Most everything functioned as expected and overall we really enjoyed the ship. My main complaint is that the Centrum is just not a good area to hold public activities. There's just not enough room and people camp out there so there are never seats (or standing room in some cases) available. My other complaint is the theater is in need of some serious refurbishing. A lot of the seats are broken and even the ones that aren't flat out broken are very worn. It's a popular activity on board and the shows are almost always full (even over capacity), so you would think they could fix it up. Other than those two small complaints we truly enjoyed our second cruise on her, and we had these same complaints last year but still chose to go again :)

Cabin

Last year we had an inside cabin, and we actually liked it quite a lot. Really quiet and dark, good for sleeping. When we booked this cruise though, if you accounted for the extra OBC, an OV room was the same price so that's what we booked to try something different. As the cruise got closer there were a lot of balconies left and I tried to upgrade multiple times. For a couple of months Royal was so strict with their upgrades after final payment though that every time I wanted to upgrade I was going to lose my OBC or the price shown on the website was a first-booking only special so the price available to me was much higher and the upgrade was going to cost too much. In the end, though, I finally was able to upgrade to an E1 Balcony (cabin 8636) for only $110 per person more! I didn't really care either way, but I thought that was worth it to try out a balcony room. And it was neat because our inside last year was right across the hall, cabin 8637.

So from what I can tell our room was a typical balcony room. The bathroom was small but serves its purpose. There was more than enough storage for us. The bed was hard as a rock and apparently they don't have egg crate toppers anymore. Our cabin steward added another mattress pad to the bed but that did not help at all unfortunately. The balcony was great. We really liked the location of the room because it has cabins above, below, and beside it, and it is far enough from the centrum that the noise is not an issue at all.

Dining

We only dined in the MDR once, and that was the second formal night because we wanted the lobster. Last year we ordered 2 lobsters and one of us got the Prime Rib so we could split it and both have surf and turf. That was our plan again but we were disappointed to see the Prime Rib removed from the menu on this night. The steak that replaced it was good but not the same. The food was good but dinner took almost 2 hours, which is just too long and is the reason we avoided the MDR most of the cruise.

We ate in all of the specialty restaurants this cruise because we had the 5-night dining package plus the first night done right promo. One thing I'll note that was consistent regardless of venue was that the quality of both the food and service (especially the service) went down as the cruise went on and as the specialty restaurants got busier. The service was very good the entire cruise across venues (except Rita's), but early on in the cruise it was outstanding and declined to simply good by the end.

We ate at Chops 3 times this cruise and the food was phenomenal. Steaks were perfectly cooked, apps and sides were plenty for the 2 of us (and you can order as many as you want anyways), and of course dessert was so good. I have only 2 complaints about Chops, and they are both pretty minor. The first complaint is it is just so dark in there. I wish they would turn the lights up a little so you can properly read your menu. The other complaint is that late in the cruise they ran out of the huge baked potatoes that my wife and I like to share and had to resort to using small ones. The issue isn't that they had run out, but the fact that they didn't inform us when we were ordering so we were expecting to split a potato and got a potato that was much smaller than expected. Obviously we survived, and there is no shortage of food on a cruise ship so we didn't go hungry, but it would have been nice to know.

We ate at Giovanni's twice and both times the food was great. I don't really care for the desserts at Giovanni's but my wife loves their tiramisu. Service was very good just like everywhere else. No real complaints about Giovanni's, we found everything great and it was tied with Chops for me for favorite restaurant on the ship.

We ate at Izumi's once, and if my wife had her way it would have been more than that. I do not like sushi but my wife does so I sacrificed one night of specialty dining for her. I had read good things about the hot rock so I decided to give that a try. I'll say that the food was okay, but if I'm paying extra to go to a specialty restaurant I'd rather go to one where the food is better than "okay" and I don't have to cook it myself. My wife thought the sushi was outstanding and this restaurant tied with Chops for her favorite restaurant on the ship.

We ate at Rita's Cantina once on this cruise. Well, actually let me rephrase that, we tried to eat at Rita's Cantina once this cruise. There was some issue that affected 3 or 4 tables at the same time where different tables ended up getting the wrong food (they were actually getting food that belonged to another table) so we all ended up sitting around waiting on food, then telling them what they brought us was wrong multiple times. It was ... not fun. We are pretty laid back people, so after awhile rather than pitch a fit (which other tables did) I asked them to just cancel the remaining items in our order because it had been well over an hour and we were starving. The sad thing is that we were not offered a single apology or any compensation until they brought us the check at about the 90 minute mark. And along with the apology, and the excuse that they were busier than normal tonight, all they comped was our $6 nachos. I mean, the only food we had gotten was those nachos and we were much nicer than some other tables who got a much larger order comped, so I certainly would have appreciated getting our 2 margaritas for free, but oh well, I was just ready to get out of there and get some food. If 4 tables of people is too many for you to handle, why even open the restaurant?

We ate several late night snacks from the Park Cafe and were very satisfied. The pizza was delicious too, not at all reminiscent of those frozen cardboard pizzas you get from the grocery store. The ham and mozzarella sandwiches were also really good.

We ordered two meals through room service. On our last cruise we only tried room service breakfast but the food was cold and the portions were small. I read a lot on here that they had some good offerings for dinner so we decided to give them another shot. Well, it was hit or miss. We got the exact same meals both times, but my wife and I switched what we were eating. We ordered the steak sandwich with fries and the honey stung chicken. The first time both meals were way overdone and not good at all. The steak sandwich was virtually inedible. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word... if you can't even bite into the meat how are you supposed to eat it? The fries, on the other hand (once we got them after they were forgotten), were delicious and perfectly cooked both times. The second time the chicken was cooked perfectly and it was delicious. Overall I would rate room service as acceptable, but the grade could go up if they could just improve their consistency.

For all other meals we ate at the Windjammer and overall we thought the variety and quality of food was excellent. Breakfast in general wasn't particularly fantastic, but it was edible and if I had been willing to wait in the omelette or crepe lines my experience probably would have been better. All lunch and dinners that we ate there were very good. The exception is that the desserts in general were not great, but that was probably for the best since my waist is already bigger than it needs to be :) We actually liked the food in the WJ so much that we are going to forgo the dining package next time and maybe eat at Chops and Giovanni's once each, or maybe even just Chops once.

Entertainment and Activities

Singing and Dancing shows aren't really my thing, so we skipped most of the production shows. We do enjoy the comedy ones and the love and marriage show and those were very good. I did notice quite a few more planned activities this year than we had last year and that was a welcome change. There was always so many options to choose from that we always had something to do if we wanted. The activities staff was great too. The CD (Topi) and his activities manager (Isey? Isi? It's probably in the cruise compass somewhere...) were alright, but the rest of the staff was awesome. The progressive trivia was really challenging.

Service

Service was phenomenal across the board. As I mentioned above, the service in the specialty restaurants was degraded later in the cruise, but we still had a great time. Everywhere else the service was consistently fantastic.

Ports and Shore Excursions

We really enjoyed the ports and shore excursions this cruise. I don't want to go into really great detail about them but I'll give a quick summary of each.

St. Johns, Antigua

Last year we did the "See Antigua by Sea" catamaran excursion through the ship so we wanted to try something different this time around. We ended up going with a land tour through Scenic Tours Antigua and had a very good time. It wasn't our favorite land tour ever (that would be St. Kitts) and if I had to choose between the catamaran tour and the land tour I would choose the catamaran, but we still had a great day and got to see a lot of Antigua that we hadn't seen the year before. My favorite part of the tour was definitely Nelson's Dockyard and I wish we had gotten more time to spend there. The shopping in this port is alright, but there are a lot of chain stores and you see a lot of the same stuff you'll see in other ports.

Castries, St. Lucia

St. Lucia was probably our favorite port of the whole cruise. We did a land and sea tour with Spencer Ambrose and had a fantastic day. We took a speed boat over to Soufriere and then had a land tour where we visited several attractions, including the volcano and a waterfall. Then we headed back to the boat and over to Sugar Beach, which is a picturesque beach located between the Pitons. We had a wonderful lunch and then spend the rest of our time (90 minutes or so after lunch) snorkeling. The snorkeling is really good and the equipment was provided by Spencer for free. We were sad to head back to the ship at the end of the day, Spencer and his crew were outstanding. There really wasn't much shopping at the port but we did buy a few things from vendors on the land portion of our trip.

Bridgetown, Barbados

When planning this cruise I had a really tough time choosing what to do in this port. There just seems to be so much neat stuff to see and do and no matter what we chose we were going to want to go back and try something else next time. We ended up booking a snorkel trip with Calabaza and did not regret our decision one bit. We had a fantastic day sailing on the catamaran, we had some delicious food (and the best rum punch we've had on any island to date), and we got to do some snorkeling which we enjoyed. This was our first time snorkeling with turtles, so that was fun, but snorkeling over the two wrecks was even better. I just wish we had gotten more time to explore the wrecks, there were so many fish! Overall, this was a great, great day. The shopping in this port was probably tied with Aruba for second best on the trip. There was a lot of the same stuff you'll see all over the Caribbean but there was also some nice local stuff. The prices in this port were definitely higher than other places though, so unless you see something you just have to have, you can probably find something just as nice for cheaper elsewhere.

St. George's, Grenada

After having snorkeled for two days in a row I knew we were going to need a break, so we booked a land tour in Grenada. We booked with JnJ tours, who was spoken highly of in the ports of call boards, and we really enjoyed ourselves. This tour included Annandale Waterfall, a roadside Spice Shop (where you will get a first hand demonstration of all the spices), Grand Etang Rain forest/National Park/Volcano Lake, Ft. Frederick and Grand Anse beach. We packed a lot in to this day but it was awesome. Stan has the nicest bus in Grenada and he is a very good tour guide. Chairs with an umbrella at the beach were only $5 and there weren't a bunch of vendors walking around bugging you. It was very relaxing, and there is bathrooms and a restaurant nearby if you feel the need.

The shopping in this port was by far the worst in my opinion. In fact I would say it's the worst that we've experienced in any port. There actually were some stores that had some interesting looking stuff, and some stores had some really good deals, but the people that worked at the stores were just the WORST. They were not personable AT ALL, they did not smile at you, they did not say hello, or welcome, or anything. What they did do was stare at you the entire time and follow you around the store like they were afraid you were going to steal something. And it wasn't just me, they had plenty of extra people so they could keep an eye on everyone. We definitely spent less here because of how they treated people. Also, if you are planning to buy spices you will get a better deal at the vendors on the island outside of the port than you will in the port. If I recall correctly we paid anywhere from 50% to 75% of the prices we saw in the port depending on which item we were looking at and which store we were in.

Kralendijk, Bonaire

We loved Bonaire! When I booked this itinerary in December 2015 for December 2016 I started to do some basic research even though the trip was a year out (I just can't help it!) and I saw that the vast majority of the responses to the question "What should I do in Bonaire?" in the ports of call boards was "book a snorkel trip with Windwood". They also said that Windwood books up very far out so I booked them ASAP. I talked to one guy on our Calabaza trip in Barbados who said he has been to Bonaire 6 times but because they usually book after final payment date for the best deals they have never been able to get a Windwood trip. So yea, they book out pretty far in advance, if you're interested in them don't delay.

Okay, so as for the actual trip, it was awesome! It was definitely the best snorkeling we've ever seen, and according to the Windwood team it wasn't particularly good because the visibility wasn't great. Just the sheer amount of coral and fish and marine life blew me away. One thing I really liked is they split the boat into separate groups with different guides based on your confidence in your snorkeling and swimming ability. So even though there were 24 people on the boat, we were only in a group of 7 so we weren't constantly bumping into each other. We had a nice relaxing sail on the ship to and from the snorkel area and the crew was happy to get you anything you might desire. The food was very good as well. They also have a professional photographer who goes between the groups and takes photos as you're snorkeling. He takes photos of both people and marine life and then on the way back they pass around an ipad where you can see the photos he took. If you like them you can purchase a USB stick with all of the photos from that trip on there. We opted to buy the USB stick because we thought his photos were really good (much better than the ones we managed to take). When we got home the USB drive unfortunately didn't work, but Alejandro was able to send us a link to download all of the pictures when we contacted him. Another thing I read on the cc boards is that they will sell you snorkel equipment if you like the equipment they use. This isn't something they advertise, but we did like the full face masks so much that we ended up buying one for each of us after the trip. All around a great experience and great service from all of the crew, I can't recommend Woodwind highly enough and we've already booked a 2018 trip with them!

We thought that this port had, by far, the best shopping of the trip. We checked it out prior to our snorkel trip and there was a lot of unique art and framed photographs, as well as some unique knick-knacks and locally produced souvenirs. We thought there was a lot less of that Chinese junk you see with different port names all over the Caribbean in this port. Unfortunately, it rained really hard as our snorkel trip was ending and the vendors are all set up in those white event tents you see at outdoor events. So almost all the vendors were packing to leave by the time we made it back to the shopping area. We were really sad we missed out on some of the best stuff, but luckily one guy stayed open and we were able to get a few small things to remember our time here.

Oranjestad, Aruba

We must be gluttons for punishment because after snorkeling three out of the last four days we decided to snorkel again on our last port day. We booked a trip with Jolly Pirates and you do have to take a taxi to get there but it's a pretty short ride. Unfortunately this was by far the worst snorkeling of the trip. Visibility was terrible and even if you had been able to see anything I think the only interesting stop was the wreck. And when I say visibility was terrible, I mean that you couldn't see the bottom in 10 feet of water in some places. It was really bad. Also, the ocean at the wreck was the roughest conditions we have encountered while snorkeling to date, but to be fair we don't have a ton of experience so we don't yet have a lot of data points to compare it to. The wreck was very interesting and I wish conditions had been better. They said that normally the water is crystal clear but cold water coming up from the deep was stirring up the sand a lot more than normal. The next two stops there really wasn't much to see, and the last stop was pretty dangerous because the only place you could see anything was right next to some huge rocks so you had to constantly fight the waves to keep yourself from being slammed into the rocks. This wasn't really Jolly Pirates fault, but it didn't make for very good snorkeling. Lunch was very good, and people really seemed to enjoy the rope swing off the boat. I also liked that there is plenty of shade for those who want to limit their sun exposure. The shopping in Aruba was pretty good, on par with Barbados but cheaper. You will see some of the same stuff as everywhere else but there was some nice local stuff too.

Final Thoughts

This wasn't a perfect cruise but if you go on a vacation expecting things to be perfect you're in for a bad time. Overall this was a really fantastic cruise and we are booked again on the Navigator in 2018. Can't wait!

Thank you for your review!! We're sailing in 2 weeks, so excited!

Enjoyed your review, we have very similar thoughts. Our snorkel in Aruba was the best ever, guess we hit the weather just right as the water was very clear and we enjoyed snorkeling over the wreck.

Here is my review Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas Review by Ocean Dancer

We loved the ports and would love to do a B2B after she is prettied up a bit. Yes, the theatre seats badly needed to be reupholstered

I must have proofread my post several times but I knew I was going to miss something and I did, of course. In the part about Bonaire I called the snorkel company Windwood several times, but it is really Woodwind! Their website is here:

https://www.woodwindbonaire.com/

Also, I forgot to mention that the USB stick that you can buy is $40, which we thought was pretty reasonable. You can see the quality of his photography and also see the photos from other snorkel trips at the photographer's website:

http://www.athoyo.com/product-category/woodwind-sessions/

Terrific review!

We are booked with Woodwind in a few weeks. I wondered if they take individual photos of you snorkeling and if you have the option of purchasing only that photo as opposed to all the photos.

Also, I believe there is little to no shade on the cat. Is this true?

Great review, thank you! We are sailing in less than 2 weeks. I also booked the First Night Done Right and the 5 night dinner package. We LOVE Chops and were less than enthused with Giovannis last time we went and we both love Italian food. Food was good, service had been SUPER slow. Willing to give it another shot. Thanks for the tips on the excursions. I've sent emails off to both companies, but don't hold off any hope for the snorkling one. That's ok if that one doesn't pan out. I*'d really like to do the tour of Grenada.

Terrific review!

 

We are booked with Woodwind in a few weeks. I wondered if they take individual photos of you snorkeling and if you have the option of purchasing only that photo as opposed to all the photos.

 

Also, I believe there is little to no shade on the cat. Is this true?

They do take photos of just you or your group both on the catamaran as well as in the water (you can see these on the photographer's website I linked above) and you could buy one or two individual photos after you get home for $9.99 each.

There is no shade on the catamaran unless you go to the very crowded area that they serve food and drinks from.

Thank you for the info in JnJ tours! Very responsive and my husband and I are booked with them for our cruise. Hopefully will get some fellow cruisers to join us!

Thank you for the review! Last night we booked a similar cruise on Serenade of the Seas for next year.

We can't wait!

We've done your trip last year on the Serenade and will do it again next year. We also loved Chops on the Serenade, I think it's one of the best ones. I don't know if James Bond was working but he was a lot of fun.. PS his name is spelled a little differently but he knows he's James Bond!:cool:

We also did the 10 day last year in April and are sailing on the 11 day in 13 days (not that I'm counting). :p Thanks for starting the thread.

What night did they hold The Quest? I had a hard time reading the Cruise Compasses so I couldn't find it.

We also did the 10 day last year in April and are sailing on the 11 day in 13 days (not that I'm counting). :p Thanks for starting the thread.

 

What night did they hold The Quest? I had a hard time reading the Cruise Compasses so I couldn't find it.

It was held on Day 5.

If you click the compass twice it gets really big. What I mean is, click the link in my post to go to the album, then click the first compass, then click the image that loads again and it zooms way in and is much bigger.

Thank you for the info in JnJ tours! Very responsive and my husband and I are booked with them for our cruise. Hopefully will get some fellow cruisers to join us!

Awesome, you guys will have a great time!

This review was great. Very informative and to the point. I have booked with Woodwind this morning.

Thank you so much

Thank you for your informative review.

This review was great. Very informative and to the point. I have booked with Woodwind this morning.

Thank you so much

You're in for a great time, just don't forget the sunscreen!

Terrific review!

 

We are booked with Woodwind in a few weeks. I wondered if they take individual photos of you snorkeling and if you have the option of purchasing only that photo as opposed to all the photos.

 

Also, I believe there is little to no shade on the cat. Is this true?

Are you on the March 6th Cruise? I just received an email that there was a cancellation with Woodwind, so I may take them up. When I reached out after the reading the review, they were booked, which I figured they probably would be.

You're in for a great time, just don't forget the sunscreen!

I emailed them the day before your post and they said they were booked. Now they sent me an email this morning that they had a cancellation. No information on whether it's the 3 or 4 hour excursion. Waiting to hear back. Will be nice if this works out!

Thank You Thank You Thank You. We leave on this itinerary at the end of the March. The compasses are very much appreciated. How was the atmosphere on the ship. We are nervous that it is going to be very quite. We like to have fun and party a bit.

I emailed them the day before your post and they said they were booked. Now they sent me an email this morning that they had a cancellation. No information on whether it's the 3 or 4 hour excursion. Waiting to hear back. Will be nice if this works out!

According to the calendar on their website you're in port 1pm-8pm on the 13th and their trip is going from 1:30pm-5:30pm.

Thank You Thank You Thank You. We leave on this itinerary at the end of the March. The compasses are very much appreciated. How was the atmosphere on the ship. We are nervous that it is going to be very quite. We like to have fun and party a bit.

Our sailing skewed a lot younger than our sailing in 2015, but it still wasn't a rowdy type of party atmosphere. It was a very laid back, relaxing experience. That's not to say you couldn't seek those types of activities out, I think the nightclub is open pretty late, but that's not really our style.

According to the calendar on their website you're in port 1pm-8pm on the 13th and their trip is going from 1:30pm-5:30pm.

 

 

 

 

Our sailing skewed a lot younger than our sailing in 2015, but it still wasn't a rowdy type of party atmosphere. It was a very laid back, relaxing experience. That's not to say you couldn't seek those types of activities out, I think the nightclub is open pretty late, but that's not really our style.

We went on a New England/Canadian cruise and literally by 9:30 everyone was in bed :'). We're just hoping some of the evening events and venues are not graveyards.

We went on a New England/Canadian cruise and literally by 9:30 everyone was in bed :'). We're just hoping some of the evening events and venues are not graveyards.

All of the late night scheduled events on our sailing that we attended were packed so no worries there :)